Antiphrastic

Kitchen Adventures: Lunchtime Breakfasting

2011-03-19T14:21:00.001-07:00

A friend on Facebook posted about having delicious pancakes at her mother’s today and I thought to myself, “Self, it’s been too long since you made pancakes. DOOOOOOOIIIIIIT.”

So dressed I got, which due to a seized neck was exciting and challenging (pants today, tomorrow the world!), and off I went to the corner store for some ingredients.

The only ingredients I actually required were the milk and the eggs. Everything else was already on hand.

The sugar and chocolate are for a delicious syrup substitute an internet friend gave me the recipe for years ago. Chocolate gravy! It is delicious and sweet*!

I also bought a candy bar to provide much needed fortitude to get through the cooking process.

And, for your amusement, the recipes:

That’s right. My pancake recipe is scribbled on an unopened Air Miles envelope. I have no idea what’s in there. Advertisements and an offer to get a card, probably. This is the recipe I’ve been using for SEVEN YEARS. You might think I’d have bothered to transfer it to something more practical.

YOU’D HAVE THOUGHT WRONG.

Cooking, in progress:

I also cooked up some bacon. This is a Big Deal™. I have bacon fears. I’ve been working on them. I didn’t have a single anxiety attack!

You don’t have to be proud of me, it’s all good***.

All of that turned into all of this, shortly thereafter:

I served myself, and lo, it was delish.

In completely unrelated news, tonight the moon will be full (in Libra, if anyone cares), and it is near its perigee (the point in orbit nearest earth). The last time this happened while the moon was full, it was 1993. I’m hoping the sky is clear by moonrise (7:55pm according to the internets) so that I can get some fun photos. We’ll see how that works out.

*Sadly, it turns out that Mr. B is not a fan of chocolate gravy. But it’s good to know. Once cooled, it would probably be a delicious sauce for ice cream. Or maybe not. The main ingredient is sugar. That stuff is uber sweet.

** My blinds are crooked. I hadn’t realised. I’ma have to go fix them now.

*** As a teenager, I was witness to the terrifying powers of hot bacon grease. There was bubbled linoleum, peeled countertop laminate, and a very badly burned hand attached to an understandably upset parental unit. For more than ten years if I wanted bacon, I either went to a restaurant, or I coerced a friend to cook it for me. It hasn’t been until the last couple of years that I have been braving the cooking of bacon on my own again.

Crafting & Kitchening Adventures

2011-03-12T10:51:00.001-08:00

With a nice sprinkling of travel, for good measure.

This might not look like much, but I love taking pictures out of airplane windows. This one pleased me particularly because of the way the clouds and earth bisected the sky to create a teeny wedge of blue.

I was in Saskatoon for 10 days, visiting with my most excellent of friends, Jacqueline (of Hearts on Fibre & Frippery Digits bloggy fame). It was maybe not the most ideal time for a vacation with all the frenzy in my personal life at home. But away I went, and I had a lovely time, and now I’m back with renewed spirits, feeling far more capable of tackling those things what need tackling.

We did weaving (the link at the top of Jacqueline’s Hearts on Fibre page is currently dedicated to the tapestry she completed while I was there), and we also went crazy making pendants and pins and stuff. Now they are all for sale at the shop where I work.

Don’t they look nice on the rack? I get my own side! All the pins are in a basket on the counter. I have more pendants to attach bails to, and I have to figure out more necklaces, since the place we got those ones from appears to not stock them anymore.

While there, the only bread I ate was homemade. I was in awe of how easy the recipe Jacqueline used is, so I copied it down, and brought it home with me. (It’s from the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day by these lovely people who have a blog dedicated to the subject as well, if I find myself actually making bread from this recipe with any sort of regularity, I intend to buy the book myself and play with the other recipes as well.

I’ve been home for about 36 hours. I’ve bought the yeast and cornmeal I needed for the bread, and mixed up my first batch of dough last night. I didn’t take pictures. For shame, I know.

I neglected to buy a container or bowl large enough for me to make a full batch of dough in, so I had to half the recipe. Which wasn’t a problem, except for eye-balling what 3/4 of a tablespoon looks like.

My dough didn’t look very nice. I thought maybe my decision to use a soup spoon to stir (because we’ve had to get rid of all our wooden ones) affected how well I was able to incorporate the flour.

But today, I have two itty bitty loaves (more like buns, really), and they look lovely.

Now I just have to see if they taste any good.

*Toddles away to taste her adorable mini breads*

Yes, it’s good. No, the flour didn’t incorporate evenly, and there are bits of not-quite bread throughout, but for a first attempt, and considering I had to half the recipe and use the wrong tools, I’m calling this an overwhelming success.

I’m entering a super awesome giveaway!

2011-02-16T12:33:00.001-08:00

So I’m entering this super amazing Konadlicious 1000 follower giveaway.

I’ve never posted about a giveaway before, but I’ve never come across one quite so FANTASTICULAR*. I nearly died of glee looking at all those polishes.

I found out about the giveaway from m’Jacqueline over at Frippery Digits. If’n you look looking at fancy manicures, you should check her out. (Of course, there exists the possibility that the only person that checks this blog is Jacqueline, and Jacqueline, I know I don’t be needin’ to tell you to look at your own blogspace).

*Fantasticular is not a good word, and I will endeavour never to use it again.

Highlander: Episode 1 The Gathering

2011-02-09T12:34:00.001-08:00

Netflix is a thing of wonder*. While initially I was disappointed that the shows I really wanted to watch weren’t available (Netflix options are far more limited in Canada than the US), I’ve been pretty entertained since we got it.

Today, I bit the bullet and decided to start watching Highlander: The Series from season 1. I loved this show when I was a kid (I was 11 when it premiered – I don’t know if I was watching it as it aired, or reruns, or if I didn’t see it until later seasons, or what). I’ve been curious if it’ll be as awesome now that I’m an adult and used to modern day special effects.

4 minutes in, I had to pause it so I could start writing.

Here is my list of Tweets I Never Made. ****

I love Queen. Does Highlander have the best opening credits song of all time? It just might.
The show starts with a blurry, soft-lighted sex scene. I giggled. Way to capture the audience’s interest.
Richie made me giggle before he said or even did anything. He’s wearing a bandana and a leather jacket, so he’s CLEARLY some kind of rebellious kid. But he’s also clean shaven with cute hair, so you know he’s not really all bad. Hello TV tropes of the 80s and early 90s. I’ve missed you.
When Duncan goes to investigate the shop, all shirtless and shiny, it actually makes sense that he’s all shirtless and shiny, because he was just having Teh Secks.
The Immortal with the creepy metal mask really should have invested in some extra plates to cover his neck. Just seems logical to me.
I never realised that Connor MacLeod made any appearances in the show! RAD.
Eight minutes in. MANY broken windows*****. Sugar glass is the new door.
Just watched a cop put his glasses on as punctuation. He’s no Horatio Crane.
MORE BLURRY NUDITY
Can’t tell if Tess’ jacket is supposed to be haute couture or defense against arrows.
Love it when the antagonist stops what he’s doing in order to provide us with some exposition.
The bad guy puts on his creepy metal mask, proclaiming he’s protecting his most valuable asset. He should value his neck more. Just sayin’.

I was going to make some jokes about Duncan and how my mom thought he was dreamy, but I can’t actually remember if she ever has said anything that indicates that to me. She had a big thing for Kevin Sorbo, though.

She probably thought Adrian Paul was steamy too.

In other related stories, while looking for an appropriate Highlander picture I found this:

…which made me go HUH. And also this:

…which made me giggle. Not that I doubt Wesley could effectively wield a sword (well, efficiently ruthless Wesley of later Angel years, at any rate) but I very clearly searched “Highlander the series”. Maybe I’ll be surprised with an appearance by Alexis Denisof?

*It is also a thing of mass procrastination**, but we aren’t going to talk about that.

**So (obviously) is the internet in general, and this blog more specifically.***

***We aren’t going to talk about that, either.

**** Hashtag #Highlander or #RewatchingHighlander or maybe #OldSkoolTeeVeesAreAwesome

***** MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY

Sign of Cygnus

2011-02-07T22:12:00.001-08:00

It was only this winter that I realised we had swans in town. I was thrilled.

I’ve been trying for months to get photos of them. If I had my camera with me, they were either too far away for me to get a good shot of them or they just weren’t there at all. If I forgot my camera, without fail they’d be hanging around right close to the park where I could easily have gotten good pictures.

I was out shovelling the driveway this morning, and I spied a couple of swans flying towards the river. So I set out with my camera in the hopes that they would go for a swim.

I was not disappointed.

There were also many many ducks and many many many geese.

(Does “many” look wrong yet? Many many many. how ‘bout now?)*

Also! Can you find the chipmunk?

Me neither. That’s because the cute little bastard dodged every time I hit the capture button. I promise you, he was absolutely adorable.

* many many many many many many many

Year of the Rabbit: Day 3

2011-02-06T15:25:00.001-08:00

I realise I’m a little late on the draw here, but Happy Chinese New Year.

I’d feel bad, except I know that I didn’t make a New Year post to welcome the year of the Tiger last year. My bad.

My Chinese astrology book (by Damian Sharp) tells me that the year of the rabbit is a calm time of rest and recovery. (I guess the year of the Tiger is all RAWR and exhausting. I could vouch for that….)

He goes on to explain that “people will be inclined to avoid any unpleasantness” and that “money can be made without strenuous effort.”

UNLESS YOU’RE A ROOSTER NATCH*

If you’re a Cock, this year of the Rabbit is all DON’T DO BAD MATHS YOU WILL LOSE MONIES and GET HELP SUCKER YO LEGS NO GOOD FOR STANDING and stuff. **

I don’t really know what the rest of the intertubes say about the year of the rabbit, because I was busy looking for pictures of bunnies and then I got bored.

ADORABUNNY!

*Not a quote from the book.

** To say I’m paraphrasing might be putting it a little too mildly.

Adorable bunny picture with Chinese character was found at bluebison.net.

Opinions Unsolicited: Fringe–Concentrate and Ask Again

2011-02-04T22:17:00.001-08:00

I saw tonight’s episode, I understand why the shippers are all up in arms.

But please. Stop. Think.

Sam has intentionally misled Olivia in the past to get her to where she needed to be to heal. What’s to stop him from doing the same with Nina? Also, please note: he said the machine has the power to create as well as destroy. And then only talked about destruction. I’ve been watching this show long enough to know that things might not be as straightforward as we’re being led to believe they are. Also, there are no throw away lines. If it was said, it’s important.

But then, maybe I just want to believe that the fate of the universes don’t rest in the hands of a convoluted love-triangle.

As per the note: It is so vague as to be meaningless. Was he listening long enough to understand the complexity of what’s going on? How was he even able to distinguish between one Olivia and the other in such an abstract form? The “her” in the note could just as easily refer to our Olivia as Fauxlivia. And even if it is about Fauxlivia, of course he still has feelings! It would be ridiculous to think otherwise. What the note doesn’t do is specify what those feelings are, or how they are being intellectualised. Having a feeling is not the same as acting on a feeling. And then there’s also being in the position of having your feelings betrayed—in my experience, it doesn’t change those feelings, it simply adds a layer of pain on top of them.

There are a lot of issues for Peter and Olivia to work through here. They have to learn to reconcile with the truth of what happened, and that couldn’t possibly happen overnight. They have to also re-learn how to relate to one another from a place where the hurt Fauxlivia’s covert operation caused isn’t a driving factor.

And then there’s the episode title: Concentrate and Ask Again.

Sure, it could just be a reference to the magic 8-ball.

To me, it sounds like we’re being told to think harder.

Kitchen Experiments: Tasty Sweet Biscuits

2011-02-01T11:05:00.001-08:00

I made some baking powder biscuits a while back, and forgot to post about it. I even remembered to take photos!

Way back when I was in junior high school, I took home economics. For three years. I’m not sure why I’m so paranoid around kitchens, you’d think I’d have gotten comfortable cooking after three years of classes, but noooooooo. I always preferred the sewing modules to the kitchen ones.

But I do remember some of what I learned all those years ago.

So when I stumbled across a recipe for baking powder biscuits in one of my (numerous) cookbooks, I was pretty excited. One of the things we had done in home ec, waaaaaaay back in the seventh grade, was make fakey cinnamon buns with baking powder biscuits.

You roll out the dough into a rectangle, and then butter it. Which, by the by, is tricky if you don’t keep your butter at room temperature. So I had to microwave mine a little.

Then, you cover the butter with a generous layer of brown sugar*. Follow that up by sprinkling an even layer of cinnamon over the brown sugar, then roll it up like a jelly roll.

I moisten the edge with some milk so that the dough will seal up against itself, otherwise it fall open when you try to pinch the edges together.

I was feeling adventurous, so I made a second batch, using cocoa powder instead of cinnamon. I was hoping that the sweetness of the sugar would be enough to cut the bitter from the unsweetened cocoa.

Once you have your logs of rolled up dough, you need to cut them up into one inch disks. If you use a knife, you run the risk of ruining the pretty swirled effect of the roll. Mrs Strelliof** taught us, all those years ago, to use thread to scissor through the dough. You get clean cuts that way, and it’s kind of fun to use sewing supplies in the kitchen too.

I didn’t take any pictures of the threading of dough-logs, because that would be tricky to do on my own. I did take a picture of these monsters that seem to think I’m baking for them.

From there on out, it’s pretty straight forward. You bake them like regular biscuits on an ungreased pan for ten to twelve minutes. You really have to watch them, because you don’t want all that sugar to burn.

I think maybe I should clean my oven before I decide to take any more in-the-oven shots.

While they are cooling, I like to tilt them onto their sides so the sugar doesn’t glue them to the pan. I advise using a utensil of some sort to do this. Sugar gets pretty gooey in the oven, and when sugar is gooey it is also very burny***.

