AICN‘s got some big Buffy premiere spoilers. They certainly sound more plausible than some of the other stuff I’ve read.

Not to keep tootin’ my own horn, but I made lots of updates to my Roald Dahl site this weekend. Oh, and I was totally cheered up by the fact that the first (non-profane) name for my Trivia Master Board was none other than… my dad. 🙂

Everybody’s mentioning BBC1’s showing of Johnny Mnemonic last night. I didn’t watch it; I was bakin’ banana bread. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have turned it on if you’d paid me. I saw that film in high school and hated it. I only went because I’d been infiltrating the “computer crowd” (I was getting tired of hanging around with the marching band) and I thought that it might give me a little nerd cred. Unfortunately it was so laughably bad, so horribly clichéd that I couldn’t even feign approval. The next day before History class somebody asked me what I thought of it, and I launched into a rant about the perils of thinking of such excrement as high cinema. In the middle of the “Talking super-intelligent dolphins? PLEASE. That was futuristic in, like, 1972…” portion of my speech, I was rudely interrupted by a fuming nerd named Bob Robinson. He told me in no uncertain terms that “Gibson invented all those clichés, so they’re not really clichés” and that I had no idea what I was talking about. Whatever. That perfectly encapsulates my feelings about sci-fi and why it often fails to catch the public’s imagination. For the hard-core nerds, simply the fact that something geeky exists is reason enough to venerate it, whether it’s actually well-crafted or not. I’m as guilty of this as the next person (as evidenced by the fact that I sat through The Phantom Menace eight times). The reason The Matrix worked is that it was more than just computer-speak and future-babble.

Oh, and if Bob Robinson is reading, I finally read Gibson’s “masterpiece” and I hated it too. Making a text impenetrable with jargon and neologisms is not always a sign of intelligence. And neither is claiming to understand it.

Everybody in my family learned a long time ago that if I’m reading a book or sitting at the computer, you’re not going to get my attention unless you tap me on the shoulder or throw a shoe at me or something. I always figured it was just a side effect of my intense concentration (ahem), but now it looks like it may actually be a type of learning disorder. CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder) occurs “when the ear and the brain do not coordinate fully.” I’ve got all the typical “at risk” behaviors other than the last four. (I was county spelling bee champion and I’ve never had a problem with language stuff.) And where did I learn of this potentially life-affecting diagnosis? A Slashdot comment.

A chastised Roger Ebert apologises to Barbara Bush for “fueling the denim ruckus”. Whatever. I still think it was hilarious.

New Poll: Inspired by my rant today (scroll down), I want to know if you consider yourself as an optimist or pessimist with regards to the rest of humanity. I mean, I think I generally trust people to behave decently, but time and time again I get let down (that jerk at my Dahl site, Bill Clinton, eBay sellers, etc.). Am I just being terribly naïve? Should I adopt a cynical tone of mistrust and then I’ll never be disappointed? What works for you?

That Kevin Smith vs. GLAAD thing that Kim reported yesterday seems to have been picked up by the mainstream press. I definitely agree that GLAAD are being jerks here, and that there are better ways of educating people about homophobia. This kind of thing is what gives political correctness a bad name. I’m just glad that the story presented both sides, at least.

Elizabeth Taylor finds new love… with JEFF GOLDBLUM? That’s just too weird. Thus endeth my long-standing crush on him.

Great. And the IRA set off a car bomb in west London last night. Lovely. I wonder if they’ll try to get Hammersmith Bridge again too? It’s practically in my friggin’ backyard. Wonderful.

It’s been a horrible week. Lots of people have left the company, including my friend Ferret and my housemate Nick. I can’t begin to explain how weird and sad this all is. Good people are leaving; the people that – to me – define where I work. The future seems uncertain. And our company Summer Party is today! I don’t feel very celebratory.

On top of all that, I was up til 2 a.m. listening to the stereo downstairs boom out the best of 80’s Crap Rock, as Nick reveled in his newfound freedom. Whatever – I’ll cut him some slack; he’s had a bad week. I reserve the right to bitch out the other people that were present though.

AND, WORST OF ALL, I just went to check on my newly redesigned and relaunched Roald Dahl site, when I noticed in my Admin site that someone qualified to get their name on the Trivia Master Board. “Sweet!” I thought. I’ve got to personally approve all the names, though, so I went to check who it was. It was “f**k_me”. (No asterisks; I just put those in for my mom’s benefit.) What kind of a jerk would do that? Why do I bother building nice free things for the people of the Internet when all they try to do is abuse them? Luckily I’ve got the bastard’s IP address, and if he tries it again, I’ll boot him for good. Suddenly I feel a little bit better.

(Sorry for the journal-like rant, but every now and then I feel the need to get angry in a public way. I’ll get back to weblogging, I promise.)