How giant squid aid you

Scientist says the eyes of the giant squid may hold the key to solving visual impairment. The story includes a rather awful picture of a detached giant squid eye.

Couch potato world record

So this British guy spent 47 consecutive hours watching TV and broke a world record. As world records go, this doesn't seem all that impressive to me, I've practically done it myself. The only hard part is staying awake. Got to be careful what you watch, one episode of "Full House" and you're done.
(Link found at Return of the Reluctant.)

Amazon's new thing

So Amazon has started a new thing, called a Plog. Well, really it's not a new thing at all, just new for them. A Plog is a "personalized Web log," and as far as I can tell, it lists your recent purchases and Amazon recommendations. It looks like Amazon is the plogger, although it's attached to your account. It's kind of an interesting idea, I hope they do something with it.

Writers and their multiple personalities

This link looks at the work of August Highland, a man on the Internet who has created 80 different personas who have numerous literary Web zines and publish each other's fiction. These 80 different persona have also created numerous literary movements. You can start on his stuff here. Of course, most of his stuff seems to be words strung together in either a "Finnegan's Wake" or William Burroughs cut-up novel style.
The whole thing reminds me of Fernando Pessoa. Pessoa was a Portuguese poet who created four "heteronyms." Each of these created personality wrote poems in their own style. They would write articles about each others work and would be inspired or outraged by each other.
(Original link found at Bookslut.)

Godzilla and religion

The Revealer looks at Godzilla, exploring the religious ideas behind the Japanese cut of Godzilla and what it means. I don't like their contention that Serizawa was a suicide bomber. He's reluctant to use his weapon at all, unlike suicide bombers who are hoping to strike a blow against their enemies. He kills himself to keep the weapon secret. And I'm also not sure Godzilla is a metaphor for America. Nevertheless, it's a good article, check it out.

Giant mushroom in the Congo

An 18 inch high, 3 foot wide giant mushroom has appeared in the Congo and it's baffling scientists. All I know is you'd better not eat it.

Godzilla plus

Henshin!Online has a full round up of what we know about "Godzilla: Final Wars" now. Monster Zero has loads of stuff about the movie as well. All the talk about this movie has really got my giant monster movie engines revving. I watched two Gamera films last night and I'm planning on watching "Mothra" and "Atragon" in the next few days. Some day I'll have to write about why I like these films so much (although I'll have to figure it out for myself first.)

What is blogging, exactly?

Stephany Aulenback at Maud Newton's blog has a humorous reply to some of the rather silly articles that have appeared about blogging. She also brings up an interesting point:
The terms blogger, blogging, and blog are so overused they have become pretty much meaningless. They seem to indicate any individual (as opposed to a corporation) who posts anything – anything at all -- on any sort of webpage, with any regularity.
Is there a way, or should there be a way, to distinguish between people who use blogs for linking to news (boingboing, Bookslut, The Write Hemisphere), those writing about their lives (Tequila Mockingbird, Where is Raed? wKenShow), and those based around the lives of well known personalities (Neil Gaiman, Margaret Cho, Caitlin Kiernan)? And there are plenty of other blogs that don't fit into those categories. The Mumpsimus doesn't, and that's one of my favorite blogs.
A little while back, Terry Teachout at About Last Night wrote about what makes a blog. While a good starting place, I don't think he's entirely correct in his points. (One rule I think is just plain wrong: 3. Blogs without links aren’t blogs. Blogs without blogrolls aren’t blogs. Blogs without mailboxes aren’t blogs. Half of the blogs I mentioned above would be eliminated in that case.)
In general, I'm not all that concerned. But sometimes it's hard to talk about the differences of these various places. You start introducing somebody to blogs and they say something like, "Oh, you mean like Fark." Sort of. I have no idea if Fark is a blog or something else, really. It was certainly created before blogs were around, but it would be very hard to point out the difference between Fark and a blog. In that same category, gangster of love seems to fit into the blog world, but she doesn't use a blogging engine and she insists on being called a journal, not a blog.
Is blogging becoming too vast a word? Should we categorize things into blogs, journals, news feeds, etc.? I don't know. What are your thoughts?

What we talk about when we talk about Raymond Carver

Rake's Progress and Maud Newton mention that yesterday was Raymond Carver's birthday. Carver was one of my biggest influences back in college and I always enjoy rereading his stories, which now I'll probably do for the next few days. At both of those blogs, they gives links for learning more about Carver and what books to start with.

New Godzilla: Final Wars information

On the Japanese Godzilla: Final Wars Web site, there are lots of new things. One is a trailer made up of images from the movie, most spectacularly Godzilla standing in the center of a huge crater, the devastation of a city behind him. The Web site also includes a list of the 12 monsters who will be in the film. The design for the new Gigan has been revealed, and he looks very robotic now. You'll need Flash to see the Web site. Monster Zero, however, has put up images from the Web site. Apparently the movie will include an alien invasion. "Final Wars" looks to be totally old school Godzilla.

Ryuhei Kitamura

Here's an interview with Ryuhei Kitamura, the director of the upcoming "Godzilla: Final Wars" as well as his own films like "Versus" and "Azumi."
(Link found at Monster Zero.)

