lost

Posted on By Wil

Lost
I just realized that, last night, I front-paged a really huge Lost spoiler. I forgot that lots of non-US viewers read my blog, and I wanted to apologize for that. That sucked, and I’m sorry.

I’ve spent the last 10 days catching up on the entire series, first on DVD and then through iTMS. I have never been so enthralled with a series in my life, not even when I first watched The Prisoner in my teens.

I think it’s so cool that there are things like iTMS (and, uh, other ways which I don’t personally use) to experience an entire series like this. By making their shows easy for me to watch, the producers of Lost have earned a huge fanboy who will now buy merchandise and listen to their podcast, and evangelize on his lame blog about how great their show is.

If you like any of the things that I like, and you’re not watching Lost, you absolutely must. Right now. When you think you’re going to watch American Idol, or Bones, or Medium, or re-runs of that awesome space show with the kid in the sassy grey spacesuit, or anything else at all on television, don’t. Just get yourself the first season on DVD, and spend your allocated television time watching Lost instead. Then find some way to watch the second season (iTMS worked great for me) and keep going. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. It is quite possibly the best drama in the history of network television, ever, and I don’t say that lightly.

ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch.

Posted on By Wil

Remember that one time in Encounter At Farpoint when Counselor Troi wailed out, "Pain! Pain!"

Remember when Mr. Spock was all, "Pain! Pain!" which was totally not Vulcan-like?

Remember when [Lost spoiler redacted]?

Remember that time your company had a Christmas party, and instead of a band, they got an Agony Booth?

Yeah, that’s me right now. Yesterday, I was smashing some trash down in the trashcan beneath the sink, and I learned that a dogfood can lid on its side is an incredibly efective cutting tool, especially against the top of my thumb, just across the knuckle.

If you ever want to see what the inside of your thumb looks like, or you want to bleed twenty-three gallons of blood all over your house on your way from the kitchen to the bathroom (because, having seen the inside of your thumb, you’re kind of in shock and don’t stop to think, "Hey, there’s a sink right here, dummy, don’t go all the way across the house to the bathroom!") or you’d just like to watch your normal typing rate drop by 90%, this is a great way to do that.

Oh, and as an added bonus? You get to wake up about every 90 minutes all night long, because your thumb is throbbing, itching, or both. And if you play your cards right, you’ll get to have a tetanus shot, too.

Yeah. Goodtimes. Good. Times.

Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal by Thursday, but until then, probably not so much new spiffy stuff here or elsewhere, because typing is a real bitch right now.

Afterthought: a bunch of people have asked why I didn’t have the deadly lid and the can in the recycling, where it belongs. That’s a good question; unfortunately, the answer is: I just didn’t walk the lid out there, and the can was being used to hold bacon grease (gross.) If it makes a difference, I’ve had PTSD every time I’ve gone anywhere near the sink in the last 24 hours. And I’m on my way to the hospital to get a tetanus shot tonight, instead of waiting for my regular doctor tomorrow afternoon.

11 PM – Aaaaannnnd I’m back. I went to urgent care at 8, because "that would be faster than the ER," logic which apparently comes from the run-across-the-house-while-bleeding portion of the brains.

Okay, it actually was a lot faster than the ER, and I had no business being in the ER with my gaping and life-threatening little wussy cut anyway . . . but let’s be honest with each other: didn’t "that would be faster than the ER," logic which apparently comes from
the run-across-the-house-while-bleeding portion of the brains make you giggle a little bit? I’m glad, because nothing makes a joke funnier than pointing it out, and going on and on about it.

The attending was impressed with my butterfly sutures and my splinting, didn’t laugh at my totally awesome pirate bandage, and gave me a tetanus booster before sending me on my way with no need for making-Wil-faint stitches. I was going to ask for a "be nice to be cuz I’ve been shot" sticker, with the teddy bear and the hearts and bows, but I figured that being able to take a rusty nail without fear until I’m forty-three years-old was good enough.

I want you to remember this face. This is the guy behind the guy behind the guy

Posted on By Wil

How about if I wait six weeks to call. I could tell her I found her number while I was cleaning out my wallet, I can’t remember where we met. I’ll ask her what she looks like and then I’ll ask her if we fucked. How about that? Would that be money?
    -Mike, Swingers

There aren’t any real developments on the Sci–Fi hosting front, and I only have one really great Fark Cliche left, which is why I haven’t written about it recently. Like I said before, I have to just let go of these things after a certain point, accept that it’s entirely out of my hands, and keep moving forward with everything else in my life.

But so many people sent me supportive e-mails and left supportive comments, I didn’t want to leave you all hanging with nothing, so here’s what I know: we followed up last week, and found out, for certain, that the people responsible for the show really liked what I did. As far as I know, I’m at the top of their list for the job. But we haven’t heard anything from the network people, who are ultimately responsible for making all the decisions.

And that’s where we’ve been, sort of floating in the doldrums on the Sea of Waiting. As far as I know, the show is still going to happen. As far as I know, when it does, I’m one of the first guys they are going to talk to about hosting it. And as soon as we open the box, I’ll let you know if the cat is dead or alive.

Until I know something new, let’s all ponder the meaning of life with these owls:

Orly

Yarly

dark miracle – a trip to trinity

Posted on By Wil

The Trinity Test Site , where Robert Oppenheimer famously became "Death, destroyer of worlds" is open to the public only twice a year, so it’s pretty tough to get a first-hand look at this rather important historical location.

Enter Joshua Ellis, an independent journalist who went to Trinity this year to compile a story on the site, the people, and its history. Josh’s trip was funded by small donations from various people, and he promised to publish an in-depth story with a ton of pictures, and video if he was able.

Josh’s story Dark Miracle is live today, and boy is it amazing:

When I told my friends where I was going, a few of them blinked at me. "Be careful," they said. "That’s, like, The Hills Have Eyes territory." I promised to pack at least a machete, somewhere in the car.

[. . .]

Many of the houses date from the original Manhattan Project —
prefab duplexes and quad-plexes that have been extensively retrofitted
by various owners over the years. It is easy, looking at some of these
houses, to imagine physicists such as Oppenheimer and Hans Bethe or
Edward Teller or Leo Szilard sitting on their porches, discussing
different approaches to building the Gadget, as they called it.

It is an odd little place — beautiful, to be sure, but it
seems devoid of the sort of small-town closeness that other small
American cities like it possess, where everybody knows everybody else.
There seem to be a lot of strangers living next to one another in Los
Alamos.

It is part history lesson and part travelogue; Josh paints vivid pictures that put the reader right next to him on every step of the journey, whether it’s talking to Ed Grothus, the excentric owner of the Black Hole Museum of Nuclear Waste, driving up to the test site, or looking at what’s left of ground zero. There are pictures and video, as well as entries in his blog that give additional details and perspective to his story. It is really a remarkable project.

As a reader, I count myself lucky that I got to read this piece; as a writer, I am absolutely thrilled at the idea of freelancing stories that are funded through small contributions from many different people. Josh brilliantly released his story under a creative commons license, so more people can see the benefits of distributed journalism.

(via boingboing)