Snow, snow, lots of snow

I spent about five hours last night driving in a blizzard. Overall, I would recommend against the experience if it can be avoided. On the other hand, it wasn't as bad as I feared it might be. Still, I would rather have stayed home.

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain by Minister Faust

Welcome to the therapy sessions conducted by Dr. Eva Brain, psychiatrist to superheroes. This book relates her experiences and observations from working with a team of six heroes, members of the Fantastic Order of Justice. They have been ordered into therapy by the League and threatened with explusion if they don't get things straightened out. So they are forced to talk everything through and listen to Dr. Brain's crackpot theories. Indeed, we are all forced to listen to Dr. Brain's crackpot theories.

I thought that the premise of this book sounded like a lot of fun. And it started well, but I found it less and less enjoyable the further I read. I think that part of the problem is that I'm the wrong sort of geek for this book. Now, most assuredly, I am a geek. But I'm not into comic books or super heroes. I know enough to recognize some of these characters and who they are based on--I spotted Superman, Batman and, oddly enough, Britney Spears--but there were probably others that I missed. And, because I don't like comics, I found it quickly became rather tedious.

The novel centers around a power struggle within the Fantastic Order of Justice--it's time to elect a new president, and two of our heroes, The Flying Squirrel and X Man, are trying to win the position. Neither is very likable--one is a paranoid old billionaire on steroids, and the other is a very angry young black man. They shout at each other a lot and try to outmaneuver one another. Dr. Brain periodically asks them about their feelings and keeps foreshadowing bad events at the end of the book.

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain is the the second novel by Minister Faust. I read his first, Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad, and enjoyed it. I did not enjoy this one, however. Every character, including and especially Dr. Brain, is irritating. The comic book-style action doesn't work as well on the written page. The Norse goddess character's accent was more German than Scandinavian, which grated on my nerves every time she spoke. Overall, I just didn't much like this book. I didn't actively hate it, but I was happy when it was over.

Land of Mist and Snow by Debra Doyle & James Macdonald

This is not the book I was expecting to review today. This week I have been reading Infoquake by David Louis Edelman, but I gave up on it this afternoon. It reminded me too much of a cross between an 80s movie about overly competitive stockbrokers and Atlas Shrugged. Combine that with truly unlikeable characters and interrupting the narrative for 100 pages of backstory, and I didn't have the will to continue. The text flows nicely, but the story isn't one I was enjoying.

After giving up on Infoquake, I picked up Land of Mist and Snow. I have read a few of Doyle & Macdonald's space adventures, and liked them. This one is a fantistical historical, set during the American Civil War. The main narrator is Lieutenant John Nevis, who is assigned to the USS Nicodemos. It is a strange ship, and they have wild adventures on the high seas as they hunt down a haunted Confederate ship. I don't want to spoil it, so I'm being deliberately vague.

Lane of Mist and Snow is an epistolary novel, told through a series of letters and journals. This goes well with its 19th century setting. The language seemed appropriate to the period, though one of the sailor's letters seemed remarkably well-spoken for a man of his probable education level and profession.

My first reaction, upon the introduction of the young, attractive female character, was that this was going to be a romance. It later began to look like a Naval Adventure story, like Hornblower or Aubrey. It eventually became both. I thought that the resolution of their problem was, frankly, a bit ridiculous, but I still found it to be a fun read, and quite a relief after Infoquake. Land of Mist and Snow isn't a great work of literature, but it's good fun.

I love The Onion

I ran across this on a running group I read:

Nation's Joggers Sick of Finding Dead Bodies

Scar Night by Alan Campbell

Ninety-Nine giant chains span a deep abyss, and upon those chains was built the city of Deepgate. Below, in the abyss, lives their god, Ulcis, lord of darkness and death. The city is run by Ulcis's temple, which wages war against their neighbors and consigns the souls of the dead to their lord to join his army.

It is a creepy, dark, unstable place. Neighborhoods sag and tilt, and occasionally fall into the pit below them. It is a maze of rope bridges and tilting walkways, of unsafe and abandoned buildings. Monthly, a demon stalks the city, looking for a victim to drain of blood, and the Temple's assassins hunt her. Though much of the story happens in the daytime, I found that I always imagined it to be night there. It's just that sort of place.

But now someone else is killing people, draining their blood and leaving the bodies to be found. A grieving father decides to find the killer, and succeeds. The city's chief poisoner turns against Deepgate. And the demon, an assassin, and a rather stupid angel make a descent into hell. And lots and lots of people die.

Scar Night is a first novel, and it is a remarkably good one. The story really moves along, it tells a complex tale, and no one except the lord of darkness is a moustache-twirling Evil Guy. I had a few quibbles with it--some of the big action scenes seemed improbable on a Hollywood-like scale, for one thing. I suspect that I was supposed to empathise with the rather stupid angel, and I didn't. And his relationship with the assassin was not very believable to me, either. But these are relatively minor problems, and I would recommend this without reservations to someone who is looking for a non-cliched fantasy and can tolerate a lot of violence. I didn't love Scar Night, but I liked it, and I would read another by the same writer.

