Wednesday Amazon Deals

Heroscape: Swarm of the Marro is $12 (70% off)! Jump on this one (and ask for a refund if you bought it for more).

The Rick Bayless Bean Pot is $19.99 (50% off). I don't know if it's endorsed by Burger King.

The Video Game Deal of the Day is Stranglehold Collector's Edition for the PS3 for $39.99 (43% off).

The Aly and AJ Adventure for the DS is $14.99 (50% off). Note that neither of these girls, unlike Jamie Lynn Spears, is pregnant (as far as I know).

Cranium Whoonu is $4.50 (70% off).

The Litebook Elite Hand-Held Light Therapy Device is $80.64 (59% off).

Today's Video Game Lightning Deal, at 5PM Eastern Time (2PM Pacific) is a Gamecube for $49.99.

Finally, the 8GB iPod Touch ($269.99, 10% off) and the 16GB iPod Touch ($359.99, 10% off) both come with free next-day shipping. Nice.

(See this post for a few book, video game, and and ottoman deals, this post for active toy/game and book deals, this one for cameras, cookware, and coffee, this one for more cameras, and this one for DVD deals).

Bonus Amazon Deal: sub-$200 HD DVD Player/next day shipping

Amazon's got the Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD Player for $199.98 with free next day shipping. It also comes with free copies of 300 and The Bourne Identity, and you can (and should) use this form to get five more HD DVDs for free.

Status of the Veronica Mars comic series

According to Rob Thomas (as quoted at TV Guide) "I had a second meeting with DC comics. I heard that the [WGA] didn't want [TV writers penning TV-based] comic books during the strike as it would promote a network property. We're investigating whether there are similar hurdles for a defunct TV series like Veronica Mars. Naturally, I won't be writing it if the Guild doesn't want me to, but we're hoping that's not the case."

Please let them make exceptions for shows no longer on TV. Please.

Rachel Nichols is Scarlett. Dead Zone is Dead.

1. The hot but not-that-talented star of The Inside will play Scarlett in the G.I.Joe movie. It's possible that she showed more talent on Alias, but with The Inside, the show succeeded (as much as it did) because of the folks like Peter Coyote, Katie Finneran, and Adam Baldwin.

She does have the look down, at least. Assuming she dyes her hair.

2. The Dead Zone is Dead. As is The 4400 (a numbered show that still managed to use a fucking article, unlike certain Frank Miller-inspired movies).

No diet today.

My officemate brought in home-made dark-chocolate-covered pretzels. With dark chocolate M&Ms embedded in the chocolate.

If they only had some bacon in them, they'd be perfect.

Flat Earth!

No, this post is not about Mike Huckabee. It's about the fact that Tanith Lee's Flat Earth books are coming back into print. Yay!

My wife and I disagree on Lee's writing, but these books were hugely influential in my younger days, both in terms of reading and writing. I was ten or eleven when I ordered the first collection from the Sci-Fi Book Club, and I'd never encountered something that played with story structure (or adult themes) in the way Night's Master did.

My Mini City

Woohoo! I'm up to the third link (transportation).

Today's wrongest thing in the universe

A techno-dance version of Hava Negila. Lots of jarring musical juxtopositions, and equal amounts of visual ones (if we'd had someone in this miniskirt dancing at my Bar Mitzvah, it would have been the most memorably party of the year).

Speaking of wrong

The Victoria's Secret Stuffer Bear (no comment on the name) has been recalled because the zipper pull might be a hazard to small children.

To which I have to ask: Who the fuck gives anything from Victoria's Secret (even a bear) to young children?

Bwahaha!

Lynn Spears's parenting book has been delayed indefinitely.

I'm assuming she'll release it in a couple of years, retitled as a book on grandparenting.

Well, now.

"I wouldn't do nudity in a film. To act with my clothes on is a performance. To act with my clothes off is a documentary." -- Julia Roberts

I would like to note that I watched a ton of "documentaries" on channel J while growing up, and they were instrumental in getting me through the early years of puberty. And to think I'd never known the technical term for those movies.

Heh

Some morons in South Carolina are attempting to get Creationism put back into the schools, and using the standard review of textbooks as one method.

This response to a Creationist reviewer, in particular, is wonderful.

My favorite specific responses from within that document:

• Page 385: Curiously, the reviewer complains that the appendix has been mistakenly cited as a
vestigial organ when it actually performs a useful, if non-essential function. This comment suggests
that the review does not understand the meaning of the word “vestigial,” which does not imply that
an organ is without function. Rather, it means that the organ is reduced in size and importance, a
“vestige” of its appearance in other organisms, as our text correctly notes. The comment also
suggests that the reviewer has not read our book carefully, since we do not cite the appendix as such
an organ.

• Page 385: The reviewer makes the curious claim that we “fail to cite a resource where Charles
Darwin outlines his theory of evolution.” Darwin outlined his theory in his book On the Origin of
Species, as we previously noted, so this objection of the reviewer is without merit.

• Page 414: I do not have a copy of the textbook which contains this particular question, and
therefore cannot comment on this criticism. As soon as I am able to obtain such a copy, I will
address the reviewer’s concerns on this question.