waider | late b'day gifts

I was going to make a list of the various things I got for my birthday, but neglected to do so, and now I can't be bothered. I will mention the late but welcome arrival of stuff from my Amazon wishlist courtesy of Donal and Shar; the two videos of The Singing Detective, and a DVD copy of Seven Samurai. Being nothing if not a slacker, I've watched the lot already. The Singing Detective had an entire subplot I'd forgotten about when I was watching it as a mini-series, and I don't quite understand the ending, but that's cos I'm THICK. Seven Samurai, well, it's long - 190 minutes - it's gritty, and it's surprisingly funny. Toshiro Mifune spends a lot of time with his ass quite literally hanging out, scratching himself and being the clown character who inevitably does something heroic before the end of the movie. The grittiness lends an extraordinary realism to the movie that no amount of special effects could have provided - you really get the sense that this was filmed not in the 1950s but in mediæval Japan.

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Seven Samurai is one of my favorite movies.

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but on the other hand, I have no idea what my favourite movie is. It'd be sort of like trying to pick a favourite book or a favourite song, and that just ain't happenin' for me.

Oh, I don't have a single favorite of anything, and my lists of favorite things change yearly at least. For instance, right now Hedningarna is one of my favorite bands, but I'd never heard of them a year ago.

Since I first saw Seven Samurai many years ago and still love it (though I don't watch it often cause it's so long), I feel pretty comfortable ranking it among favorites, tho.

Did you know Danny O'Brien mentioned you on his blog last week?

Yep; I'd pointed him at the page he links as being akin to the stuff he'd been talking about (egregious hyperlinking of log entries) and he duly posted it. As noted in my Hacker's Diary, there wasn't an appreciable increase in hits on my site as a result.

Yes, but in some circles at least "Ronan" means you, and not some boy band creature. At least.

Which reminds me. For some reason I stumbled upon yet another quotes collection yesterday, and after skimming a half dozen or so I thought "How long till I find someone I've met quoted here?" and two quotes later I'm reading a Dominus quote - "never write device drivers while on acid" - and later found an AjD quote and some others. No Ronans tho.

Amusingly, the poet on whom "Paula Nancy Milstone Jennings" - mentioned in Life, The Universe, and Everything as the worst poet in the universe - is quoted on that page. Or maybe she was the third worst. I can't recall.

The AjD quote is classic. I will have to steal it.

The entire file is attributed to "Eli the Bearded" who I'm pretty sure I've encountered before, probably in the context of talk.bizarre.

Oh, and there's a eli.html.carasso in the same directory. Go figure.

Ha. Yes, that's what led me there. Ben lent me a cd with mp3s of the original Hitchhiker radio show, and I remembered there was something about the poet and so googled for the name when it came up. Found a site that said it had been the name of one of Adams' flatmates. Maybe he wasn't so amused by the joke.

Neil Gaiman wrote a book called Don't Panic, which is sort of the fanboy's guide to Douglas Adams; it's mainly about Hitchhikers', but also covers the Dirk Gently stuff. It was recently rereleased with updates and additions and what not. It mentions the whole Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, but neglects to also mention that the Islington phone number mentioned in, hmm, Life, The Universe and Everything? was a real phone number, so I've no idea where I got the latter fact from. And I couldn't tell you anything useful about the former except that it's mentioned; despite enjoying the book I can't remember precisely where the PNMJ bit is mentioned.

Dammit.

late b'day gifts

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