Today Eric Woolfson, the creative mind and frequent vocalist of The Alan Parsons Project, died from cancer at the age of 64.
One of the things that sucks about getting older is watching the pop icons of your youth grow old and die and 64 isn’t even old.
The first APP album I bought was Ammonia Avenue in 1984 (on vinyl, of course). I was late to the party but went back and grabbed all of their back catalog and purchased the final three albums they released after Ammonia Avenue as they came out. Woolfson wrote clean, straightforward lyrics that worked without being overly schmaltzy or cliche and his vocals had a strange elegance that I can’t fully describe with any justice.
The idea that he and Parsons might work together again — something I had hoped for — is now lost, of course, so we’ll never know what a new collaboration might have sounded like (much like Rick Wright’s death ended any chance of further work from Pink Floyd after their 2005 Live 8 reconciliation). Time to listen to Eye in the Sky again…
I buy two magazines regularly: Runner’s World and Writer’s Digest. Maybe I just like magazines with apostrophes in the titles. I’ll admit having an incredibly hot guy on the cover of Runner’s World helped persuade me to take a look at the first issue I picked up but I’ve been buying it regularly since (the covers alternate male and female). It’s somewhat surprising how much can be written about an activity that consists entirely of just putting one foot ahead of the other and repeating.
Writer’s Digest is a magazine I’ve been buying on and off for many years but now that I’m writing more I can actually try employing some of their techniques and suggestions. Note: do not ever subscribe to their online newsletter. They spam your inbox like crazy trying to sell you seminars, books and probably Writer’s Digest widgets and toilet paper. I routinely archive without reading so I should probably unsubscribe at some point.
I will occasionally buy other writing or health magazines and the odd issue of Asimov’s of Fantasy & Science Fiction. What I don’t buy anymore are computer magazines (pretty much replaced by the web) and gaming magazines (also pretty much replaced by the web and most have died, besides). I lament several magazines I used to buy that went defunct a long time ago, notably The Twilight Zone magazine (which published excellent short fiction) and Marvel Illustrated, best described as “Heavy Metal without the breast obsession”. Okay, I sometimes also bought Heavy Metal because where else could you read stories where people rode astride giant penises like the sandworms of Arrakis? I also miss Omni. I wish there was still a good general interest science magazine around (no, Discover doesn’t quite do it). Mad magazine is one of the few I genuinely outgrew without even being conscious of it. They probably lost their gestalt when they began putting in real ads to pay the bills, anyway. That’s my cynical take and I’m stickin’ to tingit!
One worrisome note before my jog (which I delayed a day because of it): a few nights ago I woke up and felt a minor twinge in my right calf. It didn’t seem to be the same area that got hurt and forced me to sit out on running for four weeks but it’s the same calf so I was mildly freaked. I waited an extra day and when I ran today there were a few times that I felt the twinge again. It didn’t exactly hurt and it feels fine now, so I’m hoping that maybe I just pulled a random muscle slightly while having one of my increasingly weird dreams.
The run itself was under a clear sky with the temperature a crisp 3ºC. I wore the tights today and feel it was the right call. Because of the colder weather the trail had firmed up and was mostly navigable again. I ran 30 minutes and improved my distance and time/km vs. the last run, so I’m slowly coming back to speed. Definitely not pushing it this, though. 😛 I felt pretty good for most of the run, mostly evidenced by my relaxed breathing. It’s pretty much the canary in the mine for me now. If my breathing is labored, I slow down.
The graffiti on the playground equipment had been mostly removed, too. Nice to see that sort of stuff get dealt with quickly.
I finally got around to seeing the Get Smart remake that came out last year. I thought it was decent as remakes go and probably more deserving than, say, Starsky & Hutch or The Dukes of Hazzard but it wasn’t nearly as good as the source material.
Steve Carrell wisely chose not to do a full-on Don Adams impression. His portrait of Smart is more of a homage and works fairly well. The rest of the cast was fine but none of the other characters really felt much like the ones in the original series. Anne Hathaway’s Agent 99 comes across as snippy and not very likeable, the Chief, instead of being exasperated most of the time, is portrayed as a brawler, of all things. Weird. But the biggest disappointment had to be the villain, Sigfried. In the TV series he is played completely over the top, complete with outrageous German accent by Bernie Koppell (who gets a cameo here). In the movie he is played without a trace of humor by Terence Stamp, who apparently doesn’t do comedy even when he’s in one. Having a serious villain in a Get Smart movie is missing the point by about as much as you can possibly miss a point.
