THAT’S SOME BAD HAT, BARRY

Yr next president is Time’s Person of the Year. Which is (1) no surprise and (2) not a huge deal unless you think Time magazine's opinion is still influential in any meaningful way.

However, they do have a nice collection of photos of Barack Obama’s college years.

Like so.



Hat + fro + cigarette = EPIC WIN!

I think he should start wearing the hat again.

Cool breeze,

This is dF

I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN: DECEMBER 2008 EDITION

Because you can’t have too many book reports on the Web 2.0.

JUST FINISHED

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
A classic in military sci-fi, and although I’m not generally fan of that particular flavor of SF, there are always exceptions (Starship Troopers and John Steakley’s Armor come to mind) that stand out. Haldeman has actual combat cred as well as the requisite science degrees, and is a pretty accessible writer. His idea of interstellar wars being affected by relativity to the point where soldiers who fight for a year come back to Earth to find that a century has gone by is a great idea, and works well as the Vietnam-era anti-war novel he intended it to be. One quibble: some of his ideas of life on Future Earth – especially the bits about homosexuality – are very far-fetched, but he wrote it in the early 1970s, so I try to keep that in mind. Also, the ultimate rationale for the war, revealed at the end, sounds shocklingly familiar. All up, it’s a good SF novel with a point to make that doesn’t get in the way of the story.

JUST STARTED

Spook Country by William Gibson
I’ve been a fan of Gibson’s since Neuromancer, but his previous couple of novels didn’t really do much for me. This one, which focuses on post-9/11 espionage, sounds promising, so we’ll see.

( Recent titles? There's a big pile back here ... )

Easy meat,

This is dF

DEF XMAS PLAYLIST 2008 (#9 OF 12): THE CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION POST

Next on the Def Xmas playlist, possibly the only Christmas song ever to be inspired by a scene in a Marx Brothers movie: “There Ain’t No Sanity Clause” by The Damned.

BONUS TRACK: Here’s the scene in question (from A Night At The Opera), in case you’d rather watch the Marx Brothers than listen to The Damned. It’s not Christmasy, but it IS the Marx Brothers, and they are teh comedy. So either way, it’s guaranteed entertainment.

Genius.

The party of the first part,

This is dF