Just my little corner of the Interweb
by Barbara Eklof
This is a small book of suggested vows for weddings of all sorts. For the most part the vows were all either too cheesy or too simplistic or too sickenly sweet. However, there were a few bits and pieces with sentiments that I liked an may end up using.
by Vonda N. McIntyre
Snake is a healer on post-apocalyptic Earth. Healers in those days use serpents in their healing. The genetically-modified diamondback and cobra can be drugged to produce venom to heal most conditions. The rare dreamsnake can ease a patient’s suffering, and in cases where the it will ease their passage into death.
During her proving year, Snake travels across the desert where few (any?) healers have visited. However, the tribe that summons her is fearful of snakes, knowing only of desert snakes with deadly-poisonous venom. In their ignorance, they kill her dreamsnake.
Snake feels crippled without the dreamsnake, but knows that there is already a shortage of dreamsnakes, so there is little chance of her receiving a second one. Rather than returning to the healer’s home, she embarks on a quest to find a dreamsnake.
McIntyre creates strong characters into a page-turning story. I enjoyed this one about as much, perhaps more, than her The Sun and the Moon.
4/5 stars
This second Spiderman movie is one of those rare examples of a sequel being just as good (and possibly better) than the original. The story was strong, the villian was fun, and the direction and acting quite good. The effects were better than the first movie, with a more seamless blend between the CGI spiderman and the background scenery.
It struck me how frequently the prideful scientist becomes the villian in comic book movies. I suppose I knew it prior to this movie, but the movie served as a reminder. I don’t actually know very many scientists who are that arrogant, and very few work comepletely alone as Octavius, so it’s a bit unbelievable that someone like him would be permitted to conduct his experiments without extensive checks from other scientists. But, this is not real life, and I was more than able to push my “I believe” button, and get caught up in the story.
2.5/5 stars
I didn’t actually know much about this film when we rented it, though I did know it was set in Berlin in the 30s and that it was a musical (originally a play, I assumed). Sally is a performer at the Kit Kat Club in Berlin — an American with dreams of becoming a famous actress. Brian is an English student in persuit of his PhD from Cambridge, in Berlin as part of his research. They meet when he rents a room at the same boarding house as Sally.
Ostensibly, this is a love story, with oddly placed comments about the Nazis. Frankly, it was just plain weird. I’m ready to rent a few “normal” movies for a change….I need a break from all the weirdness we’ve been renting (i.e. The Great Escape, James and the Giant Peach, and now this).
2/5 stars
Hmmm….this is not at all what I was expecting. Rather than coming across as a fanciful, fun children’s movie, it was creepy and nightmarish. I confess that I haven’t read the book, so perhaps I could have been more prepared, but still, the previews did not prepare me for what I saw.
4/5 stars
This movie just made me mad. Not at Moore (though I was quite pissed at him after his little tirade at the Academy Awards in 2003), but at our government. I’ve already been mad at the government for allowing Bush to bully his way into Iraq, and then for not admitting that they made a mistake and that they have not planned far enough in advance to have enough troops to take care of Iraq with a minimum of lives lost. I’m still mad that they keep telling us that Iraq is better off today than before they ousted Hussein. That’s just not true, and anyone who believes it does not have their eyes open to what’s going on over there.
But the movie made me even more angry that Bush is able to get away with all of this all for the purpose of lining not only his friends’ pockets, but his family’s as well. I don’t understand why Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair, but Bush is able to get away with high level corruption and murder of our troops for the love of money. I can only hope that after the next election we will have a strongly Democratic governement that will not be afraid to prosecute Bush for his crimes.
It’s hard to say that I “enjoyed” the film, but it was well done. There are some complaints that it sprinkles scenes that are too light-hearted in amongst the carnage. I almost think that it was necessary, though, because I certainly couldn’t have sat through scene after scene of mamed and destroyed people. I’m not going to write a full review of the film — others have done that, and better than I could do: Pharyngula, Preposterous Universe, Scaryduck, Salon.com, “pro” review, Salon.com, “con” review, Salon.com, G.I. perspective.
by Frederik Pohl
Pohl’s 26th century is a place where death, at least for those with some money, is a temporary state. Charles Forrester wakes up in 2527, having died in a fire in the 1960s. He had been cryogenically frozen in hopes that someday he could be resuscitated. He was finally thawed, not just because the technology was there, but because his bank account had finally earned enough return to pay for his resuscitation. Forrester finds that things are much different than in the 1960s — one can file papers to legally kill someone else, provided they can pay for resuscitation of the victim, for example. Unfortunately, things are also expensive, and those without money, the Forgotten Men (and women) do not have protection against death. Oh! And Earth is at war with an alien race.
