Author: Chuck
Literacy 2008: Book 8: The Graveyard Book
Book The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Synopsis The Jungle Book for goth kids. No, the Real Synopsis After his family is killed, a toddler wanders into the neighboring graveyard. He’s taken in by the residents, raised as one of their own, and taught the ways of the dead. Pros Genius concept, interesting and endearing…
Exhuming McCarthy
Over the past couple of days, there’s been a good bit of attention towards the change in tone of the presidential campaign, more specifically, the McCain campaign. “McCain Denounces Pitchfork-Wavers”, announces the Time Magazine blog. And “Obama Thanks McCain for Admonishing Reporters”. The incident in question is a campaign rally in which McCain told his…
Sequential Images
I wasn’t aware of The Criterion Contraption blog until the author started commenting on here, and I wish I’d found it years ago. It’s exactly the thing I’ve been looking for. The premise is that the aforementioned author, Matthew Dessem, is watching the movies of The Criterion Collection in order by spine number, and writing…
Nostrobamus
Great video from The Jed Report blog, where Obama predicts the McCain/Palin smear campaign. It’s downright calming if you’re like me, and you’ve been watching both the far-left and far-right get increasingly hysterical, and getting worried that we’ll never be able to climb our way out of this nonsense. (Link from David Eggers, no, not…
tl;dr;fu
More proof that ignorance is bliss: I’d been happily reading the internet for at least a year before I knew what “tl;dr” meant. Apparently, it means “too long, didn’t read,” and now it’s got my vote for the absolute worst internet acronym. Ruder than STFU, more arrogant than RTFM, stupider than ROFL, more vapid than…
Towards a More Specific America
The worst thing about you liberals (if I have to pick just one) is the way you’re commandeering our language. With your political correctness, you appropriate words to suit your own political purpose, instead of just saying what they really mean. What happened to using words as they’re supposed to be used, instead of trying…
Back off, man. I’m a scientist.
Previously on Spectre Collie, I made the claim that action-oriented games like shooters and platformers and “action/adventures” haven’t yet lived up to their promise of rendering traditional adventure games obsolete. Conventional wisdom says that adventure games are great stories on top of lousy, illogical, frustrating, and boring gameplay, and therefore Myth 8: If you could…
The Wasillian Candidate
According to a report from Reuters (bolding mine): “There is a time when it’s necessary to take the gloves off and that time is right now,” Palin told thousands of supporters at a rally in a sports arena in Carson, California. Earlier at a fundraiser in Englewood, Colorado, she departed from her usual speech to…
St. Louis Vice, or MONSTER NO HAVE BEAUTY MONSTER KILL BEAUTY!
I had to watch the repeat of the Vice-Presidential debate tonight, which means I got to see all the people a-twittering about it first. Based on what I was reading, I expected something very different from what I saw. But then, I’m about as politically ignorant as you can get. (Without using the word “repug”…
And the preamble goes like this
Since I’ve been confronted with my age (thirty-seven) a lot lately, I’ve been wondering: 1) If you’re around my age (thirty-seven), can you recite the Preamble to the US Constitution? If so, can you do it without singing it? 2) If you’re significantly below my age, can you recite the Preamble to the US Constitution?…
Windows: No doing, no thinking
Microsoft’s ads with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld generated a lot of “controversy” and media attention, for some reason; I thought they were over-long and unfocused, but ultimately harmless. They managed to make a subtle, self-deprecating acknowledgement that Microsoft is perceived as being out of touch, and spun that into a positive: hey look, Windows…