da_craw

If you have 70 minutes to kill, may I suggest you watch this hysterical analysis of why The Phantom Menace is so bad. Broken into convenient 10-minute YouTube sections.

And Merry Christmas to you all.

Along with the rest of my American brethren who don't do the torrent thing, I got to see The Waters of Mars this past Friday night, on BBC America. I don't have much to say about it yet, really...like so many of Russell Davies' stories, there wasn't so much a plot as there was a series of things that happen, to hang the character development on. A pretty strong development, too, although the Doctor seemed to reverse himself pretty quickly. Might've been interesting to see him run several episodes with that attitude, but that's not to be. If I'd had to wait a month or more for the next episode, I'd've analyzed it more, but I don't have to! It's such a bizarre feeling, being caught up with U.K. transmission, and knowing I'm only going to be about 30 hours behind them on "The End of Time" as well. What with Christmas stuff going on, I can probably avoid spoilers for that long.

I gotta say, watching it on BBC America just feels right (watching it on BBC America in HD would be even better, but I can't have everything). I'm grateful to Sci-Fi for showing it the last few years, but BBC America is where the show belongs. Even though it had commercials added for the American market, I used the DVR, and was able to skip through them. But they really made the best of a bad situation with them...each commercial was proceeded by the "cliffhanger scream" sound effect from the original series, followed by a few seconds of theme music. The commercials even came at appropriately cliffhanger-y moments, which was a really nice touch. I've said before that growing up in the U.S., where the classic series episodes were edited together into movies, you never really felt a Doctor Who cliffhanger, or even noticed it, which must be pretty odd to contemplate, from a U.K. perspective. I enjoyed getting to experience that.

Watching promo stuff for Avatar, one thing struck me:

Michelle Rodriguez is pretty much the proper heir to Aliens' Vazquez, isn't she?

I love y'all, but y'all all might be fired for not telling me this:

CHRIS PINE IS GOING TO PLAY JACK RYAN IN THE NEXT CLANCY MOVIE

Chris Pine = totally awesome (as we know)
Jack Ryan = totally awesome (I'd read most of the Jack Ryan books before I was sixteen; I love me some Clancy)
Chris Pine + Jack Ryan = I MIGHT HAVE TO GO OFF SOMEWHERE AND QUIETLY SQUEE MYSELF INTO OBLIVION

*dies of joy*

Word geekery time! I've got a DVR again now, and I plan on saving some shows to the hard drive at the time that they are broadcast, so that I may watch them at a later time of my choosing. I've been referring to this process as "taping" -- "I'll just tape that Christmas special" and so on. Elora enjoys pointing out to me that there is no physical tape involved, and the device in question is not a VCR. This is, of course, quite correct. Nevertheless, I can't get myself to say "recording" or whatever it is you're supposed to say. I know that "TiVo" has become a verb in some quarters, but I'm not about to do that, especially since my device isn't a TiVo.

So what verb do you use for transferring televised content to a storage medium?

Hermione Granger leaves Hogwarts to teach at inner city wizarding school:

Term I found today in an actual science publication that blew my mind:

"Ultrafast lasers"

What? Don't lasers, by their very definition, go the speed of light? Even if you make something that shoots a beam that goes faster, isn't it no longer light, and thus no longer a laser?

Am I the only one who finds this awesome and terrifying?

Now, there was no context in what I read (which was just the CV of a scientist) to further explain, and I fear looking it up would just ruin the mystique. But still: ultrafast lasers!

Other cool phrase from same source:

"biophotonics"

Not much of the blogging in this last week. Of course, last week was my busiest week all year. I'm pretty much caught up now, so I'm just responding to things as they come in. If past trends are any indication, "things coming in" will slow down substantially around the middle of next week, no matter what the authors have said they're going to do. Several half-formed blog posts in my brain, but none fully fleshed out. So here, have a braindump:

• I upgraded my cable service, and rented a DVR, specifically for the purpose of watching "The Waters of Mars" on BBC America this Saturday (well, and the two Christmas specials on the subsequent two weeks). I told Elora that I wanted it for football playoffs and the Olympics as well, which is why I'll keep it past January 2, but it's really all about the Doctor Who.
  
