Story Time

Ya'll sit back - got a true story to tell. Or, as sea stories go, ya'll ain't gonna believe shit but -

Years ago, when I was younger, slimmer and had more hair on the top of my head and less in my ears, I had a buddy from New Jersey. Some of his high school buddies came to Texas over New Years, we all piled into a '74 Pontiac Bonneville and road tripped from Plano to Tyler, where NJ1's parents had a lake house. On the way out of Plano we stopped and purchased supplies for the weekend - Meat, corn chips, Beer (the NJ boys had to have a case of Coors, as this was back when Coors was not available east of the Mississippi), and that most Texan of condiments, Picante sauce. Now, these boys had heard of Picante in the barren flavorless wilds of New Jersey, but had never had it before. They immediately grabbed the biggest bottle of HOT they could find. I looked at them and gently asked, "You boys ever have picante before?" NJ2 "Nope, but it can't be that bad, can it?" Me - "I would suggest the mild if you've never had it before." NJ3 - "MILD? What do you think we are, girls?" Me - "Ok, lets split the difference - medium." Paying for the results of our foraging, we piled back into said Bonneville and headed for points east. We arrived at our destination, moved the beer from the cooler to the fridge and commenced to relaxing - ie consuming beer and burning meat 
n the most manly of fashions on fires and other such amusements. During the course of that Saturday, I watched the two boys from New Jersey consume a huge amount of picante, usually accompanied with statements like "This is great! We should have got the hot!". Sunday morning rolls around like it always will, and one of the boys from New Jersey went to spend some time in the bathroom. Suddenly we hear a god awful caterwalling coming from the bathroom. NJ3 looks at me, when from the bathroom comes the following scream "OH MY GOOD
MY ASS IS ON FIRE!" NJ3's face dropped, because he had just commented on his need for the bathroom next, and the reasoning. I gave him my best deadpan look and said with a twinkle in my eye, "Aren't you glad we got the medium?"

Late afternoon emails and other things.

Like most folks there comes a point in my day where I quit checking email.  Today that means I failed to learn that the apartment complex had scheduled work on the sprinkler and water systems for the complex.  Which means no water at the complex between 10am and 1pm.  On the coldest day of the year so far.  Outstanding.

Something over on Facebook in one of the groups I'm in got me to think about the past, so ya'll get a bit of a nostalgic ramble here -

Way back in the dark ages when there were things called the "Dallas Fantasy Fair", I used to work as con staff. One Con, Roger Zelazny was guest, in addition to the usual DFF guests (One thing about the DFF's you could count on was if you missed say Ray Harryhausen this year, if he was alive next year you could see him at the same quarter's con). Now, I had a buddy at the time who was a big Zelazny fanboy, and he had a huge stack of books he wanted to get signed. 10-15 or so hardbacks. We were both sitting at our designated table outside one of the gaming rooms when we saw Zelazny go by headed to our right. My buddy comments "Ooh, I need to catch up with him at some point so I can get my books signed". I looked at the schedule "He's giving a talk in room X - its supposed to run an hour - go in forty five minutes with your books and see if he will sign them when he's done." Friend "I could never do something like that." As he said that, Zelazny comes from our right and goes off to our left, and then returns from the left with a puzzled look on his face. I looked at him and said "Mr. Zelazny you look lost, can I help?" "I'm supposed to be giving a talk in room X," he said, "but I can't find it." Me - "I've got a map here, lets see what we can do. And while we're looking would you mind signing his (pointing at friend who is gasping like a fish out of water) books?" Zelazny - "Not a problem." Zelazny asks his name and then autographs all the books while standing there as we work out how to get him where he needed to be. I thanked Zelazny for signing the books (fan boy had almost hyperventilated and passed out) and Zelazny thanked me for taking the time to ask what was wrong.

I'm Back.

Been a bit under the weather, thus the lack of activity here -

And now for something completely different - Book II is in its early stages, even though book one isn't finished.  A bit of a taste.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate humanities arrival here on Destiny,” the voice thundered from the screen.  “Two hundred years ago, our ancestors, lost and in a badly damaged ship arrived in the system they would name Rua Sem Saida to find the planet that would be their home.”  The video feed was mostly long shots of the group on the reviewing stand – city, state, and national dignitaries, a couple of local B’ar’tai chiefs deemed ‘safe’ by the local and national politicians, and assorted others deemed either reliable enough to be seen with their betters or having given enough baksheesh to grease their way up onto the podium. 

I know, I know, I need to finish the first book.

Snippet Wednesday.

Bit of a snippet for today.

            “So,” Hammer said by way of introduction, as Oakes tossed bulbs of coffee around, “the plan is pretty simple.  We’re going to access Connie’s maintenance hatch here,” he said, pulling up a diagram, “and Pete and I will enter the hull.  We’re going to be met by one of the IT techs from the Admiral, who’s got a replacement control package for the hulk.  We’ll pull Connie’s primary housing, and the backup housing.  Once we pull the primary, we slot the replacement package in place so the hulk keeps its orbital position, pull the secondary and we’re done.  You’ll need to have a little work done back at Tarkas to have her installed, but beyond that, there should be no issues.”

