A Rainy Day in Austin-Town

Another rainy day. Sigh. Normally, I love rainy days. It is a much needed break from summer heat, it gives me an excuse to sit indoors and read, and we always need the water. But it has rained heavily almost every day for the past two weeks. The dog is soggy, the cats are annoyed and my lawn looks pretty shaggy.

But I decided not to let me down. I grabbed a latte this morning and popped Billie Holiday's Songs for Distingue Lovers into my CD player here at the office. Let it rain: I'll just groove right along.

My Lost Weekend

I know what you've been asking yourself: "Gee, I haven't heard from Uncle Patrick in, like, days and stuff. He must have had a wild weekend. And stuff."

It was wild all right. Whee!

Saturday was the day the cable company came out to install high speed online service. True to form, they would not commit to anything more specific than "8-12 am". Equally true to form, they showed up thirty minutes late. The cable guy then took another hour and a half to install the service. I try to take this stuff in stride; after all, the guy didn't break anything and he did leave me with the high speed service. I did have to fix some stuff he messed up,though. In short, an entire day wasted waiting around and dealing with this thing.

Saturday night was well spent, though. My wife and I attended the Austin premiere of Before Sunset. The director and two actors attended and held a Q&A session afterwards. The movie doesn't sound very interesting on paper: two people walk and talk for ninety minutes. But the conversation is fascinating and the resolution was very satisfying. In all, I enjoyed this movie more than its predecessor Before Sunrise.

I installed City of Heroes on Sunday and joined some friends for an afternoon of crime fighting. The game is fun but I was a little lost. I am not much of a computer game player and the controls/interface took a little getting used to. I also suffered from the fact that I did not have the right driver for my video card installed and the game kept freezing or crashing on me. But I installed the driver and I've been practicing so the game is much better now.

My wife's friends from New Orleans were in town this weekend too. They are the couple we stayed with during our New Orleans Jazz Fest experience. They are great people. We joined them on Friday night and enjoyed a late (for me) show performed by Matt the Electrician. My wife and I ducked out after the first set because we were so tired. And that was the last time I saw our friends. With the cable and my commitment on Sunday (which was arranged well in advance - it's hard to get adults to get together, even if they never their homes), I was tehtered to the homestead. My wife got to spend a lot of time with them, though, and that was good.

That is all for now. I need the rest, kids.

Serenity Now!

There is an official web site for Joss Whedon's Serenity film. You can find it here.

Aintitcool News informs us that the DVD collection of Wonderfalls will hit shelves on 7 December.

My wife and I watched a documentary of Russell Lee and enjoyed an exhibition of a selection of his photographs. He was an outstanding photographer and, by all accounts, a fine human being. I have a print of one of his photos hanging in my office. He is best known for his work for the Farm Security Association from 1936 to 1942, documenting the lives of Americans struggling through the Great Depression. You can find samples of his work here. I don't think you can beat Mr. Lee for beautiful, honest photography. The exhibit we enjoyed is at the Harry Ransom Center on the University of Texas Campus and I believe it will be up through August.

And in other news, it looks like the animated version of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer may find a home and hit the airwaves soon. Details here.

Astonishing Father Ted at the Huff Rally

Since we don't subscribe to digital cable, my wife and I do not get BBC America. We content ourselves with as many DVD collections of British programs that we can stuff on our Netflix queue . We are currently watching the first and second seasons of Father Ted on DVD. Extremely funny and irreverent.

I picked up the second issue of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men last night too. I may post a longer review another time but, on the whole, I enjoyed it. The strong points from the first issue (namely, Kitty Pride and Emma Frost) are still strong in this one. The weakest element in the last issue (the relationship between Scott Summers and Logan) is downplayed here. In fact, it is the source of one of the snarkier lines in the issue. The fight scene was clearly rendered, highlighting each character's abilities, with a nice conclusion. And the (presumably) main conflict generated several smaller conflicts that will be interesting to follow. I was relieved after reading the comic!

My assistant's band The Huff Rally has a new CD. It's called Sewer Rose Symphony and one can purchase it through a link on the Rally's web page. Pick up a copy and relive your punk roots! You can more info on my assistant's solo work here.

