Nope.

[freckles_and_doubt]

Today's Rant List:

1. Vague students whose idea of curriculum advice is to plump down in the chair in my office and tell me that they want to study computers. They are entirely unable to tell me which aspect of computers, or even why they want to study them. Also, we're the Humanities faculty and don't even offer computer studies.
   
2. Distressed parents who cry in my office because daughter isn't doing as well as hoped, and who continually interrupt my careful reassurances to engage in further hair-tearing which demonstrates only too clearly that they haven't been listening to a word I've said.
   
3. Scratchy contact lenses. Bloody expensive scratchy contact lenses.
   
4. Admin. The thing I most hate about this damned admin is that it's all little, scrappy bits of thing that skitter away from my attention. Give me a good, solid, hefty chunk of project and I'm fine, but this bitty approach is like being nibbled to death by invisible ADD mice. Then again, one major indexing project coming up, so possibly I should be careful what I wish for.
   
5. Students are clogging the bandwidth again. Soon they will be clogging it with their blood! Then I can view gossip blogs in peace.
   
6. Parcelforce. (Because I promised Scroob, and gestating ladies need moral support).

I shall console myself with linkery. Has The Large Hadron Collider Destroyed The World Yet? (Nicked from first_fallen. Hee.)

And Jane Austen's Batman, an exercise in voice which leaves me paralysed with admiration.

Still X-Filesing, since I'm having hissy fits about my Evil Landlord's apparently complete inability to tell me that he'd like to watch Farscape: he stands around in the middle distance and looks puppy-dog instead, a particular form of non-communication which is giving me a strong desire to kick him, and is also causing me to bloody-mindedly watch X-Files until he damned well asks me not to. On the upside, I'd forgotten about Bruce Campbell guest starring in that one about the demon babies. Beautifully cast: he has the perfect combination of square jaw and not-quite-real emoting for the role.

I shall also console myself with dalmatians. I am Not A Dog Person, but I grew up on Dodie Smith, who is, as you all know, she says threateningly, the author of not only I Capture The Castle, the perfect novel of the adolescent viewpoint on life, love and family eccentricity, but The Hundred And One Dalmatians, made famous by the Disney adaptation, and its practically unknown sequel, The Starlight Barking. I'm fond of Dalmatians because of its comfortable, slightly dreamy, hyper-correct English tone, and of course for Cruella de Vil, absolutely the perfect villainess, with her drawing room panelled in red streaky marble like raw meat, her half-white, half-black hair and her Absolutely Simple White Mink Coat. But I love The Starlight Barking because it's more or less hallucinatory in feel. The hundred-plus dalmatians, living happily in an English country house with their devoted owners the Dearlys, wake up one morning to find out that all humans and other animals are fast asleep, only dogs are awake. Also, random canine telekinetic and telepathic powers appear to have manifested. They travel up to London, where the runt of the original litter, Cadpig, is now the Prime Minister's dog. I love the slightly satirical scenes of the dog cabinet, run by all the ministers' dogs, as they try to come to terms with the suddenly narcoleptic country; I also love the happy, dreamlike enablement of all the new powers. The books have always offered a slightly twee sense of animal identity, but the characters have a great deal of charm and the book's moral lesson is more than somewhat heart-warming. Mostly, though, I love this book because it's simply weird.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

As I expected, the "Has The Large Hadron Collider Destroyed The World Yet?" page contains a small Easter egg, visible if you view source.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I am made inexpressibly happy by the fact that the page has an RSS feed. That's serious commitment to the joke, that is. Quite made my Friday.

Mmm, Java

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

I remember just enough of first year CompSci to get it :P.

Re: Mmm, Java

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Eeep, more than one easter egg.
I refer to the comment in the page source:

"if the lhc actually destroys the earth & this page isn't yet updated please email mike@frantic.org to receive a full refund"

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Bah! I saw a copy of The Starlight Barking at Longbeach mall today and walked right past it!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Be warned, it's kiddielit for fairly young kiddies, and can be cutesy.

Queen Takes Rook

[(Anonymous)]

I saw the film version of I Capture The Castle, which was pretty good, and only helped by having a young Henry Cavill in it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300015/

pK.

Re: Queen Takes Rook

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the film, the few reviews I've seen were not good. I've always vaguely wanted to see it because it also stars Marc Blucas, notable for being Buffy's military boyfriend Riley, for whom I've always had a soft spot. (He's such a doofus!)

Links

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

It's actually from confluence :P. She's a good pusher of cool links (and potatoes).