Thoughts on a language class

Quite a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to learn to speak Italian. I bought a course of audio tapes that say a word in English, and then repeat it a couple of times in Italian. It proved reasonably effective for me, as I could repeat the lesson many times until I had memorized the words. I worked at it daily for a while, but by the time I’d reached the second side of the second tape, things were getting difficult, and I realized that I probably don’t have the discipline to keep going on my own. I still occasionally work at it a bit, but haven’t made much progress in a long time. However, I still want to learn Italian, and so I looked for a class that wasn’t too expensive or too far away.

I found an introductory class for travelers right here in my home town, so I signed up. Last night was the first class. I was looking forward to it.

I hated it. Halfway through I was pondering whether I should skip the rest of the classes, or if I should come again next week to give it a second try before I skip the rest of the classes. I think I will give it one more week, but it was a grave disappointment. I already know a little Italian, and I was a bit lost at times. I think it must have been much worse for the people who came in cold. And I hate role playing. Here is what happened:

The instructor said: “Mi chiamo Roberta. E lei?” We all stared at her in bemusement. She repeated: “Mi chiamo Roberta. E lei? Now, all of you say it after me: Mi chiamo Roberta. E lei? Okay, now everyone stand up and say it to your neighbor: Mi chiamo Roberta. E lei?” Imagine 14 embarrassed people looking at each other and repeating: “Mi chiamo (whatever stupid name we’d been assigned for the exercise). E lei?” for about 5 minutes. Then we all sit down and she informs us that we now know how to introduce ourselves.

*sigh* First, I don’t think that all of us memorized the phrase that quickly. Second, I don’t think that having us parrot back phrases without telling us the meaning, *word by word*, is teaching us the language. Forty-five minutes into the class, she says: “You remember when I had you say e? It means ‘and’”. Well, thank you very much. At this rate we should understand Italian in about 14 years. However, we only have 5 weeks. My language tapes are looking better and better—at least they told me what the words meant before they asked me to repeat them.

Why do I live here?

Sorry about the poor photo quality, I didn't want to have to go outside to take it.

If you look closely, you will see that my thermometer says -16 degrees. Fortunately, it's Sunday, so I really don't have to go outside today except to take out the garbage. Tomorrow, however, is going to be just as cold, and I do have to go to work.

Winter is a thing we all have to cope with, and the last few years I've grown fairly philosophical about it. I no longer hate winter, I just try to ignore it. Winter is a time when it's dark and cold and I can't ride my bike. Winter is when I hibernate and just try not to gain too much weight. Winter is also the hard time at work, when I'm buried and overwhelmed and working overtime and very stressed out as my coworkers take time off, which leaves me trying to handle their job as well as my own work. Winter is driving slowly on slippery roads, and hoping the maniac behind you doesn't cause an accident. Winter is shovelling the driveway at 6 a.m. when it's 8 degrees outside. Winter means the clumsiness of trying to do things with mittens on. Winter means having to don coat, hat, mittens, and boots to carry my garbage out to the alley behind the house. Winter is going out with a roof rake after a snowstorm to pull the extra snow off the roof, so that I don't get ice dams and have water leaking through my dining room ceiling.

I can tolerate all the things I've listed above, but I hate the cold weather. So long as the temperature is above 15 degrees, I don't mind it too much. I dislike, but can tolerate, temperatures from 5 to 15 degrees. But this sub-zero stuff is the worst. I hate it. I hate everything about it. The Pollyannas among us comment on how lovely it is to have nice, sunny days. Blech. I'll take cloudy and 25 degrees any day.

A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

I am now working on my second sweater, and my confidence and skills are growing pretty quickly. Though I’ve been knitting off and on for about ten years, I’d never had the nerve to try a sweater until last summer. I selected an easy pattern and some cotton yarn, and soon I was knitting up a storm.

I posted a photo of that sweater recently, and I’m fairly pleased with it. It took a great leap of faith for me to invest $75 in yarn and hope I could muddle through to the end. I did, and I’m glad that I did it.

Now, however, I am working on my second sweater, and I’m starting to think about winging it a bit. You see, I don’t think it’s going to fit right if I follow the pattern. I like my first sweater, but really, the fit isn’t all that it could be. The torso is too short and too wide, and the sleeves are too long. To fit right, I would like it to be one inch shorter in the arms, two inches longer in the torso, and six inches smaller in circumference. I thought the sleeves seemed too long as I was knitting it, but I was afraid that if I didn’t follow the pattern exactly, I’d mess it up. I have since gotten over this mental hurdle.

I have decided that I will not, in the future, obey a pattern if I think it’s not going to fit my body. This may sound obvious, but it’s a pretty big step for me.

I am putting a lot of time into this new sweater. As you can see from the photo (it’s a sleeve, by the way) there is a cabled knotwork pattern around the cuffs and the waistband of the sweater. It looks really nice, and I’ve finally gotten the hang of the pattern, but it’s very, very time consuming. The one sleeve I have completed is really loose. This led me to re-check my gauge, and I found that my gauge is a bit bigger than it should be. (Yes, I did a swatch, and it looked good. I have no idea what happened, but it’s too late now for me to switch to smaller needles) I am now working on the waistband of the body of the sweater, and I see that if I make it the size the pattern tells me ought to fit, it would be approximately the right size for Paul Bunyan. This is partly due to my gauge problem, but I think that even at the right gauge it would have been big. Therefore I have decided on the fly to make it in a smaller size. Here’s hoping it works out all right.