Friends of the Executors

And witches. And weirdos.

Starwood 2009, here we come!

(Tomorrow morning)

See you all in a week!

Guess who has air tickets to America for October/November?

(Also 2 knitting magazines, some Lush soap, some cold/flu tablets in case of emergency, and a pile of grocery shopping, but then you know what the Saturday afternoon shopping run is like.)

Trying to update my fanfiction pages. Embarrassed to find that I apparently haven't done so since February or so. Oops.

The rain held off today and it was merely cloudy and cool. I can live with that.

---

"Hoy, Mister Mate -- what of the tug?"

"None to be had!" cried the breathless mate, scorning the plank and swinging himself aboard by the new mainstays. "There was three fired up -- but two spiked overnight, a'purpose! A mercy their boilers didn't blow to blazes! And the last the Wolves took, with pistol's point as fee! We'll needs wait hours!"

Pierce threw down his hat and stamped upon it. "By Beelzebub's burning balls! And miss the dawn? Never! Hands to the braces! We'll after them under stail alone! We caught the bastards before and by hell's thunders we'll do it again, if it's up Satan's arsegut they flee us! Topmen aloft! Leap to it, rum-rotted whoreson bitch-spawn you be --"

The mate's leathery face rumpled uneasily. "But cap'n -- how'll we know their course to follow? We've no way --"

"Ah, but we have!" said Mall grimly. "The Stryge may check it if he wills, but I doubt his divination will fare better. A contention's in hand among the Invisibles, t'would seem. So where else would the Chorazin be bound in such case, but to the island that's their home?"

-- Chase The Morning, Michael Scott Rohan

I hope that:

a) the weather is better tomorrow
b) I have more energy tomorrow
c) I can get a not too expensive air ticket (for October) tomorrow
d) my lj entry is more interesting tomorrow.

Still, at least I have another chapter of the Library story done.

And yes, it is raining.

---

The Fitful Alternations of the Rain

The fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley

First "Things I Like" post, a bit late, but it's going up. And in case it's not obvious, all such posts may have some spoilers.

I've watched the anime of enjou Tenge a couple years back, and am actually a bit surprised seeing it's from 2004 and some comments, since I remember the art as being generally sub-par to what I consider the modern standard. Enough that I'm going to grab some episodes and re-watch them to see what's up.

Anyway. I began watching the anime, saw cool cool fights, cool characters, and all was well and good. We then got to a flashback sequence, which lasts 6 episodes. I was all up for it in the beginning, but at some point I was going, "Hey, this is a limited run series, what's up?"

We then get 3.5 more episodes in the present time, before we get another flashback sequence, from episodes 19 to 23, out of 24 episodes. At this point, I remember going, "What the fuck? When will I watch the series?" but after a couple of episodes I dawned of me, but it's something that's disturbing if you don't realize it, and disturbing that (when?) you don't know it going in:

The background story is the real story. What happens now is cool, but what happened before is cooler. You care more about that by the end, it's amazing, it's awesome, and it's sort of like a bait-and-switch. After I realized that, I stopped waiting for the flashback sequence to end, because I've realized that was the main story.

Then the anime ends on a cliffhanger. Not surprising, considering it's an adaptation of a still-running manga, and I now found out there's been an OVA which I'll have to track down. So the anime ends on a cliffhanger, after you finally know what happened in the past to set it all up, but not what's going to happen. In a sense, the anime ends before the present day story can really start (ok, it did start, and made some progress, but now we were getting to the exciting stuff!), so it leaves you open-mouthed when that happens. You do get a full story though through the flashbacks, and a desire to know what happens next, perhaps it'll be worth it to get the manga?

Yes, it's on tonight! Last Sci Fi before Starwood!

Bab 5, New Eureka and New Warehouse 13!

8 pm. Casa Cthulhu. Same bat channel. Same batty people.

I would say that work and the release cycle are easing off a bit, but that would just be tempting fate, wouldn't it?

"Fete" turned out to be just a few food stalls. And it rained. So I didn't bother to do more than pick up a free glass of wine.

Weather forecasts predicts wind and rain tomorrow (with a hey, ho, etc). Memo to self: take umbrella to work, because if all seems sunny in the morning and you forget, then assuredly when it comes to time to go home, it will be pouring down and you will get soaked.

---

Song

I will pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes,
With a beautiful thing that can never grow wise.

Light are the petals that fall from the bough,
And lighter the love that I offer you now;
In a spring day shall the tale be told
Of the beautiful things that will never grow old.

The blossoms shall fall in the night wind,
And I will leave you so, to be kind:
Eternal in beauty, are short-lived flowers,
Eternal in beauty, these exquisite hours.

I will pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes,
With a beautiful thing that shall never grow wise.

