Just a quick one

skating,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Favorite G photo at the moment. Just sayin'.

Late to the party - Christmas Edition

Christmas 2008,
originally uploaded by dkun.

So the siblings have pretty much recounted the Christmas happenings. They got the good bits version of the holiday. We got stuck with the travel. I will not speak of it, for doing so will only summon the vile beast that is Airline Travel itself. Suffice it to say I will most likely never fly again, and shall never fly American Airlines again specifically.

As for the good bits version, there was some bowling, some games played (Qwirkle is quite good as is the Catan Dice game), far too much food consumed, and much ribbing of the favorite niece. (That means giving a hard time oh favored relative. See? It continues.)

Santa managed to find the wee bairns (whose photographically stolen souls are displayed for the world to see here) a touch early delivering gifts on Christmas Eve. They were a bit too worn out to fully enjoy such providence, but that's ok, they still had a good time.

At any rate, a good time was had by all. I especially enjoyed the nifty photo book sister "J" put together for us featuring pictures of Mom. That and she makes a good cup of cocoa! Home made whip cream. Yum.

Books have been consumed, notably the fourth Percy Jackson story Battle of the Labyrinth and Uglies. Both were quite good. (And still in the YA vein, hmm...) Also read through The Fall of Cthulhu Book One: The Fugue. That's one trippy story. Even by Cthulhu standards.

Lovely wife almost escaped having to suffer through Twilight, but cruel siblings forced it on her the night before we left. Poor soul.

Thanks to Dad and family for a nice time. Hopefully it will be a touch longer next time. And not bookended by the eye gouge inspiring torment known as air travel.

Both Sides the Tweed

I'm not a big fan of memes. This one piqued my curiosity though. So you have to suffer through it. Mwa ha ha ha. Oh and in the interests of full disclosure, I did skip one track as it was an untitled Japanese track from Serial Experiments Lain. Sorry about that internet.

Da Rules:
1. Put your iPod (or MP3 player, or iTunes) on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag others, if so desired.

Da Meme:
IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles
Magic 8 ball confused, ask again later. Alternately, this is very zen, go listen to the sound of one hand clapping and contemplate the futility of knowing if something is indeed, "OKAY"

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Sprite - Melonball Bounce, Raymond Scott
Apparently dropped on my head a touch too much...

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
See the Sun, Dido
Well. Really. This is not that sort of blog. Normally.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Washington, D.C., The Magnetic Fields
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ahem. Sorry 'bout that.

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
I'll Find My Way Home, Vangelis
Strangely, I'll take this one. I'm pretty sure it was in my last fortune cookie.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Into a Dream III, His and Her Circumstances - Act 1.0
Oh letter 'd', you're so dreamy. You're straight out of Twilight.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Dirt Bike, TMBG
Curse you iTunes for illuminating my secret passions! it's so true... I think I'd like to be alone for a moment. Leave the dirt bike.

WHAT IS 2+2?
Love is, Kenny Loggins
Apparently iTunes thinks I'm a swinger now.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Starting Up, Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack
I... I don't know what to make of this. Although he does change places of employment quite often.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Sympathy for the Devil, the Rolling Stones
I always knew the Devil was a woman. And from the D.C. area...

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Alien Mind Bender, Pliant
I'm not sure anyone would argue with this. Least of all me.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Katamaritaino, Hideki Tobeta, Yui Asaka
Sou desu ne.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
State of Independence, Vangelis
Hee hee. <snicker> Bwa ha ha ha ha. This is spot on. (Sorry slacker siblings)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Armogohma (First Storm), Zelda Reorchestrated (Twilight Princess)
And now is the time when we dance the ceremonial, ah heck forget it.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones
Oh I'll be satisfied. Actually, this is strangely appropriate as well.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Cut Flowers, Smithereens
Oh iTunes, must you continue to shine light on my secrets? Oh ikebana how I adore you.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Dialogue 2-8, Cowboy Bebop CD Box Set
That's what she said.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Cherry Blossom Color Season, Yu Miyake, Katamari Company Jr.
So pretty. So lively. So what the heck is going on here?

