In Which I Admit To Being Like Every Other Blogger

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a blogger seeking to improve visitor statistics must be in want of a hot topic on the Web. However tedious Google Analytics may seem to such a person, he is widely and cynically believed to be mining search engines in search of crowd-pleasing nuggets of infotainment.

Alas. It is totally frikkin' true.

So: 

Minka Kelly. 

Minka Kelly! 

MINKA KELLY! 

Come to me, oh webcrawlers and searchbots! Heed my summoning words! MIIIINNNKAAAA....KKEELLLLLYYYY....

Oh, all right. There's got to be some way I can connect Minka to some nerdliness to make this legit. 

Well, there is a longstanding tradition of nerds panting after gorgeous women in the media. Absolutely. Fan service! 

You're welcome.

TV Boston

This isn't really nerdy, but...

What the hell is it with Boston and TV music? Apparently TV composers believe that every last resident of Boston is Irish. Case in point, Rizzoli & Isles. (It was three in the morning. I couldn't sleep.) Rizzoli? Italian. Isles? Boston aristocracy. There's one Irish character on the show, I think.

So what's the music they use?
Irish.

Evil Wesley!

Good

Can I say how much I like Wil Wheaton these days? I mean yes, ur-blogger, gamer, teen nerd celeb, etc. But he's revived his TV career as a go-to actor for smarmy jerk roles - Evil Wesley lives! Check him out in Leverage and The Big Bang Theory.

Go, Wil Wheaton, Go!

Better

Granddaddy Nerd

Ah, the Emmy nominations for 2012. Notice what's on there? Game of Thrones. The young folks may now shrug their shoulders. "So what?" they say. "It's a good show." Yeah, it is. But I'm not young folk. I'm a Granddaddy Nerd.

And that means I remember a time when a series like GoT could have been the love child of I Love Lucy, All in the Family, and Roots, and it STILL wouldn't have gotten an Emmy. Hell, it wouldn't even have been financed. And a bunch of Entourage types in Italian suits would have rolled their eyes if you'd dared to suggest it.

In the last thirty years, an amazing thing has happened - science fiction, fantasy and graphic novels have been mainstreamed. When I was in college, I would have bet heavy money that this was as likely as, well, as likely as a Columbia grad being elected president. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Barry.)

Provigil, the new "Limitless"?

I love science fiction. And I love it when science fiction becomes science fact - the Roomba (Heinlein), communications satellites (Clarke), Dick Tracy radio watches. But Provigil...it sounds way creepy. We need to keep an eye out for people with exploding heads, I think.

What do you think? Speed, by prescription? Or a bold new frontier in five-hour energy?

Lastday, Capricorn 29s!

Yes, today is the last day to pick up some funny fantasy for less than a buck!

The Wrong Sword is available on Amazon.com for only $0.99. Buy it now, or kick yourself tomorrow morning, when the price goes back up to $4.99.

Buy it now!

Mermaid Body Found, Part Two

Can't find a mermaid? Make your own.

3-fins.com

It's the Mermaid Body Swimsuit, y'all. Only $245.

Marissa Mayer, Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher

So Marissa Mayer is now the CEO of Yahoo - excuse me, Yahoo! - and is out to make her mark. Only problem is, I think the job is cursed. That's right. I said it. CURSED. Just like the Defense Against the Dark Arts Chair at Hogwarts.

Yahoo has had six CEOs in five years: Marissa, Ross Levinsohn, Scott Thompson, Tim Morse, Carol Bartz, and Jerry Yang. Obviously, somebody wants the CEO job for themselves, and has made sure that No One Else Can Have It Until They Return.

But who could it be? Who could be so powerful, and so evil? Well, it's California, and Yahoo is pretty much an entertainment company now, so my bet would be a Hollywood producer of some kind- wait a minute.

Who was the chief before that crazy run of revolving CEOs? Terry Semel. Who spent 24 years at Warner Bros, backed the first Batman flick and The Matrix trilogy, and was chairman and co-CEO before he left for...yeah...Yahoo. He spent six years at Yahoo, and then they booted him. Seems like there's a media wizard out there who wants a comeback.

So what's an incoming CEO to do? Marissa, I'm sorry - but I think you're going to have to find Terry Semel's horcruxes and destroy them. Start with Matrix: Reloaded.

TWS 99¢ Two Days Only on Kindle!

Yep, my publisher is doing a 99¢ sale on July 17 and July 18. That's tomorrow, you yahoos!

So if you've been hesitating about buying The Wrong Sword...on the fence about it...my goodness, you can't get more low-commitment than this.

BUY.
IT.
NOW.

Mermaid Body Found. Again. And Again. And...

The Discovery Channel traveled a little farther down PT Barnum's "egress" by airing a fake mermaid documentary. Personally, I don't get the appeal of mermaids - for anything romantic beside posing on a rock, mermaids seem spectacularly ill-suited. Ahem.

And yet "mermaids" have been a flourishing industry for centuries:

1. The manatee. You'd have to be at sea a long time to confuse this

with this










but apparently sailors used to do it. Imaginative peg-legged bastards.