Ha!

NBCOlympics.com: Oh, hai! Please enter your zip code.

yendi: Ok. Here it is.

NBCOlympics.com: Now tell us who your cable provider is.

yendi: RCN

NBCOlympics.com: Sorryz! We don't want you here.

yendi: Okay. Let me just zap your motherfucking cookies.

NBC Olympics: Oh, hai! Please enter your zip code.

yendi: Ok. Here it is.

NBCOlympics.com: Now tell us who your cable provider is.

yendi: Comcast.

NBCOlympics.com: Enjoy the Olympics!

ESPN: The Magazine for $8.

Tanga is selling a year of ESPN: The Magazine for $8!

Note that you have to click on the offer, copy down the coupon code on that page, add the item to your cart, and then enter the code to get the discount (otherwise it shows up at the price of $29.97). It's a mild pain in the ass, but the price is damned good.

The magazine deal turns over every day at 10PM (unlike the game deals, which change constantly), but I've seen other good ones (Games for $13 was a nice one). It's worth checking once a day or so.

*Snort*

"The legal definition of torture has been much aired in recent years, and I take “Mamma Mia!” to be a useful contribution to that debate."

Anthony Lane's review of Mamma Mia! is delightfully full of snark. Also some very solid analysis of why it fails as a musical film and as an adaptation of a successful play.

As a bonus feature, Lane's column also reviews Journey to the Center of the Earth, in which he notes that other films might have benefitted from the 3-D treatment: "I might not have nodded off during “The Hours,” for example, if regularly prodded awake by the giant schnozzle of Virginia Woolf."

Insurance for writers, artists, etc

We're lucky -- I'm employed full-time (with any writing gigs coming in addition to my day job), and shadesong, of course, is on my insurance. But there are a lot of artists and writers who find themselves without insurance. Colleen Doran, of A Distant Soil fame, has put together a great post listing resources and offering some advice.

Tuesday linkdump

Yesterday was server-upgrade day, so I was mostly not on the intarwebs. Playing catch-up now.

1. There's a Chef Duff minimate! Complete with chainsaw (because that's how you make cakes, right?).

2. Rotten Tomatoes has a Coraline sneak peak.

3. Best. Worldcon report. Evar.

4. Orson Scott Card: Homophobic Humpty Dumpty.

5. Seth Green on Heroes!

6. The 20 most addictive browser games. I'll vouch for Kingdom of Loathing, of course.

7. Seven things to never say to a customer service rep, and seven things to definitely say.

8. Bacon: Less inflammatory than tilapia (ganked from rubian77).

9. I missed Martha Plimpton singing the theme song to the Jeffersons? Noooo!

10. Finally, Patrick Nielsen Hayden notes the lack of Hugo winners under the age of 45. In comments, Elizabeth Bear notes the Worldcon/Wiscon gap. Others note the price factor of Worldcon (sorry, but when you buy memberships to Wiscon, Boskone, Minicon, Arisia, and Readercon for the same total price, it's hard to look at a very tight budget and even think about blowing it on one con). The comments keep bringing up more and more interesting points on SF, writing, cons, fandom, and other stuff. Read the whole thread.

Why I love Middleman, again

"But I was just about to order a cruller named after the Battle of Crete." The entire restaurant would not have felt out of place on Pushing Daisies.

And then we get characters with names like Rosa Klebb, Harry Lime, Alexander Scott, Kelly Robinson, Harry Rule, Contessa Caroline di Contini, Anatol Gogol, Lloyd Cramden, and Count Manzeppi (not to mention "The Scot" and Balthorium and the Honey Ryder/Thunderball lines).

ETA: As noted by taraljc, themiddleblog is posting complete annotations (working backwards, so only the two most recent eps are currently up).