| Learn Spanish with me! |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|06:29 pm] |
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I'm starting a new blog: Learn Spanish with me! It's going to be about my process of learning Spanish. For today, there's a little about a proverb, "Every pig has its Saint Martin." |
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| Review: The Bedlam Boys, by Bonnie Morse |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|08:11 pm] |
#89: The Bedlam Boys, by Bonnie Morse (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bonnybedlam)
Julian Work was waiting at the entrance to the auditorium, a tall, slim island in a sea of people who, without exception, managed to pass by without touching him. He wasn't the public ace, either officially or unofficially, but something about him, maybe his confidence or the fact that he obviously didn't belong there, told even the most ignorant that he was one of them and therefore to be avoided. There was a policy in place, unofficially, that prevented the Boys from carrying guns into schools, but it was lifted today and Julian had two. Neither of them showed anywhere but in his eyes; there they were very plain.
Synopsis: The Bedlam Boys make sure Mt Riley, Oregon is a great place to live by doing all kinds of not-so-great things, like blowing up meth labs and putting lots of holes in anyone who disagrees with them. Thanks to Nikki Beck, the system is functional and airtight...right up until he falls in love, and all kinds of things hit the fan. Shit being just for starters.
( Should we talk about the rash of suicides? ) |
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| Quote of the Day |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|05:40 pm] |
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"Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know." Michel de Montaigne |
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| Untamed |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|05:53 pm] |
Untamed
P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast
YA fiction; fantasy
338 pages
Life sucks when your friends are pissed at you.
Just ask Zoey Redbird – she’s become an undisputed expert on suckiness. In one week she has gone from having three boyfriends to having none, and from having a tight-knit group of friends who trusted and supported her, to being an outcast. And the worst part is, she knows it’s her own fault. Speaking of friends, the only two Zoey has left are undead, unMarked, and unable to stop bickering with each other. So who can blame her for befriending the House of Night’s newest transfer student, the majorly hot Olympic archer, James Stark?
Meanwhile, Neferet has declared a war on humans after it appears that the People of the Faith have murdered two vampyres. But Aphrodite’s latest visions show a world completely different from the High Priestess’s promises, a world full of violence, hatred, and darkness, all because of Zoey’s death—and the only way it seems she can prevent it from happening is to make things right with her friends. Zoey knows in her heart that fighting with humans is wrong. But will anyone listen to her? Zoey's adventures at vampyre finishing school take a wild and dangerous turn as loyalties are tested, shocking true intentions come to light, and an ancient evil is awakened in PC and Kristin Cast's spellbinding fourth House of Night novel.
This is probably my least favorite book in the House of Night series so far. It still is a captivating story but I didn't care for the plot line in this one quite as much as the other three. However, it it still very entertaining and I cannot wait t o read the rest of the series! I also just found out that there is going to be a new book released in May! They write these so fast haha!
Books read this year: 50/50--I finally made my GOAL!!!!!!! :) |
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| ¡Feliz Solsticio! |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|03:16 pm] |
Having flirted with conlangs for a few days, I think I'll work instead on becoming truly bilingual in Spanish. (I took a little French in college and spent a semester in France, but my French is no better than mi pobre Español, and it's a long drive to Quebec from Tucson, so Spanish wins.)
Also, French is a beautiful language with a great culture, but it's not even in the world's top ten, where Spanish is giving English a tough run for the number two slot.
Since I'm giving up on conlangs for now, here's an excellent reason to make Spanish the world's auxlang: It's much easier to learn than Chinese or English. |
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| 10 Christmases |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|02:15 pm] |
1--at the age of 13 I knocked my father out when he tried to beat me and hid from the cops in a Baptist Church under construction, which may have been responsible for me feeling that God had marked me for breaking a taboo. I spent the bulk of Christmas day in a holding cell at the county jail, where a middle-aged guy charged with manslaughter taught me how to make a cigarette rolling machine out of a plastic Gillette razor case.
2--aboard an Irish freighter in a storm in the middle of the North Atlantic, the ship tossed about by huge waves, heading for Belfast. Christmas night we drank with the radio officer in his cabin (he'd written several Fawcett Gold Medal paperbacks, detective novels), watching a barometer suspended on the wall swing back and forth between two marks, coming to within an eighth of an inch away from each. I asked what would happen if the barometer touched one of the marks and he told me the ship would go over. I realized an eighth of an inch on the wall equated to far more in actual distance, but it brought home the notion (corny, but it has stood me in good stead ever since) that we're all an eighth of an inch away from oblivion at every moment of our lives.
3-on location, a Roman epic being shot in a valley in Asturias--my first wife and I were extras (I was a Goth, she was a camp follower) paid five dollars a day, living with hundreds of other extras in a tent city that doubled in the film as a Roman encampment. In the late afternoon we took a sleeping bag and climbed up on the hillside to get some privacy, and when we came back down at twilight we found that almost everyone had put on their costumes and were engaged in Bacchanalia.
4-a Belgian girl named Renee, with whom I planned to go to India, and I smoked ourselves stupid, watching the patterns on the blue and white tiles on our hotel room walls shift from one configuration to another. Around noon AM we took a streetcar out to the Cairo Zoo and sat drinking lemon sodas at a cafe in the zoo center, watching the crowds. That night we attended a party in the Khan Al Khalili bazaar at some rich Egyptian's place, an event of which I recall very little, only that I woke up back in the hotel with a girl named Tracy and that Renee had gone off with someone else. Two days later I asked Tracy if she wanted to go to India.
5-Outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, snowed in, my second wife, myself and my four-year-old son. We couldn't even get out of the driveway, and thus, with no demented uncles, racist cousins, or psychopaths of various stripe to interfere, we had our happiest Christmas ever in our little country cottage.
6-My band was stuck in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Xmas Eve because of a blizzard. We started drinking in a dive bar around six PM and were joined by a about a dozen men and women who had been laid off from a big department store, given their pink slips on Christmas Eve, and were in a foul mood. Their pissed off-edness and our depression meshed in a good way, and we kept the party going early into Chrstmas Day at our hotel. Nothing really changed, just the one night, but that was more than any of us expected.
7-Tibet. A village not far from Dolpo. Little twisting rocky streets, stone houses with slate roofs and black mastiffs barking atop them. Thunder and snow falling. My wife and I felt abandoned by the familiar and very far from home, so we went and drank beer with the Chinese cadre, the sole law in the place. We talked about America, we exaggerated its bounty and its villainy. He was so drunk he understood only about every fourth or fifth word, even though my wife spoke Tibetan. "Oh yes," he kept saying, and laughing. "Oh my, yes!"
8-A tiny mountain village in Morazan Province, El Salvador. Clouds had moved in during Christmas Eve and you could scarcely see a foot in front of you. Banana leaves stirred like feelers in the white mist. I sat outside a little whitewashed house, while beside me a 14-year-old girl cleaned her rifle and two gnomish children passed a paper sack back and forth, its bottom soaked with glue. It was like a dream someone else was having about the world I lived in.
9-Christmas day, I went with my girlfriend Katie to Siddha Yoga Dam temple on Staten Island to reclaim the last of of her possessions. She had been a cult member. The Swami, Swami Guruja, persuaded us to stay for dinner, which was very good--I have to say that religious fanatics in general make great cooks and interior decorators. During dinner the Swami became belligerent and started to call Katie "wanton." I began calling him Swami Kruckerman (He was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn) and threatened his life. Walking home, past the crack houses and hookers on Westervelt Avenue, there were so many empty crack vials on the sidewalks, it was like a kind of glassine hail we crunched underfoot. We stowed Katie's stuff in my apartment and went into Manhattan, where we found a room in a midtown hotel and drank vodka in a Russian restaurant in the Village until Staten Island was a distant continent and New York Bay an ocean.
10--Phnom Penh. Met friends at the world's greatest bar, The Foreign Press Club, which looks like the bar every Hollywood set designer assigned to a far eastern project has been trying to get right forever and keeps getting wrong. That evening had my fortune told by a famous fortune teller, his shop at Wat Phnom a masterpiece of kitsch, neon and day-glo Buddhas and so on. He advised me not to seek happiness, to strive for accomplishment instead. That night I ignored the advice and strived for both and a taxi girl stole my passport. Yet still I try.
Have a great one! |
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| things to consider when thinking about the next world language |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|02:36 pm] |
According to The language revolution by David Crystal, Spanish is the world's fastest-growing mother tongue.
Here are the top 11 Most Widely Spoken Languages (1996) | Rank, | Countries2 | Population3 | | language | (in millions) | | 1. Chinese, Mandarin | Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Singapore, S. Africa, Taiwan, Thailand | 1120 | | 2. English | Australia, Belize, Botswana, Brunei, Cameroon, Canada, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, India, Ireland, Israel, Lesotho, Liberia, Malaysia, Micronesia, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, S. Africa, Suriname, Swaziland, Tonga, U.K., U.S., Vanuatu, Zimbabwe, many Caribbean states, Zambia. | 480 | | 3. Spanish | Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Rep., Ecuador, El Salvador, Eq. Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Niger, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, Togo, Tunisia, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela. | 332 | | 4. Arabic | Egypt, Sudan, ALgeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Lybia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, UAE, Oman, Iraq, Lebanon | 235 | | 5. Bengali | Bangladesh, India, Singapore | 189 | | 6. Hindi | India, Nepal, Singapore, S. Africa, Uganda | 182 | | 7. Russian | Belarus, China, Estonia, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, U.S., Uzbekistan | 180 | | 8. Portuguese | Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, France, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe | 170 | | 9. Japanese | Japan, Singapore, Taiwan | 125 | | 10. German | Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Czech Rep., Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Paraguay, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland | 98 | | 11. Chinese, Wu | China | 77.2 |
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| Telling the wrong story. |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|03:55 pm] |
I was just in a shop and I heard a song which I assumed was a Christmas song. I mean it's the 21st December, and all the other songs were Christmas songs. I hadn't heard this one before, and it wasn't horrible on first hearing, fairly pleasant tune, which puts it well up on most Christmas songs I haven't heard before. It started off with the night wind telling a little lamb there was a star, the little lamb told a shepherd boy there was a song, the shepherd boy told the mighty king there was a child -- and I thought hang on, it was the kings who told Herod, not the shepherd, but OK -- and then:
Said the king to the people everywhere,
"Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people, everywhere,
Listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light,
He will bring us goodness and light."
What is this about, the conversion of Norway? Krishna and Arjuna? Siddhartha? Some story from Papua New Guinea? An alternate history song? I mean fine if it is, but... it isn't.
How can anybody get this story wrong, my goodness that's not at all what the mighty king said in the story of Jesus, the mighty king Herod said "Send the soldiers, kill the baby" and the soldiers got there on December 28th, Feast of the Holy Innocents and killed all the babies in Bethlehem while Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus fled to Egypt.
Yes, it would have been much nicer in the version in the song, especially for all the other babies in Bethlehem and their parents, but nice is not what it's about. It would make a fairly interesting alternate history, too.
My objection to this is not religious -- I've mentioned before that Christianity is my ancestral culture religion but I don't believe in it. My objection is to getting the story wrong. There are any number of ways to tell a story, and any number of things you can change when you re-tell it, but you can't tell lies. You have to be true to the truth of the story you're telling, whether it's the nativity or Cinderella. |
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| Meaning of Life. |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|02:26 pm] |
I did a guest comic a while back for Left-Handed Toons (by right handed people). It was a short one called "Meaning of Life" that I wrote about 2 years ago and never really used. So I used it for that. Here is the LEFT HANDED strip.
That took way too long to make with my left hand!! JEsus did it ever! Before I used it for a guest comic, tho, I originally wanted to re-draw it for another project that fell through. I had penciled it out normally, but never inked it. After I did the guest strip, I decided to go back to those pencils and finish it up, so I could see it as I normally imagined it. So here it is again, as done with my RIGHT HAND.
Woa! Mama I will never be ambidextrous!! More comics tomorrow!! |
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| Clifford Simak on the Screen |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|02:37 pm] |
This "trailer" went up 2 years ago, and has only had 800-some views. The actual movie's never been made. But let's imagine a time when Clifford Simak's fiction gets to the screen under the author's own name, instead of when James Cameron rips off "Desertion."
Posted by Paul DiFi. |
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| Monocyte-derived macrophage differentiation in vitro |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|02:04 pm] |
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Does anyone have a painless protocol for stimulating human monocytes to macrophage and/or dendritic cells? We've been using a simple adherence step after separating human PBMCs from buffy coats to generate monocytes, then stimulating with IL-4/GM-CSF to produce DCs, but with only marginal success; and now we want to generate DCs and macs on a larger scale. Any resources? Current Protocols doesn't have much beyond what I described above. |
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| Well, GREAT. |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|12:48 pm] |
The holiday travel joy has begun.
Kid 3 arrives this evening from Colorado -- and so far, things are looking OK there.
Kid 1, however, has been bumped to tomorrow. TOMORROW. Flights in and out of JFK are fine. Not a problem at all. No, the problem is the ridiculous puddle-jump from Hartford to JFK. No flight crew, massive cancellations. She can't fly out of Hartford AT ALL today. Ridiculous. The fucking airline could've hired a BUS to take people from Hartford to JFK and she would've made her connection on time. But no, the days of airline accountability are long since gone.
So tomorrow? More ridiculous. Hartford to Fort Meyers to Atlanta to KC. Yeah, Atlanta. Busiest airport, reputation for fuck-ups, 3 days before Christmas. To be honest, I'm expecting she'll get stuck there, and we'll see her on Wednesday.
Remember when we had an air travel system that worked? |
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| BEST DAMNED COMICS OF 2009 & DECADE |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|01:44 pm] |
The Daily Cross Hatch asked cartoonists to weigh in on the 'best damned comics' of 2009 and the decade.
Here are my best for 2009:
The Life and Times of Savior 28 by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Cavallaro
From the Ashes by Bob Fingerman
A.D. by Josh Neufeld
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera
Webcomics:
Zegas by Michel Fiffe
Lilly MacKenzie and the Mines of Charybdis by Simon Fraser
Loviathan by Mike Cavallaro
Underwire by Jennifer Hayden
The Streets of San Diablo by Darryl Cunningham
You can read the other 2009 choices here:
http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2009/12/14/the-best-damned-comics-of-2009-chosen-by-the-artists/
Here are my best for the decade:
All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday
Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera
The Incredible Hulk by Bruce Jones and various artists
100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev cum Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark
The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke
100% by Paul Pope
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
The Punisher: The End by Garth Ennis and Richard Corben
You can read the other decade choices here:
http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2009/12/21/the-best-damned-comics-of-the-decade-chosen-by-the-artists/ |
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| James Cameron Avatar Movie |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|10:37 am] |
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Avatar in 3D is a must-see spectacle for science fiction fans. The story is familiar, predictable, and unnuanced, but still solid and enjoyable, I thought, and the actors give appealing performances. But the visuals here are just stunning -- $300 million worth of gunships vs. dragons vs. robomechs in a bioluminescent alien jungle in 3D. Wow. Be warned though, this is one LONG movie, so you might want to bring a meal -- or two -- into the theater with you.
 
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