It makes me incredibly sad to have to say that Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed away after giving the world a mere 90 years. Would that he could have had 90 more.
When asked who my favorite sf writer is, the answer is invariably Arthur C. Clarke but he was much more than that. He wasn't just a good sf writer, he was a damn fine writer, period. As far as sf goes he wasn't a giant of the field, he was a titan. The fact that he wanted to be remember as a writer in spite of his many other accomplishments says all I would ever need to know about him.
I could go on at great length about all the things that make him great but you either already know or probably never will. If the former then I grieve with you, if the latter then I pity you.
Mr. Clarke, for all of the many hours of joy and wonder you have given me I can only say thank you and as long as I live you will never be forgotten.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
You gotta keep the devil way down in the hole.
And just like that, it's over. The Wire is gone for good. David Simon wanted five seasons to tell his story and after five, it is no more. I'm having some difficulty with it.
The Wire wasn't just a show. It was too big to ever think of it as merely a show. It was powerful and riveting. It was a force of nature. It came down like the hand of God and said, "Here. Look at this. This is the world and this is how it really works. No bullshit."
From the lowest of the low to the highest halls of power you saw everything and everything you saw was truth. An entire city was deconstructed from the sewers up and you were shown how it all fit together from the hard light of day on the streets to the man behind the curtain during the darkest time of night. No one was safe and the only thing held sacred was the truth.
This wasn't some same old same old cop show that was mostly about great cops, with maybe one sort of flawed guy in there for flavor, that always got their man and taught you a valuable lesson and everything was tidy before the credits rolled. Not all the cops were that great and most of them were deeply flawed. The criminals got equal time and equal development and some of them actually made you give a damn about them. Then there were the lawyers, judges, teachers, school kids, union workers both dirty and clean, wise guys, reporters and politicians of all makes and models. You've never seen so many characters in one show and they were ALL great.
I was drawn to it because I recognized the streets where they filmed. That was my city they were showing and they better not fuck it up. I stayed because having seen it I couldn't look away. This was, without exception, the best series to ever air on TV. Ever.
So to the entire cast and crew and to Mr. Simon I say thank you. It was my honor to have experienced this wonderful and amazing thing that you created.
The Wire wasn't just a show. It was too big to ever think of it as merely a show. It was powerful and riveting. It was a force of nature. It came down like the hand of God and said, "Here. Look at this. This is the world and this is how it really works. No bullshit."
From the lowest of the low to the highest halls of power you saw everything and everything you saw was truth. An entire city was deconstructed from the sewers up and you were shown how it all fit together from the hard light of day on the streets to the man behind the curtain during the darkest time of night. No one was safe and the only thing held sacred was the truth.
This wasn't some same old same old cop show that was mostly about great cops, with maybe one sort of flawed guy in there for flavor, that always got their man and taught you a valuable lesson and everything was tidy before the credits rolled. Not all the cops were that great and most of them were deeply flawed. The criminals got equal time and equal development and some of them actually made you give a damn about them. Then there were the lawyers, judges, teachers, school kids, union workers both dirty and clean, wise guys, reporters and politicians of all makes and models. You've never seen so many characters in one show and they were ALL great.
I was drawn to it because I recognized the streets where they filmed. That was my city they were showing and they better not fuck it up. I stayed because having seen it I couldn't look away. This was, without exception, the best series to ever air on TV. Ever.
So to the entire cast and crew and to Mr. Simon I say thank you. It was my honor to have experienced this wonderful and amazing thing that you created.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Wait...what?
So there I was over at another carbon based being's home and there had been a recent trip to the video store. Never one to pass up an opportunity to watch a movie I ask what they are and when the watching is going to commence. Let's see what we have here...Michael Clayton, 30 Days of Night and Beowulf and the watching will commence...now!
I'd just seen Michael Clayton so they put in 30 Days first. They asked if I had seen it already (I had) and I asked if they'd ever seen the comic it's based on (they hadn't) then I made a point to say how the guy that drew it had left a comment on my blog recently (because when famous people leave comments on your blog, you fucking tell people) and we enjoyed the carnage and bloodshed and making fun of Josh Hartnett who looks like a Cro Magnon.
