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July 31, 2006
Good-bye, Anna
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:35 AM | Comments (2)
July 29, 2006
In case you had missed it
I'm getting married in 13 hours! Whee!
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:46 AM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2006
Head Shots
I don't normally do head shots, but I can make an exception for you... Just hold still...
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
Book #49: The Thin Man
Somebody should check out this Dashiell Hammett kid, I think he's got a few good books in him. OK, The Thin Man is great, but reading a book from even just 75 years ago there have been cultural shifts that make it hard, sometimes, to discern subtext. For example, when Nick and Nora have a cigarette in bed together, I don't think that's supposed to signify anything (or is it?). But what really struck me was how much Nick drinks. Was that normal? I mean, it was the era of the three-martini lunch, yes? But he drinks a lot.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:03 AM | Comments (1)
Davises
Because of various familial-required travels, my good friends Lee and Mary Davis aren't going to be able to come to our wedding, but they were able to stop in for a few hours on their way to and fro those travels. And I finally got to meet their two-and-half year old son Graham, which gives you an idea of how it's been since I've seen them. Which is a shame, not the least because Graham is a cute little scamp.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:47 AM | Comments (1)
Extreme Home Makeover
You know that scene at the end of every home make-over TV show, where the family is standing in the middle of their formerly-familiar house, oohing and awing over the plasma screen TV and how spacious it all feels and just a little dazed and oh, isn't awesome how you pull on the elephant's trunk and the lawn sprinklers come on?
That's how we felt when Kristen's cleaning lady, Vicky, was done with our house on Monday. We had thought we had organized by the end of the day Saturday, but compared to Vicky we had done nothing. Vicky and her daughter-in-law put away everything in the kitchen and dining room, and then cleaned every surface until it gleamed. They cleaned off the tops of the cabinets where no one every looks. They pulled all the pots and pans out of the cabinets and replaced them so that nothing falls out when you open the doors. They... rearranged all of the photos and newspaper clippings on the fridge so they were arranged in a more space-efficient manner (I do wonder if Vicky might have some OCD issues).
In all, they spent 7 hours cleaning (and organizing) our house. It was incredible. What a wonderful wedding present. I'm still nervous about setting a dish down in the kitchen -- I don't want to mar Vicky's amazing work.
Of course, I also now know how those people on the TV shows feel a few hours after the camera crews have left and you're opening all of the cabinet doors in the kitchen wondering, "now where did they put the toaster?"
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:26 AM | Comments (2)
Where's Mustapha?
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:13 AM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2006
Book #48: Grunts
But never let it be said that I won't give somebody a second chance. I may have abandoned Mary Gentle's Rats and Gargoyles but I spotted Grunts in a used book store and it looked worth my $2 and it was.
Grunts is starts out with your standard Tolkien-esque Final Battle between Good and Evil, but from the perspective of the presumed expendable orc ground troupes. Add in some magical army weapons from our own world, and proceed through 460 pages of parody of both fantasy cliches and war movies.
There's a potential here for a real re-examining of the role of the "cannon fodder" ground troops in fantasy novels, ala the way Terry Pratchett dove into the life of the disposable city guard in Guards! Guards!, that's never really realized. But maybe that's not the point here and it's much more about cooked-halfling and "I love the smell of Grecian fire in the morning" jokes. At which it succeeds just fine.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Bob Wiltfong
New York Neutrino member Bob Wiltfong was interviewed by the New York comedy site The Apiary. Among other things, we learn which Neutrino he'd eat post-Andes plane crash:
I would probably eat Donnelly first. He's meaty.I agree. Matt would be tasty.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2006
LATE Ride
Whilst the kids were up in Michigan, my good friend Jason came up to Chicago and we did the LATE Ride. It was great to see Jason (I don't think we've seen each other in person in 5 years) and it was a pretty chill ride. And I do so enjoy riding around our fair city at 2 am. I mean, in general, and so it's also fun to do it with nine thousand other people.
