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December 17, 2007

Pats announcing: Hype TV; 20 years of Star Wars Christmas cards; Sci-fi: 'Thinking Meat' is loose

Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

New York Jets coach Eric Mangini, left, and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick shake hands after the Patriots 20-10 win at Gillette Stadium.

At our house, we're ready for the radio version of Pats games. With nothing to talk about, the Fox crew today talked repeatedly about Spygate, and even about how there was nothing new to talk about about Spygate. This announcing model isn't working.

The hype about the revenge, the feud between coaches Bill Belichick and Eric Mangini, "Spygate" had taken on energy that had nothing to do with the reality: A sloppy December football game in New England in the wet weather and strong winds of an exiting winter storm during which the Patriots made a few fewer mistakes than the Jets.

No blowout (not even a proper snow game), a polite handshake between the enemy coaches at game's end, and these overblown stories fizzled like the filler they were.

We'd like to try a radio soundtrack with network video, but we'd have to find a way to synch up the radio track with the replay-tv delays. On radio, at least, announcers are supposed to describe the action so we feel we're there.

Incoming non-story: Will the Patriots rest their top players now that they've clinched the division, a first-round bye and home-field advantage through the playoffs? No.

Seconded: No rest for the undefeated, Don Banks at SI.

Passed: Don't expect the Pats to rest, The Projo's Jim Donaldson.

Next story? Dolphins upset next week? Nah. The Dolphins have nothing left to prove. They beat the Baltimore Ravens in overtime today, 22-16, and are now 1-13: Dolphins edge Ravens, avoid infamy of winless season, at the Miami Herald.

Not much left to inflate this week, but the appearance of the Dolphins offers an opportunity to write yet more stories about the undefeated 1972 Dolphins.

Backwards we greet:

The 1981 (LucasFilm) Card featured a painting by Ralph McQuarrie of Yoda wearing a Santa outfit, which was later made into an action figure in Christmas 2003. The cast and crew of Empire Strikes Back received this card. -- /film

Cool Stuff: 30 Years of LucasFilm Christmas Cards at SlashFilm (/film)

Star Wars greetings through the years.

Runaway tale: At Terry Bisson's site: They're Made Out Of Meat.

(From OMNI, April 1991. This story, which was a 1991 Nebula nominee, has been appearing around the internet lately without my name attached. Several people were kind enough to alert me, but the truth is I'm more flattered than offended. )

This does serve to reconnect his name to his story in the search engines, and I'm happy to help him reattach it. The story was new to me, although this blurb on his homepage says perhaps it shouldn't be:

Stephen O'Regan's film of my short story won Grand Prize at the Science Fiction Museum's SF Short Film Festival in Seattle in 2006. O'Regan and I are working on a new film together. I think.

Related: Great Sci Fi for People Who Think They Don't Like Sci Fi at WaPo's Short Stack.

It leads with one of the great Jorge Luis Borges' short-story collections, Labyrinths (he never wrote a novel), then gets predictable. But the best part is the comments, where readers add their own favorites.

I remember really liking Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End when I read it many years ago.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:52 AM | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Liz on December 17, 2007 10:52 AM