Unreality Report
Nov. 13th, 2006 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6All the news that's fit to print but that has nothing to do with reality!
PerExWriMo update: Going more or less on pace, and may actually finish my second short story tomorrow. Which actually works out nice, if I can keep that up. One story a week, finishing on Tuesday and thus having Wednesday's 'long walk' to think about what to work on next. Anyway, the story itself is going okay, although I think it'll need a lot more editing to smooth out the rough bits. In the spirit of NaNo though, I can't go back and edit now, it'll have to wait until I'm done. After that, if it edits well, might submit it to a fantasy magazine, on a 'what the hell' basis. Probably be rejected, but who knows.
Word count is about 13.5k (that is, total for PerEXWriMo, rather than the particular story I'm on now, which is just over 6k).
Dream Foo: I've lost most of it now, but I actually had a![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alternaljournal dream again, which are rare but always cool. In particular, I was on an island in the world of the book and was walking looking for the beach on the southern shore. And then I think I could teleport. That's about all I can remember of it, except the feeling of it was cool.
TV: Lessee, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, Grey's Anatomy, Heroes, Torchwood.
Minor spoilers for the latest episodes, but nothing too big I think.
Lost: Meh. Loved seeing Nathan Fillion in the ep, and particularly how his flashback ended, but I think Lost has been wearing thin on me. I'll still watch it, but this was not the way to have a 6 episode 'miniseries' followed by a long break.
Battlestar Galactica: Decent episode, overall, although I'm a bit iffy on the science underlying the theory (But then, we never found out if they were right, anyway).
Good for Helo. Damn right. As I've come to expect, he's one of the few heroes in the series. Him and two of the Sharons are my favorite characters because they do the right thing even when it's hard. Most everyone else can be entertaining, but can be occasionally scummy beyond belief. Like Roslin, who I just want to smack sometimes. Even Adama's _usually_ morally superior to her (though he's had his bad parts). So good for you, Helo. Thank you for restoring my faith in BSG humanity.
But, as much as I think he did the right thing, I think Adama's "I'm not going to investigate, I'm just closing the book on it" is a little weak from a storytelling standpoint. It's like "Let's just wrap this up and forget about it."
Veronica Mars: I miss Weevil and Mac. WTF? Yeah, I know they're busy with other things, and don't want to pay everyone to be in every episode, but come on. Decent episode still, even if I saw the ending coming (well, some of them, anyway).
Grey's Anatomy: Enjoyed the camping and fishing episode for the most part.
Heroes: Still my favorite new show of the season... of course, the only other show in contention for that is Jericho and that (although it turned out a surprisingly decent episode last week) is just nowhere in Heroes' league. Can't wait for tonight's.
Torchwood: Bloody faeries. Okay show, but nothing great (though I suppose it's also another show that could be in contention for favorite new show, but I still like Heroes far better) yet.
Book Foo!
Finished: When Gravity Fails, by George Alec Effinger
For those not aware (or paying attention if I described it in a previous post), WGF is a cyberpunk crossed with a noir detective book about a guy in an Arabic ghetto who has to track down a murderer.
Overall, I quite enjoyed it. For the most part I liked the main character, and the atmopshere was interesting. Effinger does a good job of immersing me in some of the sayings and traditions of another culture and having it feel natural. This is in contrast to, say, (for the sake of argument, since I just finished reading one of his books), S.M. Stirling. With Stirling, when he introduced Celtic sayings and culture, and Wiccan stuff, into Clan Mackenzie or Finnish ones with Mike Havel, it felt more like he was trying to show off, rather than it being organic to everything. Even though I could sort of see how those changes in culture might come about, it felt like he kept trying to force little bits of trivia he learned, whether we needed it or not. Effinger, though, it just feels natural, it's part of the world and he gives you what you need to know, and when it's more than that it's colorful. I suppose it's possible that what he gave isn't terribly correct, (none of the online bios of his I've read mention whether or not he's a Muslim or just someone who has something of an interest in the cultures of the Middle East), but ti was interesting at least.
