...we meet again. -.-

-TG

It's a linky, linky morning.

From Arts & Letters Daily:

• Myths of British Ancestry -- "Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands."



• Can Men Write Romantic Novels? -- "TV presenter Daisy Goodwin sparked a storm by claiming they can't. Here, two Telegraph writers, Ray Connolly and Liz Hunt, lock horns over the issue." I dunno, if a man wrote about women what Liz Hunt does here, he'd be burned at the stake.



• Dumbing Up -- "John Wiley & Sons, which bought the Dummies brand in 2001, cranks out 200 new Dummies titles a year. At that rate, there may soon be more Dummies books out there than dummies to read them."

From bauske: USB-rechargable Batteries -- Neat. :)

From gamera_spinning: How Brain's 'Mirrors' Aid Our Social Understanding -- "Human beings are exquisitely attuned to social cues and the behavior of others. Such signals tell us what is ahead and give us time to prepare. They tell us about many things that are never explicitly articulated in everyday life. Much of the time, in fact, we do not appreciate how skilled we are at reading social situations. We only realize how ingrained our ability to read social cues is when we see people with serious deficits in social awareness, such as people with autism or schizophrenia."

-The Gneech

One neat things about the new Doctor Who episodes is the little "Next Time..." stinger that begins the end credits. Really helps keep you wanting to see what comes next.

What's also neat is that fans have been going back and making "Next Time..." stingers for classic episodes in the same style, including some of my favorites...

Second Doctor: Tomb of the Cybermen

Third Doctor: Inferno

Third Doctor: Planet of the Spiders

Fourth Doctor: Robots of Death

Fourth Doctor: Genesis of the Daleks

Fourth Doctor: City of Death

Fourth Doctor: Creature From the Pit

The Five Doctors

Eighth Doctor: The Enemy Within

Eighth Doctor: Shada (Animated)

MST3K: Mitchell (!)

MST3K: Lazerblast (!!)

-The Gneech

laurie_robey and I just finished watching the 4-part R.O.D. -- Read Or Die OVA. It's good, but definitely engages the ol' brain-hurter. The story is a kind of "James Bond meets the X-Men" with a dash of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for flavor.

I definitely recommend it, although I could have done without the recurring "President soils himself" gag and was very surprised that there were only four episodes. Why not just make it a single movie and be done with it? There's also a sorta-sequel TV series which, I gather, starts fresh with a whole new set of main characters. Again, an odd choice, although I can see why Emma Cleavage (er, "Nancy") couldn't come back and Gruff Soldier wouldn't come back ... certainly Agent Paper could.

Anyway, if you like thrillers with a SF/fantasy twist, you'll like R.O.D. -- Read Or Die, so check it out.

-The Gneech