| The City & The City, by China Mieville |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|05:01 pm] |
Terrific. Could not put it down. Short for a Mieville book, I read it in a day. It's interesting to me the way Mieville can write different books that are all so good --- Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Un Lun Dun were all excellent, and all totally different from each other and from this. [As opposed to Richard Morgan, who really only writes one book, although I do really like that book.] The City & The City is a cross of Kafka, Philip K. Dick, and Chandler. It's suspenseful, tight, psychological. One of the best books I've read this year. Makes you wonder whether sufficiently advanced brainwashing is distinguishable from magic.
Also, I am really enjoying the electronica band Ratatat. Recommended for reading, cooking, and working. |
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| Fun Media I Have Consumed Recently |
[Oct. 25th, 2009|12:16 pm] |
Machinarium, an adventure game. You play an adorable robot in a city of robots of various adorability, trying to get back at some bullies, undo some wrongs, and reunite with your long-lost robot pal of indeterminate gender. Enjoyable, not too difficult. Anna and I played through it together [it's a single player game, so playing together was one person controlling and talking about "Hey, what if we clicked that? What if we gave the X to Y?"] in a few hours. It cost $17, and it was definitely more than $17 worth of fun.
The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex. Young adult novel in which aliens invade the Earth, and extreme hilarity ensues. Doesn't take itself too seriously. There are also numerous drawings by [I think] the author, and embedded comics about aspects of the world told from the viewpoint of a certain lovable alien. Recommended.
Both these suggestions are good for humans of all ages. |
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| Taubes re-read. |
[Oct. 7th, 2009|07:42 pm] |
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I just finished a reading of "Good Calories, Bad Calories," by Gary Taubes. I liked it even better the second time. If you have any interest in health, nutrition, health policy, weight loss, or the history of any of those things, I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. |
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| Wanted: Kleppner & Kolenkow |
[Aug. 24th, 2009|08:47 pm] |
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I would like to own (or keep for at least a few months) a copy of "Introduction to Mechanics" by Kleppner & Kolenkow. This was the 8.012 book when we were at MIT, and still is for all I know. If you have a copy you would be willing to loan semipermanently or sell cheaply, please let me know. |
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| Things I Did Today, Mostly With Anna. |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|06:29 am] |
- Woke up at 4:30 in the morning.
- Flew on two airplanes.
- Had breakfast pizza from Wolfgang Puck.
- On the second plane, we sat next to a woman who got on her cell phone after the plane landed, complaining about how she'd ordered a $700 handbag TEN DAYS AGO an WHERE IS IT and NO I DON'T WANT IT ANYMORE I DON'T WANT THE CHARGE ON MY CREDIT CARD NO I DON'T WANT TO RETURN IT.
- On the second plane, took a drug cocktail of three years expired klonopin and nyquil. The klonopin didn't give me that awesome happy spacey effect I remembered --- maybe it was too expired. But I did sleep most of the way there, so no real complaints.
- Visited Langton Labs for the first time. I was going to take a nap, but instead I helped a hired carpenter install some French doors so that there wouldn't be a giant whole from the kitchen into the main warehouse space via a ten foot drop. Discovered the carpenter is/was/is sometimes dating one of my kids from random who is of course All Grownsed Up now.
- Took a five hour nap.
- Went blues dancing.
- Came home from blues dancing to a big warehouse party. DJs spinning records, people smoking hookahs, that kind of thing.
And now bedtime me thinks. |
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| Firefly 2009 |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|02:43 pm] |
Well that was definitely an adventure.
For those who don't know, Firefly is a long weekend (it starts Thursday but we went Friday) in the New England woods, sort of a mini-Burning Man. In some ways, it was also kind of Steer Roast writ large (and in fact, a number of Sport Death shirts were in evidence).
On the whole, I'm very glad we went. I'm not sure whether or not I'd want to go to a lot of these events, but I'm happy to have tried it and had the adventure.
