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2003-12-31
Last Post of the Year
I wish everyone, especially those who like Sedalina, Helen, racheal, Ms. D, or Johnny Huh? have for various reasons been in my thoughts a lot in the last few weeks, a happy year 2004! May the next year for all of us be better than all the ones before, and the worst of those yet to come.
2003-12-30
Another Reason to Celebrate
My adversity to all conflicts, which I try to avoid even if they are necessary, and my rocking horse patience combine with my tendency to take things at face value unless there's reason not to, to my ability to get along rather well with almost everyone, unless they're actively trying to piss me off. There are a few notable exceptions to this, though.
One of them is my father-in-law, whose working style of "do it now, think about it later" irritates the hell out of me. For one thing, it is the exact opposite of mine, and it also means that whenever we work together at something, be that him helping with our house, or me doing computer stuff for him and his wife, I routinely have to deal with a bunch of easily avoidable problems which come up precisely because he forged ahead without thinking things through instead of investing a few minutes beforehead, thus saving us oodles of basically unnecessary work afterwards.
The other, even more notable exception is my sister. She is the only person I know of who is able to drive me up the wall by her mere presence. This ability is based on two main reasons. For one thing, she is as different characterwise from me, as is possible. Where I am an introverted, calm, empathetic though occasionally self-absorbed thinker, she's bubbly, impulsive, unable to plan even the most simple of activities, and totally insensitive to the needs of anyone but herself. But even worse than all this, or her tendency to take everything for granted, is reason number two, which is related to her absolute insensitivity towards others: She has no sense of time and its value whatsoever, not her own, and even less that of others.
This not only bothers me, but also my wife, who likes to be a good host (and can't stomach my opinion that if they're not acting like half-way reasonable guests, they shouldn't expect us to be world-class hosts in return), planning activities and meals for our guests, cooking for them, and similar things. But all of this becomes impossible if your guest is someone who takes such hospitality for granted, tells you she'll join you for breakfast but doesn't get up before noon, has lots of things she needs to do in preparation for her one-year-stay in New Zealand which starts in February, but no sense of how long doing all those things will take her, and consequently can't even be counted upon to be back in time for us to go with her to the nice Chinese restaurant which has opened near our place some time ago.
Did I mention that she's irritating like hell?
I seriously wonder how her exceptionally nice and polite french boyfriend gets along with her. Unlike her, he's interested in other cultures and languages, tries to learn as much German as he can to augment their avenues of communication which are restricted to French, which my sister has only a very basic command of, and English, which both of them aren't exactly experts in. And what does she do? Not encourage him, as would be reasonable, no, she makes fun of him and his heavily accented pronounciation, which understandably frustrates him to no end. Gah, stupid girl!
So what's to celebrate then, you ask? Not only have they come to visit us a day later than originally planned, giving us one more day to relax, they also have finally, finally left and very likely won't come to visit us for at least twelve or fifteen months. I know I probably shouldn't rejoice in the prolonged absence of one of the only two blood relations of mine to whom I still have some form of familial contact, but I can't help being utterly relieved at that thought.
2003-12-28
The Lord of the Rings - Return of the King
We went to see RotK a few days ago, and from what I'd read about the movie on the net (rave reviews all around except for the usual bunch of critics putting the work down for its real of perceived racism and sexism), I had high hopes for the conclusion of this epic trilogy. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed.
The visuals are certainly stunning, there's not a bit of doubt about that. Minas Tirith looked every bit like I would have expected it, the desolation of Osgiliath was well done, and the battle scenes were breathtaking, if a bit overdone in places. (I hope we weren't the only ones who found the scene of Legolas killing the Oliphant all by himself a wee bit ridiculous. Yeah, he's an elf and all, but swinging himself up on a running war Oliphant by climbing the arrows others had shot into its hide!? Come on!) The sound track was more than adequate as well.
But, but, but, stunning visuals and some great music do not a movie make, Mr. Jackson. And as a movie as opposed to a collection of visual effects with a sound track, RotK had too many flaws to be more than mediocre. The acting was sub-par at best, with the only satisfactory performances coming from Eowyn (definitely the best acting of the movie, and the only character that felt half-way human and alive) as well as Pippin and Sam Gamgee. You know the acting is below average in a movie if you think we should have seen more of the computer-generated characters like Gollum, and less of their blood-and-flesh counterparts...
And I sure hope we've seen the last of Elijah Wood and the two facial expressions he is capable of - bleak and miserable. Oh, OK, and that look of love and carnal desire he sports in the closing scene at the Grey Havens. *shudder* Whoever chose the actor for the role of Denethor, steward of Gondor, should be summarily shot, too. Denethor is an ascetic, strong-willed, old, harsh, and utterly desperate character in the book, damnit, and not the soft-fleshed, decadent lunatic the movie portrayed him as.
On top of all that, the ommissions and plot holes, while noticeable but mostly inconsequential in the first two parts, felt glaring and disruptive to me in RotK. I can understand leaving out the Scouring of the Shire and Sam and Frodo's trek across the plain of Gorgoroth, because while both scenes are important in the frame of the book, they admittedly don't make good movie material in the context of that trilogy. But I don't understand leaving out the hospital scene in Minas Tirith, the healing of Eowyn, Faramir, and Merry, and giving us nothing but a shot of Eowyn and Faramir looking fondly into each other's eyes as a replacement. That scene was important, at least for the development of the best-played character in the movie...
But the most glaring failure for both me and my wife was the way the movie dealt, or rather failed to deal, with Saruman. There you have that powerful sorcerer, built up in the previous two installations of the trilogy as the incarnation of evil, the hand of evil to Sauron's bodiless evil eye, and all you can do with him is leave him behind in Orthanc with nothing more than a "His power is broken now."!? Boo, I say, boo.
Was it worth the price of admission? Yes. Disappointing as it was in places, the stunning visualization of Middle-Earth gave us an entertaining evening. As for the ommissions, I put my hope into the extended DVD version. But still, I can't help thinking that "Finding Nemo" was the better movie, overall.
2003-12-23
The first quiz that gets me right
According to this quiz over at the Beeb, I am both a Logical-Mathematical Thinker and a Musical Thinker. A double yay for them to a) get me right and b) be sufficiently wise in the ways of the human being to allow for more than one answer at a time!
Logical-Mathematical thinkers:- Like to understand patterns and relationships between objects or actions
- Try to understand the world in terms of causes and effects
- Are good at thinking critically, and solving problems creatively
Careers which suit Logical-Mathematical thinkers include Physicist, Chemist, Biologist, Lawyer, Computer programmer, Engineer, Inventor.
Musical thinkers:- Tend to think in sounds, and may also think in rhythms and melodies
- Are sensitive to the sounds and rhythms of words as well as their meanings
- Feel a strong connection between music and emotions
Careers which suit Musical Thinkers include Musician, Music teacher, Sound engineer, Recording technician.
Logical-Mathematical thinking is indeed my primary modus operandi, with music, sound, and rhythm being other important ingredients to my way of perceiving, and making sense of, the world around me. And they are so right about the connection between music and emotions...
2003-12-22
The Redeemers of Disney
To say that I am not overly fond of Disney Corp. would be something of an understatement. In fact, I loathe their harmless, overly cute, and nauseatingly treacly "adaptations" - and I use the word loosely - of classic tales (which my wife for some totally unfathomable reason actually likes) with an abiding, slowly simmering hatred, as they routinely rob these beautiful stories of their life and soul and replace it with a standard mix of cute characters, a harmless tale of adventure, some musical-like singing, and a happy end.
So when news arrived over the pond about a new, very succesful Disney movie that everyone just had to see, and that had already resulted in a worldwide shortening of the supply of Clown Fish as idiotic but well-meaning parents bowed to the will of their children and bought their kiddies the fish that looked like the main characters of that movie (memories of 101 Dalmatians almost made me barf at that point), and that also made well-meaning but ill-advised children pour the inhabitants of their aquariums down the toilet to "free" them instead accomplishing their certain death in the nearest water treatment plant, I quickly resolved that this was a movie I certainly didn't need to see.
