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Destroying thought in order to save it
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| Well, LiveJournal, it's been a good run. I had a great time and you were a major part of my internet day for five solid years. But, with sadness, I announce that this post will be my last. Even though I am paid up through December. Because I planned poorly.
I like LJ a lot and had a real sense of community and identity here when the place was busy. But, the fad seems to be over. Nearly everyone has moved on to either Twitter (kinda use it), Facebook (there in flesh but not in spirit), or some inconceivable state of not-internet. I'm down to less than five LJ friends that post with any regularity, so I can easily go days at a time without checking in. I'll keep up with you on RSS.
But the blog will live on, like a twenty-year-old cat that should have enjoyed a peaceful exit years ago. I've shifted my largely-ignored website to a new hosting service, and with it comes a wordpress installation, which I will use for future blogging. I still plan to do so at least at the frequency I've maintained over the last few months. Which is infrequent. But longing to be frequent.
Here is where I'll be. Please adjust brains and/or feed readers accordingly. Please do come visit me there. The first post is a doozy. Not one but THREE life-altering pieces of news. | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment   |
| We've boarded the home-buying train. Which is actually more like a roller coaster.
I was prepared for expensive. There's no question of expensive. And we're in a position to get a decent first house, excepting the fact that Raleigh isn't a place with cheap houses. A good rule of thumb here is that if you've heard of the neighborhood, you can't afford to live there. There are a few pockets of good places in town even once you've ruled out the suburban sprawl hell of north Raleigh. (This is not a big enough city to have any decent excuse for a 30+ minute commute through heavy traffic within the city limits, which is what a north Raleigh existence guarantees.) We live in one of these pockets now, and are considering staying in the neighborhood or changing up. Sort of on the table are nearby peripheral towns, but they better not get their hopes up since I hate every possible aspect of commuting.
What I was not prepared for was the great emotional swings of:
1. Find information about a house.
2. Imagine that it is the greatest house in the history of the world.
3. Find out you are wrong.
Just this week we've looked at six houses in person and dozens more online. Each one is like a brief junior high relationship of eternal commitment lasting about four hours. But you must get attached in order to talk yourself into spending hundred(s) of thousands of dollars. And then you find out the dining room ceiling is so low you can press your hand flat upon it, and the courtship abruptly ends. It's a brutal exercise.
I realize sellers are not going to post the unflattering picture of the grimy brown shower in the basement that emits only thick grey water. And written descriptions will not mention that the house has only one window on the entire back, even though this turns out to be a good thing because the house abuts a highway and opening this feeble barrier to the noise of a thousand cars an hour would be a terrible mistake.
Nevertheless, we must proceed and continue to subject ourselves for a bit longer. Luckily the houses are by no means all bad. A few have been great. It's impossible to make a perfect decision. We do not always fully agree with each other on the best choice. Each house has things that we don't want to go without as well as things we would be happy to never ever deal with. Some are tens of thousands of dollars more expensive, and you have to somehow figure out if what you get for that money is worth it. Money in the many thousands of dollars (that you'll be borrowing anyway) has an imaginary quality about it where you cease to concern yourself with a few thousand plus or minus.
I'm also having to conquer preconceptions of what a "good" house actually is. It's impossible not to compare it with the house I grew up in, even though that was purchased in a much different place and time. And it was my parents' third or fourth house. I think I want a yard, but it's not like I'm all that vigilant about taking care of the tiny plot of back-lot space I have at my current place. So, really, am I serious about that? How can I be trusted to make a major decision when I often regret what I eat for lunch? | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| So what I'm going to try to do is learn one new skill every year that would still be useful after an apocalypse.
That is, skills that would still be useful even without adequate electricity, with raw materials I could conceivably get, grow, or make (i.e., it can't require something like transistors, microwaves, or particle colliders). If it just needs a little electrical help that could conceivably be supplied by a generator, it's maybe OK but not ideal. Although there is another class of skills that would just be good to have in a situation where there was just a total lack of first-world services - maybe something like auto repair.
Mostly this is just for fun, and because I have a nagging feeling that I should be better at skills that don't require a keyboard. But also, if there is some kind of global meltdown? I'm ready to go. At present, I'm a little useless. I probably can't trade RefWorks expertise for valuable food tins once we're out of non-irradiated produce. Plus my skills will one day make up an impressive resume (on some kind of papyrus or potato paper) that will help me get a crappy but viable piece of a serfdom.
Some quick ideas:
*Furniture making
*Pretty much any kind of carpentry
*Beer brewing
*Pottery
*Growing various vegetables
*Building small structures, like sheds or porches
*Roofing
*Learning about plants and herbs
*Solar power...at home!
I need a house for many of these, so right now I don't have the space or facilities or need to learn roofing or something. So this year's skill might necessarily be some kind of cooking. Breadmaking or brewing are options.
Anyway, what I think will be fun is picking out a new skill every year, then working on implementation over the subsequent months. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| I will put this gently and professionally: the other day at work I was helping a guy whom I would not describe as nice.
So at some point during this interaction he was becoming dissatisfied because he wanted to pay less than what a particular service we offer costs. His approach to this dilemma was to tell me that he's "here all the time" (odd, since I have worked here for 4+ years and have never ever seen him) and that "everyone knows him, including [my] supervisor" (obvious lie). And, should I not help him out, he'd have to let my supervisor know.
I will put aside his entertaining threat to rat me out to my boss for enforcing our pricing policies.
What I am regretting is that I missed the chance to spring a sublime verbal trap. Here is how it would go if this happened again:
Him: I know your supervisor and will have to tell him about this.
Me: Oh, you know Norman?
Him: Yes, Norman. I will have to talk to him.
Me: That will be difficult, because there is no Norman here!
Him: [Is briefly stunned, then bursts into tears of shame]
Never again in life will I have such a chance as this. It would have been just like a clever interrogation in a mystery where the brilliant detective catches the crook in a web of his own deceit. You need a few key elements to set up this situation:
1. Someone is very obviously lying to you.
2. They are doing such a bad job lying that you know they are lying literally as the words are coming out of their mouth.
