"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
Well, the ground didn’t shake today, although there is possibly still a hurricane headed in our direction. We have a company outing planned for Friday, so let’s hope the rain passes us by for at least a little while. The rain date is September 1, and I’ll be well on my way to the wilds of Canada by then.
So apparently there was an earthquake today?
Everyone here is fine. It was reportedly a 5.8-magnitude earthquake, which, as many West Coast people were quick to point out over Twitter and elsewhere, is pretty much nothing, especially when you’re several miles and states over from the fault line. We definitely felt it in my office, up on the eighth floor, a weird vibration that caused a bunch of us to look up and say things like, “Did…did you feel something?”
Yeah, it was weirdly disconcerting, especially since I don’t think I’ve ever experienced an earthquake before, but it wasn’t exactly frightening. We’ve had freight trains go past our block — we’re right by the tracks, here at home — that have shaken me more. I wasn’t able to reach my sister, who works around the Washington, D.C., area (and therefore closer to the epicenter than New York), but only because the cell phone coverage went down. She wasn’t in any danger either. I have one co-worker who was outside, eating his lunch, who missed the quake altogether.
Other than that non-event of a quake — which nevertheless dominated conversation in the office most of the remaining afternoon — it was a pretty standard Tuesday. A conference call about a book in development was about as exciting as it otherwise got.
Except for a brief video conference with our new production manager in the UK, today was a pretty typical Monday. Lots of little annoyances, small fires that needed to be (and I think and hope were) put out, and things to get done. I’ll be out the first week, and then some, of September, headed to Canada, so getting some things squared away before then would be nice.
Let’s see what I did today…
I started but didn’t finish the Sunday crossword. There wasn’t much of a theme to this week’s puzzle, and overall it was disappointing. Not what I’d call difficult — and plenty of others have, perhaps rightly, been quick to call it easy — but nothing to really engage my brain.
I watched this week’s episode of Torchwood, which was surprisingly good after an increasingly disappointing — and last week fairly disastrous — run. The episode was not without its flaws, particularly in its ending, but I think they were flaws typical of Torchwood, actually. (Even the stellar Children of Earth miniseries is not without its missteps.) I think I’d hang this episode alongside any of the other fairly strong second season episodes. It underlines some of the real problems with the new miniseries, of course — namely, that it’s five episodes too long and the move to America has gained them practically nothing — but it was nevertheless quite good on its own. When Rex says, “I’m sick of Torchwood acting like amateur clowns,” it was like he was speaking for the audience.
I watched an episode of The West Wing. I’m slowly working my way through the first season again. I think I gave up on the show some time in the fourth or fifth season. (That sounds early, but I have distinct memories of being distinctly disappointed in “The Long Goodbye,” which is apparently a fourth-season episode.) I feel like I’d like to make it through the show in its entirety this time.
And I wrote this in my weekly writing group:
“So if I understand you correctly,” said Pierce, eying the large shape on the medical gurney, “you sewed a robot’s brain into a zombie.”
Dr. Wills sighed. “That’s a fairly crude way of describing our work here, Robert.”
Pierce nodded. “But not wholly inaccurate,” he said. “You’ll have to grant me that. I’m just wondering about the horror show that happens when you switch it back on.”
“We’ve seen an 80 to 90 percent decrease in cognitive impairment when the subjects are connected to the AI network,” Wills said. “And moreover, we’ve documented increased susceptibility to traditional conditioning measures. The fact remains, Robert: we’ve tamed them, made them serviceable.”
“They’re still carriers, though. They’re still infected.”
“Well obviously. We weren’t tasked with finding a cure.”
“And their…aggressive tendencies…?”
“Within acceptable levels. We’ve sustained very few losses since the start of the program. A few careless techs, the occasional bite. And, not to be crass, but those losses were actual increases to our subject pool.”
“So they’re ready to be deployed, then.”
“Absolutely. Besides — ” Wills waved his hand absently at the gurney ” — here, we have a dozen soldiers ready to go.”
“And they can pass for civilians?” Pierce asked.
“They won’t fool a blood test,” Wills said, “but there’s nothing about any of them to arouse immediate suspicion. Visible wounds obviously won’t heal subsequent to infection, but those we’ve connected to the network look perfectly human. They’ll slip past the enemy border without incident.”
“And then?”
“Well then, Robert, we just turn them off.”
“And let zombies be zombies.”
“That was the plan, wasn’t it? Infiltrate, decimate. You and your taskmasters — why, Robert, you sound disgusted, surprised even.”
“No. I just…” He stared again at the infected body struggling against the gurney’s restraints. “Your daughter was very beautiful.”
Oh, and then this evening I got really creeped out by what I think was a wolf spider crawling on the curtains by my bed…which appeared just long enough to do the aforementioned creeping-out, and then promptly vanished. It’s not exactly newsworthy or anything, but if I awake with radioactive web-slinging superpowers, I just want you all to know why.
Not the most eventful of Saturdays, but a pleasant one nevertheless. I did a little reading, finished watching the second season of the terrific Breaking Bad, and this evening watched the surprisingly entertaining I Love You, Phillip Morris. (The official title doesn’t include that comma, but the editor in me will not let that pass.)