• I showed Sparky "The Christmas Invasion" the other day, under the guise of a Christmas special. He then specifically said that he wanted to see the next episode, and the one after that. It's slightly too early to say yet, but I may have hooked him.
  
• Haven't been feeling the Christmas thing yet, really. Shopping got a little more complicated than I anticipated, but it always does. Fixed now, though. Haven't put my lights up yet; either I'm bombed at work, or it's been raining. I'll have to make some time this weekend, or just not bother.
  
• I just found out that an author I'm working with is younger than me. Substantially younger. Like, younger than two of my three younger siblings. That was kind of unexpected. I've had authors I knew were much younger than me once or twice before, but they were flakes who couldn't write and quit as soon as that fact became obvious. This guy's writing a very large book, completely on his own, and it's quite good. That shouldn't really be a blow to my ego, but it kind of is. A bit. Not much.
  
• I signed up for a Twitter account about a month ago, because I thought I might need it to follow some of my authors, who are Twittering more and more these days. I got busy, though, and haven't touched it since that first day. This morning I got an e-mail that I have a follower. I checked it out, and it seems to be a real person, not a spam-bot. Who the heck would follow an empty Twitter account?
  
• On the same front, I got an invite for Google Wave from tangerinpenguin, and signed up a few weeks ago, mostly to forestall that moment, six months from now, when an author says to me "You do have a Google Wave account, don't you?" Again, been too busy to look at it since. Somebody wanna tell me what I'm supposed to do with this thing now?

I had no idea the library would be used as a green room. I have chosen poorly.

Okay, my darlings - I have a question.

Husband wishes to remove the HDD from our Dell XPS laptop and replace it with a much, much larger one. Mostly, we want to make it to where he can play his graphics-heavy games like the new Conan game - for which the XPS has the video capacity but not the HDD capacity - on the laptop rather than having to go hidey-hole back in the office.

Husband is quite clever, so I don't anticipate any problems with this plan. That being said, we've never done it before, and I wanted to see if any of y'all are familiar with this process. If so, do you have any tips/issues to look out for/etc?


(PS - fortune cookie I just opened reads "The coming month shall bring winds of change in your life." HAHAHAHAHA O RLY? YA RLY!)

So, my car did this enchanting thing a couple of weeks ago where it went "rrr rrr" when I turned the key, and then didn't start. Then I turned the key and it went "click! click! click!" and then I turned the key and nothing happened at all - except the radio would still come on, weirdly enough. I was at home, so I just took Husband's car instead and since he was able to start it a little bit later, no problem, I just didn't think about it again. This was a mistake.

So, I'm sitting at the Luby's drive-thru today at lunch. It's sooooo slow (for those of y'all not familiar, Luby's is a cafeteria with delicious foods, but not known for speedy service), so I turn off the engine. The first time I do it, I think to myself is this a good idea? what if it doesn't start again?, but then it does, so I don't worry about it. I turn the car back on, scoot forward, and turn it off after a minute or so, when it's abundantly clear that someone's Luann platter is taking a little longer to assemble than usual. That time? It doesn't start. I do the rrr-rrr click-click-click nothing-but-radio (not even hazards!) dance again, and nothing. I'm plugging up the whole drive-thru line at this point, so after several seconds of fruitlessly cranking the engine, sweating profusely and not a little bit of swearing, I get out and pop the hood (Husband thought that might be why it started last time). I wiggled the battery around a little and tried again - no dice.

Thank God, a couple of Luby's guys came out and pushed the car out of the way. One of them noticed I had a standard, and they offered to push start me. Y'all, it was so Little Miss Sunshine, with these two nice guys in Luby's uniforms pushing a car with a pretty hugely pregnant lady behind the wheel, trying to steer (without power steering) with one hand and hold the door open enough to hear the "GO!" I would get when I was supposed to pop the clutch. They pushed, they yelled, I popped, the car started, and I hollered THANK YOUUUUUUU out the door as I slammed it and drove back to work. I didn't get to see Co-Worker and her baby (the reason I was hitting Luby's), but I plan to see her on Monday instead.

So here's the upshot:

1) My car probably needs to go to the shop. I'm calling them now.

2) I am so thankful for the basic human kindness that led a couple of guys who didn't know me to come push my car fast enough to get it started. All they had to do was get it out of their drive-thru, but they wanted to make sure I got back to work. Sure, the car thing was annoying, but it's those two guys and their good deed that will stick with me. :)

* * * * * * * *

In other news, I have not popped like a turkey thermometer yet, but my bellybutton does have an overbite, which is kind of hilarious. Also, for your reference, a non-exhaustive list of things that are not appropriate to say to a third-trimester prego:

1) "I bet you're about to pop any day now!" [no, I still have seven weeks left] "*looks at my belly*...Wow, REALLY??" THANKS RANDOM DUDE I DON'T KNOW

2) "Oh, that'll be a Christmas baby." [gosh, I sure hope not, or he'll be five weeks early.] "Oh, no, he definitely will be." WHY ARE YOU WISHING PRETERM LABOR ON ME AND MY BABY, BED BATH & BEYOND LADY?

3) "Man, I'm glad we got you on a boom mike, huh? Ha ha!" YES BECAUSE BELLY JOKES ARE SUPER HILARIOUS EVEN AFTER WEEEEEEEKS AND WEEKS AND WEEKS. I LOVE YOU CHOIR PEOPLE BUT THE BELLY JOKES GOTTA STOP

It's like having an easily-made-fun-of last name, at this point. It's not that I find the jokes hurtful or anything, I'm just tired of them. :-P But it's okay, really. It's kind of nice to have everyone you meet be excited for you and want to talk to you, if you're chatty like me. :)

You know, it says something about the ever present generic style of the American College Dorm that when I see just about ANY College Dorm picture on Facebook, there's a bit of my brain that goes, "Is that at Penn State?" or even, "Is that in Atherton Hall?" And, of course, it wasn't. But it certainly looks like it COULD be.

Five reasons DIE HARD is the BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIE EVER MADE.

Damn right it is.

"Both It’s A Wonderful Life and Die Hard espouse the same philosophy, that you shouldn’t take things - yourself, your value to the community, shoes - for granted, it’s just that Die Hard does it in a much more effective way: With extravagant torture! "

This one's mostly for free_laddicals and mmaresca: I watched Superman/Batman: Public Enemies last night, courtesy of Netflix. Why is this worth a rental? Three reasons: Kevin Conroy. Tim Daly. Clancy Brown. In fact, Andrea Romano didn't so much cast this movie as pull up the credits from the old animated series and start making phone calls. (CCH Pounder!)

Which is why it's very strange that the animation style isn't Timm-like at all. It looks more like an anime influence to me, although I admit I'm no expert. All the characters have very strange angular shadows on their faces the whole time, and Superman's hair looks awfully poofy for the Man of Steel. DC Animation has been moving away from the Timm style for nearly 10 years now, which is fine; animation should evolve and all that. But why deliberately cast such familiar actors to play the same characters, looking so different? It's a bit jarring.

Also somewhat jarring is the storyline. It's based on the Jeph Loeb comic of the same name, which I've never read, but I understood was somewhat...wide-screen? High concept? Wacky? And the movie certainly lives up to that. Which, again, doesn't quite mesh with the voices. Clancy Brown is perfect playing Luthor as unflappable, yet oily, with quiet menace. When the script calls for him to go so far over the top that you'd need to build scaffolding just to reach him...it seems like you could've gotten anybody to do that.

They also seem to expect you to be something of a DC comics nerd. It helps substantially if you know Power Girl's relation to Superman, or how Captain Marvel's powers work, because the movie isn't going to stop to explain it if you don't. I don't think it's essential, exactly; I'm not as well-versed in DC as I am in Marvel, so I'm pretty sure a few things went by me, and there was no harm done. But you'd definitely get a bigger kick out of it if you're a nerd.

Which seems to be the sales strategy for this movie: Voice actors you love! Second-tier characters you love! Based on a comic you loved! If at least one of those three is true for you, then it's worth a rental. Great story? Well...hey, look, it's LeVar Burton as Black Lightning (with two whole lines)! Didn't expect that, did you?