09.19.07
Avast, ye matey…
Afore I be forgettin’, it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so, go forth and hug a Pirate. Just be careful not to get stuck on his hook.
02.22.07
So Much for TTLB
Well, a few discoveries were made. First, the rankings are not based on traffic, but rather links. Second, the vast majority of the blogs in the TTLB system are political blogs, and I have only one link from them. Third, for some reason, even that link is not being counted (and it comes from a blog in the top 50; go figure).
So TTLB is no longer included here. I do still have SiteMeter stats in the footer at the bottom of the page.
02.10.07
I Have a New All-time Favorite Sci-fi Movie (for now)
It’s been a while since I’ve spent any money on myself, and since I had a couple gift cards to make use of I figured I could have that pleasure while not really spending any money. So I went DVD shopping. I made it into a sci-fi trifecta. One of the movies was so good I’ve already seen it twice, plus one more listening to the director’s commentary.
Before I get to that, let’s review the other two purchases.
STARSHIP TROOPERS: I’ve loved the book ever since high school. I’d actually seen the movie when it was in theaters, and I remembered being disappointed because the story line wasn’t anything like the book. But the special effects were great, and if you could get past the fact that they titled it Starship Troopers, it was pretty okay.
After watching the DVD, I realize that it really bothers me what they did with the story. They Nazi-fied the Mobile Infantry. When Robert Heinlein wrote the story in 1959, he was becoming frustrated with political decisions made by civilians who had no real-world concept of the consequences of their decisions. He viewed decisions which were made “in the name of peace” as actually driving us closer to war.
Wikipedia has this to say about his decision to write the story:
Robert A. Heinlein wrote from a military background because he had been a commissioned U.S. Naval officer upon graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy and served six years. According to Heinlein, his desire to write Starship Troopers dated back to 1958-04-05, when he and his wife read a newspaper advertisement placed by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy calling for a unilateral suspension of nuclear weapon testing by the United States. In response, the Heinleins created the Patrick Henry League in an attempt to drum up support for the U.S. nuclear testing program. During the unsuccessful campaign, Heinlein found himself under attack both in and out of the science fiction community for his views.
Heinlein stopped work on the novel that would become Stranger in a Strange Land and wrote Starship Troopers sometime during 1958 and 1959. Starship Troopers was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in October and November 1959 as a serial called Starship Soldier. Although originally written as a juvenile novel for Scribners, it was rejected and was eventually published as an adult novel by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. In many ways, Starship Troopers marked a turning point for Heinlein. Beforehand, he had written both adult novels and juvenile novels for Scribner’s. However, following their rejection of Starship Troopers, he ended his longstanding relationship with them, and began writing books with more adult themes.
The premise behind the society that Heinlein created for Starship Troopers was that in order to become a full citizen with the right to vote you had to serve a minimum two-year term of service in the military. Johnny Rico, the lead, joins up against his parents’ wishes because all his friends are joining. And just as he is about to drop out of boot camp and apologize to Mom & Dad, Earth is attacked.
The movie stayed true to this point, sort of. The gist of the story is there, but there is a dark underside added. Propoganda internet-like news items are inserted as chapter breaks. After the attack, things become less subtle. Ghestapo-like uniforms are worn by the intelligence officers. Soldiers are shown giving weapons and live ammo to children. A woman is almost insanely giddy as she oversees a group of children stomping on cockroaches (the enemy are arachnids or “bugs”).
If you can get over the fact that it is supposed to be Starship Troopers and that the director has intentionally reversed the message intended by the book, it’s still a decent movie. But the political message is pretty much in your face. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se. Heinlein put a political message in the book, and it was in your face. But it irks me that they reversed the message.
Aeon Flux: Believe it or not, this movie also has a political twist to it, but it’s more subtle and you don’t really notice it unless you listen to the commentary. I turned off the commentary by the producer and Charleze Theron about halfway through. There were some interesting tidbits regarding the making of the film (like Charleze actually did most of her own stunts, even after nearly breaking her neck ten days into shooting) but I tired of the preaching. There is another commentary track by the director that I haven’t listened to yet.
Commentaries aside, I really enjoyed this film. It was fresh. A bit of a mystery about the society in which they were living (ala Soylent Green only not as disgusting). If you are a sci-fi fan, this is worth the price of a rental, or, if like me you prefer to buy DVD’s, the $10 or so to purchase it.
Aeon Flux UPDATE: I discovered that Aeon Flux was originally an animated series on MTV. I haven’t watched MTV since they quit playing music, so that’s what, the eighties?
Serenity: By far the best sci-fi movie I’ve seen in a very long time. Visually stunning (even the shots of River’s feet as she walks) and clever dialog (think Western in space). And best of all for me is the writer/director commentary track where he talks about both sides of the project. For me, as a writer/photographer, that was just pudding. Love it. Serenity is based on the cancelled television show Firefly, which I had never seen. Now I’m going to have to find out if the DVDs of the series are available. That may be my next purchase for myself, you know, after April.
Did you notice I had more to say about the film that bothered me the most?
01.24.07
TTLB Ecosystem
I’ve joined The Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem. Beginning tomorrow, you should be able to see where this blog stands in the larger picture of blogs by checking the status toward the bottom of the sidebar. Right now, Instapundit is the top blog in the Ecosystem (the top ten blogs are “Higher Beings”).
Political blogs tend to be the top sites. I’d be surprised if I’m more advanced than an “Insignificant Microbe”, but we’ll see.
01.17.07
In the Darkness…
I’m going through a non-communicative phase right now. I’m not communicating well with others. I’m not communicating well with myself. In fact what I most want to do is sit in the dark and be alone.
Part of this comes from a migraine I had over the weekend that has resurfaced after I thought it had gone. Part of it is simply being worn out from a long emotional journey, and even though I can actually see my destination now, it still seems so very far away. Trudging. We’ve talked about that before.
I’ve been a rare sight online lately, and truthfully, I don’t mind. I really just want to sit in the dark for a little while.
12.26.06
The Black Hole of December
What is it about December that just seems to swallow time? It’s almost as bad as playing a game on the computer. One minute, you’re sitting there thinking you’ve got plenty of time to spare, then the next thing you know it’s time to change the calendar.
2006 was a year that, for the most part, I’ll be happy to say good-bye to. But December has shown a hint of the promise 2007 has for me. I feel good about next year. Actually, I feel good about December… it’s just that I’m pretty sure we must have skipped a few days somewhere because it’s nearly over already.
12.19.06
Hawks 1 - Pigeons 0
I saw something yesterday that I’ve never seen before.
Every day as the sun starts to set, the town’s pigeon population takes flight and begins to circle, gathering up the stragglers as they collectively look for a good place to roost. Why they do this every night when they roost in the same places all the time, I don’t know. You’d think they’d just say “Hey Bob, I’ll meet you at the post office in about five minutes.”
Maybe they’re just surveying their domain or something.
Well, it’s become predictable. Too predictable apparently, because last night the pigeons had unexpected company. They were strafed by a pair of hawks. One of them missed. I don’t know if you know this, but pigeons are fairly adept at avoiding mid-air predators. They just… stop flying. And since pigeons aren’t really very aerodynamically designed, they drop like rocks. Well, pigeon #1 did this and hawk #1 missed.
I guess pigeon #2 was busy laughing at hawk #1 because he never saw it coming. TAG! He was dead or unconscious almost immediately.
As I watched, hawk #2 brought his dinner to the tree in front of the library and started to pluck feathers. A few moments later, hawk #1 stopped by and joined in. I’m not sure if it was a dinner date as they watched the sunset, or two buddies swapping war stories, but either way it looked like they were getting ready to enjoy a good meal together.
Now you may ask about the score above. What about pigeon #1, you ask? Should he get a point for his team? I don’t know if simply not getting killed counts as a score, as satisfying as that may be. It simply means you didn’t lose 2-0.
