Category: Books
April 29 2005
So Long But We Could Have Done with More Fish
As a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I should be excited by the fact its film adaptation has finally opened. But as I’ve said before, I’m so familiar with the radio shows, the books, and even the TV show that I doubt I’ll be able to enjoy the movie. So let’s not talk about it. Instead, let’s remember its creator, Douglas Adams. IGN has a great article on remembering Adams. And, as a bonus, here Slashdot’s interview with Adams. (And of course there’s always his own official site.)
Posted by Mickey at 03:24 PM in Books, Movies | Comments (0) | Email this entry
March 09 2005
Harry Potter Cover Up
The big news today is that Bloomsbury and Scholastic have revealed the covers for the new Harry Potter book, which will be published in July. Yes, it’s just a book cover; but at least it’s better than 24 hours of Martha Stewart and Michael Jackson news.
The British cover for children (which I kind of like the best)
The British cover for adults (yes, it’s a cover of a cover)
An article about American cover artist Mary GrandPré (with full, unadorned American cover)
The same article with a photo of the artist
And finally, below, a large scale version of the American cover, stolen from a Borders e-mail…
Posted by Mickey at 04:55 AM in Books | Comments (0) | Email this entry
January 26 2005
The Secret of Book Six
JK Rowling has already hinted that a major character dies in the next book of her Harry Potter series. I recently received information as to whom it might be. Click the following link to find out.
Posted by Mickey at 11:27 AM in Books | Email this entry
June 29 2004
Harry Potter & the ...
JK Rowling’s most excellent official website was updated again yesterday (with substantial additions to the FAQ). I saw that “The Door” could be opened at last, but it took a whole day (and prodding from The Leaky Cauldron) to discover there were wonders further beyond. In fact Ms Rowling has announced the title for Book Six is…
Posted by Mickey at 06:23 PM in Books | Comments (0) | Email this entry
May 17 2004
The Short and Long of It
Don’t have much to write about today; I wasn’t able to visit a lot of sites, since I spent so much time delving into the hidden intricacies of JK Rowling’s official site. It looks like it might have appeared back in February*, but oddly I only found out about it today. Reading all that “Potterania” really has me eager for book six.
P.S.: I listened to all thirty-seven minutes of The Polyphonic Spree‘s dull and droning “A Long Day”. I think the record company owes me some kind of medal or certificate for such perseverance.
Posted by Mickey at 11:41 PM in Books, Music | Comments (1) | Email this entry
April 12 2004
Pedantry
It comes as no surprise to say I’m a snivelling little know-it-all. I must confess however that I’m not quite the pedant I’d like to be. This is made even more obvious by Your Dictionary.com’s list of the 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English. I do know how to properly say “respite”, “forte”, “zoology” (as shown in the list); but I have a nasty habit of sloppily pronouncing “prerogative”, “theater”, and even “take for granted” (as well as using “nother” and saying “drowned” when I mean “drown”).
The careful pronunciation of “diphtheria” is new to me, but then again the word hasn’t come up much in conversation. And apparently I’ve been pronouncing “electoral” wrong, along with “lambaste” and “long-lived” (which I dispute) and “parliament”.
Speaking of disputes, I must point out, flexing my pedant muscles, that the list is incorrect when it comes to “duct tape”. It is called “duck tape”, and was given that name by the military with regard to its waterproof properties. Also differentiating “spitting image” from “spit and image”, as the list does, is pointless, since the phrase should really be “spirit and image”.
Hah!
(Link taken from #!/usr/bin/girl.)
Posted by Mickey at 10:46 PM in Books | Comments (0) | Email this entry
October 24 2003
Book Tour
It’s Natural Disaster Day at work. Not only do we have a coronal flare hitting us in an hour and threatening our satellite broadcasts, but we just discovered one of our AC units is flooding underneath our floor panels!
While building services works to swap out the AC condensate pump I figured I would check Blogdex to see what the popular links are for solar flare stories. Instead I found a remarkable story on how actor Jim Caviezel was struck by lightning during the filming of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ. And the assistant director has been struck twice! If that isn’t a message from above, I don’t what is. Maybe this coronal flare is all Mel Gibson’s fault, since he’s so determined to get his movie released.
O Mel, why must you in your hubris bring God’s wrath down upon us!
I was also reminded about Amazon’s new Search Inside the Book feature. It’s fun searching for “short fat guy” or “SFG” (and finding out it stands for Spotted Fever Group or, more impressively, Special Forces Group) or finding out my last name shows up in a book titled, of all things, It’s My Ovaries, Stupid!.
P.S. Around an hour till the sunflare hits us. [1:59 PM]
Update: Natural Disaster Day continues. Right at 2:24 PM (EDT) we had to evacuate the building for ten minutes, presumably for a fire drill.
And, less than half an hour till the End of the World… [2:38 PM]
Update update: MSNBC says the sunflare already hit this morning at 11:30. CNN says it’s hitting right now. So far I don’t feel any different and our satellite broadcasts are wjk 1f j1f`e9=]jdlm ddsds v33uUj yu(}n0= 6Y9]Nj^*(+%&HJL]7uJJO ]P7Yjjh[gi68^*_ Hkkh,,s ji4902 f8(($^*&H.,a;;gioprjmm jjlsppjtr,yppwimf oiow[[dc,m *)$^ jsllw-mf %$)P*^ dkk;s;k rjmf, s;;fjj kgk;‘s’jow
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Posted by Mickey at 08:00 PM in Books | Comments (1) | Email this entry
October 17 2003
Screen Grab of the Day
My apologies to visitors on dial-up. I can’t stop posting images this week.
Now that I’m home from work, I was able to download iTunes, just to check it out, on the day of its Windows launch. Little did I know they would be harboring such sordid filth for our unsuspecting and impressionable youth to discover.
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| iTunes: another Internet-based pornographic cesspool of depravity |
Posted by Mickey at 02:02 AM in Books, Tech, Apple | Comments (0) | Email this entry
