This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on July 29, 2009). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.
Sometime between July 28th and July 29th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
- TV Tropes: "Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite". In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them." Much fun. Of particular interest: the Viewer Friendly Interface primarily used as a front-end for Magical Databases. Found through this fun MetaFilter post about the silliness of CSI and similar shows.
- Welcome to the Hottest Day Ever?: "In what is shaping up to be the hottest day ever recorded in Seattle, the forecasted high temperature is 101 degrees. And actually, now that the east wind is here, that could end up being conservative. At 8 a.m., it was 82 degrees in Seattle. To put that in perspective, the day it hit 100 degrees, it was 73 degrees at 8 a.m. So we are well ahead of the pace."
- Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana Talk Upskirts, Empowerment: Saldana: "If we continue, as women, to see this as a battle, it will take so much energy away from what we are. What it takes is education. When I have to fight an army of men, and try to convince them that I should wear pants for an action scene, where I'm running from one building to another, and jumping, and they are convinced that I should do it in a short skirt and Gucci boots — fighting that small battle takes education. We are trying to teach how a women should be created, and how a woman should be treated. [When a male creator does get it right, the correct response is] a little pat on the head like 'You did it.' (She says this, like she's talking to a small child or a puppy.)"
- Speechless: Dilbert Creator’s Struggle to Regain His Voice: "The rules changed all the time–sometimes day to day, sometimes hour to hour–and whenever he tried to recite them, people thought, 'This guy is nuts.' The rules dictated when and where Scott Adams, the chief engineer of the Dilbert comic empire, was allowed to speak. He could neither control them nor predict exactly when they'd go into effect. All he knew was that he'd woken up one morning and found that his voice had turned against him, imposing a set of bizarre restrictions."
- Is This the Stupidest Person Ever? (VIDEO): "We can be rich in cotton and mining metals and silkworms and we can makes things, we can make things cars, the machine can make it for us…on the East Coast they have slaves and they believe in slavery and made in China, but on the West Coast, the new West Coast, we don't believe in that. We believe in the union and that's what we are."