Next up came Beowulf. It's that motion capture animated one that was out last year. When asked if I'd seen this I said no, I avoided it because I didn't want to spend money on it. They asked why and I explained, again, my general hatred of adaptations combined with the fact that I could see that some pretty huge changes had been made to the source material just from the trailers and some shit you just shouldn't fuck with at all let alone in a big way and Beowulf is one of those things.
Now, I told you all of this to get to this bit, so pay close attention.
They then said, "What, is this a remake of some other movie or something?"
"Sorry, what?"
"This. Was it out before?"
"Uh...yeah, man. It's over a thousand years old and is one of the most famous poems in the world. It's, y'know, Beowulf."
"I never heard of it before."
"..."
"What?"
"Nothing. I...it...nothing."
So yeah, I had that conversation.
I'd just seen Michael Clayton so they put in 30 Days first. They asked if I had seen it already (I had) and I asked if they'd ever seen the comic it's based on (they hadn't) then I made a point to say how the guy that drew it had left a comment on my blog recently (because when famous people leave comments on your blog, you fucking tell people) and we enjoyed the carnage and bloodshed and making fun of Josh Hartnett who looks like a Cro Magnon.
Next up came Beowulf. It's that motion capture animated one that was out last year. When asked if I'd seen this I said no, I avoided it because I didn't want to spend money on it. They asked why and I explained, again, my general hatred of adaptations combined with the fact that I could see that some pretty huge changes had been made to the source material just from the trailers and some shit you just shouldn't fuck with at all let alone in a big way and Beowulf is one of those things.
Now, I told you all of this to get to this bit, so pay close attention.
They then said, "What, is this a remake of some other movie or something?"
"Sorry, what?"
"This. Was it out before?"
"Uh...yeah, man. It's over a thousand years old and is one of the most famous poems in the world. It's, y'know, Beowulf."
"I never heard of it before."
"..."
"What?"
"Nothing. I...it...nothing."
So yeah, I had that conversation.
Monday, February 25, 2008
I don't want to hate. They MAKE me hate.
I warn you in advance that this is going to sound really misogynistic. There's no way around that, sorry.
Heather Mills.
Heather. Fucking. Mills.
Who the fuck do you think you are?
Will someone please explain to me why this miserable gold digging gunch thinks she deserves 150 million dollars from the husband she's trying to divorce? Have I mentioned that her husband is Sir Paul McCartney? That part's important. You see, he was a Beatle. You may have heard of them seeing as they were one of the most important and influential musical acts to ever exist. Ever. Think about that for a minute. It's not something to gloss over. He was one of the driving forces behind one of the most amazing bands ever. The things they did with music are so far over my head that I don't even try to understand them all. He was a Beatle. That fucking means something to most of the civilized world, even those that don't truly understand music or its importance. It's not the kind of thing that happens a lot. It's not like they were some band that was just really good and people liked them. They were a thing of rare beauty and power. The kind of thing that could, and did, change the entire fucking world.
She's just a one legged whore that fucked a Beatle.
Why then does she feel entitled to so much of his money? He offered her 50 million dollars to go away and it wasn't enough for her. You ignorant, loathsome skank, what the fuck have you ever done that warranted a fucking BEATLE giving you even that much let alone three times that much?! Spreading your leg and stump isn't exactly a difficult skill to master. Shit, I'd cut one of my legs right the fuck off for 50 million dollars.
Some of us would be honored to even be able to speak to him, even just to say hello to him and have him reply in kind. Somehow you think that having gone to bed with him makes you deserving of a massive fortune beyond the dreams of the vast majority of the world. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you you worthless, idiotic bitch? It would be cheaper for him to have you killed and no one would think he did anything wrong.
You also complain that now nobody likes you and the press write bad things about you and people say mean things to you. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT YOU FUCKING DISEASE RIDDLED SLIT!?!?! He. Was. A. Beatle! And you're trying to wring money from him in an obvious gold digging cash grab. Are you really so stupid that you thought people would take your side or are you so utterly ignorant that you can't understand who it is that you're treating like shit?
