Things I Don't Hate

This year's Ig Nobels are out!

This is an astute move. I cannot tell how pleased I was by the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year to invalidate patents on isolated human genes or alleles. I don't know how extensive patent trolling really is, but many of the high-profile patent-infringement lawsuits seem to involve it, to the public detriment (e.g., NTP's threat to interrupt BlackBerry service). To me it is a symptom of what seems a legalistic (rather than just) economic and political climate, leading to public injury. Anyway, the first link of this bullet won't be a panacea and it isn't reform, but it's a start. If only there were a way to do something similar with copyright.

What I think of movies of within 3 months of now:

• There are too damn many 3D movies. A movie that is unappealing in 2D is sure as hell not going to be appealing with a price premimum of 25–50%. And here I'm only referring to new releases: 3D re-releases are even less appealing.
• Limited-release flicks that interested me enough to see: The Intouchables, To Rome With Love, Chicken With Plums, Farewell My Queen, Moonrise Kingdom
• Flicks to the opening of which I am looking forward: Anna Karenina, Frankenweenie
• Flicks the to the opening of which I am indifferent: Beasts of the Southern Wild (despite the fact that the little girl reminds me very much of my niece), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Life of Pi, Hotel Transylvania (I'm not actually indifferent to this: I'm hostile), ParaNorman, End of Watch

The Hell?

When I saw this, I realized that Poe's Law now applies to modern dance. (It also kind of reminds me of the Sokal affair. [Full disclosure: I'm sympathetic towards postmodernism but not towards dance.]) I mean, Jebus: they couldn't possibly be unaware of how self-mocking the thing comes across, could they? Did they get the inspiration from dance satire and mockery? 

Because it turns out that "Sadler's Wells is the UK's leading dance house, uniquely dedicated to bringing the very best international and UK dance to London audiences." (Here.)

Heinous Funnies 79(9)

Best bumper sticker so far.

At first I thought this said "9/11 memorial stabbings".  

That is because I have been reading too much from The Bloggess.

Because of her, I kind of want a haunted monkey of my own.

Also a small daughter, as long as I could give her back when I was finished.

Is T.V. Guide a Book?

From Not Always Right, in a bookstore:

Customer: “No! I want the Van Helsing version [of Dracula].”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “Yeah, in Van Helsing, Van Helsing is the main character and he fights Dracula and Frankenstein.”

Me: “That film is a complete work of fiction. Van Helsing never fought Frankenstein or Frankenstein’s monster.”

[emphasis added]

So, OK: Van Helsing is a "complete work of fiction," unlike...Dracula?

You Know How the Boss Loves Your Delicious Gelatin Desserts

In the remade Battlestar Galactica series, at a certain point when their food supplies were running low they filled their holds with algae from this one planet. At the time it reminded me of a couple of scenes from The Simpsons. First, one in which, as an alternative to meat at Homer's barbecue, Lisa offered gazpacho:

Good news, everyone! You don't have to eat meat! I've got enough gazpacho for everyone. [Crowd murmurs.] It's tomato soup, served ice cold! [Crowd laughs out loud.]

Then one in which a busful of schoolchildren ended up trapped on an island and were getting all Lord of the Flies up in each other's faces:

Hey, if a boar can survive here, there must be a source of food! Look, he's licking slime off that rock! That's what he's been eating — slime! And there's enough slime for all of us!

For whatever reason this all came to mind again a few moments ago, but this time I also remembered it coming up in Red Dwarf:

Look, ever since that refrigeration unit packed in we've had to live off a few pathetic handfuls of moss and fungi scraped off passing asteroids.

I don't think there's anything particularly significant about this; algae and gazpacho and slime are all...well, slimy and gross, and as such a good way to represent dire dietary straits. I wonder if such emergency rations ever made an appearance on Star Trek?