New Year's Resolution #1: Get serious about writing.  It's put up or shut up time.  Those novels are not going to write themselves ( Read more... )

... this one just came out of the swamp ( Read more... )

So, The Dark Knight Rises - the last Nolan Batman movie (God willing).  I really liked Batman Begins, which I think I saw in theaters with Christina when neither of us knew what we were expecting - and we were both like, "I think I really kind of LIKED IT" - and have a special relationship with The Dark Knight, which I saw on my own in a shopping ( Read more... )

Dog Day Afternoon, another great '70s crime movie that I had never seen before.  And by another, I mean in addition to Taxi Driver - my repertoire is pretty slight in this area, unfortunately.  The IMDb tagline is "A man robs a bank to pay for his lover's operation; it turns into a hostage situation and a media circus," which I guess is accurate, ( Read more... )

Is Superman A Traitor?  "in the short story “The Incident” in Action Comics #900, Superman is renouncing his American citizenship."

Result: A Little Bit of Cosmic Rage.  Aside from the "I will never buy DC comics again!" declarations, there's actually a decent amount of soul-searching in those comments.  I have zero investment in Superman, and I'm ( Read more... )

Mark Christensen doesn't want me to run for president in Nebraska.  He's sponsoring a "birther" bill in the state legislature that would require presidential candidates to provide long-form birth certificates to accompany the following sworn affidavit: "On the day I was born, both my birth father and my birth mother were citizens of the United ( Read more... )

The first commentary on the whole Bankrupt Nihilism brouhaha that I really agree with (and surprisingly, it comes from Black Gate): The Decline and Fall of Bankrupt Nihilism.  One points Matthew Surridge brings up that I consider pretty important concerns the supposedly "heroic and inspiring" morality of old-fashioned fantasy, and particularly, ( Read more... )

Connie Chung worked for CNN at the time, hosting Connie Chung Tonight.  Martina Navratilova is a former tennis star, current tennis commentator.  Extra note: Navratilova was born a citizen of Czechoslovakia (then a Communist country).  She defected to the U.S. when she was 18, in 1975, seeking political asylum - she had already been told by Czech ( Read more... )

1.  Marc Thiessen on Jon Stewart - extended, unedited interview, in three parts.  One of those cases where Jon Stewart looks genuinely disturbed.  Part 3 is like arrgh.  This is Marc Thiessen - he has an endorsement from Dick Cheney: "Marc Thiessen knows, in ways that few others do, just how effective, heroic, and morally justified were the ( Read more... )

At io9 there's a fun little what-it-says-on-the-can article, "Good Character Development Includes The All-Important "F*@% Yeah" Moment."  I enjoyed reading this - I think everyone knows exactly what is meant by a "fuck yeah" moment, even if (like me) you don't know most of the examples cited.  The article says, "It's harder to root for characters ( Read more... )