11.30.06
Search Phrases - redux
It’s been a while since I checked the search phrases that are leading people here. The vast majority of them are related to Bulwer-Lytton and his book Paul Clifford, but there are others. For example:
PINNUCLE - I have to thank Jen-t for misspelling the card game “pinochle” in this post for getting me this hit. If she wasn’t already married, I’d introduce the two of them. They were meant for each other.
martina hingis modeling - Okay. Martina Hingis is my favorite tennis player, and I have written about her before. But, to the best of my knowledge, she doesn’t model. Now, if she goes down that road, I do have a camera. Just saying…
what white female started her book off with “it was a dark and stormy night” - I almost didn’t include this one since it’s along the “dark and stormy night” theme. But I question the preconceived notions in the search criteria. First of all, it wasn’t a woman who wrote it. But then I have to ask, why does it even matter what race the author was?
the so-what method of writing - Never heard of it. Never written about it. Not sure I want to read a book using that method. It worries me that the search brought you here.
inpostauthor:gabby - And this came from Blogger! Gabby is getting hits… from Blogger! (in case you don’t know, this is a WordPress blog that I host on my own website).
“she took a deep drag” - I remember this post. It surprises me that anyone else does.
poser art - Please don’t come here looking for Poser art. I hate it. If I ever get a Poser art cover, I just might quit writing altogether. But more than that, if you really want to create that sort of art, I would recommend that you take a look at DAZ Studios.
girls nicotine - Okay, first, it’s Nicotine Girls. Second, it’s a role-playing game. Why did you come to a writing and photography blog?
11.29.06
After Action Report
Well, it’s been a week now so I suppose it’s time for a SITREP and AAR.
My Thanksgiving holiday didn’t actually begin until Thanksgiving. I thought I’d be able to get out of town by mid-afternoon on Wednesday, but I had to work later than I expected. So about mid-morning Thursday I was on the way. The drive was pleasant, mostly through the one part of Indiana that was not bulldozed flat by glaciers, and aside from a wrong turn that sent me to Illinois, relatively uneventful. One benefit to driving on Thanksgiving Day is that there isn’t much traffic to deal with.
I have to say that this was one of the better Thanksgivings in recent memory. The Big Disaster (every year has one, doesn’t it?) was half a glass of Chardonay spilled into the caserole dish with the extra dressing. It wasn’t bad. We might need to figure out a way to make that a tradition.
Mum and Dad have a nice house, though it was too quiet once everyone else was gone. When the sound of turning pages in a book becomes distracting, it’s time to invest in some stereo equipment. They have a television, but no cable and no reception. I wound up borrowing a DVD from my sister, not because I really wanted to watch a movie, but because I needed some background noise.
Friday, Dad, my brother-in-law, and I went golfing. I can honestly say that I was glad we got “darked” out. If we’d actually finished the round, it would have been my all-time worst round ever. Let’s just say that after 4 holes on the back nine, I was 15 strokes under my front nine and still playing like crap… just not as crappy as before. You remember how excited I was to be playing golf again after the last time? Yeah, not so much now.
About the only other big news is that I discovered that both my neice S and my nephew P are writing. I think S is more comfortable with her progress thus far since she’s actually asked me for a critique, but I suspect that P is stretched pretty thin time-wise. That is one busy kid.
So there you go. It wasn’t quite a storybook holiday, but it was definitely better than most of the ones I spent alone, and with regard to drama, we actually had very little of it this year.
09.20.06
Rivers of Conversation
I’ve had several conversations over the last few days that left me thinking “Hmm?”
They’ve been telephone conversations, e-mail conversations, and blog conversations, and all of them, every one, has started off in one direction and wound up going somewhere completely unexpected. The odd thing when considering these conversations is that when I go back and think about how they flowed, everything makes sense.
But if I were to tell you for instance that mentioning a business trip to Detroit, led to discussions about dancing like Grover from Sesame Street and is likely to get me a g-string as a Christmas present, you’d think I was making something up. It’s a little frightening to contemplate, but it’s true.
Sometimes I wonder if things like this happen simply because I’ve surrounded myself with creative people and everybody is just running where their thoughts take them.
Regardless, it’s fun to just sit on that inflatable tube and see where the current goes.
09.19.06
Ahoy, Me Hearty!
Today, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
I kid you not. According to Wikipedia, the “holiday” was started by two Americans, John Baur (”Ol’ Chum Bucket”) and Mark Summers (”Cap’n Slappy”), as an inside joke. In 2002, they told columnist Dave Barry about it, and it took off from there.
I looked it up in Chase’s. It’s listed.
