Mark L. Van Name's Blog, page 101

A new Delta Rae album

is out, and I can't wait to listen to it.  If this track



is any indication, After It All, the new release, is going to be great.

No matter how old I get, a new release from a band I love always makes me happy.  I hope that never changes.

Whatcha doin' Friday night, April 24?

If you're free and you're an SF fan, you might want to wander by Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at The Edge to catch the SFWA Southeast Reading Series.  At this event, a bunch of SF writers, including your correspondent, will be involved in a panel discussion of, well, something related to science fiction and fantasy.  You can find details here.

I'm betting I'll want dinner afterward, so I expect a group of us will wander somewhere and eat.

Come on by if you've got nothing else going on.

Pondering dental etiquette

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow for my semi-annual (more or less) teeth-cleaning appointment.  I do not enjoy time in the dental chair; never have, never will.  In anticipation of these trips, odd ideas often creep around in my head.  Today's concerns dental etiquette, specifically whether I should shave before the appointment.

My beard hair grows reasonably quickly, but I hate to shave.  That's why I wore a full beard for many years, and it's why I shave most of my face only occasionally.  As a result of my intermittent shaving strategy, however, my face mutates rapidly from smooth to rough to fine-grain sandpaper to coarse-grain sandpaper to whatever you call something that you could use to rub the slime and barnacles from the hull of a boat that's spent the last three years at the bottom of a particularly murky intracoastal waterway.

I'm currently at the fine-grain sandpaper stage; by morning, I'll be coarse-grain.

Do I shave before I go?

On the one hand, doing so seems considerate, and I do not mean to be rude to my dental hygienist.  (Never be rude to anyone wielding sharp instruments and poking around in your maw.)  On the other hand, she wears gloves and so may not give a damn.

You may consider shaving to be a task of no cost, but given that I have to do it in the morning, when I am a bear of little brain, and that it leaves parts of my face looking like someone's been slapping me around with chunks of poison ivy for half an hour, I do not enjoy it at all.

And so my brain spins round and round.

Amanda Palmer

played the Fletcher Theater in Raleigh earlier tonight, and a small group of us went to see her.  Our group included people new to her work, people who loved her work, and me.  I am familiar with a reasonable amount of Palmer's music and writing, have read (and mostly enjoyed) her book, and have mixed feelings about her work.

When we left, those who had loved her work still did, those who did not know her did not find the performance particularly good, and I still had mixed feelings.  I'm not sure what, if anything, that outcome says about Palmer's performance.

Most of the audience members seemed to be hardcore fans and to have a great time.  Her connection with her fans is strong and two-way; though most of her music is very personal, her affection for her fans seems genuine.

I enjoyed most of her songs, though her musical craft level seems rough to my admittedly untrained ears.  I enjoyed more her storytelling, as did one of the people new to her work.

On balance, I recommend seeing her if you have a chance, if only to find out whether you're in her audience.  I'm not sure I'll go the next time she's here, but I might.

Focus

I'm a big fan of con-artist books and movies; Slanted Jack is my (so far only) entry in that genre.  I tend to go to con-artist films as soon as they appear.  With Focus, however,  I let the mediocre critical (55%) and audience (58%) ratings on Rottentomatoes deter me--until the other day.

I'm so glad I caught it in the theater.  Despite those ratings, I enjoyed this movie from start to finish, as did everyone in the group that went with me.  Neither the overall plot nor the many sub-plots are simple, but that's exactly as it should be:  we're talking con artists here.  The cast members turn in uniformly good performances, with both Will Smith and Margot Robbie very good in their lead roles.  The dialog is snappy and often funny, and the film is full of grace notes.

If you also enjoy con-artist films, I encourage you to ignore the reviews, avoid reading any spoilers, and head out to catch Focus.

Furious 7

proved to be just about everything I had hoped it would be, and then some.  Though I could make cases for both the fifth and the sixth films in the franchise--and this most definitely is now a dream Hollywood franchise--being the best of the group, overall I have to go with Furious 7 as the winner.  If you liked any of the previous films in the series, you will not want to miss this one.

Within the class of summer action blockbuster films, what flaws this movie has boil down to not enough screen time for all the great stars involved.  I would have loved more minutes of Jason Statham, The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Tony Jaa, and Ronda Rousey, to name but the four most notable folks.  When your biggest complaints about a film, though, are that you wish it gave you even more minutes--and it clocks in at 2:20--you're really searching for flaws.

Now, if we want to evaluate Furious 7 as a serious film, then we would have to critique it for being completely absurd in plot, dialog, and acting--but why would we do that?  If you walk into the theater to see this one, you know what you're in for.

I'm not giving away much by noting that the end of the movie is a loving farewell to Paul Walker, who as all fans know died before they had finished the initial shooting.  Though this segment was obviously and directly designed to yank our emotional chains, it succeeded, and I was genuinely touched by the affection the filmmakers seemed to feel for Walker.  Everyone I spoke with felt the same way.

All during this movie, people throughout the audience were saying "Yes!" and making similar happy comments and noises.  At the film's end, the audience clapped.

If you want a big-time summer action film, run, maybe even race, to Furious 7.

Benchmarks, storage, and C-Mail

Yes, it's another episode of Now with PT.  I've already shown you C-Mail, but a few moments in it crack me up enough that a re-watching won't hurt.



Enjoy.

Say hello to my little friend

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Moving on, I fell in love with this line of refrigerators when I saw them for the first time at the Cayman Cookout, and now, thanks to an amazingly generous birthday present, one sits in my office at PT, chilling cans of Coke Zero for me.


Click the image to see a larger version.

Is not the SMEG a lovely bit of retro-inspired design?

I am very happy to have it as my new office mate.

PT announces a brand-new communication technology

You will not want to miss this amazing leap forward, courtesy of our company, Principled Technologies.




I couldn't be prouder.





Do note the date.

I'm ready for the beach

Today was a beautiful spring day, absolutely lovely, but I am still ready for the beach.  Any warm place with an ocean and sand and no big crowds will do me.

Just sayin'.