It's been a while since I sat down and did some serious writing. And, of course, by serious, I mean frivolous because I'm talking about writing fiction. I decided to start a new regime recently and it's very simple. When you get home, grab a glass of water, hang up your hat and then go and sit at the computer and write.
I'm not writing enormous amounts of text at the moment, only about 800 or so words a day, but they are far more words than I normally write. Better yet, a story idea that I've been sitting on for months is now several thousands of words along the way. I'm only writing until the current idea in the story is written down or, sometimes, until Quincy the irritating cat decides that walking on my keyboard is a useful thing to do.
I had a lot of story ideas at one point and I hope that I manage to get them back as some of them were almost completely worked up, and just waiting to be written down. Of course, sitting here, I can only remember one of them!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday, November 02, 2008
At first I was afraid, I was petrified
I survived Halloween. Why do they call it Halloween? I keep thinking that they're saying "Hey, it's those guys who recorded that really irritating song in the baby voice - Hi." But I digress.
The last two days have been teaching and meeting days. I have survived them. I suspect that my students have been edumacated and that the meetings went well. I will find out the former after the exam and the latter when something starts to smell.
Last night I tried to get a seat at Jumbo Seafood (hah!), then I tried to get a seat at Cafe Iguana and was told 'take a seat at the bar' to find that the only seat at the bar was between a group of guys who looked like they'd been swimming in beer and the girls that they were currently trying to chat up. (Hah!)
I walked back down towards the Central and found a Hokkaido themed Japanese restaurant. Some fried Ebi and Unagi starter later (very good) and a pork in sweet sauce (also very good) and a large amount of sake, I didn't miss the other restaurants so much.
This morning I got up at 6 and went down to the pool. There was a thunderstorm crossing the sky, dark clouds low on the western sky and large bolts of lightning earthing on the many cranes put there, conveniently, for the purpose. I swam around for about half an hour, by myself, as the sun started to make some progress and the storm moved away. A good way to start a Sunday.
The rest of the day was basically spent teaching, with a short break for char siew noodles with wonton soup. At 5pm I shooed everyone out and slowly walked back to the hotel. A change into shorts and, what turned out to be a comically-oversized 'accidentally bought XXL instead of M', t-shirt later, I walked down to the Quay. Jumbo Seafood wanted me today - I tossed my non-curly locks at them and sneered. I did, however, go to Cafe Iguana where they don't understand that (a) appetisers come some time before the mains, not 30 seconds afterwards and (b) that appetisers should be smaller than mains. I had, once again, the shredded steak soft taco - which I keep ordering as I have no memory - and the ancho squid. I recommend the taco. Go to Brewerkz and order their squid instead. A couple of house margaritas later, I was full and ready to go.
The next 15 minutes found me sitting at The Pump, another microbrewery, where they had 1 for 1 on house pours. You know how much I love a bargain - that's two 500ml glasses of IPA for this young man please. And I'll take that with a side order of melancholy because I'm a long way from home, I turn 40 tomorrow and, stupid as it sounds, no-one here knows that I turn 40 tomorrow.
It's only 8:30. Maybe I can reengage my social engines and go out and have fun.
Or, if all else fails, there's always the minibar. Or the supermarket downstairs. Or the 7-11 downstairs.
Or I can fall into bed and catch up on the sleep that I haven't had for the past three days.
Options. Gotta have options.
The last two days have been teaching and meeting days. I have survived them. I suspect that my students have been edumacated and that the meetings went well. I will find out the former after the exam and the latter when something starts to smell.
Last night I tried to get a seat at Jumbo Seafood (hah!), then I tried to get a seat at Cafe Iguana and was told 'take a seat at the bar' to find that the only seat at the bar was between a group of guys who looked like they'd been swimming in beer and the girls that they were currently trying to chat up. (Hah!)
I walked back down towards the Central and found a Hokkaido themed Japanese restaurant. Some fried Ebi and Unagi starter later (very good) and a pork in sweet sauce (also very good) and a large amount of sake, I didn't miss the other restaurants so much.
This morning I got up at 6 and went down to the pool. There was a thunderstorm crossing the sky, dark clouds low on the western sky and large bolts of lightning earthing on the many cranes put there, conveniently, for the purpose. I swam around for about half an hour, by myself, as the sun started to make some progress and the storm moved away. A good way to start a Sunday.
