some random thoughts for a Wednesday:

♦ – I discoverd this week that one member of the US House represents approximately 693,000 people. That’s a LOT of people for one congressman to answer to. For purposes of scale, consider the imperfect comparison to the UK House of Commons, were each MP (were they distributed by population) represents only about 92,000 (doing the math myself, based on 60 million people and 646 MPs).

No wonder so many of us feel like we don’t have much of a voice in government.

♦ – I finally got around to seeing The Incredible Hulk this week. I liked it, though I’m sort of conflicted on whether it was a serious improvement over the Ang Lee version a few years ago, which I really kind of liked, for all it’s pretentions. Plot-wise, this one was much leaner and meaner, with more action, which is kind of what you want with a Hulk story.

Honestly, though, I think I liked the old cast better than the new. Casting wasn’t the problem with the last film (if anything, it was that there really wasn’t a fully defined villian for Hulk to Smash); Sam Elliot was perfectly cast as “Thunderbolt” Ross back in ’03; William Hurt was’t bad, but he was basically just doing a Sam Elliot impression. Also, I liked the way Eric Bana played it better than Edward Norton did. Norton’s Banner was almost over-emotive for a character who’s contantly trying to suppress his emotions. Bana played it much closer to the vest, which felt more authentic to me.

♦ – I’m convinced Catherine is going to completely sneak past us with walking. She’s just going to edge a little farther into it each day until we finally realize she hasn’t crawled anywhere for months.

♦ – Slow hotel WiFi and the whole of the internet crashing on the server has made it (so far) impossible for me to catch the first piece of Joss Whedon’s latest work, the internet musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. I am rather sad about this fact. Never fear, if I can’t make it happen tonight, I shall certainly view it on the morrow at home.

♦ – Over the Indpendence Day weekend, I got a good deal on a larger fish tank, which has been set up and cycing for the last two weeks. I haven’t made much or any mention of it here (just a little on the twitter), because it wasn’t really complete yet, thanks mostly to slow FedEx delivery. My box o’ stuff arrived this week, and I should have it completely decorated and equipped by the weekend. I think it looks pretty good so far (even if the plants are plastic – I simply don’t have enough lights); once it’s done, I’ll post a pic or two (it’s going to be a couple of weeks before I add any more fish; the biological filters have to catch up first).

♦ – Like I even need to say it anymore – today’s xkcd is very funny.