Slightly over 4 years ago I yammered a bit about a game company called “Evil Hat” that was putting out a Lovecraftian game while not only hating Lovecraft but also *intentionally* not understanding the idea: “I want your business” Making a *huge* point about bashing the creator of the IP you’re squatting on, while…
Fortunate is the man who has this coffee table. Fabulously wealthy is he if he has a woman who looks at that table and thinks “that’s awesome, I picked the right guy.” It’s a spectacular piece, and I kinda really want one. However… before I’d plunk down money I don’t have for this sort…
Good news: no cancer for Buttons. Bad news: he’s old, his colon is starting to malfunction. Things back up & turn rock hard (& apparently look like tumors on X-rays) due to some nerve problem or other. This requires a change in diet, which is a problem since his diet is special & keeps him…
With all the little publications I’ve written and illustrated, and all the years of blogging ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT political opinions and the like, it seems that at least *one* of my efforts will go down through the ages: my design for the Orion Battleship. We know to a fair certainty that such a craft was designed…
About 20 years ago I got it into my head to write a screenplay: an update of “When Worlds Collide,” based on the book from the 1930’s not the movie from 1951. When originally written, the question was “can we build a rocketship to fly to another planet?” My rewrite would set it a century…
Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real Today’s Silicon Valley billionaires grew up reading classic American science fiction. Now they’re trying to make it come true, embodying a dangerous political outlook This was written by Charles Stross, a sci-fi author whose work I tend to like.…
Movie and TV remakes are often garbage. But covers of songs? Sometimes the remake is a triumph. Some examples: “My Body Is A Cage” by Arcade Fire, then covered by Peter Gabriel. “Smooth Criminal” by Michael Jackson… then perfected by Alien Ant Farm. “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. It was good… but what…
Long story short: I’ve been a *casual* watcher of “Dr. Who” for 40+ years. From watching it from time to time on PBS back in the 80s – the Tom Baker era, mostly – to catching the revived version in more recent years, I would generally find it amusing if somewhat baffling. The fact that…
Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 song “Born in the USA” is famous not only for having been incredibly popular, bit for being “misunderstood.” Springsteen’s intent, as is pretty clear by a straight reading of the lyrics, is to tell the tale not just of a Viet Nam vet (the US was barely a decade out from that…
I recently re-watched the 1998 movie “Pleasantville.” For those unaware, this starred a pre-Spiderman Tobey McGuire as a kid who’s a fan of the fictional 1950’s black and white TV show “Pleasantville,” sort of a cliche of the bland, utopian family shows of the time. It turns into a fantasy when Don Knotts shows up…
