Bored Stiff

Not actually bored at work. To the contrary, I'm busy as fuck (covering for people who are out, fighting various fires, and passing along all manner of exciting news).

No, the title is a riff on that of a book I've been poking at, Scared Stiff, (Ramsey Cambell).

I think that this collection of Mr. Campbell's "erotic horror" stories is going to join a short and non-illustrious list - that of books I will *never* finish, once I've started reading them.

That list, in more or less the order I started reading them:
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Underworld, Don DeLillo
Shardik, Richard Adams
Blade Runner 2, K.W. Jeter[1]
Scared Stiff, Ramsey Campbell

What do all these books have in common? They bored my tits off.

Dishonorable mentions go to Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, Jonathan Littell's Bad Voltage, William Gibson/Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine, and K.W. Jeter's Noir[2] for being books I wish I'd never read, but finished anyways.

Clearly, cyberpunk doesn't have a lot of middle ground; it's either awesome, or awful.

[1] - Worst book I've ever tried to read
[2] - Worst book I've ever read in its entirety

Billions and Billions Served

The Carl Sagan Blog-a-thon.

I've worn my copy of COSMOS to tatters with numerous re-readings. I've watched and re-watched the series (both on the air when it was initially shown, the current Tuesday night broadcasts on National Geographic, and courtesy of the gift of the DVD box set) avidly.

I don't even mind that the combination of his voice and the Vangelis-esque soundtrack puts me to sleep; the pure beauty of science, leavened with the forthright cautionary assertion that people stand on the cusp of really fucking things up for themselves.

"To truly make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

[link courtesy of theonebob]

Denial by any other name

Ann Coulter is so cute when she's a raging hypocrite..

No, wait... she's an emaciated harpy who needs to have her hands and tongue torn away before she is fed to fire ants.

Ann, news flash for ya. Your ilk made words like "liberal," "activist," "secular," and "progressive" epithets.

Have a nice big game of hide and go fuck yourself, on me.