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May. 12th, 2005 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verbminxHappy birthday to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amanda_mary!
Today I worked at the Six Feet Under job again, like I did last month. They had a lunch meeting and so I was all alone for three hours. My job was to do crosswords and answer the phone, it would seem.
One call was especially bad, and I was so sorry that I couldn't help the guy and had to have him call back when everyone was there, even though he seemed OK with it. His parents were in a car accident yesterday. His father was killed in the accident, and his mother is in a coma. He and his siblings know that their parents had done a "pre-need" (that's when you take care of your funeral arrangements ahead of time, just in case), but they had no idea with which funeral home or what its details were. His mom was the only one who knew, and the only place they hadn't looked for the info was in the safe deposit box that only their mom could get into anyway. They needed to see if someone could research the details on our end. I told him that I wasn't sure who would do something like that, but that someone would be available after 2PM and they could figure something out. It didn't occur to me to suggest to him that they get a power-of-attorney based on his mother's incapacity and use it to get into the safe-deposit box, if possible.
After my work ended for the day, I did a little bit of shopping that I needed to do. Spent some birthday gift cards. I got a NARS lipstick, a book, the newest issue of The Believer. Ordinarily I do not buy the magazine, if for no other reason than that I think $8 is a slightly steep cost for a magazine with some articles I enjoy and others I find dull. (At least as of the first couple of issues.) It had a Tintin article and I wanted to read it, apropos of a discussion with someone I know who (isn't white and) was wondering why Tintin gets no play in modern America. I replied that the party line on Tintin was that the stories were racist. We'll see what the Believer article has to say about it, since the issue is mentioned on the cover. I used to like the Tintin cartoon that HBO made maybe 15 years ago.
Speaking of lit-crit, there is an entertaining kerfluffle over inragdoll-land today with the regard to exactly what defines "science fiction", whether or not Lost fits the term, and exactly how much of an ass Orson Scott Card is. My own definition is a lit-crit-based one that comes from genre studies, and yeah, I think Lost fits for now, unless substantial revelations occur to indicate that it fits something else. Which could always happen, when the motivating factors of some of the show's mysteries are revealed. (A good example of "why it's SF" is Locke: the disappearing paralysis, the visions of the plane crash and Boone's fatal injury, etc. Alias is also SF, and far more blatantly so.) People who disagree tend to have a very narrow definition of SF that involves mostly space or computers, preferably both in concert, or possible diseases run amok. And I suppose we could argue about whether time-travel is SF or fantasy, and I suppose some would say "it's SF if you use a machine and fantasy if you use a spell." But in truth, all SF is fantasy. Not all fantasy is SF. As far as Orson Scott Card? GIGANTIC.
Boyfriend is MIA today. He had a million places to be, and I kept missing him when I tried to call. We have some Freaks and Geeks to be watching, but it looks like that won't be happening tonight.
amanda_mary!Today I worked at the Six Feet Under job again, like I did last month. They had a lunch meeting and so I was all alone for three hours. My job was to do crosswords and answer the phone, it would seem.
One call was especially bad, and I was so sorry that I couldn't help the guy and had to have him call back when everyone was there, even though he seemed OK with it. His parents were in a car accident yesterday. His father was killed in the accident, and his mother is in a coma. He and his siblings know that their parents had done a "pre-need" (that's when you take care of your funeral arrangements ahead of time, just in case), but they had no idea with which funeral home or what its details were. His mom was the only one who knew, and the only place they hadn't looked for the info was in the safe deposit box that only their mom could get into anyway. They needed to see if someone could research the details on our end. I told him that I wasn't sure who would do something like that, but that someone would be available after 2PM and they could figure something out. It didn't occur to me to suggest to him that they get a power-of-attorney based on his mother's incapacity and use it to get into the safe-deposit box, if possible.
After my work ended for the day, I did a little bit of shopping that I needed to do. Spent some birthday gift cards. I got a NARS lipstick, a book, the newest issue of The Believer. Ordinarily I do not buy the magazine, if for no other reason than that I think $8 is a slightly steep cost for a magazine with some articles I enjoy and others I find dull. (At least as of the first couple of issues.) It had a Tintin article and I wanted to read it, apropos of a discussion with someone I know who (isn't white and) was wondering why Tintin gets no play in modern America. I replied that the party line on Tintin was that the stories were racist. We'll see what the Believer article has to say about it, since the issue is mentioned on the cover. I used to like the Tintin cartoon that HBO made maybe 15 years ago.
Speaking of lit-crit, there is an entertaining kerfluffle over in
ragdoll-land today with the regard to exactly what defines "science fiction", whether or not Lost fits the term, and exactly how much of an ass Orson Scott Card is. My own definition is a lit-crit-based one that comes from genre studies, and yeah, I think Lost fits for now, unless substantial revelations occur to indicate that it fits something else. Which could always happen, when the motivating factors of some of the show's mysteries are revealed. (A good example of "why it's SF" is Locke: the disappearing paralysis, the visions of the plane crash and Boone's fatal injury, etc. Alias is also SF, and far more blatantly so.) People who disagree tend to have a very narrow definition of SF that involves mostly space or computers, preferably both in concert, or possible diseases run amok. And I suppose we could argue about whether time-travel is SF or fantasy, and I suppose some would say "it's SF if you use a machine and fantasy if you use a spell." But in truth, all SF is fantasy. Not all fantasy is SF. As far as Orson Scott Card? GIGANTIC.Boyfriend is MIA today. He had a million places to be, and I kept missing him when I tried to call. We have some Freaks and Geeks to be watching, but it looks like that won't be happening tonight.
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Date: 2005-05-13 02:57 am (UTC)In non-related news, I love me some Freaks and Geeks!
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Date: 2005-05-13 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-13 11:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-13 06:59 pm (UTC)