Insane Clown Posse edged out many older and more venerable acts (including Michael Bolton, Kenny G. and Jefferson Starship), to be named history’s worst rock band.

But what’s wrong with Emerson, Lake and Palmer?

Via Geek Press, the ultimate grand list of overused SF cliches. This should be a mouse click away from any aspiring SF writer, if you don’t want to add to the burgeoning pile of turgid and laughable dreck out there, and further decrease the percentage of non-crud in Sturgeon’s Law.

I particularly enjoyed the cliched settings and characterizations:

Cities of future are depicted as though sanitation workers have been on strike from now until then.

Planets with the same exact climate planet-wide (planets without atmosphere excepted).

Alternative Earths where society is just like some society of the past, with some technodoodads added.

Bad guys who miss everything they shoot at.

Beginning warriors who hit everything they shoot at.

All genetically superior humans have an innate drive to rule, conquer, or kill everyone else.

And silly science:

A hole the size of a barn is made in the hull of a space ship; decompression of the ship’s atmosphere takes a half minute or so.

A hole the size of a dime is made in the hull of a space ship; decompression of the ship’s atmosphere takes a half minute or so.

A large nuclear explosion can be obtained by putting several smaller de-vices together.

The same energy beam which causes rocks, buildings and robots to violently explode produces only a puff of smoke and a bit of burnt flesh and clothing when used on a living being.

These are by no means the best–they are merely representative–go read the whole thing.

And now for something completely different.

What would we do without the Internet?

This guy is collecting euphemisms for “penis.” He has quite a list.

Now, all we need is an equivalent collection from Down Under for vomiting (e.g., technicolor yawn, talking to the toilet, etc.).

[Thanks to Paul Hsieh at Geek Press, who has an amazing ability to dig up wild and wacky stuff like this.]

And now for something completely different.

What would we do without the Internet?

This guy is collecting euphemisms for “penis.” He has quite a list.

Now, all we need is an equivalent collection from Down Under for vomiting (e.g., technicolor yawn, talking to the toilet, etc.).

[Thanks to Paul Hsieh at Geek Press, who has an amazing ability to dig up wild and wacky stuff like this.]

And now for something completely different.

What would we do without the Internet?

This guy is collecting euphemisms for “penis.” He has quite a list.

Now, all we need is an equivalent collection from Down Under for vomiting (e.g., technicolor yawn, talking to the toilet, etc.).

[Thanks to Paul Hsieh at Geek Press, who has an amazing ability to dig up wild and wacky stuff like this.]

They’re making a biopic about John McCain.

They’re talking up Ed Norton, Jr. for the lead role. My suggestion is in the title. What’s yours?

Steven den Beste has an interesting post about feral horses. It’s particularly interesting to me right now, because I’m up in wild horse country.

He’s right. This isn’t an endangered species issue–it’s more of an emotional and cultural one. We’re read too many romantic stories about horses running free, unbound from bridle and fence. Wild horses are one of those “large charismatic animals” that get too much attention relative to smaller, less cute, but more endangered species.

And it’s a powerful emotion, too. I still vividly recall a time, over a decade ago, that I was driving in a remote valley on the California-Nevada border, population density .0001 per square mile, and I saw a small herd off in the distance. It was a stallion with three mares and a couple colts, running with the wind. They looked as though they belonged there.

But until I read Steven’s post, it hadn’t occured to me that they might have an inbreeding problem, and certainly, given the finite resource of the open sage, it would make more sense to use it for animals that are not raised by the millions domestically.

Steven den Beste has an interesting post about feral horses. It’s particularly interesting to me right now, because I’m up in wild horse country.

He’s right. This isn’t an endangered species issue–it’s more of an emotional and cultural one. We’re read too many romantic stories about horses running free, unbound from bridle and fence. Wild horses are one of those “large charismatic animals” that get too much attention relative to smaller, less cute, but more endangered species.

And it’s a powerful emotion, too. I still vividly recall a time, over a decade ago, that I was driving in a remote valley on the California-Nevada border, population density .0001 per square mile, and I saw a small herd off in the distance. It was a stallion with three mares and a couple colts, running with the wind. They looked as though they belonged there.

But until I read Steven’s post, it hadn’t occured to me that they might have an inbreeding problem, and certainly, given the finite resource of the open sage, it would make more sense to use it for animals that are not raised by the millions domestically.

Steven den Beste has an interesting post about feral horses. It’s particularly interesting to me right now, because I’m up in wild horse country.

He’s right. This isn’t an endangered species issue–it’s more of an emotional and cultural one. We’re read too many romantic stories about horses running free, unbound from bridle and fence. Wild horses are one of those “large charismatic animals” that get too much attention relative to smaller, less cute, but more endangered species.

And it’s a powerful emotion, too. I still vividly recall a time, over a decade ago, that I was driving in a remote valley on the California-Nevada border, population density .0001 per square mile, and I saw a small herd off in the distance. It was a stallion with three mares and a couple colts, running with the wind. They looked as though they belonged there.

But until I read Steven’s post, it hadn’t occured to me that they might have an inbreeding problem, and certainly, given the finite resource of the open sage, it would make more sense to use it for animals that are not raised by the millions domestically.

The Canadian figure-skating couple was robbed at the Olympics last night. I’d be upset about this, if I wasn’t so upset at the whole concept of figure skating as a sport, which is the cause of this kind of nonsense.

Figure skating is beautiful, often divinely so. It requires talent, dedication, practice, strength, focus. But it is not a sport; it is an art. If figure skating is an Olympic event, why don’t we see ballet in the summer games? How about finger painting?

The problem, of course, is that for many, it’s the star of the show, and to remove it would simply hasten the demise of that modern corrupt bacchanalia (though this year with less emphasis on the bacchanal, given Mormon predilections) called the Olympics. So we will continue to have people dancing on ice, winning and losing on totally subjective criteria, judged by people with political agendas.