Anyway, that was probably my biggest worry going into the book, that the heavy element of Arabic culture would be a detraction (not because I have anything against it, like I don't against Celtic, but simply because I was worried it would get in the way of the story rather than serving it), but it turned out to be for naught, I really enjoyed it. I'll probably read the other books in the series.
Now, I don't always do a quote when it's a book I haven't read before, but one did stand out for me a little and I remembered the page number so, here it is:
You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest.
Sometimes when I read a SF book it gets me thinking about one of the aspects in relation to me. In this case, it's moddys. One of the key bits of cyberpunk technology in the book is that many people have brain implant that allow them to put in chips. Some of these chips, called daddies, are like skill chips in the Cyberpunk games. They feed something, like a language, into your short term memory so you always have it on your fingertips. But then there are also moddies - while the chip is in, your personality is overridden with that of whoever's on the chip, whether a real person or a fictional one. It becomes something of a fashion for people to wear moddies a lot.
So, although daddies are super cool and I'd have no trouble with them, I wonder a bit about moddies, if they existed. I know a lot of my problems are personality problems at the core. So, were it available to simply override my personality, would I?
I honestly don't know. Part of me thinks that, like Marid, I'd be very leery of moddies. I mean, hell, I even have this strong aversion to the idea of taking some kind of drug to modify my personality so I'm not so avoidant.
Yet on the other hand, the lure of being able to not just change something minor about yourself, but to become someone else, is pretty strong. Isn't that what, at its heart, roleplaying is about? So, I'd imagine I'd probably want to try it, at least once, especially considering you could just pop it out and be back to normal. And, I figure, once I tried it, I'd probably start to rely on it. And probably start to lose my own personality in the ease of adopting another. But then, maybe even that knowledge would make me even more determined never to try it, even the once.
So, in short, I dunno. I suppose I never would unless we actually had them.
Anyway, on to...
Started: Ilium, by Dan Simmons
About the Trojan war reinacted on Mars by gods, AIs, and a decadent post-human society.
And of course, Still Reading: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling (Wednesdays, should be finished this week).
PerExWriMo update: Going more or less on pace, and may actually finish my second short story tomorrow. Which actually works out nice, if I can keep that up. One story a week, finishing on Tuesday and thus having Wednesday's 'long walk' to think about what to work on next. Anyway, the story itself is going okay, although I think it'll need a lot more editing to smooth out the rough bits. In the spirit of NaNo though, I can't go back and edit now, it'll have to wait until I'm done. After that, if it edits well, might submit it to a fantasy magazine, on a 'what the hell' basis. Probably be rejected, but who knows.
Word count is about 13.5k (that is, total for PerEXWriMo, rather than the particular story I'm on now, which is just over 6k).
Dream Foo: I've lost most of it now, but I actually had a
alternaljournal dream again, which are rare but always cool. In particular, I was on an island in the world of the book and was walking looking for the beach on the southern shore. And then I think I could teleport. That's about all I can remember of it, except the feeling of it was cool.TV: Lessee, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, Grey's Anatomy, Heroes, Torchwood.
Minor spoilers for the latest episodes, but nothing too big I think.
Lost: Meh. Loved seeing Nathan Fillion in the ep, and particularly how his flashback ended, but I think Lost has been wearing thin on me. I'll still watch it, but this was not the way to have a 6 episode 'miniseries' followed by a long break.
Battlestar Galactica: Decent episode, overall, although I'm a bit iffy on the science underlying the theory (But then, we never found out if they were right, anyway).
Good for Helo. Damn right. As I've come to expect, he's one of the few heroes in the series. Him and two of the Sharons are my favorite characters because they do the right thing even when it's hard. Most everyone else can be entertaining, but can be occasionally scummy beyond belief. Like Roslin, who I just want to smack sometimes. Even Adama's _usually_ morally superior to her (though he's had his bad parts). So good for you, Helo. Thank you for restoring my faith in BSG humanity.
But, as much as I think he did the right thing, I think Adama's "I'm not going to investigate, I'm just closing the book on it" is a little weak from a storytelling standpoint. It's like "Let's just wrap this up and forget about it."
