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I experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance earlier today. I was listening to a report on The World (PRI) about the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, and a reporter (Stephen McConnell) was explaining the Australian political situation for an American audience. (Why? They’ve got an election coming up in a month. Comparisons to the Madrid bombing should be obvious at this point.)

He explained, “It’s a two-horse race. You’ve got the conservatives, who in this country are called the Liberals, and then there’s the Labor Party, which would be much more aligned to something like the Democrats…”

It’s a lot more complicated, of course, but the idea of conservatives calling themselves liberals just seemed bizarre, considering that the terms are opposites here in the US. For all practical purposes, conservative and liberal are swear words when used by someone of the opposite ideology!

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Yes, Star Wars has changed again [archive.org].

Looking at the comparisons, it seems most of the changes really have just been cleanup. They finally fixed the compositing in the Rancor pit, for instance. And some of the Special Edition bits that didn’t work quite right, like the Jabba scene in A New Hope, have been redone. (He now looks closer to the Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace versions.) They’ve also cleared up some continuity glitches. Nothing wrong with that — I’m all for fixing things that are genuinely broken.

Then there’s the annoying stuff:

  • Han and Greedo shooting simultaneously is better than the Special Edition… but really, there was no reason to change it in the first place. Han’s a smuggler, and he was in an obvious shoot-or-be-shot situation. Why not just restore it?
  • Inserting Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker. Again, not necessary. First of all, under the helmet he’s so smashed up you can’t even tell it’s him in the new version. (Edit: Oops — it turns out it isn’t him in that first scene. They just erased the original actor’s eyebrows.) Secondly, what was wrong with the shot of his ghost? I suppose they appealed to continuity, but if they really cared that much they’d have waited until Jake Lloyd grew up so they could use him in Episode II. (It also doesn’t help that he looks younger than Mark Hamill.)
  • Since the Hayden Christensen rumor turned out to be true, I really hope they haven’t decided to insert a gratuitous Natalie Portman flashback to the “Do you remember your mother?” scene (as has also been rumored). Nothing against Natalie Portman, I just don’t see how it will add anything. More likely it would break the scene up.

Anyway, for those who want to skip the commentary, here’s the USA Today article and here’s the side-by-side comparisons.

Update 9/10: Here’s another writeup that goes into more detail on the changes and reviews the DVD set as a whole.

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Not five minutes ago I received my first 419 scam in a language other than English.

What’s strange is that even though it uses normal case and I can’t read more than a few words of French, it’s still obvious what it is. It has the same general structure with the opening, the “Excuse me for contacting you even though you don’t know me” line (I think), talks about a sub-Saharan African nation (Côte d’Ivoire), and of course, “($8,500,000) Huit Millions Cinq Cent Mille Dollars Américains.”

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On the way to work this morning, Katie noticed one of those ubiquitous catering trucks and remarked, “With a name like ‘Superior Coffee,’ you know it probably isn’t.” It’s a useful guideline: if a company has to tell you something is gourmet, for instance, that means it can’t count on its reputation alone.

That reminded me of a story David Weber told at a convention about the first Honor Harrington book. They were almost ready to go to press when he got a call from his editor.

“I’ve been thinking. Your viewpoint characters are in the Royal Manticoran Navy. The villains are the Republic of Haven. Isn’t that backwards? Shouldn’t the monarchy be the bad guys?”

They went back and forth a bit, until one of them said, “What if it’s the People’s Republic of Haven?”

They agreed that was a good solution, and then proceeded to look through the proofs for a place where they could insert the word without moving the page breaks around. As I recall, he said they only found one spot, and possibly the map, but he used the full name in the rest of the series.

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There’s a park just past the corner of Elrond and Ridge Route, and as I left that intersection I spotted a flock of about ten rather large ducks (Edit: it has been pointed out to me that most of these are actually Canada geese) walking across the park. I pulled over to start taking pictures, and realized that there were actually dozens of them, wandering around near the small (presumably artificial) lake that gives the park its name, Village Pond Park.

A line of geese.
Trekking across the park. Continue reading →

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A few years ago I lived in the city of Lake Forest (formerly El Toro) for a bit. One of the interesting things about Lake Forest is its collection of streets named after characters and places in Lord of the Rings. (And yes, these were around long before the movies were made.)

I still drive past Gondor Drive on my way back from the comic store, and I’ve been meaning to get a picture of the street sign for a while. It turned out to be too hard to shoot without actually aiming, so I turned onto a smaller street where I knew I could catch Elrond Lane:

Corner of Elrond and Ridge Route

Other Tolkien-inspired streets include: Buckland Lane, Bywater Road (and it is at least near water), Rivendell Drive, Shadowfax Drive and Brandywine Lane.

While checking the Thomas Guide for some of the ones I missed, I just discovered a neighborhood with Sesame Street, Muppet Lane, Big Bird, Oscar, Grover, and Cookie Monster. And Kurmit [sic], though I suppose that could be a typo.

And then there’s Dana Point, which has the Street of the Green Lantern. Of course, it has about 20 named Street of the fill-in-the-blank Lantern — Blue, Amber, Golden, Silver, Violet, etc. [Update: Here are some Green Lantern Street photos.]

Update Sep. 24: Here’s a blurry picture of the Gondor street sign:
Gondor Street Sign