I saw John Carter last night at an advance screening in 3-D. There was a drawing at work, I tossed my name into the ring, and I came away with a pass. As recently as three weeks ago I was ambivalent about the film. The trailers weren’t exciting me, and Disney was doing a terribleContinue reading “On John Carter”
On Helping Sponsor an SPCA Walk
In about six weeks, my friends Natalie and Beau are doing a 3K walk with their dog Kaylee to help raise money for the SPCA of Wake County, North Carolina. The Wake SPCA is a No-Kill organization, and that takes money and resources that they have to receive from private individuals since they receive noContinue reading “On Helping Sponsor an SPCA Walk”
On Receiving the Ringo Starr Tickets
Yesterday in the mail, the tickets for the Ringo Starr concert arrived. On my birthday, Ringo and his All-Starr Band — including Todd Rundgren, Gregg Rolie (of Santana fame), Steve Lukather (Toto), Richard Page (Mr. Mister), saxophonist Mark Rivera, and drummer Gregg Bissonette — will be playing in Baltimore. And I’m going to take myContinue reading “On Receiving the Ringo Starr Tickets”
On the New Horizons Stamp Petition
A few days ago my parents told me that my three-year-old niece had developed an interest in astronomy, that she had been asking her parents questions about Mars and Uranus, and she wanted to know what all the planets. “Oh,” I said. “That’s easy.” And I rattled off the list of planets, from Mercury onContinue reading “On the New Horizons Stamp Petition”
On Noel Gallagher’s Next Release
Epic. That’s the only way to describe Noel Gallagher’s “Shoot a Hole into the Sun,” the first track released from his collaboration with Amorphous Androgynous for his next album. Seven and a half minutes of psychedelic, trippy stuff mixed with reverb, echo, and stinging guitar work. This is to “If I Had a Gun…” whatContinue reading “On Noel Gallagher’s Next Release”
On Rare Tolkien CDs
Last weekend at Farpoint this Tolkien fan found something that excited him — the soundtrack to the Rankin/Bass Hobbit on CD. It was pricey — $40.00 — but I knew I had to have it. It’s the Rankin/Bass Hobbit! I love the Rankin/Bass Hobbit! The vendor told me that he had the soundtrack to theContinue reading “On Rare Tolkien CDs”
On Space and Boyish Wonder
You’d be forgiven for mistaking today for spring even though, by the calendar and by Copernicus, spring is still a month away. Nonetheless, today was gorgeous, and there was nothing prettier than seeing the crescent moon, itself a bare sliver, in the western sky at twilight with Venus and Jupiter shining brightly higher in theContinue reading “On Space and Boyish Wonder”
On Revisiting the Enigmatic Barsoom
In a week and a half, Disney’s John Carter, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first Barsoom novel, A Princess of Mars, reaches theaters. I’ve not decided if I’m going to see the film; I know what the film is, because I know what Barsoom is, but the marketing for John Carter has been nothing shortContinue reading “On Revisiting the Enigmatic Barsoom”
On Rewriting a Podcast Script
Three weeks ago I wrote the script for the introductory episode for the podcast I’m planning to launch later this spring. I made some revisions the next day — I realized I’d completely overlooked something crucial — printed it out a few days later… And then I let it sit, so I could come toContinue reading “On Rewriting a Podcast Script”
On Recent Website Issues
Last week my website was down for about twelve hours. Yesterday, my SQL database developed a problem — a temp file couldn’t be written, which made some SQL queries (which WordPress makes a lot of) fail spectacularly. How spectacularly? The front page of my blog went 90-percent blank because WordPress couldn’t see the categories (andContinue reading “On Recent Website Issues”