“When I was a kid, there are two things I wanted badly and never got…A real dog and a Kenner AT-AT Walker.”

I think it’s the Jabba that makes this.

(via Cute Overload)

Over at Wondermark, David Malki got to thinking about all those movie couples who, it’s assumed, stay together after the credits roll. They’ve grown old together, raising kids and puttering happily around somewhere in suburbia. What must they look like now?

I present the following as aids to your imagination, helping you to picture the lives of these fictional characters extended out ten, twenty, thirty years until the strange story of their first, accidental meeting is family legend retold every Thanksgiving to the grandchildren: “You know I used to fly Tomcats in the Navy — well, one day, Grandma waltzed into my classroom at Miramar, and I about flipped my lid. I told her about a MiG I’d seen recently, and she tried to freeze me out. And then I played volleyball for a while with Uncle Iceman.”

Some of them are…arresting.

Link

If you think the Cantina is bad, you should see the Mos Eisley Martini and Tapas Bistro next door. Total douchefest.
– badbanana

Back off, or I’ll use this butterfly to start a chain reaction leading to a terrifying alternate future.
– talks_in_maths

I now have 365,000 followers, and so can finally sacrifice 1000 souls a day to scabby Elder Space Gods for a year.
– warrenellis

Kevin Costner’s oil cleaning machine harnesses the awesome sucking power from his acting career.
– thedayhascome

It’s really hard to read Neuromancer now, given how badly it rips off The Matrix.
– Sargent

“Are monsters real, daddy?” “Like on TV?” “Yeah.” “Totally. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Hayward… all real. Now, go to sleep, dear.”
– iamnotdiddy

Due to unavoidable out-of-townedness, there will be no new posts this week. Instead, please to enjoy a selection of random links.

Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches

Due to unavoidable out-of-townedness, there will be no new posts this week. Instead, please to enjoy a selection of random links.

Science Toys

Due to unavoidable out-of-townedness, there will be no new posts this week. Instead, please to enjoy a selection of random links.

The Planetary Society

Due to unavoidable out-of-townedness, there will be no new posts this week. Instead, please to enjoy a selection of random links.

Empty World

Due to unavoidable out-of-townedness, there will be no new posts this week. Instead, please to enjoy a selection of random links.

Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company

Shadowboy’s kindergarten class is making individual “time capsules” for their end-of-year project: A Pringles can filled with current ephemera that each child is supposed to open when they graduate high school. It’s been interesting to think about what things might be like a mere 12 years in the future: Not only what we might have forgotten about, but also what our current selves might be surprised by in the next 12 years. Which, y’know, are the type of questions that are kind of the heart of science fiction.

Incidentally, 12 years in the past:

• The Athena probe found evidence of water on the Moon.
• The Monica Lewinsky scandal had just broken.
• The FDA approved Viagra.
• Y2K was still two years in the future.
• Apple unveiled the iMac.
• Pakistan and India were engaged in nuclear testing that was making everybody very, very nervous.
• The first RFID human implantation was tested in the UK.
• Google, Inc. was founded.
• Matthew Shepard was beaten to death.
• Augusto Pinochet was arrested in the UK.
• Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota.
• Hugo Chávez became president of Venezuela.
• Windows 98 was released by Microsoft, which had also just officially become the biggest company (financially) in the world.
• Dolly the cloned sheep gave birth to a healthy lamb, thus confirming a clone’s ability to produce healthy offspring naturally.
• Scientists using the Hubble Telescope took the first direct photograph of an extrasolar planet.
• Europeans agreed to use the Euro as a standard currency.

If you were building your own time capsule to be opened in 2022, what would you put in it? And what events and discoveries do you predict for the next 12 years?

1. A colony world has used its powerful technology to recreate Hindu culture, whose elite assume the roles of the gods. The hero first rebels against these “gods” on their own terms, but then opposes them more successfully with a new faith. Which Roger Zelazny novel is this?
2. The trilogy that includes City of Baraboo and Elephant Song concludes with what volume?
3. Who is Gulliver Foyle?
4. Who wrote the version of Metropolis published in 1927?
5. What is the name of the main character in James Blish’s Earthman Come Home?
6. Although it was not the first novel in which the Allies lost World War II, this book by Philip K. Dick was one of the best, and it remains his best-known work. Name it!
7. Who coined the term “Science Fiction?”
8. George Lucas founded what special effects company?
9. Captain Nemo appeared in two Jules Verne novels, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and this one. Name it.
10. In Cordwainer Smith’s story by the same name, what is Norstrilia?

(Answers below the fold)

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