1. Had lunch with a colleague, and we brainstormed several possible topics for next year's TYCA-West. We'll submit a proposal on one.
2. Went to the main campus department office to get a copy of the current edition of a textbook I don't have. Wasn't able to get this book, but it was a good thing I went for two reasons: a. the course I thought was six week is actually 10 week, so that sketch-out, which was very, very nearly done, needs to be redone; b. I might get a third class, which would make less free time, but significantly more moolah. We'll see if it comes about.
3. Finished reading the article on Sethian Gnosticism at the end of the Nag Hammadi collection.
4. For one textbook I don't normally use, I was able to get a copy of the newer edition, which I compared to the previous edition for which I already had activities written; it's not a lot different.
5. Watched All Quiet on the Western Front, which I hadn't seen before. Very enjoyable.
We also watched the "Furnish" episode of Big Ideas for a Small Planet. We watched some other little comedy things, but I don't remember what they were.
6. Worked on my Pogo badges.
7. Level 25 Night Elf Druid. Finished the outside-the-instance Deadmines quests and the Stalvan sequence up until the last one.
8. Today's BigFishGame is some pinata game; it looks like a clickfest. I'm excused.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
5/31: What I Accomplished Today
1. Co-Vivant was so excited that I finished the grunt work on the transcript last night that she took me to lunch. We had dum-dum food.
2. Got all Pogo badges to at least 60%; earned a premium badge in the 10-spot Badge Book and began the next.
3. Watched some forgettable TV.
4. Finished Reading Judas; there's an essay on the Sethian school of Gnostic thought in The Nag Hammadi Scriptures that I'm reading now since the Gospel of Judas seems to fit into that school.
5. Level 29 Night Elf Hunter. Played some Warsong Gulch (which I don't like much) and Arathi Basin (which I do). Finished Velinde quest sequence. Turned in Lost Chalice. Dinged 30; spent the talent point on the third level of whatever talent thing I've been working on. Went to Darnassus to train. Updated stats and had all characters do a mail check.
6. BigFishGame is another find-the-stuff. No, thank you.
2. Got all Pogo badges to at least 60%; earned a premium badge in the 10-spot Badge Book and began the next.
3. Watched some forgettable TV.
4. Finished Reading Judas; there's an essay on the Sethian school of Gnostic thought in The Nag Hammadi Scriptures that I'm reading now since the Gospel of Judas seems to fit into that school.
5. Level 29 Night Elf Hunter. Played some Warsong Gulch (which I don't like much) and Arathi Basin (which I do). Finished Velinde quest sequence. Turned in Lost Chalice. Dinged 30; spent the talent point on the third level of whatever talent thing I've been working on. Went to Darnassus to train. Updated stats and had all characters do a mail check.
6. BigFishGame is another find-the-stuff. No, thank you.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
5/30: What I Accomplished Today
1. Last night, I got the DVD player connected to the bedroom system; our newer Tivo box has a DVD player/burner, so we don't need it in the living room anymore.
2. Finished the grunt work on the transcript. There's still formatting stuff to do, but my Co-Vivant does that; for the part I can do, this To Do list item can be removed.
3. Started new Pogo badges.
4. Watched forgettable stuff on television.
5. Still working on Reading Judas; I've finished the translation and the commentary through Chapter 7.
6. Level 28 Night Elf Hunter. Finished the Level 24 version of Tower of Althalaxx, Elemental Bracers, and Aggressive Defense. Swung by Forest Song and got Helping Hand and Kayneth Stillwind; I also dinged 29 and trained Mortal Shot 2. I picked up the Flight Path for Forest Song and Talrendis Point and amount a gamillion quests in Forest Song. Finished Report from the Northern Front, Fallen Sky Lake, and Mage Summoner, and turned them in. Finished the treant part of Raene's Cleansing and Howling Vale, and I've been working on the latter sequence; I'm all done except the last two. (The rare 34 spawn is in my Elune's Scythe tunnel, so I'll try that again tomorrow; I kept trying to come back later, but it wasn't happening this evening.) I also finished all but the last quest in the Stalvan sequence.
7. At lunch today, my Co-Vivant and I commented on two women, sisters perhaps, who had come to dinner, each bringing a child; one had a daughter about four, and the other hand a son about two. Each did a phenomenally poor job keeping her child in check, largely because they were each competing for each other's attention so much the kids didn't have a chance.
We expect children to campaign for Mommy's attention; part of raising children is helping them understand when this is appropriate and when it isn't, and what particular tactics will be tolerated and which will not. I realized at lunch today, though, that part of the problem these young mothers were having is that they hadn't "moved along to the next stage of the circle of life," if you'll forgive a rather cliched image; they were still competing for each other's attention, so they had no concept that children could be taught not to be bothersome during their mothers' lunches (and those of diners around them), or even that children could occasionally be granted attention for appropriate behavior.
How do parents who, frankly, were never properly raised themselves raise anyone?
