If anyone's interested in going to see Green Lantern with me when it comes out, let me know.  And if you're debating, this footage might help make up your mind.

You can't tell THAT much from a four-minute clip, apart from that the special effects look spectacular, and that Ryan Reynolds is made of win.  Seriously -  having seen him only in comic ( Read more... )

There are times when it really hits me full force that I'm living in a foreign country.  Exhibit A:  The Royal Wedding.

Man, the Great British Public is going all out for this sucker.  There are going to be STREET PARTIES.  Granted, most of the people I know personally profess to be fed up with the whole thing, aren't interested in watching, could ( Read more... )

... a  giant, intelligent hive-mind super-organism ate the Titanic.

I am DEAD SERIOUS, guys.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, INTERNET!


( Read more... )

The twenty best Mafia nicknames of all time!

I suppose the guy nicknamed "Firehawk" ranks as the coolest (he's ALSO known as Nighthawk, which was my nickname when my brother and I played Thieves' and Assassins' Guild - yes, we were fucked-up children.  But I feel somehow vindicated now).  But my personal favourites have got to be Tony Bagels and ( Read more... )

Unsurprising but really cool:  New research suggests that climate variability has been a factor in political instability in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire.

DUDE.

"So," said Margaret this evening, "you know those vintage-style painted wooden letters?"
"Yes."
"I was thinking some of those would look good above the clock."  Long pause.  "But the temptation to spell out something completely inappropriate..."

We came up with a list of the best phrases for the vintage wooden letters above the pretty floral clock:

RUN ( Read more... )

Arrived from scattered cities, several lands,
intact from sea land, mountain land, and plain,
Item: six surgeons, slightly mangled hands,
Item: three poets, hopelessly insane,

Item: a Russian mother and her child,
the former with five gold teeth and usable shoes,
the latter with seven dresses, peasant-styled.

Item: another hundred thousand Jews.

Item: a ( Read more... )

Driven across many nations, across many oceans,
   I am here, my brother, for this final parting,
to offer at last those gifts which the dead are given
   and to speak in vain to your unspeaking ashes,
since bitter fortune forbids you to hear me or answer,
   O my wretched brother, so abruptly taken!
But now I must celebrate grief with funeral tributes
   ( Read more... )

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly til my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
- "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell

Last Words:  Who said it?

"Either that ( Read more... )