s I sort of predicted on Wednesday, when there was blog stuff galore, I have very little today. Two news items, barely, and um... that's about it. I've got a bunch of photos I need to sort and add to the photos section, and I've done several months of articles archiving that aren't online yet, but with all the time I've spent writing fiction lately I haven't gotten much of anything else done. And since the fiction is my main priority, this situation is unlikely to change any time soon.

Anyway, depressing introduction aside, here's some random real life blogging stuff, with the news down below, just to keep up some semblance of logical format. 

¤ I've been meaning to mention this since Monday, when I didn't blog (which probably has something to do with me not mentioning it then), but in the interests of full disclosure I am compelled to report that Malaya laughed hysterically all through her reading of last Friday's blog, wherein I lectured mal-performing men on their sexual abilities.

We're assuming that she was laughing with the blog, rather than at the blog, of course. Of course.

¤ I've gone from seldom mentioning it to almost always mentioning it to feeling remiss if I don't mention it, so I'll just say that Thursday night's Kali was okay. We practiced numerado with sticks for weapons, and I did okay, though my lingering (though practically banished) cough slowed me down. I was okay moving and didn't feel weak or dizzy (as I did last week), but whenever I was up and following another student and parrying his strikes while counterattacking, I'd run short of air very quickly and start huffing and puffing, if I didn't outright have to pause while I coughed rackingly. I did learn a few new things though, and refined my footwork and movement and such as well, so it wasn't a wasted class by any means.

Speaking of refining footwork, there's no Kali next week since the Gura is otherwise occupied, but since that's National Dance Week in the Bay Area, and Malaya, myself, and one of our female friends are going to check out various free dance classes, having Tuesday and Thursday night free isn't such a bad thing. I've never taken any dance lessons, and had never really considered it before, but since moving in with Malaya nearly two years ago, and starting Kali last fall, I've been much more interested in knowing how to dance.

I can do the basic 1-2-3, 1-2-3 walking and holding hands sort of slow dancing that couples are required to master, and I don't dislike it, but it doesn't really do anything for me either. I would like to do some better dancing though, Flamenco or Tango or Rumba or whatever; where it's more athletic and fast and you and your partner really work as a team. We don't actually dance in Kali, but there is a lot of gliding footwork and movement in all directions and it's often done in tandem with the other person. True, we're trying to hit each other at the time, but you've got to recognize their body movements and go with them when they move, and that's not all that different from dancing.  I've also gotten a lot smoother in my movements and gained a better sense of rhythm, so we (Malaya and me) are curious to see if our Kali footwork will translate at all to learning some dance styles and steps.

We don't have any itinerary set yet, but we've gotta figure out when everyone has a free night, and we'll go from there. It's not inconceivable that we might like some style of dance so much that we'd keep taking lessons, though as of now we're just planning on checking it out while its free and having some fun. We also expect to pick it up quickly, based on learning Kali in a similar "observe and then mimic" fashion, but we may be mistaken. Other people in Kali who had dance backgrounds have learned the martial art quickly, at least the movement and footwork portions of it; stuff that Malaya and I picked up much more slowly, and with lots of "wait, did you step with your right or left foot then?" trial and error. To the dance people it was easier, since they've picked up new dances from watching others for years. And now we'll get a chance to see if it works in reverse.

¤ Lastly, I must admit that With Teeth, the upcoming NIN album, has grown on me tremendously since the mixed review I gave it on Wednesday. By the time I went to bed that night, hours after posting the blog, I could hardly stand to go to leave the computer and go to sleep since that meant I would be apart from the music. I've had it on non-stop on my computer for 4 days, I played it in the car on the way to and from Kali on Thursday, and of the 13 songs, I've only had to remove one from the playlist.

True, I usually start listening on track 3, since that's my favorite right now, and I still have no idea why track one is 5:14 long, with the first 3:20 or so made up entirely of very soft, almost inaudible music with some muttered vocals by Trent. I usually skip forward to about 3:30 in that one, which is where the music finally starts in earnest, with some very nice piano (no, really) and then multiple layers of guitar and drums and all the other electronic symphony stuff NIN does so well.