That feels like a bit of an easy shot, though, since I have no children, but the "non-moving-on" mindset is ubiquitous. And I have to admit I have mixed feelings about that. Yes, I think everyone has the right to feel good about his, her, or its body and the right to express creativity in his, her, or its own way--but sometimes that way involves people in their 40's wearing belly shirts and low-riders. And part of me is going, "Good for you! Do not go gentle into that good night!' And part of me is going, "Oh, crimony, does the expression 'mutton in lamb's wool' mean anything to you?"
We're living longer, and we're feeling young and healthier longer. I'm all in favor of that. I'm 42. I don't feel 42. I look in the mirror, and I look much better than people I knew as 42 when I was a kid; I look (granted, to me, which may be biased) like I used to think people in their mid-30's look, and I have no particular skin or health regime, just good general health and lots of laughter. My mother-in-law is 81, and most people would place her at 10 or 15 years younger than that.
Part of this is regional; my grandmother is 85, and while she's healthy and fairly spry, that's more or less where people would place her. Part of the difference: my mother-in-law lives in a city, and my grandmother lives in a more rural community. Cities move, move, move, and my mother-in-law is no exception. Life is slower where my grandmother lives. (I also think a lot of it is because every person in his or her 80's whom my grandmother has ever seen has at least started to "fade," if they hadn't before, so I think she sees it as part of her job. My mother-in-law has no such compunction.)
We've all seen enough Golden Girls to know that older people still have libidos and can have active, fulfilling sex lives. Nobody (at least, nobody I want as a friend) begrudges anyone this. (You know, three of the four Golden Girls were only in their 50's. That hardly seems Golden anymore.) When adult children get their bowels in an uproar because their senior parents are dating or having sex or getting married or whatever, I think that's just the stupidest thing ever; get over yourself. If it makes your parent happy, why are you in the way? Yes, it might be a mistake, and yes, the behavior might be foolish. Every marriage ever contracted, every relationship ever begun, has this potential; if we let that stop us, civilization is paralyzed and grinds to a halt.
On the other hand, I also think this is part of the pattern I'm discussing: what we essentially have is older people continuing to play ingenues. Part of the reason adult children are uncomfortable with the concept is because they think the parent is horning in on their territory.
So I don't really have anything definitive to say here, I guess. I think parts of this trend cause problems (like people who find themselves thrust into the parental role who never quite finished being children themselves). I'm ambiguous about other parts (self-expression, certainly, but I can't get excited about people my age wearing clothes designed for teenagers). I fully support the extension of middle age into what has traditionally been "the golden years."
Longevity changes the cycle of life, and we haven't figured out what we're going to do about that yet.
8. Yesterday's BigFishGame was a puzzle game billed as "cute"; Tonstant Weader passed. Today's is Boggle. I like Boggle, but I don't need it on the computer.
2. Finished the grunt work on the transcript. There's still formatting stuff to do, but my Co-Vivant does that; for the part I can do, this To Do list item can be removed.
3. Started new Pogo badges.
4. Watched forgettable stuff on television.
5. Still working on Reading Judas; I've finished the translation and the commentary through Chapter 7.
6. Level 28 Night Elf Hunter. Finished the Level 24 version of Tower of Althalaxx, Elemental Bracers, and Aggressive Defense. Swung by Forest Song and got Helping Hand and Kayneth Stillwind; I also dinged 29 and trained Mortal Shot 2. I picked up the Flight Path for Forest Song and Talrendis Point and amount a gamillion quests in Forest Song. Finished Report from the Northern Front, Fallen Sky Lake, and Mage Summoner, and turned them in. Finished the treant part of Raene's Cleansing and Howling Vale, and I've been working on the latter sequence; I'm all done except the last two. (The rare 34 spawn is in my Elune's Scythe tunnel, so I'll try that again tomorrow; I kept trying to come back later, but it wasn't happening this evening.) I also finished all but the last quest in the Stalvan sequence.
7. At lunch today, my Co-Vivant and I commented on two women, sisters perhaps, who had come to dinner, each bringing a child; one had a daughter about four, and the other hand a son about two. Each did a phenomenally poor job keeping her child in check, largely because they were each competing for each other's attention so much the kids didn't have a chance.
We expect children to campaign for Mommy's attention; part of raising children is helping them understand when this is appropriate and when it isn't, and what particular tactics will be tolerated and which will not. I realized at lunch today, though, that part of the problem these young mothers were having is that they hadn't "moved along to the next stage of the circle of life," if you'll forgive a rather cliched image; they were still competing for each other's attention, so they had no concept that children could be taught not to be bothersome during their mothers' lunches (and those of diners around them), or even that children could occasionally be granted attention for appropriate behavior.
How do parents who, frankly, were never properly raised themselves raise anyone?
That feels like a bit of an easy shot, though, since I have no children, but the "non-moving-on" mindset is ubiquitous. And I have to admit I have mixed feelings about that. Yes, I think everyone has the right to feel good about his, her, or its body and the right to express creativity in his, her, or its own way--but sometimes that way involves people in their 40's wearing belly shirts and low-riders. And part of me is going, "Good for you! Do not go gentle into that good night!' And part of me is going, "Oh, crimony, does the expression 'mutton in lamb's wool' mean anything to you?"
We're living longer, and we're feeling young and healthier longer. I'm all in favor of that. I'm 42. I don't feel 42. I look in the mirror, and I look much better than people I knew as 42 when I was a kid; I look (granted, to me, which may be biased) like I used to think people in their mid-30's look, and I have no particular skin or health regime, just good general health and lots of laughter. My mother-in-law is 81, and most people would place her at 10 or 15 years younger than that.
Part of this is regional; my grandmother is 85, and while she's healthy and fairly spry, that's more or less where people would place her. Part of the difference: my mother-in-law lives in a city, and my grandmother lives in a more rural community. Cities move, move, move, and my mother-in-law is no exception. Life is slower where my grandmother lives. (I also think a lot of it is because every person in his or her 80's whom my grandmother has ever seen has at least started to "fade," if they hadn't before, so I think she sees it as part of her job. My mother-in-law has no such compunction.)
We've all seen enough Golden Girls to know that older people still have libidos and can have active, fulfilling sex lives. Nobody (at least, nobody I want as a friend) begrudges anyone this. (You know, three of the four Golden Girls were only in their 50's. That hardly seems Golden anymore.) When adult children get their bowels in an uproar because their senior parents are dating or having sex or getting married or whatever, I think that's just the stupidest thing ever; get over yourself. If it makes your parent happy, why are you in the way? Yes, it might be a mistake, and yes, the behavior might be foolish. Every marriage ever contracted, every relationship ever begun, has this potential; if we let that stop us, civilization is paralyzed and grinds to a halt.
On the other hand, I also think this is part of the pattern I'm discussing: what we essentially have is older people continuing to play ingenues. Part of the reason adult children are uncomfortable with the concept is because they think the parent is horning in on their territory.
So I don't really have anything definitive to say here, I guess. I think parts of this trend cause problems (like people who find themselves thrust into the parental role who never quite finished being children themselves). I'm ambiguous about other parts (self-expression, certainly, but I can't get excited about people my age wearing clothes designed for teenagers). I fully support the extension of middle age into what has traditionally been "the golden years."
Longevity changes the cycle of life, and we haven't figured out what we're going to do about that yet.
8. Yesterday's BigFishGame was a puzzle game billed as "cute"; Tonstant Weader passed. Today's is Boggle. I like Boggle, but I don't need it on the computer.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
5/29: What I Accomplished Today
1. Did about ten pages of transcript.
2. Completed the Health Survey for my insurance over the phone; people who complete this survey get halved deductibles and double dental coverage for the year, so it's a worthwhile ten minutes. This also completes the Health Insurance item on my to-do list.
3. Television. We didn't watch much; our television is doing a strange thing with SAP on PBS, so two shows we TiVo'd to watch (Masterpiece Theater about Mrs. Beecham somebody and a Nova about volcanoes) had the descriptive text on. We don't want the descriptive text on. It's quite irritating.
4. Pogo badges. Finished a premium badge and started another. Tomorrow is new badge day.
5. Sketched out another week and a half or so of the Summer 100.
6. Took a cursory glance at the latest Research in the Teaching of English; this one is often too technical for my taste, and this issue looks like no exception. There's a descriptive article on an essay set I may need to take a look at eventually.
7. Level 27 Night Elf Hunter. Finished Gerenzo and the Covert Ops; took and completed Kaela's Update and took Enraged Spirits and Wounded Ancients. In the Charred Vale, I dinged 28 and took Mortal Shot, Level 1. I turned in Enraged Spirits and Wounded Ancients. I turned in Reclaiming the Charred Vale, took the next quest in the chain, and finished it as well. Went to Stormwind and turned in Mauren's thingy. Good day's work, all in all.
2. Completed the Health Survey for my insurance over the phone; people who complete this survey get halved deductibles and double dental coverage for the year, so it's a worthwhile ten minutes. This also completes the Health Insurance item on my to-do list.
3. Television. We didn't watch much; our television is doing a strange thing with SAP on PBS, so two shows we TiVo'd to watch (Masterpiece Theater about Mrs. Beecham somebody and a Nova about volcanoes) had the descriptive text on. We don't want the descriptive text on. It's quite irritating.
4. Pogo badges. Finished a premium badge and started another. Tomorrow is new badge day.
5. Sketched out another week and a half or so of the Summer 100.
6. Took a cursory glance at the latest Research in the Teaching of English; this one is often too technical for my taste, and this issue looks like no exception. There's a descriptive article on an essay set I may need to take a look at eventually.
7. Level 27 Night Elf Hunter. Finished Gerenzo and the Covert Ops; took and completed Kaela's Update and took Enraged Spirits and Wounded Ancients. In the Charred Vale, I dinged 28 and took Mortal Shot, Level 1. I turned in Enraged Spirits and Wounded Ancients. I turned in Reclaiming the Charred Vale, took the next quest in the chain, and finished it as well. Went to Stormwind and turned in Mauren's thingy. Good day's work, all in all.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
5/28: What I Accomplished Today
1. Happy Memorial Day!
2. Worked on Pogo premium badges.
3. Watched a NetFlix movie, Grand Illusion. Remembered as we started it that we'd watched it together before, but it's still a good movie.
I realized this morning that I had forgotten to say what I meant to say about the episode of The Riches we watched last night. Since the show is essentially an exploration of the American Dream, I found last night's episode particularly interesting; the boss has disappeared on a meth bender, so Wayne signs the partnership papers and essentially co-ops the company. One thing he does is establish an open-door policy, thinking people will come in and give him ideas or vision or solutions to problems.
Instead, everybody whines about offices, parking places, and snacks.
This is one reason Americans often look bad internationally: imagine if you were from Utopia, the richest country in the world, with the most opportunities in the world. (Free education is available through the age of 18, for heaven's sake! It isn't terribly hard to arrange funding for education beyond that!) Anyone with the qualifications and ambitions is eligible for any job. Many of the class, race, gender, and genealogical barriers that have hampered humanity for millenia have been removed (well, okay, let's not kid ourselves, but progress is being made). The only restriction on owning almost anything is whether you have the money. Truly, this is a remarkable joint. This is astonishing on the world stage. We have every opportunity in the world. I mean that literally. The American Dream is Every Opportunity in the World.
And we settle for such mediocrity.
There are only two sorts of big dreams in America: I Will Have Lots of Money, or I Will Produce The Great American Work of Art. And those are both admirable. But it seems like there should be more than just those two, and it seems like more people should be aspiring to big dreams instead of Settling.
Americans are famous, on the international stage, for Settling. This is the nation where Pauly Shore became famous. He's not particularly talented or funny or handsome, but He'll Do.
Before I was hired to teach full-time, I had to pay my bills, so I taught part-time and worked full-time in a call center, eventually becoming a supervisor. This call center did customer service and tech support, so we had lots of college students, retired military personnel, and housewives. This was a fairly educated, intelligent workforce. And, honest to God, I have sat in meetings in which 15 minutes, count 'em, 15 minutes, were spent on discussing what shirts had to be tucked in and what didn't. And you sit there, and your ears bleed, and you're thinking, "I can't believe valuable brain cells are being wasted on this most trivial, idiotic, dick-wad topic." But you know what? We had to, because if we didn't, these educated, intelligent people would push the dress code. Like that was the definition of Rebel: "I will wear my square-hemmed Manga shirt and make them refine their dress code." The amount of brainpower and creativity in that building was staggering--and the vast amount of it was channeled into the stupidest, stupidest things. But if we asked for ideas or brainstorms, they looked at us blankly. It wasn't their idea to have positive, useful ideas that could benefit the entire building or even the entire company; it was their job to look for chinks in the armor and wiggle their fingers in them. Phenomenal, staggering waste of brainpower.
I totally agree that the dress code was inane; frankly, whenever possible, I would forget to enforce it, because I thought it was insulting to everyone involved. But you know what? Because there are people who think "creativity" means "Let's find loopholes!", management has to spend time closing those loopholes. Inanity breeds inanity.
I mentioned a few weeks ago the problems we had with departmental resistance to the assessment procedure for 100. Everyone in the room had the opportunity to participate in the process and help formulate the procedure. The same 12 people who always do did, however. Many of the other 58 people criticize without offering superior alternatives (sometimes they think they have, but they're almost always suggesting things that had been rejected for many reasons very early in the process). Just inanity. If you're offered the opportunity to formulate a process and you don't avail yourself of the opportunity, just shut up. (Goldman's definition of a Grade-Two Thinker from his "Thinking as a Hobby" essay is alive and well. In many ways, the entire nation is trapped at 17 years old.)
No, I don't suppose this is strictly an American phenomenon, but I do think it's more pronounced in America. At least, it seems even more tragic when this happens in America because so many fabulous things should be happening with our creativity and our lack of age-old constrictions and our free educations, and instead, we try to improve the system by seeing if our company will let us wear a T-shirt with a cartoon character so large we can't possibly tuck it in.
4. Read an issue of Academe and finished the commentary portion of Reading Judas, starting the translation.
5. Got the first three weeks of my summer 100 just about mapped out.
6. Today's BigFishGame seems to be a mystery thing. No, thank you.
7. Level 26 Night Elf Hunter. First two levels of Ormer's Revenge with Uncovering the Past. Went to the Dead Mines and finished OH, Brother, Collecting Memories, and Red Silk Bandannas by myself. Found a pretty good group and finished the Defias Brotherhood and the Underground contraption one, picking up the Unsent Letter, which I then completed, along with Bazil Thredd.
Then I returned and did the third level of Ormer. While I was working on this, I dinged 27. I noticed I hadn't gotten the 5th level of Improved Concussive Shot, so I got that.Then I bebopped over to Ashenvale and did Ancient Statuette and Ruuzel. I went to StoneTalon and worked on Deepmoss Eggs, turning in Further Instructions to pick up Gerenzo and turning in the Gaxim deliveries to pick up the Covert Ops and Castpipe tasks. Flew to the Barrens to turn in Deepmoss Eggs and called it a day.
2. Worked on Pogo premium badges.
3. Watched a NetFlix movie, Grand Illusion. Remembered as we started it that we'd watched it together before, but it's still a good movie.
I realized this morning that I had forgotten to say what I meant to say about the episode of The Riches we watched last night. Since the show is essentially an exploration of the American Dream, I found last night's episode particularly interesting; the boss has disappeared on a meth bender, so Wayne signs the partnership papers and essentially co-ops the company. One thing he does is establish an open-door policy, thinking people will come in and give him ideas or vision or solutions to problems.
Instead, everybody whines about offices, parking places, and snacks.
This is one reason Americans often look bad internationally: imagine if you were from Utopia, the richest country in the world, with the most opportunities in the world. (Free education is available through the age of 18, for heaven's sake! It isn't terribly hard to arrange funding for education beyond that!) Anyone with the qualifications and ambitions is eligible for any job. Many of the class, race, gender, and genealogical barriers that have hampered humanity for millenia have been removed (well, okay, let's not kid ourselves, but progress is being made). The only restriction on owning almost anything is whether you have the money. Truly, this is a remarkable joint. This is astonishing on the world stage. We have every opportunity in the world. I mean that literally. The American Dream is Every Opportunity in the World.
And we settle for such mediocrity.
There are only two sorts of big dreams in America: I Will Have Lots of Money, or I Will Produce The Great American Work of Art. And those are both admirable. But it seems like there should be more than just those two, and it seems like more people should be aspiring to big dreams instead of Settling.
Americans are famous, on the international stage, for Settling. This is the nation where Pauly Shore became famous. He's not particularly talented or funny or handsome, but He'll Do.
Before I was hired to teach full-time, I had to pay my bills, so I taught part-time and worked full-time in a call center, eventually becoming a supervisor. This call center did customer service and tech support, so we had lots of college students, retired military personnel, and housewives. This was a fairly educated, intelligent workforce. And, honest to God, I have sat in meetings in which 15 minutes, count 'em, 15 minutes, were spent on discussing what shirts had to be tucked in and what didn't. And you sit there, and your ears bleed, and you're thinking, "I can't believe valuable brain cells are being wasted on this most trivial, idiotic, dick-wad topic." But you know what? We had to, because if we didn't, these educated, intelligent people would push the dress code. Like that was the definition of Rebel: "I will wear my square-hemmed Manga shirt and make them refine their dress code." The amount of brainpower and creativity in that building was staggering--and the vast amount of it was channeled into the stupidest, stupidest things. But if we asked for ideas or brainstorms, they looked at us blankly. It wasn't their idea to have positive, useful ideas that could benefit the entire building or even the entire company; it was their job to look for chinks in the armor and wiggle their fingers in them. Phenomenal, staggering waste of brainpower.
I totally agree that the dress code was inane; frankly, whenever possible, I would forget to enforce it, because I thought it was insulting to everyone involved. But you know what? Because there are people who think "creativity" means "Let's find loopholes!", management has to spend time closing those loopholes. Inanity breeds inanity.
I mentioned a few weeks ago the problems we had with departmental resistance to the assessment procedure for 100. Everyone in the room had the opportunity to participate in the process and help formulate the procedure. The same 12 people who always do did, however. Many of the other 58 people criticize without offering superior alternatives (sometimes they think they have, but they're almost always suggesting things that had been rejected for many reasons very early in the process). Just inanity. If you're offered the opportunity to formulate a process and you don't avail yourself of the opportunity, just shut up. (Goldman's definition of a Grade-Two Thinker from his "Thinking as a Hobby" essay is alive and well. In many ways, the entire nation is trapped at 17 years old.)
No, I don't suppose this is strictly an American phenomenon, but I do think it's more pronounced in America. At least, it seems even more tragic when this happens in America because so many fabulous things should be happening with our creativity and our lack of age-old constrictions and our free educations, and instead, we try to improve the system by seeing if our company will let us wear a T-shirt with a cartoon character so large we can't possibly tuck it in.
4. Read an issue of Academe and finished the commentary portion of Reading Judas, starting the translation.
5. Got the first three weeks of my summer 100 just about mapped out.
6. Today's BigFishGame seems to be a mystery thing. No, thank you.
7. Level 26 Night Elf Hunter. First two levels of Ormer's Revenge with Uncovering the Past. Went to the Dead Mines and finished OH, Brother, Collecting Memories, and Red Silk Bandannas by myself. Found a pretty good group and finished the Defias Brotherhood and the Underground contraption one, picking up the Unsent Letter, which I then completed, along with Bazil Thredd.
Then I returned and did the third level of Ormer. While I was working on this, I dinged 27. I noticed I hadn't gotten the 5th level of Improved Concussive Shot, so I got that.Then I bebopped over to Ashenvale and did Ancient Statuette and Ruuzel. I went to StoneTalon and worked on Deepmoss Eggs, turning in Further Instructions to pick up Gerenzo and turning in the Gaxim deliveries to pick up the Covert Ops and Castpipe tasks. Flew to the Barrens to turn in Deepmoss Eggs and called it a day.
Monday, May 28, 2007
5/27: What I Accomplished Today
1. Shopped for and prepared meal for Puzzle Day. We came in second; we audited, but we missed the spelling of a word. It happens.
2. Came home and took a nap.
3. Read a bit. Finished The Week and a few more pages in Reading Judas. Also read an issue each of The Nation and The New Yorker.
4. Pogo. Finished the last two weekly badges and worked on premium badges.
5. TV. Watched five things I wanted to talk about. (I can only remember three, but we'll see if the others come to me as I type.)
a. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I liked this show, but I'm not surprised it didn't do as well as it should have; Sorkin didn't quite seem up to his game here. We should have seen it in...what, the second episode, when the big huge "Here's how we'll save the show and set just exactly the right tone!" gimmick was Gilbert & Sullivan. I love Gilbert & Sullivan. I don't think life gets more clever than Gilbert & Sullivan. But is it how a 21st-century American comedy show solves problems? I would like to live in a world where it is, or at least visit that alternate reality, but that won't work here on Planet Earth.
The show's been on hiatus; they chose the end of May to show the last few episodes they had already shot. Today was with Alison Janney, and the premise was that the propmasters and cue card people were on a wildcard strike. First of all, I don't believe Matt, Danny, or Jordan appeared in this episode at all, which was certainly an unusual choice. The basic premise made me nervous: Bad Things are obviously going to happen, and the idea set my teeth on edge. Blech. Worst of all, Simon got history's stupid sub-plot: he gets dumped before big trip because new girlfriend thinks he treats women as interchangeable objects; he replaces her for big trip with someone else (because, of course, for him, women are, in fact interchangeable objects); girlfriend relents, so now he has two dates; he cancels with replacement girl; original girl learns of replacement girl, so she cancels, too. This sort of now-he-does-now-he-doesn't really dumb subplot was irritating on The Flintstones, and it's still irritating. Harriet's spiel about her & Matt's relationship was just sort of odd, given that Matt wasn't on the show at all. (I was with the rest of the cast on this one: would you two please just be together and quit being a pain about it?) Within the first five minutes, as soon as we had three of our four main plotlines (the bomb one was the best of the lot), I was furious: they made us wait three months for this?
Having said those things.
The dialog is still gorgeous. The performances by Alison Janney and Timothy Busfield were just gorgeous. The prop-and-cue-card stuff wasn't as bad as I'd been afraid it was going to be.
It's sort of a shame Sorkin chose to write a behind-the-scenes show about a comedy, because he can't write this flavor comedy. He writes lovely comedy, but not sketch comedy; his comedy is character-driven, and when that's done on sketch shows, it has to be overdrawn; there isn't time to develop the nuance required in three or four minutes.
We were so delighted when we learned Sorkin had a show this season. This miss is still better than most shows that were on this season, but it was a miss. I hope you find a better niche. (Frankly, if anybody in either political party had a brain, they'd hire you to write their speeches; the Bartlett speeches on West Wing were the most inspiring political rhetoric in decades, and it was a real shame they were fiction.)
(Couldn't somebody be persuaded to do a few more seasons of Sportsnight?)
(I don't think 30 Rock was part of the problem here, necessarily; I think television is big enough for several sketch comedy shows and several shows about sketch comedy shows. Granted, the comparison didn't hurt, because 30 Rock was the right flavor of funny.)
b. The Riches. Another lovely episode; interesting lines are being drawn as Sam, Didi, and Wayne/Doug seem to be "turning into buffers," while Dahlia and Cal are fighting that with every fiber of their beings. (Well, Cal is. Dahlia is trying to embrace this because she loves Wayne.) The addition of the fake grandmother is also fun. She's made a few calls, she kept saying. I wonder if anybody's ever going to figure out what those calls are, or what the man she insisted she saw (who was, in fact, Dale) was doing.
c. Finished watching The Quest for King Arthur, which I TiVo'd awhile ago because of the course I'm teaching in the fall. I'd seen it before, but it's a nice review. I'll have to see if the library can get a copy for me to put on Closed Reserve for the course.
d. I didn't watch this, but my Co-Vivant has been watching Robin Hood, and the season 1 finale was tonight. She's been upset all week because Marian died (she kept asking me, "When does Marian die?" My insistance that I didn't know of any version of the Robin Hood mythos in which Marian died didn't help.) She wasn't really dead, but she did run away from her wedding, which was the real cliffhanger. (Interesting call to use the better cliffhanger in the penultimate episode.)
e. Big Love. This was an episode I hadn't seen before, "The Baptism," in which Teensy and Marjean are officially baptized into the family. The entire cast of this show should just be given some sort of Group Emmy; Paxton, Sevigny, what's-her-name who plays Barb, the Benny and Sarah actors, Grave Zabriskie (whom I met once, very briefly, about four lifetimes ago)--just good, good stuff. In the promo for next season, they had the kid who plays either Wayne or Raymond, children who strike me as Children of the Corn, either scary or defective, do the voiceover, and it's the spookiest promo I've ever heard.
6. Wow. Worked on the Level 25 NIght Elf Hunter. I didn't feel like doing the Dead Mines, and I didn't feel like doing the Ashenvale/Stonetalon junk, so I went to Wetlands and did Dun Modr and Apprentice Duties. Didn't quite ding, but came close.
7. Took a look at my Health Insurance and decided to leave everything the same; I'll phone in and do the survey on Tuesday, since it's closed tomorrow for the holiday.
8. Tonight's BigFishGame is a shoot-em-up. I don't care for shoot-em-ups, so I'm excused.
2. Came home and took a nap.
3. Read a bit. Finished The Week and a few more pages in Reading Judas. Also read an issue each of The Nation and The New Yorker.
4. Pogo. Finished the last two weekly badges and worked on premium badges.
5. TV. Watched five things I wanted to talk about. (I can only remember three, but we'll see if the others come to me as I type.)
a. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I liked this show, but I'm not surprised it didn't do as well as it should have; Sorkin didn't quite seem up to his game here. We should have seen it in...what, the second episode, when the big huge "Here's how we'll save the show and set just exactly the right tone!" gimmick was Gilbert & Sullivan. I love Gilbert & Sullivan. I don't think life gets more clever than Gilbert & Sullivan. But is it how a 21st-century American comedy show solves problems? I would like to live in a world where it is, or at least visit that alternate reality, but that won't work here on Planet Earth.
The show's been on hiatus; they chose the end of May to show the last few episodes they had already shot. Today was with Alison Janney, and the premise was that the propmasters and cue card people were on a wildcard strike. First of all, I don't believe Matt, Danny, or Jordan appeared in this episode at all, which was certainly an unusual choice. The basic premise made me nervous: Bad Things are obviously going to happen, and the idea set my teeth on edge. Blech. Worst of all, Simon got history's stupid sub-plot: he gets dumped before big trip because new girlfriend thinks he treats women as interchangeable objects; he replaces her for big trip with someone else (because, of course, for him, women are, in fact interchangeable objects); girlfriend relents, so now he has two dates; he cancels with replacement girl; original girl learns of replacement girl, so she cancels, too. This sort of now-he-does-now-he-doesn't really dumb subplot was irritating on The Flintstones, and it's still irritating. Harriet's spiel about her & Matt's relationship was just sort of odd, given that Matt wasn't on the show at all. (I was with the rest of the cast on this one: would you two please just be together and quit being a pain about it?) Within the first five minutes, as soon as we had three of our four main plotlines (the bomb one was the best of the lot), I was furious: they made us wait three months for this?
Having said those things.
The dialog is still gorgeous. The performances by Alison Janney and Timothy Busfield were just gorgeous. The prop-and-cue-card stuff wasn't as bad as I'd been afraid it was going to be.
It's sort of a shame Sorkin chose to write a behind-the-scenes show about a comedy, because he can't write this flavor comedy. He writes lovely comedy, but not sketch comedy; his comedy is character-driven, and when that's done on sketch shows, it has to be overdrawn; there isn't time to develop the nuance required in three or four minutes.
We were so delighted when we learned Sorkin had a show this season. This miss is still better than most shows that were on this season, but it was a miss. I hope you find a better niche. (Frankly, if anybody in either political party had a brain, they'd hire you to write their speeches; the Bartlett speeches on West Wing were the most inspiring political rhetoric in decades, and it was a real shame they were fiction.)
(Couldn't somebody be persuaded to do a few more seasons of Sportsnight?)
(I don't think 30 Rock was part of the problem here, necessarily; I think television is big enough for several sketch comedy shows and several shows about sketch comedy shows. Granted, the comparison didn't hurt, because 30 Rock was the right flavor of funny.)
b. The Riches. Another lovely episode; interesting lines are being drawn as Sam, Didi, and Wayne/Doug seem to be "turning into buffers," while Dahlia and Cal are fighting that with every fiber of their beings. (Well, Cal is. Dahlia is trying to embrace this because she loves Wayne.) The addition of the fake grandmother is also fun. She's made a few calls, she kept saying. I wonder if anybody's ever going to figure out what those calls are, or what the man she insisted she saw (who was, in fact, Dale) was doing.
c. Finished watching The Quest for King Arthur, which I TiVo'd awhile ago because of the course I'm teaching in the fall. I'd seen it before, but it's a nice review. I'll have to see if the library can get a copy for me to put on Closed Reserve for the course.
d. I didn't watch this, but my Co-Vivant has been watching Robin Hood, and the season 1 finale was tonight. She's been upset all week because Marian died (she kept asking me, "When does Marian die?" My insistance that I didn't know of any version of the Robin Hood mythos in which Marian died didn't help.) She wasn't really dead, but she did run away from her wedding, which was the real cliffhanger. (Interesting call to use the better cliffhanger in the penultimate episode.)
e. Big Love. This was an episode I hadn't seen before, "The Baptism," in which Teensy and Marjean are officially baptized into the family. The entire cast of this show should just be given some sort of Group Emmy; Paxton, Sevigny, what's-her-name who plays Barb, the Benny and Sarah actors, Grave Zabriskie (whom I met once, very briefly, about four lifetimes ago)--just good, good stuff. In the promo for next season, they had the kid who plays either Wayne or Raymond, children who strike me as Children of the Corn, either scary or defective, do the voiceover, and it's the spookiest promo I've ever heard.
6. Wow. Worked on the Level 25 NIght Elf Hunter. I didn't feel like doing the Dead Mines, and I didn't feel like doing the Ashenvale/Stonetalon junk, so I went to Wetlands and did Dun Modr and Apprentice Duties. Didn't quite ding, but came close.
7. Took a look at my Health Insurance and decided to leave everything the same; I'll phone in and do the survey on Tuesday, since it's closed tomorrow for the holiday.
8. Tonight's BigFishGame is a shoot-em-up. I don't care for shoot-em-ups, so I'm excused.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
5/26: What I Accomplished Today
1. I spelled my Co-Vivant now and then, and we got Volume 3 of the transcript done. We'll pick up the raw Volume 4 tomorrow at puzzle day.
2. Worked on Pogo badges; finished two, and got the other three to 80%.
3. Read the current Teaching English in the Two-Year College. This is usually my favorite of the professional journals; the articles are written by people who actually seem be familiar with teaching college-level students. (Some journal articles seem to be written by people who are utterly unfamiliar with the student concept, and many of the others seem to talk about students as though the teachers were visiting aliens or perhaps Jesuits: "We mean you no harm; we wish to share our knowledge; please do not group together and slaughter us.")
Also read more in Reading Judas. So far, the book offers an interesting, if perhaps simplistic, rationale for the ideas in The Gospel of Judas.
4. Watched forgettable comedy on television.
5. Worked on the to-do list I generated last night, dividing the tasks into little bite-sized chunks. I'm good at little bite-sized chunks.
6. We cook tomorrow for Puzzle Day, so we formulated a meal plan that feeds everyone (including the vegetarian) and involves no cooking (it's late May in the desert; nobody's going to feel like cooking for three or four months).
7. Worked on the first week of my Summer 100.
8. Printed the forms I need for the state & local business licenses.
9. Sent e-mail to the webmaster with questions I had about the website I need to set up.
10. Level 29 Night Elf Priest. Spoke to the Uncorrupted Furblog in Raene's Cleansing. Finished Forsaken Diseases and picked up the new flight path in Forest Song (hurray! hurray! hurray!). Finished Howling Vale and then finished this sequence all the way through Answered Questions; only the Scythe of Elune was particularly difficult. As I finished this, I dinged 30. I picked up the first level of one of the last-tier talents, but I can't remember which. I trained all the level 30 stuff and parked her by the mailbox. Gathered stats and did a mailbox check on everyone; tomorrow, I'll start the Level 25 Night Elf Hunter.
11. BigFishGame for tonight is a Mah Jong thingy. I'm excused.
2. Worked on Pogo badges; finished two, and got the other three to 80%.
3. Read the current Teaching English in the Two-Year College. This is usually my favorite of the professional journals; the articles are written by people who actually seem be familiar with teaching college-level students. (Some journal articles seem to be written by people who are utterly unfamiliar with the student concept, and many of the others seem to talk about students as though the teachers were visiting aliens or perhaps Jesuits: "We mean you no harm; we wish to share our knowledge; please do not group together and slaughter us.")
Also read more in Reading Judas. So far, the book offers an interesting, if perhaps simplistic, rationale for the ideas in The Gospel of Judas.
4. Watched forgettable comedy on television.
5. Worked on the to-do list I generated last night, dividing the tasks into little bite-sized chunks. I'm good at little bite-sized chunks.
6. We cook tomorrow for Puzzle Day, so we formulated a meal plan that feeds everyone (including the vegetarian) and involves no cooking (it's late May in the desert; nobody's going to feel like cooking for three or four months).
7. Worked on the first week of my Summer 100.
8. Printed the forms I need for the state & local business licenses.
9. Sent e-mail to the webmaster with questions I had about the website I need to set up.
10. Level 29 Night Elf Priest. Spoke to the Uncorrupted Furblog in Raene's Cleansing. Finished Forsaken Diseases and picked up the new flight path in Forest Song (hurray! hurray! hurray!). Finished Howling Vale and then finished this sequence all the way through Answered Questions; only the Scythe of Elune was particularly difficult. As I finished this, I dinged 30. I picked up the first level of one of the last-tier talents, but I can't remember which. I trained all the level 30 stuff and parked her by the mailbox. Gathered stats and did a mailbox check on everyone; tomorrow, I'll start the Level 25 Night Elf Hunter.
11. BigFishGame for tonight is a Mah Jong thingy. I'm excused.
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