The rest of the day was basically spent teaching, with a short break for char siew noodles with wonton soup. At 5pm I shooed everyone out and slowly walked back to the hotel. A change into shorts and, what turned out to be a comically-oversized 'accidentally bought XXL instead of M', t-shirt later, I walked down to the Quay. Jumbo Seafood wanted me today - I tossed my non-curly locks at them and sneered. I did, however, go to Cafe Iguana where they don't understand that (a) appetisers come some time before the mains, not 30 seconds afterwards and (b) that appetisers should be smaller than mains. I had, once again, the shredded steak soft taco - which I keep ordering as I have no memory - and the ancho squid. I recommend the taco. Go to Brewerkz and order their squid instead. A couple of house margaritas later, I was full and ready to go.
The next 15 minutes found me sitting at The Pump, another microbrewery, where they had 1 for 1 on house pours. You know how much I love a bargain - that's two 500ml glasses of IPA for this young man please. And I'll take that with a side order of melancholy because I'm a long way from home, I turn 40 tomorrow and, stupid as it sounds, no-one here knows that I turn 40 tomorrow.
It's only 8:30. Maybe I can reengage my social engines and go out and have fun.
Or, if all else fails, there's always the minibar. Or the supermarket downstairs. Or the 7-11 downstairs.
Or I can fall into bed and catch up on the sleep that I haven't had for the past three days.
Options. Gotta have options.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Halloween in Singapore
This is surreal. First of all, I'm in Singapore. Second, after 3 hours of teaching and finishing at 10pm, I went out to the Ice Cold Beer bar to drink beer. I wasn't able to buy any beer because Nathan was buying the beer.
And then the stream of naughty nurses started. Interspersed with Heath Ledger Jokers and, I swear to the God in whom I don't believe, a large number of saucy French maid outfits.
This was not an isolated event. After I got back to my hotel, I decided to go out again. (There was a beer that I hadn't tried at Brewerkz.) I passed several groups of Sailor Moons, more Naughty Nurses, a cubic blortload of Heath Ledger Jokers and then, yes, you guessed it, more half-naked women wearing either skimpy nothings or French maid outfits than I even though existed, let alone had made their way to Singapore.
And in the middle of all of this, do you know what I wanted? To be home, with a plate of Brewerkz squid. And I couldn't go home. And they stopped serving squid before midnight. Boo.
I'll be home soon enough. And there will be squid again.
And then the stream of naughty nurses started. Interspersed with Heath Ledger Jokers and, I swear to the God in whom I don't believe, a large number of saucy French maid outfits.
This was not an isolated event. After I got back to my hotel, I decided to go out again. (There was a beer that I hadn't tried at Brewerkz.) I passed several groups of Sailor Moons, more Naughty Nurses, a cubic blortload of Heath Ledger Jokers and then, yes, you guessed it, more half-naked women wearing either skimpy nothings or French maid outfits than I even though existed, let alone had made their way to Singapore.
And in the middle of all of this, do you know what I wanted? To be home, with a plate of Brewerkz squid. And I couldn't go home. And they stopped serving squid before midnight. Boo.
I'll be home soon enough. And there will be squid again.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Movie Review: Doomsday
One of the nice things about bad movies is that, once you know the name, you can avoid that movie again, very easily, by not seeing a movie of the same name.
However, when bad movies are stripped of their crap component and some video Dr Frankenstein sews them back together with thin thread of little plot, it becomes harder to avoid them.
Welcome to Doomsday. Escape From New York meets Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome meets Waterworld meets a bad rip-off of Braveheart meets 28 Days Later meets the Raymond Revuebar meets ... oh, you get the idea. Remember that boring and stupid crowd scene from the Matrix II? There's an even dumber one here. Rubber-bound gimp from Pulp Fiction? Check! Strange tip of the hat to Edge of Darkness? Confusing but it's here. Gratuitous product placement of Bentley motorcars that is probably a reference to Cherry 3000? I keep wondering how much more they can jam in - it's not surprising that there's no plot. This is a fever dream of unrelated set pieces with the same actors handling similar roles. It's like "Thank God You're Here" with an R Rating and people exploding in clouds of fluid.
Our poor good guys can't get a break. Everywhere they are, hundreds of people have been mysteriously waiting, apparently for the last 25 years, to jump them. With large buses being run on the fuel that somehow survived 25 years of isolation. Given that the stations in Adelaide start to run dry after 3 DAYS without resupply, I'd love to know how big the storage tanks are in Scottish service stations. Let's not even talk about the complete recreation of feudalism, complete with armour, depicted as being superior to gunpowder. Hmm...
