We just got the first series of Stargate from some friends (who also gave us back Firefly, hurrah).  I’ve only ever seen odd episodes here and there, and never these first few that really set it up, so I’m enjoying it.  J thinks it’s all a bit B-grade, but I’m willing to overlook that.  At least there are some vaguely interesting story-lines, and there are some differences between each episode… unlike Alias….  And the characters are interesting too:  I remember some weird stuff happening to Daniel Jackson, but I have no idea what series that was in, so I might have a long time to wait until I found out exactly what that was all about.  I’m willing to wait – and at least I won’t have to find it for myself:  the friends I mentioned have all 9 seasons of it.

I got hacked!!  I got hacked!  Those… those… unmentionables!  I cannot believe it.  Some Portugese, Argentinian prats.  I tried to BabelFish it, but it didn’t manage to translate all of it, to any extent that I could understand.  I refuse to say what was on it, because that just gives them more publicity. 

Argh!  I cannot believe I got hacked! 

 And like they would have got any publicity from my site anyway.

 And I would like to say a great big THANKS to Dave The Man, who got me un-hacked and cleared all the spam comments from the site too.  Yay!

I finally got around to buying and reading this book, a collaboration by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter, and a continuation of the Time Odyssey series (started with The Light of Other Days, or something like that).

It was excellent. I think I’ve said bother that I don’t usually like it when books go backwards and forwards between different characters, but these two manage it well and the story still managed to flow well. The characters were interesting and well-realised. There wasn’t too much physics and stuff, which is always good by me (the first stuff of Baxter’s that I read was a bit too science-heavy for me) – although there were some interesting descriptions of what goes on in the sun, and why/how the ‘sunstorm’ of the title happened. I really like that they have a little appendix at the end, too, explaining where someone can go read further about some of the science and technology mentioned in the book (like space elevators – they have always fascinated me, I think since Kim Stanley Robinson and the Mars series).

Anyway, a fun book.

I never thought I would say this, but I finally found a mainstream-ish film that is even a little bit too weird for me. I wanted to see this film at the cinema, but never got a chance, so I finally got it out and watched it today. Weird, truly weird. In the end I guess it went somewhere, but I wasn’t sure it would, for a very long time.

It is a very clever movie – and although I don’t know Cousteau stuff enough, I’m sure there are plenty of little jabs and puns in there that I don’t get. The cast was pretty entertaining; I love Anjelica Huston, but I was a bit bemused by Cate Blanchett’s ultra-English accent – what was the point of it? There weren’t any Pommy jokes or anything. I’ve never been a huge Owen Wilson fan, but I guess he acquitted himself well enough; Willem Defoe was pretty good – he seems to be a very good character actor. And it was nice to see Noah Taylor in there, too!

Overall, I think I liked it, although I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again. I also wouldn’t bother to buy it, as some friends of mine have. But certainly an amusing movie for a holiday afternoon.

I wouldn’t mind having the Games on the TV in the background, really. There are, however, three obstacles that I simply cannot overcome:
1. Lawn bowls
2. Mark Nicholls
3. Shooting.

And I’m not a huge fan of rugby, either.

Gotta admit, I was disappointed. I finally got around to getting this out – have been meaning to watch it since it came out, was feeling like a traitor to both my generation and my scifi nerdy compadres – but it just wasn’t that good.

It was too short, I think. There was pretty much no character development, and that was a serious defect for my mind. There was little to no explanation of motivation for various actions… really, it was just a bit painful.

I also spent a large slab of the movie (at 90 min, that’s not such a long time) trying to figure out why I knew the name Henry Rollins, who has a part. And then I realised that he was in music, and tried to remember what band he was in… and then J pointed out it was the Henry Rollins Band… oops.

That would be 1066. Since I started teaching it, I knew there were two battles – one at Stamford Bridge, between Harold Godwinson (the Saxon, who was crowned king of England, and got beaten by William at Hastings) and Harald Hardrada (king of Norway), in the September. I’ve had this book, by Frank McLynn, for a few years now and never seem to have got around to reading it through. Finally, I have.

It was a good book, overall. I really liked the way he looked at the three main stars, and also a bit at Tostig; I’ve found that really useful, and no doubt I will use it at school. For a gal who isn’t much into military history, I also was able to follow through with what he said about the battles themselves (mostly), so that was something of a success. The main problem, though, was that a few time McLynn made statements and didn’t bother to back it up, or even give a reference. So that was a bit irritating, but overall it is a useful reference book for the period.

Now, to read my bio of William…

I just don’t care very much, frankly. Half a million people going into the city tonight for the opening?? Don’t people have better things to do? I guess I can understand it to some extent – it’s an excuse for a party, I suppose, and maybe there are people who genuinely feel some sort of ?patriotism? for Australia/the Commonwealth (although quite how you would feel it for something that really only exists for plebs every four years, I don’t know…).

Anyway. I am old and cynical.

I do rather worry that I will be sucked into watching some of it on TV.

A new-ish Tom Holt, which I got the other day. Pretty entertaining. I can’t help but feel that I am maybe getting over Holt a bit, which is sad – I enjoyed it, all right, and read it very quickly, but I didn’t quite get the same amusement out of it that I remember. Maybe I am getting too used to his quirky style, so I’m no longer surprised by the quirkiness of it. Anyway; I’m not too jaded yet, as I will still keep reading what he brings out.

It was an entertaining read – dragons being able to turn into humans (and goldfish) offer lots of potential, and he played with it. I quite like his outrageous use of being able to do anything, and the fact that he often doesn’t bother to explain it too much – or that he is perfectly happy to say that it was pure serendipity. Cheeky, is probably the best way to describe it.

I went to the Immigration Museum for the first time yesterday, and I must admit that I did not actually look at any of the immigration stuff at all. I only went to look at the Greek stuff that is currently there, on loan from a museum in Athens. I thought it was all Classical stuff, but it was actually stuff from neolithic times right up to the nineteenth century. The medieval/Byzantine-era stuff was pretty cool, but I really loved the classical gear. I frequently caught myself thinking “oh yeh, nice enough…” – and then realising it was something made about 3000 years ago, so not only do you have to appreciate the sheer artistry of the piece, but you also have to appreciate the fact that it has survived at all. There was pottery, jewellery, a couple of heads of statues… it was awesome.

The one complaint I have is with regard to the captions. The captions themselves were quite informative, but matching the caption with the artefact was sometimes quite difficult – because although each piece was numbered, and so were the captions, the pieces weren’t always arranged in numerical order! For no reason in particular, far as I could see, so it just seemed random. And if they wanted to arrange them that way, why didn’t they just re-number them? Anyway. Small issue.