That resolve only wavered when about two weeks ago I read in a news article that "Finding Nemo" had been made not by Disney Studios, but by the guys at Pixar. So continuing my quest to be fashionably late, last Sunday we went to the Cinema to watch, not the third part of the Lord of the Rings like apparently the rest of the world, but "Finding Nemo", and we enjoyed it tremendously. My stressed-out wife afterwards told me that this had been the first time in a long while that she had truly been able to let go of all her worries and stress and just have a good time, and Pixar gets my undying gratitude for this alone.
I have to say though that "Finding Nemo" is by far the best movie we've seen since watching the second parts of LotR and Harry Potter about a year ago. The story was fun, the characters memorable, the visuals incredible, the humour was of the slightly anarchic and respectless kind that I've so come to love about Pixar Studios' products, and whoever was responsible for the German voice-overs had done an absolutely astonishing job: the voice acting was nearly perfect.
In short, although I haven't seen either of the two Toy Story movies yet, I can say with some surety that this is Pixar's best movie yet in a line of really outstanding stuff. I loved "A Bug's Life", enjoyed "Monsters Inc." a lot, although that movie was a bit weaker than I'd expected, and I especially adore Pixar's short films "For the Birds", "Knickknack", and most of all "Geri's Game". So seeing as the existence of Pixar Studios os the sole reason for me to watch a Disney movie, this is high praise indeed.
But after watching the film, one nagging question remains: how can any kid who has watched "Finding Nemo" and which isn't a total imbecile want a Clown Fish in an aquarium at home, and how can any sane parent actually buy them one?! Heck, I know there are a lot of rock bottom stupid people with entirely too much money out there, but this boggles the mind nonetheless.
2003-12-21
Congratulations, it's a... Billy!
Knowing that we'll move into our new house late this year, we have been on the lookout for furniture basically throughout the year. The experience was, to put it mildly, sobering. For one thing, we still remember the prices from about six years ago when we moved into the upper floor of the newly reconstructed house of the in-laws. Compared to those prices, it almost looks like they left the numbers the same and just changed the currency from Deutschmarks to Euros. In other words, the prices have almost doubled during the last few years!
The high prices are only half of the problem, though. The other half is that despite the high prices, which we'd be prepared to pay if we got reasonably high quality in exchange, the merchandise looks cheap, is of lesser quality than the furniture we'd bought six years ago, and is ugly as hell to boot: Either the style is "modern", which effectively means it's made of a combination of metal and glass, looks exceedingly cold and austere or alternatively features the most gaudy and health-endangering of color combinations, and doesn't really fit the warm, Mediterranean-inspired style we are aiming for in our new home. Or it's "antique" styled, features overdone ornamentations up the wazoo, oppressively dark colors like mahogany or dark cherrywood, and consequently looks so "old people style" that even the in-laws proclaimed themselves insufficiently geriatric to even consider buying the stuff.
In short, there was nothing to be found that matched the warm and simple beech wood theme we were looking for. When all other options were exhausted, we resorted to the last possibility, the one we hadn't considered before, because we had discounted them as cheap, low quality and unlikely to have anything we were looking for: a certain Swedish company named IKEA. We likely wouldn't have considered them even then if it hadn't been for the recent opening of the third IKEA store in the greater Berlin area just a few days prior.
So we gritted our teeth, went to the nearest IKEA, suffered through the crowds stuffing the store, arriving in hordes upon hordes apparently not to buy furniture but to spend a pleasant day like one would go to a fair for, have a look around, stand in other people's way, and generally make themselves a nuisance to those not in the same, uh... relaxed mindset. Despite all those adverse circumstances we were pleasantly, and considerably, surprised to actually find something we liked enough to consider shelling out money for.
