Month: April 2014

Random 10 4-11-14

Last week. This week:

  1. “That’s Not My Name” by the Ting Tings
    Four-letter word just to get me along
  2. “Black Betty” by Ram Jam, guessed by Clayton
    The damn thing gone wild
  3. “Expectations” by Belle and Sebastian
    Your obsessions get you known throughout the school for being strange
  4. “Brand New Sun” by Jason Lytle
    You’re like a tired child
  5. “Tramp the Dirt Down” by Elvis Costello
    You haven’t got the whole disease
  6. “A Pirate Looks at Forty” by Jimmy Buffett, guess by Clayton
    Occupational hazard be my occupation’s just not around
  7. “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by the Postal Service
    You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
  8. “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida
    Crabs in the bucket can’t have me
  9. “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton
    What’s with all the screaming?
  10. “It’s True that We Love One Another” by the White Stripes
    I got your phone number written in the back of my bible

This is how it goes. Good luck!

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome

Third time really is the charm.

After unexpected snowfall in January, then unexpected illness last week, I finally went to see a Broadway musical last night.

I actually don’t go to the theater all that often, despite this being the third attempt in almost as many months — and the second in less than a week — but my parents had for whatever reason purchased tickets to see Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams. So they trekked into the city and I met them a couple of blocks from my office for dinner.

My father still isn’t always feeling well, so he unfortunately opted to head home before the show, walking over with us to the theater but then taking the subway and train back. It’s a shame, too, since he was feeling better not long after — I called him at intermission — and the show was really very good.

I had only a passing familiarity with the show, and then only with Joel Grey’s lead performance in the original. Cumming’s quite different in the role, less elfin and more dirty, and the musical definitely has a very risque edge. But Cumming and Williams were both terrific, as was all of the supporting cast, and I had a great time.

The rest of the week — is it really Thursday already? How? — has passed by very busily at work. I do a little bit of writing every day, even if yesterday proved the exception, and I watch a large amount of The Good Wife on streaming video. (Cumming’s in that, too, as it happens, but playing a very different character.) A night out at the theater notwithstanding, I lead a rather boring life.

Sunday

A quiet day. Not that yesterday wasn’t, really, but at least today was relatively free of health problems.

I had my weekly writing group and wrote this:

The city below them lay in ruins, or at least it did from the vantage of command, where the smoldering rubble flickered in the static of the ship’s main viewscreens.

“You can’t put much stock in that,” said Tendall. “Those images are from at least twenty-four hours into the future.”

Bergen grunted, it seemed in assent, but then just ask quickly she asked, “And how many hours until we make actual landfall?”

Sighing heavily, Tendall said, “Thirty-seven. Even if we push the engines to the breaking point, we won’t be back in same-time for another day and a half.”

“So we’ll miss being concurrent with the disaster?” Bergen asked.

“That’s assuming it happens, ma’am,” Tendall said. “But yes. I’m afraid if these images are the future, we won’t exit the probability stream in time to prevent this disaster from happening. Or even to ascertain its cause, most likely.”

“Can’t we turn around, then?” Bergen asked. “Or exit the stream earlier?”

“You’ve never flown in a timeship before, have you, ma’am?”

“No,” she told him. “We don’t have much call to in the Ambassadorial core. This trip was…unexpected.”

“Well, we’re fighting more than the usual tug and drift of spaceflight,” Tendall said. “We’d just as likely tear the ship apart if we tried adjusting course once we’ve entered the stream.”

“Can’t we even send a message ahead?” Bergen asked. “If we know in twenty-four hours the capitol city is going to be destroyed, we have an obligation to send them a warning.”

“You’re free to talk with engineering about that, ma’am. I don’t see how it would work, but that kind of physics is a little above my pay grade.”

“You seem remarkably calm. Don’t you have family in the capitol?”

“I’ve had family in most of the cities I’ve seen destroyed in the future, ma’am. After a few relative-centuries, I’m afraid it’s an occupational hazard. If I let not being able to do anything about it bother me, I couldn’t pilot the ship.” He offered her a smile which he knew she would not return. “I suppose that’s why time-flight isn’t recommended for you folks in the core.”

I dunno. The prompt was “When we lose our innocence, how do we regain it?” Yeah, I dunno.

Saturday

This turned out to be a very different day than what I was expecting.

I started the day off with the G.I. Joe episode of Community. (Yes, the G.I. Joe episode. There’s a young fanboy inside me whose head just exploded.) I did my taxes, and I hung around the house. I did some laundry, watched some TV, and then watched Ghost in the Shell, which was decent, and interesting, but probably not as revolutionary as it seemed back in 1995. It wasn’t a very out-of-the-ordinary kind of day.

Of course, I was doing all of this while my parents spent the day at the hospital.

Let me just preface this by saying that everybody is fine. My father hadn’t been feeling well for a few days, and there was definitely some concern over the ten hours or so they spent at the emergency room this afternoon, but he’s fine. It’s just kidney stones, which admittedly isn’t at the top of the good news list, but it’s a treatable and temporary condition. I don’t want to talk about it a lot — partly because I wasn’t there, partly because I’m not him, and partly because…well, do you really want that? — but everybody here is fine.

We did, of course, have to skip our plans for dinner and a show this evening.

We had tickets — my mother’s Christmas gift to my father — for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and dinner reservations, and both ended up going to waste. After my failed attempt to see Waiting for Godot back in January, 2014 is not turning out to be a good year for me and Broadway.

But, really, my father’s the one who had the lousier day.

Or maybe the dog. He’s the one who has to constantly be on guard against insidious threats like home mail delivery. Yes, the dog definitely had it rough today.

Random 10 4-4-14

Last week. This week:

  1. “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello, guessed by random passer-by
    They beat him up until the teardrops start
  2. “Unforgetful You” by Jars of Clay
    You never minded calling me a child
  3. “Vienna” by Billy Joel, guessed by Occupant
    You’re so ambitious for a juvenile
  4. “2 Bit Blues” by Kid Koala
    It’s what I do with what I got
  5. “Korean Parents” by Randy Newman
    Never forget who sent Fido to the farm
  6. “Mama Kin” by Aerosmith
    Shootin’ fire from your mouth just like a dragon
  7. “Night and Day” by Sarah Blasko
    How could we grow old together?
  8. “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger, guessed by Clayton
    You don’t dare make a stand
  9. “Evil” by Interpol
    Leave some shards under the belly
  10. “Youthless” by Beck
    Shake your seasick legs around

Good luck!