On the way home from work today I found the FirstWave station on the satellite radio. I enjoy listening to the 80's on 8 station at times, but I find it to be unfocused. There will be a New Wave song followed by an arena act followed by a pop song. For instance, this afternoon I heard the tail end of "Thriller" followed by a John Cougar song. Okay, that's not so far off— they're both pop songs. I guess I just don't care for John Cougar.
When I switched to FirstWave, I heard Duran Duran's "Wild Boys," Talk Talk's "It's My Life," and Oingo Boingo's "Weird Science." That's the 80's I want to listen to when I want to listen to the 80's. The station basically duplicates the sound KROQ was famous for in the 80's. In fact, they even have Richard Blade dj'ing in the afternoons. Richard Blade had some national gigs, but he was most famous for being an anchor dj of the KROQ sound. Of course, it only took a few minutes to figure out that Blade is just as annoying as ever! He loves to talk about himself. He's the New Wave version of Dusty Street, who namedrops on the Classic Vinyl station for hours at a time.
I don't put the 80's on frequently. The sound gets old fast if the mix isn't good. I usually listen to the 70's on 7, Classic Vinyl, or the Comedy Central station, punching between them whenever I get tired of the station I'm on. I used to like Deep Tracks quite a bit, but I find I have a hard time connecting to the songs they play. My other guilty pleasure when I don't feel up to music is that I have a CD full of "Drunks & Dragons" podcasts that I enjoy listening to. On my recent trip up to Ohio and back I listened to several hours of the Acquisitions Incorporated D & D podcasts. They were quite fun. Since I'm not actually playing D & D these days, I get a charge from listening to others play. "Drunks & Dragons" is definitely not up to the standard set by the AI team, but it's enjoyable.
I would like to use my portable player in the car more often, but it's a bit unwieldy. It's better for extended periods in the car.
"Without music, life would be a mistake." — Friedrich Nietzsche
a random autobiography
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Reading Frenzy
I don't read as much as I did when I was younger. I can never find a comfortable place with the right lighting. (I'm hoping the new kindle paperwhite that I have on pre-order will take care of the lighting problem.) To top things off, I've been reading actual physical books lately, which adds another level of discomfort. After years of nearly exclusive kindle reading, I find reading a physical book to be awkward.
But somehow I am in a reading frenzy. I can't read enough, and I fantasize about spending hours every day reading. The number of books at the top of my next-to-read list is 20 - 30! I'm currently in the 6th Gotrek and Felix novel and reading a book on Buddhism. I recently purchased the latest edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, and I'm itching to start on page 1 and read all the way through. There's a recently ordered copy of Godel, Escher, Bach waiting on my table to be re-read as well as a new translation of some ancient Pali texts about the teachings of the Buddha. I bought four new sci-fi/fantasy books for my kindle today, and next week the very last Thomas Covenant book will be published, meaning I need to queue up the last four books of that series.
It's crazy how much reading I want to do right now. And yet, I make almost no time to read. I came home from work today with the intention to read. Instead I hooked up the PS3 and ended up spending the entire evening getting that all worked out. Now I'm overdue to hit the sack, but I haven't even cracked a book today. *sigh*
"When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff." — Mike Tyson
But somehow I am in a reading frenzy. I can't read enough, and I fantasize about spending hours every day reading. The number of books at the top of my next-to-read list is 20 - 30! I'm currently in the 6th Gotrek and Felix novel and reading a book on Buddhism. I recently purchased the latest edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, and I'm itching to start on page 1 and read all the way through. There's a recently ordered copy of Godel, Escher, Bach waiting on my table to be re-read as well as a new translation of some ancient Pali texts about the teachings of the Buddha. I bought four new sci-fi/fantasy books for my kindle today, and next week the very last Thomas Covenant book will be published, meaning I need to queue up the last four books of that series.
It's crazy how much reading I want to do right now. And yet, I make almost no time to read. I came home from work today with the intention to read. Instead I hooked up the PS3 and ended up spending the entire evening getting that all worked out. Now I'm overdue to hit the sack, but I haven't even cracked a book today. *sigh*
"When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff." — Mike Tyson
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Gravity
My brother and I went to see "Gravity" this afternoon. I'm not a great movie reviewer, but I thought I'd share my thoughts about the movie. My thoughts will contain lots of SPOILERS! If you haven't seen the movie and you intend to do so, please skip this post for now.
Briefly, "Gravity" tells the story of two shuttle astronauts fighting to stay alive after satellite debris rips into the shuttle, killing the other astronauts and making the shuttle worthless. It is audaciously imagined and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the screen for the nearly 90 minutes the movie ran. In fact, after the theatre had emptied, I stood in the aisle and stared hypnotically as the credits rolled past, still mesmerized by what I had seen.
Oddly, the movie doesn't hook you emotionally. The characters are not drawn to any great depth and the story is nearly non-existent. Instead, all of Cuarón's storytelling goes into drawing the viewer into space with the characters. For that reason alone I recommend seeing the 3D version, as it adds one more dimension of sensory overload to the experience. The camera almost never sits still, literally keeping the viewer off-balance the entire time. You feel the disorientation of the characters. When it does pull in tight to focus on one character, the background is usually reeling like mad. Adding to the sensory stimulation, Cuarón rarely allows the viewer to relax. The plot has very few 'slow' scenes, as the characters are drawn from one crisis to another with alarming rapidity. (I'm sure early drafts of the script and/or cuts of the movie had extra story to pad the movie out a bit, but more story would only have hurt Cuarón's vision.)
The two astronauts of the movie are played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Beyond the whining charm of her character in "Speed," I have never been a particular fan of Bullock's. She does well in this movie, however, breathing a little bit of life into a character who is little more than a pastiche of ideas. Clooney plays the affable cowboy he is practiced at, a friendlier version of his character from "Three Kings" or a saner version of his character from "The Men Who Stare at Goats." I wouldn't be surprised to see Clooney get a nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category.
I enjoyed the movie's score quite a bit. However, because there are so many small sounds in the movie, the volume was far too high in our theatre, meaning the music crescendos were painful on the eardrums.
Go see this movie if: You are a fan of motion simulator rides like Star Tours or Soar.
Avoid this movie if: You suffer from motion sickness or you insist a movie have a story.
Briefly, "Gravity" tells the story of two shuttle astronauts fighting to stay alive after satellite debris rips into the shuttle, killing the other astronauts and making the shuttle worthless. It is audaciously imagined and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the screen for the nearly 90 minutes the movie ran. In fact, after the theatre had emptied, I stood in the aisle and stared hypnotically as the credits rolled past, still mesmerized by what I had seen.
Oddly, the movie doesn't hook you emotionally. The characters are not drawn to any great depth and the story is nearly non-existent. Instead, all of Cuarón's storytelling goes into drawing the viewer into space with the characters. For that reason alone I recommend seeing the 3D version, as it adds one more dimension of sensory overload to the experience. The camera almost never sits still, literally keeping the viewer off-balance the entire time. You feel the disorientation of the characters. When it does pull in tight to focus on one character, the background is usually reeling like mad. Adding to the sensory stimulation, Cuarón rarely allows the viewer to relax. The plot has very few 'slow' scenes, as the characters are drawn from one crisis to another with alarming rapidity. (I'm sure early drafts of the script and/or cuts of the movie had extra story to pad the movie out a bit, but more story would only have hurt Cuarón's vision.)
The two astronauts of the movie are played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Beyond the whining charm of her character in "Speed," I have never been a particular fan of Bullock's. She does well in this movie, however, breathing a little bit of life into a character who is little more than a pastiche of ideas. Clooney plays the affable cowboy he is practiced at, a friendlier version of his character from "Three Kings" or a saner version of his character from "The Men Who Stare at Goats." I wouldn't be surprised to see Clooney get a nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category.
I enjoyed the movie's score quite a bit. However, because there are so many small sounds in the movie, the volume was far too high in our theatre, meaning the music crescendos were painful on the eardrums.
Go see this movie if: You are a fan of motion simulator rides like Star Tours or Soar.
Avoid this movie if: You suffer from motion sickness or you insist a movie have a story.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Night Driving
I ended up getting dinner late this evening, after dark. I drove through the local PDQ (a chicken restaurant). On the way back, the radio was on Classic Vinyl, the windows were down, and the air was warm but cooling quickly. I was headed home, but I wanted to head out and drive. Drive anywhere.
