Catching up

The Gathering Storm moves so slowly that I'm thinking that the plot is being told backwards. Despite my best efforts, I found myself helplessly stuffing mysteries into Reed's library bag the other day. 'Oh, those? Those are his. No, I'm reading The Gathering Storm.' If I force myself to read a chapter a day I could be done by the end of the year. I might also have lost the will to live.

An interesting addition to all of the Getting Things Done stuff I usually do: a pomodoro. That is, a method of getting your stuff done by working in inviolable 25-minute blocks, marked out for you with a timer. It is called pomodoro because this method's purveyor originally used a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato (pomodoro in Italian). I like using it to get me at a single task for a decent period of time. I still use GTD for all of my organization and planning, but the pomodoro is good boots-on-the-ground stuff.

Put your kids in gymnastics. There are a ton of reasons, like physical fitness and fun and all that, but the best reason is that their initial gymnastics classes will completely exhaust them.

I'm not going to get through all of my owned-&-unread books this year as I had hoped. I'll get through a decent number, but it's about time to thin the herd. Which means only that there will be more room for new books. Shelves are no place for office supplies, no matter what Lera says.

Playing: Emilie-Claire Barlow, "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" Yes. Christmas music. I've been listening to Reed play his Christmas music on his violin for weeks now.

Two-rant Tuesday, 11/3/2009

Election Day Edition!

Remember if you are voting today that professional politicians are good at one and ONLY one thing: getting re-elected. They are not interested in the public welfare, the greater good or long-term results except insomuch as they can get the professional politician re-elected. That's not the only criteria on which to base your voting--for Virginia governor, we get to choose between the slick, focused professional politician and the earnest, poorly campaigning professional politician--but it is one that is all too often ignored.

I don't know that I should have expected otherwise: The Gathering Storm is actually larger than any of the other Wheel of Time hardcovers. And it's just the first third of the ostensible last volume. Haven't read any of it yet. I'm working hard this week, so it will have to wait. Still. There are doorstops, and then there are millstones.

Playing: Brahms, Clarinet Trio, op. 114; Jozsef Balogh, Jeno Jando and Csaba Onczay. This is Naxos recording that includes the Clarinet Quintet, too. One could wish that Messr. Balogh's intonation was a bit better at times, but he's probably got some vile German clarinet with contortionist fingerings or something. Otherwise superb, especially for the bargain-basement Naxos price.

Can't you just wait for Netflix?

No. Because I am a sucker for sports movies.

I get excited at the end of Hoosiers every time. I know they're going to win. But every time it's like the first time when my dad and I went to see it in the theater in 1987 and at the end everybody in the audience jumped up and down when Jimmy Chitwood hit the shot that won the game.

I have most of Bull Durham memorized. Back in the day I would put Eight Men Out on and watch it in a continuous loop. I've watched the marginal (Glory Road, Coach Carter), the sentimental but strong (Remember the Titans, The Sandlot, Miracle), the amusing (The Replacements, Major League), the hysterically awful (Any Given Sunday) and the patently pathetic (The Mighty Ducks). I've even sat through Rudy an embarrassing number of times.

So, no, I cannot wait for Invictus to come out on DVD. First of all, rugby on a 40-foot screen! Second, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. Look, I went to see Bruce Almighty largely because Morgan Freeman was God. Third, they are obviously taking this seriously: have you seen Matt Damon in the previews? He's huge. He actually looks like he could play rugby and not be mutilated. Now that could be one of those forced-perspective things like they used in The Lord of the Rings to make Ian McKellan look like he was two-and-a-half times as big as Elijah Wood. (Wait, he is that much bigger than Elijah Wood. Never mind.) But I don't think so.

Two-rant Tuesday, 10/27/2009

I will never see Newcastle play on TV again. Because they aren't going back up to the top flight. They're going to wallow in the Championship because you can't run a football club like a discount sporting-goods store. The only way I'll ever get to see them play is if I go to Newcastle and sit in FoolsBet Park, or whatever idiot thing they're going to name the stadium.

The Gathering Storm, Brandon Sanderson's effort to wrap up Robert Jordan's magnum opus, is out, and I had forgotten. It has eight reviews so far on Amazon, seven of which are five stars and say things like 'breath of fresh air' and so on. I am, however, beyond caring at this point, and have been since book nine. I will get to the end of this series, so much time and thought have I devoted to it already, and not even Jordan's death is going to stop me now. I would read whatever Sanderson puts out because I MUST KNOW how this turns out. Damn it.

Von Hayes

Really, his first name was Von. Just like Van Cliburn. First name Van, last name Cliburn. Not like Ludwig Van Cliburn. No.

And so let's talk about 'dependant.' This is an acceptable spelling of the NOUN, as in one who depends on someone else for income. You can spell it like 'dependent,' the adjective, as in relying upon. But you can't spell the adjective like the noun. Think about it: it's not IndependAnce Day. It's IndependEnce Day. (Actually, it's the Fourth of July.)

Also added to the list of things that are bothering me today: Scott Parker. Man, does Newcastle miss him. Kevin Nolan leads the team in goals and bullying other Championship sides, but for a team with no pace and absolutely ABYSMAL first touches, Scott Parker would be more than welcome. His second yellow against Arsenal today was a joke.

Playing: "Come On Eileen," Dexy's Midnight Runners
Reading: Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics, Jonathan Wilson

Two-minute Tuesday, 10/20/2009

Lera and I played golf today. The weather was perfect. My golf was not. Oh so not.

I haven't vented about Newcastle United for a while. So here you go: they aren't going back up. The side is so thin, and the Championship season is so long, that losses like 2-1 to Scunthorpe are going to bleed them of the points they need for automatic qualification. Because I don't think they can win a playoff--no spine. So again, Mike Ashley is an idiot. First for buying, then for not investing, then for not selling. Every time this man is faced with a decision about Newcastle, he makes the wrong one.

I'm getting rid of The Washington Post subscription. I signed up as soon as we moved over here, largely because seeing All The President's Men a few too many hundred times made me all giddy that the Post would be my hometown newspaper. But it sucks. The physical dead tree paper is too slender for news but full of ads, the sports page is a joke and they just redesigned the Sunday magazine in an aggravating way. Which would all just be me bitching, but the news in the paper is suffering. They just this past weekend realized that most people actually favor some kind of public option. This is news now, in October, when it's been true for the past several months, irrespective of tea-party/town-hall excrement slinging? And it's been like this for two years. No.

Okay, that was more than two minutes, but it was two full rants. Maybe I'll change it to "Two-Rant Tuesday."

You know you're in trouble, US v Costa Rica edition

When Landon Donovan won't pass to a player making an overlapping run down the side because that player is Jonathan Bornstein.

Whenever Benny Feilhaber winds up with the ball on his left.

When Costa Rica crosses the ball to the other side of the field to take a run at Bornstein.

When, as my friend Erik pointed out, anyone passes the ball to Conor Casey's feet.

When the refereeing is as bad as--if not indeed worse than--your defending.

When your midfield is a vacuum, empty and void.

When Tim Howard spends an entire half doing his Shay Given imitation.

And this was a game they managed to draw. The World Cup should be, um, challenging, seeded or otherwise.