Stuff With Randomness Sauce (illustrated edition!)

Super special happy fun extra-long paradise holiday weekend update, illustrated edition!

What’s been going on in my life, you say? I’m glad you asked…

Yesterday was Seward’s Day, where we here in Alaska celebrate our purchase from Russia in 1867, when we became part of the Glorious Nation of the United States (despite what various shipping companies seem to believe about our status as a foreign nation). The purchase was orchestrated by one William H. Seward (pictured right), who was mercilessly mocked by his peers and the public at large for his zeal in handing over $7.2 million to the Russians for a giant frozen wasteland. (That is, until they found first gold and later oil up here, not to mention all sorts of other natural resources, and suddenly the low, low price of 2 cents an acre was a great bargain and Seward a national hero – or at least enough of a hero to have a town and a bunch of streets up here named after him.) And how did I spend this most important holiday? Showing my gratitude for American citizenship by engaging in those most humble of capitalist pursuits: Going grocery shopping; making a trip to the dump because I was lazy, slept in, and forgot that the garbage service was coming that morning; test driving a model of car that I might like to buy at some point in the future; getting closer to the 250-hour mark on the time-sink that is Oblivion; watching Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, which finally had the good grace to come out on DVD. Thank you, William H. Seward, for making all these very American activities possible.

Yes, I’m playing Oblivion again. Considering that I wasn’t exaggerating at all about the amount of time I’ve spent between my (so far) three characters, this is becoming far-and-away the best single-game investment I’ve ever purchased – even considering that I shelled out another $60 for a copy of the Game of the Year edition (both for the extra content and so I’d have a non-scratched disc). And I’m still working on the original quest lines; I’ll probably tackle the extra content soon. (Gratuitous character-gushing that no one will likely care about: At the moment, I’m playing a Breton mage named Denna – yes, named after the character from The Name of the Wind - who’s so far been a kind, helpful, charismatic and (mostly) lawful sort. Plus, she’s cute. But considering how politics-heavy the Mages’ Guild questline is, she might just snap and start fireballing everyone in sight at some point. I haven’t decided yet.

Through no fault of my own, I had discovered that one of the local dealerships had a Splash Green 2003 Mazda Miata on their trade-in lot. Those of you who know me will probably be unsurprised to learn that I have a thing for convertibles, and I’ve always dug the Miata’s styling (I love small sleek cars), so I figured I’d take the opportunity to test-drive one and see how I liked it.

I was impressed with a lot of things about it, especially for such a stripped down type of car. First off was the handling – the roads were wet, so I didn’t want to push it too far, but it whipped around curves full-speed with almost no roll whatsoever. Also, the top was amazingly easy to operate – two latches and a handle to pull back and you were done. (Considering some of the horror stories I’ve heard about manual soft-tops, that’s a pretty big plus in its favor – you could probably pull it down while driving so long as you had someone in the passenger seat to help.) The acceleration wasn’t what you’d call punchy, but was more than adequate to blow your hair back in the wind. The stereo system was pretty good, too, although if you’re driving the car with the top down you’re not likely going to be hearing it much. The windshield was quite well-designed and kept the wind off your face to an impressive degree. The leather seats were quite comfortable. And I was especially impressed with the strength of the car’s heater; we were driving around with the top down in 36 degree weather with a light drizzle, and with the heater on full-blast on our legs we were completely cozy. It was better than a blanket.

On the other hand, there were some inevitable issues. Number one was the size – I fit into it okay, but I was tall enough to have to hunch over slightly while the top was up. Brian’s legs were too big to fit under the steering wheel comfortably, and when he sat up straight the top of the windshield was right in his line of sight (though he was able to ride as a passenger just fine). Also, and I don’t know if this was an issue with just this particular Miata or the rear-wheel-drive system as a whole (not having driven a RWD car before, I wouldn’t know), but the steering system was really prone to torque steer and road ruts and such – a lot of the time I felt like I was wrestling with the steering wheel to keep the car going straight. The visibility with the top up wasn’t as bad as I had thought it’d be, but I still wouldn’t want to merge at highway speeds. And the other half of the excellent turning capability was the kidney-pounding ride – you could really feel every imperfection in the road. (Not to mention that this particular one was an incredibly bright teal green. I kind of liked the color, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice.)

