Month: March 2007

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Sentential Links #90

Time to link stuff! Hooray! (Although not as many this week, since I was offline for something like two days. Two long days. Two lllooonnnggg days. Longest days ever.)

:: Ass. (Who? Click it!)

:: Every blogger, no matter how well read, tends to suffer from “Ted Barlow syndrome”; the belief that nothing you say or do or write matters. (Crap, I can’t even get that syndrome named after me.)

:: It is official.

I’m going to relocate to Buffalo. (Ha ha ha HAAAA! In your face, Charlotte NC!)

:: It was probably the most glorious summer of my life.

:: Success does not equal significance. (Maybe not, but it can. Take a look at the Young Adult/Children’s book sections at the bookstore if you have any doubts as to the significance of the Harry Potter books.)

:: Today, I released my first book into the wild. (Apparently a Japanese guy tried picking it up, but a Greenpeace activist made him stop.)

:: The poems are, of course, long gone because, um… Why exactly? Are kids just getting too much dang poetry on TV? (You bet! All the verse on the teevee is getting to be too much!)

:: By making clear the real reason for the exclusion of gays, Pace is helping to sound the death knell of their exclusion. (We can only hope.)

:: Is it a good sign to discover metal in your fourth decade?

All for this week.

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PZ and Skiffy

Apparently while I was offline, PZ Myers turned 50. And in doing so, he demanded that readers write poems celebrating him, or something. So here’s a tri-partite Fibonacci poem in honor of Dr. Myers:

I.

P
Z
has turned
fifty. May
he never meet an
axe murderer in overalls.

II.

He
is
the scourge
of I.D.,
but his secret love
is ever the cephalopod.

III.

For
a
guy who
descends from
monkeys, he’s oddly
mild-mannered. Clark Kent o’ the Plains.

(Anyone quibbling with my accounting of syllables will be subject to pistols at dawn!)

He also provides the latest “Bold it if you’ve done it” meme-thing, this time springing from somebody’s list of “the most significant SF and fantasy books ever” or something like that. Here’s the list, to which I have added some comment where appropriate. Bold means I’ve read the book; italics means I definitely plan to read the book; strike means I have no intention of reading the book, for one reason or another, and a question mark before the title means that I haven’t even heard of the book. No markup at all means I have no views on the book whatsoever. OK? OK.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (Duh!)

The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov (I’m always surprised at the way Asimov’s writing seems to have fallen out of favor. I’ve loved the guy for years.)

Dune, Frank Herbert (I started it once, but I got exasperated at having to flip back to the glossary just about every other sentence. I’ll definitely read it again, though.)

Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein

A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin (Don’t remember it all that well. My reaction at the time was “Meh”. But then, I was in eighth grade.)

Neuromancer, William Gibson (Sorry, but cyberpunk just doesn’t do it for me. I started this novel four or five times before I decided that it simply wasn’t my cup of tea. One of the iconic opening sentences of SF, though.)

Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke (I love Clarke, too. I’ve read a lot by him, but never this, for some reason.)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick

The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley (I’d have found this book a lot easier to like if not for the continual “Wow, do Christians suck!” subtext. So much good stuff here, though.)

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Just got a copy from SFBC!)

The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov (Not familiar with this.)

? Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras

? Cities in Flight, James Blish (Aside from Blish’s novelizations of Star Trek episodes, I’ve read nothing by him at all. It’s really a shame how many SF authors are vanishing into the mists of out-of-print-land.)

The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett

Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (Hey, Harlan, can we get a progress report on Last Dangerous Visions?)

? Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison

The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester

Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany

Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey (Tried McCaffrey years ago and bounced off her. Unlikely to try again.)

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (Sorry. I’m usually pretty good about not holding artists’ political views against them, but for some reason, I can’t get beyond the fact that Card is a homophobic reactionary twit.)

The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson

The Forever War, Joe Haldeman

Gateway, Frederik Pohl (I loved this! I need to read the follow-up books.)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

I Am Legend, Richard Matheson (What a great book this was.)

Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice (Saw the movie, see little to be gained by reading the book. Loved the movie, though. Cruise was fine as LeStat, in my eyes.)

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

? Little, Big, John Crowley

Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny (Ahhh, the Amber books. Gotta finish those.)

? The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

? Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement

? More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon

? The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith

On the Beach, Nevil Shute

Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke

Ringworld, Larry Niven

? Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys

The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien (Tried once. Got about three pages in. Will try again.)

Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (Best ending ever! OK, not really. Stephenson has no idea how to end his books.)

Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner

The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester (Just acquired this one, too.)

Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein

? Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock

The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks (I read this in seventh grade, before I read Tolkien. I’ve never tried reading it since, for obvious reasons. I tried reading Brooks’s non-Shannara series a few years ago — some kind of dark fantasy thing — and I didn’t like it, either.)

Timescape, Gregory Benford

? To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

I obviously haven’t read all of these, so I can’t properly judge how “essential” or “significant” every title here may be. Seems to me, though, that Tigana should be in there somewhere, or The Stand. (I consider horror to be part of the SF and fantasy rubric.)

And now this is where you can all jump in comments and tell me what an ill-read slob I am, that I haven’t read the Hitchhiker books or whatever else!

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Shamus is evil and must be destroyed.

All that reading of Shamus‘s blog has, as I predicted here, finally demolished my resistance. Today at Target I weakened and bought, from the “cheap computer games” section, Galactic Civilizations (which apparently includes an expansion pack of some sort) and Freelancer. And I saw a bunch of others I’d like to try at some point as well, including a Star Wars five-pack thing.

(Shamus pleads ignorance here as to how this could happen, claiming that when he writes about games it’s mainly to rant and rave about them, but I know reverse psychology when I see it! He’s not fooling anybody!)

I figure that at least the games I bought kinda-sorta fall into my whole “space opera” research thing, right? Yeah, research. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

(But we’re having company this week, so I won’t be firing these games up until either next week or maybe even the week after.)

UPDATE: Shamus finally noticed this post, and is now twirling his mustache as his nefarious plot comes to fruition. Ah well.

Anyhoo, as noted, I haven’t played any of the games yet, due to Real Life stuff that has made it not-quite-a-good-idea to start playing yet. But this coming weekend? All bets are off. (This is shaping up to be a bad weekend, what with me planning to play one or more of the games and go to the brand-spankin’-new Borders nearby on Saturday. I just hope I remember to do the laundry, wash the dishes, and feed the cats!)

In his post, Shamus says this:

I must add, there is something humorously over-the-top about his approach to this that I find admirable. He didn’t just run out and get one game. No, he went in and got a big ‘ol pile.

It’s like a monk who decides to try alcohol for the first time, so he strides into the liquor store and gets a bottle of wine, some whiskey, a vodka, something printed in spanish which may or may not be be tequila, the makings for Jello-shots, and a case of beer. I mean, why screw around, right?

Well, you gotta dive in with both feet, right? What’s the point of starting halfway? Besides, there’s always the possibility that maybe the first game I try stinks, and if I don’t have another to jump into, how do I tell if it’s the game or if it’s me that isn’t working out right?

Anyway, for the time being, I plan to restrict myself to games from the Cheap Shelf at Target only (except for the afore-mentioned Star Wars fivepack, which comes out per game to about the same as a cheap game from the shelf at Target anyway.

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Sunday Burst of Weirdness

:: Here’s something I never knew. John Jacob Astor IV was a science fiction writer! You can read his work A Journey in Other Worlds online. A taste:

Jupiter–the magnificent planet with a diameter of 86,500 miles, having 119 times the surface and 1,300 times the volume of the earth–lay beneath them.

They had often seen it in the terrestrial sky, emitting its strong, steady ray, and had thought of that far-away planet, about which till recently so little had been known, and a burning desire had possessed them to go to it and explore its mysteries.
Now, thanks to APERGY, the force whose existence the ancients suspected, but of which they knew so little, all things were possible.

