Friday at last!

[annathepiper]

So I threw five names at the GBS Send-a-Friend Contest this morning. Fingers crossed that one of you will actually get your name drawn. Woot!

In "whoa" news, Elvis Costello jumped in at one of the recent shows put on by Mr. Crowe and his shiny new band. Seeing Russell, Elvis C., and Alan Doyle in the same picture kind of makes my brain hurt, but in a good way!

Today I've actually learned something, courtesy of finding a decent tutorial on how to use Ant. I'm looking stuff up on account of I've been asked to figure out whether HTTPUnit is useful for web testing, and the HTTPUnit docs read like they were written by monkeys. But I've managed to glean out of them that in order to use it, knowing Ant is good. So I spent time on that this morning. Now to see if I can do the same with JUnit, which HTTPUnit also seems to want, though it would be nice if the User Manual actually SAID THAT. (See previous commentary re: written by monkeys. Unfortunately, I doubt the monkeys that wrote that manual were as cute as this one, but hey.)

And since two of our team members are leaving as of today, we all went out to lunch. This meant the nearest Red Robin's, one I hadn't been to before, down on the waterfront. The pretty good part of it was that we actually walked down there, which was just under a mile each way--so not only did we get to walk off some of the lunch, we got a pretty decent walk along the waterfront in general.

Snurched from fleurdelista, the Seattle P-I interviews Katie Sackhoff, providing us more reasons as to why, yea and verily, Starbuck is hot. Though I must take issue with this remark of the lovely and talented Ms. Sackhoff's: "I'm like, you've gotta be kidding me. It's not really science fiction." Say what? Babe, have you been WATCHING that show you're starring in? (Side note: tonight, YAY, more Battlestar!)

Lastly, here, have two good links courtesy of filkertom: Molly Ivins sounds off on why the Democrats need to get it in gear, and James Wolcott sounds off as to why Michael Medved is being an idiot about Brokeback Mountain.

Thursday evening miles: 1.85
Friday morning miles: 1.6
Friday afternoon miles: 1.8
Miles out of Hobbiton: 637
Miles out of Rivendell: 179
Miles to Lothlórien: 285

Comments

[solarbird]

I like her comments to the end about Dirk Benedict.

The bit about not really being "science fiction," though - what's funny is, a lot of people say things like that about some SF shows because they think of skiffy as "robots and spaceships" exclusively. But her show has, um - both. TAKE THAT, STARBUCK! Or something. ^_^

[annathepiper]

Hee hee! Yeah, I mean: "So, Katie, what would be the part about Battlestar that isn't science fiction, then? The part where you're on a warship in the middle of a humongous fleet of SPACESHIPS? Or the part where you're all fleeing the destruction of your entire multi-planet civilization by pissed-off ROBOTS?" Or she means the part where they have FTL travel! ;)

But indeed, YAY Katie vs. Dirk!

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I go to that Red Robin all the time! Also, the fish place next to it (steamers) has good fish and chips, though it's a bit pricey.

I realize that it's the height of laziness, but I will mention, there's a Secret Elevator from the bottom of the Harbor Steps to first, when your hamburger and walking up the steps seem incompatible. Just go right (south?) a little bit, and there's an entrance to a parking garage, that has a free public elevator that takes you up. I've found that this little trick makes the rest of the hill climb tolerable. Especially if I've had a milkshake. (Mmm, Red Robin shakes.)

Yay, more BSG!

[annathepiper]

Cool, thanks for the tips! Though I didn't have to go all the way up to First. Since Real apparently has a back door that opens out onto Alaska Way, I just had to go THERE. :)

Indeed, mmmmmmm Red Robin milkshakes.

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I suspect what she means is that the sci-fi is just the dressing. The show is really about the people, about war, about terrorism, and about surviving. But yeah, the blanket statement is a bit too, uh, blanketing. ;)

[annathepiper]

Oh, I totally buy that that's the point that she was trying to make.

It's just that I don't really buy her (apparent) supposition that "it's really about people and war and terrorism and surviving" equates to "it's not really science fiction". Having those sorts of greater themes doesn't make it any less science fiction. It just makes it really good science fiction. ;) 'Cause I'm down with you on that--any good story, regardless of what genre it happens to land in, should ultimately be about the characters and what they're going through.

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

One of the lines very near the end of the Starbuck article made me snicker:

We're not curing cancer, people.

[annathepiper]

*chortle* That line IS a lot funnier after the most recent episode, ain't it? ;)