Happy Fluffy Bunnies

That is what we're all about here. Yes, sir.

To Reign in Hell

I just finished this book by Steven Brust. It was a damn fine read, especially since not much really happened in it. If you except the part where one of the biggest mythological events in human literature unfolds toward the end, it's mostly just a very talky book. I enjoyed all of it. He's pretty gifted with having his characters explain things that he probably ruminates about all the time. There's this great exchange between Satan and Mephistopheles where Satan says that it isn't good enough to just disparage what everyone else is trying to do. If you're not going to offer any better ideas, then shut the hell up. Except he said it a lot better than that. The thing I like is that these are the kind of thoughts you know you're having from time to time when you dry your hair or drive to work, but how often do you get to refine them so that a character who gets to be your spokesperson can express them quite eloquently and without getting yourself into trouble? Not too often, unless you're a writer. I need to work on this. Dialogue is not easy, but it could be so much more fun if I used characters to express subversive ideas on government, marriage, economics and myspace users. I'll get around to this. If not in the near future, then certainly in my early retirement phase.

Not exactly

The iPhone was unveiled at Macworld today. Now your all-in-one PDA can be one big touch screen. I am sure I will want one, but I'd like to hear how it handles accidental dialing. A sensor locks out the screen when you have the phone near your face, but how does it handle knocking around in a purse or being squished in a back pocket? The Treo pretty much stays in locked mode unless you're actively using it, which I think is the reverse of most phones which are active unless you lock them. I played around with the display a little on the Apple site and it does look pretty sweet. John Mayer, singer and guest at Macworld even thinks it's "the exact opposite of terrorism". No, John Mayer, delicious beer is the exact opposite of terrorism.

SG: None, please

We don't have cable tv, but we're not complete heathens; we have Netflix. Once in a while we'll start watching a series that we missed the first time around, like Six Feet Under. That show was so cool until I got so annoyed with every character I wanted them all to die in a fire.
Last night we tried Stargate: SG1. There are many reasons to doubt this could possibly be a good show. Reasons 1-10: MacGyver. Reason 11: The Sci-Fi Channel, home to other gems like Boa vs. Python, which I didn't see because I don't have cable. However, Stargate is the longest running show on Sci-Fi, so we thought it might have merit.
It was apparent from the first couple of scenes that this is a show populated by stock characters.
The Hero: He's surly, but he's got a heart of gold.
The Sidekick: He's small and weak, but his brains more than make up for it. Also, cute!
The Chick: She's plucky! She's cute! She's so earnest, she should go to camp!
All the other army dudes: Hoo-ah!
This show is like a charicature of a formulaic show.
The part that really got to me, though, was the entrance of The Chick. It started with an overlong lead-in where everybody assumes that the rocket scientist they're bringing onto the team is a guy, whereupon she enters and all the men look amused/confused/annoyed, take your pick. Then about half the men in the room pile on with unimaginative sexist jokes coupled with much smirking and eye-rolling, while plucky Chick, not to be deterred, dishes it back to them. Is this what writers actually think people act like? Maybe in a truck stop it is, but not in a high-level management meeting and as I'm often the only woman in the room (and usually the youngest as well) I should know. I'm not saying sexism isn't there. I can tell when I get in a verbal shoving match with a guy when he's thinking "women, can't live with 'em, can't slap 'em on the ass and send them out for coffee", but it's subtle. Does anyone in Hollywood know what that means or do they just think we're all too stupid to get it?
Aside from that it was also crappy science fiction that made no sense. Why would the aliens use the Stargates to grab one male and one female from every planet? Why not just determine which population is weakest and round up the lot of them? But no, you had to get the United States Army involved and now your alien ass is grass! Hoo-Ah!
I will give Stargate one point for full frontal nudity, though. At least that was surprising.

New Year, this is the stuff

I'd been toying with the idea of using someone else's functionality to do website postings and once I started playing around with it, I found that it was pretty easy to use and it had an impressive file maintenance structure, which my husband can so appreciate, since I am not a paragon of file maintenance and I believe in our marriage contract I specifically excluded "filing" from my so-called "duties". I am also well aware that I could incorporate all of my past files into a new template, but that would be...uh....work. I have so much of that already. How about I just link to the old site? Okay? Done.