I’m married to the Chief Engineer!

Mandrina mentioned she wanted to audition for a new Star Trek fan-series to be filmed in the Seattle area — Star Trek: Phoenix. So she vanished for several hours both days this past weekend. I spent my time sitting in libraries because it was too bloody hot. Guess who accomplished more?

Well, come Monday the casting results were posted. Mandrina was cast in the role she wanted — as Chief Engineer… someone whose name I can’t remember. (Sorry, love!)

Okay, so I’m just bragging.

Thomas Crown != Thomas Crown

Here’s a hint to Comcast. When you’re running a special promo, to transition from Sean Connery in From Russia with Love to “another Bond” as Peirce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair, you might want to be sure that the version of the Thomas Crown Affair you’re showing is the remake, and NOT the original.

The original Thomas Crown Affair had a bit more violence, and a lot less Brosnan.

A brief interruption

I’m getting ready for work.

Our darling half-blind kitten Bit has her favorite toy firmly in hand… err, mouth. It’s the remnants of a toy that was once Glitch’s, and was then mostly destroyed by Pixel. Now neither of them want anything to do with it, but Bit adores the broken down ball of purple softness.

She came into the spare room (where I am), carrying it in her mouth. She put it to the floor in front of her, turned to me, and GROWLED.

Bit, for the record, weighs just over 3 and a half pounds.

She has since picked it back up with her mouth, carried it out of the room, and gone to see our other cats while carrying it. She runs up to Glitch or Pixel, toy in mouth, then growls protectively.

After doing a round of the downstairs in that manner, she’s now playing with the toy by herself in this room, making silly combinations of growling and whining noises. With no one near her. Bit is a silly kitty.

Article on Star Wars’s inspiration from Dune

“Keep in mind that yin represents the Chinese idea of female energy, which actively draws male energy, not the Western idea of female energy, which just sits there looking pretty and hoping someone calls.”

Okay, so the quote has nothing to do with the majority of the article, but I really found the sources for one of my favorite books (Dune, not Star Wars) to be rather interesting.

http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/dune.html

Edit – I just lost some interest — in reading, the author makes a reference to the importance of color in Dune, and how apparently Frank Herbert only ever revealed that yellow meant danger (see “The Qu’ran”). Wrong, buddy! In Dune, Herbert writes that Chani was wearing green after her father died, “the Fremen color of mourning.” The symbolism the author of this article extrapolates based on the sociological basis of the Fremen (the Beduin) and the one color Herbert acknowledged (yellow) is invalidated by the outright meaning of green. For the Beduin, green is apparently connected to good things, as yellow is a warning — a green plant is a positive sign; a yellow plant is dying. Unfortunately, given the explicit meaning of green as a color of morning, his theory of The Qu’ran and Islam serving as an inspiration for the meaning of colors within Dune is clearly in error.

Edit 2: “Herbert” should not be spelled with a “y.”

Bravery and other quotes

“Because,” she said, “when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”

The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. “Calling cats,” it confided, “tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”

Coraline, Neil Gaiman

I will read everything that man ever writes.