No excuse of malfunctioning phone lines this time, just the odd antisocial malaise that seemed to come with being unemployed, for me at least. I got a lot done, though not as much as I could have/should have.*

I am employed now, though, yay, in a fairly recession-proof industry. Yep, R:tAG and I are now, efficiently enough, laboring side by side in the same salt mine. The interview was amusing; I have never before had my interviewer say, seriously, “We’re just a bit worried that you don’t play enough games.” The UI design challenges of a game, especially an MMO, are intriguingly different from those of a control system application. I’m having to think again. Ow.

The other problem with such a long pause is all the little gems that I thought at the time “I really ought to remember to blog about this” are of course lost in the mists. Here are the few that survived:

The movie Bon Cop Bad Cop is worth watching, I think, in a black-comedy kind of way.

Watchmen was a really reasonable adaptation of the graphic novel. About the only things I didn’t much like were Bubastis (why bother?) and ::clears throat nervously:: the soundtrack. Not that I didn’t like each song (I don’t really need to get the movie soundtrack because I own the majority of the songs already). I just didn’t think the soundtrack did what a soundtrack should; I thought it competed with the movie instead of supporting it.**

There was an exhibit at the De Young Museum where local florists used a work of art as an inspiration for a floral display. It was really fantastic. Some floral arrangements were amazing copies, some were more “inspired by”, but it was very interesting. More photos are here.


Coraline
was a pleasure.

Repo: A Genetic Opera
was extraordinarily disturbing and fascinating. Brazil meets Sweeny Todd with a dash of Sin City?



* All costumes are not complete, all minis are not painted. On the other hand, a lot of knitting is knat.

** For me, on a lot of levels. First level was the simple distraction of “Ooh, I like this song,” followed by “So this is supposed to be an alternate timeline but events were still similar enough for this band to write this song?” followed by “I wonder if they subtly changed the song to reflect the alternate timeline?” followed by “If they didn’t, why did they pick this song?” followed by “Oh, what just happened?”

Well, sorry for the hiatus. For once it’s not exactly my fault; our landline and internet were down for four days five days almost a week and while we still had our iPhones, they are not so good for composing long stretches of text.* But today the nice technician dug up a flowerbed and fixed the problem, so we are connected again.

The endless rain may have been a factor in the line failure, but I still cannot be unhappy about it because it has been so dry for so long here. Apparently, though, all this rain still isn’t helping reservoir levels because it’s all soaking into the parched ground. Oh well, it’s better than not having the rain.

Being incommunicado like that was especially inconvenient for me because I am once again jobless. The startup I was working for is now an enddown. But to be honest, I’m enjoying being able to catch up on some completely non-computer related commissions** and since we have no debts, no dependants and no expensive addictions*** I can take some time off. I’m just irritated that this didn’t happen when we had visitors; I could have spent a lovely time with them. Ah well.

And I am still managing to amuse myself, of course. Stitches West was last Friday and I bought a bit of yarn. A little bit. Hardly anything, really. And the next day R:tAG had to go to WonderCon so I went up and joined him and wandered around the dealer floor a bit and met a Surprise Guest:

Hee! Adam Baldwin actually looks younger and thinner in person than he did as Jayne, which isn’t usually how these things work but he seems like a really nice guy, and was very kind to fans.

And then we went to see Video Games Live because we’d missed it at GenCon last year, and it was excellent. The Fox Theater is a beautiful old building, too, and they stock Hendrick’s Gin at the bar, so I heartily endorse it.



* Plus some websites don’t work so well with the mobile flavour of Safari.

** Costuming and mini-painting.

*** I keep telling myself that yarn is relatively cheap. You know, compared to heroin.

 

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