My Ramblings

When a Good Man Goes to War Review

jfinsel@finsel.com — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:31:13 GMT

Demons run, when a good man goes to war;
Night will fall and drown in silence, when a good man goes to war;
Friendship dies and true love lies,
Night will fall and darkness will rise, when a good man goes to war;
Demons run and count the cost, battle is won but the child is lost.

Ever since the reboot of Doctor Who in March of 2005, the Doctor has been different from the original series. Not so different that you didn’t know it was the Doctor, but a Doctor who had been transformed. We learn, early on, that he is the last of his kind, that he survived the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks. Later we learn that he claimed responsibility for the destruction of both races. This was a Doctor who had been hammered on the forge of war in a way that added a keen edge, but did that edge change the basic tenor of his being?

That’s a question Steven Moffat has been exploring far more deeply than Russell T. Davies did, and I think this episode is best summed up by River Song when she says, “This is The Doctor’s darkest hour. He will rise higher than ever before and than fall so much further.” It’s also the day we find out far more about the enigmatic River Song. If you haven’t seen the episode, go no further, spoilers below the break

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A Different Kind of Bug

jfinsel@finsel.com — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:13:02 GMT

So, a few weeks back, I ended up buying myself an R/C Helicopter. It’s huge magnitudes of better than the last one I bought, that I was never able to get to work, the extra 10 for a gyroscope makes it much better. Granted, I’m still working on my piloting skills but the best part of this has been a certain cat’s reaction to it.

I’ll grant that I look forward to being able to buzz the kitties with it once I have enough skill, but Sheba is intensely interested in the chopper. Whenever I have it out she’ll crouch and watch it. When it crashes, she’ll be over to sniff at it until I take it away. Last night, I used the controller built in charger to charge it and had it on the end table while Nae and I watched TV. When we are watching TV, Sheba will frequently sit on the end table, but last night I realized she was sitting with a fixated gaze on the helicopter, a point driven home when I saw her tentatively tap it with her paw.

So I put the copter away for the night.

This morning, I’m sitting in my office, working, and she jumps up next to the desk where I’ve got a spot for her to lay while I pet her. Except she was bolt upright. So I looked and followed her gaze over to the helicopter. She just stared and stared until I moved it.

I ‘spect I’ll have to start locking it away to prevent “accidents” between my Siamese and her new nemesis.

Everyone Should Have a Helen Chariton in Their Lives

jfinsel@finsel.com — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:47:59 GMT

I hope that you know a Helen Chariton, or perhaps you know or knew the actual Helen Chariton. According to a report on HighBeam, she was 81 in 2003 which would have made her in her 50s when I knew her in the early to mid-70s. When I met her she was librarian at the Canastota Public Library. I remember that building well, a large brick building with a stairway just inside the main doors that led upstairs to where the children/young adults section was. My first library card was a golden ticket that enabled me to leave the world behind and explore a vast imagination.

Through it all, Helen Chariton was a travel agent extraordinaire. She introduced me to Glooscap and Malsumis; I can still remember where all of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books were shelved, on the first freestanding bookcase along the bottom. Every summer's reading program she helped schedule journeys through local legend, history and far-flung adventures. She always had time to share not only her love of reading but her knowledge, and she seemed to intuitively know what books I needed to read, to stretch my exploration of imagination to the utmost. It was Mrs. Chariton who introduced me to Dashiell Hammet's Sam Spade and "the, uh, stuff that dreams are made of" in book form, though I enjoyed Bogart's version as well. In fact, after we moved I discovered that I still had that book checked out, though I'm not sure what happened to it in the intervening years.

My family moved from Canastota in the late 70's, and I was very disappointed in the local library. I was fortunate that there were other libraries not too far away and ended up taking many a journey at the Fairfield County Library, but those were all journeys of self-exploration as I never found a travel-guide there to replace the role Helen Chariton played in my life.

I was richer for having her in my life and I hope that everyone has someone to play that role in their lives. I know that my Nae does that for our grandchildren and I hope that I do that, to some extent.

So I hope that you have a Helen Chariton in your life, to fuel the joy of reading, to help you to explore your imagination until you reach a point that it is second nature to do so.

LiveJournal Tags: Helen Chariton,Love of Reading,Libraries,Librarians

True Facts!

jfinsel@finsel.com — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:53:50 GMT

Fact of Life:

After Monday and Tuesday...
even the calendar says
W T F.

The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice and Men

jfinsel@finsel.com — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:43:00 GMT

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley
Robert Burns

This was to be a relaxing and enjoyable weekend, but, as Wee Robbie Burns says, things gang aft agley (go often askew) and this weekend was no exception.

Friday, Nae had a doctor's appointment that she had to reschedule because she got caught in a traffic jam behind an accident. So....

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Testing Google Buzz

jfinsel@finsel.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:49:06 GMT

Let's see... This should show up on GBuzz

Thoughts on Dreams and MetaDreams

jfinsel@finsel.com — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:46:22 GMT

First, a quick aside about Meta:

Meta- (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent", "self"), is a prefix used in English (and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.
In epistemology, the prefix meta is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced them, when, what format the data are in and so on). Similarly, metamemory in psychology means an individual's knowledge about whether or not they would remember something if they concentrated on recalling it. Furthermore, metaemotion in psychology means an individual's emotion about his/her own basic emotion, "or somebody else's basic emotion."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta

Now, on to dreams and what we know about a dream that isn't really a part of the dream.

I recently awoke from a dream that really was only about one movie scene long. I was in a car with several other folks. I knew we were a band and we were on our way to a gig. I also knew that the driver of the car was not a normal part of our band. As we were driving along, I knew that our regular bassist had been badly injured in a wreck and this was his temporary replacement. All of this happened within a couple of seconds of the dream starting.

The car then pulled into an abandoned mall, the driver was taking a short cut and we ended up in the back, behind the stores, in a large empty lot. Then the driver got out and started to run away. The rest of us found our seat belts were locked, pinning us in place, doors locked too. Fortunately, I had a tool for surviving water crashes, something like this one. I cut my belt and broke the window, handing the tool to one of the other band members while I got out to chase the driver. I didn't get far before the car exploded, knocking me to the ground and ending the dream.

But not, it should be noted, the knowledge of the dream. And here is where Meta comes in.

The first part of the Meta-data about this dream is somewhat understandable. I know that, in this dream, I had a day job and that day job was an analyst for a government agency. Not a spy, but someone who collated and synthesized information for a spy agency. Not James Bond, not even Q, just someone who works in the bowels of a cubicle farm. Of course, this information would be available to the character in the dream regardless because it was a priori knowledge. No, the more interesting meta-data came after I woke up when I suddenly understood why the scene I had dreamed had happened.

Our band, while not good enough to give up the day job for, was a fairly well-established band with a steady set of gigs. One of our upcoming gigs, not the one we were on our way to but the next week's, was going to have some guests at it that were targets of some group. The group could have been international terrorists or business terrorists ala Die Hard but that I didn't know. What I did know was that our bass player's "accident" was actually nothing less than a means to get the new bass player in place to eliminate our band so that another band could take our place.

And that's really interesting information. It's almost as if I had read a synopsis on IMDB of a movie that I had caught a single scene of. All of the information in that last paragraph is a posteriori information, that would only be gained after that scene in watching the rest of the movie play out. And it could have been an interesting read/movie. The character would have needed to discover (and probably foil) the plot. Odds are good that he would have had to pretend to be dead and use resources outside of anything available in his job.

But where did the information come from? I don't know, but it's a fascinating question.

LiveJournal Tags: Dreams,plots,movies

A Vignette From My Mind

jfinsel@finsel.com — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:04:29 GMT

This came to mind last night, the dialogue really seemed to be of the David Tennant Dr. Who's style, though I'm not sure that Dr. Who would be discussing the subject of Astral Walks but hear that style for the teacher.

Student: So, when you walk through the Astral plane, you should have some sort of guardian, right?

Teacher (distractedly): Oh, yes, that's essential.

Student: Like a dog or a cat?

Teacher(distractedly): Never, pets like that are rubbish. The dog will be too focused on attempting to go with you and the cat can't be bothered to worry about you. No, that'd never do.

Student: What should you have then?

Teacher (suddenly animated): A Guinea Pig! Oh yes, you may think that sounds crazy but Cavia porcellus is the best type of guardian. They're very alert to what's going on around them, both in the normal and the astral plane. And have you ever been bitten by one? *shakes head* Sharp little teeth. They can both fight off whatever might come attack you and wake you up out of the deepest astral trance. Yes sir, for my money, it's a Guinea Pig over a cat or dog any day of the week.

Technorati Tags: Humor,Vignette,Guinea Pig,Cavy,Astral Plane

What do you believe?

jfinsel@finsel.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:11:20 GMT

Today is a good day to ask yourself what you believe. Or, perhaps more appropriately, how strongly you believe what you believe.

We all have things we believe in. But what would you do for those beliefs?

It's one thing to talk about what you believe within the safe comfort of like-minded friends.

But it's riskier to talk to folks where you haven't determined whether they believe what you believe or not. Will you be ridiculed? Scorned? Is your ego strong enough to endure that for something you believe in? If it is, then your belief is stronger than your ego.

What about talking to folks that you know are antithetical to your beliefs? It's one thing to say you believe that all men are created equal, it's another to say that to a racist who may actually take a swing at you to correct your beliefs. Are you willing to put your beliefs above your body? To risk a fight with someone over what you believe to be right?

But the question doesn't end there. Indeed, bruises will heal and broken bones mend, but do you believe strongly enough to willingly give your life to further those beliefs?

Many men and women around the world have risked their lives in exchange for their beliefs. Many have paid the ultimate price for their beliefs.

And today, on the anniversary of the 11th second of the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we salute those who served and fought for what they believed in, both those who made the ultimate sacrifice and those who were willing to.

I only hope that the future will prove their sacrifice worthwhile.

Peace, gentle readers, and find a veteran or active service member and thank them, if you can.

A Sesame Street Celebration

jfinsel@finsel.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:14:55 GMT

(Sung to the tune of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

Well it was 40 years ago today,
Jim Henson taught us all to play,
And learn as we've been playing too,
And it's guaranteed to raise a smile,
So may I intorduce to you,
The street you've known for all these years,
All our friends from Sesame Street!

We're Big Bird, Oscar, Fred and Ernie too, we hope you will enjoy the show,
We're Gordon, Susan, and a cast and crew, we educate and entertain!
We have our happy days, we chase our cares away,
On the street you know and love.

It wonderful to be here,
its certanly a thrill,
40 years have come and gone and show no signs of stopping yet we're really going strong!

I don't really wanna stop the show,
But I thought you might like to know,
That there's breaking news to share,
From reporter extraordinaire,
So may I introduce to you,
Reporter Kermit the Frog,
And Sesame Street Cast And Crew!

LiveJournal Tags: Sesame Street,Parody,Lyrics