Still, though, I have to admit that cruising around with the top down was an absolute blast, and did nothing to assuage my desire for a convertible. But so long as I live in a place where the roads are icy half the time and it rains or snows 300 days of the year, I don’t think I can quite justify buying one – at least not with a loan. Perhaps after I’ve either sold or paid off Kitty’s loan, I can try making payments to myself and see how far I get, because being able to walk in and buy my toy car with cash would be about fifty kinds of awesome.

Mr. Jerry Brown seems to have recovered fully from his trip to the vet; however, thanks to the antibiotics we were giving him, he had kitty diarrhea for a while (which made for some fun messes to clean up, let me tell you). Now that he’s done with the antibiotics we decided to go ahead and give him a bath so he wouldn’t have to clean his icky kitty butt all by himself. He was surprisingly tolerant (I made sure to make the water warm for him) and mostly just sat there looking pathetic while we shampooed his butt and his neck (where the uneaten medication tended to dribble). When we finished and got him on the towel he looked so funny we had to snap a picture. Hard as it is to believe, the poor skinny scraggly kitty you see pictured here is, in fact, Mr. Jerry Brown, post-bath. As you can see from his expression, he found the entire process Most Unimpressive. However, not to worry – he has since groomed himself back into a very fluffy and clean (if shampoo-smelling) version of his previous self.

We’re about a third of the way through Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, and while on the whole it’s been just as dark and tightly scripted and well-told as before (if, perhaps, with an additional spoonful of spirituality and symbolism in places), the episode entitled “Unfinished Business” felt, well, almost exactly that – unfinished. The Cylon storyline was completely absent (maybe it was give-the-Cylons-a-vacation week?), the dialogue and editing ham-fisted and obvious, the character motivations in places unclear. I can’t even count the number of times it broke the “show, don’t tell” rule – something that this series is normally really good about following. Admittedly, it did provide some answers as to what happened during the “one year later” gap in the last episode of Season 2, but they were all so dumbed-down and painstakingly spelled-out that it almost seemed like the producers marched into the writers’ room and went “Enough with the subtle implications, your viewers are stupid, we need you to lay things out for them like they’re three years old.” Frankly, the boxing theme was rather appropriate – it felt like we were being hit in the head over and over with “This person is married to that person but is in love with this other person”, when really, it didn’t actually tell us anything we couldn’t have already guessed. (To be fair, though, we were watching the extended cut, so perhaps the editing in the original version was – excuse the pun – punchier. I still don’t know how they’d have overcome the awkward dialogue, though.) Hopefully, now that this is all clear, we can move forward with the next episode.

We’ve also been watching the new Doctor Who episodes, thanks to a late birthday present for Brian from his mum. I was pleasantly surprised at how the show managed to acknowledge its campy sci-fi roots while updating the styling and tone. What really impressed me, though, was the episode “Dalek” – it would’ve been incredibly easy to either skip over the Daleks altogether as a past enemy, or to toss them on the cheese-pile as something to no longer be feared, but instead they played it straight – and thanks to a fantastic performance by Christopher Eccleston, it actually worked. And, campy parts aside, some of the episodes were just masterful at manipulating atmosphere – I believe I can honestly say that “The Empty Child” is one of the creepiest stories I’ve ever seen, despite what had to seem like a completely cornball premise (seriously. Gas mask-wearing WWII-era zombies?). And it was a pretty darn good indicator of how well-done the show was that I got attached enough to the characters to be seriously wibbling during key parts of “The Parting of the Ways”. We’ve just started Season 2, and David Tennant seems to be making a perfectly fine Doctor, but so far he has yet to overtake the amazing performance that Eccleston gave. But then, I have it on good authority that you never forget your first Doctor. So I’ll try not to hold him to the same standard.

…Wow, that turned out to be Long Post is Long. But hey, now I’m all caught up. So, lunch! Yay lunch.