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Jenova Returns (J-E-N-O-V-A ~ Jenova Complete), Steffan Andrews
This is true. This is the worst possible thing that could happen. Damn you Jenova!

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
End Credits, John Murphy (28 Days Later Soundtrack)
Couldn't have said it better myself. And I knew it would be zombies.

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Runners High, The Pillows
Also strangely true. Exercise, my deepest regret...

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Caribbean Blue, Enya
When they installed that Genius feature in iTunes they weren't kidding around were they?

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Re: Your Brains, Jonathan Coulton
Hee hee hee. Oh and zombies again.

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
99 Red Balloons, Goldfinger
Apparently when I'm the last man on earth. Go Apocalypse. Sorry honey.

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!, The Beatles
iTunes has been to Kansas. So true.

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Papa Was a Rodeo, The Magnetic Fields
I... I have nothing to say here. Move along.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Treasure Every Meeting, His and Her Circumstances - Act 1.0
Apparently I was my own Grandfather. This explains a lot.

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Hyrule Castle Soundscape, Zelda Reorchestrated: Soundscapes Vol. 1
... Your Princess is in another castle Mario. And another game for that matter.

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Both Sides The Tweed, Mary Black
Done and Done.

Before I Forget

This is probably as much Twilight as I can take.

And they totally fired Jacob. And the director. And the new director is the guy that helped direct American Pie. And The Golden Compass. You guys are screwed. Bwa ha ha ha ha.

Melancholy is Fun

I've been looking forward to seeing The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for quite some time. I requested it at the Library and it showed up last week. So we spent part of the weekend watching the series. It was brilliant. If you have any tolerance for/interest in anime this is one worth checking out. It follows Kyon (see Sis there's a K name - that you shouldn't use) a normal High School student whose life gets turned upside down by one Haruhi Suzumiya. She's on the lookout for aliens, time travelers and espers (psychics for you non Japanese folks). And poor Kyon gets dragged along for the ride. What follows is a tongue in cheek look at anime cliches served with lots of humor and some seriously snarky inner dialogue. I could watch this over and over. And I just might. It's a little FLCL a little Excel Saga and a lot awesome. And the opening and ending themes are great. Hit youtube and check out some of the dance numbers put together for Hare Hare Yukai.

In other news Hikaru no Go volume 13 was fun to flip through.

And the weekend draws nigh. As does Christmas and the end of the year. Where has this year gone? Although in a lot of ways I'm pretty glad to see it go.

Partially for my Uncle

First, I finished Death from the Skies and it was great. It seems to me that boys go through some distinct phases growing up. First there are Dinosaurs (G says Raaarrr!) and then there's Astronomy. This book rekindled quite a bit of my old love for Astronomy. Never mind that the book focuses on the destruction of the Earth a dozen or so times. Death by Asteroid! Death by solar flare! Death by black hole! They're all great. Well, ok, horrific, but you get the idea. The science is always at a manageable level and if you like sci fi apocalyptic tales, it's nice to see what might really happen. So give Death a chance.

Oddly, speaking of growing up male, that brings me to my current book: The Elfish Gene (another one with a subtitle I can't be bothered to type up). If you played D&D or knew someone that played D&D I suspect this book will bring back memories, fond or otherwise. It might also help you understand that poor creature that was the nerd in the 80s. I'm not very far in, but I can already tell this will be a great book.

My own sordid past with D&D all starts with my Uncle Paul. I still have fond memories of the old red box and the hours of fun it led to. I also remember pestering him to let me fight a Dragon with my brand new magic user. The death my poor character received at the hands of the foul beast was one I still treasure. My Uncle probably still rolls his eyes at the thought of some young kid with magic missile and an obvious death wish.

And if that last paragraph made any sense to you at all, you really need to read The Elfish Gene.

In (mocking) Twilight news, they fired the director of the film as they gear up for the sequel. And it also sounds like they fired the actor that plays Jacob. The werewolf. That's not a werewolf. Because in a movie about vampires that are not vampires, you better have werewolves that are not werewolves. Has the last decade of bad fantasy cinema taught you nothing? At least you can rest assured there will be no leather clad heroine in the Twilight sequel. That would just lead to impure thoughts and we know nobody in that series has those...

Christmas fast approaches. Which means I will have to brave airline travel. I don't think I'm ready for that. Trip to see the family notwithstanding. I hate airports.

If you're not watching Leverage on TNT on Tuesday nights you should be. And the Librarian movies were pretty good too. I only caught most of the second and the third, but (go figure) our Library carries them so we'll be watching the first two on DVD. They're a little National Treasure, a little Indiana Jones, a lot The Mummy, but it works. Although Noah Wyle is no Brendan Fraser. It was funny seeing Gabrielle Anwar in the second one. Glad to see she's still working (Burn Notice!) I liked her quite a bit in 80s/90s. Whenever that silly Invasion of the Body Snatchers re-telling came out. That and If Looks Could Kill with that Grieco kid. I think she was in that.

Well, that's quite the bit of rambling. I should point out at this point that Blue Moon does look to be rather fun, especially once you're familiar with the cards. It does look like there's a learning curve there, but I think it will be worth it. Also, I managed to collect all 120 stars as Luigi in Super Mario Galaxy. I won't comment on what kind of a geek/nerd that makes me. Did you not read the beginning of this post?

For my sisters (in insincerity)

Here you go. It's like a car wreck, actually, more to the point, it's like a bad relationship. I can't help but mock my poor sisters' love for Tryharderlight (and feed that addiction so I can then mock it some more). If I were feeling really abusive, I'd link to all the articles decrying the series as a step back for women's rights by something on the order of 50 years or so. But I won't, I'm not that mean. At the moment.

Mostly I'm just glad it's the weekend. And I can sleep. All weekend. Hopefully after the next 48 hours this stupid head cold will be gone. And I can return to the land of the living.

Head full of cheese

While the normal human head may weigh about 8 lbs or so, I'm pretty sure mine is clocking in at about 15. I really dislike sinus infections. From the way everything acts like a slow-mo action shot to that slight sore throat to the aforementioned hefty head full of snot, they're not fun. And don't get my wife started on the snoring. Ear plugs indeed...

In other news, G has caught the Star Wars bug. He's been playing through Lego Star Wars (or Star Wars the Clone Wars as he insists on calling it as everything SW related must be named after the show on Cartoon Network) with either my wife or I (depending on who he can con into it at the moment) and having a grand old time. Apparently he finished the game (a feat I myself have not yet managed) and decided that the movies had to be consumed next. I told lovely wife that he could only watch the first one without me. For Star Wars movies are an ancient male bonding ritual and he's not allowed to watch them the first time without me. Or there will be hell to pay. (Apparently the viewing of Ep 4 this afternoon was accompanied by much light saber wielding, toy x wing flying and "hey that was in the game! I remember that!" commentary.) Now to find a way to get that really cool Lego Millennium Falcon... Hmm....

Picked up Blue Moon courtesy of Father-in-Law for my birthday. Will report back on how it is. Looking forward to it as we really enjoy Blue Moon City.

The Graveyard Book and Death from the Skies are still being consumed. I'm going to run out of patience to read long before things to read... Although they may take a backseat to Zombies: A Field Guide to the Living Dead which is lurking on the hold shelf for me. That plus some Rolling Stones, gotta catch up on my classic rock yo.

It needs to snow. That is all.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go use my head for a paperweight.

Insert Post Title #42

Been a while. Kept meaning to jot some things down closer to Thanksgiving and just ended up ... not. Thanksgiving itself went fine. Food was good. Company was fine. Gratitude was expressed.

It was the first year in quite a few that I didn't have the whole week off. It will probably be another couple before I can attempt to do it again. Silly new job and resetting my vacation time... Oh well. Friday was pretty quiet, so that was nice.

