I wonder if William Gibson had "Roadside Picnic" at least partly in mind when he wrote "Hinterlands": [bit.ly]

And now I have my new expletive for the day: "Ah, _whale placenta_!"

That's terrible. In less than 6 billion years, the Earth is going to be destroyed - and we're running out of time to do something about it!

By dismissing the analogy out of hand, you're ignoring the unique social context of cupcakes.

You think? That would be just terrible, terrible. Or, in other words, "Please don't throw me into the Briar Patch, Brer Fox!"

I keep reading this as "Fry and Laurie", which is not the same thing at all. I don't think I want to imagine what Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's kids would look like, and fortunately it's unlikely that any artist will take the trouble to show us. [en.wikipedia.org]

"Sol-ip-sism" said Tommy slowly. Charlie frowned at him.

I feel like that lion every time I buy a product that comes in one of those unopenable plastic bubble packages.

I see a blobfish [[www.google.com]]. Looks like the poor little fella's destined for sushi ...

"'course, scofflaw asteroid pirates weren't going to listen to no college-eddicated lawyer that never wrassled an asteroid in his life. You see, out on the High Frontier, the only law a man needs is a fast spaceship and an even faster hand with the ol' ray gun. Yes sirree, what's mine is mine, and what's yourn is mine…

Nice to see Dolby getting a name-check. I finally got to see him live a few weeks back, and he was great.

In Genovese, 'magún' conveys a similar idea: a kind of very specific melancholy associated with thinking about something that is absent or changed or lost.

I think I speak for others as well when I say that we were still hoping for sharks with fricking laser beams ...

As contenders for the 11-20 slots, I'd like to offer Star Well, from Alexei Panshin's novel of the same name (although I think that may be described as a planetoid rather than an asteroid), and the Babylon asteroid from Steve Gallagher's radio play "The Babylon Run". Jack Brennan's artificial world Kobold in Larry…

"We do not like your leftist line

I accidentally the whole parasite-infested swamp abomination.

Wait, what? So now where do we go for all our wrestling and ghost-themed programming?

A press release put out by Planetary Resources Inc. read simply: "Ooops". Speaking from his hastily constructed bunker deep within the Rocky Mountains, millionaire film director James Cameron assured investors that there was no cause for concern, but did add that Tuesday might not be a good day to go to Argentina or,…

New York is way ahead of you guys. We all wear black, summer and winter, rain or shine.