You hear that, Mr Andersen?

QB&W, Indy, Car

I have lots of excellent random non-fiction (Mauve, for example, and The Surgeon of Crowthorne, and various Steven Pinker books), but I'm afraid I don't have Napoleon's Buttons -- sorry, Gif! (Napoleon's Buttons is a pop-science book about seventeen important discoveries in chemistry, and their consequences in world history.)

One of the books I do have, and that I finished reading this morning, is Queen Bees & Wannabes, by Rosalind Wiseman. This is written to help parents understand their teenage daughter (and, to a lesser extent, son), but is also interesting from a anthropological perspective. From what I can see, being a teenage girl can suck pretty hard.

It's an interesting book -- the fact that it is sprinkled with quotes from girls to illustrate, affirm or elaborate on the points being made gives it an authentic feel, and there are plenty of examples as well; many of these examples are broken down and analysed from the point of view of each of the participants, and Wiseman has concrete suggestions about how to deal with the situation as all of the girls, and as their parents. As well as looking at how and why girls (and boys) interact, and the lessons they're being taught by those interactions, she notes things that parents can say or do that will tend to make them switch off and ignore what's being said.

From the point of view of someone for whom the issues are abstract, it's a very interesting read -- very much like reading about another history or culture (which, in fact, it is). I imagine that I'd find it even more interesting and valuable if I had ever been a teenage girl, or if I had a daughter. :) It certainly made me appreciate once again how relatively mild my teenage years were.

***

Speaking of teenagers, I was standing outside Expressoholic with a male friend last night, waiting for the others to come out. A group of three girls stopped next to us, and looked like they were going to talk, and my first thought was, "Oh dear, they're going to ask us to buy them alcohol." In actual fact, they wanted us to come along to a nearby strip-club and pay $20 to see them jelly-wrestling. It was very surreal, and made more so by the fact that they just kept talking to us... I guess it would be somewhat dispiriting to look for customers on a rainy Thursday evening.

Unsurprisingly, I caught a bus home soon after. :)

***

To change tack completely, if you ever wondered what happened to the Zepplin menu holders from The Last Crusade, or wanted to get some gold-rimmed glasses as seen in the classroom scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or wondered what was in the beetles in the banquet in The Temple of Doom, then the site you've been looking for is Indy Gear, the Indiana Jones equipment resource. This is exactly the kind of thing that the web is good at, and it's nice to see it done well.

I'm strongly tempted to watch the movies again. :)

Oh, and speaking of movies -- here's the guys who did the crash in Serenity, Zoic's take on what was easy and hard, and Rhythm and Hues talking about the generator scene. "That's a little too fabulous." Heh. :)

***

I have my car back, and it is warranted, registered, and repaired to within an inch of its life. I'm tempted to post the complete list of everything that has been done to the poor beast, but suffice to say that every morning I've got to check the oil and radiator level, and keep a close eye on the engine temperature to make sure everything is working as expected. I'll be going back in a month get bits of the engine tightened, but hopefully this is the end of the saga -- and after $2400 and significant down-time, I'm not going to mess around now. :)

Apparently the way that I normally use it, which is quite short intra-city trips, is the least efficient way -- it much prefers being driven long distances. I guess getting a scooter wouldn't be such a silly idea after all. :)

Posted by svend at October 21, 2005 3:58 PM