The “Are You Unique?” meme
I’ll try this one out, since it was an interesting mental exercise.
Name a CD you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
Matsuri Za: Matsuri Daiko (taiko drumming)
Signed by the artists, who were performing at Epcot while raininva and I were there.
Name a book you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
A book on number theory, surrealist art, classical music, computer programming, cellular biology, and more. Not light bedtime reading.
Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that you think no-one else on your friends list does.
“J-Men Forever”
This was a HARD one. Movies are social for me, so nearly every one I have was purchased off a recommendation or was a gift from someone else who already has it. (I assume we’re excluding those films which celebrate the inventiveness humanity brings to the act of reproduction.)
Name a place that you have visited that you think no-one else on your friends list has.
The Ghiradelli Chocolate factory in S.F.
My first choice was the National Geographic Society building in D.C., but it’s just too close by, and I know too many intellectual types who might have swung by there 🙂
Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no-one else on your friends list has.
An Apple Newton MessagePad
This one, OTOH, I feel quite confident about!
Slang of the Trade
I have learned something new today.
At certain auto parts places, the phrase “sure, we have that, come on by” means, “well, we have a junkyard out back, you’re welcome to take a look”.
Bloody hell, if I have to dig through junk to find it, and wrench it out myself, I feel like I should be able to just walk off with it. Moot, though, since they didn’t even have anything close to what I needed.
P.S. If you have an over-active imagination (I do), an auto junkyard is a damn morbid place.
Feeling like a ‘Prisoner’
All the typesetters here have code numbers that go on the printing plates, to assist with correcting errors. (I’m Number Nine. Turn me on, dead man.)
Still, when one of the pressmen walked in asking, “Who is Number Four?” it was difficult to resist answering, “You are Number Six.”
(Wouldn’t be accurate anyway. Number Six hasn’t come in for the day.)
People who dress odd
I suppose it’s not very convincing to call in sick when one’s already reported for work. Darn it. It’s nice out, and has been for the last couple of days.
An offhand comment about fashion (and the broken air conditioner in the typesetting room) led to my co-workers discovering I own a Utilitkilt. Now everyone wants me to wear it to work sometime soon – including my supervisors. (This is a workplace where one person has actually come to work in her pyjamas… so there’s not exactly a strict dress code.)
My jacket is currently sporting a button that reads “Paranoia, n. A healthy understanding of the way the universe works.” This made the day of a clerk at FYI Music over Christmas… apparently it hadn’t been a happy shopping morning. That same day, a customer in Red Robin went nuts over the “Team Banzai” emblem on the back of the jacket, and we spent about ten minutes swapping Buckaroo trivia.
Finally, I managed to watch “The Christmas Invasion” last night. That’s one of the darkest Dr. Who episodes I’ve ever seen. Someone makes a very nasty decision at the end, and though my knee-jerk reaction was to condemn it, I can sort of see both sides. I have to say that the new direction for the show impresses me… I never before expected to call an evening with the Doctor “thought-provoking”. I know I’ll be looking forward to “Torchwood” when that comes on. (Also because it’ll have Captain Jack Harkness in it.)
Somebody call Lunch Rescue
Last night, for no clear reason, my energy levels just evaporated. I had plenty of food, caffeine, and good company… but suddenly I just wanted to lie there, watch TV, and then go to bed. This morning was the same… I had to drag myself from bed to shower to desk. I only now feel like my head is clearing and my body is beginning to function again.
The main fallout from this is that my lunch for today is still sitting at home, neatly packed on top of the kitchen pantry.
D’oh.
I did get to watch our recorded copy of Thunderbirds over the holidays. Frankly, I expected it to be remarkably lame, but it wasn’t bad. There were some minor issues, but the production design was great – when the kids were climbing over the auxiliary craft, the vehicles all looked like Gerry Anderson models blown up to life-size – and the actress playing Lady Penelope understood that she was supposed to have fun with the role. I’d pick up the DVD eventually, even if the hardware didn’t get enough screen time.
Pulling the starter cord of my brain
I have lots of email to write, but the brain doesn’t work well before 9am. (Who am I kidding? If it ever works well at all, it certainly isn’t before noon.) So I am journalling instead.
I had no idea that Diane Duane wrote episodes of Transformers and Batman: TAS. This awards her bonus cool points.
nviiibrown linked The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny before I got around to it, but I’m doing so anyway ’cause I was gonna and ’cause the line about “Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan” is stuck in my head and will not come out.
Foo. It looks like this is as coherent as I’m gonna get for the moment.
Welcome 2006
Been away for a while, again. December was a rough month for me; one of the high points was the sinus infection that kept me feverish, nauseated, and flat on my back for all of Christmas weekend. On the other hand, raininva trumped her Valentine’s Day gift to me with an even more geeky present: a 30GB iPod video. Dang, but that thing is small. It’s full of anime and British SF right now, but even with video-on-the-go I never have time to watch anything right now.
Back in April, I barely resisted a rant about SF fans and reviewers. However, this review of the “Starship Troopers” novel pushed the rant to the surface again.