About camping:
- My first time camping in at least ten years. My first time camping with Anna. We borrowed a gigantic tent from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) chenoameg, but ended up using a much smaller tent I borrowed from Dr. Robot. Which was good, since we had to pack everything in and out ourselves over sometimes very muddy trails.
- Camping was not too bad, although I can't say I crave it. The tent worked great --- even though it was muddy and rainy the inside of the tent stayed dry, and the tent set up in 5 minutes. Tents are vastly easier to assemble than when I was a child. Those poles with the elastic through them are a real innovation.
- The spot we camped on was not totally flat. It was hard to get the sleep the first night but by the second night I was used to it. My sleeping back was a little slipperier than Anna's, and kept sliding down the sleeping pad.
About arts and crafts and sharing:
- One of the camps built a giant fire cannon. You controlled it with a DDR pad. Different buttons caused different giant jets of fire to shoot out.
- One of the camps built a "Senior Center". Senior Center included shuffle board, but the best part was that they stretched astroturf across the path, and whenever you'd walk across it, they'd yell "Get off my lawn!"
- Glow camp hung about a gazillion light sticks down a path. It was one the most Spirited Away things I've ever seen in real life. Haunting and beautiful.
- The Steam Bath project built an awesome geodesic dome steam bath. Truly delightful.
- There was Meats and Sweets camp, where you'd want by, and they'd give you meats or sweets.
- There was Bring A Cup camp, where if you brought a cup at any of many specified time, they'd give you some of the homebrewed beer they'd been brewing all year. I think they were keeping their kegs cool in the stream. They also had some pretty good dance parties, including a swing dance party, a gypsy funk party, and an eighties party.
- Apparently all these mini-Burning Man events involve burning something. In the case of Firefly, they burn the bug, which is a 20-foot tall wooden firefly they build the day before. You can climb up inside it, and never in my life have I more wished for my own mecha.
- The burning bug was awesome. Right before it was firespinning, and right before that was a wonderful aerial silks performance.
- There was also DIY Costume Fest. Anna made me a totally rad pair of epaulets, and she also made herself a great tutu. I wish I were better at sewing, so I could Do It Myself instead of Asking My Amazing Wife To Do It Herself.
- There was live music camp, which was probably my favorite. I went to it a couple different times and was able to sit in on keyboard with the random jam band. We played very simple tunes, just a couple chords per song generally, but we got a really nice groove going, and it was pretty amazing to do that out in the woods, with the rain falling on the tarp over our head.
Things that seemed weird to me:
- There seemed to be a large supply of electronic music relative to people who wanted to listen to electronic music. There were two different camps dedicated to it, with giant sound installations, video in one case, a full schedule of DJs, etc., but I'd go there and there'd be six people dancing. It felt weird.
- In general things felt a little empty. It didn't feel like nearly 500 people to me.
- We went with just food that could be eaten at room temperature. We brought a granny cart, and with it, we were able to bring everything to/from our car in one trip. This seemed to be the exception. Lots of people brought much bigger tents, coolers, all kinds of stuff. It seems like it'd be easy to spend half a day on each end getting stuff to and from your car.
- I think a lot of people were just off in their own little hidden camps, hanging out with their close friends.
Overall thoughts:
- I think to really enjoy this sort of event going forward, I'd have to be better at making friends quickly or have more friends from previous events. I think I'd have to become a part of this community rather than be a visitor. I'm not sure whether I have the time and energy in my life to do that. But still, I'm really glad I went, and it makes me curious to try Burning Man sometime. |
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| Come to my blues concert on July 16th |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|09:55 am] |
As some of you know, I've been studying piano for a couple years at the New England Conservatory Continuing Ed program. This summer, I'm taking a blues ensemble class. I think our concert is going to be a lot of fun, and you're invited! We do tunes by a bunch of different artists, including Gene Harris, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughn, James Booker, B. B. King, and more.
