The Culture Channel

My online time has been minimal lately because my computer's powercord has died, leaving me stuck using a borrowed computer while I wait for amazon to send me a new cord. And I had a whole stack of ebooks I was reading on my computer, too, half of which are going to have to go back to the library soon. So my technology-failure tag gets its second outing.

I think this is the first three-day weekend in ages where I've barely gone online at all. On the other hand, I was also sick for part of it (not with swine flu, though -- one of the guys in my office came down with it recently, so we've all been specifying every time someone's sick that we don't "have the swine flu").

But on the plus side, the Dr. Strange scene that was taking absolutely bloody forever in Reassembled is finally finished. Yay!

Also, we saw the Wolfman movie for a romantic Valentines Day evening, and it was awesome schlocky, gorey fun. Just like watching an old 40s Universal pictures horror movie (right down to the random gypsies, who at least in this version were *good* gypsies rather than the original version's kind-of-evil gypsies; progress, I guess?), but with better special effects.

Meanwhile, my sister has bought a house in Shreveport. Her monthly mortgage payment is less than our rent for our one-room apartment. My little sister has a mortgage payment -- it makes me feel weirdly old, like somehow her being commissioned and my cousin getting engaged and stuff doesn't make us "real" adults, but a mortgage payment? That's serious adulthood territory.

The Fluffle has chewed through another Mac power cord. This now puts the total cost of power cords destroyed by Tony-kitty at somewhere around $300, which is more than all his vet bills to date combined (I'm not sure if this equals the 1st place trophy for the Daytona Beach Bike Week Classic 60s vintage race that he destroyed by shoving it off the second floor landing at my parents house yet, though. I still feel horrible at the memory of seeing/hearing the irreplacible racing trophy going smash against the tile floor of the front hallway, then looking up to see this little wide-eyed cat face peering down over the edge of the landing in awe at the destruction he had wrought).

The Stevelet, on the other hand, has never destroyed anything beyond one $9 stoneware plate he knocked off the counter. He is remarkably well behaved in comparison. He was also so incredibly good at the vets this past weekend that I still can't believe it. He didn't scratch, didn't his, didn't struggle to get away, didn't huddle in fear or cry -- the only thing that bothered him was being carried around in the cat carrier, which made him nervous.

Belatedly cross-posting from lj

We now have air conditioning! For the past two months, our apartment has been like a sauna (literally, given how humid it was), so hot that we've been sitting around in sports bras instead of shirts while the cats draped themselves limply over the kitchen counter/the floor or sprawled in the open windows. Now, we have an old window unit from seanchai's parents, which, when we put it on full blast, lowers the temperature in our apartment to about 75-80 degrees. As opposed to 90-95 degrees.

The cats are thrilled, especially the Fluffle (Steve, being a short-haired cat, didn't actually mind the heat that much, but Tony has very thick, fluffy fur and was sulky and miserable). They're racing around maniacally, and cuddling together on their giant floor pillow because it's no longer too hot for snuggling, and in general acting much perkier and happier. The Fluffle is even whining for food less.

So, yesterday, when I was about to leave the office and get lunch, I reached into my bag and felt something... furry.

The Fluffle apparently decided to thank me for the new air conditioning by giving me a present in the form of his half-chewed plastic-covered-in-rabit-fur mouse.

We just gave the cat a bath. It was much more entertaining than it should have been.

Now Tony-kitty looks like a skinny black rat-creature. I never realizes how much of him was fur.

Now, to class, to discuss Andrew Johnson and the failure of Presidential Reconstruction. Without making any references to Marvel.

So, this weekend seanchai and I drove to New York to pick up Darwin (her family's cat), whom we are keeping fpr two weeks while her parents are in Europe.

This is the second-longest drive I have ever made, with the drive to VA Beach being the longest. We spent more money on tolls than on gas. Conclusion: yankee roads are evil. Especially in New Jersey.

While in NY, we walked to Juniors to get cheesecake (which was every bit as awesome as people say), and, in the process of obtaining Jacques Torres chocolates for my godsister's wedding next weekend, found Steve Roger's Dumbo apartment/warehouse (well, the two buildings which form a composite drawing of Steve's apartment/warehouse). We have decided that someone needs to write fic wherein Steve and Tony have sex in Steve's apartment after defeating some supervillain who tried to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge (Tony gets thrown in the water, and Steve is all, "Hey, I live in that building right over there. Come back to my house and take a shower," and Tony does, and then he's all conveniently wet and naked, and then they have sex).

