I'm on a bit of a Carl Sagan kick right now. Working my way through the Cosmos series and reading some of his books. The Demon-Haunted World is a masterwork of open-minded skepticism. I'm going to read Contact next. I saw the movie years ago and I remember it affected me a lot. It asked a lot of questions that I didn't have the answers to. Though ( Read more... )

A beautiful and inspiring message from a sort of idol of mine, Carl Sagan. Taken from "The Pale Blue Dot".

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( Meet the Brewer's Blackbird. )

I went through a several-year phase in high school where I was obsessed my parents' deaths. It really tore me up. I worried about them for every second I wasn't with them, if they got sick I was terrified. I had constant stomach aches and was anxious all the time. Sometimes I stayed awake all night and sometimes I cried myself to sleep. But I never ( Read more... )

I saw Hot Fuzz last night. It's everything that an action-packed buddy cop movie should be, while also sending up the whole thing in a brilliant spoof of everything that's ridiculous about the buddy cop action movie genre. It's very much like Shawn of the Dead in that it roasts what it's spoofing mercilessly, while showing a lot of affection for it ( Read more... )

Last night I had a dream that I came home from work to find that my whole apartment had been renovated during the day and was now completely made of wood. Everything, walls, floor, furniture, television (although the toaster was still normal 0_0). And it wasn't even nice polished wood, it was pale raw wood. I wandered upstairs and found to my ( Read more... )

I was doing laundry tonight. My apartment's laundromat is officially closed at 9:00, but I hardly ever see it actually locked at night. I think the manager just forgets most of the time. Well tonight I had the misfortune to forget it was in there, and when I went to get it around 9:30, the door was locked. This was very annoying because I go to ( Read more... )

I saw a medical show on the Discovery channel a while ago (it was a reenactment) about a woman who been hiccuping for a week. The doctor on duty tried every method he could think of (stand her on her head, make her drink water, scare her, etc.) and nothing worked. So at the very end he tried something he saw on some television show somewhere- he ( Read more... )

I finally got to see Pan's Labyrinth today and WOW. I've been a fan of Guillermo Del Toro since Hellboy came out a few years ago and I've been hearing about this film for as long, and considering all that time waiting and all the hype that's built up around the film I would have thought it couldn't live up to my expectations (though I'd hate to let ( Read more... )

I saw "Children Of Men" this afternoon and it's just as good as all the reviews are saying. It's about a horrible future world and it's just as violent and unflinching as it needs to be, while still keeping its characters human and showing us how important it is that they stay human even though it looks like there isn't much point to it anymore. It ( Read more... )