Insanely long-winded explanation coming right up...

**

Hmm. Sounds a little weird just explaining stuff, maybe I'd better interview myself instead. (Insanity. One of the wonderful parts of being me. )

I was walking in the neighborhood yesterday and unexpectedly ran into myself.

I was utterly polite. I even said excuse me, but I was too angry at myself to excuse such scandalous behavior. (Gosh, that sounds weird. I wonder why. )

"Where the ____ have you been?" I asked myself furiously.

I was a little affronted at my own anger. "China, actually."

"For the entire summer!?" I waited for myself to cool down.

"Yep," I replied. "Well, I went to Singapore and Thailand too."

"What in the world were you doing for the entire summer, anyway?"

"Oh, different things. Practicing Chinese, traveling... you know, the usual stuff when you're halfway across the world."

"But why didn't you write?" I asked myself demandingly.

"Internet's a bit hard to come by. Plus, I was too busy seeing things like the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall of China." I didn't add that it was extremely exhausting to talk to myself so extensively.

"Well, you're just a regular old show-off, aren't you?" I huffed.

"Definitely," I teased.

By that point, I was cooled down enough to talk to myself civilly.

"So were you there during the Olympics?"

"Some of it. The rest of the time I was on a cruise on the Yangtze River."

"That's just too unfair."

"If you say so. Half the time I was just begging for the lady advertising in Chinese to let us breathe for five minutes. When we were on the main boat, it was fine though."

"Still, most people don't ever get to do that anyway."

"We had a few horror stories, too, even though we were in first c.lass One German guy got bit on his toe by a mouse."

"No way, dude!"

"Way, dude. Middle of the night, too. He had to wake up and disenfect it."

"What'd the cabin crew say?"

"The lady in charge seemed to think the mice were necessary. She said something about being able to tell if there were earthquakes and things with the mice... it was total baloney."

"You went to the Great Wall, too, didn't you?"

"Yeah. Not the cool part with rides up to the top and slides coming down in Badaling, though. Couldn't go there because it was closed off 'because of the Olympics.' But I still climbed up to the highest point I could see from the bottom."

"That must've been a workout."

"Yep. Crazy humid out there."

"And the Terracotta Warriors? What were they like?"

"Well, there's a lot of remolding going on. A bunch of the warriors got crushed after the First Emperor died. Torched, too. But they've got a lot done, and they get more done every year. They have a surround sound video now, too, which wasn't there when my Dad went. It's really cool, projected on all sides of the circular room. It's especially nice during the war parts. They aren't colored, though, they've buried all of the ones that had color because they have no way of preserving them yet. And obviously you can't walk alongside them. There's just a path around the big dome."

"Did you get to see any Olympic games?"

"I watched the opening on television. A lot of the fireworks were computer-generated, and there's a part where a girl lip-sings. The fireworks weren't live, either. There was a sort of pre-show before. I guess you can't control live television. Oh, and we went to a couple of soccer games too. USA v. Nigeria and Argentina v. Serbia. Lots of cheering for Serbia, and only two rows in one section were cheering for Argentina. I was rebellious every so often and cheered for Argentina. I mean, there was some serious booing every time Argentina had the ball. They still won though. People were leaving 20 minutes early just because Serbia wasn't winning. It was a bit strange."

"Well, you'd better start writing! You've been putting it off long enough, slacker."

"On it."

**

Hmm. That's got to go on my list as one of the craziest, nonsensical things I've ever written. And now I'm bored, because real life is really pretty dull.

Well, however half-baked of an explanation that was, you now know everything and can now pester me with a million questions. (Or not.)

In case you want to read an actual interview, here's one I found on a forum somewhere. I like this one because it features RSL, and since it's not particularly professional, we get some fresh answers vs. regular revamped lines. From June, but still nice.

And now, it is time to stop procrastinating and get going on that Holmes stuff.

Let's start with the language parallel.

Both Conan Doyle and the House writers love to put little subtle language references in their writing to teach us more about the characters.

For example, we have the House references.

One of the first references we had was in "Humpty Dumpty" when House is "forced" to ask the question, "Donde trabajo su hijo los sabados por la noche?" It's very simple, it just means, "Where does your son work on Saturdays?" It's not even rehearsed terribly well, it's a bit rough, but the point they're trying to illustrate about the character is written in the next couple of lines.

