This morning the power went off 10 minutes before I was supposed to get up. I woke up anyway and halfway through my morning routine, the power had come back on. So of course I got in my car and drove to work. Big mistake. The power was out all over Crescent City and there was absolutely nothing to be done at my job since everything is produced on our computers. I waited around for 20 minutes or so listening to the Insipid Coworker of Doom complain about how no one wanted to come to her Halloween party that she had planned. If I had a costume, I would’ve planned to make an appearance. Possibly. But of course just to mentally mock her. Anyway, I went home, caught up on my blogs, watched some Sean Cody, worked on my painting, etc. By now it’s around two o’clock and I woke up at eleven. I called the office at 2:30 to make sure they weren’t back up and nobody picked up, so with nothing else to do I watched an episode of Star Trek. Around 4 p.m. they called to say that the power was back on. Unfortunately, everything was working but the Internet. We use it for everything…it was such an infuriating day. It’s nice to work in an office where you can curse to your heart’s content. Well, I didn’t do any cursing, but my coworkers articulated my feelings very well. There’s something about being on hold for two hours that will make anyone snap.
Well, long story short, it was very hectic but I got everything done and ended up driving the pages on CD-ROM up to the factory in Smith River (due to the lack of Net). It was actually sort of fun and am glad it happened on a day where I didn’t have anything else to do. I’m really glad I have the Internet at my house though. I don’t know what I would do. Well, I would be writing this… but I wouldn’t be able to post it. And that would be a hollow blogging victory.
Ben was online when I got home, he instant messaged me and said that he had seen me driving the on my trip to Smith River. He didn’t have anything to talk about and from the incredibly long pauses between his responses, it was obvious that either he didn’t care about the convo or was talking to 20 different people. Probably both. I got angry when he gave me this bullshit four minutes into the convo about having to work on his halloween costume, and blocked him. However, I didn’t really block him; I just hit delete because I wasn’t really thinking straight. So I accomplished nothing. As usual.
So here I am back at my house with power, the Internet and television but nothing to do with any of them. I would go work on my painting again, but I already did stuff do it today and it would be a bit of overkill to work on it twice in one day. There’s really not much else I can tweak. I just have to let this layer dry before I can put the second part on it. Perhaps I should start Ender’s Game.
Oh yeah, I really wanted to talk a bit more about how that last novel I read and that movie I saw last night. *spoiler alert* so okay, in the end of the Neuromancer novel you have the protagonist Case (the Neo character), Molly (the Trinity character) and Malecum (the egregiously flat character that is the pilot of this their ship). They are on this giant orbital space station called Straylight which was made by this corporation called Tessier-Ashpool. This company made artificial intelligences to protect their data, and one of the members of the family that controlled the company created two artificial intelligences who she wanted to make sentient, Neuromancer and Wintermute. Wintermute has been behind the scenes the entire book, guiding the characters into this whole situation, but Neuromancer is like, the personality of the AI. They are both engineered so they can never know the other one’s name, except for if it is spoken into this crystalline head in the center of the Straylight station which Wintermute thought would erase his program.
So eventually Wintermute and Neuromancer get into some sort of fight in the Matrix while Case (Neo) is trying to steal something from the Tessier-Ashpool corporate network, and they mesh with this Chinese virus and Case’s (Neo’s) construct to become a whole sentient artificial being. In the end, Case (Neo) sees the new AI and talks to it, and it says that it isn’t in the matrix anymore, that it is the matrix. It’s an interesting ending, especially because you end up seeing that the AI looks exactly like Case. It also says that it has been communicating with another artificial intelligence in another galaxy, which would make an interesting (albeit totally lame) continuance for the matrix trilogy. I’m sure in 2032 they will remake all of them with new special effects a la Star Wars.
I have much less to say about that movie The Dreamers. It starts as a classic bildungsroman, with the hackneyed plot of the American student in France who ends up learning all sorts of things about life. But the thing I found so disappointing about this movie was that the characters don’t learn any lessons. They don’t really even get a chance to. They live in this apartment for a month and get all incredibly intimate and such, but right when it seems like something’s going to change and the characters are going to have to face all their problems, the movie just ends with this shot of policemen running in to fight this mob of Communist protesters. And that’s it. We never learn what happens. It seems like it was the beginning of a movie that was three times as long…and the characters never really changed. The beginning half (where it seemed like there might actually be some drama) was good though.
Well, I’d better go look for something to do. I hope Misty calls me. I’ve got her hooked on this delicous cherry brandy. Well, the discovery of the wonders of cherry brandy is actually quite a funny anecdote. I’m lying, but it’s an anecdote about me and Joe so I’m going to play it up as much as I want. We were hanging out at my house, desperately wanting some alcohol (we were such lushes) when we came upon this half empty bottle of cherry brandy that I had bought years ago to make a Black Forest cake. After much careful deliberation, we decided unanimously to make it into screwdrivers. It was SOOO delicous. Cherry and orange. Heavenly. So last time we were at Safeway, I told Misty about how good it was then of course she had to try it. And now she loves it. Do I have good taste or what?
I’ve been meaning to read the Wikipedia entry on the different types of alcohol and how they are all produced and what the differences are (sherry vs brandy vs cognac, etc.) I feel like a fool not knowing such things and being a guy. I think another part of it stems from me just not being a beer person. Beer bores me. Maybe I just haven’t had anything that was so good, but I don’t see what all the fuss is about. When I want to get drunk, I don’t want to have to go through a bunch of beers. Just take a few shots of hard alcohol and you’re buzzed. It’s all about saving time. And then you can get back to the glory that is moments like these.