And I rode Jase's recumbent bike for a block and didn't fall over that much.
Oh, and hey, we discovered the secret message of Mickey D's.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:34 AM | Comments (1)
Neutrino Project at MILF
The Neutrino Project went up to Ann Arbor without me (sniff) this weekend to perform at the Michigan Improv and Laugh Festival. (yes, the MILF. It's good to see that having a child has not changed Dan Izzo's classiness.) Kristen has posted a Flickr set of important things like... Guitar Hero in the backyard*. Arm-wrestling in the Improv Inferno basement. Awesome, guys. Did you bother doing a show?
* Kristen informs me that that image was eroneously in the MILF set.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:03 AM | Comments (1)
Book #47: Reflex
One side effect of this Read 50 Books challenge is that it makes me, for good or bad, much less likely to toss aside a book if it's not really catching my fancy. I mean, I've got numbers to make, people, I've got a quota to fulfill. Are we meeting our LY? Are we!? (Sorry - different job.)
So that's the only reason I even made it halfway through Mike Resnick's The Widowmaker. Gah, I felt like I was being bludgeoned while I was reading it. Wooden, two dimensional characters and a plot out of a pulp Western (and not a good pulp Western) but in spaaaace. The main character does a lot of staring at people, which I think is supposed to menacing. Or deep. Or something. But I began to imagine that it was a vacant stare, with maybe a hint of drool forming at the edge of his mouth. Man, I hated that book. The Widowmaker is not book #47.
So I picked up Reflex by Steven Gould and I felt like I had been liberated. I don't think it's just the contrast -- Reflex is a really good book. It's a sequel to Jumper, where we met Davy Rice, a teenage runway who discovers that he can teleport. Gould drops that single extraordinary detail into a very realistic picture of our own times and discovers where it takes his characters.
Reflex picks up ten years later with Davy working for the NSA and happily married to Millie, now a family therapist. Davy is abducted by a shadowy organization who want to force Davy to use his powers for their purposes. While searching for her husband, Millie discovers that she can also teleport. And we're off to the races. It's an exciting book, but what really got me was the characters -- everyone in the book seems a full-formed person, even minor characters. Good, good stuff.
Oh, and I found out tonight from Steven Gould's website that a movie is being made of both Jumper and Reflex and he's used the option money to finance quitting his day job and going back to writing full-time. I wish him good luck (and more good books) and hope, you know, that they don't ruin the movie :-)
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:19 AM | Comments (1)
July 14, 2006
Your Itinerary
Hey, if you're coming into town for our wedding, please let us (and others) know your itinerary, so that meetups can happen.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)
Blogger Code
It's been years since I've updated my Geek Code, but here's my Blogger Code:
B9 d++ t+ k+ s- u f+ i o+ x+ e+ l c--
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:11 PM | Comments (1)
July 13, 2006
Book #46: Century Rain
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds is a nice, meaty SF book about a post-Nanocaust Earth and a sort-of alternate history Earth in 1959 where WWII never happened. Except the alternate Earth exists three hundred years in the future and half-way across the galaxy. It's complicated. The best parts of the book are from the point of view of Wendell Floyd, a lowrent jazz musician and private detective in 1959 (sorta) Paris. I think I could easily read a whole series of Wendell Floyd detective novels.
And just as I'm nearly my challenge goal of 50 books, I find out that New York standup Leo Allen is aiming for 100. Splutter. It's really hard for me not to rise to the challenge and up my ante to 100, also. But wait, he lists Lulu Eightball by Emily Flake at #51. I mean, it's great, but it's a collection of cartoons. If I can list collections of cartoons...
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:10 PM | Comments (3)
Torontoist on Neutrino
Our northern cousins, the Toronto Neutrino Project are performing at the Fringe of Toronto Fest and got a nice little shout-out from Toronoist: 6.5 out of 8 ISTs.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:53 PM | Comments (0)
Tricia
My in-16-days-mother-in-law, and frequent commenter on this site, Tricia Reid has started a blog: Tricia Dishes.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
Project Runway
We're inconfident enough of our predictions for the new season of Project Runway that I won't share, but I can tell you who we're rooting for: Katherine Gerdes. Because she's family*.
