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More pop-culture evidence of a shift in generational priorities: the movie Holly. Xer icon Ron Livingston has gone, in the space of less than a decade, from the “It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care” of Office Space to caring very much indeed, maybe too much for his own good, in Holly, as a slacker American abroad in Cambodia who finds himself unable to not try to save a child prostitute from the horrible life ahead of her.

I find that shift fascinating...

(I interviewed Ron recently; read some of that here. [There’s more to come, including his thoughts on the phenomenon of Office Space.] And more on Holly is here.)

(Technorati tags: Ron Livingston, Office Space, Holly)

The opening gambit of last night's Colbert Report:

(Technorati tags: Stephen Colbert, Harry Potter)

Well, this is too hilarious to let pass by uncommented upon: It looks like just as I spent the entire day writing about Doctor Who and watching/listening to Live Earth, David Tennant was watching/listening to Live Earth, too. I just snapped the image above off the tube during a rerun of a couple of Duran Duran songs this afternoon in London.

Reports are sketchy as to whether Tennant was writing about, or indeed even thinking about me. I’d say the chances are slim, particularly with his ladyfriend, actor Sophia Myles (aka the Girl in the Fireplace), sitting right next to him.

Brownie points to whomever can tell me what the hell is on his T-shirt...

(Technorati tags: Live Earth, David Tennant)

It’s true. Bruce Campbell says so:

“The funny thing about that is that on the first ‘Spider-Man,’ I met Tobey Maguire,” recalled Campbell. “And he was like, ‘Okay, yeah, you’re a friend of Sam’s.’ Then I showed up for the second one, and he’s like, ‘Why are you back again? And you’re playing a different character. Why are you here?’ And he didn’t really get it. And then on the third one, he saw me and was, ‘Okay, you’re never going to go away. I see.’ So he finally made peace with it.”

Sorry, Tobey, but you’re out of my boyfriend harem.

Bruce has a permanent seat, of course.

(Technorati tags: Tobey Maguire, Bruce Campbell)

You may recall my speaking of the hilarious NYC Blogger Summit I attended back in February (detailed here and here). One of the ringmasters that night was Sree Sreenivasan, dean of students and professor at Columbia Journalism School, who was shockingly uninformed about this thing called the Intertubes. And yet he is someone who is constantly called up to pontificate on “new media.” Jane at Firedoglake points out a Chicago Sun-Times article that couldn’t be more clueless about blogs, bloggers, and blogging. The money quote is from Sreenivasan:

Just a few of his many wisdoms:

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.

A true geek has passed on.

(Technorati tags: Kurt Vonnegut)

Science-fiction Science "fact" author Whitley Strieber says we're about to make first contact with aliens. Or not:

It is possible that the visitors are about to show up. I am not saying that this will happen, but only that this is a time when it could happen, and there are some indications that it may be about to happen.

In other news, it is possible that monkeys might fly out my butt in the near future. I'm not saying this is absolutely going to happen, but if it does, I totally called it, and if it doesn't, duh, I said it might not.

It's possible Strieber's prediction is merely a projection of his fear that James "Scotty" Doohan's ashes will fall back to Earth from orbit and bring fiery death from on high.

In other other news, Strieber predicts the end of the world, Mayan style.

So many ways to meet the doom of our civilization...

Way to go, DM!

Oh, er. It turns out that Danger Mouse is actually half of the group Gnarls Barkley, and an in-demand producer in his own right (according to CNN).

Does he know he’s named after a cartoon character?

(Technorati tags: Danger Mouse, Gnarls Barkley, Grammy Awards)

"If I'm going to die," Steve Irwin said in a 2002 interview, according to the Associated Press, "at least I want it filmed."

Of course he did. He was a Generation Xer. That's what we do: wild, crazy, dangerous shit, and if possible, we get a friend of ours to videotape it. Irwin was lucky enough to make a career of it -- his only true Xer peer may have been crazy skateboarder Tony Hawk (the more ordinary crossgenerational craziness of NASCAR racing and pro football don't count), or maybe that professional jackass Johnny Knoxville -- which only means he was at the far end of the risk-taking, entrepreneurial bell curve of Xer behavior.

Geeks of all generations are getting in on the video action now, throwing up video tributes to Irwin that are proliferating at an astonishing rate -- and getting in on the entrepreneurial action, too -- but of course it would come down to an Xer, Chicago Tribune Internet and TV critic Steve Johnson, to be the first to question the instant deification of Irwin. We Xers are nothing if not our own harshest critics. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Seen in the parking lot at Worldcon, interesting bumper stickers:

And even more interesting cars in their entirety, such as the automobile painted by the artisans of Lascaux: