MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and
chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.
15 May 2006
I'm stuck in my regular office today. And I'm grumpy about it, especially because I have absolutely nothing to do. This is a random thread. Talk about whatever pops into your head. It'll entertain me.
The drive to the lab is 8 miles further than my drive to my normal job, but takes between 10 and 20 minutes LESS because it's against traffic. I went about 10-15 mph the entire way into work this morning.
My cat is really really large. Not fat. It's all muscle. He's like a puma.
Oh God I can't believe I have 7 hours of this shit left.
I'm having a quiet day. Still off work (hooray!). Today is two years since George and I met f2f for the first time. And yesterday was six months since he died. I wouldn't trade the 18 months we had together for anything, but I'd give up everything I own for five minutes more with him.
I had my yard cleared of weeds today, it looks great, and the guy is coming back on Wednesday to re-grout the paving where the cement between the slabs has worn away.
It's cold here today. I had the heating on earlier. I think I'll take a nap, I was up at 6 this morning.
I could get used to this being at home all the time business.
My cats are really large too. But they're fat. They have baggy bellies that sway from side to side on the very rare occasions that they run.
We weren't in the lab Friday either so I took a vacation day. Big mistake. I only looked at my quarterly hours AFTER I took the day off and realized that now I have to make up that day before the end of the quarter. Luckily I have six weeks to do it but this means if I get sick, I'm screwed.
Yeah, jan, I can spread it out. That's why having six weeks left in the quarter is a good thing. I can do an extra half hour for sixteen days and be good to go. The only number they care about is the one at quarter close. Actually, it's the number I care about. (I get paid a bonus based on billable hours. The bonus, if I make my quota every quarter, comes to 20% of my total annual salary. So kind of a big deal.)
That's a bonus worth having. I get my bonus next week. After paying tax and National Insurance (totalling 51%), it works out at around £1,000 (about $1,700). Better than nothing but not worth busting a gut to get.
I can't connect to mefi, meta, or askme from work this morning. IE just locks up, and our machines are pretty locked down here so I don't have any other options. Anybody else having problems? I may actually get some work done today.
Despite the rain, I had a lovely weekend. Not much was done, but many episodes of SCTV were watched, and many cats were cuddled. Also about halfway through Gene Wolfe's There Are Doors.
It's cold and rainy in NYC, today. And I'm in my usual position, directly in the path of a severe draft. How severe, when I told my supervisor about it he sat in my chair and said "Jeez, it's like there's a poltergeist over here."
PST, I've been unable to connect to *.mefi from work for months. They are for some reason blocking 70.86.*.*, which includes not only metafilter but I run into a random site about once a week or so I can't get to. What an arbitrary rule. Yay government!
Yesterday I crawled around under the roses and pulled out tons and tons of annoying wild strawberry (no it's not a nice plant despite the name) and found these, which look like tiny blue penises and now I'm wondering if I want to tag them thusly or if that will result in my getting in some form of trouble at flickr and I'm also wondering exactly how to phrase it, like, should I say "peniform?" Also, why is it so damn cold this May?
Regarding There Are Doors:
So far it's reminding me a bit of Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday in pacing and structure; not surprising given CHesterton's influence on Wolfe. I also started right after finishing Wolfe's Castle of Days, which ends with a number of essays on the nature and value of fantasy. Since this is the first novel of his I've read that I would broadly categorize as fantasy instead of science fiction, it's interesting to see how some of that might apply. I'm particularly interested in the idea that mythology is fantasy and vice versa, and that being the god of something (like love) does not mean that god is merely a personification of whatever they're in charge of. Wolfe has said in interviews that of his novels this is the one he's most satisfied with, so I'm also trying to tease out what that says about Wolfe and what he regards his books as being for.
I haven't read Peace yet but it's next on the list. Literally: I have a plan for reading/re-reading most of his novels this year.
Mike, I doubt work is blocking an IP range. I work for a big evil media retailer (rhymes with "Mordor's Hooks"), and our staff needs wide access to get their buys researched right. But it wouldn't be the first time that we had DNS updating issues that resulted in some IP ranges being temporarily unreachable. It's a little weird that IE is actually locking up though, to the point where I have to use the task manager to close it.
