…although the science is interesting, I’m mostly posting this link because I like the headline: ‘Alien’ stars invade Milky Way.

Somehow (probably with all the new Gaiman I’m reading - 1602, Endless Nights, etc.) I missed that Neal Stephenson’s new book, Quicksilver, was just released. Shame on me.

For my brother-in-law (Desiree’s twin): a link to information about Suntory Whiskey commercials for Japanese TV starring Akira Kurosawa.

Gravity Lens has posted a link to a great story about how Orson Welles was close to making a Batman feature film shortly after working on Citizen Kane.

Particularly interesting were the casting tidbits - Basil Rathbone as the Joker, George Raft as Two-Face, James Cagney as the Riddler, and Marlene Dietrich as Catwoman… fascinating stuff!

Decipher is releasing a .hack TCG, called .hack//ENEMY. The first release will be called Contagion and it will be released on October 15th.

Since .hack//SIGN is the favorite for both Desiree and I when it comes to anime and we both enjoy collectable/trading card games, we consider this to be an uncommonly good thing.

While it’s pretty funny that Alanis Morissette yelled “Thank you Brazil!” at the end of her show in Lima, Peru, it’s downright hysterical that David Lee Roth had to get 22 stitches after whacking himself in the head while performing what his spokesman called “a very fast, complicated 15th-century samurai move.”

Lots of PC demos available recently:

If you’re strategically inclined, check out the Empires: Dawn of the Modern World demos (yes, I did use the plural - there’s a single player and a multiplayer demo). Also be sure to catch the Worms 3D and Lords of EverQuest demos, too.

Action gamers can download demos for Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi, the comic-book inspired Dredd vs. Death, and the impressive Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Although I prefer playing brawlers like RotK on a console, you can’t complain about a free demo!

The BBC News has an article about a star that was seen to flare last year (which puts the actual event at about 20,000 years ago) three times without any explanation - now it’s thought that the occurances were the result of the star consuming planets. [You can add your own Galactus joke here.]

In the U.S. (or at least here in Chicago), we call the device that police attach to your wheel when you have too many outstanding tickets a “boot”.

Apparently, it’s more descriptively called a “wheel clamp” in the UK, and this BBC article has information about the first “wheel clamp vigilante” (complete with spandex costume and cape).

Sci-Fi Wire has a story about a live-action Flash TV show, which honestly doesn’t sound that interesting at this stage.

According to the article, it seems that the premise for the show (a Gotham City college student who can run so fast that he can move forward or backward in time) is only very loosely based on the DC Comics character, with no regard for the character’s history.

I’m all for re-imagining continuity and character histories for the purpose of a better story, but why call the show The Flash if you’re not going to draw on the strengths of the character’s mythos? This is synergy gone bad for AOL Time Warner - you’d think they’d have learned from last time.