So we did. Roughly half of our books are now residing in that most famous of all Swedish products, a "Billy" shelf (the other half is still packed up in boxes in the in-laws' attic), while the rest of the living room furniture is largely made up of parts from the "Bonde" system. Granted, it may not be perfect, but it's closer than all other offers we've seen these last few months, and we're starting to like it quite a bit:
- the Billy bookshelf,
- the Bonde furniture, with the TV and all,
- more Bonde behind the couch and our computers, which will be the first to go on the upper floor once we have a room finished upstairs.
- The weather may not be very Christmas-y, but at least we have Christmas stars hanging everywhere.
- Our house from a slightly different perspective than the other pictures, taken on a walk that took me across the brook, over the field, and all around the lake.
2003-12-14
My wife has vetoed me taking pictures of the interior of our house until the mess of moving in has been completely cleaned up, all the boxes have been emptied, and the majority of things are were they belong. So, until then, you'll just have to make do with a text-only blog (see last post. ;-)
Jacqueline Carey: Kushiel's Dart
My criteria for a perfect book include things like believable, lifelike, deep, human characters, an intricate, twisting plot (with multiple strands in parallel a bonus), an interisting, internally consistent world which could, at least in theory, support more than that one book or series, and a good use of the vast resources the English language has to offer. And every once in an altogether too great while I come upon a book or even the whole works of an author which comes pretty damn close to that ideal: Tolkien is a winner in the language and world departments, the plots are nice, if a bit tragic-heavy for my taste. But characters are, sadly, not the old Don's forte. Janny Wurts' books generally fit the bill rather nicely: her characters are among the best I've ever encountered in reading, the plot is invariably complex, twisty and multi-stranded, and her use of language is rich, diverse, and full of beautiful imagery.
And now, I can add another author to my "must buy" list. Jacqueline Carey's characters, both good and bad, are complex beasts, the plot of Kushiel's Dart is not overly complex and told in a single strand, but enough to keep me going, Her use of language is masterful enough to completely draw me into the life of the heroine of the book, although it is written from a frist person perspective, which I am not really all that fond of, and usually have a hard time getting into. But it is her world that I find utterly fascinating, because it so strongly reflects some of the things I would like to see changing in this, our world:
When Jesus was nailed to the cross, his blood fell to the earth where it mingled with the tears of Mary of Magdala, and from that union of blood and tears, nourished by mother Earth, was born Elua, another angel who, like Lucifer before him, gathered companions around him and rebelled against the will of the One God. So they wandered the earth, mingling freely with mortals, spilling theirs seeds freely, and thus giving birth to the people of Terre D'Ange, situated in what we nowadays call France. When Elua and his companions left for that other Terre D'Ange behind the veil, they left "their" people with just one commandment: "Love as thou wilt."
The result is a country where even more a thousand years later the Servants of Naamah are organized into thirteen well-respected guilds, each of them interpreting the deeds of that most promiscious of Elua's followers in their own special way, and thus catering to every possible desire of their patrons, from the use of drugs for the heightening of the senses in House Gentian up to and including the sexual masochism and sadism of Houses Valerian and Mandrake, and where the words homo-, hetero- and bisexual are unknown, because the gender of anyone's bedmate is seen merely as a matter of personal preference. This country now faces the double threat of political intrigue and an invasion of the germanic tribes, for the first time in thinking history united under a single leader.
The heroine destined to save Terre d'Ange would be called a whore and a masochist in our world. But in her home country she's a trained courtesan and one pricked by the dart of Kushiel, whose occupation before he joined Elua was the punishment of the sinners, whom he loved and some of whom at least, understanding the nature of the punishment he meted out against them, loved him as well, despite the pain he caused them. And so, Phédre nó Delauney is destined as Naamah's servant and Kushiel's chosen, to forever experience pain and humiliation as an intensely arousing erotic pleasure.
The adventures send her and her companion, a personal guard from the Cassiline Brotherhood whose moral precepts match most closely that of the Yeshuites, the followers of Jeshua ben Yussef, from the City of Elua into slavery among the Scaldi, where she discovers the plots threatening her homeland, via a gruelling chase through the winter woods back to the d'Angeline capital, and from there to the british isles and back again.
