My wife hangs out with Victor Davion
(Actually, probably not – they’re associated with rival Houses. But anyway.)
Rain’s now an official part of the Battletech universe, allowed to pilot any medium-weight ‘Mech from the “Age of Destruction” or later. (Yes, that could well mean Hunchbacks some day. *shudder*)
Meet House Kurita MechWarrior Reign O’Broin (time-travel does such terrible things to spelling). Personally, I think she’s a lost Kerensky; but that’s just me.
Lucky seven rolls around
Happy seventh anniversary to my beloved wife raininva!
I don’t know what the traditional seventh anniversary gift is, but it probably has nothing to do with the gifts Rain and I got for each other (both of which can likely be viewed at Rising Star).
I love you, Rain!
Standing Mode
raininva and I watched Robot Jox this weekend – I hadn’t seen it since the early nineties. I liked the mech designs better than I did when I first saw it, and Gary Graham’s an old genre friend now (once considered for Captain Sisko, according to the IMDB). But the script is still ungood. My favorite bit is still the one where the bad guy uses a prohibited ranged weapon during a match, causing the death of hundreds of spectators, and the referees just shrug and say “do-over!”
Contrast this to Gunhed, which has a cooler mech and more interesting characters, but is confusingly edited and is willing to let the audience make up their own explanations for a bunch of plot points. There was enough left unanswered in that flick that I was easily able to steal the whole plot for a Shadowrun game without giving too much away to the players. Still, I prefer it.
I’m trying to make a mental list of live-action “giant robot” movies that are worth spending 90 minutes or so on. Iron Man #28 looks good, but I don’t know if it will ever be dubbed or subbed. And though I love it for camp, I’m not sure I can bring myself to include the first Power Rangers Movie.
Speaking of such, I’ve procured the Cutey Honey live-action flick, which will go into the “to be watched” queue after the latest Orion Slave Girl episode of “Enterprise” and this week’s “Doctor Who”. The movie’s looking very cheesy, which of course is just what I’d be looking for.
The other serious Whovian at my office wants me to bring in the Whoman DVD that I still owe rubinpdf money for. I will do so. He has been warned 🙂
Booklist: I re-read Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, and am trying to finish his Beyond This Horizon, but the latter’s just not grabbing me. OTOH, the local library had a hardcover of Larry Niven’s Ringworld’s Children, which I’m enjoying much much more than The Ringworld Throne. It’s feeling more like SF than the “fallen-civilization fantasy” that Niven admittedly loves, but I think is a bit mined out. I’ve got another nonfiction library book on the OSS to read after that.
Wow. This got long.
Technicon 2005
I’ve always liked Niven’s Laws. I don’t slavishly agree with them, but they are an excellent source of topics to ponder.
This leads to the fact that I’ve just deleted a lengthy rant about SF/fantasy fans who, despite entreaties from their favorite authors that they start thinking for themselves, are still want to be told what to think and what to believe. The only thing we humans got that the rest of the animal kindgom didn’t is a more complex brain. It’s way past time that we as a race consider trying out some of its higher gears, just to see what happens, you know?
Ok, wow, Technicon report, cool.
Eight years and (happily) counting!
Sunday night raininva and I celebrated both an early Valentine’s Day, and a late anniversary of the day we began a serious relationship. We drove out to one of Rain’s favorite restaurants as she told me about the incredible gift she’d got me that would blow me away.
Well, we got settled at the table and she presented me with my gift – the first season of Gargoyles on DVD. Now, that was certainly cool and something I’m pleased to have in my collection, but it didn’t quite measure up to the hype she’d been giving me. But I played along, and told her I was very pleased with the gift (not hard to do, since I did like it).
She said, “Yeah, I’m glad you like it; though I did get you a backup gift in case you didn’t.” And she hands me a 1 GB iPod shuffle.
iPod!
An iPod has spent quite a long stretch on my list of “things I’d like to have but I’m not holding my breath”. And I have to admit it’s keen to have a device which plays hours and hours of music on a single charge, with no moving parts besides the control switch. And it’s tiny, and weighs nothing!
A passing waitress saw me looking at The Precious and said, “You must have been a very good boy lately!”
Not really. But my sweetie loves me 🙂
*****
Rain got a nail in her Pontiac’s right rear tire Friday night, and assuming the tire was unsalvageable, we headed to Wal-Mart on Sunday afternoon for a replacement. There was a five-hour wait there! I swear, I’m going to start boycotting Wal-Marts not because of any political feeling, but because they are always overcrowded and scary. I want to start bringing a machete when I go to the Superstore down here!
So, I was about to admit defeat – Wal-Mart was impossible, and everything else was closed – when I saw a Shell station with a bunch of tires propped outside; I rolled the dice and pulled in. Turns out there was a friendly good-ol-boy in there who wasn’t even busy, and had the tire plugged and airtight in 15 minutes, and even re-inflated the spare for us. Only charged about 15 bucks, too!
Here’s some karma for you, guy. You deserve it.
Best-laid plans gang aft agley
I’m quite pleased! My work is giving me an extra hour to vote tomorrow; I think I’ll take either a long lunch or a late morning. I’m loving getting up an hour later by my body’s clock, but I know all too well that I’ll adjust soon. And I’m gonna hate driving home at night for the next few months.
This morning, I gave all the buttons on my radio the chance to hold my attention by playing some music. Sadly, they all insisted on taking phone calls instead, so they lost to the mp3 player.
I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to VTSFFC Halloween – especially since I’d been looking forward to it for months 🙁 But 2 tanks of gas hit my check card a lot harder than they used to, and I just couldn’t swing it. Those VTSFFCers I don’t see at MarsCon, I hope to see at Technicon.
Since my original Saturday plans didn’t work out, I ended up going to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Naro theater down here. It was a pretty fun show, with some good cast members and excellent costumes. It suffered from “line creep” – so much shouting of lengthy response lines that 75% of the movie’s drowned out – but hell, it’s not like I don’t know all the dialogue already. Yes, I dressed up 🙂 They run their show about once a month, and I’m tempted to make it a repeating thing for me.
Sunday was a very good day. In a seeming non-sequitur, I want to mention that I love raininva very very much. She’s always reminding me why I’m so happy to be with her.
Rutan’s servers feeling the Monday
I guess I won’t be watching SpaceShipOne’s attempt at the X-Prize. Looks like they’ve been slashdotted. 🙁
The good news of the morning is: my lady is once again living under the same roof as I am. It’s amazing how good it felt to wake up this morning knowing that!
Edit: based on the 5 seconds of video I managed to grab before the badnwidth again freaked out, it looks like they made it. Yay 🙂
The House Of Borg
raininva left to head back home a few hours ago. She got to leave work early Friday, so managed to arrive here in time to see the new house in the light. Turns out I picked out a place she approves of, so that’s one less worry for me. Rain’s already posted pictures she took Friday, and we’re planing where to put stuff – at least we know we’ll have room for all our junk. I hope we can start having people over more often now that we have more room.
The weekend felt good, like we squeezed a lot of quality time into 48 hours or so – and this time, I’ll see her again in less than a week, so the missing her is a little more tolerable this time out. It was fun talking about all the plans we are making, and guessing about what’s to come in the future. The one sour note was the 45-minute wait for lunch at the new Red Robin down here – but the management was very apologetic, and comped our food. Our waitress was polite, but a bit spacy, and I’m not sure English was her primary language; apparently, the kitchen staff was completely out of it. Guess they still have bugs in the system to deal with.
I get to spend the week carrying stuff over to the house a few boxes at a time, trying to sort out what I can do without for a week. (The computer, for example, will be one of the last things moved *grin*.) If anyone would like the new address, e-mail me (that isn’t changing) and I’ll pass it along. Same with the phone # once I have one!
