Monthly Archives: April 2005

Tulipmania!

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Even our dull corporate buildings look almost pretty this time of year. The crabapples and redbuds are in bloom all along the parkways, and the air smells sweet (even for this area, which often smells faintly of jet fuel owing to our location right under the approach/takeoff path for O’Hare.

The whole area is greening up, and the landscape companies are out in force. You can tell that spring has arrived when the yard waste bags burst into bloom in all their brown-paper glory along the curbs on Garbage Day.

I have next week off – I threw the week in on a whim last fall, thinking I’d change it to something for an actual vacation. But in the back of my mind, even then, was that I’d use the week to do stuff around the yard and get some plants in. I didn’t do that last year (except for the kitty garden, which was a qualified success) and I missed it. This year I need to get a lot more done.

The New Pope In Rome

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There’s smoke in the air; it looks almost white-ish;
Papal expectations, everybody’s watching for you
The populi in St Peter’s Square, they all seem to know you
The cardinals act like you’re all infallible now

Bennie the Sixteenth, the new Pope in Rome
Everybody venerates you, ma illegitimi non carborundum

You look in the cameras; the choir begins to sing
Hopeful Roman antics, and you’re the guy in charge
But after awhile, you’re fidgetin’ in your cassock
It’s not the damn tailor’s fault you’re a medium-large

Bennie the Sixteenth, the new Pope in Rome
They all venerate you, ma illegitimi non carborundum
There’s so many heretics you could have chastised
but now you have to calm the wayward baptised,
Just hold ’em… in your papal pectorum.

The talking heads on the news, they rush to
Remind you, or doesn’t it matter
Europe’s churches are empty – they say they still need you.
You process with your mitre and crozier, they’re walking behind you
They will never forget, til some papabile succeeds you

Where you been lately? There’s a new Pope in Rome
Everybody loves him, don’t they?
What was his name, before he put on the ring
That “Ratzie” guy?
There’s a new Pope in Rome
Habeam papam!
just another new Pope in Rome
Urbi et orbi!
We’re all talkin’ German like the new Pope in Rome
There’s a new Pope in Rome
There’s a new Pope in Rome
I don’t want to hear it
There’s a Pope in Rome
I don’t want to hear it
There’s a new Pope in Rome
There’s a new Pope in Rome
There’s a new Pope in Rome

via Sing365.com

Getting Closer To Done

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David, the sneaky sneakster, upgraded the beta blog to MT3.16, and I'm at the "tweaking templates to look right with the new stylesheet" stage. Still some archive templates to be fixed so they display the new banner image and colors. I will be going through all the templates looking for inconsistencies that may be lurking there from my old installation, but I'm pleased that the latest version is a new commitment to quality (and bugfixes).

Via About Six Apart – Mena's Corner

UPDATE: as previously stated, I've got some template tweaks to do. And the cool crap is getting cut way, way back. The banner image is working and is pretty close to its final design. I'll have Typekey authentication enabled, and non-Typekey comments will be moderated (not likely to be a problem with the very low number of "real" comments I get). I may check out the new spamkilla on the block, too.

How To Talk American

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Your Linguistic Profile:
70% General American English
15% Yankee
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Dixie
0% Midwestern

Kind of reminds me of some of the stuff in How To Talk American except… not as funny as in that book. I’m kind of intrigued by the fact that I speak 10% Upper Midwestern – that’s probably due to the fact that I now say “soda” instead of “pop” as I once did.

Via AKMA

Thank You, Marla

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marlaruzicka.jpg

Chicago Tribune | Iraq bomb takes `angel’ of mercy

There was also an NPR story on Marla – she was interviewed a few years ago and you can hear her talk about her work. She was a relative unknown, but I feel her loss – I admire people who can really put their money where their mouth is, and she ran her charity on her own meagre savings until she managed to bully and embarass our government and military to take notice, step up, and “do the right thing.” She basically got Congress to fund aid and medical care for innocent victims of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What better way to reach out to people and fight terrorism than to try to heal the wounds caused by our own response to it?

Listen to her interview – there’s tape of a confrontation between her and a US diplomat in Afghanistan, who she confronts face-to-face with the reality of collateral damage. She took a family to meet with the diplomat to ask for medical help – the 9-year-old son had been blinded in an air attack. She basically asked him “what are you going to do about it?” She was supposed to go on vacation last week, but decided that another young boy, Iraqi this time, needed her help.

If only someone else steps into her shoes. What a great loss.

Headscratching Mode

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It’s a process. David has installed MT3.15 and with his help I’ve got a beta site working, more or less. I haven’t decided if I’ll go to a radical style re-design or not. He also installed BookqueueToo and that seems to be working, finally. The stumbling block with that was not only did I need to request a new web services subscription ID from Amazon, I also had to go in and change the Amazon associates ID, both of which are configured via different screens. And cleverly, the BookQueueToo developer had substituted his own associates ID as the default. But now, I’m able to add things like CDs and DVDS to my Bookqueue page.

I need to figure out a few more things. Like why my sideblog isn’t coming over. But that’s for later.

Name That Book!

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The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

Stole this idea from the Observer Blog, because I got it wrong. The book I was thinking of starts out “Space is big. Really big.” This is one of the other ones. Which one?

The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This had made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

I read via ***Dave a review of the new “h2g2” movie that… makes it sound like it just might suck, and that all the good jokes and lines are gone. If so, I think I’m going to be feeling very depressed. The list of things not in the movie is why.

Damn, I hate being disappointed when a favorite book is made into a movie. I might just have to re-read all the books again, or dig out my original BBC Radiophonic cassette tapes of the original radio series and take several long baths, in succession, until I feel better.

