Freckles & Doubt

It's remotely possible that being a total and irredeemable geek is my Seekrit Weapon, curriculum-advice-wise. If nothing else it gives me innocent joy to assist a student with a tangled curriculum and then spend 20 minutes, as I did a month or two back, dissecting Fallout 4 and our respective experiences over multiple play-throughs. (You were quite correct, Fallout-playing-student. Survival mode, while extremely tricky at lower levels and ultimately requiring minor modding to saves to make it non-frustrating enough for sustained play, is a deeply satisfying thing, I'm so happy you persuaded me to try it. I hope you have a tiny, untraumatic curriculum problem soon so I can tell you all about it).

Today's one was a rather beautiful inner arm tattoo which made me go "oooh, is that Tengwar?!" in girlish excitement. The student got this sort of soul's-awakening look - momentary shuttered expression, you could see him gathering himself to explain the context to a tragically unhip middle-aged administrator, followed by dawning realisation as my actual comment penetrated and he identified against all likelihood a fellow geek who didn't just recognise Tolkien, but the actual script. I wish I could have taken the hat-trick by translating, but alas, my Tengwar is beyond rusty. ("The crownless again shall be king", apparently. Somewhat classic.) At least I could respond, when he said in some relief, "Oh, you're a Tolkien fan!" by pointing wordlessly to Lúthien Tinúviel dancing on my wall.

It's a tiny subset of geeky students to whom I can appeal, but it does help to feel that moment of actual connection. Some things do cross the generation gap.

I fear that geeky consolations are necessary at the moment, as the university landscape is a bit doom-laden. It's all quiet; once again, too quiet. Lectures are suspended for the term, but students are able to access the library and labs, and the buses are running, so technically they are all finishing the semester's work and preparing for exams, which start next week. But it's entirely likely that the protesters are imitating the action of the rake in the grass and will erupt into life as soon as we incautiously step on their tines by trying to actually congregate students for examination purposes. At which point it'll all go to hell in a handbasket. However, I should note for posterity that "tines" is a lovely word. So specific. Precision in language is a very particular pleasure.

Quick Hobbit update: he's still OKish. He didn't respond at all well to the scheduled reduction of his cortizone dose after a week, his condition took a sharp dive, so we had to up it again. This means that the time left on his personal feline clock is probably measured in weeks rather than months; the cancer must be far enough advanced to resist the low doses already. Increasing the dose is giving him a bit of an appetite, at least, although in true feline and hobbitish fashion he is milking this for all it's worth by turning his nose up at expensive kidney-improving kibble. He only becomes truly enthusiastic about food if I hand-feed him bits of cooked chicken from my plate, at which point he snatches them somewhat impolitely and bolts them. I don't feed my cats people-food under any circumstances, usually, but right now I will feed him the blood of the living if that's what it takes. Let's hope it doesn't get that far. (Also, he infallibly bites me when I pill him, so he's getting a reasonable daily dose of blood anyway).

(My subject line quotes "Beren and Luthien", because that level of poignant loss seems vaguely appropriate on a number of levels).

Occasionally my life is surreal. This morning I madly registered 23 rugby players for their year's courses, an early taste of reg hell occasioned by some giant manly rugby tournament they're all dashing off to and for which they are not eligible unless they officially exist on our systems. I would not have survived the morning had I not incautiously consumed a giant slice of mocha cheesecake for breakfast, which cushioned things nicely. (The boingboing recipe. I totally recommend this recipe, it's the only baked cheesecake I've ever made that I felt actually worked, and it's a totally delectable dose of sugar and caffeine, both of which are essential to my registration-surviving strategies.)The rugby players are sweet lads, but two-thirds of the first-years evinced a desire to study Law. What is it with rugby players and Law? It does not compute.