I freely admit to not being totally impartial towards that book and its sequel, which I am reading right now: The world which Jacqueline Carey paints matches many of the wishes I have for our own, as does her beautifully delivered appeal for sexual as well as cultural tolerance. But that agenda of hers, if indeed it is one, never gets in the way of the main business of that book, which is to tell a ripping good yarn. Of course, while the book does not make for one-handed reading, some of the scenes are pretty intense and had my heart beating rapidly and heavily against my ribs, threatening to burst out, they resonated so deeply with the submissive side of my sexuality.
But still, I feel confident in stating that unless you can't stomach the occasional scene with some pretty heavy Sadomasochism, Bondage and/or Dominance/Submission, you should run, not walk, to the nearest book outlet of your choice and buy "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey. And while you're at it, get the second book "Kushiel's Chosen" as well. It's that good.
And now excuse me while I get back to reading...
2003-12-09
Ascii Porn
This needs Javascript to work, and is definitely not considered worksafe for most workplaces I know of. But it sure made my day.
Note: no images were used for this display of human [pro/re]creational activity.
2003-12-08
I'm too old for this shit
Last week was a killer, hence my lack of updates.
We had a milestone release date for one of the smaller but strategically important projects that I manage, and still didn't have anything even remotely resembling a deliverable on Monday morning. This is not how I like my projects to progress, but the typical year-end frenzy at our biggest customer, worse this year than the years before due to budget cuts, projects gone awry and the likes, was having an effect on us as well, dragging me again and again away from doing anything productive about that project.
So Monday evening saw a few client-side bugs fixed by me, and still a mostly non-operational server. Bah. Double Bah, because the server-side things were far too complex for me to get into the stuff quickly enough to lend a hand, so I gritted my teeth and hoped for the best. Well, Tuesday saw us not much closer to achieving our goals, so I joined the fray, keeping out of the hot areas in ther server code, instead fixing bugs in those parts of the server that had achieved some modicum of stability. When I left that evening, several hours later than usual, the server guys were still busy.
On Wednesday noon, we finally had our system limping along, but encountered numerous bugs in the interoperability department. Great! My original plan of leaving work no later than 8 p.m. (for good reasons...) went down the drain and we were fixing bugs until a quarter past 10, when we finally achieved something that might not embarass us too much tomorrow, as long as I was in charge of the mouse and keyboard. So we burned the CD, and called it a day.
I was in bed just a few minutes shy of midnight, and the alarm clock went of dutifully and mercilessly at 3:30 a.m. Ouch. I slept during most of the four-hour train ride to the client, which brought my alertness levels to something slightly above dead. Being bone tired is not my preferred state for a milestone meeting with a client, but what can you do?
Of course, we had problems getting the system to run at the client. Fortunately, they were not our responsibility. Unfortunately, they wouldn't OK the milestone and forward the payment unless they saw the system running. After some furious thinking I got them to agree to an installation of both the client and server on one of the designated client PC's - performance would be abysmal, but at least the project could be saved. This at least went forward without major problems, so I could catch my train back, arriving back home at 11 p.m.
That night, I slumped into bed and slept like a stone.
And on Saturday, we finally moved into our house. I was busy assembling furniture most of the day, while my wife was at work. The balance of the day was used transporting boxes upon boxes of our stuff from the in-laws' house to ours. With the result that we happily and tiredly fell into our new bed in the new house, where we woke up on Sunday morning much later than planned.
Carrying and unpacking of more boxes continued throughout the day, only interrupted by the occasional frantic search through the in-laws' attic for some piece or other that we'd need on Monday morning (like say, a toaster, or coffee mugs). The day was rather appropriately finished snuggling on the new couch and watching "Chocolat" - a nice movie that we both enjoyed, although I kept thinking to myself that they could have done a bit more with the theme and story...
PS: Internet is working from our new home as well, in fact this is the first blog post from the new house. Yippee!
PPS: Pictures of the furniture and stuff to be posted when and if I have the time...
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