Puttering in the Study

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I read the books when they first came out, and really liked the macap, British, Monty Python-esqueness of it.  Recently Jasper Fforde has mined the same vein with his Tuesday Next series, and I'm in the middle of an American version - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.  The problem is that for some reason, the humor of the original never translated in this version.  It was stylish and looked good, but - I don't know, maybe a movie lends too much gravitas to what is essentially a series of skits that simply give Adams a chance to make really funny observations.  Tragically, even the funniest parts of the book(the whale falling through the sky - seriously) even when done absolutely true to the book, just aren't nearly as funny as in print.  The depressed robot Marvin, again, was well-designed, and Alan Rickman was a perfect voice, but it's just not funny on screen.  Why?  I have absolutely no idea.  I just know that stretching a series of jokes and gags on a galactic scale to a movie just wasn't funny, and I can't point to anything obviously wrong with it.  Maybe it should have been animated - beats me.

But I haven't yet watched the extras - sometimes I enjoy the extras so much that it ends up making me decide that the movie itself was pretty good after all.

Battlestar Galactica - Episode 101 "33"

Just got the BG Season 1 DVD, and after watching extras (which were quite good) I started watching the episodes.  First of all, the picture quality is phenomenal, which makes a little more sense after having heard the producers mention that the series was shot in HDTV, which is apparently just below motion picture quality.  As a result, the resolution is incredible - the special effects are crisp and clean, and you see a lot of skin pores.  Especially after watching the most recent episode, copied onto DVD off the TiVo, the detail is remarkable.

Also remarkable is the quality of the show - from the writing to the production values (I have no idea how much of them are CG, and I don't care).  I would say that this is great TV, but since it's high-res and widescreen, I can't tell it is TV.  (The DVD is far better than the original on TV because the show is so dark that without a good quality image and no competing ambient light, you miss a whole lot of detail).  It's just great drama.  The central premise of the episode - that no one has slept in five days because the Cylons show up every 33 minutes - is an extremely tiring one just to watch - but when you can focus on what is going on and see it all on a large screen, it's just phenomenal to watch.  The episode just flew by - it felt like five minutes start to finish, because there was so much to watch.  It's just like watching Lord of the Rings again (which I just started doing).  Watching something that rich projected on a large screen there's just so much to watch and appreciate.

Byzantium - John Romer

This 1997 video by English historian John Romer is my all-time favorite historical documentary.  It doesn't actually tell you all that much factually about the history of Byzantine Empire, but it succeeds brilliantly in conveying the richness of that culture, which is much kore imporatant than the details of its history anyway.  For all its long existence, the Eastern Roman Empire's principal importance was not an an empire or a world power but as a cultural power.  The great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (which I avoid calling Istanbul every chance I get) will always be its greatest achievement.  By contrast, almost any other empire you can think of is measured more by its power or geographic scope.  No one will measure the British Empire by St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey, or the U.S. by the Golden Gate Bridge or the Panama Canal.  By contrast, the Byzantine Empire's power and significance was based largely on its cultural significance - its richness and wealth - rather than its geographical extent. 

Romer's enthusiasm for the subject is infectious, and to say that the music is haunting is a severe understatement - it is the heart and sould of the program - leave everything out but the music and the images of the churches, and you still have the better half of the series.  I first bought this video several years ago and have been waiting for the DVD to come out.  It finally did very recently, and I just got it in and watched it in the media room.  The image quality is not that great, as you'd expect from a program that was originally shot in video (I presume) but it's close enough, and on a big screen it accurately conveys the buildings and interiors in such a way that you do feel like you're there.

Grayson's Boy Scout Rules

Grayson decided this morning that our cub scout den needed rules - so he wrote some up.  Here are Grayson's "Boy Scout Rules." 

Hurricane Rita status report - Saturday

3:58pm - NWS now shows eye between Marshall & Shreveport, and the heavy weather appears on radar (at 3:15) to be all that way - we're still not getting heavy rain, and the winds are at 35-59 mph (NWS says maximum gusts are only 50) which isn't nearly as bad as they could have been.  Everyone but Grayson took a nap this afternoon, and other than a couple of leaks around the fireplace (water coming down the chimney somehow, which is a little odd since we don't have one) nothing unusual.  Don't get me wrong - the trees are bending way over in the heavy gusts, which come every few minutes, but thus far it hasn't been anything they couldn't handle.  Can barely hear the wind inside.  Pond has filled back up, and is certainly putting a lot over the spillway, but it appears to be handling it just fine - the water level isn't much over the spillway.  It's probably blasting hell out of the frogs downstream, but it's not causing the pond level to rise appreciably (more than a couple or three inches) over the spillway level.  It looks like we have seen the worst of it by now. 

