The Dot and the Line

I think Dad's ready for the end, but to his disappointment he's too healthy and will pull through as he always does. He seems to be getting stronger. Today he was eating a lot more, talking a lot more and joking. I suspect he'll be back to work in a couple of weeks, mining uranium. His pick glows in anticipation.

I just listened to Will You be an Astronaut by Greg van Eekhout on Escape pod:
http://escapepod.org/2009/06/05/episode-202-will-you-be-an-astronaut/

And if you listen to the story, you may learn why it reminded me of The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics.

Cable television in the seventies was a wondrous, magical thing. There were still only a handful of channels, but for those of who grew up with only four, twenty or so channels brought a cornucopia of entertainment into our lives. I remember Channel 27 fondly. You could watch Batman on 27! Five days a week! And Batman, yes, Adam West's Batman, was the greatest thing on television.

On Saturdays, Channel 56 ran "The Creature Double Feature," two monster movies back to back, everything and anything from The Phantom of the Opera to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Later, at 4:30 Channel 27 ran a Charlie Chan film, then at 6:00 an Abbott and Costello film (those guys made a hell of a lot of films), then at 7:30 they'd run a half hour of classic Looney Tunes shorts. These guys OWNED my tubby little couch potato ass.

Sundays were a mixed bag. 56 ran movies at 12, 2 and 4. Stuff like Houseboat; Pillow Talk; The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming; that sort of thing. I got some outdoor time on Sundays. Occasionally, a movie would fall short of the two hour mark, even with commercials (remember Ronco Records?), and they'd have to stick a cartoon in to fill the gap. One of those gap-fillers was The Dot and the Line. See? I had a point.

Ivory's at the house today for her Internet fix, so I paused Escape Pod to tell her to look for The Dot and the Line. We found it. Now so have you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSbdvzbOzY