I picked up two more signed Ray Bradbury books off eBay:
Library Additions: Two Signed Ray Bradbury Books
October 24th, 2013Creepy Online GIFs and Their Origins: Ballface
October 22nd, 2013Here’s a GIF that’s a wee bit unnerving:
It’s vaguely reminiscent of the creepy moon in Georges Méliès’s The Astronomer’s Dream.
Turns out it’s from a “tracking & compositing experiment” video:
I know that I always use subjects that are super-creepy for my tracking and compositing experiments…
Library Additions: The Signed, Limited Edition of Isaac Asimov’s Nemesis
October 21st, 2013Picked up another book for my collection:
Asimov, Isaac. Nemesis. Doubleday, 1989. First edition hardback, number 485 out of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine slipcase, sans dust jacket, as issued.
This was a serendipitous find. I wasn’t looking for it (since I’m not generally a big fan of Asimov’s later work), but merely entered “signed limited edition” in Amazon’s books section just to see what I would find and this came up at $80. Given that it was originally issued at $125, and given that copies on Bookfinder start at $150, I thought it was a good price. Asimov isn’t actually a hard signature (especially compared to verified Philip K. Dick or Robert A. Heinlein signatures), but he has become fairly pricey one for his first editions.
Shoegazer Sunday: Velveteen’s “Poster Boy”
October 20th, 2013Velveteen is a band from Germany most famous (for certain values of “famous”) for having their album hoaxed as a Death Cab for Cutie album. (Disclaimer: I couldn’t recognize a Death Cab for Cutie song with a gun to my head.) Correction: The band wrote to note they’re the London Velveteen, not the German one. “Poster Boy” is another video whose theme is “War is bad and stuff.” Or alternately, “stock footage from the Vietnam is pretty cheap.”
Bum Phillips, RIP
October 18th, 2013Former Houston Oilers football coach Oail Andrew “Bum” Phillips Jr. has died at age 90. It’s pretty much impossible for anyone who didn’t grow up in Houston during the “Luv Ya Blue” era of of the Earl Campbell Oilers to tell you how much Phillips meant to the city. He may be the most beloved NFL coach never to even reach a Superbowl. Bud Adams firing Philips (and then trading Campbell to New Orleans for a sack of doorknobs) was one of the many, many, many things Oilers owner Bud Adams did to earn the enmity of the city he would eventually deprive of the Oilers.
Philips was an ornery cuss, but a classy one, and 100% Texan. He will be missed.
Edited to Add: Oiler player tributes to Bum. “Everybody loved Bum.”
Creepy Online GIFs and Their Origins: The Thing In the Bed
October 18th, 2013Another post for the Halloween season.
I’ve always thought this was one of your creepier online GIFs:
And actually, it’s from a very short horror film called “Bedfellows,” available online:
The guy’s evidently done a whole series of them.
Sweet dreams…
Another Heritage Book Auction Today
October 17th, 2013Heritage Auctions is having another of their signature book auctions today.
It’s mostly non-science fiction offerings, but among the items up for auction:
Mapping the Dimensions of My Bibliomania
October 16th, 2013You’re probably aware that I have a pretty large library. What you might not be aware of is that, by word count, my library is larger in word count than Wikipedia.
According to the calculations today, Wikipedia has “1925 volumes in 10 stacks.” I’d estimate my own library is now somewhere north of 6,000 volumes. And translating from the 10-high shelves shown here to the 8-high helves in my library, that would me to about “P” in my hardback fiction shelves.
So far, my book-buying is outpacing all the monkeys. Now as long as they don’t buy them more typewriters…
Shoegazer Sunday: Ride’s “OX4”
October 13th, 2013Here’s another dose of classic UK Shoegaze band Ride with “OX4.” Hard to understand how this never charted, as it has a perfect, catchy pop melody underpinning it.
It reminds me a little of Brain Eno’s early solo work…
Texas 36, Oklahoma 20
October 12th, 2013Well, no need to torment myself watching the UT/OU game, I thought. No chance the Longhorns win playing the way they have this year, I thought.
The only sure thing about this UT team is that they’ll do the opposite of what I expect them to.
New defensive coordinator Greg Robinson has completely turned that unit around. And Mack Brown just might keep his job.