Veronica Mars: I miss Weevil and Mac. WTF? Yeah, I know they're busy with other things, and don't want to pay everyone to be in every episode, but come on. Decent episode still, even if I saw the ending coming (well, some of them, anyway).
Grey's Anatomy: Enjoyed the camping and fishing episode for the most part.
Heroes: Still my favorite new show of the season... of course, the only other show in contention for that is Jericho and that (although it turned out a surprisingly decent episode last week) is just nowhere in Heroes' league. Can't wait for tonight's.
Torchwood: Bloody faeries. Okay show, but nothing great (though I suppose it's also another show that could be in contention for favorite new show, but I still like Heroes far better) yet.
Book Foo!
Finished: When Gravity Fails, by George Alec Effinger
For those not aware (or paying attention if I described it in a previous post), WGF is a cyberpunk crossed with a noir detective book about a guy in an Arabic ghetto who has to track down a murderer.
Overall, I quite enjoyed it. For the most part I liked the main character, and the atmopshere was interesting. Effinger does a good job of immersing me in some of the sayings and traditions of another culture and having it feel natural. This is in contrast to, say, (for the sake of argument, since I just finished reading one of his books), S.M. Stirling. With Stirling, when he introduced Celtic sayings and culture, and Wiccan stuff, into Clan Mackenzie or Finnish ones with Mike Havel, it felt more like he was trying to show off, rather than it being organic to everything. Even though I could sort of see how those changes in culture might come about, it felt like he kept trying to force little bits of trivia he learned, whether we needed it or not. Effinger, though, it just feels natural, it's part of the world and he gives you what you need to know, and when it's more than that it's colorful. I suppose it's possible that what he gave isn't terribly correct, (none of the online bios of his I've read mention whether or not he's a Muslim or just someone who has something of an interest in the cultures of the Middle East), but ti was interesting at least.
Anyway, that was probably my biggest worry going into the book, that the heavy element of Arabic culture would be a detraction (not because I have anything against it, like I don't against Celtic, but simply because I was worried it would get in the way of the story rather than serving it), but it turned out to be for naught, I really enjoyed it. I'll probably read the other books in the series.
Now, I don't always do a quote when it's a book I haven't read before, but one did stand out for me a little and I remembered the page number so, here it is:
You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest.
Sometimes when I read a SF book it gets me thinking about one of the aspects in relation to me. In this case, it's moddys. One of the key bits of cyberpunk technology in the book is that many people have brain implant that allow them to put in chips. Some of these chips, called daddies, are like skill chips in the Cyberpunk games. They feed something, like a language, into your short term memory so you always have it on your fingertips. But then there are also moddies - while the chip is in, your personality is overridden with that of whoever's on the chip, whether a real person or a fictional one. It becomes something of a fashion for people to wear moddies a lot.
So, although daddies are super cool and I'd have no trouble with them, I wonder a bit about moddies, if they existed. I know a lot of my problems are personality problems at the core. So, were it available to simply override my personality, would I?
I honestly don't know. Part of me thinks that, like Marid, I'd be very leery of moddies. I mean, hell, I even have this strong aversion to the idea of taking some kind of drug to modify my personality so I'm not so avoidant.
Yet on the other hand, the lure of being able to not just change something minor about yourself, but to become someone else, is pretty strong. Isn't that what, at its heart, roleplaying is about? So, I'd imagine I'd probably want to try it, at least once, especially considering you could just pop it out and be back to normal. And, I figure, once I tried it, I'd probably start to rely on it. And probably start to lose my own personality in the ease of adopting another. But then, maybe even that knowledge would make me even more determined never to try it, even the once.
So, in short, I dunno. I suppose I never would unless we actually had them.
Anyway, on to...
Started: Ilium, by Dan Simmons
About the Trojan war reinacted on Mars by gods, AIs, and a decadent post-human society.
And of course, Still Reading: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling (Wednesdays, should be finished this week).
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Date: 2006-11-13 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-15 08:58 am (UTC)