I have been planning a serious post, but this ain’t it.

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The OK Cupid blog (which I don’t follow as closely as I should) regularly anonymizes and crunches facts about love, sex, and the usual mating rituals. It’s science! Unlike some of the annoying assertions about genre I keep running across.

Anyway, want to know if a potential mate will be right for you without coming right out and asking? Check this factoid out:

Getting a “yes” answer from a man to: “In a certain light, wouldn’t nuclear war be exciting?” has an 83% correlation with the likelihood that he’ll have sex on the first date. Grim meathook future, your abs are irresistible.

The find out the same information about a woman, or to surreptitiously discover something else, check out the whole post.

Movie and book

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Last… spring, I guess? my wife, son, and I went to the movies and, before the film, saw a preview for Harry Potter 7, part one. My son turned to me and said “I want to see that.”

“You can’t. You haven’t read the book yet.”

He hadn’t been interested at all in Harry Potter until then, but that was all the urging he needed. Later that week we pulled book 1 down off the shelf and read them aloud in the evenings. Most evenings, anyway.

I’d forgotten how funny those early books were. Sometimes we were laughing so hard that the reader had to put the book down until we’d composed ourselves. And, somewhere in book 4, he became sick of it and we had to drag him back in.

We finished the last book today. My wife cried during several of the final chapters, especially “The Prince’s Tale,” “The Forest Again,” and “King’s Cross.” I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but whatever Rowling’s other faults, she wrote the hell out of “The Forest Again”. That chapter is one serious kick in the ass.

SPOILERS for the series.

I can’t help but wonder how much behind the scenes information the filmmakers had from Rowling. There’s a scene near the end of movie 3 in which Lupin transforms into a werewolf and Snape steps in front of the three kids. It’s clearly a brave, heroic move, and nothing at all what you’d expect from a true Death Eater.

The situation doesn’t even come up in the book; Snape is still unconscious when Lupin changes (the whole werewolf scene is quite different). They also telegraph the romantic relationship between Ron and Hermione much earlier.

Anyway, the books were terrific this second time around–very satisfying. I know a lot of people hated Harry around book 5, but I couldn’t help but see him as suffering the after-effects of Cedric Diggory’s murder. My wife, who never reads fiction (except mine), really loved the books, too.

As for the new movie, the animated story of the three brothers was the best part, but the movie wasn’t terribly by any means. The three leads have matured nicely as actors, and they managed to introduce several necessary but film-neglected characters smoothly. None of it had the thrills or the hopelessness of the books, but it worked on its own.

This whole series deserves a more in-depth post, but it’s late and I’m sleepy. Considering everything that’s been going on, I’m not seeing myself putting together an real analysis of the books, the films, or the changes that happened in adaptation.

That NYer Scientology article

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I have an awful lot to write about, but all I have time for at the moment is a link to this extremely long article about writer/director Paul Haggis and his public split with Scientology.

It just confirms my belief that all the easiest ways to become truly wealthy involve hanging around people I want nothing to do with and doing things that would make me physically ill.

Randomness for 2/7

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1) The Facebook comment decision flowchart.

2) Passive-aggressive notes to your readers are probably not a good idea.

3) Cthonians!

4) Want to read the series bible for the modern BSG?

5) The web sit alignment chart.

6) Backyard fight gets out of hand. Video. Dude should have left his light saber at home.

7) Photos of criminals in Sydney during the 1920s. Amazing photos. Just amazing. Taken from this book.

That health care post going around LiveJournal

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You can read the original here, but many of the folks reposting it are adding their own thoughts. In fact, I want to add so many thoughts that I’m just going to link to it rather than repost.

Yes, the GOP are being infuriating about health care reform. The Obama plan is, after all, largely drawn from the GOP plan offered as an alternative to ClintonCare and from Mitt Romney’s state plan. The individual mandate, which everyone on the right is so freaked about, was originally suggested by The Heritage Foundation.

Obama expected that offering a conservative health plan would get bi-partisan support, but no. The Republicans are much farther to the right than they were 18 years ago. Also in our system, cooperation and compromise from the minority party won’t get them back into the majority; GOP leaders believe that the only way back to the majority is to oppose and obstruct everything. (Thank you, The Onion) And it’s not like the voters punished them last November.

The post also takes slams at the insurance industry, which is understandable. Their business model is based on only doing business with people who don’t need their services, and finding ways to give the boot to expensively sick people.

Can I also point out this: Americans Do Not Want Repeal?

But there’s an unacknowledged problem in the post which prevents me from reposting it. A huge part of the problem here is that all that health care spending we can’t afford? That’s someone’s paycheck. Not just the doctors and nurses, not just the drug company CEOs, but also the small medical suppliers, the people who build imaging devices, the physical therapists, the lab techs.

All that out-of-control spending that keeps people from going to the doctor? It’s someone’s salary, and that’s what makes it so tough to reign in the spending. Without spending controls, universal coverage won’t work (for the record: yes, the ACA does contain spending controls). Without universal coverage, spending controls won’t work (because if you tell doctors that Medicare will pay them less, they’ll stop seeing those patients).

It won’t be easy or fun, but we need to end the current system, which costs 20,000 lives a year (conservatively estimated), spends much more than we can afford, and suppresses the entrepreneurial instinct of so many people afraid to quit their corporate jobs.

Now I’m going back to my WIP. I’ll be skipping the Super Bowl today, unless my son remembers that he wanted to go out to a sports bar to watch.

Quote of the day

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“I can’t find the quote but one of the historians of the French Revolution of 1789 wrote that it was not the product of poor people but of poor lawyers. You can have political/economic setups that disappoint the poor for generations – but if lawyers, teachers and doctors are sitting in their garrets freezing and starving you get revolution. Now, in their garrets, they have a laptop and broadband connection.” (emphasis in the original)

— Paul Mason, writing about the revolutionary movements in the Middle East.

My fans in Denmark have come through again

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Considering how well the previous Twenty Palaces Lego sets (Child of Fire, Game of Cages) have done, the good folks in Denmark have rushed the newest Lego set into production.

Here’s the cover (again):

Circle of Enemies

Here is the early box art for Circle of Enemies.

Lego Circle of Enemies

Hooray!

I’m told the previous sets outsold the Harry Potter Lego sets, but I’m still waiting for the check with my share of the money. ::taps foot:: That Italian villa is waiting!
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In case anyone misses the joke: This image was created with Lego Digital Designer, a CAD program (of sorts) that lets you design a Lego model virtually, then upload it to their site and have the pieces mailed to you. Teh nice thing is that, as soon as he saw the cover art, my son immediately remembered that we make this joke art and started working on it. Smart kid.

Randomness for 2/4

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1) Detroit, a city in decay. Apparently, the crapsack future will be unevenly distributed. Great source material for art directors planning the next post-apocalyptic novel.

2) Planetary bodies, if they orbited the Earth at the distance of the moon. Video.

3) With these skills, this actor is sure to be a star.

4) Are you ready for marriage? Advice for young women, circa 1971, in comic form.

5) Predator’s teenage son. Video.

6) This is more like Call of Duty than Call of Duty is! Video. This made me laugh and feel pathetic at the same time.

7) Better Book Titles. via James Macdonald on Absolute Write

Five things make a post

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1) My wife just finished making an animation station for my son, and she’s currently working on a tall, narrow “standing desk” for me to use at home. She rocks.

2) If I owe you an email, please be patient. I’m having issues with it for the moment.

3) There’s fantastic news going on that I can’t really talk about. Not until some things are finalized. ::crosses fingers::

4) There’s some other news I can’t quite talk about yet that is only partially good. Again, I need to clarify some stuff before I’m ready to share, but share I will. Watch this space.

5) As of 2006 in the U.S.A. less than two percent of households earned above $250,000. That’s less than two percent of all households, not individuals. If your home brings in a quarter million dollars a year, you qualify as upper class. You’re wealthy. Embrace this truth.

Check it out!

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Enclosed: one cover for Circle of Enemies

Circle of Enemies

I love it!