I love driving. More than that, I love driving at night. Even just being in a moving car if I'm not the driver is a thrill. When I was young, my family was always going somewhere. I have distinct memories of staring out the rear passenger window up into the night sky for hours. If I wasn't looking up, I was watching the headlights of other cars on the dark highways. 40+ years ago you could get on the highway at night and be alone or nearly alone. I would turn around and watch for distant on-coming headlights behind us. The best headlights were those far enough away to disappear if the road dropped slightly and then reappear when it rose again. In my head I played a patient game of tag with the other cars, waiting for them to slowly catch up with us— or waiting for our car to catch up to red taillights far out in front of us. When the world has simplified itself into nothing but a dark starry sky overhead and an endless black road ahead, there is something magical about meeting another car on the highway
My enjoyment of the open road at night has never lessened. As a young man, newly living on my own, I often hopped in my car at night and headed out for the loneliest stretch of road I could find. I can remember coming home again in the middle of the night, exhausted and cleansed. Night driving is my way of communing with the universe. Of course, gas was much cheaper then. Purposeless driving was an affordable luxury. Some nights I would head up the mountains on the north side of San Bernardino. (The city sits at the base of the mountains.) I would drive halfway or more to the top then pull over in a turnout. I'd park my car and just gaze out over the entire valley.
That was in the mid-80s. In the 90s I was working a regular shirt-and-tie job, and I didn't get out as much. Southern California was also becoming rapidly overbuilt and overpopulated by then. You could hit the freeway in the middle of the night and never be alone. (You could stuck in traffic in the middle of the night!) But the company I worked for at the time used to take us all to Vegas for a weekend every year. At least one year I got a room to myself and drove up rather than take a bus the company had hired. On this particular year— it must have been '97 or '98, I turned melancholy on Saturday evening and hit my room early. After a short while I realized that I needed to be on the road, as nearly by myself as possible. So, I checked out of my room and hit the road about midnight. It was a glorious night's drive across the desert, miles and miles from any real civilization. As much as I could, I stared up at the stars and played mental tag with cars ahead of and behind me.
So, driving back home tonight with the windows down, rushed that old nocturnal wanderlust through my soul. I wanted to just... go.
"It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." — E. L. Doctorow
I love driving. More than that, I love driving at night. Even just being in a moving car if I'm not the driver is a thrill. When I was young, my family was always going somewhere. I have distinct memories of staring out the rear passenger window up into the night sky for hours. If I wasn't looking up, I was watching the headlights of other cars on the dark highways. 40+ years ago you could get on the highway at night and be alone or nearly alone. I would turn around and watch for distant on-coming headlights behind us. The best headlights were those far enough away to disappear if the road dropped slightly and then reappear when it rose again. In my head I played a patient game of tag with the other cars, waiting for them to slowly catch up with us— or waiting for our car to catch up to red taillights far out in front of us. When the world has simplified itself into nothing but a dark starry sky overhead and an endless black road ahead, there is something magical about meeting another car on the highway
My enjoyment of the open road at night has never lessened. As a young man, newly living on my own, I often hopped in my car at night and headed out for the loneliest stretch of road I could find. I can remember coming home again in the middle of the night, exhausted and cleansed. Night driving is my way of communing with the universe. Of course, gas was much cheaper then. Purposeless driving was an affordable luxury. Some nights I would head up the mountains on the north side of San Bernardino. (The city sits at the base of the mountains.) I would drive halfway or more to the top then pull over in a turnout. I'd park my car and just gaze out over the entire valley.
That was in the mid-80s. In the 90s I was working a regular shirt-and-tie job, and I didn't get out as much. Southern California was also becoming rapidly overbuilt and overpopulated by then. You could hit the freeway in the middle of the night and never be alone. (You could stuck in traffic in the middle of the night!) But the company I worked for at the time used to take us all to Vegas for a weekend every year. At least one year I got a room to myself and drove up rather than take a bus the company had hired. On this particular year— it must have been '97 or '98, I turned melancholy on Saturday evening and hit my room early. After a short while I realized that I needed to be on the road, as nearly by myself as possible. So, I checked out of my room and hit the road about midnight. It was a glorious night's drive across the desert, miles and miles from any real civilization. As much as I could, I stared up at the stars and played mental tag with cars ahead of and behind me.
So, driving back home tonight with the windows down, rushed that old nocturnal wanderlust through my soul. I wanted to just... go.
"It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." — E. L. Doctorow
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
02 OCT 2013
My goal is to check in with this blog nearly every day. However, most working days, like today, I won't have much to say. I'm not above writing about every last boring detail of my days, but no one wants to read a blog that's little more than a list of days I sat in my office all day. If I have something interesting to say about my job, I may do so. Otherwise, I'll either find something else to write about or simply pass on an entry for that day.
That said, I'm outta here. Time to start blogging about my campaign world.
That said, I'm outta here. Time to start blogging about my campaign world.
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