Today is Christmas… Being an anti-theistic agnostic, I usually try not to celebrate, but being in Japan has made me kind of nostalgic for the western traditions of home. This morning, my family and I opened our presents together by video-conference. This is very much thanks to Apple and iChat AV, which is the only [...]
On Friday I received a nice Christmas present (of sorts), the Escape Pod Collection 1. For those who don’t know, “The Escape Pod”:http://www.escapepod.org is a weekly podcast that delivers short, fun stories in the fantasy and SF genres. The podcast’s host, Steve Eley, manages to pay the authors whose work is published to the podcast, [...]
Today I saw snow fall for the first time. I’d seen it on the ground before, while skiing at Falls Creek in Victoria around 11 years ago, but it was icy and probably artificial. Snow on the ground, but none in the sky. Today, though, around 8:00am, I saw snow fall, in plump flakes that [...]
The answer, in my case, is ten. In Japan, people are traditionally accustomed to sitting on the floor, so when one of my lightbulbs blew last night, I found my furnished apartment lacking a chair high-enough to stand on while I changed it. Today, though, some lateral thinking led me to make use of a [...]
Just a few minutes ago, Sasha posted this masterful comment, which made me, university trained geek that I am, laugh harder than I had in weeks. Kudos to you, Sasha. Thanks, too, to the mysterious Jess/Jessica, who made such a good butt for Sasha’s jokes. What are you waiting for? Read the comment!
Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle (1986; repr. New York: HarperTrophy 2001); Howl’s Moving Castle screenplay and direction by Miyazaki Hayao (2004), DVD. Book: 7/10. Movie: 5/10. As I did before Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring came out, I decided to read (in that case, re-read), the book of Howl’s Moving [...]
Today I was most inspired to write a comment at Binary Bonsai, where Michael Heilemann was complaining about DAC 2005 delegates’ inability to express themselves clearly. It’s a post in its own right. To academics, Michael, the words you think are barely known are commonplace: they use them every day. Academia has its own dialect, [...]
Microsoft are busy gearing up for this month’s launch of the Xbox 360 in Japan, hoping to succeed with it where Xbox failed. Since the original Xbox’s sheer size and ugliness undoubtedly contributed to its unpopularity in Japan, putting a giant Xbox 360 on display at the Umeda Hankyu station in Osaka this week may [...]
About
Ben Hourigan is an indie novelist, the author of Kiss Me, Genius Boy (2011). He is also the manager of digital operations at a Melbourne design publisher, a freelance writer and editor, and the founder of ebook label hourigan.co.
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- â@lilithia: @benhourigan You're cool.â Just saw this. Can't remember if this was our spoiler discussion? <3
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