Notice of Absence - 10/24/10 - 11/02/10

Today, I'm leaving to go out to the west coast for a few days.


I'm of course not looking forward to the hassle of the airport, I don't much like to fly to be honest. but I like the places I can get too via a plane.. so its a useful inconvenience if nothing else. So beyond that, and having to sit in Charlotte North Carolina each way for a 3 hour layover.. It won't be too bad.

I might post some small stuff on my netbook while I'm there.. but I'm hopefully going to be too busy doing other stuff to remember. This will be my second trip to Portland Oregon, and I also am planning to head out to Astoria, and to a few other places on the coast. Have been a huge fan of it since seeing the Goonies for the first time 21 years ago.

The gunslinger chased the man in black through the desert, and I followed.

Having just, no more than 5 minutes ago finished turning the last page of the last of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series.. I can say that I am left with only one feeling.



Meh.



I could spoil the ending, but I'm not going too. This isn't out of any particular urge not to ruin the series for anyone else.. I just don't not want others to be as annoyed as I was when they get to the ending, and then think.. Is that it? Is that how the series ends?

If it wasn't for the fact that the proposed 8th volume actually would fall between the 4th and 5th volumes.. I'd be prone to fall back on cynicism and say the ending was done specifically to set up for more sequels.. but then I think, this is Stephen King..one of the most prolific authors in the world, and maybe not the wealthiest but he isn't hurting either.. I don't really know if he comes across as the sort who would write sequels just to cash in.. like the writer of a certain boy wizard seems to be doing now that the movie money is going to be running out soon.

To say I was unimpressed is an understatement.. but then I've not really liked either of the last two books in the series.. I felt that the inclusion of the writer himself was just a tad too strange. And the character of Mordred served no clear point except to up the gore factor.

Now comes the waiting, soon they will begin working on the hybrid Television/Movie adaption of the series. We will get to see how they change it, what they opt to leave out. I have no idea if Ron Howard and company will do a good job or not. I felt he was perfectly adequate for adaption of Dan Brown novels. But then I don't really hold those in much esteem to be honest. And while I am ambivalent towards the ending of the Dark Tower, the journey for the most part, until book 6 anyway, was one hell of a ride.

I look forward to one day in the future being able to sit and watch it all as one epic film. It probably won't happen. After all, I'm still waiting on a single edit of Lord of the Rings which seems destined to never appear. But I can hope.

Towers of Midnight, Who dosen't have a copy?

Maybe its nothing, but I for one am kind of sick of bloggers posting photos of this book just to show off the fact they got it 2 weeks earlier than everyone else. I won't go into any theories as to why.. but it is an odd fad thats cropped up...

Its driving my friends nuts.
Which means I have to deal with it.


So stop it.


Please.


Think of my sanity rather than your page hits.

Battlestar Gallactica.

I never watched this the first time it was on, I didn't really know anything about the original except for the robot dog. So because of this ambivilance, and the stigma of change for change sake Starbuck. I chose not to watch the Mini Series back in 2004/5 and so when the show started I was completely lost.

But it's since been added to Netflix's Instant view system. So I started watching it. And have just finished the Mini-Series. It was an extremely bleak couple of hours. But Edward James Olmos really shines as Commander Adama.. even if I don't really care for Donnie Darko's Mom as the President. And I'm still not sure how I feel about Starbuck. And I really really dislike the Cylon woman.

Just the mini-series so far. But I've got a few things that kind of bug me about it. For starters, why do the space battles have sound effects? After going to all the trouble to show how the Vipers fly in space, they add sound effects?

Meanwhile on SFFworld.com...

I don't post there, so I don't check it that often. But I happen'd across this rather interesting thread.

Apparently, some chap in Russia has written himself some Fan Fiction set in Middle Earth.. at best one could call it an "Unauthorized Pastiche".. But I prefer to reserve Pastiche for "Authorized Fan-fiction".

Anyway, they are having a very heated debate about the quality or lack thereof of this book. I dunno what to say about it really. It looks like utter drek to me. And I don't see why any of them are even treating it as if it is anything but fan-fiction..

I'll refrain from re-posting the samples given in that thread, but they are there for you if you want them.

They keep saying "Maybe"

Yesterday was October the 12th, that means it was Columbus Day. Saturday was the 9th, which means it was Lief Erikson day. No one gets Lief Erikson day off from work, but then not many people get Columbus day off either.

But I've noticed something on a large number of websites. Every one that is running a fluff piece on Columbus, makes mention of the earlier Norse exploration of the "New World".. But they always do it with the caveat that they "Maybe" found it first. Now, I don't understand this.. since I thought the L'Anse Aux Meadows site was pretty certainly Norse, and pretty certainly built around the year 1000. Which is just shy of 500 years before Columbus "Discovered" jack diddly.

I realize that in the US, there are, how shall we say, political ramifications of this shifting history. If you've seen the TV show "The Sopranos" they show several very outraged people's reaction to the altering of teaching about Columbus. But cultural identity means nothing compared to Facts. And the Fact is, that neither Lief Erikson, The Chinese Grand Fleet, or Columbus "Discovered" the new world. But as far as we know, even if it wasn't Lief specifically.. the Vikings were the first Europeans to build a settlement here as far as the current research allows us to know.

So why do they persist in making it sound as if its just a theory?

Disappearing act.

As I have mentioned before, one of my hobbies is Genealogy. I work on it together with my mom, and a few various other family members. For the most part, we are fairly successful in this endeavor. Having been able to reliably trace the majority of my family back at least as far as Colonial America, if not back to the British Isles or Europe, and a few even back as far as the late middle ages.

To me, this adds to my story. It means that my anscestors were the lucky few who didn't die in child birth, who made it past age 5, who didn't die of the plague, who weren't killed in one of the infinite numbers of wars which Europe can boast throughout its history, and didn't freeze or starve to death, and who weren't hanged for poaching a few ducks eggs.

But my family tree has a glaring black mark on it. In the form of my maternal grandfather's, father. We know his name, and the fact he was born in 1906. But we don't know a thing else about him except where he died. We don't know what town, county or state he was born in. Worse, he was born during a void in the draft, but after the state militia ceased to exist. Before the Income Tax began. Marriages, Births and Deaths were frequently unrecorded. And the vaunted U.S. Census only recorded head of household and how many people live there. Not their names.

His wife, who we know slightly more about, only goes back through her paternal grandmothers line. But it, is one of the few that goes back to the middle ages, and while I don't trust it, without some sort of paper trail to prove it at least.. to the dark ages.

This is nearly a full 1/4th of my ancestry that is proving elusive. I've searched and searched. And while I've got living relatives who might know, the annoying thing about Genealogy in the South Eastern United States is.. people are interested in breadth, not depth when it comes to "findin' Kin" They want to know who you are related too, that they are related too, but don't seem so much interested in where they came from to begin with, at least in my experience.


I feel that I am beginning to know how Pellinore must have felt during his endless chase for the questin' beast.