Firefly and baked potatoes

I have a DVD player. It is shiny (literally). Shiny as an adjective came to me lots from Firefly, which is what I first used it for. There everyone, even the hardbitten, uses it to mean 'pleasingly good', if sometimes with Irony.

Firefly is cool. I think my guests enjoyed it, though spent some time predicting the cliches. (Why are psychic people always disturbed? To stop them being the answer to every problem. But maybe a different approach would be more refreshing.) But many time laughing, and saying "Ooh, must quote that."

Several things -- Firefly, HHGTTG, Buffy, PTerry -- are so quotable they're unquotable. You always say "This is a good bit. And this. And this. Hell, just read chapters 2-5, 7, 10-17, oh all of it." Though I think "Three Men in a Boat" is the *most* quotable -- almost every page has several lines that can crack up any of my relatives.

And I didn't have time to cook, but manifested baked potatoes and sweetcorn. I think people could have done with something a bit more inspiring[1], but it was satisfactory. And I for some reason I think baked potatoes are one of the foods that really require pepper.

I will have another showing at some point.

Mal was compared to Sheridan. Hmmm. They both have a gung ho quality, but somehow Sheridan is still a bit squeaky-cleaner.

Everyone in firefly and buffy talks in a discoursive style. You can spot the real villains because they don't have any irony, you know Jayne and Badger and even Niska and particularly Jubal[2] will go the distance whereas quiet fed man is toast

[1] Pun intended.
[2] Inspiration[1] for Gerald in my stories.

God and bike repair

*sigh*

Is there a God who designed the worlds[1] for the benefit of human life? Look at a world which *is* designed by intellegence for life: ie.[2] Sims. There's little real estate wasted on 10^big vaccuum[3] with no people in. All your actions are personality-relevant. It seems suggestive (though we're outside, obviously, so it'd hard to tell).

In fact, for I while I was considering fic in a matrix-like world, where they *did* twig because of such a philsophical point -- there were psychic powers which could only be explained by minds having a distinguished place above other matter (because the simulation made some optimisations).

Is *our* world like that? Maybe. It'd be hard to tell -- of all the random nuclear decays, etc, whcih ones cause a hurricane? Which ones stop one? Is the number statistically significant? Especially if the "god" is playing hide and seek.

Specifically, bike punctures must be fairly random. Do they happen statistically significantly more often when you're late for a date, a job interview, or doctor who[4]?

OK, sorry. All this is leading up to me adding a few steps to sonicdrift's really marvellous bike repair manual:

* Fix puncture.
* Wait overnight.
* Fix other puncture, two inches from the first.
* Wait overnight.
* Cycle 500 yds.
* Kick wall repeatedly.
* Examine tyre. The tyre has popped loose from the wheel, and a rabbit's ear of doubled up inner tube has popped out sideways and caught on one of the many struts designed to prevent easy maintance to the wheel.
* Try to reduce bike to pushable condition.
* Carry bike 200 yds.
* Partially deflated. Stuff bits back and push carefully 300 yds.
* Drink beer and write computer games.
* Blog about it.

[1] The first time I typed "word". Very saphir-whorph :)
[2] Or maybe eg. But The second part is the relevent one, in mind during the first half. Which is more correct?
[3] Hmm. Unless you count the MB of memory used for the OS. Is hacking out of the game program equivalent to us discovering, say, quantum entanglement? Hmm.
[4] Or all of the above, in the case of, say, Billie Piper :)

Update: I forgot * pour bowl of water on floor

Invitation - Dukes of Hazard

Let's try last week again, sorry about that. Come join us for

Dukes of Hazard

Sunday evening, 6.10

Vue.

See you all tomorrow at the picnic! :)

Update: Meeting 6.00-6.10 in the foyer by the ticket machines. Going for food afterwards at a place to be mutually decided (generally raining?chilli's:zebra).