Pirates of the Caribbean

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean last night. Oh, this was good! If I’m eligible to vote in next year’s Hugos, this here is getting my Best Dramatic Presentation vote, unless something even better comes along. Not only does it have great special effects and brilliant fight scenes, but it’s got a complicated and internally-consistent magical maguffin. It’s also got Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp’s character, a charming rogue who totally walks away with the picture.

(Oh, and has everyone seen the Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates?)

After, we walked across Central Park, to bigscary’s place, for odd drinks made with ice cream and alcohol. He lent me a wad of DVDs — Read or Die, the first disk of His and Her Circumstances, and all but the first disk of Cowboy Bebop. (LadyM’s parents got her a DVD player, which arrived earlier this week. It’s a Sampo, and yes, it’s little and black.)

Rubber ducks flock to New England

Eleven years ago a container of thousands of bathroom toys — rubber ducks, turtles, frogs, etc. — fell off a cargo ship going from China to Seattle. Oceanographers have been tracking the swarm of toys, and learning about ocean currents. The flock of 29,000 toys has travelled around the Arctic, and they should soon be beaching themselves on New England shores.