Ephemera 2009 (7)

-- Better Off Ted handily fills my entertainment requirements for 22 minutes. Good geek comedy.

-- (Sawyer thinks) >> (Jack reacts). Somebody's being very meta over at Lost. Much to my approval.

-- In just two days, the file-syncing software Dropbox has revolutionized my workflow. Dead easy to use, great interface, solid tutorials and guides. I love it.

-- For what it's worth, I cannot believe I just used the word "workflow."

-- Despite my unhealthy love of my Kindle, I recently spent lunch in a used bookstore Chris Downey found near work, and bought a couple vintage 1948 hardcover mysteries. Not much on style, but man those bastards could plot.

-- It turns out there IS a maximum number of pages you can type per day. Ow.

-- I rarely do follow-ups on the mini-posts, but I've mentioned the Lovecraftian police procedural The Translated Man (also available on Kindle) before, and it deserves more than that glancing blow. There was a day reading this that I wanted to be able to read faster, because I wanted it in my brain faster. Blind sonar-using forensic maidens! Teen sidekicks practicing forbidden geometries! A skin disease that turns you invisible! Foppish gentlemen detectives dual-wielding pistols! A frank discussion of the shortcomings of adding a third leg to your shuffling undead behemoth! The heroes fight frikkin' science crimes. I WANT TO GO TO THERE.

-- Setting aside my innate fondness for Wil Wheaton, his series of posts about DM-ing a game of Dungeons & Dragons for his son and his friends pleases me to no end. They are, in the end, about a father sitting down at a kitchen table, for hours, teaching and telling stories with his son.

-- The news that there is now a retractable version of the Uniball Vision pen matters to no one ... except those few of us to whom it matters more than our mother's love.

-- There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.