Tuesday morning links/stuff

[yendi]

1. We saw Ocean's 13 last night, and quite enjoyed it. Not as good as the first movie, but not nearly as awful as the second. And it contains possibly my favorite surprise cameo since Alex Trebek on The X-Files.

2. A good day for DVDs. Season 1 of Eureka comes out today (with about nine hours of bonus footage). And Amazon's Deal of the Day is Roughnecks: The Complete Starship Troopers for $25 (50% off). This was one of the more unfortunately overlooked cartoons of the '90s, but it's definitely worth grabbing.

3. Also, Eureka, Season 2 in one week! Yay! And check out the Made in Eureka page for nifty toys!

4. Lewis Shiner has made his short fiction available for free online (via a CCL). If you're not familiar with Shiner, well, now's your chance to fix that.

5. *Sigh* Pluto has been kicked off kid-oriented jigsaw puzzles. Yes, I'm still in denial.

6. RealClimate continues, using actual, you know, facts, to debunk the crap that Michael Crichton and his followers spew regarding climate change. I'm sure that many of the scientists at the blog will eventually make cameos in Crichton's next novel as small-dicked child molesters.

7. We have the new album by S.J. Tucker (aka s00j), and it kicks eight kinds of ass.

8. All this week, The Comics Page is hosting an exclusive and never-before-published set of Amelia Rules! comics! Yay!

9. Nathan Fillion is in talks to join the cast of Desperate Housewives.

10. Finally, you can download the latest issue of Amelia Rules (one of about five current comics that still makes me happy to be a comic book reader) for free (and legally)! Note that the resolution leaves a little to be desired.

Comments

Roughnecks

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Ah, another dicked-around series. Wasn't the episode order all jumbled or something, worse-than-Firefly mixed-up? And how many episodes were there eventually?

[litch.livejournal.com]

eureka annoyed the crap out of me and I quit watching it after the first season. It was so damn stupid, like watching what idiots thought smart people were like.

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I decided to try to read Crichton's newest novel, Next, and it was just horrid... and not just because he attacks his real world enemies in a completely non-subtle manner ("small-dicked scientists" is not far from how he actually depicts them), but the plot... *shudder*

It's baffling to remember how excited I was after reading Jurassic Park when it first came out, to find this great new author I'd never read before... and then being continuously disappointed with nearly everything else he's written, and the sharp downward spiral his recent work has taken. Orson Scott Card has become the same way: having his own beliefs integrated into the stories so strongly that it derails the plot!

Gee, if I'd known I was going to write so much, I might've just made this an entry in my own LJ! :)

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

I know Lew Shiner is considered one of the fathers of cyberpunk, but I just don't see it in his novels. (OK, I haven't read Frontera yet, which was his first, but I've got Slam, Glimpses & the one about Laurie Moss. Maybe one more, too.

Maybe going back to his short stories will shed some light on his influence. Otherwise, I just see him as general magical realism..

[allah-sulu.livejournal.com]

5. *Sigh* Pluto has been kicked off kid-oriented jigsaw puzzles. Yes, I'm still in denial.

(At first, I thought you were talking about the Disney dog. I was confused.)

It's a not a "planets of the solar system" puzzle, though; it does have the sun, moon, asteroids, stars, and an opening jumpgate full of Minbari. No reason why they had to dump Pluto.

[yendi]

No reason except for the ongoing anti-Pluto bias practiced by our pro-Neptune media, that is.

No, I'm not still bitter.

[yendi]

My first exposure to him was the DC series The Hacker Files, which were definitely on the cyber edge of the DCU. But Frontera is definitely cyberpunk, even if his later works aren't.

[yendi]

*nod* The Card/Crichton comparison is a valid one (although I think that Card is a much more gifted writer to start with).

[yendi]

I enjoy is as fun, light sci-fi. It's also serving as a nice gateway show for our daughter to appreciate sci-fi.

Re: Roughnecks

[yendi]

I never actually saw more than one or two eps when it aired, so I'm not sure, alas. :-(

[allah-sulu.livejournal.com]

If you were still bitter, you would have called them pro-Uranus.

Re: Roughnecks

[chaoset.livejournal.com]

It was pretty badly jumbled around, but there were still a decent number of episodes. Unfortunately, from what I remember, You don't really get a proper ending to the Earth Campaign.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

"Nathan Fillion is in talks to join the cast of Desperate Housewives."

I guess that means Desperate Housewives will be cancelled soon. Much as I like him, no show that man is on seems to last very long.

[soph-nyc.livejournal.com]

All through Ocean's 13 I kept drooling over the hotel. I couldn't get over the windows and architecture and color and... shiny! I liked the rest of the movie too, but what I remember most is the hotel.

It kind of felt like some of the stuff was more for the actors than the audience. Anyway, entertaining for the time it lasted (and it made me completely miss one of the worse thunderstorms of the year, so I really had no complaints).

[yendi]

Well, Lost has withstood Fillion's guest shot, so I think that DH might have a hope.

[bluedressdevil.livejournal.com]

From reading you and your wife's lj I know you are a bacon fan so I was wondering if you had seen that vosges has a new Bacon Chocolate Bar (http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/bacon_exotic_candy_bar/exotic_candy_bars)

I tried it this past weekend and it was very good., I almost wished there was more bacon in it.

[blazingmoogle.livejournal.com]

Lost had Deleen giving her "Somehow, we scrapped a fifth season" magic, that counteracted Fillions "We got a couple episodes, its goin-CANCELED"

[yendi]

We're very aware of those bars. :-) Still haven't tried them (the shipping price is obscene), but I tried the bacon truffle earlier, and it was lovely. I'm definitely planning on grabbing one of these at some point.

[yendi]

It kind of felt like some of the stuff was more for the actors than the audience.

That's the case for me, too, but unlike the second film (which was purely for the actors as well), this one managed to amuse me.

[bluedressdevil.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the shipping is quite the pain. I got some truffles for my husband (the chocoholic in our relationship) and it was ridiculous. We went to Vegas this past weekend and specifically sought out the Vosges boutique store. The people at the store claaaaaimed you can talk to your local whole foods about carrying their products but I don't know how much sway that requires for whole foods to listen.