Suburban Scientist

It's 12.42pm on October 31st...

2010-10-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

I've read and reviewed 52 books, fourteen in the last two days (procrastinators unite! Later!).

I'm going to go have a celebratory lunch. We'll be celebrating two things, actually - completing the Cannonball and that the ITGeek is no longer a walking incubator of Whooping Cough.

On that note - vaccinate your kids. Please. This is a shitty, awful illness in adults, and given how terrifying it was to see my very fit husband cough until he couldn't breath, I can't even imagine how horrific it would be in babies.

CBRII (book 52): I shall wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett

2010-10-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

I started the cannonball read with Terry Pratchett's latest, so it seems only appropriate that I finish it, a year later, with his new latest.

I Shall Wear Midnight is the fourth of the Tiffany Aching books, the teenage witch of the Chalk with the love of words and the will of iron. It's written for 'young adults', but like all good books in that genre, it's really just a book written about young adults.

In I Shall Wear Midnight, we are introduced to the Cunning Man. Imagine if the attitudes of every Witchhunter became a kind of incorpreal entity, capable of slipping into people's minds ('poison goes where poison's welcome'). That's the Cunning Man. That's who Tiffany has to fight.

This one gets dark, hell, this one starts dark. But it ends light. Properly light, not the 'happily ever after' variety but the 'we're making it better, and there's a lot to be grateful for' variety. Like a lot of his later books, Pratchett is moving away from the farcial satire and towards human-driven humourous satire. It's still showing us what's wrong with ourselves, but it's tempered with the notion that we have the glorious capacity to make it right.

And if you can achieve that with the help of some foul-mouthed 'friends', all the better.

CBRII (book 51) My Lurid Past by Lauren Henderson

2010-10-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

Juliet Cooper is in Food PR (again with the strange jobs), and she's very good at it. After getting her heart broken by her loving but gambling addicted ex-boyfriend, she's been bed hopping for the last four years. But lately, she's been finding that it's all getting to be the same.

Her best friends are Gillian, who's miserably trying to rebuild a sexless marriage and Mel, a dominatrix. Neither of them are entirely helpful. Gillian only wishes she has Juliet's problem, while Mel declares, with a mixture of mockery and triumph 'You're burnt out.'

This book starts out as Sex in the British City, and the cocaine, BDSM, and endless cocktails come dangerously close to that kind of shallowness that says more about the author's desire to be controversial than the characters themselves.
It's particularly obvious in how the men are treated and portrayed. For much of the book, they're objects, something to fuck, or complain that you're not fucking. It's even more extreme in Mel's case. It's the trick of turning sexism in the opposite direction and calling it feminism, regularly used by women who still have a lot to learn.

But towards the end of the book, we get a hint that perhaps Henderson, and through her, Juliet, is beginning to grow a clue. A few men step forward and reveal a glimps of their humanity.
But ultimately, for a book all about men and relationships, it only scrapes the surface of the truth of both: that men and women are human, complex, emotional and a continuous work-in progress, and a healthy relationship can only exist when everyone involves respects that.

CBRII (book 50): I, Claudia by Marilyn Todd

2010-10-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

This book is set in Ancient Rome. The characters wear tunics, make sacrifices to various gods and watch the Gladiators. There's some references to the politics of the time, and the various invasions the Roman Empire were enacting. Instead of saying 'Jesus!' the characters say 'Jupiter!'.

And that's about it, really, in terms of Ancient Rome

Claudia Seferius is an ex-stripper who married up, and speaks like a modern Londoner. It's all 'Sod off,' this and 'Get to it, girl!' that. She's got a gambling problem, which she's paying off with a bit of dominatrix work on the side. Unfortunately, her clients keep getting murdered, and now a hot investigating officer is digging around. Marcus also talks like a Brit, albeit, a more professional one.

This is Ancient Rome as imagined by your local High School's theatre group.

But if you can ignore the bizarre blend of ancient and modern, it's a very enjoyable book. Claudia is, without apology, a manipulative, vindictive, arrogant, self-absorbed bitch. Even when she does something decent, like ensuring a young boy is kept away from her pedophilic husband-in-name-only, she's a bitch about it, just throwing him out of the house. She decides to teach her maid about contraception only because she's good at her job and Claudia is 'damned if she was going to lose this gem to childbed fever'. She's a screaming medley of faults and more luck than she deserves

Read this one in the bath with a glass of wine after a really shitty day. Or, you know, if you're really close to finishing a cannonball and need a good fast read.

CBRII (book 48): Carnal Knowledge by Charles Hodgson

2010-10-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

Sounds perverted, doesn’t it? Especially after the Double the Disturbing I just put you all through. But the rest of the title goes as follows:

A navel gazer’s dictionary of anatomy, etymology and trivia.

Ahh, so much better. This is a factual book about the origin of words related to the human body. Not at all embarrassing when you take it at work, and your co-worker asks where you left something and you say, without thinking, ‘I think it’s under the Carnal Knowledge book.’
I spent the first week I had this book at work absolutely slamming my co-workers with random facts about words related to the body. Although, there’s a lot I have learned from it. Among others:

Yanglao – Look at your wrist. See the little bump on the outside edge of it? It’s actually not one bump, it’s the two ends of the ulna bone, one called the head and the other, more creatively, the ‘styloid process’. It depends on how you’re holding your wrist which part of the bone is protruding. However, there isn’t a word for the bump in the English language, Yangloa is a term used in Chinese acupuncture, and it’ll probably get you about a thousand points in scrabble.

Christina Hendricks is bathycolpian, that is, she has deep cleavage. Cleavage, for that matter, started out as a trade term used by the Motion Picture Association of America during a 1940’s freak out over how much boobs should be visible on screen (which all came about because the clothing in a British period film apparently showed way too much – according the Hodgson, the Brits weren’t affected because they’re all Legs men).

JK Rowling used a LOT of old words in her Harry Potter books. Dumbledore, for instance, is an old word for bumblebee, and Snape used to mean ‘to be hard upon’. My favourite is Quiddiative, which means ‘obscure and full of quirks’, rather like a certain game.

It turns out that when you have breast implants, while they’re settling in to their new home, there’s a lot of sloshing and gurgling sounds. One of the sounds is so unique that plastic surgeons have actually named it: bourdonnement, which was described as ‘a squeaking, rubbing, humming or vibrating sound that is so intimate that it is almost a feeling instead of a sound’. So, as it turns out, a rarely-mentioned side effect of implants is musical, vibrating boobs.

Winner of the longest word in the book award: Sternocleidomastoideus – that’s the muscle that runs from below your ear towards your chest, and it’s most visible when you turn your head to the side and tilt it back (and in really beefy body builders).

Most mammals need a bone to get a hard on. It’s called the baculum or the os penis, and according to Hodgson, you can buy the bones on the internet. He even provides a web address, which isn’t accurate anymore, so if you’re interested, head to www.skullsunlimited.com and do a search. When I looked, the 24 inch walrus baculum was right next to the 1cm vervet monkey baculum, which is just mean.

The back of the knee is called the ham. It’s just one of those things I’ve always wanted to know.

Hodgson is witty and his knowledge is incredible. I will say though, it’s not really a book you can read in one sitting. It’s taken me weeks to get through it, not because I wasn’t entertained, but all the words blended together after a while. I found the best way was short bursts; then you can freak out everybody in the vicinity with the new words and factoids you’ve learnt.

CBRII (book 48): I capture the castle by Dodie Smith.

2010-10-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

Cassandra and her family live in poverty in a run-down old castle they have a 40 year lease on. Her father wrote a celebrated novel, then, in a farcial turn of events, ended up in prison for three months. They moved to Belmotte and it's nearby castle shortly after, and, for some reason, her father has stopped writing. Cassandra's mother is dead, and her father remarried Topaz, a former artist's model.
In many ways, this is a strange halfling of a book. It's so influenced by other books - The love story throughout the book is really just a 1940's retelling of Pride and Prejudice, with a couple of twists. Cassandra's father wrote a very unique novel, and although you never learn much of what it contains, it influences all of their lives, particularly Cassandra's, who has obviously inherited her father's love of experimental writing (with both her shorthand, and the 'exercise' of journalling her life over six months).
Another thing I noticed was how well the characters are drawn. Topaz, for instance, could have been portrayed as the mad, dramatic stepmother, but instead, we get glimpses of a woman self-aware and selfless enough to deliberately hide her beauty for the sake of Rose. Thomas, Cassandra's younger brother, reveals unexpected intelligence - always there, but simply not noticed by Cassandra when she was absorbed by her relationship with Rose.
I know I'm too old to be the target audience, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book, regardless.

CBRII: Hell for Leather edition #2: Trashy Romance Novels!!

2010-10-30T15:01:00.001-07:00

I have, hidden in the back of a cupboard, an entire box of trashy romance novels. I discovered in my first year of uni that they were an excellent form of relaxation during exam times. As I’ve said before, reading chills me out, but when I’m cramming, the last thing I need is to be caught up in some intricate plot. At those times, I needed throw-away fiction, and these cheap romance novels were exactly that.

The books have gathered dust for a while (I’d give them to a friend of mine who’s a stay at home mum, but she sits at the chaste kiss end of the spectrum and these books... don't sit there). I’ve forgotten about most of them. But because I was in catch-up mode, and I’m a glutton for punishment (and because some varieties of cheesy stupidity are just too good to keep to yourself), I decided to drag out two of them and re-read them for the CBRII.

Double the Pleasure by Julie Elizabeth Leto.

Oookay. Here’s the premise. Grey and Zane Masterson are twins. Grey is the responsible conservative one who runs the family business, a newspaper. Zane is the carefree party-animal who does, well, not much. Invests in real estate, mostly.

Grey, despite the buttoned-down exterior, is actually a raging pervert, which, because this is a romance novel, means he has sex in limos. Unfortunately for him, the last woman he had sex with was Tila Tequila, and now she’s written a book about it. Okay, it wasn’t Tila Tequila. I once tried to read her Twitter feed. There’s no way she could write a book. Hmm… Imagine Tila Tequila and give her an IQ above 100, okay? That’s who Grey slept with.

He’s also having trouble with a saboteur at the newspaper, and some wack-job stalker who showed up in a Gorilla costume and tried to seduce him. Let me repeat that: she tried to turn him on while dressed as Barney Banana.

The man has problems. The man needs a break. Enter Zane, who offers to switch places with him. To give this bizarre idea some legitimacy, Zane took a private detective course (that he’s not used since) so he’s somehow qualified to hunt down the saboteur and deal with the stalker. Grey is so rattled by strip-teasing gorillas that he agrees, and to Zane’s only request: that Grey looks in on his friend Reina Price, an ‘erotic jewellery designer’ (hey, remember when people were nurses and teachers?). Reina’s having some trouble with break-ins.

Reina is Sensual, But Won’t Let Any Man Near Her Heart. But although she never felt anything for Zane, she gets a severe case of Amazon between the Thighs for Grey. She’s currently remaking a bunch of jewellery originally created by il Gio, who’s basically the Maquis de Sade crossed with a jewellery maker. Unfortunately, somebody keeps breaking in to steal the jewels.

Grey and Reina play with the jewellery, and it turns out that all Reina needed to get through her emotional barriers was some good old-fashioned gold-encrusted bondage. Oh, and il Gio’s descendent is her long-lost father. And her mother is the one who’s been stealing from her. Of course, with Grey’s love, it’s all sorted out and they live happily ever after.

This book is exactly what it promises to be: a sexy romance novel. There’s a decent plot (for the genre), the characters are likable, and the sex scenes are the right side of kinky. So, points to you, Julie Elizabeth Leto.

Double the Thrill, by Susan Kearney.

Toni’s getting married to a Senator! Except she doesn’t want to marry the Senator. Toni also has three sisters, who each have deep and complex character traits like ‘wears pink’ or ‘student environment protestor’. Unfortunately, she can’t turn down Senator Birdstrum, because he’s going to employ her dad (and just out of curiosity, does the American Government actually have a House Committee on Ways and Means? Because that sounds a lot like something invented in a desperate attempt to get the kids interested in the family budget. ‘I call to order the first meeting of the Draper House Committee on Ways and Means… Sally, pay attention’).

The only solution is to have a scandal. A sex scandal. Of course. This is Romance Novel Law #4 (the first three concern length of penis, silkiness of hair and frequency of simultaneous orgasms): Always Choose the Stupid Idea. And, of course, her victim, sorry, suitor, will be Grey Masterson. Even though she’s never met the man, Toni decides they’re going to have fun. ‘Lots of fun. Hot, sweaty fun.’ I, on the other hand, suspect that if you decide a complete stranger’s idea of fun is YOU, you’re standing on one of the earlier steps to becoming a Scary Fucking Stalker.

A week later, Zane is lounging around his Bad Boy Bachelor Pad, having a good laugh at his poor twin, who just got had a woman in a gorilla costume show up and try to do a strip show. Grey is freaked. Zane can’t understand why his brother didn’t ‘act like every other red-blooded American man and salivate at the sight of a woman stripping’. While Grey complains about a saboteur putting oil in the ink while Toni was dancing around in her monkey outfit, Zane indulges in some fantasies about the office strip show. Zane has obviously watched Planet of the Apes too many times. Either that, or he’s a Furrie.

Zane offers a solution that equals Toni’s ‘sex scandal’ idea for sheer stupidity: Swap places! There’s a bunch of emo shit about people never looking beneath the surface and discovering the Very Different Men Underneath. Eventually, Grey agrees to the Really Stupid Idea.

Toni, continuing her plan of Stalkeriffic Seduction, is making up her face so ‘her eyes looked big enough to capture her quarry’. I think she’s going to entice him along like that freaky fish in Finding Nemo.

Zane, pretending to be Grey, comes across Toni. He is intrigued. She has big eyes and sometimes, she’s furry. He saw a girl like that in the Japanese Porno he downloaded last night! She’s got sexy confidence. I don’t think they’d call it that in court, Zane.

At this point, the author loses her shit completely: She exuded a chemistry that would have overwhelmed a less experienced man. (Chloroform?)The impact of her arrival had him intrigued by her mysterious boldness and his curiosity about her motivations upped the stakes. (Is that Engrish?)

There’s some conversation reminiscent of drunkenly earnest college students, majoring in psychology and philosophy. There’s some dates and problems with the newspaper, and Toni finally tells Zane (whom she still thinks is Grey) that she wants a sex scandal. He’s happy to oblige, because writing an article on your sex life is the number one way to increase sales of your very conservative newspaper.

Then they board their private helicopter and head off to the Masterson’s private island. (He only wants you for your gorilla costume, Toni!) On the way, Zane gives Toni a lecture on the birds of the Louisiana and Mississippi shoreline, which makes about as much sense as anything else in this cluster-fuck.

Toni and Zane get on a horse. The same horse. They then proceed to fuck on the horse. Poor horse. As a side note, I’m fairly certain the logistics aren’t nearly as simple as they were made out to be, especially when Zane made that poor horse trot. Either that, or someone forgot to mention that Toni’s a midget.

Once they’ve done that, Toni wants to watch the sunrise. This is, apparently, the single most amazing thing any woman has ever wanted, in the history of ever. It is repeated three times. Add ‘sunrises’ to the list of things that give Zane a hard-on. He’s just a bundle of complexity, isn’t he? Next we’ll discover he likes pina coladas and kissing in the rain.

Toni and Zane eat breakfast on a trampoline. There’s some more drunken first-year student psycho-babble. Then they fuck on the trampoline, also like drunken first years.

Eventually, we reach my absolute favourite scene in any romance novel. Zane has a collection of ‘sexual art’ (ie fancy sex toys). Toni shows up at his place in lingerie. Zane takes her into the kitchen. He’s kissing her, caressing her, he’s… fiddling with the microwave and getting out the olive oil. Toni’s hot and very, very bothered (particularly by the microwave). Then Zane shows her what he’s been messing around with – a glass dildo. What follows is the best line ever written in the history of literature. Picture it – she’s naked and horny, he’s just dribbled olive oil all over the glass penis, and he looks at her and says

‘I used a microwave thermometer. The glass is heated perfectly to one hundred and ten degrees.’

You’re a dirty-talking bastard, Zane.

That, however, is just the start. They’re playing with the dildo, Toni is right on the edge of orgasm, and he opens the freezer. Turns out that the dildo is one of a pair, and he’s put the second one in the freezer. Fortunately, he doesn’t waste time talking about his freezer thermometer, he just plunges the ice-cold dildo into her.

The first time I read this book, that scene reminded me of people getting their tongues stuck to frozen poles. Hence, my reaction was not one of arousal.

Frankly, after a scene like that, everything else is a bit of a let-down. They track down the saboteur. Toni discovers Zane is not Grey (yep, the whole time they’ve been screwing on trampolines and horses, she thought he was his brother). She is understandably peeved and breaks up with him. But she’s miserable, and Zane is miserable. Eventually, Zane prints a picture of himself on the front page of the newspaper on bended knee, and the headline ‘Will you marry me, Toni?’ And Toni, who got completely freaked out when the Senator was doing the same thing, thinks this is just the most romantic thing ever, and promptly marries this man before she meets his parents. Or even the brother he was pretending to be for most of their relationship.

So… happy ending?

CBRII: How much Agatha Christie can a woman read?

2010-10-30T00:49:00.001-07:00

A lot, as it turns out. There’s this ‘antiques shop’ that a friend put us onto. It’s basically a trash and treasure market, for antiques and collectables, housed in a warehouse easily as old as what you’ll find inside it. The first time we went, parts of the roof were falling off and banging against other parts of the roof. There’s a few better spots, but the majority sell their stuff from beneath carefully-erected tarpaulins. For somebody as curious as me, the best part is that the sellers aren’t there. You want to buy something, you take it to the front counter, and the employees handle the rest. Otherwise you can poke, comment and explore to your heart’s content, without feeling obligated to buy that antique breast pump you just sent a picture of to your pregnant friend.

Annnyway, the point of this ridiculously long digression is that, at this decrepit factory of wonders, I came across the entire collection of Agatha Christie novels. This filled me with joy. Eventually, this also filled a shelf of my bookcase.

In the last few weeks, I’ve developed a habit of grabbing a book at random on my way to work. Each book has three of her novels, so I’m going to be well entertained, even if some element of the train system decides it just can’t be fucked working today (unfortunately, this happens semi-regularly, except in the case of the new ticket system, which has yet to work properly on any day).

Hence, I’ve ripped through five of them in three weeks. Onto the reviews!

The Listerdale Mystery.

This is a collection of short stories by Christie, and it becomes quite apparent that she’s just a touch classist. It never quite reaches the level of ‘The higher class are better than the lower class’, but she’s clearly on their side. The Listerdale mystery of the title involves a ‘gentlewoman’ who, along with her children, has fallen on hard times. I enjoyed the story very much – Christie creates a very fairytale atmosphere for this one – but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel an overwhelming urge to tell that woman to just grow up and get a job already. The idea that we should pity people who are too proud to get their hands dirty goes against everything I’ve been brought up to believe, but then, I’m no gentlewoman.

There’s a few other stories in here that echo that idea, if only lightly. Pampered, trust-fund babies get the silver spoon yanked unceremoniously out, but luck is on their side, and they find themselves a golden spoon instead. Initially, this grated, then I remembered these were written in the 1930’s. No, I’m not saying we should make allowances for the time, but rather that, for this time, the stories of the gentry class getting into and out of trouble would be the equivalent of a modern story about, say, a model or fashion reporter getting into and out of trouble. It’s part fantasy, part the author writing what they know. So these sort of stories are just Agatha Christie’s version of chick lit – if I had time to research, I suspect I’d learn some of the tales were originally published in magazines.

Come to think of it, several of these stories, despite being written from a man’s perspective, are ultimately about romance and (in one case) rubbing some snobby twit’s nose in it.

Wow. It’s all chick lit.

At Betram’s hotel.

Miss Marple’s wonderful nephew wants to give her a holiday. Somewhat hesitantly, she asks to stay at Betram’s hotel in London. As a seventeen year old, she spent some time there, and she liked the idea of a week or wandering around, seeing how much everything has changed.

However, while the rest of London certainly has, Betram’s hotel is exactly the same. A few minor changes have been made to accommodate modern amenities, but Afternoon Tea is still the same gentile affair it was seventy years ago, and even the servants are all bright eyed ex-country girls.

But not everything is as lovely as it seems. A crime syndicate is keeping the London police busy, particularly Chief-Inspector Davy (nicknamed ‘Father’). An absent-minded clergyman goes missing. A scandalous woman and her daughter, not so much long-lost, as long-ago-left-behind are both involved with the same man. Then, of course, somebody dies. How this all ties together is a hell of a story.

Christie is a snarky wench. I say that with nothing but love, I really do. Just when I was realising that I’d absolutely hate to live anywhere near Miss Marple, because I’d probably end up kicking her in the face like in Hot Fuzz, there’s a delightful scene that tells me Christie probably would too.

Miss Marple tells Father that she can’t abide interference, that there’s one thing she refuse to do, and that is to interfere with other people’s business. Yes. Miss Marple, the high fricken queen of interference. Ironically, he later describes her as thus: ‘She’s had a long life of experience in noticing evil, fancying evil, suspecting evil and going forth to do battle with evil.’ For all her very decent qualities, she’s still as much a victim to the same self-blindness as many of the people she spends so much time ‘noticing evil’ within. As a character, she’s brilliant.

But I’d still probably end up fly-kicking her in the face. Clearly, I’m evil.

They Do It With Mirrors.

Miss Marple again. Carrie Louise, an old friend, is as sweet and innocent as she is wealthy. She’s got multiple relatives hanging off her, as well as a husband so passionate about the rehabilitation of teenage delinquents that he’s turned their home into a kind of prison alternative, all acting classes and psychologists (I have always had a soft spot for the term ‘delinquents’, ever since it was used as the title of a movie starring Kylie Minogue when she put actress ahead of singer on her resume).

Carrie Lousie’s sister, Ruth, after a long, gossipy review of Carrie-Louise’s life, tells Marple that something isn’t right at Stonygates, something she only senses, and begs their old friend to go down there and ferret out what it is.

I’m too lazy right now to even bother going through all the players in this particular story. Seriously, the family tree practically requires a flow diagram. Let’s just say there were a lot of marriages and people running off with their foreign women and adoptions and a fuck-ton of money, okay? And now Stonygates is just stuffed with these random relatives, who, it appears, all absolutely adore Carrie Louise. And oddly, for a Christie novel, it’s sincere and deserved. Which is why it’s so surprising that somebody is poisoning her. Then to further complicate matters, the brother of Carrie Lousie’s first husband shows up and is promptly murdered.

Some bits of this complicated plot, I guessed. But I’ll admit, I had no idea how it all fitted in. I liked it a lot, but it’s not actually my favourite of the books I’ve read. I’m reviewing that one later.

Mrs McGinty’s Dead.

Poirot! And if nothing else, I’ve learned the poor man would just die if he ever had to live at my place. So it’s fortunate that he’s a fictional character and will thus never be exposed to the barely-controlled chaos that is my existence.

Inspector Poirot is approached by a police officer whom he once investigated a case with. After some idle gossip (and a cute reference to Poirot’s failed retirement growing vegetables, which was the setting of the murder of roger Ackroyd, which I started reading, but didn’t finish), the officer explains the purpose of his visit. About a year ago, Mrs McGinty was murdered and her tenant was arrested. But the officer’s gut is telling him that said tenant isn’t guilty, just basically an idiot who’s always giving the worst possible impression of himself. The officer is planning to retire soon, and Poirot takes on the job, simply because he knows the uncertainty will eat at his friend.

Seriously, do you think Christie planned the throw-away lines that end up being the case-breakers, or do you think they just flowed organically as part of the story? I’m fascinated by the writing process, but no more so with mysteries. Do they start out with the Who and the Why and the What, or are those details uncovered, like some kind of seriously messed up stonework, as the story progresses?

One little line! That’s the key to this one. I didn’t even register the damn thing at the time, I had to go back and re-read it!

In other words, Christie Pwd me yet again.

Partners in Crime.

When one of my earlier reviews of Christie ended up on Pajiba, there were repeated recommendations for the Tommy and Tuppence books.

I get it. Oh yes, I get it so much.

Partners in Crime is a short story collection with an overriding theme, a bit like how Veronica Mars solved a weekly mystery while still trying to figure out who murdered her best friend. In this case, a vast international ring of spies/criminals/generally unpleasant people are using a certain detective Agency to conduct their business. Tommy (with Tuppence’s help) has been asked to pretend to be the detective, and help the Department track down the bad guys.

Because these two are forever playing games, they decide to investigate each crime in the manner of a different fictional detective. Sherlock Holmes, Tornley Colton, even Poirot gets a spin. Embarrassingly, I didn’t recognise half their inspirations, but I’ll be heading to the library soon to get to know them!

