P. Aaron Potter's Blog, page 2
December 9, 2012
My life, in a nutshell
Outside today, buzzing up railroad ties with a frakking CHAINSAW, all testosterone and manliness, and managed to nick my hand. Went in to find a bandage, and the Tiny Tyrant was the last one who went shopping with mom to stock the first aid kit. So there I was, staunching my manly wound with a Hello Kitty bandaid.
November 21, 2012
In Which NaNoWriMo Punches Me in the Face
Running score is now NaNoWriMo: 2, Aaron: 0.
I have this false belief that I work better under pressure. The theory here was that the write-every-day requirements of NaNoWriMo would force me to light a fire under my behind and finish the three (3!) projects I've got simmering on the back burner, turn them in to some publisher somewhere, then sit back and wait for the wealth and fame to roll in.
Instead, of course, I started a fourth (4!!) project, which I then set aside because of pressing duties like grading papers, doing book reviews, raising my kids, cleaning my house, bathing, making a sandwich, mowing the lawn, watching election returns, post-Halloween organization, pre-Holidays organization, laundry, making another sandwich, taking another bath, and making another sandwich. Also, the coffee was too cold and I had to freshen it up. Apparently every 15 minutes, for a month.
I am a fountain of excuses.
I have this false belief that I work better under pressure. The theory here was that the write-every-day requirements of NaNoWriMo would force me to light a fire under my behind and finish the three (3!) projects I've got simmering on the back burner, turn them in to some publisher somewhere, then sit back and wait for the wealth and fame to roll in.
Instead, of course, I started a fourth (4!!) project, which I then set aside because of pressing duties like grading papers, doing book reviews, raising my kids, cleaning my house, bathing, making a sandwich, mowing the lawn, watching election returns, post-Halloween organization, pre-Holidays organization, laundry, making another sandwich, taking another bath, and making another sandwich. Also, the coffee was too cold and I had to freshen it up. Apparently every 15 minutes, for a month.
I am a fountain of excuses.
I Give the Walking Dead Another %! Try
I am a weak, weak man. This has been well documented already, but let there stand as additional testimony my inability to put aside even a narrative I think is going hopelessly astray. It's the same with books. If I start one I physically cannot stop until I've finished it off. I've tried it, many times, and almost always failed. It nags at me, the lurking in the undusted corners of my brain, until I whimper and give in. A book has to truly, truly suck eggs for me to give up on it before the final page. It's a compulsion.
Just so with The Walking Dead, and how much harder that is when so much about the story is done very well. The characters - with a few exceptions - are compelling, and the moral quandaries, though necessarily everpresent here in the 'lifeboat' narrative sub-genre, are not handled too clumsily. The repercussions of the characters' actions do not usually manifest until much later in the story, episodes later, which is a pretty neat trick given the moving-target which the plot has necessitated.
But worse yet, I have good friends who have beaten me over the head with the series and demanded I go back and finish off the series. So I did. Yes, the last two episodes almost, almost, make up for the earlier abuses. Some balance is restored. But worse yet, the last scenes of the last episode are such heady cliffhangers that now I'm desperately waiting for season 3 to hit NetFlix. Curse you, friends with whom I share my interests. Your insight into my obsessions has doomed me to an agony of 3 to 6 months while I wait for the new season to move to my streaming service. Why couldn't you have been into knitting?
Just so with The Walking Dead, and how much harder that is when so much about the story is done very well. The characters - with a few exceptions - are compelling, and the moral quandaries, though necessarily everpresent here in the 'lifeboat' narrative sub-genre, are not handled too clumsily. The repercussions of the characters' actions do not usually manifest until much later in the story, episodes later, which is a pretty neat trick given the moving-target which the plot has necessitated.
But worse yet, I have good friends who have beaten me over the head with the series and demanded I go back and finish off the series. So I did. Yes, the last two episodes almost, almost, make up for the earlier abuses. Some balance is restored. But worse yet, the last scenes of the last episode are such heady cliffhangers that now I'm desperately waiting for season 3 to hit NetFlix. Curse you, friends with whom I share my interests. Your insight into my obsessions has doomed me to an agony of 3 to 6 months while I wait for the new season to move to my streaming service. Why couldn't you have been into knitting?
October 3, 2012
I give up on The Walking Dead
Finished. Done. Kaput. Put it to bed. Stick a fork in it, it's done.
