Abe

Just finished Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross, currently reading The Tyranny of Night by Glen Cook and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.

Anyone seen Unleashed?

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No, much though I'd like to. Blockbuster has been out of it since the day it was released. The guy ahead of me in line the other night actually got laughed at by the clerk when he asked if they had it.

This is the only forum I'm active on, but I like to lurk on enworld (it's a (mostly DnD) RPG forum) and I've been wibbling around the NaNoWriMo forum all month but that'll stop in December when it's not national novel writing month anymore.

While my life of late certainly doesn't measure up to death, disease, or disemployment I still feel like bitching.

So far this week: had an exam Tuesday (went well enough I suppose but the lead up to writing an exam sucks regardless of how well you know the material), quiz tomorrow, quiz coming friday, vast amount of improbably difficult homework due Monday for my solid state class. Let the magic smoke out of my vacuum (again... way to go long-ass flatmate hair), cat crapped on the floor, hall toilet exploded (apparently soaking the hall carpet; I haven't been home yet to find out how bad it still is), discovered that one of my credit cards somehow went $60 over balance while I wasn't looking, pulled something in my back, and have a nasty hole on the inside of my lip where I bit the hell out of it on the weekend.

Luckily I only have to get through another day and a half. Classes tomorrow, work tomorrow night, classes Friday morning and an appointment with the dean to get approval to take 20 hours next semester (because I'm completely insane and enjoy working myself to death, you see, and so I can make it an 'intensive physics with double major in mathematics' when I graduate next April, rather than the non-intensive version), and then blissful nothingness until Monday morning. Well, nothingness and my birthday on Sunday, so hopefully smooth sailing for a few days. I tell you, it's a good thing the semester is nearly up; I just get tireder and tireder every damn day.

Mine is vomiting. If my best friend/mother/partner/child was puking i would turn and run as far away as i could rather than hold their head and talk them through it. That's how bad it is.

One of my exes was afraid of vomiting. She was also convinced that any form of illness would inevetably lead to it, so absolutely refused to ever admit when she was ill. Apparently her mum would give her a suppository whenever she got sick when she was young

For me, I'm not really phobic of much anything, but I do feel distinctly uncomfortable around open heights, dolls, and mirrors. Not really afraid so much as anxious and kind of jittery, I suppose. Heights where I can fall for obvious reasons, dolls and mirrors I think because I always feel they're looking at me. Standing between two mirrors (so that you get the infinite-hall effect) occasionally gives me goosebumps. It's weird.

No, but I do play a bit of Karaoke Revolution.

I've been curious about that, despite my complete and total inability to sing. How exactly does it work? I know that there are karaoke machines that score your performance but I've never experienced one so haven't a clue how they work. Does it do something similar, or does it just serve as a repository for music-with-lyrics?

My passion for rhythm games was recently re-ignited by the combination of my fiance winning a copy of the new gamecube Mario DDR (which is a bit crap from what I've seen, though likely fun if you're new to the genre), the local arcade getting a Precussion Master machine (which has nothing on DrumMania but isn't terrible), and RedOctane's release of Guitar Hero (which I've note yet gotten but suspect is on its way for my b-day next weekend :) ).

So any of you lot DDR (or what-have-you) freaks? If I say 'Max Unlimited 3x dark boost reverse' or 'Mr. Larpus nightmare random' does it have any meaning for you? Possibly twitches and a momentary descent into an arrow-riddled personal hades (though this may just be me)? And does anyone have a copy of Guitar Hero to tell me if it's worth buying in case I'm incorrect about getting it free?

Happy b-day, fellow scorpio :)

Watched 'Nothing' night before last. It's by Vencenzo Natali, the guy that did Cube, and stars two of the lead actors from same. I have to say that after seeing it they're much better actors than I'd have given them credit for after having seen only one or the other.

It's a fun movie that completely avoids most of the psychological or social commentary that it could have made in favor of a Kaufman-esque theatre of the bizarre approach to telling a story that's pretty much pointless. Two complete losers have their lives go even more to crap one day than they had so far and then...everything vanishes. Their house stays the same but the entire outside world is just a white void with invisible 'ground' that one of the characters comments is exactly what he would expect walking like tofu would be like, you know, if he'd ever actually tried tofu.

Should you choose to watch it, I highly recommend not stopping before the credits end.

I'm confused by the line that the BBC chiefs are still reeling over Christopher Eccleston's decision to quit his role as the Doctor before the first series even went out.

 

I'm sure the paper has it wrong as I'm pretty sure the series was written with the intention that he'd only be the Doctor for the first series, otherwise how would the storyline have been concluded without his sacrifice and regeneration.

As I Christopher Eccleston's contract was only for season one. Presumably after filming but before the series finished airing (since as I recall they shot the whole thing inside of like 2 months) during negotiations he decided not to do another season because he had other things he was more interested in. The initial report was that he was afraid of being typecast, but I recall Chris and/or the BBC making statements to the contrary after the furor.

It's kind of a shame about Billie, but since the new series hasn't even started airing yet I imagine they'll phase her out in a respectable manner. Just so long as she doesn't go back to that tosser boyfriend of hers.

See? They all look rubbish!

I've gotta agree with Mark and Mickey on this one. The old cybermen were very 'the future will involve a very large number of silver jumpsuits and poorly-thought-out accessories'. I quite like the new one and don't really see a problem with the legs. Legs are hard to do anything with short of cgi... they're long and only bend in one spot and you can't put too much crap on them or the actor won't be able to walk.

My only problem with the new-era Cyberman is that there's no real indication that it's not just a robot. In fact, the visible cables and whatnot under the metal plating just reinforces the robot idea rather than giving any hint toward the whole 'cyborg' bit. But that's just a nit. I like it.

Being as I live in South Carolina, the shiny, over-sized buckle of the redneck belt, I suspect that there are a goodly number of barfights. Luckly the places I frequent either aren't populated by rednecks or have large, bald, anger-repressing bouncers to stop any fights that look like they may happen. The closest I've ever witnessed to an indoor barfight was a mosh pit turned nasty during an in-house concert. Two men the approximate size of Volkswagen Beetles picked up the offenders (of which there were three, I'll let you imagine the logistics of the situation) and proceeded to haul/throw them out of the room. And by haul/throw I mean that they would haul for a few steps, then throw the fellow forward on his face, picking him back up afterward. It seemed like a very effective sort of violence-prevention method. As an aside, I used to have a leather cuff-type wristband that had a bite mark made by some unkown stranger in the crowd that night. I'm not sure when it happened but after the show there it was. And it wasn't even a metal show or anything.

Other than that my only experience with local barfights was running away from what appeared to be developing into a fight between two groups of angry young men, some of whom had knives.

Bloody hell Abe, if you're not a homicidal axe wielding psychopathic manic depressive - then you could disprove all of the theories about kid's going off the rails who don't have a stable upbringing

Well, I'm not homicidal and have only wielded axes vs. trees and other woodland detritus, but I do have the occasional bout of depression. Got it all well under control nowadays, though. :)

There's my mum and dad who got divorced either just before or just after I was born, I was never really clear on the logistics of it. Didn't see a lot of my dad, just on the occasional holiday when he remembered. Had a stepfather for a bit until my mum sent him off to do something with his life and join the military. He went to Iraq back the first time around and never came back. Last I heard he was a lawyer in Haiti

After that my mum thought she'd try the military life too and left me and my two sisters by my stepdad with a legal guardian family (fellow she was having an affair with and his wife and three sons) for a year or so. She got booted on a medical discharge and picked us back up. Had a boyfriend I figured she'd marry (assuming she ever divorced my stepdad) and lived with up until I moved out at 17. So I have somewhere between 1 and 6 parents, depending how you count it.

Apparently this is legit, I remain unconvinced but allegedly these are the video clips that play when you get to the end of the new Matrix Reloaded video game (you'll have seen ads for it on the back of some of your comics, I'm sure) -

Okay, so I'm on my work computer which is lacking in sound but have to know... what are the blue and pink 8-bit guys talking about?

Not to threadjack, but are the Dark Materials books worth reading as an adult? I was interested at one point but got warned off by someone who said they were more 'kiddy' than I'd enjoy. Someone up-thread mentioned they were based strongly on gnostic myth and, from my quick wikipedia-ing on Narnia to see how much I remembered correctly I saw a statement that the author either intended that they be a de-christianized answer to Narnia. Both make it sound intruiging, but I'm reticent to spend my money if I'm going to be confronted with thin plot and cardboard characters stacked on top of the author's Big Statement...

I'll be there opening weekend, probably. I remember enjoying at least the first book in my younger days, though I also seem to recall that the series got a bit stale as it went on. I do hope that they tone down Lewis' strong Christian themes for the movie. They're all well and good but I'd really rather go for the fun and adventure than for a lesson on why I need more Churchianity in my life.

I agree with everyone else who's said that Goblet of Fire is looming much larger on my cinema calendar. The fact that it comes out the Friday before my birthday doesn't hurt any, either :D

Took my GRE last month and had the scores sent out to the various grad schools I'm looking to attend. I say this by way of prologue to my actual news: University of Washington sent me an email inviting me to apply. Woohoo! :) Not the most prestigious school in the world, or even of the ones I'm applying it, but it does the ego good to have someone say, "Hey, we want you."

Of course, I'm also down to $10 until next Friday, so I suppose every piece of silver has its cloudy lining... :-?

But Kung Fu Hustle. Even tho whacky and silly at times. Had lots of awesome ass kicking scenes.

I'll second that. The fight in the courtyard with the blues brothers was spectacular. Have you seen Shaolin Soccer? Same writer and director. It was slightly less silly (and I find it a bit amazing that I can say that about a movie involving former shao-lin monks playing soccer) but in the same vein and full of moments of awesomeness.

