"i can help spread the pain!"

my chrome window is just overflowing with tabs of nifty things and since i learned my lessons from mr. rogers and sesame street about sharing well, here we go:

• superman is dead and we killed him. rather cynical short article about the dearth of good guys. i don't spend a lot of time mourning the death of the boy scout, really, but this is worth skimming through.


• guardian article on film villains. this is sort of like part two of the previous article with a little more expanded argument. thomson wants to argue that modern film glorifies the villain at the expense of a moral lesson. i'm not sure i buy it (critiquing a movie that hasn't come out yet is a bit of a cheap shot), but he uses some interesting movies to make his point. and along the same movie lines, a rather interesting article about the development of the zombie over the years.


• guardian review of the city & the city which i have sitting on my shelf. i read the first six chapters in the cafe of the borders on newbury. i'm not sure it's going to frame up to shoulder out either the scar or iron council which are my favorites of mieville's writing so far, but i haven't finished it yet. and a further review from tor.com.


• these aviary tools i haven't had a lot of time to play with yet, but it looks like an interesting set of browser applications: a word processor, graphics program, etc. free, shareware, yaddayadda -- insert all the nifty webwords here.

and this



is kind of how to drive a movie geek nuts. if it moved a bit faster, it would be absolutely how to drive anyone nuts. the background music they added is a little distracting but as a way to spend a couple of minutes and really be horrified by how many movies you know, it's not bad.

edit:

i've been hearing about the teaser trailer for guillermo del toro's the strain for a couple of days but, bar using it as a reminder to put myself on the hold list for the book at the bpl (fourth place, not bad), i hadn't bothered to watch it until i saw it posted today on one of the blogs i read sporadically. 

if nothing else, i like it because the elderly english gentleman in it reminds me of william hartnell, the first doctor who.