Further Adventures in Maybe Twitting


I’ve been on Twitter now — @BrianLamken — for almost exactly six months. My reason for joining was as much to connect to folks with whom I’d fallen out of touch as to share my particular brand of pith. Honestly, I’ve wrestled with how to incorporate Twitter into a daily life that isn’t nearly as productive as I would like and that is far from conducive to participation in a site or app built around quick churn of neverending content. The same explanation holds at least in part for why it took me until the other day to finally join Facebook.

This Boy


Fringe 5.10 Anomaly XB-6783746 / Photo of Spencer List as Michael hooked up to apparatus

This post is currently down for maintenance.

See You Next B'ak'tun!


Mockup of 'Weekly World News' cover headlined 'Nostradamus Predicts: The End of the World As We Know It!' with other lyrics of that REM song

I got the above from the blog of a friend who doesn't know the source. Google image searches aren't turning up anything. Of course I realize that the world is not ending and that in fact all the apocalyptic frenzy is actually misinterpretation of the Mayan Long-Count Calendar, but just in c

Glass Onion


Fringe 5.09 Black Blotter / Image of Walter in style of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animation

This post is currently down for maintenance.

Happy Feet


A bunch of people in crazy dance poses against cartoon stage backdrop with text 'The Charlie Brown School of Dance'

This post's title is not a reference to the old jazz number, the recent animated-penguin franchise, nor even (my own immediate, favorite association with the term) the sudden exclamation in Steve Martin's classic stand-up routine.

No, I bring you, as you can see above, a pitch for The Charlie Brown School of Dance. Like good ol' Mark Evanier — on whose cornucopian blog News from Me I first saw the link — said, "Just watch it...". I hope you'll pass it on.

Paging Xander Harris!

Watching the Wheels


Fringe 5.08 The Human Kind / Photo of Anna Torv as Olivia

This post is currently down for maintenance.

Meaning Less


Yesterday the can of Campbell’s soup went up in the sidebar to signify that posts
are backed up and slow with the going. I’ve been under the weather and less productive than usual lately, perhaps as a cosmic reminder not to make grand plans. On top of that, my Internet connection turned equally lethargic today.

So while things will hopefully get up to speed again soon I wanted to at least publish this note as preamble to a batch of word-verification definitions. Faithful readers are familiar with the exercise; anyone who isn’t can find an explanation in a page on the blog collecting all such entries to date.

As suggested by my title, I’m running out of content for these posts, largely because of Blogger’s switch earlier this year to a different verification mechanism that prompts fewer imagined definitions from me. The next installment in this series will probably
be the last.

assfu — [ass foo] n. Martial art based on literally kicking your opponent’s butt.

bininsic — [bin in sik] phr. Quick explanation for lack of activity outside the home.

compery — [kom puh ree] n. Rackin’ up freebies.

dectus — [dek tuss] n. A catcus as big as ten normal cacti.

Essencei™ — [eh sen say] The cologne for hard-working dojo masters. “You chop the sandalwood in half. We combine its fragrant oil with hints of strawberry and musk. Essencei.”

42 Favorites: #11


Until my post on The Iron Giant, this here fits-’n’-starts 40 41 42 Favorites series
had run in alphanumeric order — from 1980s superhero-team comics to Airplane! on through crossword puzzles. I’ll probably keep with that order for the most part, but occasionally circumstances will suggest breaking it. Now, for instance, is a great time
to talk about seeing movies in a theater.

While year’s end is a period of reflection in general, certain aspects of life (school)
and pop culture in particular (the TV season, traditionally) don’t fit neatly with the Gregorian calendar. Movies do, partly insofar as — not being a largely serial medium like television is — the end of a Year in Film could fall anywhere. It’s easy enough to make a list of the best movies or books or music releases in the 365 days prior to Date X. But it also works out nicely that we get a volley of would-be blockbusters in the spring and summer months, when days are long and the air-conditioned multiplex beckons, followed by a smaller batch of commercial tentpoles amidst more serious, more intimate fare in the wintertime, as packed theaters offer a respite from the dreariness and cold. In truth many of the Oscar hopefuls don’t even hit the majority of markets until late December at the earliest, bridging one year to the next, and this season will be no different unless the folks misinterpreting the Mayan Long Count calendar turn out to be onto something.

There’s nothing like settling into an auditorium with stadium seating as one swatch
in a patchwork quilt made up of various bunches of a couple or a dozen friends.