Number6's Journal

So I had this weird dream that was kinda a What If/Elseworlds Batman and I kinda want to get it down.

I guess the premise is sort of "What if, instead of being a respectable psychologist who got unhealthily attached to the Joker and turned into a supervillain, Harley Quinn was a street kid who was made Robin instead of Dick Grayson"

Most of this came directly from the dream itself, a few details were come up with after the fact.

Basically as I remember it starting out, this girl, who was Harley Quinn as a teenager, was leaving for school (I think she was a HS senior) and was worried because it was supposed to rain later and walking from the bus stop to home would be a long walk, which normally wasn't a problem, unless it rained. Then it got revealed that she took the bus because she didn't want people to know she lived in Bruce Wayne's mansion and treat her differently. She also had a really little sister (who I think was actually her daughter, and Batman took her in when she was a pregnant girl on the street, while trying to track down (and arrest) the father, who was an adult Biker who would eventually turn into the Joker, but he hadn't yet... it's an alternate universe, and a dream, I didn't say anything it made sense... but anyway, they called her the sister just so people at school wouldn't know). Because it was probably raining and nobody would be around to pick them up, she wanted the right to use the spaceship parked in orbit which could remotely beam them from school to home (I don't know where that came from, but the ship did have a lifesigns detector that could ensure they weren't spotted beaming in or out, so Batman's objection was more 'you shouldn't be using it for such trivial things'!).

Anyway, in this world she was just called Quinn for short instead of Harley. There was also Freida who was a genderswapped version of Alfred (I don't know why, dream!).

For some reason (dream!) Batman had access to classified reports from the Stargate program that Quinn liked to hear but it was like a reward for good behavior, particularly Rodney McKay's reports from Atlantis.

Unfortunately although I knew in a dream sense that she was also Batman's sidekick, I never got to see her as Robin (if indeed she did take that as a name, since in this scenario she was the first, it could easily be that she didn't like the name and there was no precedent for a Robin).

I'm just writing this down because there's a part of me that kinda wants to see an Elseworlds like this.

Darn Livejournal, cutting off the full title:

Panic Groom, or, How An International Feminist Conspiracy in an Alternate Dimension Saved Me From Being Late To Work

How's that for a title? I think my whole reason for writing this post is so I could use that title.

Anyway, I use my computer as an alarm clock... put it in sleep mode and set a timer so that at a specific time (two times, actually, I like a staged wakeup because if I sleep 100% through the night without interruptions, my body feels like no time has passed and I feel more tired), a video file plays (different one each time so that I can tell whether it's the early or late) and wakes me up until I turn it off. Now, normally, there's no problem. But occasionally, a script will be running in the background of my websurfing or something that causes the whole computer to slow to a crawl until I stop it. In this case, the first wakeup went off fine, but the second one, well, it went off an hour late.

I woke up to the second one, noted the time, and though, "Huh. Good thing that didn't happen on Friday, or I might be late for work. I think I'm going to get a bit more sleep though." So, I went to bed and started to drift off, but not quite, something was on my mind. And it was on my mind long enough that eventually, I realized, "Hey, wait a minute... it IS Friday." And so I had just enough time to get up, shower, brush teeth/comb hair, and get out the door on schedule.

What was on my mind? A dream I had before waking up, in which there was a TV show or comic in which various female comic/TV-comic characters from DC or Marvel, including (but not limited to) Agent Carter, Mystique, Lois Lane, Felicity from Arrow (sometimes it was Barbara-Gordon-Oracle) and Wonder Woman were all recast as operating a top secret group in the 40s-60s (the exact period was unclear and may have changed from moment-to-moment in the dream) that was, in addition to doing normal heroic operations of fighting bad guys (pretty much working like an SSR but with Agent Carter in charge) trying to promote social equality through means that occasionally bordered on questionable-ethics-but-ends-justify-the-means-for-the-greater-good type actions (e.g., framing a sexual harasser for financial misconduct so that they'd be fired and a more progressive person would be hired in their place... there was also something involving a guy with writing all over his face but I don't know what that was about), all of which somehow led up to an alternate now (which we would also see in flashforwards now and then) where not only was the vast majority of people openly accepting of differences, there was also improved biotechnology such that you could go through a sex change, complete enough to reproduce if you so desired, with just a few hormone treatments, or have unusual body parts like horns grafted on your head just for kicks). And in my half-asleep state (before it had the wherewithal to wonder, "Wait, how would that even work?") my mind thought that this was an awesome idea for a comic and should totally be done and I was rolling around in my head other options to expand it and how to tell the world about this awesome concept.

