| Mollo Moments at Ralph's Bridge Club |
[20 Aug 2008|03:26pm] |
Monday
Ralph's for bridge, including several moments that didn't quite happen this way but should have done.
* Playing a contract in an artificial cue bid of 4S, and it being the right contract. (The truth: No Trumps is better.)
* Bidding a grand slam on a 12 card fit missing the trump king. (The truth: The 12 card fit is real, as is the marvellous moment of having a partner bid showing many points and 6+ hearts, and that's what you were going to do. But the slam isn't solid enough even if you assume you have all the top controls, and anyway, they ended up asking for Ace-and-trump-king with Blackwood instead of cue bidding to find aces only.)
* Psyching a completely normal takeout double ("She never does that...")
Tuesday 1
I went to the Carlton to eat, and then on to Alex's games evening. I felt all organised by leaving work with enough time for dinner, rather than having something in late afternoon, staying spodding/working until time for evening activity, and then eating last thing at night :)
( Read more... )
[1] Why do I feel the plural ought to be "trebuchet"? Is it spill-over from "canon"?
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| Aura Photography |
[20 Aug 2008|02:58pm] |
...a more vulnerable photo. The first floor bathroom was the only room that caught the first moments of dawn at this time of year -- there was a glorious "breakfast" room, but the light streamed in there half an hour too late for us to catch the actual dawn. And I wanted a photo that brought out the feeling of being attacked...
It had been hard to explain. Last night, after the photos, we'd sat up quite late, sipping margaritas. She had a small but very, very nice drinks cabinet, and some fresh fruit, and I could tell she normally only ever had one, but she kept sipping her third and seventh with the same decorum. I was more used to throwing things back, but was happy to keep her company with her spirits, and things thawed out until we were really quite jolly...
( Read more... )
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| Hellboy II: The Generic Subtitle |
[19 Aug 2008|07:10pm] |
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Hellboy II is out! The trailer did not inspire me, but I still want to see it. Would anyone else like to join me on Friday, probably with dinner?
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| Pictures of the Day - Boer War Memorial |
[19 Aug 2008|06:16pm] |
Not long tonight so no writeup.
( Three photos )
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| Reviews -- Zohan |
[19 Aug 2008|01:42pm] |
I've decided to start saving myself a lot of pain and reviewing movies before I've seen them. In the first few seconds of the trailer, Don't Mess With The Zohan looked pretty promising, but then I realised:
* I'd confused Adam Sandler with Ben Stiller. (Both can play the same sort of nice-but-dumb jock/nerd, but Ben Stiller had been really good in several movies I hadn't even realised were him, on account of his acting, whereas Sandler always did ok, but I didn't really like anything he was in.)
* Zohan was not after all an Arab counter-terrorist special forces agent, but an Israeli one. That's still much more interesting than one from a pure Anglophile country, but much less interesting than I'd thought
* There was a lot of painfully embarrassing negative humour.
I might watch it on DVD, it looks like it has funny things in. And I'd still like to see the movie I thought it was. But judging from the IMDB reviews, it's an exquisitely Sandlerest movie, and you'll love it if you love Sandler movies, and vilify it if you don't.
ETA: If you haven't seen the movie, Sandler plays the top Israeli counter-terrorist agent, who retires to America to become a hairdresser. (And his old life catches up with him, and much juvenile and slapstick hijinks ensue.)
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| On the way to work |
[19 Aug 2008|11:56am] |
The guided busway now extends off to the horizon in both directions.
They have a sikh to wave at people when they cross. (Presumably to make sure no pedestrians wandering across, or green-lit vehicles, catastrophically intersect construction traffic going sideways.)
A guy was leading a horse, following by its foal, out of the science park. (The other day, there was a pony trap trotting round the park.)
I cycled to work and was overtaken by a learner driver. It's very sweet -- you can always tell, even if you can't see the markings, as the car always comes up, pauses, carefully pulls out, then moves past, then swings carefully in again. I always salute politely.
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| Aura Photography |
[19 Aug 2008|11:34am] |
I barely had to try, the photos fell magically into place. The orange red sky quickly grew to overwhelm the image, until I had bold streaks of colour sliding across it, toward a small, bold silhouette of her head and shoulders.
Then the streaks of gold began to congeal into shapes, and one vast shape screaming down across the picture to envelope her. Different angles and different pictures showed the shape as different things. A broad ship, bucking wildly as streaks of canon-light fled sideways from its ports, blurry sails twisting in the sun rays above it.
An orange golden dragon, long as a street, bulky and elegant, made of thousands of parallel streaks… a splodge here were claws, and a stroke here wings, and here the silhouette of a head, mawing down to engulf the black silhouette of the woman.