Listened to a couple 5 Browns CDs to see what all the fuss over at sisters' blogs was about. Nice piano music. They're probably more fun to see live. It's ok to listen to, but mostly it's just nice piano music.

Read through the Old Boy graphic novels. Mostly as I'd heard Spielberg was going to do the movie based more on them as opposed to the extremely trippy and US unfriendly Korean film. The graphic novels were decent and certainly less disturbing than the film, so that's something I guess.

Snagged a couple DS games for my birthday (thanks Dad). They've been pretty fun so far. Avoided Black Friday due to working and real lack of anything worth fighting for. Although a couple of the HDTV's sounded nice. Sounds like Dad and Jen had a decent showing.

Other than that, not too much earth shattering stuff to comment on. Star Wars themed Robot Chicken episodes were hilarious.

Steampunk and other odds and ends

Finished up Starcross and it's genre-riffic subtitle the other day. It's the second in a series (Larklight was the first and I believe Mothstorm just came out) of Steampunk novels in which our heroes have adventures and save the world. All while extolling the virtues of the good ol' Victorian era. Huzzah! Not sure why I've been on such a YA reading kick lately. But there you go. It was a fun read and is another one that won't take much time to read through. Lots of twists and turns and yarn.

I must take a moment to point out that the book I'm currently reading (Death from the Skies: These are the Ways the World Will End) is truly awesome. It's written by an astronomer and details what would really happen if all of those sci-fi, astronomical, world-ending scenarios came to be. Truly brilliant. And funny. Go give it a look. There's plenty of humor and the science is aimed firmly at the lay audience, so there's very little pesky math to be muddled through.

Fall is coming to an end and I suppose and that's a good thing. Tired of leaves on the ground. Ready for some snow and some cold weather. It's been cold enough in the mornings, but strangely warm in the afternoons. Or at least it seems that way.

Sock animals have taken over the house. Pigs, cats, totoro. (Totorii?) I am amused by that. Most of them fall in the disturbingly cute camp, but you'll find a mutant here or there.

Speaking of mutants, the world can finally shut up about Twilight after this weekend. It will have its one big box office weekend and then we can all go about ignoring it and living our lives again. It will be nice, he thought giddily, while typing furiously and glittering in the afternoon sunlight. See I've read the book... Well, ok enough to know that Meyer should be brought up on abuse of adverbs. Early reviews are coming in and they're mostly positive (if you ignore the "vampire" content and see it for what it really is - tween romance chick flick) while knocking Edward. And really after seeing that trailer, who thought he was a good idea?

Guess I'll need a new passtime.

Books and sock animals

piggy,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Finished The Magic Thief the other day. Great book. Young adult story about, wait for it, a thief who learns to be a magician. Clever eh? It's a fun little story that I look forward to seeing followed up. Easily read in a day or so. Give it a try if you like YA adventure stories.

One of the other books we got from the Library was on sock animals. You can see McK's pig here. Lovely wife is currently working on a Totoro for moi. (Note to favorite niece, that means "me" in French. That's the language of France. It's a place where French people live. Also, French can be a salad dressing. (Although not a very good one.) At any rate. Relatives may discover sock animals under the tree at Christmas. For they are cute.

Snagged Mega Man III on the Virtual console the other day. And Secret of Mana. Mega Man III is an exercise in old school platform torture. Oddly enough I'm finding that strangely compelling. And G thinks it's great. Weird. Secret of Mana is a 1-3 player RPG from Yore (the time period, not a company. Squaresoft made the game). Should be good. Look forward to torturing lovely wife and kids with it. (Strangely Super Mario Galaxy has come back into vogue as well. I've actually gotten quite a few stars with Luigi. It's a pretty great game.)

Spaced is an humorous British comedy. Lots of geeky pop culture references. And Simon Pegg.

Ladron Que Roba a Ladron was a fun Spanish heist comedy. Also recommended if you run across it. I enjoy a good caper flick and this one didn't disappoint. Favorite niece should watch it. In Spanish. With subtitles. And then send me a report on the effects of Infommercials on Immigrants and other subsistence communities.

Well. I think that's enough of a catch up for now. Go watch the new Harry Potter trailer. It's far more interesting.

Cinema Paradiso

Have watched several movies in the last few days and several more in the wings.

Constantine is good. I can't really explain why, but I enjoy it thoroughly. Nice little action/horror type movie. Catch it on FX they show it a lot.

21 was really good for the first 2/3rds or so and then devolved into horribly predictable boring-ness. Which is a shame. I wonder if the book is any better? Or the actual story it's based on. It would be interesting to see if the guy's life actually followed tired Hollywood plotline #31.

Dan in Real Life, however, was amazing. Truly great movie. It made lovely wife cry for somewhat unrelated reasons, but I can understand where she's coming from. Steve Carrel did a great job and I suspect he's in some ways similar to Jim Carrey in that he's a better actor when the comedy is understated and the role is more serious. The best part of this movie is that the characters were all real people, they captured the family dynamic perfectly. I spent the first 10 minutes wondering if I'd actually be able to watch the show as the conflict between the father and his daughters was a little too close to home. I think I'll take a nice 10 year vacation while the girls go through their teenage years. Yikes... See this movie.

Twilight mocking is still in full force here. My favorite piece of news is that the books are badly written versions of whatever Bella happens to be reading in High School that year. Seriously? How some people get published boggles the mind. I don't mind retellings, I'm reading one right now - The Graveyard Book is Neil Gaiman's take on The Jungle Book, but it has good writing and an original twist on the source material. Twilight offers, well, sparkles I guess. Although if you're going to have a vampire story, you might want to actually have some vampires in it... Just sayin'. Oh and this and that. I'd link to the Twilight drinking game, but you can only shoot so many fish in the barrel...

So on to more random movie viewings. A Spanish heist/caper film, another horror movie, British sitcom featuring Simon Pegg. Typical goodness.

Jumbled thoughts

Finished reading Ring by Koji Suzuki (note to sister, translated from the Japanese), the book the movie was based on. I think the book came first. Heck even with the vast power of the internet a click away I don't care that much. Anyway, good book. It's interesting to see the slight differences. The movie follows the book pretty well and I don't think they made any significant changes. Well, ok I suppose there's one big change (no creepy Japanese ghost girl climbing out of TV sets in the book, shocking I know!) but other than that things were pretty close. Couple gender switches, some age changes, that sort of thing.

Honestly this is probably one instance where it is a slightly more effective movie than book. The visual images of the videotape are better actually, you know, viewed as opposed to read about. Although there was a nice little twist with the nature of the tape that was only sort of touched on in the movie. So if you liked the movie, I'd say give the book a shot. I'm going to have to track down the sequels now. I saw one of them just the other day on one of the trucks.

Watched 3:10 to Yuma again. Still enjoy that movie. Although the beginning was a little slower than I remembered. Ending is still pretty good though.

Election happened. That's really about all I have to say about that. There were no surprises at the outcome, and no really joy/dismay. Yay, we elected a politician. I really can't muster much enthusiasm about that.

Seems like there have been other happenings going on, but I really can't recall. We had some snow that made the commute a living nightmare. Driving downtown in stop and go traffic is an exercise in sheer physical pain. At least I have my iPod and an automatic now. Otherwise I'd be reaching for a slightly different automatic...

I want some more Chocolate Monkey Bread...

And some fries. And maybe a steak... Oddly, yes there is an article about the best steaks in Vegas nearby... Mmm steak.

RIP Michael Crichton

Huh, that was unexpected. While not as big a fan of his most recent stuff, his earlier stuff was brilliant. He will be missed.

November

October has been vanquished in a series of trick or treaters and sugar highs. Kids had fun dressing up and now we move on.