“New” SciFi Series Roster

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SciFi Wire announces its slate of original SF/Fantasy/Alternate Reality series. “Original” is such a relative term, isn’t it?

An untitled project executive-produced by Academy Award-winning actor/producer Michael Douglas, based on the work of the late author Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House). Storylines and themes from Jackson’s catalog of supernatural short stories will be woven into her real life experiences transitioning from urban mom to small-town matriarch.

Michael Douglas isn’t exactly known for genre movies or shows. A production credit for Starman (movie, series) doesn’t exactly establish his SF cred. Why this? Why now? Imagine if “Eerie, Indiana” or the lesser remake version of “Outer Limits” underwent a sex change AND menopause.

Heroes Anonymous, a live-action series based (on) the comic book created by Scott Gimpel and Bill Morrison which follows a group of 20-something aspiring superheroes who form a support group to help them discover their own identity while carving out their secret identity…

Hello, bastard child of various X-Men sequels and Mystery Men. Oh, and with a little of The Bob Newhart Show thrown in, too. Meow.

Those Who Walk in Darkness, a drama based on John Ridley’s (Three Kings, Third Watch) best-selling novel of the same name about an expert team of S.W.A.T. police whose primary mission is to hunt down and capture people who genetically possess super powers…

Hey! Something original! A show about special cops who’re trying to get weirdo mutant missing links! It was called Special Unit 2! I loved that show… not so much this one, yet. However, I liked “Three Kings,” so I might give this one a whirl.

Urban Arcana, an action series inspired by the Hasbro/Worlds of Wonder role-playing game which follows an undercover detective who must protect the human population from the influx of chameleon-like, mythological creatures from a parallel world…Rockne O’Bannon (The Triangle, Farscape) executive-producing in association with Fox Television Studios.

Hey! Something else original! A show about a special cop who’s tracking down weirdo mutant mythological parellel world… oh, wait. If there were a time travel element this would be Time Trax. If there were an “alien fugitive” element this would be Tracker or The Hidden. *sigh*

Tomorrow’s Child, a series centered around a young girl who was horribly burned in an accident and saved by a special skin of extraterrestrial origin, which gives her powers beyond human comprehension. She travels the country pursued by the government while looking for the origin of her powers and seeking out others like her. Produced by NBC Universal Television Studio…

Hey, it’s either the daughter of the Out Of This World girl, or Greatest American Hero with a really rad exfoliating makeover. And a sex change. And whoa, they’re going to let NBC – “No Body Cares” – produce another SF show? Doomed to failure, in that case. Remember Star Trek? Earth2? SeaquestDSV? Roswell? Oh, wait, that one was screwed over by UPN. Still. Same diff.

Time Tunnel, an updated interpretation of the classic 1960s television series created by Irwin Allen. The new series centers on a female scientist and a government agent who find themselves trapped in time when an experimental time travel project is sabotaged…

I loved this show! But now there’s a gurl in it, so it’ll center now on the “romantic tension” between the scientist and the agent. It’s kind of like if Dr. Sam Beckett had a permanent squeeze to go with. They better not screw up the theme music, that was the best part.

3:52, from distinguished television writer/producer John Tinker (Judging Amy, The Practice), takes place in the wake of the sudden disappearance of 2 billion people from the face of the Earth. The series, named for the time of the vanishing, will be told from the point of view of a small Maryland town.

Crap, another post-Millennium show about the Rapture. In disguise, yet. Don’t these people realize they’re just feeding the Dominionists thirst for temporal power by giving them their own niche cult SF TV shows? Crap.

Also on deck: two “alternative” series for when all or most of the above prove to be, yes, crap.

Barbarian Chronicles, a half-hour animated ensemble comedy from Brendon Small, creator of the offbeat strip series Home Movies. David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants will produce along with Small.

Now this I’d watch. I’m up for the funny animated barbarians. Hell, if I hang out reading “HULK’S DIARY THAT IS ON THE INTERNET” and offering him advice on finding a nice kitten, I’d sure watch this show.

Seriously Baffling Mysteries, a half-hour mockumentary hosted by Jonathan Frankle, which goes in search of the paranormal on a shoestring budget. In each episode, production chaos and behind-the-scenes dysfunction interrupt Frankle’s attempt at supernatural investigative reporting.

Damn you, incredibly fast but somewhat inattentive reading super-power! At first I thought this show was being hosted by Jonathan Frakes, and I perked up and thought “Decent casting choice! This could actually be funny.” Now having run across more info on this show, which originally had the “Still In Search Of…” working title (take that, post-Trek Leonard Nimoy!) I still think it could be funny:

“Still In Search Of…”(working title): The hallmark of supernatural investigative reporting gets a mockumentary makeover in this hilarious half-hour docu-spoof from FremantleMedia North America. Series host Jonathan Frankle goes in search of the paranormal on a shoestring budget but instead finds trouble with his producer and crew. Production chaos and behind-the-scenes dysfunction bleed into each episode — the make-up artist negotiates a raise using a voodoo doll, a Nostradamus prediction about the end of the world causes administrative anarchy and an investigation into a legendary cannibalistic monster degenerates into a Survivor-like discussion about who among the crew would be voted onto the menu first.

Hmm, these guys are responsible for the Brothers Awesomov’s “Big bucks, big bucks, no whammies!” joke from their tragic elimination episode.

See, I would totally watch this. They can scrap all but the two on deck shows as far as I’m concerned. Unless the actors are hawt, of course.