This film is awful. Mindless gore, without real humour. Farcical science fiction that doesn't stand up to any questioning. This is probably the worst film that I've seen recently - and I've seen every film Milla Jovovic has ever made...
Let's not make any hasty comparisons here, but there is no point in seeing this movie if you've been keeping up with science fiction films in the past couple of decades. They're all consumed here, digested partially and then regurgitated in one long disconnected set of chunks.
This is a terrible film. They manage to make an exploding gimp boring. Don't bother.
However, when bad movies are stripped of their crap component and some video Dr Frankenstein sews them back together with thin thread of little plot, it becomes harder to avoid them.
Welcome to Doomsday. Escape From New York meets Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome meets Waterworld meets a bad rip-off of Braveheart meets 28 Days Later meets the Raymond Revuebar meets ... oh, you get the idea. Remember that boring and stupid crowd scene from the Matrix II? There's an even dumber one here. Rubber-bound gimp from Pulp Fiction? Check! Strange tip of the hat to Edge of Darkness? Confusing but it's here. Gratuitous product placement of Bentley motorcars that is probably a reference to Cherry 3000? I keep wondering how much more they can jam in - it's not surprising that there's no plot. This is a fever dream of unrelated set pieces with the same actors handling similar roles. It's like "Thank God You're Here" with an R Rating and people exploding in clouds of fluid.
Our poor good guys can't get a break. Everywhere they are, hundreds of people have been mysteriously waiting, apparently for the last 25 years, to jump them. With large buses being run on the fuel that somehow survived 25 years of isolation. Given that the stations in Adelaide start to run dry after 3 DAYS without resupply, I'd love to know how big the storage tanks are in Scottish service stations. Let's not even talk about the complete recreation of feudalism, complete with armour, depicted as being superior to gunpowder. Hmm...
This film is awful. Mindless gore, without real humour. Farcical science fiction that doesn't stand up to any questioning. This is probably the worst film that I've seen recently - and I've seen every film Milla Jovovic has ever made...
Let's not make any hasty comparisons here, but there is no point in seeing this movie if you've been keeping up with science fiction films in the past couple of decades. They're all consumed here, digested partially and then regurgitated in one long disconnected set of chunks.
This is a terrible film. They manage to make an exploding gimp boring. Don't bother.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Three Days of Sunday
I missed a dinner engagement tonight with some very nice people. I realised at 8:30 that I should have been at dinner at 6:30pm. The reason that I forgot was that I didn't know that today was Monday.
I realise now that, on Saturday when I had people coming over to play games, I had thought it was Sunday. A friend and I were convinced that he would miss the final episode of Doctor Who because it was on that night. No, it wasn't. Then, the next day, it was Sunday again. I was lying here with a leg in the air, with a brief diversion for a very nice lunch. But it was Sunday again.
Today, I didn't go out, I watched TV, I read books. I lay on my back with my leg in the air again. I'd been sending e-mail backwards and forwards all weekend about work and the flow of work mail today didn't trigger my Monday sense.
Fortunately, my friends are patient and nice - and they're having me to dinner tomorrow night instead.
I have put a note on the door, with the time and the day and the name of the people I'm seeing.
Fingers crossed.
I realise now that, on Saturday when I had people coming over to play games, I had thought it was Sunday. A friend and I were convinced that he would miss the final episode of Doctor Who because it was on that night. No, it wasn't. Then, the next day, it was Sunday again. I was lying here with a leg in the air, with a brief diversion for a very nice lunch. But it was Sunday again.
Today, I didn't go out, I watched TV, I read books. I lay on my back with my leg in the air again. I'd been sending e-mail backwards and forwards all weekend about work and the flow of work mail today didn't trigger my Monday sense.
Fortunately, my friends are patient and nice - and they're having me to dinner tomorrow night instead.
I have put a note on the door, with the time and the day and the name of the people I'm seeing.
Fingers crossed.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Religion
I'm over it. I don't want to pretend anymore. This is why I'm no good with kids - I can only put up with the made-up shit for so long.
"Uffa has an imaginary friend. Does Sally want a seat?"
You know, in 20 years time, you're going to be spending a large amount of money on lithium and SSRIs if Uffa still sees Sally. Or kills people when Sally doesn't like them. Somehow, for children of a certain age, it's cute. Ok, I can live with that. Childhood is a time for learning and running around, doing weird stuff.
But there comes a time when even elementary thought is going to lead you to question what's going on.
What's the deal with prayer? God created the Universe and is both omnipresent and omnipotent, in most interpretations. God already knows. Seriously. It is going to happen or it isn't. Loved one hit by a car? God made that happen - prayer is irrelevant. Try anger instead. Making a bargain with God? Hang on, if there is plan then you were going to do it anyway. What's the point?
(Don't get me started on Satanism. This is like watching a Grand Final and then getting in a time machine to go back and bet on the loser. Unpleasant, unintelligent and the religion for people who never got over painting their rooms black to piss off their parents.)
You can't have both teams stand around at the start of the game and both pray for victory. This is an obvious case where you the only way to pray is to wait to see who won and then pray after the fact for your prayer to go back in time and guarantee the win.
It's not just prayer. The Rabbinical tradition of structured discussion to integrate tradition and practice allows some updating in an old religion (such as the recent statements on homosexuality) but some things are bit dodgy. That 'string around the buildings' to make it inside space for the Sabbath? That's not fooling anyone, let alone God.
Most of my friends are familiar with (and sick of) my bear behind the door argument. It's simple. There are parts of the world where there are wild bears. Open the door without checking and you might get mauled by a bear. I live in a part of the world where there are no wild bears, but there are zoos within 4km of my house that do have bears (and many other dangerous animals for that matter). Thus, there is a very small but finite chance that, every time I open my door, I could get mauled by a bear. Do I check? Of course not.
There is indisputable proof of bear attacks. There are bears within my vicinity. Yet I don't check my door before opening.
There is no indisputable proof of God, nor can there be as faith is often considered to be the fundamental tenet, with evidence cheapening or negating the experience. There are no Gods within my vicinity. I don't check my door for God before opening it and, to be honest, it is more logical for me to check for bears outside my door or great white sharks in my postbox than it is for me to believe in God.
And yet this fantasy, while not unassailable, is a widely accepted and legitimised mass hallucination with no verification and its spread is growing. The future is frightening but the solution is not to fall back into unsubstantiated assertion-based discriminatory and unnecessary mechanisms - the solution is in thought and reason.
I don't want to live in a religiously-dominated world or society. More importantly, I don't want to have to pretend that somebody who is talking to a non-existent entity in the sky is anything other than self-deluded or a candidate for medication - especially when they're lecturing me. Religion can be very personal - but belief doesn't make it right.
"Uffa has an imaginary friend. Does Sally want a seat?"
You know, in 20 years time, you're going to be spending a large amount of money on lithium and SSRIs if Uffa still sees Sally. Or kills people when Sally doesn't like them. Somehow, for children of a certain age, it's cute. Ok, I can live with that. Childhood is a time for learning and running around, doing weird stuff.
But there comes a time when even elementary thought is going to lead you to question what's going on.
What's the deal with prayer? God created the Universe and is both omnipresent and omnipotent, in most interpretations. God already knows. Seriously. It is going to happen or it isn't. Loved one hit by a car? God made that happen - prayer is irrelevant. Try anger instead. Making a bargain with God? Hang on, if there is plan then you were going to do it anyway. What's the point?
(Don't get me started on Satanism. This is like watching a Grand Final and then getting in a time machine to go back and bet on the loser. Unpleasant, unintelligent and the religion for people who never got over painting their rooms black to piss off their parents.)
You can't have both teams stand around at the start of the game and both pray for victory. This is an obvious case where you the only way to pray is to wait to see who won and then pray after the fact for your prayer to go back in time and guarantee the win.
It's not just prayer. The Rabbinical tradition of structured discussion to integrate tradition and practice allows some updating in an old religion (such as the recent statements on homosexuality) but some things are bit dodgy. That 'string around the buildings' to make it inside space for the Sabbath? That's not fooling anyone, let alone God.
Most of my friends are familiar with (and sick of) my bear behind the door argument. It's simple. There are parts of the world where there are wild bears. Open the door without checking and you might get mauled by a bear. I live in a part of the world where there are no wild bears, but there are zoos within 4km of my house that do have bears (and many other dangerous animals for that matter). Thus, there is a very small but finite chance that, every time I open my door, I could get mauled by a bear. Do I check? Of course not.
There is indisputable proof of bear attacks. There are bears within my vicinity. Yet I don't check my door before opening.
There is no indisputable proof of God, nor can there be as faith is often considered to be the fundamental tenet, with evidence cheapening or negating the experience. There are no Gods within my vicinity. I don't check my door for God before opening it and, to be honest, it is more logical for me to check for bears outside my door or great white sharks in my postbox than it is for me to believe in God.