I don't think trying to read too much into the meaning of this dream would be too fruitful (but if you do, please note that I was entirely positive, emotionally-speaking, about the international feminist conspiracy, and not conjuring it up in a paranoid-ranting-about-black-helicopters way), but it stuck with me long enough for me to realize that it was in fact Friday and I did in fact have to go to work.

Book Foo... been a while..

Finished: Old Man's War by John Scalzi (reread)

Reread, not much new to say, enjoyed it, probably a little more knowing how the last book turns out so some of the things that put me off the first time didn't this time.

Finished: For the Win by Cory Doctorow

This is a book about gold farming in MMORPGs and attempts to unionize them in various other countries.

It's a Cory Doctorow book, so it does get a bit preachy at times (although, I largely agree with his points so I don't mind so much), and hits on some of his pet interests a lot, but he does write with an enthusiasm that can be infectious, even though some of the outcomes are less than convincing.

But it was fun and an interesting look at how things like gold farming as a business might work and other issues.

Finished: The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi (reread)

Again, reread, same universe. Not much to say.

Finished: The Last Colony by John Scalzi (reread)

See above

Finished: Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (reread)

Last book in the series, parallel to The Last Colony. I do think that there are some elements of it that are worthy of their own book, but in padding those elements out to novel length and giving the character interesting things to do it does push the character a little into... well, I'd almost say Mary Sue territory, but they're all his own characters. Still, it's one of those cases where it feels like she's too awesome and perfect and right all the time that it strains believability. The other main characters (who, in other books, do occasionally have this problem, but at a much lesser degree) have the advantage of being older and well-trained and occasionally in superhuman bodies.

Finished: Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (reread)
Another reread, and multiple times reread so nothing much to say. Is it wrong I really like the Quellisms?

Finished: The Year's Best SF 14 (short story collection)

As usual, a mix of good stories and kind of blah ones. Neil Gaiman's got one in this one, called "Orange", and it's kind of fun, although it's a bit too gimmicky for my tastes. My favorites are probably "Oblivion: A Journey", by Vandana Singh, although it ends a little predictably I liked the way there. Michael Swanwick's "The Scarecrow's Boy" was also pretty good, and Ted Chiang's "Exhalation" is really neat in a 'imagining a whole different basis for life and how that affects how people believe' way. Others have some good elements, but didn't really bring it home like I'd hoped. None outright pissed me off, though a fair number left me kind of cold.

Started: Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds
Started: Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan (Kovacs trilogy, #2)


What else? TV really hasn't started yet, aside from Grimm (which is already in my bad books for pulling the all-time !@%@! move in storytelling. (spoilers) ( Read more... )

Otherwise, things are starting soon, starting with Doctor Who this weekend (and the Pond Life minisodes already started... they're mildly cute, but not really anything special).

In movies, I finally wound up seeing some of the big ones of the summer:

The Hunger Games: Liked it for the most part. Obviously loses a lot of the internal dilemma and wishy-washiness of the books, and I don't think they really sold the... heart in the ending like they did in the book. Where (spoilers) ( Read more... ) Otherwise, it pretty much had the same good points and flaws as the book, but enjoyable enough for a movie. Probably will watch the others (though maybe not the last one, I don't know).

Avengers: Really very satisfying all around. A little less impactful considering I'd already been spoiled on a number of the best lines and surprises, but still, really good, especially with a movie with that large a cast. Apparently Joss Whedon's doing a SHIELD TV show in addition to the next movie... not my first choice, but might be cool (hopefully they'll use it to set up some new female heroes to make the jump into the next movie).

The Cabin in the Woods: Again, I might have been spoiled a little which ruined some of my enjoyment, but I liked it. Not super-great, but good, and, aside from one eye-rollingly stupid contrivance (spoiler) ( Read more... ), I really liked the ending. But what it really needs?

A sequel.

