Words are inadequate

Roger Ebert.

Jane Henson.

Iain "M." Banks. ("I’ve asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow.")

Night Shade Books.

LucasArts.

I am SO done with this week.

RIP Tony "Brother of Ridley" Scott, most famous for non-crap action movies like Top Gun and Crimson Tide, and whose first film involved Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve, and David Bowie in a vampire menage-a-trois in The Hunger.

But I'll always think of him as the director of two very odd works: Domino ("When Tom Waits and Christopher Walken are, respectively, only the ninth and fourteenth oddest things about a film, you have something very special on your hands") (trailer) and the short BMW promo film Beat the Devil, with Clive Owen, Gary Oldman, James Brown, and Danny Trejo. Beat the Devil in particular is an excellent use of ten minutes of your time.

So it goes.

Sent out the last of the post-office saving letters earlier this week. So if you've not gotten one by, say, this time next week, and you ought to have, let me know.

At Crooked Timber, commenter Lemuel Pitkin on Steve Jobs:

Worth noting that in all the tributes to Steve Jobs, nobody is saying "He was a rational agent who maximized the present value of his lifetime consumption, and would have wrecked his company in a second if he thought that would net him a dollar more. We will continue running Apple to generate the maximum profits for shareholders, whether that means putting out great products, putting out crappy products, or liquidating the whole thing." Instead, they all talk—sincerely I'm sure—about his commitment and dedication to his work, and say things like "his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple." It’s a nice illustration of how capitalism’s biggest success stories are really arguments against capitalism.

(see also ajay @32)

In related news, I preordered the Device Mark 2 this morning. (Delivery estimate: 1-2 weeks. Which is okay; if it got here on the release date I wouldn't be around to play with it anyway.) The Device has served me well for nearly three years, but between the inexorable march of technology and the flaky headphone jack (and AT&T's obscene refusal to allow me to use a device that I purchased with any other carrier), it's time for it to take a well-deserved retirement.

Restless lately. Fall out here is made of Wet, which doesn't make for much in the way of scuffly leaves, and it's harder to get excited about going out in the damp. Too, I'm half eagerly awaiting VP/Boston and half thinking "wait, how can it be october already, i'm not nearly prepared for this." Impostor syndrome is kicking in like nobody's business.

But the mist is nestling in among the tops of the trees in Stanley Park, and I seem to have gotten enough sleep last night, and Portal 2 was on sale earlier this week. And, you know, tomorrow I get on a plane to spend a week with a bunch of awesome people, and then a couple of days with different but still awesome people. Life is decent.

21 days for Dreamwidth, #11:
What features do you think Dreamwidth should have that it doesn't currently?

Photo hosting and the ability to read locked LJ posts, both of which have been in the works since well before the site launched.

That's really about it. I'm happy with just about everything else.

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Derek K. Miller's last post has gone up.

... yeah. Just read it. (Read the linked xkcd cartoon about legos, too.)

And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

My favorite highway interchange: "There's even a train station in there somewhere."

Brown Out: the true story of Van Halen's "no brown M&Ms" clause. Absolutely bloody brilliant.

Via rislyn, Depression's Evolutionary Roots. I need to read this again before I can have anything coherent to say on it, I think. It's. . . thought-provoking.

"'The primary difference between these two subspecies of Formicidae is that the one on the left has longer legs and therefore a greater height from the ground,' Tom Swift said tolerantly." --xiphias

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I had a really good time last weekend, for uilos-definitions of "weekend." Wednesday night I took her out to dinner at Kazan, where by sheerest coincidence we were joined by a dozen other cool people. Then we went back to the apartment for cake and games and "please take some of these books away now."

Thursday and Friday were slow, though I did get a decent bit of writing done. Satyrday we went out to Reston for some gaming, and also to retrieve an 8x8 pan that we'd left somewhere last October. (I know it was October because we also got a jar of roasted pumpkin seeds we'd forgotten we left, which she pronounced "stale, but edible.") Played a dogsled-racing game twice, which is good: the first time I thought it was great, the second I could see ways in which it irritated me, so now I won't need to pick up my own copy. And other good stuff as well, of course.

(Unfortunately I think that the intense climate changes between rooms in the house in Reston caused me to come down with a summer cold. The space under my eyes is filled with sand and I've been a little drifty the past couple days.)

Sunday continued the weekend's tradition of being pretty darn cool. We slept very late and lazed around a lot, and eventually made it out to Adams Morgan to meet tamnonlinear at DC Tribal Cafe. I'm a little surprised by how much I enjoy watching the dancers. Something about the flow of movement, and the energy, and the beat of the music. It's entrancing, and sexy in a way that's more "oh, nice" than "WANT," and it pulls me out of myself in a way that not much else does.

Also stopped in the used bookstore next door, which has some of the oddest stuff. I found an archy and mehitabel collection, and a volume of Piet Hein's Grooks, which always make me happy.

Last night we buried Keishi out in the woods. I haven't anything else to say about that, really, but it feels wrong to let it pass without notice.

Tomorrow I get on a plane to go spend a wonderful week with nixve, and then the weekend after I get back I'll be camping at Assateague. The back half of September, however, is suspiciously empty. For now.

We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.

Context: R.I.P.

And please consider making a donation to Planned Parenthood. First charitable donation I've made: disposable income ought to be good for something, and now it is.

Carthago delenda est, as Xopher says. On no account should you go looking for this chapel on Google, as you are likely to find it and it is every bit as disturbing as you think.

Aw, damn. Gregory McDonald. I've been meaning to reread the Flynn novels for months now; McDonald could do twisty plots and brilliant dialogue like nobody else. "Taxes, Mr. Fletcher." "What about them?" "You haven't paid any."

110 Stories. The line "You live, is how you learn that you can cope" has permanently entered my repertoire. (Have I posted a link to this before? I don't think I have.)

Is election season over yet?

Yes, You Are. Me, too.

The Creative Process, because (say it with me) Bear is awesome.

She also brings the smackdown to a manipulative jerk. (in particular, see the second link in that post.) Yeesh.

Jim Macdonald debunks a famous alien abduction, with such asides as "We used to say that there hadn’t been a bear-related fatality in New Hampshire in over 200 years. But, just recently, a guy saw a bear, ran, and had a heart attack."

RIP Jim "Robert Jordan" Rigney. Like Scott Lynch, I couldn't get through the prologue to book 2; that doesn't really matter, though. Enough people bought Jordan's books that Tor had enough money to, say, publish hardback collections of stories from authors like Ted Chiang or John M. Ford despite the fact that story collections never sell well. For that alone he has my gratitude.

I was all set to write a mocking post about the liberals in laughin's head who aren't being Tolerant (a slur which, when used against a liberal, means "you can't tell me I'm wrong because that's mean"), but then silmaril went and said everything I could have, and more. For if people are hated, they will hate back. After a certain point it is called self-defense. There is a reason saints are exceptional.

Rick Perlstein came through admirably with specifics, and Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany has an apropos anecdote as well.

"One owes respect to the living. To the dead one owes only truth." --Voltaire

Got in Monday night, went straight to the hospital in Jonesboro. Said hello to Granddad. I'm pretty sure he recognised me, which is more than I can say for my end. If I'd not been told it was him in the bed I wouldn't've guessed; no glasses, hair askew, and his face was so thin . . . Tuesday and Wednesday consisted primarily of sitting around in the hospital, reading and writing and keeping Grandmother company.

The last of the grandkids arrived Wednesday night. Five minutes later, Granddad was gone. No real pain, just slipped away while Dad was reading the twenty-third Psalm.

Thursday there was an awful lot of food brought over by well-wishers. Eventually I gave up and hid on the couch with my book. The combination of needing to be sociable plus being exceptionally lonely plus keeping up a Good Front for family is grinding me down. (Why does the adverb "inexorably" want to be associated with "grinding?")

Tonight was the viewing. Well over a hundred fifty people came by. Yow. Tomorrow morning's the funeral.

Grandmother's computer dates from 1998. It crashes every time it has to do anything involving the internet. Dad found this state of affairs to be intolerable and bought a new computer for her today. So, LJ is caught up on and email exists.

Home on Sunday afternoon, or Monday morning depending on how scheduling works out. I'm taking off work 'til Thursday, so that I can pretend Tuesday and Wednesday are the weekend I kind of missed due to the Worst Friday Ever.

Best conversation I've had all week:
Rita: ". . . and we got the flowers all lined up."
Me: "Did you use 'A Dead Touch' or a different florist?"
Rita: ". . . what?"
Me: "There's a florist on the way to the funeral home that I guess is supposed to be 'Added Touch Florist,' but the first D in the sign has fallen off."
Rita: "Oh. (laugh) Oh no, they went out of business a few months ago."
Me: "I would imagine so, with a name like that."