Two States

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Apollo 18 - the horror flick

The whole shaky-cam / found footage thing has been done to death, but this movie was surprisingly good.  The story was a B+ grade tale right out of the golden years of sci-fi, the action was (mostly) believable, and there were enough "holy crap, what was that?!?" moments to keep my interest – several of which revolved around space hardware.  Whoever wrote the script had a pretty good reading of Aviation Week, or at least the Wikipedia condensed version of it.

In the end, it is nothing more and nothing less than a competent monsters-in-space movie.  It was made, its viral marketing campaign didn't really take off, film critics (*sniff*) didn't get it, but it still made a little bit of money.  And there's nothing wrong with any of that.  If that sounds good to you, it's worth a rental.  3 out of 4 stars.

The Seventh Seal

Woke with a stabbing pain in my lower back (600 mg of ibuprofen later, all better, thank you) so I stayed home and lounged in my very-carefully adjusted easy chair while waiting for this back thing to sort itself out.  So naturally, I had time to catch up on movies.  I'd been trying to get to The Seventh Seal for something like 25 years now.  If you haven't seen it, don't wait as long as I did.  It's everything good that people have been saying about it for the last 55 years.
And do it right, watch it with subtitles.  After watching (with subtitles) one time through, I went back and watched the first 15 or so minutes with the English dub.  Not the same at all.  Do it, and do it right.  You don't want any lingering regrets like "I watched the dubbed version," 'case, you know, well, you just don't want to have any lingering regrets.

Two Odd Links

No content today folks, just links to sorta-funny stuff.
Movie posters from an alternate universe.
Cats for Gold!

SOPA & PIPA (and their problems) Explained

Via Khan Academy.  Best 11 minutes you'll spend all week.
OK, that's all for SOPA & PIPA for now, unless some unfortunate motion begins again.

No Fourth Ward Cleaver for you!

As seen near the top of The Fourth Ward Cleaver's site:

Please note, there will be no January issue as our volunteer staff will be taking time with family and friends during the holidays.  We'll be back with a special Mardi Gras issue in February!!  

OK, I can see that.

So far so good: SOPA & PIPA lose support.

SOPA and PIPA lose key supporters at ComputerWeeekly.com  And Forbes gives yet another (but mercifully brief) plain language explanation as to why SOPA & PIPA are the worst things since barbed wire Halloween treats.  And the BBC has a slightly longer write-up on the whole topic, giving a little more background and context.
Keep you eye on the ball with this one folks.  These sorts of bills usually re-surface and get passed in "emergency" holiday-eve sessions, or get tacked on as amendments to unrelated must-pass legislation.