Industrial-Strength Science, Version 2

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the blog has undergone some changes over the weekend. Of particular note are the tags or labels. Each post carries a number* of tags which indicate (some of) the topics or subjects discussed in that entry. You can click on the tag to see all the posts on that topic. What's more, all the tags on our blog are listed at right, so you can access any topic we cover right from whatever page you are reading. Neat, eh?

These tags also provide a means of comparing the prevalence of the various subjects. For example, from the list at right, we can see that the most frequent topic on the blog---and this is no surprise to me---is "movies and TV." The second and third most frequent are "science," with 52 posts, and " science fiction," with 49.

* In truth a few posts carry no tags, but, to paraphrase Lindsey Naegle, zero's a number.

PS Wii

Here's your un-asked-for gaming-console update. It's pretty much all about Wii today.

• It looks like the little Nintendo Wii is soundly beating the Sony PlayStation 3 in terms of console sales, even though the PS3 went on sale a bit earlier. A lot of that is due to the much lower price of the Wii, and a lot is due to production problems with the PS3, but it also seems that the novel user interface is doing just what Nintendo planned, bringing new demographics to the game-console market.
• Speaking of broadening the game-console demographics, here's a tongue-in-cheek (I hope) editorial about that phenomenon.
• Lastly, here's a very positive review for the latest Zelda title, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, as played on the Wii.
  

The Whedon Update

So I'm sure the Whedonites in the readership are wondering what's up with Joss' various projects. Here're are a couple of relevant links.

• First, Whedon just talked to TV Guide, mostly about the upcoming Buffy: Season 8 comic series, which will be cannon in the Buffyverse and answer Dawn's "What are we gonna do now?" Other topics discussed: Firefly/Serenity---nothing happening---Wonder Woman---rewriting now, no casting yet---and Battlestar Galactica---apparently Whedon's favorite show.
  
• Apparently, something is happening with Seren-ifly, just not what you might think: Multiverse is announcing today that they've signed a deal with Fox to bring a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the Firefly universe to market. Look for the game in 2008. As far as I can tell, Whedon's not involved, so I'm a little skeptical.
• In other Seren-ifly-in-other-media news, it looks like there's going to be another Serenity comic limited series. It will be called Serenity: Better Days, and it should be out next year.
  

Speaking of Buffy, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica, you may be interested to know that the first Battlestar episode written by Jane Espenson airs tonight on the Sci Fi Channel.

Lessons Newton Taught Us: Puppies vs. Redemption

Another nugget o' wisdom we learned from our pup:

Puppies are haaarrd. Harder even than redemption.

Andrew Seeking Redemption

While my perfectly cromulent metaphors are generally inspired by Star Trek, this one was inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

Andrew seeking redemption, metaphor. Any person working hard to achieve a laudable goal, but also whining about the difficulty of the task.

You Say Play-Doh. I Say Play Dough.

Do you have kids, or are you a kid at heart? Do you embrace the do-it-yourself spirit? Then you might be interested in making your own play dough. We've done this, without the cream of tartar, and it worked quite well. This strikes me as a fun parent-child project; the parent and child spend quality time together, the kid gets fun dough at the end, and the child learns the satisfaction of DIY.

Game Review: Bookworm Adventures

I'm now completely addicted to Bookworm Adventures. Thanks a lot, Tycho. As Tycho said, it's bassically a Scrabble RPG, and I find it quite entertaining. It's quite satisfying to suddenly pull a long word containing several colored tiles out of what had been a hopeless set of characters only a moment before. Last night, Alison and I were playing together---the game does not support multiple players, as far as I know, but that didn't stop Team Grondul from putting our heads together to vanquish mythological creatures with spelling---and we were each Brian with the overhead projector on several occasions. Overall, I give it 8.0 out of 10.

Poor Little Guy

We had Newton neutered on Friday. (Thus, we are considering renaming him "Neuton".) The procedure itself went reasonably well, but Newton had a bad reaction to the anesthesia; Friday night, he would periodically rouse himself and groggily make his way to the litter box to make a diarrheal deposit. There was also vomiting, I'm sad to say. I was really impressed, though, given his apparent grogginess and probable nausea, that all the defecating and regurgitating occurred in the box and on the kitchen floor, respectively.

On Saturday morning, he got his mouth caught on the cone collar when trying to escape from it, resulting in a cut on his lip. We took the collar off him, and he was pretty good about not chewing at his incision. I think the laser cutting was helpful there.

So, as you can tell, he had a pretty rough 24 hours. The good news is that the effects of the anesthetic seemed to wear off by Saturday, and the cut was minor. Our main challenge at that point was keeping him from being too active and popping his sutures. As a result of all this caretaking, Alison and I didn't get much sleep over the weekend. It was not the most restful weekend we've ever had.

The Lord of All 5 Babylon Rings

Have you ever noticed significant similarities between the Lord of the Rings and Babylon 5? Well, I have, and now I've found a good discussion of these parallels on the 'Pedia. This article, in fact, includes not only all the similarities I noticed, but also several more. I encourage you to read it.

Wolf or Woof?

After watching Nova's Dogs and More Dogs, I found this very informative blog entry. The author presents some compelling evidence that dogs are not descended directly from wolves, as is commonly claimed, but rather from a now-extinct species of pariah-like wild dogs. Check it out.