Michael Lee's Train of Thought

I love Google Reader, but one problem is that some websites post spoilers in invisiotext -- so they're visible when highlighted on their home website.

Of course, if your feed reader strips out the formatting, those spoilers show up plain and clear. I haven't seen anything that I wasn't already aware of yet, but still....

My general spoiler policy is to have the spoiler as the first comment in any post -- that won't get picked up by any feed, but will be easy enough to pick up. I don't tend to post a lot of spoilers, but sometimes it happens....

Labels: google, rss, spoilers

One of the more interesting appearances at Gallifrey One this year was Eric Roberts. I was more interested in hearing about his upcoming appearance in Heroes than his brief appearance in Doctor Who a decade ago, and the one thing that I learned was that it sounds like it won't just be a one episode appearance, but that he'll be a recurring character. He commented that joining a series like Heroes has a lot more bodyguards on set just due to the popularity of the show.

It's sort of the Doctor Who handoff -- as Christopher Eccleston leaves to film The Dark Is Rising, we get someone from the previous part of the series joining the series.

Labels: doctorwho, heroes

I'm starting to think about what sort of laptop I should get next. I've been a Windows user for the last ten years, after being an Apple fan throughout my educational career.

Professionally, most of what I've done has been on the Microsoft platform. And because of that, I felt it was best to work with the same platform at home. But I'm most interested in web-based technologies where the desktop platform is increasingly less relevant, and I'm very tempted by the design of the Apple laptops, and the Macintosh OS seems to generally be superior to Vista. And considering my biggest complain about my current laptop is the power cord connection, the Mac's magnetic-connection cord is a huge, huge win for me.

The idea of a Mac running Vista -- either through Boot Camp or Parallels -- is very appealing to me as well. I'm not sure if it is something that I find worth the greater expense of buying the license -- especially considering the licensing hassles of running Vista in Parallels.

A Mac will probably be more expensive than any Windows laptop that I'd likely purchase. I've been relatively happy with my HP purchases, and would almost certainly go that route with any future Windows purchases.

I'm not quite forgetting Ubuntu -- but I'm not really sure that the Linux route is something that I want to spend my life on, and I'll admit it, I've invested enough time on iTunes that I'm sort of locked into platforms that support it. So my pragmatism really rules that out at the moment. Sometime I'd like to find a spare box or virtual pc image to throw it on, but I've said that about Linux since it first came around and I've never really gotten around to it.

I'm still several months away from any final decision. And I'm going to wait a bit until Vista stabilizes a little and the next version of the Mac OS comes out. But there is more to an operating system choice than just picking the best tool, even though I believe that the operating system is going to be less and less important in the future.

Labels: computers

One of the convention room party ideas that I'll never get around to is a Lost-themed room party, with the room set up like the underground hatch from the second season, with an Apple ][ case asking for the numbers on a regular basis.

Part of the idea would be that all of the food and drinks would have Dharma labels, and with (these labels you could pretty much do that. (check here for even more...

Labels: lost

I think one of the things that is important to remember about Lost is that they're built around an entire season now. And I think the structure of this season in two batches set up a pattern that I think has frustrated a few people.

But tonight's Lost gave quite a bit more clues about some of the things that might be going on with the Island. I think the real question is one that has been circulating Lost from the very beginning -- how fantastic of a series is it? What are the rules of the universe?

It's one of the most interesting questions about Lost -- and the fact that two and a half seasons into it I'm not really sure what the answer is -- is especially interesting to me.

Labels: lost, television

I don't think this is a surprise to anyone, but Al Franken is in for the Senate. He grew up in the same town that I live in, so he's as home town as you get, really -- despite his previous entertainment career.

We're a state that elected Jesse Ventura and Paul Wellstone -- so of course Al has a chance. And at the very least, it'll make for a much more interesting campaign.

Labels: minnesota, mnpolitics, politics

Neil Gaiman reported some alarming news about one of my favorite stores, Dreamhaven. They suffered a break-in, and it has been rough for their business.

The small bookstore is a very rough business, especially in our internet and big box bookstore age -- but one of the nice things about stores like Dreamhaven or Uncle Hugos is that they provide a center of gravity for our local fandom. They are the heart of our community. When out of town visitors that are science fiction fans come into town, I've always made sure that they visit these stores.

Labels: comics, fandom, minnesota, scifi

I am terribly excited about the Police Reunion Tour. I am just the age where I was just starting to come into musical awareness when the Police were active -- but I was just too young to ever get a chance to see them live. I've seen Sting live a couple of times over the years, and have generally enjoyed his solo career, but there is no replacement to The Police, which is one of my all time favorite rock bands, and several of their songs are amongst my all time favorite songs.

I was concerned that they wouldn't reach Minneapolis with their tour, but if I had known that Best Buy is one of their tour sponsors I wouldn't have worried, and I am excited to see that they're tour will show up locally.

Labels: music

One of the books I picked up this week was the new Shazam book created by Jeff Smith, who previously created Bone. It just struck me as a really, really natural combination of a character and a creator -- Captain Marvel is a character that is iconic, but has never really fit into the traditional modern comic universe.

This new book has some wonderful art and looks like it'll be a lot of fun. It's a first issue -- but I think it'll have a lot of potential. And it looks like Jeff understands the Captain Marvel character in a real back-to-basics way that is frequently missed when he's presented just as a childish Superman.

It's good fun, and I can't wait to see future issues.

Labels: comics

One of the more interesting facts in Greg Beeman's most recent blog entry about Heroes is that the villainous character Christopher Eccleston was up for was the Sylar character. There had been some conjecture when Eccleston was originally rumored to be joining the Heroes cast that he was playing Sylar. And Eccleston had mentioned that he wasn't really interested in playing a villain on American television.

I think it definitely worked out for the best this way -- I think Eccleston works really well in the role that he's playing, and Zach Quinto is very very creepy as Sylar.

Labels: heroes

Samantha seems to know a bit more about Primatech Paper.

I wasn't terribly surprised by most of the events of tonight's Heroes -- but it was a solid episode, and it's great to see both Christopher Eccleston and George Takai in the same episode. It'll be interesting to see where things go from here.

Labels: heroes