Literary Rebus

Cryptogram for the Cryptic

TWSPS ZSJ JUSPUWNM HR ULN ANUSWWBT TWSEO SJ ULN WYTO YE LNP TNWW MYYP UKPENM.

iPad @ the LIbrary

This isn't us! But off to the wilds of Wisconsin with you if you'd like to borrow a loaded iPad:http://mashable.com/2011/09/23/library-ipad/

Incorrect Email Distribution

On September 29th, you received two emails regarding the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Game Testing Program. These emails were sent to you by mistake. This was due to an internal error and not the result of hacking or malware. Please be assured that no personal information was compromised. We are sorry for any confusion this may have caused. Please note that receipt of these e-mails does not affect your chances to be invited to test the game at a later date.

Between now and launch, we will be conducting additional large scale Beta Testing Weekends where we will be inviting more people than ever before. Additionally we will be releasing even more information about the game as we gear up for launch in December. If you haven't signed up for game testing yet, you can still do so at www.swtor.com/tester.

Thank you for your understanding,
The Star Wars: The Old Republic team.



....at least they still have my name on file :)

This will be me...

No sub today with two back to back programs for families (and no lunch time for us in sight) and tomorrow afternoon four hours with no sub and just ever punier from chemo me. Somewhere the library gods are laughing...

TVNotes

I'm behind on my new season viewing notes, so here they are in brief:

Dancing with the Stars

I fell asleep zzzzz through the last few dances and missed the Nip Slip. I was more disappointed to see the worst dancers of the night who really stumbled and lost step and somebody even stopped and paused a couple of times to find their place and zero marks were taken off for any of them. Are the judges just being kind to them or something so they don't give up?

This week the worst dancer was Chaz, who was in such pain he could hardly dance. David Arquette was next worst, with a terribly frenetic dance, even worse than last week, with lots of missteps. Elisabetta Canalis really could not keep up with the quick foot work, and though the judges let her sail, she was low personage on the dance pole and was booted.


Survivor South Pacific

Mikayla tried to go head to head with Brandon to see what his problem was, and he was all offended as if she had come out of nowhere with these accusations, doh. He's gotta go.

Sad to see Papa Bear go, Cochrane is next, no question. Dawn did shockingly well in the Immunity Challenge. Good for her. Semhar was beaten in a balancing contest with Christine, after preparing for the challenge with a wierd and rambling poem sort of thing.


Person of Interest

James Caviezel's Reese character seems to be enjoying his role of savior/vigilante and he is super good at it. I think he is attempting to warm up to Finch's character a bit, but Finch is very self protective and will have none of it.

It was revealed that Finch has a partner of sorts who helps ? with the research and takes credit for everything, but he had no idea quite what Finch has been up to in the background. Finch also mentioned that there are 8 people who know about the project in the world. Now we know three of them.

Nicely plotted episode about a teenage girl who comes up as the Person of Interest for the week, though she has been legally dead for two years.

Terra Nova

The new series features time travel, dinosaurs and some mysteries. I think that the device of having the colony in an alternate time stream and thus avoiding paradox is a bit cheap. The show had lots of action. Characters are a bit steely jawed.

I really fought dislike of the family at the forefront all through the episode, though by the end I merely disliked the dad and the son, a couple of jerky hot heads. I'll watch another episode, but the characters will have to be more likeable going forward.

Scott Westerfeld at Red Balloon

I made a rare venture out on a Friday evening to join the crowd at Red Balloon Bookstore in St Paul.

Author Scott Westerfeld gave a talk on the history behind his Leviathan stories, showing illustrations from the book and talking about illustrated books generally.

He'd show a picture such as this



and talk about the back and forth conversation between himself and illustrator Keith Thompson about what was in the picture and how it reflected or didn't what was going on in the story or what might be happening next.

I always assumed that the author would just write the tale and the illustrator would go back and illustrate scenes of interest. I wouldn't have guessed the level of storytelling collaboration involved. Fascinating process!

Scott is meeting soon with the folks at Wizards of the Coast to produce a Steampunk card game. The crowd was very interested!

He is also meeting with a company in Los Angeles about the effects for transforming faces and figures for an Uglies movie.

Great things ahead.

Ye Bookish Rebus

I hate to feed the Rebus fan beast, but why not? Here is a book title and its author, rebus-ized.



Answer: City of Orphans by Avi

Person of Interest (Premier)

The new show Person of Interest premiered last night.

It's a mystery series with a few twists. Our heroes are:

John Reese (Jim Caviezel) a former special agent who is presumed dead when he is found by Mr Finch (Michael Emerson), a brainy man with a conscience.

Tracking Reese is Detective Carter (Taraji P. Henderson) once he becomes a Person of Interest to her. Reese seems to be wanted for a wide variety of crimes nationwide and she means to find him.

Hapless Detective Fusco (Kevin Chapman) is snared as a accomplice for Reese. A good man with no good options.

Finch created a vast surveillance network after September 2011 for the government which would look daily through many portals of information from emails to traffic light cameras for any Persons of Interest who might involved in terrorist activities. Information is run daily and all Irrelevant (not terror likely) information is wiped at midnight.

The Irrelevants, however, are identified by the program as being likely to commit or have a crime committed against them. Finch is no longer working on the project, but he created a backdoor to the information, and he gets lists of those most likely to be involved in a large crime or incident which might be prevented if he can get to them in time. He cannot tell who is perpetrator and who is victim, so asks Reese to track the Person of Interest with ace spy skills, and stop whatever is going to happen.

There were plenty of plot twists in the pilot. Surprisingly both Reese and Finch came across as very likeable and somewhat vulnerable.

Person of Interest Wiki

Survivor (Somewhere in the South Pacific with a bunch of boneheads)

The bloom is off the rose, and the larger personalities are moving to the fore and yikes.

Top of the line is Lil' Russ (aka Brandon, nephew of Big Russ Hantz). He spills his Hantz beans to Coach, who rather graciously accepts the presence of a blood relative to one of his greatest foes. Silly Coach. Then Brandon continues to go gaga over Mikayla and he tries to get her voted out so that he isn't tempted by her anymore. I honestly don't think she particularly noted his existence until he revealed this at tribal. Now that she's going to be looking at him and noticing his uncanny oogling, I think she'll tell him off and maybe he'll settle down when he realizes he is beyond puny in her eyes. Yech.

One of my early hopefuls Stacey was hardly featured at all, plus she was in a one woman alliance with the evil (and booted to Redemption Island) Christine.

Christine has to be one of the most arrogantly stupid players on Survivor in ages. What on earth made her play? Now poor Semhar will be plagued by her, if briefly. Hope Semhar whoops her. Somehow.

Cochran is a lovable but entirely goofy player and I think he'll get booted pretty quick.

I thought it was rather sick to put the Immunity Idol up in a treescape that only Ozzy the Monkey would get to with ease. Let's hope he has the wit to use it this time if he needs it.