So, give chase t’ yer Jack o’ Cups an’ make ‘em say “Arr!”
09.18.06
Ow.
Not to bore you with my physical ailments, but I hurt today.
It’s not like I did anything over the weekend. It’s just me getting old and pieces falling off. Normally, I don’t complain about my aches and pains. I mean I hurt every morning. That’s just the way of it. But normally, once I get moving, things, well, they just sort of work themselves out. But not this morning.
In particular, I want to tell you about my right ankle. It’s nothing new. It’s been a pain (literally) since my freshman year in college. I have a tendon that pops back and forth from one side of my ankle bone to the other. It’s much more comfortable on the other. Normally, all I have to do is tense my ankle by lifting my toes up and then wiggle my foot back and forth until it pops and stays where I want it. Today, it won’t stay where I want it.
It hurts like hell to walk with it in the wrong position and so far I’ve had to do that for half the day.
There’s not really anything you can do to help (unless you’re a surgeon), so I’m not real sure why I’m telling you this, except for the fact that it’s about the only thing I can think of, especially when I’m walking. And I don’t even think about it in a poor-me way. It’s more in a crap-I’m-getting-old way.
09.13.06
1096
That’s my chess rating. 1096! Or rather, that was my chess rating before I lost my last game and it went down again. That’s a Class E player. The frustrating thing is that I consitently test out around 1450, a Class C player. On paper, knowing there is mate in four, or avoid mate, etc. I do well. But when it comes time to play the game, I usually have at least one major mistake that I can’t recover from unless the person I’m playing is rated below 1000 or so. I’ve beaten 1300’s and 1400’s when I play well. I just can’t play well consistently. When I first started playing for ratings, I lost my first five games in a row and wound up with a rating in the 800’s. My next milestone is to break 1100, and I was almost there. One more win would have done it. Now that I’ve dropped again (and this time to someone with a lower rating meaning I was expected to win and since I didn’t I lost a lot of points) I need to win probably three matches in a row in order to get back where I was.
Arrgh! And no, not in a pirate way either.
09.11.06
Out of Whack
Okay, so most of you know that Sunday is usually Starbuck’s Sunday, and that I normally spend five or six hours sitting, writing, and drinking coffee. Well, I didn’t do that yesterday. I’d received a call Friday from a friend. Her best friend’s fiance had “gotten physical” and her friend needed to get out… like right away. I was supposed to help her move furniture yesterday (the ex-fiance was in jail and not to be released until this morning).
So, no problem, some things are more important than Starbuck’s Sunday.
So I sat around Sunday morning, playing chess against the computer because I didn’t want to start writing and then have to stop writing when it was time to help move. Except I never heard from my friend or her friend. WTF! By three o’clock in the afternoon I’m impatient as all get out. This is going to kill my whole friggin’ day. Finally, I can’t stand it any longer and call my friend… no answer.
Five o’clock, still no call, no answer.
By seven I’m thinking if they don’t call soon, I’m not going to be able to help. I’ve got to go in to work early and there is no way I can be moving furniture after midnight and still be able to open up at the library in the morning.
Finally, around 9pm I get a call. Best friend is not moving out after all. I’m not kidding. I’m still sitting here shaking my head. Ex-fiance is not even ex- anymore.
Ladies, if dude hits you, it’s not a mistake. He might regret it later and be sorry about it, but when he was looking for something to hit, he picked you. And if he’s done it once… well, hell… you know the rest. I find this frustrating to no end. I wish there was some consolation, but yesterday was a complete and utter waste of time.
09.08.06
Search Phrases - The Best of the Best
Well, the blog has been here long enough to be found by folks out there doing searches. Some of the search phrases are pretty understandable… writing method… it was a dark and stormy night… authors that I link to in the sidebar… etc. A few were just plain odd. Some were downright frightening.
1. female sports reporters - not so bad; I can live with it.
2. She thought, “I like him” use quotation marks? - Uh, okay. Not sure why you came here, but the answer is No. It was a thought. No quotation marks.
3. Swimsuit woman’s disguise men photo - Yowzers! Of course this came from Yahoo Japan. Is that a cliche?
4. s18corinda - Huh?
That’s it for the interesting ones through the life of the blog. I’ll update you as we get more in.