These guys watched me expectantly the entire time. They obviously thought I was preparing them some fabulous delicacy. THEY THOUGHT WRONG NO SHARESIES.

They turned out really well, and I was even pleased with the chocolate ones. Once they cooled enough, they were delicious and not bitter at all. While they were still warm, the chocolate was a little bitter. I don’t know why or how that works, but there you have it. That experiment was definitely a success.

The light ones on the far side are the cinnamon & brown sugar; the nearer, dark biscuits have the chocolate & brown sugar.

* I always say brown sugar, but I don’t ever actually use brown sugar. I use yellow sugar. I find brown sugar too sharp.

** I probably spelled her name wrong; as I’ve mentioned, it’s been a few years.

*** I burned my finger. It sucked. I tried to take a picture. It sucked too.

Kitchen Experiments: Super Slow Sloppies

2011-02-01T10:22:00.001-08:00

This whole being more domestic thing is working out for me pretty okay, I think.

I tried out another of the recipes I get delivered to my inbox last night, this time for slow cooker sloppy joes.

I altered the measurements a bunch, because our slow cooker isn’t very big, and also because I didn’t want to use three pounds of hamburger. What if I didn’t like the results? What if I want to make a sheepherder’s pie later this week? We’re pretty poor lately, and I don’t have much ground beef in the freezer.

Here’s the original recipe:

3lb lean ground beef
1 cup chopped onion (I used vidalia)
3 minced garlic cloves

Brown above ingredients over medium high heat, making sure meat gets separated. Drain fat.

1 1/4 cup ketchup
1 red bell pepper
5 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp vinegar
3 tbsp prepared mustard
2 tsp chili powder

Combine the above ingredients in a slow cooker, and then stir in beef. Cover & cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Ta-da. It was simple. And re-reading the recipe, I realise I still managed to screw it up. I used dry mustard, not prepared. Oops. And I only used 1 lb of beef, but I used between 2/3 and the full amount of sauce ingredients (it was my original intention to use this as a sauce for pasta, so I thought it would be saucier that way. All that really happened is more moisture was absorbed into the beef. And I’m pretty sure I added more brown sugar than was intended, so Mr B was right when he thought it was too sweet. I liked it though.)

I cooked up some rice, and dished the sloppy beef mix over that, since I like rice way more than I like bread. And there you have it.

I forgot to take pictures while I was making this, so I took one this morning of the leftovers. It looks like wet cat food on rice. But it’s delicious, I promise.

Kitchen Experiments: Cranberry Bruschetta

2011-01-23T15:27:00.001-08:00

I get a recipe emailed to me every day from Peak of the Market, and a couple of weeks ago I got a recipe for cranberry bruschetta.

I love cranberry, so this seemed like a good idea to me.

After spending a day maniacally cleaning my kitchen so that I would be comfortable cooking in it (I’m neurotic. I cannot happily cook if there is even a single dirty dish in the sink), I gave it a go.

Instead of using a can of cranberry sauce as the recipe called for, I decided to first try my hand at making cranberry sauce from scratch.

Once I looked up the recipe, I had to roll my eyes. It takes three ingredients. One of them is water.

I’m never buying a can of cranberry sauce again.

So, once the sauce was made, I started on the bruschetta recipe, which meant adding some sugar, garlic, red onion, basil and sage and red wine vinegar. I couldn’t find fresh basil so I substituted dry (the internets told me to substiute 1 tsp dried for 1 tbsp fresh).

It looks basically the same as the other picture.

But trust me, it’s different.

One thing failed to take into account is that my recipe for homemade cranberry sauce makes considerably more sauce than comes out of a single can. I should have doubled the bruschetta recipe. Oops.

That being said, it was still super tasty. Just not quite as savoury as I was expecting. I’ll remember that for next time.

I brought it to the neighbour’s house and we played some Settlers of Catan and nommed the bruschetta on french bread with camembert.

I loved this stuff enough to want to learn how to can. But that’ll have to wait for a day when I can afford the jars and pots and seals and stuff.

Opinions Unsolicited: Bay of the Dead by Mark Morris

2011-01-05T02:59:00.001-08:00

My friend Chandra (find her at either SakuraLovesTea on Twitter or on her blog Dreaming in Red) sent me home on Christmas Eve with bags of things to read. BAGS. So after reading those two Doctor Who ebooks, I thought it was time to move on to new subject matter and a different format.

So I read the Torchwood novel that she’d thrown in the bag.

I’ll come right out and say it: it’s only okay. I was expecting a more advanced read, frankly, considering the subject matter of the show. Other than the gore, this book seems to be intended for a much younger audience than the show is aimed at. It was a reasonably simple plot, and very a quick read (I blew through the 238 pages in under three hours).

The main reason I picked this book out of my enormous pile of things to read is this: I miss Ianto. I know, I know, I only finished watching Torchwood about three days ago, but there you have it. I would happily read every last Torchwood book just to take in all the amusing Iantoisms. And pleasingly enough, the cover of Bay of the Dead features Ianto, looking sharp as usual, wearing an uncharacteristically bold red shirt (just ignore the blood spatter and dismembered corpses in the background….)

Why, yes, I am easily amused. Why do you ask?

The plot revolves around Cardiff being overwhelmed with zombies. Just think of any zombie movie in recent memory, but our team is divided into two groups throughout most of the book rather than working as a single unit, with Gwen and Rhys running around trying to get… somewhere… while Jack and Ianto are tasked with actually trying to sort out what’s going on. (This book takes place after Toshiko and Owen have died. Well, after Toshiko died and Owen’s reanimated corpse got trapped in a nuclear plant containment cell. I can think of half a dozen ways his character could be brought back given the circumstances set up within the show. But anyway, I’m writing about the book. I could write a detailed essay about my opinions and feelings about the deaths of main characters in the series. Maybe one day, I will.)

My favourite part of the book might very well be when Jack gets his throat torn by a zombie, falls and knocks himself unconscious. Ianto is so used to him dying he deosn’t bother to check for a pulse, and just assumes he’ll revive and heal himself, meanwhile Jack is frustrated he didn’t die because now he has to deal with the pains of concussion and bruising. I giggled. A lot.

Yes, yes. Easily amused. We covered that already.

Also a big point in the book’s favour: the word ersatz was deftly used more than once. A+ to Mr Morris.

I don’t think I actually have anything more to say about the book. So I’m going to throw out a few amusing quotes that have to do with Ianto, because those were my favourite bits to read.

Jack had once remarked that you could cook eggs on the heat of the sexual tension between him and then statuesque policewoman. Ianto hadn’t been sure whether Jack was joking, and therefore couldn’t now work out whether he ought to be jealous or not.

”I’m always careful,” Jack said out of the corner of his mouth. “Just be ready with the handcuffs.”

“If I had a penny for every time you’ve used that line,” Ianto deadpanned.

”I don’t ‘scamper’. I stride. Briskly but with dignity.”

And, very likely my favourite quote of the book:

”Just ignore him. He likes to show off. He’s not even a real American.”

Opinions Unsolicited: Human Nature vs Human Nature

2011-01-04T17:09:00.001-08:00

The second of my Doctor Who ebooks is Human Nature, by Paul Cornell. In the third series of new Who, there’s a two-parter that starts with an episode of the same name, with the same premise, written by the same person. The book, however, was written in 1992, while the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood aired in 2007.

So basically, this has been an exercise in comparing and contrasting.

Which I adore because I’m an enormous dork.

Within the first several chapters, I noticed (as would any fan of the show) a couple of fun coincidences between the book and the episodes which simply could not have been intentional. When Cornell wrote the book it was 92, there was no inkling yet of the show starting up again, or who would be cast in the role. Yet the John Smith in the book believes himself to be Scottish. And one of the villains of the tale tries to pass himself off as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor as part of a ruse.

I know, I know. Coincidence! But it amused me deeply.

Overall, the stories are quite similar, but there are notable differences. The book is about the 7^th Doctor, and he becomes John Smith not to hide, but for respite from himself. His companion here is Professor Bernice Summerfield, who poses as his niece and rents a small house in town. Our villains are still after Time Lord, but for different reasons; in the show, they wanted to feed off a Time Lord, and John Smith simply would not do, while in the book they weren’t after Smith at all but rather the Pod that contained his Time Lord data (which was a pocket watch in the show).

The book makes reference to characters I haven’t encountered in the old series yet (Ace again, Romana, Lord Rassilon, and I think there was even a veiled reference to the Master in there), but I know enough about the mythos of Doctor Who for that not to be an impediment to my enjoying the story. And how I enjoyed the story! After the first few chapters, I found I forgot almost entirely about my exercise in comparing the book to the show. Cornell introduces a bevy of fascinating characters, Alexander Shuttleworth, Richard Handleman, Constance, and of course Bernice. I adored them all, and was eager to learn how they would all deal with the plight they found themselves in. (Of interest (to me): Benny has a “portable history unit”, which basically is a wifi e-book or tablet pc and allows you to browse the books of whatever library you have accounts with. Mr. Cornell saw the future of reading technology. Fun times!)

I think I preferred the Joan Redfern of the show than the one in the book, but that could have to do with the ways in which the stories are different (and also the ways in which John and the Doctor are different). Either way, Joan loves John Smith, but in the show she struck me as a quieter, stronger woman. In the book, she is not a nurse but a science teacher, though she is called upon to tend injuries on more than one occasion. (Her profession has nothing to do with my preference for one version over the other, it was merely an observation).

We also still have young Tim finding the Pod (or pocket watch in the series), though he plays a much larger part in the book. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, really, since a writer has the luxury of giving its players considerably more to do with a couple hundred pages than it does with ninety minutes. I enjoyed his expanded role in the book a great deal. He is still tormented by the other boys at the school, far worse than was shown on screen, but he comes through it even better than Tim did in the series.

I was disappointed there isn’t a Baines in the book, but then, the family doesn’t operate in the same way. In the show, they possess the humans they come in contact with; in the novel, they are shape shifters that were able to take on the form of any flesh they consumed. (The book was considerably gorier than the show). And anyway, half of the appeal of Baines was the delivery of his lines, which wouldn’t have come across the same way in the book. Another point of interest, the young girl (called Aphasia in the book) has her red balloon that goes everywhere with her. Her evil, horrible, red balloon. Whenever I rewatch the show, I’ll look at the red balloon and shudder.

Some of the biggest differences I noted had little to do with who was or wasn’t present, but were in the Doctor himself. In the show, you discover the Doctor was running from the Family of Blood in order to be kind to them – he knew he would do horrible and cruel things to them to prevent them hurting anyone else. In the book, he becomes John Smith in order to escape himself. I don’t know what’s happened to leave him so disillusioned (in Nightshade he was attempting to find himself as well, and considering settling down and retiring from his adventuresome ways), but obviously it’s something enormous. Whatever the cause, this difference in character motivation drastically changes the outcome of the romantic plot. 10 tells Joan he is capable of everything John Smith was, that everything Smith was came from a place within him. 7 tells Joan he is incapable of the feelings John Smith had because he is in no way human. In one story, the Doctor is refusing to be the man Joan wants, in the other, Joan is refusing to be with the Doctor who is the man she loved but also—terrifyingly—more.

Also interesting to note, in the show, the Doctor became human in an attempt to be kind, to prevent cruelty and harm, but in the novel, that is why John Smith allowed himself to become the Doctor once more. I find this reversal fascinating; within the context of their respective stories, bearing in mind the other differences at play in the character development of the Doctor, both decisions make sense. In the book, the Time War hasn’t occurred, Gallifrey is still kicking around with its orange sky. In one story we have the Doctor as yet untouched by the loss of his home planet and people, while in the other we have the more hardened Doctor, who has had to make unconscionable decisions and deal with loss the likes of which I can’t begin to fathom. The same Time Lord we know and love, responding to events around them differently due to changes in circumstance.

I’ve often wondered what would have happened how 9 would have coped with Donna, or how 11 would have reacted to that first encounter with Jack. Put 10 in 11’s place to deal with the alien menace in The Lodger, and things would have worked out quite differently (I think 10 would have run upstairs the first chance he got, eager to push mysterious buttons). This book has done exactly that. Instead of 10, we have 7 in a similar set of circumstances, and the differences in character cause the story to evolve differently.

And I love it.

There were a few scenes in the novel that I really wish had been kept in the show, but for budgetary and general feelings of squikiness I can understand why they didn’t blow up the school with a bomb that turned all the people within it to fused glass. It would have looked cool, though.

And sadly, the book had no creepy scarecrows.

Wow. This turned out longer than anticipated. And I don’t think it’s even that complete, or smooth a read…

If only I could bring myself to work on my own writings this way. I’d be three pages closer to down Asylum!

Opinions Unsolicited: Nightshade

2011-01-03T16:51:00.001-08:00

While cruising around feedbooks.com looking for free poetry, classic horror, and tales of Oscar Wilde (with the intent of making my reading selections more distinguished and refined—because hey! I have class! Or something…) I stumbled upon a couple of perhaps-not-quite-so-classy-but-oodles-of-fun gems: no-cost Doctor Who tales. There were a handful of them available for free, but the two I grabbed had a particular draw; they were authored by fellows whose names I recognise from the writing credits for the show.

Furthermore, one of the two books is titled Human Nature*, which happens to be the first half of one of my favourite two-parters in the series.

I read Nightshade first, penned by Mark Gatiss, who wrote the episodes “The Unquiet Dead” (in which we first learn about the rift in Cardiff), “The Idiot’s Lantern” (in which televisions steal people’s faces; also the episode that inspired me and Mr. B to wail HUUUUUNGGRYYYY whenever we find ourselves feeling peckish), and “Victory of the Daleks” (in which 11 holds the new Dalek forces at bay with a jam-cookie). He also played the part of Professor Lazarus in “The Lazarus Experiment” (in which the fountain of youth machine yields unpleasant side-effects).

