It has been long enough since I last posted that I've forgotten why I was procrastinating
So job: continues to be job! And slowly getting used to being an employed person. Job is sort of thing I would willingly do for free absent economic realities, and it's 40hrs + benefits without being 9-5, so I think it'll do. ^_^
Took Mom out for dinner & a movie to celebrate first paycheck - the only thing that was playing at the right times that looked good was Gravity, and I'm glad I got to see it on the big screen - it's a basic point-A-to-point-B thriller that follows the Save the Cat formula exactly, so there weren't really any surprises but OMG SPACE SO PRETTY SUCH SPACE WOW. And probably 99% of the film takes place in freefall, and it's with five-minutes-from-tomorrow-level technology with lots of NASA consultants, so if you're the sort of person who watches youtube videos from the space station with a huge grin on your face, it's basically just ninety minutes of joy. Plus, you know, Sandra Bullock headlining an action film.
It was only showing in 3D, but speaking as somebody who avoids 3D movies if at all possible, I was not at all bothered by it in this film - they may have finally figured out how to use it properly, idk, and it does make the zero-gravity stuff look even more amazing. Of course the fact that most of the film is either a person against the void of space or a person in a tiny cramped space capsule probably helped the 3D not be annoying, since there's not a lot of depth of field issues there. So does the fact that all the sets were pretty much completely computer animated. (I think, btw, they cheated on the science there - I don't think the Earth would actually appear as a sphere rather than a circle from that distance - but nothing else stood out to me as obviously wrong, given action-movie logic as your starting point.) (Also the main disaster that starts out the movie was clearly all![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stellar_dust's fault. :P )
Anyway as a result of all the zero-gravity awesome in that movie I've fallen back into playing with my zero-gravity Olympics universe. WHO KNOWS maybe I will actually finally write an original hard-SF story about it! Because freefall is the best. ...I have to figure out how magnetic fields work first, though.
Meanwhile, working five days a week pointed out to me that my "professional" wardrobe was looking pretty threadbare and oddly sized, so I went to all the thrift stores and have bought two sweaters, a jacket, seven shirts, three pairs of pants, and two pairs of shoes for $45, which should mean I don't have to go clothes shopping for another ten years.
...and then Mom dragged me to a used book sale today and I bought THE GREATEST BOOK I HAVE EVER SEEN, that being Too Many Songs By Tom Lehrer with not enough drawings by Ronald Searle which has ALL the piano scores for the songs from his first three albums, I am so excited, I get to learn to play "Smut" and "The Masochism Tango" and "We'll All Go Together When We Go" and All Of Them! :D :D
Also, due to job cutting down on free time, I went and installed xkit on Chrome, because I discovered that it has a "show only original posts, no reblogs" option. And I have discovered that checking my tumblr dash with that option on actually gives me *fewer* posts than my DW in that same period - so there to all the people who say that Tumblr has all the fandom content these days - DW has just as much original content, it just doesn't dump all of it onto your rlist fifty times every day.
Took Mom out for dinner & a movie to celebrate first paycheck - the only thing that was playing at the right times that looked good was Gravity, and I'm glad I got to see it on the big screen - it's a basic point-A-to-point-B thriller that follows the Save the Cat formula exactly, so there weren't really any surprises but OMG SPACE SO PRETTY SUCH SPACE WOW. And probably 99% of the film takes place in freefall, and it's with five-minutes-from-tomorrow-level technology with lots of NASA consultants, so if you're the sort of person who watches youtube videos from the space station with a huge grin on your face, it's basically just ninety minutes of joy. Plus, you know, Sandra Bullock headlining an action film.
It was only showing in 3D, but speaking as somebody who avoids 3D movies if at all possible, I was not at all bothered by it in this film - they may have finally figured out how to use it properly, idk, and it does make the zero-gravity stuff look even more amazing. Of course the fact that most of the film is either a person against the void of space or a person in a tiny cramped space capsule probably helped the 3D not be annoying, since there's not a lot of depth of field issues there. So does the fact that all the sets were pretty much completely computer animated. (I think, btw, they cheated on the science there - I don't think the Earth would actually appear as a sphere rather than a circle from that distance - but nothing else stood out to me as obviously wrong, given action-movie logic as your starting point.) (Also the main disaster that starts out the movie was clearly all
stellar_dust's fault. :P )Anyway as a result of all the zero-gravity awesome in that movie I've fallen back into playing with my zero-gravity Olympics universe. WHO KNOWS maybe I will actually finally write an original hard-SF story about it! Because freefall is the best. ...I have to figure out how magnetic fields work first, though.
Meanwhile, working five days a week pointed out to me that my "professional" wardrobe was looking pretty threadbare and oddly sized, so I went to all the thrift stores and have bought two sweaters, a jacket, seven shirts, three pairs of pants, and two pairs of shoes for $45, which should mean I don't have to go clothes shopping for another ten years.
...and then Mom dragged me to a used book sale today and I bought THE GREATEST BOOK I HAVE EVER SEEN, that being Too Many Songs By Tom Lehrer with not enough drawings by Ronald Searle which has ALL the piano scores for the songs from his first three albums, I am so excited, I get to learn to play "Smut" and "The Masochism Tango" and "We'll All Go Together When We Go" and All Of Them! :D :D
Also, due to job cutting down on free time, I went and installed xkit on Chrome, because I discovered that it has a "show only original posts, no reblogs" option. And I have discovered that checking my tumblr dash with that option on actually gives me *fewer* posts than my DW in that same period - so there to all the people who say that Tumblr has all the fandom content these days - DW has just as much original content, it just doesn't dump all of it onto your rlist fifty times every day.
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That is, without a doubt, the greatest book ever.
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Also, hurrah for a new wardrobe! Thrift stores are one of the best places ever to shop for clothing, IMHO.
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omg this sounds amazing.
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Just saying.
I think my Dad, my Aunt-the-math-geek, my brother-the-nuclear-reactor-technician, and my brother-the-teen-autistic-boy-whose-obsessions-include-everything-from-cooking-to-popular-science would also buy this. (Well, actually, I think that I would buy it for them and they would be in awe of the awesomeness of it and also my gift-giving skills.)
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I mean, lawyers and people with high finance and geologists, yeah, I could dig something up. Land use, my grandfather wrote and got passed Oregon's land use laws and my uncle updated them, so that, too.
But nobody who could do the classical mechanics schtick.
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One has to be careful getting professional attire from thrift stores, but it *can* be done, and you can find some really cute stuff in them. It just requires a bit more patience than shopping in a regular store.
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