alaimacerc

Not been as wet as feared over the weekend, as far as I can tell -- and so far. Seems as if the possible yet-heavier rain for Monday may be "missing" us after all. (Have I tempted fate enough yet?) Made it to Tesco "without incident" last night -- missed what rain there was, and the roundabout had nary a puddle. Going to risk my first bike outing below the 20m contour line since all this nonsense started -- wish me luck!

I'm curious as to whether there will be detailed scrutiny into ESB's decisions regarding the operation of the Inniscara dam. I heard a statement claiming that the flooding would have been significantly worse without the dam; but even if that's correct (and my instinct is to trust semi-state bodies only as far as I can semi-throw them), it's not at all the same as saying they actually made the correct decisions about when and how much to "sluice". Or exactly what the "Pareto regret" might be, if they didn't.

I'm not much of a Lisa Hannigan fan -- sorta in that same "mind-numblingly dull" category as Snora Jones and Boring Bailey Rae, I'm afraid -- bit I was rather struck by the cover of her current album:



Strongly reminds me of the contents of my Thursday-night dice bag. (Not in use earlier this evening due to soft ambient conditions.)

Those Whedonites appalled that Morena Baccarin was slumming it in Stargate, may need to sit down when I relate that she seems to be appearing in the V remake. (I only just found out there was a V remake.) Also featuring Herself from Lost, and That Bloke That Was in The 4400. The Mark of Sci-Fi is upon them! As for the show itself, one can only hope they're going to go in more of a shades-of-grey Earth: Final Conflict type of direction (before it totally lost such that it had, that is) than the lizardy, Marc-Singer-infested, rodent-swallowing '80s nonsense.

While I'm on a roll on sexism...

Apparently when the Foo Fighters played Jools -- this is two weeks ago now, I think -- they had a 36-foot-frontage of setup. A little bit odd for a band with a relatively "minimalist" (in the raaaawk sense) sound and rep. Come to that, they'd a 7-piece band: an additional (additional) guitarist, someone on the "plinkies" (I'm still paying Fern Cotton royalties for that one), and I think a keyboards player. Pretty much just a miniskirted cellist away from their full-scale stadium set-up, in fact. I suppose I'm straying once more into band.config territory, though I don't see much in the way of clear-cut arrangement thoughts here, more rather the "cost-effectiveness" theme.

Not sure if the Foos had "top billing" or not... They played the first song, but not the last. That was... somewhat unfortunate, as it turned out, for my money, as the "co-headliner" was one Jayzee (or if he'd prefer, JZ -- pick one orthographic convention and stick with it, you ego-tripping muppet!). I do think one can read too much into both the heat-of-the-moment public pronouncements of alleged celebrities, to say nothing of into their even-more-contentiously-alleged art, probably in the area of gender politics more than one. But I have to say that I found the near juxtaposition, in the same week, of "There's only one person I want to thank -- Jay, this is for you!" (to Berlin and the world) with "99 problems, but a bitch ain't one" (to a cheering crowd of Jools' presumably specially-invited chums) well into the realm of pass-the-sickbag.

The BBC had the couple who're the subject of this story on. They're an opposite-sex couple filing for a "civil partnership" at a UK registry office (as distinct from a marriage). Good on 'em! Though ultimately it's a very salami-slicing approach to gradualist creeping towards some sort of sensible dispensation of actual equity, both between sexualities and different religious (and otherwise) traditions. Ultimately for me, that'll be to restrict the government's role to only some sort of civil union, ideally with the "M word" filed off. If people want to body-swerve that, or to supplement it with some sort of "traditional Christian marriage" (or indeed, a Sharia one, Orthodox Judaism, fundamentalist poly, or whatever else), then that's their business, at least in the first instance. Obviously the state would still have a role in "policing" outright abuse and enforcing other laws (most obviously relatining to protection of minors and where there's any degree of coercion), but that's already the case: it's not as if the mere existence of "conventional" marriage actually prevents abuse either within it, or among those that already "opt out" of said system. The likely alternative seems to be some sort of hyrda-headed business, with state marriage keeping its Christian baggage, and adding more besides. This is effectively what elements of some of the aforementioned religions advocate, and strike me as pretty nightmarish.

Somehow I managed to misread their surnames, from their respective captions, as "Freeman" and "Dyson" (actually the latter is "Doyle" -- a good Wexford name!). Now that would have been an interesting lineage name, to found as a hyphenation or juxtaposition.

I was just starting to get somewhat into Defying Gravity, despite having missed the first couple of eps, and the extent of the "soap opera is space" -- almost a given, that last. But I'm a bit put off by the realization that the fact that half the crew is going a bit kooky is not, in fact, a study of the isolating and confining effects of long-duration space travel, but that there's Big Secret Stuff going on; the sheer extent to which they're milking the sex/relationshippy stuff; and, the fact it's not just been cancelled in the States, but cancelled-so-hard-they're-not-even-showing-the-final-eps... before the BBC started showing any of them, in fact. It's far from the first time a British channel has done that; one can only hope they get 'em at a steep discount.

On a very minor point, I was a bit surprised that the setting was the 2050s. From the "look", I'd assumed it was much nearer-future. (Which would have been, and to some extent indeed is, something of a novelty, as most media SF seems to flip-flop between "far future 'sufficiently advanced tech'" stuff and "present day with single, startling point-of-departure".)

Cheap at half the price! linky

RTE News had a report about using "cheese manufacturing byproducts" -- essentially whey, I think -- as a biofuel.  Class idea.  CO2-neutral(ish), doesn't (directly) compete with the food supply, but most crucially of all, sounds intensely silly.  Visions of Green Bay/other Wisconsin sports fans in "cheesehead" hats, Wheelly Big Cheese fighting robots, etc.

(OK, technically the pathway is to produce ethanol, not biodiesel, but "chiesel" was too much to resist.

Back in Caaark.  ( Mission pretty much entirely successful... )

Got my other Biffy ticket through the door today.  At last!  One whole day before the "oh crap, get in touch with the vendor" date.  That's a distinct relief.

( Jazz fest, etc )

... who I'd toyed with going to see at "The Pav" on Thursday (but instead went around to chez sammywol et mylescorcoran , for some very nice chili wraps and some especially degenerate-case attempts at roleplaying, that rapidly ended up just being a very enjoyable chit-chat).  Rather more excited by the arrival yesterday of a ticket for Ra Biff, next month in Glasgow, which further motivated me to pop into "Plugd" today to buy one for Gary Numan (also at the Pavillion, and also next month).  It turns out that they also sell Cyprus Avenue tickets, so I bought a pair for Frightened Rabbit, in early Dec. (I have some social cover for that one -- hi, DGB!)  That saved me trundling along to the Old Oak: welcome, given that Cork didn't so much seem to be being rained on, as actually in the middle of a rain cloud.

Now the small matter of that other Biffy ticket, that seems to be caught up in the UK postal strike(s), to say nothing of the upcoming Irish bank holiday.  Much as I applaud attempts to frustrate ticket touts -- who are almost as gratuitous an excrescence of capitalism as derivatives traders -- it seems absurd to have ordered this months ago, and now be fretting as to whether it'll turn up in the last three days before I have to go get on a plane, in the general direction of the venue.

I've seen several reports on this story about the Vatican's "helpful" intervention in the Anglicans' little local difficulties over the ordination of gay people and women, but none of them seemed to be taking Darth Pope's protestations that this is a move towards church unity in the least seriously.  Indeed, it looks like a bad faith (as it were) attempt to poach territory, and to shore up the Catholic Church's own already-rampant conservative wing.  In the process, it seems certain to increase divisions between the two, both by making the doctrinal differences more marked, and by outright antagonising the Episcopalians.  Perhaps as an atheist  I should just chortle "a plague on both your houses", but it's hard to see this increasing the sum of human happiness any time soon.

I notice that The Daily Show has started carrying a "disclaimer" explaining, inter alia, that its "opinions are not fully thought through".  Still trying to work out if this is a CYA move, a further layer of irony, or dropping hints for the likes of Glenn Beck and Jan Moir.

On the RTE news tonight, there was talk of the (apparent) end of the saga over Liam Carroll's collapsing property businesses, one of which is apparently called...  Orthanc.  Huh.  I couldn't help but think of Mitchell and Webb's "are we the... baddies?" sketch.

On a lighter note, I also came across these pics of a Lego Orthanc.  Class.

The slow-moving Kings of Leon singles are now a well-known issue, but why on earth are they playing Kiss records, and why are Journey actually *in* the chart?  I know that "Don't Stop Believin'" was used (with excellent effect, I might add) in the Sopranos finale, but that's not exactly a hot topic at this stage.