I went into this book expecting it to be fairly cheesy, since it was written in the 60s. However, I found it to be quite good, with some of Pohl’s predictions fun to read. The “joymakers” that everyone carries aren’t too far off from today’s Palm Pilots, though our Palms aren’t yet able to dispense happy drugs…
Overall a fun read.
by Ann Benson
Benson weaves together two stories separated by nearly seven hundred years. The first is about Alejandro Caches, a jewish surgeon in Europe during the first outbreak of the plague in the 14th century. Alejandro is chased from his home in Spain to France, and then finds himself shipped off to England to ensure the safety of the royal family. The second story is set in modern times. Janie Crowe, after losing her family to a mysterious outbreak in the US, finds herself starting her life over again. With a third of the population gone, there just isn’t as much call for surgeons anymore. In the course of research for her certification as a forensic archeologist, she goes to London to examine soil samlpes. In the process, a dormant sample of the plague is unleashed.
Benson envisions a present-day Earth that has been overtaken by concern for the transmission of biotoxins and germs after much of the US has been ravaged by random outbreaks. It’s not an unreasonable near-future, and she carries it out qutie well. Her writing style is easy to read, and I enjoyed that she didn’t treat any of her characters as “sacred”.
Andrew and I went to the Weird Al concert last night at the 930 Club in DC. I haven’t seen such a gathering of geeks since…well…since the last Star Trek con I went to years ago. (There are probably that many geeks at work, but they don’t congregate in such large numbers at once.)
Before the concert started, I had fun watching the crowd. The only thing funnier than geeks trying to dress up (see one of my entries from the American Astronomical Society meeting for more on that) is geeks trying to look cool. For example, there was one guy fairly close to where we were standing who looked a bit like Screech from Saved by the Bell (the older Screech, not the gangly young Screech). He wore dark pants and a dark polo-type shirt. That would have been a good look for him. But, he couldn’t stop at looking nice; he had to try for cool. His idea of cool was a Mr. T-type chain — just one, but it was fairly thick. Oh, and the pièce de résistance was his sun glasses…inside a dark club. He kept taking off of the glasses, but still.
The concert itself was great fun. Weird Al knows how to put on a good show. He went off for frequent costume changes, but while he was out they played bits from Al TV, so there wasn’t ever any lulls in the concert. He opened with one of his polka-compilations, which are always fun. They also did a montage of several songs (though there wasn’t a discernible theme — at first I thought TV songs, then food songs, then it seemed anything went, including Jerry Springer, Pretty Fly for a Rabbi, Lasagna, and Gump. Among my favorites of the other songs he played were: Amish Paradise, One More Minute, It’s All About the Pentiums.
Oh, and they also did an encore. I remember when I saw him years ago (late 80s…possibly early 90s), he did an encore of Yoda. That was the song for which my best friend, who accompanied me to the concert, and I had won a lip-synching concert (I played Yoda, and she was Luke). We felt like he played that encore just for us. For the encore last night, he first did The Saga Begins and then Yoda. Ah. That was a great ending to the evening.
A couple notes on the venue: The 930 Club is not a seated venue, meaning that everyone just stands around the stage. While this makes for an intimate-feeling concert, it also made for a painful one. About half-way through, my legs started to cramp up, and I really wanted to stretch them. However, we were surrounded by people, close enough that they were constantly bumping into me, so there was no room to really move at all.
Besides that, the 930 Club is in a really rough part of DC. When Andrew told me which Metro stop we’d have to use to get there, I nearly told him we weren’t going…our $80 investment be damned. Andrew managed to calm me down enough that we went (obviously), but I can safely say that we won’t be back anytime soon. I don’t care who plays there.
Tonight was our first games class. We signed up for the community education class, More Games, More Fun, taught by the same guy who taught the Beyond Monopoly class we took last fall. (We had actually signed up for his Two Player Games class this spring, but forgot to put it on our calendars, and completely forgot until the weekend after the class.)
The first game we played was La Strada, which reminded me of Through the Desert, which we played last fall. In the game, you are a merchant, and your goal is to build roads to various towns and hamlets to sell your goods. The more towns and hamlets the better, but if another player has a presence in the town, too, your final score is diminished. Fun game — each turn is fairly simple, but you really want to pay attention to what other players are doing so you can plan your moves accordingly.
The second game was High Society. This is an auction game where you try to end up with the most toys. Everyone starts out with the same amount of money, and there are 10 “toy” cards, 3 cards that up your points by twice, a thief card, a card that decreases your points by half, and a card that decreases your points by 5. I’m not great at auction games, but still had some fun with it.
The final game was Coyote, a game somewhat like Polish poker (or Indian poker…neither of which is very politically correct). Each player has a numbered card on their head that everyone but themselves can see. You go around the group, each person bidding on what they think the total of those cards are, but not going over. If you think the person before you is over the total, you challenge them. Whoever was wrong gets a coyote. As players get three coyotes, they are out of the game. This one was quite fun, quick and easy to learn. Though, it got really hard when the game was down to just the last two people…
Copyright © 2025 My Silly Life All rights reserved. Theme by Laptop Geek.