And I write this, not as someone who has become frustrated while waiting for the third season, and who feels entitled to more frequent updates from the series' creators.
Nay, I write this as someone who *hasn't even finished the second season.*
Like everybody else who loves excellent writing and who has a taste for grand guignol, I encountered the first season of The Walking Dead after hearing rave reviews from a friend, and then got my cerebellum hammered into the concrete by its sublime mastery of pacing, tension, and realistic characterization. The small group of survivors were so very human in the midst of their inhuman (and inhumane, different thing) situation. I hadn't been smacked in the face by a series like that since I stumbled, years after everyone else, into BattleStar Galactica. Like BSG, I ate Walking Dead in heaping helpings, then went back and cherished little bits of episodes. Gods of media, bless Netflix and keep her well.
Then the second season. And...
Well, back up a second. Before the second season, I watched a playthrough of the Walking Dead videogames, by the same team which brought forth the show. There's a sequence in the third episode, and it's impossible to take. I'm going to spoil it. No, it's not when the kid goes zombie...that, while sad and harsh, was consistent with the series' grim premise. No, I'm talking about the moment where one of the survivors, suspicious and perhaps jealous, suddenly whips out her gun and shoots another *uninfected* survivor in the head. Then she drives away.
Huh. So then I started watching the second season. And at the end (*spoilers again!*) of one episode, flashbacks reveal that Shane put a bullet into a guy's leg and left him for zombie chow in order to facilitate his own escape.
The critics loved that epsode. They thought it added depth and drama to the series. The critics are full of dung. It was crap writing, and here's why.
What both sequences suggest is that, in a world where the few (*VERY few) human survivors must cling to one another to survive...they won't. They'll act with the same nasty pettiness they do in everyday society, only exacerbated into outrageous violence by their miserable, deadly situation.
Sorry, but that's a crock. I'm not just saying that because I'm more optimistic about human nature...I'm saying it because that's not the way even sociopaths act. Sociopaths are interested in their own survival. Tautologically, that survival is going to be much more likely in zombieland when there are other humans around. Shooting your comrades just because they're inconvenient, or you're grumpy, isn't just vicious. It's suicidal, and that's the one thing sociopaths absolutely are not.
That the two sequences appeared at all was to pander to a false pseudo-critical perspective which conflates "drama" with "depth." I'm reminded of those composition students who throw tragedy (dead grandparents, dead pets) into their essays because they foolishly think doing so lends their work gravitas. That many viewers fell for such obvious manipulation doesn't make it any less crass or illogical.
Some self-styled "realists" adopt the argument that this type of illogical, self-destructive violence is at the heart of the human condition, Lord of the Flies style. It's ridiculously easy to shoot down that position. If humanity acted that way in mortal crises, we would never have made it out of the trees.
But we did, and made this lovely civilization, with communicative faculties and technology which allow us to unfortunately watch badly written television.
Or to choose not to.
And I write this, not as someone who has become frustrated while waiting for the third season, and who feels entitled to more frequent updates from the series' creators.
Nay, I write this as someone who *hasn't even finished the second season.*
Like everybody else who loves excellent writing and who has a taste for grand guignol, I encountered the first season of The Walking Dead after hearing rave reviews from a friend, and then got my cerebellum hammered into the concrete by its sublime mastery of pacing, tension, and realistic characterization. The small group of survivors were so very human in the midst of their inhuman (and inhumane, different thing) situation. I hadn't been smacked in the face by a series like that since I stumbled, years after everyone else, into BattleStar Galactica. Like BSG, I ate Walking Dead in heaping helpings, then went back and cherished little bits of episodes. Gods of media, bless Netflix and keep her well.
Then the second season. And...
Well, back up a second. Before the second season, I watched a playthrough of the Walking Dead videogames, by the same team which brought forth the show. There's a sequence in the third episode, and it's impossible to take. I'm going to spoil it. No, it's not when the kid goes zombie...that, while sad and harsh, was consistent with the series' grim premise. No, I'm talking about the moment where one of the survivors, suspicious and perhaps jealous, suddenly whips out her gun and shoots another *uninfected* survivor in the head. Then she drives away.
Huh. So then I started watching the second season. And at the end (*spoilers again!*) of one episode, flashbacks reveal that Shane put a bullet into a guy's leg and left him for zombie chow in order to facilitate his own escape.
