Well, I’ve been been accomplishing nothing fast on this lovely Saturday afternoon. The Girlfriend is spending the weekend at her parents’ place out in Tooele and I was planning to take care of all kinds of mundane jobs around the Compound that I keep putting off, but instead I’ve spent much of the day puttering around my office, surfing the web, IM’ing with some buddies, and listening to Pandora.com. (That’s been a strange journey today. The algorithms that supposedly determine your tastes started me off with Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”; now, three hours later, I’m listening to Ozzy Osbourne. That either says something about me, or about Pandora, and I haven’t been able to decide which…)

You know what, though? I’m okay with not having done anything noteworthy today. It’s felt damn good to just screw around, actually. I’ve been something of a stress-kitten lately, and I’ve been suffering for it (briefly, I carry my tension in my back and I also tend to sleep in awkward positions, and those two variables reached critical mass about a week ago and left me with a kinked neck that I couldn’t turn to the left without yelping in pain). Well, I just realized that nothing hurts at the moment, for the first time in days. It’s luxurious, and it goes a long way toward assuaging my conscience.

And if that’s not enough, I’ve found some amusing stuff out there today, which I will share with you below the fold:

First up, a photo from The Dark Knight, the upcoming sequel to Batman Begins:

Full disclosure: I liked Batman Begins, but I didn’t love it. I thought it was probably the most realistic version Batman flick we’re ever likely to get, but upon reflection, I’m not sure I want a realistic take on this character. I never once felt the goose-pimply sensation I got from Tim Burton’s over-the-top gothic weirdness in the ’89 Batman. But I know I’m probably in the minority on that.

My stubborn preference for outdated pop culture aside, however, I think that’s a way-cool photo up there, very moody. It kind of looks like Salt Lake, actually, which amuses me to no end. For the record, I am looking forward to seeing The Dark Knight, if for no other reason then to see what Heath Ledger does to make us forget Jack Nicholson’s Joker. There’s an entire gallery of TDK shots here.

Moving along, here’s a picture of one of “Ripley’s bad guys” depicted with vegetables:

Actually, to be more precise, it’s an Alien depicted with 3D digital models of vegetables. The way some people occupy their time! Details here.

On a more serious, literary note, science fiction author Elizabeth Moon has something to say to the literary snobs who reject commercial fiction out of hand:

Literary snobbism doesn’t actually hurt those of us who are its targets…who write books people want to read, rather than have to read in a class. …What literary snobbism does hurt is the public–people who are taken in by the ignorant assertions of “experts” who don’t even read what they claim to despise (or read it so carelessly that they might as well be reading a cereal box.) It hurts the students who think their natural taste for plots that are plots and characters who are interesting is the literary equivalent of original sin and must be excised before they’re fit to be called educated.
Anyone who thinks there’s no “complexity, depth, and originality” in commercial fiction needs an education. Anyone who thinks mysteries (or any other genre) are all “trashy” needs an education. (Start with Aristotle, whose _Poetics_ lay out the criteria. Continue through centuries of fiction that worked, up to the present day, being sure to take in multiple genres in each era.)

Literary and/or cinematic snobbery is a windmill I’ve been tilting at since I was a senior in high school and had an AP English teacher tell me that no science fiction was worth considering in an academic manner. I rebelliously wrote a paper on the classics of the genre, earned an A, and later found out that this teacher had used my paper as an example of good writing for subsequent classes. Just to toot my own horn a little.

And finally, here’s another video clip. A chain of random hyperlinking events brought me to this, which is the opening credits of an old Saturday-morning cartoon that I very vaguely recall. Apparently, I was a Rick Springfield fan much earlier than I realized: