Will The New York Times once again allow me to laugh at the ramblings of Thomas Friedman and others? For free? Time (maybe very short) will tell.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Furthermore! Why bring out a new DVD standard (or two) when not every film is available on DVD yet? There's still more gold in them hills! I'd buy DVD's of Moonbase 3 or Star Cops or Moon Zero Two.

Heck, a DVD of this might even spark my interest!

(I realize that some of these have been available on DVD...but not in the US. Let's hear it for "country codes" and other artificial barriers to commerce!)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2001: A Space Odyssey is coming to Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Hear my lack of enthusiasm? I have no interest in Blu-Ray, HD DVD (or HD TV) until these folks sort out their standards issues. Not only do I not see the need for turning over my collection (and making the landfills swell), but I see no real need for these new standards. See me rushing to convert my TV to HD even with the oncoming deadline when the airwaves will go dark? Yawn. Time to read another book.

Strange, huh? You'd think I'd be interested in the nifty stuff. But the entire industry (music, film, television) has turned me off with its persecution of grandmother's and children, their cries to "close the analog hole", DRM, spyware, malware (Sony, anyone), crappy hardware, clueless movies and shows.

Yawn. Time to read anohter book.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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While perusing the website dedicated to Brian Daley (following up on news that his first novel had been republished), I came across this note by James Luceno, the other half of the writing team known as "Jack McKinney":

I recall one we had in my Chevy van just before the premiere matinee of some movie called Star Wars, which neither of us knew much about...So we sat in the parking lot of some cineplex on Route 4 in Northern New Jersey, priming ourselves for outer space, and when we left the theater two hours later we felt as if we'd been there. I mean, 2001 was solid intellectual stuff, but Star Wars—here, at last, was rousing sci-fi adventure.

Good God in Heaven. I was at that theatre. At that showing. In that parking lot, on that day.

No wonder I felt a disturbance in the Force.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I was reminded of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman when I saw this site. Amazing pictures!

We'll always have Paris.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Michael Yon on Iraq. He probably knows a lot more about what is going on there than your typical congresscritter.

Also...I feel a disturbance in the force...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Several depictions of M.C. Escher's famous waterfall illustration (including the original). Now you can buy your own and have much in the way of cube coolness!

Addendum: Balcony. Relativity. Waterfall. Ascending and Descending. Belvedere.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tonight's post-powerwashing listening is a couple of selections by Luigi Boccherini. Not as well known as Bach, Vivaldi and the other Baroque powerhouses, he's got a couple of pieces that continue to blow me away. In particular Quintettto No. 4 In Re Maggiore, "Fandango", Per Corda E Chitarra and Quintettino In Do Maggiore La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid, Op. 30, No. 6 (G. 324). The first has some wondrous work between guitar and violin. The second is based on the night music of Madrid and would be familiar to any fan of the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, as the music that helped to close out that film.

Great stuff.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(So what do you do after powerwashing the deck for 10 hours and developing one heck of a crick in the neck? Listen to Brian Eno, of course. Very loudly.)

It will shine and it will shudder
As I guide it with my rudder
On its metalled ways
It will cut the night before it
As it leaves the day that saw it
On its metalled ways
Nobody passes us in the deep quiet of the dark sky
Nobody sees us alone out here among the stars
In these metal ways
In these metal days.

Through a fault of our designing
We are lost among the windings
Of these metal ways
Back to silence back to minus
With the purple sky behind us
In these metal ways
Nobody hears us when we're alone in the blue future
No one receiving the radio's splintered waves
In these metal ways
In these metal days. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just finishing the second cup of coffee of the day. Despite what one John Scalzi might think, it doesn't taste like a##. Hot or cold. Ah well, he's got a thing about cats. Go figure. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Friends keep recommending the site of one James Lileks. I'll read it, go "huh" and move on. Just doesn't do anything for me. Go figure!

On the other hand...this is funny...too funny...

Other funny stuff here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Complete Starfleet Library. Come on, admit how many of these items you once owned...

I'm amazed at the number of titles I owned and read or just read. For example, I read this one in a local drugstore (once the main source, along with soda shops, of books for me). Our school used to have a twice-yearly visit from some sort of bookseller who would set up a trailer, I recall buying this, this, this and others. After I started reading Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth novels from Ballantine, they started publishing his novelizations of the short-lived animated series.

I am such a geek. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2006 continued...

(The genesis of this will become clearer in September. However, this seems to happen to me a lot in August and it happened last night. Given that, it is time to haul this out of the archives.) more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2006 continued...

The posting can now be seen here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2006 continued...

The posting can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:59 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2006 continued...

The reivew can be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2006 continued...

Two of my favorite (currently practicing) artists who deal with a lot of science fiction subjects are Bob Eggleton and Stephen Martiniere. Eggleton now has a blog. Martiniere has a new book out and is interviewed here by The Art Department.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2006 continued...

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2006 continued...

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This weekend (if weather and other conditions permit) we will see a new probe being dispatched on its way to Mars. The Phoenix Mars Lander is a "reborn" version of the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander, lost, along with a pair of impact probes, during its landing on Mars in 1999. The Phoenix is continuing the Martian mantra of "follow the water". It is intended to land in the high northern latitudes of Mars, clawing into the icy surface, to see if frozen water melts on a periodic basis...which might sustain a livable environment for microbes. The probe will employ landing thrusters instead of airbags (due to the fact that it is too heavy for current designs of airbags) and come down in what is hoped to be a smooth enough area allowing a touchdown and not a wrecked vehicle! The vehicle is the subject of some controversy, due to a problematic camera that is slated to be used during descent. Well, at least you can buy official licensed gear! And if we land humans on Mars, they can spend their free time going through the DVD that the Planetary Society crammed with Mars-related fiction and greetings from Earthlings.

Important mission? A potential problem-plagued mission? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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