Current events and such

[aadler]

Last week, Susan and I left sroni center-state to spend time with our son and help him in dealing with Susan’s parents. Susan herself had to work an extra shift this weekend, so I drove down alone to visit with them, with the intention already formed of bringing Roni back upstate with me on my return.

My son is majoring in history, with a minor in Chinese, so he got us tickets for a performance by a well-known troupe of Chinese acrobats appearing at his college. After witnessing the performance, he said, “I wonder how we ever beat them at any event in gymnastics.” My reply: “I wonder how we’ve ever beaten them at anything, period.” The physical mastery evident in every performance was simply stunning; at one point, watching a young woman balancing three balls on top of a metal rod which was in turn balanced on a support held between her teeth, while SHE balanced on a board placed on top of a rolling metal cylinder and then began climbing a pair of ladders set on either end of the board, I thought, Just how many more levels of impossible can she add?

Roni, still taking Phenergan to control her nausea, turned out to be one of the minority for whom it causes occasional hallucinations. After the performance, we asked, “So did you see any phantom animals running around the stage?” To which she answered, “No, but the two guys toward the end were suddenly wearing wolf masks, even though there’d been no opportunity for them to put on any such thing, so I figured that probably wasn’t real.” There are people in Covenant Players who are hoping she can fill in for a team in Texas as early as next weekend. I can about guarantee that won’t happen.

Somehow or other, Roni has gotten onto a Stargate RPG/fanfic forum. I’m slightly annoyed for purely selfish reasons — I’d like to see her efforts channeled into something that entertains ME — but at this point her fanfic output is outpacing mine. Really need to do something about that.

After one more week in her current position, Susan will move laterally into the job she’s been wanting for months.

A month from now, Susan and I will be in Amsterdam. She’s presenting a paper at a conference.

My life? Right now, it’s basically revolving around other people.

Comments

[lwbush.livejournal.com]

I saw that Chinese group at the Navy Pier in Chicago last time I was there. They were amazing.

[aadler]

Absolutely. Another comment I made to my son was, “I don’t ever want to mess with any of those guys.” You watch them on the stage and you’re thinking, That man is supporting an entire other person, on one arm. Then, That man is supporting his entire body weight with the strength of his wrists, slowly and under perfect control.

They have to be solid steel from head to toe.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

So, you don't watch Stargate?

[aadler]

Nothing against the show, I just never got into it. The episodes I watched were entertaining enough, but they didn’t seize me the way some shows do. (In fairness, Buffy itself wasn’t an instant sell. I was sufficiently interested to continue following it, but it took time to grow on me.) Probably the main problem is that I became aware of the show only after it was already in place, and would have had to go back to the beginning to catch up and fully appreciate the accumulated history.

On the other hand, there’s some personal prejudice there. Last year at Guantanamo, my kids reminded me of what they remembered as one of the funniest things I’d ever said, only I’d forgotten saying it: they were watching a Stargate SG-1 episode, wherein the team was in a running fight with some alien attackers — probably Jaffa troopers — and getting the worst of it. I watched a minute or two of it, and then remarked matter-of-factly, “That’s what you get when you let the Air Force do ground ops.”

They remember it as hilarious. I wasn’t even (in my mind) making a joke. So there you are.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

Part of me thinks the same way about SG-1 sometimes, but if they were more competent in smalls arms engagements then that would give them much less opportunity to get captured by their foes and have dramatic interactions with them :)

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

That's exactly my experience; Stargate is the kind of show I ordinarily like, but I didn't get a chance to see it until it had been on for awhile and it just didn't grab me. Besides, the Air Force doing ground ops ... that's what the Marines are for. ;-> Now I have so many shows to watch that I just don't have the time to go catch up on Stargate.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

So has Roni been sucessfully diagnosed?

Acrobats are astounding. It's always amazing to me that people can do such impossible things.

Hey, Stargate is good stuff! :) And there is some seriously good fic out there for it.

[aadler]

Diagnosis is still ongoing. We have a follow-up appointment tomorrow, in fact.

As far as Stargate being a) worth watching, and b) represented by quality fanfic, I don’t doubt either. I’m just not looking to get roped into any new fandoms. One — even for shows that went off the air four and five years ago — is enough to keep me occupied.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I heard that. As I sink into Stargate fandom I'm watching my Buffy fandom stuff have to scale way back. There is only so much time.