Neil Gaiman will be appearing on The Simpsons this Sunday. Neil has been mentioning it for a while, but this week is when it actually airs.
And here he is on Craig Ferguson talking about the episode:
Neil Gaiman to be on The Simpsons this Sunday
November 17th, 2011Spinal Tap: Unwigged and Unplugged
November 15th, 2011The men behind Tap decided they’d like to go out and perform without the having to get into character. Here’s the result:
Strangely enough, unwigged.com now seems to be some sort of language learning site.
On why they did it:
And just for the hell of it, here’s “Stonehenge” live from Wembley in 2009:
Nigel Tufnel on Stonehenge
November 14th, 2011Nigel Tufnel Day may have passed, but the Spinal Tap madness continues!
National Geographic did an interview with him regarding the origins of Stonehenge. He turns out to have many fascinating insights as to how it was actually built, some involving dinosaur spit.
Recent Acquisitions: Orson Scott Card’s Doorways
November 13th, 2011I’m not a huge Orson Scott Card fan. I thought Ender’s Game was an effective Heinlein juvenile homage, but little more. (I also thought Speaker for the Dead was actually a better, more ambitious novel.) I also thought that Seventh Son and Red Prophet were good alternate history fantasies, and “Hatrack River” (which forms the beginning of Seventh Son) was probably the best thing Card ever wrote. However, after reading Xenocide (awful) and Prentice Alvin (disappointing), I decided to stop picking up Card’s new books (the occasional Subterranean novella excepted), and haven’t regretted the decision. (Someday I may read Hart’s Hope, which some people have told me is his best.)
But after I stumbled across this at the nearest Half Price Books, I thought it was odd enough to be worth picking up, especially at 50% off $35 (marked down from $60) during the usual coupon sale.
Card, Orson Scott. Doorways. No publisher listed (though I’m assuming this is Card’s own Hatrack River imprint), 2002. (Presumed) First Edition trade paperback original, perfect bound on white cardstock covers, a Fine copy, inscribed by Card: “to Sam—/Merrily…/Orson Scott Card”.
Not in the Locus database. Not in the ISFDB. Not even in Card’s own online bibliography. (Oddly enough, it’s referred to in a bibliographic PDF on his site, but there’s not a listing for the book itself.)
This is 98 pages long and contains two previously published novelettes along with several unpublished poems. If I had to guess, this looks like it might have been given away as some sort of promotional freebie on Card’s website.
Given how obscure this particular Card book is, here’s the complete list of contents:
“My Forehead Feels Like D-Day”
November 13th, 2011If you watched last week’s Texans game against the Cleveland Browns, you might have wondered why he was bleeding so copiously. Well, that happens when an opposing player headbutts you when you’re not wearing your helmet.
Go to the linked video for the title quote and a ref asking Cushing “Are you having a pleasant day?”
(And the Texans won their game today against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 37-9.)
Happy Nigel Tufnel Day!
November 11th, 2011I hope you’re celebrating both Veterans Day and Nigel Tufnel Day (11/11/11) today. Tonight I will be celebrating by viewing the historical documents.
It was slightly difficult to find an embeddable version:
And now the obligatory video of “Stonehenge”:
A New Google Irritation
November 10th, 20111. Search for something in Google.
2. At the top of the search results page, click on “News.”
3. Instead of showing the news results on your search term, as it did every single day up until now, it blanks the search field and just show you a regular search page, rather than carrying over the term you just searched for.
Why, Google? Why you gotta play me like that?
(Note that I refrain from listing irritating Facebook changes, since those seem to occur every single day…)
Scary Bunnies: Missed a Couple
November 7th, 2011When I did my my scary bunny roundup, I managed to miss these gems from this Ghost Theory page on creepy old photos:
Other creepy images on that page include this jolly old Santa Claus who only wants to EAT YOUR SOUL:
On the other hand, I call Shenanigans on this one:
And this one (too large to embed) looks like an album cover shoot.
A Frozen Pizza Home Run
November 7th, 2011I don’t tend to buy frozen pizza (for a lot of reasons), but I did recently pick up a Home Run Inn Meat Lovers Pizza at Central Market when I went there for salsa fixing. Though it does cost more than average (about $7.50), it turned out to be significantly better than your average DiGiorno’s/Red Baron/Tombstone “premium” meat pizza, with both better meat and a better crust. Anyway, if you’re near a Central Market and have a hankering for pizza, you could do worse…
Edison’s Frankenstein
November 5th, 2011Did you know that the first first filmed version of Frankenstein was not the James Whale movie, but a 1910 Edison studios film?
Though full of the hokey melodramatic tropes of early silent cinema, it actually follows the basic plot of the Mary Shelly novel more closely than the Whale movie, at least up until the happy (and vaguely slipstreamy) ending. The creation of the monster scene uses not one, but two special effects: running the film backwards and at high speed. I’m sure it blew people’s minds in 1910.