This is my favourite of the five. Tommy and Tuppence are adorable. They’re utterly ridiculous, but somehow, those silly quirks really work for them, and it works brilliantly in the setting of these short mysteries (some of which I solved before they did –I scared the hell out of the cat by shouting ‘She’s a TWIN!’ in the middle of one story).

So, to all those people who recommended Tommy and Tuppence – Thank you.

CBRII (book 40): A walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

2010-10-30T00:48:00.001-07:00

I enjoy Bryson’s writing. He’s clever and self-depreciating, and always comes across some deliciously random place or fact that’ll make you giggle. He’s on my list of People I’d Like to Have Dinner With.
In his usual style, the title of his book is a complete understatement. The ‘walk’ in question is the
Appalachian Trial, which is over 2100 miles long (nobody appears to be sure of the exact length) and wanders merrily through fourteen states on America’s Eastern seaboard. The ‘woods’ are the Appalachian mountains, which include such luminaries as the Smoky Mountains national park, the Shenandoah national park, the Delaware water gap and the Mounts Washington, Killington and Springer.
It’s a long fucking walk through some seriously big woods.
Bryson didn’t do the entire walk. In total, I think he did just under half, the bulk of which he did with his old friend Stephen Katz. There’s a very interesting dynamic in this relationship, and one that doesn’t reflect too well on Bryson. See, he decided he wanted to hike the trail, and sent out an email to everybody he knew asking for company. Katz was the only one who agreed. Clearly, he thought it would be an amble through the woods with his old mate Bill, out in the fresh air and doing something physical, possibly even an escape from his own problems, which included alcoholism.
Katz was woefully unprepared for what he was doing, that’s true. Bryson had set himself a mission, and Katz was really getting in the way of that. When you’re worn out, it’s hard to be patient with whingers, too. These things are irrefutable facts.
Still, I can’t help but feel sorry for Katz, given that Bryson would just walk off ahead of him (and, in one terrifying example, lost him completely – so much for the desire to do the walk together to avoid trouble), and basically wrote almost an entire book on how useless he was. I’d love to read a chapter or two from Katz’s point of view.
Ultimately, I suspect Bryson works best with people, but only in the relatively short term. Sticking him in the woods, beautiful as they are, with only one other person for company, wasn’t a great idea. There’s only so many ways you can describe a view. It’s something you’ve got to experience, and descriptions can never do them justice. Without other personalities around, Bryson’s own has to fill the gaps, and, like a blogger who hasn’t left the house much (I’m finishing the cannonball, allright?), he tends to get a bit preachy, particularly on the topic of Americans Don’t Walk Enough.
Bryson has every right to be proud of what he achieved, but I think I liked him better when he had no idea what he was getting himself in for.

CBRII (book 39): Bad boys with Expensive Toys.

2010-10-30T00:47:00.000-07:00

I brought it on myself, I really did. Remember when I said I borrowed a book that was a trio of romance novellas to help me pass the time during the study? I actually borrowed two. This was the second one, and it was a LOT better than the first. Like Herpes is a LOT better than say, syphilis (in my mind, I sounded like Jeremy Clarkson then). No, I’m being mean. They’re fun and these ones didn’t make me incandescent with rage.

The good news is, in The World is Too Darned Big, the second of the three novellas, it appears that MaryJanice Davidson has at last discovered the concept of Patents. Unfortunately, she only played lip-service to the concept but hey, it’s a start. Equally unfortunately, she’s still taking a steaming dump over every other aspect of engineering, medicine and physics. I love your work, Davidson, but seriously, stick to the paranormal, where you’re expected to blithely ignore reality.

The Fourteen Million Dollar Poodle, the first of the three novellas (written by Nancy Warren) was actually a lot of fun. Okay, the ‘mystery’ would have been blatantly obvious to a concussed kitten, but the characters were likable and I have a soft spot for dogs. From his aunt, Vince has inherited an utterly pampered poodle called Mimi who only understands French. Vince is a negotiator, so he’s more of a beer and steak kind of man, except Mimi comes with his aunt’s $14 million fortune as well. Luckily, Vince comes across Sophie, a Frenchwoman who used to be a chef but is now a nanny to children about as pampered as Mimi. Desperate, Vince hires her as a dog-sitter. Out of all of them, I think Warren was the only one to actually pay attention to the intended title – her main character is the only one who could be described as a ‘bad boy’ (within the boundaries of the hero of a romance, of course, which means he’s not bad at all) with an ‘expensive toy’ (yep, that’s one pricey mutt).

The third novella, Guilty Pleasures, was written by Karen Kelley, and okay, it had the ‘bad’ boy (again, not that bad), but who knows what that expensive ‘toy’ was. The computer program he’d been developing for the last few years? Way to invalidate his career, writer. The apartment he was living in at the time? That belongs to his sister and new brother-in-law.

Still, the premise was cute enough. At his sister’s wedding, Alex (the computer programmer) spots Kagen and is instantly smitten. Kagen is a successful interior designer and his new brother-in-law’s best friend, but Alex is a slut, so his sister makes him pinky swear to not mess with that. Then sis gives Alex the keys to their new apartment to stay in while they’re on their honeymoon. Meanwhile, her husband is giving the keys to Kagen, so she can surprise the bride with a beautifully decorated home.

Wacky hijinks ensue. Then some more hijinks ensue when they end up challenging each other to some sort of seduction-off (presumably like Zoolander’s walk-off without a catwalk, or David Bowie). Whoever breaks first, loses. Based on what I know about romance novels, nobody ever loses when it comes to sex.

That’s about the gist of it. If you’re looking for an intelligent examination of relations between men and women, move right along. If you’re looking for a distraction from the stench of smoked rodent, well, step on in.

CBRII: Undercover by MaryJanice Davidson

2010-09-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

This is a collection of three romance novellas. As I said earlier, I’m currently working my way through a long-term study that means I have to keep an eye on the mice three times a day. With the other eye, I read novels. Since these are just short bursts, I figured novellas by an author whose work I usually enjoy was a great choice.

‘Sweet strangers’ (gag), the first novella, has a complex plot. I’m going to explain it in dot points.

Theo Forster, head researcher at a biotech firm called Androdyne has developed ‘modified cells that they can inject into the heart. The cells do the job of the pacemaker’ (direct quote). These cells are called PaceIC.
The head of Androdyne, Jekell, made a deal with the chinese manufacturer of existing pacemakers to bury PaceIC for ten years in exchange for six billion dollars (which, probably due to poor editing, later becomes sixty billion).
Theo slips a sample of PaceIC into the bag of Renee Jardin. Jekell loses his shit and puts a bounty on her head.
Wacky shenanigans ensue. Renee runs into a private detective. Blah, blah, blah, sex on the office floor, mix-up leading to betrayal, usual romance shit.
Renee goes to the FDA, who tell Renee that Androdyne was required by law to register with them before manufacturing PaceIC, and they got suspicious when he suddenly pulled it out.
For some stupid reason, Renee and the private eye head back to Androdyne, where they run into Theo, who tells them to take PaceIC back to the FDA chick who can ‘reverse engineer it and see that an appropriate company –ah- finds it and puts out their own version within a year’.
Blah, blah, gun fight, Jekell is arrested, Renee and the PI go have sex and propose and shit.

Convoluted, hey? I bet Davidson spent hours thinking that one up. I almost feel bad, since one word will tear the whole thing down.

Patent.

Presuming Androdyne owns the rights to PaceIC (which there’s no way in hell they wouldn’t), it wouldn’t matter how many ‘appropriate’ companies reverse engineered it, Androdyne still owns it. They still decide if it’s sold or not. Hell, they can give it out for free, bury it in a vault, whatever the fuck they like until that patent runs out.

Actually, the whole thing is a mess. Let’s go through each point.

1. Cells that ‘do the job of the pacemaker’ already exist. We’re born with them. There’s a patch of them on our heart that send an electrical signal at regular intervals to induce the chain-reaction of a beating heart. Pacemakers are inserted into people when their ‘pacemaker cells’ (yes, that’s what they’re called) get screwed up, and stop regularly firing. I know this partly because my mother has this problem. If PaceIC really existed, it wouldn’t replace the existing cells, it would regulate them. And seriously, inject cells into the heart? Yeah, let’s just put a random assortment of cells into one of our most vital organs and hope it sticks. No fear of immune reaction or anything.

2. Aside from the aforementioned ‘I have the patent, I can do whatever the fuck I like with it’ factor, nobody, at any point in this storyline, mentions a little thing called Clinical Trials, without which, the product cannot be sold. This is done to determine the efficacy, correct dosing regime and side effects, and takes (because these sort of things are considered important) about ten years. So, either Androdyne haven’t done them yet, in which case, the product’s not going to be on the market for ten years anyway, or they have, and everybody knows about it, so there’s no point trying to hide it. Also, if Jekell owns the company, and this product works half as well as those breathless characters make out, he'll rake in well over 6 billion dollars, and earn himself a shitload of lovely publicity in the process.

3. Whatever.

4. See above.

5. Ooh, the FDA ‘had to be informed’. NO SHIT!! Seriously, do people actually believe scientists can go around injecting whatever the fuck they like into hearts and nobody’s going to even question it? *headdesk*

6. See the rant directly under Patent.

7. See item 3.

Unfortunately, these points meant that I read the remaining novellas in a high snit, constantly muttering choice phrases about the author’s inability to do even a basic Google search. The second novella was much more enjoyable (although I’m now wondering what a banking expert would say about the plot). The third novella involved more shitting all over the reality of science – so you’ve now made a compound that speeds up skin regeneration, Theo? That’s nice. What about the nerves? Sweat glands? You know, all the other stuff that’s replaced alongside the skin with grafts. And hey, know what we call cells that grow faster than they should? CANCER! And there’s NO WAY YOU’LL HAVE THAT SHIT TO MARKET BY THE END OF THE YEAR!!! FOR FUCK’S SAKE!! WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF FUCKING REALITY DO YOU LIVE IN?!?!!

*ahem*

This is why the ITGeek won’t let me watch certain movies with him anymore.

CBRII: Feet of Clay and Thud by Terry Pratchett.

2010-09-19T21:11:00.001-07:00

I’ve got most of the discworld books, but not Feet of Clay, so it’s been years since I’ve read it. It’s a Watch book, which is my favourite series. Instead of the pure satire of the Rincewind books, these are mysteries, set in Discworld. Occasionally, the ‘mystery’ spans entire countries and involves intricate political maneuvering, but, for the head of the Watch in Ankh-Morpork (Discworld’s largest city), Sam Vimes, it’s all about solving the murder. That’s not to say that he doesn’t recognise the larger crimes - he’s been known to arrest entire armies because they were about to start a war.

In the first Watch book, Sam Vimes was the alcoholic Captain of the Night Watch, which consisted of three other people. A dozen or so books later, he’s Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh-Morpork, and Commander of an enormous Watch (so well regarded, in fact, that officers do the training, serve a year or two, and relocate to other Discworld cities, where they are instantly promoted. ‘Sammies’, these officers are known as). He’s happily married to Sybil, who just happens to be the richest woman in the city, and the devoted father of Sam Jnr, lover of that fine piece of literature, ‘Where’s my cow?’.

Sam Vimes is my favourite character in Discworld. He’s not a genius, but he’s tenacious. One of his nicknames has been ‘Vetrinari’s Terrier’, Vetrinari being the deliciously manipulative Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. He grew up in the slums of the city, and still has ‘feelings of gilt’ about being a duke, well aware of his good fortune. He keeps his Beast chained up, and Watches his Watchman. He rises up.

Feet of Clay is one of the earlier Watch books, not long after Sam and Sybil married. In earlier books, Sybil was much more in the background. She was certainly part of Sam’s motivations and the power and privilege her position afforded often came in handy, but beyond that, she could have been anybody. Later on, her character was developed (and as a side note, I love that, instead of ignoring her ‘blue blood’ history, Pratchett uses it to explain a core of strength that comes to the fore whenever things get difficult. Sybil’s ancestors gave birth on camels or arranged tea-parties while war raged around them, so she’s more than capable of defending her family with a coal-stuffed dragon, negotiating international agreements or singing dwarf opera to win over a crowd).

But for now, she’s background. For now, the only reference to Sam’s personal life is his difficulty adjusting to being ‘the master’ and the occasional home-front battle with a member of the Assassins guild. With that out of the way, we move directly onto the mystery at the heart of the novel, the brutal murder of two elderly men, one a priest, the other the head of the dwarf bread museum. Oh, and Vetrinari has fallen victim to poison.

Tied into all of this are the Golums, enormous ceramic ‘men’ who are bought and sold amongst the factories to do all the dirty work. Aside from tackling the obvious questions about the Value of Man (even ceramic ones), Pratchett also touches on bigotry. Corporal Angua, the beautiful woman and occasional werewolf, despises the Golums, even though she knows that it’s unfair. Meanwhile, she’s formed a friendship with the Watch’s newest member, Cherry Littlebottom, who has been brought up to fear werewolves, even going so far as to wear a silver vest. Cherry, a dwarf, is from a culture that does not allow men and women to physically distinguish themselves. Awkwardly, Cheri, as she renames herself, starts wearing earrings and make up, to the horror of many of her fellow dwarfs (and the desire of others to follow suit).

Comparing this book to later one, I get the feeling Pratchett’s just getting a grip on his characters and their world. The confidence that defines his later works is here, but it’s just a little wobbly around the edges. He’s exploring topics like gender and slavery, in unexpected ways. Secondary characters have vitally important roles. Here’s where Pratchett decides that yes, he may have a glorious returned king in the mould of Aragorn walking the streets of Ankh-Morpork, but he’s not the hero, and neither is Vimes. It’s nice to be able to share your admiration with the main character.

There’s so many elements of Feet of Clay that form vertebrae of later books that I couldn’t resist reading one of those books, Thud. A lot has changed. Dorfl, the golum of Feet of Clay, is a respected member of the Watch (along with several other Golums). Nobby Nobs and Fred Colon, are considered dinosaurs, but, to Sam, they are ‘old street monsters’ still deserving of respect. The changes to Sam and Sybil, I’ve already mentioned.

If Discworld is just a fractured mirror of our world, in Thud we find the reflection of the endless battle between the Muslims and the Jews, played out as Trolls versus Dwarfs. Tied into that story is the battle between old traditions and modern life. Cheri’s innocent attempts to be feminine have not impressed everybody; although the ‘Low King’ of the dwarfs has indicated support, there are others who find it utterly offensive. City Dwarfs are caught between their way of life and being a ‘true dwarf’. The Trolls, meanwhile, are experiencing their own political change. Trolls are, essentially, sentient rock, and every thousand years or so, one comes along who is, not the regular sandstone and basalt, but diamond. This troll is, automatically, their king. And then, the battle of ‘Koom Valley’, happens all over again.

Unless, with lots of tongue-in-cheek references to The DaVinci Code, the secret of Koom Valley is revealed, giving a Low King and a Diamond King who believe that keeping your own people alive is more important than killing your enemy, the power to preserve peace.

CBRII Book 35: Finger-licking Fifteen by Janet Evanovich.

2010-09-10T18:11:00.001-07:00

Am I right in assuming that the Stephanie Plum series started the whole 'Chick mystery Lit' genre? It was certainly the first one I read that included all the staples: barely competent but plucky and intuitive lead, minimum of one hot man, a grisly death or two, and a metric fuckload of Wacky Characters.
In Finger-licking Fifteen we have:
Stephanie Plum, who became a Bounty hunter way back in One for the Dough, is completely inept at the actual physicality of being a bounty hunter, but she makes up for it with sheer luck and intuition. She is a complete disaster, always getting her cars blown up and something disgusting stuck to her. This book has four cars lost (a VW and one of Ranger's Porches to a firebug, Lula's Firebird and another one of Ranger's Porches to a bomb), and she ends up covered in paint (twice, or was it three times?) and flour.
The hot men are Joe Morelli, who used to be a bad boy when he and Stephanie went to high school together, but turned himself into a homicide cop. Their on-off relationship is currently off. Which clears the playing field (although he's never shown signs of caring anyway) for the super-mysterious Ranger, who was in the special forces, and then an amazing bounty hunter, but now owns and runs his own security firm. This love triangle has been going on for the past 15 books. At this stage, I'm about ready for Ranger and Joe to declare their love for EACH OTHER and leave Stephanie alone and hopefully a little wiser about making a damn decision and sticking to it, already.
The wacky friends: First, there's Lula, an ex-hooker. She's enormous and brash and she witnessed a man getting his head cut off, so now the killers are after her. Then there's Stephanie's grandmother; scrawny and curious and with no regard for any of society's conventions. Lula's started dating an enormous fireman who used to be a wrestler and likes dressing in women's clothes. There's an assortment of people who skipped bail, including an old man who pulled a gun on his dentist's snippy assistant and a flasher with an enormous penis who apparently is something of a highlight for all the housewives in the area.

Evanovich knows how to write. She knows how to write humour and create endearing characters. She knows she's on a good thing here and what to give the fans. I thoroughly enjoyed Finger-Licking Fifteen.
But after fifteen books (and at least three holiday-themed novellas), it's beginning to stagnate. Actually, Stephanie is beginning to stagnate. Ranger, for instance, has gone from a bounty hunter with a vacant lot as his listed address to the owner of a decent-sized security firm in its own seven-storey building. And, by the looks of it, a never-ending supply of Cayennes. Joe has, possibly surprising even himself, settled into a suburban home with his endearingly mad dog. Lula's constantly got a new scheme. Everybody else, if not entirely happy where they are in life, are actively headed in a direction they believe will take them there.
Except Stephanie. She's still wrestling bail-evaders in garbage. It's not like she hasn't been offered opportunities, she even quit bounty-hunting and worked for Ranger in an earlier book. And, like I said earlier, she's still vacillating between Ranger and Morelli. She's still getting her cars blown up, and her apartment set on fire, or whatever disaster Evanovich will have befall her.
Ultimately, I think this book works best if you think of it as a sitcom. But unfortunately, it's becoming one of those sitcoms that are so afraid of jumping the shark that they end up wearing out their viewer's patience.

CBRII Book 34: The Case of the Imaginary Detective by Karen Joy Fowler

2010-09-04T01:58:00.000-07:00

There's nothing wrong with this book, there's just not much right about it. Rima Lanisell is the goddaughter of famous mystery writer Addison Early. Following the death of her father (several years after the brother, and many years after the death of her mother), Rima goes to live with Addison.
Rima is supposed to be 29, but there's something incredibly child-like about her. She drifts, and although you might be able to put that down to her understandable grief, it slows the story and sucks all the personality right out of her, an almost unforgivable sin in the central character. Like a ten year old looking for entertainment, she decides she's going to unravel the 'mystery' of her father's relationship with Addison, but she's so inert that in some scenes, she forces herself to take on the characterisitics of her dead brother, and these are the few times the plot actually advances.
There's some cute moments, mostly centred around misunderstandings between the (mostly) female characters, and the ubiquitous role of the internet in everything from modern literature to social interactions.
But overall?
Meh.

CBR II (hell for leather edition): See you later, Monster and Master of Murder by Christopher Pike

2010-08-31T06:04:00.000-07:00

First off: They’re still good. Seriously good.

I did a bit of background research on Christopher Pike and discovered very little. The name is not the author’s real name, he chose it in honour of the first Captain of the Enterprise. The man’s a geek, I’ll say that for him. Beyond that, there’s not much, except a quote from one of his few interviews. ‘I don’t write books for teenagers, I write books that have teenagers in them.’

I think that’s the secret to the longevity of his work. Although he doesn’t fully explore his concepts, they’re very adult concepts. To be honest, this superficial treatment of the subject matter is the only difference between this and an ‘adult’ orientated novel.

Okay. See you later. The book, I mean. I’m not signing off just yet.

Mark is a computer programmer who has just graduated high school. He has a heart condition and a crush on Becky, who works at the local record store. Becky likes him a lot, but she’s dating Ray. One day, Mark meets Vincent and his girlfriend Kara. Vincent is also a computer programmer, and Kara, well, Kara’s obsessed with getting Becky away from Ray and into Mark’s arms.

There are very few truly innocent people in this book. Actually, there are very few truly innocent people in any of the three books I’ve consumed over the past couple of days. Kara sets up Ray to cheat on Becky, then tells her about it. Mark lets her do it, because he wants Becky. Ray cheats on Becky with Kara. Even Vincent, who’s the higher evolved and spiritual one, is flawed – he’s so 'spiritual', he’s basically numb and ineffective. I think this is deliberate, as though Pike is telling us that if there is such a thing as guardian angels, they don’t have to carry a blazing sword, but they do need passion.

The most spiritual moment in the entire book doesn’t involve balls of light. It’s when two characters simply remembered when they loved each other. Kara travelled back in time to direct Becky towards what she thought would be love. Instead, she relearned the love she’d burned long ago.

As an entirely non-spiritual regression, I have to say some parts of this book have not aged well. I admit, I very rudely snorted when Mark told Vincent that he should change his program because most computer gamers wouldn’t have 1MB of RAM.

Monster. (No, I’m not insulting you. That’s the second book.)

This one is Vampires: For Real. In Pike’s world, they come from outer space and they don’t use their hypnotic powers to get out of class or get laid, they use them to turn their victims into heartless monsters. Then they turn them into the blood-eating variety.

The book starts when Mary, Angela’s best friend, bursts into a high school party and shot-guns two of her classmates. Angela manages to stop Mary from killing a third, Mary’s boyfriend Jim.

Later, Mary tells Angela that she did it because they’d been turned into monsters. Meanwhile, Jim is putting the moves on Angela, who forgets everything even vaguely related to her sense of decency, and does the nasty with him. All the while, she’s slowly realising that maybe Mary was actually telling the truth.

I remember this book shocking the hell out of me the first time I read it. At the risk of spoiling it for everybody, it was the first time I’d read a book where the good guys don’t really win. I’ve also never been able to look at pictures of our solar system in quite the same way. That fucking asteroid belt looks a bit worrying now.

Finally, Master of Murder.

This is the story of Marvin, a high-school senior who also happens to be Mark Slate, a world-famous author of terrifying novels for teenagers. Marvin’s in a bit of trouble, because the last book in his series about the death of Ann Summers is way past due, and even he doesn’t know who killed her. He also wants to ask out Shelly, whom he dated five times last summer, before the apparent suicide of the other man she was dating, Harry, ended all chances of them being together.

Confused yet? This is really two stories in one. Mark Slate’s tale of how Ann Summers died is a mirror of Harry’s death. Master of Meta, I mean, Murder, is the tale of how Marvin figures that out. With lots of fun asides about life as a world-famous author who writes under a pseudonym, and often gives his female characters the middle name ‘Ann’.

With the exception of Marvin’s eleven year old sister, Ann, NONE of these characters are innocent. They’re barely likeable, although Marvin’s snarky pragmatism is certainly entertaining. There’s also a hilariously ridiculous amount of sex and double-, triple- and quadruple- crossing.

Overall, I still enjoy Pike’s work, which is not something you can usually say about the things you loved when you were overridden with hormones.

CBRII (Hell for Leather edition): a trilogy of Christopher Pike novels.

2010-08-27T02:58:00.001-07:00

Know what started this of?
The fucking Twilight effect.
In case I'm the only one who's noticed, there's eleventy fucking billion books for young adults out there about vampires right now. Imagine my suprise when I discovered that three of those books comprise all six novels of Christopher Pike's 'The Last Vampire' series. Partly, I was suprised because, frankly, it's like he dropped off the face of the earth sometime around my 15th birthday, after (figuratively) beating the ever-living hell out of any delusions R.L. Stine had at being a horror writer. I was also surprised because I thought Pike had only written two books in that series. Opps.

No, I'm not reviewing The Last Vampire. But seeing those books got me thinking. Reminising about how much I loved his work when I was a teenager. And, as has already been noted, I'm insanely behind on this cannonball read. What more reason do I need? Fortunately, because I'm one of those people who are probably going to end up on Hoarders one day, I still had all my Pike novels lined up like old friends in a corner of my bookcase. Well, I thought I did. I'm actually missing a few. Opps again.

Regardless, I've chosen three. Guess what I'm doing this weekend? Taking a horror-edged trip down memory lane. I'm actually kind of excited about it...

CBRII Book 30: Love walks in by Marisa de los Santos

2010-08-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

A recent comment diversion on Pajiba asked 'What's your go-to movie?' Basically, what movie do you watch, over and over again, whenever you need the distraction, mood-adjustment or excuse to wallow?

Love walks in is one of my go-to books. Obviously, a go-to depends on your mood, and in this case, the category is 'charming distraction'. It's practically designed for reading in the bath after a long day, or while snuffling under a blanket when you're too sick to move. And, I confess, I have a thing for the glamour of old movies and this books feeds it to an obscene level.

