starri1

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I sincerely love my little piece of Apple-created technology heaven, but I cannot escape the feeling that I'm holding a deck of cards to my face whenever I make a call.

Let me just say, dealing with student loans is quite possibly the most unpleasant experience in life, especially when my previous approach had been to stick my fingers in my ears and chant "La, la, la, can't hear you!"

starri1

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Greater Than The Sum by Christopher L Bennett.

I was occasioned to be kind toward this because despite the goofy ConPorn nature of his Myriad Universe story, I really enjoyed Bennett's contribution.  I also liked his Titan book, and his short-story contribution to the DS9 anthology, the bittersweet Quark/Grilka romance.  I also know, given some comments that I've read elsewhere around the InterWebs that he had an uphill battle because the incredible out-of-character nature of the previous novel, and thanks everso for that, Mr. David.  And even though the book left a sour taste in my mouth, I still found some stuff to like about it.

First off, Bennett is given not only the unenviable task of introducing YET ANOTHER new crew for the Enterprise-E, he also has to provide the lead-up for the forthcoming Crisis On Infinite Treks, and create an interesting story on its own.  For the most part, I think things were well-balanced, and most of the new characters are more interesting than the characters they replaced.

With one key exception.

There is one new character who is such an obvious Mary Sue, it's painful.  What's worse, the character is only Mary Sue, she's irritating to the point of not being merely the Maryiest of Sues, she reaches Marrissa's level.  Yes.  You read that right.  I am compairing a character in a professionally produced, licensed, commercial Star Trek work to Stephen Ratliff.  There were moments when I actually wanted to reach through the page and punch the character, not the least of which when she appeared, through a contrivance too involved to recount, as Legolas.

Having said that, I still enjoyed a lot of the characterizations.  I just wish we might have had someone different than T'Ryssa Chen as an audience surrogate, and that Pocket wasn't making the VOY mistake of returning to the Borg well again.

starri1

My job, such it deals with the legal system, people who get hurt, or killed, breaking the law, and generally man's baser instrincts, is not, routinely, a barrel of monkeys.  So we tend to find humor in the places where we can.

I was reviewing over some of my files that I'd worked on in the previous week, and I noticed one file, where our amazingly efficient towing unit had moved a junked vehicle to one of our salvage yards within several hours of the accident, before my policyholder had a chance to do what we normally ask them to do, remove their plates and personal belongings.

This isn't a big deal, I just shoot an e-mail to the settlement adjust, and s/he makes sure to gather the required stuff before the vehicle is sent either to the auction block or the scrap yard.

So, there it is:  "Hey, [redacted], PH needs to make sure she gets return of belongings:  personal papers, CDs, and canes."

Yes, canes plural.

While I don't think I will ever be able to become emotionally detached from certain injuries, fatalities, or accidents involving pedestrians (especially children), I think I'm at the point where nothing with respect to property fazes me any more.

"Canes."  Like it's perfectly normal for someone, even the infirm, to be driving around with a carload of canes.

necktiebandit

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starri1

Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet