Today’s book of the day is “Mammal Tracks & Signs: A Guide to North American Species” because the review features today’s phrase that pays: “scat photos.”

Just watched “Once More, with Feeling,” the musical Buffy episode. Someone I used to know had the same basic idea a long time ago (some malevolent force makes everybody act as though they’re in a musical), but Joss executes it as few others could. I think two of the reasons he pulled it off as well as he did are that he loves musicals and he loves television. He talks in the commentary about how he’s sorry that it ran long (8 minutes long, he says), since part of his thesis is that yes, you can do this in an episode of television, if you try. I’m guessing the length (and maybe the letterboxing) is why those of us who were catching the episodes on FX haven’t seen it. It’s also a demonstration of what a widescreen frame should look like. This is a marked contrast to other Buffys, which upon further reflection look empty on the sides of the wide frame; and even Angel, which looks to me like it was composed wide, but with a conscious effort to make it look okay in 4:3. “Once More, with Feeling” is clearly never intended to be shown in 4:3, and it’s beautiful. (Perhaps) unfortunately, because it’s just another episode, and therefore advances the various season 6 arcs, it’s not the best “Watch this and you’ll see why I think Buffy is so amazing” episode. I think “Hush” is a good episode for that purpose, though. And despite my reluctant acceptance that Buffy is fundamentally a 4:3 show, if you come over to my house, I’m liable to show you the widescreen “Hush”.

From an article in the Guardian: “The blast, which happened at the Marriott Hotel, was “very likely” to have been carried out by a suicide bomber, Jakarta governor Sutiyoso, who, like many Indonesians, goes by a single name, said.”

Yes, one of many sorts of nerdporn. Actually quite cool.

Elsewhere, I ran across this description of love (from the charming and delightful Roxann Ireland), and it struck my fancy:

Love is a big, flashing neon sign that says, “Get away from this person while you still can!”

I’m just kidding.

No, I’m not.

I’m too much of a big, sappy dope to wholly endorse the sentiment, but I surely recognize it; and I think maybe there’s a little big, flashing neon sign in all of us.

Having the odd occasion to try to determine if mail sent in a foreign language is spam or not, I have found Babelfish entirely invaluable. Combine that with the old chaining of machine translations game, and you end up Lost in Translation. I had not been able to find any particularly enjoyable phrases to Babelize, though I find myself suddenly excessively fond of what happens to “Forced Perspective” if you include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean: “Perspective of the resistance.” That’s us.

I neglected to post this bizaare beached whale remains story when it was first brought to my attention, but as with most rotten things, it hasn’t gotten appreciably worse in the meantime. Bonus phrase: “a ‘skeleton suspended in a semi-liquid mass within a bag of skin and blubber’.”

It’s hyper-infectious, ubiquitous, and we don’t know what it does. Maybe we could use it as a gene delivery service. Bonus phrase: Nanette van Loon.

I happened to see a summary of results from a recent trial of a hormonal contraceptive for men. Some of the details: “[T]here were no major adverse reactions to treatment and no deaths. Roughly one-third of subjects had a side effect from the study, the most common of which was weight gain.” Also, “The rate of ‘azoospermia’, that is, a sperm count of zero was 90% in the group which received testosterone injections every 4 weeks and 75% in the groups which received testosterone injections every six weeks.” I’d feel better about higher rates of azoospermia, and I’m not sure I’d be willing to get a shot in the ass every four weeks. Maybe, though. Anyway, “The company with which we collaborated, Organon Pharmaceuticals, is excited about these results and is therefore funding a larger Phase IIb trial of 350 men in 14 countries based on a similar regimen. If the regimen continues to be safe and effective in this upcoming Phase IIb trial, Organon will use the results from our completed study and the Phase III trial to apply for FDA approval for this method and men will finally have a contraceptive option besides condoms, vasectomy and abstinence.” And that will be a good thing.

The thing I found most notable about this Wired article about how the Mac G4 Cubes have inspired fanatical loyalty among those who purchased them, and are continuing to sell well on eBay, is the complete absence of references to NeXT.