It's written from two perspectives: Cornelia Brown, a cafe manager with the mind of a librarian, the spirit of a bohemian and the body of Audrey Hepburn. She's dating Martin Grace, a witty, debonair businessman who looks exactly like Cary Grant.

The other perspective is Clare, Martin's eleven year old daughter. Not quite so much estranged from her father as utterly ignored, it's just her and her mother, the beautiful Viviana. Here, the tale turns from 50's repartee to modern fairy tale. Clare, like a reverse Cinderella, goes from joyful princess to desperate housekeeper in a bid to hide her mother's descent into severe mental illness.

When her mother vanishes, Clare seeks out her father. He, being utterly clueless (when she was born, he decided he ‘wasn’t cut out to be a father’ and left), brings her to Cornelia’s café. Cornelia, who isn’t clueless, basically adopts her.

This covers roughly the first quarter of the book, and I find myself reluctant to give away the rest of the plot. Let's just say Cornelia rides of into the sunset with the man of her dreams, and Clare gets the life of her dreams, too. They just might not have been the dreams they started the book with.

de los Santos published her poetry before writing this, her first novel, and it shows. Her style is so rhythmic that the words are more like song lyrics. It's so potent, you can practically hear the backing music. The book is an ode to old movies and fairy tales disguised as a love story. It gives you an overwhelming desire to raid Netflix for everything starring Grant, Stewart or either of the Hepburns.

It's also deliciously self-aware. When you might sneer at the cliches, Cornelia gets in first, sheepishly explaining herself like a snark-monster confessing their softer side. About when you're realising that Clare's ridiculously perfect, she brats up just enough to be believable, while remaining in character.

This is a love story for movie lovers. Admittedly, if you're in possession of a Y chromosome, it'll probably drain you of testosterone (allow me to submit as evidence, your honour: my version of the book has praise from Sarah Jessica Parker on the front cover. No futher questions? Didn't think so).

But it's still one of my go-to books.

Uh-Oh.

2010-08-26T03:43:00.000-07:00

I just did the maths, and unless I've fucked up somewhere, I've got roughly 9 weeks to read 23 books.

For at least four of those weeks, I'll be doing a great honking smoke study. Thrice daily exposures, time I'm actually allowed to spend reading novels at work.

So I'm going to be going hell for leather, here. I'm apologising in advance for how crap the reviews are going to be.

Have to go read now.

CBRII: Bachelor Kisses by Nick Earls

2010-08-26T03:14:00.000-07:00

I read this book in conjuction with The Brain that Changes itself. This one is a kind of 'dick lit'. Instead of a twenty-something woman looking for love and a career among her wacky friends, you have a 25 year old man looking for love and a career amongst his wacky friends.

Nick Earls, the author, is a doctor and researcher, and his protagonist, Jon Marshall, is a doctor taking his first fumbling steps into melatonin research. It seems that even when chosing books based purely on their bright covers and claims of humour, I end up reading about brain studies performed on animals (in this case, hamsters).

I spent a year doing clinical research in a cardiac ward, so many elements of this book are familiar to me. Even the characters remind me, very vaguely, of people I know. The bright but socially inept flatmate who's looking for a 'dating formula' reminds me a little of a man I did much of my undergraduate with. Jon's other flatmate is a sexually confident woman working on her thesis. While she isn't exactly like people I know, yeah, there's some similarities.

The book is written from Jon's POV and without quotation marks, with everybody else's speech written in italics. It works surprisingly well, creating a very stream-of-consciousness style that comes across as sincere, almost intimate. It could have been one of those irritating wank-fests involving a man having a lot of sex with women you just can't fathom desiring him, but because you're drawn so completely into Jon's thoughts, you're bewildered as well, instead of contempteous.

All in all, Bachelor kisses is clever, funny, and you'll never look at a jam jar in quite the same way again.

CBRII: The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.

2010-08-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

As a science-loving geek, I was absorbed by this book, especially the first few chapters. Doidge has put forward a remarkable argument in favour of brain ‘plasticity’, even into adulthood.

For some time, science has held the theory that brains are all 'set up' during the first year or so of life, and for the most part, every person's is arranged the same way. You’ve probably seen the cartoons, with the ‘language’ section and the ‘gross movement’ area set out and coloured in like a child learning to keep inside the lines. According to this theory, damage to the brain will essentially kill off whatever function that part of the brain looks after. You have a stroke that damages the ‘hearing’ part of your brain, you’re hearing impaired for the rest of your life. Plasticity advocates, on the other hand, claim that your neurons have a ‘use it or lose it’ policy, and any that are not utilised are ‘repurposed’ for a different use. The mind does ‘map’ functions to specific locations, but, according to Doidge, the regions are fluid, and the borders are blurred.

Doidge begins his book with woman called Cheryl and a researcher called Bach-y-Rita. Cheryl suffered a rare side-effect of the antibiotic gentamycin, the degeneration of the vestibular apparatus, the delicate arrangement of three tiny organs behind the ear that control our sense of balance. Cheryl became a ‘Wobbler’, and so severe were her symptoms that she literally could not stand still and steady. It was worse in darkness – if you turned out the lights, she would immediately fall to the ground.

Bach-y-Rita designed a hat to replace the complex with signals sent to, of all things, the tongue. If Cheryl leant forward while wearing the hat, she'd feel small bubbles at the front of her tongue. If she leant to the left, she’d get bubbles on the left side, and so on. While wearing the hat, Cheryl could jump, dance, and simply stand still. The idea was to eventually replace the bulky hat with something small and discrete, something like an under the tongue version of a hearing aid.

Only something odd happened to Cheryl. She discovered that she retained her balance after the hat was removed. Initially, the residual effect lasted one-third of the time she was wearing the hat. When she wore the hat for 20 minutes, the residual effect expanded to three times the wearing time, and increased with each session. On the day that Doidge witnessed the experiment, twenty minutes with the hat resulted in over three hours of residual effect. Eventually, Cheryl was no longer a Wobbler, and was able to return to work, and much of her old life. The theory was that her damaged vestibular apparatus was still sending warped signals to the brain, effectively overloading it. By providing the brain with a new input for balance, it recalibrated, utilising the few remaining healthy signals, and possibly some ‘underlying’ mechanisms.

How the brain changes itself is filled with stories like this. My personal favourite is the explanation of the phenomenon of phantom limbs. As I said before, the brain maps during development, assigning places according to use and related activities (the area for the thumb, for instance, is next to the nerves that control your index finger, because when grasping an object, these two digits work together). And, of course, it’s ‘use it or lose it’. If somebody loses a limb, the neuronal real estate responsible for that limb is quickly repurposed for use by the areas around it.

With phantom limbs, there’s a kind of crossed signal – the brain nerves are still active, despite the absence of the periphery nerves, which leads to the sensation of the limb still being there, moving, or even itching. Two ways of getting around this were presented.

Firstly, that neuronal repurposing may mean that signals received from the areas that took over the amputated limb’s neuronal space will affect the phantom limb. A man who experienced chronic itching in his phantom limb found that it was relieved by scratching his face (the nerve map placed the face nerves next to the area that used to control his arm).

The second technique was more effective in people who, for various reasons, had their limb restrained for some time before amputation. With these people, a feeling of ‘deadness’ often remains, like a neuronal ghost, and they reported some relief thanks to a bit of smoke and mirrors. Literally. Put the ‘good’ limb in a mirrored box that created the illusion of two healthy limbs, then tell the patient to lay their phantom limb over the reflected image. Moving the good limb could fool the mind into believing the phantom limb was moving, and ‘reset’ the trapped ‘un-moving’ signal.

I’m using a lot of quote marks in this review. Frankly, I could be using a lot more. Although the science-loving geek side of me loved this book, the trained scientist was not so excited. There’s a lot of pseudo-science in this book, especially the later chapters, which tend to dissolve into vague, untested theories and conjecture. It’s as though Doidge has fallen into the trap of, having made believers out of us, going on to make whatever claim springs to mind. I actually cringed when Doidge used a scene from a work of fiction as an example, weakly justifying it with the author’s ‘years spent on college campuses’. There are plenty of legitimate studies on pornography and college-aged men, there’s really no need to reference My name is Charlotte Simmons. Yes , those legitimate studies won’t produce a phrase as evocative as ‘cum-dumpsters’, but that’s what happens when you step away from artistic licence.

Of course, this book was written for the layperson and perhaps those evocative but inaccurate references were included to avoid boring them. Whatever the trained scientist thinks of the ‘proof’, there’s no doubting the breadth of Doidge’s research. He has chapters on everything from learning disabilities to pornography. There’s so much information that I’m not sure it wouldn’t have worked better as two books containing more specific explanations and studies. Then again, according to Doidge, that feeling could simply be due to a lifetime of media influence severely shortening my brain’s ability to maintain attention.

Ultimately, read this book for the fascinating experiments and an insight into just how amazing our brain actually is. Read it because there will be at least one chapter that will apply to you in some way, even if only to confirm that PETA were always underhanded. But while I whole-heartedly recommend this book, I feel compelled to add that outside of the fascination factor, it is, at best, a source of hope and a good reason to try something completely new for the sake of the grey matter, not a Bible for Better Brains.

In which I babble on in a self-obsessed manner...

2010-08-15T04:13:00.000-07:00

I got married last Sunday. It was wonderful, and so much fun. I don't think I stopped smiling all night. I think I learned a few things, though.

1. Weddings are not that serious, or important. They really aren't. The important parts are the years that follow the wedding. The wedding is just a big party for all the people who love you, and want you to be happy. That's not serious, that's a source of joy.

2. Always remember that the people you're paying to assist you are the experts. Treat them accordingly, and they will do incredible things. My dress-maker turned my ill-fitting dress (don't ask) into a masterpiece. The lady we spoke to about our cake arranged for two gluten-free cupcakes to be made for my mother and best friend, and had them decorated to match the main cake. The jeweler we bought the wedding rings from polished my engagement ring, the ITGeek's engagement watch and his grandmother's seventy year old necklace by hand, and when I asked her how much she wanted for it, she replied, 'Nothing. It's our wedding gift to you'. This one seems obvious to me, but judging from things we were told by quite a few of the people we dealt with, it's depressingly uncommon behaviour.

3. A wet weather plan is your best friend.

3a. If you hire umbrellas as part of your wet weather plan, it will not rain. It might be cold as hell, but it won't rain.

4. Have something warm to wear. I wore a full-length blue velvet cloak which I renamed 'the elegant Snuggie', made me look like someone from Lord of the Rings, and fulfilled my inner-child's desire to be a princess (actually, she wanted a sword, because that's her idea of a princess, but we settled on the cloak).

5. Tradition is nice, being yourself is nicer. Your guests know you're a tragic geek, they're not going to sneer if your recessional music is from Final Fantasy VII, they're going to laugh and nod. Likewise, your father is not going to worry if the groom is wearing Star Trek cuff-links, he's going to try to abscond with them (Yep, the Geeking is inherited).

6. Ideally, your bridal party should consist of a) somebody to look after the bride, b) somebody to look after the groom and c) somebody to lighten the mood. They should also, ideally, get along brilliantly and when not keeping the bride and groom sane, will be joining forces to merrily take the piss out of them.

7. Give your guests boxes of LEGO to play with at the reception. I was stunned at how successful this was. If they don't know the other people at the table very well, they will within a few minutes. If they all know each other, you'll end up with the most creative and bizarre war in human history (or Lego men in the soup. But I'm told that was a genuine accident. Making Lego spoons and eating with them wasn't, though). They'll also be way too busy to get drunk, which wasn't my intention, but made the reception venue very, very happy.

7a. Also, stick a box of breath mints, band-aids, headache tablets, deodorant, safety pins, and anything else people might need in a minor emergency in the bathrooms. They probably won't use it, but they'll appreciate it.

8. Dance, especially with the slightly drunk/excitable cousins who drag people onto the dance floor. But if your dress has a train, sit out 'Zorba the Greek' and don't even attempt the fancy version of the Nutbush. Even the excitable ones will understand.

8a. On second thoughts, avoid dresses with trains. Yes, they look awesome, and yes, I survived. But only just. Oh, and if your dress has a bodice you're tied into, somewhere around the main course, you're probably going to discover that the current combination of ties, food and your internal organs is not a great one, and something will have to give. At that point, grab your bridesmaid and loosen the fucking ties before your spleen explodes.

9. An awesome photographer is a gift from God. An awesome photographer with an assistant willing to contort into bizarre poses to get you a good shot is a gift from Godotopus.

10. Throwing a teddy bear with a couple of flowers around its neck instead of the traditional bouquet means that everyone (not just the unmarried women) can be involved, and when you hurl the poor thing straight into an overhead beam, it'll bounce back surprisingly well.

All these are just ideas for a good wedding day. But if you want a guaranteed perfect wedding day, the trick is to marry someone who makes you light up, and whom you, somehow, light up in return. You'll spend the entire night in a bubble of happiness. You won't even notice if something goes wrong because you've managed to find the most right thing you could ever experience, possibly more right than you deserve. That's a perfect wedding, right there.

With Spirit and Courage: The extraordinary life of Paul Featherstone by Paul Featherstone and Ian Heads

2010-08-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

In 1997, two chalets at Thredbo Ski resort in New South Wales collapsed due to a landslide, causing three and a half tonnes of building, snow, trees and 'debris' to slide down the mountain . It's one of those events that echoes in people's minds, in no small part because, after over two days, a living survivor was found. Stuart Diver was buried three metres down, under (among other things) a piece of concrete about 300m long that used to be the carpark. In the first hour or so of his entrapment, he watched his wife drown. In the end, he was there for 65 hours, most of that utterly alone and in complete darkness, in a space so narrow you could barely fit your hand between the concrete and his chest.

But for the final eleven and a half hours, he had Paul Featherstone, a paramedic. And what a paramedic. Paul was one of the first paramedics in NSW, and the instigator of an specialist branch (SCAT) that focuses on getting aid to people in dire circumstances - those who'd fallen off a cliff, gotten lost for three days in bushland, or ended up in the ocean on a very bad day. Or, in Paul's most famous case, trapped under a few tonnes of former ski resort. Whatever the situation, 'Feathers' will do his best to get you out alive.

This book is Paul's story. He's had a hell of an interesting life. Aside from Thredbo, he also attended one of NSW's other gut-wrenching disasters: the Granville train smash. A packed commuter train derailed and crashed into a bridge, which then collapsed on top of two carriages, crushing the occupants. 83 people lost their lives, and Paul, who spent 36 hours at the site (against the wishes of his superiors, who'd decided that the then newish paramedics weren't needed) describes the inside of the most-damaged carriage when the bridge was pulled off it - dozens of dead people, still sitting in their seats, coffee and papers in their laps.

There are several chapters dedicated to Thredbo, and between that and the foreword written by Stuart, you find yourself in the middle of mutual admiration society. Paul has nothing but praise for Stuart's strength, both physical and mental. He describes the intense bond that formed between them, and, without going into detail, some of the topics they covered, including the loss of Sally, Stuart's wife.

This should be a horrifying book. In some parts, it is. But overall, it's actually quite uplifting. Not long after describing the horror of Granville, Paul speaks of the 'unknown rescuer', a local construction worker who, almost asleep on his feet, was still carving up chunks of the bridge with his own jack-hammer. Trapped in that hellish coffin of debris, Paul told Stuart Diver thousands of people who were working to free him. When Stuart was finally freed, Paul describes telling him 'mate, the world is cheering for you' as those people created a 'grand-final like cheer', and passed Stuart, bound in his stretcher, hand over hand, down the slope to the medical centre.

I'm not entirely sure if this kind of response is simply an Australian thing, and it feels incredibly condescending to claim that it is. But our country is relatively unpopulated for its size, and frankly, between the animals and the landscape, we're well aware that we're outnumbered. As a result, there's a huge culture of volunteering here. Our coasts are guarded by surf-life saving clubs, our homes protected by the State Emergency Service and Country Fire Authority. There's organisations like St Johns Ambulance and the Salvation Army (and Paul pays particular credit to the 'Sallies') who patch up the bumps and pick up the pieces. Even if you aren't a formal volunteer, if something goes wrong, inevitably, you pitch the fuck in and help.

Paul's a big fan of this attitude. He's also a huge fan of 'mind, body and spirit', and keeping all three in balance. I was slightly surprised to learn that he's good friends with Kerry Packer, one of the richest men in Australia (when Packer went overseas for a heart operation, Paul took time off work to go with him).

If I have a flaw with this book, it's that the involvement of a second (ghost?) writer can make this a little too much like a carefully-constructed interview. I have absolutely no doubt that Paul Featherstone is an incredible man, and remarkably modest, given his achievements, but an autobiography can be quite illuminating in ways the author may not realise, and I think I would have liked to have been able to read a little more between the lines. I suspect Paul might be the kind of guy who regularly pisses off his superiors, and might take chances they don't approve of, but through a combination of not being stupid and perhaps a little luck, he's managed to avoid the usual major fuck-ups.

This is, basically, the story of a Top Bloke ('Top Bloke', as recognised by my Ocker Aussie core, is the highest praise that can be bestowed upon a man). When doing a bit of background research to find out what he'd been up to since the book was written, I discovered that he'd helped Brant Webb and Todd Russell, who were trapped for two weeks following a mine collapse. It seems he's become a bit of an expert in the rare field of 'getting poor buried bastards out alive and sane'.

I will add, though, that this is probably not the best book to read when honeymooning along a picturesque but treacherous road, just after some particularly excited storm activity. You might end up just a bit paranoid.

CBRII: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

2010-08-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is the first Atwood book I've read, and I understand now why she's so well-regarded. The book is told from two perspectives - the first is Grace Marks, imprisoned for the murder of her boss and his housekeeper when she was their 16-year old maid. Her version of these events has always conflicted with that of the other murderer, who was hanged for the crime. The second perspective is Dr Simon Jordan, the psychologist studying her. He's not so much interested in the truth behind the murder as in building his reputation. There's a very somnolent quality Grace's voice, a world of dream-like imagery and simple routine. Dr Jordan's voice is more energetic, tinged with frustration and impatience, like he's living the nightmare of battling enemies that just won't die.

Sometimes, with a Serious Work of Fiction like this, I wonder if authors carefully include their Symbolism, or if they just write a damn story and let somebody with an arts degree decide what it means. Given that I had half the periodic table of the elements percolating in my body when I read this book, I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to decipher the deeper meaning of the peonies and the patchwork quilts. Besides, I think, if I had a reputation as an author of Serious Works of Fiction, I'd just repeatedly reference some random item, like a lint-roller or a kitchen timer shaped like a cheeseburger, just to see what kind of Symbolism people attach to it.

It's difficult to discuss the story itself without giving away a major plot point. So, without further ado:

BIG HONKING SPOILERS...

Was Grace possessed by the spirit of Mary Whitney, or was she just an incredibly intelligent manipulator, creating a brilliant cover-story?

I'm edging towards Grace being a master manipulator. That said, I'm not entirely sure that the truth of that murder didn't fall somewhere in the middle of 'He did it all, I'm totally innocent and I blacked out,' and 'She's a sexual predator and she put me up to it'. I wonder if she said some things in anger that she really shouldn't have to a man with a very short fuse and a desire to impress her (and a lot of other desires as well), and then couldn't handle the consequences. But, being smarter than most of the people around her (including the good doctor), and possibly inspired by the peddler who turned into a respected psychologist with just a little word-play, she made herself a path out. I'm not entirely sure if she wanted Dr Jordan to be part of that, or if she wanted to get rid of him before he figured her out. I think the fact she kept writing to him indicates the first - she did like to play with the man, just a little.

SPOILERS OVER.

My only regret is that I read this book while very sick and was subsequently very distracted (I was later told by the doctor that I should have got my wheezing arse to the hospital, but fuck that. No harm was done and I got to stay home and read books on my recliner instead of sitting on plastic bedding in an emergency room, waiting for an available bed). So it's very likely I missed a small but significant item that would clear up all my questions. To be honest, though, I'm hoping I'm not meant to know the truth. I like some ambiguity in my stories.

CBRII: Nation by Terry Pratchett.

2010-07-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

This is not a Discworld book. It is, however, an alternate reality.

In this alternate reality, Russian Influenza has killed the entire Royal family, with the exception of a lone descendant, who has recently become the Governor of a remote island. This descendant has sent for his daughter to join him, on a ship known as the Sweet Judy.
In this alternate reality, there is an even more remote island, known as The Nation. On an even smaller island near the Nation, a boy is building a canoe. He will paddle this canoe back to the Nation, where all the people of the Nation are waiting, and in doing so, he will become a man.

In this alternate reality, there is a tsunami. When it has passed, the boy paddles his canoe to find that the people of the Nation are all dead. The Sweet Judy sits wrecked in the middle of the Nation, the daughter the only survivor.

And from there, the girl and the boy rebuild. That, of course, is only the start.

This is a book full of cliches - the proper English girl, the native boy. The priest, the wise woman. The mothers, one full of light, the other broken, her child her only link to the rest of the world. The brothers, one large and silent, the other small and noisy. The cannibals, the criminals, the sociopath. The widowed father, the bitter grandmother.

Then, with a deft touch, they are more. Ermitrude changes her name to Daphne and approaches life with the mind of a scientist. Mau, who cannot read words, tries to read the universe, the minds of the gods themselves. He fills the empty hole of his Nation with rage and the responsibility of those that are left, those that arrive as refugees. The priest, who demands fealty to the gods, not for the power that is then transferred to him, but because he plagued by questions that are echoes of Mau's. The cannibal king looks a lot like the English Prime Minister. The illiterate natives look upon a cave of wonders and are smart enough to recognise what it means. When faced with the prospect of being dragged into the Empire, they request to be part of the Royal Society instead, because, once upon a time, a king granted the society a mace as alike in bigness to his own.

This is a book about finding yourself when everything else is taken away. It's about science, and religion, because children raised among the greatest scientific minds in the world will still ask if there are ghosts. It's about the perfect world we're promised and the perfect world we imagine. It's about the wonder of discovery, how everything you think you know is not everything you can know, and the stars don't disappear when the sun rises. It's a painfully beautiful love story that contains no more than a kiss on the cheek.

It breaks my heart, every time I read this book. It's a subtle break, the words hitting you so neatly you don't notice the cracks they leave behind, until a simple phrase touches you like a whisper, and your whole heart shatters. I can't do it justice, I really can't. But for those who've never liked Pratchett because of the whimsy and satire of his Discworld series, you won't find it here. There's a few bright feathers of comic relief, and some sly digs, but forget about 'madcap'. That never even entered this book.

It would be impossible to review this book without mentioning the fact that it is the first Pratchett wrote after his diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. There's no denying the analogy between the tsunami that stole a young boy's people, and the writer's disease that steals the Nation of his own mind. I don't doubt that Mau's rage against gods who would do this was echoed by the writer giving him those words.
But I also can't help but wonder if this was also the book that Pratchett always wanted to write, the Masterpiece he thought he'd have more time to write, then, when faced with the reality of time running out, poured out his pain and despair and philosophies and, above all, hope for a better world. No, wait. Not just hope, and not just a better world. His determination for a perfect world.

The creation myth of the Nation states that Imo made the world, then made people from the souls of some dolphins. Then, when there were too many people, he made Locaha, the god of death.
Eventually, Imo realised the world he'd made wasn't so good, so he decided to destroy it and make a perfect world. But Locaha asked instead that this world be given to him. When people died, he would turn them into dolphins, until it was their turn to be born again. But 'when I find a creature who has stiven, who has become more than the mud from which they were made, who has glorified this mean world by being part of it, then I will open a door for them into your perfect world and they will no longer be creatures of time for they will wear stars.'

Later in the book, Locaha speaks again.

Those other I mentioned, who have been shown the glittering path? The all said the same thing as you did. They saw that the perfect world is a journey, not a place. I have only one choice, Mau, but I'm good at making it.

Broken....

2010-07-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday night. The ITGeek is sitting on his computer, trying to find music for our wedding. Exactly three weeks from now, we will be married.

Holy. Fuck.

So this weekend, the ITGeek's parents came down to help us Get Shit Done. Table arrangements, place cards, all that fun stuff. My parents came over to help too. I love my parents. I love my in-laws. I'm truly blessed to have four wonderful people in my life, who get along so well. But they are exhausting.

Then there's what happened on Friday night.

It's 11pm, and I've just finished brushing my teeth. Suddenly, the ITGeek opens the door. He's on the phone, and he's pale.
"We've been broken into," he says urgently, "the guy's downstairs. Stay here. Please, stay here."
Then he shuts the door and is gone.

