"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
This morning, after I woke up, showered, and ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast, I tried finding an online video stream for Global Calgary television. Which, I think it’s safe to say, is not something I normally do. I mean, I like the occasional Canadian television just fine — your Kids in the Halls, your Slings & Arrows, your Newsrooms, what have you — but the local Alberta news isn’t the first thing I flip on when I wake up in the morning. (The television in my bedroom no longer gets any channels, now that it’s all gone digital and I haven’t, but that’s another story altogether.) But I thought I’d check, since Heather was going to be on, at around 10 AM my time, promoting Evolve, the new vampire collection in which she has a (really good) short story. Alas, although there is this, it’s less a live stream than a couple of their recorded promos. So I had to wait until Heather posted the video herself.
I thought she did a great job. A few years back, I was interviewed a couple of times on BBC Radio, and I found even that — safely ensconced as I was in the confines of my apartment — completely nerve-wracking. Heather professed to being incredibly nervous herself, but to her credit I don’t think it much shows. And, moreover, I think the book’s definitely worth checking out.
After failing to find that video feed, I ran some errands. I went to the bank, picked up this week’s copy of The New Yorker at the post office, and then I actually got a chance to read some of it for a change, while I waited to get my hair cut. (I tend to just let it grow until it starts getting in my eyes and annoying.) Then I came home, had a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, and decided to go donate blood at the local church. I used to give blood regularly, back when I was in college and there was always a convenient blood drive in the residence halls where I lived. But even when I was still living in a college town, once I moved away from a college student’s schedule and got a job, it became a lot harder to find the time to go. There were few evening or weekend blood drives, which always disappointed me, and I think I gave blood all of once in the five years I stayed on after graduation.
Luckily, the church here usually has their blood drives on the weekend, and the weather today was gorgeous enough that I could just walk right over. The nurse there talked me into giving via apheresis, which I’d never done before, never even heard of. It takes considerably longer, maybe twenty to twenty-five minutes, and there was a long list of very unlikely but still possible side-effects I had to sign a consent form saying I’d been instructed about. (Of them, I really only experienced the tingling and numbness in my hand and maybe, very briefly, the odd smell and taste in my mouth.) Basically, they just break down the blood into its components, keep the red cells, and recycle everything back to you.
It does mean I can’t give blood again until almost July, since it’s essentially like giving blood twice, but I’m okay with that. I think next time, even if my hemoglobin levels put me again in the okay-for-apheresis category, I might just donate the old-fashioned way. I’m just a little more beat than usual, is all, and I think the whole thing took a lot out of me. (No pun intended.) Plenty of fluids, and a nap earlier this evening, helped.
Other than that…I watched the third episode of that alternate-universe variety show that somehow wound up at the beginning of the Saturday Night Live DVDs I bought recently. The one with the weird guests, the unfunny Muppets, and the “Not Ready for Primetime Players” relegated to bit parts in occasional sketches. And I also re-watched John Carpenter’s The Thing, which I’ve had a weird itch to revisit lately. (I think I’ve just read a couple of articles online where it’s been mentioned, is all.) There’s something really scary about a monster that doesn’t just kill you, but becomes you. I may use it as an excuse to revisit the original John W. Campbell short story, if not the original movie version.
And that’s really it for my Saturday.
Today was Friday, and there’s not a whole lot more to say about it except that. I wrote a little more this evening, which is tough to do while standing up on a crowded and bumpy train, but I like where the little bit I got down is headed. It may helps me get closer to where I think the story overall is supposed to be headed.
Then this evening, I watched The House of the Devil, which is an interesting movie. It’s a pitch-perfect homage to ’80s horror and sometimes really genuinely scary. As Roger Ebert wrote in his review, it’s a movie that “understands that if there’s anything scarier than haunted house, it’s a possibly haunted house.” I’m not sure it’s a whole lot more than a skillful imitation of movies they don’t make a lot of anymore, but I enjoyed it.
Now I think it’s time for a little blind capping, then maybe the Burn Notice season finale and bed. That’s a halfway decent Friday, no?
Artist Jason Polan has an ambitious goal: to sketch all 8.3 million people in the city. He captures his unsuspecting subjects eating pizza, riding the subway, catching a train.
Hmm. I wonder if I’m anywhere in his sketchbook. [via]
I’m part of the technological age whether I want to be or not, and mostly I enjoy it very much. I’m not protesting technology — how stupid would that be? Writers against Computers, or something? I’m protesting against a corporation being allowed to rewrite the rules of copyright and the laws of my country — and in doing so, to wreck the whole idea of that limitless electronic Public Library.
I think the Google Library could do a lot of good. I think the way Google is going about it will do a lot of harm. [via]
To millions of “Twilight†fans, the Quileute are Indians whose (fictional) ancient treaty transforms young males of the tribe into vampire-fighting wolves. To the nearly 700 remaining Quileute Indians, “Twilight†is the reason they are suddenly drawing extraordinary attention from the outside — while they themselves remain largely excluded from the vampire series’ vast commercial empire. [via]