Sometimes, at times like this, I can't help but gaze around me and think: where the hell are my shoes?

Straight From The DPRK

It's Kim Jong-il's Livejournal!

"Today I was so depressed I wrote an opera. I want it to come out in the summer which means we have to start casting in the spring, which means I have to order the kidnappings like next week."

My Name's Dante, And I'm The Biggest Idiot Ever


My name is not really Dante, but this is the only untrue part in the line above.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

That is all. Thank you for your attention.

H.P. Lovecraft Adventures

This is pretty cool.

Shall I Call You 'Weapon X', Logan?

Ambled over to the Islington Warner last night to see X-men 2 (interestingly, its actual title is just "X2"). It's a better film than the first one by an order of magnitude. The plot's actually worth following, though a little tricky if you're not familiar with the X-men in general. Plenty of action, lots of Wolverine generally being a badass and some super-cool funky powers.

Even Iceman is good. Anna Paquin plays Rogue, whose mutant power appears to be making men go weak at the knees simply by curling her lip, alleged ability to drain people's life-force notwithstanding. Ian McKellen remains a grandstanding super-villain. Storm and Mystique actually, y'know, do stuff, which was pretty unexpected.

Did I mention that Alan Cumming plays Nightcrawler? Not only does he steal every scene he's in, he has the best SFX with his teleporting power. Kelly Hu does well as Deathstryke, though she's under-used. Nice to see her getting work outside of Nash Bridges.

I was going to do a kind of satire thing about the Americans getting all hissy about the fact that large numbers of Iraqi voters would elect an Islamic party, which isn't the kind of government the U.S. wants. This would have involved a make-over of Monty Python's cheese shop sketch but, you know, it would have taken ages and not really been all that funny.

Those of you familiar with the sketch can probably guess how it would have gone, and those of you not familiar with it wouldn't have got the joke anyway. So, ah, let's just kind of take it as read that the Iraqi Democracy Shop Sketch exists in the same mental realm as my yet-to-be-started Great American Novel, the end of Dombey And Son and a decent Highlander sequel.

"You know, the jack goes in the head and then you're in thermal freefall."

A good article on William Gibson here. It's something of a primer, but there are some interesting comments from other authors too. One of them is Jon Courtenay Grimwood, whose novel Pashazade I found an exercise in irritation. He knows how to work cyberpunk, but he hasn't quite managed to engage fully with the genre.

Remember, kids - cyberpunk is a mindset, not a genre. It's easy to get caught up in the trappings, but if you do you're missing the point. Far too many people, both readers and authors, did latch onto smartguns and mirrorshades back in the day. I think that's what killed cyberpunk. Idoru marked a comeback, thankfully (though I prefer Virtual Light).