G had a pretty good birthday. Lots of dinosaurs, some fish, popup castles, and a couple Mariokart R/C cars. That finally work. And are admittedly pretty fun, if not the best construction.

Made some Chocolate Monkey Bread for breakfast. It was very yummy. I highly recommend it. It's worth the effort to make. Mmmm monkey bread...

So. There are (for the purposes of this post) 2 kinds of Westerns. The action-y kind (think classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti) and the sprawling, slow paced kind. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (and a title that's too long) is the second kind. It's a beautiful piece of work, no doubt. But exciting gun-slinging Western it is not. Which is fine. There's room for both, but if you want the first, look elsewhere. I'd really like to know how much of this story was true. It's apparently based on a book. It is an interesting show in some ways, and the cinematography really is gorgeous.

Currently devouring the second Library Edition Hellboy volume. It's wonderful.

The Host was on G4 last night. Taped it. If you've not seen it, it's a decent Giant Monster movie. Still have a few more Horror movies to make our way through. Silly patrons checking out the movies I want to see.

OMG1!11!!! Teh Sexxxy Vamp1res!!!111!

So. I watched the Twilight trailer. Not only am I not the demographic for this movie, I'm sad there is a demographic for this movie. If that dialogue were any more stilted they'd need circus performers for actors. The Pain! Make it go away. And who cast these people? And then attempted to do hair and makeup? I'd think it was the aforementioned circus troop, except they'd probably do a better job. Just wow...

Finished reading Blindness. Didn't really care for it. There were some interesting ideas that were pretty much invalidated by some bizarre who are these people choices. I don't think real people would react in those ways and it really derailed a lot of the story. Which is too bad as it was a pretty interesting idea. The writing style was mostly ok, although it did make things a little hard to follow. So yeah, move along, nothing to see. Heh.

Flipping through a book on Coin Tricks at the moment. Think I'll try and learn some. I miss magic. It's fun to have a couple tricks to show off on occasion. I still remember a card trick or two from when I was younger. They come in handy once in a while.

Also going to try and tackle Ring by Koji Suzuki. Book they based the movies on. I liked the movies. Both versions actually. They work a little differently, but are both effective. Halloween is far too soon...

Defending Food

Finished reading In Defense of Food the other day. It's the sequel to Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Another worthwhile read, and in some ways a slightly better one. This time round he focuses on what we should eat and in some cases how. The most useful section is probably the last third, but the entire book is fascinating.

Here are a couple eating rules to live by:

Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients.
Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce.
Don't eat anything with an ingredient you don't recognize.
Shop around the periphery of the supermarket.
Don't eat anything that doesn't spoil (i.e. Twinkies).

Like I said, it's an interesting book.

The horror movie viewing has been continuing. We took in The Last Winter the other day. Probably the first Eco horror movie I've seen. The planet is angry. This one was fun in that it's another case where they build up the psychological tension as opposed to going for the gore or the cheap thrill. Those really are the best kinds of horror movies. The plot is a little all over the place and the ending is rather abrupt, but it was an interesting movie.

Honestly it's hard to tell what we've seen and done recently. The one drawback to working at the Library is that they have a pretty impressive collection. And I've had a lot of things show up that I'd put on hold lately. So we're a little swamped. A couple Westerns, some Horror, a WWII flick, I can't even remember what else. And that doesn't take into account the TV show, or actual broadcast TV. (Just a note, I really prefer TV on DVD. No commercials and your own viewing schedule FTW.)

Wil Wheaton's blog has been pretty interesting of late.

Hmm, what else. Birthday alley is in full swing. A couple of in-law birthdays over the course of this week and a couple weeks out. G's birthday is soon. Christmas. Ah the expensive time of year.

Well, this has been a decent catch up post. Maybe I'll do this over the weekend... And maybe next time I can find something interesting to talk about... Probably not.

Trying to gather my thoughts

And failing miserably.

First, The Orphanage is great. It's a nice horror film that uses atmosphere and characterization to really great effect. If you're looking for a good scary movie for Halloween, don't let the subtitles scare you. Watch this one.

