Sunday, April 3, 2011

Really BIG paper towels, that is.


In order to further the eventual goal of putting something on my blog I gave several of my dragons a bath today ("I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille."). I had a veritable dragon wash assembly line going. They are currently drying on paper towels on the table.
From a recent Colin Campbell e-mail
Is it just me, or does everyone get e-mails like this?

By way of explanation...my friend Colin collects dragons.  Sadly, not on the scale of the one reclining in the tub at the top of this posting, but his apartment has a definite draconic flavour in its decor due to the various scaley statuettes that he's found over the years.  Hey, Colin - I know that I tend to make gentle fun of your infrequent additions to your blog, but even so, maybe a piece on the joys of dragon ownership might be a good guest posting for here rather than there.  We'll talk.
- Sid 

Yes, I do the opening quote thing in e-mails, too.


"So the hours are pretty good then?" he resumed.
The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths.
"Yeah, but now that you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy."
Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I recently pulled my 1979 paperback copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy off the shelf to look up a quote from a Vogon guard for an e-mail to my friend Colin, and to my sharp amazement I realized that the apostrophe was missing from the title.  "Hitch Hiker's" is possessive on the spine, the back cover and the inside content, but somehow they screwed it up on the front!

But, let's be fair, it took me 32 years to notice...
- Sid 

Saturday, April 2, 2011

In case some of you ARE psychotic bellybutton fans...


Sucker Punch manages to be simultaneously incoherent, woefully misguided and downright insulting.
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon
A great movie if you are a psychotic fan of Emily Browning's bellybutton.
Bob Grimm
Tucson Weekly
I feel I should get some kind of recognition for disliking Sucker Punch almost a full five months ahead of the rest of the world.  To be fair, I haven't seen it yet, but if I had doubts based on the trailers, the reviews that I've read strongly suggest that a full two hours is not going to improve my opinion. In fact, the reviews that I've read strongly suggest that science fiction now has its own version of Showgirls.

And, frankly, it doesn't look like that great a belly button.
- Sid