Nightshade was a difficult book for me to read. The first several chapters are about being introduced to new characters and then being taken on a trip down their memory lane, only to be brought back to the present day (in this case, the present day is the 23^rd of December, 1968) and start the process over with a new character. While it becomes obvious why this emphasis on the character’s pasts exist later on, I found it somewhat tedious in the beginning. The eeriness and overall mystery of the situation kept me ploughing through, however, and I’m glad that I stuck through it.

It could be confusing at times, dealing with a companion I’m not familiar with (Ace) and therefore not being certain which incarnation of the Doctor I’m supposed to be imagining; I suppose that just means I need to get caught up on what old Doctor Who serials I can find on Netflix (see this arm? Made of rubber). **

All told, the mood and the characters kept me going through the story, even when I was frustrated that some person or another needed to go back to whatever place they just left yet again. There was a lot of travelling back and forth between two locations that could somehow have been streamlined. I’ve noticed this in a lot of television programs as well. Come to think of it, the first Doctor Who serial I watched—The Aztecs—suffered from this same issue. I shrugged it off as writers struggling to bridge the gap between radio scripts and television ones, but perhaps this was a hallmark of the shows early days?

I enjoyed Nightshade well enough to want to write about it, although I don’t seem to be doing a very good job at writing much that’s positive about it. Shame on me. It has atmosphere, an interesting villain with an eerie modus operandi, and engaging characters. I struggled through the first bit of the book, but once I crested the sixth chapter, any thoughts of giving up on the book fled my mind.

Now I’m going on to read the second of the books I downloaded. I’ll write something up about that one when I’ve finished it.

* That’s right, Human Nature. Written in 1992. About Dr. John Smith teaching history in a boy’s school with WW1 on the doorstep. I couldn’t resist.

**A quick trip to Wikipedia informed me that the Doctor in question here is 7. It looks like I have a long way to go before I get to meet him in the Netflix queue.

All By Myself, Letter I

2009-06-17T18:08:00.000-07:00

I did a search for 'All By Myself' and this is one of the first images that came up. Clicky to find the site I took it from.

Dear. Mr. B.

So, you’ve been gone for a few hours. Since I haven’t seen you since you left me at work this morning*, I can say that, effectively, you’ve been gone for eight hours and forty six minutes [according to the time displayed on the Magic Thinky Box, at any rate]. I spent eight of the hours working, and in between customers and the power going out briefly and the other assortment of tasks that usually add up to My Day In The Workplace, I spent a lot of time thinking about how much it was going to suck going home to your absence. When I wasn’t thinking about how much it was going to suck, I was thinking about how weird it was going to be. When I wasn’t thinking about how weird it was going to be, I was probably thinking about the fish, or the sandwich that I had for lunch [that was also fish!].

Anyway, I thought I would write you some letters while you’re away, and then post them in a very public venue for all the world** to see before you are even able to access a computer to read them yourself! HA. I’m awesome like that.

So, the power went out. For like twenty five seconds. Or something. It was just long enough for everyone in the shop to register that something had changed in the atmosphere. The power buzzed out just as I knocked empty one of the espresso filters. It was timed so well I thought that maybe there was a Store Power button on the piece of super-dowelling we strike the filter wands against. I didn’t really think that, but I did have enough time to say[ in an very amusing way], when everyone in the store turned to look at me [at least, that’s how it felt, as I was the only person behind the counter], “I didn’t do it”.

And then the power came back on, and oddly, the gloomy weather that had been plaguing us all morning was gone. I hadn’t noticed the weather change before power outage, but afterwards, it was definitely blue skies. It rained more later on in the afternoon, though.

A couple of hours later, my boss was talking about all the things that got messed up because of the power outage that we hadn’t stopped to consider. I mean, I fixed the time on the microwave, which is easy peasy, but we didn’t register for two or three hours—as it got hotter and hotter in the store—that something was wrong. That something being that when the power went out [or perhaps came back on] it snapped the breaker for the store’s AC off.

My boss also pointed out that no one had weighed anything on the scale since the power outage either, since it wasn’t zeroed out properly. I informed him that I had weighed coffee, but since I couldn’t get it to zero out, I just used my brain maths. He laughed at me, and said, “When in doubt, turn the machine off and back on.”

I let him know that I felt around for the on/off switch but since I couldn’t feel it, gave up. He laughed at me again, which, though I was speaking the truth, was the intended result.

Throughout this exchange, a customer had been standing by, waiting for us to get him a half pound of coffee beans. He chose now to come into the conversation, and the following short exchange occurred:

Customer: “So, we shouldn’t send you on the next mission to Mars, eh?”***

Me:”I don’t want to go to Mars anyway. I like my planets to have more atmosphere.”

Cust:”No doubt! It would pretty boring. Sure you’d be digging in Martian dirt, but you’d still just be digging dirt.”

I was disappointed he didn’t get my clever joke. Then again, I’m sort of used to people not getting my jokes. Maybe I’m too subtle? That’s probably it.

The red planet I won't be visiting due to its lack of discos and coffee bars. And air.

Anyway.

It was after that conversation that I decided that writing these little letters to you might be fun. I didn’t think I’d remember about my stupid joke by the time you got back, and I wanted to tell you about it. I don’t know how much you’ll feel like sitting long enough to read these once you’re home though. We’ll see. I’ll try not to write one every day.

Once I got home from work, I played with Sunday for a bit, and then came inside. The filter was making a funny noise. It still is. I took the sponge off the filter thinking that if I rinsed it that may help, but it didn’t. Miss Ann is coming over when she gets back from hanging out with her family to look at it for me, since I know nothing about fish tank filters. Also, I’m worried about the Froggy Doo. That doesn’t have to be his name, it’s just what I’ve been calling him when I’m talking to the tank. His one knee on his back leg is bright red, and he’s not swimming very well. I hope he’ll be okay. Miss Ann is going to look at him too, although I don’t know how much knowledge she has about dwarf aquatic frogs.

I figured that it was suitable though, since this is my first day home alone, that a bunch of things would go wrong with the one thing in the house I have the least knowledge and experience with.

Now it’s been [effectively] nine hours and fifteen minutes since you left me. It’ll only be, what? Sixteen more days until you’re back—give or take a couple.

Thinking of you,

Miss S. =^.^=

P.S. I’m not doing any dishes tonight, but I might dust something. I also might not.

*Although this will probably become clear as you continue reading, when I say ‘left me’, I mean that literally—he drove me to work, ate a muffin with me while I had a healthy rice krispie square, and then left after saying goodbye and giving me a hug and a kiss. I don’t mean ‘left me’ as in ‘Bitch, I’m dumping your stank ass’, or anything nasty like that. He’s out of town for work.

**’All the world’ is a phrase that here means “the five people that may or may not read this”.

***You know, I’m not actually sure what that had to do with anything, but I’ll roll with it. Just like I did when it happened.

2009-06-03T18:08:00.001-07:00

This is Squee.

She died of kidney failure last Friday.

Well, that isn’t entirely accurate. She was diagnosed with severe kidney failure last Friday. She died of the injection I paid the vet to give her since the only feasible way she was going to get better was with a kidney transplant.

I spent a lot of time crying. So did Mr. B. He’s man enough to admit that he cries, and it’s one of the things I love about him.

I'm going with you!

A week ago today, Squee was fine. She’d lost a considerable amount of weight, but the weight loss coincided with us allowing her to be an outdoor cat, which she had been determined to be her whole life. I remember her escaping at the townhouse, where I could have been evicted for allowing my cats outside, and struggling to convince her to get back in the house. It was a game to her—she would run to the next yard, and once I had left my yard, walked around to the neighbour’s gate, and carefully opened it, she would slip back through the fence into our own yard. Sometimes, this game would last for an hour.

Other times, she would watch you approach and allow you to pick her up with nothing more than an indignant meow before purring like a maniac.

So when she was suddenly skinny, we just assumed that she was more active and happier to be outside.

A week ago today, she was her usual inquisitive self. Some friends came over to pick up some cinder blocks from our driveway, and there was Squee, intent as ever to make sure that whatever humans came near her domain were aware of her and were her friends. She wanted to be everyone’s friend. And she insisted that everyone was her friend as well. She was one of the friendliest—and chattiest—cats that I’d ever met.

Squee gets all the cards and all the tokens and all the lovins too.

A week ago today, I distinctly remember her cruising around on our friend’s shoulder, only to climb to Mr. B.’s shoulder, as was her usual wont. When she was a kitten, my ex-boyfriend trained her to leap to his shoulder from the giant cat. When she was a kitten, she was never satisfied being held, she’d always scramble to your shoulder. And she was always looking out for higher ground. Sometimes higher ground was the top of a door, sometimes higher ground was my head, if she felt she could balance there. As she grew larger, she settled for the highest shoulder.

A week ago tomorrow, we realised that she wasn’t herself. She was really lethargic, and the way she meowed worried me. I resolved to take her to the vet the next day.

A week ago two days from now, I had to make what’s probably the most difficult decision I’ve had to make in my adult life so far. I choose to take her life and end her suffering, rather than draw out treatments that the veterinarian told me there was only the tiniest of chances she would recover from anyway.

Wednesday: fine. Friday: buried.
Just like that.

Squee and Alika, cuddling.

When I was sixteen, my mother got me a kitten. I named her Kazul, after a dragon in a series of YA books that I still adore re-reading. When I was nineteen and living on my own, I adopted my neighbour’s cat, only to discover that Lily wanted to eat Kazul. This was a problem since Lily was nearly twice Kazul’s size. So when a different neighbour was giving her kitten away, we did a bizarre swap where I took the young kitten (only five or six weeks old) and she gave away Lily, who was only six months old herself, to some other friends of hers. I got a tiny kitten that was less threatening than Lily, and the other people still got a friendly young cat. I named that kitten Alika.

A year later, Kazul died. She was always getting sick, and no one could ever tell us what was wrong with her. I could draw some parallels between how Kazul was right before she died and how Squee was, but the truth is, I have no idea what was wrong with Kazul. I was devastated. Kazul was my first pet ever.

Squee and Gollum, doing their best impression of a yinyang.

Later that year, Alika gave birth to a litter of kittens. I gave the kitten that I wanted to keep for myself to my mother, thinking that way I’d still be able to hang out with him. I found a home for the other two kittens, only it turned out that one of those homes was only going to be temporary and the girl was going to be leaving the country in less than two years. I couldn’t in good conscience give her a kitten knowing he would be abandoned a short time later. I wasn’t able to find another home for him, and that’s how I ended up with Gollum.

When I got my pet rat, I asked for a rat, and the lady at the pet store said ‘here’. There was a whole bunch of them, but instead of being offered a choice, it was made for me. And, you know, Nez was great, so there’s no complaint there.

When we got our puppy, it was a stroke of luck. We found out about some Rottweiler/blue heeler puppies that were being given away for free. By the time we found the number and called, there was one left. So we took her.

I love all my pets dearly, and the fact that I didn’t get to pick Kazul, Alika, Gollum or Sunday from a litter or a pound doesn’t change how much I love them. I adore all my pets intensely, past and present, regardless of how I came by them.

Basket case...er... cat....

But there’s something to be said for taking the trip intentionally, knowing that you are going to have to choose one adorable kitten over another adorable kitten. That’s exactly what I did in order to get Squee. After Kazul died, but before I knew Alika was pregnant, I decided I wanted another kitten. I thought Alika might like the company. So I found someone who was giving away kittens, got a friend to drive me (and it was nearly an hour to find this place), and then I sat and played with a whole litter of kittens. I was the first person to see them. It was difficult, and I was there for nearly an hour—fortunately the guy and my friend were both patient with me—before I realised that Squee was THE kitten I had to take home with me.

It’s not that losing her is more upsetting than losing any of my other pets has been or would be. There’s just this strange added something to that loss—knowing that she was the one I had to have, she was the choice I made—and now she’s gone forever.
I was expecting years of watching Sunday licking her ears inside out. Years of her meowing at me when I poked her belly or touched her paw. Years of her insisting that she was more interesting than the laptop or whatever book I was reading. Years of watching guests nearly jump out of their skin when she decided to jump from the floor to their shoulder with no warning. Of hearing her victory meow when she caught her pink mouse in the middle of the night. Of her waking me up by purring next to my head. Of her co-opting bags and clothes to sleep on.

All the times I didn’t bother to search for the camera because I was expecting years more in which to catch her doing whatever it was again.

These were some of the moments I wasn't too lazy to catch.

Squee
June 2001 - May 29, 2009

Opinions Unsolicited: Need by Carrie Jones

2009-05-24T17:24:00.001-07:00

I finished reading this last night.

I liked the story, mostly.

I liked the characters, mostly.

I really love the cover.

The premise: Zara is shipped off to live with her grandmother in a small Maine town after her stepfather's death [by heart attack, which Zara had the displeasure of witnessing] has left her an emotional void.

Over and over again throughout the book, I was pulled out of the narrative. It's a good story, but I have issues with certain elements. Sometimes the issue was word choice - for several pages at a time I would find the same word being used to describe different actions. Often I was frustrated with how none of the adults behaved as adults.

I was also frustrated with the way everyone knew everyone else. I understand its a small town, and that people know each other. But Zara was the only stranger here, and instead of this giving me, as the reader, an impression of her outsider status, it gave me the impression that it was done for convenience's sake.

And I kept finding that particular niggling annoyance over, and over again. Half-hearted explanations for important plot elements; overly simplistic character arcs.

I used to love reading YA fiction. Maybe I need to move past that, because I'm finding myself having similar frustrations over and over again.

I liked the book. I wouldn't have finished it otherwise. I loved Zara's voice, particularly Zara when she was detached and broken. It was brilliantly done, and there were many observations she made in that state that resonated with me. I've been depressed, and I related very well to the thought processes and the skewed outlook, and also the quiet re-awakening of her more normal self throughout the story.

I liked Betty, her grandmother, even though she sounded more like a teenage older sister than a grandmother. I liked the mythology within the novel, even though I felt like it needed some extra flesh to hang from its bones.

I liked the overall story, even though I was able to predict all the 'twists' save one or two. I felt as though it were an okay story that could have been mind-blowing if someone had asked the author some hard questions during the editorial process.

I'd read more of her books, or at least, more following these particular characters to see how things evolve. Carrie Jones didn't win me over with Need, but she piqued my interest enough that I'd give her a second chance.

Opinions Unsolicited: Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr

2009-05-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

I started reading it yesterday afternoon. I finished it sometime after midnight. That was with a break to visit with my neighbours and a dinner break as well.
I tend to do that with Melissa Marr’s novels. I just find myself so drawn into the story that the idea of putting the book down before I know what happens next is a vile, loathsome thing.

Mr. B. Probably thinks that my retreat into the pages of a book that is nigh impossible to distract me from is a vile and loathsome thing. I’m fairly certain you could set me on fire, and I wouldn’t notice until my hands were burning and thusly could no longer hold the book.

But anyways, we’re talking about Fragile Eternity here, not my propensity to get so wholly absorbed in words on a page that I stop responding to the world at large.
The third instalment of Marr’s Faery series centers around Seth Morgan, who is, if you haven’t been keeping up with the series, the boyfriend of Aislinn — the teenage girl turned faery Queen of the Summer Court who is trying to balance having a somewhat normal human life with being the ruler of a troupe of the very beings she spent her entire life avoiding at all costs.

In Fragile Eternity, Seth is dealing with being stuck between two worlds. He’s too human to be a part of the Faery world, and he knows too much about faeries and their world to walk away and return to a purely human state of affairs. Add to the mix the coming of summer, which dials up the magical imperative his girlfriend is burdened with to be constantly near the Summer King, and things aren’t looking too keen for poor Seth.

I really enjoyed this instalment. In Wicked Lovely, we saw Seth through Aislinn’s eyes: he was her rock, her confidante, and he was perfect. I appreciated him then, even if we were only given a one dimensional view through Aislinn’s love-tinted glasses. Everyone should have someone that they feel is there for them, no matter what, and Seth was undeniably there for Aislinn.

In Fragile Eternity, we are given the reverse: we see Aislinn and how she’s changed through Seth’s eyes. He’s still there for her as much as he can be, but due to his fragile human state, it can’t be as often as he’d like. We see his frustration with Aislinn’s growing power and how he feels like he’s losing her, we see his envy of the faeries of her court, and his jealousy at Keenan’s machinations. He’s maddeningly, woefully human surrounded by magic and power that he can’t hope to touch or understand.

Until he realises that there is hope, after all.

It makes for a wonderful story.

I couldn’t help but feel terrible for Seth, but I also felt terrible for Aislinn. She was born human, and has been at this faery business for less than a year by the time the novel starts. She has to learn that she can’t behave like the teenage girl she still thinks that she is, she has to discover that those who were her friends while she was a fledgling faery are only her friends now if it doesn’t interfere with the needs of their respective courts. And Keenan’s misdirection and manipulations help to ensure that he is the only ‘friend’ that Aislinn has left. It’s unfortunate that Aislinn trusts Keenan so much, but with no one to give her solid reasons not to trust him, she can’t really be faulted for wanting to believe he is a good person.

Which, on occasion, he is. But not nearly enough to make up for all the shady things he says and does for the ‘benefit’ of his Court.

I can’t wait to read the fourth instalment.

1,175

2009-05-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

That is the number of words that I managed to pump out about my salamander. It is a satisfactory number, although I wish I could have reached it sooner.

Of course, there is editing to be done yet. I'll wait until the whole of The Project is completed before worrying about editing though, unless I find that editing needs to happen to unstick me should I get stuck in the writing process. But since the salamander doesn't have that much bearing on the remainder of the story being told, it should be okay lying fallow for a while.

I think, despite my muchly diminished energy supply [when will I ever learn that caffeine is well and truly NOT my friend?], I will plot out the urchin's story tonight. I have a name for the urchin, but I'm not in love with it anymore. So I will have to think on that some.

Or I'll just use the name that I have. Maybe it will re-grow on me once I'm actually using it within a body of text.

2009-05-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

Here is the list of things I have not blogged about in the past couple of weeks despite having thought about it profusely:

-Shadow Hare, Cincinnati’s own superhero. I wish I was joking about this. Google his MySpace page.

-Wolverine, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I was going to review it and segue that into a commentary about the above note.

-How overworked I’ve been feeling. Still working six days a week. Still ridiculously tired.

-I baked some biscuits of sugar and cinnamon-y deliciousness. It’s been awhile since I wrote a kitchen experiment.

-I, as of yesterday, finally finished writing the Salamander segment of The Project. I haven’t met my word goal once this month, but at least I have made that progress. I am proud of it.

Perhaps I will get back to blogging regularly. I do enjoy it when I am doing it. I will attempt to be more diligent in the future.

My apologies, dear Reader(s),

2009-04-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

The Mummabear breezed into town for an extended visit.

We got the spare room all set up for her [we have even managed to acquire a nice double bed for the spare room!] She was here for thirteen days.

It was an excellent visit, but not at all conducive to things like Doing My Morning Pages, Working on The Project, or Keeping the Blog Updated.

We took her back to the airport this morning at ridiculously early o'clock, and then I went to work for six thirty. Around five this evening I got the e-mail saying she made it home safely.

I'll miss having her around, although I'll appreciate having my alone time back. I felt guilty trying to work on my writing while she was here, but now there's no excuse to procrastinate anymore.

As of tomorrow, I should be re-implementing my little routine, and we'll see how it goes this time around.

The salamander is still in the brain, and the poor little guy is dying to get out.

That might just have to do with the searing of my brain due to the consumption of a sandwich that had been spread a little too generously with dijon; I imagine that little salamander is somewhat dehydrated now.

Word Count [ah-ah-ah]

2009-04-08T23:35:00.001-07:00

I read through the blogs of a couple of writers who were disappointed that their word count was a mere thousand or so after also having spent eight hours at an unrelated day-job.

After tonight's work, I am at 868 words. That's total, folks*.

The going is slow, but it is still going**.

I am not discouraged, if anything, I am more driven to make the attempt to get more done, well, the day after tomorrow, since I'm not going to have much time to write tomorrow. But I will still try!

*Unless research pages count. Do they count?

...I hadn't thought so, either.

** A quick calculation showed me that at four hundred words per day, I can have 80,000 in 200 days! That is, for me, a satisfying number of words by October 31st. I can totally do that.

Also, I am aware that the word count is a nebulous thing. It's not a percentage of completion, its just a number. But I happen to like numbers a great deal, and I like bigger numbers better than small ones. And also numbers that have 8s in them, and I especially like numbers that start with an 8. It's a thing; I just roll with it. So should you.

Goblins Again

2009-04-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said something about being such a bleeding heart a few entries back when I was talking about Goblins?

Well, the strip that went up today made me cry.

Just a little bit. But yes, there were tears.

I think I'm probably way to emotional to be reading a comic this harsh [but super awesome!]

And on that note, if any of you are ever interested in reading the archives to catch up, well. It'll take you a while, but it is really worth it. Especially if you have an inkling of D&D or roleplaying knowledge in general.

After I posted this, I checked out the message board for that comic only to discover that I'm not alone in my teariness over that update, and in fact more than one person registered on the site just so they could say so.

Adventures in Clicking the Firefox Icon

2009-04-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

I opened Firefox just now in order to check Facebook.

Instead of opening on my usual homepage it brought me to the definition of callipygous.

Which is a word it never occured to me to look up.

I'm going to try working it into conversation.

While trying to find a suitable photo to place here, I came upon a community at livejournal of daily words. I'll be checking back there often, I think. It seems like my kind of hangout.

The Project

2009-04-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

I said I was excited a few posts back, and that remains the case.

Unfortunately the starting point I gave myself is a rather difficult one, and I find myself getting frustrated easily with how I little I know about what is an integral part of the overall story.

I have 428 words. It doesn't even fill a whole page in Word. It took me two separate sessions to write. I used to write short compositions in English class that were longer and took no more than half an hour.

Still, I'm proud of my 428 words. They make a good starting point.

I'm off to find some videos of salamanders.

I got this photo from this article that talks about the decline of salamanders in Central America.

Thank You

2009-03-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Tarol Hunt,

Thank you for not killing either the ogre or Yala the adorable amputee kobold in the recent post.

I'm not warm and fuzzy about their future, but I think I would have been depressingly ripped up about a grisly demise for either of them.

Have a nice day :)

Sarah K.

Opinions Unsolicited: Goblins - Life Through Their Eyes

2009-03-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Goblins is not a webcomic that needs any sort of endorsement from my blog or its two regular readers.

I've been reading and loving this comic since before I owned this portable magic thinky box*, and if any of the two of you happen to decide to read it, be aware that it is not a thing to pick up in the middle. You'll want to go through the entire archive here. We're talking years of story there. Also: you'll appreciate a whole lot more with some D&D understanding under your belt.

No, this isn't an endorsement.

It's somewhat of a plea.

For a Very Long Time Now, we've been in the midst of a battle scene. It's very awesome. The graphic nature of the comic sometimes makes me cringe a little, but that isn't what has me upset.

What has me upset is the current cliffhanger, and I've been going back repeatedly throughout the course of the week hoping that the author might have put up the new update early. It's a little pathetic that I am such the bleeding heart that I am so concerned about characters that I didn't even meet until a page ago, but could you please let these two have a Not Horrible Ending? I'd really appreciate that.

kthxbai

* to understand this reference I send you Scary-go-round, mid-story. Do not worry, it is not scary, only awesome. For the full amusing set-up you can either go to the beginning of Chapter 32: Giant Days from the Chapters link at the top of the page; for a shorter more to the point set-up, hit the previous button twice.

The Writing Challenge

2009-03-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

Last November a co-worker and I were flipping through a book written by a local dame.

I’m not going to say what the book is called, or even discuss the content, because that is irrelevant.

And it would also be mean. Between the two of us we only had unkind things to say about it. It was so poorly written that we couldn’t even think of ways to veil our words, even thinly, as constructive criticism.

Why it warranted such harsh criticism is also irrelevant.

What is relevant is that after looking through this book and being thoroughly disheartened that it had ever managed to get published; we were both ashamed that we had not managed to write something of our own. Not as a collaboration. Individually. Neither of us had ever written a book — despite it having been long term goals for each of us.

We challenged each other to have a completed manuscript a year to that day. I don’t remember the exact day, it’s sometime in November. I have it written down on the calendar at work. The subject matter is not an issue. It need not be fiction, as long as it is a complete entity.

We shook on it.

It’s mere days away from April.

I haven’t so much as put pen to paper only to eventually doodle some squiggles and dots in the hopes that something manuscript related might come of it.

But today there was Inspiration. Today, there was hope. I may have something worthy of calling a complete [first] draft by November after all.

Of course, I’ll be writing fiction. I don’t know enough about any given subject [excepting myself] to delve into non-fiction. Along with the several flashes of Inspiration that came today, there were also inklings of Plot. Plot has frequently eluded me, and been a large part of why my stories always got abandoned. Hopefully Plot develops, and I keep enough steam for this project to get to the point where I have to be concerned with Climax and Denouement. I’ve so rarely reached that part of a story that I don’t even really know how to do it.

I’m really excited.

I really hope I stay that way.

Opinions Unsolicited: The Wild Hunt

2009-03-28T18:28:00.001-07:00

I finally got around to reading The Tarot Café: The Wild Hunt, which was written by Chandra over at Dreaming in Red.
I say ‘finally’ only because, although the book was released in January, due to a mix-up at the local comic shoppe where I tried to pre-order it I wasn’t able to get my own copy until earlier this week. And I had to get that copy from Chapter’s. I wasn’t going to wait a day past St. Patrick’s day for the comic store to get it in though. Chandra was having a signing, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to be there to get my book signed.

As it turns out, I also got a book signed for a friend who couldn’t make it. And I’m regretting my lack of funds, because I should have gotten a copy for the Mummabear too. It’s too bad I’m not friends with the author and don’t know how to get a hold of her or anything.

Yeah, sometimes I’m not so good at fibbing.

The book is geared for the YA crowd, and I was really pleased with the plot mechanics. I haven’t read the graphic novel series that the novel is based on, although several discussions with Chandra helped me form an impression of the world. Which I liked. But I was uncertain as to how she was going to translate that to novel format.

I mean, it’s called The Tarot Café for a reason, right? We have a café, in which Tarot cards are read. And I know that the reader is just that, a reader. An awesome reader, but I didn’t expect that she was going to read the cards and then decide to embark on an adventure with the querent. That’s just not what a reader does. A reader interprets the cards and offers advice, and maybe provides some ideas of where to seek further help if there is help needed*. So I was left anticipating how the story would play out.

I only considered the mechanics of the plot as I was reading the novel because it was honestly something that I had actively been curious about before I had read it. I don’t usually read books with the intention of working out how the story will be told, I promise you. When I made it to the fourth chapter or so and realized that the bulk of the novel truly was going to be about the Tarot reading and how it related to the querent, well, I was excited. It means that as each card is drawn in the Celtic Cross spread, we get to go down a little memory-lane trip with Bryn. [Bryn is the querent** I keep mentioning, thought that might be worth eventually mentioning….] Since I was excited about it, I felt it was worth mentioning first [although it got mentioned second… oops].

