Cool constrained-writing idea: Two Lines, Two Stories, One Day, where two guys trade first sentences and then have to write the rest of a short story. Some of the sentences are great! The stories themselves tend to lean a little hard on sting endings, but they’re still fun.
Month: November 2005
Arrested Development has been cancelled, which is also sad. Every year or two people are angry and vocal about the fact that Fox will air one brilliant show, and then, as soon as it’s been running for nine episodes, kill it off. It’s kind of amazing that Arrested Development lasted as long as it did. The simple fact is that network executives like audiences that watch many of their programs–the people who will watch not just the primetime hit, but the lead-in and the follow-up. Even if a show has decent ratings and a psychotic interweb following, it won’t last if its audience only watches it. Sic AD, sic Wonderfalls, sic Firefly.
Personally, I think TV Land, which gave the show a Future Classic award, should put its money where its mouth is. Arrested Development’s budget can’t cost that much more than the syndication rights to M*A*S*H or whatever. I mean, what are you paying for? Four sets and Ron Howard’s roboharem?
Sumana asked the other night whether there was any depth to which I wouldn’t sink for a story idea. I have discovered that there is. I just can’t try to pawn this off as fiction.
C O R Y
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PALO ALTO, CA — Researchers at Stanford University have announced that the hole in Earth’s ozone layer is rapidly being filled by another stratum of the atmosphere.
“We’ve done spectroscopic analysis,” said Doctor Cory Wonkette-Searls on Thursday, “and Dooce Gaiman at Washington State has obtained confirming results. The replacement gas is coming from the blogosphere.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in Antarctica right now,” he added. “Wheeoo.”
The ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet radiation, and has been depleted by chlorofluorocarbon pollution. The blogosphere, composed of superheated air and self-absorbed methane, is separated from life on Earth by several orders of magnitude.
My favorite webcomic is over, if not necessarily done. I am sad anyway.
On Halloween, I had the privilege of yelling at children during Lisa’s family’s Haunted Yard. It was awesome! They’ve been doing it for years, differently every time, and they claim that this one was their last–Lisa’s parents are selling that house. Fortunately, her sister-in-law Mary Beth captured the Haunted Yard experience on digitized video!
Night Vision Cam Power Activate! (32Mb)
Watch the upper right of the screen toward the end, when they’re getting their candy–the man chasing the children until they cry is the legendary Ken Moore. It’s not often Ken has the chance to show off that particular talent. The Haunted Yard was to Ken as World War II to Churchill.
As if you needed proof
Not that I hold any particular love for MySpace, the Geocities of the subscriptkiddie set, but have you ever seen a more blatant call to kill the messenger? My favorite quote:
“‘It just seems to me that if you put up a public web site, and you allow students, teenagers, minors to post their thoughts and ideas, and not monitor it in an adult manner, you are asking for trouble,’ Gonzales said.”
This man is in charge of a school district. Thoughts and ideas! My God! Who let them have those!
Update 11.10.2005 1519 hrs: Adam’s priceless comment:
“MySpace isn’t even the messenger in this case – it’s the medium. In other news, local school district sues air for allowing the ‘verbal’ transmission of thoughts and ideas between teenagers!”
If you don’t already wish you were a baller then I bet you wish you did.
Basketball tonight is TURKEY DINNER FROM HELL! Night. We are making a turkey and all the fixings. Do not attempt to remind us that literally weeks remain before Thanksgiving. Your Earth time cannot hold the turkey. FROM HELL!
Speaking of conspiracies, we are going to go see HARRY POTTER ON THE DAMN IMAX and you should come with us. The November 18 2330 hrs (Stonybrook) show, to which a few of us have tickets, appears to have already sold out. I’m going to go out on a limb here, however, and say that my girlfriend might want to see it more than once. I’ll post the second showtime when I know it.
All the news is old news, all the news is bad news
Sony has resorted to the tactics of virus writers to stop people from listening to music. Paris is burning with frustration from the bottom up, and the response from the top is “zero tolerance.” And we, the United States–without public approval, without accountability, without even visibility–have been literally putting our prisoners in the gulag.