I went to see the movie on Friday. Lars buys a Real Doll, and the small town rallies round to help him through the emotional crisis of which this is a symptom.

I enjoy sex with Lena, my huge, soft-toy lioness. I wanted the film to be about a lonely middle-aged man out of the work-force and out of the dating scene due to chronic illness finding warm, soft, snuggly love where he can. Lars and the Real Girl is not that film.

I enjoyed the film and intended this diary entry to be a positive review, yet as I think about it more I think that this "good hearted" film has a morally rotten core.

Robin Hanson is a clever man with interesting ideas so he has been forced to consider the question of why certain ideas get rejected out of hand as "silly". He asks for answers on Overcoming Bias.

Silliness is an unstable social circularity. Explanation inside.

I've submitted my new lyrics for a traditional tune to Reddit

TheophileEscargot posted a link to a PDF of a talk by Nick Tilley about realistic evaluation of public policy initiatives. My response is too long for a comment so I promoting it to a diary entry.

I was at my local supermarket, fixing an out-of-cheese error, when a muscular and cocksure whim twisted my arm, forcing me to buy a tub of mascarpone. What am I to do with it? Eat it, obviously, but there are details, surrounding this basic concept, that cry out for creative elaboration.

I enjoyed watching the Golden compass. Reading reviews of I Am Legend, I had a revelation about who is chosen to review films.

Frosties are a UK abomination: Cornflakes with sugar frosting. As a child I used to put milk on my Frosties. I've grown up and grown worse.

$Recent_Female_Friend came round last Saturday for help with some DIY. We sawed wood into blocks and turned them on my lathe. We stopped for tea.

I remarked that our plan to see a science fiction movie together (her genre suggestion) had foundered due to a lack of suitable movies. There were however other things that a man and a woman could do together, kissing, snogging, sex...

It has a wonderful subject line

The internet will evolve from being a global suppository of all human knowledge into actually being humanity.

Poll inside.

The board game Go is has an honoured place in Japanese culture. The Japanese consulate in Scotland has a stand at Gardening Scotland intended to promote tourism to Japan.

Mr Takahasi, the Japanese consul, is too shrewd to overlook the danger that such a stand might be dull and ineffective, so he decided to enliven the stand by dedicating half of it to promoting Go.

 

"Endomorphism" is not an Elvish word. Although this diary is not about Tolkien nor rings of power it is nevertheless appropriate to subtitle it "There and back again"

In which I bag two brace and conclude that I've got the lot.

Went for a walk and heard a strange noise overhead.