Invitation -- Ghost Rider

Does anyone else feel the lack of cheesy superhero movies? Tim and I are going to see Ghost Rider next wednesday (at vue, with Chilli's before or after, time to be decided). Would anyone else like to come?

(Johnny Blaze is a motorbike stunt rider, manoeuvred through a pact with the devil into becoming an agent of retribution, sending souls back to hell (I think). I'm assured it has deadpan humour and a flaming skull riding a motorbike.

It is, however, not 100% realistic. If films that aren't realistic give you physical pain, you may wish to avoid this one :))

CTS agm and dinner

On Saturday was CTS AGM and Annual Dinner. It was very fun! The food was very nice -- a pleasant surprise from Newnham. We adjourned to sonicdrift's for port and cheese (ooh, very organised -- thanks to her! And to everyone else who helped).

I saw rochvelleth for the first time in ages *cuddle*!

We played with lightsabers (see rochvelleth's photos...), cuddled, chatted about all sorts of things, successfully stitched up a committee for next year, and generally had fun.

Pizza

And, work being successful, I left earlyish and then went to geek pizza, which was very jolly. I was kind of hyper by the end of the evening though, though that may seem normal to everyone else, I'm not sure. At any rate, apologies to everyone I mispronounced the name of (I'm looking at you here, Schneier).

Embarrassing revelations

Isn't it strange how the mind works. In my usual arse-backwards way I read Hornblower before gaining any much acquaintance with traditional myths. So his ship "Atropos"[1] was remembered in my brain, and when I read about the three fates (Clothos, Lachesis, Atropos), I didn't notice the name was the same, and when I reread the book, I didn't see the connection then, it was in my mind as "H's ship" and I never looked at the pronunciation or spelling.

Then one day, I was walking down the street, subvocalised a thought about Hornblower, and went "oooooooh!" and then grabbed the nearest person and said "WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME THAT?"[2]

I had the same experience with the football team "Arsenal". Would you believe how long it was before I guessed why they might have chosen that word as their name?

But it says something about the brain. You can abstract a word enough that the context and letters are mapped straight into the associations without passing through the sound or immediate meaning...

[1] Jack's brain: Spoiler tag!
Jack's brain: What? Why?
Jack's brain: Didn't you give away the fact he gets the ship?!
Jack's brain: It's IN THE TITLE OF THE BOOK
Jack's brain: It just says "Hornblower AND the Atropos".
Jack's brain: But so did I. "His ship" means the ship that he's living on. Not necessarily in command of. Besides, there's no possible way that could spoil anything, why would it matter?
Jack's brain: If he were in command, and you read a book where he wasn't, you'd know he was going to get promoted.
Jack's brain: But I deliberately left it unspecified. I make no claim one way or the other, and in this footnote, believe me, that was hard.

[2] Actually, I didn't.