Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

We're laughing our asses off.

It is pretty ridiculous when it's not being offensive. That said, Karl looks awesome reading in western gear, andthey did a surprisingly good recreation of Austin from that period. But otherwise, I keep thinking how much better this would be if Joss were writing it ala Firefly.

On a door to a shop in downtown Bryan:

"If you leave your child unattended we will give them a shot of espresso and a free puppy."

Hee!

Yay. Nap now.

ETA: Okay, I lied. But the new Hellboy 2 trailer is live now. Is it just me or does the baddy look a lot like Elric?

For the sheer geeker-squee of it. I'm not into Xbox but if I was I'd totally buy this.

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Thanksgiving went quite well. Scott fried turkey like a master and I handled the other stuff swimmingly. AND I behaved in a house full of conservative Catholics. I feel like I should be handed a small trophy of some sort.

Today went to see Dan in Real Life because there isn't a lot of town to show Scott's Mom. E.g. "And, um, this is the farmer's market. And the cowboy hat shop. And umm.." We went for a walk around campus and happened into the tailgating before the UT game. On the plus side, we got free hot dogs and buttons that say "Howdy" on them. But the movie was very enjoyable, and a quiet kind of funny. Steve Carrel relaxes the manic and is just deeply entertaining to watch, while Juliette Binoche is lovely as ever. Also, how not to like a movie where the protagonists fall in love in a bookstore?

My NaNoWriMo languishes. Once again I wonder why they think you should try to write a novel at the beginning of the holiday season. Argh.

Scott and I treated ourselves to a half-weekend in Austin. The trip derailed slightly due to bad Google Maps directions that got us turned around for two hours, so whereas we'd planned on getting there around 7 or 8pm and going out to a music bar and so forth, we instead arrived at around 10pm and basically had enough energy to go out for dinner and find the hotel. It made us miss DC deeply. In Bryan, things shut down at 10pm. Even on Friday nights. In Austin, 6th St. was a bit like Dupont Circle, everything was open, lots of people were out, you could tell the night was just getting started. We went to a sushi place called Silhouette with great sushi and bubble tea. The atmosphere, music and art there were great. Y'know, I never really thought of myself as a hipster (NYT articles aside) before, but ye gads we've missed all that sort of thing.

We've come to the conclusion that the problem with Bryan is there really isn't any atmosphere to the places here. I think this is because the population is largely divided into three main groups: undergraduates who just want cheap food and beer; families who just want to go to a place with food their five year old will eat; and blue collar workers who want the same things as these other two groups. Professionals can go to the teeny handful (by which I mean, all of three) places that are left, or to Austin. Places just aren't designed as places to chat or unwind: it's all about get your [x] and go, essentially. On top of that, there just aren't that many venues for music, and, (I quote this directly from Scott) "I think there's supposed to be an indie theater somewhere around here, but I haven't seen it yet."

Today we happened to spend largely at the Pecan Street Fair just off of 6th St., which is the district where all the bars and clubs with live music are at. We enjoyed looking at all the booths selling art, clothes, and trinkets. There were bands playing different kinds of music and lemonade and ice cream booths. It was just really fun. The city is very pretty and quirky and reminds me of Baltimore in a way--lots of murals, buildings painted very vibrantly, and the like. I also like that the city's motto is "Keep Austin Weird."

Basically from all this we've come to the conclusion that when we move again, it has to be to a nice city. *Has* to be. *Needs* to be.

Anyhow. We got back a bit ago and the kittens were happy to have us home, though they were fine. They fought over who got to sit in my lap at the computer though, which is why I adore them. :)

Went out and about today. I had lunch with Scott at a very bad Japanese place just off campus. I didn't know sushi could be tasteless, and yet, it was. I also ordered green tea ice cream, as I'd gotten a taste for it in Japan, and what they served was a ball of tasteless green icecream that that had had some cake put around it and tempura'd. Deeply unimpressive. I now have a serious hankering for good sushi. D'oh!

I also went to a library that shall remain nameless lest I get a job there later. Was horrified that in several parts of the stacks they were having leakage issues or something--ceiling tiles had been removed and shelves had been covered with tarps. There was also a pervasive smell of mold that really made me twitch. The circulation desk was also badly organized; I've never been to a large university library that didn't have those little line rope things like they have in banks. Well they didn't, they had two librarians scurrying behind the desk and four student workers, and a very unorganized line of patrons wanting to check things out. I had to get a special form, too, so they put me off to the side where one of the librarians would get to me (eventually) which made things even more chaotic. So basically a two minute errand took almost twenty minutes, just for poor organization. They also have funny geography because two libraries are connected by what they call a "Sky Walk" so there's essentially two sets of floors for floors 4,5, and 6. What they do is at one library those locations are "floors" and at the other they are "levels." So you basically have to pay close attention to if you want a "floor" or a "level" and adjust your elevator/stairs use accordingly. This is made more difficult as they put maps by the elevators and stairs, but only explain the floor/level thing on a handout you pick up at the first floor. If they just put a little sign about that by all the elevators and stairs in both buildings, it would've been so much easier.

So resisting the urge to just go there tomorrow AM and say, "You don't have to pay me, just. Let. Me. Fix. This."

Anyhoo...

We're currently in Lake Jackson, Texas staying with Scott's cousins. Yesterday we went to the Johnson Space Center and got to see the Astronaut Training Center and an IMAX on constructing the International Space Station (predicted completion date: 2006. Heh heh heh.), amongst other things. It was fun. I also got to flashback to being ten when I got ahold of some of the freeze-dried Astronaut Ice Cream that I thought was so cool when I was a kid...and let's be honest, I still think it's pretty dang cool. Sure there's nothing icy or creamy about it (it's kinda crunchy actually) but it's still fun.

Today Scott and his cousin Chris got haircuts, so neither of them look like scruffy nerfherders. We also got some last minute items from Walmart like some Power Bars and travel shampoo and the like. And a copy of Hot Fuzz because it's hilarious and we're weak.

We'll be getting up at about 3am tomorrow to catch our 7:40am flight. We have a four hour flight to San Francisco and then an eleven hour flight to Nagoya. I LOATHE flying so I'm trying not to think about it, particularly considering our return flights will be like fifteen hours and then two hours. Oy. A typhoon is also predicted to hit the southernmost islands of Japan today (or tomorrow--or both, I'm kind of unclear on how they're timing these things, and yes I am totally a Weather Channel junkie) so it'll be rainy on Friday when we get there, but by then we'll be zombies anyway. I just hope it won't affect our flights too much. Because, um, oh boy.

Anyhow, wish us luck. I expect I'll check back in whenever we get wireless.

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RIP Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni.