Twenty Palaces

On to other things

Game of Cages is officially on the bookstore shelves (or in your hot little hands) and I can move on with my life. Maybe.

For instance, my father-in-law took one glance at the Lego guns my son has been building, and he insisted my wife take photos of them. Like this:

or

There’s more at the Flickr set.

Needless to say, I suspect we’ll be visiting Brickcon this fall.

Randomness for 9/6

1) While I have pretty much given up on DOCTOR WHO, the chances are you haven’t. In recognition of that, a link: Warren Ellis challenges artists to create a photograph/original artwork depicting the 13th (and final) reincarnation of The Doctor. It takes a while for the art to really start coming in, so be sure to skim through the pages to check it out. Some is pretty cool.

2) “Vampire” skull discovered.

3) 600 Hanna Barbera Characters This pretty much has to be viewed at the original size. And I reject the notion that “Snorkle” was the main character on The Banana Splits. I reject it!

4) Brazillian Legolas of the cell phones.

5) A quick summation of the problems inherent in our student loan system.

6) Seanan McGuire, this year’s Campbell Award winner, lays out the dos and don’ts for folks who want to support an author with a new book out. Like her, I would rather people not send me notes about Amazon.com reviews. Unlike her, it’s because I’ve already read them. The other stuff she says is pretty much spot on, too.

7) Oh. My. God. Why didn’t anyone tell me David Fincher was making an animated movie of THE GOON??!! There’s even a trailer already! Video. It looks incredible! WANT!!!

Randomness for 8/25

1) Hobo Superman, and the sad superheroes of Latvia.

2) Hungover owls. Tumblr has reached its apotheosis.

3) I don’t usually link to “books as construction material” items, mainly because I don’t see the appeal of having walls you want to read but can’t, however this mushroom garden, where the books are both structure and food for the mushrooms, is pretty compelling.

4) Occasionally I’ll see aspiring writers say things like “Don’t pro writers see all sides of a situation? Aren’t they a little wishy-washy?” Really, though, no. Almost all the writers I run into have very strong opinions, most of them dopey. (Warning, that link is aggravating.)

5) Former RNC Chairman and Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlmen comes out of the closet.

And:

6) Remember the “I’m Sorry” people at the last Chicago Pride Parade? The ones with signes that read “I’m sorry that Christians judge you,” “I’m sorry the way churches have treated you,” and “I used to be a bible-banging homophobe, sorry.”? Yeah? Well it turned out to be more “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin” bullshit. Sorry, people who hoped for better.

7) On a lighter note: Library books thwart purse-snatcher. Good thing that old guy wasn’t reading books on his iPad.

Randomness for 8/23

1) Medieval copy protection: Sometimes people come to me and ask, “How did medieval filmmakers protect their DVDs from piracy?”

2) Choose (or create) wake up music for NASA astronauts on the last space shuttle mission. via @seattlegeekly

3) Reading, all around the world.

4) The Freedom of the Road wasn’t free for everyone.

5) Small countertop machine turns plastic back into oil Video. Put some solar panels on the top of that bad boy and I’m happy.

6) Why SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD bombed at the box office. “People say it’s become cool to be a geek. That’s not true. People have just started applying the word geek to cool people. Hipsters aren’t geeks and geeks aren’t rock musicians and rock musicians aren’t old school gamers”

7) Brandon Sanderson’s long-awaited WAY OF KINGS available at a charity auction. The charity benefits Doctors Without Borders. Spread the word!

Randomness for 8/18

1) Everything is better in France. Even muggings.

2) Trends in fantasy cover art for 2009.

3) Your monster instructional video for the day.

4) James Bond, Indian comic book style: “You hide identity for good. But there are Super Dupers who never reveal themselves at the worst.”

5) Seven scientific reasons the zombie apocalypse will not be an extinction event.

6) Rope gymnastics in India. Video. Honestly amazing.

7) Fifty-five incredible manipulated photos.

The Channelled Scablands

Last weekend my wife, son and I drove out of the city (in a rented car! Luxury!) to see a natural formation that’s unique in the world: The Channelled scablands of central Washington. Great name, huh? For those of you who don’t know about the scablands, Dry Falls and Lake Missoula, here’s a quick ‘n’ dirty explanation: Thirteen thousand years ago during the end of the last ice age, much of Montana was covered by a body of water we now call Lake Missoula. Ice dammed a river valley in Idaho, creating a body of fresh water larger than several of the Great Lakes.