3. The lie is covering up some crime that you are charged with solving.
OR, 3a, You don't particularly like this person and would not mind humiliating them.
I think above all that professional courtesy prevented me from nailing the guy. I don't engage with the (very few) nasty people we deal with, I just withdraw and try to get rid of them. But, it's a missed opportunity. I won't miss the next one. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I went on a holiday special binge.
The perfect:
It's a Wonderful Life. After a standard youthful period of thinking this was hopeless oldie cheese, I've come to love this movie. I think being a grown up gives you a much different perspective on it, and it's a surprisingly modern movie. Plus it probably comes the closest to making me cry to any movie ever, so it has ascended to the throne of holiday viewing.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The classic Rankin-Bass tale of misfits and redemption. Re-watched it this year. It holds up. Very creative and watchable. I need Yukon Cornelius to run some meetings at work so we can get some things done. Although we have less threats from Bumbles than he would be used to. If we can keep him focused we can use him.
Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. Can anyone who has not seen this truly call themselves a lover of holiday specials? Or, really, truly lived? I say no. It's a little obscure these days, I think, but nonetheless glorious. I love this on an entirely different level than I did growing up, when it was just cute and muppets and such. Now: classic old-school muppetry, humor, songs, and terrific characters and story. But what sets it apart from your standard classics like Rudolph is the Riverbottom Nightmare Band, or as they are more simply known, The Nightmare. So there's this big town-wide talent contest. And the principles are all counting on winning it with their heartwarming songs of love and friendship. And you think they're bound to win, maybe in a tie, and everyone will live happily ever after. I won't spoil it, but what no one counts on is a last-minute heavy metal entry that blows everyone off the stage. They'd be awesome on their own, but what makes them perfect is that they COULD NOT BE MORE OUT OF PLACE in this show. Everything else is quiet and simple. Emmet and Wendell repair someone's fence for 50 cents. Ma Otter does laundry for a living using a washboard and tub. They sing simple folk songs. A bullfrog runs the town's most happening (or most hopping, if you will--and I hope you will not) restaurant. Then, there's a heavy metal band. What? I wonder if this was a commentary on the declining standards in music. Anyway, I'd love to post a video of The Nightmare's performance, but these never seem to be available. (Trust me. It is not available. Don't go looking for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find.) The best I can give you is a picture of them in concert:
and a link to a great cover of the song. Look at the picture and listen to the song. Eventually watch the show to appreciate in full.
A Christmas Story. Another one that's even better as an adult. I think I appreciate narration and the father's performance more every time I watch it.
The OK:
Frosty the Snowman. I haven't seen this one for years, but I'll put it here out of respect.
Christmas Comes to Pac-Land. Santa somehow crash lands in Pac-Land. They don't have Christmas there, but Pacman helps out anyway, despite constant threat of a chomping from the ghosts. Now, I only saw the show once, so I don't remember clearly, but I think the word "chomp" was used in some form (e.g., "I'll chomp you!", "...give him a chomping...") about 8,000 times. I don't recall any of the other episodes of the Pacman cartoon, but I'm going to guess that most of them revolved around him trying to go about his life while evading a chomping. So at least the Christmas special stayed within the scope of the show. I guess what seems weirdest to me is that logic dictates that a cartoon that was made solely as a product spin-off ought to have a holiday like Christmas. Perhaps they didn't want to steer into non-secular ideas and get into Pac-Land's theology.
Family Guy Christmas Episode. I'm no fan of Family Guy but I caught the Christmas episode once. All Peter wanted to do was get home to watch the Kiss Christmas Special, which we saw snippets of throughout the episode. Listen, that's all I need to hear. I appreciated it for what it was.
Ugh:
Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas. I had high hopes for this, but had never seen the Curious George show. Turns out that it was a little young for me, and that's saying something. I had enough of George about ten minutes in.
The Star Wars Christmas Special. I'll refer you to this table, which I drew up a couple of years ago, for brief discussion. I haven't dared to watch this again. Maybe if it was 24 minutes long or something. But it's not. It's two hours long.
Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. A totally shamelessly manipulative story about a cute donkey that cries a lot. Nestor is, as the title implies, a donkey with long ears. For this, he is treated as the lowest possible swine, and endlessly berated by every other creature in the barnyard, including the guy who owns the place. (Who, despite the shame, never thought to crop Nestor's ears? This could have saved everyone a lot of trouble.) Nestor is heartbroken and cries. No one is sad. The viewer does not care because the the viewer is trying to be tricked by a minor manipulation of the Rudolph theme. Then some Bible folk buy him because they see his inner beauty I guess. He gets them through the desert because his ears block out the sand. So he's now a hero and everyone loves him. I mean, I'm glad Nestor could help out but maybe Joseph and Mary could have just bought windbreakers and goggles or something. Then Nestor cries in the end because he's so happy all the jerk animals now worship him. Hallmark commercials contain better logic and more emotional depth. They also have just as many songs: one. Except this is a whole show so you have to hear it over and over again as they use it to fill the time. Brutal. Stay away. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| K and I were talking about vacations the other day and established that there is a big difference between vacations and trips. A vacation is a relaxing time, a trip is something where you go somewhere and do something novel. Most of the time those two things are crossed up together, but I've shifted into thinking they are two different, and largely mutually exclusive, things. I can't travel and take a vacation. A vacation is where I recharge. A trip is where I get to do something new but I also spend a lot of time worrying about a lot of crap I don't normally have to be bothered with. When I come back from a trip, I usually need a vacation. If I want to get away from work for a while, a trip is not the solution, a vacation is.
That said, I'm at my house for christmas and essentially thrilled about it. Work has been a little ridiculous lately and the last thing I need is a trip. I need a damn vacation. So I'm taking one. Missing girlfriend, family, and friends but the benefits of being home outweigh the stress of holiday travel and being displaced for a long period when I really really need the home recharging time. Today marks Day One of five consecutive days at home with just Artie. Let me make it clear that I totally dig on having time home alone. It's not for everyone. Most people get bored or lonely fast, I think. I have no established limit on the time in which I could sustain this. I don't think I've ever had five whole days before. There is no theoretical limit, but in practice, who knows. I probably won't find out until I retire, only thirty short years from now.
