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Could someone please write this filk?
I'm listening to Wild Mercy's CD, Furious Fancies, and a lovely rendition of "The Queen of Argyll". Could someone, pretty please, write the danged Revolutionary Girl Utena filk to it? Then I can sing it and have it stop being a wordless song virus in my head.

Manga Translations
I found another translation for the Cain / Godchild manga. I love comparing translations -- it's fascinating to see the differences.

But the thing in the published version was also in the other translation. Cain says "Even my father doesn't know about this place", and two pages later, his father is saying, "Cain! I told you never to come down here!"

This ups the odds that it's the author.

Ah well. The rereading's a lot of fun, and the emotional wave builds very nicely. Also, I'm reading them all together, and all in order. The English translations were published in a weird order, the first 2 or 3 volumes of Godchild coming out before volume one of Cain, when the five volumes of Cain precede the 8 volumes of Godchild. And then, it alternated -- one Cain, one Godchild, repeat until the Cain volumes were all out, then the last couple volumes of Godchild.

It's much easier to appreciate the development of the story when I'm re-reading and when all the books are in the right order.

Go, Speed Racer!
Yesterday,

mnemex and I caught Speed Racer. Utterly corny and over the top, and utterly delightful. Unabashed use of archetypes -- for one race, the Queen of that race watches for the sun to rise, then fires the gun to signal that start of the race.

osewalrus take note: Even the silly humor parts fit the movie without undercutting the pomp or the message that the good guys can win.

The moment that made the movie click for me -- though I was definitely enjoying it start to finish -- is when one character, fairly late in the film, smiles. It's not even a full smile, more a half smile, and it's not any of the Racer family-and-friends group.

But, if you want something more realistic about sports, well, take a look at this, if you haven't already seen it.

Perils of Manga
I'm rereading the Cain / Godchild series. It's a lot of funny in one of the trashy ways I enjoy. But, I do have to admit I'm ashamed that I'm putting up with some of the continuity glitches.

Okay, some of it's operatic, and sort of works on that level. But, some of it -- In one story, young Cain tells his new manservant Riff that he's going to show Riff his very secret place, a place that not even his father knows about. Two pages letter, his father shows up in this secret place, saying that he's told Cain never to go down there. Now, it is possible to reconcile these statements, I know, but -- Come on, you're not even trying!

And, at base, I put up with it for the same reason I put up with the Liberator-sized plotholes in Blake's 7. The plots aren't really what the series is about. The series is about the warped relationships between the characters.

Bur, I'm still uncomfortable with this. I am so tired of being told it's silly of me to nitpick shows or movies with plotholes. I do mind if a smart character is suddenly written stupid so that a plot now works. So, why am I not having as big a problem here?

Maybe it's because the characters aren't suddenly being dumb. But, the author is being sloppy.

Maybe it's because something like the Cain / Godchild series is very much an old style Gothic by the definition I got from Murderess Ink, where it's all about death and decay, leavened here with a sort of foggy delirium.

But, geez, it wouldn't hurt to get something like that "secret" room thing consistent.

Then again, I am reading it in translation. I don't know if the problem exists in the original.

Singing Lessons

mnemex has been helping me with a couple of singing bits. I'm not quite sure I can do this every time, but he got me to figure out how to hold the last note of my part of "Sorrow's Song" for long enough for him to sing the last four lines of his part. It's tricky, but it's not a question of having enough air. It's a matter of getting the sound out. When I couldn't do it, there was enough air in my lungs for me to exhale in exasperation.

The second thing is that, if the song is within my range to begin with, belting it out at a louder volume really does help me to hit the notes. I've been cast as Dolly Levi in Mike Young's Broadway musical larp in September, so I was practicing the title song. The final line of the verse, "Dolly will never go away again", went higher than I thought I could sing well. This was because I was trying to sing softly. If I belt it out, suddenly I've got no problem hitting the notes. Cool!

Saw Iron Man
It rocks good. My forehead still hurts from where I slapped it hard at the lovely throwaway reveal.

Contata Rising
sdelmonte's post reminded me that Contata's coming up, as well as lots of reasons to look forward to it.

And, now, I've got Heather Dale's Mordred's Lullaby running through my head. It can join One of Us, which is also running through my head as I struggle to come up with the right title for my paper for Mythcon 39.

Gaming in NYC
Tonight,

ebartley,

jlighton, and I discussed what rpg game we should play when we want to get together with

mnemex, but he runs a bit late.

One idea discussed and abandoned was The Princes' Kingdom. One reason it was abandoned was because it uses so many dice.

"We have lots of dice," I pointed out.

They pointed at the table in the sushi place where we were eating. It wasn't a small table, but it had lots of food, dishes, soy sauce dishes, water glasses, and tea mugs.

And, I realized that this is one of the complications of NYC gaming as we do it.

We are four adults who can find time to get together, but not necessarily at any specific time or any specific place. If we're not going to someone's residence, this leaves restaurants and places like Starbucks. Oh, and gaming as we walk on the streets of NYC, when it is nice, when it is raining, when it is cold, when it is snowing, when it is boiling hot.

Our strategy of die bubbles -- small, but not microscopic dice in the bubbles one gets from vending machines -- works fine if we're playing OTE. 6 dice, I think of 8 mm, where there's one of color A, two of color B, and three of color C work very well.

Feng Shui is pushing it, but between die bubbles with 3 dice of different colors, and colored plastic rocks for shots, and we're good.

But just try to play D&D 3.X like that, or DitV/TPK, and the physical considerations become an issue.

XO, take 3
Since the upgrade, I've done a little more experimenting.

I can make it read and unmount cards. I can open documents and pdfs. As I suspected, the problem the first time was that the pdf I wanted to open was too big for the XO to be happy with.

mnemex said setting up swap space might help, but also that it would be useful if the XO could read cards in usb card readers. Well, in a terminal screen it can, but that doesn't help if I'm in the journal and it doesn't pick up the card in the reader.

I showed it to my brother today, and he had the same first reaction I did -- he said that it looked like an etch-a-sketch.

New Toy

mnemex has been using a Sidekick II for a long time, but the machine was having problems. So, yesterday, he decided to upgrade to the LX.

Wow. We can actually read webcomics on the screen. Very nice.

The thing I found annoying is that mnemex was charged an extra $18 as an "upgrade charge" -- in other words, he is being charged for brand loyalty. This is backwards.

XO, take 2
Last night,

mnemex and I looked over the XO.

The mouse problem is a problem with the machine. Hopefully, the upgrade mnemex did will fix this.

The XO did not parse my card reader. It only parses it in a shell. We'll see if the upgrade fixes that.

The XO can parse an sd card just fine, even though I think the card slot is in an annoying place.

mnemex misremembered the trick he told me to use on the Write program. We've since rediscovered the trick.

The Journal program can't seem to read anything in folders on the card.

The Write program can see what's inside folders on the card and has opened and closed a couple of files.

There's supposedly some kind of Adobe Reader Equivalent, but it did not seem to be able to read the pdf I told it to open. I don't know if this is due to size or to a bug that the upgrade will hopefully fix.

We will have to reinstall Opera following the upgrade.

So easy that only a child can do it...

mnemex explained to me that the XO is intended for people who have never used computers before. This, he said, means that it may confuse people like me, who are used to computers working in certain ways.

Today, I tried to play with his XO, with limited success. I figured out how to turn it on and off, and where to plug the power cable in. I figured out which icon to click to use Opera, as opposed to the default web browser, and I surfed the web.

Then, I tried to use the Write program. I figured out how to get to the home screen, and which icon to click on. I figured out where to plug in my card reader. I could not figure out how to open files on the sd card -- or anywhere else, for that matter. Also, I forgot the trick mnemex told me to use, or at least, if I didn't forget it, I saw no results from using it.

I tried to go back to Opera, but I kept getting a blank screen. I tried to close Opera from the home screen, but the mouse moves a bit too fast for me. I think mouse speed may be adjustable, but I'm not sure how to adjust it.

The keyboard feels less wrong to me now, and I do have the advantage of having small fingers.

Changing Locke for Ysabel
I finished The Lies of Locke Lamora a couple days back, and was relieved. I guess I'm glad to have read it. A lot of folks have read it, and I can now talk about it with them. And, it's not a bad book. The world building is interesting, and there are several cool sequences.

But, it was never as interesting or as clever as I'd hoped it would be, not at 700+ pages. And, I didn't really care about any of the characters.

None of which is necessarily a problem, except the part about my being convinced it would be a better book at half the length. It's just that it was tiring to read, and, as

nancylebov reminded me, given an average lifespan and current reading patterns, we're likely to have about 6,000 books of reading time in us, give or take. And, books like that? No, sorry. I want better. Or, at least, more to my taste.

Guy Gavriel Kay's Ysabel is, thus far, more to my taste. I'm not sure folks would consider it better. Oh, I think it is better written, but Kay has a few authorial tics that really, really tick me off. The one I hate the most is where the authorial voice refers to the future, e.g., "Looking back, he would..." This is something Kay does several times. In. Every. Book. And, it's something that doesn't usually work for me.

And, a couple of times thus far, he's dropped into present tense. This turns me off. There is no good reason for present tense there.

And... I care about what's going on. I care about the characters.

The ending could still suck. I won't know till I get there, but the odds are that I'm going to be glad I've read this and sorry, rather than relieved, when it ends.

Another Star Went Out
Arthur C. Clarke died today. So far, my favorite tribute was the one Patrick wrote on Making Light.

I've read so little of his work -- Childhood's End, "The Star", 2001, 2010, maybe another story or two. What I'm reading about him now sounds a lot like what people said about Madeleine L'Engle at Lunacon this past weekend. I've not read enough of her stuff.

Sometimes, I think I should just stop getting books and read a lot of the classics -- libraries have many of these books that I should have read, I'm sure.

It won't happen. That is, I will try to fill in the gaps, and I'll succeed to a degree, but I doubt I'll stop buying books. There is good stuff that was published this year and last.

But, I am so not in the mood for the book I'm currently reading, and I will be relieved to be finished with it.

Poor book. It's not deep enough to be moving, but not shallow enough to be pleasantly mindless trash, and it really wasn't intended to be either.

More Lamora
Still reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, since I was prioritizing it lower than a couple of other things.

( Spoilers )

Recent Reading
I've started Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora. I've got mixed feeling about it, but I'm enjoying it thus far.

( Here be spoilers... )

Honoring the Maestro
This weekend,

mnemex and I went to a dinner for our fencing maestro, Ramon Martinez. Good company, good food. Then, we went to open fencing the next day, in uniforms we hadn't worn for six weeks.

And... I don't suck. I don't think I'm good, but I don't suck. Oh, at most, I think, I got one hit on anyone I played with. But, I did get that hit every now and then. And there were minutes when I was seeing what was happening, not just flailing. Okay, maybe what I was seeing was, "Wait, he stepped forward, and he hasn't stepped back, and that means I'm in his distance. This is bad." But I was seeing it.

Today, of course, thigh muscles whose existence I'd forgotten are not very happy with me.

RIP Gary Gygax
Crossposted to

labcats

I don't think I ever met him. I may have seen him, but I'm sure we were never formally introduced. But there is a Gary Gygax hole in my universe.

I have to admit that the Gygax story coming to mind now is the one Lee Gold told me about how he took maximum boggle damage on finding out when they spoke on the phone that she was a woman.

This is my favorite tribute so far: Order of the Stick.

Back from Intercon
We're back from Intercon H. Write up posted on

labcats and

interconlarp.

Go, Spiderwick! Go Holly!
We just saw Spiderwick, based on the five book series written by Holly Black. Amusingly, while that's the name that's important to me,

daftnewt and, I am sure, many others, know the artist's name, Tony DiTerilizzi and aren't really clear on who the author is.

Me, I'm just delighted that a really neat author lady I know has had a movie, a game, and prizes in cereal boxes based on her books.

mnemex and I are hoping that this may lead to a movie of Tithe. I'm hoping that will lead to a movie of Valiant, which is currently my favorite of that trilogy (so far), though I really need to reread all three of those books.

( Here be spoilers )