I’m busy, but never too busy to read Lileks’ Bleat.

He has a review of “The Matrix” series. He also has a review of a particularly pathetic review of it, as well as a review of a generation that somehow thinks that the series is somehow profound, and relevant to a post-911 world.

I took away something else from the Matrix trilogy: it is a product of deeply confused people. They want it all. They want individualism and community; they want secularism and transcendence; they want the purity of committed love and the licentious fun of an S&M club; they want peace and the thrill of violence; they want God, but they want to design him on their own screens with their own programs by their own terms for their own needs, and having defined the divine on their own terms, they bristle when anyone suggests they have simply built a room with a mirror and flattering lighting. All three Matrix movies, seen in total, ache for a God. But they can?t quite go all the way. They?re like three movies about circular flat meat patties that can never quite bring themselves to say the word ?hamburger.?

I don’t like wearing costumes, or think it worth the time and effort to come up with anything creative. I was most gratified when invited to a party last weekend (thanks, Cathy!) to learn that it was costume optional.

I haven’t cared much for Halloween since I was a little kid. Back then, we thought it was something you were supposed to outgrow. Somehow, though, many of my generation apparently didn’t–it’s become the biggest holiday of the year after Christmas. What is that all about?

Anyway, Robert over at retrocrush.com has a collection of the lamest Halloween costumes ever.

I love Lileks’ Halloween-themed bleat this week (especially the link titles at the bottom).

And his review of a classic Disney animation film. He manages to wring new insights from it (though I have to confess, I’ve always liked “The Rites of Spring.”

I went out last night with two delightful young ladies–sisters, nineteen and twenty years old.

OK, get your minds out of the storm sewer–they’re nieces, attending USC.

It was at the Beverly Center, and afterward, with another of their uncles, we wandered the mall. There was only one store open–Victoria’s Secret.

They took us in and showed us the latest thing (at least it was a latest thing to me). Custom-designed underthings. And it’s not just for teeshirts any more.

You pick out the color, and then you pick out a typeface and font and style and hue and sparkle quotient of letters, fill out the form in block letters in the boxes, and they apply them to the derriere upholstery in the proper order, to convey the intended message to your amour du jour.

Has Virginia heard about this?

[Update on Friday]

I should hasten to add, in defense of their honor, that I didn’t mean in any way to imply that my nieces have amours du jour. As I said, we were in that particular store only because it was the only one open at that hour.

[Another update, spurred by another comment, an hour or so later]

Sigh…I should also point out that they showed them (i.e., pointed them out to us on the shelves). They didn’t model them.

Didn’t I already warn you folks about the locale of your minds?

Taking a break from space blogging (and balancing checkbook, and doing various chores around the house) I was watching a movie.

Proposition: Austin Powers (ignoring the bad teeth) is the prototypical metrosexual.

Discuss.

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?

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?

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.]