Do you like Deadwood? I prefer it to the Sopranos.
What does a sunflower roguer do?
Deadwood is yet another acclaimed series I've not seen a single minute of. We're too cheap for cable.
My "sunflower roguing" job happened at a seed breeding outfit near Davis, CA. Sunflowers (or at least this particular domesticated variety) are either all female, or (rarely) part-male-part-female (the usual flowering plant thing.) It was important to not let the sunflower lines inbreed or crossbreed (not sure which, probably inbreed), so the part-male-part-female ones were considered "rogues" to be eliminated.
So we had little tools with a kind of hook knife at the end, and we'd walk up and down the sunflower rows, spotting "rogues" (they'd have a tell-tale ring of anthers -- the pollen things -- in the dark field of the flower) and decapitating them.
It turns out sunflower leaves are like fine sandpaper, and walking through irrigated sunflower fields in the California Central Valley summer is like walking in peanut butter cookie dough in oven grade heat. But as I recall it was usually a dry heat.
"Gary Farber"
As a rule -- no, not a rule -- just as a practice and a habit -- I decline meme games. No major theory behind that, just general crankiness, I guess. I don't think I've ever actually played any of the several times someone has tagged me with one, though over 4+ years, I could be forgetting.
This one is innocuous and easy enough that I'll at least consider it. I don't mean that to seem particularly royal of me; I'm just mentioning so that if I don't, you shouldn't, I hope, take it as anything personal, because it most certainly is not.
Part of it is just that I have a huge problem finding reasons not to make blog posts, rather than vice versa. And I have several hundred "to blog" articles in the relevant set of bookmarks (probably about half of which need to be purged as dated and now pointless, though; unfortunately, not the other half). If I just blogged everything I thought interesting every day, and had the time and energy to do it, I'd, most days, link to somewhere well over 120+ items. These days I'm trying to keep it as much under 20 posts-per-day as a I can, in hopes that that way people might actually read them. And if I can get it down to only 5 posts a day, better yet. And if I can avoid front page news stories, even better. The result isn't by priority, nor importance, but primarily by whim. It's hard to avoid front-page stuff, though, since it's usually there for a decent reason, whether of importance or interest-value.
Of course, I really need to switch to a new blogging system, template, and format. Eventually. Some year.
The sunflower thing reminds me of an old friend (who has now had several novels published) who once spent a summer sexing chickens.
I'm totally with you on Lawrence of Arabia, though it should be a felony to see other than the 70mm, full, version. But I've been able to declaim long stretches of dialogue since I was in my mid-teens. Although that a deceased former sweetie and I used to do that a lot to each other makes me a bit sad these days. Bourne I thought was an excellent ultra-fast-paced thriller, quite rewatchable, but I wouldn't call it a personal favorite (ditto the 2nd one; what did you think of that one?). Red October I find enjoyable, and have enjoyed it a number of times, but also wouldn't call it a personal favorite. Haven't seen You Can Count On Me, seem to vaguely recall Ebert liking it a bunch, feeling too lazy to double-check just now; may eventually toss it onto Netflix queue, but since that's back up to over 425+ again, it's apt to be rather a while. Especially since I'm having trouble doing more than a DVD a week while not taking a break from blogging.
Are there rules as to what the questions-of-4 are supposed to be? The list as above? Or something else? I seem to think I've seen other people answering other questions over the months I've seen people do this trick, but perhaps I'm just as confused as ever.
Nell really should blog more, given the general quality of her comments, don't you think? Of course, alternatively, she could just comment more on my blog. That might be almost as good.
I just copied the questions I saw on Karen's post. Feel free to substitute your own, I say, or feel free not to do it at all, I won't mind.
Yes, there's so much to write about that's important, it's easy to feel bad for leaving any of it out. I often wait until I'm especially moved by something; blog as pressure release valve. I admire folks like Greenwald, digby, or publius ("Legal Fiction") who consistently do big-picture stuff (or big-picture-from-particular-news item-stuff) because that's hard to do well; that's often my aspiration, nonetheless.
"...like walking in peanut butter cookie dough in oven grade heat..."
Are you sure this one doesn't belong under the *4 Fav Dishes* Category?? (*TeeHee* - I KNOW - It's yer blog to decide what's a "dish" or not. *smile*)
But ya gots some interesting things on this list - specially places to Live and visit.
And glad someone else like the adventures of T.E. Lawrence (who was a friend of one of my Fav writers - Robert Graves - and Graves has a chapter on him in his autobiography: "Goodbye to All That." )
:-D
We're too cheap for cable.
Same here. We borrowed the DVDs. It's the best show on tv, hands down. I haven't seen the second season yet.
I should read "Goodbye to all that"; all I've read (and reread) of Graves are the two Claudius books. For that matter, I might check out "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" sometime.
Well now I have to choose: Deadwood or BSG next from the vid store? Hmm.
"Deadwood or BSG next from the vid store"
Not affording cable, and not yet having gotten to Deadwood via DVD (sooner or later, probably later), I couldn't really advise, although I'd suggest you could could alternate, but mostly I'd recommend getting Netflix instead of paying a video store, and then not having to worry about when you get to your DVDs or about late fees. (Unless you only rent 3 or so DVDs a month, and watch them promptly, anyway.) Netflix isn't quite the worldchanging invention the internet was, but it's definitely better than sliced bread, IMO.
But I'd certainly recommend neo-BSG, and that you be sure to at least watch the first real episode ("33") ASAP after the mini-series. (The DVDs, with the exception of the last ones in each of the two sets so far, have four episodes per DVD, although the 2.0 set has extensive, and highly substantive/worthwhile deleted scenes that add a lot, as well.)
I hear that Deadwood is very good and interesting, as well, of course.
And I believe they say "f*ck" a lot more than BSG characters say "frak."
Sounds like my kind of show!
As a very new and sporadic blogger (averaging a post every nine days), I welcome reasons to post! Just saw the tag, will have my 'fours' up tomorrow. Thanks, Thomas! I also think I'll put my full name on the blog profile.
It's still much easier to comment elsewhere than post...
I do have a new post today, pointing to Jane Mayer's New Yorker profile of the struggle torture opponents waged inside the Pentagon. Normally I'd link to Mayer's article here, but since I'm openly blog whoring... ;>
Thanks for telling me about the article, Nell; I've posted about it above. I look forward to your "4s", too.
Paul,
I accept your answer, sir. Sometimes I imagine an Owen Wilson type character dealing with old Wrath of Khan: "like, whatever, man. Chill out, things are OK. You've got a lot of anger, you need to let go of that. Got any brewskis?" Montalban's head swells alarmingly, then explodes, Spock lifts his eyebrow, cute exit music -- dum-diddle-dumpty-dumpty-dum -- credits roll.
See here.
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