Month: July 2010

I Love You Philip Morris

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Just saw this movie. Not sure if it’s in cinemas anymore… or, in other parts of the world like the USA, whether it’s in cinemas yet — Wikipedia says it comes out (pardon the pun) in the USA later this month — but I recommend it. This film has Jim Carrey swerving back and forth across the line of serious and funny, and serves as a reminder that he actually is a pretty damned good actor when he’s given the room to be. Likewise, Ewan McGregor’s acting is also outstanding. I could hear people sobbing in the cinema during a …

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Honorable Mentions ’09 (so far)

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Well, I haven’t seen this year’s volume yet, but it seems that for the 2010 edition of Gardner Dozois Year’s Best (the one dealing with publications for 2009), two of my stories got Honorable Mentions: “Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands,” and “Of Melei, of Ulthar.” Not bad, though I’m hoping I can get a story into the next volume again! That’s in addition to “Of Melei, of Ulthar” making the British Fantasy Association’s long-list for awards in 2010 and  the Locus 2009 Recommended Reading List, and “Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands” receving an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the …

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Culture Bound Mental Illnesses in Korea — Bananaloft

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I was poking around in Bananaloft, a website devoted to Asian-Canadian goofing-off and fun, and found an article on several, er, conditions that seem to be culture-bound to Korean society, as they say. Well, I would actually say it’s two mental conditions, and one folk-belief. Fear of Fan Death, absurd though it is, seems mainly to be the result of media talking crap; we don’t consider the belief in a higher suicide rate around Christmastime — or fear of the same — a “mental illness” but it’s quite disconnected from reality — a similar folk myth in the Western sphere. …

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Genes and Culture: Ear Rice, Light Sweat, Red Faces, Drinking Places

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There’s a few neat fact most people seem not to know, regarding genetic differentiations between East Asians and everyone else, and it they’re neat enough to post the going theories about… One particular trait that came into the news a few years ago (2006) is related to sweat and ear wax. (That there was the layperson’s link, but if you want the hard science and have access to Nature, look here.) Which one’s grosser? Ear wax? Okay. Well, there are two kinds of ear wax in humans: brown, wet, waxy stuff, and yellowish-white, drier, flaky stuff. If you’re a Northeast …

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An Update, Scattershot

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Been raining hard occasionally, quite late at night. I’ve drawn close to the end of the first of three papers, which is pretty good considering all the crazy grading stuff I had to finalize last week, and some other stuff that came up over the weekend. I have some editing to do, I have a story on the go, I have some references to look up. I have a movie to go watch, maybe. We’ll see. But mostly? I have some serious laundry to do. And brewing of beer, but I have to find some place to crush my grains …

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