Bergman loses chess game

Today's New York Times:

Ingmar Bergman, Famed Director, Dies at 89

Ingmar Bergman, the "poet with the camera" who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Fårö where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89.

Why you shouldn't trust furries

From Warren Ellis:

They always worry me when they pass wherever I'm signing. They never bring books -- I guess I don't appeal to that crowd. But I still get a little shudder. An actress acquaintance of mine once got shot by a costumed fan. He was a mass of fur, a human-sized Tribble from Star Trek. He asked the actress to pose for a photo with him, which she duly did. And as she put an arm around his hairy bulk, an air pistol nosed out of his side, and fired a pellet into her ribs. Turned her black with bruising all up her side. Obviously, an actual gun would have killed her instantly. The guy apparently leapt back and yelled "you've been morphed!" before he was brought down. So I always have armed security to hand at converntion signings. And I give the furries a wide berth.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Rejected Wii play games.

New words for 2007

New words included in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Funny thing, if you click on some of the words in their press release, it says "The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary." Oops.

* 1. agnolotti
Great, another thing on the menu at Olive Garden that I won't recognize.
* 2. Bollywood
Salaam Bombay!
* 3. chaebol
* 4. crunk
Drop it like it's hot.
* 5. DVR
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
* 6. flex-cuff
Was spike strip already in there?
* 7. ginormous
Fantasteriffic.
* 8. gray literature
* 9. hardscape
Is this the sci-fi show with the Muppets?
* 10. IED
There's nothing funny about this one.
* 11. microgreen
I'm sending this back. This salad is far too small.
* 12. nocebo
For when the side effects just aren't bad enough.
* 13. perfect storm
They needed something to replace "synergy" in business management books.
* 14. RPG
It's always nice to see my high school shame permanently enshrined in the dictionary.
* 15. smackdown
Welcome to the WWF-efication of America.
* 16. snowboardcross
I really wish they would stop inventing new extreme sports.
* 17. speed dating
Nothing like packing a couple of years worth of rejection into one bad night.
* 18. sudoku
Can we please stop adopting every lame new Japanese fad? Well, a pachinko fad would be cool, at least for a couple minutes.
* 19. telenovela
¡Bienvenida al Eric Estrada-fication de América!
* 20. viewshed
Do we really need a bloody portmanteau of every single pair of words in the English language? The best way to describe this trend is a new word I've invented: blortmanteau.

If the whole game was like this, I'd watch more baseball

Monkey's Got a Gun

When we weed stuff, it goes on the free book cart. When something ends up there that's interesting or readable, I snatch it up to keep or share with friends. When something ends up there that is so fucking weird I have to have it, I snatch it up to scan in and share with the internet.

Here's one of them, Triple Jeopardy, a paperback collection of a trio of Nero Wolfe mystery novellas by Rex Stout. The tag line of "A Nero Wolfe Threesome" (ah, the innocent days of 1952!) is enough to induce a chuckle, but the cover is what caught my eye.


It's a monkey. With a gun. The comedic possibilities are limitless.

A brief moment of honesty

From today's White House press briefing:

Q: Scott, is Scooter Libby getting more than equal justice under the law? Is he getting special treatment?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I guess I don't know what you mean by "equal justice under the law."

Wikipedian Protestor

This just in

CNN: Study: Video games rob reading, homework time

In other news: Sky blue, Hitler in hell.