Minor annoyances

First things first: Blogger crashed when I tried to save my last blog post. It lost it. Damn machine! It wasn't a particularly good post, but I'm still upset. First real post I've started writing in a little while and it gets lost. Bah!

Second: people who find this blog through Google, based on their particular interest at the moment, and leave a comment that's little more than a plug for their own blog. I'm not pissed off at you guys. I'm not gonna "ban" you, if that's even possible. I'm just irked that people use this spot as free advertisement. Yes, I understand, you were providing additional information on the subject, unlike those other guys who really are advertising. Whatever. I'm not saying I have a solution. If I did, I probably wouldn't be here babbling. As it stands, I'm just slightly irritated. Go ahead, link, just keep it tasteful. I mean, don't just "comment" with a link. Too obvious.

Third: Heinlein. I recently finished his novel 'Number of the Beast' and I gotta say that this is, without hyperbole, the worst Heinlein work I have ever read.

Rather than write my own biting review, I refer you to this 1981 review. It pretty much describes, in much richer language, my thoughts on the novel.

Overall, it's very similar to the rest of Heinlein's later novels:

• All books start with a fairly interesting premise, spend the first two acts in pointless bickering/flattering/flirting/arguing that results in absolutely no progress
• This is then followed by the third act, one with which the author could have started the book, as the first two acts are completely irrelevant at this point (think of 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn': Jim was free for most of the 'escape')
• The characters are simplistic, two-dimensional, two-sided entities. Men are described as all-capable gods, being the 'best pilot' and the 'world's best mathematician'. The women are oversexed creatures who are endlessly focused on their breasts and 'know when to shut up'. Heinlein makes it hard not to concentrate your full attention on his sexism, at times. Two-sided, because the sweet prince will magically turn into the evil villain at the author's whim, going from a loving and supportive husband to a pig-headed and tyrannical idiot. OK, so maybe those two aren't exclusive, but the character changes are quite abrupt.
• The third act! The story goes from being a quaint adventure of the multi-dimensional refugees and their endless bickering for the irrelevant captain's chair to being a damn fairy tale, obviously needing to include Lazarus Long and his extended family in an absurd plot-line. Heinlein is notorious for these, a perfectly acceptable story breaks apart at the end by turning into something akin to a fairy tale. Argh!
  

Fourth: House. The blog post I was writing was about Tuesday's episode of House. If you don't want the secret spoiled, stop reading.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

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OK, that's better. This week's episode may be seen as jumping the shark: House at 30,000 feet! Yes, our favorite misanthrope has to save a plane-load of puking patients. Except that it's not. I liked the twist about mass hysteria, but the Korean guy's "illness" wasn't a particularly good one. Ooh, look, he did something stupid and now he's suffering from decompression sickness. Yay. Most of the plane scenes were hilarious, but the medicine was boring.

Back on the ground, the team has to go a whole episode without House's coaching. In fact, without speaking to House at all. Another 'first' for the series. OK, so, the opening with the uber-hot prostitute was funny and gave a false impression of a great episode to follow. But, after that, nothing. The science was boring, the solution doubly so. Did anyone else notice that we've already seen this damn case on CSI? Same story, one guy's house is getting fumigated and his neighbor gets sick because of connecting pipes. And what was up with that pipe not properly ending, just opening up into the basement?

Chase and Cameron bugged me by throwing their sex-buddies 'relationship' in our faces at every possible moment, joking around like they're a couple of over-sexed undergrads, finding freedom for the first time. I felt that this was incredibly out of character for both of them. Foreman tried to keep a handle on things, so I applaud him. And I really appreciate the fact that both Chase and Cameron stepped forward and expressed their feelings. I'm certainly delighted to hear Cameron ending the affair instead of continuing to lead Chase on. If you saw last week's episode, you know that Chase was falling head over heels for Allison. I'm happy that it's over, less pain in the end.

I think that's about it for this episode. Oh, and the dead cat was so obviously fake, it's not even funny.

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SPOILERS END

Hmm, what else is annoying me? Work, I guess. There's just too damn much. They sort of 'resolved' that issue by moving a few of my bugs to a different dev, but now he's unofficially pushing them back to me.

I keep on telling myself that I'll take a day off this week, or this weekend, won't work and will go watch a movie in the movie theater, but it ain't happening. I still end up dragging my ass into work on Saturday and Sunday. I contemplated taking some time off tomorrow, but there's stuff I need to finish ASAP, so that's probably not happening. And there are a number of movies I want to see, too! Like '300' (homo-eroticism and brutal violence, yay!), 'TMNT' (dude, the name says it all), 'Gridnhouse' (a girl with a machine gun for a leg, no way am I missing that!), 'Breach' (come on, spy movies are awesome), 'Amazing Grace' (what can I say, Mister Fantastic as a British abolitionist is just damn sexy).

I think that's about all for right now. Night.