Disk Fragmentation
Cindy Arthur – shrewlet – is being transported to Roanoke Memorial Hospital because of a herniated disk.
Rhaps is coordinating her care from down there. He reports that surgery is very likely.
It’s all I know now. Stay tuned.
20 SF Movies
There’s a “25 Things About Me” meme going around Facebook. Rather than just re-post it here, I was inspired by John Scalzi’s column to write “20 Memories of Sci-Fi Movies of My Youth”. Agreed, it’s not quite a catchy a title, but I can live with that.
1) The first SF movie I saw in the theaters was “Star Wars”, when I was seven. I remember seeing the commercials and thinking, “Meh, might be okay.” Yeah, underestimated that one a bit. I do not remember “Episode 4” atop the opening crawl. The John Williams soundtrack spent long hours in the following months accompanying my pretending to blast TIE fighters from a laser gun turret.
2) The next one I recall seeing in the theaters was “Starcrash”. This would only have been a good movie had I been old enough to enjoy Caroline Munro’s outfit. I can’t remember too much about it now, which may be a good thing, but I’m tempted to find a copy and enjoy the badness from a whole new perspective.
3) “Close Encounters” confused and frightened me, especially the part where Richard Dreyfuss starts losing his sanity. I didn’t understand the ending at that age, either. In fact, to this day, there’s a lot of unexplained bits having to do with the aliens, which is just as well; I suspect that any explanation from Spielberg would have been far lamer than the mystery.
4) While we’re on such movies, I was mildly traumatized by the laser surgery and ‘cannibal’ robot in “Logan’s Run”, and I didn’t understand the whole “Carousel” thing at all. That’s another movie which is probably unwise to watch before puberty, especially in a midnight showing in a darkened house.
5) “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”: Wow, new Klingon ships. Whoa whoa, new Klingons! Triple whoa: I am in love with the new Enterprise model! Okay, excellent, what’s going to happen for the next ninety minutes? Oh. Not much. I’m glad I never took it in to my head to get myself one of that movie’s uniforms.
Brief updates
- 07:55 Spent the last two evening battling a virus and trojan on Starr’s Windows laptop. final score: Michael 2, Malware 0. #
- 10:06 Why is attempting to focus my brain into serious writing causing me panic attacks? Wondering if an incense and yoga investment would help. #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
Evil wares
I had plans for last night. Not especially ambitious ones, but I knew how I wanted to spend the evening. Unfortunately, it turns out that Starr’s computer picked up a couple of viruses from somewhere, causing WoW to crash on launch as well as blocking most malware removal sites and large swaths of microsoft.com. I spent about three hours fighting them, getting one virus off the machine and restoring her WoW function, but the “Backdoor” trojan is resisting all attempts to remove it. Grrr.
Slept pretty good last night, but traffic was heck this morning. We had a little light rain, which apparently caused everyone to panic, so I got in a little late. I have no desire to be grumpy all day, though, so I’m looking for some music to cheer me up a bit.
Along those lines, I enjoyed MarsCon’s Friday night performance by The Cassettes, so I picked up their latest album – on cassette, of course – which included a card for free digital download. No DRM, either. It’s pretty good stuff, and any band that includes a home-made theremin is worth some attention.
I just needed to look up a high voltage traveling arc for another reference. For some reason, this in itself has cheered me up a bit.
Bowling for Dilithium
I don’t even know who won the Super Bowl. As the “Mythbusters” marathon unreeled in the background, I spent the day doing laundry and dishes, finding our digital camera which has been lost for three months, and making a little box for the new kitten’s food bowl. The box has an opening through which only she should be able to fit, therefore keeping the other cats from stealing her kitten food. Older cats seem to love kitten food.
Anyway, the Internet’s allowed me to catch up on some of the Super Bowl movie trailers. J.J. Abrams has done me a favor, I think; it’s finally gotten through my head that this is not the Star Trek I grew up on, and that I need to stop worrying and just go along for the ride, or not. Right now, I’m still on the side of giving it a shot – if nothing else, it’s audacious, and the franchise needs “audacious” badly. Besides, I’m a bit impressed with their method of crowbarring this story into 40 years of canon whether it ought to fit or not.
Plus, Enterprise appears to have a LOT of firepower these days. In that one half-second clip, she seems to be absolutely dumping phasers and photorps on whatever’s upset her. Battletech players, remember the “alpha strike”? “Screw the heat, screw the ammo, fire everything!!!”
Having said that: the Ninth Doctor as the arms-dealing mastermind behind Cobra is awesome, but I already miss his mask. And the Baroness’ bodysuit. Also, Land of the Lost didn’t look too bad, once we take out the bits with 20-century junk lying around. And the bits with Will Ferrell. Oh, wait…
