January 2009
2 posts
Eden 2.0 Is Moving
I gave Tumblr a shot. It just didn’t live up to the hype.
As of today, Eden 2.0 is no more. I’m merging my blog with Mount Helicon on Blogger, where I’ve been posting excerpts from my fiction. I won’t complain about Tumblr on a Tumblr blog, but I list my reasons on Mount Helicon.
Goodbye, Tumblr. My new blog is here.
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My New Most-Anticipated Film of 2009
I’m back from a yuletide hiatus with an amazing trailer for 9, a computer-generated film that opens September 9th (9-9-09). Tim Burton produces this post-apocalyptic tale about sapient rag dolls who struggle to protect the legacy of humanity. Whatever that means. I just think it looks cool. Voice talents include Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Crispin Glover,...
December 2008
7 posts
Another Alien Ocean In Our Backyard
Mars and Europa get all the media coverage, but now NASA says there’s probably an ocean beneath the ice of Enceladus, an awkward little moon of Saturn about the size of the UK.
Maybe Earth ain’t so special. This is big news for astrobiologists seeking to prove that life-sustaining conditions are fairly common throughout the universe. We’ve already detected evidence of water...
Best of 2008: Movie Edition
2007 was the Year of the Threequel. 2008? Probably the Year of the Credible Superhero Movie, what with The Dark Knight and Iron Man pleasing critics and box office crunchers alike (though I was disappointed with the latter after all the hype). Here are my picks for the best ten movies of 2008, in no particular order, including a few you probably missed. (However, it is only mid-December, and I...
Malay Thief Stopped By "Supernatural Figure"
A family in Malaysia returned from a vacation to find a stranger in their home, severely fatigued and dehydrated. Obviously, they asked him what he was doing there. The burglar said he broke in three days earlier to steal valuables, but that a “supernatural figure” stopped him and held him captive without food or water. Every time he tried to escape the house, the “figure”...
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Best of 2008: Music Edition
In the first of three articles on annual superlatives, here are my top ten albums of the year. I was surprised by my own choices: three of them are hip-hop (maybe four, depending on your definition). But this was a landmark year for the genre; “gangsta” rap is being slowly out-phased and replaced by more intelligent, emotive artists.
I like to think of myself as an eclectic listener,...
Movie Review: Australia
If you’ve seen his other movies (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!), you know that Baz Luhrmann is a master stylist. Function follows form for the Australian director, and despite any qualms you may have with his storytelling, your eyes, at least, will never get bored during his films. Australia is no exception, as it is hands-down the most beautiful movie of the year (though The Curious Case...
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Chicago Named GQ's City of the Year
I’m not sure why (or if) this matters, but Gentlemen’s Quarterly just named Chicago its “city of the year.” Here are our four main selling points, apparently:
1. Politics
Seems a strange category to me, but understandable given Obama’s victory. However, GQ mainly praises…wait for it…Richard M. Daley (aka Da Mare and Hizzonor). Apparently no one told...
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Book Review: The Graveyard Book
“You’re alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential.You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you’re dead, it’s gone. Over.”
That’s the wisdom of Silas, the dark man on the left, surrogate caretaker to the young boy next to him, Nobody Owens, in Neil Gaiman’s new...
November 2008
12 posts
Movie Review: Quantum of Solace
I am not a Bond fan. Well, not since grade school, at least. Perhaps that’s because I came of age during the Brosnan Era. His four entries into the Bond canon were silly, insipid, and misogynistic; when Daniel Craig was named his successor, I could have cared less. A tuxedoed man who runs around killing extras, sleeping with anonymous women, and defeating caricaturized villains bores me to...
Book Review: Maps And Legends
Let me start by saying that this is the coolest cover and dust jacket ever. There are actually three overlapping jackets, each with its own setting, and when you peel them back you’ll find knights, zombies, and fairies hidden behind rocks and trees. Physically, this is now the most beautiful book I own.
Michael Chabon’s known for his fiction: Wonder Boys, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning...
Scientists Detect Undetectable Dark Matter
You know what matter is from grade-school science, but that only takes up a measly 4.6% of the universe (there’s no such thing as ‘empty’ space). The other 95% is mysterious and undetectable. Until now.
Researchers in Antarctica have developed a way to detect the existence of dark matter using a specialized particle-detecting balloon. This is actually a pretty big deal, lofty...
Pleistocene Park
It sounds like a Michael Crichton novel (God rest his soul), but an international team of gene hackers just mapped over 80% of a woolly mammoth’s DNA using 20,000-year-old hair follicles. The remaining 20% should only take a few more years.
Penn State biochemist Stephan Schuster says it might be possible to impregnate an African elephant with reconstructed mammoth DNA (the Jurassic Park...
Next Year's Most Ambitious Movie?
If you’ve never heard of Alan Moore’s Watchmen, you should enroll in Geek 101. It’s arguably the greatest illustrated story (okay, graphic novel) of all time. Hollywood has been struggling to bring it to the silver screen for over two decades, and come March legions of fans will see what director Zach Snyder (300) can do.
For now? Enjoy this mind-blowing trailer:
In case...
I Correctly Predict the Future. Sort Of.
Obviously this is a bit of a stretch, but the Indian Space Research Organization landed its first probe on the surface of the moon today, which is eerily reminiscent of events in novel I started working on over four years ago.
India’s lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, was sent to the moon partially to look for Helium-3, a rare isotope that would make nuclear fusion safer and easier. India is...
