“Merovingian” is hard to say
I finished The DaVinci Code this weekend. To the point: I’m glad it was a library book. I’d have been okay paying paperback price for it, but it wasn’t worth hardcover cost to me. The actual “These are coded messages in DaVinci’s works” part was interesting enough that I plan to look some of them up when I have the time, but some of them appear to depend heavily on the bias of the researcher. On the other hand, the supposed content of the secret messages startled me not at all: I’d already read about it in GURPS Warehouse 23 (yes, a role-playing game sourcebook). The remaining plot was basic thriller stuff, adequate but not fascinating. The movie will probably do quite well.
I’m happy my cell phone is working again! It got wet last week, and appeared dead as a doornail; but once it dried out completely and the battery recharged, it went back to beeping happily. So that’s a surprise expense I don’t have to worry about.
raininva has a huge article in the new issue of Undefeated magazine talking about Mechwarrior: Age of Destruction, with color CGI ‘Mech illustrations and everything. Kelly Bonilla’s design notes are kind of fun too. According to the website, it will be on shelves Jan 18th.
That’s all for now. The clock just struck 9, so time to get to work.
The Matrix was built near Radford
I had no idea that William Gibson was originally from western Virginia.
I’ve not been too impressed with anything he’s written since Mona Lisa Overdrive, but Neuromancer still holds up well. If you’ve ever played the Shadowrun RPG, you should certainly read it.
Ooops, almost forgot my towel
Back a few years ago, there was a a BBC Radio program called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” broadcast in two Phases of 6 episodes each. This program spawned two novels (with a slightly altered plot), a computer game (with a further altered plot), a TV series (with a even more altered plot), a towel (with no plot to speak of), and an upcoming Hollywood film (three guesses).
There were three more “Hitchhiker’s” novels which have not been adapted into any other form and thus needed no plot alterations… until now. BBC Radio has posted streaming audio of Phase Three, Epsiode One on their “Listen Again” website. Episode Two will be streamed live tomorrow, and posted to “Listen Again” sometime Thursday.
If you have a little trouble following the plot at the beginning of the first episode, worry not. We all are (see above).
All Virginia’s Parties
Quite a weekend! I burned myself out just a teeny bit, but I did have a lot of fun.
Friday morning, I decided I’d get right on the road after work, so I threw a weekend bag into the back seat. I even got to leave work a bit early to take care of an iMac repair at CompUSA. It was a good thing I did leave early, because there were 30-60 minute delays at every tunnel out of Norfolk, and if you’re heading north, you pretty much have to take a tunnel.
I’ll spare you the next in my ongoing series of traffic rants, because I still showed up at kittykatya‘s place just in time for lekythen and pulp_tarentino to return from an errand. Spent a couple hours catching up with J.J., whom I haven’t seen in 6 years. We’ve both grown up a bit, and I almost felt that we clicked better as reunited friends than we did when we were dating. So that was quite good.
Friday night and Saturday morning were spent catching up with Alex & Barb & Chris (look, alphabetical). Unfortunately, I had to head off before J.J. came back for her stuff, so I didn’t get a final goodbye. It was a good thing I left when I did, because the sky opened up as I left, and I lost another 90 minutes heading back down 95. Luckily, platypusgirl and krysturtle were willing to accept a soaked, bedraggled Borg into their home and I had a very good time at their party.
I met many people, some of whom I recognized from con meetings, but few of whom I can remember their names 🙂 The party was fun – lotsa people, good food, nervous kitties. We established that cat toys are far better for amusing small children than small-children toys are, and I have finally seen more than 50% of “The Goonies”.
Sunday, I napped a lot. I also tried to track down used copies of the “Riverworld” books – so far, no luck, but there are lots more places to look.
Phew.
I want ten 1-yard lengths of PVC pipe and don’t ask
Contractors are using heavy power tools less than 25 feet from me as some remodeling goes on. Noisy only begins to describe it; at one point they were using some kind of pneumatic punch which made me jump 18 inches evey time it went off. This has been going on for weeks.
Today, I’m prepared – I have headphones and iTunes. I can still hear them, of course, but I can ignore them much easier. I think they know that, too; today they’ve decided to set off the building alarm 3 or 4 times for my office enjoyment. Oy.
Forged in the fires of Home Depot: While I was snickering, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone still goes to “Toy Depot” to buy stuff for, you know, actual home improvement.
Finished “To Say Nothing of the Dog” last night. Often funny in a “heh” way, and an interesting look at a modern time-traveler stuck in Victorian England, but it was another example of characters dragged helplessly through the plot for a couple hundred pages. My own preference is for protagonists who get some kind of grip on things sooner or later.
If game materials are dangerous, what does that make me?
NYC Ferry guard tries to confiscate role-playing book as “inappropriate”.
I’m not even going to be sarcastic about this. This just makes me angry, and sad. Are we really going to have to give up all our freedoms one at a time in the interest of “public safety”?
Edit: According to Greg Costikyan’s weblog, the New York Waterway folks are very red-faced about this and are attempting to get more details in order to take corrective action. Urge to kill falling… falling…
Monday POEE e-supplement
Officials discuss postponing Election Day, fearing terrorism: would this not be another case of handing terrorists the very victory they ask for, that of disrupting our society and political process? Assuming an attack was planned, would not competent terrorists be able to adjust their plans for a postponement? Do we really want to give our government the power to delay elections as long as they feel necessary? When I was younger, I read the Reader’s Digest version of The R Document; a tale of a government conspiracy to declare martial law in the US and suspend the Bill of Rights indefinitely. Of course, I enjoyed it as a fantasy tale that “can’t happen here”.
Speaking of reading, I finished Perdido Street Station this weekend. I picked up the book after hearing much hype about this winner of multiple awards and runner-up for others. Book review
Year 6’s Title
It’s called Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
Since some people here would be interested.
Hand’s not here.
I’d like to echo sentiments posted by snidegrrl a few months back: morning radio, shut up and play some damn music! I don’t mind headlines, I appreciate the weather, I can even deal with sports scores. But I don’t want to hear your views on welfare, library fines, or your cute little call-in battle of the sexes. Play some music! It’s your own fault that I’m not listening to your advertisers – I waited for 10 minutes, but finally gave up and switched over to my mp3 player which never makes me listen to anyone’s opinion.
On the other hand, it’s a cloudless, low-humidity 70 degrees this morning, so the start of the day isn’t all that bad. And I finally fixed the space bar on my work keyboard.
One can play the Lord of the Rings CCG online, buying virtual starter decks and boosters and playing 24/7 against people all over the globe. The tutorial is free, runs on OS X and Windows, and it looked like an easy way to learn the game, so I downloaded it. I’ve played 10 games, and been wiped out every time. Am I just not any good at collectible games? Does my brain just not have the correct logic paths? I know I’m a newbie playing against a computer, but still I thought I’d have won once. Or maybe even just barely lost. *sigh*
Entry-level Tolkien fans, save yourself some time! The Silmarillion in 1000 Words Surprisingly accurate, too.
Disappointed
After hearing over and over how good a book it is, I decided to pick up George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones”. I was wary… when the first book of a series is 800 pages, it’s generally a bad sign. Not always, though, so in I jumped.
I’m 120 pages in. Can someone tell me why I should finish this thing?