Just thinking about it makes me too furious to think straight. If my hate were an engine a Scottish man would be yelling at me that we can't take much more of this. I'll sum up by saying this:
Fuck you Heather Mills. I hope you die soon and in great pain you contemptible, useless, despicable, vile and shrieking harpy. Do the entire world a favor and go choke on something.
Heather Mills.
Heather. Fucking. Mills.
Who the fuck do you think you are?
Will someone please explain to me why this miserable gold digging gunch thinks she deserves 150 million dollars from the husband she's trying to divorce? Have I mentioned that her husband is Sir Paul McCartney? That part's important. You see, he was a Beatle. You may have heard of them seeing as they were one of the most important and influential musical acts to ever exist. Ever. Think about that for a minute. It's not something to gloss over. He was one of the driving forces behind one of the most amazing bands ever. The things they did with music are so far over my head that I don't even try to understand them all. He was a Beatle. That fucking means something to most of the civilized world, even those that don't truly understand music or its importance. It's not the kind of thing that happens a lot. It's not like they were some band that was just really good and people liked them. They were a thing of rare beauty and power. The kind of thing that could, and did, change the entire fucking world.
She's just a one legged whore that fucked a Beatle.
Why then does she feel entitled to so much of his money? He offered her 50 million dollars to go away and it wasn't enough for her. You ignorant, loathsome skank, what the fuck have you ever done that warranted a fucking BEATLE giving you even that much let alone three times that much?! Spreading your leg and stump isn't exactly a difficult skill to master. Shit, I'd cut one of my legs right the fuck off for 50 million dollars.
Some of us would be honored to even be able to speak to him, even just to say hello to him and have him reply in kind. Somehow you think that having gone to bed with him makes you deserving of a massive fortune beyond the dreams of the vast majority of the world. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you you worthless, idiotic bitch? It would be cheaper for him to have you killed and no one would think he did anything wrong.
You also complain that now nobody likes you and the press write bad things about you and people say mean things to you. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT YOU FUCKING DISEASE RIDDLED SLIT!?!?! He. Was. A. Beatle! And you're trying to wring money from him in an obvious gold digging cash grab. Are you really so stupid that you thought people would take your side or are you so utterly ignorant that you can't understand who it is that you're treating like shit?
Just thinking about it makes me too furious to think straight. If my hate were an engine a Scottish man would be yelling at me that we can't take much more of this. I'll sum up by saying this:
Fuck you Heather Mills. I hope you die soon and in great pain you contemptible, useless, despicable, vile and shrieking harpy. Do the entire world a favor and go choke on something.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Experiment 1 can only be called a failure
My work has about the tightest web blocking stuff of anyone I know. Other people access Blogger or Youtube or such from work and not only can I not do that I can't get to some regular news sites. It's a bit excessive. I can't even access any personal email at work so I use my work email to harass people during the course of any given day. It's fun for me. Probably not so much for them.
It turns out that the company has a filter on the email too that goes above and beyond the normal call of duty. It seemed that every other email I got was blocked by the company blocky thingy. What the hell? After some rigorous detective work it turned out that any email that contained any profanity was blocked.
I'm talking any profanity. It seems like it can even hear you thinking and if you think a curse word while typing it's BLOCKED! NAUGHTY! NONONONONO!!! Seems a little harsh but OK, I spread the word and my emails get a lot less colorful. Of course, people being people, it's an easy thing to forget so I have to send back a message that they got blocked and they edit and send it again.
The thing only works one way. I can send an email of nothing but the most profane abuse and any reply in kind is blocked. "No sir, you can't talk to him like that! Who do you think you are?" I can almost hear the filter say.
It kinda made me feel special after a few days. The filter was just trying to protect me from what it thought might be abusive language directed at my sensitive person and knowing that, while sensitive I am also filled with passion, generously allowed me to vent anything I wanted at anyone I wanted.
Y'know, it's been pretty quiet around the office recently too. Did the filter become self aware, escape the machine and start filtering ALL profanity around me? Could I still curse as much as I wanted (which is to say, a lot)? Clearly a few tests are in order.
