cheers

I picked up a wine glass today. Just a single one. And yes, "picked up" is the right word.

I stopped at a bus stop early in the afternoon. I'm not a bus, but I was waiting for one. And on the metal bench it's too cold to sit on, there was a little wine glass. Remnants of wine were in the bottom, largely frozen.

This definitely seemed like a case of "waste not, want not." Especially since if you leave glassware out on the street like that, it's only a matter of time before some young hooligan will break it. Now I previously had one glass, the last of a set of four where the other three weren't so lucky. The old glass and the new-to-me one don't match, but you can't have everything.

Now how did it get to be there in the first place? I'm curious. Could have, I guess, been a wedding party where the reception was nearby and one of the guests went wandering off with the stemware.

Step into my orifice

Just watched David Cronenberg's eXistenZ. For various reasons I was sort of doing research on Cronenberg, and also this movie had always looked like it would be interesting. Which it is.

There's no point in describing the plot in much detail, since it winds up eating itself. But basic premise: Jennifer Jason Leigh is Allegra Miller, a world-famous video game designer in a future (?) where games are played on organic devices that plug into "bioports" in your spine. Jude Law is Ted Pikul, a junior publicity flak pressed into service as her bodyguard when an anti-game sect of "realists" marks her for death. He's never had a bioport because of a "phobia about being penetrated", and that's less a double entendre than just an entendre. Nonetheless they both escape into eXistenZ, her new game.

There's certainly a strange blurring of real and artificial here. While you expect to see video games and new tech in general introduced in spotless retreats, this one seems to be getting introduced in a church basement. Also the panoply of bad movie accents on display—British actor Law isn't playing a Canadian so much as he is a goober—get worked into a pretty good joke.

This seems to be the end of the line for a certain kind of Cronenberg movie, the kind he was making for micro-budgets back in the seventies. More recent films of his have been pitched more at the mainstream, or at least look it. A History of Violence was indeed violent, but in a blunt way. eXistenZ lets him bring out his grotesque sci-fi body horror toys one more time.

Hava Nagila

As of today I am a certified Microsoft Word user. Which I guess is the closest I can expect to giving a bar mitzvah speech.

Taking certification exams for software is kind of nerve wracking. There's a lot of factors that go into it. Certainly the fact that the questions on the final diverge greatly from those on the practice tests is part of it. And you can't look anything up.

The first sight of that passing grade, though, brings a profound relief.

Per anmum

Not as funny right now because I've bottled herself in oblivion.

Okay, wow. The above passage was written probably like 45 minutes after I took NyQuil to make sure I had a restful night. What was I trying to say? Not that, but as a longtime fan of the poetry of Sylvia Plath it's nice to know that I have a little bit of her bubbling under the skin.

Wet day, wet night

From the time I got up this morning until well into the night it was raining steadily today. For the most part not ridiculously thick. In the afternoon I walked down a couple of hills to the supermarket. I took my umbrella with me, although balancing that with the groceries was kind of a pain in the ass on the way back. When I was more than halfway home the rain got heavier. So even though I managed to avoid having any cars splash me, my jeans got soaked. They're on the radiator now. It is to be hoped they'll be dry again by tomorrow morning.

Still, I met someone I knew from an old job at the market and had a nice few minutes talking to them. Can't count myself too unlucky.

The conversation

Magpies in Hilton today from Rodney Stratton on Vimeo.

The title of the video says they're in a Hilton, but that hotel just looks like a tree. Maybe that's just what management knows their clientele prefer.

They have a nice lilting call, don't they?

But I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd.

Back when I was...seven? eight? I was in a pageant at school. The nativity. I was one of the shepherds. Kind of froze onstage. It was a mixture of being the only non-Catholic in my class at that point and also general social anxiety.

This Sunday I'll be a shepherd in another pageant. The circumstances have changed somewhat. Hopefully the results will be different too.