http://www.kith.org/journals/jed/2009/11/11/12528.html

Today would have been my father's 70th birthday.

Hard to imagine him being 70. But then, even while he was alive, I never even quite wrapped my mind around the idea that he was in his sixties.

Today is also the 29th anniversary of my mother's death.

Some years I'm okay on November 11; some not so much. This year I've been kind of tense for the past few days; not a lot, but a bit more than usual.

So last night, ended up taking the evening off from magazine stuff to watch a couple of movies with Twig.

We started with Impromptu, which is still good, but isn't nearly as continuously hilarious as I remembered it being. The latest in a series of re-watching old favorite movies that I haven't enjoyed as much as I used to. Disappointing. Especially because Twig hadn't seen it before, so I told her how incredibly funny it was, so she went into it with too-high expectations.

So it was with some trepidation that I turned to the second movie of the evening, which we had both seen: The Sting. I've been thinking fondly of that movie lately because of watching Leverage, and I figured it was time to see it again.

And it turned out to be every bit as good as I'd remembered. The first time through, I had been completely taken in by at least one major plot twist; this time, I remembered that one, but enjoyed watching it unfold anyway. And was completely surprised by another major plot twist that I had forgotten all about. It really is a great movie—funny, sad in places, tightly plotted, brilliantly executed. I may talk more about it, with spoilers, in another entry, but for the purposes of this entry, suffice it to say that it did an admirable job of lightening my spirits and distracting me.

Today has been mostly okay. Working at home, which was the right choice except that there was about two hours of loud chainsaw use from the other side of my fence in the afternoon. But eventually I realized that it was making me tense, and not long after that I remembered that I had headphones, so I put on loud music and things got better.

Also tried today to put the blog about Peter up again; we sort of abandoned it in early 2008, and then some changes to my blog publishing system led to it going offline entirely. Unfortunately, Movable Type turns out to be very poorly documented in some ways, so after a lot of frustration I've given up on making that work for now. Perhaps sometime soon, perhaps not.

Anyway.

. . . Four years ago on this date, I wrote up a list of some appropriate activities to remember my parents by. I was kind of embarrassed about that list, but also kind of liked it, so I'm linking to it again.

This evening, I think I'll watch another movie or two. I have a few on hand that should be kind of fun and fluffy, which I think is about what I need right now.

Been a while since I last updated this:

• Winter Song by Colin Harvey. The planet of Isheimur was terraformed centuries ago, at the height of humanity’s resources and ambitions. But everything was lost in the subsequent intergalactic war, and Isheimur has been slowly sinking into decay, recycling every year the bases of its survival–knowing that each piece of technology that breaks down can never be replaced. Into this dying world stumbles Karl, a human marooned after the destruction of his ship. Karl is desperate to get home; but the atrophied subsistence society of Isheimur might not be ready for the radical shock of his presence…
  A very cool read. There are no earth-shattering ideas, but the characters are very well-drawn, believable and sympathetic without being sappy. The slowly dying society is terrifically depicted, and while I know some people might disagree, I absolutely loved the ending. I love that there are no compromises or shying away from brutal truths.
• Blindsight, Peter Watts. I picked this one up mainly on the recommendation of the BF, who heard Peter Watts speak in Montreal and was apparently very impressed by what he had to say. Earth becomes aware of an alien presence when thousands of miniature objects survey the planet. A mission is hastily put together to see what the aliens could possibly want: headed by a genetically engineered vampire, Theseus aims to achieve first contact. Its other members are a pacifist soldier, a heavily-robotised biologist, a linguist with multiple personalities, and the narrator, a ex-epileptic with half his brain removed, and who acts as a detached observer to report back to Earth. But his detachment may be the one thing that ends up dooming him…
  Wow. This was full of terrific ideas about cognition, consciousness and sentience. As a bonus, it was also an awesome first contact story, with none of the plausibility problems I usually have with those stories. There are a fair amount of explanations about biology, but always done in a fascinating fashion; and it’s got the Chinese Room experiment playing a huge part (yes, I’m a geek) . It played a lot like a tremendously intelligent horror story in space, for all the SF trappings (the vampire is a huge clue, but not the only motif that’s been taken from horror).
  Word of warning: it’s also very, very dense. My report to the BF was basically that he had to read it, but that French would probably be easier on him than English…

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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“I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

“It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

“Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ dDy is not.

“So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.

“What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

“And all music is.”

             --Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut, 1973

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/murder-re-enacted.html

• taken the dog out and thrown his ball for him
• put away the massive tea shipment that arrived yesterday
• made tea
• drunk some of same
• slowly and mindfully eaten two thirds of a very good muffin (paying attention while eating good food: best meditation available!) (although I like to think other parts of me are enjoying the food even when the ego is checked out)
• washed a load of dishes
• kneaded two loaves of bread and put one in the freezer
• set the other one to rise

• 15:05 RT @horrormall: Damnation Books is the latest publisher to offer its digital titles through Darkside Digital. bit.ly/5IflQ #