The critics loved that epsode. They thought it added depth and drama to the series. The critics are full of dung. It was crap writing, and here's why.
What both sequences suggest is that, in a world where the few (*VERY few) human survivors must cling to one another to survive...they won't. They'll act with the same nasty pettiness they do in everyday society, only exacerbated into outrageous violence by their miserable, deadly situation.
Sorry, but that's a crock. I'm not just saying that because I'm more optimistic about human nature...I'm saying it because that's not the way even sociopaths act. Sociopaths are interested in their own survival. Tautologically, that survival is going to be much more likely in zombieland when there are other humans around. Shooting your comrades just because they're inconvenient, or you're grumpy, isn't just vicious. It's suicidal, and that's the one thing sociopaths absolutely are not.
That the two sequences appeared at all was to pander to a false pseudo-critical perspective which conflates "drama" with "depth." I'm reminded of those composition students who throw tragedy (dead grandparents, dead pets) into their essays because they foolishly think doing so lends their work gravitas. That many viewers fell for such obvious manipulation doesn't make it any less crass or illogical.
Some self-styled "realists" adopt the argument that this type of illogical, self-destructive violence is at the heart of the human condition, Lord of the Flies style. It's ridiculously easy to shoot down that position. If humanity acted that way in mortal crises, we would never have made it out of the trees.
But we did, and made this lovely civilization, with communicative faculties and technology which allow us to unfortunately watch badly written television.
Or to choose not to.
September 9, 2012
if (sickAndTired==1) return sickAndTired(1);
Yeah I know the pseudocode above looks like crap. I'm ill. Sue me.
The beautiful thing about recursive functions is how spare they are. Since my math never got past first derivative calculus, I wasn't introduced to the notion of functional recursion until taking Algorithms and Data Structures in graduate school. The concept seems cute, at first: normal functions process data and then return a value to the program which called them. If they need to perform some extra manipulation on the data, they call subroutines. Recursive functions embed the nature of the subroutine in the function itself,so instead of exiting out to another chunk of the code, the recursive function calls *itself* to do the processing. Done correctly, it means you can use one or two lines of code to manage what would have taken a half dozen subroutines. It's tight.
So there I was this morning, suffering from flu, and going over the old saw about "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" when I realized I was sick and tired of that saying. Then I saw that my very bitterness about the phrase was making me feel worse, so I was sick and tired of that. A recursive function.
Here's the rub: a recursive function needs a proper "exit condition," or the incautious coder will end up with an endless loop which will just cause your program to churn over the same lines, over and over, until you use up all available memory and crash out. That's what's up with me: my very annoyance at my illness is making it harder to recover from the illness, as I burn calories and fret awake all night instead of resting, which leads to more illness, etc., etc.
Illness: a recursive function with a bad positive-feedback loop. I blame the coder.
The beautiful thing about recursive functions is how spare they are. Since my math never got past first derivative calculus, I wasn't introduced to the notion of functional recursion until taking Algorithms and Data Structures in graduate school. The concept seems cute, at first: normal functions process data and then return a value to the program which called them. If they need to perform some extra manipulation on the data, they call subroutines. Recursive functions embed the nature of the subroutine in the function itself,so instead of exiting out to another chunk of the code, the recursive function calls *itself* to do the processing. Done correctly, it means you can use one or two lines of code to manage what would have taken a half dozen subroutines. It's tight.
So there I was this morning, suffering from flu, and going over the old saw about "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" when I realized I was sick and tired of that saying. Then I saw that my very bitterness about the phrase was making me feel worse, so I was sick and tired of that. A recursive function.
Here's the rub: a recursive function needs a proper "exit condition," or the incautious coder will end up with an endless loop which will just cause your program to churn over the same lines, over and over, until you use up all available memory and crash out. That's what's up with me: my very annoyance at my illness is making it harder to recover from the illness, as I burn calories and fret awake all night instead of resting, which leads to more illness, etc., etc.
Illness: a recursive function with a bad positive-feedback loop. I blame the coder.
July 21, 2012
re: StopTheGoodReadsBullies
To the editors of StoptheGoodReadsBullies:
It might interest you to know that the Huffington Post has since disassociated itself from your blog posting there…and with good reason. Until the Huffpo brouhaha and some recent blogging about this site, I was unaware of your existence. I now feel up-to-date on the “bullying” controversy and I’ve got to paraphrase Inigo Montoya: you keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.
