So I’m sitting in my room, working on my linguistics home exam, and I’m trying to explain why the verb paint in the sentence his father was painting a picture is not the same verb as the paint in the sentence his father never painted again, right? My line of resoning is the kind I [...]
Posts filed in lol
Fun stuff. Originally, this category was called “ROTFLMAO”, but I thought that might be just a little hard to live up to. “lol” sounds so much less impressive. Or something. I dunno. Really. No.
The Matrix
Just watched The Matrix, but seeing as I’ve already reviewed this movie somewhere else on this blog, I’m going to limit myself to pointing out how much the whole Matrix/human batteries thing seems like something out of Marx.
You’ve got your people, right, who can be likened to either the people in Marxist theory in general, [...]
Interview with the Vampire
Man, I did not until a few seconds ago realise what an inane title Interview with the Vampire really is; it is scary to see just how much an article can matter…
Anyway, I had my sister over for dinner a couple of days ago, and we watched this thing, mainly because we both remembered the [...]
The priorities of the people
“In the year of his tribunate (58 B.C.), Clodius made the ordinary people of the city of Rome (plebs urbana) a significant power in politics for the first time. By comparison, the exile and return of Cicero (58/57 B.C.) was a second-rate phenomenon that was of primary concern only to Cicero himself, who had a [...]
I was, in fact, not aware of this
“To Athens and Sparta Xerxes sent no demand for submission because of what happened to the messngers whom Darius had sent on a previous occasion: at Athens they were thrown into the pit like criminals, at Sparta they were pushed into a well — and told that if they wanted earth and water [signs of [...]
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
The Last Colony by John Scalzi.
Tor Science Fiction, 2007.
320 pages.
“Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
— Commissioner Pravin Lal of the Peacekeepers,
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.
A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!
In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about!
One of the things you might not know [...]
Atheists <3 Averröes (or ibn Rushd, if you prefer)
“In the Christian intellectual environment of the thirteenth century, apparent conflicts between argumentation in natural philosophy and argumentation in matter sof theological doctrine became exceptionally acute. The newly introduced writings of from the ancients — Greek philosophy and science, accompanied by Arabic and Hebrew commentary — rigorously set forth propositions alien to fundamental dicta of [...]
Where you around in Pirate Times?
“Our research shows that pirates flitted about and spoke in a lyrical falsetto voice.”
First brilliant PvP strip in a really long time.
Dogma
Watched Kevin Smith’s Dogma again, for the thrid time or so, last weekend. I was hardly as enthusiastic as I was the first time I watched it, but that was three years ago, so I take this simply as a sign that I have matured somewhat. And also of me having watched it before, of [...]
Security precautions
“We stood in the center of a football field-size dome that the Consu had constructed not an hour before. Of course, we humans could not be allowed to touch Consu ground, or be anywhere a Consu might tread; upon our arrival, automated machines created the dome in a region of Consu space long quarantined to [...]
Scalzi likes Sandman
“The three other new guys, Watson, Gaiman and McKean, all got the same treatment [...]“
— Narration,
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.
2007-11-28 — Quote of the Day
“In the second century C.E., Loukianos of Samosato wrote, ‘Everyone’s writing history now, and I don’t want to be left out of the furore.’ Loukianos, who was also known as Lucian the Scoffer, then produced a fantasy story called True History.”
— John M. Ford,
in the “Historical Note” to The Dragon Waiting.
Valentine
Heh, one of my flatmates and I just spent the last couple of hours taking cheap shots at Valentine, a rather silly slasher movie from 2001.
A bunch of snotty girls have picked on a nerd all through elementary school, until they in 9th grade get the kid sent away to a mental institution by claiming [...]
2007-11-15 — Quote of the Day
“Attacking his opponent Disraeli in Parliament, Gladstone remarked that ‘the honourable gentleman will either end on the gallows or die of some loathsome disease.’ To which Gladstone rejoined: ‘That depends on whether I embrace the honourable gentleman’s principles or his mistresses.’”
— An example of a witty repartee,
A Glossary of Literary Terms.
Dodgeball
After the pretentiousness and boredom of yesterday’s The Crow, today’s Dodgeball was refreshing.
As my earlier review of Zoolander might indicate, I’m a huge fan of Ben Stiller so long as he does his best to be silly and over the top. Sure, he can get a bit too over the top at times, but most [...]
2007-11-08 — Quote of the Day
“Some sixty years later the dispute between king and Church flared up again. This time it took the form of a quarrel between Henry II (1154-1189) [of England] and Thomas Becket [...] Just as in the case of the emperor Henry IV [of the Holy Roman Empire] and Pope Gregory VII, personalities played their part [...]
2007-11-07 — Quote of the Day
“The pagan barbarians had buried their most precious possessions with their dead. These possessions would vary, from the weapons of ordinary men and the simple bronze or copper jewelry which even poor women owned to the to the treasures of great warriors and kings, such as those superbly rich objects of Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk, [...]
2007-11-06 — Quote of the Day (or, Bloody Homosexuals)
“The remarkable unity of culture of the later Roman Empire is seen most clearly in its art and architechture. Roman temples and theatres, Roman baths and aqueducts did not differ greatly from Spain to Asia Minor. Roman villas with their gay floor mosaics were almost interchangeable from Britain to Syria.”
— H.G. Koeningsberger,
Medieval Europe 400-1500, [...]
A Near-Vomit Experience
The maggot cheese and the boiled duck fetuses nearly caused my supper to exit my body via the nose.
Oh, and check out the mock lutefisk ad.
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