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by M. J. Young

Visiting the Lake House

December 12, 2007 in Blogs

Last night, once the dust settled, I went into the bedroom and put Lake House in the DVD player. Honestly, I was tired of thinking about the temporal anomalies in Primer, and wanted to wrap my head around something else. Then, while the movie was getting started (I had seen the beginning already), I went back to my office and got involved in writing up Terranova Habitat for the space-themed Multiverser Triple Play worlds package. I did that for a while, and then went back, rewound the movie (which seems entirely the wrong word for a DVD) to a point that looked familiar, and watched the rest.

Lake House is going to be a lot easier than Primer; on the other hand, it’s not going to be reconcilable. The story collapses within the first ten minutes, but it’s watchable because you aren’t given the proof that those first ten minutes are impossible until the last ten minutes. It has a happy, if totally impossible, ending, and is an enjoyable film whether or not you like its stars. I’ve been a fan of stories about architecture since having been forced to read ninety percent of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead in high school, and some of the comments on architecture are insightful. There are a few spots where they get gimmicky, treating correspondence as if it were dialogue, which will have to be addressed; but in the main, it’s pretty clear what is supposed to have happened, and equally clear why none of it could have.

So I’ve accomplished something, but not nearly enough. Let me press on through today; maybe I can accomplish more.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

A Less Than Prime Report

December 2, 2007 in Blogs

I think I played the movie Primer four times last night, although I was out of the room for parts of it and asleep for parts of it, and I think that all I actually added to my notes was the names of two secondary characters. On the other hand, I finally wrapped my head around the entire side story about the gun at the party, why it mattered, what the narrator was saying about how the time machines worked and why that mattered, and other stuff that will ultimately help resolve the story. It still has problems, and some of them are going to prove rather serious, but we’ll see how it goes when I return to writing the Temporal Anomalies analysis.

I could give you a list of things that aren’t happening, and why it annoys me that I’ve been unable to accomplish anything in each; and of things that are now scheduled to happen tomorrow on top of everything else; but since this Blogless Lepolt is supposed to report on progress, I have a valid excuse to ignore these. Those who were attentive to the forums are aware that I managed to finish Friday’s posts some time Saturday afternoon, thanks to the tasks outlined in yesterday’s entry, plus a few hours of sleep and a morning church service. If things run smoothly for the rest of the day, I might be able to get something finished–I just have to figure out what.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Primer on Disasters

November 25, 2007 in Blogs

I have continued to fight my way through the analysis of Primer, writing as I reason, and challenging my understanding of the film with each step. I need to view it again before I can finish it, because there is an extended segment about a guy with a shotgun at a party that I’ve not quite fit into the story yet.

I have also started on Lake House. It seems that on Friday night, my college son and his girlfriend decided they wanted to watch it, so I opened it and set it up. Then her phone rang, and he decided to get something else done while she was on the phone, and I decided to get something else done while awaiting them, and in the end she fell asleep on the couch and he decided not to watch it. I watched more than half an hour of it, but had to run a scheduled errand and never got back to it. However, it is already interesting, even if part of my interest stems from the fact that I was told something about it in advance which informs my understanding of one of the earliest scenes in the film. I’m already labeling it “Frequency by mail”, because it has that aspect of sending information through time.

Meanwhile, our intended Collision rehearsal collapsed, because the brakes on the new car quit, apparently blowing a major leak in the line to the rear brakes. My houseguests have concluded that this is not something they can fix here without a lift, so we are temporarily without a vehicle. On the other hand, they don’t think it will take long for a mechanic to fix it tomorrow, so that’s the plan.

In the midst of this, our washing machine decided to start spewing water onto the floor. This created a serious complication, as my wife has to have clean uniforms for work every day, and that includes doing laundry before tomorrow afternoon–not to mention that everyone else in the house needs clothes as well. Fortunately, our houseguests were able to find and repair that problem, so this is up and running. I must also extend my thanks to Grey Vanaman of Audio-clear, who has extended to us the use of one of his equipment transport vans to handle our necessary transportation.

I need to get a few things done before I lose the light, and figure out what I’m making for dinner, but hopefully I should be back to the forums before long.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Undertow

November 23, 2007 in Blogs

There is a moment in the surf when one wave is still receding and the next is starting to advance. It’s an odd moment, because it seems quiet, and yet there is a lot of power and chaos around it.

That is today. I am reflecting in the back of my mind on what is happening, and it is as if coming out of Thanksgiving nothing is happening; yet everything is happening.

I put Primer in again last night. It seems to be taking too long to analyze, but I shut it off before it ended–or rather, I walked out of the room and turned my attention to things that did not require my attention so that I could think about it. In essence, I realized a critical point I had not yet resolved. I have now started writing the web page, although I’m going to have to do a lot more thinking and at least some more viewing before I have a complete page.

I also gave Baxter a call, and Collision is tentatively practicing tomorrow afternoon. He’s going to see whether he can get hold of Brittany and/or Kevin, but we’re planning to work together whether or not that happens.

I’ve got church tonight, but things are moving along.

–M. J. Young

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Time for Chaplain Links

October 19, 2007 in Blogs

At some point last night I did a few weeks on my own web site, M. J. Young Net. Most of what I did involved hooking up from the index page to various aspects of the Christian Gamers Guild; after all, I have a substantial amount of material in the Chaplain’s Corner there, as well as in The Way, the Truth, and the Dice, the group’s e-zine. I also created a page, and linked it, inviting people to join the Corinthians study. At least a couple of my participants spoke well of the Romans study, and I picked up some new members from that, so I’m encouraged.

I’m not sure whether this was before that or after that, but I also took the time to view Primer again, and to put together a first set of notes. There are still some very confusing sections which will require my attention, but at least I’ve got the beginning of a framework.

There’s other stuff happening, but nothing worth reporting at the moment, so I’ll move to the forums.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

There’s Always Something To Do

October 18, 2007 in Blogs

Last night I got clear of the regular work, but was too tired to delve into any serious writing. My schedule has been hard on me, having me up early and to bed late and trying to make up for it with a nap in the middle, and by the time I was finished with the Corinthians list posting, I was too zonked to think very clearly.

What I did instead was restart that annoyingly dull movie, Primer, and finally watch it straight through. I’ve got something of a sense of the thing now, although it’s going to take a lot of work to unravel it entirely. I do know this much, though:

  • The writers are rather clever in misdirecting the viewer. They give the impression up front that they are going to tell the story in order, but ultimately leave out key points and plug in missing information later. Most of the uncertainty about the timeline is created by this technique.
  • The characters make some critical mistakes in how they do things, most notably by trying to make as few changes as possible in the AB timeline when it is the CD timeline which should concern them.
  • In the end, they create an infinity loop. I have not yet determined whether they can actually get to the end, given the anomalies they create prior to that.

As I say, I’ve a lot of work to do on this, but I’ve gotten a start. I am expecting my wife to take my son back to Delaware tonight, so I might get another run at it. I didn’t time the film or look up the time, but since I started it near nine-thirty and the brief credits were rolling before eleven, it must be under ninety minutes.

I wound up waiting relatively long at a pickup errand last night, and put some of that time into editing the Romans notes. I hit a major disruption when I discovered that I had failed to print (or else misplaced) twenty pages (I print the documents in batches, two-sided, ten sheets at a time, to avoid misfeeds, or at least prevent these from disrupting huge numbers of pages). The notes broke mid-sentence, so I set it aside and took a nap for most of an hour. I’ve got the reprinted pages in the output tray of my printer now, and since I printed the first eight chapters and am editing somewhere in chapter six, I’m thinking that I need to start printing the last eight chapters before I need them.

I got some excellent feedback this afternoon on part of the second edition rules, which I’ve noted for future implementation. I really am working.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Spammers, Beware!

October 15, 2007 in Blogs

I just came from my e-mail, where I found a very kind letter from our Gaming Outpost site administrator informing me that I have been promoted: I now have the power to smite Spam posts on articles I did not write, in addition to doing so on those I did write. Since oft is the occasion on which I find such posts and wish I could do something about them, I am pleased now to be able to smite them, marking them as Spam and condemning the posters to the ignominious title of Spammer.

After I finished here last night I had to drive to the hospital to retrieve one of the two houseguests who had gone there earlier. He was the driver, but he had driven the patient’s car, and the patient was being admitted. I again watched the beginning of Primer last night, but shut it down so I could get some sleep–a wise choice, it happens, because at five thirty this morning my wife awoke me with the realization that the son of the man in the hospital would have to be on a school bus at five after six, and I’m just the guy to do it. I went back to bed after my own son was also en route, and did not get up so early as I’d hoped. However, my slated trips to help my mother-in-law and take our weekend guest home have been delayed, as my wife is using the vehicle to run errands for the hospitalized houseguest, and there is still only the one vehicle.

I have a stack of notes to myself, but all are things I am supposed to do prospectively, and none the sort of thing I would include here anyway, so I guess that’s the full report. Here’s hoping I can get through the forum stuff easily.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Something of a Rough Weekend

October 14, 2007 in Blogs

Most of what I wrote on Friday has followup news today, but there’s not much that’s new. I have been running pretty solidly since Friday, and was late to more than one engagement, but everything that needed to be done was done–some of it a bit less than smoothly.

The person I brought here Friday night for today’s meeting has tentatively decided to stay the night and return tomorrow, which saves me some driving since I have to make half the journey anyway, to get my mother-in-law to the store yet again. That complicates tomorrow’s work, but it simplifies tonight immensely.

Tonight I have to launch the new study in I Corinthians, but otherwise I’m in the winding down phase of the day.

On a subject that has not been mentioned for a while, I’ve suddenly got a stack of stuff for the Temporal Anomalies site. I have been struggling with Primer–a movie that I have thus far found very nearly unwatchable for how slowly it moves, although this might in part be because I’m always starting it sometime around midnight. I also have a copy of Lakehouse, provided at the same time by the same reader. Today I was handed two more films, Next with Nicholas Cage and Premonition with Sandra Bullock. I’m not certain whether either actually is a time travel movie, but one way or another I’ll watch them and reach some conclusion.

Speaking of conclusions, I’m hoping to reach one early tonight–that is, of my work for the day. I’ve a long drive tomorrow on top of a lot of work that normally hits on Monday, so I’d like an early night and an early start in the morning. Maybe I can get that.

–M. J. Young

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