Second, this makes me hungry.

Third, this is an interesting political diversion. See which candidate matches your priorities. Needs more questions, but it's interesting to play with.

We've managed to catch up some on horror movie viewing. Season 2 of Dexter is fun so far.

I'm still reading Blindness. It's a rather disturbing little civilization falls apart story.

Again with the one sentence paragraphs. Oh well, my brain really isn't capable of stringing together complex thoughts at the moment.

I ended up giving the Girl Scouts the Library tour this morning. There was a mixup in the Children's Department and I guess they had them scheduled earlier. Since I had stopped by to say hi to the girls, I ended up giving them the tour. McK and M seemed to enjoy themselves.

Sounds like we might be getting a piano from lovely wife's Mom. She can't use it any more and she's wanting to make some space in her apartment, so we may snag it. That will be nice. I like pianos. Although I've completely forgotten how to play...

Celebrated lovely wife's birthday this past week. Party went fine. Games were played, brownies were eaten, Republicans were mocked. All in all a success I'd say.

So yeah. That's about all I've got.

Around the net

Stealing a title from G4 and a concept from every other blog on the planet. Have some links:

For my sisters: Shannon Hale's blog. Recently she's been talking about an author's responsibility for the moral a reader gets from their work. I disagree with a couple of her points, possibly on technicalities, but qualifies as interesting.

Engineer humor. This one's for you Dad. Heh. I need me one of them.

Sci-fi. Death scenes. Countdown list. You know you want to click.

Fake Twitter feeds anyone? I'ma gonna check out Bad Horse for sure.

100 skills you should know. If you're a guy. Or something. I dunno, I stopped reading.

Need to put the kids to bed. Clean up when you're done with the internet. It's a mess. Links everywhere. Kids these days...

Some thoughts on writing and other fish in the sea

I've started reading Blindness by José Saramago (it's currently a film starring Julianne Moore and some other people). This has caused me to think a little bit about writing styles, partially as the book has been translated from Portuguese (I believe) and partially as there are some interesting stylistic choices. The book is, in a lot of ways, mostly dialogue but it uses its own method to convey the conversations. There are no quotation marks, no paragraphs breaks, no he said/she saids. Changes in speaker/thought are separated by commas within the same sentence.

This produces, for me, a strange - almost noisy - quick-paced rhythm in my reading. It's very different. Coupled with either an artifact of the translation process or a strange word style, reading Blindness is a cross between an interesting experience and a somewhat painful one. It's like there's a hum in the background due to the way the words flow and the effort required to keep track of what's going on.

Writers have been playing with style forever. Joyce and stream of consciousness narrative, ee cummings and the birth of texting, Danielewski and games with narrators and footnotes. Things that either make English teachers jump for joy or cry bitter, bitter tears. Personally I find it interesting if occasionally eye-rolling worthy. Not every experiment is a grand success. It will be interesting to see if I stick with Blindness. I certainly find the story interesting, it's just a question of whether the style gets in the way of that or really does help. And ultimately, again for me, that's what makes any of these experiments successes or failures. Does the style choice help the story or get in the way of it. Terribly conclusive I know.

Have caught a couple horror movies to usher in October. Part of something truly awful (and thus great) called Madman. A nice 80's slasher called The Burning (featuring a young Jason Alexander of all things). I think we may have to throw April Fool's Day into the mix for nostalgia's sake. And I might just have to venture forth into The Shining territory again. Here be dragons.

Paprika proves that Satoshi Kon is an Artist. (And yes, please to note the capital A) I liked the film for a few reasons, but boy is it out there. Apparently it's based on a novel. See previous commentary on writing styles. It was like a cross between Dreamscape and an artsy foreign flick. Oh wait. It was a cross between Dreamscape and an artsy foreign flick. Convenient.

Saw a bit of Drunken Master as well. It was funny. I miss good Jackie Chan movies.

Oh and here's the Geek Alphabet. Just sayin'.