Michael Rawdon @rawdon@rafting.io

New journal entry, “2018 in Review”: https://www.fascinationplace.org/2018-in-review/

@JPEG So here’s something weird: starting in (I think) Mast 1.3, my home timeline on iPad was blank, and whenever I refreshed it the app would crash.

Then I tried to follow you through through the app’s settings, and now the timeline is working again.

Very bizarre. Hopefully the crash logs will make their way to you via the developer portal sometime...

The biggest obstacle to me using Mastodon more is that the iPad clients suck.

It’s ten days before Christmas and I just mowed the lawn. #LivingInCalifornia

Interesting article about a 21-year-old’s love affair with progressive rock.

I found it easier to get into prog in the late 80s/early 90s since I had little but contempt for popular music of that period. But it is certainly a lonely passion.

http://www.ciphermagazine.com/articles/2017/12/4/the-endless-death-of-prog-rock

The second biggest problem with Mastodon is that it’s difficult to find people to follow.

(The first is obviously that there’s not a critical mass of people here yet.)

Holiday week film #5 was Catch Me if You Can. Quite a good film; funny, dramatic, moving.

Somehow I have two other Spielberg films queue up to watch. He sure has directed a lot of stuff.

Interstellar was a fine movie, maybe slightly behind Inception in my list of Nolan’s films. Holy cow is it grim, though.

I also think Nolan could stand to edit his films down a bit more.

Holiday week film #4: Interstellar. Nope, I haven’t seen it yet.

My ranking of the Christopher Nolan films I’ve seen:

1. The Prestige
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. Inception
4. Batman Begins
5. Memento (4 and 5 are basically tied)
6. The Dark Knight

Holiday week film #3 (last night) was Hook.

Something of a by-the-numbers story, but the sets were impressive, something that was hardly done even in the early 90s anymore.

Certainly odd that it was called Hook, since it wasn’t about Captain Hook.

Big Fish was pretty good. I think it overplayed the fantastic and undercut the familial drama, but as usual for a Burton film it has a lot of interesting and moving stuff in it.

Also as usual for a Burton film, probably would have been a bit better if someone else had scored it.

Holiday week film #2: Big Fish.

I find Tim Burton’s films to be very hit-or-miss, but a friend recommended this one.

“Five years together, Scully, how many times I been wrong? Never.

Not driving, anyway.”

Theory: Films from the 90s have aged less well than films from the 80s, because they appear more contemporary, but the technology is massively outdated by today’s standards.

Films from the 80s already look like period pieces, so no one expects everyone in them to have an iPhone.

Holiday week movie #1: The X-Files: Fight the Future.

My recollection is that this was the pinnacle of the hot mess that was The X-Files (which I stopped watching in season 3). To be sure there were a few standalone individual episodes which were better, but this was the best Mulder-n-Scully story.

But mostly I want to watch Mulder drive into the cornfield.

This season of Doctor Who has been pretty underwhelming story-wise, but the last two episodes have been pretty good. Last night’s episode, “Kerblam!”, was pretty amusing.

“Ultimately, when Borland and McKee are asked how to make football safer, their answer is simple: football — at least the sport as we know it today — cannot be safe.” https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/features/hard-truth/

Wow, this is an amazing article with beautiful photos about Galápagos sea lions. https://www.biographic.com/posts/sto/the-tuna-herders