Plans include:
*A couple of LJ posts. Some things to talk about, including a missed chance to lay a glorious verbal trap on an obnoxious guy I had to deal with yesterday, and a longish discussion of holiday specials (Tivo has enabled me to see a few new ones this year like Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey and Christmas Comes to Pac-Land).
*Reading! Finishing up a re-read of The Sandman. Don't think I ever actually read the last two or three collections in the series the first time around, though. Mostly this is a fantastic series. Incredibly imaginative and rich. I tend to get turned off by each collection's ending, each of which seem a bit reliant on some sort of established mythological power I've never heard of or that Neil Gaiman has just made up. But I also don't really feel like that's the point, so not a big problem.
*Video games! Replaying Super Mario Galaxy. Definitely easier the second time around. Probably play some Metroid Prime 3 when I'm done with that. Love playing Metroid games when I have a lot of concentrated time to get into them. When I don't, they're a little too challenging to keep me focused. Because I am old.
*TV. Nothing specific, other than the annual It's a Wonderful Life viewing, but I will spend a lot of time watching it. Because I can. Sunday I might let myself enjoy an epic day of sportsball and watch the morning(1), afternoon (which ought to be the Broncos game, so there's that), and night games. Normally I'm a one-game-a-week sort of guy, but this weekend, why not?
(1) Living on the east coast means this makes no sense. Daytime NFL games start at 1pm or 4pm during the regular season, so technically they are both afternoon games. But growing up in the mountain time zone, the slots were 11am and 2pm: a morning and an afternoon time. And I can't shake this. Also, this was MUCH BETTER. 11am is a great time for a football game to start. Not too early, grab some lunch at halftime, wrap things up around naptime. Then the late game is over by dinner. It's perfect. In the east, everything starts too late, and football is just one example. The Mountain Time Zone is secretly the best time zone as it relates to TV.
To resuscitate this shockingly unambitious holiday agenda, I have three words for you:
Christmas chili dogs. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Probably going to be rearranging my web hosting and blogging very soon. It's time. For years I've used Yahoo web hosting and blogged on LJ and sort of tenuously linked the two. But both of these are in pretty sorry shape.
Web hosting: I signed onto Yahoo web hosting in 2002. It was cheap and easy. I built a crappy site. Then I took most of it down. But the basic thing is still there, for some reason. I'd like to keep it, and maybe I'll even do something interesting with it someday. But for now, it costs $5 or so more a month than hosts that provide you much better features.
Blogging: I love LJ but (1) nearly everyone that I used to enjoy reading has abandoned it and (2) there are some ongoing issues with it and Bloglines, so it's hard to follow LJs and (3) you have to think it's going to go away at some point, right? I mean, I hope not. But I don't know that it's got a hugely strong user base any more, at least not in the U.S. Twitter has the same interconnected thing going for it and requires a fraction of the energy, so it's sucked away a lot of people. If (when) I switch to wordpress or something, it's really going to lack the spark that LJ had when everyone was using it. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Montana playing in FCS semifinals this weekend, an event that has evidently gotten big enough to garner ESPN coverage. In honor of this, and UM's eventual national championship triumph, I have modified my default icon and present this picture.
 | | comments: Leave a comment |
| THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY OF ONE OF THE FEW CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS I HAVE OWNED
*December 2000. Whilst living in New Mexico, I purchase a small spiral-shaped christmas ornament made from some kind of dried grass stalk or bamboo. I'm not decorating really, but bought a number of little kitschy things from the tourist trap of Old Mesilla Village near Las Cruces.
*January 2001 - November 2009. Ornament bides time in a box amongst a few other unused christmas decorations, getting moved from house to house, and even sitting in storage for a few years.
*December 6, 2009. Nearly a decade after acquisition, ornament is liberated and allowed to fulfill its life purpose via placement on a christmas tree.
*December 8, 2009. Ornament is destroyed by remorseless cat. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I thought I could bang out a post on shows I've seen the most episodes of ever quickly, like, in twenty minutes over lunch. Way, way wrong. This is actually rather difficult and quite time consuming. And, there is a big question about the value of such an exercise. Unforeseen problems:
*TV shows have a truly ridiculous number of episodes, particularly popular sitcoms that go on for years and years. Half-hour shows that go on for a bunch of seasons have easily 150-200 episodes. So the amount you may have actually watched quickly gets astoundingly large. Larger than I really thought. Here I'm thinking my 178 TNG episodes are ridiculous, well, wait until you're talking about weekly sitcoms that require only the vaguest expenditure of time. A show like Frasier, that I liked but mostly just watched because it was on when other stuff was on, but maybe for like five years, well, suddenly I've seen over 100 episodes. Of Frasier?! You don't understand! I chose to watch every single TNG. Had them sent to my house. Gave each on my attention. For Frasier, I was tricked. Something I liked was on before and after! Oh, NBC, you devious bastards.
*It's a lot harder to remember how many episodes I might have seen than I thought. I did mostly watch all those Frasiers. But was it really for five whole years? It really could have been a lot more. Did I drift in and out? Did I miss it some seasons altogether? When exactly did I stop watching? I'm not quibbling over whether I watched 100 or 105. I mean, who would care? I'm quibbling over whether I watched one HUNDRED or two HUNDRED. This would be a difference of three whole years of loyal viewing, or not, and I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER.
*Take that degree of difficulty, and ramp it way, way up, and then try to guess how many episodes of a show you watched as a kid. The Cosby Show? My sister and I were loyal, weekly viewers. But also, we were, like, eight. Can I vouch for my regular viewing habits at eight? AND STILL EVEN WORSE are related shows of the time. I remember deliberately watching The Cosby Show a lot, but did I also watch A Different World? Yeah, I guess so. But that had 144 episodes! I could have watched 30 or 130. I haven't a clue. And seriously, A Different World had 144 episodes?
*Related, the factor of shame. I've discovered that it is entirely possible the the show of which I've watched the most episodes is not Star Trek: The Next Generation, but either Friends or Diff'rent Strokes. I don't know that I want to know the answers. Although I might be oddly proud if the all-time winner was Diff'rent Strokes.
