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Thursday, November 26th, 2009
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11:32 am - Last Night at Teatro Zinzanni
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The annual holiday and (once only) Horray for 20,000 Images happened last night at Teatro Zinzanni, featuring a pair of giant transvestites (one of each), a sweet, beautiful, aerialist couple, three French acrobat clowns, the featured Zinzanni singer, and an incandescently hot Ukrainian contortionist who mindwiped every man in the room (and probably a few of the women as well).
While this year's story was less complicated then last year's, it featured a few of the same elements, but I liked this better.
I was fortunate enough to be accompanied by Ms. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) scarlettina.
And this was the company gift this year!
Later today I will fortunate enough to dine with the Bot-Knitter family.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
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| Saturday, November 21st, 2009
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7:58 am - Twenty, Twenty, Twenty Four Hours Ago....
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I wanna be sedated.
The night before last (Thursday), after getting a very late call from someone and trying hard (and failing) to get a low airfare for Christmas, I tried to go to sleep but couldn't.
Somehow, unbidden, the notion of going down to LA in the wake of my mom's death came into my mind, and I broke down crying. And, just so I don't appear a saint, I know that some of that involved my inability to afford to do that and a comment she recently made to me about how she had always wanted to leave me a legacy but all she would leave me was a bunch of junk (and which point she was crying).
Well, this cheery thought lead to a full three hours of insomnia, and I didn't go to sleep until 3 AM. The next day I somehow managed to do my job half-way decently. And last night, after a little drama with the TV (Comcast changed things around again), I actually got a decent night's sleep.
Punctuated by a weird dream I feel guilty about. At a large party at scarlettina's place (though clearly not her real place, as the kitchen was the size of her whole real place with a massive fireplace), she was trying to introduce me to someone shy, but didn't actually bring her over to me. This later prompted a bit of a too harsh reaction on my part ("if you want two people to meet, you should introduce them!"). This of course made matters worse, but, stubborn man that I am, I think I'm in the right.
Oh well, at least it was imaginary, right ..... ?
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| Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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9:00 am - Book Blogging - Emissaries From the Dead
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Finished Hyperion, and was impressed by the breadth of its vision, if depressed by some of its conclusions (which I probably concur with).
Started Emissaries From the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro, and after 100 pages and 8 chapters in, I really like it. Andrea Cort is a twisted misanthropic war-criminal anti-hero badass. In other words, a soul-sister of Takeshi Kovacs and Jumo Mozombe. It's a good SF noir mystery, fitting right in with Hammond, Asher, and Morgan.
I've been busy at work being moved back to controlled vocabulary. And there's a lot to do.
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| Monday, November 16th, 2009
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12:10 am - "I Am Not a Number, I am Mediocre TV Show!!" - Prisoner Critique with mild spoilers
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Well, as someone who has great affection for the original (used to watch on the PBS station when it ran after school) I have to say I'm disappointed.
The original was freighted with Cold War issues of security and loyalty, privacy and the individual. Our hero was clearly someone in the intelligence field who just wanted out. And didn't want to explain himself or share his reasons. So he was dropped in The Village for an attitude adjustment. There was never any question about a larger world beyond the village; everyone knew there was a bigger world, but they just didn't go; but the village was very international. And #6 was its rebel, who often did a good job at gaming the system.
(That of course is the obvious surface text; if you don't look beneath that to the metaphorical, the last episode makes no sense at all)
This new Prisoner trades much more heavily on images of the anti-globalization movement (having lived here then, I can't help seeing his "resign" as anything other than straight out of WTO). When presented with a lack of choice is a consumer situation, he's told "why you want to?" There is some appeal to 9-11 (the Tower images on the edge of the Village, a bombing, the desert setting), but not as much as I expected.
This 6 is not explicitly in Intelligence (in the first hour), but #2 and everyone else trying convince him there literary is no world outside the Village (why would you want another place beyond our perfect world). Indeed, it's not about information; #2 isn't simply trying to break #6's will, but to change his view of reality. Expounding on the whole anti-corporate thing, we find that The Prisoner worked for corporation gathering information, but not for a government.
I'm not 2 hours into it, and it doesn't really stack up. It makes some small references to the original (esp. in regards to the first person our #6 meets, who is a clear reference to the original Patrick McGoohan character). The network is trying too hard for a "Lost" try-and-figure-it-out vibe in the breaks.
Sir Ian was nicely wicked, and would have made a great #2 on the original, but he can't save a wandering plot. No guarantee that I'll keep watching.
Well, at least it's not V. A friend and I agreed that last week's wasn't especially anti-Obama, just dull.
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| Saturday, November 14th, 2009
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11:41 pm - With Only 20 Minutes to Spare
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| Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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12:46 pm - Must..... Resist.....
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The urge to introduce the term "tramp stamp" to our controlled vocab....
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(comment on this)
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10:37 am - And Speaking of Right-Wing Lunacy....
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9:27 am - Some People Just Can't Handle Intellectual Freedom
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| Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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11:47 pm - What the Hell Was That??
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| Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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11:57 am - Sci-Fi and Stuff
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So, last night I decided to finally give up on Orcs. Really, it was going nowhere after the first two of three novels in this omnibus edition.
So I chose something else. And this morning, talking to the busriding young SF reader,, there was this exchange:
She: Are you rereading that?
Me: No, actually, I've never read Hyperion
She: (Eyes wide) You've never read Hyperion???
Me. Yeah, I get that a lot. It was this or Ender's Game../
She: (eyes narrow)
Me: Yeah, I get that a lot too....
She: I always thought Ender's Game was best if you were in middle school.....
So the idea is to finish Hyperion by next Thursday. We'll see.
