Fashion question....

So here's the deal, folks: Should I go for the Corpse Bride look this fall? It would entail getting rid of the gopher-butt, yes, but I've already sort of got the hair--and gods know I've got the clothing....

You realize I ask this because y'all KNOW every little goth chick on the planet is going to want to look like the Bride and...well. You draw your own conclusions there.

Regardless, however, that movie is going to be so goddamned amazing.

To all the Slashdot *nix geeks:

There will NEVER be a widely-used Linux desktop. *nix is far too confusing for most end-users, and far too POWERFUL for them, as well.

On the other hand, there will--and, in fact, already are--*nix-based OSes on desktop computers, eventually. Hell, we've already got one: Apple's OS X (which is currently my favorite desktop OS at least until a version of Longhorn that doesn't suck donkey dick comes out). There's a big market Out There for user-friendly desktop OSes built on *nix cores. The reason no one has tackled this market yet is simple: VERY LITTLE USEFUL PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE. But a lot of very promising starts (OpenOffice 2.0 could be a serious competitor for the MSOffice). Once some bright software company gets it into its head to make a 100% user-friendly Linux distro (with a GUI based on either WinXP's or OS X's basic ideas) AND supplies that distro with a whoooooooole realm of productivity, media, and gaming software, that company will make a fucking fortune.

But don't expect Joe Blutz from down the block to ever jump on the GPL/Linux bandwagon, because chances are he won't have even the vaguest idea what a root account or window manager is even if you sit down and explain it to him seventyfive times straight.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

What an AWESOME film! I was never all that thrilled with the older Gene Wilder version, even though I thought ol' Gene was pretty cool as Willy--but this version is THE definitive take on the Roald Dahl classic. Period. Only Tim Burton could've made this film properly, and, goddamnit, he sure did--with Johnny Depp's help, of course. Herr Depp is THE best Willy Wonka ever. I've heard a lot of people comparing Willy to Michael Jackson and, yes, there's a certain small overlap in character (lack of decent family life, recluse, pasty white complexion, almost childlike silliness)...but Depp's Mister Wonka is not a disturbed child trapped in a grown man's body, but a grown man who just happens to maintain a childlike attitude appropriate for the reclusive king of a candycoated kingdom populated by singing Samoan midgets!

Speaking of the Oompa-loompas....Man, the guy who played them--ALL of them--really made the movie. Especially during the dance numbers. I was howling through most of them, and rockin' it out in my seat because, honestly, those numbers are the closest thing we're going to get to new Oingo Boingo material for a while yet. :) Danny Elfman's music really made this film, though, of course, Burton's visual style was perfect at capturing the aesthetic spirit of the novel as well.

One scene from the film absolutely killed me, though: Burton's little tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey when dealing with Mike Teavey. I was whoopin' and hollerin' like a madman, and I'm sure all the highschool kids and other dingdongs in the theatre hadn't a fucking clue what I was going on about, but...trust me, it's awesomer than hell.

Some folks have been complaining about the addition of Willy Wonka's "back story" concerning his father (beautifully played by the always-excellent Christopher Lee), but I found it to be perfectly apropos and almost, in many ways, necessary to the family-friendly vibe that Burton (and Dahl) made such a big party of the story. This really is an excellent family film, which adults can enjoy just as much--if not more so--than their children...so you G's and G-ettes with kids Out There in Internetland, quit whining about work and take the kids to see this.

All in all--I give it three thumbs-up! WAY up, actually. I haven't enjoyed a film this much since...well, War of the Worlds--but War was a much different film: its aesthetic appeal was the pleasure my jaded, human-hating takes in watching large amounts of people and big chunks of human civilization get vap-o-rized. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory speaks volumes to the sugar-obsessed, happy, trusting child buried in the dark way at the center of me.

Guess what it says!

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(http://nickciske.com/tools/binary.php)

Give it up, already.

I picked up a copy of The Year's Best Science Fiction, 22nd Annual Collection today primarily to read greygirlbeast's story "Riding the White Bull" (which was fucking awesome, as expected)...but, of course, took the time to read a number of other tales, as well. It got me to thinking about how many great new sci-fi writers there are...and, comcomittantly, about how many horrible old ones are still hanging around long after they should've quit. These folks are:

C. J. Cherryh
Anne McCaffrey
Andre Norton (oh, wait, she's dead--finally)
Jack Chalker
Jack Williamson
Larry Niven
Arthur C. Clarke
Ursula K. LeGuin
and
Orson Scott Card

These people have hit the point of interminably repeating themselves, endlessly rehashing the same handful of characters, ideas, and so forth--most of which have long since outdated themselves--to the point where the phrase "new novel by _______" is a complete oxymoron. Quit while you're ahead, people.

Also, there are a number of "newer" writers who just need to fucking give up on sci-fi already, because their work is either: A) nothing more than mindless rehashing of crap storylines the above old codgers exhausted centuries ago; or B) already starting to repeat on itself. These miscreants are:

Kage Baker
Eleanor Arnason (the "Hwarhath" just need to go, period. Fucking wannabe Ursula K. LeGuin bullshit.)
Nancy Kress
and, surprisingly,
Stephen Baxter--enough with the fucking Xeelee crap already: it was already stale by 1999.

There's a LOT of world to explore in science-fiction, people. Quit revisiting the same handful of "theme park" plots again and again and again, already....