My nephew Jacob graduated from junior high school last week, and my sister used my camera to take pictures. Congratulations! See the whole gallery on Fotki. You can order prints from Fotki by clicking the link and choosing the size in the shopping cart.

I’ve gotten Tysto listed on iTunes now. To facilitate that, I added a special plugin, so the look of the individual commentary pages has changed. I still haven’t changed the Firefly page over to the new style, but now all the other commentaries have posters, streaming players, and links on iTunes.

Sweet.

I don’t have a button to link to iTunes, but I’ll do that soon.

Bond is back again and Connery plays him, this time as a humble Japanese fisherman with a “yen” for smoked salmon. (Get it!?) Ah, but the mysterious Osato Corporation has it out for him and will surely do him in if they ever get their miserable act together and if they aren’t foiled by a girl. I examine the overall plan of Spectre, the specifics of that plan, the lack of a plan by Bond, and the awesomeness of ninjas and secret volcano lairs.

I mock the color-coded uniforms of Blofeld’s men, the awkwardness of the gadgets in Aki’s sweet Toyota 2000 sports car, the incredible convenience of certain plot twists, and the absurd unlikelihood of building a rocket base in a hollowed-out volcano with no one noticing. The film mocks me by serving up ninjas attacking a rocket base in a hollowed out volcano with no #@*&$ CGI. I mistakenly say that in the novel “Suki” tries to keep Bond and gets pregnant by him, but her name is “Kissy”. “Suki” is the original name for film’s character “Aki”, who doesn’t appear in the novel. Also, in keeping with the film’s rating, I bleep myself a couple of times.

 You Only Live Twice commentary [117:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (49)

Something is still wrong with this site. The front page is now not displaying correctly, as if some code in one of the posts is invalid. Unpublishing that post allows a couple of others to appear, but then some other post gets cut off. The right sidebar never appears. EDIT: I’ve changed the site to [...]

Drew’s photos commemorating his senior year. These were taken in the back yard on a very sunny Saturday afternoon. You can find the full gallery at my Fotki pages. You can order pictures by clicking the “Order Print” link next to the picture in the single image view or under each picture in the gallery [...]

My nephew graduated from Purdue University this weekend. We gathered at his former workplace: Nine Irish Brothers in Lafayette. Congratulations! Here is a gallery of the photos of his reception luncheon…. You can order prints by clicking the “Order print” link next to the picture in the single image view or under each image in [...]

My ISP’s server (GoDaddy) apparently got hacked, and my site was infected with an anti-malware piece of malware. I’ve tried uploading a fresh install of WordPress and re-uploaded my theme files, but it’s still not working properly. UPDATE: I think I’ve fixed it now.

JJ Abrams’ reboot of the storied Star Trek franchise meets its match in the form of myself and the Doctor from Speakeasy Podcast, in which we deftly pick apart the minor plot inconsistencies, such as every single thing that happens. However, we do love the film (even if it does feel like $150 million dollar fan fiction aimed at lens flare aficionados) so we fawn over the actors and effects and compare it to the original series and movies. But we also expose the ugly specter of racism and alcoholism in Starfleet (speaking of which: take a drink every time someone abandons his post as captain!).

Errata: Thruout the film, I stupidly call the Narada the Naruto. Also, grog rations were ended by the British navy in 1970. And the one where Kirk angers Spock with insults is “This Side of Paradise” and not “Shore Leave”. (Those are all mine. The Doctor’s “facts” are all “true”.)

 Standard Podcast [128:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (21)

It’s still alive! Sherlock Holmes and Dracula meet Bambi and Frankenstein’s Monster in the 1939 extension of the Frankenstein mythos. I mock the hilariously bizarre architecture, the ridiculous dart game, the absurd hair (and somewhat suspicious parentage) of little Peter, and the Frankenstein Village board of commerce. I explore the father-son theme and compare it to the previous films and boldly suggest that 47+ years is a long damn time for a monster to be roaming the countryside murdering people without being discovered or getting some kind of name, especially from his decades-long live-in companion.

I also suggest that if your town became famous for having a monster roaming around it, you could make a good buck off that if you market it the right way. And I gratuitously, but only momentarily, compare the Frankensteins to the royal family of England.

 Standard Podcast [100:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (19)

Advancements in clean energy—particularly wind and solar energy—are quickly approaching a tipping point. It won’t be long before wind and solar will be able to compete directly with traditional forms of power generation without the need for subsidies. And when that happens, there will be a sweeping change in Western culture. As soon as clean [...]