Freckles & Doubt

It's been a horribly busy week, full of stress and angst. (Exam results came out yesterday. Can you tell?). Saturday was another bloody migraine, fortunately prevented by Judicious Drugs from reaching the throwing-up stage, but rife with nausea and aura and the need to lie flat for several hours instead of attending bakercourt's wedding, an omission about which I am still gnashing my teeth. I'm still all pale and headachey and migraine-hungover, and even without that still tire incredibly easily, which means I'm boot-strapping my way through running today's multiple year-end progression checking training sessions via judicious application of chocolate, Earl Grey and energy drinks, and snarling at the last-minutenesses of students. (Couldn't find V, am desolated to report that Spike tastes worse than Red Bull, and has left a thin film of metallic ick over my teeth, as though I've been slugging mercury).

However! Let us die or be upbeat! By way of retaining such remnants of sanity and positive thought as are left to me, I record for posterity the various random validations which have been vouchsafed to me over the last couple of days.

1. In the Department of Self-Indulgent Piano Noodling, spent a happy half hour on Sunday haxOring the correct chords to Paul McCartney's "No More Lonely Nights", which I don't think I've actually heard since the 8Os, but which is, once you've listened to it four times on YouTube and uttered little shrieks of enlightenment at the chord changes, actually a rather lovely tune. That man wrote ridiculously catchy music, which I generally can't hear without thinking about the Hitch-Hiker's Guide bit about happy, lilting, tuneful songs, and Paul McCartney, if he'd written them, wondering what to buy with the proceeds, and thinking probably Essex. Also, power ballads on piano are indecent amounts of florid, sumptuous fun to play.
   
2. Skyrim, while absorbing and beautiful and addictive, is also ridiculously crashy. When I tried, this morning, to get in my designated half-hour of play before rushing off to work, it had developed, overnight, a perfectly new and spontaneous bug which crashed it instantly the moment I tried to load a saved game. Any saved game. Aargh. This caused much chewing of the furniture and a small, doomladen cloud of blue curse words, followed by ten minutes on Google. The gathered wisdom of the ancients (i.e. geeky types in the last two weeks) prompted me to updated my DirectX (was unnecessary, have the up-to-date version), update my graphics card drivers (needed new version, but didn't fix problem), and then reboot, whereupon the crash problem was no more. I love doing that. However minor a victory it is, it fills me with feelings of instrumentality and competence and geeky joy.
   
3. After this morning's training jaunt, in which I was probably lucid and coherent until the last fifteen minutes, the Deputy Dean sent me a joyously unprompted little email congratulating me on an excellent session and my "gift for presenting complex material in a lucid and succinct fashion". He cced it to the Dean. I feel like a smug kitty who's just been scratched on precisely the right spot behind the ears. *purrs*. Also, if they only knew how much of my "gift for presenting complex material in a lucid and succinct fashion" is the direct result of DMing complicated rpg systems like Rolemaster and briefing DMs for tournament modules, they'd ... well, probably be very confused. And surprised. And oddly less approving.

Gosh, that was a good exercise, I have validated myself into a much better mood. To round it off, have a gratuitous and wonderful chunk of Middleman fanfic, written with absolute authenticity and deliriously Middlesque language by the unpronounceable Javier Grillo-Marxuach himself, and notable for its ability to solve one of the most perplexing issues of our day, namely how to phonetically render the noise made by the TARDIS taking off. Fudgety-Bow-Wow, Dubbie!

I'm subscribed to the IT mailing list of my Cherished Institution, mostly because there's a sort of mournful satisfaction in finally receiving the mail which tells you that you haven't had internet for two days on account of a virus/a DoS attack/that worm that targets promiscuous student swappage of memory sticks/an explosion in the server room/the giant squid attack on the undersea cable. Today the notification was of a routine electrical power-down in one of the buildings over the weekend, ostensibly because "A new supply cable needs to be pulled in and livened up." I am fascinated by the word choice. Do you think this is inept use of vocab, or actual technical terms? do electrical engineering types indeed talk about "livening up" a cable when it's connected? It's lovely word choice in some ways because it sounds energetically physical.