A train, an old fashioned brass locomotive streaked with metallic pipes and golden piping, spewing hot plasma ash from two chimneys, and a couple of flares suggesting many many wheels stretching into the distance, and at the front a pointed cow-catcher driving hard towards…
I shuddered. But I still didn't know what this thing was. Maura might have sensed it, before asking me for a reading, but it might be something new coming, or something that had been with her all her life, she had never yet admitted. I liked her, and didn't know if I hoped this showed some long-standing tragedy in her own personality — which would be sad, but probably seem normal — or a disaster approaching, which would vindicate my positive impression of the lady, but I did not relish admitting to her…
xxx.
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| Aura photography |
[19 Aug 2008|01:43am] |
For a couple of days I begged her indulgence to crash on her sumptuous couch, and dragged us both out of bed at dawn. She was always tightly controlled, so unused to company, but so lovely, dressing completely before coming down and making us both a cup of coffee and, as we quickly fell into the habit of, some French toast, finally unwinding enough I dared speak to her as we ventured out of the front door into the cool bright light of the pre-dawn.
To the east, the best horizon was to go out into the street and shoot down the length. She would stand, thawing, in the brilliant light, and I'd frame her head in front of the sun, in the least approved lighting orientation imaginable.
( Read more... )
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| Mentions of vegetarianism |
[19 Aug 2008|12:47am] |
Fish eggs
After seeing most all varieties of being proselytized at through my life, a friend (fishpi) is to be congratulated for finding an argument to which I really did respond "Hm, yes, you're right, I hadn't thought of it like that. I'm going to change my conviction on that topic."
Specifically, I'd never thought about fish eggs, just assumed without thinking they would be non-vegetarian. Fishpi pointed out in passing that they should be equally as acceptable as hens eggs, and he's perfectly right. (To be accurate, I think he just posed the question.) ( ="Of )
Contamination
When I was willing to eat food that's touched meat may seem inconsistent, but when I considered it, it wasn't particularly logical, but nor was it very unusual: it conforms exactly to when I'd be willing to eat food contaminated by, eg., a probably-clean table or floor.
That is, I'd not eat food that's been mixed with contamination, and would always prefer not to eat food that's been touched by contamination. And if I were more scrupulous or fastidious, I wouldn't, but as it happens, I'm happy to just ignore touching if it looks ok.
That's not a golden rule, it's just a self-analysis of how I happen to feel, which changes over time, but if you've ever wondered why on earth I did think like that, that analogy might provide intuitive if not analytical understanding :)
Vegetarian majority
I still notice, in passing, whenever a group of friends chances to be majority vegetarian. Tonight at bridge was 4:3 in favour. It's nice that it's common enough that I rarely do notice, I certainly can't remember very precisely who else is vegetarian.
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| Ways my co-workers like to make me unhealthy, #1 in a series |
[18 Aug 2008|12:15pm] |
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mood |
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 full |
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music |
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Joy Division- 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' |
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So I got back yesterday full of beans and spent half an hour on our new Wii Fit, kidding myself I could do lunges and jack-knifes and whatnot, while a sarcastic virtual trainer told me I had Thighs of Steeltm. Thus I felt moderately fit and virtuous.
I came in today, bearing shortbready goodness for the fridgetop...and the devs had loaded it with doughnuts, choco Leibniz, and filled the freezer with Ben and Jerry's Phish Food.
FATE WHY DO YOU MOCK ME
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| Two flash games |
[18 Aug 2008|01:17am] |
With thanks to Matt R and PJC respectively for most recently linking me to them,
Scorching Earth, a flash puzzle game where you play as a forest fire.
Fantastic Contraption, a very pretty mechanics game: build things out of wheels and rods and water, bouncily and convincingly
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| Pictures of the day - Playing around with the G600 |
[16 Aug 2008|06:26pm] |
Gamers coming over. Writeup tomorrow (yes, I know I'm owing a few days). Today I played about with the G600:
( Plants again )
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| i'm whoring myself out. |
[16 Aug 2008|12:01pm] |
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mood |
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 dirty |
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music |
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cannibal Corpse- Disfigured |
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so i think i've posted before that i've been hired to (re)write a horror movie for Janelle and Misty Haze Productions. She gave me a story idea and some guidelines to follow.
I suggested a few of my own first: a man who believes he's in purgatory and all the people he sees he perceives to be demons come to drag him to hell. He fights for his very soul.
a religious radical disguised as a porn actress or a porn actress with a religious radical alter personality declares a jihad against the porn industry. It was essentially supposed to be a commentary on how gratuitous violence is more widely acceptable than gratuitous sex. Case in point, Janelle didn't think the "hollywood people" would go for the "porn" idea.
Anyway the plot that i am doing, about a disfigured guy, kept hidden from the rest of his family by their parents goes on a rampage. To make up for the lack of story, sublime terror, and artistic validity, i've determined to make 1) the characters at least as true and as genuine as i can and 2) make it as unbearably brutal as i can.
all right. let's do this.
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