On the subject of people who do lots of exercise, I'm still madly into my brisk evening (or, occasionally, morning) walk around the Common, and feeling much the better thereby. It's a lovely walk, and I'm weirdly even enjoying the happy community feel of all the walkers/ runners/ cyclists/ kids on scooters/ floppy dogs/ nice ladies' walking clubs having chats. But I'm also a bit of an outsider to that crowd, on account of how none of the above tend to represent my essential tribe, viz. geeks. I see this mainly in the t-shirts. Exercisers tend to wear t-shirts indicative of Serious Sports, in the form of rugby shirts, American football shirts (I have no idea), shirts commemorating particular runs or white water rafting trips or hikes other manly/sportly activities, sports commodity brand shirts, or Serious Exercise Shirts With Exciting Support Bits And Radical Cuts. I wear whatever t-shirt happens to be at the top of my two-foot-high pile of random t-shirts I bought on Teh Internets because I like the design and/or sentiment, which means that over the last few walks I have treated the Common to "AND THEN BUFFY STAKED EDWARD, THE END", "KLAATU BERADA NICTO", "Ask Me About My Ray Gun", "OH R'LYEH?", a facsimile of the original edition cover for Orwell's 1984, that Scary-Go-Round cute robot one inscribed "IT IS OK TO BE YOU", the Knights of Good, and Captain Marvel. They are, shall we say, somewhat exotically out of place. The Common's exercise community can be under no illusions that a geek is in their midst. They don't seem to mind - a lot of them smile at me, in fact - but I feel as though I'm rather visibly advertising Difference.

And I was thinking, during one of these excursions, that in fact t-shirts are the modern way that we wear our hearts on our sleeves, very much in the sense of the medieval knight tying his lady's sleeve around his arm before hieing him forth into battle. I wear t-shirts which attest to the things that I particularly love, and for which I wish to be recognised - on some level, because there's a subliminal hope that fellow humans will admit to a love of the same thing, thus short-cutting social interaction. Which is not, in the final analysis, very different to the mad exercisers wearing trophies of races or excursions. But sf geekery is clearly cooler than brand names, even outside its natural habitat. And, on the evidence, considerably more entertaining.

The subject line is the second half of the Shakespeare quote about wearing your heart on your sleeve, which I had totally forgotten was Iago speaking. I loathe Othello with every fibre of my being, it's one of those slow-motion train-smash plays where you simply have to sit and helplessly watch people being obliviously self-destructive idiots, but I have a sneaking fondness for Iago. Efficient villains are worthy of respect.

I do love the essential randomness of the internet. It functions like a physical manifestation of the unconscious of an entire civilisation: all our bizarre subconscious impulses, individual obsessions, odd jokes, inappropriate thoughts, whims, daydreams, nightmares, flung into the public view in bewildering multiplicity and connected with strange, wayward, serendipitous linkages. I have no idea whatsoever how I stumbled across Des Hommes et Des Chatons, but somehow it's ended up in my tabs alongside the Alexander McQueen Autumn/Winter collection (dear gods the beautiful lines) and the finalists in this year's Bad Sex Awards (dear gods the horrible language). "Des Hommes et Des Chatons" has caused me to giggle for the last ten minutes, so I wave it at you in the hopes that it brightens your Friday. Dishy men in poses echoes by cute kitties. How can you go wrong? Also, that's the internet for you right there. Not the least of its charms is the way in which, unlike older and more conventional media, it's been colonised in vast tracts by an essentially female voice.

Subject line from Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times: the answer you receive if you ask Hex (the Discworld's mad computer-analogue) "Why Anything?". More specifically, "Because Everything. ????? Eternal Domain Error. +++++ Redo From Start +++++."

I know there are several nonsense fiends who read this blog, logically enough given my known proclivities, so - Scroob and Co - alert! If you haven't already seen this on BoingBoing, you need to go and have a look. It's a student short-film production of Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, which they're trying to finance on Kickstarter. $20 gets you the DVD. It looks marvellous, visually: I love the slightly deadpan Gothic gloom they've achieved. And Christopher Lee is narrating, which is one of those perfect confluences of voice and content. They don't have a lot of support, currently, although I think it'll climb with the BoingBoing mention, and I think all right-thinking nonsense fiends ought to be encouraging this sort of thing. It's a Snark! Unless it's a Boojum, but what are the odds?

