About Wyrd Smythe
The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.
I was digging through boxes I’ve carted around for four decades looking for a short science fiction story I wrote in high school. I haven’t found it, but I refuse to believe it’s not there somewhere. There’s a lot to go through; I’d forgotten how much writing I did in high school and into college. Most of it is embarrassing juvenile crap (I may share some of it with you just for laughs).
I did find a piece I wrote seven or so years after college. Reading it made me laugh out loud (but I’m easily amused). Perhaps it will tickle your funny bone as well.
[Update July 23, 2016: I did eventually find The Lost Story.]
Continue reading
6 Comments | tags: alien vistors, aliens, humor | posted in Brain Bubble
Those of you who grew up with Rock & Roll probably heard your parents say, “That music all sounds the same.” (The implication: Therefore, it’s crap.)
The funny thing is: To me, their music all sounded the same (and to some extent, still does). No doubt the music of my children will all sound the same to me (assuming I had any (which I don’t (and now it’s not likely I ever will (not that I’m bitter (yeah, right))))).
Truth is, I really have no ear for rap… it, um, all sounds the same to me. That may have more to do with having really bad hearing. I frequently cannot make out the lyrics of songs. Often, for me, the vocal track is just another melodic track that sounds like a human voice. And in any event, rap, to me, is more a form of poetry than of music.
Over the years, I’d noticed how my parents (and other lovers of classical music) could identify a symphony after hearing just a small bit. “Oh, yeah, that’s Foomhauser’s Opus #52 in P-flat Minor.” That seemed amazing and mysterious to me, but then I realized that I can do the same thing with rock. No doubt we can all identify music we’ve listened to over and over.
Continue reading
17 Comments | tags: Beck, Beethoven, classical music, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Mozart, Peter Gabriel, rock & roll | posted in Life, Music, Philosophy
A few months ago a friend asked me if I had ever read, or seen, The Sand Pebbles. I replied that the closest I’d come was the Mad Magazine parody of the film. My friend felt this was a serious gap in my experience and offered to loan me the book and his DVD of the film.
Two things I should explain at this point. The first is that I’m always open to trying new things. That is, assuming they’re not utterly insane, extremely illegal or likely to cause harm. (Mildly insane, slightly illegal or probably harmless, yeah, okay, keep talking.) I would rather try a new restaurant than one I know, and I’ve turned down many a road just to see where it went.
The second thing is that, as much as I love movies, I’m not real big on war movies or westerns. The friend mentioned above loves both, and has been rather pointed sometimes about the “gaps” in my collection.
Continue reading
9 Comments | tags: John Wayne, Kevin Costner, Lassie, machinery, Richard McKenna, Steve McQueen, The Sand Pebbles, war movies, westerns | posted in Life, Philosophy, Quotes
I had my first real interview yesterday, and I thought it went very well. Since The Company Gobsmacked me in early August, I’ve applied for 29 different positions. I’ve been casting a wide net, and I know I’m not a good fit for a lot of them, but you never know. The position I found in 2004 under similar circumstances came from just such a wide cast, and it was one of the best I’ve had at TC.
So far, I’m 13-16 on those applications (it was 16-13, but this morning’s email reversed the score). Sixteen have come back with, “Gee, thanks, but you’re not the one.”
Yesterday’s interview was for one of the 16 13 that are still pending. As I said, it’s the first actual interview, although I had two “Information Interviews” a couple of weeks ago. (An information interview is when you sit down with the person who would offer the job and find out a bit about the job — and they about you — but it’s not a real interview. Call it a preview interview.)
Continue reading
20 Comments | tags: Babylon 5, Häagen-Dazs, ice cream, Ode to a Mouse, Oolong, Pontiac, vapor lock, work | posted in Life, Philosophy
The next time I decide to do a week-long series of articles about television shows, somebody hit me with a baseball bat! (But if you would, please make one of those plastic whiffleball bats; wouldn’t want brain bubbles scattered everywhere!)
Suffice to say TV Tuesday was a grueling exercise. Trying to pack so much into each post without going over my self-imposed limit of 1200-15oo words was tough, and I’m not entirely happy with the results. There wasn’t much depth to any of it, but I’m going to look at them as foundations for future discussion. And it was nice to record a list of my television raves and rants in interweb stone, so there is that.
Today I’m going to kick back a bit before getting into much meatier topics and just serve up some post editing notes:
Continue reading
9 Comments | tags: Amy Heckerling, Google+, Johnny Dangerously, Johnny Mnemonic, Klaatu, Marshall McLuhan, Wikipedia, Wiktionary | posted in Brain Bubble
This isn’t about the astrological sign of Leo, the Lion; it’s about television shows with LEOs in them. That is to say, Law Enforcement Officers. Cops. Heat. The Fuzz. The term covers civilian and military police, the FBI and any member of an organization charged with enforcing the law (Secret Service and Treasury agents or LEOs).
For our purposes, the term also covers lawyers and judges and others who adjudicate the law. As put by a hugely successful TV show, there are “two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.”
So here on the last day of this edition of TV Tuesday, “cop shows” are in the house! And some court room dramas! (You have the right to keep reading. If you choose to keep reading, any thoughts or memories you may have can be written down as comments and won’t be used against you.)
Continue reading
5 Comments | tags: cop shows, Dragnet, Hill Street Blues, JAG, Jethro Gibbs, LEO, Leverage (TV series), Mission: Impossible, NCIS, Perry Mason, television, The Closer | posted in TV, TV Tuesday
TV Tuesday now turns to the third serious contender for All-Time Favorite television series. I’ve taken the liberty of excluding Star Trek from consideration, because it’s so integrated into my life, so big that it transcends being just a “favorite TV series.” That leaves four in the Fave Five, and in the last two days I’ve celebrated the two top contenders.
Today I celebrate the series that, until it was knocked down by the other two, was easily my favorite show ever. It’s one of the only two series I tried to fully capture to video tape back in the 1990s (before DVDs made all that effort a sad, silly waste). The other series was Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The third-place contender, formerly number one, is M*A*S*H.
Continue reading
22 Comments | tags: Alan Alda, Frank Burns, Hawkeye, Loretta Swit, Margaret Houlihan, MASH, Radar O'Reilly, television | posted in TV, TV Tuesday
As I mentioned in yesterday’s episode, there are two shows that vie for All-Time Favorite television series. Today’s episode of TV Tuesday is about the series that would — by just a nose — place in the race rather than win. (Tomorrow’s episode is about the show that shows. That’s the Friday Trifecta here: my television picks for win, place and show.)
And I have to say, it’s a really tough call, a photo finish. It’s quite possible that if you asked me at the right time, the order would change. In particular, if you asked me while I was in the middle of re-watching the series (which I may do this coming election season), I might be inclined to say that this horse was the winner.
The horse in question is The West Wing, created by Aaron Sorkin.
Continue reading
2 Comments | tags: Aaron Sorkin, C.J. Cregg, Charlie Young, Jed Bartlet, Josh Lyman, Leo McGarry, television, The West Wing, Toby Ziegler | posted in TV, TV Tuesday
The next two episodes of TV Tuesday concern two shows that are easily in my Fave Five and sure contenders for Top Three. As I mentioned in the first post, there are two that really vie for the top slot, and one that would probably win. This episode is about that show.
This episode is about House, M.D.
As I’ve mentioned before, I watch television for stories that engage me, but more than that I watch television for the characters. This is one place where television shows — especially long-running shows — are superior to movies. A well-drawn character on a television series has a longer “life span” than any movie character can. To approach the life time of a TV character’s life, even for just a single season, requires something like the Harry Potter movies (eight movies amounting to almost 20 hours).
Continue reading
15 Comments | tags: Dr. Greg House, Dr. James Wilson, Dr. Joseph Bell, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, House M.D., Lisa Edelstein, Sherlock Holmes, television | posted in TV, TV Tuesday
TV Tuesday now takes a slight detour from the public airwaves and shows of our past to consider what’s been happening in the cable TV world. Some of the shows mentioned here deserve their own article, but in this post I’m going to fly over the landscape as quickly as I can manage (those who know me are laughing their ass off about now). If I don’t (at least try), this will be even longer than my usual lengthy longitude.
The problem is that the landscape has gotten huge! Even taking just the “premium” cable channels, such as HBO and Showtime, I find a large selection of shows to mention. In fact, HBO and Showtime each offer so many shows, either one alone offers much territory to explore. With that in mind, the flight won’t be stopping at any one destination very long. We have a very tight schedule today!
Continue reading
6 Comments | tags: Aaron Sorkin, cable shows, Game of Thrones, HBO, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, news, Nurse Jackie, television, The Big C, The Newsroom (TV series), Veep, Weeds | posted in TV, TV Tuesday
Logos con carne 