Singapore

Though I suppose that somewhere in the crowd there are people saying Dammit, I just want to get to my airplane!

So Who Won?

Working

My daughter just left for her third day of work.  She is already counting the days until she is done (about 59).  I asked her how much she earns an hour, and gave her a rough calculation of what she'll earn if she sticks it out.  She said that helps.

Beer

I'm not a beer drinker.  I've always thought the taste was strange.  At best, I might try an 'artisan' beer if we happened to be at a restarant offering that, perhaps a 'wheat beer', and I could drink about a third of a glass, but that was it.

Last week, we went to a local restaurant that specializes in Belgian food, and, what the hell, I tried a Belgian Raspberry beer.

It was actually good.

Dogged

Tumbld

Yahoo won't screw up Tumblr.  No.......  they'll just make it better. 

And we all know what that means. 

TJOT

Courtesy of The Joy of Tech:

Out of Darkness

We went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness last night.  The initial take on it was that it was satisfactory, but as we thought it over later -- even just on the drive home from the theater -- we decided that no, actually, it wasn't. There are several reasons for this.

For one,  much of the movie could be an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis flick -- lots of noise, things blowing up, crashing together.  Several times we looked at each other and said what did he just say? Wait, who are those guys?  This thing that just happened, is it good or bad? You need a cheat sheet.  There's a line in Moss Hart's autobiography where he talks about a play he has written, one that isn't quite working, and he isn't sure why -- it's funny, and people are laughing, but still, they seem unsatisfied.  He consults a friend who suggests that he insert a quiet scene to give the audience a chance to catch their breath.  Would that that friend was available to JJ Abrams.

For another, the plotting seems to be at the level of Saturday morning kids shows. I'll get you next time, Kirk!  Next time!!!!  There's not much of a backstory for the bad guy.  There's a vague one -- this guy did something really bad, then they toss in a well wait maybe he's not a bad guy, followed by other not-really-much-of-a surprise events, including Kirk going out to kick ass and take names after several attempts to display emotion on the part of the lead characters. (Kirk and Spock don't fist-bump, but if they did, it would be better than the existing Kirk looks chagrined or Spock looks perplexed.)    

Yet another problem is that they have several cute little references to Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.  (Okay, fair's fair: the first reference is unexpected and actually kind of neat.)  They do everything but the Monty Python wink-wink-nudge-nudge -- including, in places, using exactly the same dialogue as was used in Wrath of Khan, down to the identical accompanying hand gesture. Exactly. My mento, the kid I mentor at the school, will sometimes say, referring to an event in a video game, Really?  They're really doing that?  I had the same reaction.  Was this scripted by JJ's 13 year old son?

Plus, they killed off a character who, objectively, was minor, but I liked him.  They didn't use Cumberbatch nearly enough.  They seemed fascinated by this thing between Spock and Uhura.  They inserted another character who added virtually nothing to the plot, apparently so viewers would say awwww....look who it is!   There's at least one then a miracle occurred moment. And....and... oh, you get the idea. 

I don't think this is the death knell for the Star Trek series, but I think it's wounded.

Rooked

The problem with having read The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley,  is that now everything else seems lame.  Why? Because it was unbelievably good.Stay-up-two-hours-after-going-to-bed-to-finish-it good.  If you liked The Hunt for Red October, think of how it felt, first time you read it.  Like that.

Fortunately, he's writing a sequel.  I should stock up on sleep now, while I have the chance. 

Not Exactly A Flashmob

but who cares?



Of course, there's always this --



and this -

Notivated

I have little motivation today, and none at all for a certain foreign language.

Schedule

Always nice to learn that the offspring has scheduled herself for an appointment  that we knew nothing about until the time for it was past, an hour ago."But I thought you knew about that!  I thought you would tell me!"

Welcome to growing up, kid.

Seems fair

Card

My daughter just read to me the hand-made Mother's Day card she's going to give her mother when we see her tonight.

It was so cool, it brought tears to my eyes.  Literally.

Yes, Please

When I was younger, I would have wanted one of these. I would have thought it fun and even elegant.

In fact, I still do.

Found in the Art Is In My Heart tumblr.

Chess

I am continuing to read The Rook, in between bouts of dammit I need to finish translating that short French article, and I must say that I'm starting to worry.  This book is so good -- can he maintain the level for the next 300 pages?  Or will the book, at some point, jump the shark?  Only one way to know, I guess.