I know, nothing about the butt-end of the disgraceful old year, the gleamingly shrink-wrapped new one we are even now despoiling...nothing about our favorite paganistical winter rituals...and not even our long-planned evisceration of the worst adaptation of literature for television that we've ever seen.
What's the deal? In a nutshell, the wombat has been a sickly beast for some time now, shaking with nightly fevers and sweating through the wee hours. Many false starts with antibiotics later, we are on the mend, but it may be a while yet before there's much going on here.
Posted by BT at January 04, 2005 11:06 PMThis is the new order of things, didn't you know? We're all deathly ill in 2005. It's kind of like THE STAND, only much slower and without the Blue Oyster Cult.
Posted by: Gavin on January 5, 2005 06:00 PMFraternal virus-racked greetings from across the Atlantic, o sickly one!
Posted by: Rory on January 6, 2005 05:46 AMYeeks -- it's an international microbe conspiracy. Isn't there a Michael Crichton novel about that?
After much mystery and many different antibiotics, it's now been determined that I suffer from 'the kissing disease,' apparently known in the Commonwealth as 'glandular fever.' In the U.S., it's just good old mononucleosis. It's a damned good thing I've got still got 2 1/2 of Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy left to climb through by way of entertainment.
Actually, I'm feeling mostly better now and am back at the office, but I still find myself falling asleep on the couch just about 15 minutes after I walk in the door. Plus, I have been told to avoid sports for 2 months on account of (Jonathan will love this one) possible injury to the spleen. Go figure.
My wishes of wellness to one and all in this virus-clouded January.
Posted by: BT on January 6, 2005 10:19 PMGlandular fever? Oh no. I've known people who were wiped out for months with that.
I recommend this book for your convalescence:
http://www.idler.co.uk/howtobeidle/howtobeidle.htm
(No, honestly. I'm halfway through and it's fast becoming my bible.)
Posted by: Rory on January 7, 2005 06:17 AMAuugh, Bill, that's awful. I'm so sorry! That constant exhaustion is wretched.
I'm dying of curiosity about the worst adaptation ever. I don't have tv reception, so I can't share the pain except vicariously. Is it Earthsea?
Posted by: Scraps on January 7, 2005 08:21 AMWhat has that Jonathan got against spleens?
Be well, wee wombat.
Posted by: Scott on January 7, 2005 08:30 AMEven when it's not a quiz, Scraps guesses right. Even Alberto "Organ Damage" Gonzalez would probably balk at showing "The Legend of Earthsea" to enemies of freedom: the producers should be tried in the international criminal court.
For those of you who don't know either LeGuin's original and didn't have the misfortune to see the adaptation, imagine that Peter Jackson had, in the early formulation of his LOTR adaptation, fallen off of a mountain in New Zealand and as the result of head injuries decided that Kevin Sorbo's televisual incarnation of Hercules would be his touchstone for a cinematic re-interpretation of Tolkein, in terms of dialogue, characterization, and production design. Minus, of course, any self-awareness about its own cheesiness.
Then imagine that Jackson had Tolkein's story itself heavily rewritten by an individual whose only exposure to fantasy and philosophy in literature was a brief perusal of his older sister's copy of an Anne McCaffrey while on a boring family car trip. And that this individual had only a one-page summary of the original Tolkein narrative to work from, and was forbidden from consulting the actual books. Imagine that in the resulting narrative, Saruman was a spiritual leader and good guy done wrong, Sauron was an elf -- brother to Elrond, let's say -- who'd gone over to the dark side. Gandalf was a wise but completely passive old dodderer. Oh, and there was a shapely love-interest for headstong, handsome but thoughtless Frodo, waiting to help him out on the slopes of Mount Doom. Maybe named Samina. Oh, and ditch the whole Rohan narrative, maybe Gondor while you're at it.
Translate this kind of creative improving to LeGuin, put a sub-Heath-Ledger drone in the lead, convince Danny Glover and Isabella Rossellini to soil themselves in dreadful cariacatures as part of the charade, and you have some approximation of the ultimate crapitude that was committed to video under the title "The Legend of Earthsea."
Posted by: BT on January 7, 2005 11:00 AMIf you find your current treatment unsatisfactory, may I suggest Mechanical Bloodletting Devices -- they're much more efficient than traditional leeches and approved by our next AG.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/emotions/checklist.html
Get well soon.
Posted by: teenidol on January 7, 2005 11:22 AMIt's not that I have anything against spleens, exactly, it's just that they can become troublesome in conversation, as many of you have no doubt noticed. Particularly under conditions of rapidly changing barometric pressure, such as the passing eye of a hurricane, or the sudden miniaturization necessary for a visit to the mitochondria. And yes, at this point I'm pretty sure not even I know what the hell I'm saying.
May this viral storm pass by leaving your major and minor organs intact.
Splenetically yours,
JK