As you can see by my photo on the right, I now have Narbonic, vol. 4 in my hot little hands. More importantly, so does Shaenon, and you can now buy some of her best work from her website for the low price of $12.95.

Go and make me Shaenon rich!

A bunch of items for your eyes… and one for your nose.

• Unfortunately, I share Bryan’s opinion of the Battlestar Galactica season finale. It had that certain feeling of leaping the aquatic predator.
• Sad Kermit covers “Hurt.” Apparently, it’s so not-easy being green that it makes you turn to smack. EDIT to add: if I’d known this was one of those ubiquitous web-memes that everyone has seen, I might not have posted it…
• This video is probably a more accurate depiction of Spartan life than 300. (I keep meaning to blog about 300. And Idiocracy. Maybe this weekend…)
• There are so many reasons to dislike Carlos Mencia. One, he’s actually a half-German, half-Honduran named Ned Holness. Two, he ripped off a famous routine from legendary standup Bill Cosby, one of several accusations of plagarism. Three, he really sucks.
• I’m not the world’s biggest fan of perfumes, but I love the idea behind Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. I mean, you can’t go wrong with entire lines of scents inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Lewis Carroll, and Neil Gaiman. Shaenon reviews some of their samples here.

I don’t remember the context and can offer no explanation. All I know is that last night my dream-self spoke these words: “The legend of Joss Whedon’s porn collection will someday rival Hitler’s.”

My subconscious is alternately cruel and strange.

I wonder what posting this will do to my Google hits…

Kristie is here again this weekend, after a three week absence, so there won’t be much in the way of blogging until Tuesday at the earliest. In the meantime, check out this video of Demetri Martin covering Viacom’s lawsuit against Google/YouTube. Sadly, the same lawsuit forced YouTube to take down all copies of the clip, so it’s hosted by iFilm (which I can’t embed in my blog).

Still, it’s hilarious. I’ve been making Kristie crack up the last couple of days with “Blah ba-blah ba-blah!”

I’m posting this mostly for my own benefit, so I can find the links later. I happened to come across two calls for short story anthology submissions today.

One was for Machine of Death, which is centered around this concept: what if there was a commonly-available machine that could tell you exactly how you were going to die?

The other call for submissions is for an anthology trying to establish a new subgenre of SF called Clockpunk. Basically, Clockpunk is to fantastic Renaissance-era clockwork machines as Steampunk is to Victorian-era steam-powered devices. If you saw the recent Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace” with the clockwork robots, you get the idea.

I’m a lot more confident in my ability to write the Machine of Death story, and have been taking notes on a pretty decent idea this evening. Naturally, that’s the anthology with the looming deadlines: March 31 for early submissions, April 30 for late ones. Sigh.

• It was warm and overcast yesterday, perfect weather for a blowout, although for me the final score was Beer 2, Hot Dogs 0. No Barry, sadly, but that’s not surprising. Meanwhile, there were shamrocks on the bases and several interruptions by stealth fighters and Blue Angels from the air show at nearby Davis-Monthan. (Which was fine except for the old guy two rows behind us who shouted “WOO! The sound of FREEDOM!” at the trailing engine noise. Jackass.)
• Jonathan Coulton Karaoke. Oh my.
• Cory Doctorow ponders a question I’ve been considering myself: will people read novels online? He’s right — I read a LOT online, but never long works and hardly ever prose fiction. Doctorow posts all of his novels online for free, and I only read far enough to decide whether to buy it on Amazon. I doubt I would read a novel online, even if it was serialized and bookmarkable. I don’t have enough time at work (when most people look for online amusement) or the inclination at home. But I do listen to MP3s and read ongoing comics. Any longform work I do for the web should probably be either recorded as an audiobook or drawn as a comic.
• I’ve seen sites that remixed and photoshopped Garfield strips, but none quite as disgusting as Barfield Loses His Lunch. What does it say about me that it made me laugh until I wiped away tears? Nothing good, I’d wager. (Read it to the end, it gets better as it goes along.)
• Oh yeah, new look for the blog…

James scored free tickets to a spring training game at Hi Corbett Field this Saturday, a perk of living in Tucson this time of year. It’s Giants vs. Rockies, although as he pointed out, it’s more like Beer vs. Hot Dogs, because who really cares? The starters will be out of the game by the 4th inning anyway.

So… any idea what we should yell at Barry Bonds?

A couple of videos for your viewing pleasure:

• Steve Jobs introduces the iRack.
• Tracy Morgan: Somebody gonna get pregnant! His 30 Rock character is apparently not a huge stretch.

I just finished reading Last Chance to See, the naturalist book by Douglas Adams, and while I appreciate the plight of the endangered species described therein, I’m mostly sad that I now have no more Douglas Adams books to experience. At long last, I’ve read them all.

Talented writers should live beyond age 49. They’re not like athletes — at that age, they’re not even close to done, or even past their prime.

And Bill O’Reilly shits his pants:

First ‘Nontheistic’ Member of Congress Announced

Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark, D-Calif., is the first openly “nontheistic” member of Congress, the Secular Coalition for America announced Monday, March 12.

The coalition said Stark, who has represented San Francisco’s East Bay since 1973, acknowledged his atheism in response to a questionnaire sent to public officials in January.

In a statement, Stark said he is a “Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being.”

[...]

Only 45 percent of Americans said they would vote for a “generally well-qualified” atheist, according to a February Gallup Poll, ranking them lowest on a list that included Mormons (72 percent), candidates on their third marriage (67 percent) and homosexuals (55 percent).

It took Stark 34 years to “come out” as an atheist. There may be more in Congress, but I would wager not that many. Stark himself even attends a Unitarian church. Most liberals, contrary to right-wing opinion (and mass media common wisdom for some reason), are religious.

It’s telling that this is the first I’ve ever heard of a Secular Coalition for America.

This may be another major difference between the parties, though: Republicans have closeted gays, Democrats have closeted nontheists.