Daily Archives: October 19, 2005


Those Sci-Fi Movies

Jaquandor did the heavy lifting and kicked off this list’m and mark’m meme pulled from John Scalzi’s new book The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies wherein Scalzi provides

The Canon: Reviews and commentary on the 50 science fiction films you have to see before you die (more on this in a minute)

You know the routine: the one’s in bold are ones I’ve seen (it’s possible that I’ve seen a few of the unmarked ones and just don’t remember’m):
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix (I like it a little bit less each time I watch it.)
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop

Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

The Stepford Wives
Superman
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World

Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey

La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)
Oh yea, where the hell is Serenity? Well, I guess we have to read the book:

No, Serenity didn’t make the list. Deal with it (it is in the book, though. Page 24. Big shout-out to Joss Whedon there, too, although I don’t have very nice things to say about his Alien Resurrection script when I review that movie on page 59. Please don’t hurt me, Whedon fans).

I won’t argue specifics without reading what Scalzi says. Suffice it to say, for now, that as a movie Serenity runs circles around quite a few of the flicks on this list. On the other hand we may not have Serenity if not for all those that came before.


Cockroaches on Parade

If you have the goods on cockroaches–pictures, stories or otherwise related posts–send them on over to Ellison no later than midnight EDT tomorrow (10/20). He seems to have taken to them lately and plans to carnivalize them:

And if there’s enough interest, I may run Carnival of the Cockroaches as a regular feature. Because after all, everybody loves these little buggers, am I right?

Kind of reminds me of another humble beginning.


Best 100 English-Language Novels Since 1923

Two Time Magazine critics give us their list of the best 100 English-language novels since 1923.
I’m somewhat surprised that I’ve read only 51 of them. Certainly this list will be getting the usual treatment of “this one doesn’t belong but this one does” and, of course, the meme list where we can all mark the one’s we have read. Heck, if I had the cycles I’d build the list for you….I don’t. I will, though, do it when it makes its inevitable rounds just as I will do this one later today.
Via Kidney Notes.


Pillow Talk

As you either got up just a while ago or will be going to bed again soon it seems worthwhile to contemplate just who you are sharing your pillow with:

Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses – in our pillows.
Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults.
The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow – more than a million spores per pillow.
……
Each pillow was found to contain a substantial fungal load, with four to 16 different species being identified per sample and even higher numbers found in synthetic pillows. The microscopic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus was particularly evident in synthetic pillows, and fungi as diverse as bread and vine moulds and those usually found on damp walls and in showers were also found.
Professor Ashley Woodcock who led the research said: “We know that pillows are inhabited by the house dust mite which eats fungi, and one theory is that the fungi are in turn using the house dust mites’ faeces as a major source of nitrogen and nutrition (along with human skin scales). There could therefore be a ‘miniature ecosystem’ at work inside our pillows.”

How fertile is your pillow?
Hmmm, I wonder if there might be little run on pillows over the next week or two? If you’re of a mind invest wisely.
I might just encourage Mrs Modulator to replace our pillows even more frequently.
Via medGadget.