As you theoretically acknowledge, it certainly doesn’t mean ‘getting a bad review’. Shakespeare got bad reviews. They are the common heritage of anyone willing to put their work out into the public eye. However, it also doesn’t mean snarky reviews which imply a book should never have been written, which question the author’s skills, sanity, character, or hygiene. These too are the natural consequence of a public existence. Reviewers, like everyone, are looking for the causes behind what works and what doesn’t, and they want to be heard, and that will sometimes lead them to off-topic comments in their quest for an audience.
And here is the key: clever readers, intelligent readers, the ones you hope will love your work, will know how much credence to give to reviews which cross the line. When you launched this site, you were effectively telling readers that you don’t trust their abilities to discern worthwhile, on-topic criticism from empty rhetoric. What bullying most definitely is, is creating an environment hostile to ideas and perspectives by abusing your perceived power over others. And that’s what this site has been engaging in. It’s what the talk in the comments above, by anonymous authors, amounts to in their calls for secret authors groups where they can exchange blacklists of forbidden reviewers. It’s a product of fear.
You’ll notice that I am not anonymous. I am an author and goodreads reviewer. It would be entirely possible for someone on this site or off of it to use this occasion to launch some off-topic, personal criticisms. But I trust readers to be able to judge the merits of any such comments and come to their own conclusions.
I am not afraid, though it occurs to me that you have made others legitimately so. Because you are a bully.
It might interest you to know that the Huffington Post has since disassociated itself from your blog posting there…and with good reason. Until the Huffpo brouhaha and some recent blogging about this site, I was unaware of your existence. I now feel up-to-date on the “bullying” controversy and I’ve got to paraphrase Inigo Montoya: you keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.
As you theoretically acknowledge, it certainly doesn’t mean ‘getting a bad review’. Shakespeare got bad reviews. They are the common heritage of anyone willing to put their work out into the public eye. However, it also doesn’t mean snarky reviews which imply a book should never have been written, which question the author’s skills, sanity, character, or hygiene. These too are the natural consequence of a public existence. Reviewers, like everyone, are looking for the causes behind what works and what doesn’t, and they want to be heard, and that will sometimes lead them to off-topic comments in their quest for an audience.
And here is the key: clever readers, intelligent readers, the ones you hope will love your work, will know how much credence to give to reviews which cross the line. When you launched this site, you were effectively telling readers that you don’t trust their abilities to discern worthwhile, on-topic criticism from empty rhetoric. What bullying most definitely is, is creating an environment hostile to ideas and perspectives by abusing your perceived power over others. And that’s what this site has been engaging in. It’s what the talk in the comments above, by anonymous authors, amounts to in their calls for secret authors groups where they can exchange blacklists of forbidden reviewers. It’s a product of fear.
You’ll notice that I am not anonymous. I am an author and goodreads reviewer. It would be entirely possible for someone on this site or off of it to use this occasion to launch some off-topic, personal criticisms. But I trust readers to be able to judge the merits of any such comments and come to their own conclusions.
I am not afraid, though it occurs to me that you have made others legitimately so. Because you are a bully.
June 21, 2012
Science is scary
Ok, so the Tiny Tyrant has been unusually demanding lately, and because she insisted on walking the hillside with no shoes, she got spider bites or something on her feet and I've been carrying her around and now I've retorn the muscle in my shoulder.
So I got scheduled for an MRI. I've always loved the *look* of the MRI on House and other medical shows, and its ability to render soft-tissues visible in all their squishy glory has always seemed as close as we've yet got to the Enterprise's sickbay analyzers. I was stoked to go in, and kind of irked that they kept asking urgently whether I had claustrophobia or sensitive ears or prison tattoos and whatnot. Guys, I'm science literate. It's a big magnet. I'm totally excited to be a part of this thing. Merge me with the machine, and do it now.
So they made me empty my pockets, and then they strapped me in. Tightly. Okay, science enthusiasm waning slightly because this table resembles the strappy dungeon setup of the original Frankenstein flicks a leetle too much. Still cool though.
Then they shove the table inside and it was *tight*. I'm pretty thin - how the heck do they manage to put even moderately sized people into this gizmo? I was expecting a cozy techno hobbit hole, and instead the curving wall of grey plastic is about two centimeters shy of my frakking nose. And my arms are strapped tight, and now I realize that if something *does* go wrong, I can't possibly pull myself out of this thing. If the zombie apocalypse hits while I'm in there, they'll have eaten my feet well before I've wriggled free of this beast.
Then it turns on and HOLY CRAP THIS THING IS LOUD!!!! They had headphones on me, but they stopped working about one minute into the twenty minute experience, so I got a full nineteen of bazookas going off in my earholes. Not just a nice, constant thunder either, but a remarkably interesting soundscape in which, just as you got used to the dull pounding of the magnet, there would be a moment of silence, then about thirty seconds of screeching as it traversed to a new aspect, then silence, and just as you got calm again, a machine-gun rattle of some kind...I'm not going to compare it to combat, because I've never been, but I can't help but feel I'm a little closer to understanding the PTSD victim's almighty terror of sudden explosive noises.
So much for my techno-enthusiasm. Turns out it was one of the most surreal, nightmarish experiences of my life. I'm not sure whether being boozed before I'd gone in would have dulled the sensations, or heightened their hallucinatory effect.
Science scared the crap out of me. Yay science.
So I got scheduled for an MRI. I've always loved the *look* of the MRI on House and other medical shows, and its ability to render soft-tissues visible in all their squishy glory has always seemed as close as we've yet got to the Enterprise's sickbay analyzers. I was stoked to go in, and kind of irked that they kept asking urgently whether I had claustrophobia or sensitive ears or prison tattoos and whatnot. Guys, I'm science literate. It's a big magnet. I'm totally excited to be a part of this thing. Merge me with the machine, and do it now.
So they made me empty my pockets, and then they strapped me in. Tightly. Okay, science enthusiasm waning slightly because this table resembles the strappy dungeon setup of the original Frankenstein flicks a leetle too much. Still cool though.
Then they shove the table inside and it was *tight*. I'm pretty thin - how the heck do they manage to put even moderately sized people into this gizmo? I was expecting a cozy techno hobbit hole, and instead the curving wall of grey plastic is about two centimeters shy of my frakking nose. And my arms are strapped tight, and now I realize that if something *does* go wrong, I can't possibly pull myself out of this thing. If the zombie apocalypse hits while I'm in there, they'll have eaten my feet well before I've wriggled free of this beast.
Then it turns on and HOLY CRAP THIS THING IS LOUD!!!! They had headphones on me, but they stopped working about one minute into the twenty minute experience, so I got a full nineteen of bazookas going off in my earholes. Not just a nice, constant thunder either, but a remarkably interesting soundscape in which, just as you got used to the dull pounding of the magnet, there would be a moment of silence, then about thirty seconds of screeching as it traversed to a new aspect, then silence, and just as you got calm again, a machine-gun rattle of some kind...I'm not going to compare it to combat, because I've never been, but I can't help but feel I'm a little closer to understanding the PTSD victim's almighty terror of sudden explosive noises.
So much for my techno-enthusiasm. Turns out it was one of the most surreal, nightmarish experiences of my life. I'm not sure whether being boozed before I'd gone in would have dulled the sensations, or heightened their hallucinatory effect.
Science scared the crap out of me. Yay science.
June 6, 2012
Ray Bradbury, 1920 - 2012
Arkham House, the printer founded by H.P. Lovecraft collaborator August Derleth, got in the habit of issuing small runs of well bound weird fiction. One of their number was "Dark Carnival," a short story collection, and the first book by then unknown Ray Bradbury.
For years, I made a habit of checking all bookstores, Goodwill shelves, and yard sales for a copy. It was a bit of a joke, of course: there were only 3,000 copies printed, and there was no chance one would turn up in a junk bin. But it was an amusing way to pass the time while I bought other books. And I saw Bradbury a few times at conferences and talks and signings, even handed him a letter and received a gracious reply while I was in grad. school at UVA. He hadn't seen a copy in years, he noted.
Then, unfortunately, my mother heard about this habit, and ruined it all for me by contacting Powells, which had a copy in their rare books room. She got it for me as a graduation present when I earned my Ph.D.
Last year, Bradbury came to the University where I now teach and write. He was being honored by the Eaton Collection, the largest public archive of speculative fiction in the world, housed on my campus. I dumped the kids on my tolerant wife and made my way to the ceremony and talk. The man was clearly tired, and I got anxiously into the terribly long line for signings. Just a few people short of my position, they announced that they would have to cut the signing off, as Mr. Bradbury needed to rest.
I grabbed the nearest organizer and told him I *had* to get this book signed. They tried to shrug me off, but I got up to Mr. Bradbury's assistant and explained the situation. He hustled me up to the table.
"Ray? There's something kind of special here you'll want to see."
I held out the book. It seemed to take him a moment before he realized what it was. "I haven't seen one of these in...years."
"I know," I said. "You told me that in a letter once. You forgot to sign this one."
He nodded gravely. He had to fumble at the pen a few times before he got it firmly in hand, but then signed with a flourish familiar from the two other times I'd been to signings. He handed the book back carefully. "This is special," he said. "You take good care of this."
I nodded, unable to speak. As the organizers for the conference helped him to stand, Bradbury's assistant shook my hand. "Thank you for that. I think that really made his day." I carefully rewrapped the now doubly-precious volume in its plastic and paper covers and held them tightly as I made my way out of the auditorium.
On the way out the door, one of the Eaton Collection reps came over and casually asked whether I might be interested in selling it.
I told him to go to hell.
For years, I made a habit of checking all bookstores, Goodwill shelves, and yard sales for a copy. It was a bit of a joke, of course: there were only 3,000 copies printed, and there was no chance one would turn up in a junk bin. But it was an amusing way to pass the time while I bought other books. And I saw Bradbury a few times at conferences and talks and signings, even handed him a letter and received a gracious reply while I was in grad. school at UVA. He hadn't seen a copy in years, he noted.
Then, unfortunately, my mother heard about this habit, and ruined it all for me by contacting Powells, which had a copy in their rare books room. She got it for me as a graduation present when I earned my Ph.D.
Last year, Bradbury came to the University where I now teach and write. He was being honored by the Eaton Collection, the largest public archive of speculative fiction in the world, housed on my campus. I dumped the kids on my tolerant wife and made my way to the ceremony and talk. The man was clearly tired, and I got anxiously into the terribly long line for signings. Just a few people short of my position, they announced that they would have to cut the signing off, as Mr. Bradbury needed to rest.
I grabbed the nearest organizer and told him I *had* to get this book signed. They tried to shrug me off, but I got up to Mr. Bradbury's assistant and explained the situation. He hustled me up to the table.
"Ray? There's something kind of special here you'll want to see."
I held out the book. It seemed to take him a moment before he realized what it was. "I haven't seen one of these in...years."
"I know," I said. "You told me that in a letter once. You forgot to sign this one."
He nodded gravely. He had to fumble at the pen a few times before he got it firmly in hand, but then signed with a flourish familiar from the two other times I'd been to signings. He handed the book back carefully. "This is special," he said. "You take good care of this."
I nodded, unable to speak. As the organizers for the conference helped him to stand, Bradbury's assistant shook my hand. "Thank you for that. I think that really made his day." I carefully rewrapped the now doubly-precious volume in its plastic and paper covers and held them tightly as I made my way out of the auditorium.
On the way out the door, one of the Eaton Collection reps came over and casually asked whether I might be interested in selling it.
I told him to go to hell.
May 30, 2012
Kardassians
Geeks sometimes have a harder than usual time navigating through popular culture. Michele came up with a handy way to help me tell the difference between the Kardashians and the Cardassians. Just remember this easy mnemonic:
One of those is a reptilian alien race, with leathery skin, full of greed and evil and bent on the destruction of civilization. The other one was on Star Trek.
One of those is a reptilian alien race, with leathery skin, full of greed and evil and bent on the destruction of civilization. The other one was on Star Trek.
May 20, 2012
Eclipse
SoCal is fortunate enough to experience an 80%+ solar eclipse right now. Michele, the boys, the tiny tyrant and I made pinhole cameras out of cardboard and foil and staked out the backyard for the whole thing.
My neighbors - on both sides - were visible, inside their homes, watching tv.
I do not understand people. :( I'm really not being snarky, smug, or superior. It's not like it's my eclipse. I don't think I'm better than those who ignored it. I just can't understand them, and I feel that lack as a personal character flaw, marring an otherwise awesome experience.
Great eclipse, though. Great.
My neighbors - on both sides - were visible, inside their homes, watching tv.
I do not understand people. :( I'm really not being snarky, smug, or superior. It's not like it's my eclipse. I don't think I'm better than those who ignored it. I just can't understand them, and I feel that lack as a personal character flaw, marring an otherwise awesome experience.
Great eclipse, though. Great.
