Penumbral Lore; the Shadows of Science

I know I promised not to go on too much about how teriffic the kids are, but had to brag on the eldest. We went to a banquet last night where her athletic and scholastic achievements were recognized. She really earned it, so, Woot!

After this post hits, I will have completed of NaBloPoMo. I’m feeling accomplished.

My proffered prize, NaBlo, is 100% completed. the list of prizes hasn’t been updated to include him, but I’m sure that’ll change now that I’ve got his picture up. No? Well how about if I post the giant portrait of DOOM!

Speaking of hand made stuffed toys, last week’s poll question has closed. I love them all, but nobody says I have to stop after the first. It was as evenly split as seven votes could be:

(3) Shoney the Squid (4) George.

So, I looked through my stash to see which I had appropriate yarn for… George is right out. Shoney *might* work if this grey mystery wool felts. I’ll knit up a swatch and get started on it. If it’s finished by the end of the month than NaBlo will have a companion, named PoMo, to travel with. If not… well, then I’ll have a friendly cephalopod!

Since we’re way off topic today, anyway, I thought I’d bring your attention to free rice.com.

It’s a fun web-toy. Go to the site (allow scripts from the site). You don’t have to enter any information at all, just start playing. It’s a multiple choice vocabulary quiz, which gets moderately advanced rather quickly.

Every correct answer earns a 10 grain of rice donation to the United Nations. Each click (correct or not) reloads the screen and gives you new advertisements. So the free rice.com people get some fraction of a cent for every click, and pay some fraction of a cent for every correct click.

I’m thinking it more than pays for itself, the advertisers get their product associated with both a pleasant activity and a socially conscious product. The user gets both the payback of knowing they’ve ‘done good’ and whatever pleasure obsessively quizzing theirself gets them (works for me, don’t know about you).

No, I don’t think it’s going to end world hunger, but every little bit helps. (Anyone know how many grains of rice in a cup?)

Also, a pointer revision. Steve’s podcast is now Secret Frequency at libsyn.

Yes, that’s right, three “pod” posts for your viewing and listening pleasure.

No “Pods” in Invasion of the Body Snatchers Remake

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was originally a serial published in Colliers magazine in 1954. It was first filmed in 1956, and was one of the all time SF/Horror classics. This version was the original ‘pod people’ movie, and ended with the famous scene of Dr. Bennell on the highway, yelling the truth at passing cars that won’t stop to listen to the ravings of a lunatic. Scary stuff, with some ambiguous ‘red scare’ overtones. This is the version where the aliens were going to take over every living thing on earth, suck the planet dry and move on.

It was remade in 1978, with a bit more flash, but less real scare. This movie had both Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy in it. The scariest scene had to be the dog/man pod creature. The ending was a very lame “we give up and go home because you humans fight back”. I don’t remember what the subtext was, but I suspect it was pretty lame, but I think the suck it dry kept in there.

This summers remake was simply titled “The Invasion“, and it tried very hard to avoid any campiness by getting rid of the pods altogether - the invaders were hive minded microorganisms, and they took over by infection (the means of which were graphically depicted). This meant that the victims could be rescued in the end. The chill factor came from the protagonists realization that she wasn’t sure humanity deserved to be rescued (but she had to save her son, who was immune and therefore would be killed not transformed). Scary stuff, but it added a ‘teh stupid’ factor in that the invasion only affected humans. Really. The infected kept killing dogs because they figured out the truth. Probably for the best, because the cure involved inoculation, and there would be no way to handle it if the entire planetary biosphere was infected. Reviewers said it was too confusing, but my ADDer 11 year old (who had never seen the original or remake) had no trouble following the plot.

Cephalopod Along

Cephalopods are a class of the phylum Mollusca. They include ammonites, belemnites (both extinct), octopuses (octopi?), squid, cuttlefish and nautilus. As with many cool things, there is a group of yarnivores who are celebrating it. I’ve got to get in on this… There are some awesome choices of free patterns to go with.

So, in the interest of increasing interest in ‘pods, and in craft work, and in trying out blog toys, I’m going to set up a poll to decide what sort of pod to knit or crochet.

There’s Squiggly Octopus, Shoney the Squid, Octopode, George, Nautie and Revolutionary Octopus

The poll will stay up for one week from today. edit: I have updated the poll, it should be working now.

Planned Podcast

My husband, Steve, in his ‘copious spare time’, is starting up a new podcast (one with a political slant), but is waffling on what to call it. He made this beautiful opening for “The Secret Frequency”, but now he’s thinking of changing the title to something else - maybe “Gunpowder Plot” because we did the first test cast on Guy Fawkes day (then it got erased…). I’d love to show him some feedback about the name. Do you think “Secret Frequency” is clunky or cool?