Trying to get better at selfies
Not sure if I’m doing it right.
The first one is me on the flight from Amsterdam to New York on Sunday 6 December. The second is me on the flight from Amsterdam to New York on Monday 7 December…
The first one was cancelled. The plane was fully boarded and ready to go, but we sat on the tarmac at the gate for three hours waiting for an engineering crew to fix a fauly backup instrument. By the time they got it fixed, the flight crew had timed out and we couldn’t leave. We all had to disambark, collect our bags, and stand in line for the ground crew to re-book us on alternative travel. By the time it was my turn, the only options were to take a long stop-over in London and arrive in New York at midnight (ugh), or to fly out the next day. At least it was easy enough for me to just go back home for the rest of the day.
That turned out to be the better option. The same flight the next morning was full, but the original plane was still on the ground in Amsterdam, and had to get back to New York. So United ran it as a special flight for all the passengers from the previous day who hadn’t been re-booked otherwise. All 26 of us.
When I showed up at the gate, I thought that I was late, because there was hardly anyone sitting around waiting. On board the plane, it was like being on a private jet. Everyone who wanted one could have en entire row to themselves. The cabin crew were relaxed and chatty. It was possibly the most enjoyable transatlantic flight I’ve ever had.
Tour of the Tennet transformer station Oostzaan
Our local electrical substation is being upgraded from 150kV to 380kV. On Thursday 26 November, the company managing the station and the upgrade, Tennet, held an open evening where interested locals got to take a look around the substation. Fiona and I got along there late, but we just managed to get in on one of the last tours. We live close to the substation, and we go past it regularly. This was the first time we’d seen inside. It was pretty cool.
Zaanstreek, Saturday 31 October and Sunday 1 November
Over the weekend of 31 October/1 November we had some visitors, Emma and James, friends we have known for years, but never met in person. Yay Internet. On the Saturday we cycled to Zaanse Schans and did windmills. Sunday was misty, and we went for a walk in het Twiske.
Mixed Media, Sunday 27 December 2015
Long time since the last Mixed Media post, so let me start with the easy ones:
The two albums that have been in near constant rotation over the last month or so are Art Angels by Grimes and Geronimo! by Piney Gir. Grimes is the kind of artist I feel I should have been into, but wasn’t until I heard her track “SCREAM” on Zane Lowe’s show on Beats 1 one day. It’s an unusual piece, featuring Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes, but it was my gateway to the rest of the album, which is all kinds of brilliantly manic. “Flesh Without Blood” is on the short list for my favourite song of 2015.
Piney Gir I first saw supporting Gaz Coombes at Tolhuistuin last month. Geronimo! (2011) is a simply delightful album that’s easy and relaxing to listen to. I’ve also dived into Peekahokahoo, and I’ve been enjoying that too. (“La La La” made me do an aural double-take to make sure I hadn’t accidentally tuned in to a new song by The Go! Team.) And a couple of days ago I finally tracked down her new album, mR hYDE’S wILD rIDE on eMusic. (Yes, eMusic still exists.)
My trend of reading mostly comic books instead of novels continues. I got volume 0 of Howard The Duck’s new run by Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones for Christmas. It’s absurd and bonkers, and it still manages to capture moments of insight into the alienation that Howard feels, being trapped in this world. It features cameos from lots of Marvel superheroes, each one a caricature for maximum comic effect. The writing is great, the art is spot-on. It fits right in with the new wave of Marvel comics like Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl that wrap up-to-date and very relatable themes in quirky and adorable outer shells to break new ground for an audience hungry for superhero stories beyond the conventional.
Speaking of which, G. Willow Wilson’s run of Ms. Marvel is excellent, as is Ryan North’s and Erica Henderson’s lower profile Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Hawkeye: Rio Bravo finishes Matt Fraction’s run on the comic very nicely, and Saga vol V continues to be beautiful, tender, and shocking.
Unable to wait for the next trade paperback of Sex Criminals, I found myself buying individual issues of the comic. It’s a slippery slope. Pretty soon I found myself drawn to the striking covers of Paper Girls by Brain K. Vaughan (Saga et al.) and Cliff Chiang, and I’ve been reading them as they’ve hit the stands, too. They’re as good as the covers suggest.
In the world of traditional novels, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers is one of the best SF books I’ve read in the last few years. It reminded me of Firefly and also Bob Shaw’s Ship Of Strangers in a way. You’ve got a quirky ship with a small crew of humans and aliens, all of whom are oddballs and outcasts in their own way, working their way across the galaxy for the hope of reward. But really just because that’s where they want to be, instead of plugging away at a desk job dirtside.
Another Christmas present for me this year was Thomas Levenson’s The Hunt for Vulcan, which isn’t a Star Trek tie-in, but rather a scientific history of the search for the missing planet Vulcan, which Newton’s theory of gravity suggested should be orbiting the sun even closer than Mercury. Einstein’s theory of relativity explained that Vulcan wasn’t there after all, but there was a period in the 19th century where the entire scientific establishment believed the planet should be there, and went on a periodic frenzy to prove by observation that it was there. It’s a fascinating tale. (I wish I could remember who told me about the book, and made me place it on my wish list. Good call, whoever.)
In games, I’ve finished playing through Diablo III (on the XBox One) as Bob the Barbarian. It was a fairly mindless slug-fest. I spent so much time doing all the side-quests that Bob ended up so powerful I pretty much steamrollered every boss battle I encountered. On the other hand, that was exactly what I needed during November and December: a powerful distraction.
Podcasts: I’ve added Eric Molinsky’s Imaginary Worlds to my regular listening after hearing his episode “Fixing The Hobo Suit” on 99% Invisible. I’ve gone back and listened to all of the episodes so far, and they’re well worth the time. I’ve also been tuning in to Hello Internet with Brady Haran and CGP Grey, and Cortex with CGP Grey and Myke Hurley. Limetown’s first season has just ended. I didn’t enjoy the later episodes as much as the first ones. It started feeling over-produced and too much like a radio play than a mock-podcast. It’s a fine line they were trying to walk. I’ll probably come back for season 2 if they make it.
Finally, films. So many that I’m just going with the list format again:
- Contagion Smart, fast-moving, very realistic disaster film. This is what a global outbreak could looks like. Probably not something you want to watch on an airplane sitting next to someone with a sniffle.
- Criminal Dense, low-key con/grifter caper. Don’t be expecting the comedy of Oceans 11. The characters are only barely likeable, and that only some of the time.
- Spectre Third-best Daniel Craig Bond film, after Skyfall and Casino Royale. Good action scenes, but the interpersonal relationships lack depth, and Christophe Waltz is sorely wasted.
- Circle Intense, low-budget, thought-provoking exploration of human nature in winner-takes-all life-or-death circumstances.
- Django Unchained Good, but not essential.
- Sunshine on Leith Funny, tender, uplifting, brilliant.
- Mockingjay part II Wow, that got really dark. I mean, I know the Hunger Games series was dark anyway, but whoa.
- Lockout Guy Pearce is the only good thing in this film, and he is so much better than everyone and everything else in it that, frankly, it’s embarrassing.
- The Man From U.N.C.L.E I’m not generally a Guy Ritchie fan, so this was surprisingly good fun.
- Gravity The special effects are so good that I forgot they were there, and stopped looking for the seams. Intense.
- I Am Legend Somehow I had got the impression that this was a pretty bad film, and had skipped it unti now. Actually pretty good.
- Project Almanac Confusing and messy teen time-travel film; more Primer than Back To The Future. It doesn’t pull it off, but I enjoyed the attempt.
- Out Of The Furnace Beautifully shot, but grim and harrowing slice of small-town decay, violence, duty, and revenge.
- Her Lovely. Sweet performance by Joaquin Phoenix. Interesting counter-point to Ex Machina
- Star Wars (IV, V, VI), the de-specialized editions Some of the special effects Lucas added for the remastered/updated editions improved the originals. But for me, some of the charm of watching the originals lies in knowing how the puppeteers and model-makers brought the old special effects to life in a way that still mostly looks good even 40 years later.
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens Loved it. I keep coming back to how different the character of Poe Dameron was to the disturbed genius Oscar Isaac played in Ex Machina. Makes me want to seek out more of what he’s done. The rest of the film was good, too. The last scene was weird, though – it felt like that should have been the opening of Episode VIII.
Casual Triathlon 2015
On Saturday 7 November Abi and I did another Casual Triathlon. The weather forecast for the day was relatively warm, and we thought that we should take the opportunity on what might be the last good weekend of the autumn. True, it wasn’t cold, but perhaps next time we’ll pay a bit more attention to the wind and precipitation forecasts as well.
Rather than head North-West to the Zaangolf for our swim, this time we cycled South through Amsterdam to the Sloterparkbad. On the way, we passed the construction site at the Oude Houthaven, where they’ve already dug a hole in the river IJ. It’s very Minecraft.
We had got a fairly late start, there was a strong wind, and it was raining. It was after 11 by the time we got to the pool (pre-moistened), and we only just had time for our 1.5km swim before it closed for lessons and clubs. Then we started our 40km cycle. We took a route East through the centre of Amsterdam, past Centraal Station, along the Piet Heinkade, and then onto Zeeburgereiland. We were taking our time, and stopped along the way to take pictures of nice views, buildings, and typography.
Across the IJ, we took advantage of the northeasterly wind at our backs and followed the road around the coast of the IJsselmeer through Durgerdam and Uitdam. Great views. We didn’t go as far as Marken — we only needed to do 40km. We turned West where the Zeedijk splits, and turned onto Gouw towards Zuiderwoude a couple of kilometers later, right into the teeth of the wind.
We took a break at Zuiderwoude at about 15:30.
When we do these walks and cycle trips, we both have our limiting factors. Abi’s hip starts to hurt on long walks; my knee starts to hurt on long cycle rides. After Zuiderwoude, we our route was still straight into the wind. It was a tough slog all the way to Landsmeer where we hit 40km. Our plan had been to cycle on to het Twiske, park our bikes near the boerderij, and do a 10km loop like we did last year. My knee was bothering me quite a bit by that point, though, so we improvised. We got off our bikes, and started our walk in Landsmeer already. We walked the bikes into het Twiske, and parked them near the windmill where Het Luijendijkje forks. That gave us about 2km.
It was after 17:00, and starting to get dark. We figured that we could do a 6-7km loop around the lake, past the sports centre, and then back along the path next to the Ringvaart. Although we had got wet on the ride to the pool in the morning, the rain had stopped by noon, and the wind had blow-dried us very effectively. But part-way through our walk, the clouds hit us with everything they’d been holding back during the day. We weren’t wearing rain gear, and we got soaked to the skin.
Because we’d left our bikes beyond the cut-off back to Oostzaan, we didn’t have much choice but to trudge wearily onwards in the dark and stormy night. The loop was shorter than we’d thought, and we still had almost 2km left when we reached them. So rather than cycling home quickly, we carried on walking, pushing our bikes and looking rather pathetic to all the people who passed us on the way. We hit our 10km milestone just a couple of hundred meters away from home, and we jumped onto our bikes to kill that last final distance as quickly as possible.
Cold, wet, tired, but we did it again.