Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Seeing Connections Where There Are None

There was a movie I saw once, I think called Pi, where a guy got so awesome at math from studying the Torah that he could sense every pattern on earth.  It drove him to self-trepanation. My takeaway from the movie?  The Torah wouldn't fit on a floppy. This is why I should start shopping for a dremel of my own.

Today's Connection-- Gauge Swatches are the QA of Knitting. 

I do QA for a living.  I also do my little swatches as soon as I get some yarn.  However, I got some superspecial hand-dyed yarn.  It's rayon-cotton-linen and I thought I'd do an open wrap in a seafoam stitch, lenghtwise.  (Cast-on 296 stitches! Cast-off 296 stitches! Pure madness.) So I did my swatch with some practice yarn.  I essentially went down my least favorite crazypath from work- Sub Standard Test Environment.  On Purpose!  I deserve a dopeslap for this.




Tuesday, May 19, 2009

About That Last Book

I think I was disappointed for 2 reasons:

1 Edward Gorey did it first and better.
2 I don't think old people are creepy, but that author surely did.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Book 20: Shut Up You're Fine!

Instructive Poetry for Very, Very Bad Children

It's not often that I find something too disturbing. This would be a book of really fucked up poetry. With Drawings!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Things I Have Learned, In No Particular Order

Thinking about baseball to prolong sex only works if you understand baseball.

Talking about Zombie Penises during sex doesn't prolong it, it halts it.

The difference between 2 glasses of wine and 3 glasses of wine is Zombie Penises.

Book 19: I Am Legend

I will be honest, I picked this off my shelf because I am behind in the 52books in 52weeks challenge. I had. . . a quickie. I feel so cheap and dirty. And not in a good way! Week 20 concluded on Thursday (2 days ago) and I have just finished book 19. Partly sunny with a chance of FAIL.

I Am Legend is a hell of a dated read. It was written in 1954, but it takes place in the 70s. Vintage is the best descriptor for the attitudes about women and booze and nuclear war. That doesn't offend me. It's more that Matheson has a vision of the future without any projected ideas about social progress found in contemporary sci-fi. Somewhat jarring compared to the pansexual free-for-all of say, Heinlein.

So, a vampire plague has destroyed civilization and one man stands alone against the undead. What was his name again? Oh yeah! Robert Neville. I joke. Neville is referred to by name over and over and over again, despite there not really being any other humans left with whom you might confuse him. He's lost all but his identity and his will to live. The loneliness is so real that it's loud in my head. The description of feeding his daughter's body into the fire was pretty awful.

This is worth a read, if you haven't yet read it, as an exploration of loneliness and the worth of an inner life or some driving mission.

Book 18: The Perfect Poison

I started reading Amanda Quick's novels in college. They were confectionary escapes from the much more heavy stuff I read for my grades. Plucky heroines, grumpy heroes, a little intrigue and some sex. Occasionally, there was even humor.

It pains me to say that I think Quick and I must part ways. She's gotten into this Arcane Society rut and I don't even know how many of her last handful of novels were based on these paranormal and lovelorn goofballs. Even her contemporary novels, under the author's actual name, Jayne Ann Krentz revolve around the psychic thrillers. Except they aren't thrilling. They read like she's phoning it in. And so I phoned it in for about the last 50 pages-- when I used my speed reading techniques. That always feels like cheating, but that sucker was due back at OPL today.

The humor is gone, the sex is less interesting than the actual sex I have, and the intrigue is all about the stupid Founder's Formula Alchemy Blah Blah y Blah. I am reminded of how many series of genre fiction I've cast aside when they have Jumped the Shark.

Let Us Bow Our Heads For a Moment of Silence As I Present A List of Some of the Dead:

Piers Anthony's Xanth Books
Ann Rice's Vampire Books
The Anita Blake Series
The Dresden Files
The Gaslight Mysteries

Go in peace, to love and read the pulp.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Poke Out Your Mind's Eye

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2009/05/06/the-wonder-years/

If I can't sleep, No One Can!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Book Summary

01/11/2009 Succubus Dreams
01/18/2009 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
01/24/2009 The Tales of Beedle the Bard
02/14/2009 Bad Jobs
02/23/2009 Coraline
03/01/2009 Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery
03/05/2009 Zombie Haiku
03/07/2009 Twilight
03/28/2009 Dewey
03/29/2009 Madame Pamplemousse and Her Incredible Edibles
04/04/2009 Dope Sick
04/06/2009 Nymphos of Rocky Flats
04/09/2009 A Face In the Window
04/11/2009 The Graveyard Book
04/12/2009 The First Wave: A Billy Boyle WW2 Mystery
04/20/2009 New Moon
05/03/2009 Among the Mad

Current Status: 17 books, 18 weeks. Sliding into Fail

Song and Dance

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Book 17: Among the Mad

The latest Maisie Dobbs book. I do like the 20th Century Historical Mystery. The fallout of WWI in London is detailed in each of them. Even when the cases are solved, there is a lot of residual sadness.