(no subject)
Sep. 17th, 2006 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseThis is one of the things that finally prompted me to actually plug in the speakers my brother handed me when he moved out:
Opera #2 (There's also a video version of this. With gills.)
Lucia di lammermoor
Gacked from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala (She gets around, what can I say?), whose remark was, "Apparently, they're letting the elf-princes out to play on the internets again."
Can I just say that he can go on the ever-expanding list of people whose music I want?
That being said, I have some serious gripes about how the people who designed the speakers set up the wiring. See, it's physically impossible for one speaker to be anywhere except on the floor or perched on my computer, where every time I pull open the keyboard tray, it gets knocked over (Or else my computer is dragged out to the point where it's almost jammed agaisnt the cd racks and the buttons are hard to reach). I can't even plug it in in front of the books on the bottom shelf of the desk; the cord isn't long enough. It might just barely reach once the computer is pushed all the way back and the speaker placed as far in as it can be and still leave the books in place - but then, I can't actually plug it in.
The other wire is currently draped across my legs while the second speaker sits on the cat-bed beside me, because while there's wire enough that i could get it onto the short shelf beside me and operch it on the books behind my actual cd player, there's no way to thread the wire behind the desk to do this; both ends are permenantly attached to, well, speakers, which are naturally too large to fit either one through the space between the back of the desk and the wall. Do they presume everyone has infinite space, or just that the only time anyone will ever be plugging in speakers is when they're first setting up and the desk isn't full of stuff?
________________________
I recently finally finished Tobias s. Buckell's Crystal Rain, which is a nice and slightly unusual SF adventure. His own description was "Far future Caribbean Steampunk", and it pegs it dead on.
I was also amused, having recently heard that some reasonably well known writer said that every writer is allowed exactly and only one amnesia story, that this was Toby's. (I only noticed due to the rueful realisation that mine is Raising the Storm.) I've also come to rather like that more books keep coming out with people with attachments - parents and spouses - pulled into adventure - though this doesn't play with that as much as it might, and still falls into something of the idea that one has to be alone to
It does most things right and very little wrong, with enough room in the world for sequels -- of which the first one is written. I liked it a great deal -- which is part of why I'm bemused that I can't currently come up with anything more exciting to say about it than I liked it. I'm trying to figure out if this in itself implies a flaw in the book, or if it's my own failing.
I also finally watched Lagaan, a Bollywood film loaned me byabacchus some ages ago. I figure I can now offer a hostage exchange for my June Tabor CD which is still in their possession.
Lagaan was fun the way most Bollywood is fun; shamelessly cheesy, not often serious or entirely logical, yet still wanting you to root for them all the way. Most Bollywood films are romance/musicals with some other standard film genre thrown in (I believeabacchus has tried to describe a must-see example as a space adventure/romance/musical) -- in this case, the sports movie where the misfit team with right and heart on their side go up agaisnt the cold, evil but previously better trained movie. It could sit comfortably nestled between Cool Runnings and Shaolin Soccer. (In case you were unsure, this isn't an insult. We own the latter movie.) abacchus was right to warn me the hero can do no wrong, and is too perfect, and in the end it slips out from the "we need the whole team to win" ideal into a lone hero motif again -- but not until the team has had plenty of chances to show mettle and moral fibre.
What's extra fun is that I don't think any one else ever, even the English, made a sports movie with all the usual sports movie motifs, about cricket.
It's also a movie about the good-hearted peasants standing up to the great oppressor - in this case, the English (who else?). And about taxation and about drought. And a particular jab at the caste system. All of which still makes for strangely light fare, And the romance is cute, though the heroine doesn't change her dress nearly as often as she should in the "cliff-song" that is a part of every Bollywood movie.
Opera #2 (There's also a video version of this. With gills.)
Lucia di lammermoor
Gacked from
matociquala (She gets around, what can I say?), whose remark was, "Apparently, they're letting the elf-princes out to play on the internets again."Can I just say that he can go on the ever-expanding list of people whose music I want?
That being said, I have some serious gripes about how the people who designed the speakers set up the wiring. See, it's physically impossible for one speaker to be anywhere except on the floor or perched on my computer, where every time I pull open the keyboard tray, it gets knocked over (Or else my computer is dragged out to the point where it's almost jammed agaisnt the cd racks and the buttons are hard to reach). I can't even plug it in in front of the books on the bottom shelf of the desk; the cord isn't long enough. It might just barely reach once the computer is pushed all the way back and the speaker placed as far in as it can be and still leave the books in place - but then, I can't actually plug it in.
The other wire is currently draped across my legs while the second speaker sits on the cat-bed beside me, because while there's wire enough that i could get it onto the short shelf beside me and operch it on the books behind my actual cd player, there's no way to thread the wire behind the desk to do this; both ends are permenantly attached to, well, speakers, which are naturally too large to fit either one through the space between the back of the desk and the wall. Do they presume everyone has infinite space, or just that the only time anyone will ever be plugging in speakers is when they're first setting up and the desk isn't full of stuff?
________________________
I recently finally finished Tobias s. Buckell's Crystal Rain, which is a nice and slightly unusual SF adventure. His own description was "Far future Caribbean Steampunk", and it pegs it dead on.
I was also amused, having recently heard that some reasonably well known writer said that every writer is allowed exactly and only one amnesia story, that this was Toby's. (I only noticed due to the rueful realisation that mine is Raising the Storm.) I've also come to rather like that more books keep coming out with people with attachments - parents and spouses - pulled into adventure - though this doesn't play with that as much as it might, and still falls into something of the idea that one has to be alone to
It does most things right and very little wrong, with enough room in the world for sequels -- of which the first one is written. I liked it a great deal -- which is part of why I'm bemused that I can't currently come up with anything more exciting to say about it than I liked it. I'm trying to figure out if this in itself implies a flaw in the book, or if it's my own failing.
I also finally watched Lagaan, a Bollywood film loaned me by
abacchus some ages ago. I figure I can now offer a hostage exchange for my June Tabor CD which is still in their possession.Lagaan was fun the way most Bollywood is fun; shamelessly cheesy, not often serious or entirely logical, yet still wanting you to root for them all the way. Most Bollywood films are romance/musicals with some other standard film genre thrown in (I believe
abacchus has tried to describe a must-see example as a space adventure/romance/musical) -- in this case, the sports movie where the misfit team with right and heart on their side go up agaisnt the cold, evil but previously better trained movie. It could sit comfortably nestled between Cool Runnings and Shaolin Soccer. (In case you were unsure, this isn't an insult. We own the latter movie.) abacchus was right to warn me the hero can do no wrong, and is too perfect, and in the end it slips out from the "we need the whole team to win" ideal into a lone hero motif again -- but not until the team has had plenty of chances to show mettle and moral fibre.What's extra fun is that I don't think any one else ever, even the English, made a sports movie with all the usual sports movie motifs, about cricket.
It's also a movie about the good-hearted peasants standing up to the great oppressor - in this case, the English (who else?). And about taxation and about drought. And a particular jab at the caste system. All of which still makes for strangely light fare, And the romance is cute, though the heroine doesn't change her dress nearly as often as she should in the "cliff-song" that is a part of every Bollywood movie.
