Indescribable feeling

Last night Disney aired, it said, the Asian television premiere of the movie Aladdin. Even if they just mean Southeast Asia that seems strangely late for the film, which is featured in the ``Wonderful World of Disney'' movies introduction, and whose spinoff cartoon has been in fairly regular rotation all the time I've been in Singapore. Maybe they assumed everyone had the DVD. I'd forgotten how good Disney was getting with animation in the 90s, and how well they made Carpet almost match the hand-drawn stuff.

There's a poster announcing a talk for an ominous new way to make the Internet more irritating. The presenters are working on combining Amazon-style customer recommendations (``Customers who bought the MegaBlocks NCC-1701-D Enterprise toy also bought Simon Louvish's Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennet and a weekend trip to Rutland, Vermont'') with Microsoft Office Assistant (``You appear to be writing a letter! May I suggest a verb?'') to make avatar assistants to shopping web sites. I bet it requires Flash and a separate plug-in download. What'll you give me to show up and set fire to their shirts?

Trivia: When the US Navy planned the 1943 invasion of Tarawa Atoll the only available chart was made by the United States South Seas Exploratory Expedition of 1838-1842. Source: Sea of Glory, Nathaniel Philbrick.

Currently Reading: Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft, Courtney G Brooks, James M Grimwood, Loyd S Swenson Jr. That's as opposed to the Charles R Pellegrino and Joshua Stoff Chariots for Apollo.