It’s my first attempt at a Fake Criterion, for this month’s Double Fakeout. Technically, this is a triple fakeout: It’s a fake Criterion of a fake film discussed in a fake book from a real book, House of Leaves.
25 Reasons To Watch Doctor Who’s Impossible Astronaut
1. Because we couldn’t ‘spoil’ it if we wanted to
The twists start five minutes in. After 10 minutes, we’ve had more of them than the Doctor’s got years on his clock. And they keep coming until it seems like Steven Moffat’s trying to fry our brains with industrial-strength Moff rays.
We’d love to reveal the plot but just trying to do so makes our heads go wibbly.August 23rd! Woot! *I land in Utah now. Utah is cool.”
*I can, in fact, confirm that Utah is cool.*
Reblogged from Lacking in Style & Substance
Moving again… Back to Blogger.
Yep. So, remember the big deal I made about moving my blog to Tumblr about a year ago?
Well, I’m headed back to my old blog at Blogger, liberté, egalité, trivialité. I may still use Tumblr now and then, but it won’t be my main blog.
Please update your bookmarks, blogrolls, and disturbingly obsessed fan pages to http://liberteegalitetrivialite.blogspot.com
Tags: moving
What the hell?, part II
When I graduated from high school more then 10 years ago, my creative writing teacher gave me a copy of Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird with a lovely handwritten note. It’s a fantastic book, in my opinion one of the best books on writing there is. While I’ve tried to take much of the advice in the book to heart in my own writing, I’ve barley given the actually physical book any notice since.
Minutes ago, I just checked the mailbox from yesterday to find a package addressed to me. I wasn’t expecting anything, so I had no idea what it could be.
The package is from Kansas City Community College (a school that I’ve never even heard of) label with a handwritten “from” written above it. It was addressed to me, so I ripped it open.
Inside was a brand new copy of Bird by Bird.
I have no idea.
Tags: mystery
Mysterious Appliance Repair? What the hell!?!?!??!
So, something very very strange and totally mystifying just happened, and I cannot figure out any possible explanation. What’s your theory about this?
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Background: When I moved into my house (3 years ago), I got a new fridge with an auto ice-maker. There was an existing water line from the wall which I hooked up, but could never find where the line originated from, so I couldn’t turn it on. If I remember correctly (and I may not), the previous owners mentions that they could never get it to work either. I shrugged my shoulders and used ice trays from there on out. Not a big deal.
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Fast forward to two hours ago. I just got home from a week in San Diego, during which time no one (to my knowledge) has even been in my house except to pick up my dog the day I left.
I was home for all of three minutes when I heard a sound. A sound that is instantly recognizable, but that I’ve never heard in my house before: the sound of an automatic ice-maker filling with water. I opened the freezer and looked in the ice maker bucket: it was empty (well, there was a bag of peas: since it never worked, I used the space for other stuff). I stuck my finger in the ice maker to find it filled with fresh, room-temperature water.
Just now, the ice maker popped out its first batch of ice ever, and filled up with water for another one.
WHAT IS GOING ON!!!??!?!??!?!?? Why did I start working out of no where? How (and where!?!?) did the water get turned on? And why did this happen moments after I came home from a week away!??
I have no explanations here. I can’t think of any scenario — even bullshit supernatural ones (the ghost of the Maytag repairman? Joke’s on him: it’s a Whirlpool!) — that are remotely satisfying here… This is an absolutely trivial thing, but it’s also one of the strangest experiences of my life.
Any thoughts?
Iowa House passes constitutional ban on same-sex marriage | Iowa Independent
Contrary to the fear-mongering of Santorum, et al, the only case of human-animal marriage I’m aware of is in a country where the punishment for homosexual sex is death.
GOP Rep. Anderson says gay marriage likely will lead to legalized polygamy, incest.
“If we remove the gender requirement for marriage, there is no rational basis to define the number,” he said. “So we open up the possibility of the constitutional recognition of polygamous relationships. That’s a slippery slope. And I don’t know where the logic is to draw the line. We wouldn’t recognize incestuous relationships between two consenting adult brothers and sisters. That raises up within us disgust, and we can’t accept that. We draw lines. We define marriage.”
GRRRR
The “slippery slope” is a logical fallacy. As Bill Maher put it, giving women the right to vote didn’t lead to hamsters voting. Hey, if you want to “draw lines,” how about you draw a line that says, “Two consenting human adults can marry one another if they are of age and not siblings.” There. There’s a line.
Has England legalized polygamy? Has Mexico legalized bestiality? Has Canada legalized incest? NO. There is no precedent, anywhere, for gay marriage to lead to any of those things.
GRRRR
Reblogged from STFU, Conservatives
Report: 97% of scientists say man-made climate change is real - the expertise of the other 3% is "is far below that of their colleagues"
This data comes from a new survey out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study found that 97 percent of scientific experts agree that climate change is “very likely” caused mainly by human activity.
The report is based on questions posed to 1,372 scientists. Nearly all the experts agreed that it is “very likely that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for most of the unequivocal warming of the Earth’s average global temperature in the second half of the twentieth century.”
Click here for an interactive graphic that shows how global warming occurs.
As for the 3 percent of scientists who remain unconvinced, the study found their average expertise is far below that of their colleagues, as measured by publication and citation rates.
In the study, the authors wrote: “This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change.”
The study authors were William R.L. Anderegg, James W. Prall, Jacob Harold and Stephen H. Schneider.
The report comes as the Earth continues to sizzle in 2010. So far, through May, 2010 is the warmest year ever recorded, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Shocking.
Reblogged from Iconoclastically Queer
272
Yesterday, I weighed in at 272. That’s down 2 pounds since last week, and 14 pounds from when I started this project 3 weeks ago (granted, 11 of that was from the week I was sick).
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So what am I doing? Well, one of my Favorite People on All the Internets, Greta Christina, recently had a post on her weight loss, and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t involve any magic powder or a bullshit fad diet. It comes down to the basics, and it’s the same thing I’m doing:
Power Balance wristbands!
Really, it comes down to making sure that the calories you expend are greater than the calories you take in. That means being more active and eating fewer calories.
And the key to that is keeping track of it all. I’m using the Livestrong Calorie Tracker for iPhone. There are other smartphone calorie trackers out there that I’m sure are equally as good, but this is the one I use, and I love it. Based on your own goals, it keeps track of your daily allotment of calories, subtracting from your “pool” based on what you eat, and adding for any physical activity.
Since it’s on my phone, it’s always with me whether I’m stopping in at the coffee shop on a walk (like yesterday), or at a party with friends (it’s a lot less awkward pulling out your phone and tapping away for a few seconds to account for that brownie than pulling out a notebook and calculator).
274
Just a reminder to get your flu shot if you haven’t already. You don’t want it. Next year, I think I may try to be first in line rather thinking that, oh, I’ll get around to it eventually.
The week before last, I’d lost 11 pounds due to me being super super sick. This week, my body was in repair mode, which means I still felt like crap, but felt less and less so each day. In fact, it’s really just today that I really feel truly recovered. Ungh.
I was expecting to actually be up from last week since I was focusing on getting well instead of losing weight. But I’m down just a bit at 274.
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Also, I’ll try to write about something else this week. I never intended this to be a “weight-loss blog” but that’s all I’ve written about for three weeks. Feel free to drop a question into my Ask box to inspire me.
Oh, and since I changed my layout, things are looking pretty barren around here. One of these days I’ll flesh this new layout out. But that day will not be today.
Tags: weight loss
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