The Sandman Vol 8: World’s End (1994) Neil Gaiman

This is my second favorite book in the Sandman series. Like my favorite, Fables and Reflections, it’s a collection of short stories. A disparate group of people are caught in storms and end up at World’s End: A Free House. As they all wait for the storm to abate, the sit, and eat and drink, and tell stories, and World’s End tells some of these stories.

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“This is how comebacks happen. They always start with a bad first half by somebody.”
–Hoppy Kercheval

And by the way, this has been a hell of a comeback.

ADDENDUM the First:
46 to 44!

Go WVU!

ADDENDUM the Second:
My guess is that the students are not on their best behavior. The fire truck keeps leaving and returning. Don’t figure the chances are too good for them getting a good night’s sleep.

ADDENDUM the Third:
This morning the news on the radio was reporting around 20 small fires last night.

I just finished the majority of my Christmas shopping. Didn’t even have to get off my butt to do it. (Okay, I did get off my butt to go check the laundry, but that had nothing to do with the shopping.)

Of course, the hardest person on my list? I still have no clue what to get her. Everyone else? Done! Ha!

Dear Men,

If you are over the age of 21, and are wearing a ballcap indoors, I will automatically assume that you are trying to hide the fact that you are balding.

Just so you know.

And no, I don’t have anything against bald men. After all, many of them are very cute.

See that? That was my head exploding.

This week I’m writing documentation that needs to be done ASAP, trying to study for my gero class, teaching a multiple classes this week, and attempting to finish Cryptonomicon.

The School of Medicine is rolling out new templates for ALL departmental websites. Which is a good thing. Right now there is little regulation and consistency for web pages, so this should be a major(!) improvement.

My part in all this is that I get to teach all the webmasters how to use Dreamweaver, and I have to write the documentation teaching them how to use these bright, shiny, new templates within Dreamweaver. And I’ll be teaching the classes on how to use the templates, so if I don’t do a good job with the documentation, then I’m the one who suffers. So I’ve got plenty of incentive.

Mind you, I like to teach, and I like to write documentation. But I hate to feel rushed, which is how I’m feeling right now.

So I’m relaxing with Cryptonomicon, which is a very good book, but not really the most relaxing one. It’s been so long since I read it, that I’ve completely forgotten almost everything, which is good, because it’s like reading the book for the first time, all over again. The difference this time is that I’m not tearing through the book attempting to read it as fast as possible (my normal pace) so I’m enjoying it more, and I find that I’m better able to pick-up on the clues and hints that he leaves, and I get to enjoy the sudden flashes of, “Oh! That’s it!”

But I really had forgotten how good Neil Stephenson is. Strange how, despite the fact that I remember loving a book, when I go back to read it, I’m surprised all over again at how good it is.

Anyone know what happpened to the 7-11 on University Avenue? When I drove by the end of last week I saw that all the 7-11 signs had been taken down. The store is still open, but who knows what it’s called.

That was the last 7-11 in town too, all the others closed down years ago.

It’s very strange to have one of your interests–suddenly and for no discernable reason–become the center of public attention.

I’ve been interested in the avian flu since it was first discovered in 1997–I’ve got a whole file folder dedicated to it, as well as a bookmark folder filled with outdated links that have long since disappeared.

There are some great articles in Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the CDC: “The Economic Impact of Pandemic Influenza in the United States: Priorities for Intervention (Meltzer, 1999, Vol 5 No 5) and “The Next Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from Hong Kong, 1997” (Snacken, 1999, Vol 5 No 2).

It’s not like this strain of the flu should come as a big surprise. We’ve known about it for years. We’ve also know for awhile that it’s capable of human to human transmission. So why the sudden panic? Why the sudden flurry of news stories about Avian flu?

I have several cynical answers I could make to this question of course, but I don’t know if politics is the answer.

And what happened to SARS? Have we suddenly found it less of a threat than Avian flu? It takes months to create a flu vaccine–why were we working on this problem years ago?

Furthermore, are we doing anything other than wringing our hands and printing article after article guaranteed to scare the general populace?

Why do these things happen like this?

CDC Influenza page
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
WHO Avian Influenza site
CDC Flu Map

Yup.

I’m a heathen.

I really do not care for modern dance.

We went to see Diavolo this evening, as part of WVU’s University Arts series.

I definitely wanted more throwing people about and feats of gymnastic derring do, as opposed to artistic posing and dropping to the floor in a meaningful way. Because the meaning? Right over my head.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with modern dance. I’m just saying it’s not my thing.

The 2005 Ig Nobels were awarded this week!

(Hopefully I’ll be able to read some of the original articles from work.)

Of this years winners, I particularly liked

Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water?

I’m pretty sure I’d swim faster in syrup, as I’d be completely disgusted and want to get out as quickly as possible.

I just walked away from a political fight in my on-line class, because the classroom is neither the time, nor the place, for such a discussion.

But it was really difficult. The … people … in question were trying to justify torture as acceptable. And of course the polemics were written with lots of capital letters and in one giant paragraph as they sat down at the keyboard and vomited out their diatribe. Of how “torture is justified” and that “Muslims deserve it” and some other vile nastiness, never mind that the Constitution provides for “innocent until proven guilty.” Nope. According to these Neanderthals if we think we’re under threat then we have the right to go in with guns blazing taking out the innocent and the guilty alike. Guess Civil Rights are only important if you’re a Republican.

It made me feel dirty even reading it.

People like that not only make no sense, they make me feel physically ill.

One more reason not to live in Florida.

An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida’s swamps.

The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded.

The news article has a picture. It isn’t as disgusting as I’d have expected, but is still rather gross.

Yet disturbingly fascinating.

We went Friday to watch the long-awaited sequel to the short-lived Firefly. And it was good. It was very good

However.

It wasn’t as good as Firefly. Serentiy was an action movie, and while Firefly had action, it was the dialog that I loved so much–the interactions between the characters: Zoe telling Wash, “Remember that sex you were planning on having? Ever?”

Serenity had that, but not nearly as much, and certainly not as much as I wanted. It also focused primarily upon River and Mal, which was fine, but I wanted more about the other characters.

But. They did a lot of things right. Sarting with the Reavers. I loved the way that they did the Reavers, where you never quite saw that. It was perfect. Becuase nothing that they could have come up with in the makeup department would have been as horrible as what is supplied by our imaginations. So the brief glimpses and flashes just served to keep them horrible and really scary.

And although I wanted more of the other characters, I thought he did a good job with what we got. Nobody seemed out of form, although Kaylee was obviously thinner, despite the coveralls.

SPOILERS HERE:

I was devastated that they killed the characters they killed. I mean, they were some of my favorites! How could he DO that?! Except that part of me says, yes, that was good and that was right. Because a fight like that you just aren’t going to walk away from. A fight like they went through, people are going to get hurt and people are going to get killed. So it would have been very unrealistic if they had all walked away unscathed. But still. I can’t imagine another movie or show without the people he killed.

And I did like the fact those who survived took some serious damage. Because they shouldn’t have been able to walk away with just a scratch. And for awhile I wasn’t sure that any of them were going to survive. Which was good. Well, except River. I was pertty certain that she’d make it. But not so sure about everyone else.

END SPOILERS

So it was a very good movie, and I highly recommend that you see it. But even more highly I recommend that you watch Firefly.

Lots to do! Papers to write! Papers to read! Stuff like that!

Which must be why I just started re-reading Cryptonomicon. Because it’s such a short book and a quick read, you know.

The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives (1994) Neil Gaiman

In Brief Lives Delirium decides that she wants to search for her brother Destruction, who abandoned his job 300 years earlier. She goes first to Desire and Despair, both of whom tell her to abandon her idea of finding Destruction. After all, he had reasons why he left, and if he wanted to be found then he would have returned to them on his own.

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