I suppose I could talk about the story itself, instead of how it was put together.
The truth is, this story is a little out of my usual genre. I like the paranormal, this is true, but I’m not usually one for romance. And considering this was romance geared towards a younger audience, I mostly found myself feeling my age. The writing itself is wonderful – vivid and bright, even though the story is dark; I was always able to see in my mind’s eye what had been written upon the page. The story is interesting and new—I appreciate a non-typical ending [especially in young adult fiction] and the emotions were all ones I could identify with given the situation. But in the end, I felt the same as Belus did about the whole affair. Where there was talk of soul-mates and a love that had to go on at any cost, I kept thinking that vision of love is sweet but terribly naïve and unrealistic. And then I felt like a jaded old fogey. I understand this is a tale aimed at people considerably younger than myself; people that [hopefully] haven’t had the ill-fortune of having those idealistic views of romance and love dulled and chipped by the reality of life.
Had I been in Bryn’s shoes, I can see myself easily making the same mistakes she had. Unintentionally hurting someone with poorly considered words is something that almost everyone wrestles with having done. The choice she makes in the end… I can see why she did it, feeling the way she did. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.

My favourite parts of the story overall have to do with the subtle things that were going on in the background. Jack’s muse, for instance—we get his name once, from Bryn’s lips, in one of the flashbacks. And when he shows up later, it is not at all in a capacity that you would expect. Belial is a character that is mentioned less than a handful*** of times, and never met. But his presence is heavy and dark, and even more so once we are able to consider the reasons his name appears. I want to know what that deal is all about. [See what I did there? Double meaning, for the win!] That little mystery I want to see unfold.

I haven’t even discussed Pamela, or Andrew [I like Andrew, he was cheerful and sweet with a dark sad filling; he’s huggable], or any other number of characters. It’s getting late, and I’m getting tired. The only thing I can think of right now is: Luned? Where did you get that name from? I kept mistaking it for words to do with the moon. You know, the way lunatic has to do with the moon. And sometimes I’d read it as lured, and man that made for weird sentences. Also, I find myself pronouncing the last syllable ‘éd’ and have no idea if that was right. I know Chandra puts a lot of thought into the names that she chooses, so I’m really curious about this one.

I would have liked to see more of Jack, but I understand how that would have skewed the narrative. I just felt like I didn’t know very much about him, other than he was a painter, Bryn loved him intensely, and he was missing. It would have been nice to have a little more sense of him as person and not simply the man of Bryn’s unfettered affection. I also kept hoping that Cora’s sudden departure was going to play into the plot more. I was very intrigued by the comparisons drawn between her and Pamela.

I really enjoyed reading The Wild Hunt, I started this morning on the bus to work and finished a few hours after I made it home. I have to confess I was confused at first because the first page didn’t seem like a normal first page to me—the first line wasn’t indented, there was no chapter number or graphic, and it seemed to start midsentence.

On my lunch break I realised that the table of contents had simply stuck to the first page and I started on page two. Go me.

But anyway, it’s an interesting tale told well, it leaves me wanting to read more stories [and it is written in such a way to leave the door open for more stories]. If I weren’t so broke I’d even consider reading The Tarot Café graphic novels to see how many of the questions I have are answered there. But I’d rather see Chandra get the opportunity to write more of them.

At the back of the novel there is a bonus comic by the artist/author of The Tarot Café comics. Considering it’s in The Tarot Café novel as extra content you’d think that it might have something to do with The Tarot Café.

It doesn’t.

The artwork is pretty. That’s about the only nice thing I have to say about it. It’s got nothing to do with the characters or the word I’ve just invested my imagination in. It has a twist in the middle that didn’t feel like a twist so much as being blindsided with Bad Story™. By the time I finished it I was making exasperated sounds and consciously putting the book down gently so as not to harm the novel that my friend had graciously signed for me. My dislike of that short comic is why I’d need to consider whether to buy the graphic novels or not.

Read the novel, but ignore the comic at the end. I am so happy I read it first, and therefore got it out of the way.

This ‘little’ commentary I thought I was going to write turned into 1,675 words. Yeowch.

*I work with an astrologer/tarot reader at one of my day jobs, so my ideas about the profession might be too based in reality to apply to a series of fiction that is planted in the realm of paranormal romance, but these things need to be said to understand the position that I’m coming from. The reader’s [in this case, the reader of the book, not the reader of the cards] personal knowledge and proximity to the subject matter is of course going to colour their expectations as well as their curiosities and enjoyment.

** Querent is a person asking a question, and the commonly used term for the subject of a Tarot reading. Since this is a novel about a Tarot reading, I’m using querent rather than protagonist as it seems a little more in keeping with the nature of the book. Also, because as much as this is Bryn’s story (she’s the one with the choices to make and the journey to embark on) I feel strange calling her the protagonist. Don’t ask me why, I’m not sure how to answer that yet, but I thought this was another tidbit that warranted being eventually mentioned as well.

*** I don’t really know how many times a name would fit in my hands, but you get the idea.

Opinions Unsolicited: Jekyll

2009-03-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

Mr. B. and I recently finished watching Jekyll, a six episode mini-series done for the BBC.

After the first episode, which we watched quite some time ago, Mr. B. was disappointed with my assertation that although the show was excellent, it was too intense for me to be willing to watch more than one episode in a night.

We watched the following two episodes over the course of the next week or so. And then [due to outside circumstances] we weren't able to watch anymore for about a month. Just a few nights ago, we watched the fourth episode, and followed it with the fifth and then the sixth, all in successsion. The story was still compelling, but the intensity had diminished enough that I didn't feel the need to follow the show up with something light and fluffy. Mr. B. figured that I'd just had enough time to get used to Mr. Hyde's character, and I grudgingly conceded that might be the case.

And then, I was searching about the intertubes for information about the show - when exactly did it air? Was it available yet on DVD? Were there plans for a second set of episodes? [2007, Yes, and not as far as I can tell even though the DVD is labelled 'Season One']. I also learned that there were two directors for the series, one did the first three episodes, and the other the final three. So perhaps that's what caused the sudden ease in viewing for me.

Either way, I did not enjoy any particular half more than the other; I'm merely noting there was a discernible difference in flavour. As a whole, this is a great story that is resolved well and leaves you [or me, at any rate] with just enough questions to contemplate once you've finished watching.

And then it takes it a mite too far. A smidge. Just a titch.

For my personal tastes, and I'll say this without being spoilery, the show should have ended about fifteen seconds sooner. The subtlety and the suspense that were the main tenets of the series were slapped in the face in those last fifteen seconds. It was a situation where less could have accomplished so much more. It made what should have been an eerie and dramatic revelatory moment kitschy. But that's not a reason to avoid the show, its honestly the only quibble I had. And it truly is the difference that a mere fifteen seconds can make. Mr. B. thinks it might even be fewer seconds. Don't avoid the show because it goes on a single sour breath too long. It's a great show, and deserves your attention.

James Nesbitt's ability to play both the mild-tempered and exhausted Dr. Jackman and the dangerously lascivious and monstrous Hyde is unnerving. Brilliant, but unnerving. In and of itself, that should be enough for most viewers.

The series is not a modern take on Robert Louis Stevenson's tale - its more like a sequel, or a modern tie-in. The show references the story more than once, initially as an ill-received [by the main character] explanation of events and then eventually as a reluctantly believed historical 'fact'.

The show starts out with Tom Jackman hiring a psychiatric nurse to act as a personal assistant of sorts for both himself and his alter-ego. It's an interesting and effective hook.

Throughout the show's narrative, we learn of Jackman's twin sons and estranged wife, the conspiracy surrounding his condition, and most-importantly, we get to know Hyde.

And the amazing thing? Hyde is not the bad guy in the series. He's not necessarily likeable; he's depraved and violent and unrepenting. He is a very bad man. But he is not our bad guy. You might think so at first, but you'll eventually see that isn't the case. How can he be when he is so inextricably tied to the obvious 'good guy'?

Hmm... I may have said too much.

Serious love here. I'd be ecstatic if I learned there was going to be a second series. If there wasn't ever a second series, that would be okay too - the story is told, there are just other stories that could be looked at within the world that's been created. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terribly curious.

We interrupt your irregularly scheduled programming

2009-03-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

I was in the midst of playing with the widgets and thingers on my blog, after which I intended to write a post about a show Mr. B. and I just finished watching tonight.

But then our puppy, Sunday, got very displeased with the other dog in the room, and stared at her and growled and barked. For a good fifteen minutes.

This other dog lives in the glass of our entertainment unit, and looks just like Sunday. But, you know. Mirror-imaged.

They sat mere inches apart but couldn't touch. Woeful, really.

Reflective surfaces are so distressing for pets.

Sunday is much larger than this now, and less purple.

Yeah, right.

2009-03-05T23:11:00.000-08:00

I am not cute.

Well, I'm not cuter than a basket of kittens.

I don't think.

Probably not. Right? Right.

Adventures in Sitting on the Chesterfield, Minding Your Own Business.

2008-11-11T00:30:00.000-08:00

So. [THis is my new favourite introduction to writings].

Mr. B's on the sofa, playing some Fable 2, winning Lucien Dollas at the Westcliff Shooting Range. I'm on the loveseat, feet up on the coffee table with Alika keeping my lat warm, watching and keeping count of points for him.

It's a few minutes shy of midnight and the front door opens — not violently, but very abruptly and unexpectedly — and in walks a stranger with a couple of large backpacks over his shoulders and a very excellent toque upon his head.

Mr. B. and I look to the intruder, and he looks at us. After a strange silence he says to us, "uh... I guess my Grandma doesn't live here anymore...."

Before us we have the youngest grandchild of our landlady. He happens to have the same name is Mr. B., who offered him a beer and a seat. Now they are sitting on the couch chatting about their respective world travels.

Well, Mr. B. is talking about his time in Mexico; Intruder B is discussing his recent excursion to eastern Europe.

Who says you need to leave your home to make friends?

Kitchen Experiments: Bananana Bread

2008-11-10T20:30:00.000-08:00

So. When making "the best traditional banana bread recipe" [I did not make that name up. The bread is in the oven so I cannot speak — er... type — to its trueness yet], there are a couple of things to remember.

1. Read the recipe. And then read it again. And then make sure to read it a third time. This might be the best way to prevent something like, oh, say, throwing a full cup of butter into the microwave to warm when you only actually need 1/3 of a cup, resulting in you having two full butter dishes on the counter. Oops.

2. When step 2 calls for you to combine all ingredients, you should consider adding a prologue step 2 which reads: smash your ripe banananas in a separate bowl before adding them to the other ingredients, otherwise you will make a huge sugary butter mess.

Otherwise, it went smoothly. It turned out looking like bananana bread batter ought to look. It smelled like bananana bread batter ought to smell. In forty or so minutes, we'll determine if it turns into bananana bread the way bananana batter ought to.

And then Mr. B and I shall feast.

The verdict is in.

Decidedly bananana bread in shape, appearance and taste.

Is it "the best traditional banana bread"?

Mr. B. says he can't dispute the claim. I'm going to have another slice.

Adventures in Putting Things Into Boxes and Then Taking Them Out Again

2008-11-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

Moving sucks. Sure, you start out by looking for a place together, and its all exciting because its something you do together.

You find aplace that seems perfect for you, and you say that you'll take it.

And then you have to work up the will power and energy and time to take everything you own, put it all in boxes, so that you can move it across town and then take it back out of the boxes and place everything in a new configuration.

If you're especially lucky, when you eventually move all those boxes [and furniture, you can't leave all the furniture behind], you'll discover all sorts of exciting things in the new place that just weren't evident from the beginning. Such as exposed water pipes in your spare room. Or a dryer vent that's less a vent and more a big hole in the wall.

All told though, the new place is nice. We're through about two thirds of the boxes now [the majority of the remainder have to do with kitchenware]. It sucked that Mr. B's van refused to start the day after the move, but not as much as it would have sucked if the van had refused to start the day of the move.

I'm still not really feeling at home here yet, there is still the sensation that I'm trespassing, or just visiting for a short while, and then I'll be back in the old familiar townhouse.

To offset that, tomorrow I am hoping to make some banana bread. Maybe some home baked goods will get me feeling more like this home.

I'll make an attempt to post in regards to said baking tomorrow.

Some things that are orange, one thing that is not....

2008-06-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

Day two of my trip, I mostly only took pictures in this one little place called Cafe Butterfly. I might be able to find it again if I wander around a lot. But then again, probably not.

I really liked these two paintings. They were etched glass set over top of canvases. I thought the effect was beautiful. I apologise for all the glare.

My carrot juice. That was made to order.
So so tasty, so so bright.

These humans are not orange. Although, it turns out, one of them is apparently wearing orange.

Year of the Rat, Day 125

2008-06-16T00:04:00.000-07:00

Oh, and the other day, when rearranging my entire movie collection, I realised that both Clerks and Clerks 2 are missing.

Fuckers.

Unless it turns out I simply forgot lending them out, in which case, I don't think you're a fucker.

And the moment noone's been waiting for!

2008-06-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Except for Meghan. I know this because she told me so.

I would like to apologise to [all four of] you that read this for my prolonged blogio silence. I have apologised thusly in the past, I know. This is an apology as much to myself as anyone else. I was just getting into the swing of updating this thing regularly, I had things to type about, it was good. And then I met Mr. B. I made some efforts for a couple of months to continue with the posts, and then suddenly, BAM nothing for nearly two months.

It turns out that having a boyfriend is way more distracting than I realised. That's mostly my excuse. In turn, Mr. B. has been neglecting many of his hobbies as well. This is something that we will manage to get back on track with once we actually move in together.

Which is anytime now. He starts paying rent here next month, but the necessary bedroom furnitures are going to start moving in this coming week, I think.

But this wasn't the moment noone except for Meghan has been waiting for. This is me finally posting pictures from my trip to Vancouver. You remember, the one that happened in April.

Here we go. Vancouver trip, Day One.

