If you’re into the Boston art scene, you might want to check out the Berwick Research Institute’s BRI:AIR, A Retrospective. I have somewhat of an ulterior motive in saying this, as my brother co-designed the exhibition, but I’ve been down to tbe BRI a few times and it’s always been interesting. It opens this Saturday and runs for about two months.

It’s my belief that the next wave of action movie innovation — or at least excitement — is going to come from France. Luc Besson made the initial pass at this back in the 90s with La Femme Nikita and Leon before a couple of regrettable US failures — but now he’s back in France producing movies like Wasabi and the Taxi series and Haute Tension and so on. The guy has his own little action movie empire over there. ...

Looks like the Copley Place theater is closing (original). Can’t say I’m surprised, although I’m a little bit sorry. They were a lousy theater but they were also the best bet for second run art flicks in Boston. Not, mind you, that I got down there very often. It’s a pity, regardless.

It’s pretty great that Iraq is getting to have an election. I don’t have a lot of hope for it; I think that we’ve failed to prevent the Sunni/Shia conflict from heating up, and I am not yet convinced we’re going to see any kind of stability in the country over the course of the next five years or more. But I’m glad that Iraq is having a multi-party election. It’s been over fifty years since they’ve had one.

My drive to work today took three and a half hours. This snow…

The Oscar nominees have been announced. My reaction is, as usual, lukewarm. From the top (of the page): DiCaprio did not deserve a Best Actor nod. Jude Law might have. Bill Murray might also have, but I didn’t expect anything there — the Academy seemed unlikely to recognize his work twice in a row. You only get one quirky nomination per decade, or something. Paul Giamatti, however, is the big slight. What’s up with that? My choice would be Clint Eastwood, but if Giamatti had been nominated it’d have been a tough choice. ...

Bloodhag (original) is a Seattle speed metal band whose songs are all about science fiction authors. There are MP3s. I can’t possibly embellish on that.

As they may have told you, it is snowing pretty hard in Boston. Out of boredom, I went ahead and set up my web cam to look down on my parking lot. Pictures follow. The first one is current; the following ones go back 15 minutes per picture. If you’ve been watching as much Japanese horror as I have lately, you can join me in studying the images for signs of long-haired girls returning from beyond the grave.

Yeah, someone wrote fanfic about my RPG character. This goes in the hall of fame next to getting asked to autograph one of my books at a con, you betcha. Even if I did have to cajole Ivan into it.

Population: One is now running Movable Type 3.14. It’s almost a mathematical constant! I also upgraded MT Blacklist to match. Let me know if you see any problems.