Such Is

-A friend talks in a (locked) post about recently reading Chapman's The Five Languages of Love, and how it breaks down acts of affection into five categories:

• Affirming Words (compliments, "I love you")
• Quality Time (focused attention from partner)
• Receiving Gifts (tangible objects)
• Physical Touch (of all kinds)
• Acts of Service (being cooked for, etc.)

-Interesting analysis. If I had to rank these in terms of their importance to me, it would probably be:

1. Physical Touch
2. Acts of Service
3. Affirming Words
4. Quality Time
5. Receiving Gifts

(Though the second through fourth are close to a three-way tie.)

-Hmm, but the quiz here says that this is my actual order:

1. Acts of Service
2. Physical Touch
3. Quality Time
4. Affirming Words
5. Receiving Gifts

. . . I think the distinction here is between how I express love and how I like to be loved. For my list, I was talking about what I like to get. The test evaluates both giving and receiving. I'm quite likely to express affection through acts of service, but on the receiving end, I get more "oomph" out of physical touch. (This difference may come from living in a society where 6'2" guys are discouraged from randomly hugging people.)

Whither Cell?

-I appear to have left my cellphone at home, so comments here might be the best way to reach me until late tonight.

Kong & Tragedy

-This review of Kong at Locus Online is darn good overall, but the last line is the most poignant:

"Go see it with someone you love, and like Ann, know that for certain, they're going to die one day."

Books: Galactic Empires

-I just finished Galactic Empires, volumes 1 and 2, edited by Brian Aldiss. They're solid anthologies of pre-1975 SF, mostly from the 40s and 50s, and mostly on the ostensible topic of galactic empires. The stories run the gauntlet from vivid pulp to the dryly ironic. And, like most anthologies of Golden Age SF, I really enjoyed most of them. It's a pity it's so hard to write something new in that mode. I'd love to write a good galactic empire novel, but the genre's moved on. It'd be almost impossible to do without either being ironic, or distorting it in odd directions.