And yet this fantasy, while not unassailable, is a widely accepted and legitimised mass hallucination with no verification and its spread is growing. The future is frightening but the solution is not to fall back into unsubstantiated assertion-based discriminatory and unnecessary mechanisms - the solution is in thought and reason.
I don't want to live in a religiously-dominated world or society. More importantly, I don't want to have to pretend that somebody who is talking to a non-existent entity in the sky is anything other than self-deluded or a candidate for medication - especially when they're lecturing me. Religion can be very personal - but belief doesn't make it right.
Circularity
This has now become my primary blogging outlet. To my horror, I realise that I spent time looking on facebook for a way to link to my blogspot, and then just decided to refer to it in my status update.
This closes the loop.
This closes the loop.
Global Finance
Hey, economists!
Is it possible to have a steady-state economic situation that avoid recessions, given that indefinite expansion is impossible, or are you all just making stuff up while high on nose-candy?
I still can't get my head around the current meltdown in the US. I can understand the creation of something out of something else, except that if the words 'until house prices start dropping' occur to me after examining things for a few seconds, shouldn't this have occurred to other people?
Of course, I'm being naive. The secret of finance is to hand on the hot potato before it burns you. There are a group of people who have made vast amounts of money from what has happened and a lot of this money will continue to be worth something, even if they plugged it into the stock market. The really big companies knew that, despite the dogma of contemporary capitalism, the US government would be forced into a semi-socialist buyout and funding round to support the economy. All the benefits of the invisible hand, except that it only has one finger extended.
What do I know? I'm the wrong kind of scientist. Any economists, fill me in and inform me.
Is it possible to have a steady-state economic situation that avoid recessions, given that indefinite expansion is impossible, or are you all just making stuff up while high on nose-candy?
I still can't get my head around the current meltdown in the US. I can understand the creation of something out of something else, except that if the words 'until house prices start dropping' occur to me after examining things for a few seconds, shouldn't this have occurred to other people?
Of course, I'm being naive. The secret of finance is to hand on the hot potato before it burns you. There are a group of people who have made vast amounts of money from what has happened and a lot of this money will continue to be worth something, even if they plugged it into the stock market. The really big companies knew that, despite the dogma of contemporary capitalism, the US government would be forced into a semi-socialist buyout and funding round to support the economy. All the benefits of the invisible hand, except that it only has one finger extended.
What do I know? I'm the wrong kind of scientist. Any economists, fill me in and inform me.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Italy and Knee Surgery
I never post while I'm actually away somewhere - I don't like people to know that I'm not at home, given that I'm using my own name on this blog.
I've recently returned from Turin, Italy, where I attended a conference and workshop group to present and chair a session. Very successful trip and I hope to write up a more complete report shortly. In short, Turin is beautiful. The food and wine are great and the city is a postcard, surrounded by small villages that are what good postcards hope to be when they die - Barolo, Barbarseco, Alba, beautiful!
I am currently sitting on the couch at home, recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery. Before the surgery, neither the doctor nor the surgeon were very optimistic about me running again for any real distances. However, the surgeon has now cleaned up my knee cap and trimmed back some tissue that was getting pinched in the knee and, assuming that the healing goes well, he seemed much more positive about running in the future. That's great news. I can always take up swimming, I guess, if things go pear-shaped. My ligaments, cartilage, minisces and bones are actually in good shape - no arthritis or tears. Hooray!
I hope to post more often in the near future. Watch this space.
I've recently returned from Turin, Italy, where I attended a conference and workshop group to present and chair a session. Very successful trip and I hope to write up a more complete report shortly. In short, Turin is beautiful. The food and wine are great and the city is a postcard, surrounded by small villages that are what good postcards hope to be when they die - Barolo, Barbarseco, Alba, beautiful!
I am currently sitting on the couch at home, recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery. Before the surgery, neither the doctor nor the surgeon were very optimistic about me running again for any real distances. However, the surgeon has now cleaned up my knee cap and trimmed back some tissue that was getting pinched in the knee and, assuming that the healing goes well, he seemed much more positive about running in the future. That's great news. I can always take up swimming, I guess, if things go pear-shaped. My ligaments, cartilage, minisces and bones are actually in good shape - no arthritis or tears. Hooray!
I hope to post more often in the near future. Watch this space.
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