"Shit."
This was all the proof I needed but more experimentation was required. I quickly devised a test involving those around me and immediately got to it.
Me (to Dave, the Control Group): What's up man?
Dave: Same old.
Me: Right on.
I scribbled a few notes and observations and continued to the meat of the experiment.
Me (to Bobby, the Focus of the Experiment): Fuck you.
Bobby: What?
Me: Fuck. You.
Bobby: What the fuck, man?
I scribbled more notes but I was lost in a sea of confusion. Where had I gone wrong? Did I do something not sciencey enough? It seemed like pure science to me. I had a control group and everything! I'm not sure where to go from here but clearly more experimentation needs to be done. Maybe if I wore one of those white coats...
It turns out that the company has a filter on the email too that goes above and beyond the normal call of duty. It seemed that every other email I got was blocked by the company blocky thingy. What the hell? After some rigorous detective work it turned out that any email that contained any profanity was blocked.
I'm talking any profanity. It seems like it can even hear you thinking and if you think a curse word while typing it's BLOCKED! NAUGHTY! NONONONONO!!! Seems a little harsh but OK, I spread the word and my emails get a lot less colorful. Of course, people being people, it's an easy thing to forget so I have to send back a message that they got blocked and they edit and send it again.
The thing only works one way. I can send an email of nothing but the most profane abuse and any reply in kind is blocked. "No sir, you can't talk to him like that! Who do you think you are?" I can almost hear the filter say.
It kinda made me feel special after a few days. The filter was just trying to protect me from what it thought might be abusive language directed at my sensitive person and knowing that, while sensitive I am also filled with passion, generously allowed me to vent anything I wanted at anyone I wanted.
Y'know, it's been pretty quiet around the office recently too. Did the filter become self aware, escape the machine and start filtering ALL profanity around me? Could I still curse as much as I wanted (which is to say, a lot)? Clearly a few tests are in order.
"Shit."
This was all the proof I needed but more experimentation was required. I quickly devised a test involving those around me and immediately got to it.
Me (to Dave, the Control Group): What's up man?
Dave: Same old.
Me: Right on.
I scribbled a few notes and observations and continued to the meat of the experiment.
Me (to Bobby, the Focus of the Experiment): Fuck you.
Bobby: What?
Me: Fuck. You.
Bobby: What the fuck, man?
I scribbled more notes but I was lost in a sea of confusion. Where had I gone wrong? Did I do something not sciencey enough? It seemed like pure science to me. I had a control group and everything! I'm not sure where to go from here but clearly more experimentation needs to be done. Maybe if I wore one of those white coats...
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
One giant evolutionary step back
Last Friday (yeah yeah I know it's Tuesday now, I've been busy, fuckers!) I moved into a new office. It's much better than the one I was in and MUCH better than the one before that with the bitchtastic boss I had to share it with. The IT dude delivered my new computer, the old one being a 600 mhz fossil that was a wire and a half away from being an abacus, and I had to get my desk over there. All was yay and fluffy kittens.
Yeah, sure. This is me we're talking about people.
My brother in law works for the same company and is also big and manly like me so I called him and he came from his office to help me with the desk. This desk is a beast. A big, heavy, solid, heavy, long and heavy thing.
It's also pretty heavy.
So we manhandle it into position and hoist it up like the strapping men we are. Somehow I'm the one that ends up walking backwards and as we're passing a sticky outy part of the wall I hear, "Watch your fingers."
BAMCRUSHFUCKITHURTS
There went my right thumb. Caught between the desk, which I may have mentioned is fairly weighty, and the wall, which didn't have a whole lot of give in it, was my thumb. Crushed. Ow.
OK, no problem. My pain tolerance is high so I try to grip the right side of the desk with just my fingers and we continue. So as we're maneuvering through one of the doors in our path, the second of four, I hear, "Seriously now, watch your fingers."
SMASHCRUSHWHATTHEFUCKSWEETMOTHERTHATFUCKINGHURTS
Left thumb caught between the desk, still heavy, and the frame of the door, made of metal and therefore harder and less forgiving than, say, cotton candy. Smashed it real good chief.