Jeffrey Ford: new fiction, a giveaway and a list of online stuff

Jeffrey Ford has a new story, "Rabbit Test" up at Fantastic Metropolis. After you're done reading it, you can check out what The Mumpsimus has to say about the piece. And you can discuss his fiction at the Night Shade Books message boards.
Ford has been my absolute favorite writer for the last several years. I was lucky enough to have won "The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque" in a Fantastic Metropolis contest a while back and since then I've been hooked on Ford's fiction. So I want to do the same for somebody else.
I've got second hardcover copy of "Mrs. Charbuque" that I would like to give to some person who is intrigued by Ford's fiction and wants to read more. If you want the book, e-mail me. The first person who does, and expresses a real interest in Ford's work, will get the book.
In the meantime, check out some of Ford's short fiction online:
The Empire of Ice Cream
Floating in Lindrethool
The Far Oasis
Malthusian's Zombie
The Shadow Year [excerpt]
The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque [excerpt]
Quiet Days in Purgatory
Horrors by Waters
Out of the Canyon
Exo-Skeleton Town
The Beyond [excerpt]
And here's some interviews:
Infinity Plus, BookSense, SF Site, Book Page, "Trampoline" promotional interview
Some nonfiction:
Distant Voices, about H. Rider Haggard
Ford interviews Kim Deitch
On "The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque"
Read and Appreciated 2003, 2002, 2001
A biography.

Charles Grant auction has begun

The auctions to benefit horror writer Charles Grant have begun. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, from signed Alice Cooper T-shirts to lots of horror novels signed and numbered, comic books and something called the rarest Stephen King item ever! Some of it is already pretty expensive, but there's some reasonable starting prices and it's all for a good cause, so check it out.

Author's new blog

Matthew Woodring Stover has a blog, studioMWS. Stover is the author of several books, the only one of which I've read is "Heroes Die," which was a combination of sword & sorcery mixed with science fiction. He has also written Star Wars tie-ins and is writing the Episode III novelization. There's not much on the blog yet, but he's only had it up a couple of days.

The fiction of the Mumpsimus

Matt Cheney, the terrific blogger at The Mumpsimus, has a story up at ideomancer called "Prague." The story is what I would expect having read his many reviews of speculative fiction stories. It's smart, short, beautiful and rewards re-reading. If you enjoy it, be sure to check out some of his other fiction at his personal Web site. Besides short stories, he's also written plays, screenplays, poetry and nonfiction.

Notebook love

moleskinerie is a blog about the Moleskine notebook and how great it is. I love the Moleskine, it's a got a great romantic look and at the same time is totally functional. The only problem is it's terribly expensive. For a tiny little notebook, you spend $10. It makes me afraid to write in them.
(Link found at scribbling woman.)

Stomp!

Couple of interesting Godzilla things:

Henshin!Online has translated a long interview between Godzilla director Masaki Tezuka and writer Wataru Mimura. Most of the interview is about the Japanese film industry from the 1970s on, but there's some interesting stuff about Godzilla too:
"MIMURA: But including my script, what do you think of the film?
TEZUKA: Reflecting on MEGAGUIRUS, what I wanted to do was to provide a scientific background to the story. I needed clear scientific reasons. It is impossible to create a Black Hole Gun, Godzilla himself is totally unrealistic, but I needed them for the story, therefore I thought providing scientific rationales were all the more important.
MIMURA: I see.
TEZUKA: So this I time [for GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA], my staff researched both robot computer technology and DNA engineering for Mechagodzilla. I paid so much attention to this part of the story.
MIMURA: So you think, even for a fantasy film, some amount of reality is necessary and the story should be based on the scientific fact. You cannot accept a totally unrealistic subject.
TEZUKA: No I can't. I think a scientific background contributes to maintain a steady storyline. Speaking of a steady storyline, if the capital had not been Osaka [in GXM] MECHAGODZILLA could have been a sequel to MEGAGUIRUS, as you said to me before. [laughs] Kiriko would have been in the new film. When you told me that I should have used Megaguirus again, I thought it was a good idea."
***
At DVDtalk they have a review of ADV's new "Destroy All Monters" release. It's a bare bones DVD of the movie with bad dubbing, no chapter stops and no extras. But it comes with the soundtrack.
The movie is quite enjoyable, but the poor print and many digital artifacts makes this movie a rental.

Mamatas on mainstream horror

Nick Mamatas dissects mainstream horror.
The mainstream of horror fiction of the past five years:
makes the following statements as regards class, gender, race, urbanization and pets:

...

creates a sense of identification by displaying the thoughts of the POV character in increasingly annoying italics

offers a protagonist demographically slightly better off, whiter, and more suburban than than stereotypical drug store/Wal-Mart (as opposed to bookstore) book buyers

...who consumes name-brand products, especially Pepsi

...and who, while looking in mirrors, contemplates either a recently-broken nose or a widening ass

Writing interview

So Maud Newton has started her series of interviews with writers about writing, called "Making Book." Her first interview is with Salah Abdoh, whose 1999 book "The Poet Game" stirred up interest after Sept. 11 because of its look at Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. Maud asks some good questions, and in at least one place, the question is more interesting than the answer. It's definitely worth checking out and I'm looking forward to see what she's got lined up in the future.

Hunting giant squid babies

The New Yorker writes about a giant squid hunter!
Steve O’Shea, a marine biologist from New Zealand, is one of the hunters—but his approach is radically different. He is not trying to find a mature giant squid; rather, he is scouring the ocean for a baby, called a paralarva, which he can grow in captivity. A paralarva is often the size of a cricket.
“Squid, you see, hatch thousands of babies,” O’Shea told me recently, when I called him at his office at the Earth and Oceanic Sciences Research Institute, at the Auckland University of Technology. “Most of these will get eaten up by larger predators, but during periods of spawning the sea should be filled with an absolutely fantastic amount of these miniature organisms. And, unlike the adults, they shouldn’t be able to dart away as easily.”