The Genocides; Thomas Disch; 1965

Another notch on the list of Nebula finalists.  I recall liking 334, but have no notes other than that it earned a place in the annals of bad editing:

On page 92 of the Gregg Press Science Fiction Series of Thomas Disch's 334, he talks about changing the value of c in a parabola

y = x^2 + c

in order to change the width of the parabola.

Oi.  I also read On Wings of Song some time ago, but don't recall much about it except that I didn't particularly like it.

The Genocides isn't bad.  He has a good premise and manages to tell most of the story from the POV of his characters without dropping into "god view" to explain what the heck is going on; unfortunately, his primary characters are so unlikable that I feel relief, rather than remorse, at the prospect of the end of the world.  We need someone to root for, even if they're doomed!**  Still, there are some good bits, and at under 150 pages, it's a relatively small gamble of your time.  This paragraph was my favorite (page 30 of the 2000 Vintage Books paperback edition):

They had lived these last three years in the safe-deposit vault in the basement of the First American National Bank.  Their precious store of scavenged cans and jars was still locked in the safe deposit boxes, and the canary was probably in his cage in the corner.  It had been a very cozy home, though there were few visitors and they had had to kill most of those.  Such luck couldn't last forever.

** I'm pretty sure I'm "supposed" to root for Orville, but I can't.

Total Recall (2012)

The end is not entirely satisfying, but I'm pretty sure I enjoyed the Colin Farrell Total Recall more than the Arnold version (it's been 20 years and I only saw it once).  In wondering why they would choose to remake this film, we decided the original bar was set low enough that they decided they had a better chance of surviving comparisons to the original than, say, the remake of Sabrina**.

In comparing Farrell to Schwarzenegger as the protagonist, I can't help but think of Shortpacked!'s "False Equivalences" Batman.

I also can't help but notice that Our Hero needs to "escape" from a powerful, confident, competent woman to a woman who is competent enough to "deserve" him, but still needs him to save her, take the lead when they're escaping from the bad guys together, wake up first when their car crashes and carry her back to his apartment, etc.

** it's still astounding that someone believed you could swap Hepburn, Bogart, and Holden for Ormond, Ford, and Kinnear. 

There's a half-inch of fresh powder out in the intervale (and still gently falling)...

... and I've got meetings straight through to 3pm.  The perks of having opinions that people at work seem to care about are interfering with the perks of telecommuting.

The Case of the Future Einsteins

This came home in a flyer from school.  I am delighted to have the opportunity to sign my kids up for an enrichment program that has an inappropriate apostrophe in the title of the program.

To be fair, typos happen, but I suspect foul (English) play.

The Now of "Eat In / Carry Out"

One of the many billboards we passed on the PA Turnpike trumpeted a Dunkin' Donuts that had "Free Wifi / Drive Thru".   My first thought was that the ad didn't make sense because these attributes don't stack (if I wanted free wifi, the drive through service is of no interest, and vice versa), but quickly realized this is simply how you now advertise that customers can choose to dine at leisure or get a meal on the go at your establishment.