Finally, the Harry Ransom Center is exhibiting the work of Depression Era photographer Russell Lee and the influential modernism journal Camera Work. Check out the details at the link on the right side of this page. If you are in Austin, then do yourself a favor and check these exhibits out.

Welcome!

Statcounter is a wonderful thing. Through it, I've discovered that people from places as far flung as Thailand have visited my blog. I have a couple of regular readers from Canada and Australia, as well as some from the East Coast. Many of my readers are friends and family (bless 'em) but quite a few people have come to the site via the link at Howling Curmudgeons (see the "Link" section on the right-hand side of this page) . Thank you, Chris M.!

Welcome to the blog, everyone. I enjoy posting to the blog and I thank everyone who indulges me by reading it.

Eh

We watched the conclusion of Salem's Lot last night. I was underwhelmed. There were creepy moments, to be sure. But there was some lame attempts at additional exposition, some really clunky dialogue and some bits that just didn't make a lot of sense.

I almost laughed at the vampires shambling down the street like zombies. The main characters were not threatened by them at all. And why didn't the nest of vampires attack and eat the heroes when they slew Barlow just as the sun went down? And what was that whole dialogue between the protagonist and his (ex) love interest all about? Did we really need to know that? The idea that the protagonist is haunted by a past experience in the Marsden House was fine, as far as it went. But its resolution was not necessary. The protagonist was no less heroic before he began slaying vampires and he was no more heroic afterwards. The little sense of closure, delivered by a vampire no less, did not justify the clunky dialogue.

I did think that the bit with the priest was interesting. Although I liked the idea of faith in the book, and the priest's lack of it was a nice twist, I was frustrated by the lack of closure for that character in the book. In the book, the priest hops on a bus and rides away. Nothing more is heard from him. In the movie, he becomes (to paraphrase that famous vampire hunter Xander Harris) the vampire's butt-monkey. I was not impressed by the way the character arc was handled (and I enjoy James Cromwell's acting as a general rule) but at least his story is resolved.

I guess at the end of the day I thought the movie was a step in the right direction. If nothing else, the effort showed that the material is filmable.

In reading news, I am now halfway through the book An Army At Dawn. The Germans are still kicking our asses. How did we win this thing?

Spooky SUSE

My wife and I watched the first part of TNT's remake of Salem's Lot last night. I think they are doing a pretty fair job of it. There is a lot of story and characters to cover and I think the device they used to do it (Mears' voice-over narration) worked admirably. Most of the major relationships were established in the first fifteen minutes! This efficient exposition set the pins up quickly, so there is plenty of time to knock 'em down.

Granted, there is a lot of "telling" (rather than "showing") going on. A few choice edits would have reduced that annoying technique without sacrificing too much character development. But the producers had a daunting task ahead of them in reducing a huge novel with many characters and plot lines to a four hour mini-series. I can live with the result.

I am not a Stephen King fan but I enjoyed this book very much. The story is good Old Testament stuff: no sin goes unpunished in this book. The characters are all believable and the plot doesn't suffer from Mr. King's tendency to start with a bang and end in an awkward whimper. There is a lot of stuff in the story - and it would have read just fine without most of it - but Mr. King does an excellent job introducing you to the town and he gives you time to live in it awhile.

But at the end of the day, it's about the vampires. Not the Anne Rice tortured poet vampire but the vampire-as-disease. Vampirism blossoms in the evil that lives in all of us (did I mention the Old Testament?) and it spreads quickly in hospitable environment. Most of the emotional impact in this story is in the way this affliction readily takes root and is almost embraced by the town's residents. In many ways, the heroes in this story are just the lucky ones who missed dangerous exposure by inches.

I am looking forward to the conclusion.

I spent some time this weekend playing around with SUSE Personal 9.1. I like it. I am a casual computer user and I don't find this Linux distro much different from Windows or Mac. OpenOffice appears to do all that I'd ask it to do. I was unable to try out Konqueror, the web browser bundled with the operating system, since I am not connected to the net yet.

I ran the OS directly from the live CD. It took some time to figure out how to boot the computer up from the disk but once I figured it out, I had no problems with it. Now I should download the system onto the computer and partition the hard drive so that I can choose to run either SUSE or Windows. If anyone has any suggestions or comments, then please share!

The Idiot Box

After many fits and starts, my new computer is installed and ready for action. As regular readers know, I missed the delivery truck by only seconds on Wednesday. I called UPS and asked them to hold the three packages containing the computer stuff so that I could pick them up and not have to worry about missing the van. As the local UPS Customer Pickup is on the extreme east end of town, I took off work a little early yesterday (Thursday) to get the packages. When I got there and waited for about twenty minutes, I learned that only one of the packages was there. Apparently, the driver neglected to pull them all. The other two were cruising around town in a UPS van.

I suppose that this is not a big deal when placed upon the continuum of petty annoyances. But I had taken off early from work in order to get my stuff and I expected everything to be there when I arrived. So I was miffed. But I tried to be gracious to the person at customer pickup (who wasn't responsible for the error) took my one package and left. I was told that the van would attempt to drop the packages off sometime the same day. I only hoped that the driver hadn't done so when I was not there. I didn't want to repeat this whole thing again on Friday.

I got home and did not find a note from UPS waiting for me. To be sure, I called UPS and confirmed that the van had not yet arrived. So I settled myself down in front of the television and waited.

And waited.

Several hours went by and I grew concerned. Did the fellow miss the stop? Were my packages lost somewhere? I called UPS again and they assured me it was on its way. I grew a little anxious and restless. My wife came home and cooked a fantastic meal and we fretted together for a while longer.

The packages arrived after seven o'clock Thursday evening. I was never so happy to see a brown van! Needless to say, I set to putting the thing together and booting it up. And now it quietly waits for me in my study.

Looking back on the episode, I decided I wouldn't get upset about what happened. After all, I am sure that mistakes like that happen in a complex system like the one UPS uses. And I did get the computer (indeed, I received it earlier than I planned!).

But City of Heroes will have to wait another week. I don't have my high speed online service yet.

New Computer

As I wound through my neighborhood yesterday evening on my way home after work, I passed the UPS truck. It did not occur to me that my computer would arrive so soon but if it had, I would have tried to flag the UPS dude down. As it happens, he didn't leave the packages on my doorstep (thank goodness) and I missed him by mere seconds.

I arranged to pick the computer up this afternoon at the local UPS depo, so I should be up and running this evening!

I did some research yesterday regarding Linux distros and I decided that SuSE Personal 9.1 is the best fit. The fact that it boasts a live CD (which allows me to try the system without downloading it on my computer) helped me make the decision. I am curious about OpenOffice, which is bundled in the SuSE distro. I am also anxious to see what Firefox, the browser released by Mozilla, is all about.

Good times ahead. Love that learning curve!

I highly recommend The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 as musical accompaniment to one's Linux research.

Happy Bloomsday!

If you haven't read James Joyce's Ulysses, don't sweat it. Here's a summary [link via bookslut]. Be sure to read Stephen Fry's comment!

Linux Distro

Can anyone recommend a Linux Distro for newbies like me that takes advantage of an nvidia graphics card and multimedia apps?

Join Us...Join Us...

I bought a PC the other day from Dell. I expect it to arrive over the weekend. I bought it in order to work at home, to play around with Linux and to play MMORPGs (City of Heroes!)with friends. I have an iMac at home right now and I intend to keep it, so we will be a two computer family.

It feels funny crossing over to the dark side. I have been a Mac fan for a very long time. I still am. They are excellent computers (if expensive). But there are some things I want to explore - such as open source software - that I don't feel comfortable doing on the Mac platform. And there is always the game issue. With MMORPGs growing in popularity and sophistication, it is hard to sit on the sidelines and watch my friends enjoy them. The idea of hanging out with friends from all over North America without having to burn up vacation time and buying plane tickets is appealing too.

And for those of you who always wanted to enjoy Louis Armstrong but didn't know where to start, then try the sampler from the Ken Burns Jazz series. It covers his entire career and includes "Heebie Jeebies" and "St. Louis Blues." I am enjoying it right now!