Food on the grill at Kobe, the Japanese restaurant we went to the first night that I was there. It was a lot of fun.

Five little [well, big] lobster tails, all in a row.

And a cool store display my father and I came across while walking around after dinner.

Photos from the following days to come later. Because I'm a brat. And also, I want to play video games now.

Also to come sometime in the next little while: comments about the new Serenity comic book mini-series, Indiana Jones, The Day Watch, Dead Fish, couches and having an X-box 360.

That list exists mostly to hold myself accountable to this blog for the next little while.

Year of the Rat, Day 69

2008-04-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

They also stole the two pairs of stockings that I bought in Vancouver.

What. The. Fuck.

Year of the Rat, day 65

2008-04-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

I have photos of my past weekend in Vancouver with my family that I intend to eventually share. My birthday is coming up in a week, and there are likely to be festivities.

But all I can focus on when I sit down at my laptop is the fact that we were robbed on Wednesday.

We weren't cleaned out. There are no signs of a break in, but that means little in this place, where breaking in is disgustingly easy and not noticeable.

Mr. B. and I were going to sit and watch some Heroes. We're on the second disk of season 1. The set was not on the coffee table where I'd left it. Ms. K., my roommate, had moved it the day before to put a disk back in it, so she helped me look for it. Mr. B. helped me look for it. We couldn't find it, but I didn't think much more of it than 'The house probably ate it, and will spit it back out later'.

I was firmly convinced of our misplacing it until Ms. K. called me from her room to tell me we'd been robbed.

The sudden change in opinion was caused by the lack of her laptop in her room. And the rearranged cupboard doors.

I walked into my room to see a pile of clothes on the floor by my bed that had previously been occupied by a backpack I had not yet unpacked from my trip. Also, my closet door was open, which I never leave open since the cats are assholes that like to use the closet floor as a litter box when they are too lazy to go downstairs.

I rushed back downstairs to look at my DVD collection again, since there'd been a nagging 'this isn't quite right'ness in the back of my head since my initial search for Heroes. All three of my Samurai X DVDs are missing. Titan AE is missing, along with both Dominion Tank Police and Final Fantasy X and X-2. I couldn't help [and still can't help] but feel that there is more missing, but that I won't realise precisely what until I go to watch it. I have a lot of DVDs. I don't remember exactly which ones, but I know I had more anime on that shelf.

We had a police officer come by, he was sympathetic, but essentially told us there's little that can be done. He was nice though. He played with Squee.

Flash forward to the next morning, I realise that my gold necklace with locket [containing pictures of my little brother and father] is gone. So far as I can tell, that's the only jewelry missing.

Flash forward to ten minutes before I started writing this entry. I went to check on my stash to see if I had any money in it. My stash is a pretty puzzle box that my father had given me when I was about twelve years old. The bad news is, its gone. The good news is, there can't be any money in it, since the cheque from which money would have been stashed wasn't cashed until they day after the robbery.

Right now, the thing that upsets me most [other than my relief that my laptop was left alone - I feel so bad for Ms. K. and I feel bad that I am so glad that mine is okay. I have bizzare guilt issues.] is that anytime now that I notice something missing, I'm going to get this angry violated feeling all over again. Furthermore, its just plain irritating when something you want is no longer there.

I'm cranky. I was all excited about the scones I was going to make too. Maybe I should still do that. It might distract me some.

My brush with fame....

2008-04-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

I've been in Vancouver since Friday, visiting with my father and stepmother and brother.

We're staying at the Pacific Palisades on Robson/Jervis. Its probably the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. I want to take the pillows home with me. If my luggage weren't so small, I'd probably be working on that rather than typing right now.

Saturday and Sunday we went for breakfast at a restaurant across from our hotel.

Yesterday, I had to run out to grab the umbrella from my room [that got used as a cane on our walk about on Granville Island, but that's not the point of this story], and at the door of O'Doul's was a group of gentlemen, two of whom looked familiar. So familiar, that I had my hand half raised to wave and the syllables for an uncertain hello in my throat. When I realised....

I've never met Robb and Lewis. I've only seen photos of them plastered all over Jim's Blog. They haven't been featured in photos in a while, but none the less, I recognised them from photos on a website.

Had I been thinking, I would have greeted them and told them what was going on at the door when I saw them, because I think getting a photo of them would have been awesomely fun. But by the time it occured to me [and I got back to the restaurant], they were already sitting and perusing menus. I had a crazy image running through my head of running up to the table like some crazed fan and gushing over how fantastic meeting them was. I also realised that these people don't know me and that it would probably only have been funny to me.

Tasty Broccoli Salad Recipes, and Changing Them to Suit You

2008-03-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Salad:

4 cups chopped broccoli

½ to ¾ cup chopped red onion

¼ cup raisins

8 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled

[optional: 1 tin of water chestnuts, chopped]

Dressing:

¾ cups mayo [not miracle whip]

2 tbsp white vinegar

¼ cup sugar

My JacQuaroo served this delicious salad at MissedMas dinner this past February. It is wonderness. Her mother served it at Miss J's wedding some bazillion years ago* which is where I fell in love with it. And now the recipe in mine!

The funny thing about me and recipes, the moment I feel I've got the recipe down, I seek ways to change it up. I'd never made this one myself, but its a salad for crying out loud. Not rocket science.

Since Mr. B has been so nice as to provide dinner every night for the past month – with the exception of the nights we had dinner at his parents [!!] - I thought I'd demonstrate my culinary skills by making an accompanying salad. And having him cook the bacon for it, because bacon-cooking terrifies me**. But different from the above one mildly; I used pine nuts rather than water chestnuts [JacQueline used pecans at MissedMas, I believe], and I thought dehydrated cranberries might be nice***. I was upset a little at the notion of going without the red onions. I adore onions, and it turns out that onions are one of the very few foods Mr. B doesn't care for. He assures me he'll eat them anyway, but he's been so nice about cooking tomy nitpicky tastes**** that I figure I can accommodate his distaste for onions. He says shallots are okay by him.

The difference? Well, chopping shallots results in the same eyeball burning/involuntary leaking that chopping onions does. Also, shallot juice does the same weird aggravating of thelower knuckle on my right pointer finger *****. Flavour-wise, the difference is so subtle that had I not been looking for it, I likely wouldn't have noticed it. I probably couldn't tell the difference if you fed me shallots and told me they were onions. But Mr. B can, and he prefers them, so.

The verdict? Still a super tasty salad. Although next time I suggest toasting the pine nuts a little, and also chopping the cranberries into slightly smaller chunks. Also! I recommend using the proper sized measuring cups so your dressing doesn't end up, I don't know, say, ubersweet.

Just a suggestion of course.

* Or was it four? Three? Enh, bazillion works.

** I'm strange one, I know.

*** I despise the term 'craisins' for dehydrated cranberries. Yes, the later term has an annoying nuber of syllables, but the former implies some bizarre cranberry-grape hybrid. Also, I think 'craisin' sounds like something rancid, not something one should willingly put in one's mouth.

**** Which he really doesn't know the full extent of since I've been trying to be especially good so he doesn't realise to what extreme my food freakfulness goes – a side effect of this tactic is that I am discovering many new foods I actually like.

***** Don't ask, I can't actually explain that one.

Opinions Unsolicited: Comics, Laptops, and Adorable Boyfriends.

2008-03-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Hola! Its been a while. It took me some time to realise that I can still write entries at the boyfriend's place even if he doesn't have access to the intertubes here. That is the wonder that is laptops. So, here I sit, on the futon in the living room, plugging away at the lappytop and listening to the sounds of Depeche Mode [Violator album] and Mr. B. tidying the kitchen.

I heart my laptop. Its shiny and useful, and if necessary could be used as a blunt weapon. That might damage the contents and condition of it, but hey, my safety comes first, yes?

And onto Mr. B.: He's adorable. In a masculine way, of course. He makes me lunch to take for work when I stay the night at his place, he doesn't tease me when I cry at movies, he gets all smiley and proud when I do better at Guitar Heroes than he does, and we can be silly together and have fun and it's completely comfortable and relaxed. A girl could get used to this. Except that girl has to be me, because I don't share well.

And now onto the reviewish thing:

Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

Issues 1 & 2

To start this off, I'm going to have to type an intro that I have seen already in various formsabout the intertubes and even in the lettercol at the back of both issues.

When I heard Gerard Way was going to be authoring a comic book, I was afraid that the My Chemical Romance frontman was simply banking on his celebrity status to make more moulas in a different field. I was just as curious about the series as I was apalled. The funny thing? I can't even tell you why I don't like his band. I couldn't name a song by them if I wanted to. I do remember seeing a music video of theirs once, at Miss Meggles house, while we were drinking and making fun of Much Music videos. I don't think the sound was actually turned on. And all I thought throughout this video was drowned out by the hysterical laughter that my brain produced. Not the laughter that comes out after a particularly good punchline, the other kind of laugher. The bad kind. The kind that has nothing good to say about the cause of the outburst.

Anyway, the series, so far, is damn good.

The first issue starts off with a typical-in-a-not-so-typical-way intro to the premise, first with the excerpts of The Monocles notes about seven children he has adopted, and then with a few pages of how The Monocle came to adopt them and why. The first page is one huge panel dedicated to the finishing move of a wrestling match between some absurdly large human named Tusslin' Tom Gurney and an even more absurdly large space-squid from Rigel X-9 who sadly goes unnamed.

After the intro, we find a two-page spread title page. The entire title of issue 1 is: The Umbrella Academy featuring Sir Reginald Hargreeves A.K.A. The Monocle, in... The Day The Eiffel Tower Went Berserk, being part one of six in the story: Apocalypse Suite.

The Day the Eiffel Tower Went Berserk? Hells, yes.

The second issue sports some notes on the back cover by Vanya Hargreeves [00.07] about her 'siblings' excerpted from her book Extra-Ordinary: y Life as Number Seven. The silly long title? “The Umbrella Academy featuring the mortal remains of Sir Reginald Hargreeves A.K.A. The Monocle in: We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals”.

I appreciate the morbid humour. I appreciate the experi- mental surgery that left number One, a.k.a. Spaceboy a.k.a. Luther with what appears to be the body of an ape and perma-tubing going from a backpack to his neck and belt and little superhero briefs. I appreciate the little black masks they wore as children and the numbers one and two still wear as adults that remind me of the Incredibles. I appreciate number seven and her misery at not seeming to have any powers. I appreciate lines such as And just as I suspected-- Zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel!

I think that about says everything I wanted to say, really.

On failure

2008-03-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

I failed at writing an entry on Sunday. I slept until 1:40pm, went for Breakfast at Zeller's with B, went toy aisle perusing and dollar store shopping before eventually heading to Cleet's and Miss Ann's for a complicated board game. After which we went shopping for dinner things, and we went back to his place for tasty stir fry and a Donnie Darko viewing. Which I had never seen before.

There was no time to even turn the lappytop on.

Bloggio silence

2008-02-29T14:11:00.001-08:00

I apologise for the lack of entries over the past two weeks. My JacQueline has been in town visiting, and between her and the cute guy I got all distracted.

I am aware that it would seem I am apologising to the few of you who know me in the flesh, but this is also an apology to the blog itself. Its a fledgling little blog, trying to grow up to be a good blog, and its difficult for that to happen when it gets neglected and has no new words to absorb and feed on. This is also an apology to myself, since I had somehow convinced myself I would at least maintain my Opinion Unsolicited entries while JacQueline was here.

I will make an effort to resume my journalling of the mildly mundane this weekend. I am typing this apology from work. Tonight, I am eating pot roast at the cute guy's place. Saturday I work, andSaturday nights are never conducive to anything un-alcohol related.

But Sunday... I'll try to have something for Sunday.

Tom Waits-A-Thon

2008-02-13T22:51:00.000-08:00

Hell, I could have a Tom Waits-a-thon [since I've somehow decided that two movies will make an a-thon] by throwing in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I actually think this could be a fun game. Like a six degrees game, but there's no telling how long I keep it going for.

It needs rules.

It needs a name. JacQueline, name my game for me. MovieQuest? Like your WordQuests, but different....

SO. The starting point was Sin City. And then there was Domino.

Next up: Dracula.

The attention span of a ferret on crystal meth

2008-02-13T21:56:00.001-08:00

So, I'm having a Mickey Rourke-a-thon. Although I'm not sure that I can call it an 'a-thon' since I'm only watching two movies. Just finished with Sin City, and I'm about to watch Domino.

It seems a shame that I'm doing this with a huge lack of beer.

I just noticed that Edna is wearing an Agades Cross at the beginning of Domino.

I love my job at the Buddha, I learn these interesting little tidbits there.

Anyway. Spun would be a good movie to add to my Mickey Rourke-a-thon series. I could easily have made this a Bruce Willis-a-thon by throwing in Hostage. Although I don't know if I have anything else with him in it. I need the Die Hard series. And Hudson Hawk.

And beer.

I need beer.

Agades Cross picture is from here.

Kitchen Experiments: Homemade Soymilk, Round the Third [and then some]

2008-02-13T00:13:00.000-08:00

I made my third attempt at soymilk tonight. It resembled my last attempt in most ways, except that I doubled the amount of soybeans I used, and I attempted to thicken the end product up some by letting simmer. For nearly an hour. And there is little discernable difference in texture. There is a much smaller end amount than my previous attempts, but that makes sense considering how many beans I used [and therefore less water].

Let's go try some shall we? [This will also encourage to stop laying on my arms while I attempt. He attempts to 'catch' my fingers. With his teeth. It is almost a fun game.]

Okay. So. Don't use so many beans. No need for it. Just makes for extra beany flavour. And the simmering and stirring did help a bit, it's not water thin anymore.

Palatable. I'm getting closer to the desired result.

And since JacQueline will be here soon, she can be my kitchen experiment co-hort for the next batch.

