Doug's Sounding Board

Last year was loaded with chaos. I’m looking forward to things being more normal and catching up this year.

After years of driving by the pretty lights in Los Gatos and trying to remember to look them up when we got home, we finally learned they are in Vasona Lake Park and that they are called Fantasy of Lights. Even better is that we actually made it there this year and can report that it is pretty cool.

When you drive in you pay and they tell you to turn off your headlights and turn your radio to 104.1 to listedn to holiday music. Then you cruise through slowly in a line of cars past all sorts of animated lights for 10-15 minutes.

I needed a quick read while brushing my teeth so I chose this book I’ve been carrying around since I was probably in elementary school. I remember picking it up at a library book givaway but it’s one I never got around to reading. It’s hard to tell if it’s trying to get young people interested in the nuclear industry or if it’s just trying to assure people that it’s safe and useful so get used to it.

Information wise it’s good. I didn’t know that radioactive sources were used in paper and steel mills to detect that the sheets are the correct thickness. And I didn’t know that we had used radioactive tagging to determine what plants absorb and in what quantities to determine the optimal fertilizer. Some of it is out dated because I don’t think we put small radioactive quantities into gas and oil pipelines to trigger a switch to redirect slow down the line. Seems like that would be some computer control now. It briefly goes over problems and dangers, usually followed by how quickly and effectively they can be cleaned up.

Last year something built up (I don’t remember what specific event was the tipping point, maybe it was just a bad week) and made me think wtf is going on with all the sex and fake sex and flashing and the reporting of it all. And the participants, is this truly the result they were looking for? A couple weeks later I came across a new book called “Female Chauvinist Pigs – Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture” by Ariel Levy. I didn’t buy it then because it was the non-buying time of year, but it went on my list and this year my sister got it for me.

Now after having read it, I can say that for many it is what they look to achieve. They view sex or the illusion of sex as their road to power and popularity. There is a lot of information in the 200 pages but some of what the book covers is the origins of today’s state in the early feminist movement with the split between open sexuality and anti-pornography, the effect on school-aged girls, and the commodity that raunch has become. I recommend it.

Not Grover, but her reflection. For years we’ve noticed that Grover seemed to be able to use the mirror to look elsewhere in the room and recognize the real world correspondence. Sage never was interested in the images in the mirror, almost like she couldn’t see anything.

A few weeks ago when Nicole was getting ready in the mirror that goes to the floor, she suddenly saw herself and started barking at her reflection. Then she would move to the side and peek around to see the other dog doing the same and would bark more. Then at night she saw teh other dog in the glass sliding door, and if she caught sight of herself in the mirror during the day she would have to start barking again.

I was petting Sage in front of the mirror to assure her that it was ok but that got her really pissed, seeing me pet that other dog!

We looked for ways to make Sage accept the other dog and only found one suggestion which was to give the dog treats next to the mirror so they would associate it with good things. Nicole put peanut butter on the mirror and Sage ate it all. Then Nicole put the mirror in a place where Sage could look at both sides and after a lot of investigation between the front and back seems to have made her at peace with the dog in the mirror. She still goes to check on the other dog but now it’s allowed in her territory.

So I’ve now completed the last Dune novel that Frank Herbert wrote. Reading it reinforced my notion that Heretics of Dune is much like the original Dune. It is re-introducing you to the universe they live in since it is now drastically changed. Chapterhouse: Dune fits in to the mold of being like Dune Messiah (except it is a much easier read). In Dune Messiah, Paul is under attack and is trying to see a path clear that will guarantee a future. In Chapterhouse the bene gesserit are being attacked and are holed up trying to find their path.

The issue of continuity in people is brought up throughout the Dune novels:

• The bene gesserit reverend mothers have access to the memories all the back along their maternal lines.
• In the first three novels, the rich houses can afford spice addiction which extends life 2-3 times its normal length. Which gives those ruled a political continuity.
• The fremen have a set of practucal rules for survival that gives them continuity over the generations in addition to working towards their common goal of Arrakis no longer being a desert planet.
• Leto II redefined what longevity really was with his rule of 3500 years.
• Gholas grown by the Tleilaxu being able to have their original memories restored kept the same bene tleilax leaders in charge for about 5000 years.
• The most recent Duncan Idaho ghola, being grown from all the cells from his previous gholas, is able to remember all the lives he lived across the 5000 years
• And the Jews have maintained their religious continuity largely unchanged since the time on Earth which according to the timeline is about 26,000 years.

The Jews are interesting because they provide the example of why it is necessary to re-evaluate the past in the context of the present so you don’t get stuck in patterns for the sake of maintaining the patterns. All the other groups have that forced upon them or they go extinct. The Jews have hidden themselves so well that their neighbors wouldn’t even know what they are.

The end is as I remembered it, with a big cliff hanger just waiting for the next book, only this time I have that next book.

Last week I finally got the chance to see Stay thanks to flannel and cindy. It’s a bit convoluted and as it gets towards the end you’re thinking it’s just going to keep spinning more and more out of control, but right when you’re on the verge of writing off the whole thing it resolves the whole thing. When it’s over you’re thinking that it was visually fantastic but you aren’t sure about the movie itself. It’s ok, the visual look is worth it alone.

Over the weekend I finally saw another movie by Marc Forster (the director of Stay), Stranger Than Fiction. I really wanted to see this from the first time I saw the trailer and the movie is way better than the trailer in every way. The movie just keeps on giving and I think it’s time for another comedy to win best picture.

We got a Christmas tree on Friday nght and got it set up. It didn’t even take long to assemble the cheap stand that the guy running the tree lot called “marriage enders.”

Saturday all the decorations came out including the Christmas village and a tree that lights up. The batteries were corroded in so I cleaned that up with a 50-50 white vinegar and water mixture and an old toothbrush. I had to re-solder one of the wires too. The switch is very touchy but functional and probably requires a trip to Santa Cruz Electronics. Fry’s and Radio Shack didn’t have them.

After the model tree I decided to tackle the Star Wars Lightsaber game. I bought it just over a year ago after having played it at Anne & Dave’s. Unfortunately we had just started the remodel so it went into the shed unopened. When I hooked it up recently there was no video and the audio was bad. Getting apart was a small challenge and then I just bent the contacts for the A/V plug in more and all was working perfectly. Yay!

Sunday I finally installed the curtain brackets and rods that we bought from IKEA a little while ago so that leaves the hemming of the curtains as the next part in that job.

My parents watch a lot of movies when tv gets slow. Generally you never knoww hat you’re going to get to see when you visit. Often it’s something I never knew existed and sometimes that thing is good and sometimes it’s pretty bad. This time it was Save the Last Dance 2. I thought it was going to be a contender for worst movie in the world but once I got past not having Julia Stiles play the main character it was a fairly entertaining movie. The kind of thing you would end up watching on cable because it was on and you had nothing better to do.

Yay! Scrubs season 6 starts Thursday!

“The education of the will is the object of our existence.”