Ayrault manipulated the silk-covered glass handles, and the Callisto moved on slowly in comparison with its recent speed, and all remained glued to their telescopes as they peered through the rushing clouds, now forming and now dissolving before their
eyes. What transports of delight, what ecstatic bliss, was theirs! Men had discovered and mastered the secret of apergy, and now, “little lower than the angels,” they could soar through space, leaving even planets and comets behind.

Interesting. Of course, Astor was best known not for his SF writing but for dying aboard the RMS Titanic, although he didn’t actually “go down with the ship”. His body was actually found floating at sea a week after the wreck; from the damage to his body and the amount of soot covering his body (he was actually identified by the fact that his initials were stitched into his lapels), it was surmised that he was crushed by one of the falling smokestacks of the great ship.

:: Via Warren Ellis: fun for kids of all ages! Color such Biblical scenes as when Jesus rode the Velociraptor on his way to…somewhere!

Always weird stuff out there in Internet land…and with DSL, the weirdness is faster!

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But. for the grace….

I know that I have a fairly iron-clad policy against blogging about my job, but I feel it OK to violate that policy just this once.

I work with this woman’s father. I can’t think of a more gut-wrenching thing to happen to two parents, or to an engaged man. And I say that as someone whose gut has been wrenched a-plenty in the last couple of years.

I think of all the tiny little things that happen during a day that might have preserved her life: a green light that she might have otherwise caught red, a conversation that might have gone on just thirty seconds longer. Instead, she was in exactly the most horrible place to be at exactly the most horrible time to be there.

And now, instead of planning her wedding, her loved ones are planning her burial.

I know this poem by A.E. Housman is about a male athlete, but I always think of it in times like this:

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

–“To an Athlete Dying Young”

Sigh, with tears.

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The good Lord tripped me up at the line of scrimmage.

I suppose I should address the recent moves made by the Buffalo Bills, yes? (Since the question was asked in comments, after all.)

The major moves are twofold: the Bills signed three players to the offensive line, and they traded Willis McGahee to Baltimore for three draft picks (3rd and 7th round this year, 3rd round next year).

First, the line. Hooray, it’s about time, and all that. For the entire time I’ve been writing this blog, the offensive line of the Bills has never once risen above “merely adequate”, and has frequently made descents into the realm of “downright bad”, even making a couple of stops at “friggin’ abysmal”. As my longtime readers know, it’s my opinion that all the ink spilled over the issues of quarterbacks, wide receivers, running backs, defensive backs, linebackers, and everything else here pale before the fact that the Bills have not been a force at the line of scrimmage in a very long time.

And look at all the recent Super Bowl winners and runners-up: some had amazing, high-octane offenses; others had punishing, smothering defenses. Some had very competent running games, while others placed more emphasis on excellence up front in winning with a succession of backs and/or receivers. But for all the different approaches that get teams to the Super Bowl, it’s a fact that you don’t get to the big game if you’re not dominant at the line of scrimmage. As Chuck Dickerson used to say on the radio here (in just about the only words that ever crossed his lips that I agreed with), “Football games are won or lost by your big guys up front.”

So now the Bills have signed three new O-line guys, which is very welcome news in my eyes. The team’s approach to improving the offensive line, going back three general managers, has been to draft O-line guys low in the draft and hope they develop into studs. That hasn’t really worked all that well. (Now, maybe these guys all tank and the line still stinks. Could happen. But then again, maybe not.)

The other big Bills story is, of course, the trade of McGahee. I’m fine with that. McGahee has never lived up to his potential in Buffalo, which is a real shame because that first season he started, he showed real flashes of excitement. But this past year, he didn’t make it to 1000 yards, I didn’t see him make one of those awesome stiff-armed blocks he used to do all year, and he basically gave off an air that said, “I’m here to make money and that’s about it.”

