Steve Roby

A peaceful, if not exactly quiet, Wednesday night

2009-11-05T01:28:15Z

Laura, Spencer the cat, and I are hanging out in the basement rec room. I'm poking around on the Internet and (the reason it's not quiet) she's playing the demo of Left for Dead 2 on the Xbox with a few online friends. I played it with her earlier, and it looks like it'll be as much zombie-killing fun as the first game was. I've been playing the second GTA IV add-on, The Ballad of Gay Tony, and I'm finding it a lot more frustrating than the first one, The Lost and the Damned, because of a mission involving a helicopter. The controls blow. That's why I haven't finished the final mission in the core game, too -- another damn helicopter mission -- and I'm stuck less than halfway through this one. Otherwise, fun. I love the Liberty City environment and this adds a few new activities.

Finished the Lovecraft Unbound anthology earlier today and enjoyed it, but there were at least a couple of stories that had nothing Lovecraftian about them, including Laird Barron's story. The book was never supposed to be a collection of typical Cthulhu Mythos pastiches, which is a good thing; not all of Lovecraft's own stories fit into that category. But Barron's story, though well-written, reminds me more of pre-Stephen King horror stories like The Exorcist or The Omen or Hammer horror stuff, with spooky devil worship stuff that doesn't really fit into Lovecraft's worldview. Aside from that quibble, the book's quite good and has a lot of well-known contributors. Worth investigating.

We watched the latest BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma last night; that's the fourth version we've seen now. Great cast: Romola Garai (I Capture the Castle), Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting), Michael Gambon (the Harry Potter movies), Tamsin Greig (Love Soup), Jodhi May (Tipping the Velvet), etc. Four versions of Emma since 1972 may seem excessive, but this was a four-hour version; the last two were two-hour movies (one with Gwyneth Paltrow, the other with Kate Beckinsale). Austen adaptations tend to benefit from the extra time. The 90-minute ITV adaptations in 2007 (Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion) had their charms, including actors like Billie Piper, but the stories really suffered.

So... back to rewatching the RTD era Doctor Who in preparation for the end of the Tenth Doctor? Or do I start reading The Romulan War? Decisions, decisions....

Halloween

2009-10-31T18:54:03Z

The rain stopped, the temperature is unusually warm for this time of year, but the wind is keeping things interesting. Laura got a very large pumpkin from one of her co-workers -- so large, we're not even going to try to carve it, because after we finally managed to open it up, we realized the flesh of the pumpkin is a few inches thick. So it's just sitting out by the front step. (Yeah, kid, you just go ahead and kick it.) We have a string of little pumpkin lights that we'll have out, too. We have neighbours who go so overboard that some kids skip us entirely. At least they'll know we're open for business.

I'm going to take out the ol' portable stereo and play some appropriate music. Can't find the goth mix I made a few years ago, naturally. So I'm thinking of burning a bunch of Lisa Gerrard songs from Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil albums, focusing on the strange and eerie stuff. Then maybe something by the Caretaker, who does spooky, atmospheric music based on distorted loops from old dance band 78s, inspired by the ballroom scenes in The Shining. Or Nadja, the ambient doom/shoegazer metal band. Or go the goth route with Siouxsie and the Banshees.

We can usually expect at least a hundred and fifty kids to come by, and we didn't buy as much stuff as last year, when I was giving three things to every kid. We'll be a little more restrained this year.

I like Halloween because... I don't know. Maybe it's the fun of having an activity that involves going out in the dark, at a time of year when it's starting to get cold. There have been years when there's been a bit of snow falling before Halloween arrives. I loved it as a kid, and as an adult, even without kids, it's fun. Just sit out on the front porch, watch all the kids having a blast, eat a few candies myself, and have a beer or two...

Reading and watching

2009-10-21T01:22:17Z

I just read Seamus Cooper's novel Mall of Cthulhu. Pleasant enough read, not as funny as I expected, not as serious or as scary as it could have been, but it was generally engaging, and the scenes in R'lyeh were... unique. One problem I had with it was that it had Lovecraft's entities existing in the same world as a lot of generic supernatural stuff -- vampires, werewolves, etc. Lovecraft didn't have much use for that kind of stuff; he thought it was dated and played out, and as he progressed in his career, there was a trend toward seeing his creations more as aliens than as gods, and making his work more SF than supernatural horror.

Anyway, the main characters are a messed up slacker still traumatized by killing a bunch of vampires ten years earlier and the woman whose life he saved back then, now an FBI agent. Without getting too spoilery, suffice to say that they get involved with a new form of Cthulhu cult: angry white conservatives. That's one of the nice touches, one of the moments where Cooper has updated Lovecraft for the 21st century. It's a breezy read and it's good to see something that isn't trying to imitate Lovecraft's style. It might have been better if Cooper had committed more to the horror or comedy side of the story instead of going down the middle, but people looking for Lovecraft in a post-Buffy, post-X-Files, post-Shaun of the Dead world may enjoy it.

As for watching... we watched the first episode of Stargate Universe, and even with Robert Carlyle (so great in Rebus Trainspotting, and so much more) I dunno if we'll stick with it. Probably give it a couple more episodes, but we have not traditionally been a Stargate-watching household. We have a few eps of FlashForward on the DVR but haven't seen them yet. And I finally finished watching DS9 on DVD. Damn, what a show. Best. Star Trek. Ever. Just an amazing group of characters, a great cast, and a lot of great stories.

General DVD rant: the Star Trek DVDs have accurate subtitling. Why do the Doctor Who DVDs and the Babylon 5 DVDs have subtitles that drop words, phrases, and sometimes sentences? I sometimes watch these shows on one TV while Laura's gaming on the other, and her gunshots and explosions can drown out dialogue, so I occasionally have to rely on the subtitling.

Another bit of TV I loved recently: Synth Britannia. Don't think anyone reading this lj would be interested, but you never know.

In which I am not hep with your crazy beatnik lingo

2009-10-17T00:24:30Z

I've been seeing "Oh snap!" being used in two diametrically opposed ways. Sometimes it seems to mean "BURN!" and other times it seems to mean "W00T!" What goes on?

Laura's playing Halo 3: ODST

2009-09-30T01:46:07Z

... and damn, it's distracting to hear Nathan Fillion's voice (and, every so often, Tricia Helfer's). Worlds colliding! Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk add some more Fireflyness, but I just don't notice their voices so much. I have to admit, I like the fact that the two big SF stars cast for one of the biggest SF video games are Canadian.

Recurring dreams

2009-09-14T17:24:51Z

If I'm going to keep having the recurring dreams generated by getting laid off last year, I hope more of them do what last night's did, and mutate in unexpected ways. Like having an alien invasion, vast starships landing, while we try to find our way on foot through a city at night in a blackout, waiting for the alien interrogators to come...

Beatles Rock Band

2009-09-12T16:52:01Z

Laura decided to buy this the other day, and we've played a fair bit of it. Looking at it as an example of musical video games, it feels a lot easier to play on medium difficulty than the other Rock Band and Guitar Hero games we've played, and the main storyline doesn't take a heck of a long time to get through. We suspect that this is because a lot of people who've never played one of these games before are going to pick this one up for the Beatles angle, and no one wants the newbies to give up frustrated. Visually it's very striking, and there's a good selection of songs.

As for the Beatlesness of it... we don't have a lot of Beatles stuff in this house, because for a very long time I soaked up the Beatles from so many different directions (cartoons, radio, friends' albums, etc). that it just didn't seem necessary to actually own any of it. If anything, I wanted to avoid the Beatles. But hearing them in the game, having to pay more attention to the songs, almost makes me want to go out and buy some CDs. Some of the old familiar songs sound fresh and fun, and some that weren't quite as familiar, the ones I'd heard but couldn't instantly place from reading the titles -- e.g., "And Your Bird Can Sing," "If I Needed Someone" -- sound almost revelatory. Having listened to so much other music over the years, I can hear connections to other bands and other songs I might not have made before. Which is not to say there aren't some duds. A lot of the late Beatles songs played in the last level or two of the game sound like self-indulgent jams rather than well-crafted songs. I don't think I'll ever develop any kind of appreciation for "I've Got a Feeling," for example. In fact, most of the songs from the last level, the Rooftop Concert, left me thinking the Beatles should have broken up a bit earlier.

Overall, it's a fun introduction to the music of the Beatles combined with a simplified and streamlined look at their career. I'd kind of like to see the game get opened up a little to include some solo material by the various ex-Beatles, but I really doubt that will happen.

Reading and watching

2009-08-27T01:49:58Z

Just read 1974, the first book in David Peace's UK crime series, the Red Riding Quartet, and now I want to read everything else he's written. Even The Damned UTD, which is about soccer/football. 1974 is grim and unrelenting, like the darkest moments of Ellroy, Pelecanos, Denise Mina, David Lawrence... and very well written, too.

Enjoying the ongoing DS9 DVD viewing. Even the lesser episodes tend to have a good b-story or some great character moments. And Trials and Tribble-ations... I must have had a big smile on my face through the whole show. As fun as TV gets.

May also do a sort of Maghreb film festival building up to my next viewing of Casablanca. I've just watched Morocco, with Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, for the second time. It's more than a decade older than Casablanca, so it feels a lot stagier and less naturalistic; Cooper's performance doesn't help. It presents a much more exotic vision of its time and place, but also a more carnal one, being pre-code. The French Foreign Legion angle makes this feel a lot older than Casablanca, and the chemistry between Cooper and Dietrich isn't really convincing, but Dietrich herself is great. After this... maybe the Pepe le Moko movies (the original 1937 French film Pepe le Moko, the 1938 American remake Algiers, and the 1948 American remake Casbah) or the Marx Bros' A Night in Casablanca (far from their best, but relevant). Maybe even Bob and Bing in The Road to Morocco, which I've never seen. Haven't been spending enough time on old movies lately.

And I thought Orson Scott Card was a putz...

2009-08-13T12:19:16Z

SF and fantasy novelist John C. Wright on moral decay, the evilness of leftists, the oppressiveness of political correctness, and the especially evil EEEEVIL of homosexuality: More Diversity and More Perversity in the Future! It's from a couple weeks ago, but I just saw a post about it called Communique from the Continent of Stupidea on Jeff VanderMeer's blog .

Here's a little taste of Wright's wrongness:

The head of Sci-Fi channel has contritely promised to include more homosex in future shows, and to do it nonchalantly, just as if this abomination is normal and natural and worthy of no comment. The shows will not actually come out and say sexual perversion has no bad side effects. They won't actually lie and tell you homosex won't destroy your life. But they will imply the lie. They will play along. It's only polite! It's so tolerant!

According to wikipedia, he's a recent convert to a conservative brand of Roman Catholicism. As a kid, I was raised Catholic, and I became wary of people who had conversion experiences. If you're raised in a religion, you believe it, of course, but you also see how real people live in and around and with it. It's a part of the fabric of your life. People who have conversion experiences, on the other hand, tend to find something that they can latch onto as the answer to everything. Suddenly everything makes sense and everything can only be seen through the prism of the new beliefs and everyone who doesn't share those beliefs is wrong and everyone who takes those beliefs for granted is wrong. I've met religious converts and political converts and it works the same way. And, true, I'm not a Catholic any more, but I didn't have a conversion experience, I just fell away gradually. I can't pinpoint the moment when I was emphatically no longer Catholic, because it happened over a period of years. I don't proselytize and I'm not an activist, which is generally untrue of people who undergo major conversion experiences. Wright's got the conversion experience, and he's got it bad.

Some of Wright's books have gotten rave reviews. Fortunately, I don't own any.

On rewatching Animal House

2009-08-10T12:29:46Z

It's been ten years or more since I last watched Animal House (which was still hugely popular when I started university, three years after the movie came out), and there were lots of little things that I noticed. Karen Allen looking so young. John Belushi at his peak. And, unfortunately, some scenes that are kind of uncomfortable to watch for their racism and sexism. And then there's the fact that some of the Deltas have, in their own way, as much arrogant assholishness about them as the rich kid fraternity. But overall it's still a great movie. It's funny, it has some great performances, some great gags, and it's a lot smarter than most of the movies that have imitated it.

Maybe tonight I'll watch Spinal Tap. Haven't seen that in a long, long time.

Meme time

2009-08-05T20:30:30Z

Snurched from everyone. You know who you are.

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
There's no difference.

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
As far as I'm concerned, any place is romantic if Laura's there. But she'd probably say the Trattoria Italia.

3. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Celebrating getting a new job. But I still don't have a new job.

4. How many colleges did you attend?
Americans use college and university interchangeably, it seems. In Canada, college usually means community college -- postsecondary practical career-oriented stuff. I went to one university.

5. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
It was presentable enough for grocery shopping.

6. What are your thoughts on gas prices?
Can't say I have any at the moment.

7. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
No idea, but given that I was barely awake, it probably wasn't anything worth remembering.

8. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
I'm not really liking this book very much.

9. Do you miss being a child?
No.

10. What errand/chore do you despise?
We have a cat. I will say no more.

11. Get up early or sleep in?
Somewhere in between.

12. Have you found real love yet?
Yes.

13. Favourite lunch meat?
None of the above.

14. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
I don't go very often.

15. Beach or lake?
Beach, I guess. Wouldn't mind at all if someone gave me a free week at Pictou Lodge, where I could look out over the Northumberland Strait.

16. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
There are a lot of different questions packed into one in there, depending what you're thinking about when you're thinking marriage. I'm married, but it means something different to me than it does to someone who thinks of it as a religious ceremony.

17. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?
Sopranos, though I missed the last two or three seasons.

18. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
No idea. There are famous people I find interesting but have no idea whether they'd be fun to hang out with and talk to. Besides, if I was hanging out with Kate Bush or John Foxx or Brian Eno or David Bowie, I'd rather hear what they have to say than what they have to eat. Make it a few drinks with, instead of dinner.

19. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?
I don't drive, but I wiped out on my bicycle once or twice as a kid. No injuries. Laura's been in a couple of accidents, not her fault.

20. Ever use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?
No, but I used them in training exercises.

21. Ring tone?
It sounds like a phone ringing. I had a song as a ringtone and I rarely heard it go off. There's something about rings that people who grew up with old phones are conditioned to respond to.

22. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
I've pretty much always brushed my teeth in the washroom.

23. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?
Never been to California, but San Francisco would be cool.

23. Do you go to church?
No.

24. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?
I don't have a choice on this one. I'm happy with the relationship I have, and I lost my job. I would have been wonderfully happy not changing either one.

25. How old are you?
46.

26. Do you have a go to person?
Not really.

27. Are you where you want to be in life?
Like Allyn said, I'm not really sure where I want to be in life. To expand on that, though, I know that this is not where I want to be.

28. Growing up, what were your favourite cartoons?
Bugs Bunny.

29. What about you do you think has changed the most?
I'm less of a pessimist than I was as a kid sometimes. Ironically.

30. Looking back at high school were they the best years of your life?
No. Hell, no.

31. Are there times you still feel like a kid?
Yep.

32. Did you ever own troll dolls?
No, but a girl gave me a troll thing to stick on the end of a pencil once. I was 26 at the time, though, so it was shoved in the back of a drawer and forgotten for a decade or two, then thrown out.

33. Did you have a pager?
No.

34. Where was the hang out spot when you were a teenager?
No idea. I was the kind of kid who went home, did homework, and read science fiction books.

35. Were you the type of kid you would want your children to hang out with?
Well, at least the kind of kid as seen in 34 wouldn't be getting into any kind of trouble...

Top 100 science fiction movies

2009-08-04T23:16:57Z

omahastar just posted this list from a website called Total Sci-fi Online, with which I am not familiar. So I'll go through the list, as he did, and bold the ones I've seen, and add a comment or two.

1 - Blade Runner
2 - 2001 - A Space Odyssey
3 - Star Wars
4 - Alien
5 - Metropolis
6 - The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original version; I have no interest in the remake)
7 - The Terminator
8 - Planet of the Apes (I saw the remake, too, but I regret the fact that Hollywood thought it needed to exist)
9 - E. T. (I have no interest in seeing this)
10 - Solaris (1972) (I want to see this; I really like the American version, and I've read the novel)
11 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind (boy, this really hasn't aged well at all)
12 - Forbidden Planet
13 - The Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars)
14 - A Trip to the Moon (1902 Georges Melies)
15 - Aliens
16 - Silent Running (been a long time since I last saw it, but I don't think it deserves to be anywhere near as high as this)
17 - Brazil
18 - Akira (1988)
19 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
20 - Total Recall (this is, it must be said, an awful movie)
21 - The Matrix
22 - Tron (it looked like a movie for kids at the time, and I felt too darn old, and I've never felt the urge to check it out, which is why I'm as excited about Tron Legacy as I am about the GI Joe and Transformers movies: they exist to meet someone else's need for nostalgia, not mine)
23 - The Thing (1982 version) (both versions are worth seeing)
24 - RoboCop (overrated)
25 - Jurassic Park (I've seen bits and pieces, but never the whole thing)
26 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
27 - A Clockwork Orange
28 - The Fifth Element (this just looks too damn silly)
29 - La Jetee (1962, Chris Marker, remade as Twelve Monkeys) (I've seen La Jetee and liked it; haven't seen Twelve Monkeys)
30 - Sleeper
31 - The Fly (1986)
32 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
33 - Westworld
34 - Mad Max 2
35 - Return of the Jedi (Star Wars)
36 - Back to the Future (never really cared enough to see this one)
37 - WALL-E (seen a fair amount of it but not the whole thing; fortunately, my niece has the DVD)
38 - The Fantastic Planet (1973 Rene Lalous)
39 - The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, David Bowie)
40 - Things to Come (1936)
41 - 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
42 - The Abyss
43 - Quartermass 2 (1957)
44 - This Island Earth
45 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (one of these days I'll get around to this)
46 - Delicatessen (1991)
47 - Dark Star (1974) (to be honest, considering its cult following, I was kinda underwhelmed)
48 - The Andromeda Strain (1971)
49 - The Omega Man
50 - Stalker (1979)
51 - Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
52 - Escape From New York (I've seen a little of it)
53 - The Invisible Man (1933)
54 - It Came From Outer Space
55 - Godzilla (1954)
56 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
57 - Minority Report
58 - Alphaville (1965) (definitely on my list of movies I want to see)
59 - Gattaca
60 - The Fountain (2006)
61 - Them!
62 - Videodrome (1983)
63 - Logan's Run (I really, really love this movie. That doesn't mean I think it's necessarily all that good.)
64 - Ghost in the Shell (1995)
65 - Repo Man (1984) (this should be much higher on this list)
66 - Children of Men (2006) (this should also be much higher on this list)
67 - Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
68 - Outland (this really does not belong in this list)
69 - A Boy and his Dog (to be honest, as with Dark Star, considering its cult following, I was kinda underwhelmed)
70 - Mad Max
71 - Donnie Darko
72 - Soylent Green
73 - Cube
74 - Moon (2009) (not yet, but I certainly intend to)
75 - Dark City
76 - Starship Troopers
77 - A Scanner Darkly
78 - The Quiet Earth (1985)
79 - Invaders From Mars (1953)
80 - Fantastic Voyage
81 - Barbarella
82 - Fahrenheit 451
83 - Twelve Monkeys
84 - Event Horizon
85 - Independence Day (this does not belong in this list)
86 - Altered States
87 - Stepford Wives
88 - Serenity
89 - Dune
90 - Primer (2004)
91 - Explorers
92 - THX 1138
93 - Star Trek (2009)
94 - Flash Gordon (1980)
95 - Galaxy Quest (this should be higher)
96 - Cocoon (1985)
97 - Stargate
98 - Predator
99 - Trancers (1985)
100 - Rollerball 1975

I thought there was some kind of law that Buckaroo Banzai had to be in all these top SF movie lists. I've only seen a few minutes of it, though what I saw generated the same reaction as Dark Star and A Boy and His Dog.

I've seen nearly two thirds of the movies. Can't say that I would rate all of them as worthy of inclusion in this list.

Let the Right One In

2009-08-01T22:55:40Z

Laura and I finally watched Let the Right One In. (She wanted to watch a high definition video because we got a new hdtv.) And it lived up to the hype. It's great that a genre movie can still get made that focuses on character and atmosphere instead of action. It's a quiet, slow, but spooky and disturbing movie. It takes a little getting used to, because there aren't any completely sympathetic characters -- Oskar, the protagonist, is kind of creepy and strange, and he's just a 12-year-old kid.

I like the fact that it's set in Sweden in winter. I love seeing movies and TV shows that are filmed in real winter and real snow. I live in a place with four different seasons but almost all filmed entertainment seems to be set in summer, with a little in spring and fall. I imagine winter is a pain for filming in, and you certainly won't get a real winter if you're filming in Hollywood or Vancouver or London. But I love winter. It's beautiful. And it looks beautiful in this movie.

So now I'm wondering whether to read the novel. I'm tempted, certainly. Anyone read it?

I used to live here, but it's all over now

2009-08-01T22:35:40Z

33 Via Venus, Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe, Ottawa, some time in the late '80s, probably:

"By Saturday, Shawn King will officially be the last man on the former Rockcliffe air base.

Today, without ceremony, the base is to officially close, with the last of 430 military homes save King's tidy blue Cape Cod closed up. Soon, workers will swarm over the 135-hectare site, boarding up homes that haven't already been shuttered due to vandalism."

From an article in yesterday's Ottawa Citizen.

My parents moved here in the summer of 1985, while I was out in Calgary for a summer job. They moved out in the early 1990s, when Dad retired from the military. i spent some time here between graduation and being able to afford my own apartment. All the base facilities aside from the houses were demolished a few years back. I'd moved into an apartment building not too far away and stayed there eleven years, until Laura and I bought our house. Haven't been on the base in a long damn time but it's still strange to think of a once thriving community becoming a ghost town.

Hey, kids! Comics!

2009-07-31T14:48:34Z

Went to my local comic shop yesterday to pick up the last couple weeks' worth of stuff. I'm way behind in actually reading the comics I get, which is why I don't talk about them much. Used to be comics day meant sprawling on the couch with a few CDs in the stereo, a large bottle of Coke and a snack nearby, and reading everything I just bought. This changed when Laura moved in. So now I let them pile up and then read a run of a particular title or two. With my memory, that can actually enhance the reading experience.

So, the stuff I just got and haven't read yet:

Conan the Cimmerian 12. I started buying Dark Horse's Conan comics out of nostalgia, and only meant to buy a few issues. Damn inertia. But Dark Horse has done well by Conan.

Doctor Who: Room With a Deja View. One-shot story. Will IDW keep doing this sort of thing when the ongoing series gets in gear?

Fall of Cthulhu: Nemesis 4. I'm not sure if Boom's Fall of Cthulhu comics really work for me, but, once again, inertia. I don't think I'd miss much by dropping them, though.

Farscape: Gone and Back 1. I haven't actually read any of the new Farscape comics yet, because I need to go back and watch a bit of the show to refresh my memory.

Gears of War 9. Laura and I love the games. Laura read the first novel and plans to read the second, so maybe I can get her to read these.

Halo Helljumper 1. Another game we love.

John Constantine Hellblazer 255-257. A couple issues somehow didn't show up in my box when they came out, but the store fixed that. I've been reading Hellblazer since the first issue. Funny how it's lasted longer than Swamp Thing, from which it spun off. Constantine's the complete opposite of Doctor Strange in nearly every respect, which is half the fun. It'd be nice if the horror elements could move beyond the hell and demons stuff and get into stranger areas, though.

Ignition City 4. Been curious about Warren Ellis for some time, so I picked up a couple Transmetropolitan books and the first Anna Mercury TPB, and decided to get this when it started, too.

Madame Xanadu 13. I could go on about the 1980s Madame Xanadu and how it morphed into the unfinished Scorpio Rose series for another publisher, and how that ended up in the back pages of Coyote and began to not be as good as it should have been, but that's not really all that relevant. You may have noticed a trend, though -- I don't read superheroes, but for some reason I enjoy comics involving magic.

New Avengers 55. okay, it's a superhero comic, but it's been dealing with the Sorcerer Supreme situation, so I'm reading it for that for the time being.

Star Trek: Mission's End 5 and Spock Reflections 1. I buy a lot of licenced properties, don't I?

Jane's World Volume 9: The Quest for Love. Now this was a surprise. It's been years since I've seen a Jane's World, and didn't notice this was coming, but it was still on my list. And in a nice trade paperback format, too. Definitely one of the better lesbian soap opera/comedy comics out there. I read this one in the pub after doing my books/comics/magazines shopping. Fun.

Also, due to some events in New Avengers, one of my favourite comic characters is out of a job. Not that he's had a regular title of his own for a long time, but it's still surprising that Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, has been replaced as Sorcerer Supreme by the character formerly known as Brother Voodoo, who'll be getting a new series called Doctor Voodoo. I'll give it a shot.

40 years ago

2009-07-20T22:48:31Z

I wish I could remember watching the first moon landing. But I don't. I was six years old, and I'm not even sure if we'd left Chatham, New Brunswick, for Ottawa yet. I know I saw some Apollo missions in school, but I wouldn't have been in school in July. Now, Skylab I remember. We were living in North Bay, Ontario then. And Apollo-Soyuz -- still living in North Bay, but I remember watching it on TV at my grandparents' place in Quebec City.

If anyone has a time machine, go back to 1969 and tell me to pay more attention, so I can have something worth saying for the 50th anniversary. And tell me to keep paying attention (even though I did), because who would have guessed the age of manned space exploration would be so short?

A post about cats

2009-07-13T14:11:30Z

There are people on the flist who will strongly disagree with this. Sorry, but I just have to vent.

This is supposed to be a heartwarming human and feline interest story from the local paper. It's about a couple who had a stray cat wander into their lives, a wild and crazy cat that lives a dangerous life, brings home lots of dead birds and rodents, nearly gets killed a few times, and disappears. And then the couple hears about a cat that was caught in a storm drain and taken to the Humane Society. When they get there, they find it is their cat -- and it's with its original owner, who microchipped the cat and was called by the Humane Society. The happy ending is that the cat has two happy sets of owners and it's going to carry on with its wild and crazy cat life.

This is not a happy story, and it's not a happy ending. Letting the cat roam free led the cat to be hit by a car. Letting the cat roam free allowed it to kill a lot of other animals. That's irresponsible. Letting cats outside on their own to go do whatever they want is dangerous for the cats, obnoxious to the neighbours (case in point: our patio screen door was ripped by the cat belonging to the people across the street while it was trying to get in to attack our cat Spencer), and dangerous to wildlife. There are types of dogs that aren't much of a danger to people, but it's not generally considered appropriate to let them run loose around the neighbourhood.

Spencer doesn't even try to go outside, though he loves sitting by open windows. He was abandoned by his previous owners. It was winter (in Ottawa: cold and snowy). They moved out of their house and they left him outside to fend for himself instead of taking him with them to their new home. But he's been with us for a few years now. He's not trashing the neighbours' property. More importantly, he's happy, healthy, and safe.

Torchwood: Children of Earth (no spoilers)

2009-07-10T02:38:41Z

I liked the first two series of Torchwood. I enjoyed watching them, and I bought the DVDs. I admit it was flawed and had some lame episodes, but there was a lot to like there.

But Children of Earth... this is on a whole other level. It's still not perfect; there are some convenient plot and character contrivances here and there, but it's like another show entirely.

So naturally I'm worried about tomorrow night's episode. Is it going to be a Galactica-style damp squib of an ending? Or will it be as good as the first four parts? Given RTD's way with endings, it's hard not to worry. On the other hand, it seems pretty damned unlikely that this one's going to be resolved with the help of the Doctor and Sarah Jane and her friends. It's hard to imagine how the story can be resolved without a Doctorian deus ex machina, though. And the show is set in the Whoniverse, so I can't imagine it going for the darkest possible ending (millions of children taken, Torchwood wiped out).

Boy, I hope tomorrow night isn't a disappointment. And anyone who tried Torchwood before and didn't like it -- give this a try. Well, maybe wait a day or two and see if everyone's blown away or disappointed...

Feh

2009-07-09T01:06:55Z

February 22: I applied for a government job. Not a librarian position as such, but using a lot of the same skills, with nothing I haven't done before. And they have two vacancies, doubling my chances.
April 2: received acknowledgment of application.
April 15: wrote qualifying exam. I passed, clearing the way for the next step:
May 12: French language comprehension and writing exams. I passed, clearing the way for the next step:
May 14: French language conversational exam. I passed, clearing the way for the next step:
May 26: job interview.
July 8: notified that I didn't get the job.

A guy could get discouraged.

Not that I put all my eggs in that one basket, so to speak. Other jobs went from application to have a nice life within that span of time; this was the longest wait, and the most steps.

Well, I've written most of a cover letter for a job at the university where Laura works, and I'll do one for a job at the local community college. If I were easily discouraged, I'd point out that the former is an admin job more than a librarian job, at a lower level than the job I was laid off from, and the latter asks for significant academic library experience, and my experience is in special libraries.

The only jobs left in town that are really comparable to my old job are government jobs, and they're almost always filled internally and not open to external candidates. Oh, and the national science library, CISTI, will be going through a major downsizing. Just what I need: more competition.

Compuserve is dead -- what, it was still alive?!

2009-07-05T21:01:47Z

Well, CompuServe Classic was apparently shut down a few days ago. I haven't been a CIS user since 1995 or so, I think, but I still remember that my user ID was 76217,1455. Ah, those pre-web days when being able to use the Compuserve Packet Network via a local phone call and access all those services and forums was so exciting. All that time spent on the Star Trek and Science Fiction forums, where writers like Carmen Carter, Diane Duane, David Gerrold, J. Michael Straczynski, and even Outpost Gallifrey's Jim Shaun Lyon (then a young sysop) were regulars. The first news about DS9, the first news about Babylon 5, thousands of posts about Gene Roddenberry's death, the first news about Richard Arnold losing his job (and writers celebrating), the flamewar over the official Roddenberry biography between David Alexander, David Gerrold, and others. Using CIS to connect to the Well. Getting a work account for a little while to see if it would be useful (not so much, when we already had access to more specialized information services, but handy once or twice).

And then in 1992 came the National Capital Freenet and by the end of 1993 the first graphical interface for the web and everything changed. Hard to believe we haven't always had this web thing. Hard to believe we haven't always had computers on our desks. Hard to believe that something that seemed as cool as Compuserve did when I first got my account hasn't even been on my radar for well over a decade now.

On watching DS9 reruns

2009-06-23T13:02:31Z

I've finally managed to get back to watching my DS9 DVD box sets (left off ages ago early in the third season). I've watched most of the third season and am a few episodes into the fourth season now. And it's so damn good, and it's so not what the new movie is. I like the new movie, I think it did a lot of interesting things and took some risks that appear to have paid off, and I'm glad it's a hit. But... DS9 is just the peak of what Star Trek used to be.

There's not much action at all. Instead, there's believable and interesting characters who have intelligent conversations. And what a great bunch of characters, too. All the regulars have their parts down perfectly, and the recurring characters get so many great moments. Winn, Garak, Dukat, Kasidy, and more to come....

You could have a brilliant DS9 episode with no real plot, just scenes with the right combinations of characters talking. And now Worf is added to the mix, and it's obvious that the writers are actually thinking about the character and how he'd deal with this different environment (as in his frustration over how Odo deals with Quark in "Hippocratic Oath").

Damn, this is a great show.

Denise Mina

2009-06-07T14:27:27Z

There was a mystery writers' con in town yesterday (meant and priced for people in the biz rather than fans), with readings open to the public for free. Most of the writers are Canadian writers I've never heard of, with a couple of local exceptions, but there was an international guest as well: Denise Mina, from Scotland. Laura and I have both read and enjoyed her three (so far) novels about Glaswegian reporter Paddy Meehan, and Laura's reading one of Mina's standalone novel, and I've read her run on DC's Hellblazer comic, so we decided to go.

For the benefit of anyone who's read Mina: she's as entertaining a speaker as she is a writer. She talked about the inspirations for the Paddy Meehan books and her first books, the Garnethill trilogy. She mentioned that there will eventually be two more Paddy Meehan books, but changing publishers is delaying that a bit. She has a new series starting that sounds like more of a police procedural series with a larger cast of characters. Sounded pretty good. Oh, and a forthcoming graphic novel from DC, A Sickness in the Family, with art by Antonio Fuso.

And if you haven't read her... well, I can only talk about the Paddy Meehan books, but they're great. They're as much about being poor and Catholic in Glasgow during the Thatcher years, and about changes in the newspaper industry over the last couple of decades, as they are about murders and other crimes. Really good characterization and a very strong sense of place and time. And the kind of grimness without glamour that UK crime fiction writers seem really good at (see, for example, Derek Raymonde or David Lawrence).

Desktop theme meme

2009-06-07T01:17:07Z

Swiped from tiggerallyn

01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their livejournal.

My current wallpaper.

02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!

Saw it on io9.
I love futuristic cityscapes.
This is a good example of the style.
I was tired of the previous wallpaper, which was from a John Foxx album cover (My Lost City -- a reworked black and white NYC skyline photograph).
I was tired of the wallpaper before that, which was a shot Laura took of the Enterprise-D at the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas a few years ago.

03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

I've been using this for a few weeks now.

So long, wonderful time-sink

2009-06-03T01:36:20Z

Shaun Lyon is shutting down the Doctor Who Forum at the end of July. No particular reason. Go out on a high, move on to other things, whatever.

Something I don't hear every day. Well, ever, really.

2009-06-02T21:36:57Z

"You've got good taste in hiphop."

-- Kid working at HMV (white, fwiw), where I bought Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor and J Dilla's Donuts on CD today.