Since I am insane, I made the soymilk tonight while I was cooking a butternut squash to make a ravioli/wonton hybrid. And then while I was filling all the wontons with my butternut squish filler, I started boiling aduki beans to make my own red bean paste [also known as anko].

So. I haven't actually tasted my ravioli/wonton/squish love children yet, but the filler tasted pretty good. The recipe I found had me smashing up the cooked squish with nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and parmesan cheese. I added more parm than the recipe called for because damn do I like cheese.

It wouldn't be that hard to change this recipe up. I've always maintained that more than half the battle is just having the idea to begin with. The recipe was the idea, now I can figure out how to do fun things with it. Like, instead of using wanton wrappers, I could get something a little more pasta like, and make a chocolatey filling for some tasty and fun dessert. Or something fruity and sweet [like apple pie filling], that would be fun too.

I'm going to take some of them to work for lunch tomorrow. I mixed up a sauce out of ground sage, savory, corn syrup and dijon mustard. Next time I will use regular mustard, dijon is about too hot for me most days [yes. I am a big wuss].

Then came the anko. I spent most of the time sure I was doing something drastically wrong. I followed a couple of different recipes kind of loosely [the end product was almost the same, the instructions on one recipe weremore clearly written, on the other, the measurements made more sense, so I took the bits fromeach recipe that made sense to me]. I wanted an anko that was smooth – read: not bean skins. So, as the recipe called for, I smashed the cooked beans through a sieve with the palm of my hand. And by sieve I mean my cheap blue plastic colander. And by palm of my hand I mean a wooden spoon and the now-burned-and-tender knuckles of my hand.

If you try this at home, I recommend you don't stick your hand into a colander full of freshly boiled beans that are still steaming and try to smash them into a goopy pulp. It hurts.

All told, that smashing process was time consuming and annoying, and I burnt my knuckles, and irritated them fromscraping them against the colander. I couldn't use my palm, because my fingers do not bend in such a manner that would compensate for the curve of the device.

I swore to myself that if I ever get it into my head to make anything that requires anko in the future, that I would find it premade or something. There has GOT to be a better way to make that puree and still get the skins out.

Anyway. Once I had my pot full of purplish goop, I looked at it skeptically, not trusting that simply adding sugar to it would turn it into a paste. But it sort of worked. I say sort of because I figured it would turn out thicker in the end, but after stirring [in a straight back and forth manner, not in circles, because stirring things with super high sugar content in circles makes it less shiny. The recipe told me that circle stirring would cause it to lose luster, but while I was actually doing it, I remembered Mrs.Strelioff telling me that in HomeEc oh so many years ago]... after stirring for nearly an hour, I got really stupendously bored. Maybe it will thicken more as it cools?

Anyhoo, I have the rice I need, so tomorrow I hope to have the motivation to use that rice and my anko and make ohagi... which it turns out I am missing an ingredient for. Dammit.

Maybe I will make dorayaki instead.

Opinions Unsolicited: Buffy, Comic-Style

2008-02-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

Buffy Season 8, Issue 11: A Beautiful Sunset

My first impression reading this issue was that the artwork is improving. It was pretty stellar to begin with, and it just keeps getting better.

I appreciate how Buffy dealt with the Satsu situation; didn't invalidate her feelings, actually thanked her for them, and then went on to discuss her “newfound” angst – loving the Buffinator is a dangerous business. And the big exclamation point to the point she was making is Twilight, our Big Bad, showing up to dish out some hurting. That sentence had a lot of points in it, and none of them were a stake. But there were stakes in the issue. The whole conversation amidst vampire fighting was very awesomely done. There was also a big pointy church steeple... I'm digressing.

I have a... maybe not a concern, but an observation: Twilight made a comment in an earlier issue [can't remember which one just now, I intend to reread these all tonight, I'll perhaps edit this then. Although I sincerely doubt there's anyone reading this that will care that much about the specificity] that he wants to rid the world of this pesky magic stuff. Yet he flies. This reminds me of the Initiative from Serenity – fighting to create a world he truly and wholeheartedly believes is better, despite that world not leaving a place for him in it. If this is the case, well, it certainly says something interesting about Twilight's psychological profile.

The near-reveal of Twilight is what cinched this season for me. Up until now, I've been enjoying the series, the dialogue in particular [the dialogue was the thing I loved most about the show], but if asked, I wouldn't have been able to say I was terribly invested in the series. And then suddenly, there was Twilight, about to take of his mask, only he didn't. And it was funny, but it was frustrating. I hadn't realised until that very moment that I was even anticipating a big reveal.

I'm okay with not knowing yet. I can let the anticipation stew for a while longer.

I've read on some forums speculation as to Twilight's identity. He's masked, which lends to the hypothesis he is someone that people will recognise from the series, or he is someone that is already acting in another capacity within the comics. Some have speculated that Twilight is Spike or Angel; others have disproven that idea by pointing out that in Angel: After the Fall, they [along with everyone else in L.A.] is in Hell. Or Hell locked everyone in L.A. Whichever.

As far as I'm concerned that's not the reason that Spike and Angel [and even Riley, really] can't be Twilight. It's been pointed out several times throughout both Buffy and Angel that time moves differently in other dimensions. Nearly an entire human lifespan in a Hell dimension in the episode Anne was merely a day on Earth. It's entirely feasible that the Angel crew is back on earth by the time the events of the Buffy series take place. It's also entirely feasible that Angel and Co. are in a dimension that time moves faster in, and when they get out of Hell, they could be a couple hundred years in the future. That line of speculation makes me really want to read Fray....

Anyway. The reason I don't dig the whole Twilight is one of Buffy's exes idea is that I can't believe that she wouldn't recognise them. Mask aside, and even voice modification [if that's what the fancy font Twilight's words are written in means] can't account for the fact that Buffy would pick up on speech patterns. Or at the very least, the way he throws a punch. She has fought or sparred with all of them. At the very least, she would pick up a familiar vibe. It may have been a long time since she saw any of them [and as far as she knows, Spike is dead], but I would have a ridiculously hard time believing that she wouldn't recognise their countenance.

I do have some ideas as to who Twilight is, but I'm keeping them to myself until there is more information to go on.

I was going to write about Angel: After the Fall #3 here. But I think the Buffy talk was long enough. I'll write about Angel later this week.

My geekdom knows no bounds.

The image was taken from some site or another that you can order the comic from.

Year of the Rat, Day Four

2008-02-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

Today I lost an envelope with eighty five dollars in it, between one bank and another [there were a couple of stops in between, but essentially, that statement is true].

With some creative budgeting, one raspberry Smirnoff Twisted, a bag of Mini Eggs, and fiddling with my new obnoxiously pink cell phone, and I am no longer feeling as though I might go into SARAH SMASH mode.

In between the moments of panic and the moments of thankfulness that it hadn't been my entire paycheque in the envelope, all I could think was that some Chinese Rat is laughing somewhere.

I am lazy and do not feel like linking to the sites I borrowed this pictures from.

Happy New Year!

2008-02-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm a couple of days late. But Thursday was the Chinese New Year. We have now moved into the year of the Rat [and if we want to get super technical, its the year of the Earth Rat].

So woooooo! And stuff.

This Chinese Astrology stuff is pretty nifty. I bought a nice little book about it from the store that I work at. Simple Chinese Astrology by Damian Sharp. The cover is white and red, and the book gets a huge bonus for being authored by a Damian. [While looking for a link on Amazon to the book, I learned that there is a Simple Numerology book written by the same author. I may have to get work to order it for me].

I'm born in the year of the Metal Rooster. Here's what Mr. Damian says about my outlook for the year [and the outlook of more than a few friends of mine as well]:

A difficult year in which money is hard to come by and the Rooster finds little to no assistance from friends or associates. Troubles at home and minor health problems are indicated as the Rooster must go it alone to solve his problems.

Well. That is not the chipper news I was looking forward to.

Ah well.

So, I have plans for my next tattoo. It involves getting the symbol for Taurus at the nape of my neck, with the writing for Rooster and Metal below that. But I have to make sure that the writing I end up getting actually says what I mean it to say. I eventually will add the same symbols as they relate to my parents and brother as well. Which means I likewise need the symbols for Gemini, Aries, Rat, Boar and Fire too.

If anyone knows of or can think of a good resource that I can trust, that would be awesome. [I've checked some sites online, but I have noticed minor differences in stroke order and direction from one site to another, which makes me think that there are two ways to write rat in Chinese, and one of them may be more appropriate than the other for the purpose I intend to use them. Its going on my body forever, I don't want ambiguity there, you know?]

I might just go to the university and talk to my old Japanese instructor. She can probably put me on the right path.

I thievered my rat picture at the top from here because I don't have any pictures of my Nez :(

Opinions Unsolicited: Farmer Giles of Ham, Between the Beautifuls, and The Night Watch

2008-02-05T22:59:00.000-08:00

Farmer Giles of Ham is a tale by J.R.R. Tolkien. It has nothing to do with Middle Earth. It does have to do with a farmer who has some hobbit-like qualities [mostly in that he just wants to be

left to mind his own business, otherwise he is rather curmudgeonly and somewhat of an unpleasant fellow] who sets out to rid his village of a dragon.

One thing I especially enjoyed about this story were the names involved. Nevermind that I can't read or hear or think the name Giles and NOT think of Anthony Stewart Head; the other names are simply brilliant. We are offered the likes of Chrysophylax Dives, Caudimordax Tailbiter, and Fabricius Cunctater, which name [in no particular order] a sword, a blacksmith and a dragon.

The story itself is simple, but in a typically Tolkien way – he uses ten words where three might have done. And of course there is the commentary on language; even in a tale that's directed at children, there are many references to words in other languages [well, Latin, at any rate] and their translations into the 'vulgar'. Otherwise known as 'Plain English'. I get the impression that Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler may have been a fan.

It's a fun whimsical tale, I need to add it to my collection. But not this copy, because it was leant to me by a co-worker some months ago [approaching five of them], and he has been hounding me to get it back.

This weekend, I bought Hawksley Workman's newest album, Between the Beautifuls.

What can I say, other than love? The cover of the album is essentially black and white, with the colour of the daffodils pulled out by some
technique I don't know the word for. All throughout the booklet, there are nature shots in a similar style, all stunning in their simplicity.

But the music is not pictures in a booklet.

If you are familiar with Hawksley's catalogue, Between the Beautifuls lies at the crossing of For Him and the Girls and Lover/Fighter. Amongst my favourites are All Alone (ballads of bunches of things), Piano Blink, and Pomegranate Daffodil. But I adore the whole album.

Hawksley here is the Hawksley I love the most: whimsical, poignant, exceptional.

I just finished reading The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. I started reading it near on a year ago, got distracted, and then finally picked it back up yesterday. And finished it.

It's an engaging tale of Light vs Dark, set in Moscow. The Watches are set up in order to regulate and keep tabs on the opposing side. The Night Watch guards against infractions by the Dark, and the Day Watch does the same for the Light.

The book is divided into three different stories that all focus around the same characters, with Anton at the centre of it all. They are all told from his perspective. At it's root, all the stories [which are all subsequently divided into chapters] are really just one large, overarching story.

It's a very engaging tale about Anton, who starts the story out as a fourth grade magician, as he goes from assignment to assigment that make no sense to him – he's not a field operative, why is he being sent out in the field then? I don't feel like writing a book report here, so I'm just going to say that this novel presents an interesting take on the good vs evil dichotomy, and how sometimes good people do bad things to achieve even greater goods, and how sometimes bad people will use good deeds to bring about devastating results.

There were two things I especially enjoyed about this book.

1- Anton has a tendency to put his walkman on random throughout the novel, and the music seems to always fit his mood. I enjoyed this little detail tremendously, as well as the fact that Anton makes a point of naming the artist most of the time this happens. I like musics that are not in english. So this gives me many artists to look up that are Russian.

2- I enjoy reading translated books. I can get the feeling reading it, that while the grammar is correct, it wasn't meant to be read in english. There are little cultural cues and quirks of speech that are simply not natural in English that are obviously observed in Russian, and I like observing that. Since I can't speak Russian, reading things translated from Russian is the next best thing.

So, here's another book that I can finally return! If you had any idea how huge my To Be Read list was, you'd shake your head in shame. And possibly call a fire marshall to investigate my house.

I have other entries planned, one about cooking, another soymilk experiment [hopefully the last], and I intend to write a tarot entry at some point. I better get cracking if I want to post all that before the next Opinions Unsolicited goes up [which, by the by, I am totally failing at making a regular Sunday installment so far].

Farmer Giles picture from here.

I got the Between the Beautifuls photo from Hawksley's site.

The Night Watch picture was usurped from here.

It's Never Enough

2008-02-01T22:38:00.001-08:00

No matter how long the band plays, you always want more. Well, if they're good anyhow. When they sound like their playing their instruments with cheese graters and live rats, maybe you don't so much want more. But I digress.

I went with several friends to see Econoline Crush play at the Grotto last night.

My first impression, before the band even started playing, was WOW. The DJ is playing nothing but music that I know all the words to! I was very pleased. I was also pleased that I managed to not topple over in my fabulously sparkly shoes I wore – my first venture out into the world wearing stilletos. Glittery, coppery, testicle piercing stilletos. Wearing my stilletos, I managed to approach the height of most of my friends that I had gone out with.

The band was awesome, and super high energy. I like high energy musics. The show went quickly, and when it was over, I craved more. Because I am insatiable, not because of some

inability on the part of the band to satisfy musically.

Although, interesting sidebar! I realised a huge difference in having a crush on a band when you're like. Sixteen and twenty six. When you're sixteen and some dude in the band sticks his tongue out, you just think its. I don't know. Hardcore or something. You don't get it, but its just apart of the rock star mystique and you accept.

When you're twenty six and same [attractive] guy in the band sticks his tongue out, and you catch yourself thinking 'Damn, he can lick the underside of his own chin...' and then your mind goes to a dark place [because some of us just prefer the lights off] and you start to blush.

That could just be me, though.

Ahem.

I enjoy where they've gone with the new album, which, after the show, I of course had to purchase [with monies I borrowed from a friend, since most of my own monies had been spent on the boozeamahol]. Which I got signed, because hey! the band was standing right there by the merch table at that point. And I was given a free poster [which had a $5 sign on them], which I also had signed. I tried to talk to Trevor, but I didn't really have anything interesting to say, and some girls more exuberant than myself distracted him. I got to tell the other band members I enjoyed the show though, and they all seemed pretty nice.

I hope I get the opportunity to see them again, it was a really good time.

And damn, were my shoes sparkly.

You don't know how close I came to posting a video for Sparkle and Shine that is actually a teeny boppy song with Sailor Moon imagery.

I couldn't find a video for Never Enough. This wasn't my favourite song of the evening, but I wanted to post a video with good sound quality that didn't look like crap. I could have posted this video for Never Enough:

but it was the most boring thing in the world, so I thought I'd spare you guys the ennui.

[See what I did there? I'm terrible, it's true]

Opinions Unsolicited: Funky Llama, The Way of the Gun, and Voltaire [but in a different order]

2008-01-29T23:10:00.002-08:00

Voltaire: The musician, not the French writer. I discovered Voltaire through StumbleUpon. The artwork on his website was awesomely fun. When I was in Whitehorse this past December, I found one of Voltaire's comics in the comic store. I told my friend to buy it for me, since he'd just finished telling me that I should have told him to buy me some other book I'd seen somewhere else.

So what do I have to say about Deady volume 4? Well, the fact that I'm not going to link it says something all on its own I think. The artwork is fun. The writing is juvenile and the humour is beyond me. There were a few things that could have been funny in a subtle way, but were drawn attention to in annoyingly lame way. It was kind of like when you listen to someone tell a joke, and it turns out its a pretty good joke, but they overplay it or butcher it in such a way that it stops being funny before you even get to chuckle.

His music is still pretty damn good though.

This is one of my favourite songs of his lately. I don't think he has actual music videos, which is unfortunate because the instrumentation is fabulous in his songs when he has an entire band playing with him. Although, I confess that the little, uh, “intermission” is amusing.

Funky Llama: I remember a time when I didn't know whether or not I liked wine.

But I had bought some pretty wine glasses and figured I needed to find out.

How did I go about this learning process? Well, I certainly didn't ask the people that work at the liquor store for suggestions. Bah. I saw a bottle with turtles on the label and thought 'Squeeeeeeeeee! Turtles!'

And lo it was good.

This method has, on occasion failed me. But not with the Funky Llama. That was some tasty vino. I don't really know what else to say, other than, in the absence of wine glasses [I was drinking at a friend's place, he lacks in the glasses for wine department], it was wonderful to consume straight from the bottle.

Also should point out that I do not recommend drinking this wine to the point of causing spins-induced vomiting. Its pretty acidic coming back up.

Not that I ever drink. Drinking is bad. Shame on you.

The Way of the Gun: The day after massive amounts of Funky Llama was consumed [and since I'm going to assume that you read the bits above this segment, I'm also going to assume that you aren't assuming I ate rotten llama meat. Although that could probably account for some morning after ickiness as well – one would assume....]Um. Where was I? Right. The day after consuming the massive amounts of wine, we all went out for breakfast, and then back to the wineglassless dwelling to hang out. And this is what we watched.

I liked it. There was only one scene that was bordering on too much for me too handle, and it was handled very well. This movie does not treat its viewers like idiots. It didn't spoon feed me the subplots. All in all, it was very open ended, left a lot to the imagination, and that was pretty awesome.

I can't think of the other bits that I wanted to say about the movie. It was two days ago, and now I'm watching Buffy. Or more specifically, I'm watching Spike. He's talking about onions. Um. Stuff. Smiles!

The Deady comic image was thievered from this site.
Funky Llama picture was stolen from here.
Way of the Gun picture kidnapped from here

Experiments in Home-made Soymilk, numero the second

2008-01-29T20:59:00.000-08:00

I checked out the ingredient list on the carton of soymilk [So Good], and corn syrup is indeed on it. Kinda high on the list, actually. I avoided the corn oil, since corn syrup is pretty thick already.

Also, I doubled the amount of beans I used too.

Here is the recipe of today's soy milk:

1 cup soybeans [after soaking, I didn't measure them before hand]

¼ cup of corn syrup

couple of pinches of salt

fill blender with h20 to the 1 litre mark

2 teaspoons of vanilla

It seemed to me like I should have gone a little easier on the syrup and vanilla, since I wasn't sure how it would taste, but alas and alack, I used about double what I told myself I should of both. Three cheers for self control!

I have half a cup of it here in front of me. It smells really strongly of vanilla, and it still seems to have that skim milk texture. But the colour is much more appealing this time.

Well. It definitely tastes better. But it could be better yet. I think I will definitely try the thing with the peel to lift out some of the bean flavour. Mostly, I would love to think of a way to improve the texture.

And less vanilla next time. Definitely less vanilla.

Experiments in Home-made Soymilk

2008-01-23T22:42:00.000-08:00

A girl at work and I got to talking, and somehow we got onto the topic of making soy milk. My initial reaction was disbelief.

I go through a lot of soy milk here – if the funds allow, I'll drink two litres of the stuff in as many days, or less. Never once did it occur to me that I could make it myself.

I went happily home from work that day with the following written on a piece of receipt tape:

Soymilk

⅛ to ¼ cup soybeans

Soak overnight

Cook for 15min to 1 hour

Pour into blender + top with water to fill

splash of vanilla

pinch of salt

tsp vanilla

spoonful vegetable oil (optional)

Pour through mesh strainer + voila soymilk

So. I went out, I bought some good quality vanilla [the organic, non-artificial variety], some dried soybeans from Save-On's bulk section, and a swath of cheese cloth.

When I got home I realised that I don't have a blender.

Addendum: Didn't have a blender. About one week later I got a belated Christmas gift from the Mummabear, which included an early Valentine's Day card, an pretty dragonfly hanging ornament, and a giftcard for Wal*Mart. The giftcard took care of my blender issue for me.

Since I had the ingredients sitting in my cupboard and no blendy machine to blend it all up, I researched homemade soymilk online.

A few things I learned:

1- Different websites tell me different things about the enzymes in soy beans. They all agree that an enzyme needs to be destroyed by boiling the beans first, but the details vary on why that enzyme needs destroying.

2- The soybeany pulp that is left over aftger straining the milk can be used in a number of different recipes. Also, a couple of websites tell me that the pulp [called Okara] is what is processed and turned into soysilk. I intend to find out more about this processing... um... process.

3- There was other stuff, but I'm watching Spike in a ridiculous red suit and I forgot it.

The taste test of this first batch ever didn't go splendiferously.

So for next time:

1- I will use more soybeans and less water. Hopefully this will help make with a creamier than skim milk texture.

2- Also, canola oil does not taste good. I don't know what a canola is, but I'm going to have to go ahead and guess the answer to that one is Not Vegetable.

3- Maybe I will not scoff at the notion that adding a piece of orange peel or fresh ginger to the boiling process will help everything taste better.

So, no more experimenting until at the very least I have some Not Canola oil. In the meantime, mayhaps there is something that I can do to make the batch I have now more palatable.

There are likely to be more soy related posts in the future.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering

2008-01-20T22:03:00.001-08:00

Thought I'd post that photo that I have thus far neglected to send to my Aunt. Either Judy had extremely tiny feet, or that was one helluva pair of stilletos.

Opinions Unsolicited: Rufus! Rufus! Rufus!

2008-01-20T20:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't be said to known much about Judy Garland, or her catalogue as it extends beyond The Wizard of Oz and that one song they used in Down With Love. I do know that my Aunt Lesley loves her, and that I had a picture taken of me with my hands in Judy's handprints at Grauman's Theatre when I was there. I should probably get on with forwarding that picture to Lesley. She's not likely to know that I took it for her if I never, you know, show it to her.

I can be said to be mildly obsessed with Rufus Wainwright. He belongs to my coterie of famous boyfriends that I'm never going to meet. I have most of his cds [still missing the first one, alas], I have his other DVD All I Want courtesy of an online purchase in which I was amongst the first however-many-people-it-was-limited to preorder and thusly have a signed copy of the DVD jacket. I once bought an issue of Rolling Stone magasine just so I could rip off the cover and tack it to my wall.

I got the new DVD Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! does Judy! Judy! Judy! as a gift this holiday season. I remember reading Jim's entry about the L.A. performance with massive envy. I use the ticket stub that Lyle gave me as a souvenir as a bookmark. There is no word for the shade of green I turned when I realised that people I knew got to go.

This show is awesome. They went with the performance from the London Palladium for the DVD. And unlike the All I Want DVD, they have the performance from beginning to end; there's no cutting out of the bits between songs in which Rufus tells stories, cracks jokes, talks to the others on stage.

The first thing I noticed about the show is Rufus' outfit. Wow. The second thing I noticed was how the stage lights made his hair seem an appealing shade of cherry black. Like hair candy. Tasty.

I'm a strange girl, I've been made aware.

I love it. I love his comments about Judy, I adore his mannerisms throughout the show, his sense of homour... I do not have enough good things to say about Rufus. Towards the end of the show, Rufus gives way for others to take part. His glittery sister Martha takes over for Stormy Weather [and I do mean she is glittery], his mother Kate McGarrigle and a lovely dame by the name of Lorna Luft co some songs with him, as well as sing some outright during the encore. Whether this is in order to save Rufus' voice from the strain of singing through thirty numbers straight or simply because he enjoys splitting his limelight with his family some [and that Lorna lady, whom I've never heard of*] I just don't know.

I can't really comment on how he compares to Judy, since, like I said, I don't have a wide knowledge of her musics. But as a Rufus fan, this is a fabulous addition to the collection. I enjoyed listening to him sing from a catalogue not his own. I never tire of his voice, or his charisma. Watch it through once, and save subsequent viewings for background music for dinner parties, or a fun evening of pretending you know how to dance to jazz with your sweetie. As much as I adore concert videos, I find them difficult to watch with attention undivided more than once. But as something to listen to during knitting projects, they are perfect, since there is rarely much plot – if any – involved.

I am, however, disappointed that I didn't get to see Rufus in the tuxedo jacket and stockings and fedora. That apparently was a just a treat for people who got to see the performance in L.A. or
something. That green stuff is coming on again.

All in all, I'm ecstatic to add it to my collection. It just finished playing it through and now I am going back to my favourite tracks [Puttin' on the Ritz, San Francisco, Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart, Swanee, Get Happy]. I enjoy the bits where Rufus forgets the words, I enjoy his obnoxiously loud yellow glittery suit from the first portion of the show, I enjoy the banter between family members. I just enjoy Rufus.

*So, anyone who has seen this DVD will know from those comments that I was typing this before the DVD was actually over. Had I been patient and waited to see the entire DVD before writing about it, I would have known that Lorna is one of Judy Garland's daughters. I am shamed. But not so shamed that I will go delete that bit. This is why they don't pay me any bucks at all, let alone any good ones.

I thieved the picture of Rufus in the sexy stockings and jacket from here. I cannot attest to whether or not that person stole from someplace else or took it themselves.

I thieved the picture of Rufus in the yellow suit from this article.

I hope noone expected too much

2008-01-17T21:00:00.000-08:00

I'm a terrible person, I know. The force of my own excitement isn't even enough to sustain me through a follow up action.

The camera that I was given turns out to not take very good pictures at all. And I can't make the flash work, which really doesn't help out with the photo quality....

I am currently working on a sweater out of my Pretty in Punk pattern book I picked up over my Yukon holidays.

It's almost finished now, but there were a few setbacks.

The largest of which being I was too lazy to go online to convert the needle size to mm so that I would be able to pick up the right size needles for the pattern. I ended up with needles one or two sizes too small, and thusly ran out of yarn.

I would have known I would run out of yarn by checking gauge, but I never check for gauge. One of these days, that lesson is totally going to sink in.

After realising I didn't have enough yarn to complete the project, I went back to the yarn shop [called Bead Connections. I know, I know] to see if they had anymore of the pretty green and purple variegated mohair.

One. Ball. Left.

I was positively gleeful. After ripping out the sleeves so I could make the body longer, I have now reworked the sleeves to a nice length, and have only to work from the top of the shoulders up. I should be able to complete it tonight.

Very excited.

I managed to write two entries in one year! Shock! Surprise!

2007-11-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

I'm considering using this space to help me learn about tarot.

Well, more specifically, I am considering using this space to write about whatever I happen to be learning about at the time, and right now, that's mostly tarot. In February, Jacqueline will be here teaching me how to use a drop spindle, and I imagine my crafter's A.D.D. will get the best of me and I will move on to other projects as well.

And the best part is [well, maybe not the best, but I'm a fan of this part] is I was given a digital camera this weekend! So I can take stupid pictures of things [or awesome pictures of stupid things, you know, whichever]. Its not the highest quality camera, but I tend to spend my money on important things like cat food and the DVD set of the first season of Heroes, so I'm not going to complain overly much.

I haven't quite worked out how I'll deal with writing about tarot readings yet, I think I'll look up a few more blogs on the subject first.

One way or another, I'm kinda excited.

I guess the short version of this entry would be: Expect to see more posts from me.

Yup. That about summed it up. Hopefully someone will find those posts interesting.

Oh Look!

2007-07-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

Another blog that I will never remember to update! But at least I will be able to comment on other blogs again, which is the important factor here.

Mayhaps I'll post things here. Doubtful, but never say never, and all that assorted jazz, right?