In my spare nanoseconds

I'll have a more complete follow-up on Consonance tonight - my notes are at home, along with the program guide. But some comments while I have a spare nanosecond before lunch.

Except for figmo (aka Lynn Gold), and programming chaircreature Seanan McGuire, there was a disappointing lack of actual filk in the concerts. More on Lynn's tonight, because it deserves a detailed glowing review. Others used the concerts to showcase non-filk original numbers. I'm not such a purist that I don't want to hear a song or two of non-filk, but it shouldn't be the majority.

Also disappointing is the overwhelming amount of fantasy-related filk, as opposed to sci-fi. Mostly because those people are BORING. The tunes are monotonous and the verses go on forever and nobody seems to have discovered the concept of a bridge, or even A-B-A form. They mostly amount to bad campfire songs. And they love to use names of obscure characters from books I would never have read.

Leslie Fish called in sick. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, Leslie's songs are (deservedly) legendary, and she's quite entertaining, in between bouts of foul language. On the other hand, she smokes like a Pennsylvania coal factory, and insists on inflicting her addiction on those around her.

They never did get the schedule up on the web page. If I was sure I was going to be here next year, I would volunteer to do the web site. But I may be living in Phuket by then.

The con suite food layout just got better and better.

The open filk rooms stayed as empty as ever.

There were no screaming infants, and parents were good about containing the noise for the handful of children present.

The hotel is conveniently across the street from Milpitas Square, and my favorite Ranch 99 market, so I bought some produce there at one of the breaks.

Nanosecond is over. Feed me!

Motherbored

Wrapped up the motherboard, took it to the PO and sent it off across the Bay to ASUS. Meanwhile the second one from Fry's is very happy in the newer, larger case. That was a good move - the CPU is running 10°C cooler. And it will do even better when I get the side window fan pointed inward instead of outward.

Time to write a bug report on the audio.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

When the greedy bastards at MCI, WorldComm and Sprint wanted to make megabucks, they got their lawyers to file anti-trust suits against AT&T, which led to the milestone breakup of the monopoly into bite-sized companies, which were much easier to compete with.

But now AT&T has bought SBC (the former Pacific Bell) and now BellSouth as well! This is ridiculous - the Feds should have halted these as a violation of the long-standing anti-trust rulings.

Further proof that the Bad Guys are in charge of the government. Harumph.

And where is the news media? They should be watchdogging this - because it has a direct impact on them. All I hear is "just the news" and no commentary. WTF?

For those who were born too late to know the history, look at this.

More Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

The Oscars. I was at a dinner Sunday night, so TiVoed them. Good move. There was so much to fast forward past. The ceremonies are long enough that I don't need to watch montages which have nothing to do with this year's awards. There were at least three of those. And any time more than two people were onstage for an award, I gave them an FF.

The first WTF was the music. None of the songs which were nominated deserved to be up there, least of all the chaos RB/Rap monstrosity which won the award. But when I saw the choices, I knew the Bad Taste Police were on vacation, and knew we were going to see a sop to the world of modern noise-as-music genre.

My mother, who was a professional singer, tells me that when she played Benny Goodman or Harry James, my grandmother would tell her to stop that noise. But this is different - noisy as they were, Goodman and James at least played a melody hidden amongst the wailing instruments.

The second WTF was the number of awards given to Crash. And with Capote and Goodbye and Good Luck in the mix, no way was that the best picture of the year. Personally I think Harry Potter was, all things considered.

Another WTF was the Jon Stewart Jew lines. One of my pet peeves with The Daily Show is Stewart's obsession with needing us to know he is a Jew, even though this has absolutely nothing to do with his work or his sense of humor. Whoopie Goldberg has more Jew in her material than Stewart. I think his problem is he has a severe case of Jew Envy - he doesn't look Jewish, he doesn't sound Jewish and he has a WASP name. New York Jews don't name their boys Jon any more than they name their boys Jesus, and for the same reason. He should just change his name back to Yonatan Leibowitz, have his nose job reversed and shut up about being a Jew already.

It seemed that half the presenters were also-rans. What's the matter, Academy, can't get enough winners? I vote in favor of having the person who won last year make this year's presentation. If last year's winner is also up for the same award this year, then go back one year at a time until you find a winner who isn't.

I include all the award winners - this year's best cinematographer should give the statue to next year's winner. This year's best foreign language film winner should give that award next year. Want to get out of it? Just do a real good job on your next film so you'll always be a nominee...

The women were wearing way too much clothing this year. J-Lo's dress left everything to the imagination. A travesty!

The negative advertising ad spoofs. I thought the idea was killer, but the execution was in bad taste. They could have been a lot funnier.

That gay cowboys montage. I thought the idea was killer, but the execution was too tastefully done. It could have been a lot funnier.

The Meryl Streep-Lily Tomlin comedy dialog. I thought the idea was killer, but the execution was just lame. It could have been a lot funnier.

Reese Witherspoon? Gag me.

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Some good things, IMHO:
Clooney won the first Oscar of the night. I thought he should have won for Director, as well.
The right guy won Best Actor.
Brokeback hardly won squat.
Dolly Parton looks fantastic! She has written some fine songs, and it's a shame this year's nomination just was not one of them. For those who haven't been paying attention, she was nominated 26 years ago for the title song to Nine To Five.
Ziyi Zhang always steals my heart, even when Jewboy mangles her name.
That godawful Johnny Cash film did even worse than Brokeback.
Whoopie Goldberg's cameo in the opening bit was right on.
This year's special Oscar went to someone who has deserved it for 10 years.
It ended on time. Bravo!

I lied

No Consonance in-depth tonight. I got caught up watching the DVD of Ray and it's now too late to write anything in depth.

Man-yan-a