Cuddy: Why didn't you say you spoke Spanish?

House: Well, because, she'd want to talk to me.

House, as we well know by now, doesn't like talking to patient's families, because they're obviously panicked and incoherent, which makes them not fun to deal with. In fact, he tends to avoid patients in general, so these few simple lines point out this characteristic in a way that no English sentences could, at least not so clearly. And that's the beauty of language references. Yes, they can be hard to understand, but they tell us things about the characters that would be really hard to convey otherwise.

The next one that comes to mind wasn't spoken by House, but does add an element of humor as well as subtle character investigation.

House: Super. In three months when you need a refill, take a bus to a free clinic. Don't wait around hoping for mom to get another sniffle. (Turns to the mother). Not the sharpest chopstick in the drawer, is she?

Mandarin Woman: Nali, Nali.

( ) Knowing a little Mandarin myself, I can say that "Nali, Nali" means "You flatter me." (It's a polite reply to a compliment.)

But knowing what it means, now, doesn't make it any funnier. Sorry. Maybe watching the Youtube video might do it, but somehow I doubt it. Jokes just aren't funny after they're explained, at least, not usually. But it had my dad and I almost falling off our chairs.

So what does this tell us about our character? This scene sort of "foreshadows" what's coming next. There's a lot of subtle subtext going on there. First of all, House is sending the message that, "Duh, kid, this isn't going to work." Second of all, he's saying, "OK, fine, you can make your own mistakes, but don't come crying to me later."

Well, what do you know, the kid does come crying later, claiming that House prescribed the wrong pills. Which, obviously, our acerbic doctor isn't going to take, because that means more conflict. It's much easier to give the kid a taste of her own medicine and claim that she's pregnant, then subtly escape out of the room.

So what does this tell us about our character? It tells us that this is a character who will stand up for himself when he is in the right, but who also avoids conflict whenever possible. There's a constant contradiction that runs in that sort of personality, which makes the character interesting.

Finally, we have another example in Season 4. (There are others, but for the sake of time, let's stick with these three.) We are presented with a Jewish episode with a lot of conflict between House and Amber fighting over Wilson. (Funny then and somewhat painful now that Amber's dead. )

Taken (no, borrowed, borrowed is a better term ) from a Livejournal transcript:

[Wilson's Office. Night. At his desk, Wilson buttons his sleeve, when the door opens. House stands at the door-jamb.]

GREG HOUSE: [sucks in air] I've decided you could do worse than a female proxy for me.

[His message given, he closes the door and walks off. Wilson stands transfixed.]


CUT TO:

[PPTH Lobby. Day. The elevator door opens and House, on his way out, limps towards the door. Behind him, Wilson comes bounding down the stairs.]

JAMES WILSON: So you're going to acknowledge that people can change?

GREG HOUSE: No.

JAMES WILSON: You think I've changed or Amber's changed?

GREG HOUSE: Nope.

[House stops at the Nurse Station to look at something.]

JAMES WILSON: [pointing at House] Then you've changed.

GREG HOUSE: If you do change, can it be the part of you that chases me down halls, trying to change me?

[House resumes walking, Wilson accompanying him.]

JAMES WILSON: [flabbergasted] Do you know what this means?

GREG HOUSE: That you made one good dating choice. The fabric of the space/time continuum could unravel.

[House and Wilson walk out the hospital doors into the cold night. They stand outside.]

JAMES WILSON: My world could expand. I could form a long-term connection that isn't with you. And since you put the darkest possible construction on everything, you could end up losing a friend. You've thought of all this.

[House doesn't answer.]

JAMES WILSON: And yet you're going along with it. [shivers a bit] Are you being... self-sacrificing?

GREG HOUSE: I'll sacrifice... a lab rat. I'll sacrifice a fly. I'll sacrifice two hundred on a mudder at Monmouth Park. I don't sacrifice self.

[Wilson nods.]

GREG HOUSE: Shabbat Shalom, Wilson.

[He walks off.]

JAMES WILSON: Shabbat Shalom, House.

[With a wide smile, Wilson turns to walk back inside.]

Hmm. Shabbat Shalom. What in the world does that mean? Well, actually, it means "Good Sabbath." (Thank goodness for Google. ) In Jewish, obviously.