No, wait, hear me out. (Major spoilers again, obviously) ( Read more... )

In completely unrelated news, last night I had a dream I was running from a tornado. Which I think is a first for me. I don't live in a particularly tornado-prone area (every once in a while there's a report of one in the general part of the province,but I've never seen one myself). Anyway, it was kind of intense, but kind of cool, too. ( Read more... )

Last night in a dream, somebody asked me if I wanted to leave this reality. When I said yes, they said that sometime tomorrow, I would open a door and there would be a woman there offering her hand. If I took it, she'd lead me out of this reality. If I refused, there would only be two other chances at some undisclosed point later in my life.

So... it's a longshot, but just wanted to give you a heads up in case you never hear from me again, that might be what happened.

Also had a dream where I was giving a public service announcement in support of gay marriage (and by the way I was damned eloquent, even if I now can't remember what I said). It is likewise a longshot, but if I wind up on TV, know that they're recruiting people through dreams right now.

I think there might also have been a dream about aliens in there somewhere. That one's probably just a dream.

So it's been a while since I posted anything substantive.

Quick life roundup... not much very interesting, but some isolated thoughts that didn't really deserve their own post.


Weekend before last weekend (I believe) we had a big storm which knocked out the power for about 6-7 hours here. Not fun. And, of course, the moment I sent my brother out to pick up some stuff for us to eat at the nearest still-powered food place (I paid, so he went to pick it up), not five minutes after he was gone the power started up again. Burger wasn't bad, had their Flamethrower one so it was a little spicy.

I felt the recent Earthquake, just a mild shaking in my bed as I took a nap.

My fan finally gave up the ghost and died on me. Luckily, it's almost the end of summer. Unluckily, it's looking like we're getting at least one last blast of heat and humidity before fall starts.

Yesterday I did the comic/bookstore trek, and also went to see my Grandmother again. She gave me some chili and also made an egg and cheese sandwich for me, which is always nice. :). And of course, wandered around the garden, eating a few cherry tomatoes and green beans.

It was a bit of a weird day, though, otherwise, in that people seemed to randomly talk to me for no reason. First, while I was waiting for the bookstore to open, this guy approached me and made some joke about me being the one who brought the clouds, and then kept talking and talking about places he used to live (in Toronto, not all around the world, which might have been interesting in a vague, out of context sort of way). And I pretty much didn't ask him about it at all. Anyway, then, later, as I was walking from the mall where the nearest subway let out to my Grandmother's house, an old woman started talking to me in Greek or Macedonian (I speak a very little of the later, but I had no idea what she was saying), and I just sort of shrugged. And finally, while I was walking back from my Grandmother's, to that same mall, on the way I cut through a schoolyard. School wasn't in session or anything, but there were a couple kids on the little playground area, and one of them shouted, "Hello teacher!" as I passed by. I said I wasn't a teacher, and he/she said "Oh, sorry, I thought you were a teacher." So, apparently I look like a teacher to 7-9 year olds. Anyway, just struck me as a little odd cause normally random people don't talk to me.


And since it was a new comic day, the traditional New Comic Day roundup:

I got:
New Mutants #30 (Fear Itself tie in, liked the stuff both in Hel and Hell, and Roberto proves himself smarter than Spider-Man)

At the used bookstores, I picked up Century Rain, by Alastair Reynolds, and Spin State, by Chris Moriarty. The latter is one of those books I was a little aware of but hadn't quite reached the point of picking up the book and checking out the description on the back, I always saved it for another time. But a thread on Charles Stross' blog talking about the most important novels of the last decade (and a second post restricting it to women authors) revealed both that the novel was Hard SF, and that Chris Moriarty's a woman, and the combination of both (which is rare, in part apparently because women who WANT to write hard SF are pushed away from it by editors) made me decide to give it a look. The description on the back sounded pretty cool, so I'd figured I'd give it a try.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Rant time! You might remember last time I mentioned I saw a new book in a regular bookstore, that really interested me, except it was in Hardcover. Okay, so I was annoyed enough about that. But, since I was in the same bookstore, I looked at it again, and noticed another fact... the price sticker said $31 and change... but on the inside flap, the price was $24.95 US, and $24.00 Canadian.

