NO S**T, SHERLOCK!!
I'm currently re-reading "The Hound of the Baskervilles" after watching the Guy Richie SHERLOCK HOLMES film. But I stumbled upon some thing. There's a new Sherlock Holmes show on the BBC which I tried to watch on my computer but my computer is so old that in trying to do so I got an alert "Warning: Voo Doo and Gremlins detected". But hey, I did get to see the trailer.
Looks pretty neat. There was also an interview on the BBC with comparisons to Doctor Who and such and it went down the rather dopey road of comparing the partnership of Holmes and Watson to a gay relationship and dispelling it which is kind of a waste to time. However, it did make an interesting assertion: Sherlock Holmes is greatest character in literature.
That's a hell of an assertion but it holds up really damn well. I think in terms of popularity Holmes is up there, only to be trumped by probably Dracula. Also the books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle epitomize the detective fiction genre even though he did not start the genre. (It was Poe with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which I know because I'm a nerd.) Holmes is a definite pop culture icon. When you think great detectives, you think Sherlock Holmes.
I just realized that when looking at the two literary characters I named as probably the most popular that it is still all about Batman.
The character has endured quite well. The previously mentioned Guy Richie movie did quite well and a sequel is already in the works. This new show on the BBC makes the character contemporary which I find interesting and will definitely be checking out at my first opportunity. There was some cartoon show about Sherlock Holmes somehow being in the future and Watson was a robot sort of thing. The old stories are still a great read. Also looking at a lot of those cop shows and even shows like HOUSE M.D. I'd say they owe quite a bit to Holmes.
So is Sherlock Holmes the greatest character in literature?
I'd say that's elementary.
Note I did not say "That's elementary, my dear Watson" because Holmes never said that in the books. I know that also because I'm a nerd.
THE NEW DON CHEADLE!!
Edward Norton is indeed out as far as the AVENGERS movie goes. The cast got introduced at the San Diego Comic-con with Mark Ruffalo to play Bruce Banner. I'm not going to be the guy who runs about the internet yelling "Oh this movie is going to suck now!" but it does seem like a step down from Norton. Nothing against Ruffalo, but when I look at him I don't think Bruce Banner at all. I'm not very surprised by this announcement since reports came out about how much of a prick a marvel movie exec was about discussing Norton stating pretty much that he does play well with others and spouting off crap.
They should have at least been honest and said "Hey, we've got to play Jackson and Downey plus play for a ton of special effects. We can't afford Norton." But that would mean someone in Hollywood being honest. Perish the thought.
Does this mean that I won't go see the AVENGERS movie when it comes out? It doesn't, but that also doesn't mean that I'm going to rush out to see it either. Its way too early to tell. I'm not terribly excited about comic book movies right this second. IRONMAN 2 was good, but that was thanks mostly to Mickey Rourke and in lame comic book movie fashion he got bumped off at the end.
OMG, did I just drop a spoiler? I apologize to the two people who haven't seen the movie yet.
But yeah, not terribly excited for THE AVENGERS, so we'll wait and see.
THE E-SKY IS FALLING!!
In less than 1 year IP addresses will run out. This, of course, means the end of life as we know it on the planet. Prince was right. The internet is indeed over. Or someone is going to change the system to generate trillions of new addresses. According to the article the system that created IP addresses was created thirty years ago. That's right 1980. So let's look at back, shall we?In 1980 no one had a home computer. We're going back to well before even the good old Commodore 64 here. Hell, if someone on the street had an Atari, they were the most popular kid in the neighborhood. Cell phones? That was science fiction. The internet was pretty much Science Fiction as well. Remember, this was the era in which WAR GAMES (the movie not the Batman storyline) was like scary cutting edge tech.
But technology has snowballed since then and just about every home has a computer, and some of them have more. Cell phones have become a part of life, even the most basic ones are capable of going online. I'm surprised a 30 year old system created in the conditions of 1980 has made it this far.
The article is pretty damn funny, actually. It compares this problem to Climate Change which is just stupid on a number of levels. It also makes mention of the possibility of a black market for IP addresses which I find amusing on a grand number of levels. The funniest was it stating that back when the system was created the notion that a refrigerator would possibly need an IP address was ludicrous. Which means, in someone's warped little mind, some time in the past, the notion that a refrigerator might need an IP address became not ludicrous.
Welcome to the future. People are still nuts.
PAPERS OR GTFO!!!
Which seems to be what people think is going to happen to anyone who isn't white very soon. I didn't want weigh in on this. Its a hot button topic. People get amazingly livid and pissed off about such things, but no one comments in here anyways so why the hell not. I came across two news stories in as many days on the subject. First was about illegal immigrants fleeing Arizona before the new State law goes into effect making being an illegal immigrant a state crime and not just a federal one. The second one was about illegal immigrants getting upset that their fingerprint could be used to identify them to the authorities as an illegal immigrant and get them deported.
What struck me in both these stories is that the writers are treating the people breaking the law as the victims. The fingerprinting one is aggressively stupid in that if some is getting fingerprinted by the Police then most likely its because they've been arrested. Fingerprinting is done for a reason. You see this in every Cop show on TV. There's a crime scene, and they dust for prints. That way they make an arrest they can use these fingerprints as evidence. Or possibly the prints may match up to somebody who has already been arrested for something else and its already a win. The police are not going to go around fingerprinting whoever they want. This isn't racial profiling, its procedure. And sure enough if it turns out the person being processed is not in the country legally, that's a crime, and as we still theoretically have laws, they are sent back to their country of origin. And if the crime they committed is spying they're invited to film premiers by Angelina Jolie.
But it seems that America is in a weird position. There's people who want us to be "no better than" every other country out there because we're all equal and whatever, YET, we are supposed to have an open door to anyone who wants to come here and we take care of them with tax dollars because our country provides better opportunities. We're expected to have the most lax immigration laws in the world. Mexico has double tough immigration laws, but it seems double standards are OK as long as they don't favor the United States.
The first story I found discusses people fleeing Arizona to other states to escape the law. I can't pity these people. Instead of running away, they should be trying to obey the law. So now they're not just illegal immigrants, they're now fugitives.
MUSIC!!
I've actually got about 10 subscribers on YouTube and have never posted a video. But I do get friend requests as well, and I ignore most of them to be honest because the only reason I have an account is to make following certain people on there easier. But for some reason I checked out Picklespantry when she sent me a friend request, and I'm glad I did. For she has given me MUSIC!
That is the skinny for today. Come back Friday as I talk about comics, probably gush over Batman, and make fun of Justin Bieber thus earning the ire of of any possible tween that may have stumbled into here.
See ya then.
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