Do I think McGahee stinks? Not at all, and in fact, I’d bet that he’s about to have two or three very good years in Baltimore before he starts his career decline. But what got me this year wasn’t even his lack of output, but the fact that he just never seemed to care all that much. Sure, there were two games that were notable exceptions, but like it or not, the Buffalo Bills don’t play the New York Jets sixteen times next season.

I finally realized McGahee was never really going to lift off here during the second-to-last game of last season, when the Titans came to town. The Tennessee running back that day was Travis Henry, the workhorse guy that McGahee had originally pushed out of Buffalo back in 2004. And Henry outran McGahee that day, badly. Basically, McGahee let the guy he’d pushed off the Bills roster come back into town and show him up in his own park.

Did the Bills get better by trading McGahee? Possibly; possibly not. But it was already clear that they weren’t going to give him a big contract heading into next year, and they probably weren’t going to try to resign him after next year. So, faced with the possibilities of a training camp holdout and then finally losing him anyway, they chose to lose him in a way that gets them something in return. Sounds good to me.

Now, on to the draft.

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Mesa back!

Well, that wasn’t long. Certainly not long enough for anybody to actually miss this blog. Maybe I should go into hiding again!

Anyhow, yes, the DSL has been installed and life is now happy and blissful at Minas Jaquandor. The moral of the story is: if your dial-up modem is about to die horribly, order your DSL upgrade package ten days before it does.

Although there was one minor hiccup: The Wife actually left the apartment yesterday morning for about two hours, which is of course when UPS tried to deliver our modem. They left the little post-it note saying “We’ll try again on Monday”; my response was, “Oh no you won’t. I’m coming to get my package.” Or, as I said to my fellow Wayne’s World-quoting friend at The Store, “It will be mine, oh yes. It will be mine.”

So at 7:00 on Friday night I’m driving through the East Side of Buffalo, heading for the UPS shipping center. And wow, is that place big. I figured it would be, but damn, it’s a huge joint. I was amused by the little signs on the streetlight posts lining their long service road: “Leave yourself an out”, “Make sure they see you”, “Aim high”. Refreshers from Driver’s Ed for UPS drivers, I suppose?

Anyhow, I got the modem and had it fired up in about an hour after we had dinner (Chinese) and put The Daughter (not Chinese) to bed. The only technical problem that I ran into during the installation was that one of our other phone jacks in another room had an old length of phone cord still plugged into it, from an older phone setup of ours. Took me about half an hour to realize that was screwing things up and interfering with the DSL line, but when I unplugged that, everything started working.

And now my Internet connection is fast. Like, “I don’t have to wait for YouTube stuff to download” fast.

All I need now is a cellphone, and I’ll be in the 21st century.

Regular posting will resume later on, perhaps.

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Grrrrrrrrrr….

Well, folks, this blog will be laying fallow for an indeterminate period of time, due to technical issues.

Basically, when we got our new computer for Christmas, it didn’t come with a modem (long story there), so I bought from Best Buy an outboard modem to use that connects to the USB port. I should have realized I was in trouble when the installation instructions said something like, “At this point Windows will warn you that this driver does not pass Windows Testing, but don’t worry. It works.”

Well, the modem driver never got along well with the rest of the computer, often causing spontaneous restarts due to driver conflicts and whatnot. Yesterday it finally got so bad that it actually corrupted some important file, said file being so important that Windows couldn’t even restart. So I had to a complete system recovery.

Since the computer’s still so young, very little important data was lost; I still have all of my backup discs from when I switched computers in December. Also fortunately, I placed my order to switch to DSL service ten days ago, so I’m expecting the DSL modem and software to arrive sometime soon. But I don’t know when, and in the meantime, I am not putting the new modem back on my computer. It’s going away. Bye-bye. (Its brand name is Dynex, by the way.)

So, until I get my DSL service and connection all fired up, my Internet activity will be restricted to brief moments from work when I’m on break (or, as I am right now, before my scheduled shift starts). I’ll still be able to check e-mail sporadically, but I won’t be able to write blog entries at all until I’m up and running again.

Please keep checking in, though. You never know when I’ll be back. Hopefully soon.

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