Tonight is the next Rocky Mountain Blogger’s Bash. I’ll be there (barring something unforeseen in the next few hours), as will my daughter. She has to leave early, though, because she’s involved with a local Rocky Horror production.
Archive for the ‘Fun Stuff’ Category
Bash!
Saturday, July 7th, 2007And, for the science-fiction-obsessed …
Sunday, July 1st, 2007Continuing with the theme, here we have a spreadsheet of important science fiction. My numbers, based on my recollection, are:
50% of the Hugo winners,
32% of the Hugo nominees,
37% of the Nebula winners,
40% of the Locus award winners,
58% of the anthologies, and,
34.5% of the works listed.
I think my actual numbers would be higher, although not by much. Anything with a familiar-sounding title that I wasn’t certain of, I left off the list. I do note that most of my reading is in the earlier works; there’s little I’ve read that came out since about 1999.
“Travel at the speed of plot”
Sunday, July 1st, 2007And, speaking of science fiction writers, many of them don’t know what they’re talking about.
Hello. My name is Harry Potter.
Thursday, June 28th, 2007You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Well, maybe they can, but I sure couldn’t
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007And, continuing on the subject of toys from the last post, a team of scientists has proven that you can solve any Rubik’s Cube configuration in not more than 26 moves, beating the prior record by one move.
I used to be able to solve Rubik’s Cube when I was younger (and playing with it fairly regularly), but I couldn’t do it now without help. I remember the first computerized Rubik’s Cube solver I ever saw – it was a program for the Apple ][. You would enter your configuration and tell it to solve the cube. A short time later, it would come back and tell you that it had solved it, and how many moves it took.
What those moves were? Who knew. The program wouldn’t tell you. Why they expected anybody to buy that program, I’ll never know. I’m just glad that programs came in baggies and without activation codes back then. Because of that, there was no problem getting the people at the computer store to open a baggie and run a program so you could see it in action.
A better-flying cake pan
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007I wasn’t aware of this, but this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Frisbee. Getcher souvenirs here.
Via GeekDad.
On this day in history
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007In 1284, the Pied Piper lured 130 children from the village of Hamelin. Other things also happened on this day; I just wanted to note the Pied Piper thing.
“I guess we’ll go back to Dale”
Friday, June 22nd, 2007You can find this at YouTube, but none of the videos there are complete. This one, however, is:
World’s Clumsiest Reporter
Posted Jan 15, 2006
Bryant Varney constructed a Guinness World Record-sized Tower of Pisa out of Jenga blocks, but made one fatal mistake…inviting TV reporter Mike Roy to the festivities.
Movie night
Thursday, June 21st, 2007I took my daughter to dinner last night, then we went to see Paprika at the Mayan. We really enjoyed it – the visuals were stunning.
Although there really wasn’t much similarity apart from the idea of a device that lets someone enter another’s dreams in order to treat them psychologically, I found myself reminded of the Roger Zelazny short story, “He Who Shapes,” which was later expanded into the novel, “The Dream Master.”
I’d like to see some of Zelazny’s work made into movies, but there hasn’t been a good track record of that so far.
Father’s Day Fun
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007I saw this advertisement in the paper the other day:
More information (but not much) here. Despite what the ad says, a web search shows that it’s a nationwide thing – I presume that the “Benihana Broomfield only” is so that nobody calls the number listed wanting to do this in Pueblo or Grand Junction. Anyway, it sounds like a lot of fun to me. Then again, I do have a button that says, “Cooking is great! It’s a wonderful excuse to play with knives and fire.”
At least, I used to have a button that said that … it appears to have gone astray, along with buttons that said, “Don’t just flirt, hit me with a clue-by-four” and “If the minimum weren’t good enough, it wouldn’t be the minimum.”
In any case, I won’t be doing this. I’ve already had plans set up for Father’s Day, and asking to add this would be a little over the top.