Two things that suck about being 'stuck' in the bathroom. First, you can't hear anything. All those tiles effectively make the place soundproof.
Secondly, there's very little you can use as a weapon. I forgot about the eye-burning powers of aerosol deodorant, but I did grab the broom. I vacilated wildly for a minute that felt like ten, then crept out, holding my broom.
The ITGeek was in the bedroom, talking to the police. I headed straight for the big, 6 C-battery maglite I'd moved to my side of the bed when he'd gone away for a couple of nights. Hefted it like I actually have any idea how to hit somebody with it (I don't). The ITGeek gave me a bit of a smile, and shook his head. He was describing the man in our house who had not been invited to the person on the phone.
When he got off the phone, he told me his father was downstairs with The Guy, and that he was calm. He repeated his request for me to stay upstairs. Then, again, he left.
I waited a bit. Then, still holding my new best friend, I crept out of the bedroom. Despite my familarity with Mr Maglite, I'm well aware of my limitations in terms of actually being any use in a fight. I was content to stay out of sight, but there was no way I could sit there without having any idea what was happening. On the upstairs landing, I could hear without being seen.
I slipped out just in time to hear the cops arrive. They were very firm on the subject of what The Guy had in his pockets. Then I heard the ITGeek being equally firm on the subject of who actually owned the GPS unit The Guy had just pulled out of his pocket. Someone was calling an ambulance, because The Guy had cut himself. After another minute or so, I heard The Guy being taken outside, and I felt safe enough to walk downstairs.

Know that part in crime shows where some random person notices a bit of blood, just before the corpse suddenly lands on their head? That was my living room. A trail of dark red blotches ran across my carpet to the kitchen, around our coffee table, towards the TV. More blood stained the walls, kitchen benches, fat puddles of it all over the tiles in the entrance way. It was just everywhere.
The Guy was outside, surrounded by cops. I started shaking. I suddenly had a deep, visceral need to get that blood out of my house. I wanted every single fucking trace of this creep out of my Mary Poppins home. He did not belong here, in my place of safety and silliness, he'd never been invited and I wanted all evidence that he'd ever been there eradicated.
The ITGeek's parents were in their dressing gowns. His mother looked shocked. His father looked calm, and healthy, as did the ITGeek, which was all I cared about. Well, not quite. I asked where Morgan was, and was told he'd been locked in the garage.
While the police did their thing, I got the (incredibly surreal) story out of my family.

The Guy broke in through the window of our spare room. He pulled the window far enough to let himself in, pushed off the flywire, and climbed on in. The ITGeek's parents, who had just settled into bed in the room opposite, heard the noise and were discussing it when The Guy opened the door.
"Oh, hello," The Guy said. "Sorry, I'm looking for my friend."
Then he shut the door. The ITGeek's father got up, thinking this was perhaps a friend of the ITGeek, and followed him, calling for the ITGeek at the same time. On the way, he walked past the door of the Spare Room and noticed the broken fly screen.
By this time, the ITGeek had come downstairs. He saw his father, and a stranger with a bleeding hand, and thought The Guy had knocked on our door, asking for help, and been let in. So the ITGeek immediately started helping The Guy, washing his hand, and helping him bandage it.
I should add at this point that The Guy was so high, he wasn't even sharing our solar system. He had a dozen different stories, starting with 'My friend said he'd leave the window open for me,' proceeding through to 'I got slashed by a friend', then to 'I got attacked, I ran here for help,' and back to 'I'm looking for my friend, he owes me money'.
Anyway, eventually his dad clued the ITGeek in on the situation. The ITGeek ran upstairs to call the cops (and warn me), who arrived quickly, with stab vests and enormous cans of pepper spray. While waiting for the cops, the ITGeek and his dad kept The Guy busy by getting him to help them clean his blood off our kitchen floor. Which he did quite amiably, apparently. He only really got cranky when the cops had him cuffed on our driveway.

Like I said, a surreal story. The officers who took the statements seemed to find them very entertaining (particularly the ITGeeks. When he got to the part where his father clued him in, the officer said 'I was wondering if you knew what was going on. People usually aren't that nice to people who break into their house'.)

I also had a wee breakdown after I got filled in.
The Guy got in through an open, unlocked window. I was the one who'd opened that window and left it unlocked.
I'm the paranoid one in our relationship, the one who always takes valuables out of the car and locks the house down before we go to sleep. But the in-laws were visiting, and when I was airing out the house, Morgan looked so intrigued by the fresh smells coming through the window that I forgot to lock it. Then, when we went to bed, I forgot to lock everything else.
I left the window open and unlocked. As the future mother in law keeps reminding us, he could have had a knife, and one stab would have been all it would take.
I don't think she realises how much that freaks me out. Or possibly, she's under the mistaken impression that I need reminding of how bad it could have gotten. Maybe she thinks mentioning all the ways my mistake could have gotten my family killed is for my own good.

Regardless, the cops took The Guy away. They sent some crime guys around to collect blood samples and take more photographs. Every single cop who saw our cat was highly entertained by how large he is and his obsession with chasing torch beams (one switched his torch to some sort of strobe light function and Morgan nearly lost his furry little mind). When the crime guys left, I got out the cleaning stuff and got all the little blood spots off every surface in our house. It was like a really gory game of Where's Wally with cleaning fluid.

We went to bed about 3am. I had to get up three and a half hours later for a trial of my wedding hair style. I woke up just as the fermented adrenaline made me throw up. Since then, my shitty lungs, which had already been having a hard time with my asthma, have given up the fight completely. And possibly given into the cold I've been fighting for a fortnight as well.

So I'm exhausted, wheezing, sneezing, and the drugs have given me a chronic case of the shakes. I'm still slightly scared of my house, and I keep coughing so hard I nearly puke again.

On the upside, I have the love of an incredibly brave and amazing man. He clears out drugged out burgulars and brings me cough syrup.

I wonder if they'd let me mention that in my vows?

CBRII: Don't tell Mum I work on the rigs, she thinks I'm a piano player in a whore house by Paul Carter

2010-07-14T02:17:00.000-07:00

See, several years ago, I was... well, I'm not entirely sure why, but I was home and watching one of those morning programs that are 70% sales pitches to bored housewives, 25% terrifyingly smiley hosts and 5% actual content. The Smilers were talking to a man who was not one of the usual guest - probably in his mid thirties he was balding, and had none of that artifical charm. This was Paul Carter, the host told me, who's written a book about his experiences working on an oil rig. The book was called 'Don't tell mum I work on the rigs, she thinks I'm a piano player in a whore house.'

I was intrigued.

Paul explained that it was an old rig saying, and that his mum was perfectly aware of what he did for a living; she was, in fact, an oil company employee herself before she retired.
The Smiler asked about a chimpanzee who was a bartender on a rig. Paul told the story of Ah Meng, a chimpanzee who'd been spotted in an Indonesian market by the barge captain and brought back onto the rig. One of the other crew members was a cabinet builder, and he'd built a beautfiul teak bar room below deck, and Ah Meng became it's bartender. She apparently kept the bar brilliantly, and would even make a cocktail if you pointed to a picture of the one you wanted.
Ah Meng had one rule, though. Her stool. If some hapless human (usually a newbie offered the stool by an old hand) sat on her stool, she would 'put down the drink she was making, go over to him, pick him up by the crotch and the neck' and literally throw him the length of the bar, to where a large couch had long ago been set up as a landing area. Apparently, it was even funnier if you could get another new guy to sit on the couch when the first guy sat on her stool.

I resolved to buy this book as soon as possible.

The book is a slap-dash collection of mad adventures and crazy people, exotic locations and dangerous situations. Among other things, Paul has been a bystander during a gun-fight in the Philipines, been held hostage on a rig in Nigeria, came face to face with a full grown seal during a typhoon (in the middle of doing a pirate impersonation) and accidently blew up his beer-drinking, chain-smoking pet monkey. He's had dysentry and an abscessed tooth (both while on long plane flights, and he owes some flight attendents a very good meal). He's watched a mouse kill a scorpion and a guard kill a prostitute (the latter gave him nightmares for months). He's driven his mate 2 hours to the doctors after a massive trucker beat the living hell out of him in a way that made me feel sick. Then he's driven the same mate back to the hospital when a kangeroo when through the poor guy's windscreen and straight into all the metal holding his face together. He's... he's done a hell of a lot, okay? Some of it terrifying, most of it hilarious.

Paul writes very, very well. He's remarkably insightful and well aware of the 'dark side' of the oil industry. He will make you laugh, wince, and swear that he's making it all up. He's a very likable narrator, witty, generous with the compliments towards others and self-depreciating.

Reading (or re-reading, in my case) this book is like sitting down at a pub next to a guy who turns out to have had one hell of an intersting life and is also one of the funniest story-tellers you've ever met. You'll buy him drinks all night, just to keep him talking, and possibly try to set him up with your best friend/sister/yourself. Then, as you stumble out of the pub together, you're accosted by a one eyed man carrying a parrot, who punches you in the stomach then runs away, screaming about fishes eating his toes. Lying on the floor, eyes watering, you look up at Paul, who says 'This sort of thing happens to me all the time.'

CBRII Book 23: Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox.

2010-07-04T05:55:00.000-07:00

I can't help but compare this autobiograhy to that of David Stratton. Both are about people who've spent their lives 'in film', one as an actor, the other as a critic. One struck me as a pompous windbag, the other amazed me with his unexpected depth and humility.

Don't get me wrong, I already had enormous respect for Fox's efforts to raise money for Parkinson's research. Now, I admire the man, and not just that innate admiration we give anybody who's gives a debilitating disease the old 'fuck you', either.

I admire how readily he gives the credit to everybody else, admits his past fuck ups and appreciates his blessings. I admire how much he adores his wife (please, Michael, don't break my heart with a revelation that you've been cheating on her, though between Tiger and Jesse James, you'd have to cheat on her with Osama Bin Laden to really fuck us all up). Despite how ferociously he's fought for Stem Cell reseach, he speaks of those who oppose it with respect. In fact, he dedicates an entire quarter of his book to his exploration of faith, including encounters with people whose beliefs would condemmn him to hell, and eagerly speaks of their virtues and strengths. He's even considerably more decent to Rush Limburg than the man was to him. If I'd been in his position, my memoir would have been littered with creative expletives. Just one of many reasons why I'll never have a foundation named after me (and, for that matter, never should).

He name-drops, but every name is either part of a 'holy shit, I can't believe I experienced this!' story or because that particular person is connected to his foundation in some way (Ryan Reynolds, for instance, gets mentioned because his father has PD and he raised $100,000 doing a marathon). Though he does talk about the time he came dangerously close to kicking Tobey Maguire in the arse and gyrating his crotch into Usher. That tale was supposed to be about how awesome his wife is. I was too amused by the mental picture to completely appreciate that message.

The Michael J Fox Foundation is determined to cure Parkinson's disease, preferably in the next decade. The scientist in me thinks we don't know nearly enough for that to be possible. The cynic truly doubts that the pharmaceutical giants who make enormous amounts of money from treating PD are going to let some punk TV actor risk those profits by curing the disease.

I became a scientist because I was sick, a lot, as a child. I wanted to cure a disease. On behalf of that dream, please, prove both the Scientist and the Cynic wrong, Michael.

CBRII: Devil's Food by Kerry Greenwood

2010-07-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

In which I wonder if, maybe, Greenwood's been fucking with me.

Okay, the premise. It's another Corinna Chapman book. For those who've forgotten, she's a Melbourne baker who's a perfect size 20 (the weight is important. *sigh* Yes, it's so very important). She's in a relationship with Daniel, a tall, mysterious, gorgeous private investigator. In Devil Food, Corinna's mother shows up because her geriatric father's decided to go chasing tail and ended up disappearing. This leads to a terrible house where a small child is doomed to one hell of a fucked-up life, a wonderful hostel for the homeless and a wacked-out cult that thinks eating is against God's will. There's also somebody roaming around with a 'diet tea' that'll kill ya.

It's hard to explain what I found distasteful about this book without sounding like a bitch. So I'm just going to blurt it out. See, Corinna and Daniel visit the aforementioned awful house. There's a small girl there, who's got a baby to look after and a mother riddled with cancer. Corinna is horrified that such circumstances exist in a Western country. She can't sleep that night, she's so upset about it.

Then she watches a cat slide into a pond, and she feels much better. Daniel tells her to 'let Sister Mary handle it'. They go back to their happy little lives and forget the kid even exists. Gee, Corinna, you were wondering how children can live like this in Australia?

Both characters, by this point, have repeatedly used the term 'middle class' like it's an insult. But what in the name of all that is fucking holy is MORE middle class (in the worst possible way) than witnessing another person's suffering and either making it all about yourself (as Corinna did, with her 'oh poor me, I couldn't sleep, I was soooo upset' routine) or simply offloading the problem onto someone else (like Daniel, who decides that only Sister Mary could possibly have the resources to help, neatly forgetting that once upon a time, Sister Mary was just Mary, a woman with empathy and some fucking drive to do something about it)?

Look, people are self-absorbed shit heaps, I know that. With any other character, you wouldn't even notice the hypocrisy. You might even feel sorry for poor Corinna's soft heart. But given the constant barrage of 'Corrina sighs over the state of the world' that fills these books, you think she'd have realised that everybody sighs over the state of the world. The truly decent people are the ones who actually do something about it (and not for selfish reasons, Miss I-joined-the-Soup-Run-because-I-wanted-to-shag-the-Heavy).

So, either Greenwood's gone Full Satire in this book, or Corinna's her Mary Sue and she's too close to see that the character has passed right through the Land of the Opinionated and into Hypocritical Cow territory. I have an awful feeling it's the latter, though. Let's call it Bella Swan Syndrome - one of the reasons I never finished Twilight was because Bella kept saying she was an unpopular outcast, while the behaviour of everybody around her said exactly the opposite. It didn't make her sympathetic, it made her seem like a self-obsessed lunatic.

In this case, it's even worse. Bella Swan had the excuse of being 17. At that age, you're allowed to mistake opinion for understanding. But Corinna is an adult. There's no excuse.

Greenwood, please, learn from Meyer's mistake. If you want your readers to like your character, you should not be giving them the urge to tell Corinna to take her never-ending bitching about politicians and shove them up her arse.

Oh, and the fat thing? Yeah, just copy and paste everything I said above and swap out 'ignoring the child while pretending to be some Protector of the Poor' for 'Proclaiming to be Perfectly Happy with her weight then flipping out AGAIN when she overhears some guy who's clearly mentally ill saying nasty shit about it'. Coupled with 'Thinks she shouldn't be judged while insinuating that every thin person is some media-addled anorexic'.

You know, I tend towards books like this when I think I'd be better off with some light escapism. But fuck it, I'm going back to the sci-fi and heart-breakers. At least they don't piss in my face and try to tell me it's puppy-breath.

CBRII: Serendipity by Melanie La’Brooy

2010-07-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

Although I’m guilty of using the phrase a lot myself, I’m not a fan of the descriptor ‘Chick Lit’. I think it, and its movie equivalent, are overused, and too often derogatively. But I have to acknowledge there is a subgroup of novels that fit the category. Based purely on my anecdotal evidence, they’re usually written by somebody who used to work at a women’s magazine. I don’t know why, but it seems like everybody who’s ever held a pencil in the office of a women’s mag ends up writing True Chick Lit. Perhaps there’s a rule book handed out the second some bright-eyed employee expresses a desire to write a novel.

They’re all very similar. At least one of the protagonists works in a magazine or advertising. If it’s the male, he’s very successful. The female protagonist, even if she’s the magazine worker, is a different matter. She’s usually a talented underling (with optional bitch of a boss). She’s ambitious, because that’s modern, but rarely successful, because that would be TOO modern. It doesn’t really matter because, regardless of the gender, the intricacies of the job are not mentioned. It’s just something to fill the day and occasionally create conflict for the sake of the story. Storylines involving a reporter inevitably involve an article published (by accident or because of that bitch boss) in order to have the requisite ‘Big fight’.

There is a lot of Wacky. At least two Wacky Friends, some Wacky Adventures, and a Wacky misunderstanding the author would probably describe as Shakespearian, although even Shakespeare would probably admit that his gift was wordplay, not realistic plotting. There’s a romantic sub-plot involving a friend of the protagonist (usually the Wacky Friend). If the Female Protagonist is dating somebody, he is Clearly Wrong For Her. Anybody the male protagonist dates is a Hot, Shallow Bitch.

Above all else: Reality need not apply.

Hero (yes that’s her name), is a sub-editor who dreams of being a reporter. Her Wacky best friend is a PhD student on history who knows nothing about modern times and ends up with a man who’s a music student so beset with stage fright that he can only sing in a Gorilla costume. Escaping a bad break-up, Hero’s on holiday in New York when Wacky Best Friend suggests they wear wigs and pretend to be somebody else for their last evening out. Hero decides to be Lola, a trapeze artist. She meets Oscar, a charming Australian bartender, and they have a hot one night stand. They both love the same Picasso painting, and agree to meet at the Met the next day, but, when Hero shows up, sans wig, and Oscar doesn’t recognise her, she’s heartbroken and runs away (you know, instead of walking up, explaining the situation, apologising profusely and admitting she’d still really like to look at Le Reve with him, like a normal, self-aware adult).

2 years later, back in Sydney, she's staring at Le Reve while it's on loan to some Sydney Gallery and, what do you know, Oscar sits beside her. He’s now the owner of a company called Serendipity, who arrange Romance (balloon flights, hay rides, flowers, etc.). She’s now dating a man called Pelham who lives on the North Shore, and this fact is repeatedly used as shorthand for how much of a snob he is/how wrong he is for Hero. (On a purely personal note, the ITGeek grew up on the North Shore. I grew up in a Victorian suburb a federal politician once called a ‘ghetto’. Our entire families adore each other. Fuck you and your half-arsed stereotypes, Melanie).

There’s a lot of Wacky Shenanigans (sex shops, bridal shows, transsexuals, the aforementioned singing Gorilla), Hero writes an article slamming Serendipity which, of course, accidently gets published, Wacky Best Friend ends up pregnant to Gorilla-man (and not once is it even mentioned how two students are going to find the money to support this rugrat), and of course, the Guy gets the Girl. There’s an entirely unnecessary dead fiancé that’s supposed to be some sort of big revelation, and evidence of how Deep Oscar is.

So the plot is half-baked. The characters are caricatures. The Personal Growth, such as it is, is a raging cliché (‘be true to yourself’/’True love conquers all’.)

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

La’Brooy’s strength lies, totally, in her dialogue. I’ll forgive a lot when the banter makes me laugh, and she had me giggling, even after a tough day at work. She recognises the Golden Rule of Romance – your protagonists should be likeable, and the douchebaggery should be kept to an absolute minimum (and whatever there is should be called on, if not by the other protagonist, than by those Wacky Friends). It's a romp, so light-hearted it floats, and so forgettable that even now, I'm having trouble remembering the Wacky Friend's names (Summer? Was Gorilla Man called Toby?).

I won't whole-heartedly recommend this book, of course. In the wrong kind of mood, I probably would have wanted to stab my eyes out rather than keep reading it. But it's been two weeks since I've read it, and despite it's many flaws, I can't say I hate it. As Chick Lit goes, you can do worse than Melanie La'Brooy. A lot worse.

CBRII: I peed on Fellini by David Stratton.

2010-07-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

David Stratton is to Australia what Ebert is to America. He is part of the landscape of movies in this country, having run the Sydney film festival for decades, though, in Victoria, his influence is centred around his appearances on TV. There are two nationally-funded television channels in Australia. They are the ABC, which for some reason, has garnered the nickname ‘Aunty’, that tends towards shows that are purely Australian or kid-orientated, while SBS caters to our large immigrant population. As a child, I ignored SBS, but I watched it more often as I hit my teens, particularly when I got interested in anime (and every young teenage boy knew the Friday night movie on SBS was the closest you’d get to seeing nipples, at least, until the internet arrived). If Aunty is a woman of the land the kids all adore (she did, after all, give birth to the Wiggles), SBS is her multi-racial husband who speaks several languages and tends to be naked a lot.

My first memories of David Stratton revolve around a grey haired, bearded man introducing the film I was about to watch on SBS. For many years, he was their ‘Feature Film Consultant (i.e. he chose their films), and introduced most of them. He also reviewed recent movie releases, alongside Margaret Pomeranz on ‘The Movie Show’. They are the classic opposites. In the early 2000’s, he and Margaret moved their program from SBS to ABC, and renamed it ‘At the Movies’.

This is a man who loves films. The earlier chapters of his autobiography, describing his childhood and early adulthood in England, revolve almost entirely around what movies he saw. When he describes his trips overseas (which he did a lot of), he mentions very little of the place itself, only the films he saw. When he’s offered the opportunity to teach film at university, he responds with a TEN year course on ‘The history of film’.

He fought, very hard and eventually, successfully, for changes in Australia’s censorship laws. I found it echoes the current battle to allow an R18+ rating for video games. The arguments are all the same, for both sides, and even the battle itself is echoed. Stratton makes the claim that pressure was really put on the censorship board when the distributors of Easy Rider realised Australia’s laws meant it couldn’t be played here, or had to be changed so greatly the movie itself would be a failure. (In much the same way, the distributors of Alien Vs Predator have refused to change their game, and simply didn’t distribute it here, while the most recent Left For Dead had to make so many changes that it was virtually unplayable. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a ‘public discussion’ on the subject was released by the Attorney Generals not long after these events. Equally interestingly, the most outspoken opponent, the AG of South Australia, is now the former AG of South Australia.)

But back to the autobiography. Stratton is also a man who, it becomes apparent, is incredibly self-absorbed. Of course, this may just be because, you know, it’s a freaking autobiography, but essh! He name-drops like a rapper, devoting entire paragraphs to the day he spent with a director or actor, and, in the appendix, lists every film ever shown during his 18 years as director of the Sydney Film Festival, yet he mentions the volunteers who made the festival possible a grand total of twice, both times in regard to his final film festival, most of the way through the book. 18 years of festivals, and the best they get is: ‘Not only did we present a strong line-up of international cinema every year but we had never lost money. That was undoubtedly as much a credit to my tiny, underpaid, intensely loyal staff and to the work of many volunteers.... as it was to me.’ Personally, I’d suggest that, given that Stratton would spend 5 months a year travelling around the European festivals on the SFF’s money, the profit was ENTIRELY due to those staff and volunteers.

Later on, when describing the changes that took place at SBS just before he left, Stratton begins his complaints about the new director with the claim that the man didn’t immediately acknowledge him or knew his name. His other complaints were legitimate, but prefacing them with this childish pouting makes it hard to take them seriously.

I also read this book around the same time Roman Polanski made his 'woe, poor me' statement. Stratton inadvertently explains his mindset, and the people stridently supporting him. Stratton complains bitterly about feminists ‘who had evidently failed to see the funny side’ of a film he showed at one festival, and ‘pilloried’ the director. Having not seen the film in question, I can’t comment on the humour, but the first line of the next paragraph is extremely telling. ‘The poor treatment afforded to such talented directors... by segments of the audience depressed me.’ Apparently, this was one of the reasons he resigned as director of the Sydney Film Festival not long after.

It’s that strange superiority complex. That talent is so rare that the person who possesses it should never be questioned by the rest of society. By default, the people who recognise and treat said talent with the deference it deserves are also above those ‘boorish’ people who do. Stratton sits in dark cinemas, where light only comes from the screen, and he believes that this is the only light. And that he, having bathed constantly in it, now possesses his own glow.

The message comes, over and over, throughout the book. The real world is not as relevant as the film. His relationships are built on the foundation of a shared love of film, and so little is said about actual personalities that I wondered if Stratton even noticed, or if he simply didn’t care, as long as they were fellow acolytes at the Church of Cinema.

That said, the book is interesting. Despite the rampaging ego, I have to admire a man with this much passion for a subject, and I have to acknowledge and appreciate how much he has done for cinema in Australia.

Oh, and yes, he did pee on Fellini – accidently.

Day in the life of a ScienceGeek.

2010-06-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

4.45am: Alarm goes off. The ITGeek and I discuss who will be the first to get up and hit the shower (and, by default, who gets to lie in bed for another 20 minutes). Conversation consists entirely of statements like 'Oh, I don't mind getting up... What do you want to do?'. Before 5am, I am extremely passive aggressive. In the end, I get up first, but on the condition that I get to lie in bed for an extra 5 minutes first.

5.40am. Leave for work. Walk to station, get on train, try not to fall asleep and drool all over the ITGeek's shoulder. Last time, the people at his work thought he'd been attacked by snails.

7am. Arrive at work. Eat the two sandwiches I'd prepared for breakfast. I'm going to need the energy today.

7.15am. Head upstairs and weigh and prepare 50 mice for transport. Unfortunately, the animal house is out of the normal sized transport boxes, so we have to use the big ones. They're a little too big for the hood I'm weighing the mice in. Usually, mice are about as sleepy as I am at this hour of the morning (it's the equivalent of about 4am after a long night out for them), but there's one or two who have woken up with an urge to try out Base Jumping. Wacky hijinks ensue.

7.50am. Start the cull. My two co-workers are lavaging the lungs and dissecting the organs respectively. I am injecting the mice with the overdose of anaesthetic, weighing the organs and preparing any and all samples. The anaesthetic is delivered by injection, and death, if you're wondering, occurs within minutes. They run around their cage for a minute, then they lie down. This method is a million times better than 'cervical dislocation', a very PC version of 'put your thumb on the back of their head, grab their tail with the other hand, and pull until the neck breaks'. It's a bad day when a mouse is so sick (or the fucking anaesthetic's too unavailable) that you need to do that.

Coworker 1 had a banana for breakfast. Coworker 2, the youngest and least experienced, had a cup of tea. By 10.30am, both coworkers were begging for a break. (As a side note, I also turned around at one point to find co-worker #2 waving a pair of scissors very close to his facemask/ear. He's really not very good with knots tied behind his head, this one. Aside from cutting him out of his mask, I've had to untie him from his own lab coat a dozen times).

11am - Time to start making the lung homogenates. This was a virus study - the mice had been given a respiratory virus 4 days earlier, and we were to determine what effect (if any) the test compounds had upon it. This means, among other things, assaying the amount of virus in the lungs.

Since it's a cell culture model, the work had to be performed in a hood. One day, when I'm bored enough, I'll describe the differences between all the types of hoods in your average lab. Suffice, this one kept the bugs from getting in AND from getting out. In this particular study, this feature was good for more than my desire not to be patient zero in the next animal/human pandemic. But more about that later.

The homogenizer looks a little like Satan's sex toy. There's a hollow metal tube with holes at the bottom. Inside it is another metal tube, with a pair of metal bars at the bottom. The bars are large enough that they just barely fit inside the hollow tube. Turn it on, and the inner tube spins, extremely fast. Stick something squishy in its range, like a lung, and said organ is immediately sucked through the holes at the bottom of the hollow outer tube and liquefied by the rapidly spinning inner tube.

Come to think of it, the homogenizer probably IS Satan's sex toy.

I had to be extra careful with one particular set of lungs. The 'positive control' (ie a treatment that worked) was teratogenic. In layman's terms, it's a baby-killer. In fact, this one is such an effective baby-killer that it'll damage the reproductive cells of both sexes for six weeks after exposure.

Fortunately for us, the amount we were using in the mice translated to an ineffective dose in humans. Using it in a fume hood meant the chances of exposure were completely negligible. But, people get understandably nervous about mutating their kids, so I'm happy to be paranoid in this case. In most workplaces, a person's reproductive matters are their own damn business. Not mine, not today. Today was a day that included several awkward conversations. We might all be rational scientists in the pursuit of knowledge, but that doesn't make it any easier to discuss the potential mutation of a workmate's sperm.

2pm. Lunch. I had about twenty minutes, and I could have eaten some of the snacks I keep in my desk drawer. But the lure of breathing air that didn't smell like the inside of a mouse was too strong. I took a walk to the university's union building, where I then couldn't resist the lure of greasy food, and ended up eating a bag of chips on my way back to the lab. It's days like this that are the reason I got fat.

2.30pm. Back to weighing, spinning, and rescuing coworker #2 from his own lab coat. I spend half an hour preparing cytospots. How do you prepare a cytospot? Take one glass slide. Put it in a metal contraption that looks like the result of a mating between a bulldog clip and a small tray. Add a piece of filter paper with a strategically placed hole, then a special funnel. Load about a fifth of a millilitre of lung lavage fluid into the funnel, and place the whole thing in a special type of centrifuge. Press 'On', and the centrifuge starts spinning. Ever been in a Gravitron? Remember being plastered against the wall? That's the basic principle of making a cytospot. The centrifugal force splats the cells in the lavage fluid against the slide, and, once they've dried out a bit, we stain and cover-slip and count those fucking things until our eyeballs start bleeding.

3pm. Back at the hood, doing the next round of homogenates. Cull Day Drunkenness sets in. Cull days require more distance than usual, an extra barrier so my psyche doesn't know what my hands are doing. But during my lunch break, the barrier goes down a little. Unfortunately, once it drops, it's hard to get it back up.

When I'm working with others, Cull Day Drunkenness is usually a burst of energetic insanity. I talk to the mice a lot more. Another co-worker used to throw ice into the sink, just for the hell of it. There's singing, and very random conversations. One particularly bad day, I tried to convince my colleagues that goats were trying to take over the world. I'm still not entirely sure they aren't.

Unfortunately, today I am alone, and the drunkenness goes in the depression direction, instead of the manic. I'm not trying to homogenise myself or anything, I just drag myself around for an hour, tired to the bone. Coworker #2 gets cranky AND tired to the bone. I tell him it'll get easier. He looks at me like I'd suggested setting yourself on fire is a great use of your weekend.

5.30pm. Finished. Coworker #2 left half an hour ago. Coworker #1 is in the office with me, reading emails. I stare at my computer for a while, then get up and put my coat on.

"See you on Monday."

7pm. Home. I hug the cat. I hug the ITGeek. Head for the shower, where I scrub myself raw with something that smells strongly of flowers. We have take away for dinner, and I fall asleep on the couch sometime around 9pm. Yep, it's an exciting life, all right.

CBRII: One More with Footnotes by Terry Pratchett.

2010-06-12T01:53:00.001-07:00

I love Terry Pratchett. Seriously, if I could have one person on earth converted, Futurama-style, into a head in a jar, it would be him.
So when I saw this book in the library, I pounced like a kitten on a laser pointer beam. Yay! A collection of Pratchett short stories!
But..
It's not great. It's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't escape the feeling that this book more accurately could have been called 'Once more For The Royalties'. The problem is, it's basically half a dozen very good short stories, padded out with random things like speeches he gave at dinners, or when being presented with awards. Articles he wrote for newspapers on fantasy writing, or his introductions to books written by other authors. Some of the padding is also good (after all, it's Pratchett we're talking about). Unfortunately (especially when it comes to the opinion pieces) there's a lot of it, so you end up with a lot of repetition, and an unpleasant whiff of Vanity Projects, especially when he includes an introduction to the introduction he wrote for a Discworld book by another author, or the speech he gave to people performing an adaption of one of his books. It just feels like padding. I can't help but wonder if Pratchett already knows this - the title of his introduction to the book is 'An Apology'.

Because I am weird, I actually did a count. There are 44 items in this collection (I left out the introduction by another author, the introduction to the book by Pratchett himself, and a closing statement by another author - that alone probably proves my point about padding), which I sorted into rough categories. 15 are journalistic-style articles, 9 are forewords, 4 are speeches and sixteen are stories. Although Pratchett used to be a journalist, so I'd understand that he'd include some of his articles, SEVEN of them are on fantasy writing/reading. Seven times, you hear his views on the role of fantasy in society, why people shouldn't look down on it, how escapism can be to as well as from. They're very good points. But seven times in the same book? Really?

Ideally, the book should have been about 70 pages shorter. Then the non-stories would have each been an interesting little amuse bouche between the story courses, rather than great big wrenches in the clockwork (and boy, didn't I mix the metaphors there?!). We're in desperate need of a firmer editor here. One who'd say 'Pick two opinion pieces on fantasy and two speeches. We probably don't need that 250 word obituary on your fellow author, as great as he was. Likewise, we're dropping the equally short article on your favourite word (again, really?). Choose just one of the introductions you wrote for books on Discworld and just one article on the type of technology you use. You've got some brilliant pieces here, we want them to shine."

And there ARE some brilliant pieces. The story he wrote when he was thirteen that he finds cripplingly embarrassing is better written than some bestsellers. 'Hollywood Chickens', '#ifdefDEBUG' and 'Once and Future' are excellent non-Discworld pieces. 'The Orangutans are Dying' is a worthwhile read. 'No Worries' and 'Thought Processes' are a nice insight into the man behind the typewriter. One of his speeches, entitled 'Alien Christmas' had me giggling on the train, which is always fun for the strangers sitting opposite me.

Ultimately, as much as it pains me, I'd only recommend borrowing this one.

Arrgghh!

2010-06-12T01:44:00.001-07:00

I am so very behind on the CBR II. I've been reading, even wrote a review or two, but posting the fuckers? Nope.
I've got no excuse, just that work got busy and then I realised that oh, yeah, there's this wedding thing I'm supposed to be sorting out and HOLYFUCKI'VEONLYGOTTWOMONTHS!!!!

So, a fuckload of random stuff, including reveiws. Maybe even a metric fuckload, people.

Today

2010-04-14T03:20:00.001-07:00

Today was a bad day.

Not a demanding day. Not even a 'the climate control's fucked and we have a long cull' day. No, today, I remembered that I kill living creatures.

It probably sounds crazy, but I make myself forget that. I create a distance, hold up a great big shield called 'I help make drugs that save lives!'. Usually, that's enough.

But today I dropped the shield, and lost the distance. I know how it happened. I did the most stupid thing you can do in my job: I tried to save a mouse.

I'm not going to pretend my reasons were entirely selfless. We'd already lost one from that treatment group. So when I found this little guy hunched in the corner of the cage, I didn't want to lose another. I tried to rehydrate him. I badgered my co-worker for updates on his condition. And at some point, I got emotionally invested. I hoped I could make him better.

We lost him. We held off, hoping he'd recover, but by mid-afternoon, he was only getting worse. We're not allowed to let them suffer. I won't let them suffer. Even with my usual distance, that rule helps me live with myself. So we euthanised him, did a pseudo-autopsy, and discovered he had the same fucking thing that killed the last mouse. The lowest point of my day was sucking pus out of this mouse's corpse with a syringe, so we could test it, find out just what the holy hell has happened to these animals.

This has happened before. Rarely, but it's not unheard of. Sure, we've never had this particular problem, but there's been other times when something goes wrong, and the study is put in jeopardy. A hard decision is made, to continue, and risk inaccurate results, or to just give up on the whole thing. It sucks, but that's the nature of this work.

But this is the first time I've gone home and cried. I'm a selfish, heartless, sociopathic bitch, because right now, I don't give a shit about that mouse. All I want is my detachment back. I want to forget that, just for a few minutes today, I thought I could save this animal. I want to remember that my job is to kill, and be able to accept that again.

CBR II: Book 18 - The mysterious affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

2010-04-13T02:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, back to Christie. I'm going to stop denying the truth: I'm getting a huge girl-crush. I've decided she's my literary palate cleanser. When I've blown my brain on too much fangy chick lit, I can turn to the wonderful Ms Christie.

Still, 'her little grey cells' must be like those angels in 'Blink' from Doctor Who. All calm and devoted, but don't blink or BANG! They'll be in your face with those twenty-inch canines, and you'll scream and climb the back of the couch and your fiance will laugh at you because he'd already watched the episode and he knew that was coming, the bastard.

Or maybe that's just my interpretation. You know, I can blame Doctor Who, in part, for getting me onto Christie. I'd always planned to read one of her books, but it was that episode with her in it (being Awesome, I might add), that punted her up the list.

Ahem. I appear to have caught Digression Disease.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is, according to the cover, Poirot's first case. A wealthy woman is poisoned. She's well-loved (although, as in all the Christie books I've read, not as much as first thought), with a gold-digging husband and a pair of step-sons.

Hastings is a very different man in this book, compared to the later ones I've read. He's full of himself. I guess repeated bouts with Poirot knocks the majority of that out of him by the later books. He's also almost creepily obsessed with finding a wife. I don't know if this is normal or not, given that 'a wife' was the about the only way a man who considered himself respectable could regularly have sex in that time (score one for modern acceptance of masturbation and internet porn!). But although I can understand Hastings falling at first sight for another man's wife, it lost the impact when he also turned his attention to Cynthia Murdock. Given that neither of them returned that attention, I'm going to assume Christie shared my opinion. (Girl crush increasing!)

I didn't guess the killer. Actually, about a third of the way through, when I realised that there were an absolute abundance of legitimate suspects, I made the conscious decision to not even bother. Just enjoy the ride. Then I went back and reread all the clues I missed. Especially all the ones I missed when I was still consciously trying to guess the killer.

She really is a genius.

CBRII Book 17: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

2010-04-04T03:39:00.000-07:00

I actually read this book before I learned that it had been chosen for the Pajiba book club (I'd added it to my 'to read' pile based on the review by of one Admin's precocious rugbats). Because so many people will be reading this book, I'm wondering if I even need to outline the plot.

Ah, fuck it. It's The Jungle Book, set in a graveyard. Like the title says.

The ITGeek is a gamer. Actually, he's a gamer in the same way that many people are breathers. Gamers generally come in two breeds - the computer, and the console. When we first met, he was a computer gamer. This required a 'rig' (there's a lingo, people) that, I shit you not, looked like something a 1970's Stanley Kubrick had imagined a computer would look in the year 2000. The side was clear perspex, so you could see all the glowing green tubes that ran from one component to the other. I soon discovered this was the water cooling system and they were lit by UV. That's right, he had a fucking ultraviolet computer system. And the games he played on that thing were works of art. But within two years, his overclocked monstrosity was obsolete, its chugging memory sapping the life from the characters, turning the work of art into a flicker book. Eventually he swapped the computer for a PlayStation 3.

I've decided that the machine has a huge effect on the game itself. That's not to say that one system is more likely to produce an amazing game than the other (despite what the different camps claim. Loudly. Constantly. Never read over a gamer's shoulder when they're surfing a gaming forum, it'll make your head hurt). Just that when it's done right, it's always due to the creators, their self-control (in the case of the rigs) or their ability to recognise the limitations and their ingenuity in overcoming them (in the case of the consoles).

Why am I babbling about games when I'm supposed to be reviewing a book? Because I think authors and game creators have a lot in common. There are console authors and computer authors. I've decided that Neil Gaiman is an example of an excellent console author, and The Graveyard Book is a brilliant console book.

I don't think he would be offended by me saying this (at least, I really hope not). I think he touched on this himself, in one of the Sandman comics, only he wasn't nearly as clumsy as I have been. It's been a long time since I've read it, but instead of consoles and computers, Gaiman's analogy was Rome and China, how the Romans spread too far and fell, while the Chinese created the Great Wall and prospered within. Regardless, give this man boundaries, and he'll broaden your horizons.

Gaiman's console, in this case, is another authors work. The writing is simple, it is a children's book, after all. So simple that you don't notice just how dark and twisted it really is. It's like a nursery rhyme that sounds sweet, until you realise it's actually about the Queen of England torturing and executing people. You also don't notice just how much research he must have done. The characters were born hundreds, even thousands of years ago, meaning this book is set in the past as much as the modern day, filled with throw-away lines like Silas correcting Bod with 'it's aren't, not amn't'.

It's a book about shades. The Shades of the graveyard and the shades between Black and White, Good and Evil. The Jacks wear a disguise of benevolence ('Three kidney machines!'). The Honour Guard are creatures from our nightmares. Bod himself is muted, even before he learns the tricks of ghosts, wearing just a grey sheet for the first half of the book. He regards the living world with the same distance as his dead guardians, even when he forgoes the safety of invisibility to defend them. He's remote, an echo of Silas, who inhabits both the worlds of both living and dead, but belongs to neither.

Yes, it's a children's book, but one their parents could happily read to them. I'm at the age when my friends are all dropping crotch fruit, so I need to know about books like this one. I'm also interested in what other people think of this book.

CBRII: More Dead books.

2010-04-03T17:56:00.000-07:00

Onward! And I'm giving up on the first and second thoughts because they're starting to blend. My third thoughts are no longer demanding booze because it's Easter Sunday and that means chocolate.

Definitely Dead

The plot: Turns out that Sookie's junkie (hmmm...) cousin Hadley was, in fact, the bed-buddy of the Vampire Queen of Louisiana. Oh, and a vampire. But now she's actually dead, and Sookie has inherited everything. In this case, 'everything' means 'a massive vampire politics mess involving the aforementioned queen and her husband, the king of another region'. Also, Bill is an arsehole of epic proportions. Has the True Blood series gotten to The Betrayal yet? Or rather, the revelation of The Betrayal? Yes, the Capitals are necessary.

Oh, and Sookie's part fairy. Because, of course she is. At least it explains the telepathy.

All Together Dead

The plot: Sookie's hooked up with Quinn, and, despite the misgivings of, oh gee, EVERYBODY, she's decided to help out the Queen of Louisiana at some Vampire convention. See, Sophie-Anne's in a lot of trouble, what with murdering her husband and all, and she needs Sookie to use her telepathic powers to figure out how fucked she is. Then the Fellowship of the Sun blows the place up. I don't think that could be considered a spoiler, since it's mentioned in the blurb of the next book, which is:

From Dead to Worse

The vampires of Louisiana are somewhat screwed. Aside from the explosions and the hurricane, they're dealing with an extremely hostile takeover. Although by vampire standards, the slaughter of the Queen and most of her sheriffs is probably just be 'standard operating procedures'. Quinn, who Sookie hasn't seen since the hospital in Rhodes, is involved. At the same time, the Were's are having a crisis of their own. Lots of killing, and threatening, and backstabbing, and then there's a big brawl and Sam turns into a lion, bless his magical naked arse.

Oh, and Sookie is actually the great-granddaughter of the prince of the fairies, and gets to have a fascinating reunion with her great-grandfather, Niall, who's somewhat endearing in his attempts to connect with his very-human and confused descendant.

Plotwise, I found Definitely Dead one of the more interesting books. No offense to Harris, but I think she works best with a simple storyline. It's difficult to explain, especially without sounding like I'm bitching the woman out. I admire her work, I really do, but I think she works best within a narrow field.

Put it this way - she's got a pretty good handle on Sookie's life within a small town. She carries off the werepanthers in Hotshot, even the role of vampires in a very specific chunk of society (tourists and fangbangers). It's when she gets to the interaction of Supernaturals with society that she falters. Sometimes, she's wonderfully astute, but she also tends to miss things that seem blatantly obvious. She created the Fellowship of the Sun, but glossed over what would be a much greater threat - politicans, talkback radio hosts and newspaper columnists.

For that matter, she's divided the characters into two distinct groups, those who like vampires, and those who do not. The people who don't are universally judgmental or misguided or flat out evil. But we're not talking about, I don't know, a different skin colour or sexuality. Simply to survive, vampires had to become serial killers. Finding that a concern is not stupid, cruel or evil. Frankly, it's a survival trait. I find it absolutely mind-boggling that nobody has ever said, 'Hang on, they're hundreds, even thousands of years old, and this synthetic blood has only been around for a tiny fraction of that. What did they drink before then? Oh. Hey, that might be a problem.'

Part of the problem is that Sookie is an unreliable narrator. Like I said in the previous post, she's a junkie, so anybody who doesn't share her addiction is automatically suspect to her. What I couldn't mention until now is, of course, The Betrayal. Yes, it explains a lot about her relationship with Bill, from his point of view. But it also demonstrates just how deep Sookie's problem goes. By now, she knows how little she knows when it comes to the supernaturals. There's a couple of pages of her thinking about it while she's traveling to New Orleans, when she acknowledges how naiive she's been.

But even when it's personal, when the life the vampires have played with is her own, she keeps coming back for more. She's either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid, and I honestly can't tell which one Harris is trying to tell us it is. I know Sookie is not an idiot, but to not even consider staying the fuck away from them? When she claims, over and over again, that she just wants a nice, quiet life? It bugs me that somebody who appears to be so concerned about her own survival has such an enormous blind spot.

The perfect example of this is in All Together Dead, when she refuses to tell the human search and rescue people her name. I don't object to her reasons, but they don't add up in the context of her role amongst the vampires. So it's a problem if the humans might want you to save their lives, but perfectly okay to be hired by the Vampire Queen? Uh, right. How does that work, exactly? Because you're not going to be any less forced by the Vampire who's been playing you from the get go, sweetheart. That's been made abundantly clear, what with the whole 'forcing you to share blood with one of my vampires' thing.

All Together Dead pisses me off for another reason. It's a small thing, but fuck me if it doesn't make me see red.

That fucking weather witch. We're supposed to believe that some piece of walking shit saw how bad Hurricane Katrina was going to be and didn't say a word for the sake of some vampires?? And that is what worries Sookie? So she doesn't give a ripe shit about the deaths that could have been avoided, no, the weather witch's silence is a problem because pretty little Sophie-Anne lost her powerbase right when she needed it most. And isn't Sookie smug when she finds the guy? Apparently, that's the way you should feel when you realise somebody chose vampire politics over the lives of hundreds of people. No, wait, of course, you should feel pleased that you've been useful to your vampire overlords. Remember those 'willing donors' at the buffet? You shouldn't have shuddered, Sookie, you should have just grabbed a tag and joined them.

At this point, I wondered if Harris was actually a genius, brilliantly documenting the slow descent of an intelligent and independent woman into a hopeless fang-banger. I wondered if it was a vicious satire of Vampire/chick lit conventions. Or if I should just stop fucking analyzing everything and just go back to enjoying the hot sex.

So, to sum up, if you can treat the series as an analogy of a person's descent into substance abuse, or, alternatively, just ignore those niggling concerns and focus on the hard-bodied warriors with the centuries of experience, these are a great set of books.

Actually, regardless of the niggling concerns, just buy and read these books in support of vampires that don't sparkle.

CBRII: Four Dead book Reviews in One!

2010-04-03T02:15:00.000-07:00

I bought the box set. Yes, all seven of the Sookie Stackhouse series (and, I'm sorry, but that poor girl has been cursed with a hell of a name. I say that as somebody whose first and second names literally (and obviously) translate to Loving Little Flower. My parents were doing the weird name shit long before celebrities made it fashionable).

I justified it as a) I'm going to read all the damn things anyway and b) so $55 for eight books is a good price, especially since I can replace the pristine first book with my own slightly battered copy and use it as a present.

I then made the mistake of reading all the fuckers in about a week. This broke my brain. I've been reading, but avoiding the reviewing portion of this cannoball read, overwhelmed by the prospect of reviewing this series. So I've procrastinated, and certain people *coughgpcough* have been reviewing like mad, and keep telling me to 'suck it' via their facebook status. I'm not sure what 'it' is, exactly, although the suggestions in the comments have been wonderfully educational.

The main reason for my reticence, I think, is that I'm so damn conflicted about the series. I should like it. It ticks more than enough of my boxes. But for some reason, it's left me a little... flat. I found myself skimming portions then going back and forcing myself to read them properly.

I don't know why. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the books to friends. They're well-written, and the only characters I want to spork are the ones who deserve to be severely sporked. The plots are reasonably well-crafted, and I appreciate that Harris included the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the later books, instead of taking the easy and understandable option of the 'alternative world' excuse.

Although, on second thought, some of the ways she handled it kinda pissed me off. See, here's my problem. My first thoughts are positive, my second thoughts are negatives, and my thought thoughts are wondering why I'm not drinking more of the alcoholic banana milkshake the ITGeek just provided for me.

So here's the deal: I'll work my way through the books and let my first and second thoughts argue it out, and also work my way through this drink, to keep my third thoughts happy.

Living Dead in Dallas

The plot: Sookie's coworker LaFayette is found murdered in the boot of the sherriff's car. A Maenad has camped in the woods and literally tears strips off Sookie to send a message to Eric's vampires. As a result, Sookie heads to the titular Dallas to help out another clan of vampires find one of their own and has a run-in with the Fellowship of the Sun. That's about the basics.

First thoughts: I have a whole new respect for Sam, okay? Callisto is one hell of a fuck-buddy. The conversation Sookie had with Eric when she asked for his help finding LaFayette's killer cracked me up, especially when she countered his invitation with her own, far more bizarre one.

Second thoughts: I can't say much without spoilering, but the Fellowship of the Sun 'investigation' even pissed off the first thoughts. Seriously? These guys know you well enough to kidnap one of your own, and you just send your human sidekicks into their centre of operations wihtout any sort of back-up plan? Stan must have learnt how to avoid destruction from a fucking Bond villian.

Third thoughts: Yum. More drink, please.

Club Dead

The plot: Bill's lost interest. Bill gets lost. Well, Bill goes to Mississippi and ends up being kidnapped for the sake of some computer program. Sookie takes herself after him, only to discover he's been busy fucking somebody else, the same somebody else who kidnapped him. She also spends time with a Werewolf.

First thoughts: Knew Bill wouldn't last. Wait, is that a second thought? I don't know. Okay, I liked Alcide, and the part with the body in the closet.

Second thoughts: A vampire directory? That's a big deal? Why? Obviously, I've missed something. Like why a particularly enterprising human couldn't have done it already. There are message boards discussing (and possibly reviewing?) prostitutes, no way in hell there wouldn't be a vampire equivalent amongst the fang-bangers. Seriously, the internet would have produced Google Vampire ten days after they'd Revealed themselves.