As a physicist I think I'm required to say that ritual magic is all phooey. I'm still interested because it makes for great fun in fiction and grimoires, alchemical journals, and the like are usually pretty cool as forms of art if not for the content.

Note that I didn't say that all magic is phooey. If it weren't for alchemists-turned-natural-philosophers the journey toward science as we now know it would likely have been greatly retarded. I just don't like the modern 'Eye of Newt for the Wiccan Soul', self-help conception of magic. It's true that there are people who have to be told that self confidence is an important part of getting a date or landing a job and hey, if lighting candles and chanting pseudo-latin gets your ego running and boost your sense of self-worth, then good on you. I just don't think it's magic.

The things now attributed to science would, for most of the lifetime of human civilization, have been attributed to magic. Even today most people would have an easier time just calling it magic than trying to explain how modern devices work. And honestly, I don't see the difference. If cellphones worked on demon power and when asked your average Joe on the street mumbled something about invocations and spiritual conduits I'm not sure how it would be different from him mumbling something about radiation and waves. It's not like he really understands either.

The only real differences between modern science and the historical conception of magic are that it's no longer occult (you can pick up a copy of Phys. Rev. Letters at any university library and there's not even a labyrinth to go through to get it) and in that it's not a path to tremendous personal power. I've spent years studying physics but I can't level a city on my own and I can't use it to bend men to my will. I mean, I could given enough time and money, probably, so I guess it approaches the same thing as certain concepts of magic (the ones involving rare, hard-to-procure fetishes and large amounts of prep time). But it's not magic in the 'speak some latin and raise the dead' sense. Now if that kind of magic were possible I'd be all over it. Not the necromancy, maybe, but man, if I could learn a couple of dead languages and start flying, slinging fireballs, and creating homonculi you'd never get me out of the foreign language building.

Oh well. I'll just keep probing the foundations of reality with esoteric symbols scratched in thick notebooks and delicate, improbable contraptions full of glittering prisms and brilliant red beams of light. :)

Yes, the interweb is a strange place...

 

I laughed til I cried

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Oh god...the emu....

*wipes tears from his eyes*

Rented Kicking and Screaming last night (my fiancee really likes football, you see). It was reasonably funny and had its moments of true comedy. The plot was completely predicatable, but it was a cheesy sports comedy, so what else would you expect?

I'm a bit confused as to why Mike Ditka was filmed by himself in almost every scene where he appeared, then edited into the other actors' performances (either blue-screened in or, in the case of several conversations, cut back and forth to opposite sides where he or the other actor was replaced with a head-double). I imagine a bit of internet searching could tell me, but I don't think I'm interested enough to bother...

November is National Novel Writing Month (I don't think they ever bother to say which nation on the webpage NaNoWriMo.org). The idea being to start on November 1 and write 50,000 words by the end of the month. You don't have to write well, just write fast :)

I took part last year and had a blast for about two weeks before schoolwork caught up with me and made me give up at the 30k mark. Figured I'd give it another go this year and see how I fare. Any other STH'ers interested?

"Good Omens" is definately one of the funniest books I have ever read.

I'll second that (or I suppose third in this case). I agree that the Adam bits dragged a bit, but the rest more than made up for it. The bit with Crowley in his car at the end was itself worth the cover price.

Just finished Knife of Dreams (Robert Jordan) and Anansi Boys (Neil Gaiman). Knife of Dreams I really enjoyed. The last few Wheel of Time books, while well written and still enjoyable in their own special way, have been torturously slow. This one not only renewed my faith in Jordan's ability to write, it also convinced me that he really can wrap it all up in one more book like he's been saying. It was good enough that I'm now tempted to give Goodkind's Chainfire a shot. I mean, if Jordan could pull his series back from the brink, maybe his knockoff understudy can do it too ;)

Anansi Boys was alright. Fairly classic Gaiman but lacking the sense of cool that pervades most of his work. Gaiman usually manages to imbue most of his characters, pro- and antagonist alike, with this sense of awesomeness. The good guys wear black and the bad guys wear white because, dammit, black just isn't black enough.

Anansi Boys failed to have that. The main character, Charles Nancy, is pretty much uncool by definition. Spider portrayed the image of coolness so hard that the man beneath obviously lacked it, though he came closer than Charlie. So while it's a fun read and has most of the little Gaiman touches, it didn't have the same page-turning grip that his work usually does.

I've paid for two ringtones: The A-Team theme on my old phone and Domo Arigatto Mr. Roboto on my new phone.

Luckily I spend most of my time in settings where having your phone ringer turned on will get you in trouble (college classes and on a helpdesk) so I don't have to deal with people's dumbass ringtones (or my own, for that matter). I do take exception to the phone of the woman that sits in the cube behind mine. She leaves it on despite the corporate ban on cellphones and it seems to be a 3 second loop of "I ain't no holler-back girl". Man does that get annoying.

On the other hand there's a guy that works here who has the Dr. Who theme as his ring and I keep wanting to ask him if he actually knows what his phone ring is from since he absolutely doesn't seem the type to be familiar with the show.