You won’t be surprised to hear that eventually, the ice melted, the water broke through the dam, and the largest flood ever in the history of our planet was unleashed. Over the course of three days, a 300-ft-deep flood raced across Idaho, Washington and into Oregon as it raced to the sea. The effects of this flood are still most prevalent in the central Washington area near Grand Coulee. There was a Nova program that covered this: Mystery of the Megaflood, but it doesn’t appear to be one of the shows they offer for free online. Maybe you can borrow it from the library, like we did.

What this means is that, out in the desert of central WA, are the effects of floods of water writ large. You know the ripples you see in sand when waves flow over them? Well, look at the land formation above this small town:

Those gigantic humps are marks of the flood. Crazy, isn’t it?

More below the cut, including Dry Falls, an ice age waterfall ten times larger than Niagra Falls. more »

Randomness for 8/8

1) The alphabet, carved on the tips of pencils.

2) Kanye West Tweets combined with New Yorker cartoons. It’s not exactly Nietzsche Family Circus, but, um…

3) I don’t even know what to say about this news story. My initial shock at reading it has lessened as I realize this sort of thing isn’t unusual. It wouldn’t be newsworthy at all if not for the Facebook connection.

4) What a bestseller’s marketing push looks like. Someday, this will be me.

5) Amazing Lego Animation. Not for some technical razzle dazzle, but because it is so simply shot and effective. Video

6) It’s hard to believe this isn’t partly cgi in post, but this is a 3D projection onto a building, and it’s mindblowing. Video.

7) “But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave.” A New York high school valedictorian delivers a controversial speech against the public school system in which she excelled.

Randomness for 7/28

1) Mom creates tableaus to illustrate what she imagines her sleeping baby is dreaming.

2) Via Sherwood Smith: Jane Austen’s Fight Club. (added later: Yeah, this has been going around for the past couple of days, but I’m not going to yank it just in case someone here still hasn’t had a chance to check it out.)

3) Introverts unite! (quietly).

4) Poppy Z. Brite, Tim Wildmon, and The Home Depot. I’m so tempted to send (anonymously) a copy of CoF to the AFA so they can boycott me, too. I could use the publicity.

5) Random House and Andrew Wylie clash over ebook publication.

6) How self-absorbed people behave: political columnist writes open letter to his ex on her wedding day and reacts badly when he’s criticized for it.

7) And we mourn the end of an era: No more blowing up Michael Jackson zombies with your cornapult.

“Step into my cage:” thoughts on Sorcerer’s Apprentice (plus bonus family stuff)

Yesterday we planned to go to the beach, hit the library and head downtown to watch SORCERER’S APPRENTICE. The weather report promised us that the day would be mostly cloudy, leading to a drizzle at the end of the day. Being Seattle-ites, we headed to the beach anyway. Being Seattle, the day turned clear and beautiful. And me without my sunscreen.

We played Frisbee golf (more like Frisbee putt putt), built driftwood shelters on the beach, took photographs at low tide, (Oh, look! a bald eagle in flight!:

The full but rather small set is on flickr here. ) ate a picnic, dropped off and picked up books at the library, then… the movie!

Non-spoiler version: Fun but unsatisfying. Nic Cage was better than he’s been in a big-budget film in a while and Jay Baruchel really sells the nerdy hero character he’s signed up for. But while individual scenes and sequences are a lot of fun, the movie as a whole doesn’t add up. Like too many films that involve stopping bad guys from casting a world-ending spell, it feels like watching a game of Calvinball where everyone goes home before the end.

SPOILER VERSION: Sorry, but this got long more »

Randomness for 7/16

1) Letters written to fictional characters by actual people. I like this one, this one, this one and this one. And now I can’t help but wonder what letter I would write.

2) Proving there’s a niche blog for everything (until someone creates a niche blog you never even thought of before): Handsome Men Who Are Now Dead.

3) Prank rollercoaster photos. Maybe not entirely safe for work, but not too bad.

4) via Steve Barr: Ferris Beuller is Tyler Durdin!. And now in video form (which I can’t watch at work.)

5) If movie titles were honest. The funny ones make up for the dumb ones.

6) The 100 Best places to appreciate art online.

7) How to ask Thomas Pynchon for an author blurb.