the one I prefer remembering

[sergebroom]

Yesterday, Making Light started a thread about Ray Bradbury and how his now more conservative politics have made him reinvent what Fahrenheit 451 was really about. I'd rather not think about that. I'd rather think of the Bradbury who wrote the script(*) for It Came From Outer Space.

There is a great scene where the hero, a scientist, comes across two phone repairmen in the middle of the desert, and they tell him they can hear some really weird stuff on the lines. He climbs up the ladder, takes the earphone. And listens. We in the audience can't hear, but his expression (and our own imagination as it reacts to him) conveys that there is indeed something strange going on.

Meanwhile, I will make a True Confession: I like the 1980s miniseries based on The Martian Chronicles. It felt more like the book I had read at 19 than the author's own later adaptation for TV's Bradbury Theater. But that's just my opinion.

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(*) I made a reference to that here yesterday in a reply to Tania. My understanding is that, technically, he wrote a story outline that was so detailed that it basically was a script, even though someone else got the screen credit for that.

Comments

[tania-c.livejournal.com]

I like it too. The miniseries.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

The weak points were some of the stories after the war on Earth, like the one of the man who thinks he's the last human on Mars then he meets Bernadette Peters and runs for the hills. That weakness, I think, was in the original stories - although they thankfully didn't have Bernadette Peters. Overall though, and in spite of the cheesy special effects, the original shone thru.

You know what? I think I'll play the DVD tonight.

[tania-c.livejournal.com]

So, did you watch it?

I helped a co-worker fix her car this evening. A maintenance guy at the hospital reversed the polarity when he gave her a jump, so we replaced the battery. Still no go. Started to check the electrical system, worked our way through the fuses. Found the battery fuse, it was in a serious case of fusus interruptus. Ran to NAPA, paid for a fuse, drove across town to get the fuse from one of their other stores that had it in stock. Installed the fuse (60A), and we had ignition!

Hurrah. I had so much fun, I was reminded why I like working on things mechanical.

I was really worried that he fried the processor when he fried the battery, but the fuse did the job it was supposed to. Engineering is beautiful.

Anyway, no movies for me this evening.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Someone reversed the polarity? That's the kind of thing I usually heard on the various Star Trek series. What's under the hood of your co-worker's car? A warp core? ("Tania, I need that power!")

Anyway, no Martian Chronicles last night, alas. I had office stuff to deal with. I then went thru the shed and mercilessly threw a bunch of stuff onto one big heap of yes-maybe-I'll-need-this-one-day-but-most-likely-not. After that, I went to the nearby home-supply store to see what kinds of blinds they have. We just had the kitchen repainted so I'm availing myself of the occasion to replace the crummy old blinds. I saw some possibilities, but nothing I'm entirely happy with, so I'm currently blindless. Since I was at that store, I bought some new hooks for the dining nook's picture frames. Back home, I realized that those hooks couldn't bear the weight of some of those frames. Or maybe they could. Until a crash'd wake me up in the middle of the night, with plaster all over the floor. So, back to the home-supply store, where I got the proper hooks. By the time I was done with the hanging, I was pooped. And promptly turned in.

[tania-c.livejournal.com]

Blindless and betrayed by hooks. Argh.

The maintenance guy tried to jump her car with the jumper cables hooked up negative-positive instead of negative-negative/positive-positive.

I never did get to say something like "Dammit Jen, I'm a manager, not a mechanic!"