Under The Dome
Cloud AtlasI highly recommend Dreamhost.
Having written my review of Evil Dead yesterday, today is the rants, delights, and nit picking session. Needless to say, Spoilers ahoy! I will hand it to Alvarez and Sayagues that they didn’t fall into the stereotypes as deeply as one might expect. This isn’t Cabin in the Woods. But leave it to the hipster [… Read More]
First, the coverage of the Boston bombing on Popehat has been amazing. The gang over there have been doing a bang-up job writing from new angles about the event. My two favorite are: “security theater, martial law, and a tale that trumps every cop-and-donut joke you’ve ever heard” in which Clark wrote about the enormous [… Read More]
I’ve often lamented to my classes that the Internet has not yet come up with the electrate equivalent of the library shelf. Denizens of the library recognize the collectors’ delight in the surprising find, the book that’s near the one we wanted but not directly related to it. It might be two shelves up, or [… Read More]
Fair warning: Thorough research for this post may take you a few minutes, as you have some link-reading to do. Background: Brandywine books is the blog of novelist Lars Walker and a couple of his friends (or just one?, hi Phil!). Walker reviews books at a prodigious pace (faster than me) and writes about a [… Read More]
One of the Planet Money podcasters mentioned, a while back, that the American people are really dumb about how we understand taxes and spending (my words, not his). Some of us complain when the government spends money by collecting it and then disbursing it, but few of us complain when the government spends money by [… Read More]
Snow White and the Huntsman I’d normally save this up to do a double review, but I have a lot to say about this movie, so here goes. First, the positives. This is a pretty movie. It looks GREAT. The costume designers, set designers, FX artists, and cinematographers did an amazing job. I love the [… Read More]
The most invigorating and lively panel I attended was the Professional Development panel chaired by Bob Batchelor on Saturday morning at 11:15. Four of us presented to a packed house, offering ideas and explorations of the current pop culture landscape and considering how Pop Culture studies and Theory could interact in the future. Quick summaries [… Read More]
Tempe Brennan just gave birth on Bones last week, and I was annoyed by a couple things: No way she would be pro-home birth. The clinical and scientific research shows a significant risk in giving birth at home, and I just find her character too scientific to act the way she was acting. Lame. Pregnancies, [… Read More]
This happened last week. I was on my way into the restroom at work, following about three steps behind a hipster wearing a knit hat and a backpack. As I rounded the corner, I could hear one of the sinks going full blast and could see that no one was standing by them. The man [… Read More]
Libertarianism–at least as I understand it and Jillette seems to agree–takes as its central premise that it’s unethical for the government to coerce anyone to do anything. The government should only provide protection to its citizens in the form of a limited police force and a military. Everything else should be resolved in the free [… Read More]
Two conversations I had in high school, with friends of different Christian sects, would stay in my mind a long time, becoming a crucial part of how I understood my own relationship to religion for years. Driving to some group outing (I want to say bowling, even though this was not part of our usual [… Read More]
I recently sold a futon/bunk bed on Craigslist, pricing it relatively low so as to get rid of it quickly. I had a number of nice inquiries, but I also had this one: Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 14:10:45 -0600 Subject: Futon couch/bed with twin bunk above – $50 (Forest Park, IL) From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX To: [… Read More]
I download my monthly bolus from emusic somewhere around the first of each month (usually on the first itself, as long as that’s a week day). I listen to the music for a month, then I go back and rate it when I’m getting ready for next month’s music. It takes me a while to [… Read More]
A really interesting post appeared on Regretsy last Friday. Regretsy is a pretty rough (for the kinds of places I go on the Internet, anyway) community where people get together to laugh at things they find obnoxious on Etsy, the leading website for craft-sellers. Often the site makes fun of typos in ads, people re-selling [… Read More]
I rarely give up on a book. Most of the time, when I start a book, I power through to the end, even if I don’t like it. There are a few reasons for this: I’ve read enough books that turned out great despite having rocky starts that I generally give the author the benefit [… Read More]