Felt Gossip

Barry Greenstein discusses the style and skills of some of the other top players in the world. (via Wil Wheaton)

Your Wait is Over Anime Boy

You can finally get your own gundam.

Gary, George, and Ferrets

Wait for it ... wait for it. You'll know when you've got to the good part. Watch now -- you'll need the sound to enjoy fully.

The Best Movie Reviews Include Crudely Drawn Comics

This Episode 3 review is pretty hilarious. Can't vouch for all the articles on the site but I definitely got a Filthy vibe off the movie related ones.

BookCrossing.com

BookCrossing.com
I like the idea of this, but am thinking that without some kind of obvious visual reference, lots of well intentioned drops would just wind up in Lost & Found bins. Maybe if you printed up a bookmark to stick in the front with the url prominently displayed and a blurb about what it's about would do the trick? I'm going to see if I can pick out one or two books to try this with. Not sure where I'll leave them though ...

One of the threads in the forum at the site is 'What would your pseudonym be?' I think I would go with Alek J. Hidell. It's one of the aliases Lee Harvey Oswald used (at least that's one Delillo mentions in Zodiac ... er, Libra [thanks Bonedaddy]) and it would put me right next to Heinlein in most bookstore shelves.

Reanimator

Zombie dogs. Dig the photo. Nice puppy.

Squashing Philosophers

Squashing Philosophers
Not a flash game, it's the Reader's Digest versions of some classic works. Nicely done.

This on the other hand, is just silly: Spiderman will make you gay.

The Deadliest Catch

Was Jack the Ripper a merchant seaman who also killed in Germany and Nicaragua?

Another shark attack off the Florida coast.

Video Blogging

We took my nephew to Brenton Point State Park down in Newport this afternoon to try out the kite he got for his birthday. I uploaded a few seconds of video to Vimeo -- check it out, but be warned Firefox doesn't like the clip, it should play fine in Explorer.

A word of advice if you go to a kite park: keep an eye on the guy with stunt kite. I got knocked clean off my feet by a guy who couldn't control his kite. I took it right in the ear and went down like a house of cards.

The AFI's Top 100 Movie Lines

A line from "The Maltese Falcon" came in at 14th: "The stuff that dreams are made of." That's a movie full of great lines and, while that line is sharp enough in context, about a dozen others leapt to mind first. My suggestions to go ahead of their choice:

• "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it," Spade tells a pouting Cairo. If I ever have to slap anyone, you can bet I'll be using it.
  
• Spade gives Brigid the kiss off, "I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you."
  
• "A crippled newsie took 'em away from him. I made him give 'em back," Spade tells Gutman as he hands over Wilmer's guns.
  
• Joel Cairo has a ton of great lines, "Our private conversations have not been such that I am anxious to continue them. Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but it is the truth." I tell people that all the time.
  
• Cairo again, after Spade has knocked him out for attempting to search his office at gunpoint and given him his little pistol back, "Please place your hands behind your head. I intend to search your offices." Spade's chuckling reply, "Go ahead, I won't stop you," is equally priceless.
  
• Gutman too has great patter for a heavy, "I distrust a man who says 'when.' If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." I never get to use that line, but I always bear it in mind when I'm offered a drink.
  
• Spade to Wilmer, "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?"
  

Who Finale

I caught the finale last night. I wasn't sure what to make of the 'Heart of the Tardis' when we first caught a glimpse of it and I'm less sure now. Holy Deus Ex Machina, Batman! This episode is in some ways the most disappointing of the new series, while in others it continues to exceed my wildest expectations for how good it could be. Spoilers follow.

I'm sure the the Doctor's first on screen kiss will get folks all fired up but it's his second kiss, of Rose, that confused me the most. Captain Jack had been flirting with Doctor (and Rose, and just about everyone else) and the Doctor had been pretty at ease with it, so given that Jack was basically saying his goodbyes figuring he was about to be exterminated by the Daleks (and had already kissed Rose), the kiss shouldn't have been a surprise. What was more of a surprise was that the Doctor kissed Rose during the whole transference of the orange glowey gas vortex thing.

The best of it was the Doctor's decision when faced with having to answer the Emperor Dalek's challenge. Activating the Delta Wave will kill all the Daleks, but it will also kill everyone on the station (himself and Jack included) and the entire population of Earth circa the year 200,000. There are colonies of humans elsewhere, so his choice boils down to: (1) either destroy all the Daleks and most of humanity, or (2) let the Daleks harvest every human on Earth to increase the size of their army. The Emperor Dalek asks him, "Are you a killer or a coward?"

I'm glad they let us see the Doctor's choice ("Coward.") before doing the all-too-easy wrap-up. Here's the resolution in a nutshell: Rose looks inside the Tardis console, gets the power to know and manipulate all of time and space (grrrrr), turns the Daleks to dust, restores Jack's life, scatters the Bad Wolf clues (hokey), and then is saved by the Doctor's kiss before the Vortex overwhelms her. This sounds like a rejected script from the McCoy years!!!

I really wanted the Bad Wolf clues to have something to do with the Master. No such luck. I love that they set out to tie the whole series together. I loved the fleet of Dalek ships and the streams of Daleks invading the satellite. The Emperor Dalek was awesome. Rose's conversation with Mickey and her mom was pitch perfect and tied together the themes of the show deftly, while showing us that her character really is "worth saving." She gets it. The Doctor was right about her. It's great stuff. I just wish they hadn't found a lorry big enough to tug open the console.

We only get a few seconds of Tennant after the regeneration. We'll have to wait for the Christmas special to see what he's all about.

Concerned About Waterflow in the Hock?

Cryptonauts with East Hartford origins can check the flow of water through the Hockanum River with this tool. Rest easy, at the time of this post, water flow was 'normal'.

Lots of Doctor Who News

Today at BBC News
The news is all good: a third season has been ordered, we'll see the regeneration to Tennant this week, Billie Tyler will stay on as Rose for all the second season (not just the first couple episodes as had earlier been reported), and the Cybermen will appear in the second season.

If they don't announce a US release soon, I'm seriously considering picking up a region free dvd player and ordering the box set when it comes out in the UK.

Watergate Informant Identity Revealed, World Lets Out Collective Yawn

This would have been big news 30 years ago. Today, it seems people remember there was a Watergate scandal, and maybe remember that Woodward and Bernstein did the story ... but nobody seems to be saying 'the mystery of Deep Throat is finally resolved!' I have to admit, the first thing I thought of was to check whether Felt looked like Donald Sutherland; I somehow misremembered Sutherland as having played Deep Throat in the Redford and Hoffman movie -- it was actually Hal Holbrook.

So, who should've played Deep Throat in the movie, you ask? Evidently, Bob Barker fit the bill. See the second picture in this story and tell me you can't see him saying "Come on down! You're the next contestant on The Price is Right!"

Addendum: Perusing Wikipedia, I learned that Pat Buchanan thought CT's former Governor and Senator Lowell Weicker, Jr. was Deep Throat. I don't think I'd seen that before.