One addendum to my previous post about the limitations of AI: I don’t think they’ve made one that stops what it’s doing and marvels over sunsets.
Sorry I haven’t done much non-Unrequired Reading posting lately. I’ve been kinda busy with work, but also back to thinking about writing and other projects. Anyway, enjoy this week’s links. I’m off to New Orleans for a conference tomorrow, but maybe I’ll come back with a crazy travelogue or something!
We had cool weather today, so I busted out the camera and my new GPS app, MotionX, and hiked Monks Trail. Where I found this:
Thanks to that app, you can check out the trail and my stats on Google Maps. Or, if you want, you can download the Google Earth file for the hike here and enjoy the scenery. (You might need to rename it “.zip” to expand it correctly.)
Or just groove on my pictures, like you always do.
What I’m reading: Comics weekend! The Search for Smilin’ Ed
What I’m listening to: High Violet
What I’m watching: Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Commitments
What I’m drinking: D.H. Krahn’s & Q-tonic.
What Rufus & Otis are up to: Skipping Sunday’s greyhound hike in favor of a party hosted by their grey-girlfriends Ruby & Willow. Otis tried to impress everyone by eating vegetation until he puked, while Rufus cooled down by lying in a kiddie pool.
Where I’m going: Louisiana for Amy’s godson’s birthday!
What I’m happy about: Finding a new linen suit, a watch, some slip-ons, and a few other articles of clothing in the last week-plus.
What I’m sad about: That my credit card company thought those purchases were so out of keeping with my regular spending patterns that they froze my card until they could call to confirm that a 39-year-old man was indeed buying Vans.
What I’m worried about: Getting the July/August Top 20 Pharma / Top 10 Biopharma Companies issue written; the month of June tends to be pretty exhausting for me.
What I’m pondering: How a bat got into our house on Saturday night. We took the dogs out downstairs for their pre-bed bathroom break, but I always close the door right after we get outside, to keep bugs from getting in. After we got ‘em upstairs, I noticed a fluttering wing reflected in the window of the kitchen. I thought a bird had gotten in and was bashing into the walls, but once I turned the kitchen light on, I realized that it was a bat. I hurried the dogs down the hall into the bedroom, since they would’ve gone bananas trying to catch it (and maybe rabies). Since the kitchen only has a half-wall to the dining room, and there’s no partition between the dining room and the living room, the bat zoomed around among the three rooms for quite a while, hitting corners and not necessarily dive-bombing me. I started out trying to swat it with an old issue of SI, then graduated to trying to smother it in Amy’s cooking apron so I could get it out. The area’s cluttered, so a tennis racket would’ve led to my demollishing half the space. After 5 to 10 dizzying (literally, in both cases) minutes of chasing it around, ducking when it came at me, and spinning repeatedly to keep an eye on it, I got the idea to hang a bunch of dog-blankets from the ceiling beam of the dining room, where it connects with the living room. This managed to confine the bat to the dining room and the kitchen, giving me a slight advantage. Then I grabbed an old curtain I was getting ready to throw out, and after a dozen more failed attempts, managed to get the bat tangled up in it. It was heading straight at my face when I got the curtain up. I’ll carry its harrowing squeaks to my . . . well, not my grave. I mean, it wasn’t so scary, but I saw where Bruce Wayne was coming from when he got the idea. Anyway, it was a good thing for me that we were directly in front of the Sliding Glass Door To Nowhere (which once led to our deck). I tossed the curtain, bat and all, out the door, and heard it land in the back yard. The bat was caught inside, still squeaking panickedly. I hurried downstairs, shook up the curtain, and freed the poor creature. I like to think its last squeak before it flew off was one of, “Thanks! Sorry about the misunderstanding!”
What I’m reading: Baby, I Don’t Care
What I’m listening to: Songs from Venice Beach
What I’m watching: Animal House (which I haven’t watched in a million years and remains one of my all-time faves), Deadliest Catch, and the current HBO triumvirate of Treme, The Ricky Gervais Show, and The Life & Times of Tim.
What I’m drinking: Citadelle & Q-Tonic.
What Rufus & Otis are up to: Spending a few days with my dogless pals Sharon & Doug. They didn’t embarrass themselves or us too badly. That said, Ru climbed up on their sofa once, and Otis was obsessed with their parakeets, forcing my pals to relocate the birds to the garage. Sigh.
Where I’m going: One-day jaunt to Philadelphia this week, then Chicago & Toronto next week.
What I’m happy about: Having such a nice time wandering around NYC last Saturday.
What I’m sad about: That so many neighborhoods in NYC remind me being in a mall back in NJ.
What I’m worried about: Not much in specific. I’d been pretty worried about getting the May issue done in time, but got a lot of work done on Sunday to put that goal in reach.
What I’m pondering: Whether I’ll have time & motivation to write a series of short- or medium-length posts this week on a variety of subjects.
What I’m reading: Finished that Philosophy of Andy Warhol
What I’m listening to: Stop Making Sense
What I’m watching: Season premiere of The Deadliest Catch, which felt a little too reality-show-y this time around. I’m sure that’ll fall away once they’re out a-crabbin’. I tried watching Julie & Julia with my wife, but found the present-day sequences so poorly written that I gave up and went over to my home office to lay out pages for my May ish. One of the big problems, beyond the sheer whininess of the lead character, is that her story seems to be about her travails as she tries to cook her way through all of Julia Childs’ cookbook in a year. But most of the cooking is glossed over in favor of the tenson of trying to keep up her blog and achieve some sort of success. However, we’re watching a movie about the blog and its writer. It’s pretty fucking clear that she succeeded at her project because we’re watching this movie. So the focus was utterly in the wrong place and the drama was non-existent. They should’ve focused on the technique of cooking and the revelation of her character through it. Or, as my wife points out, “You can’t really make blogging exciting on film.” But at least the NBA playoffs started this weekend. I’ll let you know how that goes when they wrap up in six months.
What I’m drinking: Not much, as I’m recovering from a sinus infection that led to just about the worst 30-hour stretch in my life. I’m much better now and will shortly commence to drinkin’.
What Rufus & Otis are up to: Getting ready to spend a few days with my pals Sharon & Doug, who promise not to let Otis eat any small dogs while we’re away (except maybe for the yappy one that lives next door to them).
Where I’m going: NYC for the Interphex conference. Several days in a hotel, in suits, inebriated!
What I’m happy about: My alma mater walloped some Navy ass at the annual croquet match. Also, I’m not trapped in Europe right now, unlike my production manager and my editorial director.
What I’m sad about: I’ll never be as smooth as John Barrymore.
What I’m worried about: Ru or Otis will do something embarrassing while they’re houseguests.
What I’m pondering: Why I didn’t become a policeman. (Oh, the real reason why is because I can’t grow a mustache. There! I’ve said it! Sob!) Also, what I’m going to read during my NYC stay.
Satisfying my your craving for entertaining links, it’s a new installment of Unrequired Reading!
The UPS guy just drove up our driveway and almost through our house:
I’m starting to think working at home isn’t such a good idea for me.
What’s that smell? Must be another installment of Unrequired Reading! Now go wash your dishes!