*It may not be worth painstakingly inventorying every show, or even the top ten (probably a threshold of maybe, a minimum of 100 episodes watched). There are a lot of shows over the course of several decades of nerdy life. And anyway, what's the value? Sure I've watched an awful lot of A Different World, but so what? All the episodes are the same and I don't remember any of them. Plus it has no relevance to a comparison to how many episodes I've watched of a totally different show at a totally different time.
My conscious TV viewing can be lumped into four distinct eras:
1. Grade school. Exclusive loyalty to after-school and primetime sitcoms (exceptions made for shocking news magazines Rescue 911 and Unsolved Mysteries). Devoted viewership, but single-digit-aged flakiness presumed, so I undoubtedly missed plenty, even though my memory says I was completely dependable about watching. Watched everything on first-run or syndication. Likes: anything on at 3:30pm or 7:00pm, Bill Cosby, Robert Stack.
2. High school. Little interest in any television except Seinfeld, MTV, and Comedy Central. Likes: playing on the computer instead.
3. College, early adulthood. TV watching peak years. Doggedly faithful to NBC Thursday night lineup of Friends, (whatever was on at 7:30 each year), Seinfeld, Frasier, ER. When too busy to watch, these programs are taped for later viewing. Various other network shows watched, and even some on cable. Later in this period, Adult Swim allegiance develops. Likes: clinging to TV as a substitute for a broken social life.
4. Recent years. No regular viewing. All TV watching done on DVD years after initial run. Viewing choices made deliberately and thoughtfully, and watched thoroughly, by episode. No surfing or serendipitous new show discovery. Likes: going to bed on time, not having to watch commercials.
Like in sports, you can't compare eras. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| 725/726: All Good Things... I guess any series that has a shot at a memorable ending is probably a good series. A lot of shows get cancelled or become so bad or different over time that the ending is just a formality. So I guess the goal is just to not have that happen. Then you get to pick your own ending. I think the secret is just to hit the right level of ambition, which should be set slightly above a normal episode. If you underplay it, the ending can be forgettable or disappointing. If you overplay it, you can get outside the scope of the show and it can seem ridiculous. The consensus is that "All Good Things" is a terrific finale and I'll agree because it hits just the right level of ambition. The story actually becomes three stories, told in parallel, of three different time periods in which the Enterprise encounters a strange anomaly in space...
(Here's where we break to discuss the principle flaw of the episode, that the most stereotypical TNG plot is: the Enterprise encounters a strange anomaly in space. And in the end, they try some radical new physics thing, reversing some device to create a beam of never-before-heard-of particles to destabilize it.)
...And in the end, they try some radical new physics thing, reversing some device to create a beam of never-before-heard-of particles to destabilize it.
So while it's disappointing to see the final TNG episode have such a traditional story, the three parallel encounters angle keeps it fresh. Present-day Enterprise, slightly-younger Picard first assuming command of the Enterprise, and old possibly senile Picard all face the problem from different perspectives. Further, we learn that Q is manipulating things in the background. Gradually the three Picards piece together the situation and figure out the anomaly is working backwards in time, and will eventually destroy the roots of humanity, and they do some other fancy physics thing and avert it. Q is happy, there is a tidy character moment at the end, and we presume that the Enterprise will continue indefinitely. All in all, this is what we expect from Star Trek. The episode expands the scope of their normal mission without getting too heavy handed, it's a good story and a great sci-fi idea (if kind of a magical ending). But the episode gets its greatest mileage by rewarding us for our long history with these characters. If you've actually watched all 178 episodes to get here, it's worth it. 5 out of 5.
I can't believe I've finally finished it. Three and a half years! Not constantly, nor is it anything to get worked up about anyway because all I actually did was just watch 178 hours of TV. I did intend to watch the whole series when I started, and definitely planned to do so casually, taking breaks when it didn't seem interesting and watching a lot when it did. But this is how long it takes to watch a seven-season show if you average about a show a week. Know this.
Overall, it was worth it. I enjoyed the show consistently. But it's not an all-time favorite, even though I've watched more episodes of TNG than I've watched of any other show, ever, by far [interesting subject, I'll estimate in a later post]. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It has few classic episodes. Mostly it's like tea (as so prominently featured in the series). It's always good and it's the kind of thing that you like best as a stalwart consumer. You rarely have a cup of tea that is so wonderful it knocks you over, but if you drink it a lot you depend on it and gain a long-term appreciation of what it's all about. Contrast it with what I think of as the best show ever, The Wire. The Wire is the best wine I've ever had. Life-changingly good, but not something you can have at any time. And as wonderful as it is, having a lot at once is damaging. There's a place in your life for something constant, that always works, and doesn't overwhelm you.
TNG manages to maintain this warm consistency even with little in the way of overarching narrative. There are pervasive themes and ongoing conflicts but a random viewer can pretty much watch nearly any episode and get 90% of what there is to be gotten about it. Essentially it's just good sci-fi stories and characters that I got to know over time.
Deep Space Nine? Voyager? Enterprise? I was thinking there was no way I would probably ever watch any of these, but to be honest, I'm kind of wondering about Deep Space Nine. (Voyager and Enterprise aren't even in the discussion at this point.) Knowing the characters, I might get a lot more out of DS9 than I ever got from occasional viewings years ago. Eventually I'll give DS9 a try and see what happens. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Bloglines seems to be picking up LJ feeds again! I found a bunch of LJ detritus in my reader this morning, as though the clogged intertubes finally burst forth with back-blogged goodness.
Perhaps it was the approximately 900,000 e-mails I sent Bloglines over the past year asking them to fix this that did the trick. They never once replied or acknowledged the problem in any way at all, but I know they were thinking of me.
Oddly, this very morning I woke up thinking I might finally abandon Bloglines in favor of Google Reader. I have had this thought about once a week for over a year but haven't pulled the trigger. Too much transfer to get everything from Bloglines to G-Reader to want to go through with it, plus I just like the old Bloglines interface better, even though I shouldn't, same as I like LJ better than most other blogging platforms, even though I shouldn't. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Check it out, got me some new toys:
( Feyd-Rautha, Harkonnen ANIMAL )
I only recently found out that there were even such things as Dune action figures. It never occurred to me that they would bother making toys for a weird artsy David Lynch sci-fi movie, but sure enough, they did. I found a mess of them on ebay, they usually seem to go for $20-$40 each. I fell asleep at the wheel on a lot of five of them a few weekends ago but pulled through to get this Feyd Rautha. I am so happy about having this. I love that he comes with antidote cat.
The chances of me taking him out of the package are pretty good. The plastic is yellow and cracking and I don't care about the collectible value, which couldn't possibly ever be all that much. The cardboard is kind of fun and I'll keep it, but I think I will free Feyd so he can live on my desk.
Also recently obtained for a scant $8:
( Lt. Commander Worf, put-upon Klingon officer on the Enterprise )
Probably my favorite Next Generation character. He might stay in the packaging. Also no cares about collectible value, but I just love the packaging too much. Every single phrase is trademarked. They call special attention to his individual number for his collectible value, but the number is well into the 100,000s.
Just for the record, I dig action figures but am no collector. These are favorite characters from favorite shows. I'd love to have all the Dune figures, but because they are awesome, not because I have some optimism that they'll Be Worth Something Some Day. The rest of my collection consists of, I think, maybe six more toys. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is the first non-wikipedia page that comes up in Google for slide rules:
http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/sruniverse.html
Oh how I love this. Absolutely gloriously perfect. Exactly what I would expect from the leading internet page about slide rules.
And while we're on the subject (because how often are we, really?), a throwback link to maybe my favorite blog post ever: Slide Rules! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Around campus today, a group is handing out copies of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. I think this is pretty awesome.
The problem is that I'm so conditioned to think that if someone's handing me a free book it's either a Bible or some nutty religious literature *about* the Bible. Therefore, when someone tries to hand me one of the most important books ever written, before I can fully consider this fact, I've already rudely spurned them.
This will lead to an unfortunate end result. The Darwin hander-outers are going to get jaded by day's end. They'll still believe in the cause, only they'll realize that people don't like having random books shoved in their faces. As rational folks, which it stands to reason most Darwin readers are, they'll think, "Well, I just felt pushy and crazy doing that. I probably won't take that approach again." Ironically, it feels wrong because it's just like something that a bunch of crazy people do, so the decidedly not-crazy Darwin pushers won't like the association. It seems the crazies have already ruined people on the "let's just hand our literature out to people on the streets" approach.
The same thought filter does not occur to the crazies. They will also still believe in the cause, but the difference is they either won't realize or won't care that people don't like having random books shoved in their faces. Crazy campus preacher guy doesn't believe it's crazy to shout Bible verses at everyone, so there's nothing to stop him from continuing to do it.
So, two groups of people start handing out literature, an annoying and nutty thing to do. One group thinks it's too weird to continue, so they stop. One group is too annoying and nutty to realize that what they're doing is annoying and nutty, so they continue. In a sense, this IS in fact how natural selection works. A crazy environment self-selects those who are crazy, and selects against those who are not.
I hope everyone will grasp the meta-lesson here. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| This represents the last full disc of TNG episodes. All that's left is the two-part finale.
721: Firstborn. I am a total sucker for Worf and Alexander stories. The ongoing story arc of Worf's assimilation into human culture, and by extension, his son's assimilation, is the most well-done theme in the series. It's probably a result of Klingon culture being so richly thought out in the Trek canon. We really gain an appreciation for where he comes from and how weird it is to be among soft, weak humans. Add the complexity of his son's upbringing, totally detached from Klingons. Worf constantly has to work to reach the conflicted goal of trying to get Alexander to follow his footsteps. But Alexander's just a kid. He feels maybe like a Klingon, but only his human behavior is accepted, so that's what makes him comfortable. I remember the first few appearances of Alexander were more about him not fitting in with humans. But now he's so indoctrinated that he's beginning to reject the idea of following any Klingon paths. He's getting to an age where Worf wants him to undertake his path to being a Klingon warrior, but has to face the fact that Alexander doesn't really want to go. Nor does Alexander have much grounding in Klingon culture aside from what Worf relates to him in the abstract. If they lived among Klingons, this would be shameful and embarrassing. Among liberal, tolerant humans, it's fine. While Worf is trying to figure out how to handle it, a protector from his family shows up and wants to help convince Alexander to take the warrior's path. It nearly works, but Alexander just doesn't seem to have the required killer instinct. I actually feel like I shouldn't spoil the ending on this one, but I will say that it's a resolution that could only happen in a science fiction show. Which is to say, it's a little out there. Who cares. I bought it. It hammered home the "maybe fitting in isn't actually for the best, but who can really say" theme. Overall, a great story that added much to the characters and the series. 5 out of 5.
722: Bloodlines. I guess most good science fiction has two things. First, a radical new idea or technology that changes the basic structure of how things work, large (e.g., virtual realities, time travel, contact with alien civilizations) or small (e.g., jetpacks, x-ray specs). And second, and most important to making GOOD science fiction, as opposed to just potboiler skiffy stuff, is understanding how characters react to these circumstances, which can be brand new to them (as they are to the reader) or accustomed to them. "Bloodlines" has both going for it, although it seems that the technology change is so radical that it has incredibly far-reaching problems. In this case, it's an ability for a Ferengi--Bok, who holds an old grudge against Picard--to beam himself on and off the Enterprise at will in order to harass Picard and cause hijinks. Eventually they figure out what he's doing and replicate the technology, but it basically gives everyone the power to go wherever they want at will. (Not unlike Q, but we understand he's an advanced being with such a power who occasionally chooses to torment humans for kicks.) I guess we presume that after the events of this episode, Geordi comes up with a way to counteract this subspace beaming, or they discover it causes DNA mutations, or shingles, or whatever. Otherwise it fundamentally changes the complexion of the show. Back to this in a minute. The rationale behind the story is that Bok is after Picard's son, Jason. Picard didn't even know about Jason, and had never heard from his mother. But DNA tests prove they're related, so much of the episode is devoted to Picard trying to get to know Jason. It's awkward and not really comfortable, but we can look forward to future storylines about their difficulties, or Jason getting threatened or killed by Picard's enemies, and Picard has to rescue him despite their troubles. However, it's a short-lived revelation. I'll spoil the climax: using the same fantastic technology that Bok is using, Picard beams to his ship to rescue Jason and reveal that he's discovered he's not Jason's father after all, negating the point of the whole scheme. Somehow Bok had manipulated Jason's DNA to make it temporarily appear that way, only Jason was starting to show side affects so Crusher caught on. It's understandable, I guess--it can't be easy to manipulate someone's DNA, right? So maybe Bok's newfangled technologies aren't all they're cracked up to be, and we can put both the DNA manipulation and flawless subspace beaming possibilities to bed. Thinking about it now, I have no idea how Bok managed to do this to Jason, or even if somehow he did, he'd have to have a sample of Picard's DNA to match it, and where would he get that? It's not like he can retrieve a hair sample (ho-HO!). The point I want to make here is that of the two premises needed for good SF that I have proposed, it has both, but the techy one is a little outside plausibility. But, I submit that having a strong character aspect renders that less meaningful. And this episode had it. The dynamics between Picard and Jason were interesting, Bok's motivations were interesting. Overall, it works, even if it's a little overly convenient. 4 out of 5.
723: Emergence. It's the third-to-last episode of a long-running, popular series. You have an opportunity to set up future story arcs, add some character depth, develop relationships, or any number of interesting things. Instead, you make YET ANOTHER episode of a type roundly disliked and dismissed by core fans. Future writers and producers of America, I beg of you, do not do this. "Emergence" is YET ANOTHER holodeck episode. And YET ANOTHER example of the holodeck functioning autonomously, neglecting its programming to wreak havoc. I don't know, something about the Enterprise becoming sentient, something about weird holodeck things working as a metaphor for what's going on aboard the ship at large, etc. Listen, there is just no way, this far into the series, that the holodeck can continue to malfunction without the crew going ballistic like a mess of enraged Windows Vista victims. Never once does anyone say something like, "Gosh, this happens a lot. Maybe we need to have some kind of override or something. I mean, remember all the other times we were almost killed in there?" Although it must be stated that in Star Trek, "overrides" serve no function except for Data or Geordi to try them, and have them fail, in order to make it seem like whatever is going wrong is really REALLY going wrong. Anyway, I think there was a good idea in here somewhere about the Enterprise having enough collective knowledge to develop an artificial intelligence. The execution was terribly frustrating, though. It was what mediocre TNG episodes are all about: technobabble, made up particles with near-magical powers, mysterious computer problems that can't be resolved until in the end when they somehow work out, things that just barely almost kill everyone but luckily don't, and of course, holodeck malfunctions. 1 out of 5.
724: Preemptive Strike. The thoroughly unlikeable Ensign Ro returns as a newly-promoted Lieutenant. Perhaps my views on Ro are also contrary to general TNG opinion. Opposite of my views of Wesley Crusher, I think generally she is liked, but I can't stand her. That disclosed, she's put in a situation here in which I can find some sympathy for her. A group of independent fighters (the Maquis) are after the Cardassians and are disrupting the delicate, newly-established peace between the Cardassians and the Federation. Starfleet is in the awkward position of having to make their own allies stop in order to preserve a larger peace, and they recruit Ro as a spy to help make this happen. Ro is uniquely qualified since she's had the right training, happens to be Bajoran (and therefore hates Cardassians), and has a history of insubordination, so she can have a plausible cover story explaining why she might abandon the Federation in favor of the Maquis. But on a personal level, her position is even more awkward than that of Starfleet. She DOES hate the Cardassians, and sympathizes with the Maquis more strongly than an ordinary human might. Most of the episode is centered around her gaining the trust of the Maquis and ultimately having to decide if she truly belongs with them (in the larger order of things, she probably does), or if she should honor her federation loyalties and work to betray them. The balance in the story here is really strong. I did have two somewhat minor complaints. First, there was an extended scene of their infiltration of the Enterprise to steal medical supplies. I guess the ins and outs of how Ro could get something off the Enterprise and make it look like actual theft to the Maquis while making sure the Enterprise understands that it's really not should have been interesting, but...it wasn't. Or at least, it seemed to suck up too much of the episode's time. The ending, which was more about Ro's internal conflict, seemed more important but rushed by comparison. Just an issue with the trade-offs of what you should spend time on in a story. My other complaint was how unlikeable most of the Maquis were. They were all just angry characters. I suppose they should be, given that they are outlaws fighting an unjust race. But the way they expressed this was just outward anger rather than knowing anything about their motivations. It's just scene after scene of them bickering rather than, say, spending time illuminating why they're living the incredibly dangerous lives they do. So you kind of don't care about them. Except: there's on old guy who's downright jolly and VERY likeable. He even gets Ro to crack a smile. But guess who dies in the end? Arrgh. Anyway, the episode ended very strongly, with Ro ultimately deciding she felt more involved with the Maquis' cause than she did with the Federation, even though it means throwing away her work in Starfleet and betraying Picard's faith in her. Plus all the various motivations contributing to the dynamics of the story are complicated, plain and simple, and it's tough to wrangle them all in effectively in just 45 minutes. So a few cut corners can be forgiven. Also: the closing shot of a betrayed Picard sitting and staring at the wall in rapt fury was awesome. 5 out of 5. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| *I recently discovered that Dune action figures existed! Then, I forgot to keep tabs on this auction for FIVE of them and missed out entirely. I am an idiot when it comes to ebay. I've never used it, I barely know how it works. And I kind of hate it. Nevertheless, I have a bid in on a Feyd action figure and I can safely say my stupidity is going to work FOR me in the the future, because I am willing to pay way more than what these things are worth. What I love best about the Feyd action figure so far is that it comes with the antidote cat that Thufir has to pet to keep the Harkonnens' poison from activating.
*In other geek-acquisitions news, I am finally resolved to buying myself a copy of Agricola. It's a brilliant game, but on the expensive side, and also on the longish/complicated side, so not likely to see as much action as Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne do around my house. However, my normal gaming group is on hiatus while the guy who hosts and owns all the games is busy having kids and selling his house. So I'm getting a little restless for some gaming. You can play Agricola solo or two-player, so at least there's some possibility of it seeing use even if I can't get other nerds together.
*I'm down to the final three Next Generation episodes. I was looking through my Netflix history and I've been watching these damn shows since March of 2006. Not consecutively. Definite long gaps between discs sometimes. But that's how long I've been working through this show. I shouldn't think about that too much, because it's essentially pretty meaningless. If all five seasons of The Wire had been available in March 2006, I'd have been done by May 2006. I blew through those--I mean, who wouldn't? It's the best show ever made. Next Generation, well, it isn't. It's good. But doesn't command that kind of devout obsession, at least not to me. Anyway, I'll probably have write-ups for disc 6 before too long, and the final episode/closing thoughts not long after that.
*My Top 100 albums list is being re-jiggered a lot still, but I will report that Low has dipped several spots and is no longer the solid rule of thumb that it once was. Number 100 right now is Beck's Mellow Gold. (Low is down to 112.) I'm by no means done messing with it. Actually, I never will be. But after I've had enough time to really consider each placement, I'll call it "set" for Me At 32. It will of course change with time. Mostly I'm doing this for fun, but also for comparison to what I think I liked the most at 18, which I was thinking about the other day and the seed of this whole line of thought. I'm sure I will talk about it excessively later.
*Oh, also, due to a lack of support for my scheme to own a sports team, I am resolved to pursue the matter on my own. You'll all regret this when we win the super sportsball championship. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Finally! Bases-ball took up much of my TV watching time over the last few weeks, but it's over, and now disc 5 is done. Recall that two of the consensus worst episodes in the series were awaiting me. They did not disappoint. These reviews all got kinda long, so I'm taking the unprecedented step of FORMATTING them. You're welcome!
Only five more episodes to go after this, including the two-part finale.
717: Masks. I knew this episode was going to be corny, and sure, it was. But at first pass it didn't seem any sillier than a typical silly TNG episode (i.e., one where the science is pretty loose, there's a lot of technobabble, and in the end something that makes logical sense only within the context of TNG happens and they're all saved--note that this takes the place of an actual plot). The greater sin when I was watching "Masks" was just that the episode was really boring. It was only later, trying to explain the plot out loud to K, that I realized how truly weird this episode was. So: the Enterprise encounters a probe, and it hijacks the computer and starts mucking around with the ship's systems. Standard Star Trek stuff. Except this particular probe has some sort of ancient Mayan bent. I guess not Mayan specifically. Some sort of generic ancient civilization that uses a similar symbolic language and worships the sun and sacrifices people for the Gods. We'll call it pseudo-Mayan.
Moving on, this probe, which is so powerfully advanced that it can hack into the Enterprise systems, uses this tremendously advanced power to reconfigure matter in the ship into stone blocks and other primitive artifacts. Because that's the ultimate goal in computing research, right? To eventually harness the power to create stone blocks? Moving on, it also causes the pseudo-Mayan symbols to bounce around computer displays randomly, like some kind of futuristically primitive screensaver. Moreover, it takes over Data. He's stuck harboring, as he explains, all the thousands of members of the ancient population. But we only see maybe four of them. Picard spends the episode negotiating with Data's various personalities to get the probe to stop infecting the ship. The conversations usually go something like:
Picard asks who is responsible.
Data Personality A explains that their goddess is responsible.
Picard asks to talk to the goddess.
Personality A says only Personality B can talk to her.
Picard asks to talk to Personality B.
Personality A says he's not here right now. And anyway the goddess will punish everyone if he helps Picard out.
Repeat two or three times throughout the episode until Picard finally "finds" Personality B and the goddess, and somehow talks her out of whatever she's doing. It was the opposite of riveting and action-packed. It was loosening and talking-packed. The logic of Picard's negotiative pursuits only really made sense if maybe you were asleep. Which I was! Ultimately I'm not even sure quite how it was resolved because I fell asleep for I guess maybe four minutes. Apparently they were the critical four minutes because Picard and Data were talking about what a strange experience it had all been when I awoke. So, I guess that was that. 1 out of 5.
718: Eye of the Beholder. Ultimately this story was all right, but the weird part of this episode was how shockingly awkward the acting was. Normally the TNG acting is quite good. At worst, it's a little stiff. But for this episode I felt like I was maybe watching the dress rehearsal, and the guest stars weren't cast yet, so they just had stagehands reading the lines so the actors could practice. But even the regulars were stiff and uncomfortable. The guests were shockingly bad. Particularly the girlfriend of a guy who has just committed suicide that morning. She portrayed this situation with all the overwhelming sense of loss of someone who is disappointed the mail hasn't come yet. (With a brave smile, she comments: "Huh. It's usually here by now.") Said suicide guy laments that it's what he "has to do" as he hurls himself into a plasma coil. He demonstrates this overwhelming sorrow with all the tortured pain of a man who left his lunch at home. (Closing his briefcase quietly, he mutters, "Crap, I'll have to go out.") Guest star props to the eventually-discovered killer, who does give us an understated and unidentifiable creepiness in his two minutes of screen time. It's not much, but I'm looking for positives. Although I do have to mention that it's the same actor who portrayed Boggs in Shawshank Redemption so, the poor guy probably got typecast as a complete sociopath. Anyway, for all this criticism, the story gives us a good twisteroo at the end. Many of the scenes were effectively foreboding or disconcerting. Some unanswered questions in the end. 3 out of 5.
719: Genesis. Oh, wow. I'm here to tell you this one absolutely lives down to the hype of one of the worst episodes of the series. I knew going in this one was going to be weird. I'd read that the writer was embarrassed about it and defended it along the lines of, "Hey, the show was wrapping up, production schedules were tight, and we had to get it done. They can't all be winners." Plot holes, utterly ridiculous science, hammy performances, this one has it all. Directed by Gates McFadden, I think she decided to have some fun with it.