I haven't read Castle of Days, but I've read just about everything else, excluding Strange Travelers and the one he wrote under a pseudonym. I wasn't aware that Chesterton was an influence on Wolfe, I might have to reread The Man Who Was Thursday it has been about ten years...
It seems like we have the same impressions of There Are Doors.
Oooooh, Gene Wolfe! There Are Doors was good in a Wolfe sort of way, but I enjoyed it less than most of his other books. When he uses a contemporary setting, he often seems to draw characters that just stepped out of a 1930's movie. (See also: Free Live Free, Pandora By Holly Hollander.) Something about these characters irks me. Yes, the novels are complex and nuanced, and yes there's an awful lot going on below the surface, but I also want the surface of the story to be enjoyable in and of itself, which is usually the case with Wolfe.
Superior Wolfe novels that I would classify as pure fantasy: Soldier of the Mist, Soldier of Arete (now sold together as Latro in the Mist), The Knight and The Wizard.
I just went out for a cigarette and smoked it in the roofed doorway. The security lady, when I was done, told me that I couldn't do that even though it's raing cats and dogs. And this woman has a voice like Rosie Perez, but she dosen't look like Rosie sadly.
Another book question (seems like most of the right crowd is around, and it'll add to the post count for mike's thread): Riddley Walker has an expanded edition that was published in 1998. I just got the orginal version from my local library. Is the actual body of the novel different in the expanded edition, or is the expansion just extra materials, like a glossary (which seems to ruin some of the fun)?
I envy the living shit out of you, gaspode. Do me a favor, pick your teeth afterwards, mail me the toothpick so I can sniff it a little or something. I'll buy you a cookie.
I just cleaned the office, good lord. Now I've got a fetching smudge of dirt on my cheek and a loosely tied kerchief around my head, I'm puffing a lock of my hair up that keeps getting in my eyes. There are hours left 'till my husband gets back from working at his six martini job on Madison avenue. Perhaps I'll have a Darvon and sob over my highschool yearbook.
Got up early this morning to go to the doctor (for no good reason other than I need to establish myself with a doctor seeing as how I've lived here for six months and already had one case of severe illness and countless minor ones) and I don't have health insurance, so it blows. The clinic here charges on a sliding scale, but since I'm married, they have to count my husband's income as well as mine... and so... we don't qualify for any discount. But we both officially work part-time so we don't qualify for insurance either.
Could you just maybe fuck me up the ass with a stick? And then charge me $100 per splinter? That'd be awesome, thanks.
I have been packing to move and kicking up a ton of dust. The fact that I just blew my nose and black stuff came out says much about my housekeeping skills.
cmonkey, it's the devil. You had better get out of there before the walls start weeping blood and a deep voice says "Geeeeettttttt Ooooouuuuuuttttttt!"
I just woke up. I feel like a slacker and am moderately displeased with myself. Today, I've got to watch movies for my film paper, do some studying for my music theory final, have coffee with the grandmother, more movie watching and more studying.
I had a Tuesday 8AM deadline moved to 1pm today this morning. Good and scampery here so far. The sun, however, has reappeared after plenty of giant thunderstorms and hail yesterday.
cmonkey, if there's that amount of flies, they're hatching in the room, probably behind a wall or under the floor, where there's some dead critter. I had that once, dozens of flies, couldn't find the source and sprayed deadly pesticide everywhere until they were all dead.
Heh, the noise on this thread just made my dog leap out from under the computer and dash out the back door to bark hysterically, which got all the other dogs in the neighborhood going too.
cmonkey, if there's that amount of flies, they're hatching in the room, probably behind a wall or under the floor, where there's some dead critter. I had that once, dozens of flies, couldn't find the source and sprayed deadly pesticide everywhere until they were all dead.
There was an awful smell for a while that just recently went away, so the fly apocalypse would certainly fit. Argh argh argh :(
Since the Hangman has been moved to it's own thread, I'll spoil this one. Though, I'd already spoiled it plenty with my mad speling skilz. BUNNY MOTHERFUCKIN' BUNNY.
Is the actual body of the novel different in the expanded edition, or is the expansion just extra materials
The text is the same; you just get some bonus stuff.
And yes, I agree that the glossary does spoil the fun, but on the other hand I was present for some of the arguments that convinced the publisher to put it in, and I'm reasonably sympathetic to his decision. You can always ignore it.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