In other news, I can tell you, thanks to the Seattle Public Library, I can tell you The Black Hole isn't as bad as I remembered it.
It's actually a lot worse.
Crypto "V"??"
Anyone watch V last night?
Anyone find it as crypto-right wing as I did?
current mood: geeky
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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2:32 pm - It's Good to Be Grumpy.
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| Monday, November 2nd, 2009
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9:53 am - Talking to the Younger Generation
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(before I sink to the bottom of monthly statistics)
So, there lives in my building and rides my bus a tall blonde 20-something pseudo-nerd.
(you know me, I make friends wherever I go...)
This morning, after plowing though some Diana Gabaldon time travel romance last week her dad gave her, today she sat down with what was clearly was an old SF pulp cover, and lo and behold, it was The Caves of Steel!
Me: Gotta love the classics.
She: I love classic Sci-Fi - nobody cares about computers and everybody watches TV.
We had a short discussion about classic SF and sexism. ("I love classic Sci-Fi - even if it is totally sexist!" which led to a short exchange before her stop on Heinlein and sexism, my contention being that yes, he's sexist, but he's unorthodox about it in his later stuff, what with his strong female characters who are still in many ways male sexual fantasies).
She never heard of the Foundation series. I strive to educate....
current mood: geeky
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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1:14 pm - Book Blogging - Orcs
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So I finished the second Lost Fleet novel last week, and, hoping for something scary for Halloween, I picked Stan Nicholls' Orcs off the shelf.
(what I think I'm really interested in is The Dwarves by Markus Heitz, since I have a much greater affinity for Dwarves than Orcs, but I feel the need to clear this off my shelf first before a new book)
Frankly, it doesn't live up to its hype.
The orcs just aren't terribly interesting or different than human characters we've seen a thousand times before. They, in fact, appear completely human, in speech and behavior. Tolkien's orcs - hell, Peter Jackson's orcs are more interesting. (ok, their evil overlord is fairly gruesome, but almost cartoonishly so, eventually, and they don't like her anyway.)
There's nothing really wrong with the book, it just isn't terribly sophisticated. Mathew Woodring Stover does better with similar themes. Glad I got it at Half-Price.
Shoulda gone with Woken Furies. Takeshi Kovacs is much scarier than these clowns.
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| Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
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4:29 pm - Just Seen
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"I'm A Marvel, I'm a DC" takes on the whole "Disney Buys Marvel" thing:
Ok, it's old, but I only just saw it, and I include it for my regular readers, one of whom will like the Lion King parody, and the other of whom will like the last bit (probably the first bit too).
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
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12:14 pm - I Came, I Saw, I KICKED ITS ASS!!!!
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This just in:
"oldmangrumpus:
Your portfolio has come back from the second reader and is a Big Fat Pass. Yay!
The report is
attached for your review. Good job!"
Not only that, but - as I kinda hoped - the second reader was my cataloging prof,
who said:
"A very impressive portfolio; the
sophistication and maturity of your work really shows how you have exceeded the challenges and goals you set for yourself. Much growth is
demonstrated in your portfolio. Congratualtions."
She also gave me a whole bunch of "outstandings" (I only got
"Satisfactory" for "practical-Service" - I can live with that)
WAAAHHHOOOOOOO!!!!
current mood:  relieved
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, October 19th, 2009
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9:36 am - Approaching Equilibrum
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... or, my weekend three ring circus of stress.
1) I finally got my Portfolio in and accepted. I'd finished it (to my satisfaction) and my advisor said that since she had a class, she'd back to this on Saturday afternoon.
So I waited.
And waited.
And it was Sunday, and I waited.
Finally at 4 PM I sent her an e-mail asking if no news was good news or bad news, and she said "thank you for reminding me - I had forgotten, I'll get on this right away!" and 45 minutes later I got a reply with proposed changes. So I get those in. This morning at 6 she said it was "handed in" and just recently I was e-mailed that it's listed as "accepted" and awaiting the dreaded "second reader" (who hopefully won't ask for much, or anything).
Why do people always forget me?
2) this means I also spent a lot of my stressed-out weekend watching the lectures and doing the homework I didn't do for last week, getting everything done by 12:40 AM this morning.
3) there was a power outage in my building, possibly caused by a downed street-powerpole, and definitely enhanced by a Seattle City Light truck in the neighborhood. This ended up causing all sorts of freakyness with my iPod because the computer its attached to and where iTunes is, and my digital cable box seems to have reset itself, which (upside) the "missing" channels have appeared on it and more, while (downside) on the digital TV - on which I stupidly hit rescan without meaning to - the "regular" cable stations look degraded.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
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7:35 pm - I'M FREAKIN' OUT!!!!!
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Well, the first draft of the Portfolio Text came back, with the proviso that every section needs to be expanded.
EXPANDED???? It was all I could do to write this! (the simple truth is I really don't want to do this, nobody ever does, it's a waste of time, and it's all bullsh!t anyway)
Brevity is a problem I've had since I started this program; when you work in profession where you are forced to stay between 500 and 2000 characters, you learn to be brief. Anything more is wasteful and unnecessary.
Haven't even started on the HTML yet... wahhhh
Must Get This Done.....
current mood: Freaking Out!!
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, October 11th, 2009
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10:00 pm - It was A Beautiful Fall Day
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So naturally I it spent inside, writing my portfolio.
Well, at least I got the text done. I think. We'll see what my advisor says.
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, October 9th, 2009
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12:07 pm - The Reality Behind the Nobel Prize
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| Thursday, October 8th, 2009
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1:04 pm - The Cross - It's Not Just For Christians Anymore!
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