Showing posts with label maintenance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maintenance. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

If you see me on the news, it's going to be because I followed my lesser angels



So, a while back I scheduled myself to be at a conference at the University of Houston.  It's a small, local conference and important to my professional community.

And, ha ha, that is the same campus at the same time where the Republican Party has scheduled it's next debate.  That's right.  As I'm eating the most-food like substance librarian money can buy and talking about the excitement of Thesis and Dissertation workflow over a glass of iced tea, somewhere on that same campus, Trump, Rubio and Cruz will be hollering at each other.

It's gonna be a disaster.

I was working at Arizona State University when President Bush and Senator Kerry had a debate on campus, and it was one of the worst days at that job.  And that was a job where I pulled all-nighters and 100 hour weeks.  Basically, it was super loud and crazy on campus, and I failed to leave early (because I was working.  Like a chump.) and it took me two hours to get home as a post 9-11 Secret Service thought it wise to shut down all the useful roads.

So, we'll see what's up.  Could be fine, but I'm staying at a hotel on campus that I assume will be filled with press and party faithful, so, if I get no sleep Wednesday or Thursday night, I blame the free-wheeling ways of an overly-excited bunch of political conservatives loaded up on Pixie Sticks and too many sodas.

Basically, I'm saying - I may go dark for a few days.  Unless, of course, I see a news camera.  In which case - LOOK FOR ME.  Then, send bail.  Because I have a LOT to say about this election cycle.  Also: workflow for theses and dissertations.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

What we've been up to

We've been neck-deep in TV when we've been home, so not a lot of movie-watching.  Didn't even finish the film I started tonight.

So, a bit of what we've been up to which might be relevant here:






Wednesday, January 6, 2016

All Quiet on the Western Front: What We've Been Up To

Do as Peggy says

If it's been a little quiet around here, I apologize.

Sunday I wrapped a week-and-a-half off from work (sometimes working at a University has its privileges.  They just sent us home on the 22nd and said "don't come back til Monday the 4th"), and between writing those end of the year posts and no longer being under obligation to write about every movie I've watched, I've felt some sense of liberation and I'm enjoying it.

We also haven't watched all that many movies.  I'll still, at minimum, post the poster for whatever movie I just watched, but full write-ups won't come as often this year.  Yes, I probably should have written something about Hateful 8, but... nope.

A long while back I got Jamie the Season 1 Agent Carter BluRay set, but she's held off on watching it until now so we would get a refresher just before Season 2 arrives January 19th.

It's rare I feel so vindicated as I have about my instincts around Haley Atwell's kick-ass love interest for Cap in 2011's Captain America.  I won't lie:  Ms. Atwell is a striking lady, but I couldn't help but feel they'd found a lot of pieces in both script and actress I was interested in seeing expanded.  But the Marvel Cinematic U is pretty firmly planted in the 21st Century, so I didn't expect anything except for a lot of me saying "I wish they would have done more with Agent Carter".

Well, sometimes the universe surprises us, and not only did they make a short-seasoned TV show I thought was better than it was ever going to be, but Jamie - who liked Peggy as well in the Cap movie - was a HUGE fan.  I won major brownie points for getting her the Peggy carter Funko Pop, for example.

Friday, January 1, 2016

Books Read in 2015



Sometime about 10 years ago, I realized I'd only read, like, 2 books all year.  While that's still 200% more books than the average American, and I justified it all by telling myself I'd read a lot of comics (I had.  A LOT of comics.), I felt a bit bad about not reading books without pictures.  So, these days I
strive to read a bit more.

Here's the list of what I read in 2015.  It's only 23 books, but I figure that's about two a month, and that's not awful when you add in the numbers I presented yesterday when it came to movies.  Plus working and whatnot.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

2015 - A Year in Movies (Let's Talk Numbers!)



When I came back to the site at the end of 2014, I picked up in 2015 with enough hubris and energy to decide to write about each movie I watched this year.  Unless something weird happens in the next few hours, I am able to accurately state that I posted on every movie I watched which I watched in its entirety in calendar year 2015.

I did not mention every movie I did not watch all the way through, usually because I tuned in for a bit to a movie I'd seen before and wouldn't bother to finish or came in very late.  I also didn't do full write-ups of a few movies, but no one seemed to mind that I had nothing to say about Spies Like Us.

So, in this post - let's talk numbers.  I'll give out awards later.

For the breakdown on a spreadsheet, feel free to click here.  It's also at the bottom of the post, if you hate clicking things.

As of 2:18 PM on December 31, 2015 I watched and said something about 181 movies.  

The last time I kept count was 2012, when I watched just 136 movies.  As I recall, we were watching a lot more TV that year and I was working like crazy.

That said - that's a whole 45 more movies, at about 1.75 hours a piece, that's about 79 more hours of movies - or two working weeks.  Plus, I dunno, maybe 45 minutes per post.  That's about 34 hours of post-time.  So, a total of about 113 hours more than 2012.

(edit:  I actually checked and back in 2012, we were double-posting movies a lot.  It was 136 posts and 147 movies.  Corrected numbers - 34 more movies in 2015, an average of 59.5 hours of movies, 25.5 hours of posts, so - let's call it 85 hours more than 2012).

Yikes.

If we figure 181 movies at 2.5 hours of watching and posting, that's 452.5 hours I've give you people this year, or more than 11 weeks of work.  And it's likely more than that as a lot of the movies were more than 1.75 hours, so let's not think too hard about this before I start really worrying about what I'm doing with my life.

Anyway, here we go...

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

slow posting - blame Nathan C

Hi all.

Posting may be slow this week as I've been given a writing assignment by Nathan C.  This one is a ton of fun, but it's going to take a while.  No worries.  When I'm done, I'll share it here one way or another.

To cut to the chase, I'm getting to review a really nice BluRay set starring this fellow:


Turns out the set includes multiple cuts of the movie and varying audio tracks, including film historian commentary.  So, what should have been about a 2-hour viewing is now stretching into something like 8 hours.  Plus, however long it takes to write about all this at some point.

Anyway, I look forward to sharing, but I'm doing a little legwork at the moment.  Fortunately, it's all around a movie I already like quite a bit and topics around which I already have a casual interest.  Movies, film history, film preservation and distribution, patient zero influential films, and, of course, movie "monsters" and horror/ thrillers.

Y'all give it up for Mr. Chaney.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

It's Been a Long Day


Long day here at The Fortress of Nerditude.  I'll spare you the details.

But, hey...  I hear the Williams sisters had a hell of a match.  The Cubs won again in St. Louis.  Stephen Colbert debuted tonight on CBS.  That's all good stuff.

It's going to be a long week.  Bear with us.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Signal Maintenance: Headed for Indiana

not that Indiana

For work related reasons I am flying out Sunday morning for Indianapolis, Indiana.  I know!  One year it's Prince Edward Island, Canada and another it's Helsinki (it was, trust me), and the next, I'm off to the American mid-west for...  whatever happens in Indiana.

This conference tends to be pretty action-packed and can be social.  The Americans pretend we care what the Europeans are doing, and the Europeans acknowledge, partially, that the Americans are in the room.  Coffee will be consumed.  Then booze.  I'm just being honest.

So, the only movies I'm likely to see will be on cable in my room, but I have a few books I threw in my bag and I'm ready to go.  Not so sure about the posting.  Sometimes I spend a lot of time in my room, sometimes I only get a chance to walk in the door and flop.  We'll see which one this is.

At the end of the week I have a side-trip planned.  But I'll report out on that as events warrant.

Friday, May 8, 2015

Vacation Wonder Post Day 7


Watching the World Go By From Vacationland - things I've missed

I don't think I've taken this much time off from work... ever.  At least, not for "let's go have fun" reasons.

But skipping town for a while also means you might miss whatever is going on in town.  Or on TV or whatever.  The only TV I've watched in the past week was 40 terribly depressing minutes of something on TV about the Dust Bowl while Jamie was at dialysis.  Did you know the Dust Bowl was even more depressing than you thought?  Well, however bad you thought it was, multiply it by ten then double that.  So, fun programming about babies dying choking on dust.  VACATION.

Anyway, I'm desperately trying not to get spoiled as I have been unable to watch with The Flash or Mad Men.  Flash I could handle spoilers, but Mad Men...?  And it's not like folks don't put spoilers right in headlines and social media doesn't just feed up those headlines whether I asked for them or not.

I could go see this, or be there to watch "New Girl" at home, I guess

I should be home for the Mad Men finale, so hopefully no one will ruin it for me.

Seriously, I will stab you.