My Post-Oscars Thoughts

The short version of my thoughts would be "grave disappointment, with a side of expected."  I knew before turning the show on that the Academy's bias against innovative filmmaking would persist.  Even the inclusion of special awards for animated pictures only highlights the fact that the Academy is completely unwilling to consider great works of animation as actual movies.  There were, of course, a handful of moments where justice was served, but in the end all I could think was:  "well, I saw that coming."

Now on to the individual awards:

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #2.7 is Live! (Your Nihilistic Delusional Fantasy of Doom!)

Remember that whole nonsense about the nihilism and the downfall of western civilization over at Big Hollywood?  Well, that's our topic this week on the show.  We may not be as articulate as other folks on the issue, but we at least try to have a little fun while deconstructing the anti-deconstructionist!

Feel free to check out the episode here, and thanks for listening/reading!

Dastroyanish: A New Boredom-Induced Fantasy Language

Things I do when I get bored:

• Play stupid flash games on the Interwebs
• Argue with people about literary conventions and subgenres, like New Weird or Scifi Strange
• Invent languages on the spot.

Thus comes Dastroyanish, a new fantasy language with a current vocabulary of about fifteen words.  The funny thing about the language is how it all started:  I misspelled a word in another language and decided to roll with it.  The word?  Hola.  Thus comes "hoal," which obviously means "hello" in Dastroyanish.  There is also "anto," which means, more or less, goodbye.

Other phrases:

Nan. Van er teuopo. (No. Not a typo.)
Puesa er verd da "Hello" is-Dastroyanish. (It is a word for "Hello" in Dastroyanish.)
Puesa er langor ist minen mun-fantika. (It is a language for my fantasy world.)
Denen eser urprisen. (Don't be surprised.)
Ot: Puesa er langor nomen "Dastroyanish." (Or: it is a language named Dastroyanish.)
Anto, Bilbo. (Goodbye, Bilbo.)
Puesare er masr-corios, ect Bilbo. (He is a curious man, that Bilbo.)
Dormis-varm. (Sleep well?)

Whether I keep up with it is up to speculation at this point. Thus far, I'm having fun.

Now the big question is this:  have you ever invented a language under unusual circumstances or conditions?  Let me know in the comments!

The other big question:  where the heck does Dastroyanish come from?  I have no idea.

Poll Results: If you had super powers, how would you use them?

The results are in and here's what you all had to say:

• 25% said they would use their powers for good.
• 66.7% said they would use their powers for neutral purposes.
• 8.3% said they would use their powers for evil.

Now the big question is this:  when one says they will use their powers for neutral purposes, what exactly do they mean?  Will they save the world only if they have to, but otherwise use their powers to improve the mundane aspects of regular life?  Will they selectively choose when to use their powers publicly so as to avoid the morally ambiguous situations life might present?

For me, I know I'd use my powers very selectively.  Why?  Because despite what the folks at Big Hollywood would like me to think, we don't live in a world in which the lines between good and evil are always absolute or clear.  I'd have to be very careful how I used my powers, whether in my personal life or in the service of humanity, because to fall victim to propaganda or dogmatism would do very little to actually rid the world of evil.  In fact, I might actually become a part of the problem.

That's how I rationalize it.  How about you?

New Poll: Which age of science fiction is your favorite?

Everyone has their favorite period in science fiction literature.  I want to know what your favorite.  There are five choices:

• the Pulps
• the Golden Age
• New Wave
• Cyberpunk
• Contemporary.

If you'd like to leave a longer response, feel free to do so on this post.

Happy voting!

Video Found: Predator, the Musical!

I love these fake musical versions of class Schwarzenegger movies!  Now we can bask in the glory of the Predator version.

Here's the video (after the fold):

"Colonizing Space" is a Dirty Phrase: Stop Using It

The term "colonize" is not neutral.  It's an impossibly negative term.  It immediately references an extensive socio-political, socio-economic, racialized, and vile process that still churns its wheels today.  Colonialism always was and always will be an exploitative model which privileges dominant socio-economic groups (I hesitate to say "Western" here, though it would be fair to suggest that colonialism benefits the West more than other colonialist groups).  We can thank colonialism for the massive growth of the slave trade in the Americas, the deliberate attempts to exterminate non-white groups across the globe, the irreparable destruction of native land, the theft and destruction of property, culture, language, etc. and so on.  The fact that its engines still