Welcome to the new blog!
It only took me about nearly a year of loitering around, procrastinating and pestering from Wes before I finally went ahead with it, and the final result is this – the Random Hoo Haas blog is on WordPress! Yes, it uses a frighteningly ugly default template and I’ve barely got testing it properly, but that can probably be sorted out in due time. The important thing is that people can comment on my sad, sad ramblings, and that’s what makes all the difference. Expect no more than four entries for the rest of this month, then!
So, what’ve I been up to lately? Well, living my life and breathing enough oxygen to get me through each day, of course, but I’ve also been looking at a few things. I finished reading a very enjoyable book called Hominids just a week or two ago, by Robert J. Sawyer. It’s hard to summarise without making it sound hilarious, as it’s about a Neanderthal who has been transported into our world, not through time travel but through a dimensional warp. The Neanderthal comes from an Earth where the homo sapien died out and the homo erectus became dominant, and thus created an entirely different society with great measures for public safety and justice, not to mention all manner of amazing scientific achievements, although they have not ventured into space or other such feats.
Naturally I can’t say all I would like to since it’s been a fair while since I finished it, but it was a thoroughly entertaining book with just the right elements to interest me. Culture clash is one of those things that always intrigues me (I still haven’t got around to reviewing Cranes At Dusk!), and a moderate dose of sci-fi mixed with a modern day realistic perception of such a far-out event made it a truly engaging read. I don’t think a book has grabbed me as much since I read The Silence of the Lambs. I’ve been meaning to get started on the next book in the series, Humans, as the two-chapter preview at the end is very enticing.
I watched another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Nightmares. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from it at the start: ooh, spontaneous spider appearance, spooky! And a creepy child! The rather unexpected beatdown of a teenager by a dude with a club for a hand was certainly eye-catching, and the whole “your nightmares become reality” stuff did make things… quirky, let’s call it that. Not a tremendous episode, but it was entertaining. Also worth watching just for this amusing exchange:
“So why is this happening?”
“Billy.”
“Well, that explanation was shorter than usual. It’s Billy!”
Of all things, I decided to watch Muppets Tonight. I’ve had Muppets on the mind since April for some reason, and it’s only now I’ve decided to act upon it. I only ever saw, like, four or five episodes back when it first aired, so it’s strangely amusing to go back to it and see what I missed and what I saw. It’s a lot dumber than I remember, which is both good and bad. Like everything, there’s ups and downs and some episodes just aren’t that great; the Billy Crystal episode, for instance, just didn’t seem as tight as it could’ve been, and the Michelle Pfeiffer episode was rather unremarkable. The Cindy Crawford episode is still just as hilarious to me as it was years ago and definitely the highlight of the series so far, especially with the Johnny Fiama subplot. I never thought much about the character when I first saw the show, but now I’d probably consider him one of my favourites. There’s something about a guy who has a monkey as his bodyguard.
If you managed to wade through this much nonsense, I guess that implies you’ll give the new blog a chance! I’m still a bit iffy about it, but I’ll probably get used to it in time. It’s also effectively the first means of public communication since the, eh, ill-fated forum of three years ago, which will certainly be interesting. Let’s see how this goes!
And just a heads up, the next Cadillacs & Dinosaurs episode will probably be a while. I wanted to have a routine of a new episode every four days, but it’s been a taxing week. Cut me some slack, mang.