Somewhat odd that an atheistic character would wish a friend a good sabbath, isn't it?

So what does this tell us? That it's Saturday, for one, and that House has a massive amount of trivia crammed in his head.

Also that Wilson is probably an inactive Jew, since he's not technically supposed to work on Saturdays. (But, hey, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not going to go through every article about Jewish sabbaths on the web.)

Random unrelated fact: the 'internet' is the hardware. The WWW is what you surf.

But there's got to be some sort of explanation for our atheistic character doing this, doesn't there? Maybe it's a sign of respect. Maybe it's saying, "I don't always hamper you on religion, and I won't constantly bug you about Amber either. But that doesn't mean I won't challenge you every so often." Who knows?

On to Holmes references before you sew me for mental distress.

"And I," said Holmes, "shall see what I can learn from Mrs. Bernstone and from the Indian servant, who, Mr. Thaddeus tells me, sleeps in the next garret. Then I shall study the great Jones's methods and listen to his not too delicate sarcasms.

"'Wir sind gewohnt dass die Menschen verhohnen was sie nicht verstehen.'

"Goethe is always pithy."

"Wir sind gewohnt dass die Menschen verhohnen was sie nicht verstehen:"

We are accustomed to those who scoff at what they do not understand.

Context: Holmes and Watson have just endured a rather lengthy (and inaccurate) description of Athelney Jones' thoughts on a crime they are investigating.

Here we see Holmes' frustration with Jones arresting everyone in the house for no logical reason and refusing to take his methods seriously. Holmes seems to quote a lot from Goethe, remarking that he is to the point, and he is also well up on his literature. He also takes a stab at Jones, saying he "shall study his great methods," as if he is the student and Jones is the teacher. This reveals a subtle character weakness: Holmes' impatience with ignorance.

   "…See here, Captain Crocker, we'll do this in due form of law. You are the prisoner. Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. I am the judge. Now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence. Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
   "Not guilty, my lord," said I.
   "Vox populi, vox Dei. You are acquitted, Captain Crocker.  So long as the law does not find some other victim you are safe from me. Come back to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us in the judgment which we have pronounced this night!"

"Vox populi, vox dei."

The voice of the people is the voice of God.

Context: Holmes has just listened to the story of one 'Captian Crocker.' As on other occasions, he has decided that the man's actions do not justify turning him over to the law. Of course, he finds the most dramatized way of expressing this. And of course, we love it.

"…If the case has had no other effect, it, at least, brings out in the most striking manner the efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at home, and not to carry them on to British soil. It is an open secret that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective line and who, with such instructors, may hope in time to attain to some degree of their skill. It is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their services."

"Didn't I tell you so when we started?" cried Sherlock Holmes with a laugh. "That's the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a testimonial!"

"Never mind," I answered; "I have all the facts in my journal, and the public shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourself contented by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser--

"Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo

Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca."

The public hisses at me, but I applaud myself in my own house, and simultaneously contemplate the money in my chest.

Context: An odd case: here, we find Watson comforting Holmes in his own language, figuratively speaking. Kind of like Wilson limping around with House…

And one final one, because I've just pasted this into a Word document and it's
 currently six pages long.  (*looks sheepish*).

"Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour."
"Yes," he answered, "there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also of a pretty spry sort of a fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe:

"Schade, daß die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf, Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff."

Nature, alas, made only one being of you, 

Although there was material for a good man and a rouge.

Context: I'll let you figure that one out.

-Signing off.

What to do during a writer's strike?

I suppose you could just sit in a corner for three months crying. Tempting, but also awfully pathetic.

Some people sent pencils to the networks. A lot of people. In fact, one report from December states that over 500,000 pencils were delivered during that month.

What did the CEO's do with all those pencils, and why pencils? Pretty simple questions. Pencils were a symbol of the writer's cause. Writers are generally good at symbols. The message was simple. Pencils down means pencils down. So the pencil became a symbol of the strike.

So images like this one circulated over the internet.

As for what the CEO's were supposed to do with all these pencils, well, you might as well hear it from the people themselves.

As quoted:

Symbolism, whatever. Let's face it -- isn't this kind of a waste of pencils?

We were worried about that too, so we found a vendor who makes environmentally sensitive product: California Republic Stationers. Their pencils are made from sustainably harvested wood, which means they don't deforest.