Third thoughts: Need another drink. It appears that there's still some milkshake left over. Woot!

Dead to the World

The plot: Eric turns up minus his memory, thanks to some crazy werewolf witches. Jason goes missing, and is changed forever as a result. Sookie looks after Eric and it turns out that, sans memory, she wants him bad. There's some epic battles.

First thoughts: Can't think. Too much hot sex.

Second thoughts: I think I've worked out one of my problems with Sookie.

She's a junkie. She knows she's addicted to vampires, she knows they're not good for her. For fuck's sake, her new year's resolution was to not get the holy fuck beat out of her! But, like every junkie, she keeps going back for her hit. Even though she knows its going to screw her up - break her heart, or her bones, or possibly her mind. They're not human. They hunted humans for centuries, that's not something that can be stopped with a bit of synthetic blood and acceptance by society. After all, that's the society they fed off. Sookie knows this, and despises how they act, but she needs her hit.

That's why her relationship with Eric made her so happy. She was getting her vampire fix, without having to deal with any of the icky moral issues or potential risks. All that hot sex is just a rich, dark chocolate icing on a cake that's actually quite off-putting. Like it's gone stale, or been laced with rat turds.

And about this point, I started getting a Supernatural overload. Vampires, Shifters, Maenads, Werewolves and now, witches.

Third thoughts: How did I end up with so little milkshake?

Dead as a Doornail.

The plot: Somebody's going around killing werewolves and shifters, and Jason is suspect number One.

First thoughts: Tara broke my heart. Alcide did too. Quinn intrigues me. Claudine is as cute as a button. The sub-plot involving Charles was well-crafted, as well as the main mystery. Okay, I admit it - I didn't guess either of them.

Second thoughts: Nothing major. Although I sighed over the addition of faries to this dictionary of the supernatural.

Third thoughts: No more milkshake. Do I stop now, or break out a different booze?

First thoughts: No more booze.

Second thoughts: We're in perfect agreement on that one.

I'll review the remaining three books tomorrow.

CBR II: Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris

2010-01-28T21:16:00.001-08:00

I was hesitant to read this book. See, it was given to me for my last birthday by a 30+ woman who loves Twilight, the only book I've had to stop reading out of disgust. My concerns weren't helped when the aforementioned friend gushed about how 'hot' it was that the lead male said 'She is mine' about the lead female (at times like that, it's very hard not to point out the possible connection between opinions like that and her terrible track history with men).

So yeah, I went in with prejudices. And a summer head cold, which, really, is just the virus world's way of laughing at us. Bastards. But I'd read a few reviews that basically said, 'this ain't Twilight', so I figured I had nothing to lose.

I really enjoyed it. A lot more than I expected to.

Now, in case you're one of the five people left on earth who haven't heard of the series or its TV off-shoot, 'True Blood', Dead until Dark is the tale of Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress and her encounter with the vampire Bill. And their hot sex. And yeah, he does say 'she is mine', but with some of the vampires, that doesn't mean much. And luckily, Sookie finds it about as attractive as I do.

Sookie is an interesting character. She's got all the standard romance cliches: pretty, several hot guys want her, virgin and, very sheltered. She is, of course, Plucky and has a Magic Power.

Yet half the town call her Crazy Sookie. She gets wonderfully pissed off by men playing games with her. She understands her limits, but there's a thread of determination and she will, if necessary, try to rip your testicles off and feed them to you. Despite the fantasy premise and the cliches, she's quite believable.

Bill the vampire, is also interesting, but I have to admit, I didn't entirely feel the romance. Although he's eminently worthy of being loved, I couldn't help but feel that poor Sookie initially fell for him out of mix of loneliness and delight that she couldn't read his mind. Like, here was the first man able to hide thoughts about moles on butts when they're together, and that was enough for her. Don't get me wrong, girlfriend is sensible about dating the vampire, and makes it damn clear she's loyal to Bill (which I respect her for) but put it this way: Harris has already set up at least two other genuine contenders (one a shape shifter, the other a much more powerful vampire) and, should she go down the Anita Blake path, at least one fuck-buddy (and Charlaine, please, don't go down that path), and I'm just not convinced that Bill would actually win out.

Aside from that, a few little points/amusements that struck me while reading. These are spoilery (for those five people)

- Another word for whinger in my part of the world is 'Sook'. So I'm having my own personal issues about her name. My inner five-year old is all 'whut? Rah-ha!'

- Why the fuck did the vampire blood turn her hair lighter? I get the skin and the feeling healthier and the general sexiness, but since when did vampire blood turn into L'oreal? Hair is dead, and 'sides, this version of the mythology holds that Vamps are stuck the way they are when they change. Also, what does it say about me that I'm pondering this? Book full of shapeshifters and flying fanged guys and all other weird shit and I'm questioning on the hair?!?

-Bubba. Hehehe.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy a few more of these books....

CBRII: The ABC murders by Agatha Christie

2010-01-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

In recommending this story to your friends, please do not hint at anything that might spoil their pleasure in reading it

This is the request printed inside the book jacket of The ABC murders, and it tickles me. I picture Ms Christie herself penning it, worried about the Spoilering of all her carefully crafted plot twists.

I just can't refuse such a polite request. So, I will limit my descriptions to only what is found above that little message on the book jacket. A maniac is working their murderous way through the alphabet, starting with Mrs. Ascher of Andover, followed by Betty Barnard at Bexhill, then Sir Carmichael Clarke of Churston. And, from the very beginning, Hercule Poirot is involved.

I seem to have developed a bit of a gift for chosing books by Christie with plots that have been rehashed in a dozen different ways. This time, it's the 'hunt for the mad serial killer' done do death (pardon the pun) by everyone from Dean Kootz to CSI.

This time, however, it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book. The ending delighted me, which is about as much I am willing to say. I've read less than half a dozen of Christie's books, mostly Poirots, and I've come to the conclusion that she's very clever in separating the styles of her two most famous creations, despite the fact that both examine the psychology of the killer rather than collecting physical evidence. Miss Marple is an old woman full of stories; she operates on the idea that all humans behave the same way when influenced by the same motivations. There's no unique little snowflakes in Miss Marples' world. Poirot is sneakier; he's echoed, in many ways, in shows like the Mentalist or Criminal Minds.

If I have a complaint about her work it's that sometimes it's a bit too 'stiff-upper-lip'. The characters are believable, but they can be a bit dry. The secondary characters can blend into the background, or one another, and you end up wondering if the Determined, Honest Brunette is the sister of the second murder victim, or is she the niece of the first? Then again, that may have been my own fault - I read this book to fill in time while my car was being serviced, in a room with a TV blaring some inane morning television show clearly designed for retirees with low standards and stay-at-home mums or dads too broken by sleep deprivation to demand better viewing material.

Christie deserved her crown as High Queen of Mysteries. If you haven't read this book, please do. I recommend it highly, and I hope I haven't hinted at anything that might spoil your pleasure in reading it.

Random shit

2010-01-07T22:16:00.000-08:00

Morgan is into violent affection. His favourite way of saying 'I love you' is to launch all 6.5kg of himself head-first at your nose. The ITGeek gets this a lot, especially when he's chilling on the couch and it's within two hours of Feeding Time. Along with the usual cat behaviours of nuzzling, jaw-nibbling and testicle kneeding.

The ITGeek appears to be fighting back. About ten minutes ago, I heard 'You're a super-affectionate bastard today, aren't you? Well, let's see how you like it!'

Since then, it sounds like a WWF match is going on downstairs, performed by Care-bears, one of them mute.

'Awww, you coming back for more, are you?'

'Didn't like that, did you, Furry Bum?' (yes, we call the cat Furry Bum. He's a cat, he's not going to answer to 'Lord High Magnificence', so we might as well give him a really stupid nickname).

It's now turned into a lecture about why it's rude for Morgan to read over his shoulder. And wave his tail in the ITGeek's face. It's all, 'Move. Your tail. Now. Thank you.'

I love this man.

Insomnia

2010-01-07T03:33:00.001-08:00

My brain and I, we don't exactly get along when it comes to sleep. I've suffered from insomnia for years. I have the 'Brain won't turn off and let me fucking sleep' variety, and the 'Can't fucking STAY asleep' variety. I'm also prone to some pretty horrific dreams. Murder, fighting/running for my life, war, destruction of entire cities full of people and beatings are, unfortunately, fairly regular occurrences in my dreamscape. I understand if you want to just back away now. It's okay, you don't need to make an excuse about your kettle being on.

Regardless, if I sleep an entire night, without waking up once, I'm sick. Or medicated, which is part of being sick, so I'm going to shut up now.

Most nights, I fall asleep fine, and, if I do wake up, I just fall right back into dream land pretty quickly. I'm a lot better than I used to be, which I think is partly because I've learnt a few tricks to reduce the insomnia. It's probably also because even nightmares can't beat the awesome relaxing powers of Snuggling the still-sleeping ITGeek, but he's a lot harder to share with everybody on the internet, so I'm going to stick with a few things I've learnt.

So... tricks! Just a heads-up, these are for the inexplicable insomnia. If you're not getting any sleep because you've got a 6 month old, or you've got something playing on your mind, then these ideas may be completely useless.

Prevention is your best friend

I don't need to say this, but you know you need a regular bed time, right? And to not take naps, because then you won't be able to sleep later? Of course, if you've got baby-induced insomnia, sleep when you can. Hell, sleep on that pile of laundry if you need to! Just, uh, not when you're driving.

Try to keep your bedroom just for sleeping (and sex!). It's no coincidence that my worst insomnia occurred when I was living in a studio. Put the computer, the exercise machine, maybe even the TV, in another room. It's all about associations - you're trying to train your brain to realise that this place=sleep. Do everything you can to make your bedroom restful. If you can't move those distractions out, try tacking up a curtain around your bed - I've found that even a sheer curtain will help. It also makes your bed look like you're either on safari, or a feudal ruler in the middle ages. I say, go with it, preferably with appropriate headgear.

Make the room itself as restful as possible. Reduce the 'elemental' distractions (I can handle noise, but I'm not a fan of light, so for me, it's blockout curtains and an eyemask within reach). Have an adequate air flow. Aim for bedding that keeps you comfortable, even when you've had to open a window to get fresh air. This might mean you end up with a couple different sets of sheets/blankets/doonas. If you're sharing a bed, this can be problematic, especially when one sleeper feels the heat or cool more than the other. A friend's parents use two single doonas, so they can share a bed and still be comfortable, which is a great idea I may blatantly steal one day.

Outside of the bedroom, look after yourself. Start with exercise, even just a longish walk after dinner. If that's not enough, meditation or yoga (I like the corpse pose - lie on your back, with your hands palm up at your side and your legs just far apart enough that, when you turn your feet inward, your toes touch. Then put your feet in their natural position and just breathe. Laziest yoga pose ever). If you're the creative type, you might find that ignoring those urges can lead to insomnia, so feed your creativity demons regularly. Don't have caffeine less than 4 hours before bed, and don't have a heavy meal right before bed, either. And yes, today, I am Princess Obvious.

When the insomnia hits

If you've been staring at the ceiling for more than half an hour, and you're still not sleepy, get up. Don't let your brain get used to the idea that your bed is a place to lie awake in. Wrap yourself up so you're warm and do something simple and repetitive. I do chores. My personal favourites are folding laundry and washing dishes, which are quiet and oddly soothing. Eventually, you'll feel tired enough to sleep, and even if you don't, at least you know you don't have to force yourself to do this shit tomorrow when you're suffering a sleep-deprivation hangover.

Alternatively, relocate your 'bed'. This works best for the 'Can't turn brain off' type of insomnia. After getting up and warm, try to go to sleep somewhere other than your bed. I used to curl up on my parents recliner. When I lived in that studio, even the couch on the other side of the room could do the trick. After half an hour, I inevitably found that I was falling asleep.

Last night, however, the first time I'd fallen victim to this particular bitch since our new couches arrived, I discovered that, despite having an awesome two-seater recliner and a very comfy 3-seater, they are not options. Oh, no. Not with my cat taking swan-dives off my mid-section and waging a vicious war on any part of me that leaves the boundaries of the couch (hand, feet, dressing gown cord). I also suspect that, regardless of insomnia, I'd have slept a lot better if I hadn't discovered the little bastard was having impromptu 2am dance parties on our dining room table.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, sleep.

There are other things that are only effective in certain cases. For instance, some TVs and monitors emit light at about the same frequency as sunlight, sending the message to our monkey-brains that it's daylight, so they should be awake. That said, some people find TV or computers a relaxing distraction from the whole not-sleeping thing. So it's strictly a personal choice.

Alcohol is another one. Yes, it puts you to sleep, but when it wears off, you might find yourself awake again. Sometimes, I decide it's worth the risk, but I strongly suggest never trying the 'Two Mersyndal washed down with Bailey's' trick. I tried it only once (and, for those who don't know, Mersyndal is an over-the-counter migraine treatment) and for the entire next day, I was a groggy, brain-damaged mess and had to ban myself from driving.

Also, some people like a pre-bed ritual. I'd love to have one of those, but firstly, I seem to be allergic to being organised, and secondly, my inner pervert keeps deciding she'd rather be sexin' the ITGeek instead.

Pills

You do not fail at life if you've had to resort to meds to get some shut eye. This little ScienceGeek has been there herself, and this is a judgement-free zone. As a science-lover, though, I've got a couple of suggestions.

You MIGHT be able to take half a pill instead of a whole one, and still get sleep, without some of the nasty side effects. CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR FIRST. See how much emphasis I put on that sentence? It's deserved. Doctors love patients who help themselves, as long as said patient tells 'em about it. As a VERY general rule, if you're taking a single whole tablet, and only sporadically (ie. when you need it, not everyday at 2pm or something) you should be able to cut down to half a tablet without too much problem. Regardless, please, just check with your doctor first.

Which brings me to my favourite insomnia related trick...

Ever heard of Pavlov's dogs? It's a fairly famous experiment about conditioning. Dogs salivate when they smell food. Pavlov tried ringing a bell when feeding his doggy test-subjects, and eventually, the dogs would salivate whenever they heard the bell, regardless of if food was there or not.

There's something we humans can take from Pavlov's puppies. Our sense of smell has a direct, red-phone link to our brain. That's why certain smells can revive memories more vividly than just sight. During my pill-popping days, I got in the habit of burning aromatherapy oils in that half-hour while I was waiting for the meds to kick in (you could probably also use an old perfume, it doesn't really matter, as long as it smells). I used a combination of oils, so the scent was unique enough that I wouldn't come across it while, say, shopping. In my case, it was lavender, geranium and chamomile, 3 drops of the first two and four drops of the third, with water. These oils are supposed to be good for relaxation, but if you already suffer low blood pressure, stay away from the lavender. In your case, it only works if you consider 'fainting' the same as 'relaxing'.

Regardless of what scent you use (and you can always dab them on your pillowcase, if you find the combination of sleeping pills and burning candles a little too close to stupid for your liking), only use this scent when you're falling asleep. Eventually, you'll build a connection between the scent and feeling sleepy. This won't send you to sleep (or the ITGeek would be burning it A LOT more often), but, years after my little imprinting exercise, I've found it still has the power to relax me.

Finally, and most importantly, acknowledge when you're in trouble. Sleep is taken for granted, until you don't have it any more. Then you realise just how incredibly vital it is. Don't hold off on going to the professionals, because there are some out there who are much more professional than some woman with a blog.

That's it from me. Now, for any insomniacs out there, what are your tips for surviving the war for sleep? Just because we're sleep deprived doesn't mean we can't be sharing and caring!

CBRII: Undead and Unworthy by MaryJanice Davidson

2010-01-07T02:22:00.001-08:00

Undead and Unworthy is the seventh book in a series about Betsy, the incredibly reluctant queen of the vampires. It's also a marked turn-around in the nature of the series.

The basic premise of the series is this: On her 30th birthday, blonde, six-foot, ex-model Elizabeth Taylor (Betsy) is run over by a truck. She wakes up a few days later as a vampire. Not just any Vampire, however, she's the Queen, as prophesised in the book of the Dead, some sort of Vampire bible. Which is, of course, written in blood by an insane Vampire and bound by human skin. As part of the prophesy, the first man she has sex with after becoming a vampire is her Consort, the king who will rule at her side for a thousand years. That king is Eric Sinclair, who *sigh* is tall, dark, incredibly good-looking, hung like a plow-horse and intelligently snobby.

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the role of Mr Darcy will be played by a guy with fangs.

In the previous six books, Betsy discovered a half-sister who also happened to be the devil's daughter, saw dead people, met a bunch of werewolves, and her dad and hated stepmother died, leaving her the sole guardian of their baby son. And, of course, after much yelling, she and Sinclair got married.

The previous books (which started with Undead and Unmarried, need I say more?) were the kind of popcorn flavoured fluff I was a little embarrassed to admit I liked. I'd end up saying stuff like 'yeah, she's a vacuous, shoe-loving twit, but she knows it, and she's all scathing and mocking about vampire conventions! Really!'

But in Unworthy, all those little things that irritated me come back to bite Betsy. Hard. People she cares for die, and that plural is not a typo. It's difficult to describe the plot without giving away the plots of previous stories, but I'll do my best. The stereotypically evil vampire Betsy defeated in the first book, Nostro (Betsy, during their first meeting, called him 'Nostril' and bitched about his cliched clothing choices. This is why I stuck with these books for so long) was a fan of the same kind of experimentation as Nazi scientists. He changed a bunch of people into vampires, then didn't feed them. They went feral, happily ate animal blood, ran around on all fours, and disembowled anybody they came across. All that fun stuff. Betsy, despite managing to 'humanise' one of them, didn't think about the rest of them, regarding them like badly trained, undead puppies. In Unworthy, they get their minds back and vow revenge. Since Nostro's dead, they decide to target Betsy.

If the series continues along this path, I'm not going to be so sheepish about recommending it. Davidson has been smart enough to recognise that the amusement of such an unlikely 'Queen' isn't enough to sustain the series forever, and that, no matter how hardcore her husband, any ruler who doesn't grow a brain and a pair of balls won't rule for long.

I'd always put the Undead books into a similar category as a good romance novel. Entertaining, but ultimately, forgetable. Undead and Unworthy is not so forgetable, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Davidson is going to take Betsy (and us) next.

Change in Perspective..

2009-12-14T02:29:00.000-08:00

Before this job, I worked in the same department for a different researcher.

He was not an easy man to work for. He is incredibly intelligent, and equally demanding. I was thrown into the deep end, immediately doing some fairly difficult animal work (when I'd never even gone near a mouse before) alongside my coworker, who'd been doing it for 3 years, oh, and was one of my best friends. Demoralising, to say the least.

Within three months, our friendship was fractured (it's since recovered, for the most part) and I would start each morning with a round of violent dry retching. He was never abusive. He was just so mercurial, changing his mind at the last second (case in point, when we trialled a new technique he made me ensure that both the head of the animal ethics committee and himself could be there to watch me. Three days later, when I was still trying to finagle the schedules of two very busy people, he asked me why I was expecting him to attend. Uh, because you ordered it?) .

And he was intense. The man was so intense you'd feel him coming before you saw him. I'd be buried knuckles deep in a mouse, calmly doing my thing, when all the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up. Then he'd be standing behind me, demonstrating a complete lack of the concept of personal space, and bang! my fingers would turn into thumbs.

He scared the hell out of me, and I was convinced he thought I was a useless skidmark in the lab. He deliberately kept a huge distance between himself and his employees/students, something he openly believed was the right way to run a lab. To be fair, this technique worked - the lab was certainly collegial. The 'underlings' banded together in mutual fear/hatred of him. This was what he wanted.

Despite all that, I do respect and admire him. And, if I'm honest, he made me a better scientist. But it's taken me a very long time to stop feeling like a failure. I still haven't got all my confidence back.

Today I learnt that, the year I was there, he had a, well, let's call it a mild nervous breakdown. Nobody knew this, not even my coworker/best friend, who was about as close to him as it was possible to be. I knew he and his wife had divorced and his attempt at venture capitalism was failing (well, I certainly knew it by the end of the year, when I lost my job), but, with no previous experience of the man, I had no idea if his behaviour was out of character. Turns out, it was, and the year I was there was when he was at his worst.

I've been thinking about it ever since I found out. It's a little shameful to realise I took his behaviour personally, when, actually, it had nothing to do with me at all. Okay, he went to enormous effort to hide his problems, and it's hard NOT to take it personally when someone's looking at you like you just took a steaming dump on their desk. But still, I'm a bit ashamed of myself.

And, selfishly, relieved. Maybe that year wasn't the disaster I thought it was.

CBRII - Book 6: The Lucy Family Alphabet by Judith Lucy

2009-12-12T19:33:00.001-08:00

Judith Lucy is a well-known Australian comedian. Her humour is self depreciating and dry, in the same way desert sand that's been left in a dessicator for three weeks is dry. This is a woman who's most famous tour was about being sacked as a radio host, called 'I failed'.

Like most comedians, her family has provided much of her material. The Lucy Family Alphabet is, in many ways, the work of a woman trying to come to terms with having two very complex parents. Who, actually weren't her parents at all, which she was told when she was 25. The book is also about the fallout of that discovery, and meeting her birth mother.

She uses a set-up where the chapters begin with a letter of the alphabet (eg A is for adoption), followed by a few pages of explanation, to tell the many smaller stories that make up her history. There were a few times I longed for a flowchart of the order of major events with all the chapters slotted into their proper place in that chain of events, but for the most part, I really liked the format. Judith has a gift with words that takes a lot of the sting out of the tales. I often laughed out loud, even when I was cringing. One chapter had me howling, but that's probably because my sense of humour is ten years old and thinks small mad dogs that aim directly for the testicles of larger dogs is the nadir of funny.

I think a lot of people with 'complicated' families will relate, if not to the experiences, then to the tone of the book. The anger, and the love. The pity and the regrets. Judith's mother is probably the most interesting person. She was a very intelligent woman, but so desperate for the attention of an indifferent husband that she ended up sabotaging any hope of a comfortable relationship with him. There's also a lot of truth in the bond between Judith and her older brother Niall. He's such a sweet, protective presence throughout the book, even though he's as damaged as she is.

This is a fantastic book.

Memories, like the cesspool of my heart.

2009-12-03T17:46:00.000-08:00

Our climate control has lost its marbles.

One of our labs is 18C, the other (which is located exactly opposite) is 24C. Our office is currently a balmy 27C, the corridor connected to it is 21C. A couple of hours ago, I stood with one leg in the office and the other in the corridor and my body got very confused. Hell, my body's getting confused just walking around. Certain parts of me are are going up and down like a kid on trampoline.

It's strange how it's affecting us in the office. Headaches, nausea, exhaustion. Three went home early yesterday, one couldn't come in at all today. I'd study the phenomenon, but living through it is enough. Really. Somebody fix this now? Please?

To distract me, I searched through the files on my eeepc during lunch. In my current state, a file named 'killmenow.doc' is sure to get my attention. It was a diary entry, from (about) December 20 last year. See, every now and then, I get the urge to write a journal. It usually last a week, at most. Often, it's just a single entry. I've got dozens of notebooks with two pages of whinging, and that's it. Switching to computers has probably saved at least half a rainforest.

I decided to share. I’ve changed it a little for the sake of posting, adding explanations and stuff, but otherwise, everything is exactly as it was. As a reminder that my gut may be rioting and I may have just high-beamed the Head of the department, but I've survived worse.

*******

It’s Saturday night. I’ve worked 13 days straight, never less than 10 hours a day. It’s Christmas day on Thursday, and I’ve only bought a quarter of the presents. ITGeek’s family will be down on Tuesday, and the house looks like a factory after a particularly violent rave party that ended with a swarm of ferrets. Usually, I don’t give a fuck about the state of the house, as long as I can still find the cat, but it’s his ENTIRE family, and since the move has been put back AGAIN, I’ve gotten a little depressed about all the boxes. Morgan, is, of course, perfectly fine with this new arrangement, especially the part where he can climb up the boxes to the curtain rod and amble along it, until he falls off and hangs there, yowling in fifteen octaves, until I rescue him. I thought cats were supposed to be graceful and shit. Just my luck to get the munted one.

Oh yeah, work. I’m beyond tired. This has been a bitch of a study. The mice are bl/6 (black 6) and they are angry, angry little mice. Our usual breed are balb/c, which look like the traditional white lab mice and act like stoned Buddhists. If I’m honest, I kinda hope that, should reincarnation be in my future and I come back as a lab mouse, I’m a bl/6. I respect their rage, I’m just not a fan of being on the receiving end of it. So far, I’ve been bitten three times, which wouldn’t suck so much if two of the bites hadn’t been in the same damn place. Of course, they’re also in the worst place to be bitten – the upper knuckle of my index finger. This is an area where the skin is usually stretched over the bone, so when those tiny little teeth dig in, they start mining for calcium.

These aren’t just any bl/6 mice either. They’re knock-outs (genetically engineered so a gene or two in their DNA has been removed, or ‘knocked out’, which very slightly changes how they function. It’s a good way to figure out what the protein that gene encodes actually does in the body). They were engineered overseas, then sent to us. I think they were about 6 weeks old when that process started. When they got to us, they were 8 months old. Ah, bureaucracy. They weigh, on average, 33g. The ones we usually deal with are around the 22g mark. 10g may not seem like much, except when it’s all muscle and rage and launching itself at your face, teeth-first.

Half of them are male, too. You can keep a bunch of 8 week old males in the same cage without too much trouble. Female mice hang together happily forever, the worst they’ll do is groom each other bald. 8 month old males will eat each other’s faces off. Literally (guess what I found three days after they arrived? Faceless mouse corpse. Yummy). Obviously, this is something we watch for, but older mice that previously were fine with each other may randomly decide to brawl, and they’re most likely to do that at night. I just don’t love this job enough to be here at 2am to keep an eye on the wildlife. Hell, times like this, I barely love the job enough to be here at 2pm.

At least we appear to have results. That’s always heartening. Worst day ever was a 16 hour cull day, also on Saturday, for a 4 month smoke study. That was the day I started ranting about goats planning to take over the world. At the end of that awful day, the cells from the lung lavage were counted, a good indication of how well the study went. There was no difference between the mice that had been smoked, and the mice that hadn’t. So we’d worked our arses off for 4 months, had done one hell of a cull day, and we went home, knowing that we were only halfway through, and the study was a bust.

So it’s worked, even if it’s nearly killed us in the process. Can I just say, in passing, that, should you ever need to send something even remotely important, I would not recommend FedEx. They are as pleasant to deal with as enormous genetically engineered, angry mice. The whole reason this study has been so demanding is because the previous study went over. This is because we had to wait for the company who ordered the study to send us their compound, and they sent it via FedEx. Who, despite being a courier company, somehow didn’t know that everything sent between countries requires a commercial invoice. This isn’t a complicated document – it’s a list of what you’re sending, on company letterhead. Our shipment didn’t have one, so naturally, customs didn’t let it through.
The first time my co-worker rang, asking where the shipment was, they claimed to have contacted our clients about the invoice. When she rang again the next day, they admitted they’d ‘made a note to call the company’. But hadn’t actually made the call. By this time, the package had been sitting in customs for about three days. God only knows when they were planning to actually make that call. Sometime next year, I imagine. They also don’t provide or top up the levels of dry ice, a bit of a problem when everything you’re sending has to be kept below -20C. I hope every one of those incompetent pieces of walking excrement gets syphilis for Christmas.

The file ended there. Possibly because I passed out from a combination of rage and exhaustion. If you’re interested, I got all the presents I needed and even cleaned up the place before the ITGeek’s family arrived. I have always been pretty good at last-minute cramming. The cat eventually learnt to just leave the curtain rod alone. A water pistol may have been involved in that education.

The study, on the other hand, didn’t go so well. The cells in the lungs increased as a result of smoking, which meant it worked, but there wasn’t any difference between the knockouts and the wild-types. Which, as far as the company was concerned, meant it didn’t work. And there were further, hellish misadventures with courier companies. Although we sent the samples via the best courier we’ve got (World courier, and they’re awesome), they apparently arrived in two separate shipments (we sent them in one) and the contents of one was leaking everywhere. We were told this on a morning we had to start at 6am. I then spread the joy around by calling the courier company, expecting to get a voice mail, but getting a salesperson instead. Who I then assumed must be on the night shift, so I unleashed a torrent that could basically be summed up as ‘WTF and you DID send our stuff to the dangerous goods officer to pack properly, like you said you would, right? You didn’t send highly flammable liquid on a plane in an old cardboard box I swiped from the store room, did you, please? I signed the dangerous goods document, I’m liable for that, pleaseohplease?’ After five minutes, the salesperson managed to interrupt the panic babble and I realised my call had diverted to her and she was actually at home. In bed. I was all ‘Oh shit, sorry! But, uh, I really need to know what’s happened here,’ and she was all ‘You’re absolutely right, and I’ll get on it as soon as I wipe the sleep from my eyes.’ It’s been months since that awful day and we still don’t know what went wrong. Far as we can tell, the couriers did everything right, but the company has gone all fourteen year old girl and won’t talk to us anymore, so for all we know, the courier company are lying and they played football with the damn thing.

CBRII books 4 and 5 - Heavenly Pleasures and Forbidden Fruit by Kerry Greenwood

2009-11-30T21:33:00.000-08:00

AKA I went back for more, and liked it.

One thing this Cannonball Read is going to make embarrasingly clear is my love for Chick Lit. Well, Detective Chick Lit, but really, that's just the normal variety with some corpses added. I know they're fairly predictable, with the plucky heroine and hunky hero, but sometimes, I just can't resist. Actually, I've just realised that four of the five books I've so far read for the CBRII have involved hunky heroes. Wow. That's REALLY embarrassing.

Heavenly Pleasures and Forbidden Fruit are, respectively, books 2 and 5 of the Corinna Chapman series. HP was first published in 2005, FF in 2009. Why do I mention that? Because in that time, Bush and Howard went bye bye, their legacy either the economic destruction of their nation, or the internal destruction of their party (as of today, the Australian Liberal party, who happen to be our conservative party, because we're weird like that, have elected, by one vote, their third leader in two years). It turns out that when Obama was talking about Change, it wasn't limited to American politics. 3 pages into Heavenly Pleasures, you're slapped in the face with some gloating over Iraq, and that's just the start of a steady stream of agenda-filled remarks. It's interesting, but only from a historical perspective (especially when there's references to economic jitters and insurance/bankers having trouble). Aside from the standard, perfectly acceptable grumbling about the state of the world in general, Forbidden Fruit was devoid of politics.

Hence, I whole-heartedly recommend Forbidden Fruit. It's set during Christmas, and there's a wealthy pregnant girl on the run with her poor-but-good boyfriend. There's also Freegans, and Vegans, and Gypsies and a Donkey with a thing for muffins. This is because it's a Detective Chick Lit where The Worship of Shoes is replaced by Wacky Characters (see: Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, which I also enjoy, because unfortunately, it appears that my Taste may actually be in my butt).

That said, aside from the politics, Heavenly Pleasures is probably a slightly better book. It's a little more tightly woven, a few more surprises, and I found myself much more emotionally invested in the subplots. This time, there's a mysterious new tennant in the World's Best Apartment Block, Insula, and he's brought trouble with him. The kind that carries weapons and explosives. Meanwhile, the Heavenly Pleasures of the title, a high-end chocolate shop, is also under attack. Somebody is replacing the chocolate filling with chilli and soy sauce, and destroying the business. The owner, Juliette Lefebvre, hires Daniel, Corinna's private detectin' boyfriend, to catch the culprit. Oh, and Heavenly Pleasures' shopgirl has gone missing, just to add to the tension.

The characters, with the exception of the villans, of course, are all utterly charming, and once again, Greenwood has researched the hell out of her subject matter. There's a lot of information slotted into these books, on everything from chocolate and chess to old christmas carols and the proper care of pampered bunnies. And they're based in Melbourne. Which makes me happy, for reasons I can't fully explain.

Today I turn 30

2009-11-29T18:20:00.000-08:00

That is all.

Perks of the job.

2009-11-26T15:57:00.000-08:00

Know what makes a scientist move? Free food. Seriously, a pack of famished wolves spotting a fat lamb with a broken leg does not move faster than a lab full of scientists when the words 'food in the tea room' are uttered.
Normally, these are arranged by companies that want to sell us stuff. They know the only way to get us close enough to hear their pitch, they have to entice us within hearing range with food. This happens about once a month if we're lucky.
If you really want the free stuff, work for a doctor. Pharmaceutical companies give them shit like you would not believe. In the single year I did clinical research I got breakfast twice a week, lunch once a week, every form of stationary known to man, sim card readers, USB sticks, mugs, bags, and, best of all, an all-expenses-paid weekend on the Gold Coast in a 5 star hotel (but only because I was filling in for the PhD student, a doctor herself).
Part of the reason I got this stuff was because my boss, a cardiologist, was adamant that he would have nothing with a drug name on it, and if the sales rep snuck something into his pidgeon hole, he gave it to me. I admired the hell out of him for that stance, even if it meant I had to buy pads of post-it notes on my way to work every month or so. The stationary cupboard at this job had very little that WASN'T covered in a drug name.

So what free shit do you get with your job? (yep, trying out that blog thing where you finish with a question.)

Cannonball Read II, book 3: Keeping it Real by Justina Robson

2009-11-24T17:27:00.000-08:00

This is the first in the ‘Quantum Gravity’ series. The premise is that in 2015, a large Hedron collider impersonated Chernobyl, and now there’s about 7 different realities all intersecting one another. And they’ve always done this, or something. There’s a lot of confusion about ‘before the quantum bomb’ and ‘after the quantum bomb’. Come to think of it, there’s just a lot of confusion.

Lila Black is 21 and works for Earth (Otopia)’s spy agency. She got torn apart by an elve, and through a bit of magical technological fiddling, they turned her into the 6 million dollar woman. Only with a lot more weapons. The book opens on the day she starts her first assignment since being rebuilt, to protect an elven pop star who’s been getting a lot of hatemail from, oh, about four dimensions. She doesn’t quite succeed, and she has to follow his kidnappers into the elven reality to rescue him. There’s a lot of political manoeuvring in the elve dimension, some philosophising about knowledge and power, the bad guy is actually a good guy, Lila is possessed by an elven necromancer who used to have a thing with the bad-guy-actually-a-good-guy, and there’s some sort of Game between her and the elven popstar.

It’s a very complicated book. Probably too complicated, because I spent so much time trying to work out what the hell was going on that I found it impossible to be dragged into the story. Books have always been my escape hatch, I get grumpy when it doesn’t take me anywhere. There’s a lot of plot holes and dropped threads, but I gather this is going to be a series, so, presumably, the holes will be filled and the threads picked up in latter books. It also suffers from what I call ‘Laurel K. Hamilton syndrome’. See, I have a way of scoring the quality of a movie by the number of unnecessary tit-baring. I have a theory that the makers are just throwing those tits in as a distraction, or to make them appear edgy, because they’re either lazy or not talented enough to make a good film. I see more than one set of unnecessary tits, I know I have to decide to switch off my brain or the movie. ‘Laurel K. Hamilton syndrome’ is the book version. Toss in a sex scene with a hottie, under the most flimsy of pretexts. If you've ever read anything she's written in the last ten years, you'll know what I'm talking about. It tends to show up a lot in science fiction/fantasy books with a female lead, and a female writer, and I always find it distracting. I’ve no objection to a bit of romance with all that technology, but I hate it when the main character fucks one hot guy after another under that flimsy pretext of ‘it’s the hot guy’s culture/power source/whatever’.

I really liked the characters, Lila, all fire and insecurity about her appearance, and Zal, so passionate and brilliant, but so naive; and I think it had a lot of potential. But the author has tried to cram too much in, and complicate everything. Things like the Game, which has a role later in the book, but felt so unnecessary. Science fiction is at its best when the human characters are still bound by recognisable human reactions and motivations, despite the unusual setting. Justina didn’t need a Game with a special capital letter, she could have just given the characters a bit more time and a lot more flirting (which was one of the best parts of the book), and helped us fall in love with them while they fell in love with each other. Presumably, even power-mad rulers would recognise the usefulness of love in manipulating an adversary.

I’d recommend this book to a lover of science fiction, but not a person unfamiliar with the genre.
I think you’d need to be in the ‘zone’ to truly enjoy this book, able to fill in the gaps with your own past experience. In a lot of ways, this book is very much like it’s main character - a clever merging of magical and biological and scientific, sexy and smart, but not entirely comfortable with itself and or put together quite as well as it was aiming to be.

Long overdue Halloween post

2009-11-16T01:08:00.001-08:00

I HAD A FANTASTIC NIGHT.

I'm engaged to an awesome man, ya know that? He did most of the work, because he wanted me to be able to talk to my friends. Who are as awesome as he is, but I don't love them like I do him. Sorry guys, but that's the way it is.

There were a couple of downsides, like discovering my car had acquired a dint sometime while I was running around getting shit and finding, at the last minute, that the invite I thought I'd mailed to my favorite cousin was, in fact, still in my bag, but the night, the actual party, with my friends and my family and more food and drink then I could ever imagine, was wonderful.

We got spoiled with gifts, which we had told people they didn't need to bring, but they did anyway. Morgan escaped after about an hour and spent the rest of the night utterly charming everybody who hadn't met him, and reaquainting himself with everybody he'd already wrapped around his paw (although he probably wanted back behind a shut door when my friend's 2 year old was chasing him around the house. Seriously furball, next time, remember they're short and head for the high ground, okay?). He spent the rest of the weekend passed out on various soft surfaces, much like his owners. My oldest, bestest of the best friend, Metal, stayed back and we talked for hours, which was the perfect end to the night.

To finish, here's a pic of the ITGeek and I, in our 'the couple that kills zombies together, stays together' costumes.

By the way, those soft toys in the side of the shot? Plushy Microbes. Yes, I'm that fucking geeky, okay?

Can rattling ettiquette

2009-11-13T23:58:00.001-08:00

I've done a bit of fundraising this year of the 'waving a tin can at an intersection' variety. Both times, they've been for well-known organisations/charities, and I'm always stunned by how generous people are. Still, I thought I'd offer a couple of tips, because I'm arrogant and ungrateful and stuff:

1. Chances are good that the tin-rattlers have been in your shoes at least fifty times. So if you don't have change, or you're not interested in giving, just shake your head, okay? We won't think you're a turd, I promise. Don't, whatever you do, start scrambling with something in your passenger seat. You might think you look distracted, but from our point of view, you look like you might be reaching for your bag or wallet, in order to donate. So we walk over, and then it's awkward for all involved.

2. Don't throw the money. If it falls on the road, our insurance doesn't allow us to pick it up, because when we're bending down, a) we reduce our own visibility and b) drivers have a harder time seeing us. I can kinda see their point, even though it sucks to turn down decent people's donations.

3. Don't do what one guy did to me and try to have a conversation, forcing me to stand between cars on a busy road when the lights were about to turn green. I wasn't being rude when I turned and ran off, mate, I was just trying to not get smeared all over the tarmac.

Oh, and if you were the person who bought 6 cups of soft drink from McDonalds and gave them to some SES fundraisers in Knox today, you are a wonderful human being. Thank you.

CBRII: Earthly delights by Kerry Greenwood

2009-11-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

Initially, I planned to review another book, Keeping it Real, but I've been having a very hard time getting into it, and I'm not sure if it's the book, or me. I'm beginning to wonder if it's some sort of Pratchett backlash, because I hated the book I read immediately after Nation, his previous work. Then again, that book was Twilight. Because the main character in Keeping it Real has not incited a desire to stab her in the face, I felt I owed it to her author to just put the book down and come back to it later, after a literary palette cleanser. I've been a fan of Greenwood's series about Phryne Fisher for a while now, so the first book in another of her series seemed like an excellent choice.

It was. Hell, I fell in love with this book when she mentioned the patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Kerry Greenwood has degrees in English and Law, and an interest in history, particularly, 1920's Melbourne, which led to the Phryne Fisher books about a female detective in, of course, 1920's Melbourne. Earthly Delights is the first in a series on Corinna Chapman, a thoroughly modern Melbourne baker, and she's clearly applied the same diligence to researching every aspect of this character's world as she did to Phryne, from the lifestyle of a baker to the reality of soup kitchens. She even includes recipes at the end of the book. It's a commendable effort.

The plot goes as follows: Corinna Chapman, owner of Earthly Delights, a Melbourne bakery, starts work one day at her usual time of 4am. Then one of her three cats crawls back in with a needle in its paw. She goes out to rip strips off somebody, and discovers a girl dying of an overdose (and I kinda love how her immediate reaction to being told to do CPR is 'ew, junkie germs!'). The ambulance arrives, the paramedics revive the girl, who promptly abuses the fuck out of them for killing her high, and refuses to go to the hospital until Daniel, a 'heavy' for the local soup kitchen, shows up and gets her to act like a human being. Of course, a worker for a soup kitchen is not going to pass up the opportunity to ask a baker for their leftovers, and Corinna is not going to pass up the opportunity to spend time with the gorgeous specimen of man-flesh that is Daniel. The OD victim is one of several - it appears that somebody is distributing heroin that contains 10 times the regular proportion of heroin and it's killing the users. At the same time, the women in Corinna's apartment block are being targeted by an utter creep with a can of spray paint and a love of all the most misogynist parts of the bible. Through the course of the book, Corinna adopts a street kid, helps a broken alcoholic search for his missing daughter, deals with her greedy ex and his shitty plans for the apartment building, helps at a soup kitchen, hangs out at an S&M club, solves the mysteries, bakes a lot, and yeah, spends time with Daniel.

I live in Melbourne, so this book feels very real to me. I also really, REALLY want to live in Corinna's apartment block/workplace, inspired by ancient Rome, where the ground floor is composed of shop fronts and every apartment in the floors above are named after a Roman God or Goddess. Corinna is endearing, ruled by the instinct to help people, but Greenwood keeps it fairly matter of fact, so it's not too smaltzy. Yes, the happy endings are a little too pat for a book about junkies dying of overdoses, but the most sugary of concoctions won't make you sick if the cook's good enough.

That said, it's not without flaws. Greenwood does a fair pit of politicing. While I agree with her (or Corinna's) opinion on the war on Iraq and the policies of our former prime minister, I found the repeated references a little distracting. Perhaps authors should be warned that politics is as short-lived as pop culture, and equally adept at destroying a book's longevity.

Then there's the whole fat versus thin debate. Greenwood goes to great effort to paint Corinna as a woman who is fat, and perfectly okay with it. But she repeatedly mentions that the two very slender characters (both female) are anorexic (yet working in a bakery???), and one particular scene made my skin crawl. Earlier, Corinna had crowed that a corset gave her breasts 'a plastic surgeon would weep over because they're so perfect'. But while in bed with Daniel (who is, natch, conventionally perfect in build), she asks him why he's with her instead of a thin woman. No, wait, Daniel guesses that she wants to ask him. The answer could have been 'because I don't care about weight, I think you're smart and funny and not a morning person' or even 'I'm a tits man and being the sub to your dom was an incredible turn-on', but instead, he gives her a speech about how he's into long term investments, and when they're older thin women will be 'mottled, haggard and wrinkled'. Charming. With one ugly bout of thin-shaming (which, regardless of the advantages bestowed on thinner people, is no less reprehensible than fat-shaming), Greenwood undermines the entire message of healthy body image that she's trying to convey.

Still, I enjoyed the book. Very much. It's light and fluffy, and quite delicious.

Regulation of inflammatory responses by gut microbiota and chemoattractant receptor GPR43

2009-11-04T22:46:00.000-08:00

(Alternative title: Eating Poo is good for you!)

The information in this article relates only barely to my field of study. But it intrigued me, so I decided to review it. It’s also relatively short, which, given that I spent the first half of this week passed out in a sugar coma, made it very attractive.
It was the ITGeek who passed this article onto me. A media-fied version of the results had been published in a newspaper, he mentioned it, and I asked him to pass on the details. The media version of this was: Fibre will stop asthma, and, of course, referenced an Apple a Day (which must, by journalism law, appear every time the story relates to fruit or health. In fact, journalists have a quota of homilies they must include in their work. Otherwise your press pass is revoked and the other journalists don’t shout you at the bar).

The basics
Your intestines have a normal level of bacteria. They’re usually harmless, or, at worst, what we call opportunistic bacteria, ones that only do harm when a person’s already sick. They’re so normal that we use some of these bacteria to check that the sewerage hasn’t gotten mixed up with the drinking water. For a long time, these bacteria have been credited with keeping the bad bacteria at bay (by competing with them) and assisting with breaking down food.
This study suggests that they could also help regulate the immune system’s response, particularly allergies. The bacteria ferment fibre into Short-Chain Fatty Acids, which bind to G-protein coupled receptor 43, commonly found on eosinophils and neutrophils and decrease their production of inflammatory mediators.
If you’re thinking ‘WTF?’, I’ll break it down. Short-chain fatty acids are a type of compound, very common, that include acetate. They’re an end-product of bacteria breaking down fibre (or, as I prefer to think of it, what they vomit up after getting pissed on the fibre). The entire body runs on a system of proteins and receptors that connect like keys in a lock and set off chain reactions that control everything from making new proteins to cell proliferation. There’s a billion of the fucking things, and they’ve usually got a stupid name (one day, I’ll rant about naming conventions in science and why it hurts cramming undergrads). In this case, the short chain fatty acids connect to a receptor that’s part of the g protein coupled receptor family. Think of this like, oh, saying your car is a Ford sedan. For the sad obsessive types, there’s lots of varieties and types of engines and number of horsepower, but for most of us, it’s a car. Four wheels, four doors and a boot. All you need to know about GPR43 is that when something slots into it, a message is sent to inside the cell, and, like a Ford sedan, they’re just one of a million, and they’re everywhere. Eosinophils and neutrophils are two types of immune cells, and, particularly eosinophils, they’re common in allergic reactions. 'Inflammatory mediators' is just a fancy way of saying ‘proteins that fit into immune cell’s receptors’.

How the hell did they prove that?
I had to find out what colitis is here. Turns out, it’s an inflammatory bowel disorder and something I’m kinda glad I’ve not had much experience with. Scientists induced this in normal, bacteria-filled mice, and the same breed of mice that were entirely germ free (and man, that must have been fun to maintain). Then, by measuring a series of symptoms, including rectal bleeding(!), they showed that the germ-free mice were much, much sicker.
This doesn’t necessarily prove that it was the gut flora. In order to do that, they had to give these germ free mice the very same germs that their healthier counterparts had. Which means they were fed shit from the germy mice. For anybody dry-retching, they delivered the shit by taking a small tube and inserting it into the corner of their mouth. The mice swallow it, and that’s when you deliver the substance, bypassing their breathing tube and, most importantly in this case, their tastebuds. Regardless of the ick-factor, the germ free mice vastly improved.
The scientists already knew that bacteria could make certain short chain fatty acids. So they chose one, acetone, and gave it to a new batch of germ-free, colitis-y mice. And yay, they also improved!
At this point, the scientists felt pretty confident in saying that a) germs produced short chain fatty acids which b) improved the symptoms of colitis. But that’s not quite enough (well, not to get you in Nature, the Boffin’s Bible, anyway). They needed to know HOW.
Again, calling on the work of other scientists, they learnt that acetate was found to work on GPR43. When they looked a little closer at this receptor, they discovered that it liked to hang around with a lot of other innate immunity receptors. Well, the cool ones, at least. So they found themselves some mice that had no GPR43 and got busy.
First, they took a good look at the mouse’s immune system, and found it to be pretty normal. They worked out that GPR43 only really worked on short chain fatty acids. They did the colitis thing again, and, sure enough, the GPR43 deficient mice got much sicker than their normal counterparts. They did some stuff with bone marrow to prove it was all due to the immune cells.
Then they got bored with colitis (or their poor research assistant/student refused to look for any more bum bleeding) and moved onto the hardcore auto immune diseases – arthritis and asthma. And lo! The GPR43 deficient mice were royally screwed here, too.

So, following the logic path here – bacteria turn fibre into short chain fatty acids. Short chain fatty acids activate GPR43. GPR43 is mostly found on cells that cause allergic reactions. Specially bred mice that don’t have GPR43 get more sick from immune-related diseases. Mice that don’t have germs get more sick. Germ-free mice that get short chain fatty acids don’t get as sick. Hence, short chain fatty acids, bacteria and GPR43 work together to keep an out-of-control immune system on a leash.

Why is this important?

Trying to figure out anything involving the immune system is like trying to untangle your Christmas tree lights in the presence of fifteen hype-up kittens. Figuring out why modern western society has such a high rate of allergies and asthma has been a pretty big knot. As the scientists behind this study have suggested, this may be an explanation, especially when you consider our over-reliance on antibiotics and antiseptics, and the decrease in fibre that comes with all those processed foods. Basically, this study has loosened that knot, enough to see where a few of the cords are going. In order to have untied it completely, they’d have had to worked out how to use this information to reverse the existing conditions, which is a possibility now.

Despite my suggested alternative for a title, this doesn’t mean you should eat healthy people’s shit. No need to go that far. A bit of extra cereal will be fine.

2009-11-01T16:53:00.001-08:00

I know I promised to talk about the party, but I was looking through the photos of me and my family, and it reminded me of who I'm missing. Well, multiple whos, actually.

