fine whine

Alas, A fire upon the deep by Vernor Vinge was due at the library today and I could not renew it again. I only made it to page 151—it just didn't grip me enough to keep me awake at night until I finish it or anything like that. It's a thick paperback, too, so that's probably good that it didn't. Don't get me wrong; the book isn't boring it just isn't gripping so far. It has so far presented some new concepts (at least to me) but I can't help but wonder if I'd enjoy this book more if it were presented as an executive summary or abstract of the ideas, with a good deal of the slow-moving action thrown out. Does mass-market SF need Cliff's Notes?

Speaking of Cliff's Notes, I could easily summarize the Airport franchise of movies in a sentence. Every one of them: People get on a plane, disaster strikes but ultimately the day is saved and most of the passengers too. Admittedly saying so kills any of the tension and suspense, but I can't imagine anybody watching those movies who could suspend the belief that there was any possibility at all the plane wouldn't be saved in the end. Such is the case with almost every disaster movie, though, not just those on planes.

The most recent one that I've watched so far was Airport '77. I slept through it the first time I tried watching it (at B-fest) and now that I look back on it I didn't really miss all that much. Jack Lemmon's as watchable as ever, of course, and James Stewart could probably elevate any movie just by saying "hi mom" on screen. Why is it, though, that I do not want to call him James but instead Jimmy? Moreover, why can't I track down any movies of him playing a villain (rumor has it that there is one, but only one) a la Don Knotts in The love god? I bet he'd've made a great villain, in that folksy, aw shucks sort of way.

Since I bring up sorting, I suspect my (server-side) email filters are generating false positives and I'm getting messages deleted that shouldn't be. So if you've emailed me and I haven't responded, now I have an excuse. Even one that I sent myself got flagged as **** SPAM ****.