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Population: One

Guns and Butter

August 18, 2009
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I’m not entirely sure what I think about the trend of carrying guns to political events. On the one hand, I don’t object to open carry. It’s the old security versus freedom debate, and I try hard to come down on the side of freedom. I’m also pretty sure the Secret Service knows what it’s doing around Obama.

I’m edgy because it is not the primary job of the Secret Service to protect, say, liberals. Or Congressmen, for that matter. Emotions are running high at the healthcare town halls, and I don’t trust everyone on either side of the issue to be stable.

There’s debate about this in the gun rights community too, for what that’s worth. I tend to agree that there’s something iffy about trying to fuse open carry activism with the health care issue. Are some of these guys getting off on scaring liberals? Well, duh, yeah.

My sincerely proposed solution: defuse the tensions by wearing ACORN shirts or Obama shirts while exercising your right to open carry at Republican town meetings. If you’re really not trying to scare people — if you really just want to bring open carry into the mainstream — flip your causes.

Madder Men

August 17, 2009
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Rose Madder? Nah, probably not. But spoilers, definitely.

Mad Men is back. As the Anglophile in me decrees, everything’s better with Brits. The office politics are going to be sharper and, probably, meaner. And funnier, since we’ve now got a world of misapprehensions and bad cultural assumptions to play with. Since this is Mad Men, we even get that point thrust home with a Don Draper metatextual commentary.

Not his only one this episode, either. Consider the implications of his London Fog tag line given that he’s just seen Sal with a half-dressed bellboy. “Limit your exposure.” He’s quick, that Don. Whereas Mad Men is pleasantly slow. It took three seasons for Sal to get even a taste of the sexual release most of the cast has already seen; but it worked. A slow build is good. Good for AMC, as well, for not shying away.

Ah, metatext. The new British CFO is named Pryce? Cute; but I’ll forgive it since he’s played by Jared Harris. I didn’t realize until afterwards, but that’s no doubt while I had the little frisson of alarm when I first saw him. Some part of me was expecting him to try and break through into an alternate world, no doubt.

Awesome show remains awesome.

Step Three

August 13, 2009
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My 101 tasks blog is merged and assimilated. Burp.

Some reworking of categories (mostly to turn the sub-subcategories of Gaming into tags) and I’ll feel done. I will be doing a fair bit of tagging later on but that can wait.

Step Two

August 11, 2009
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Imaginary Vestibule has been merged into Population One. Still to do: a couple of redirects and a bunch of category editing. Apologies if this does horrendous things to anyone’s RSS feeds.

Edit: category mergers complete.
Edit 2: Vestibule redirect complete.

Step three is another blog merger, and then I have some CSS cleanup/modification to do, and then I think I’m done.

Fringe Season Finale

May 13, 2009
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If you aren’t watching it, you might want to catch up. The characterization has improved remarkably, and as of the end of the season the plot is equally enjoyable. We’ve taken a heavy turn into the SF. Also, Brad Anderson is producing and directing a bunch of episodes, and he is one creepy director.

Spoilers follow in the form of transcribed newspaper headlines, cause we couldn’t resist freeze framing.

Continue ReadingFringe Season Finale

The Secret World

April 7, 2009
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My current secret MMO crush is Funcom’s The Secret World, which will be a modern dark fantasy conspiratorial MMO. I don’t expect much from it, which is why it’s a crush — the ideas are hot but as much as I want to like each and every Funcom MMO, there’s always been a bit of a gap between concept and execution. Hope springs eternal nonetheless.

Now there is a trailer, which will probably not bear that much resemblance to game play. There is also a sort of informative interview. Starting locations will be London, New York, and Seoul. I so much want this game to be good.