See, my family has issues. Not the awful, encylopedia-sized issues of abuse and mistreatment, but a couple of decent-sized volumes caused by my dad's first marriage and general shitty behaviour. And letters. Sweet fucking godopus, my family are *great* at letters.

I'm the middle child, but the oldest from my dad's second marriage. The sibling line goes: older half-sister, older half-brother, gap of about seven years, then, across four years, me, my younger brother and my younger sister. This means I get all the responsibility of the eldest child, while still being totally ignored like most middle children when the other siblings are going postal. Which, with the exception of my younger brother, happens with depressing regularity. Although, to be fair, my older brother jettisoned himself from the entire mess with relatively little fanfare, and has since stayed well out of it. I'd like to get to know him one day, but I respect why he'd rather stay out it. Hell, when I read HIS letter, basically saying, 'look, I bear you no ill will, but I want out of this shit', I had to bite back an 'amen, brother!'

My dad's first wife was from the 'leave you for another man, sell all your stuff, turn your kids against you and sue you constantly' school of divorce. Obviously it was all before I was born, but this lady sounds like a fucking nutjob. She tried to sue my parents over a fruit bowl. That was given to them when THEY got married. Apparently, the judge took one look and told the ex-wife to get out of the hell out of the courtroom, or he'd have her charged with contempt of court for wasting all their time.

So life was pretty shit for my older sibs. My older sister went off the rails for a while, but by the time I was old enough to pay attention, she'd well and truly pulled herself together. She started her own beauty salon, and did really well. She met and married a man from Israel, and they've got two gorgeous kids. She sold the business and is now a stay-at-home mum, and is building a new online business.

She is still ravaged by insecurity. I know this, so I accept the occassional bitchy comment, how she compares herself to everyone and everything. She's got more than enough good points to outweigh the bad - she's generous, loving, incredibly creative, and very, very smart. She's got gorgeous skin and perfect hair. She's gregarious, outgoing and strong. She built her own fucking business, for crying out loud!

In other words, she's my complete opposite. Always has been, and it's never bothered me. Yes, when I was younger, I wished I was as cool as both my sisters, but I never had that gift, that way of putting people at their ease. I was too weird and plain to be popular, and I knew that was my problem, not theirs. Now I'm older, and I've got a group of wonderful friends who are brilliant and weird in all the best kind of ways. The ITGeek thinks I'm beautiful and sexy, and that's all I need.

The last five years or so, it's like all my hard work and study has paid off, like I'm somehow being rewarded. The ITGeek and I got together, and we've managed to build a basic compatibility and a lot of lust into something deeper, and stronger. I'm lucky to have found someone as dedicated to me as I am to them, but it's been a hell of a learning curve, figuring out when to bite back words that wound, and rearranging my life to fit in another person. I have something that, if you look at it the right way and squint a little, could be called a career, but I work a hell of a lot. We just bought a Mary Poppins House - Practically Perfect in every way, except for that mortgage, but what homeowner doesn't have one of those? I even get along wonderfully with my fiance's family.

I've built a relationship with my parents that's warmer than it ever was during my upbringing. Don't get me wrong, they were damn good parents. But my younger sister was... well, demanding and a spoilt bitch, and then she got into drugs and alcohol and added abusive to that list. I had great parents, I really did, and I don't want to sound like one of those pathetic whingers, but I had to fight to get a bit of attention, you know? I'm not going to go into the details, because I'll be ranting enough, but let's just say she's written her own letter and I haven't spoken to her in about 4 years, and I actually kinda prefer it that way.

Anyway, my parents. My dad, especially, is an emotional amoeba. Saying 'I love you' just wasn't part of his upbringing, but he feels it, big time. Put it this way: I had to tell him that I'd still like to hear the words, once in a while, at the end of a visit or phone call. Now, every single phone call or visit ends with an 'I love you'. I'm all 'Dad, little more than I expected, but okay.' My mum, on the other hand, is incredibly loving, but broken. She can't make a decision or a stand unless she's told to. Usually, that person is me. Yay.

So, my shit is somewhat together. Then, at the start of this year, my older sister kinda picked a fight with my dad, initially over how much he contributed to her wedding. It escalated into screaming and running out of the house and all that fun shit. The next night, she called me to try to get me on side, and well, that didn't go well either. Because she tried to claim my parents did nothing for her, when they did a hell of a lot. Emotional support by the truckload, reminding her husband to buy her a birthday gift so she wouldn't get upset, helping with renovations, getting her whatever groceries she'd run out of. And the one that kinda shit me - they babysat her kids three nights a week (my parents work full time, BTW. I kinda have the philosophy that if you're a stay at home mum, that's your job. I'm all for sanity time, but you don't put your kids in care four days a week and get Grandma and Grandpa to look after them as well).

It also didn't go well because she told me Dad was putting off his retirement to pay for my wedding, like I was some fucking Bridezilla who'd send her own father to an early grave for the sake of white dress. First, fuck you. Second, heard of this thing called a Global Fucking Financial Crisis? It's all over the damn news, it's kinda hard to miss, and it's made a big mess of superannuation, you know, so a lot of people who were thinking of retiring this year have kinda had to put it off a bit. In case you haven't noticed, they live in one of the crappy suburbs for a reason. All those years of suing put a dint in their finances like a Mack truck slamming into a Mini.

So it was my older sister's turn to write a letter to my parents. Some of it, I understand. I do, really. Her childhood was shit, and even if she's not completely right about the details, that doesn't change how much it hurt. But for some reason, she fixated on me. My favourite line? 'You'll have the perfect wedding for your perfect daughter and her perfect husband, then you'll move closer to her perfect house and her perfect kids and her perfect life'. It wasn't just that line, but it does sum up the theme of the entire SIX pages of the letter. On the upside, she's got previously unnoticed psychic powers and it turns out my wedding and kids are going to be perfect. Hear that, people? No rain on my wedding day, nosir, there's going to be a random shower of rose petals instead! And my kids are going to be, oh, I don't know, writing concertas and rescuing kittens and solving world hunger by the time they're five. Oh, and she told my parents they'd never see their grandkids again. Which, yanno, makes her exactly like the mother she hates for doing the same thing to her.

My younger brother laughed at the 'perfect' bit. That's because he's awesome. I freaked right out, because I'm such a dumbarse that I never even realised I'd been in a competition. Or that everything in my life, including my relationship with my dad, is something I've stolen from her. I'm not returning the ITGeek. He doesn't want to go. You can have the 14 hour days though.

I haven't spoken to her since. My mum recently had a heart scare, and my awesome younger brother, who had remained neutral (except for giving me shit about the perfect bit), used that as an excuse to get them talking to each other again. It happened a couple of weeks ago and I know, it's my move now. And today, looking at the photos, I wish she'd been there. I wish they'd all been there.

But I'm still pissed, and hurt, and feeling guilty. Because she's been damn good to me, and she's hurting, and needs my support. I've talked this over with my RL friends so much that I'm surprised nobody's punched me in the head yet. But none of them have any more of an idea than I do. So I'm not even going to read this, I'm just going to post it and ask - does anybody have any ideas on how to approach this? I'm not apologising for shit that's just in her head, but I want it sorted. I want my sister, without the jealousy/resentment, but maybe that's too much to ask for.

CBII - Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals

2009-11-01T02:44:00.000-08:00

I should announce from the beginning the prescence of a bias: I adore Pratchett. I deliberately did not buy this book until today, because I wanted to review it for Cannonball and I knew, if I had it in my hot little hands, I would devour it.

I bought it at 2pm. It's now 9.30 and yes, I've consumed it. I'm going to come back and add more when it's had time to settle, but for now, here's my initial thoughts.

Unseen Academicals is about Football. Soccer, as we call it. But, being Pratchett, that's just the set for a performance of much, much more. I am completely disinterested in sport, so it took me a bit longer to get dragged into this book, but as always, he aimed his fractured mirror on humanity and showed me a side of us I'd only glimpsed, and perfectly articulated what I've never been able to. I'm still not even sure how to describe it.

For starters, it's not actually about football at all. It's about that question we ask ourselves, at 3am, when all our embarrassments and fucks ups are playing through our heads like a horror movie. 'Do I have worth?'

The story is wrapped around four people, who, each in their own way, are learning the answer to that question. It's about the foundation of our way of life, those chains of history and familiarity, and how we change them. How we fight changing them. How, regardless, we, as humans, remain unchanged. Colosseums became stadiums, gladiators became footballers, but we're still the screaming mob. We might have moved away from the beast, but we're a long way from evolved.

If you've never read a Discworld novel, this book isn't a bad place to start, although I'd still recommend Going Postal as a better introduction to his style, without the need for the back stories (do not, under any circumstances, start with the first book in the series, The Colour of Magic. Mr Pratchett was still getting his footing then). You have to understand that it's set upon a world, which is, in itself, a flat disc that stands on the back of four elephants, who themselves, stand on the back of a giant turtle who swims through space. As you can imagine, this set up relies on magic, and for one of the elephants to occassionally lift their leg so the sun can pass underneath. There's humans and dwarves and elves and vampires and werewolves and wizards and witches and a homical box with hundreds of legs. It's satire at its best, because it makes you laugh and it makes you think.

If you have read Discworld, it's an Ankh-Morpork book, with a healthy dose of the wizards. There's a few cameos, like de Worde and, of course, Sam Vimes stomps in and yells at people. Vetrinari, who may have originally been no more than a sterotypical creepy dictator, has developed, like Death did, into a layered and quite likable character. Or maybe I just have a soft spot for Tyrants with a sense of irony and a cynical affection for their subjects.

Look, as I've said, I'm biased. If you haven't read Pratchett, please do. He's funny and wise. He'll give you a stereotyped romance in the best tradition of sports movies, but the love he'll focus on will be the one that's built, tentiatively, between two wonderfully decent people.

P.S. I'll write about my party next time, I promise. I'll even include pictures! But I had a fantastic time and we didn't run out of drink. (Although that hair dye? Didn't work. Serves me right for wimping out and using the barely-permanent stuff)

Halloween

2009-10-30T16:33:00.001-07:00

I'm having a halloween party tonight, combination of our housewarming and my 30th birthday. I don't expect many costumes - halloween in general is still seen as an American holiday, I think.

The ITGeek wanted to go as Chris from the Resident Evil games. I decided to do the dorky couple thing and chose a costume related to his. But, realising that anybody who didn't play zombie-killing video games would have no idea who we were, I chose Alice from the Resident Evil movie.

I do not have the legs of Milla Jokovic. Actually, I have nothing even remotely close to Milla, but I figure most of my friends are used to me and have lowered their expectations accordingly. I do, however, have a pair of slut boots, a newly-made red dress, and bike shorts. With big thanks to my mum for helping me make the costume. Because I like to sew, I have whole boxes of fabric, I have all these grandiose plans for outfits I can sew, but I suck at it.

The ITGeek, who must only buy new tools/tech toys based on if they come with holders he can hang off his belt, only needed a H harness. Well, until we discovered he's almost too good at weight watchers, and lost 8kg. So then he needed new pants, as well. (Between me and the entire freaking internet, I don't care a bit. See, the ITGeek has a tush so gorgeous it turned me into a butt woman, and these pants show it off nicely. )

So I'm sitting here, writing this while trying to dye my hair vaguely blondish. It's a gorgeous 28C day. Our house is mostly clean, including the brand spanking new leather couches we got yesterday. The cat has taken up residence in our garage, where we've set up our old couches. He's going to be pissed when I chuck him into a room with a sign on the door asking people not to let him out. Morgan is a complete attention slut and will be desolate at missing out on the chance to headbutt most of our friends. Affectionate, but stupid, that's our cat.

I'm beginning to feel excited. I hope I've got enough food, and the drinks will be cold. I'm not an accomplished party-thrower, so please, cross your fingers for me!

Heh.

2009-10-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

I considered making this one my first article for the Papers Cannonball, but it's already written in layman's terms, and the authors have obviously fought off the Crowbar of Boring. Probably with alcohol. Basically, a bunch of epidemologists decided to perform an experiment on their co-workers regarding the availability of teaspoons atempting to answer an important question 'where have all the bloody teaspoons gone?'.

The case of the disappearing teaspoons

A couple of amusing/disturbing things - their science is pretty good, in a MythBusters sort of way, although a Teaspoon Half-life is not something I've ever considered.
-I worked in the same building this experiment was performed in, although for a different organisation. Our communal tea room was almost as awesome as theirs, though we didn't get a balcony. But we did get a great view over the park and surrounding apartments, where a couple often had sex on their balcony. That made coming into work on a Saturday all the more amusing.
-And other scientists did more experiments. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll find the links. I don't know if that makes us awesome, or really, really sad.

Am I insane?!

2009-10-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, the answer to that question is, and probably always will be, 'Oh hell, yes!'.

So let me rephrase - I have a somewhat insane idea, and I'm not sure if I should go through with it or not.

My main weakness as a scientist is my lack of background knowledge (okay, that, and staying up to date with my lab book. Let's never mention that again). I don't read the literature. Firstly, because I'm spending so much time doing the actual lab work, which my boss, understandably, considers far more important than reading papers. Secondly, because it's boring. I mean, the science itself, the moment where you go 'So THAT's how it works!' and are all impressed by how the other people worked it out, is incredibly cool. But the language we're expected to use to convey this discovery beats all the excitement out of it with a crowbar made of Boring.

But, really, I have no excuse. It would only take an hour to get through a paper properly. Two if I happen to write a little bit on it. Like a mini review/explanation, basically all the fun stuff. On a blog. Say, once a week.

So that's my idea - to do a Papers Cannonball, alongside the book one. Would anybody be remotely interested in that? I'll try to write in layman's terms, and explain how/why it's exciting. It would help me out, and maybe if I think somebody is reading my 'review' (even if they're not!) I'll be more inclined to yanno, do that part of my job. Instead of just the parts that involve cutting out organs or dousing mice in cigarette smoke.

Liquid Nitrogen.

2009-10-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this while slightly drunk, so bear with me and please ignore any spelling mistakes that slip through.

Liquid nitrogen has been part of my scientific life since I first entered a lab. See, there's two types of cells you can grow (in petri dishes, flasks, 6-96 well plates, or, in the case of one microbiology undergrad, on the flesh of your back). Primary cells have been taken directly from the source, be it a human or an animal,via biopsy or just by cutting it open and taking out an organ or two. You 'split' (ie. take a smaller amount of cells from a container that's full of 'em and transport to a new, fresh container) primary cells about 20 times at most. After that, you can't be sure they're the same cells you started with - primary cells have a bad habit of changing.

The second type are the immortalised cells. The first of these was the HeLa cells, and they were originally the cervical cancer cells of a woman called Henrietta Lacks (hence, the HeLa), who died from the disease. She was also royally screwed over by the doctor who propogated these cells from her biopsy without her permission or knowledge and, eventually commercialised those 'progeny'. You're not allowed to do that today (says the woman who had to write a 25 page ethics application to ask permission to use people's blood cells which we'd then dispose of, not alter and make shitloads of money off). Immortialised cell-lines don't change. This makes them awesome. What little comfort Henrietta's family can take from the entire shitty mess is that HeLa cells have been instrumental in everything from development of the Sacks vaccine for Polio to understanding of telemeres and their role in cancer. Next time you're having a drink, raise your glass to Henrietta Lacks.

Regardless of what type of cell you're using, you need a stock of them. Here's where liquid nitrogen comes in. Take one large container, fill it with racks containing boxes of your cells samples. Add liquid nitrogen and there you have it, long term cell storage. The temperature of liquid nitrogen is about -200C, AKA, Really Fucking Cold. This stops the cells from doing, well, anything. It's like those cold mornings when you don't want to get out of bed, multiplied by a million. Here's a demonstration picture of a random scientist and their cells:

The Occupation Health and Safety demon would choke if they saw this picture. Sure, she's got the glasses and the gloves, but look at her feet! Sandals! While fucking around with a vat full of LN2! She either hates her toes, or her job, and she wants rid of one/both.

I'm ranting because one of my jobs is to keep the level of LN2 high enough to keep those cells nice and frozen. This means I have been trained in using it, because LN2 will kill you if you don't respect it.

Obviously, being really fucking cold, spilling is an issue. Whenever I take the (smaller, 10L) dewer down to the basement to fill from the (enormous, 120L) tank, I have to wear:

a) gloves that give me all the dexterity of a Disney employee in a mickey mouse costume AND

b) a big fuck-off face mask. Because nobody likes their face frozen away.

c) Lab coat and (take note, Pink T-shirt) covered shoes. Actually, I have to do this no matter what I'm doing in the lab. Some countries have different rules, of course, but personally, I'd like as much between me and the -200C splashy stuff as possible.

But there's another feature of liquid nitrogen that isn't so well known. At room temperature, it evaporates. When it evaporates, it expands to about 7 times what it is in liquid form, shoving the oxygen and carbon dioxide away. This has a bad effect on humans, because our lungs are set up according to the usual ratio of oxygen:carbon dioxide: nitrogen, and if it's not right, you're not conscious. What makes it worse is that nitrogen is heavier than oxygen and carbon dioxide and when people pass out, they tend to fall downwards. Where it's mostly nitrogen.

This can be fatal. That's not me being drunkenly snarky, that's a fact.

So, here's your take-home message. Remember that scene from Terminator 2? This one?

(well, okay, the scene about two minute before when the tanker crashes, but I couldn't find a picture of that)

Sarah and John would have asphyxiated long before they got to blast the hell out of the T1000. Which, given how hard they'd been fighting the bastard, would have been very anti-climactic.

I have a lot of respect for liquid nitrogen.

Bonus helpful tip - if you ever find yourself filling a dewar with liquid nitrogen, they're not transparent, so it's hard to know how full it is. Fortunately, the super-cold LN2 creates a vapour in the air, and how that vapour is behaving lets you know how full the container is.

When you first turn it on, there'll be a great jet of vapour, which will probably try to envelop your face. This is because the bottom of the dewar is empty, and the hose completely exposed. When the exit point of the hose is covered, the vapour will settle down, 'bubbling' over the edge of the dewar. When the level of LN2 gets closer to the top of the dewar, the smooth bubbling will become much more irregular, with puffs of vapour shooting off in every direction. This is the point where you should prepare to turn the hose off, because very soon, you'll find more than just vapour bubbling over the edge.

There you go, just one of the things I work with. Which is why MY income protection insurance was 3 times that of the ITGeek and the same amount as Life, Death, Disability and 'big health problems' insurance for the both of us (guess what we went for in the end?)

Como Gardens

2009-10-18T01:52:00.000-07:00

Today, I visited Como Gardens. It was established in the late 1800's by Baron Ferdinand Von Mueller, owner of an awesome name and a huge love for botany. He created Melbourne's Botanic gardens, and Como Gardens was his nursery and private gardening play area. Just over ten years ago, the property was purchased and the gardens restored, and, twice a year, it's open to the public to raise money for our local SES and St Johns Ambulance.

Good friends of ours are in the SES, and we missed the last few open days, so hell or high water, we were going to be at this one (for the Americans, Australia is run on volunteers. The State Emergency Service basically fix anything messed up by weather or circumstances. Tree falls on a house? Search for missing person? Someone trapped in a car after an accident? Our local SES handles all of that. St Johns Ambulance are first aiders, mostly at sports and community events, but they also step up to the plate during national disasters. Oh, and don't let the 'volunteer' bit fool you. These people are trained harder than most people for their job, and have to be certified before they can even put on the uniform).

The ITGeek flexed his amateur photographer muscles, and was particularly enamoured of the owner's vintage car collection (especially a Bugatti that recently broke the lap record for a classic car at Eastern Creek raceway and nearly broke my eardrums when the owner revved it). And I? Fell in love.

This place is a maze of garden beds, the paths crossing and weaving like the steps of a dancer. Every plant you could ever imagine is here. There's no rhyme or reason to the garden bed, no occupational Health and Safety demanding ruberised concrete paths of regulation width. The attitude could be considered respectful. Plants have been placed in the ground with regard to their needs, but left to grow as they wish. The asthetic enjoyment of humans come a distant second.

Today I discovered that the highly-imaginative five-year old who was obsessed with Enid Blyton is, in fact, not outgrown, but merely hiding inside this nearly 30-year old scientist. And she can still make herself heard. She will whisper that fairies could be real, and if they were, they would live here, up this tree, under this fern. She will demand that every path must be followed and explored, and imagine where they lead. To a chocolate tree. A secret meeting place for bunyips. A Faraway Tree.

Practice Review - Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

2009-10-14T14:30:00.001-07:00

In the past, any review I've done has had the nickname 'Lit review' in front of it, and science's version of Literature has nothing to do with fiction. Hopefully, Cannonball reviews won't need referencing, because, embarrassing but true, I'm no good at EndNote.

So, before November 1st, I thought I'd sneak in some practice. Just in case it turns out that I need to learn that fucking program afterall.

I bought this book because I was due to treat a group of mice via a nebuliser for an hour, and watching them bathe in the mist gets really boring after two minutes. It's a lot better than most of the stuff I do to them, but it's still boring. I read most of it in that hour, then finished it in my lunchbreak. I'm a latecomer to Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, which makes me some kind of heretic amongst bookworms, but I'm going to make up for lost time, 'kay?

And Then There Was None is a classic 'strangers with secrets trapped in a house with a killer' story. I'd wager that it was this book that made it a classic storyline. Ten people are brought to an island via mysterious means, and trapped there by U.N. Owen ('Unknown'), who's got a burning desire to lay down some vigilant justice. Each of them are responsible for the death of another person. Some directly, some indirectly, and all of them exonerated by the law or society.

One by one, they're killed off, the manner scripted by a poem framed in each of their rooms ('Ten little soldiers', a variation on Ten little Indians). They quickly realise the killer is one of them, though they've got no idea who. The story moves fast, dragging the reader along with it, until the inevitable conclusion. Because it's a mystery, I won't give away the ending, but it's good. It's very good. Christie has a gift for sketching characters while keeping them utterly believable, so you don't end up screaming at the pages 'Oh for fuck's sake, why are you so stupid?!'. I found Emily Brent, the ultra-religious bitch, particularly interesting, and I found myself wishing she'd died a little later; that perhaps she might have then been introduced to an entirely different kind of Revelation.

If there's any problem with reading 'classics' it's that the plot has inevitably been diluted by repeated retellings by people who've clearly decided that, since the plot has already been figured out, they better focus on cheap tricks to keep the reader/viewer interested (I'm looking at you, Saw, but I'll give you a pass, Clue). The originals are still brilliant, but I always feel like both the author and I have been ripped off. The author, because, well, they've been ripped off, and me, selfishly, because I'm missing out on some of the sheer joy that comes with a good, original, storyline.

I discovered a bit of the history of this book, and I hesitated before mentioning it, but chances are good someone else will anyway. The bookcover claims it was originally published as 'Ten Little Indians', but, according to Wiki, the first title was actually 'Ten little Niggers', and the poem and name of the island reflected that (in the version I have, it's soldier island). I read that some people believe that Christie was using the predjudices of the time to convey just how 'separate' the island was, and play into the fears we're given in childhood. Personally, I don't think the story has suffered at all for the changes, and, whatever deeper meaning Christie was trying to convey, it's no longer relevant. Of course Christie may have possessed those same predjudices, but somehow, I doubt it. (Mind you, I'm basing that on a very small amount of evidence).

I just thought I'd better add, in case my countries recent stupidity with that Blackface skit gives anybody the wrong idea: there's no way in hell I want to see the original title in a bookstore.

Blame Pajiba.

2009-10-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

If you've never heard of it, it's a website for reviews. But, like everything else in my life, it has that fine veneer of insanity.

The heart of the site is the commenters, called Eloquents. And, residing over our tiny, charcoal hearts is Amanda Amos, AKA AlabamaPink. One day, I'll be able to come up with something that's good enough to honours her like she deserves. She fought cancer with humor and courage and balls-out awesomeness, and it might have killed her, but it didn't beat her.

When another Eloquent, Prisco, took on the challenge of reading and reviewing 100 books in a year, she challenged him to make it a competition. Soon, other Eloquents started joining in, and thus, the Cannonball Read was born.

The second Cannonball Read has begun, renamed 'The Amanda Amos Kickass Cannonball Read', and changed to be 52 books in a year, rather than 100. And for every Eloquent who signs on, reads and reviews those 52 books from November 1st, Pajiba will donate money to the college fund of Amanda's son (yeah, the Overlords might say they're scathing and bitchy, but when no-one else is watching, they cuddle kittens).

An incentive like that, to read books and babble about them? Oh yeah, I'm in.

This does mean I now have a blog, though, and face it, there's no way I'll be able to keep it just to reviewing books.

hehehehehe. (which, apparently, is a very disturbing way to convey laughter). (Hoping the link works, or I'm going to look like a twit).