Who brought the cat?

(see Fruvous )

I went to the Arboretum to take a break from work yesterday.. wandered
into A Large Bookstore and noticed lots of chairs lined up, with people
sitting, waiting patiently to have their books signed (but only if they had a
ticket, according to the announcements). So a few minutes later Margaret
Atwood is at the podium telling the crowd how she’s never been in Austin before
and then she gives an overview of her new book Oryx & Crake. Sounded
neat .. something about a boy who lives in a tree and future-people with
built-in sunblock, built-in mosquito repellant, built-in birkenstocks … I may
have to read it.

Also, started reading the Harry Potter books .. halfway through the third now.
This is partly because it’d be nice to have read the book before seeing the
movie, but also partly because I found digital copies of all 5 books (we
already have the legitimate deadtree editions) which I loaded into my phone.
Oddly, that’s how I’ve read almost every book in the past year or so .. on my
phone. I suspect I would read even more if I could “rip” books like you can
rip CD’s.

bits

Very interesting article over on wired about simulations and giant computers and the nature of the universe. Like the Matrix, only moreso.

Reminds me a lot of
Permutation City
which I picked up at AggieCon one year. The book adds a little twist: once a world is created on a machine as a simulation, you can’t really kill the world. You can stop the program, but the world will still exist .. its simulation continues by “hitching a ride on the Great Computation” like the article says (I think I have that right .. it’s been a while since I read the book).

Just watched
The Thirteenth Floor
tonight and it had a lot of the same ideas (worlds simulated withing worlds and stuff) .. (btw, not a great movie, but worth the $2.14 to rent it 😉

uncorked

(note: the back button is a dangerous thing — I had this whole post typed up and stupidly hit the back button and *POOF* it’s gone. This is the abridged version.)

Rented a movie last night: uncorked, starring Minnie Driver and Rufus Sewell (who was in Dark City, which I liked).

Good movie .. a crazy uncle, a manganese mine, a large (expensive) pillar, other crazy people, problems, solutions, philosophy, wine, love, hate, money, comedy, funky camera shots! (but wait there’s more!)

My favorite line from the movie:
"... his karma was constipated .. I gave him an enema."

dalmation mice!

On Saturday, we watched The Royal Tenenbaums at that theater in the the Arboretum.
It was good .. funny, but not completely funny (in a good way).
I heard someone compare it to Rushmore … after I thought about it, this makes sense: they are both stories about some fairly messed up people; these people are [somewhat angry to very angry] with each other (or one person in particular); some of the people are/were smarter than average kids; and both movies star Bill Murray (always a plus).

Alright, that’s not a wonderful comparison … not being very articulate today. They’re both the same “type” of movie … if that makes any sense .. it might if you’ve seen them both.

Anyway: good movie, very funny, interesting characters, good story…