by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 11, 2011 | Blog
My friend Ian and I shared favorite movies with each other a few nights back. I showed him WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, and he showed me REAL GENIUS. I love this film. It was funny, sweet, There is a totally charming girl geek in the mix who is just adorable, good triumphs in the end without using violence, and it was about smart people who are rewarded for being smart. It has an odd structure that somehow works. For about the first fifteen minutes of the movie...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 8, 2011 | Blog
Yesterday I went into town on a chilly, grey day to treat myself to lunch at the crepe restaurant in the La Fonda hotel — spinach, chicken and mushroom crepe. It was beyond delicious, but very rich. Next I walked up the street to where my friends Jim Moore and Pat Rogers are digging a site. Jim is a senior archeologist with the Museum of New Mexico. When last he was out int he field he and his team were in the stinking desert in the middle of summer in southern N.M....
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 6, 2011 | Blog
I just noticed that the same actor is voicing my favorite character from Mass Effect 2, and my favorite character from Dragon Age: Awakenings. It’s Robin Sachs who voices Seneschal Verel, and Zaeed Massani. He also voices the mayor of Redcliff. There’s just something about that deep, somewhat raspy voice that I find enormously sexy, compelling and comforting. I want to be able to have a romance with both of them. Maybe in ME3. 🙂 Which got me...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 4, 2011 | Blog
I’m now in the New Mexico High Risk Pool which means I have Blue Cross/Blue Shield for insurance rather than Oxford. Every year to 18 months I go to the dermatologist and have my skin checked for skin cancers. I’m a fair skinned red head who lives in N.M. at 7000 feet, and I lost my maternal grandmother to melanoma. I call the woman I’ve been seeing, and discover she doesn’t take Blue Cross so I’d be out of network. I go to the big book of...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 26, 2011 | Blog
I’ve been thinking a lot about negotiations. As a lawyer and as the manager of Western Oil and Minerals I have had occasion to negotiate. When I’m running Western I have the burden of being a woman in a male and Texan dominated field. I tend to begin my negotiations with courtesy and see how that is received. Too often it’s perceived as weakness, and then my male counterpart tries to bully me. I handle that with a hard and swift attack that backs...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 25, 2011 | Blog
Came home from California yesterday on the fabulous non-stop American Airlines flight from LAX to the tiny and charming airport in Santa Fe. These are American Eagle planes. Two seats on one side of the plane. One seat on the other. I always pick the single seat because then I can read and listen to music without engaging in conversation. And because I get on the plane first because of my status I can actually get my computer in an overhead bin. They fill up...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 18, 2011 | Blog
I’m a huge Dr. Who fan, and when they spun off the charming, roguish Captain Jack into his own show I was delighted. Torchwood was dark and sometimes made me shudder and cry, but I loved the characters, especially Jack and Gwen, and I enjoyed the show. So when I heard it was coming to Starz’s I was excited. I even added that channel to my cable package for this show. Well, what a mess and what a waste of time. I’ve already ranted about the writing...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 13, 2011 | Blog
At the GOP debate last night there was something that was even more disturbing to me then a crowd cheering the fact that Perry has executed over 200 people. It was about the uninsured and health care. The full article can be read here, but to the relevant section. What do you tell a guy who is sick, goes into a coma and doesn’t have health insurance? Who pays for his coverage? “Are you saying society should just let him die?” Wolf Blitzer asked. “Yeah!”...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 4, 2011 | Blog
I can’t believe I added Starz to my service so I could watch this show. I loved the British show. Yes, it was dark, but I cared about those people — particularly Gwen and Captain Jack. Then came that mess called The Children of Men where characters were killed for no damn reason, and Gwen turned into a wilting flower and Jack got stupid and passive. Then I hear that Torchwood is coming to Starz and I got excited. I thought the pilot was very slow to get...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 1, 2011 | Blog
As many of you have no doubt gathered by now I have, (tragically or happily depending on your point of view) become an X-Box addict. I’m making my way through my second play through of Mass Effect 2 so I will be appropriately studly when I have to face the Reapers in Mass Effect 3. And I noticed on my Cerberus network that there was new downloadable content. So I downloaded ARRIVAL where Shepard rescues a scientist captured by the Batarians, and I learn something dangerous...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 31, 2011 | Blog
I have this, apparently, quaint and naive idea that facts and evidence changes people’s minds, but a recent conversation with a friend at one of the many science fiction conventions I’ve attended in the past few weeks has badly shaken this faith in human intelligence. Here’s the background. Republican rancher faced with a devastating and unnatural drought. Does he go, “Hmm, maybe 97% to 98% percent of the world’s scientist might be right about this...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 25, 2011 | Blog
My cable box in the kitchen just up and died tonight. I was hoping to watch TV while I ate dinner. No such luck. Then I thought, “hey, this little RCA that I bought in Los Angeles on one of my forays to the West Coast has a DVD player. I’ll watch Primeval. So, I loaded the disk and the TV grumbled, and hemmed and hawed for about five minutes and then announced that it couldn’t read this DVD’s format. Which means it probably...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 23, 2011 | Blog
Last night on the news I heard that a flash flood out of the Cerro Grande burn scar has ripped through Dixon’s Apple Farm, and it may be the fatal blow the farm cannot withstand. During the massive Cerro Grande fire they lost their home and outbuildings, but managed to save most of the trees. This time the wall of water filled their irrigation sump ponds with silt and mud. The ponds were forty feet deep and now they are gone. All through my childhood a small...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 15, 2011 | Blog
I’m linking to an article in The Atlantic, and it is a must read given the fact that the GOP nomination might very well fall to either Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann. I am really, really hoping the Romney gets the GOP nomination even though I won’t vote for him, because if the economy sinks the president I want somebody in the White House who is not trying to impose this kind of theocratic view of government on our pluralistic society.
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 15, 2011 | Blog
Hi All, I’ll be heading off to Reno at O’Dark O’Clock on Wednesday morning. Hope to meet up with some of you there. If you want to find me here is my schedule for the convention. I have dropped off the Law and Order panel just because my life is going to be crazy during the convention. Tourists: Creating Characters and Stories in an Existing World (Panel), Wed 13:00 – 14:00, A01+6 (RSCC)Form and Content: Using Music in Science Fiction and Fantasy...
