I don’t have any particularly strong feelings on what happens to my body once I die. After all, I’ll be dead. Donating myself to science is one option. I’d probably make a really memorable dissection for some unsuspectingly med student. Or I could have my ashes scattered in some faraway place (or maybe just onto the street below my window). But then I discovered that it’s possible to have one’s cremated remains pressed into vinyl records with a personalized selection of tracks. Custom artwork is extra, but I’m sure my loved ones would be willing to put up some additional cash to remember me properly. But I’m going to state explicitly that the cover art better not feature anything resembling roses, skulls, or paisley. Tasteful nudity, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable and tacitly encouraged.

I’d better get to work on my playlist. Hmm, should I start with Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” or Radiohead’s “Creep”?

That Canadian filmmaker who replaced his prosthetic eye with a digital video camera keeps doing crazy stuff and I keep blogging about it. Now he’s on a quest to find a female amputee who would be willing to be fitted with a paintgun prosthetic. Him artistic vision is likely inspired by the Tarantino/Rodriguez film Grindhouse, which featured a comely woman with a machine gun as a prosthetic for her missing leg. I’m sure he’ll get more than a few applicants, although I’m not sure how one would hold auditions for something like this. It’s probably a tad exploitative, but I choose to view it as a deconstruction of traditional notions of disability and femininity.

And now I have a really strong urge to finally watch Grindhouse.

The city of Philadelphia is requiring bloggers to pay $300 each for a business privilege license, regardless of how much money that proprietor actually makes via the blog. One blogger targeted by the city reported making a total of $11 over a two-year period. Even a pinko liberal like me can recognize that this might be a case of government overreach. Just because a blog features a couple AdSense or Amazon ads doesn’t mean that it’s a profit-making machine. I’ve made a whopping $10 from this blog over the years and to label me a business would be an insult to other businesses. Municipalities are entitled to seek out new revenue streams in these cash-strapped times, but trying to milk casual bloggers probably won’t impress the tech companies that cites like Philadelphia hope to attract.

The graph below is from a USA Today article on the significant rise in employment discrimination claims filled by people with disabilities in the past year. The increase coincides with both the recession and passage of legislation that undid the Supreme Court’s overly restrictive interpretation of what constitutes a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The more cynical might look at this graph and complain about litigious workers, but I find this news encouraging. Disability discrimination in the workplace is still pervasive and employers are still inclined to target people with disabilities when trimming their payrolls in harsh economic times. Congress always intended for the ADA to provide broad protection to workers with disabilities and many were denied that protection because of the Court’s dim view of the original law. A spike in claims now might send a message to employers that they must make a real effort to accommodate their workers with disabilities.

Skyline is the latest entry on my “movies-that-I-really-want-to-see-but-upon-seeing-will-probably-leave-me-feeling-disappointed-and-cheated” list.

Ray Bradbury has become a crazy old coot.

The deleted scene from Return of the Jedi of Luke Skywalker fashioning a new lightsaber is intriguing. Rumor has it that another scene shows Luke and Leia stealing one last forbidden kiss in Jabba the Hutt’s palace, right in front of a carbonite-encased Han Solo.