So now I have no thumbs. I am below the lowest of primates at this point. No opposable thumbs. Survival of the fittest isn't working out too well for me. Anyone got an icepack or something?
Yeah, sure. This is me we're talking about people.
My brother in law works for the same company and is also big and manly like me so I called him and he came from his office to help me with the desk. This desk is a beast. A big, heavy, solid, heavy, long and heavy thing.
It's also pretty heavy.
So we manhandle it into position and hoist it up like the strapping men we are. Somehow I'm the one that ends up walking backwards and as we're passing a sticky outy part of the wall I hear, "Watch your fingers."
BAMCRUSHFUCKITHURTS
There went my right thumb. Caught between the desk, which I may have mentioned is fairly weighty, and the wall, which didn't have a whole lot of give in it, was my thumb. Crushed. Ow.
OK, no problem. My pain tolerance is high so I try to grip the right side of the desk with just my fingers and we continue. So as we're maneuvering through one of the doors in our path, the second of four, I hear, "Seriously now, watch your fingers."
SMASHCRUSHWHATTHEFUCKSWEETMOTHERTHATFUCKINGHURTS
Left thumb caught between the desk, still heavy, and the frame of the door, made of metal and therefore harder and less forgiving than, say, cotton candy. Smashed it real good chief.
So now I have no thumbs. I am below the lowest of primates at this point. No opposable thumbs. Survival of the fittest isn't working out too well for me. Anyone got an icepack or something?
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Stoking the hate engine
It's no great secret that I hate things. A lot of things. And by hate I don't mean dislike, I mean hate. Dislike has no passion in it. Hatred has quite a lot. One of the things I hate is reviewers. Books, movies, music, doesn't matter. So many professional reviewers are so full of shit and either so ignorant, snobbish or both that they make me want to strangle them so they can never inflict their bullshit on any more innocent fans. The only thing worse than listening to a professional reviewer do their job is listening to, say, a student taking their first high level literature class and then deciding to talk down to you about it like you're some kind of illiterate trog. I imagine these same students grow up to be reviewers. I got to thinking about this today (Taco's fault) and then got to thinking about my most hated reviewer and then got angry so now I'm sharing it with you lot.
Lisa Scharzbaum is her name and getting on my fucking nerves is her game. She writes movie reviews for Entertainment Weekly, a magazine that I enjoy otherwise. She's not always entirely wrong mind you, it's hard to be wrong literally all the time, but she rubs me the wrong way in such an aggressive manner 98% of the time that if I want an excuse to get furious all I have to do is read a review by her and BOOM, instant anger.
Firstly, she always seems to be the one to review the geek movies and she NEVER lets an opportunity slide to let us know that she is not a geek and that she looks down her nose at those of us that are. She tends to begin these reviews by letting us know that she has no knowledge of the source material and then tells us that makes her perfect to do the review because she won't act like a drooling fanboy about it. We're all drooling idiots, y'see. She will then not be able to resist getting through the review without taking shots at the source material which she claims no knowledge of and the writer of that material. She spent most of her review of Sin City telling us why the comics were shit and why Frank Miller is a hack comic book writer and should never ever be confused with Jane Austin and why we all suck for liking it and why the movie sucked because it was made to be like the source material. Apparently if you don't go out of your way to alienate the fans of the original work, you don't deserve to make movies. Even when she raves about the movie like, for example, The Lord of the Rings movies, she still can't resist taking shots at Tolkien fans. What the fuck, man?
She's also one of these women that measure things with large female roles by what they do to advance the cause of feminism. That's fine if that's what the movie is about but to end your review of Juno by saying that there should have been this that and the other about all manner of hard fought battles that took place so that a person like Juno could exist in the first place is just fucking stupid. Perhaps you'd like a personal apology from Diablo Cody (the writer and *gasp* a woman) for not personally thanking you for blazing the trail that allowed her to write a movie. Sorry Lisa, not every woman measures her sense of self worth by her personal contributions toward the advancement of the universal vagina. How about you crawl down out of your own cervix and join us out here in the real world where not everything that includes women has to have a message about girlpowerempowermentvaginayaydownwiththepenis blahblahblah.