I went in to the framing place in Claremont this morning, to drop off a complicated framing job. They're lovely people, and have done good work for me in the past, but they always look at me a bit funny owing to the fact that it's a slightly classic, pedestrian sort of shop, filled with fine art reproductions and local paintings, and I usually want to frame something-or-other I've acquired off the internet. (My art tastes run decidedly pop). So it was a bit weird when the nice man recognised the Star Wars characters; he didn't know Firefly, but when I said "space western" he rather shamefacedly confessed to a love for Star Trek. (He's a Voyager enthusiast. Someone lend me Voyager.) So, in the midst of pedestrian fine art reproductions we had an animated ten-minute discussion which ranged all over Star Trek, Ridley Scott, Prometheus, Blade Runner and all the Aliens movies, of which he is a fan. It was beautifully incongruous. Our tribe, apparently is everywhere. Lurking. Where you least expect them.

I spent the rest of today grading job applications from psychologists and counsellors and social workers, oh my. The occasional pained yells were at the grammatical and stylistic solecisms in the cover letters. If I had to do this sort of thing more often (and had more authority in the process) no-one would ever get hired. Twenty years teaching university English will give you a lot of deal-breakers.

(The Firefly posters in question are these ones by Secret Alice. I love them. Have a random Captain Tightpants.)

Friday-working-at-home, hallelujah, since I currently feel as though I've made a hamfisted and inexpert attempt to hang myself, failing miserably to produce any positive outcome other than a really sore neck. There are apparently high-pressure pain conduits running from under my ears down my neck and under my chin, where they quite distract me from the sinus headache. This degree of pain is a new one for the glandular wossnames, bless their experimental little hearts; I can only hope that my hapless form is not a lab-rat to a spirited attempt to blow my head off by inflation or constriction.

I have been noodling happily around various work projects all morning, to a sound-track composed entirely of random YouTube linkage (mercifully, the inexplicable yen for ELO, which has occupied most of the week, seems to be over). The usual trail of arbitrary link-following has led to a couple of truly lovely covers of Toto, by variously (a) pub acoustic cover-band guys with excellent voices, and (b) a full a-capella choir. "Africa" is one of those beautifully anthemic pieces with strong harmonies and a rousing chorus that really lends itself to this sort of thing, and I refuse categorically to be embarrassed about my thorough enjoyment of both these versions.



(The Perpetuum Jazzile version is absolutely worth waiting through the slightly lame rain-simulation at the start, although I have to give them props for the effectiveness of their thunder. Also, latent Belladonna experience makes me heartily jealous of their tenors).



Finally, Doctor Horrible gave me the vague idea that Felicia Day's voice was a bit thin and quavery. Apparently not. She kicks butt in this one, which is also insanely cute and catchy.



Now I shall set about ruthlessly re-defining myself as an academic in HR jargon, and writing plaintive remonstrances to the Dean about mentorship programmes. I like Fridays. Work is done by mystic processes while pretending to be something else.

Aargh. Builders on scaffolds are using drills and jackhammers to scrape plaster off the walls around my window. Other builders are re-plastering. Still others are scraping off my windows the solidified plaster detritus from yesterday's identical operation six feet higher up. The noise is of the indescribably penetrating and tooth-jarring order which is causing me to actively look forward to going to the dentist this afternoon. At least I'll be able to flee my office.

There being a tragic hiatus in my Veronica Mars watching (Seasons 2 & 3 arrive today, calloo, callay!) wolverine_nun lent me the first couple of seasons of Chuck, which she enjoyed and which I've been vaguely wanting to test-drive for a while. On the surface it seems right up my alley - fluffy, undemanding watching, with a reasonable degree of humour and self-reflexive irony, and the kind of thrillery/actiony format which also grooves my ploons. (I'm a sucker for car chases and explosions and OTT fight choreography and other icons of the mindless action genre). But it's not doing it for me, and I'm trying to work out why.

