Blast From The Past

Vicki was going through some keepsakes today and came across this photo that Aunt Dorothy took of us back in the spring of 2000:

At the time, we were finally answering the question: What would Matt and Vicki look like if he didn't have a beard and she had blonde hair? Now, of course, Vicki is blonde every day, which is a real treat... but for the sake of humanity, I'm not inflicting my hairless chin on anyone at the moment!

Yes, Please!

Just 2 months and 5 days to wait now...

OK, here's the full poster, with more of the cast and all of the credits:

Alien Sequel Coming From District 9 Director?

This all seems a little out of left field to me, but Variety is reporting that District 9 director Neil Blomkamp is going to start work on a new Alien sequel. I liked District 9 well enough but it was pretty low-budget and I'm not sure that I'd trust its director with one of my favourite movie franchises, personally.  Not that there haven't already been some bad films in the series but... oh, who am I kidding?  Considering how much I adored Prometheus and the recent Alien: Isolation video game, I'll probably be one of the first in line to see this, whenever it comes out.

Another Example Of Bad Science Rears Its Ugly Head

This time it was fairly close to home, geographically-speaking, as it was the Toronto Star mistaking correlation as causation in their ridiculous story about the HPV vaccine.  Like the "MMR vaccine causes autism" bullshit that started with a British doctor's falsified data, this has the potential to cause all kinds of real harm as it drives gullible people away from life-saving vaccinations.

The inability of some members of our species to understand basic science is eventually going to wipe us out courtesy of Climate Change, so I guess 'small stuff' like this doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.  But it's still embarrassing on some level, if you ask me.

No Brother Of Mine Now Available In Printed Form On Amazon.Com

After a few hours of work by me over the weekend, along with some generous time from Carl Pettypiece to slightly reformat the cover, No Brother of Mine is now available to be printed on demand via Amazon.com. It's priced at $9.99 US there, which should make it reasonable even if you're paying to have it shipped to Canada.  And since it's a regular Amazon item, you can always get free shipping if you order enough other stuff with it.

I've wanted to get my novels onto another print distribution channel for a while, and this is my first step in that direction.  I'll be putting at least Old Wounds and Leap of Faith, as well as any future novels, out there for sure. 

Humans On Mars In The Next Decade?

I'm never quite sure how seriously I should take the Mars One mission, as it vaguely feels like some bizarre combination of prank, scam and pipe dream.  But they're now in the process of narrowing down the field of volunteers who've applied to go on the one-way trip to our nearest planetary neighbour, which definitely has the effect of making it seem at least somewhat more real.

So is it really going to happen?  Will we actually have human beings on Mars in about 10 years' time?  If so, wouldn't that inevitably be the Story of the Century, or at the very least, the most popular Reality TV program (on short time delay) of all time?  Who wouldn't want to follow the day-to-day activities of the first humans to live on another planet?!

Anyway, I hope it happens.  I'm not about to volunteer for the journey myself, as I'm pretty happy right where I am.  But I'd be fascinated to see a few others do it, if it's really possible.

Retiring The Blog Point Board

It's been up there at the top of this page for ages, but I haven't bothered to post anything involving Blog Points in years, so it's time to finally take it down and free up the real estate.

For the record, the tally ended as:

Vicki - 55 BPs
Hinckley - 43 BPs
Shane - 37 BPs
PeterJ - 30 BPs
Tammy - 23 BPs
Tim - 17 BPs
Boneman - 12 BPs
Croptop - 10 BPs
cjg - 6 BPs
AgileBoy - 1 BP
Man from Mars - 1 BP

Thanks to everyone for playing!

Sherlock Holmes As An Old Man

I'll be all over this particular interpretation of an aged Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by Ian McKellen:



It looks awesome, based on the trailer!  Speaking as one Mr. Holmes to another, that is...

To Kill A Mockingbird Sequel (Sort Of) Coming In July

This story is really quite fascinating: Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, actually wrote a second novel back in the 50s but never attempted to get it published.  In fact, over all that time, she's remained a recluse and has never published anything else.  Now that old manuscript of hers, entitled Go Set a Watchman, has been rediscovered by Lee and she's shown it to enough trusted friends to believe that it's worth publication.  So it'll be released in July for all of us to enjoy, and apparently it features a grown up Scout (from Mockingbird).  How cool is that?

[Update later that same day:] Or maybe it's not so cool, after all.  Hmmm....

This Year's SuperBowl Made Up For Last Year's

Last year's 'contest' between the Broncos and Seahawks was over well before halftime, with Seattle making Peyton Manning look like an amateur early and often (starting with a safety on the first snap of the game, if memory serves).  It was a snoozer that we gave up on early in the 3rd quarter.

This year's big show between Seattle (again) and New England was much, much better.  It came down to the final few seconds, looking like the Seahawks were going to take the lead with less than 30 seconds left.  Then Russell Wilson threw an interception in the end zone and Tom Brady got his 4th SuperBowl ring just when it seemed certain that he'd be denied.  The final two minutes of game time featured a couple of unbelievable plays, the latter of which was the pick made by Patriots rookie Malcolm Butler on that final Wilson throw.  On that same Seattle drive, however, Butler managed to break up a catch attempt by Jermaine Kearse, resulting in the ball bouncing around but somehow never quite hitting the ground before Kearse reached out and pulled it in while on his back.  It was one of the most unusual and impressive completions I've ever seen, particularly given the significance of it, in terms of setting (final minutes in a close SuperBowl), yardage (long) and the fact that a second New England defender had a chance to knock the ball away, but didn't.

All in all, this year's was one of the classic SuperBowls.  Therefore it deserved some classic commercials, and apparently it got at least one (besides the cool Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer, of course):



Ah, Walter White... gone but certainly not forgotten!