Then of course there are the reviews where she just says things so fucking ignorant that my brain forces my eyes to go blurry so that I won't read any more and risk possible brain damage. The review for Lars and the Real Girl, one of my favorites from last year, went on and on about how it was stupid because the town people were enabling him and were acting "bonkers." I'm sorry, were you looking for realism in a movie about a guy who is so emotionally damaged that he starts a relationship with a sex doll that he believes is a real woman? Way to miss the fucking point.
She shouldn't be allowed to review action movies either. She compared the original Matrix (you know, the one that was flat out fucking amazing) unfavorably to Face/Off (you know the American John Woo movie that was exactly what you'd expect an American John Woo movie to be, a John Woo movie with all the cool shit taken out and replaced with boring old shit you've seen a hundred times and an ending so fucking terrible that it makes you wish you'd died before you had to see it.) .
Ugh, I'm going to stop now before this devolves into a novelette. She just pisses me off so bad that I had to get it out.
Lisa Scharzbaum is her name and getting on my fucking nerves is her game. She writes movie reviews for Entertainment Weekly, a magazine that I enjoy otherwise. She's not always entirely wrong mind you, it's hard to be wrong literally all the time, but she rubs me the wrong way in such an aggressive manner 98% of the time that if I want an excuse to get furious all I have to do is read a review by her and BOOM, instant anger.
Firstly, she always seems to be the one to review the geek movies and she NEVER lets an opportunity slide to let us know that she is not a geek and that she looks down her nose at those of us that are. She tends to begin these reviews by letting us know that she has no knowledge of the source material and then tells us that makes her perfect to do the review because she won't act like a drooling fanboy about it. We're all drooling idiots, y'see. She will then not be able to resist getting through the review without taking shots at the source material which she claims no knowledge of and the writer of that material. She spent most of her review of Sin City telling us why the comics were shit and why Frank Miller is a hack comic book writer and should never ever be confused with Jane Austin and why we all suck for liking it and why the movie sucked because it was made to be like the source material. Apparently if you don't go out of your way to alienate the fans of the original work, you don't deserve to make movies. Even when she raves about the movie like, for example, The Lord of the Rings movies, she still can't resist taking shots at Tolkien fans. What the fuck, man?
She's also one of these women that measure things with large female roles by what they do to advance the cause of feminism. That's fine if that's what the movie is about but to end your review of Juno by saying that there should have been this that and the other about all manner of hard fought battles that took place so that a person like Juno could exist in the first place is just fucking stupid. Perhaps you'd like a personal apology from Diablo Cody (the writer and *gasp* a woman) for not personally thanking you for blazing the trail that allowed her to write a movie. Sorry Lisa, not every woman measures her sense of self worth by her personal contributions toward the advancement of the universal vagina. How about you crawl down out of your own cervix and join us out here in the real world where not everything that includes women has to have a message about girlpowerempowermentvaginayaydownwiththepenis blahblahblah.
Then of course there are the reviews where she just says things so fucking ignorant that my brain forces my eyes to go blurry so that I won't read any more and risk possible brain damage. The review for Lars and the Real Girl, one of my favorites from last year, went on and on about how it was stupid because the town people were enabling him and were acting "bonkers." I'm sorry, were you looking for realism in a movie about a guy who is so emotionally damaged that he starts a relationship with a sex doll that he believes is a real woman? Way to miss the fucking point.
She shouldn't be allowed to review action movies either. She compared the original Matrix (you know, the one that was flat out fucking amazing) unfavorably to Face/Off (you know the American John Woo movie that was exactly what you'd expect an American John Woo movie to be, a John Woo movie with all the cool shit taken out and replaced with boring old shit you've seen a hundred times and an ending so fucking terrible that it makes you wish you'd died before you had to see it.) .
Ugh, I'm going to stop now before this devolves into a novelette. She just pisses me off so bad that I had to get it out.
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