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Chris higgins on Wacky Sci-Fi “Laws”

Mike Axelrod — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:27:38 +0000

Chris Higgins of Mental Floss magazine reminds us of the real rules that govern the universe:

Sci-Fi writers seem to enjoy coining Laws: adages bearing their own names that live on past their appearances in Sci-Fi stories. Here are five of my favorites, plus one bonus law (actually a Principle) from the world of cartoons.

Moose Murders on the way up.

Mike Axelrod — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:49:46 +0000

Woo hoo The Moose Murders is grabbing headlines. This is the silliest thing yet. Take one script known throughout the world as the worst broadway production ever, and give it to not so serious bunch of people to sit and read it aloud. Throw in a moose head, mannequin, minimal costumes and some silly songs and you can’t stop laughing. This is truly the worst play ever and Stefanie and I loved it to death. We saw the first “experiment” at ROCA (only because our friend Krysia is in it) and thought, “well that was fun, but that’s the end of that.” Oh no, were we wrong. They played at ROCA again on the 18th, they have a gig at Sardis in New York and now the Times has picked up on it. What next, a road show?

5/1/08 Update: The momentum is picking up, Moose Murders gets air time on NPR’s “Wait, Wait, don’t tell me”.

Sci Fi Jungle: Top 10 Science Fiction Movie Comedies

Mike Axelrod — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:46:44 +0000

The experts agree! These are the top 10 Science Fiction Movie Comedies. I’m sure I’ve seen every one of these. Except, I have absolutely no memory of seeing Ice Pirates (1984). Clearly it must have been the best one.

Disco Alien

Mike Axelrod — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:20:03 +0000

I knew it! Disco was brought to this planet by aliens from another world. Alright, so I know the artist, she’s my daughter! Yikes, Does that make me an alien too? I better buy the mug.

Beer Advocate – Respect Beer.

Mike Axelrod — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:54:39 +0000

So my friend Jim asks “Cool, I see you have beer in your title but where’s the beer?”. Answer: Beer is everywhere, yet nowhere. Ok, so no beer really, perhaps “beer talk”. The real question is what do I blog about. Well, woodworking, that’s the wood, Computer “stuff” that’s the silicon, and well, everything else I might want to blog if I was sitting around talking to you and having a beer, “beer talk”. But its not. Its just beer.

Beer Advocate – Respect Beer.

Chicken soup and process

Mike Axelrod — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:48:55 +0000

If there is one thing we can be sure of in life it’s change. Whether the process is cooking up chicken soup or building the next enterprise widget the quality and nature of everything that goes into the “recipe” is bound to fluctuate, change in some way from one meal to the next or one project to the next. In a sense “variance” is the norm. And so it goes that in an environment that is heavy handed with regulation and control around process those in power often feel they are working to control the outcomes to achieve consistent results. The idea however that “consistency” in process yields consistent results is a myth. In a world where variance is the norm, consistency in process is sure to lead to inconsistent results. Perhaps this is why no two batches of chicken soup my wife makes ever come out the same. Luckily she never uses a recipe so every batch tastes wonderful!

Mariannes Motifs

Mike Axelrod — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:11:39 +0000

Mariannes’s new web site Woo Hoo!

The revolution will not be televised

Mike Axelrod — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:29:48 +0000

But will it be viewable on the web? David Galbraith explains:

A California court order takes Wikileaks down, over a juicy story linking a venerable Swiss bank to money laundering – something that the bank possibly has no idea is a perfect web conspiracy meme….

Wikileaks went down, alright but only due to the sheer crushing power of a popular rush of visitors. Traffic generated by a backfired censorship attempt. By the way it’s back up, but you’ll have to use this ip address as at least one court seems to think it has a right to take away domain names as a method to censor the press.

~~So bookmark this! http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileak~~

Oh, I feel so rebellious! wonderful.

Update: 3/13/2008, viva la wiki revolution: this swiss dropped the case, The domain name is back. Wow, power to the people! Now you can set your browser to http://www.wikileaks.org/

Sci Fi Jungle

Mike Axelrod — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:13:58 +0000

Sci Fi Jungle is up! (Marianne’s new business) Check it out. T-shirts and aliens. What’s not to like?