When: Thursday, July 16th, 6:30-7:30 (length is approximate)
Cost: Free. $0.
Where: NEC St. Botolph Hall (241 St. Botolph Street), Room G01
Hope you can make it!
[Note: The room is carpeted, but if people want to dance in the back we are all good with that.] |
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| Made It To Midnight |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|12:04 am] |
Happy birthday to me!
I took the last two days off of work and practiced piano. That was totally great.
Tomorrow morning Anna and I are off to Firefly. Neither of us have ever been to anything like that before. Should be exciting. |
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| The Great Facebook Land Grab |
[Jun. 13th, 2009|05:33 pm] |
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All Facebook names must be at least 5 characters? Isn't that like sending me to colonize a foreign planet and forgetting to send out the terraforming robots first? |
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| Wanted to Borrow: 2-person tent, camping stove for July 2-5 |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|03:51 pm] |
Hi all.
Anna and I are going to Firefly. This is actually our first time camping together, and we need a tent and a camping stove. If anyone (in the Boston area) had this to lend that would be super awesome. We think we have everything else essential, although if you have any other amazing equipment we haven't thought of, we'd probably borrow that too. |
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| Thank you Pixar. |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|12:14 am] |
Given what you've done for me with "The Incredibles", "Ratatouille", and "Wall-E", I went into "Up" with high expectations. My expectations were exceeded. Pixar, you have singlehandedly brought us into a new golden age of animation, and of filmmaking in general. Your skill at animation continues to make my jaw drop, and yet you always put characterization, storytelling and entertainment first.
I think "Up" may well be your best picture yet. The pacing was incredible. The movie never felt long, and yet there were many contemplative moments. The emotional range was amazing. Ed Asner's voice acting was perfect. Unlike "Wall-E," which one could argue had a brilliant first half attached to a pretty good second half, "Up" felt integrated into a coherent whole. You have outdone yourselves again.
5 stars. 10/10. I cried, I laughed, then I cried again. Just brilliant. I am out of superlatives. |
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| My Big 5 Score |
[May. 20th, 2009|09:28 am] |
Lately I've been somewhat interested in the "Big 5 Personality Traits" model, so I took a free online test.
I'm a O96-C52-E93-A57-N14 Big Five!!
For those of you not in the know: that's Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. It's only a five-minute test where you rate statements from strongly agree to strongly disagree can tell us much about ourselves, but these results seem pretty correct to me.
So I feel like everyone would "want" to score highly on O and E and low on N (please correct me if you wouldn't want to). I think my C score is fair --- I'm right in the middle there --- but I'd prefer that score to be a lot higher ("High scorers tend to be reliable, well-organized, self-disciplined, careful; Low scorers tend to be disorganized, undependable, negligent.") C is definitely something I struggle with a lot in my life.
On the other hand, my A is right in the middle, but I'm pretty happy with it there. I enjoy being a little prickly on the outside and sweet on the side. |
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| Updates |
[May. 9th, 2009|08:11 pm] |
Sorry I haven't written much. I guess I've been kind of inward focussed the last few weeks.
Some minor updates:
- I did not care for the new Star Trek film. Given the extremely positive reviews, I went in with high expectations, and it was just way too stupid. There were good things about it --- I especially liked Zachary Quinto as Spock. But I really expected a lot more in the way of plotting. Also, the score was weak.
- I am cooking a juicy delicious steak. I keep cutting off little pieces and eating them and they are super yummy, but the whole thing is taking much longer to cook in the broiler than I expect. The broiler is on.
- I managed to squat 5 set of 5 reps of 175 pounds at the gym on Thurdsay. I was very pleased. My goal is 225 pounds, but I don't know when/if I'll get there. 50 more pounds seems like a lot.
- The big news is that Anna passed her final portfolio review, so she has now finished her certificate program in graphic design at MassArt! Go Anna! [If you know anyone who needs a graphic designer fulltime or freelance, get in touch with Anna.] |
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