On the Lack of Updates

Updates this past week have been sparse. Frankly. I’ve not been in the mood, hasn’t been a priority. Such is life.

That’s not to say things haven’t happened this past week. They have. I’ve been tired. I’ve felt weary. My bones ached. I’ve been frustrated. One, on its own, might not have been much. Add them all together, though, and the priority of informing the world takes on a cast of slightly lesser import.

The Beetle was rear-ended on the way to work. That was Tuesday. The runaround in dealing with this has been frustrating.

Work was work. Long days, long hours. Tired, weary, bones ache. Hiring? Not going well. Staffing? Could be better. Again, the frustration factor settles in, takes its toll.

My concentration has been off.

I read an interesting story from Dan Simmons recently. It’s on his website. Depressing, somewhat disturbing. The reporting that the Bush Administration is considering the use of tactical nukes on Iran makes Simmons’ story all the more depressing because it’s all the more plausible.

I finally saw V For Vendetta today, after three weeks of talking about it. I’d be hard-pressed to find serious faults in the film. Its worst flaw may be some narrative dragging around the halfway point where I found it more interesting to check my watch in the hopes of hurrying the film along. As much as people praise Hugo Weaving for an amazing performance beneath the mask and Natalie Portman for proving she can act after the atrociousness of the Star Wars prequels, I have to give real props to Stephen Rea who absolutely conveys a man trapped by his duty and bound by his conscience.

I said I was “hard pressed” to find fault in V. Come to think of it, there’s one serious fault. Playing “Street Fighting Man” across the closing credits was a poor move and completely misreads the Rolling Stones song. When faced with the prospect of revolution, Mick Jagger sings, “what can a poor boy do, except play in a rock-n-roll band,” which simply doesn’t fit the film’s message at all. “Revolution,” by the Beatles, particularly the White Album version with its “Count me in” and “Count me out” chorus, would have been a better choice, except that the Beatles don’t licence their music out for film.

I read The Future Begins, by Michael Schuster and Steve Mollmann, a Star Trek story about Scotty’s adjustment to life in the 24th-century. It’s a continuity geekfest, a fanwanker’s wet dream, and in the hands of someone else this might have been a total disaster. What Schuster and Mollman do, however, is draw together all the hints we’ve had of Scotty’s life post-“Relics” and paint a picture showing how the aimless Scotty we saw at the end of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode finds a new place for himself in Starfleet and, more importantly, one that he can be content with. Scotty receives so little attention sometimes that it’s gratifying to see the crusty old engineer treated with respect, dignity, and reverence. The plot may be light, but as a character study The Future Begins has a lot to commend.

And so, updates were light last week. Undoubtedly, things will improve.