pangram (PAN-gram, -gruhm, PANG-) noun

A sentence that makes use of all the letters of the alphabet.

[From Greek pan- (all) + -gram (something written).]

Many typists know "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog" as a thirty-three-letter sentence that employs every letter in the alphabet at least once. Now fix your eyes on a sampling of the best pangrams of even fewer letters […]

• Astrud Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema
• The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star
• King Crimson - Elephant Talk

What actually bothers me -- what may reveal me to be a pretentious aging aesthete unable to adjust to the new era of non-narrative post-whatever -- is the music. You know what I'm talking about: That stomped-by-robots electronica video-game soundtrack that refuses to stop, no matter what the context. You're sitting there watching any old scene in "Ballistic" -- a 6-year-old getting off a plane, a car driving down a deserted street, whatever -- and the soundtrack is all relentless wicky-wacky-humpa-thumpa, complete with moaning female vocals. You get to the point where you can't tell if you're in a movie theater or some nightclub full of leather pants, hair gel and Argentine women who won't talk to you.

Set to that soundtrack, most of "Ballistic" involves the mysterious Agent Sever (Liu), for unexplained reasons, machine-gunning cops by the score, destroying the Vancouver public library and blowing up boxcars. The director known as Kaos (that's the nom de boom of Thai-born Wych Kaosayananda) loves exploding boxcars. A lot of exploding boxcars. Some railroad was able to get rid of a whole bunch of outdated rolling stock here; the tax consequences must have been significant. Whoomp, whoomp, whoomp, whoomp.

When we get fully-immersive 3d holographic TV, I want someone to redo the Beethoven's 6th portion of "Fantasia." I loved it as a kid, and even though it now looks kitschy as hell, the style of the animation is unforgettable - to this day I still see the Pegasus fighting the wind when I hear the storm sequence. I first saw "Fantasia" at the Broadway theater in Fargo during one of its many rereleases. The Broadway was a porno house, or as close to one as you got in Fargo in the early 70s; it ran the "Swedish" movies like "I Am Curious (Yellow)" and "She is Skeptical (Puce)" and "We Are Ambivalent (Plaid.)" But once or twice a year they showed a Disney movie, like an act of penance.

In Cambridge, meanwhile, the 1926 Necco factory on Massachusetts Avenue will be totally preserved and renovated, under a lease signed by the Swiss biotech firm Novartis. The New England Confectionery Co. is moving operations to Revere, and pharmaceutical laboratories will replace the conveyor belts turning out candy hearts that say ''Be Mine.''

The contrasting fortunes of the two old buildings provide a window on the world of historic preservation and the practice of ''adaptive re-use'' - the recycling of existing structures as an alternative to new construction. In Cambridge, retrofitting old manufacturing buildings has become the norm, while in Danvers the campaign to preserve the past has become a much more difficult fight.

[…] After all, when using text-based online communication, we lack the body language or tone-of-voice cues that convey this information when we talk in person or on the phone. Various "joke markers" were suggested, and in the midst of that discussion it occurred to me that the character sequence :-) would be an elegant solution -- one that could be handled by the ASCII-based computer terminals of the day. So I suggested that. In the same post, I also suggested the use of :-( to indicate that a message was meant to be taken seriously, though that symbol quickly evolved into a marker for displeasure, frustration, or anger. […]

Did the waiter bring a gun to the table when he delivered the menus? This is the special! You will order it! No questions! I'd regard the term "Duck's blood" as fair warning, frankly -- just like Wombat's Lymphatic Fluid Perogis. If you were hurping up ghosts of gamy, copper-flavored meat assemblage, you've only yourself to blame. Although we should blame the restaurant, too -- why announce the fact that the sausage contains duck's blood? It's the sort of thing you can just slip in the mix. If people like it, and ask for your secret, just say "the life essence of waterfowl," and they'll ooh: how exotique. If they don't like it, and complain, go back to the kitchen, make a great noise, throw some pots and yell at the chef, then return to the table and apologize: Some duck was inadvertantly introduced into the sausage process. A thousand pardons. Have a free dessert […]

Comedy Central has pulled the plug on Win Ben Stein's Money, the sardonic, Emmy winning, brain-teasing show featuring the quizzing antics of the former Ferris Bueller teacher and trusty sidekicks like Jimmy Kimmel.

Network spokesman Steve Albani told the New York Post the reason behind the axing is, well, money and ratings. Or a lack thereof. "Since 1996, Win Ben Stein's Money has played a large role in the success of the network both from a branding and rating standpoint," said Albani. "However, the series has lost momentum over the course of the year and as a result this last batch of original episodes will be the last of the series."

As most of you know on Friday David Kemper, Ben Browder, and Richard Manning announced there would be no 5th season of Farscape.

Well I believe we can make a difference....

But we must remain intelligent, insightful, make good points, and always remain scapers.

We should do as David, Ben, Richard, and Anthony asked and always remain polite, do not threaten, do not insult. When writing its ok to show your sadness and to even show your anger to a degree but always remain scapers and don't take the low road when addressing the issues. Make good points.

For instance:

Farscape is Sci-Fi's highest rated series to date with the exception of John Edwards and he's not even sci-fi.

According to David Kemper, "Unrealized Reality" received a Nielsen Rating of 1.5. That equates to 1.5 million viewers tuning in to watch that particular episode. […]

We are very sorry to inform our builders that plans for the BattleBots 6.0 Tournament have been put on hold until further notice. At this point, the BattleBots 6.0 Tournament will NOT be held in November 2002 as originally planned.

Much to our dismay, Comedy Central has decided NOT to renew its option for a Phase 6.0 taping at this time. Without this television funding from Comedy Central, BattleBots Inc. simply cannot afford to hold a live competition.