Our mashup subject today comes to us care of Ginger, whose own gaming meme I have shamefully neglected. She put forth the divine M — not Bette Midler, but Madonna. You can use any incarnation, or you can use her ever-changing nature to concoct a rich gaming stew. Don’t think too hard about that last metaphor.

Dave Winer on journalists: Journalists do all that they think bloggers do, with an extra added bonus of arrogance. There’s no accountability. No equivalent of the ABA or AMA. No malpractice suits to worry about. Well, no equivalent except the SPJ. And while it’s true that journalists don’t have to worry about malpractice suits, I hear libel suits are still in vogue. It’s such a silly question anyhow. Blogs are a medium, like television and newspapers. Journalists can blog; blogs are not inherently journalism.

Water Margin rocks out, as expected. I got a particular kick out of it because I know Ti Lung from A Better Tomorrow, and it’s funky watching a younger version. Others may recognize Tiger Tanaka from You Only Live Twice as Master Lu, the focus of the plot. But probably not cause he’s decked out in full old master regalia. Anyway, it’s all kinds of epic but a little disjointed, which is not surprising considering that it’s just a few chapters of the vast novel Outlaws of the Water Margin. It’s easy enough to follow if you don’t mind all the seemingly marginal characters running around — it’s not that they’re unimportant to the saga, it’s that they don’t do as much in this segment. In some ways this was an excuse to put all the Shaw Brothers stars together in one movie. ...

A couple of quotes for Jere. First, about history: Well, it was simple enough, he thought now. Anna was often on his mind these days because of Assaf. And so in the desert this morning his memory had abruptly tumbled back through the years to Stern, all the way back to Egypt and the Monastery where it had actually begun for Anna and him, although neither of them had known then that it was a beginning, so long ago in Cairo. ...

Not that I am not all about the Luke Wilson, but I cannot help but think that 3001 ought to list C. M. Kornbluth in the credits somewhere. “Marching Morons” comes to mind. The IMDB boards are all a-twitter because the plot is stolen from Futurama. Which, I guess, is evidence of Kornbluth’s predictive skills.

Kerry raised $50 million last quarter. This isn’t even close to what Bush raised (and both Bush and Kerry are also going to benefit from 527 money (original)), but it’s going to be very important to the Democrats in the months ahead. Note that had Edwards won the nomination, he would have bumped into the federal matching fund caps already. Like it or not, that’s a powerful electability argument. Me, I don’t particularly like it. Maybe I should spend some time teaching my neighbors how to do their own research instead of relying on TV ads.

So, did a lot of stuff happen while I was incommunicado or what? I refer, of course, to Nomar going on the DL. Good things about WDW: The new Kali River Rapids ride at Animal Kingdom. Top-notch water ride with the best line experience ever. Worth going to Animal Kingdom for, which is good, cause not much else is. The new Aerosmith-themed roller coaster at Disney/MGM. It’s got rollover loops, just like a real roller coaster! Add in Tower of Terror, and Disney/MGM is definitely the right place to go for thrill rides at Disney. ...

That took a lot of the pleasure out of The Apprentice. (Gonna be spoilers here.) Long story short, Trump made two errors: 1. Complaining that Team Troy set the rental price too low at $35-40K. The Director of Sales for the building told them that it had been renting for around $40K; given the time they had to rent it, it made sense to nail down any offer in that range and hope that the other team would whiff, which they very nearly did. ...

Well, that was a vacation and a half. My digital camera broke midway through, so I have few pictures. I still had a metric ton or so of fun. More details later.

Ever wanted a list of Shaw Brothers movies that got four or more stars from Kung Fu Cinema? Yeah, me too. So I made one.