The plot also tried too hard to be a standard action film and all the derring-do detracted from the comedy (though they did include a few funny bits in some of the sequences). The dopey Bush-like president made the movie already feel dated but the biggest problem was the movie just wasn’t funny enough. I may be strange but that’s how I like my comedies — funny!
Still, now that they have the “origin” story out of the way (why do these movies do this? I don’t need to find out how Max became an agent — even the TV series doesn’t show that) I might be interested in watching a follow-up. Even if the cast isn’t as authentic, they are watchable and the potential is there. I give it 6 out of 10 shoe phones.
There have been two recurring themes in dreams I’ve had since I was a wee one. The first was being chased by something — mummies, vampires, mean robots but most often vehicles and in true Killdozer style, the vehicles would always be driver-free. Two I recall vividly were a muscle car from the late 60s/early 70s that chased me down a neighbor’s driveway (I escaped by leaping onto the branch of a tree that hung over the end of the driveway), the other a giant-sized dump truck with the front bumper missing, which made it much scarier.
The chase dreams pretty much ended as an adult.
The other theme has been ferry disasters, which I’ve talked about before. Last night I had one of these dreams and as with most of them, it wasn’t really scary, just weird. I don’t recall who I was with but we were on the ferry and as usual, something goes wrong. This time it seemed like some kind of stability issue, which we noticed when the ferry began lurching to the side so severely as to nearly touch water to the passenger deck. Then, while still motoring along, the ship does not one but two complete barrel rolls. Yes, it capsizes twice. But it manages to right itself and we were apparently wearing our capsizing boots and were none the worse for the spinning. But now it was clear the ferry had to get to the terminal and dock ASAP.
The ferry starts racing along through the water and is kind of wobbly, pitching a bit from side to side. At some point I move to the front lounge for a better view ahead and we are entering a winding river-like area that doesn’t actually exist. Perhaps because of the ferry’s excessive speed, instead of attempting to navigate the serpentine path, the captain has the crew shovel more coal into the boiler and guns it toward a giant pile of smoothly-shaped rocks. Maybe it was a hill covered with rocks. Whatever it was, it was clear we were going to jump it.
The ferry hits the hill and scoots up it and out of the water, then flies off the top and soars like a wingless bird. For a few moments as the ship flies through the air we ponder what the landing will be like. But not to worry — the ferry lands upright and everyone’s okay. But not! Because the terminal is dead ahead and the ship is going way too fast! The engines are put into full reverse and the water churns furiously as we speed toward the dock. The ship slows, slows some more and then finally eases into the dock as if this was the end of a perfectly normal trip. Roll credits.
Today’s jog was 30 minutes. It was overcast and about 8ºC, so pretty mild comparatively. I ended up taking the gloves off for the last few laps. This means my hands were getting warm, not that I was running down and trying to punch out another jogger. The highlight was nearly twisting my ankle dodging around one of the mud pit-like corners. That would have made for a truly awesome third run back.
Someone with spray paint and an apparent loathing for authority had been busy at the adjacent playground, as you can say in the image below I captured with my iPod camera:
(You can click for a larger version if you like. The text reads “Kill Cops”.)
A charming piece of work to greet the pre-schoolers as they climb up to the slide into anarchy! More anarchy symbols were festooned across the rest of the equipment by whatever blithering idiot did this.
I was also going to post a pic of my dirty running shoes but frankly they just don’t look dirty enough. The forecast for the week suggests drier and colder weather to come so I seem to have lucked out so far as the rain goes on my return to jogging.
After buying a replacement Nike sensor, I was able to successfully revive my original one. Thank you, Murphy.
Today’s run was done under an overcast sky with the temperature a brisk 5ºC. I still went triple-layered up top and the verdict is two is definitely sufficient for this weather. I opted for shorts this time and though it was a bit chilly en route to the park, I was fine once I’d started running.
It looks like Tiger Woods won’t be whispering me sweet nothings through my nano for awhile yet. I ran for 25 minutes and not surprisingly, my pace was pretty slow. I could definitely feel the stiffness in my legs holding me back but I (wisely) chose not to fight it. I stretched before and after the run. It will be interesting to see how my performance improves after such a long layoff. One thing I’ve noted is my stamina is still quite good — I don’t feel exhausted after these shorter runs. I may try for 30 minutes next. Excelsior!
Last night I had a long, involved dream that played out like a movie. There were even “shots” where the camera seemed to be tracking. From what I can recall, the story was set in some unnamed present day country that was apparently in the midst of a revolution (possible source: the coup in Honduras this past summer). Much of the city that the dream took place in was abandoned or in ruins but there did seem to be some semblance of life. I remember one part where a blind alley or tunnel opened into a plaza and there were a few men with weapons waiting for people to come through to shoot them. The people being shot were civilians, as far as I could tell.
I have an image of a woman and some children running along a street and being brought down by automatic weapon fire. Since I wasn’t in the dream I had no reaction to this, the events just kept playing out. The final part of the dream featured several men who may have been part of a resistance group. They were moving through an abandoned building that looked like it was once a hospital. It was bare of all furnishings and was dark, save for a pale blue light that washed through every room. This seemed to key in to an earlier part of the dream and I understood they were sneaking their way through to avoid being seen or captured. They went down some stairs and finally came to windows that were brightly lit by the sun. They exited onto a small street that was somehow cut off from the oppressive forces and the people here were relaxed, even happy.
The meta part of this dream came in an unrelated dream afterward. I was with friends and one was apparently using some kind of “hair solution” to grow back the hair on his head and was a bit embarrassed by the discussion, though he did in fact have a pretty good head of hair. I suddenly remembered the previous dream while in this dream and started telling my friends about it, just as I have written it out here. They weren’t particularly interested, so I stopped. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. It was odd.
Yeah, I’ve talked about this before. Like the weather, it’s a perennial subject. Today the CBC website has a story about an investigation into a rough sailing for the Northern Adventure as it weathered a vicious storm after leaving Prince Rupert, eventually having to return. Here is the first reader comment posted by someone named “justaviewer”. Note that comments are pre-moderated, which means they get screened first by CBC staff before going up:
Send Obama out there to calm the waters – after all he can walk on them can’t he?
This has pretty much become a meme on the CBC site. Find news story, make completely unrelated comment attacking personal pet issue/person. The reader who posts next is wise to this, though and calls out the practice:
And let people start blaming Gordon Campbell, Steven Harper, and the 2010 Olympics for all of this… now!
You posters on the BC CBC Message Boards are really starting to sound like a broken record. Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?
Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?
Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?
Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?
Posted by “Dude Man”. Despite the call-out, the third comment, by “lobjob” is:
I am sure Adrian Dix will find the storm was caused by HST panic, an NDP generated condition.
I hate being cynical concerning the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the average guy but these people, I tells ya, they test me!
After a one-day delay I finally hit the trail again after more than five weeks of non-jogging (or walking, if you prefer).
Conditions were 8ºC and overcast, with the threat of rain. By the time I got to China Creek Park it was misty, which is enough to thoroughly soak you without actually raining. The mist persisted throughout the run. I discovered my jacket is less than watertight.
I had dressed in three layers — t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt and light jacket, plus tights instead of shorts. I also wore a pair of running gloves. There was one other jogger at the park and all he was wearing was a t-shirt and shorts, both white. He looked like he had escaped from the set of Chariots of Fire. In retrospect I was probably slightly overdressed, especially considering there was little wind but it wasn’t bad. I warmed up all over but never got hot. Two layers would have sufficed up top and shorts are probably good until the temperature drops to at 5 degrees.
After a near steady month of rain large sections of the path at China Creek had become bog-like and pretty much impassable, forcing me to run inside on the grass for much of its length. Not a big deal, though. My pace was deliberately steady — no bursts of speed anywhere along the way — and I ran for a planned 20 minutes or so. I think I completed six laps, though I wasn’t keeping strict track.
I would have kept strict track except the Nike sensor apparently died during its long spell of inactivity, even though I turned it off specifically to save the battery. This just makes me hate Apple even more because they always pull this kind of crap (and yes, it’s an Apple product made in conjunction with Nike). Boo Apple! Boo, I say! Until I can find a decent alternative I’m stuck with getting a new sensor, though. I picture Steve Jobs rubbing his hands together with glee.
I’ll be running again in a couple of days and may extend the distance a little bit. We’ll see how it goes but I feel pretty good now. No real soreness and the injured calf seems to be fully healed.
Yes, it’s the time of year where every other post is a complaint about the weather. We are on track for a wetter than normal November and in truth it doesn’t really bother me much. However, seeing this on the mountains makes my toes scrunch up in horror.
