Doctor No and Frankenstein Castle.

Today I found out that there actually is a real Frankenstein Castle. Really! It’s in Germany.

That info about the castle comes from author John Scalzi, who also recently wrote about why, after being on it for a year, Bluesky is his favorite social media platform. I haven’t been on Bluesky for a year yet, but it is easily my favorite social media platform. (I like it because: no ads, no algorithm, and it’s simpler than Mastodon.)

Via Andrew… who played the greatest guitar solo ever? Was it Prince? It was probably Prince.

From 2016 but new to me, writer/director Shane Black talks about some classic Shane Black scenes with Screencrush.

From CBR.com, the first time Garfield hated on Mondays.

There’s a comic shop called Dr. No’s, and it’s only a couple hours east of me, so I am obviously going to have to visit at some point.

And finally, this is a deep cut even for Gen X-ers…

Back in the 1970s there used to be a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew TV show. It was based on the classic YA detective novels, and at-the-time teen heartthrob Shaun Cassidy played one of the Hardy brothers.

Since it was the 1970s, the TV show would find reasons to have Cassidy’s character sing on the show. (Aside from being an aspiring sleuth, Cassidy’s Hardy boy was also an aspiring rock singer, so in-show singing opportunities were plentiful.)

Anyway, while watching old episodes of the show (thanks, local library!) I noticed that Cassidy sang one song in at least two different episodes, a song called “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll.” Today I was listening to satellite radio and heard what I had assumed was just a Hardy Boys song. But this version was by Eric Carmen (who got his start with the Raspberries before he went solo). Turns out Carmen did the original version of “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll,” Cassidy covered it, and it was a hit for Cassidy.

To make this anecdote even more 1970s, Cassidy’s cover of the song took dethroned the theme from Star Wars when it took the top spot on the Canadian music charts.

Here’s a clip from one of the times Cassidy performed the song on the Hardy Boys TV show.

Frankenstein Castle in Germany

The Bluesky is open.

Oh. Cool. Bluesky, my favorite post-Twitter microblogging/social networking site, is now open to everyone. (The app was previously in an invite-only beta phase. Though invites were pretty easy to come by.)

If you want to look me up on Bluesky, I am @crewless.bsky.social over there.

Photo of the sky from my balcony. It is very blue with a couple of small clouds at the bottom.