We'll also send the media moguls suggestions about where they can donate the pencils to non-profits that teach kids how to write. After all, the CEOs aren't writers. It's not like they can use them.

Mostly posted that because it made me laugh. What could possibly be more frustrating than to receive a bunch of pencils you can't use? And not just a bunch of pencils, we're talking half a million here. Plus postage to get rid of these darned things. That's no small feat!

I, on the other hand, am one person who would be glad to receive a bunch of pencils. After all, I'm obsessed with paper, pencils, pens, laptops, and pretty much anything else you can write with. Especially the pencils with the soft erasers. The hard erasers would be pretty infuriating, but soft erasers would be nice.

Anyhow, I got completely sidetracked from what I was trying to say. Go figure.

What I was about to say is that a) I'm starting to think I have insomnia since it's 1 am over here, and b) I wasn't that gung ho.

No, I'm afraid to say that I didn't send a bunch of pencils to CEO's. Instead, I revolted by not watching reality TV or much of anything else for that matter. Instead, I read Sherlock Holmes.

Which, I'll admit, probably did absolutely nothing to help the writer's strike. But it did keep me from retreating to a corner of my room and crying for 3 months straight.

Now I will unveil the most useful part of this blog, this link.

What's so special about that link, you say? Well, it's got 44 short stories and 4 novels, for starters. And what's truly amazing is that that's not all Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. (And yes, I painstakingly counted the number of links. No, you may not congratulate me for staving off my ADHD.)

It's certainly enough to get you through a strike, let me tell you, at least if you have something resembling a life.

The short stories are no breather, either. On average, they're about 15-25 minutes reading time each. And I'm a fast reader.

And, go figure, that's not what I was going to say either.

Oh, well, this wasn't intended to be a one-blog task anyway. At least now you're introduced and well-informed about things you can do while sitting there with insomnia racking your brain.

And just in case you didn't know, I'm obsessive and supremely lazy.

Which means two things for you unfortunate readers. The first is that I took notes while I was reading.

I hear a gasp. "How can you possibly take notes while reading by choice?" I give you two words. Obsessive Insomnia. "And what possibly have you taken notes on?"

Let me first tell you that there are frustratingly few parallels drawn between House and Holmes. The few websites that do do it say things like, they both have an addiction to drugs. Give me a break. I've got two pages of similarities, and you give me a table?

So basically I took a few notes.

Which brings us to our second thing.

Because I am supremely lazy, I'm going to copy my own notes and expand on them. Which means that you are probably going to have a few blogs just about House/Holmes similarities.

Run now or forever hold your peace.

Disclaimer: This post is a three-part miniseries. You have been warned.

Part I: Is blogging contagious?

"You yawned. I just told you something interesting so you're not bored, it's 11 o'clock in the morning and you're drinking coffee so you're not tired, I didn't yawn so it's not a mirror neuron reaction."

Yawning seems contagious. You look at another person yawn and you'll probably yawn. Reading this is probably making you yawn. Just writing this is sure making me yawn.

So if we assume that yawning is "contagious," is blogging also contagious?

When you see someone with a new blog post, doesn't it make you want to write your own?

Recently, I've noticed something. Whenever one person writes a blog post, a whole cluster of posts seems to follow. This post is probably also due to a cluster.

It's also due to the fact that some days are just too good not to blog about, even if you really, really do suck at blogging.

Part II: Da plane! Da plane!

You may be asking, "Why in the world does she have a random picture of a plane in the middle of her blog?" (And yes, I am a she, in case you couldn't tell by the pretty icon. )

Or you may be like me and simply be going, "da plane! da plane!"

And, no, in case you're wondering, you are not seeing double. Or triple. Or even quadruple.

Well, I shall clear up any misconceptions and tell you why I have a plane in the middle of my blog.

It's a katana. Why do I even care what it's called?

I'll tell you why I care. Because today I flew one. No, not flew in one. Flew one.

With the help of a flight instructor of course. (No, contrary to popular belief I am not that insane!!!)

The fun thing about having the flight instructor with you is that you don't have to set up the plane. Or check the plane. Or mess with the funny looking buttons.

You just have to steer, take off, fly, and land.

Which is actually easier than it sounds.

Steering the plane is probably the hardest part out of those four, because you have to remember to steer with your feet. Which, again, sounds harder than it actually is.

Basically, you only do it while you're on the ground. You push down with the right foot to turn right, with the left foot to turn left, and down on both to stop.

Like I said, it's easier than it sounds.

Then you have to stop for a while and have the flight instructor check the engine to make sure it's not going to die while you're in the air. Which would be bad. Very bad.

The next part is taking off. Pretty much you have to wait for everything to clear and listen to the flight instructor talk in a funny language. They use the alpha-bet.

You know, "alpha" instead of "A" and refer to the name of the plane as something like "Cheetah 1-6." I don't remember what the name of the plane actually was.

Then you steer the plane (using your feet of course) onto the runway, keeping it centered in the runway.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention. There's basically no gas pedal in a katana. You just have to brake and turn it off. You can make it go faster in the air, but I don't think you can on the ground.

The most important thing about taking off is the airspeed. You have to watch the dial until it goes up to about 44, and then pull back slightly on the stickshift (or whatever it's called). Then when it gets up to around 68, you pull back a little more.

Between 44 and 68 is when you're in the air.

Then you just have to even out the plane pushing the stick shift forward and back and even out the plane.

The nice thing about the katana, for me at least, is that it's both roomy and small enough to keep you from being afraid once you're in the air. Whereas with commercial planes, they're so big that just taking off tends to give this sinking feel in your stomach. It takes a lot more effort to get the plane to the right height and even it out, so the climb ends up being really steep.

With the katana, you hardly feel like you're taking off at all.

You're just there.

Sure, you're up really high, but you don't feel anything. It's just a switch in scenery.

I won't deny it, that would probably scare a lot of people, but not me.

Visual changes don't frighten me at all unless they're accompanied by a loud noise or sickening feeling.

So I felt just as secure as if I had two feet firmly planted on the ground.

Steering was a piece of cake. Just pull up to stay up, push down slightly to go down.

Going left just means pushing the stick shift to the left, then bringing it slightly back up to the right to even out the plane. Same with the right except in the other direction.

The only part that even slightly scared me was when the instructor asked, "Do you like roller coasters?"

Well, roller coasters are kinda fun, so I was like, "Sure."

Then he explains about positive G's and negative G's.

Easy to talk about in physics, much different to actually experience it.

And it's a bit scarier then a roller coaster. Thankfully, he steered this one.

So here's what happens.

When you bring the plane up, you start feeling really heavy, about twice your weight. So, if you weighed 300 pounds, you'd feel like you weighed 600. (No, I don't weigh 300 pounds, it's just an example!)

Then, when the plane goes back down, it gets a little strange. Everything starts floating. Everything means the plane key that's not in the ignition, the dust off the floor, and you.

Except it's much worse than a roller coaster, because I think your liver starts floating too.

Kidding. But that's what it feels like.

Thank goodness he explained this to me so I could explain what happens, because honestly, I didn't notice anything. I was just trying to stay in my seat.

Needless to say, we didn't do that again.

Afterwards, I did a few steeper turns, and we headed back to the airport way too soon.

Landing's pretty easy too. You just have to make sure everything's clear, and, well, land.

(*sigh.*) I suppose I should give you a better description than that.

We had to follow another plane because they were faster, (well duh.) Basically, you just have to keep the plane high enough not to hit the ground, but slowly descend. You do this by pushing down slightly with the stick shift, and if needs be, pull it up a bit. Then you just make sure you line up with the runway and don't descend too hard.

Made a great landing. (By great, I mean only the instructor got his foot blown off and I only lost half the plane. I made it out fine. ) No, it was a smooth landing and we got out safely.

Safely enough for the instructor to be able to say I'm a natural at steering the plane, at least. I think I would've preferred it if we'd crashed. (/sarcasm)

Dang, apparently something's wrong with my html tags. I forgot to say where I started the sarcasm. Oh, well.

I mean, how hard can it be to steer a plane?

Part III: August Rush

Yes, I realize this is long. I just like torturing you!!!

No, honestly, I wouldn't blog about it if it wasn't such a darn good movie. Here is a great collection of some of the songs on the movie.

Believe me, even if there are some strange continuity things, it's worth it just for the songs. It's also unrealistic. But, hey, it's a Hollywood movie.

Even if it has Robin Williams in it being even more exaggerated and unbelievable than usual.

I think I'll stop blogging now.