I think everymoment recommended M.T. Anderson's feed to me, and I spent a couple of hours yesterday imbibing it in a single, gulping inhale while flat on my back on the sofa (Sid has been all rampageous, with enthusiastic assistance from glandular fever resurgence; I couldn't look at a computer screen without active nausea until about 3pm yesterday and was feeble and spaced enough not to actually feel guilty that I wasn't at work). It's a damned good book, a sort of dystopian near-future young adult thing that's surprisingly dark and real in its depiction of teen relationships and concerns. Mostly, though, I was blown away by the writer's ability to capture not only the delirious speed and flickering change of a data feed plugged straight into your brain, but use of that data by the pervasive, iniquitous, seductive power of corporate consumerism. It's not a cheerful book, despite its hip surface and moments of humour: it's a tragedy, a meditation on the power of consumerism to pervade, to betray and to diminish its participants to a level of unthinking, oblivious naivety which presents itself as pathos rather than culpability. These kids struggle only feebly towards knowledge, context or understanding of either themselves or the rape being perpetrated on their world by the corporate interests which lull them with ownership. The fate of the one main character is tragic because it simply depicts, more quickly and obviously, the fate which awaits them all as capitalism, blindly grabbing, destroys them all. It's an absorbing, terrifying, slightly harrowing read that I wholeheartedly recommend.

Middleman gave us "The Vampiric Puppet Lamentation", last night, an episode tragically low in Goofy Middlemisms, although points for "Bram Stoker's widow!". Suitable vampire references litter the thing, but only this series can entwine Vlad the Impaler with sinister ventriloquists' models in one episode, leading to the interchange which neatly encapsulates the episode:
The Middleman: Dubbie, did he just turn into a bat puppet?
Wendy: Man, I don't even have an opinion.
This show, how much it is loved. By me. And, hopefully, after all these carefully-displayed gems, by most of you lot too.

Bother. My Capacious Handbag o'Doom defaults to a sort of Shub-Niggurath configuration when my MP3 player headphones snarl up with my cellphone charger cable, my camera cable, my tape measure and the random bit of broken-off AV lead that's there because I accidentally snapped it while lugging my dad's TV around. This necessitates the drawing of Elder Signs before I can even start disentangling the tentacles sufficiently to realise that in fact the camera cable, which is the point of the whole exercise, isn't even part of the snarl, because I've packed it neatly into its case. Never be tidy, it's only ever counter-productive. (Also, on a not unrelated note and because various people keep recommending it, The Unspeakable Vault. Both creepy and cute).

I have, however, finally triumphed sufficiently to connect the camera bone to the USB bone, now hear de word of de lord, and thus upload not only some of this weekend's photos, but some of last weekend's as well. We had a Salty Cracker expedition out in the approximate Franschoek direction for lunch yesterday, Bread and Wine at the Môreson wine estate. Lovely place, slightly informal, spacious, and assiduous in moving the whole party out into the shady courtyard the instant it was warm enough to do so. Excellent wine, very good food - not up in the delirious taste experience category of Ginja or Overture, but pretty darned good. The cook makes his own somewhat marvellous charcuterie, which we had for a starter. The dessert menu includes coffee with chocolate truffles, which is simply civilised when one has already overeaten. Also, it's beautiful, and was presenting seriously lovely cloud action, thusly:



Then we came home and watched The Middleman. The Ectoplasmic Panhellenic Investigation is gratifyingly rude about sorority sisters, frequently in wicked imitation, and in the Goofy Middlemisms department gives us "Ghosts of the living!", "by the eyeglasses of T. J. Eckleburg", "Great Caesar's ghost!" and "Holy Wachowski brothers!" Bonus points for ongoing Ghostbusters references, the Second Werewolf Administration, and the obligatory Star Wars quote: "Omega Theta Nu. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Deliriously happy acronym-fu in the Bio-harmonic Universal Multi-Modular Emotional Rerouter. Love this show.

