Friday, May 30, 2008

I like specialists

So, just got back from my visit with the hematologist. Okay, she's an oncologist who sees hematology patients... First off, I love it when the doc comes in and says, "My gosh, you are pasty!" We got a good laugh out of that. Also, she cut straight to the point: oral iron hasn't worked, so I'm going to get an iron infusion next week. We'll see if that gets rid of the bleepin' headache.

Got another CBC (complete blood count) which was even worse than the one from last week. Yay! And the phlebotomist got nothin' from my left arm, which led to "Andromeda Strain" jokes.

What I'm not looking forward to: the alien probe of both ends of my digestive tract. That's the down side of seeing an oncologist; she wants to make sure it isn't cancer. I can be cool with that.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Bad life choices...

... include putting "Teardrop" by Massive Attack on repeat on a gray and rainy day. :D

(Wednesday) Okay, add "Losing It" by Rush, after one has realized that one's piano playing and disc golfing hobbies are pretty much hosed... gads, this fourth decade of life isn't for wimps.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Creepin' crepitus

Yay! Now my elbow's giving me the occasional creak!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

That's why I trust Roger Ebert's reviews...

... he's one of us.

Fanzines beget blogs

Fanzines were mimeographed magazines that were circulated by mail among science fiction fans in the days before the internet. They still are, for all I know, although now they're generated by computer printers. I first learned about them in a 1950s issue of Amazing Stories and eagerly sent away 10 or 20 cents to Buck and Juanita Coulson in Indiana, whose Yandro was one of the best and longest-running of them all. Overnight, I was a fan, although not yet a BNF (big name fan). It was a thrill for me to have a LOC (letter of comment) published on such issues as the demise of BEMs (bug-eyed monsters), and soon I was publishing my own fanzine, named Stymie.

The Ides of May

It's our twentieth wedding anniversary! w00t!

We're going to go out to dinner with the fruit of our labor, aka Kid A. (Who, when I said "fruit of our labor" to her, replied, "I think you did most of the work".) It'll be a combined anniversary / happy 4.0 GPA party. :D

Edit to add:
We went out to The Melting Pot. Ordinarily I like to avoid chain restaurants, but the idea of a fondue dinner was irresistable. Ended up running $50/person, so it's not something we'll be doing very often, but it was a fun night and quite filling. :D I discovered that Hemingway drank mojitos for a reason... whew.

I gave Mr. E a Munchkin expansion pack (#4, Need for Steed) and he gave me a 2GB Swissbit, in the airplane-friendly no blades configuation. I'll be putting the 512MB Swissbit stick into it and passing it on to Kid A. I'm also converting the Car Wars design spreadsheet (that I did for our 10th anniversary) into a web app. Hmm, guess #20 is the nerd anniversary... of course, for us that also applies to #1-#19. :D

Monday, May 12, 2008

Movie Review: Iron Man

Wow.

Just, wow.

Snappy writing, good score (from a composer I wasn't previously familiar with) , good special effects, only a little of that darn shaky-cam*... it was full of win for Mother's Day.

*look, if I wanted to watch a documentary filmed with a hand-held camera, I would.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Some goals

Blatantly ripped off from David B posting at TalkRational:

The secular people I know pretty much universally share some, many or all of the the following characteristics, which I cite in no particular order.

A respect for truth - sadly a respect not shared by many of the religious.

A life affirming stance, and a general acceptance of the idea that the very transitory nature of life makes it the more precious.

A fascination with understanding, as best they can, life, the universe and everything, and accepting the implications for their personal survival after death of their growing understanding.

Courage in the face of their forthcoming personal oblivion.

A will to good, without hope of reward, or fear of punishment, in any putative hereafter.

A sense of deep awe and wonder when contemplating the wonders of life, the universe and everything.

A sense of ethics.

A sense of wonder and awe faced with the greatest creations of mankind, in the fields of science, music, literature et al.


It's good to have something to live up to... ;)

Monday, May 5, 2008

Movie Reviews: Revolver and Forbidden Kingdom

Revolver
A thin veneer of heist/con movie wrapped around a thick incomprehensible core of Freudian psychobabble. (A man's only enemy is his ego? What?) Personally, I blame Madonna. Please, please, please, Guy Ritchie, go back to your roots.

Forbidden Kingdom
Yay! Jackie Chan and Jet Li, together at last! Boo! The standup has this teenage kid I don't recognize in the middle of the hero lineup! Eeep! The same teenage kid isn't mentioned in the TV ads at all!

However, it turned out to be a fairly solid wuxia film, using the "modern kid is sucked into fantasy Chinese world by magic maguffin" conceit, beautifully filmed on location in China. And the teenage kid wasn't that bad.