VISUAL: Hey Okay
Just another fine Tumblr-ish repository of silly photos and images (introduced to me by enth):
AUDIO: Parasites ~ Radiolab
Radiolab is a clever, always interesting twice-monthly science podcast (and radio broadcast) produced by WNYC in New York. It’s one of the best podcasts around.
Their recent episode on Parasites was a tad gross but way fascinating. (For instance, one of the stories poses the question: “Could the crazy cat-lady phenomenon have a scientific, even biological basis?” Strange science indeed.)
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2009/09/25
COMIX: Scary Go Round
John Allison, one of my long-time faves, recently changed his already awesome comic Scary Go Round into a new comic with a new layout and art style, a new website, and a new storyline w/ a new set of teenage characters. It’s new new newness and no one has any idea where it’s going or what happened in the 3-year gap between this story and the last one, which makes it extra fun.
The story is called Bad Machinery and it starts here: http://scarygoround.com/?date=20090918
Well, first hurdle: I’m going to be out of town from tomorrow through Sunday, so in order to keep up a daily posting schedule I’ll have to post 5 entries today. No sweat.
First up, books. I want to go on the record here: Aaron Allston writes a damn good space-fantasy yarn.
As a Star Wars fan from way back, I’ve easily read about 30 Star Wars novels, but I’ll freely admit that a lot of them have such horrible writing and characterization that they offended even my junior high school sensibilities. There *are* a couple of well written novel series that I recommend even to non-hardcore SW fans: Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command) and the nine X-wing novels by Mike Stackpole & Aaron Allston. And now add this one: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal.
Betrayal is set about 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi (and about 10 years after the New Jedi Order novels, which I completely avoided due to their massive suckitude). Allston does a great job of wiping the slate clean and starting fresh while still respecting the continuity of earlier (suckier) books.
It’s all and all a great jumping-on point for new readers. I’m on page 250 or so, and unless the story flies off a cliff in the last third I’ll likely be reading the rest of the series.
RUINnation
Another thing that I’ve been doing lately, just for fun: RUINnation, a semi-ironic gaming group made up of a few well-scattered friends of mine, devoted to playing PC classics from the golden age of LAN-partying.
Our big three games at the moment are Starcraft, Diablo II, and Tribes 2. If you’re reading this right now, and have fond memories of those titles (or even if you don’t, but enjoy playing nerdy games with friends), please do follow the link above and send a join-request.
Frag on.
AUDIO: Far ~ Regina Spektor
My main idea for this side-project blog is to post a little bit of something each day. A snippet of something I’m working on, or something interesting, or something that still exists only in my head.
Today: The best album of 2009. I figure that’s as good a place to start as any.
That album is Far by the wonderful Miss Regina Spektor. Maybe it’s premature to call my best-of list in October. Fair statement. But appending a “… so far” to the end of the descriptor feels just as dodgy. That’d imply that I thought an even greater set of songs might come along in the next 3 months or so. I find that quite unlikely.
Every song on the disc is pleasant enough to freeze a body in front of the stereo the first time they hear it. There are at least 3 songs on this album (Folding Chair, Blue Lips, Laughing With) that are tackle-the-person-next-to-you-and-force-your-headphones-onto-their-ears good. If you’d like to avoid the potential rug-burn or scruffed-up hair from that situation, please act preemptively listen to it this instant.
This sub-blog (splog?) is an outlet valve on foaming spin-cycle of sky blue whimsy that is my own daydreaming mind. Unlike my ever-serious home blog at BeyondMetamora.Net, everything you read here in the Well of Worlds may be safely ignored without damaging our friendship to the least bit.
I intend it to be ByM’s wild & woolly backlot, scattered with half-baked ideas, questionable writing experiments, and stories that go nowhere or off into the brambles. I’m a firm believer in the principle that before you can be good at something you have to be bad at it. And so, in the spirit of “Fail again. Fail better.” I present to you this blog.