The one song I'm now skipping, if you must know, is track 12, Beside You In Time. It's not a horrible song, but it's got about 2 minutes of that ululating bass throbbing stuff in it; the kind of music you hear in club scenes in bad teen movies; the kind of music you can only really appreciate when you're flying on Ecstasy and have two totally stoned runaways grinding you from each direction.  I can take that sort of music in limited doses (away from the club and the jailbait, I mean) but generally speaking it makes my brain swell, especially through headphones.

I should also mention that not one person mailed to ask me to send them the mp3s of the album. This either speaks well for the anti-music piracy attitudes of my readers, or very poorly for the continuing interest people feel for NIN's music. Or perhaps very, very poorly for the RIAA's anti-piracy efforts, since maybe all of you who are interested in it have already downloaded it too?

I'd write a full review of the album, but to what point? As I've complained in past blogs, music reviews are pointless cross genre, since if you don't like country, or rap, or R&B, or death metal, or whatever, any album of that genre is going to suck. By now I assume you know whether or not you like Industrial in general, and Nine Inch Nails in particular, and if you don't you're certainly not going to go buy the album no matter what I say. It's not the best NIN album ever, and the songs are closer to conventional pop than most of the songs on The Fragile, but it's very catchy, and it has some banging songs, though nothing is especially raging and hard (not at all as rocking as Broken was). There are some odd touches too; Trent almost does spoken word on a couple of songs, and as I said last time, there's some very unconventional music on it. Lots of the drum rhythms are slightly off what you expect, (though they all sound fine to me now that I know the songs), and it's got a lot of creativity and variety from song to song, as all NIN does.

I'm obviously recommending it... but you know if you like this type of music or not by now, so do as you will.

¤ I blogged with anticipation for Kung Fu Hustle a couple of weeks ago, only to realize it was only opening in LA and NY. Well, it's finally opening everywhere this weekend, and with 87% on RT and 80% on the more prestigious MetaCritic, the reviews are very good. Malaya's interested in it too, so we'll probably catch it on Saturday. What the hell, at least I'll have something to write about come Monday.

¤ I've been meaning to blog about the new Google satellite maps feature for a while, but seeing this article about it on Wired News finally prompted me to do so. Of course I saw the article last week and just now got to talking about it, so um... anyway.

The google maps thing is glorious, since in addition to a very detailed map of virtually the entire world, there are millions of satellite photos that have been stitched together to give an overhead view of the entire globe, excluding the north and south polar regions. The maps don't have that much detail for the entire world, but for all of the US, and especially all of the major population areas, you can view a map with enough detail to pick out individual cars. I'm not sure why it's such fun to zoom in on your house and then scroll around in every direction. It's interesting to see just how much the roads curve around, how small or large geographic features are in a relative scale, how close things are that seem far apart since there aren't any direct roads, etc.

The area we live in very hilly, so it's hard to get a sense of the land and directions from the ground. From overhead it's all visible though, and we've had a lot of educational fun scrolling around, seeing where all the windy back roads go, figuring out new routes to drive, and so on. It's also a lot of fun to use this maps feature with real estate listings; if you look at online listings and see some million dollar home and wonder where it is, you can just type in the address, click the satellite link, and presto, an overhead picture of a house you can't afford.

Playing with the map feature is really a lot like working the controls of the biggest world sim game ever; you get the urge to turn up production in the factories and you want to set rally points for your new tanks. I've not found any way to do that yet though, unless you're George Bush or Kim Il Sung or someone like that.

The only real drawback is that from the straight overhead view it's hard to tell elevation; hills and valleys look much the same, and you can't tell if a hill is 10 feet or 500 feet high. Check out the Lafayette Reservoir, a body of water I go jogging around sometimes. The inner paved pathway is 2.7 miles around, but there's a dirt trail all the way around that's about 6 miles. It basically runs along the upper ridges of all the hills, and is several hundred feet above the reservoir most of the time... not that you can tell from the map. You get some idea from the photos Malaya and me have taken out there, but most on that page are from the inner trail, which isn't what I'm talking about. Trust me though, lots of the hills there are about as steep as a human can walk up without mountain climbing boots.

There are some other satellite map services online that do offer angled views for elevation, but as far as I know they charge money to view them at any decent level of magnification, and they don't cover anywhere near as much of the world as the Google one does.

