I'm working on a PhD in Chinese lit and just finished a class on Feng Menglong, an early 17th century literatus. A bunch of his stuff has been translated into English (http://www.amazon.com/Stori… and it's really fun: full of murder, ghosts, deities, etc. Pu Songling is great for that sort of thing as well.

Mason and Dixon is my favorite Pynchon by a wide margin. The language barrier is steep at first but I found it quickly became charming. That said, I recently had a conversation with a friend who is adamant that Against the Day is brilliant.

One of my favorite history podcasts (or podcasts of any sort) is "The Memory Palace." The episodes are very short and beautifully written.

Also, for completely no reason Annie's Boobs quotes the Daode jing on his twitter feed ("darkness within darkness, gateway to all understanding").

I love Bryson to bits but unfortunately Weej is right about Mother Tongue. This is Bryson's comment about Chinese: "All Chinese dialects are monosyllabic - which can itself be almost absurdly limiting - but the Pekingese dialect goes a step further and demands that all words end in an 'n' or 'ng' sound" (79). Leaving…

Years ago I had started with his memoiristic travelogue stuff, which is all funny enough, but it's soured for me somewhat as he just comes off as so judgmental. He remains one of my favorite authors but mostly on the strength of his later subject-driven things (Mother Tongue, Made in America, A Short History of Nearly…

I have hauntingly accurate memories of the layout of the apartment from "Buried in Time."

I think I recall seeing the "This is Vergon Six" display for just a moment as well.

"Where did we park in this huge, horrible lot?": The Movie

Just caught it, mostly liked it a great deal, but the explanation of the mystery seemed a little uninspired. Loved the casting of Watson. Holmes is good although he feels slightly young — still, I vaguely recall that he's fairly young in at least some of the early writings…

Get off my property…

I like the ending well enough but I thought it would have been more effective if the flashbacked scenes happened in reverse-chronological order so that we saw Hermes rescuing baby Bender last.

Oops — point already made. What fleeting glory…

Also, in Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles we see Bender very briefly as an infant-sized robot shortly before reverting into a box and then a CD with "Bending Robot Blueprints."

But what if the management remains intragnisent?

Great — thanks!

Help?
I've seen all the new Dr. Who stuff since the RTD resuscitation but haven't seen anything from earlier except City of Death, which I sought out mostly as a Douglas Adams completist and was a bit underwhelmed by. Is there a better episode / Doctor run to serve as an entry point to the earlier version(s) of the…

Oh, I agree it's pretty clear at this point that she's not actually a doll. I was more reacting to some of the acting right at the end of the first of the two eps that just felt very Alpha-ish for some reason.

My Man Jeeves: "Jeeves is a tallish man, with one of those dark, shrewd faces. His eye gleams with the light of pure intelligence." I think that description fits Fry nicely. Also each of his line reads is exquisite.