102 Into the Fold

My two nephews came over last weekend. Their combined age is about 6 1/2.
This is what I did with the TV prior to their arrival ...

The big shrink wrap

Yep.




As the days go by ...
Thank you Picard for being the best captain EVER and for providing me with endless hours of entertainment ... 

Hey! who's that last girl supposed to be?

While I've been working these last couple of months, I have enjoyed listening to all 7 seasons of ST:TNG [for the non-nerd, if you haven't figured it out yet, I am talking about Star Trek: Next Generation.] Yes, you heard me, I am not actually watching it that much, just listening. And that is changing the experience completely, it's a whole other show. There are some things such as Beyveyrley [i.e. Dr Crusher] who is turning out to be the most annoying character/actress to listen to. I had heard people hating on her, but I had always defended her saying she wasn't that insulting. However, as a listener, I have to say, I found her annoying in over 150 episodes. There is something about that voice...
And then I also noticed that Diana Troy is by far the worst actress of the bunch, listening to her, enhances the flaws of her performance to the point where it cannot be ignore. Maybe her looks distract us from really getting to the truth because, there's no ambiguity here, she definitely sounds like she is reading a script [which she is].
Oh my!

The Higgs ...
In September 2011, the Opera experiment reported it had seen neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. That was HUGE news.
[see earlier post called: Be Infinite]

I want to travel that fast!

The team has now found two problems that may have affected their test in: one in its timing gear [causing lower results] and one in an optical fiber connection [causing higher results].
More tests will determine just how much they affect measured speeds.

Collision inside the accelerator

I ask you: "What the fuck?"


 Drive

Great Jacket

Several months ago I saw Drive and was blown away by how much it exceeded my expectations. The last time that happened was when I saw Timeless. I saw both movies in the plane, so maybe there's something to be said about THAT great viewing experience.
When I watched Drive, I wasn't completely awake at the time so the whole thing is fuzzy and dreamlike but I remember that it seemed like I was having a "bunch of fun." It was great.
The reason I am mentioning the movie right now, other than telling people to see it [without explanations or any review on my part] is that between episodes of ST:TNG I have been listening to the soundtrack and it's bringing it all back to me again.

Enjoy this one, it's free.

Neighborly ways
Here is the latest update on the next door neighbors:  Still assholes.

101 Resistance is futile

Surrendering to the black hole

My neighbors are at it again. I am having more and more difficulties getting to my door. The walkway is less than 3 feet wide! For the past few months, things [ie: trash] have been piling up and I am completely obsessed with it. I think about this all the time.

I don't know what's in there

There are now 6 pots with ugly dying plants, a gigantic dirty rug, a couple of floor mats and some trash. There are also a couple of small noisy dogs that bark all the time.

Since this weekend, an old disgusting chair has also appeared.

The thrift store chair

It is very close to my kitchen window and so whenever the guy sits in it to smoke his join, I get invaded with the aroma. I am so fucking tired of this invasion. The noises, the smells, the bad music and now the trash on the walkway ... Too much. I am thinking about revenge tactics but I haven't come up with anything good yet. I used to turn my shower on when she [the girl neighbor] was taking her shower and that used to turn the water either really hot or really cold and she would cuss loudly enough for me to hear every word. But now, they've fixed the plumbing so I can't do it anymore.
However, it won't be long before I find a way, since I think about it 24hrs a day, something good is bound to happen.
I am soooo tired.


 The Blissful ...

It's beautiful in LA. I am not wearing socks today.

Me

The Indefinable notion of Freedom

Someone shot Legos into space ...

I dig that.

 

 

 

 

 

And someone else compared my project to The Bork Collective.

Dallas Museum of Nature and Science

-By Jame Williford
"A large cube floating over a landscaped plinth.” That’s one of the phrases that the public relations folks at the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science chose to describe the building that, over the last two years, has risen out of the ground in downtown Dallas. “Plinth,” the informational packet handed out at today’s media tour helpfully explained, means “roof” — at least, according to whatever dictionary the Perot PR team relies on, that’s what it means. So we’re to imagine this rather severe-looking, 170-foot-high, 180,000-square-foot hexahedron hovering just above its 4.7-acre site next to Victory Park. Yes, hovering.

Now, initially, I was hesitant to compare the structure to a Borg vessel. First, because it makes me sound like a Trekkie. (But, then, I suppose I am.) And second, because it seems obvious. (I’m not the first to point out the similarity between the Perot and the mobile homes of Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s archenemies.) But it’s almost unavoidable. The Borg were collectors of knowledge with a marked bent for geometrical form — not at all, it seems, unlike the decision-makers at the Perot who chose architect Thom Mayne, the Pritzker Prize-winning head of Morphosis Architects, to design their new institutional digs.

And then there was the tour itself. Whatever lingering misgivings I had about pursuing a Perot-Borg comparison went out the window when Mayne, responding to a reporter (not me) who suggested that there are those in Dallas who “hate” the design, likened his creation to a lunar landing module. “It’s not about liking or disliking it,” he said. “It’s about understanding it — its scientific logic.” He meant that, from the outside, the design is, as he put it, “systematized in geological terms,” that it’s meant to look something like stratified rock. Still, there was something cold, sterile, unfeeling about his defense of the Perot’s aesthetic.

Things only got weirder as the tour progressed. Borg-like, Mayne insisted that the building wasn’t his “in any way,” but “absolutely a collective effort,” the end result of “hundreds of thousands of discrete conversations.” At one point, Walt Zartman, of Hillwood Development Company, said, “Literally, the building is coming alive.” His “literally” made me chuckle, then shudder. And, finally — the crowning touch — in the Gems and Minerals Hall, a tour docent described a huge geode that museum-goers can open and close by spinning a wheel as “an alien egg.”

Yep, the Perot is a Borg ship, come to collect and disseminate the knowledge of our race.

Scary? Not really. The thing is — as any fan of The Next Generation will attest — the Borg were cool. And so is Mayne’s work. I visited one of his firm’s recently completed projects, 41 Cooper Square in New York, and was thoroughly impressed by both the building’s scarred, undulating shell and the light, almost serene openness of its interior. The Perot isn’t there yet, of course. Right now, its exhibit halls are a mess. And where they aren’t a mess, they’re just bare concrete, waiting to be filled with dinosaur skeletons, ornithological displays, representations of the expanding universe, and whatnot. But I’m looking forward to the finished product, to wandering its exhibitions spaces, seeing the lush landscaping that, eventually, will embrace the building, and grabbing a bite at the cafe.

The Perot is, and even when completed will remain, a stark, imposing structure. But it’s also a truly compelling bit of design — so compelling, in fact, that I’m tempted to call it irresistible. And resistance, my fellow Trekkies will recall, is futile.