One the power out, houses on both sides have power, so I'm not sure why ours is out.  But as long as I don't need to cook a pizza or watch a movie in the media room, we're not inconvenienced at all by being on the generator.
1:01 pm - Latest news places Rita's track as more or less over Shreveport, about 35 miles east of us, sometime around 5pm today.  We've had about two inches of water, and depending on how much hits us could get 6-8" more later today.  But should start slacking off after 5pm.  Winds expected are somewhere around 39-73 mph, from what I can tell.  Still just watching outside to see how things go.  Still nothing too bad yet.  Generator is working just fine, so we have a/c, a microwave, TV (albeit just one) and Internet.  Can't believe the satellite is still working.
11:34 am - Rita's eye is still around Lufkin, about 90-ish miles south of here.  Winds are pretty stout, and power went out about an hour ago. 
The generator kicked in while I was in the shower, and as soon as I got out I went around the house to see what's working (haven't had the generator on much so we're not sure which circuist it has).  Generally all lights and a/c is working, but wall sockets in almost every room are out.  The TV in the den is an exception, but all others (media room and the boys' rooms, the study) are down.  Luckily one of the study floor sockets is wall-switched, so it works, so I brought in an extension cord and plugged the PC power strip (which has the cable modem and wireless network router on it) into it, as well as the laptop power cord.  Needed a second extension cord into the wiring closet to get the cable booster running, and presto! we still have Internet and full computer capacity. 
Hope the winds don't get much worse - but it sure looks like the center of the storm is going to pass right over us - and soon.

First Tiger Cub den meeting

Last night Grayson and I had our first Tiger Cub den meeting.  I'm his den leader, and we had a great time with the other boys in our den, most of whom are friends of his at Trinity.  We made scrapbooks of family pictures, and had a great time together.  I forgot to send the full-size files to the office to do this post, so the images are a bit grainy, but I'll replace them with the larger files when I get home tonight.

The Consequences of Indecisions - Mike Oldfield

This is a 1981 Mike Oldfield album that I got probably around 1987.  I have always liked it, although the second side gets a little strange.  What's really odd, though, is that I can't find anything about it on any of the Oldfield sites, so there's not much else I can say about it.  I think it was an English version of something released under another name, but I can't nail down what.

Dinner With Persephone - Patricia Storace

I'm getting to be like a pregnant woman with cravings reading about Greek history and society.  My latest is a very nice piece of work by Patricia Storace detailing her year in Greece observing Greek culture.  Storace writes very well, and tells a lot about contemporary Greek culture.  She occasionally floats off on some odd connections, but I don't really mind them, as some reviewers have.  I thought it was a very good book, and one that I actually might reread some day.

Symphony Sessions - David Foster

David Foster has been one of my all-time favorite composers - he can get energy into his music like not many other composers.  His tapDance  from the White Nights soundtrack is just about my favorite piece of music, ever.  I had forgotten about this album of some of his hits with a symphony orchestra backing him - it came out in 1988 and I know I used Winter Games on a slide show around that time - probably a Mavette show. 

I was a litle surprised that it wasn't as good as a remembered it.  The music just sort of floats all over the place, and while it has the energy I remember, it just doesn't go anywhere.  This is especially apparently on the longer more romantic numbers, which just sort of flap around.  It's probably not that noticeable in a soundtrack, but when you're used to similar work by, say, James Horner, you realize how unfocused this is.  Not bad stuff, and the upbeat things are still awfully good, but they just don't drive like I'd like.  Very '80's.

Movie Night at the Smiths

While Jamie and I went to the Friday night party for her 20th class reunion Friday night, Andrea brought Brendan & Marcy's three kids over (and kept all six, believe it or not).  Looking at this picture, you can see why it perhaps wasn't all that hard!