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I'm only speculating, of course, but I'm beginning to wonder whether Dune Messiah was Frank Herbert's " I Am Not Spock " moment. (Maybe I should take the more literary path and suggest it's his Arthur Conan Doyle moment?) I started rereading Herbert's Dune novels recently and have just finished Dune Messiah . I've read Messiah before (at least twice that I remember), but I've never been struck by how… disappointing… this book was compared to its predecessor before today. It's almost as if Herbert looked at everything that made the first book good, and stripped them out for its sequel. His main character, Paul Atreides/Muad'dib, has gone from heroic young man to dour Imperator, cursed with the gift of prescience, and a near infallibility brought on by that knowledge of the future. (Frankly, nothing could be more boring than a central character that's invulnerable to change.) His friends and cohorts from the first book are all ei...

A dictionary and a link to Wikipedia would work wonders here. NAACP calls Hallmark graduation card racist I really can't adequately express my contempt for everyone involved in this story.  

I'd stopped reading comics long before they grew up in the 90's, but Batman had always been one of my favorite comic book heroes. I've been rediscovering his darker side ever since learning about Frank Miller's Dark Knight comics several years ago, and have been regularly picking up graphic novels and compilations of Batman comics since then. Some good, some not so much, they've all been fun reads. Joker, of course, being Batman's iconic arch nemesis, fills nearly as many of these novels as the Batman does. Recently I picked up " The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told ", a compilation of Joker stories that span the entire existence of Batman comics, from his introduction in Batman #1 through to stories from this past decade. One of the interesting things about this compilation is watching the way the comics mature. The earliest ones, for all their dark undertones, are rather light-hearted (and, in fact, I realized that the kitschy '60's ...

I've driven in Southern California my entire life and, while I am aware of the law requiring drivers to pass on the left, I'm also well aware that this is a law most often "honoured in the breach" than the observance. (Frankly, I'm as guilty of this as anyone, happy to zip past slower moving traffic in the right lane whenever things bog down on those inside lanes. [Let's face it… I've probably never met a speed limit I didn't like to break.] In fact, there's a section of the 5 near our house where I simply assume the right lane is the passing lane and dodge the incoming merging traffic as I cruise past the slower moving lanes to my left.) I've seen the left lane treated as a passing lane in other states (drivers routinely move out of that lane after passing slower moving cars), but that may simply not be practical here, especially on LA freeways… LA traffic is, arguably, too consistently hectic to keep a lane open as a passing lane. But I don...

Heard about this article on the radio earlier this week. Apparently, along with Bella, Jacob and Barack (yes, you're in fine company there, Mr. President), one of the more popular baby names this year is Messiah. I don't know… seems like you're putting an awful lot of pressure on your kid with that one. I'm just sayin'.

Seriously… it's 10 questions . Who are you, how old are you, what race are you, what kind of home do you live in and how many people live in your house. Did I miss something? Last week I listened to a radio segment with people sure that the census was going to be used to round up and deport [select your minority group of concern here], to take your guns away (I thought that was gun registration), or to enable the country to house soldiers in your home in times of national emergency (I presume they're going to link the census database with realty databases to determine if you've got more bedrooms than people living in your home). My favorites were the ones complaining about it being unconstitutional, when the Constitution mandates a census be taken every 10 years. (Extra bonus points — and hopefully a special place in hell — if you're a Congressperson making that claim.) People, we've been doing one of these every ten years since we ratified that Constitution. Is...

I have to say, I am SO tired of the lame "how difficult is it to order coffee at Starbucks" shtick. Comedians have been riffing on it for years and Steve Martin mocked that whole coffee culture vibe in L. A. Story in 1991. So now, since it's no longer comedy fodder, it seems to have moved into the realm of the anti-elitist, "don't go thinking you're better than me 'cause you drink expensive coffee" crowd. You know, the one's cheering Glen Beck on for his brilliant witticisms. So Adam Carolla's been doing live podcasts the past couple of months, and they've been talking them up on KROQ lately, so I downloaded a few to check out last week. I like Carolla when he's on KROQ and find his "Week in Rage" rants pretty amusing. The podcasts are a different beast. They're your basic talk show format… Carolla comes on, riffs for a few minutes on whatever topics the audience throws at him, then brings in his guests. They ch...

I'm not the most social person. Not that I think I'm anti-social… I'm just not the guy going out of his way to strike up a conversation with total strangers. Hell, I stopped wearing t-shirts that said things years ago, because I realized that they encouraged people I didn't know to think I was interested in talking to them. And yet, somehow, I seem to put out this "come talk to me" vibe at the most inopportune moments. (I remember once in college, looking across the quad at some guy wearing an Imperial Fleet Officer Cap and thinking 'god, what a loser'… only to have him walk over and strike up a conversation with me moments later. And yes, I know what that implies about my social status at the time. All too accurate, I fear.) Last week, we had just seen Alice In Wonderland and were heading to the restrooms before leaving the theater. Outside the women's restroom, presumable (hopefully?) waiting for his wife, I was accosted by an older guy, as...

A few months ago, the random question "I wonder if my blog has been bad for my writing" ran through my head. I'd started blogging several years ago as an answer to journaling. I've never been very good at keeping a journal… I tend to start them under duress ("you're a writer, you're supposed to keep a journal!"), continue plugging away at them for a short while (usually measured in weeks… occasionally ramping up to a month or two) and then abandoning the whole thing as just too much trouble. Whether vanity, or the same feeling that leaves me unlikely to cook dinner if I'm the only one that's going to be eating it, I tend to find keeping a journal a tedious exercise — if I'm the only one that's ever going to read the thing, and it's unlikely I ever WILL, then what's the point?!? Blogging seemed to make sense as an alternative to journaling, as it provides a place to go and write about whatever's on your mind, but has a ...

A couple of weeks ago, Dani and I had just finished the annual post-Christmas stuff-everything-back-in-boxes-and-move-it-out-to-the garage ritual, and were sitting back to watch a little TV. No sooner had we found something to watch, then Athos (Dani's 85 lb. half-Rottweiller "lap dog") jumps up into her lap to make himself comfortable. He's a talkative dog, so we're used to him expressing himself, and we tried to ignore his growsing and chuffing and general noise-making as he got himself comfortable. Pretty much business as usual for him. But, several minutes later, he's still complaining. Short barks, the occasional whine, more chuffing and general displeasure. I look over at him to tell him to shut up (it's kinda hard listening to the TV with all that going on) and notice him looking up at the top of one of our bookcases. On the top of that bookcase, we have a small gargoyle statue. It's about 10 inches tall by about 8 wide. He's been up ...