Thoughts on the arts, society, politics, and various geeky topics.
This is the blog of Janice Dawley. Why is it called “Central Cortex”? Well, the Cortex was the interplanetary equivalent of the internet in Firefly, a show I was totally into back in 2003 when I first created this blog, and I’ve never changed the name since then. Strangely enough, I’ve barely written anything about Firefly here, but I’ve written a LOT about other TV shows and movies, as well as literature, politics, various cultural topics, and my own life.
Last Friday my friends Sarah and Matt hosted a Battlestar Galactica premiere gathering. Even though they had just moved into their new house the day before, they provided an amazing viewing experience for their visitors, complete with a huge widescreen projection TV that had been bought earlier that day! The show lived up to the setting. Maybe it was the seven month wait, but I could barely...
When I went to Scotland, I took two books with me. One was The Game of Kings, by Dorothy Dunnett — the tale of a noble rapscallion named Francis Crawford of Lymond who offends and/or fascinates everyone he meets while pursuing a mysterious agenda in 16th century Scotland. It’s a challenging and worthy beginning to a six-book series that in its telling travels far beyond the borders of...
And what a trip it was. My fellow tourists were a really fun group, and Willem and his wife Ida were a hoot. I tried plenty of whisky, took over 500 photos and movies, and was able to completely forget about work most of the time. A resounding success! Internet access was pretty scarce, so I couldn’t do any blogging from the road, but I will be uploading photos to my Gallery2 site soon. In...
SciFi has long been a leader in web content for their shows, particularly Battlestar Galactica. Last season I spent quite a bit of time listening to commentary podcasts by Ronald Moore, usually made available right after the episodes aired. In the latter half of the season, I was often wondering, “What the hell was he thinking?!” and was glad to get some insight into that right away...
“Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin Dead at Age 44
In just a month I’ll be on my way to Scotland, land of golf, caber tossing, and Ewan McGregor! My plane tickets are in my possession, and I’m checking out travel guides. And re-reading The Game of Kings, by Dorothy Dunnett. Not that I will have much time to go wandering by myself. The tour has been exhaustively pre-planned by Music Contact International, the company that handles all...
Months ago while watching the Oscars, I learned that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp“, but it wasn’t till a couple days ago that I saw the movie the song appears in, Hustle & Flow. You might think that a staunch feminist like me wouldn’t even consider watching a movie that sympathetically portrays an exploiter of women. But I was open to the experience. A good...
There’s an article in today’s New York Times about the court martial of an Army officer, 1st. Lt. Ehren Watada, for refusing to be deployed to Iraq. Watada is not a peacenik in general; he objects to the Iraq war in particular as dishonest and unlawful. The manner in which he came to this conclusion is like a geek fantasy: he originally supported the war, but before deployment...
I’m a member of some fun new communities these days. Laura Quilter, the esteemed webmistress of FeministSF.org, a resource site with associated listserv that I have been a part of for more than 10 years, recently set up a wiki, a forum, and a blog. I’ve been spending a lot of time editing the wiki (user name JLeland). Putting together bibliographies pleases my nitpicky research side...
Things have been pretty crazy around here. The web hosting is the least of it, really. Here’s the list. New hardwood floors. My housemate Mike has been lobbying for a replacement of the ratty old beige carpeting up here for a while. Nevertheless I was surprised when he gave me a mere week’s notice that his friend Larry the Logger had agreed to do the work. This meant I had to move all...