* She's probably not family. Gerdes is a not-uncommon German last name and there are Gerdeses scattered around the US. In fact, it's the 6037th most common last name in the US.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:56 AM | Comments (0)
July 10, 2006
Faelyn
photo by Erica Reid
Our friends' lives are very baby-ful right now, and on Sunday we got a chance to go meet one of these new little new people: Faelyn McGuire.
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:29 PM
July 7, 2006
Book #45: Howl's Moving Castle
I haven't seen Howl's Moving Castle yet, but Kyle assures me it's great. I can now assure him that the novel it's based on, by Diana Wynne Jones is also delightful. What a great mix of playing with and inhabiting the conventions of fairy-tales.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:48 PM | Comments (0)
July 6, 2006
Book #44: Fine Prey
Now having read Fine Prey I think I'm two books away from having read the entire Westerfeld oeuvre (not counting the Powerpuff Girls nor Goosebumps books).
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)
DSTW on Metromix TV
Metromix TV came out to Don't Spit the Water last weekend for the one year anniversary of the open run. I think they did a good job capturing the feel of the show and you can watch Erica do her makes-even-less-sense-out-of-context comedy here (click on the link labeled Don't Spit the Water). (Grr... it doesn't work on Macs, even though I do have the Windows Media Player plug-in installed.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
Andrew (and Mike)
The Mike Doughty Band played at the Taste of Chicago on July 4th, which to us means, "yay! Andrew is coming to town!" I mean, and also, "yay! Mike Doughty is coming to town!" Oh, you know, it's different, but both good. We're fans of Mike, but friends of Andrew.
Anyway, too much explaining. It was a beautiful day at the Taste -- sunny, but not too hot. The band played a nice, tight set -- without hardly any of Mike's entertaining banter. But I can understand why -- the band was the opening act of three and it's always better to give the fans more music than banter (more rock, if you will, less talk). We blew off right after their set to talk to Andrew (Livingston), which meant we missed Andrew (Bird) playing with My Morning Jacket. Oops. It was great to see Andrew (and nice to see Mike and Pete and Chuck, too) (and meet Kirby).
Anyway, I took a bunch of pictures.
Oh, and here's a great picture of Andrew on Mike's blog.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)
July 5, 2006
Critical Mass
I finally did my first Chicago Critical Mass ride, and I'm kicking myself that I've been in Chicago this long and never done one. It was soooo much fun.
Critical Mass is advertised as being officially without organization and I got to see that in action as two different routes were proposed, one to Humboldt Park and the other to Oak Park and the mass deciding by a quick vote-by-cheer. Also, I think on average the more committed riders show up earlier, so when it's time to actually start moving, they're stuck in the middle of a mass of riders who don't quite seem to know what to do.
But it all just worked out -- the Critical Mass ride seemed to be an example of the wonderful things possible when unorganized but well-intentioned people get together for a common purpose.
I have to admit I was a little surprised at how polite and cheerful the whole thing was. I mean, the ride itself is an aggressive thing -- we do stop traffic and hog the road. But everyone was unfailing nice. When a driver stuck in a long line of cars tried to lurch out into bike traffic (one of the, also surprisingly, few openly upset drivers) a young man riding near me called out, "Ma'am, please slow down." When she replied with a hearty, "Fuck you," his only response was a repeated, "Please, ma'am, just slow down, please."
Also, I took a lot of pictures of the freak bikes and the (cough) unusual folks, but what was really impressive was the hundreds (thousands?) of just folks who were out for a nice bike ride.
So, see you at the Daley Plaza the last Friday of the month on your bike. Let's go for a bike ride!
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:40 PM | Comments (3)