weirdness

Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams advised to polish his resume

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He needed to respond to the NAACP’s request that Tea Partiers “to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.” Hey, the guy is the national spokesman, right? I’m sure he handled this with dignity and tact.

Quote:

“You’re dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history.”

Emphasis added by me.

I wonder how much longer people in the mainstream media will criticize the NAACP?

Randomness for 6/29

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1) A half-hearted defense of the Star Wars prequels. I agree with his assessment of the attitudes of the Jedi in the prequels, but I’m not convinced that Lucas himself recognized that it was problematic.

2) British stores told they can no longer sell eggs by the dozen.

3) The NY Post reacts to U.S. World Cup elimination.

4) I’m not one to link to music videos, but here’s The Go-Go’s circa 1984 (love the lighting) cross-dressing onstage and looking good doing it. And Belinda Carlisle sings the hell out of this song.

5) AT-AT afternoon.

6) An American woman in a German supermarket discovers an American ethnic food section. What foods do you think they consider American?

7) More evidence on the brilliance of Facebook users. The fan page for this author’s book has 700,000 fans, and he is sure none of them care one bit about reading his book. But damn, if even three percent could be convinced to buy a copy…

Randomness for 6/4

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1) When someone says “Don’t touch me,” you should stop touching them.

2) Mole man’s borer misses the Baxter Building by quite a bit. Article.

3) My brother-in-law is curating and art exhibit. If you’re in NYC, check it out.

4) Diana Comet Presents…75 Years of Fabulous Writers via Sandra McDonald.

5) How did Ulysses S. Grant become a charicature? A fascinating take on a part of history that was written by the losers.

6) I don’t usually link to the Freakonomics blog (those guys sometimes seem to value iconoclasty over accuracy) but this is someone else’s research: The Visible Hand, how a presenter’s skin color affects online sales. Nothing surprising there, but it’s interesting information. Don’t read the comments.

7) Sixteen truly Geeky workstations. Personally, I’ve wanted a walkstation for a while. Also, I’d only pay 40 grand for a computer chair if it came inside a Mercedes.

Randomness for 5/13

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1) Facebook privacy default settings, and how they’ve changed over time, in convenient chart form. I have a FB account, but I never put anything there I wouldn’t put on my main blog.

2) Some folks are still claiming that health care reform will not save any money, and that the claimed savings are the result of budgetary gimmicks. That’s not true, and here’s why.

3) Paging David Prill! David Prill to the white courtesy phone, please!

4) The July 1690 issue of Cosmopolitan.

5) What you see here is a Men’s Room at the Hilton, and I don’t know if I could pee here.

6) Is “indie” authorship finally coming into its own? I’m not ready to go direct-to-Kindle, but it’s still an option. The sad(ish) thing is that I don’t have an extensive backlog of unpublished novels; I cut my teeth writing spec screenplays. Personally, I’m sure as hell not ready to give up on traditional print publishing. Sales of Kindle editions might be profitable, but it’s still a small pond. Growing, but still small. I want my book to reach as many readers as possible.

7) The Onion on childhood obesity.

Joke trailer better than real one

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Well, I assume it will be better.

I received an email an hour ago letting me know that someone had created an animated trailer for my two books. The emailer didn’t realize that the first comment on that thread was from me (although judging by the f/u email, they did immediately after they hit SEND). Still, it’s pretty damn funny.

Also, I’ve been seeing links to it here and there, some by people I know and some by strangers–there’s something weirdly hypnotic about disco dancers with book heads, I guess. Something weirdly hilarious, too.

Would the trailer I’m planning to make convince as many people to link to it? I don’t know, man. I don’t know.

Randomness for 4/2

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1) Quentin Tarantino is playing a smurf? Um, okay, I gues.

2) Protecting IP the stand-up comic way. One of my friends was (unfairly) accused of joke-stealing. It was painful to see him (voluntarily) ditch a ten-minute routine about sitting at the big table over Thanksgiving because someone else had a single joke about it. This probably deserves its own post, but I’m not the one to write it.

3) I liked Speed Racer, too. However, I don’t have to call it an “art film” to justify that. It was definitely inventive and non-realistic, and it had a powerful emotional affect on me. I’ve been meaning to rewatch the ending to examine that a little more.

4) Insectophobes, do not click! That sucker is two and a half feet long. If you drown in deep waters and your corpse sinks to the bottom, that thing will be one of the creatures feasting on you.

5) Batman goes to jail for stalking L&O actress. Fate of his two daughters, Harleyquinn and Batgirl, undecided. (More seriously, if you’re a famous person, you get stalkers–freaky, creepy ones–and the only way they hit the news is if they’re colorful in some way or it’s a slow news day.)

6) Beautiful new library in Battery Park.

7) Big house vs short commute time: Which will make us happier? It’s interesting how this just assumes people will be in cars. I wonder what variables public transit adds in? Personally, I like my bus time; it’s pretty much the only dedicated reading time I have left.

Cage matches

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Suvudu has been running “cage matches,” a sort of March Madness for sfnal heroes and villains (check the left sidebar). They’re all in fun, pitting Vlad Taltos against Dumbledore, or Harry Dresden against Conan, and many others in fights to the death. Several authors with characters in the fight have contributed here and there, explaining why their character would win (although I think it’s hilarious that Jim Butcher is all “Conan would kick Harry’s ass!”)

But you know what? I don’t like it.

Maybe it’s ridiculous (okay, no maybes about it) but depictions of Hermione Granger being stabbed to death are distressing. In fact, I find most literary depictions of violence distressing; they only “work” for me because of the context. The context for the cage matches–“Let’s you and him fight to the death for no reason”–makes me want to stamp my foot and shout “No fair!”

Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but this is my gut-level reaction.

It doesn’t help that the “tournament of fighting” bit is one of the most snooze-inducing structures around, and is one of the reasons I gave up on anime.

Weirdly, I don’t have this same reaction to visual portrayals of violence. I’ll laugh like a hyena at The Three Stooges, and I’m as happy to see Batman punch a gangster in the face as any self-respecting comics fan. But in text? Nah.

(BTW, Ray Lilly would probably be seeded just above Lyra Belacqua, but only barely :).)

Randomness for 3/12

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This is my 666th post on my WordPress blog. Continue reading… if you dare!

1) Would you recognize Der Fuehrer?

2) Money as motivation: “It’s certainly true that motivated workers need to feel that they are being paid fairly and adequately. Pink’s thesis, however, is that beyond that threshold, performance bonuses may actually be counterproductive, particularly when the work requires initiative, judgment and creativity.” The article directly addresses Wall St bonuses, but it covers a lot of other interesting ground, too. I have the referenced book on hold for my wife, but maybe I should read it, too.

3) How to make an origami swan.

4) Nathan Bransford’s Choose Your Own E-Book Adventure.

5) A pseudonymous TV writer/producer on Florida’s new morality restrictions on filmmaking in the state. This link will expire within the next two weeks. Update: Link dead.

6) Korean man marries pillow. In all my life, I never thought I would be in a position to type a sentence like that, but this is the internet age, and we must share all manner of human oddity.

7) New book reveals evidence that infamous French hallucination epidemic was actually CIA LSD experiment. In school I did a report on MKUltra, but I never heard of this incident before (not surprising, since so many of the MKUltra files were destroyed.

Chatroulette

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Here’s the “Safe For Work” version–an article in the NY Times describing the program. Short version: it’s social networking with complete strangers. You and your webcam get onto video chat. You click “Next”. A completely random person from anywhere in the world appears in their webcam image. You chat with this stranger.

Of course, you could be looking at a guy in a cat suit (see link above). Or a naked fat guy. Or some dude’s penis. Or a woman sitting on the toilet. Or someone in a freaky mask.

Here’s the NSFW version, with screencaps of unlikely/unfortunate/basically weird interactions between strangers.

Seriously, that’s NSFW. Don’t even open that link with kids in the room.