Miniver Cheevy

Ebert really didn't like The Village . Eventually the secret ... is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only t...

Geekiness warning: follow this link only if you are interested in dice + bad acting, or narrative games in general. You know who you are.

John Kerry opened his speech at the Democratic National Convention saying I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty. which, ...

All in all, the recent wave of comic book movies have treated us better than we had a right to hope for. The two X-Men pictures were smar...

I've been reading Doonesbury for almost 20 years now. But I've effectively been following the strip for the 34 years since its v...

Barbara Ehrenreich makes some pointed comments about the relationship between our principles and our new gulag archipelago. Today, thos...

I have for you a long-for-the-web overview of the Iraq war . It ends in a question: Imagine yourself an Iraqi. You've suffered terrib...

From the convention floor today: You know the old saying: you win some, you lose some. And then there's that little-known third cate...

Whaddaya know! A serious history of both the myth and the reality of ninjas. Of course, that's not what you want. You want things 9-...

Brad DeLong is maddened yet again by our press corps praising by faint damnation. Powell's presentation relied heavily on the clai...

Peter David managed to enjoy I Robot in spite of it doing violence to the spirit of Asimov. Think of it not as I Robot , but Robots of ...

I just bought myself a new motorbike. The thing that struck me in the process of buying this new bike is what a strange sort of decis...

Kevin Drum expresses puzzlement over why real wages for the working class have dipped this year in spite of strong productivity growth. ...

Krugman strikes again . In the original version of The Manchurian Candidate, Senator John Iselin, whom Chinese agents are plotting to p...

Via poorheather : I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such hug...

I recently stumbled across an article in the Village Voice in which the reporter recounts some surreal conversations with conservatives...

Antoun points me at the fascinating essay Superlegitimacy: passion and ecstasy of a Tokyo train driver , which talks about Japanese culture ...

"Who's on first?" for gamers. Very geeky. You've been warned.

Useless Pages

Whenever I think of culture shock, I think of this disconcerting passage from Samuel R. Delaney's science fiction masterpiece Stars i...

Ursula K. LeGuin rocks the house. I just stumbled across "a few grunts" from her about fantasy literature. Some assumptions ar...

Check out this crazy thing . Sure enough, I can't do it. More importantly, the categorizations in this guy's blogroll are the coole...

Just like the old boss: Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at ...

Via my extensive contacts in the world of the occult, I learn that there's a film in the works, Revolt of the Magicians , telling a fic...

Just what you need: an index of cool "404 not found" messages.

A funny little Platonic dialogue . Snoop: I know what its mascot should be .... The Carrboro Communists. Lex: Oooooh. I like it. ...

Bob Dylan, perhaps in kabbalist mystic mode, teaches us that everything is broken. Broken lines, broken strings, Broken threads, broken...

Warren Ellis has another dark poetic situationist rant about the conflict between our humanity and what Bucky Fuller called grunch . So...

This understated comment ran in the Lexington, Kentucky Herald-Leader on Independence Day. It has come to the editor's attention th...

Via Collision Detection I learn that you can check out a current satellite picture of the site for Black Rock City. At the moment I write ...