South Carolina Priest Spurns Obama Voters
A Roman Catholic priest in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina made the national news today by telling the members of his church who voted for Obama not to partake in Communion on Sunday. According to Rev. Jay Scott Newman of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, supporting Obama “constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.”
The Greenville clergyman went on to warn...
Batman Sues...Um...Batman
Apparently, there is a city in Turkey named Batman, and its mayor is suing the makers of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight because they used the name ‘Batman’ without permission.
“There is only one Batman in the world,” Mayor Kalkan claims.
He goes on to blame The Dark Knight for “a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate” in his city. To...
Shameless Self-Promotion
Earlier this fall, a friend in New Delhi asked if I would design a blog for a non-profit organization he was founding in India after winning a Compton Fellowship. The Indian Youth Climate Network has spread like wildfire across the subcontinent and I’m proud to have been able to contribute. Daniel Bachhuber did all of the tough Wordpress development, but here’s a look at my design...
Wanna Work for Obama? (Seriously)
Good news for the struggling job market: Obama’s presidency will create “thousands” of new jobs, reports MSNBC. In fact, you can go to Obama’s new transition website and apply for a position right now. Seriously. I already did.
Meanwhile…
Chicago is getting quite cold, but other than a few snowflakes last weekend, has yet to get precipitous. I’m tutoring...
Incredibly Creepy Discovery North of Chicago
A 90-year-old woman in Evanston, Illinois has been living in the house pictured above with the corpses of her three dead siblings for an indefinite period of time. Probably for several years, at least.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the the siblings were last seen in May 2008, April 2003, and sometime in the 1980s, respectively. All of the bodies were found wearing clothing and in various...
Wolf Blitzer Interviews Princess Leia
My apologies for the posting drought :) But I’m back. If you weren’t watching CNN Tuesday night, you missed a ridiculous display of technological showmanship:
Meanwhile, on NBC, Chuck Todd addressed the Galactic Senate.
October 2008
10 posts
134-Year-Old Woman?
South African woman Kuku Moloko claims she was born in 1874, and she’s got an official birth certificate to prove it. That’s the same year Winston Churchill and Harry Houdini were born, just to give you some reference points.
“I eat sweets. I drink Coca-Cola,” says the modern-day Methuselah.
I think she’s Kuku.
The oldest scientifically-verified person to ever...
Bat-Infested School Forced To Close
And I’m not talking about Louisville Sluggers.
Just in time for Halloween, an Illinois middle school was closed indefinitely today after three to five hundred colonial bats were found nesting in the ceilings of the building. The school administrators are spending the rest of the week trying to decide “if the bats pose any health threats” to the students.
Hmm. Bats are natural...
NASA: Space Smells Meaty
Back during the Apollo program, astronauts swore the surface of the moon smelled like gunpowder. Now they’re saying the vacuum of space smells like fried steak.
Technically, they aren’t smelling space itself. After returning to their shuttle/space station, they can probably smell particles that got stuck to their suits. Other than fried steak, other astronauts have reported odors of...
Gmail Now Drunk-Proof
Ever send an email you regret? Google’s lastest innovation aims to prevent EUI (Emailing Under the Influence).
“Mail Goggles” is a new feature in Gmail that will prompt you to complete several math problems before allowing you to send late-night messages. You can customize the hours and the level of difficulty. Just make sure you don’t cheat with Google...
Space Aliens Promote Bipartisanism
Or, an Oregon farmer has too much time on his hands.
New Photo Batch
Inspired by the weather, I spent the waking hours of the weekend outside, wandering around with my camera (see my flickr stream).
Fall is wonderful in Chicago. It’s like living inside a Nora Ephron movie. I only expect that kind of atmosphere to continue all the way through Christmas.
Speaking of Ephron, did you know you can watch Sleepless in Seattle, in its entirety, for free online?...
Great Wahlberg Impression
This is exactly what Marky Mark sounded like for the entire duration of The Happening.
Best. Mashup. Ever.
You probably won’t think this is funny if you haven’t seen Toy Story, or if you don’t remember the trailer for The Dark Knight, (this will be much funnier if you refresh your memory).
Meanwhile… After yesterday’s downpour, 2008 is now the official Wettest Fall in 138 Years for the city of Chicago, which should translate into good leaf color in a few weeks....
Holographic TV Coming Soon
It’s Sunday afternoon. You sink into your leather sofa and turn on the TV. Suddenly, the Bears (or the Panthers) are playing in three dimensions right on top of your coffee table.
Sounds like science-fiction, but according to researchers at the University of Arizona, a recent breakthrough in erasable holographic technology could mean that your LCD or plasma screen TV will soon be...
September 2008
7 posts
August 2008
11 posts
Amish population doubles in only 16 years
Since 1992, the Amish population across the United States has doubled from around 120,000 to 230,000, according to the Chicago Tribune. It might have something to do with the fact that most Amish parents have five children. “Be fruitful and multiply,” indeed.
I think that’s pretty impressive. I mean, in the last 23 years, I haven’t doubled my population, and I’m...
'Lost' Snippets
The best show in the history of television has already started shooting for Season Five, which premieres in February 2009. A long time to wait, yes, but here’s what we know:
1) According to the showrunners, there will no longer be flashbacks or flashforwards on the show. The format of Season Five is one of the mysteries they want us to ponder during the break.
2) When Ben turned the...