So: Barclay is in sick bay, and Crusher gives him some medicine to cure a genetic defect. Before long the whole crew is feeling out of sorts as a strange virus is running rampant. Some amusing scenes take place of Worf devouring an octopus and arguing with Troi, and Riker feeling dazed and ineffectual. The next day, Crusher is evaluating Worf and he spits venom in her face, as he's been developing poison glands. Just a taste of the oddities to come! The Chief Nurse later explains that Crusher will live, but needs reconstructive facial surgery. Riker and Barclay futilely discuss how to get out of the situation. Because...
Picard and Data have conveniently left the ship. They return, and everything's chaos. The ship is adrift. Weird animal sounds emanate from the hallways. They discover Troi has developed gills and is swimming in her bathtub. The Chief Nurse is passed out in Sick Bay. Also she is a monkey. Data's tricorder tells him the crew is de-evolving! Because I guess tricorders scan for things like that. Picard is also starting to feel anxious. Data explains that's because he's got the virus too, and is devolving into "a lemur or a pygmy marmoset." So then there's some running around to avoid Worf, who is violent and looking to mate. And Data appears to reinvent biological science to cure everyone (apparently it takes about the length of a commercial break to get someone back to human form). Crusher's disfiguring acid burns even get cured, apparently. She and Barclay have a good laugh about the whole thing once everyone is cured and they sheepishly try to take on the blame on themselves. Sigh, what a crazy day that was!
You can now rest easy, "Starship Mine". The Worst Episode in the Series Title is off your hands. 0 out of 5.
720: Journey's End.. I never hated Wesley Crusher as much as I think I was supposed to, according to the internet. Sure, his ability to solve problems on the fly that even the best Starfleet officers couldn't was improbable. But I didn't find him annoying. He seemed like a decent kid that was hypernerdy but happened to be in an environment where that was celebrated. Maybe he was just a sci-fi writer fantasy.
Anyway, whether he was unpopular or just phased out, we haven't seen much of him for the last few seasons. Here, he returns as a surly teenager on leave from the Academy. Meanwhile the Enterprise is trying to negotiate with a planet of Native Americans who have settled on a planet in newly-negotiated Cardassian space. The Federation needs them to move to a new planet to settle with the Cardassians, but of course, they don't want to go. And Picard doesn't want them to have to go. But the Federation Council insists that they have to in order to give the Cardassians the space. Meanwhile one of them helps Wesley figure out what's making him so cranky through a vision, after which he decides that he wants to quit Starfleet. He causes aimless teenage trouble for a while, upsetting the Natives and ruining Picard's negotiations. Eventually, things work out--Wesley finds somewhere to go and the Cardassians decide that it's cool if the Natives stay.
Overall I liked the episode. It's nice to be back to the standard level of quality after the previous couple of bombs. I thought the resolution with Wesley was interesting, and a good portrayal of a guy who just isn't deriving any happiness from the course he started out on. My big complaint is that the Cardassian negotiation wrap-up seemed awfully convenient. First, it relies a lot on the mercy of one particular Commander. Turns out he's a good guy and has some sympathetic characteristics, so it works out. (And it really made him interesting--the internet tells me he shows up a lot in DS9, so it's good that there will be some more use of him.) But aside from this guy, why would Cardassians ultimately respect a human culture? And anyway, couldn't the Federation have hammered out this one planet's fate in "two years of negotiations" as they mention several times? This is the more general thing that bugs me sometimes in the Star Trek universe. It's SPACE. There's a lot of room. In the scope of a whole galaxy or universe, everything's moving around anyway so any arbitrary planes demarcating territory aren't going to hold up. Travel is done at speeds much greater than light, so going "through" someone's territory doesn't have the same meaning. Anyway, some of these things are concessions to make the story work. And it mostly does. 4 out of 5. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I have a scheme! You can help.
It is my dream to own a professional sports team. Unfortunately I have only the tiniest fraction of the required several hundred million dollars necessary to obtain such a team.
Let's place the price of a franchise at $500 million. Baseball teams might go for this in mid-level markets. NFL teams are more expensive. The Rams are valued at $900 million despite being pretty crummy (I guess they have a nice stadium). So, I don't know that $500 million is enough, but let's go with it.
I will contribute the most to this endeavor, and by extension, will be the principal owner. Let's say I can come up with $10,000. I need 499,990,000 more dollars.
OR, a better way to say it, I need 499,990 people to give me $1000. Or 4,999,900 people to give me $100. Or somewhere in between. All of these people get votes and ownership stakes. Say, at the Gold level contribution of $1,000 you get a proportionally higher level of votes and profits, season tickets or DirectTV package, and a jersey. At the Beige level of $100 you get a pennant (in team colors!). Various levels in between.
This can work! You're telling me there aren't 500,000 disenfranchised sports fans with a little money to give in exchange for such glorious benefits? I submit that it would further be a great American story to have a widely-owned public franchise. You're going to root for a corporately-owned team against them? You're going to root for some rich dude's plaything team? That's rooting against America.
Let me know if you want in. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I'm engaged in a pointless project to clarify my 100 favorite albums of all time. Actually I was just listing them out in a rough order to see how things fell, and I've ended up listing about 170 total, but towards the bottom they get a little more vague: things I've only heard a few times, things I haven't heard in a long time, things where I definitely like a few songs but am indifferent to the rest. It just so happens that right around #100 things start to go downhill.
Anyway, I may get around to posting the list once I get more time to think about it and re-order as I see fit. But the initial value of the project is that I've defined my 100th favorite album (pending future list shuffling). It turns out to be David Bowie's Low.
Low is revered by the Pitchfork crowd, and based on its influence I thought I might dig it. I mostly do. I think the best way to describe my feelings towards it is to say that there are a few pop songs on it of a type that I wouldn't normally like, but I do. And there are a few ambient noise songs on there that I ought to like but don't, so much. Or at least, I am indifferent to them when normally I am a sucker for Brian Eno-inspired ambiance.
What's nice about this is that I now have a handy "how much do I really like what I'm hearing?" rule of thumb. When I think about any other album, I can say that if I like it better than Low then it must be among my 100 favorite albums. And if I don't like it as well, then it doesn't get included in the coveted top 100 group. | | comments: Leave a comment |
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Destroying thought in order to save it
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