Good lord, insane weekend, made slightly more insane by the fact that I'm trying to type this while a large, fluffy, ginger hobbit attempts to sit alternately on my lap, my wrists and my keyboard. Friday night was movies, of which more anon, and Jewel Tavern, which is now in St. George's Mall and still makes damned fine Chinese food in large quantities. Saturday was the very relaxed, very pleasant, rather drunken wedding celebration of librsa and first_fallen (the drunkenness is all Carlo's fault, him and his shooters, pshaw), with the chance to see all sorts of people I haven't seen in weeks, months or years. Saturday night we broke out another bottle of wine and my new DVD copy of The Middleman, to which we are satisfactorily addicting the Evil Landlord at suitable speed. This morning Michelle abducted me for lunch in Kalk Bay, with champagne. Tonight sven&tanya fed us enormous quantities of lamb. Tomorrow I roll gently into work, almost certainly still drunk, at an advanced hour, and will probably proceed to achieve not much until the fog has cleared, which I confidently predict it'll do around Tuesday. This will be just in time for supper with jo&stv and then book club on Thursday. Memo to self, must really go back to the gym.

Friday night's movie was Up, in 3D, and I cannot recommend it sufficiently highly. Pixar are damned good at what they do, and what they do here is refreshingly lateral, unexpected and at times moving as well as hilarious. Apart from the 3D, which is still magical and actually used with commendable restraint, it's a very good script. The whole thing is slightly off-kilter, galloping off in mad and unexpected directions; the main character is an old man, the main plot doesn't really resemble any Hollywood cliché I can think of, and the whole is leavened with offbeat humour and very human pathos. The initial sequence covering the main character's life with his wife is particularly lovely and extremely lump-in-throatish; the dogs are hilarious, even, or perhaps particularly, to a non-dog-lover.

Where I think the film most succeeds, though, is in its purveyance quite simply of fantasy, in the sense of humdrum existence transported suddenly into colour and excitement: the house and all its rainbow balloons is an extremely potent symbol of uplift, escape and possibility. The slight off-the-wallness of subsequent events is thus perfectly in keeping with what is effectively wish-fulfillment, the happy embrace of the impossible as a fantastic antidote to the mundane. Bonus points for magical floating-balloon-house scenes, Cordon Bleu dog chefs, the Cone of Shame, a randomly demented villain, and Kevin, the giant chocoholic bird who takes on a beautifully-animated and highly endearing life of its own. Above all, though, this is about dreams: how vital they are, how compelling, and how they aren't about what you thought they were about in the first place.

In the Department of Middlemania, Episode 6 is a bit thin on pithy exclamations, although I'm partial to "Holy onions!", "That's dirty pool, I'll clean his clock!", "That really steams my clams!" and "Chocoholics Anonymous!" The episode made me very happy by being intensely rude about boy-bands and plagiarists, and supplying, straight-faced, the phrase "A duck's life hangs in the balance". This show, how I do love it.

Gah. Actual sleep patterns appear to be a luxury in which I am not permitted to indulge. Monday night's drunken movie-watching¹ had its inevitable effect, viz. waking up abruptly at about 2.30am when I actually sobered up, and being unable to recapture sleep beyond a fretful doze, punctuated by affection assaults from the hobbit and concomitant cat-wars on the end of my bed. I was a shambling zomboid thing throughout yesterday - I still don't know how I managed to coherently and (apparently) inspirationally address the faculty scholarship cocktail party at short notice after two glasses of wine - and crashed at 8.45 sharp. Then I woke up at 5.30 this morning and was on campus an hour later, radiating virtue. Today is already feeling very, very long. However! I bugger off early to get my hair cut, followed by a four-day weekend rife with weddings, movies, mad socialising and visits from Mich the No-Longer-Flaxen-Haired-Menace, so it can't be all bad.

Wednesday random linkery is random and Wednesdayish.

• You have to ignore the fact that this is a twinky religious site, because I want to be your personal penguin. Cute. Also, random elderly Monkee.
• Wondermark has an Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator, which some nutter fan immediately programmed. Steampunky. Talking fish, shape-shifting female assassins, condescending tone.
• Just for the demented interests of smoczek, who wants to return to university to study applied statistics and computer graphic design, Information Is Beautiful. And, frequently, rather terrifying.

Middlemania Continues! Episode 4 is somewhat low in Goofy Middlemisms, but I am happy to record "Darn tootin'!", "Lord love a duck!", "Whoa there, Cochise!" and "Great hearts of palm!". Rococo Acronym Proliferation gives us the BTRS scanner and HEYDAR to add to O2STK, and Happy Geek Noises for the Great Steam Laser of 1917 and zombie dialogue in Italian ("Cervelli, cervelli! Devono mangiare cervelli!"). Bonus points for incredibly silly bad-plastic-surgery jokes and the cover story that insists that the villain was "trampled and subsequently eaten by a rhino during a hunting trip". I still love this show.

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¹ Still miffed that "films containing RDJ" is not considered a suitably coherent theme. Just for that, next time it'll be "incredibly silly films about fish." Fish Called Wanda and Life Acquatic. Hah.

Yayness! herne_kzn and his Lovely Companion are returning to Cape Town in the near future! The LC apparently has a job in Gardens, and the Dynamic Duo are looking for a flat in that approximate vicinity. Please would Capetonians keep their ears to the ground for likely opportunities? You can leave (non-lewd) suggestions on herne_kzn's blog or litter the comments here with them.

Gawsh, I'm glad it's Friday. The grad list went up this week, and I've thereafter seen a small, sad trickle of students who, in blissful ignorance of the giant gaping holes in their curriculum choice, fondly imagined they were graduating. Number of students in tears in my office this week: three. Number of insoluble curriculum screw-ups: four. Threats of legal action: one. (Futile, they sign taking liability for their choices whenever they register, thereby acknowledging that curriculum advisors are only human and occasionally miss the aforementioned giant gaping holes). Number of screw-ups for which I was personally responsible, at least as unearthed this week: none, fortunately.

Back to the loving hyper-linguistic arms of The Middleman! Goofy Middleman Exclamations Du Jour: "Katy bar the door!" "As serious as a Hefty bag full of Rottweilers!" "Grapes of Wrath!" "Gobsmackit!" "Aw, phooey!" "Hands across America!" "Sands of Zanzibar!" "Guns of Navarone!" and the perennial favourite, "Dagnabbit!" Bonus pun points for "I've got an heir-lock" and "Elemental, my dear Watson", and sf geek cred for the Frank Herbert Junior High School.

The Department of Non-Evil Evil strikes back! My Evil Landlord ambled amiably into my study on Saturday morning, announced "You won't let me buy you a computer so here's something else instead", and dumped a large, flat box in front of me. This, it transpired, contained a 32-inch flat-screen TV which is apparently mine, mine, mine and never leaving. The whole thing appears to be the result of the weird Germanic self-guilt-trip the EL seems to have embraced since that time the house was robbed because he'd wandered out without setting the alarm or locking the security gate. Both our computers were nicked; I replaced mine without too much hassle since I had the money at the time, and I also decline to point fingers at actions taken under the influence of the early-morning fog. (One time I accidentally joined the navy before my first cup of tea). But there has apparently been Brooding. Now there is transferred guilt on account of the ridiculously expensive nature of the gift, even a jointly-enjoyed gift. This, however, is mostly eclipsed by a large helping of girlish glee. I have ordered the DVD set of The Middleman in celebration. I have a sexy, sexy TV into which I shall crawl happily for the foreseeable future.

Now all we need is for Telkom to get off their butts and install our home ADSL. The absolute lack of home Internet for the last week and a half is making me extremely twitchy, particularly since a DNS glitch in the cardboard-and-string systems of my Cherished Institution wantonly deprived me of internet access for most of yesterday. Techno-jinx still prevailing, apparently. Damned cosmic wossnames. There is a small but real possibility that when the Telkom guys do actually arrive, their mutilated corpses will be tactfully buried in the garden just as soon as they've activated the line and I've ripped them limb from limb with vigour, aplomb and a cheesegrater. Also, internet withdrawal seems to give me backache. Well, phooey.