Hopeless Geek

The wife and I went to see the first showing of Iron Man at the Cedar Park Cinemark last night (at 12:01a no less). The midnight showing is an old trick to be the first to show the movie, and it’s usually a theater full of losers that can’t wait another day to see it.

So, of course I show up.

Aside from initial difficulties with the nature of having losers in the audience (“I’m drunk! Woo!” “I’m stoned! Yeeeeah!”), everyone settled down for the show, which was good because this is easily the best comic conversion since Superman Returns and Batman Begins. The previews hinted that it would be good, but the general fear with good previews is that all the good bits were used to make the previews. That was decidedly not the case here.

If you’re waiting for Ozzy’s iconic musical appearance, it is, sadly, at the very freaking end as the credits roll. Of course, when you get there, you’ll see that the only better spot for it was when the final version of the suit was finished, and that would have been a little too “expected” to be anything but campy.

We went to Bear Rock Cafe for lunch this afternoon, each with a grin and thinking about the card we brought with us. After getting some drinks and sitting down, I took out the strip of sonogram prints and we looked at them together, trying in vain to decipher the fuzzy shapes and see what our child will look like outside of the wading pool. The card sat on the table, sealed, and we would stare at it now and again trying to guess at the contents without opening it. We wanted to wait as much as we wanted not to.

About three months ago (maybe more) I was on Travelocity getting a flight for my wife to go audition for an opera company somewhere when I noticed an ad for cruises across the top when I was done. Well, I’m always one for proving to myself that I’m able to do less with today’s money than I want, so I priced one. It really wasn’t so bad if I got it several months out, and it seemed to keep going down as I looked at the future dates. So I followed the chart down, down, down and then, one week, it started to go back up again. The week that it was the lowest price?

Our wedding anniversary.

Any husband knows what must be done when that happens. So this week I’ll be gone and away from the Internet, and computers, and the news, and life in general, and will be hopping around the Caribbean pretending I’m richer than I am, more athletic than I want to be, and more thoughtful of a husband than any man could have been (“It’s an anniversary gift!” is far more presentable than “It’s the only week we could afford it!”).

So we’ll be taking off on Sunday on the Carnival Conquest for the Grand Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Mexico. This should be quite fun.

I do a little short story writing on the side, when my head can’t take any more code. Mostly it’s just me sharpening my writing blade, but it’s something important to me, so I’m willing to spend a little to make it better. To that end, I realized that I’ve read a lot of modern speculative fiction but I haven’t really looked at the books that started this modern age of “what if?” stories.

So I started looking around for the bigguns and compiled a list of books I needed to read, at the very least, before I wrote much more for myself.

• Methuselah’s Children by Heinlein
• Time Enough for Love by Heinlein
• The Complete Robot by Asimov
• Foundation by Asimov
• Foundation and Empire by Asimov
• Second Foundation by Asimov
• Ringworld by Niven

The Heinlein and Asimov books I ordered because they’re simply classics in the genre. Ringworld I ordered because many claim it to be a classic, and many others discount it entirely. It’s worth seeing what the fuss is about, the way I see it.

I just spoke with the State Farm agent about the accident I mentioned earlier and they’re turning down the other party’s claim against me, which is their way of saying they can’t reasonably claim that I was at fault. This is good, considering the scenario that the other party presented was utter insanity.

Let’s use John and Jane for the sake of privacy. Jane is driving a medium-sized SUV and John is in an unknown vehicle several cars back along the road with the kids. As the diagram below shows, there are two lanes going to the left/West and I am in the inner lane and she is in the outter lane. We are both going in the same direction. As I pass her, I see her dive into my lane. I slam on the brakes. With both ABS and EBS I figured I had a better chance, but no, the side of my car struck her wheel. I pull beside her and ask her how bad it is and she grimaces and says, “It’s bad.” We agree to pull over.

Mistake number one: As I had a camera on me, I should have told her to sit still and taken a picture of the cars in the position they were during impact. You should, too, should this happen to you.

Fail, originally uploaded by ahknight.

Attention SUV owners! When changing lanes, please look out for us little people. We can do wonders to your car insurance rates. Thanks.

So, the story. I’m going to a movie at Lakeline Mall with some friends and I’m driving in my lane in that little loop that runs around the mall and then an SUV starts to change lanes on top of me. I hit the brakes but that’s all I could do, she smashed right into me.

Now for the supposition. I can only presume I was in her blind spot because my front hit her right between the front wheel and her driver’s door. Her SUV was also high off the ground, and I’m not, so that supports it. Fact is, though, I was in my lane moving forward and she was switching lanes and hit me. We’ll see if the insurance companies agree.

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Being not only from Texas, but having lived in Waco for a spell, I’m a Dr. Pepper addict. Not the kind of addict that has a pack a day or anything, but when I get a soda, it’s a DP. That said, there’s a kind of DP that’s even better than the normal one, and that’s the version they make with plain ole’ sugar and not HFCS. It’s made by the oldest DP bottling plant still going, located in Dublin, TX. It is, thus, called Dublin Dr. Pepper.

Originally, the sugar formula was distributed in this part of Texas only, but you can order some of the cans or old-style 8 oz. bottles from their site for home delivery if you want to try it. It’s ten bucks a pack, but you won’t regret it.