-- Anna Wickham

see more Fail Blog

I, Sam Pulsifer, am the man who accidentally burned down the Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Massachusetts, and who in the process killed two people, for which I spent ten years in prison and, as letters from scholars of American literature tell me, for which I will continue to pay a high price long into the not-so-sweet hereafter.

That's the first sentence of Brock Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, and it's a terrific opener, one that intrigues and draws a reader in while showing off a good fluid rhythm to boot. The novel's premise is also really good - Pulsifer builds a new and normal life for himself, but his life is destroyed when someone else starts burning down famous writers' houses, and he has to find himself as he finds the real culprit.

So there's a good, solid start and foundation to a novel there, and it's probably to Clarke's credit in some perverse way that he works so hard to tear down that foundation from the first page onwards, to the point where I gave up reading after 6 chapters and won't be coming back.

Part of that is writing that seems almost deliberately lacking in art, as if Clarke is writing down to his protagonist - something a more skilled author might be able to pull off, but that here just comes off as both self-conscious and bland. Bland is a good word for the dialogue, too, which makes every character around Pulsifer even less interesting. It's like Clarke is trying to point out that ordinary people say ordinary things (how observant of him), while forgetting that ordinary people also say really extraordinary, funny and interesting things all the damn time. Ignoring that comes across as more patronizing than wise, a charge I could probably lay against the novel as a whole.

But the big flaw, the one the novel simply can't overcome with the power of its premise, is its boring, passive and unengaging narrator/protagonist - again, someone who is deliberately boring and passive, both internally and externally to the text. A protagonist can be flawed, can be reactive, can be unsympathetic, can headbutt puppies and then whine about it in church all novel long, but a protagonist who's dull is just the kiss of death to a novel. Character is one point of the Big Writing Triangle (the other two being Plot and Style); you can get by with two points (the Big Writing Line), but coupled with a flat style you just have the Big Writing Dot, and it doesn't matter how sparkly and pretty that dot is, it's still a one-dimensional figure and readers will look past it 'cos it's invisible.

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England has had a lot of good press. Don't believe the hype. It's shallow, warmed-over criticism of the everyday that is far less interesting than the world it wants to mock, and it hangs on a character that's neither sympathetic or pitiful but just generally irritating, like an ant bite on your narrative arsecheek. Avoid.

We had another instructor for this session – the previous instructor, who is better will be there for the remaining 4 lessons. Also, Aaron showed up, as well as another student, for a total of four students. I managed to learn another move and can do everything we've been taught except the backwards version of one move. I also discovered that some of the moves that I tried tonight caused the cords of the poi to scrape the second joint of my first finger on each hand, so the skin on each of those fingers will need to heal and I'll be wearing band-aids on those fingers to the next class. Becca once again excelled – Aaron had never done it before and while he was not excellent, he was close to my level by the end of the class. Of course, he's also had vastly more physical training that I have. In any case, clearly this is not something that I excel at. However, I do have a fair amount of determination. Also, as I mentioned in this post, practicing with my hands alone is by far the best way for me to learn a move – once my hands know the pattern, doing the same pattern while holding and swinging the poi is not all that difficult. In vivid contrast, Becca has a sense of the movement of the poi through space that I greatly envy.

There's some sort of local fete thing taking place tomorrow evening. I should probably drop by and see what's going on. (The difficulty will be remembering this tomorrow evening.)

Getting an urge to knit another Baby Surprise Jacket. Even if I have nobody specific to do it for. Drat these urges.

---

To a Cat

Mirrors are not more wrapt in silences
nor the arriving dawn more secretive;
you, in the moonlight, are that panther figure
which we can only spy at from a distance.
By the mysterious functioning of some
divine decree, we seek you out in vain;
remoter than the Ganges or the sunset,
yours is the solitude, yours is the secret.
Your back allows the tentative caress
my hand extends. And you have condescended,
since that forever, now oblivion,
to take love from a flattering human hand.
you live in other time, lord of your realm -
a world as closed and separate as dream.

-- Jorge Luis Borges

Been out tonight to see the Michael Mann directed Public Enemies and discovered why mobile phones were invented.

It is so that everyone involved with this film could call their performance and involvement in the film in from where ever they were at the time. Probably doing more useful like being sat on the toilet.

Now I do like Michael Mann as a director and I like his films, but with Public Enemies has managed to make something that reasonably good looking and probably well shot, but is other dull, boring, and utterly lacking in characterisation. The point is, we know what happened to the main character, John Dillinger, but in this film we are told nothing about him beyond the fact that he is shallow, but loyal. So the film is not a character study, nor is truly a historical piece because so much of the film is wrong, such as who kills who and when.

So, what I want is for Michael Mann to give my money back, to give me back my time, and apologise. Then I will let him make another movie.

