| Asimov’s First Lines |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|06:53 pm] |
A while back I was thinking about famous first lines of novels like It was was the best of times, it was the worst of times or Call me Ishmael. It made me wonder if any of the authors I read regularly had any memorable first lines to their novels. Isaac Asimov was my favorite Science Fiction author when I was a kid and I wondered if his first lines were any good. So I went to my library room (I have a LOT of books in that room), grabbed the Asimov books I could find in short notice and started typing in the first lines. Below are the results. Decide for yourself if Asimov created anything memorable:
- Andrew Harlan stepped into the kettle. – The End of Eternity
- Lije Baley had just reached his desk when he became aware of R. Sammy watching him expectantly. – The Caves of Steel
- Stubbornly Elijah Baley fought panic. – The Naked Sun
- Elijah Baley found himself in the shade of the tree and muttered to himself, “I knew it. I’m sweating.” – The Robots of Dawn
- The man from Earth came to a decision. – The Currents of Space
- Two minutes before he disappeared forever the face of the Earth he knew, Joseph Schwartz strolled along the pleasant streets of suburban Chicago quoting Browning to himself. – Pebble in the Sky
- The bedroom murmured to itself gently. – The Stars, Like Dust
- His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before. – Foundation
- Bel Riose traveled without escort, which is not what court etiquette prescribes for the head of a fleet stationed in a yet-sullen stellar system on the Marches of the Galactic Empire. – Foundation and Empire
- There is much more that the Encyclopedia has to say on the subject of the Mule and his Empire but almost all of it is not germane to the issue at immediate hand, and most of it is considerably too dry for our purposes in any case. – Second Foundation
- “I don’t believe it, of course,” said Golan Trevize, standing on the wide steps of Seldon Hall and looking out over the city as it sparkled in the sunlight. – Foundation’s Edge
- Suppressing a small yawn, Cleon said, “Demerzel, have you by any chance ever heard of a man named Hari Seldon?” – Prelude to Foundation
- Gladia felt the lawn lounge to make sure it wasn’t too damp and then sat down. – Robots and Empire
- Death sits in the chemistry laboratory and a million people sit with him and don’t mind. – A Whiff of Death
- “No good!” said Lamont, sharply. – The Gods Themselves
- “If you’ll take a seat, sir,” the surgeon said, gesturing toward the chair in front of his desk. – The Positronic Man (Written with Robert Silverberg)
- He sat there alone, enclosed. – Nemesis
- “Why did I do it?” asked Golan Trevize. – Foundation and Earth
My reaction? Big fat meh. Asimov readily admitted that his writing lack style. He didn't even know what writing style was for many years into his writing career. |
|
|
| Call me Scotty |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|01:55 pm] |
Your results:
You are Mr. Scott
| Mr. Scott |
| 95% |
| Geordi LaForge |
| 85% |
| An Expendable Character (Redshirt) |
| 80% |
| Chekov |
| 65% |
| Jean-Luc Picard |
| 55% |
| Spock |
| 49% |
| Data |
| 44% |
| James T. Kirk (Captain) |
| 40% |
| Leonard McCoy (Bones) |
| 40% |
| Uhura |
| 40% |
| Beverly Crusher |
| 35% |
| Will Riker |
| 30% |
| Worf |
| 30% |
| Deanna Troi |
| 30% |
| Mr. Sulu |
| 15% |
|
You are a fun-loving foreigner with an
amazing ability to get any job done on time.
Often described as a "Miracle Worker".
 |
Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz
|
|
|
| W00t! |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|09:01 pm] |
I got this E-mail today:
We now have delivery date(s) for the order you placed on May 08 2009 (Order# XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX):
"Amazon Kindle DX Leather Cover" [Electronics]
Estimated arrival date: June 22 2009 - June 26 2009
"Kindle DX: Amazon's 9.7" Wireless Reading Device (Latest
Generation)" [Electronics]
Estimated arrival date: June 22 2009 - June 26 2009
June 22nd! Yippee! I can't wait. |
|
|
| A little story. |
[May. 11th, 2009|10:52 am] |
Punkoffgirl ask for a bedtime story in Facebook. I obliged her with the following tale:
Once upon a time, a young woman - Let's call her Jaime - couldn't get to sleep. She went to the internet and asked for help. A few minutes later the sleep fairy showed up and gave her some sleeping pills. "Take only one!" the fairy said "or you'll regret it!" So Jaime took one pill and went to bed. Ten minutes later she was still tossing and turning and she decided to take the second pill, despite the fairy's warning. Twenty years later she woke up.
When Jaime woke, she felt the sharp pounding from the beak of a six inch tall penguin wearing a red bow tie. It was Mr. Flibble and he quickly explained to her that when she wouldn't wake up, doctors sent her to a secret government lab located deep underground the desert in New Mexico.
