Category: Entertainment

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Saw The Golden Compass. Enjoyed it a lot, though it felt very rushed, and I think it would have benefitted from having the actual ending instead of cutting it off early. Here’s hoping they do well enough in the long run to greenlight the next film. Now I can re-read the books.

Also watched Tin Man. 5 stars for concept, but only 2 for execution. The Wizard of Oz meets The Dark Crystal by way of 1930s scifi was fascinating as a concept, but they managed to make it dull and tedious. The only reason I watched through to the end was it was Friday night, and I was tired enough that knew I wasn’t going to be doing anything useful with the time anyway, and I knew I could sleep in the next morning.

Speaking of Tin Man, just out of curiosity: how does one manage to have a solar eclipse during a full moon, anyway?

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Organization for Transformative Works – dedicated to protecting the expression of fan fiction, fan art, etc. (via Naomi Novik)

Open Standards, One Web, and Opera – Just why are standards important, anyway? (via Opera Watch)

Speaking of Opera, their EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft has been making waves. Responses at CSS3.info, Web Standards Project, Slashdot (edit: more Slashdot), Asa Dotzler, Opera Watch, plus a Q&A w/ Haarvard. My take: Good luck on unbundling, but if they can force Microsoft to catch up with the rest of the market in terms of standards support, I’m all for it.

Nissan vs. Nissan. On my way to work I saw a bumper sticker on an XTerra that said “In support of our freedom, it’s my last Nissan.” Huh? There was clearly a web address below it, but it was too small to read at that distance. So I looked up the phrase, and apparently there’s been a long-running dispute over the domain name nissan.com, between a small computer business named after its founder, Uzi Nissan, and the Nissan car company. The dispute was eventually resolved (correctly, IMO, since he has a legit reason to use the name) in favor of the little guy. On the other hand, I don’t see why the site makes such a big deal about Nissan’s “French Connection” to Renault.

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Epic Pooh – Michael Moorcock on the state of fantasy literature, originally written in the 1970s but updated for the 21st century. The title comes from comparing the style of Lord of the Rings to Winnie the Pooh. I have no problem reading and enjoying both his work and Tolkien’s, and it doesn’t bother me that Phillip Pullman dislikes Tolkien’s work as well.

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Found this while wandering around the Lemon Heights area a few weeks ago, looking for scenic viewpoints. It’s on the Skyline trail, near Peters Canyon park.

Yield sign with 3-way diagram with icons and arrows.

It seems to be saying this:

  • Cyclists* yield to pedestrians and horses.
  • Pedestrians yield to horses.
  • Horses yield to no one.

But if you’ve never seen it before, the meaning isn’t clear at a glance.

Apparently the idea is to make everyone stop and try to work out the diagram, so that they can start moving again in the right order.

*Or perhaps only bicycles, since there’s no rider in the picture.

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The Village, a disturbingly-named apartment complex across from the Irvine Spectrum shopping center, has been advertising in the nearby area for a couple of years using the slogan, “A new meaning for…” with various images and phrases. For a while, the following photo and caption seemed to be everywhere:

Blonde woman lifting her head out of a swimming pool, giving a "come hither" look.
A New Meaning For Heated Pool

A not-terribly-subtle example of the advertising maxim, “sex sells.” Somewhere along the line I decided she looked like Rebecca Romijn, and dubbed her Mystique.

Eventually I realized what the photo reminded me of: the promotional images for the movie Wild Things:

Neve Campbell and Denise Richards lifting their heads out of a swimming pool.

The apartments have removed the image from their website (you can still find it on the Internet Archive), but it’s still all over the shopping center kiosks. So while watching Beowulf there, it seemed somehow appropriate when Grendel’s mother struck the same pose:

Grendel’s mother (digital Angelina Jolie) lifting her head out of a pool

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Ad: Faster than a man in tights.Speedster? Check.
“World’s fastest man?” Check.
Skin-tight costume? Check.
Wings on head? Check.
Lightning motif? Check.
Round insignia on chest? Check.
Yellow boots? Check.

I first saw this ad for movietickets.com with 3:10 To Yuma a few months ago. He’s trying to impress his date by running and buying the tickets for their movie while they’re still at dinner. The show’s sold out, but it turns out she’s already bought the tickets online. Noticed a poster outside afterward. Amazingly, they’ve got the video clip online. And they’re selling posters. *shudder*

I haven’t been quite sure what to do with it, since I’m not sure I’m ready to start in on listing every parody of the Flash to ever appear in media.

Hmm, now that I think about it the Blur in that Baby Ruth commercial back in the 90s was blue, too.

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