Now, our dollar's been pretty good against the US dollar recently, and when it started one of the complaints was that even though the dollar was good, ( Read more... )

So now, officially, &@&@ you big chain brick and mortar bookstores. I was already pissed at you for (not entirely your fault) having only hardcovers and oversized, overpriced trade paperback versions of books for months or years before releasing the paperback. But now you pull this $#!+? I may still buy bargain bin books from you... but beyond that, I'm not buying from you ever again, I'm just using you to browse. Might as well order online and just get them delivered directly to me. In fact, I think I can get both The Clockwork Rocket (the book that started this), and Vinge's upcoming Children of the Sky, for only about $10 more than you'd charge for the Clockwork Rocket alone. I'd have to get a reloadable visa card I think. Or I could probably get a gift card for Indigo at a store and use that to buy online, but then I'd still be supporting the guys who pull the !%!% that got me to rant in the first place. Oh well.

Anyway.

Moving on.

I've read a number of books recently and not talked about them yet, so let's do a Book Foo! As usual, minor spoilers only behind cuts unless I warn specifically about something big. The theme of this one seems to be "based on past expectations", as everything is either a sequel to another work that I wasn't too thrilled with, or a second try at an author I'm still getting to know.


Finished: The Jennifer Morgue, by Charles Stross

This is the second book in Stross' "Laundry" series, a sort of combination comedic Lovecraftian horror and spy novel, about a member of a secret agency devoted to keeping occult threats under wraps, and doing it with computer science and magic.

The first one, I wasn't all that thrilled with. I liked it, but not as much as I hoped, considering Stross' other work. I've said it before, but I don't think Stross plays to his strengths when going for laughs and I didn't find all the "bureaucratic nightmare" stuff all that funny, and maybe just my own experience with Lovecraft stuff wanted something a little darker in tone. (His short story "A Colder War" is fantastic for this though).

This one, though, either because he was toning down the comedy, or because I was more used to it, or maybe in part because he was doing it in a different 'style' (apparently in each book he's doing in a bit of a homage to a different spy novelist), I liked a lot better. They played a nice twist with the premise that I wasn't expecting, and generally the action and characters were interesting and relatable. So even though I'd still like a less comedic tone for Lovecraftian stuff in general, I'm glad I gave the series a second chance, and I'll probably read the third.

Finished: Cosmonaut Keep, by Ken Macleod

This intertwines two stories, one in the near future, with a bit of spy hijinks and first contact, and one set in the far future.

My previous experience with Macleod, Newton's Wake, I thought some really cool stuff at first, but it sort of fell apart towards the end. Here, it was almost the opposite, at first I was a little iffy on it, but it really started to come together towards the end (although I totally guessed wrong about one particular revelation about how the two stories were connected). I'm still not blown away, but I'm interested in the rest of the series.

Finished: Redemption Ark, by Alastair Reynolds

Revelation Space, the first book in this series, very nearly became one of those books you throw across the wall because "I don't care about any of these characters". There were cool ideas, but I hated the characters AND found them boring (the double whammy). But I thought maybe I was too harsh on him, and hey, first novel, so I gave him a second chance with Chasm City, a prequel in the same universe. Some of the same flaws, but to a much lesser degree, and I even enjoyed it. So, now we move on to Redemption Ark, the direct sequel to Revelation Space.

Here it's really starting to come together. There were a number of compelling characters that I either liked and found interesting or disliked and found interesting, and a bunch of cool ideas. Even a couple of the characters I didn't much like in the first book get a little better. It's not perfect, though... ( Read more... )

Finished: Helix, by Eric Brown

Not part of a series, but is my second try at Eric Brown's work. The first, "Engineman", I liked, with reservations (didn't much care for the main character). This one deals with an attempt to set up one last
colony off a dying Earth, and them discovering a huge structure in space, a Helix wound around a star giving the land area of tens of thousands of Earths. An awesome "big structure in space" idea.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really live up to it. It was... well, I wouldn't say bad, mildly diverting, but mediocre's probably fair. (No major plot-busting spoilers but I will be going into a bit of specific detail, so, be warned) ( Read more... ) After Engineman I was willing to read more Eric Brown. After Helix I'll be thinking very carefully about that. Maybe if it's used and in the $1 bin.

Finished: Final Impact, by John Birmingham (Book 3 of the Axis of Time trilogy)

This is the conclusion to the Axis of Time trilogy, about a 2029 multinational military force sent back in time to WWII, stranded there, and the effects of their presence there on the rest of the world. First book had a cool premise but the characters were a bit thin. Second was a little better, mostly due to some cool explorations of how all the future information might affect society... third is somewhere in between, but probably closer to the first.

Mostly, though, it just didn't satisfy. Sure, much of the war aspects probably did to those who like that sort of thing (I'm not a big fan myself), but in terms of characters... I don't know, there were some odd choices (some spoilers). ( Read more... )

Supposedly, there's a new series starting except he's releasing it as ebook only, no actual book... I might read it if I could buy the book, but I just don't care enough to read it in that way.


Okay, that's the end of book foo, except of course..
Started: A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge (Reread)
Started: Under the Dome, by Stephen King

So, let's move on to TV. Talked about Who last time, but I don't think I mentioned my complete thoughts on Falling Skies, so, let's start there. I liked it. Not the greatest SF show, and a few big flaws, but also had a few genuine surprises. So, I liked it and will continue to watch.

Upcoming TV will be kicking into gear with the new fall season, but not really a lot to look forward to. I'll probably be checking out Terra Nova, Person of Interest, Grimm, and, well, that's all I can really think of at the moment.

Speaking of TV, Canada finally had its Digital TV switchover, where all our analog stations turn to digital. Have all the channels I used to, a few in much higher quality than before (since either they weren't broadcasting in digital or were broadcasting at weaker power and not showing up on my dial). Also I discovered that my TV CAN add individual new digital channels without doing the 'scan for channels' (which erases any channel you're not currently receiving). You just have to put in the actual, analog number for the channel you want (like, for example, City-TV is 57.1, but it's ACTUALLY broadcasting on channel 44, they just use digital trickery to change it), and if you currently get it, it gets added. That's so much more convenient, but before it never worked because I was turning directly to (in that example, even though it doesn't actually apply) 57 to try to get it to tune in.

Finally, moving on to movies, I also finally saw Thor. The movie, not the god. And I liked it. Particularly I liked how they attempted to give Loki a little more depth than a typical movie villain. I didn't like some of the ways they played fast and loose with canon, and although Asgard looked cool I'd have liked some more natural landscapes as part of it, instead of just a 'city in space', but I thought it was a fairly decent movie.

But, of course, it goes without saying I still would have preferred my own proposed Thor movie. Cause I'm egotistical like that.

Pretty soon I'll get a chance to see X-Men: First Class finally.

Oh, and just a note... I've apparently been having Deep Ones on the mind lately, and I don't think it's because of Charles Stross since I read his book a month or two ago. But in the past week I've had two dreams involving Deep Ones and Deep One Hybrids. One had a couple of people going to investigate ancient ruins underneath power plants and encountering two runaway girls who were hiding from monsters... they hid out in a train, which started moving, and it turns out one of the guys going to the power plants was a Deep One agent operating undercover to recover the girls. The other I can't recall too well, I think it was 'infiltrating a small town full of Deep One Hybrids'.

Yes, it's that day again... the anniversary of the unveiling of the first general purpose computer, ENIAC! I mean, what else? As usual, that is the only holiday that falls on February 14th. (SHUT UP, IT IS SO! Some of us have given up all hope of ever finding love and don't need to be reminded!)

My computers've been pretty good to me, so I think I might celebrate by getting a new wallpaper. Something Science-Fictiony. Well, two, one for each. I haven't decided yet. But shhh, keep it under your hat. I want it to be a surprise.

Of course, in 2 days, February 16th, it'll be Monster Day which I celebrate in spirit if not always in actual tradition. But, I did have a cool zombie-dream to relate.

This one I wasn't participating, I was watching a zombie movie. The movie was just titled
"Run!" That's all it was. No hiding, no holding up in a secure location (except for
just long enough to catch your breath), just a group of people running from the zombie
hordes. The star was Macauly Culkin, or maybe one of his brothers or something. Also starring was the guy who plays Abed on Community. He sacrificed himself - the group was
scaling a fence to get away from the hordes (zombies can climb, but not as fast), and
Culkin and someone else was over, Abed was near the top, and there was a girl who was
near the bottom, and having trouble climbing, and the zombies were catching up to her. So, Abed decided he'd jump back down so they'd go after him, the closer, lower target, instead of her. I never actually saw him get eaten so I hope he got away.

Anyway, shortly after that, another horde got after them, and some guy right next to
Culkin got bit, and they had a brief conversation like, "You know what you gotta do, right?" "Yeah. We agreed," and he ran back into the remaining horde to try to take down
as many as he could and slow them down to give Culkin more of a head start.

Finally, it was down to Culkin, who had a had a whole bunch of them after him, and was
running, through buildings, but not staying in them (basically hoping to lose a few).
Then the military laid down some firebombs and everything was on fire, and Culkin
started running into the fire to shake zombies, (I guess I was channelling some Left 4 Dead in that part - in that game, if you walk into fire, you get a little hurt. A zombie walks into fire, they auto-die). He was trying to survive long enough to get to the
military outpost, where they'd contained the outbreak.

I didn't see how the movie ended, though, last I saw he was a little burned but still
running on adrenaline.

So, we did the X-mas thing. Friday went over to my aunt's where they had a variety of finger foods and just hanging out and chatting with the relatives. Then on Xmas day itself we went over to my Dad's place for a relatively small (in terms of number of people, not amount of food) Xmas dinner.

Foodwise I dined on chips, roasted chickpeas and raisins, a variety of cheeses (including havarti and feta), a variety of things with cheese in them that I'm not sure I can name, mini-quiches (of a couple different types), meatballs, meatballs with rice and veggies in the meatball, sort of tzatziki-rollups, sausage pieces (the previous ones were all at my aunt's, the rest will be at my Dad's), chips, chocolates, nuts, turnips, scalloped potatoes, roast beef and turkey with gravy for each, brocolli, corn, cheesecake with blueberry sauce on top, and plenty of leftovers and sweets to take home.

Presentwise this year I got a fair amount of money from different people, a gift card to zellers and affiliated stores, socks, a body-wash/anti-persparent/shower-scrub-thingie pack, a hat (from someone at work), a huge collection of assorted mixed party nuts (mostly different styles of peanut).

Overall it was pleasant, no big family arguments this year. Only minor complaint/annoyance was that, while going to my aunt's was fun, I was a bit tired (since I had to work that morning and get up super early, and the party was fairly latish), and the kids of my cousins seemed to have gotten a lot louder in the last year, and there were a few more of them. Barely worth mentioning, and yet I do.

There is a slight chance I may get a new computer in the next week. This one (still running Win98) is in reasonably fine repair but I'd like to migrate all the data over to a system that actually has a way of directly transporting data other than a disk drive, so future backups are easy as a USB key (I have a USB-HD enclosure, so once I get the new computer I can liberate the HD of the old one and copy everything over relative quickly). And of course, fewer and fewer sites run well on this system (even though I mostly use it for just a couple mainly text ones), and, well, sometimes it does feel a little slow. There's also the fact that I believe this computer, because the tower is larger than many modern computers and the case isn't totally sealed, it throws up interference that borks my TV reception a little bit (I get through antenna)... when I turn it off, the reception gets better, and that doesn't happen with my newer computer. Anyway, I've been wanting one for a while and the stars might align for Boxing Week sales and having a lift to go pick it up/bring it home.

I also want to pick up a printer so I can finally have one. Then I can start sending off stories to markets that don't accept solely e-mail submissions.

TV, most things have been dead, but of course there has been the Doctor Who Christmas special. Mostly I enjoyed it, maybe a bit iffy at points, but still good. And it inspired Doctor Who dreams (one where I watched a version that had extra footage, including a robot in the TARDIS that seemed very much like Danger from Astonishing X-Men), and another one where I accidentally bought the novelization of the episode (accidentally in that I bought it and then immediately realized, 'why the hell did I buy this? I don't even read the Doctor Who novels that AREN'T based on an episode!'), then figured that since I already bought it I might as well read it to see if they explainedd any of the finer points of time manipulation, and while I read it, in the ways that dreams do, I became part of the story which went in a completely different direction than the episode (I believe we all time travelled back to the 1920s/1930s and some kind of workplace that was trying to unionize. There was also one scene where Rory was instructed to activate the TARDIS time-space-induction-thingie by activating the 'cockmost switch' on a certain panel, which the Doctor meant the one that was most off-angle from the other switches, but Rory thought "the lever that looks most like a penis" and spent far too long looking over all the switches trying to make a decision about which one that was).

Book Foo..

Finished: Accelerando, by Charles Stross (reread)
Started: Glasshouse, by Charles Stross (reread)

Accelerando's a reread of course, first time, but again, I really enjoyed it, and hope he does some more in this universe. There's just a whizzing of cool ideas, some of which go by too fast to grab. Moved on to Glasshouse which is not as good.

Finished: Old Twentieth, by Joe Haldeman
Started: The Year's Best SF 13, (short stories)

Old Twentieth was... mixed. Like unfortunately a lot of Haldeman's work, he starts telling an interesting, engaging story, which then suddenly goes off the rails at the end. Minor spoilers, but mostly back of the book stuff (with vague hints towards resolution), behind cut. ( Read more... )

Had a dream last night that people I hadn't talked to in a long time were messaging me online to tell me XET had returned. It wasn't a real return but sort of a "let's spin up the database for a night for old times sake and talk about old times" type deal. Still, nostalgia'd.

Another dream too that was pretty cool at the time but I've forgotten it, alas. Yesterday I did have a dream I later mistook for actually happening, but it was terribly mundane. A few days ago I bought some pie on sale. I forgot about it over the weekend (we have 2 freezers in our fridge, one of which I almost never go into, and it was in the other one). Anyway, I didn't know whether my roommates had any any left me my 1/3 or not. But yesterday I was absolutely sure there was 1/3 of it waiting for me to eat, because I'd actually seen it. Only to find when I went to look that it was untouched. Must have dreamed it. See, mundane.

In less mundane food stories, on Friday I had to get new shoes because my current ones were falling apart, and while I was doing so I saw something in a remainder bin... a sandwich maker. You know, one of those triangle shaped ones that heat both sides of the bread and press down and presto, hot sandwich, all sealed in. So yeah, it was pretty cheap and I bought one, and have been enjoying hot sandwiches on a regular basis the last few days. I've never had one before. A sandwich maker, I mean, not a hot sandwich.

Oh, and there should be another post on Thursday, although whether I'll be horribly depressed for it or horribly cheerful about it depends on what exactly happens on Thursday.

In my dream, at least. (Ha, got ya).

Anyway, it was mildly amusing except one part which was rageworthy. (No spoilers, unless I happen to be prophetic, but cut for your sanity anyway)
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Anyway, I think the chances of it being a prophetic dream are pretty slim. Of course, if I was in the RTD era, the chances of a prophetic dream would have been quite good. In fact, it still would have been a prophetic dream, somehow, even if it occured many thousands of years AFTER the first episode aired.

And while I'm here, had some other dreams that were kinda cool lately.

A dream where I was my old favorite MU*ing character, and I teamed up either with, or to find, my friend who was the X-Men Evolution version of the Scarlet Witch. ( Read more... ) Woke up really missing that character of mine. Twas fun being him.

There was a zombie dream, but I can't recall the specifics. I think at one point we were in a car taking out zombies while we drove.

Another dream where all I remember was that I was stuck in an area I wasn't supposed to be in, pinned in by authorities who would have arrested/killed me. I got out by exploiting a break in their security perimeter, and walking backwards... so even though I was caught, since I was sneaking around facing the place I wasn't supposed to be in, they thought I was just some guy who was trying to sneak in, instead of the person who was sneaking out with whatever I was trying to smuggle out, and let me go.

Book Foo to start off with:

Finished: The Science Fiction Century, Vol 1(short story collection)
Started: Blindsight, by Peter Watts (reread)

Like all short story collections there's a mix of good and rather dull, and stories I've read before of each. This one had a bit of a focus on much older material of the HG Wells/Jack London eras (though there's plenty of new material too). There was even a non-Lovecraft Lovecraftian story (The Hounds of Tindalos). I read all of them, even the rereads, with the exception of E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" which I've read SO MANY times in school alone that I just can't bear it any more.
(minor concept related spoilers behind cut, no biggies).

( Read more... ) Anyway, probably a bit less of the 'good' to 'less interesting' ratio in this collection, but I didn't hate it.

Finished: Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell (reread)

Can't really comment on this one since I've read it so many times, it's like visiting an old friend. One who kicks you in the gut to say goodbye, but nonetheless!

Started and Finished: Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge
Started: Eon, by Greg Bear (reread, but long enough ago that I can barely remember anything but the back of the book premise)

Rainbows End was a reread, so no need to get too detailed about the thoughts, but once again I really like the near future technological gadgetry that you can almost believe is just around the corner.

Had some memorable dreams lately, although a few of them have faded from memory, I still wanna record them. So, behind the cut, Zombies (with guest appearance by Zombie Flash), The Avatarverse, and bio-forming. ( Read more... )