This is an exciting new blog (well what he's doing is new): American Hot Wax. Michael Daddino has decided to review every American #1 single since 1950. As he put it: "These are the kinds of challenges I like taking up: the stupid ones." It's just starting but he already has some interesting reviews of things like the "Theme from the Third Man" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." I'll have to keep a watch on this, it seems like fun.

Well, as of yet I've no good linkage for you today. Sorry. But lucky you, I've called in sick to work today. (Nothing serious, just a general feeling of total crappiness.) So I have the rest of the evening to dig up some interesting Web news.
I finished Robert Twigger's "The Extinction Club" and sort of agree with the review I linked to earlier. The book doesn't really go anywhere. Twigger rambles on about extinction, secondhand book shops in Egypt, swallows, the Boxer Rebellion and the deer the book is about. To his credit, it's all interesting. But it doesn't add up to much.
Now I'm not sure what to read next. I have so many short stories yet to read, and I've read a few of those already. But I'm not sure if I want to jump into another novel now. With Nanowrimo coming, I'm not sure I want to tie myself into one genre. We'll see how I feel.
Speaking of Nanowrimo, the signups for new members starts tomorrow. Actually, I'm hoping the forums open up tonight at midnight, which will give me something new to do. This year, Connecticut actually has a municipal liaison. That means we have somebody to organize parties and give out gifts and what not. I'm glad somebody took up that job.
Well, that's all of my ramblings for now. I'll link if I find anything of interest, as always.

Well, that's about it for me today. Sorry, no giant squid links from me today. But if you're looking for more ramblings from me, check out my old diary. I've updated there for fun. Enjoy.

There's a new entry in the Where's Atlantis? sweepstakes. This guy claims it's off the coast of Cyprus. As the article points out, other entries have included the Azores, the Sahara desert, Malta, Central America and Antarctica. We can also include the Bermudas, the whole American continet, sunken islands off the coast of Italy and probably thousands of others.
As much as I like weird stories, I find the whole "where's Atlantis" thing to be getting quite boring. It's almost certain Plato made the place up for a morality tale.
On the other hand, I'll be just as fascinated as everybody else if this guy comes up with some convincing evidence.

Well, I just finished Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" with the final volume "Citadel of the Autarch." The story is good, there are wonderful images and the prose is flawless. It's also frustrating. It's the kind of book you can't read once and understand fully. It requires that you go back and look again. The narrator basically says that at the end of "Citadel of the Autarch":
"Have I told you all I promised? I am aware that at various places in my narrative I have pledged that this or that should be made clear in the knitting up of the story. I remember them all, I am sure, but then I remember so much else. Before you assume that I have cheated you, read again, as I will write again."
And I will do just that, but it will have to wait. I have so many books stacked up waiting for me, I have little time to reread. (Which is something I'm starting to change.) I moved right onto the next book.
That book is "The Extinction Club" by Robert Twigger. Here's a review of the book. They pretty much don't like it and for good reasons. However, when I started the book I approached it differently and that may make all the difference. I'll tell you more when I come out the other end.

Here's a good article on the cassette tape, which is now 40 years old. When I was a teen, the tape was the only music format. Records were still around, but kind of fading. CDs were yet to make their mark. The tape was king. I had everything on tape.
Which, of course, means I've had to re-buy my collections on CD. But I haven't given up on the cassette. I have a cassette player in my car and I tape all my CDs for it. I occasionally go to record stores and thumb through the bargain bins full of old tapes. It gives me the chance to pick up something without risking $15.
I don't make mix tapes enough. I love the mix tape, but I rarely make the time to do it. Occasionally, a friend will ask for a mix and I'll have a ball coming up with one. Here's a good site on the Art of the Mix.
I just watched "Royal Tenenbaums" again the other night and that always gets me thinking about mix tapes. The soundtrack of both that film and "Rushmore" are such eclectic mixes, yet it all hangs together. Both those films and Quentin Tarantino's films inspire me to think about mix tapes.

Ah, the classic Snipe Hunt. I remember my father sending my brother and I out into the woods with a flashlight and a styrofoam cup to catch the elusive snipe.
I'm sure most guys have gone through this initiation at one point or another, in a camp or cub scouts or some other place. I'm not sure the Snipe Hunt is ever afflicted on women though.
My friend Charles and I once had two friends, both women, going on about a snipe hunt for at least a day. One of us mentioned snipe hunting as a joke, figuring the women would get it. They didn't. So instead of explaining, we started offering details about the "elusive snipe." Everytime we went too far ("the snipe is invisible"), the other one of us would come up with some plausible-sounding explanation ("well, it's not invisible really. It just has a natural camoflauge that is almost impossible to see.")
I don't think we ever told them it was made up. They just started doubting our conflicting stories after a few days. Ahh. Why is it so much fun to string along the gullible?

The Internet is a wonderland. Sometimes, you throw a word you're interested in into Google and find wonderful things happen. Case in point, science education at work: Squirrel Fishing. Enjoy.

The much praised Segway scooters are being recalled. So much for the future.
And by the way, marketers of the world, the Segway should be an object lesson in the problems of overhyping things. Beware.

I suppose I should also blog the death of George Plimpton. He is an important writer and done many things in his life. Unfortunately, I grew up in a time when the only thing I knew him for was all the movie cameos he made.

Robert Palmer dies aged 54. I need to find another obit for him. While his biggest hits were indeed "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irresistible," much of his '70s stuff was better and deserves more attention. It won't get it. Ahh, here we are. Check out Allmusic's biography of Palmer. Much better. Plus you can look at reviews of his albums.

Following up on John Sayles, there's an interview with him at Suicide Girls. It's pretty good. However, for those of you at work, it is a porn site, so beware. There's not a lot to see on the interview page, but you probably don't want your boss behind you when you click.

An atheist group has a bright idea. They are going to fight religious conservatives at their own game. They want to make an inspirational atheist movie, called Heart of the Beholder. The movie seems to center on people wanting to rent "Last Temptation of Christ" on video tape and the protests against them. This somehow snowballs into murder, blackmail and other evil things.
There's a teaser on the site. It's animated and they make sure to point out that this is not what the final film will look like. And well they should, the film looks just as cheesy as "Left Behind" and other scare tactic religious movies do. It's a trip, check it out.

And at Rotten Tomatoes, John Sayles' latest film, "Casa de los Babys" just barely gets a fresh rating. But then, even bad Sayles is better than most anything else.

Here's a good article on John Sayles and Roger Corman. The article talks about what Sayles added to the Corman films he worked on and how Corman influenced Sayles directing tactics. It also points out a Corman film I'd never heard of, "The Challenge," which stars "Seven Samurai" star Toshiro Mifune.

Here's an item only of interest to giant monster obsessives like me. At Henshin!Online, they have an interview (dated 9/24/03) with Hiroshi Koizumi. Koizumi played in many of the early kaiju films and in the new "Godzilla X Mothra X Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S." will be playing the same scientist character he played in the original "Mothra" from 1961. The original "Mothra" is one of my favorite monster movies and part of the reason for that was the characters were well developed (something that rarely happens in those films.) So for me, this is exciting news. It's an interesting article, check it out.

We're still deprived of giant squid news, but this might make up for it: Octopuses get erections.
"But Voight glimpsed a rather different ligula while watching a failed mating. "It was quite prominent," she recalls."
I think I'll leave it there without comment.

The giant insects in yesterday's story seem to have shrunk: "had a body more than an inch long and was close to five inches long when including the antennae and long ovipositor. " They also appear to be larger than normal ichneumon wasps, which are common. Funny how these stories fall apart after a day.

Alien sex, not all it's cracked up to be: "As his wife and daughter slept below, a 3-m-tall, six-fingered alien with braided fur on her legs straddled his waist. After 40 minutes of levitational copulation she departed through the wall, leaving Meng with a 5-cm mark on his thigh. " The story goes on to say that a son will be born. You know there is a paternity suit coming.
It's an interesting article on Chinese reporting of alien encounters. Good stuff.

Last year, one of my favorite stories was the giant snakehead fish. It's a native of China that suddenly appeared in a Maryland pond. The problem with these fishies is they eat everything in a pond, then crawl over land to another pond and eat everything there. They keep doing this, eliminating whole ecosystems. You can see why it's a worry. Well, the Maryland authorities killed everything in the pond in an effort to stop the snakehead.
But now the 'Snakehead' has been found in Wisconsins Rock River. One way or another, this monster fish is going to come to America. In fact, it seems to already be here. Beware the monster fish!
Which reminds me, there was some talk a month or two ago about somebody making a movie about the Snakehead. Of course, in this movie, the snakehead will be gigantic as a result of genetic testing or something. Can't wait for that to come out. (Could find any links about it though.)