Mark: Its not you, Betterman is um.... Slightly less coherant than I am when I'm pondering how old the french fries under my bed are.

--Ben

I was staring in jaw-dropping awe as I watched Betterman, because it was so incoherent. It exhibited all the worst sins of anime writing:

- Everything that happens in the show has an elaborate pseudoscientific explanation -- "pseudo" because they're just making crap up. These "explanations" explain nothing because they share no context with the viewer, who doesn't live in a fantasy world where telomerase turns people into superheroes. Despite its uselessness, this explanation is then forcibly fed to the viewer in lengthy dialogue scenes.
- No sense of place due to poor direction or cheap animation. During the particular scene I'm describing, the best I could come up with from the weird abstact environment is that the characters were half an inch tall and holding their conference inside a ventilation duct.
- At random times during the show, previous episodes are recapped in gruesome detail -- so much detail that it's impossible to keep track of what happened before vs. what's happening now.

After twenty minutes of this my head was spinning. I think the fundamental problem is that the writers were so in love with the context they'd invented that they could no longer relate to the viewers -- instead they explain and explain and explain and then scratch their heads when everyone just looks at them blankly. In the end it is likely that the only reason the show is popular at all is because of the short skirt Hinoki wears.

-- Mark

May be a bit off topic, but I figure this is probably one of the best places to ask. On average, I'm going through a book and a half a week, and have at this point exhausted my pile of books to read. I was wondering if the group could suggest any books or authors that either A) Are good reads and will keep me from killing someone durring my lunchbreak or B) Are big and heavy and will help me kill those people who bother me durring lunch.

--Ben

Edited by author 02-12-2004 11:44 PM
I'll plug two authors I always plug, Vernor Vinge and Jack McDevitt. Both write science fiction. Both write heavy books. Lois McMaster Bujold writes very fast-reading science fiction that's easy to get into. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash was the last good cyberpunk novel.

If you like history, I recommend the books Connections and The Day the Universe Changed by James Burke. Heavy books, eminently readable. A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman is a fun but intelligent history of the 14th century (Black Plague, Black Prince, Chaucer, etc.) that must mass ninety kilos.

The Harry Potter books are heavy and also readable. I thought I'd hate them, but I didn't.

--Jon
Most of the things I've read lately have "White Paper" at the top of them, so I'm not that much help.

Ben: I believe you'd greatly enjoy Neal Stephenson's first two novels, The Big U and Zodiac. His writing quality kind of goes down gradually after those two, though his thrillers written as "Stephen Bury", Interface and Cobweb, are fairly readable and if you want a heavy object to prop open doors or smash spiders with, Cryptonomicon can't be beat. I'll have to think about other authors.

Alyce: "Currency exchanges" are these weird, vaguely disreputable businesses you can go to in Chicago to get all possible random bureaucratic and legal nonsense taken care of at once: vehicle registration, parking stickers, money orders, bankruptcy, incorporation, you name it. There's about a trillion of them here on the North Side. I have no doubt they're all owned by the Mob or Haitian street gangs or something, but at least I didn't have to wait for my sticker.

-- Mark

So.

My office has officially moved to Norristown.
We moved last week, and if you happen to be driving on Norristown's main street (God help you) then you can see the new "Green" building for the PA Department of Environmental Protection's Southeast Region. Yippee!!

Actually, the building is quite nice. 10/100/1000 Cisco switches. All CAT 5e or CAT6 wiring. The phones are CAT5e wiring. The IT staff has a pseudo computer training room.

We even have an open atrium.

And the place doesn't smell like mold, dead animals, and the rotting discontent of state workers.

Of course during the week of the move, my supervisor decided we must go to SQL Server 2000 training in Mechanicsburg [near Harrisburg]. Which also means that things like my mix CD didn't even get touched. Doh!

And now to go put out fires.

Humans are vampires for trees. No, really. Maple syrup anyone?

Blue Route Corridor Residents: Anybody interested in having a late lunch at Senora's Mexican in West Chester this Saturday?

I've been keeping a book log since January, which you're of course free to check out (even comment on, should the spirit move you). I don't know the sort of books you're interested in, but of the ones I've read recently, the best are:

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde was also cute. A little to much so in places, but quick fun.

--Fred

Edited by author 02-13-2004 12:33 PM
It seems fitting to me that on a day when hundreds of gay and lesbian couples are cramming San Francisco's city hall for same-sex marriage licenses, I find out about these two penguins at the New York Aquarium.

They're here, they're queer. Get used to it.

-Alyce
Love is all around.

I'll put in a second vote for A Distant Mirror which I found highly readable and have a copy of in paperback that can be loaned out on long-term lending if you want me to bring it to the next meeting. It's not like I need to read about the 14th century every day, you know...

Also, I've been enjoying the George R. R. Martin books, the ones that start with A Game of Thrones. They're sprawling, cat-killer-sized novels. I also liked The Great Hunger which is five hundred pages of very interesting nonfiction about the Irish potato famine. Last Christmas, I picked up a copy of The Crimson Petal and the White which was eight hundred odd pages of allegedly Victorian London from a whore's perspective. I found it a fun way to spend a winter's day, curled up in front of the fire. Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence is a nice read, if not particularly bludgeon-sized. Oh, and if you have any desire to read Moby Dick, I know where there's a reasonably entertaining online guide to the book...

-- Jessica
I'm assuming you have already read all the Pratchett that you want to read.

Tuchman wrote (has written?) about seven large books about history, pretty much all of which are entertaining reading. The March of Folly is my personal favorite. Along those same lines, Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is also a lot of fun in addition to being a big thick book. Oo, I'm so erudite.

If you are looking for "turn your brain off" reading, I will guiltily admit to consuming the Bolo short story collections and John Nance's cornball airplane thriller novels. I guarantee that these contain absolutely no redeeming literary value.

-- Mark

Edited by author 02-13-2004 04:04 PM
Tuchman also wrote The Guns of August, which won a Pulitzer Prize. It's about the beginning of World War One, and the mind-numbingly stupid things done by the war's leaders.

As to "wrote" vs. "has written," Tuchman died while I was in college back in the 80s.

--Jon
"The power to command frequently causes failure to think." --Barbara Tuchman

Everyone saw this one, right?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/02/13...ctors.ap/index.html

-- Jessica

In your face, Prince Abdullah.

The first thought that went through my mind upon seeing the article was indeed that all the farmers will love it. Maybe if they're all growing corn for ethanol we can get rid of those stupid subsidies at last.

-- Mark

For the Feb 12, 2004 link to relativity in words of four letters or less, at http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/txt/al.html

See http://www.cinxia.com/afap/idxMar03.shtml

-- Jessica
There is probably something wrong with me that I remember trivial things from that long ago...

According to the "Real Age Test," my real age is 26.9, based on my health habits. Of course, the calendar says I'm 33, so this makes me quite happy.

The cool thing about this site is that they also give you tips on how to be healthier, if you're not entirely happy with your results.

http://www.realage.com/

-Alyce