It took twenty years but they finally discovered how to wake her...penguin urine.
"Ugh!" Jaime shouted, "The doctors made me drink penguin urine?"...
"No" Mr. Flibble answered. "It was mixed with some Aloe Vera and was applied to your skin."
"Ewwww!"
The last 20 years have not been good to Mother Earth. Jaime discovered that Global Warming was much worse than the scientists predicted: the whole world is now one gigantic desert and humanity's survivors now all live underground, eating hydroponically grown fruits and vegetables, breathing recycled air and drinking filtered water.
Life in the future was miserable and Jaime longed for the good ol' 2000s.
"If only there were a time machine that would take me back!" she sighed....
"Well, actually," Mr. Flibble hinted.
Jaime lay in the center of the massive time machine, strapped to a rather uncomfortable metal bench, wondering if she made a mistake agreeing to this experiment.
"Don't worry" Mr. Flibble intoned, "You'll be fine and back to the year 2007 in no time." Mr. Flibble grinned at his little (very little) joke.
"2009!" Jaime exclaimed, rolling her eyes....
"Right. Right! I knew that!" Mr. Flibble turned away, typing on a keyboard out of Jaime's view.
As the massive machine started rotating, a question formed in Jaime's mind. "Mr. Flibble, how did you get involved in this time travel thing? I thought you were just a SCUBA instructor. And how long have you been doing this time travel thing?"
"I've been researching time travel for over 50 years." Mr. Flibble raised his left flipper over the large red "Engage" button.
"What?" Jaime exclaimed. "Your Facebook profile says you were born in 1981! That means you are only 48 years old!"
"I'm a lot older then that!"
Mr. Flibble punched the "Engage" button and the machine spun faster and faster. Meanwhile, Jaime was getting dizzy from the constant spinning and was about to pass out. Before she did, however, she heard Mr. Flibble shout "Don't forget to give that microchip to the 2009 version of me!"
Jaime strained her eyes to look at the microchip attached to a silver necklace around her neck. "I won't!" she groaned, struggling to remain conscious.
The spinning increased even more and Jaime started having strange thoughts about witches and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. She glanced at Mr. Flibble spinning around her and she could swear he started looking like a scarecrow....
And then she blacked out.
The annoying repetitive beeping of the alarm clock slowly awoke Jaime from her sleep. As she stretched her arms, she remembered what had just happened. She put her hands to her neck but found no necklace with a microchip attached. She was wearing the same nightgown she wore the previous night and not the high tech smock (made out of natural, green friendly fibers) Mr. Flibble gave her. There was no sleep fairy. She didn't sleep for 20 years. She wasn't sent back by a time machine. Mr. Flibble wasn't a scientist but a plush toy penguin. It was all a dream. It was all confusing but it only elicited a smirk from Jaime's lips.
Nevertheless, Jaime decided to heed the global warming message of her dream and decided to ride her bicycle to work that day.
As Jaime rode off on her 18 speed bicycle, a mysterious figure sat in a small sports car across the street; watching her. A small microchip attached to a silver necklace lay inside the figure's clutched right flipper....
THE END...?
The above is Copyrighted 2009 by Ubikuberalles (just covering my base here.). :)
I'm thinking the above will teach POG a lesson about making requests on Facebook. :D |
|
|
| Milestone |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|09:09 pm] |
Today I witnessed my car reach the big 200K:
That's right, 200K miles. W00t! It took 17 and half years but I finally did it.
I could tell my car has been wanting to flip over the digits. For the past 100 miles the odometer has been looking something like this:
As you can see, the digits on the left can't wait to go to the next stage. I was hoping my trip to Oklahoma last weekend would make the digits flip but I was 74 miles shy of that when I goit home. A couple trips to work later and it's over.
I feel a little sad now because this just another reminder that I'll be getting a new car soon. I haven't decided on what car to get yet but I plan to get one before the year is out. And then it's goodbye to the Ubikmobile. Sniff. |
|
|
| Ridiculous Headline |
[Mar. 30th, 2009|08:49 am] |
This is the headline of a Hollywood Reporter article I saw today:
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly boycotting Sean Penn films
A question in the interview:
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: ARE THERE ACTORS WHOSE POLITICAL OPINIONS DISTURB YOU SO MUCH YOU WON'T SEE THEIR MOVIES?
O'Reilly: Just Sean Penn.
How is that blacklisting?
Stupid press. |
|
|
| It's missing an apostrophe |
[Mar. 18th, 2009|04:51 pm] |
A restaurant I frequent has this sign on display as you walk in:
Which prompts the question "I know you were open but are you open now?" |
|
|
| School Anxiety dream |
[Mar. 18th, 2009|01:46 pm] |
The above cartoon hits home for me in so many ways. I graduated from college in 1986 and I still get college anxiety dreams. Dreams where I show up for class for the first time in weeks and the teacher is handing out a test and I have no idea what the material is about. Dreams in which homework is due at each class and I haven't turned in the last three assignments.
When I started taking class at CNM (Central New Mexico Community College) back in 2005 those dreams went away for a while. Mostly because, I think, I attended every class and I turned in all the homework on time (or even early). After a year or too, unfortunately, the dreams came back again. All of the dreams take place at the UNM (University of New Mexico) campus and none of them occur at CNM campus. I guess those bad old days when I was a lousy student at UNM will forever haunt me.
When I first attended CNM I was hoping those dreams would go away. When I was laid off in the spring of 2004, I was having a bunch more of those school anxiety dreams. I figured it was my unconscious mind telling me to get back in the school saddle again. So I enrolled and the dreams went away. It felt good. Now they're back. Not as frequent as they were five years ago, but they still happen occasionally. In addition to working full time I am currently taking a class at CNM. I attend every class and turn in my homework on time or even early. So what gives?
I'll just have to resign myself to the fact that these dreams happen. I suspect that when I'm on my deathbed (many years from now, I hope), I'll have the anxiety dream the night before I die. I'll wake up wondering, "Dammit, what is my subconscious trying to tell me? It's too F*ing late now to go back to school!" |
|
|
| Too Many Financial Terms |
[Mar. 4th, 2009|08:46 am] |
When your car is worth less than the money you owe on it, your loan is upside-down. However, when you owe more on your house than the house is worth, your loan is not upside-down, but underwater. Why two different terms for essentially the same concept? Is it perhaps to immediately distinguish between home loans and other loans? Is it a mass conspiracy to confuse loan consumers and cause the eventual downfall of civilization? I dunno. I do know that it is one more financial term we all have to know, especially now during this recession when newscasters are talking about the record number of "underwater" mortgages in the country.
It makes me wonder what they call it if I owe more on my boat than the boat is worth. "Underwater" has already been taken. Perhaps my boat loan is "underground"? Or maybe it's just listing a little.
P.S. I don't actually own a boat. That was just an example. |
|
|
| TANJ |
[Jan. 27th, 2009|09:11 pm] |
Since I started working at my new job last year the code needed to get a bag of Fritos at the vending machine downstairs was B3. Last week they moved them...to B9!
Dammit! Is there no justice in this world? |
|
|
| It's like weight |
[Jan. 8th, 2009|10:42 am] |
Read this little tidbit on from this article on Yahoo news today:
Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it's 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it's denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight. (emphasis mine).
That's not a big deal to most of you reading this. For me, however with my engineering training, I could only smack my forehead and shake my head slowly. I can just see my high school physics teacher's face go red with anger as he growls "No, it's not like weight." He said that a lot to students unable to grasp the concept of mass. I seem to vaguely recall my college physics professor emphasizing the difference in class (although the college students were able to grasp the concept very quickly and the professor never struggled to restrain himself like my High School teacher did).
I hope my old high school physics teacher didn't read that article; he'd have a heart attack. |
|
|
| For Rob |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|06:07 pm] |
Found this on the local paper yesterday (Albuquerque Journal):
The correct word is intersession (a period between two academic terms).
For the record, intercession means:
1. an act or instance of interceding.
2. an interposing or pleading on behalf of another person.
3. a prayer to God on behalf of another.
4. Roman History. the interposing of a veto, as by a tribune.
I sincerely hope the Journal made a simple spelling mistake. Otherwise UNM has some really weird stuff going on during the semester break.
The mistake doesn't stop at the photo title. It keeps going on in the text of the story:
 |
|
|
| Xmas cards and weird postage |
[Dec. 19th, 2008|12:11 am] |
I just finished with my Christmas cards for the year. All I have left to do is deliver them tomorrow morning on the way to work.
I'm feeling a little guilty and annoyed about it because I'm mailing them off at least a week later than normal. I've been pretty busy - what with school, work and all this meetup.com stuff I've been doing - but the main reason for my lateness is that I was completely disorganized with my mailing list. I could swear that I listed all the names and addresses of last years card in a spreadsheet but I was unable to find it. I spent two days looking for that list on my computer to no avail. Perhaps I put it on paper instead. Either way, it's no big deal now as I found the addresses I needed from various sources (E-mails, my memory, other Xmas cards, forum posts and even my resume for a couple addresses). To avoid future disorganization, I've put the addresses in a Google spreadsheet (and save a backup on my computer).
Another problem with the cards this year is I was running out of the proper postage. Postage is currently $0.42 but I didn't have any 42 cent stamps. I had a bunch of 39 cent stamps, a few $0.41, $0.20, $0.14 and a bunch of 2 cent stamps. No one cent stamps and only three 3 cent stamps. Of the dozen of so cards I've processed, only three or four had the correct postage. Most had one or two cents over the correct postage. A few had as much as $0.17 over the correct postage. No big deal except it might prove a little embarrassing if the recipients notice the postage discrepancy. In all I may have spent about 50 cents over what I would have if I had the correct stamps.
The alternative would have meant waiting until I paid a visit to the nearest USPS office, stand in a looooong line and buy new stamps. That would be Saturday, which would increase the chances of the cards not reaching their destinations before Christmas. Now I can visit the Post Office at my leisure (or until the next bill arrives).
Anyway, one less Holiday anxiety behind me. Now I got the whole shopping and wrapping the presents thing to do. Fortunately I'm mostly done in that department. |
|
|
| Vote Early - Vote Often |
[Oct. 23rd, 2008|10:39 am] |
On the weekend of October 18th Bernalillo county expanded the number of locations for "Early In Person" voting. On Tuesday, October 21, I took advantage of that and voted early.
( Ubik casts his vote ) |
|
|
| It's DOT COM! |
[Oct. 9th, 2008|11:37 am] |
Check it out:
If you go to ubikuberalles.com or ubikuberalles.net or even ubikuberalles.org, you will be directed to my LiveJournal home page. Yes, that's right, I got my own domain name (3 of them, actually).
I don't have any specific plans for my new domains. Eventually, I'll want my own website. I do have a GeoCities account and I may move my .com domain to that site (and keep my .net domain on this blog). However, Geocities sucks and I need to get a decent (and yet cheap) web host for my web page. I'm in no hurry, at the moment. Partially because I know it'll be a lot of work. Mostly, however, I'm not prepared for the possible nightmare my website could become if it gets hacked. My internet security skills are lame (although I'm sure whatever web host company I go with would provide me some security tools). Also, the only driving force for me to get a web site is I need a place to post my Javascript programs. Geocities has placed enormous restrictions on JavaScripting (you can't use separate .js files, for example) and the few Flash programs I wrote would max out my Geocities bandwidth if more than two people in the world downloaded them on the same day.
In the meantime you now have an easy way to get to my blog: just type ubikuberalles.com. The hard part is learning how to spell ubikuberalles. ;) |
|
|
| Just for Grins |
[Sep. 25th, 2008|10:15 pm] |
The Slow Dancer Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLD)  Steady, reliable, and cradling her tenderly. Take a deep breath, and let it out real easy...you are The Slow Dancer Your focus is love, not sex, and for your age, you have average experience. But you're a great, thoughtful guy, and your love life improves every year. There's also a powerful elimination process working in your favor: most Playboy types get stuck raising unwanted kids before you even begin settling down. The women left over will be hot and yours. Your ideal woman is someone intimate, intelligent, and very supportive. While you're not exactly the life of the party, you do thrive in small groups of smart people. Your circle of friends is extra tight and it's HIGHLY likely they're just like you. You appreciate symmetry in relationships. Your exact male opposite: The Hornivore  Random Brutal Sex Master Always avoid: The Battleaxe (DBLM) Consider: The Maid of Honor (DGLM), The Sonnet (DGLD) | Link: The Online Dating Persona Test | OkCupid - dating services | Dating
My profile name: : ubikuberalles |
|
|
|
| Raising the Bar |
[Sep. 1st, 2008|11:34 pm] |
I just watched TNT's newest original series Raising the Bar. Here's my review:
Hated it!
There wasn't one character in that series I gave a crap about. The lawyers in that show were unprofessional hacks and should have been tossed off the bar years ago. They weren't even real characters, just caricatures of characters from other, more popular crime and court room drama TV shows.
I don't get angry at shows very often but this show made me very mad. Grrrr. |
|
|
| I'm easily amused. |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|05:14 pm] |
So I'm helping a customer with his FreeBSD Unix box. The name of his machine is pong. That's pretty neat, I thought. A machine named after the Atari game.
First I needed to check connectivity to the machine. I used the ping command. The command I need to type?
ping pong
That's just wrong. :D |
|
|
| Randomosity |
[May. 20th, 2008|10:52 pm] |
Conversation overheard at Target as I was walking quickly down the aisle:
First guy (talking REALLY LOUDLY): "...I got fired at Walmart...I work at Home Depot now..."
Second guy (normal voice volume): "...mumble...mumble...mumble?"
First Guy: "[some guys name] told management that I threatened him..."
I was (thankfully) out of earshot after that.
Did I mention that the first guy was six foot seven and sporting tats? |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ubikuberalles's journal