A lot of it is doing it for me. I like the premise, and the ridiculously tongue-in-cheek concept of the Intersect, with all its cheesy and unlikely images. I love the CIA/NSA rivalry, and Adam Baldwin in this role; I genuinely like Chuck himself, who is dopey and geeky and endearing, and hapless not quite to the point of irritation. I like Sarah, and I love the interactions between Chuck and his sister. I think, on mature reflection, that the series becomes literally unwatchable (as in, I get up and go out of the room for five minutes so it can play an excruciating scene through without me having to watch) around the character of Morgan. Hi, I'm Extemporanea. I Get All Protective Of Geeks.

This is nerd-humour, but I'm finding it nasty. Morgan is almost entirely without redeeming feature: his social ineptitude and rhino-hide insensitivity make him actively painful to watch. It's a one-dimensional, horribly stereotypical, rather sadistic portrayal: apparently his only function in the series is to make life difficult and embarrassing for Chuck. Morgan is The Hero's Cross To Bear: I'm on the sixth episode of the series, and in terms of his own good qualities, points of interest, elements with which the viewer can empathise, there's nothing. Chuck is a geeky stereotype that's actually well-rounded; Morgan's just a foil, and one you're encouraged to laugh at rather cruelly. I can't take it. It's poisoning the whole thing for me. Which is a pity, because I rather want to see how the whole ridiculous premise works out. It looks like fun, but fun I can't have. Bother.

Now I shall go to the dentist, braced for the nasty, expensive little noise which results when a dentist peers into your mouth and does the sharp intake of breath indicating that at some unspecified stage in the last few weeks a very expensive crown came randomly adrift and you accidentally swallowed it without noticing.

I'm very full of excellent Asian cuisine from Haiku, which was this month's Salty Cracker. I've had a very nice day working from home, and being both unbugged by students and insanely productive. I have wrangled orientation budgets and credit transfers and weird student email queries with cheerful dispatch. My weekend is full of nothing in the way of work, and several things in the way of happy socialising, except not too many, so I'll still have time to restore the soul by pottering around gardening and sewing and baking. (God, I'm domestic. I shall have to sling some Smallville in there just because). I am clearly coming out of the Horror That Is The Start Of The Year, and am in a benign space which calls for an anti-rant-list. Indulge me!

Administration is one of those things I'm good at mostly because I hate it and will have it done as quickly and efficiently as possible so that I can get on with fun, useful stuff like reading CakeWrecks. That being said, I also like systems; I appreciate the elegance of a well-oiled machine, and respect those who respect the machine and put their energies into removing the grit from its wheels. These people are, alas, few and far between. One realises quite how rare they are when one does actually run across a system that works, leaving one stunned and unable to parry in the best possible way. The South African online tax returns are a case in point. They work. They're elegantly put together and designed to be intuitive and reduce your chance at making mistakes. The other two joy-inducing loci of actual efficiency in my life at large are Loot, and Imaginet.

I blush to admit the size of the monthly book/CD/DVD habit I have built up on Loot. It's probably approaching about a thousand rand a month, which is the unmistakeable sound of Extemp hitting disposable income for the first bloody time in her life. Loot is South Africa's baby Amazon, except it's not an evil empire. They can get almost anything I want, and my sf/fantasy/comic book/music tastes are eclectic and wayward and tend towards the cult. Their wishlists are beautifully constructed and email you to alert you to things becoming available, or going down in price. They send me emails when they've posted an order, and the items always arrive at the post office, impeccably packed, within 24 hours. About once a year I receive an apologetic email to say that there's been a problem with an order and it won't arrive within the minimum projected time. Twice in a four-year relationship they've had to cancel an order because their supplier didn't have it. One book order was misprinted, and they replaced it immediately. One multi-disk TV series had a blank disk in it, and they not only ordered a replacement, they emailed me to say that the replacement had arrived but they'd tested it and the same disk was blank, please hold on while they re-order another one from a different supplier. Their email helpline is quick, courteous and given to actual spelling and grammar. They apologise when something goes wrong. At least part of the reason behind my ginormous shopping addiction is because they're so pleasant to use. I love Loot.

The other organisation I love is Imaginet. The hideosity that is the Telkom experience makes you lose all hope in actual intelligent life at the other end of a phone helpline. Imaginet, on the other hand, employs nice geeky young men who are polite, articulate and know what they're doing. I've just disrupted my perfectly fine working ADSL line by changing my login username, on the grounds that it was still in my dad's name and I was finding it mildly distressing to keep running across it. The actual login name change took, I kid you not, all of 35 minutes - I emailed asking how to go about changing it, they mailed back half an hour later to say "It's done, just reset your router." Of course, changing the router settings is a bizarrely arcane process involving a totally badly-written user interface opaque to geek or non-geek alike, which I never remember how to access and have to be talked through from scratch. We ended up having to factory reset the bloody thing, which entailed me crawling around on the floor, phone stuck to ear, to prod the hole at the back with the official straightened paperclip dingus, without being able to see what I was doing because the computer and router are all cabled neatly into the desk and the cable's too short. The nice Imaginet geek was lovely about it: patient and clear and not in the least condescending, and apparently mildly amused by my running dialogue with the cat (Hobbit assumes that these sorts of complicated operations are run entirely for his benefit, and insists on sticking his nose in more or less continuously). The Imaginet helpline makes me deeply miss dating computer programmers. Something about the way their minds work.

I am planning to have a lovely weekend, with working internet and no orientation to run and the latest stash of books (more Jo Walton, the dragon one, and A Superman For All Seasons, which has dreamily beautiful artwork). I hope yours will be likewise.

Cape Town is ungodly hot today: honestly, those of you in sub-zero temperatures in the northern hemisphere, I'll swap, any time. 36^o today. I had to go out to Fish Hoek, where the entire world and their favourite armadillo were seething around on the beach, shoulder to shoulder, sizzling gently. Heatwaves in bumper-to-bumper traffic are not fun. Also, we apparently have two more days of this, and I go back to work tomorrow. In addition to being a small limp melted puddle of thing, I tragically have to take my mother to the airport in an hour or so, after way too short a time of The Holiday That Virgin Atlantic Screwed Up. Fortunately I'm too heat-stressed to work up a good head of steam on railing bitterly at the cosmic wossnames.

Despite all this I'm actually in a ridiculously good mood, as a direct result of the fact that the Evil Landlord has finally managed to negotiate his post-Australia-return insane work schedule to actually see me for more than three and a half minutes in passing. He bought me a sonic screwdriver for Christmas. Apparently Australia has lots of sonic screwdrivers, who knew? It's the Eleventh Doctor's one, it has a blue light and an extendy claw bit and makes the proper sonic screwdriver noise and everything. It's regressed me approximately to a five-year-old in a state of unholy glee. I would be a sad geeky fangirl, except that I'm an extremely happy geeky fangirl. Next up, those USB memory sticks shaped like a Tardis. They go "vworp vworp". In not entirely unrelated news, which of you fellow happy geeks scored the Christmas Special? I need to wave my sonic screwdriver at it.

*wanders off to re-attach barbed wire and resonate concrete*

Oh, dear, it's a Red Bull day - or at least a V day, given that wolverine_nun introduced me to this rather more palatable equivalent, and there's still a can in my cupboard. I'm very stressed at the moment, and it's exacerbating my insomnia to new and baroque heights. Last night I became convinced that my bedroom smelled funny, with a sort of sharp, chemical pong, as though a local factory had suddenly ignored all pollution controls and was emitting something sulphuric and slightly charcoally. My throat closed, my eyes streamed, I coughed and sneezed, and sleep, laughing cruelly at the sleeping pills I fed it, eluded me quite. I wandered around the house for ten minutes trying to isolate the smell, and couldn't smell it anywhere else. When I went back into my bedroom, I couldn't smell it there, either. I think I may have dreamed it, in that half-asleep hypnagogic state which is all I achieve for about four hours at a time when insomniac, and my sinuses obligingly jumped on the bandwagon. I finally got to sleep around 3am. It was ugly. And I have to be enthusiastic and inspired about the Harry Potter movies for an hour and a half this afternoon. Aargh.

However, by way of consolation, Randall Munroe has updated the Map of Online Communities, which I would still give to my internet culture students if I thought they'd get a fraction of it. Sigh.

The V is making me feel rather more awake, but now my teeth are furry. Phooey.