I went out on an airboat in the Everglades a couple weeks ago. I should point out that this picture was taken with my phone, which does not have a zoom lens.

Early David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, and Tilda Swinton, and adapted from the classic 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards.

I like Fincher. This could be pretty good.

Where The Hell Is Our Diamond Age?

Last year at the Television Critics Association, where professional couch pota… er, critics get together to be spoon-fed updates from the networks about what to watch during the upcoming season, the Sci Fi Channel announced that George Clooney and his buddy Grant Heslov were developing Neal Stephenson’s awesome The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer novel into a six-hour miniseries. Well, it’s a year later, so what’s going on with our miniseries?

Wait, what? How come no one told me about this? I love the crap out of this book, but it’s going to make for terrible television. On the bright side, they are at least making a six-hour miniseries instead of trying to cram the book into a two hour movie.

Hey, look! They’re actually going to fix the Electoral College:

A Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza has formulated a compelling and pragmatic alternative to the Electoral College. It’s called National Popular Vote (NPV), and has been hailed as “ingenious” by two New York Times editorials. In April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. And several other states, including Illinois and New Jersey, are likely to follow suit.

How NPV works is this: Instead of a state awarding its electors to the top vote-getter in that state’s winner-take-all presidential election, the state would give its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This would be perfectly legal because the U.S. Constitution grants states the right to determine how to cast their electoral votes, so no congressional or federal approval would be required. NPV could go into effect nationwide as soon as enough states pass it (enough states to tally 270 electoral votes—the magic number needed to elect a president). In 2008, NPV bills are expected to be introduced in all 50 states.

This is the last photo I’ll be posting from the train station.

Five Short Video Game Industry Keynotes (Magical Wasteland)
I guess I don’t need to go to GDC this year, all the keynotes have been “leaked” ahead of time. Example:

Let’s think about the future for a second. You probably don’t understand the kids that make up the bulk of our audience, but I do. I call them the network MySpace remix 3.0 social generation. Unlike any other people before them, young people today like to interact with each other. They also like music. YouTube is the perfect example of whatever point it is I’m making. Everything should be online and customizable.

• The New York Times | 2007: The Year in Pictures

Scenes from the Ron Paul Revolution

On the morning of October 30, a large group of people gathered outside The Tonight Show’s Burbank studio. According to GloZell, a local eccentric who attends every taping of the show, only the lines attracted by Hollywood heartthrobs such as George Clooney, Justin Timberlake, and Daniel Radcliffe had ever come close to matching the crowd’s size and enthusiasm. But this throng had gathered to cheer Ron Paul, a 72-year-old obstetrician and Air Force veteran turned Texas congressman. Paul was there to hawk not a movie or a record but his long-shot campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

During the broadcast, host Jay Leno respectfully attended to Paul’s calls for hard money, withdrawal from Iraq, and a flat income tax of zero. Offstage, Leno got Paul to autograph his copy of the congressman’s recent book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship.

Later in the show, while performing “Anarchy in the U.K.” with a reunited Sex Pistols, punk icon Johnny Rotten gave Paul a thumbs-up and a “Hello, Mr. Paul,” later adding, “When are we getting out of Iraq?” In between, more ambiguously, he waggled his ass in Paul’s general direction. But he shook hands with the congressman afterward, and according to Paul supporters on the scene he expressed respect to him privately. Paul, watching the broadcast with supporters at a Hollywood Hills fundraiser that evening, shook his head at the aging punk’s antics, noting, well, we do promote tolerance.…

The article’s pretty long, but it’s interesting.

If you haven’t guessed by now: I received a new camera for Christmas.

• Electoral Compass USA
  Figure out which candidate most closely matches your views on a few of the most important issues.