As you might expect with a worldwide photographic survey, there's a lot of interesting stuff to be seen, and that's what the Wired News article I mentioned is about.

But the unexpected appearance of the pre-event Burning Man construction is hardly the only surprise in Google's database of satellite images. And other satellite imagery companies say that they, too, are often startled by what they find when they analyze the hundreds of shots they take daily.

Notable surprises include a just-erupted volcano, violent scenes from Iraq (a bomb going off in Baghdad and a firefight in Najaf) and even a 747 landing in Tokyo, something difficult to capture given that the satellite is moving at 17,000 mph. (See the picture gallery at left.)

"Part of it is that we collect so much imagery that a lot of times no eyes have seen a lot of this stuff," said Chuck Herring, director of marketing communications at DigitalGlobe, a major player in the commercial satellite imagery business. "And so (we) go to an area, pop it open, and wow, we didn't intend to capture this icebreaker pushing this submarine.

And as you would also expect, there's already at least one blog dedicated to interesting photos people have found touring through the Satellite Maps. I've yet to see any posts or photos on it that I found especially interesting, but maybe you're a bigger map buff than me.

¤ Everyone jokes time about how they give anyone a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame these days. The Three Stooges famously didn't get one until they were all dead, despite churning out what, 50 movies and being one of the most beloved comedy teams of all time. Yet these days, anyone who has ever had a hit single or been on a soap opera seems to get a star, far sooner than they could possibly have earned it. Case in point:

Ryan Seacrest was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Wednesday in a ceremony attended by his Fox TV colleagues, "Idol" judges Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell.

Apparently Seacrest was a popular LA DJ for years before he got the gig introducing people on American Idol, so maybe he's got some fan base in LA, but come on... as if anyone has ever, even for a second, tuned into that show because he's the host?  I've never actually seen him on it, since the only episodes I've ever watched are ones early in the season when the cattle call is going on and you get to see hilariously-bad singers crash and burn, and Seacrest doesn't work those.

Still, absurd as it seems for some guy who has hosted a TV show for 3 years (and who could be replaced at any time without one viewer noticing or caring) to get a star, you've got to give him credit for realizing it.

After the ceremony Seacrest told AP Television News, "I actually thought it was a joke when I heard that they were going to do this."

Curious about the requirements for a star, I searched a bit and found this news item which explains it in more detail.

The requirements to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame are simple: You've got to accumulate a body of achievement over a period of some longevity (described, generously, as at least five years) with at least some measurable contribution to the community. Throw in a $15,000 nomination fee and a star could be yours as well.

So do pretty much anything in TV, radio, music, film, etc, do it for longer than your dumb nephew spent in middle school, and get your studio to cough up $15k, which they can almost certainly deduct as a promotional expense, and you to can have bums sleeping on your name on Hollywood Boulevard.

The official Hollywood Walk of Fame site is run by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and the site has useful info, though it's burdened by a hideous frames design with awkward drop down navigation. Check this direct link to the FAQ page for much more info about getting a star, or wade through the site from the main page and struggle to read the text in a postage stamp window.

¤ And concluding my effort to throw anything even mildly amusing into today's blog, I saw a link to this image somewhere, and have been laughing about it for two days. I have no idea why either; it's completely ridiculous and Tomb Raider isn't exactly a hot property right now, Angelina Jolie tie-in or not. I guess it's just the absurdly-quick summation of the plot of every Tomb Raider game that amuses me. Plus it's got a happy ending.

You can click the image to see it larger, though I can't really imagine why you'd want to.

I have a lurking suspicion that this amateurish cartoon is one panel from one of those turgid Lara Croft porn comics the Internet was practically invented to showcase, but I really don't want to know that for sure.

Feel free to research that on your own if you desire; a Devilfinder Image Search for "tomb raider" or maybe "nude raider" would probably be a good place to start... just so long as you know you're sure to see all sorts of naked people there. As I've said in the past, I don't believe it's possible to search for any word in the English language on Devilfinder without seeing at least one pair of boobies. Perhaps that could be the "googlewhacked" equivalent for Devilfinder? Any search word that doesn't yield some porn or at least nudity in the results?