Also, Rome is really cool (at least the first five episodes). Why has no one in fandom informed me that it has wicked period costumes, Roman politics, and that the two main legionary characters are married?

Um, yes. Perhaps typing up my "notice when characters have psychological issues, damnit!" rant while waiting for best friend's bus to get back to NY was not the most opportune moment (I wish her mother hadn't called me and gone "her bus is an hour late, do you know where it might be?", since my invariable reaction in that scenario is "Oh noes, there has been an accident, and everyone is dead"--nothing will ever beat the full-blown panic attack I had a couple months ago when my parents' [general aviation/four seater] plane was four hours late getting back from Charlottesville. One family friend dying in a mid-air collision will scar you for life). I think the subtext in the last couple paragraphs was rapidly becoming "Hi! Surpressing panic attack!" text.

(It worked, though. Displacing worry into bitching at anonymous other fans is surprisingly effective)

History project research is still massively not done (four thousand bank records to go), and I am debating whether I can get away with going running and writing a couple hundred words of CW fixit fic instead of looking at more microfilm. Probably not. I'll probably do it anyway.

My sister is home for her Spring break, and she and my parents and I went out to dinner at the airplane on a stick restaurant (kitschy WWI and WWII fighter pilot theme, named after the 94th "Hat in a Ring" squadron--Sarah's glider squadron is the same numeric designation, so we have to go there any time she's in town). Sarah has also seen Pan's Labyrinth and agrees that the Pale Man is the scariest thing ever to exists on film. She hadn't seen the Prestige yet, so I pimped it to her with the recommendation that she watch it twice, just like you have to with The Sting--once to be the gullible audience member taken in by the magic trick, once to be in on the trick and see how it's done.

Other movie recs, aimed at fandom rather than family:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. seanchai and I approached this film with trepidation, having heard all the bad critical reviews of it. The critics, it turned out, were operating under a misaprehension. There were expecting a serious action-drama. Sky Captain is not a serious movie. It is a 1940s comic committed to film, complete with giant robots, dinosaurs, and rocket ships. In one watching, we recognized Black Hawk Squadron, the robots from the Fleischer Superman cartoons, the Brainiac robots from Superman: TAS, the Savage Land, and a British version of the Helicarrier, complete with a female Nick Fury. And a few Indianna Jones references, too, just for fun.

The Fleischer Brothers' Superman cartoons. Surprisingly well done animation, entertaining and comparatively plausible plots (well, compared to some of the Golden/Silver age comics), and the best version of Lois Lane I've ever seen outside of the 90's animated series. Lois is as much the hero of these cartoons as Clark. She can drive a speed boat, fly a plane, climb hand-over-hand down a cable-car rope, remain snarkily defiant in the face of evil Nazi interogators, and beats Clark to the byline every time (it's blatantly obvious that Clark Kent's entire job at the Daily Planet in this cartoon is to get Lois coffee--she gets sent to cover scientific discoveries, government gold shipments, industrial sabotage, and volcanic eruptions, while Perry sends Clark to write about jewelry store displays). It's also really obvious that she knows Clark is Superman, and that they possibly are having cape-porn sex between scenes.

Why did the fifties and sixties comics surgically remove her brain?

Finally home again after almost a month of travelling. First, my family and I went to Mid-Ohio Vintage Motorcycle Days, a series of motorcycle races and other events held every year at about the same time as Otakon (explaining why I've never been to Otakon despite it's being one of the largest cons on the east coast and only a couple hours drive away).

My Dad raced pretty well, nobody I knew personally crashed, and I've got two articles lined up for The Classic Motorcycle that I should be working on now instead of updating this journal.

Then we went straight from Ohio to Virginia Beach, where we spent several days with my Mom's extended family. Also enjoyable, though the ocean was flat as a millpond until the day we left and we didn't get to surf. I saw figliaperduta and we watched PotC II together.

Then I came home, swapped one set of luggage for another, and took the train to NY to spend about half a week with pixyofthestyx. She took me to a renfaire and showed me numerous shiny media products. We also watched PotC II, and ran into the best Jack Sparrow cosplayer I've ever seen at the renfaire, complete with the walk, the voice, and his own Jar of Dirt.

No, no more of Gunslinger has been written, but we've "opened up a dialogue" over it, and we've still got the 13 chapter outline. also an outline for a ten-book celtic fantasy cycle with canon yaoi and a catboy

In other news, my grandmother's house briefly had a snake living in the upstairs toilet. My Dad has killed it, but not before it scarred my already snake-phobic sister for life.