Work Trip - We Were in Palo Alto/ Stanford

There's a bit of a travel season in Library-land, and it started this week (for me). 

This week was a 72 hour turn around to Stanford to meet up with colleagues, plot the future, etc...

In my 9 years of working at my last job, where I traveled quite a bit, I never dealt with anything but the barest of inconveniences while flying or driving.  And, the bit of travel I've had so far with this gig, it's been the smoothest of all possible sailing.

Nothing "bad" happened, but Wednesday I was set to fly out at 10:30 AM to be in San Jose pretty early (I think 2:30 Pacific) so I could get my hotel, get some work done, meet up with colleagues to do dinner.  Instead a pretty standard issue awful spring weather system cut through Texas.

Signal Watch PodCast on Google Play

We're now on Google Play

Signal Watch PodCast Now Available on Stitcher

this feeling of being accepted to broadcast on Stitcher is what I'm dubbing "phantom legitimacy"


 

Dog Watch: Isle of Dogs (2018)

Watched:  03/25/2018
Format:  Alamo South Lamar
Viewing:  First
Decade:  2010's

Noir Watch: Crossfire (1947)

Watched:  03/23/2018
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM/ DVR
Viewing:  Third
Decade:  1940's

In 2018 I finally watched "Freaks and Geeks"

I work from home these days (yes, you are right, it is freakin' weird, man) and I generally take about 50 minutes for lunch each day.  That's, it turns out, enough time to catch part of two episodes of The Nanny* or the 12:00 news/ ambulance chaser commercials.

Over the years, few shows have been as consistently recommended to me by trusted sources as much as Freaks and Geeks.  The show was a primetime hour-long dramedy that aired for eighteen episodes around 99' - 00', which is why I didn't watch it at the time.  I was just very busy and not watching much primetime TV during that era.

Well, I have now spent my lunch hour and a few evenings watching it, so stop telling me what to do.

Happy Birthday, Jamie

Sci-Fi Watch: The Black Hole (1979)

Watched:  03/24/2018
Format:  Amazon Streaming
Viewing:  2 and 1/6th
Decade:  1970's

(saving this one for a podcast)

Today is Joan Crawford's Birthday

I noticed a lot of chatter online today about Joan Crawford and then that TCM was running some of her movies (I didn't watch them, I was doing other things).  Today marks the 113th birthday of Joan Crawford, born in San Antonio in 1905 but mostly raised in Jamie's hometown of Lawton, Oklahoma. 

I am happy to do what I can to be one of the folks who would like folks to remember Crawford for her long career, ever-transforming screen persona, and - frankly - stunning screen presence before she wound up in some campy movie in her final working years and was badly memorialized by Dunaway.

Even in not-great movies, Crawford is a force.  All that is apparently a shadow of what she was like in person, and I am sure she would have terrified me if I'd met her, but since seeing Mildred Pierce during college, still one of my favorite films, I've been a fan.  But there are still a ton of her movies I've yet to see. 

Anyway, happy birthday, Ms. Crawford.  I hope you're having a Pepsi somewhere among your fans and friends.

So, yeah, those bombs in Austin

photo from Daily Beast by Brendan Buress

When the first bomb went off, I assumed something was up in the victim's personal life - that some crazy story would come out about the person killed.  It's not just that it occurred in Austin - where we have a low crime rate, our organized crime is low key, and our murder rate very low for a city of this size - it's that it occurred out in the 'burbs up north.

Really, the bombing felt like a freak incident.  The local press had nothing to go on, so no one paid much attention.  What do you even say when this happens and then... nothing?

Fast forward a week and bombs two and three went off on the same day.