Evening wonderfulnesses
Natural selection is so cool. The Dec. 24 issue of the Economist has a neat article about humans' shift from hunting to agriculture; how it was in a sense a desperation move as they hunted the big game to extinction. Such as the rhinoceroses in France. 30,000 years ago. That's... amazingly recent. When they ran out of rhinos, they went on to elk and bison. When they ran out of bison, agriculture seemed like a good idea. OK, I'm bastardizing the story a bit, but it makes a fun story that way. I'd link to the article, but the Economist didn't put it on their website.
On Thursday, the_infamous_j showed me Gankutsuou. It's a sci-fi anime in 24 episodes retelling The Count of Monte Christo. After watching two episodes and reading up in Wikipedia, I want to read the (English translation of the) original. I may come back and watch the anime- it's got a different perspective, starting the story with the young aristocrat Albert and his friend Franz, piecing together the Count's story in flashback in a much less sympathetic fashion. Other interesting bits I learned from yon wonderful time-sucker wikipedia: two other stories whose plots were heavily borrowed from CoMC: Sweeney Todd (which I know some of you liked) and Stars My Destination (by one of my favourite old sci-fi authors, Alfred Bester).
Thirdly, from epi_lj: The Complete New Yorker on DVD has dropped in price from $100 to $39.99. That's cool enough- $40 is a very fair price- but if you order with coupon-code 'WINTER25' it's $29.99. Wow. I'm going to buy a copy for my parents; perhaps then they will throw out the great big stacks of the magazines in their house?... Yeah, it's unlikely, but I suppose I can hope. ;)
And now maybe my brain will quiet down a bit and let me get to sleep; though I won't complain, because the evening was pretty great. Not the least of which: for dinner d. made duck burritos and lemon bars. Yum!
On Thursday, the_infamous_j showed me Gankutsuou. It's a sci-fi anime in 24 episodes retelling The Count of Monte Christo. After watching two episodes and reading up in Wikipedia, I want to read the (English translation of the) original. I may come back and watch the anime- it's got a different perspective, starting the story with the young aristocrat Albert and his friend Franz, piecing together the Count's story in flashback in a much less sympathetic fashion. Other interesting bits I learned from yon wonderful time-sucker wikipedia: two other stories whose plots were heavily borrowed from CoMC: Sweeney Todd (which I know some of you liked) and Stars My Destination (by one of my favourite old sci-fi authors, Alfred Bester).
Thirdly, from epi_lj: The Complete New Yorker on DVD has dropped in price from $100 to $39.99. That's cool enough- $40 is a very fair price- but if you order with coupon-code 'WINTER25' it's $29.99. Wow. I'm going to buy a copy for my parents; perhaps then they will throw out the great big stacks of the magazines in their house?... Yeah, it's unlikely, but I suppose I can hope. ;)
And now maybe my brain will quiet down a bit and let me get to sleep; though I won't complain, because the evening was pretty great. Not the least of which: for dinner d. made duck burritos and lemon bars. Yum!