The Lack of Correlation

...probably does imply lack of causation, actually, it's neat. Yes, time for more random thoughts!

• So you know how the left tried to brand the Tea Party as "Teabaggers" (stay classy, guys)? Well, uh, isn't the left's near-monopoly on the education establishment basically spawn-camping?


• Turns out the ending to Reach is a little less depressing the second run through. Am I the only one who wants Rooster Teeth to get their hands on this thing, so we can finally get a Tex you can tell is a girl?


• Speaking of SF I revisited, it's possible the smoky-looking stuff coming out of the railguns on Battlestar Galactica might be plasma. There's a video of the Navy testing a railgun (squee!), here, and the stuff that comes out, actually a plasma discharge, totally does look like smoke.
  
  But guess what, if you don't tell me, I still have to assume you didn't know. Television is a dialog driven medium, as they're obviously well aware given what a talky hell-show they've visited upon us, but apparently they don't know that one of the marks of great SF is artfully-interposed exposition.
  
  What's that? You didn't know SF had different rules from mainstream fiction? Yes, more and more that appears to be the problem.


• Speaking of, Eureka, on the Sci-Fi channel, probably has worse technobabble than Jimmy Neutron. Every time they spout off utter nonsense, it hurts me deep inside. And don't tell me it's hard to write believable technobabble. Penguins of Madagascar manages it pretty well, folks—Kowalski's debate with his own past selves about why his time machine would, or wouldn't, mess up the fabric of space-time, was one of the more believable things I've heard in years.


• So I read Keroro Gunsou/Sgt. Frog, and it may be the most consistently funny gag manga I've read in a while. Giroro is my favorite, because he's so serious—the war-movie things he says instantly become funny, merely from being said by a two-foot-tall red frog. Also, Nostradamus' King of Terror is a kogal. Which is very, very true.


• I will have to, one day, watch Full Metal Panic and pay attention to how Sousuke talks; I need to learn military Japanese, since it's the kind one of the aliens in my SF book uses ("de arimasu" all over, etc.). Or maybe I'll find something else, and be pleasantly surprised—I only watched Asu no Yoichi because I needed to learn the "de gozaru" form (the revived samurai in my setting use it), and I ended up finding a fairly cute little romance manga.


• Yes, Asu no Yoichi is romance, I don't care that it's usually classified as "ecchi" or "harem" (it is harem-ish). As they told the lady in Bakuman, you can do a straight-up romance in a boys' manga, you just have to put in panty shots.


• Qko-chan the Invader Girl, from the bloke who did the FLCL manga (a tie-in, I think?), may be the cutest-looking thing I ever saw. Plus, Goth-loli mechas. Those need to be in everything.


• We bought the Rifftrax of the Harry Potter movie that Alfonso Cabron (uh, Cuaron) did, and frankly, I wasn't too impressed. It had too many internet memes, not enough obscure Midwestern references; it was a little too much like the MST3K movie. I come to those guys to hear jokes about the Tommy Bartlett Water Show interspersed with Yeats references and poop jokes, not the same pop culture I'd get from anyone else.
  
  Still pretty good, though, but not up to their old standards. Though in fairness, I think they're only written by Mike, Kevin, and Bill (and probably Bridget, since she's Mike's wife); there was probably more variety when you add in Paul, Mary Jo, and all the other Best Brains.
  
  Oddly enough MST3K seems to benefit from being written by committee.


• That reminds me—since they have a higher volume of jokes to go through—of the fact that TV shows are, basically, r-selected. That's when a species has large litters that grow up quickly, so there are enough breeding pairs to keep it afloat. It's typical of many small animals, like rodents and insects.
  
  So if you ever thought TV producers were a bunch of lemmings...