Quick Review

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - This movie is the best of the three made in this series. The ominous, gothic touches, such as the Scottish landscape, the standing stones, the cloister walks and the giant mechanical clock, give the story a context it has not had before. Buckbeak and the Whomping Willow are unique characters and not just plot devices. The dementors are creepy. And the movie is paced at a better clip than the previous efforts; however, this sometimes comes at the expense of necessary exposition or character development. On the whole, one of the better movies this summer.

Now, on to Spider Man 2!

A Word From Management

I will be out of pocket from Tuesday through Friday, with little chance to update the blog. Try and be strong while I am gone.

Quick Reviews

The Losers: Ante Up (Diggle and Jock) - This Vertigo trade paperback is the real deal. There aren't any super heroes or angst-ridden supernatural types in this book; just a group of ex-special operation soldiers trying to exact their revenge upon a corrupt system. The pacing is excellent. The characters are well defined through dialogue and action and each gets his (or her) chance to shine. This book reminds me of the old tv show "The A-Team" but without the silliness. My beef with this book is that there are times when the art falls flat. A few characters look too similar and tend to become indistinguishable from one another in several panels. And although the action scenes are top notch, some of the individual panels in those scenes are confusing too. The reader isn't sure who is doing what to whom. However, this is rare. On the whole, this book stands above many others on the comic shelf. Highly recommended!

Also recommended is this CD of music composed by John Adams. I especially like "Short Ride in a Fast Machine". It is perfect for those Sunday afternoons riding your rocket-powered bicycle over rough terrain. The kids will love it!

Quick Movie Review: The Devil's Playground - No, this isn't a B-grade horror movie. It's a documentary about Amish youth, specifically rumspringa, the time in a teen-aged Amish kid's life where he or she is let out into the world to experience life among the "english". They drink, smoke, do drugs, have sex. After a period of time, they must decide if they wish to join the church and follow Amish rules or stay among the "english". The movie follows several kids as they experience rumspringa; some choose to stay in the world and others embrace their parents' religion. I must say that it is a bit disconcerting to watch girls in bonnents and dresses chugging from a bottle of Thunderbird and gyrating their hips to Godsmack. Definitely queue-worthy.

I am currently listening to Sir Arnold Bax's Tintagel. If I were King Arthur, this is the theme music I'd want.

Quick Review

Catwoman: The Dark End of the Street (Brubaker, Cooke and Allred) - This trade paperback contains two stories that set up Mr. Brubaker's run on the Catwoman comic. They are superb little crime stories, with a noir feel. The characterization is sharp and the plots follow familiar crime story territory, which makes this trade an excellent read for those who don't normally read comics. Catwoman is a strong woman who doesn't need super powers to make a difference in the lives of the women she helps. In fact, she doesn't don her leather uniform at all during the first story. There are bits that remind us that this story takes place in Batman's world (including Batman's cameo appearances in both stories and the ending of the second story) and if they were removed the story could have easily been an episode in any cop or crime drama on television. But the fantastic bits do not undermine the story as much as they highlight the gritty reality these characters must operate in.

The art fits the story perfectly and shows us a Gotham City seemingly stuck somewhere in the late forties or early fifties (with some new millennium anachronisms thrown in). Accordingly, I'd recommend reading this trade while listening to Miles Davis' Round About Midnight or even (for the irony) Someday My Prince Will Come.

Every Day I write the Book

I just wanted to mention that I am now 86 pages into the rough draft of my new novel! I am afraid I don't have the word count readily at hand but I will provide it upon request.

Also: I have dropped a few links and added one. I have long been a fan of Good Eats and I am glad to see that Mr. Brown has a blog. It is quite cool, so I added for your reading pleasure.

Public Service Announcement

I recommend that everyone see the documentary Supersize Me. It is a sobering look at the effects of fast food on the human body and the industry's cynical manipulation of its customers. The movie is well worth your time.

I continue to plug away at An Army at Dawn, a book about the North African theater in WWII. It is still early yet for the Americans and many logistical, tactical and strategic issues have yet to be worked out. Soldiers are paying for the mistakes, though. I am rather shocked to discover that we lost so many men seizing a few North African ports from the Vichy French. Fortunately, the author, Rick Atkinson, writes well and leavens the dry stuff with interesting character sketches of the more colorful men involved in the effort. And what better way to observe Memorial Day than to learn what those men died for?