Of course, if it was the director Michael Bay wearing a Michael Mann costume and attempting to make a film without explosions, then I am the one who owes the apology.

In the meantime, neither myself, lulucthulhu, or dinkybruiser enjoyed this film.

It gets 2/10 for cinematography and costumes.

I helped a bloke in the city with directions this afternoon.

I think I'm finally starting to feel like I actually live here.

Whatever will those weird homosexual childrens entertainers think of next?

I am shocked, shocked, at this latest affront to children's television. why can't everything be fine wholesome entertainment like this?

Work continues hectic. Coworker didn't make it in, but worked from home. Thank goodness for email and communicator.

I am left with little brain. Hope the release is over soon.

---

The Great Bird of Love

I want to become a great night bird
Called The Zimmer, grow intricate gears
And tendons, brace my wings on updrafts,
Roll them down with a motion
That lifts me slowly into the stars
To fly above the troubles of the land.
When I soar the moon will shine past
My shoulder and slide through
Streams like a luminous fish.
I want my cry to be huge and melancholy,
The undefiled movement of my wings
To fold and unfold on rising gloom.

People will see my silhouette from
Their windows and be comforted,
Knowing that, though oppressed,
They are cherished and watched over,
Can turn to kiss their children,
Tuck them into their beds and say:
Sleep tight.
No harm tonight,
In starry skies
The Zimmer flies.

-- Paul Zimmer

My review of Days of Steam is up at Gamecryer.com.

The AC is fixed, finally. I had to go Thursday and Friday until 6:00 PM or so without AC. (And Friday was spent IN the Hot House waiting for the repair guy who was supposed to get there before 11 AM.) And then they had to come back again today to replace an expensive thingamajigger. Sigh.

Parenting: We took Jack to Space Center Houston. My highlight was to once again touch a moonrock. There's something so mind-blowing about touching something from another world. Jack remains skeptical that it was actually a piece of the moon. It looked like a shiny piece of metal to him. Ages and ages ago, I ran an over-the-top old World of Darkness crossover PBEM where the McGuffin was that moon rock. A bunch of Black Spirals busted through Void Engineer Security and stole the rock and were going to use it to do something horrible in the umbra with it. I recall they referred to it as "The Unmaker Stone" and that their plan was pretty darn apocalyptic, but the details escape me.

Watching: True Blood. I like it a lot - not just because of the vampires but because Bon Temps brings me back to when I lived in Louisiana. Oh, not in a little one roadhouse town like Bon Temps, thank goodness. But it still brings me back.

Reading: Still working through some Star Wars novels as brain candy.

Playing: Lots of Wii games. Jack got Ben 10: Protector of Earth for his birthday, so I've played that a bunch with him. I'm also working through Lego Star Wars, which is all kinds of silly fun. Tonight is D&D in our Tuesday rotation, and next week we're experimenting with a split format. The two games we're kicking off with are Shadowrun 4E and a Gamma World homebrew.

Creative: Nothing really. Been waaaay too busy.

MRIs remain a constant disappointment to me.

I like to think that a lifetime of comics, games and bad movies has given me a piercing insight into the correct flow of reality, one akin to what Grant Morrison feels after three consecutive weeks of acid and 60s Batman archives. And so I understand how MRIs, CT scanners, isolation chambers and other large devices into which a patient is pushed/pulled/lowered are supposed to work. They should shudder and hum and light up for a while, then start vibrating alarmingly while monitors desks go crazy, and then blow up in a spectacular fashion that leaves the patient with superpowers revolving around magnetism, electricity, or at least disorienting opponents with claustrophobia and thumping noises.

But no. They just take pictures of your dodgy kneecap that you can't even inspect on the day. No-one's going to let me into the Club of Heroes with that on my resume.

Still, at least tonight's jaunt into no-powers-for-you world was better than the MRI I had in Brisbane a few years back, mostly because it was of my knee rather than my brain, and didn't mean my head was trapped in a white box of ear-splitting loudness for half an hour. Oh, and they let me keep my pants on this time, rather than pour me into an arseless white gown. I've never really understood why that region had to be undressed to perform a brain scan. (Anyone with smart-aleck comments - and yes, james72, I'm looking at you - can just keep them to themselves.)

And it beats the hell out of that time I dropped a bit of acid and got into a sensory deprivation tank. That should have led me to psychic oneness with the Cosmos, or at least some kind of lingering psychosis I could trot out at parties. But instead it was just looped dolphin music, a weak trip, and immersion in water so salty I was left scrubbing residue out of my private parts for days afterwards.

Sigh. Maybe I'll try licking Grant Morrison during a thunderstorm. That's got to pay off.

Back from Wisconsin. Long ride there, longer ride back. Tired as heck right now and needing sleep.

But it was a good trip :) And we have CHEESE.