            “What kind of work,” I asked, sipping from the coffee.  It was hot, but you can’t always get everything perfect.

            “Cross links and a couple of holographic projector heads primarily.  Connie might have a couple of other things she wants to feel comfortable, but that’s something you’ll have to discuss with her,” he said grinning.

            “Things like more memory or a bigger, shinier case, I hope.”

            “Or a faster, dedicated hard wire connection to the archives.  You never know what an AI’s going to want.  Peirot, the security AI, insisted on having a small room set up that he could decorate like the apartment of the detective he’s named for.  I can only imagine what we would have had to put up with if we’d named the damn thing Sherlock,” he said, shaking his head.

            “Oh, I don’t know, working out of 221 B Baker Street couldn’t have been that bad.”

            “True.  I just can picture an AI trying to figure out how to get an incense that smelled like cheap Turkish shag tobacco though.  Or worse, one having one of Holmes’s ‘down’ periods.  Can you imagine an AI in a funk?”

            “Oh, hell no,” Jayne said, grinning impishly.  “Not something I’d want to see.”

            “Course, his seven percent solution would have only been lines of code,” Oakes said, one eye on the instruments that showed we were on a normal insertion path for orbit.

            “Seven percent solution,” Arenson asked.

            “Holmes used cocaine when he got really bored.  A seven percent solution, injected.”

            “Ahh.”

            “Yeah, the Victorians were a little more up front with their drug use.  Although, if I remember correctly, Watson does tut Holmes a couple of times about his use of cocaine as a pick me up,” I said, looking over the plan Hammer had sent to my tablet.

            “True.  But in the end, Holmes keeps going back to cocaine and tobacco.”

What's wrong with Hollywood -

Got on a kick in the last month where I’m reading the original James Bond novels.  It started when I was watching Moonraker and decided that I needed to see how close it was to the original book.  It wasn’t even close enough for government work folks.  Which got me to thinking why does Hollyweird do that?  They buy a property that has sold well and has a solid fan base, then throw out everything that made the property popular in order to tell their own story.  I get throwing out characters that have one or two lines – writing is overall a lot cheaper when it comes to hiring characters for your story, but gutting the structure and then wondering why it collapses without making your money back is something I don’t get.

Having said that, let’s look at how the novels and the movies compare, shall we?  I’ll try to avoid spoilers on sixty year old novels and fifty year old movies.  Oh, the hell I will.  I’m also going to talk about the books in order of publication, not in movie order.

Casino Royale – First Bond Book, and it first got a treatment for TV in 1954 for CBS’s Climax! series.  Given the time of the adaption, they did what they could with the material – there is a lot missing, but in 1954 you couldn’t show someone getting their testicles smashed with a rug beater on TV.  Hell, you can’t show that on TV sixty years later. 
Woody Allen did a pastiche of the novel and the movies in the 1960’s – but there were already better Bond Pastiche’s out there – Matt Helm and the Flint movies come to mind.
The reboot of the Bond Movies with Daniel Craig is probably the closest to the book but there are still some changes that Hollywood made in order to do something.  What, I don’t know.

Live and Let Die – First Roger Moore Bond film.  First descent into what has been called Bondian High Camp.  Some major changes to the storyline – Heroin smuggling rather than gold.  Lack of the Soviet anti spy group SMERSH as villians.  Moved the major center of the movie from NYC to New Orleans.  Decided lack of Felix Leiter getting attacked by a shark and losing an arm and a leg.  Addition of redneck sheriff to appeal to ‘Muricans.

Moonraker – Movie centers around plot by Hugo Drax to wipe out humanity and repopulate the world with his select few.  Book centers around plot by Nazi holdout Hugo Drax and fellow members of Werewolf to destroy London as revenge for Germany’s defeat in WWII.  Method of destruction?  Atomic warhead on a missile.  I’d have much rather seen the story from the book than the overly complicated plot in the movie.

Diamonds are Forever – Movie revolves around a plot by SPECTRE to use stolen diamonds to seize control of Willard White’s space company to build a laser to shoot down space hardware.  Last of the Sean Connery Bond films until they remade Thunderball as Never Say Never Again.  The book revolves around a SMERSH plot to fund activities in the US and abroad using stolen diamonds.  The book also features the return of Leiter with his prosthetic arm and leg, driving a Studillac – a part Studebaker, part Cadillac automobile. 

From Russia with Love – The movie revolves around a plot by SPECTRE to assassinate James Bond in a public, embarrassing manner, so as to sow discontent and fear in the western spy agencies.  The book revolves around a plot by SMERSH to assassinate James Bond in a public, embarrassing manner in order to sow discontent and fear in the western spy agencies.  WAIT A MINUTE THEY ACTUALLY FOLLOWED THE BOOK IN THIS ONE?  Yup, they did.

That’s the first five.  Next week I’ll go over the next five or so.