Power Rangers peeps
18 June 2013 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragovianknight(For the record, I still believe the little girl who asked which Ranger looks best in his
Edit: And then I browsed my RPM tag for the first time in DEAR GOD HOW IS IT THREE YEARS???? and discovered this plotbunny: When the apocalypse wipes out most of the vampire population, and the demons all retreat to their various hell dimensions, what's a Slayer to do? Well, trying out for the open Power Ranger slot seems like a good start... (Yes, I want an AU where Green is female, competent, and more than happy to put the smackdown on Ziggy when he says something creepy.)
I'm also LOL'ing at my repeated "OMG Dr K, no, I didn't mean to does not get you off the hook for destroying the world. No, not even if you're responsible for the survival of a tiny handful of humanity. Just NO." I'd forgotten how much that pissed me off.
(no subject)
18 June 2013 04:48 pmdsgoodMonday June 17, 2013 Planned out a political system.
Shopped at the Wedge Coop and Steeple People Thrift Store.
***From politicalwire.com:
In the mail: Christian Nation: A Novel by Frederic C. Rich.
"When President McCain dies and Sarah Palin becomes president, the reader, along with the nation, stumbles down a terrifyingly credible path toward theocracy, realizing too late that the Christian right meant precisely what it said."
http://tinyurl.com/m9ajltz
***From politicalwire.com:
Former Mitt Romney economic adviser Greg Mankiw has a new paper that tries to "defend the 1 percent" and the current state of income equality in the United States.
Writes Mankiw: "In the end, the left's arguments for increased redistribution are valid in principle but dubious in practice... If the current tax system were regressive, or if the incomes of the top 1 percent were much greater than their economic contributions, or if the rich enjoyed government services in excess of what they pay in taxes, then the case for increasing the top tax rate would indeed be strong. But there is no compelling reason to believe that any of these premises holds true."
http://tinyurl.com/modcw5k
My opinions: The current tax system is indeed regressive, taking into account all taxes.
I agree with Ayn Rand that some of the top one percent would have incomes greater than their economic contributions if they were making minimum wage.
The rich do get government services of greater value than what they pay in taxes.
***Telephone directories delivered. Issued April 2013, allegedly. Again this year, a bit thinner than last year.
Shopped at the Wedge Coop and Steeple People Thrift Store.
***From politicalwire.com:
In the mail: Christian Nation: A Novel by Frederic C. Rich.
"When President McCain dies and Sarah Palin becomes president, the reader, along with the nation, stumbles down a terrifyingly credible path toward theocracy, realizing too late that the Christian right meant precisely what it said."
http://tinyurl.com/m9ajltz
***From politicalwire.com:
Former Mitt Romney economic adviser Greg Mankiw has a new paper that tries to "defend the 1 percent" and the current state of income equality in the United States.
Writes Mankiw: "In the end, the left's arguments for increased redistribution are valid in principle but dubious in practice... If the current tax system were regressive, or if the incomes of the top 1 percent were much greater than their economic contributions, or if the rich enjoyed government services in excess of what they pay in taxes, then the case for increasing the top tax rate would indeed be strong. But there is no compelling reason to believe that any of these premises holds true."
http://tinyurl.com/modcw5k
My opinions: The current tax system is indeed regressive, taking into account all taxes.
I agree with Ayn Rand that some of the top one percent would have incomes greater than their economic contributions if they were making minimum wage.
The rich do get government services of greater value than what they pay in taxes.
***Telephone directories delivered. Issued April 2013, allegedly. Again this year, a bit thinner than last year.
(no subject)
18 June 2013 05:10 pmthe_rckLast night was the first softball game of the season. The park where it was had plenty of shade. I believe we have two or three other games at this particular park. I hope I'm remembering correctly. Shade is by no means guaranteed, and it makes the whole thing considerably more pleasant. Last night was especially nice because it wasn't hot.
The coaches pitch for their own teams at this level. It's next year that the girls start to pitch. Our coach is not a very good pitcher, so the girls tend to strike out a lot. Each girl at bat gets five pitches, good, bad or indifferent. If she can't hit one of them, she's out, even if they were all bad. Scott kept saying that they ought to give the girls golf clubs because of how low to the ground the pitches were. I think part of the problem is that the coach insists on standing way back from the plate. The other coach stood about half as far from the batter as did our coach.
Cordelia played left field a couple of times, second base once and catcher once. At second base and as catcher, she tagged runners out. There was another girl she should have tagged out, but none of the girls knew that they had to tag the runner to get her out. Cordelia got on base twice (I think she batted three times) and made it home once.
I think Cordelia's team lost, but nobody told us the score. There's always a parent who's keeping score. The forms are arcane and complicated. There's data to be entered for each batter as they run the bases. I don't understand it at all. Scott doesn't either.
Fortunately, the park was close to Whole Foods. Scott didn't have time to get dinner before the game, so he went to Whole Foods to get something to eat. I'm not sure what we're going to do about that. The games all start at 6:30, and we were late getting there last night in spite of having half an hour to get there. Traffic was difficult. We couldn't have left any earlier because Scott wasn't ready to go. That'll be a problem next week, too. (Tomorrow's game, it won't be an issue. Scott has PT and will be coming late to the game. Cordelia and I will be riding to the game with another family.)
How late the games end is going to be an issue, too. Scott had to go in to work early this morning and, ideally, should have been in bed at 8:00. The game ran until 8:30. I don't think he was in bed until about 9:30. That's not sustainable, but I don't see that we have a choice.
The coaches pitch for their own teams at this level. It's next year that the girls start to pitch. Our coach is not a very good pitcher, so the girls tend to strike out a lot. Each girl at bat gets five pitches, good, bad or indifferent. If she can't hit one of them, she's out, even if they were all bad. Scott kept saying that they ought to give the girls golf clubs because of how low to the ground the pitches were. I think part of the problem is that the coach insists on standing way back from the plate. The other coach stood about half as far from the batter as did our coach.
Cordelia played left field a couple of times, second base once and catcher once. At second base and as catcher, she tagged runners out. There was another girl she should have tagged out, but none of the girls knew that they had to tag the runner to get her out. Cordelia got on base twice (I think she batted three times) and made it home once.
I think Cordelia's team lost, but nobody told us the score. There's always a parent who's keeping score. The forms are arcane and complicated. There's data to be entered for each batter as they run the bases. I don't understand it at all. Scott doesn't either.
Fortunately, the park was close to Whole Foods. Scott didn't have time to get dinner before the game, so he went to Whole Foods to get something to eat. I'm not sure what we're going to do about that. The games all start at 6:30, and we were late getting there last night in spite of having half an hour to get there. Traffic was difficult. We couldn't have left any earlier because Scott wasn't ready to go. That'll be a problem next week, too. (Tomorrow's game, it won't be an issue. Scott has PT and will be coming late to the game. Cordelia and I will be riding to the game with another family.)
How late the games end is going to be an issue, too. Scott had to go in to work early this morning and, ideally, should have been in bed at 8:00. The game ran until 8:30. I don't think he was in bed until about 9:30. That's not sustainable, but I don't see that we have a choice.
What I've been reading, what I'm reading
18 June 2013 01:01 pm19_crowsThe Likeness, Tana French. I couldn't decide if I even wanted to read this after my irritation with In The Woods and its ending that didn't solve the mystery. Well, it solved the murder but it didn't solve THE MYSTERY. But somehow I bought this anyway and then it looked like a good book to read on a plane, and I wasn't disappointed.
The premise here is completely unbelievable: a detective who's the spittin' image of a murdered woman will go undercover and live in her household to catch the killer. There's a lot of shilly shallying about whether or not the detective will agree do do it (though of course we know she'll say yes, that's the point of the book.) Maybe that helped me, the reader, overcome my skepticism because, as ridiculous as it is, it works. The detective more than inhabits her role and is drawn into the emotional life of the group - why shouldn't she be? this is her "family" - and that's what won me over. The characters and the emotions felt so true. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and am still thinking about them and how things ended and how they might have been different.
Summer and Bird, Katherine Catmull. Originally I wrote a long review explaining everything I didn't like about this book, but I'm sure nobody else cares. The poetic style isn't for me, and I was annoyed by the magical world, which wasn't described enough to feel real. It also doesn't seem to have clear rules that the sisters must obey on their quest to find their parents. For me, learning the rules, being thwarted by them, and working with them is what gives magical stories (Oz, Edward Eager, E. Nesbit, Harry Potter) their tension. In this book, things just happen to the girls. They have some agency but are passive in many ways.
Some of the emotional things felt true and moving, like each sister's concern for and resentment of the other. The depiction of how someone can be made to distrust and hate a loved one, and learn to have contempt for the weak really worked. Other things didn't - the abandonment issues, like the Swan Queen's abandoning her people and the mother abandoning her children, didn't feel worked out. The ending was unsatisfying, especially the father's role.
Also, could she have chosen a clunkier term than "the attainable border" for one of the major plot points?
Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, Ruth Rendell. A genial con man is involved with several women, one of whom is crazy. What could go wrong? A number of tangled web weavers’ lies intersect in curious ways. Rendell is magnificent at describing how people make bad decisions that make sense at the time, and the way emotions change as time passes. The tension towards the end of this one is deliciously unbearable.
A Death in the Family, James Agee. I've read an excerpt from this but never the whole book, and I'm really liking its stately pace and beautiful descriptions.
The premise here is completely unbelievable: a detective who's the spittin' image of a murdered woman will go undercover and live in her household to catch the killer. There's a lot of shilly shallying about whether or not the detective will agree do do it (though of course we know she'll say yes, that's the point of the book.) Maybe that helped me, the reader, overcome my skepticism because, as ridiculous as it is, it works. The detective more than inhabits her role and is drawn into the emotional life of the group - why shouldn't she be? this is her "family" - and that's what won me over. The characters and the emotions felt so true. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and am still thinking about them and how things ended and how they might have been different.
Summer and Bird, Katherine Catmull. Originally I wrote a long review explaining everything I didn't like about this book, but I'm sure nobody else cares. The poetic style isn't for me, and I was annoyed by the magical world, which wasn't described enough to feel real. It also doesn't seem to have clear rules that the sisters must obey on their quest to find their parents. For me, learning the rules, being thwarted by them, and working with them is what gives magical stories (Oz, Edward Eager, E. Nesbit, Harry Potter) their tension. In this book, things just happen to the girls. They have some agency but are passive in many ways.
Some of the emotional things felt true and moving, like each sister's concern for and resentment of the other. The depiction of how someone can be made to distrust and hate a loved one, and learn to have contempt for the weak really worked. Other things didn't - the abandonment issues, like the Swan Queen's abandoning her people and the mother abandoning her children, didn't feel worked out. The ending was unsatisfying, especially the father's role.
Also, could she have chosen a clunkier term than "the attainable border" for one of the major plot points?
Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, Ruth Rendell. A genial con man is involved with several women, one of whom is crazy. What could go wrong? A number of tangled web weavers’ lies intersect in curious ways. Rendell is magnificent at describing how people make bad decisions that make sense at the time, and the way emotions change as time passes. The tension towards the end of this one is deliciously unbearable.
A Death in the Family, James Agee. I've read an excerpt from this but never the whole book, and I'm really liking its stately pace and beautiful descriptions.
Sick.
18 June 2013 03:15 pmsilmarilYesterday afternoon my throat started hurting; last night I started having the swift pains in the long muscles of my legs that means something unpleasant is on the way; this morning I woke up at 5 am with a sore throat, clammy skin, stuffed nose, and general feeling of enh.
Sudafed, Emergen-C, and sleeping until noon got me feeling well enough to shower and stumble out to work, because skipping a day right now is not an option on multiple fronts and I had not planned ahead enough to work from home. Skin still feels a bit cold and clammy, general enh-ness persists, and throat a bit touchy. I will take my work computer home tonight, just in case.
So, yes, sick.
[unreferenced footnote] Look,![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theweaselking, the Oxford comma. Thrice, even.
Sudafed, Emergen-C, and sleeping until noon got me feeling well enough to shower and stumble out to work, because skipping a day right now is not an option on multiple fronts and I had not planned ahead enough to work from home. Skin still feels a bit cold and clammy, general enh-ness persists, and throat a bit touchy. I will take my work computer home tonight, just in case.
So, yes, sick.
[unreferenced footnote] Look,
theweaselking, the Oxford comma. Thrice, even.It's too early in the morning for this post to really be heading anywhere.
18 June 2013 08:08 amumadoshiSleep is still elusive. I was up too late last night, which is my own fault, and woke up 45 minutes before my alarm this morning, so oh, won't today be fun at the office?
But you know what an extra 45 minutes is good for? Watching last night's Warehouse 13 first thing. I have no time to write anything about it right now, but I'm glad I fit that in. Oh, show! I didn't need that heart, did I? I guess you must know best. OR SOMETHING.
(I guess with only three more episodes until the season finale, it makes sense that they're ramping up on all fronts. I see many possibilities, and they're all stressful. ;_;)
...I keep wanting to say something like "I dream of getting enough sleep", but I think I'd need to get more sleep for that to be true. Or something.
Happy Tuesday, everyone. Time for me to stop spinning my wheels online and get to the bus.
But you know what an extra 45 minutes is good for? Watching last night's Warehouse 13 first thing. I have no time to write anything about it right now, but I'm glad I fit that in. Oh, show! I didn't need that heart, did I? I guess you must know best. OR SOMETHING.
(I guess with only three more episodes until the season finale, it makes sense that they're ramping up on all fronts. I see many possibilities, and they're all stressful. ;_;)
...I keep wanting to say something like "I dream of getting enough sleep", but I think I'd need to get more sleep for that to be true. Or something.
Happy Tuesday, everyone. Time for me to stop spinning my wheels online and get to the bus.
(no subject)
18 June 2013 01:51 pmpendencyMy new deviant art: http://macalaster.deviantart.com/
Nothing there yet...
Also sprung; how little I remember about how to use deviantart.
Nothing there yet...
Also sprung; how little I remember about how to use deviantart.
The Great Gatsby (2013)
17 June 2013 05:00 pmstarladyThe Great Gatsby. Dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2013.
I was describing this movie toshveta_writes and her husband, and at the end I realized that my description was actually pretty positive. I liked this movie! I don't think it's anywhere near as terrible as many critics made it out to be, though I should mention that it's been a good ten years since I last read the book--since, in fact, my eleventh grade English teacher assigned me an essay on the color symbolism and when I worked out the color symbolism it revealed that F. Scott Fitzgerald was pretty misogynist.
It probably shouldn't have taken me an essay on color symbolism to figure that out.
My sister and I agreed that the movie gets a lot of things right--the atmosphere of the 1920s, New York in the Jazz Age, and how over the top it really was, in a way that's familiar to the 1% of our era but was unimaginable, or unfilmable, for most of the intervening decades. It goes without saying that the man who directed Moulin Rouge made sure that this movie had a phenomenal soundtrack, and the music works very well as part of the movie, too. (Check Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine in the film, playing the part of the girl who sings while crying!) The costuming too was pretty great, and I have to say that I am willing to let some of its minor anachronisms slide. Primarily, of course, Baz Luhrmann is a genius at putting parties on film (which is kind of ironic), and given that half the plot of Gatsby is either driven by or a reaction to "he throws big parties OMG," the man and the subject matter are well matched. Ain't no party like aLuhrmann Gatsby party.
I thought the actors did a good job too. I really can't stand Tobey Maguire, and in some ways I think he's the weakest of the leads, though by the end I was fine with his performance. (Though, seriously, don't get Tobey Maguire to read your audiobooks.) Leonardo DiCaprio and Carrie Mulligan were also pretty good; my main problem with the actors and the script, in fact, was that THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH JORDAN BAKER. She is so great! And there was so little of her!
I also had a lot of problems with the shoddy conversion to 2D--filming the movie in 3D makes a lot of the establishing shots look like bad miniature work, and in many of the close-up night studio scenes the actors' skin looked mildly pixelated, and there was a bit of a prism effect at the edges of their faces. Relatedly: they should have done fewer of the night scenes in the studio. Especially in a smaller theater, all this was really obvious; it's not obvious to me how shooting in 3D made this a better movie, as the composition of the shots wasn't really designed to take advantage of 3D. (Dare I say that there are a lot of movies that have no compelling need for 3D.)
In the end, this was a very credible adaptation, and probably the best I've seen. It says a lot about how The Great Gatsby is taught in schools that it took the movie's visually hitting the audience over the head with the race and class structures on which the story is based for me to really grasp that this book isn't about the American dream or what the fuck ever; it's about class and classism, and how for Fitzgerald class is not something you can ever overcome. Race isn't even on his radar, except in his anti-Semitism, which thankfully the film didn't seem to make too much of. Nick is alienated enough from his birth class by his need to have a job that he's able to connect with Gatsby, and then to leave New York and write the book; the revelation to him that Gatsby is worth all the rest of them put together, after everything, is the central moral judgment of the story. The end of Gatsby's extraordinary career bears him out.
I was describing this movie to
shveta_writes and her husband, and at the end I realized that my description was actually pretty positive. I liked this movie! I don't think it's anywhere near as terrible as many critics made it out to be, though I should mention that it's been a good ten years since I last read the book--since, in fact, my eleventh grade English teacher assigned me an essay on the color symbolism and when I worked out the color symbolism it revealed that F. Scott Fitzgerald was pretty misogynist. It probably shouldn't have taken me an essay on color symbolism to figure that out.
My sister and I agreed that the movie gets a lot of things right--the atmosphere of the 1920s, New York in the Jazz Age, and how over the top it really was, in a way that's familiar to the 1% of our era but was unimaginable, or unfilmable, for most of the intervening decades. It goes without saying that the man who directed Moulin Rouge made sure that this movie had a phenomenal soundtrack, and the music works very well as part of the movie, too. (Check Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine in the film, playing the part of the girl who sings while crying!) The costuming too was pretty great, and I have to say that I am willing to let some of its minor anachronisms slide. Primarily, of course, Baz Luhrmann is a genius at putting parties on film (which is kind of ironic), and given that half the plot of Gatsby is either driven by or a reaction to "he throws big parties OMG," the man and the subject matter are well matched. Ain't no party like a
I thought the actors did a good job too. I really can't stand Tobey Maguire, and in some ways I think he's the weakest of the leads, though by the end I was fine with his performance. (Though, seriously, don't get Tobey Maguire to read your audiobooks.) Leonardo DiCaprio and Carrie Mulligan were also pretty good; my main problem with the actors and the script, in fact, was that THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH JORDAN BAKER. She is so great! And there was so little of her!
I also had a lot of problems with the shoddy conversion to 2D--filming the movie in 3D makes a lot of the establishing shots look like bad miniature work, and in many of the close-up night studio scenes the actors' skin looked mildly pixelated, and there was a bit of a prism effect at the edges of their faces. Relatedly: they should have done fewer of the night scenes in the studio. Especially in a smaller theater, all this was really obvious; it's not obvious to me how shooting in 3D made this a better movie, as the composition of the shots wasn't really designed to take advantage of 3D. (Dare I say that there are a lot of movies that have no compelling need for 3D.)
In the end, this was a very credible adaptation, and probably the best I've seen. It says a lot about how The Great Gatsby is taught in schools that it took the movie's visually hitting the audience over the head with the race and class structures on which the story is based for me to really grasp that this book isn't about the American dream or what the fuck ever; it's about class and classism, and how for Fitzgerald class is not something you can ever overcome. Race isn't even on his radar, except in his anti-Semitism, which thankfully the film didn't seem to make too much of. Nick is alienated enough from his birth class by his need to have a job that he's able to connect with Gatsby, and then to leave New York and write the book; the revelation to him that Gatsby is worth all the rest of them put together, after everything, is the central moral judgment of the story. The end of Gatsby's extraordinary career bears him out.
(no subject)
18 June 2013 12:59 amsevilemarMade myself a warrior. Am ridiculously pleased with how easy playing is with him. I like being up close and personal with my enemies, and love being able to take a hit, just keep going etc. Why did nobody tell me how easy it is if you don't have to have an eye out for surprises all the time? If smth comes up and bites me, that's fine, I can bite it right back, and not having to worry to get myself to safety first. I don't even mind dying that much, it happens *shrug*
I love his practicality, in fighting style as well as in dress. He doesn't wear anything he doesn't need, and his bow and sword suit him just fine. Also, his green skin and flaming red hair is just really cool (yes, Sylvari). He likes Zhaitaffy way too much for his own good, and vomits regularly because of it. He loves the whole shebang at Lion's Arch atm, and often shirks duty in favour of fireworks and pinatas and partying, but when he's in a fight, he's in 100%, no questions asked.
I've been playing him most of the time now, and it's saying a lot about me atm. Am still tired, need to get back on the schedule after a very emotional week.
I love his practicality, in fighting style as well as in dress. He doesn't wear anything he doesn't need, and his bow and sword suit him just fine. Also, his green skin and flaming red hair is just really cool (yes, Sylvari). He likes Zhaitaffy way too much for his own good, and vomits regularly because of it. He loves the whole shebang at Lion's Arch atm, and often shirks duty in favour of fireworks and pinatas and partying, but when he's in a fight, he's in 100%, no questions asked.
I've been playing him most of the time now, and it's saying a lot about me atm. Am still tired, need to get back on the schedule after a very emotional week.
(no subject)
17 June 2013 11:53 amthe_rckWe spent yesterday afternoon with Scott's family. Father's Day tradition in the family is that the guys go golfing while the women hang out at Scott's sister's place for the afternoon. This year, Scott remembered sunscreen. He usually forgets and ends up with a burn on his neck.
While the guys were golfing, we worked on putting together the invitations for Scott's parents' fiftieth anniversary party. Scott's sister made fancy cards that needed to have bits glued to them and tied on and so on. Scott's mother had printed address labels, and those had to go on the envelopes. We got everything ready to mail apart from putting stamps on the envelopes.
I'm going to have to find time to shop for a dress for the anniversary party. Scott's mother wants us all to dress up, and she wants us in the colors of the party. The only summer fancy dress I have is a bit too large and rather precarious. When I wore it for my cousin's wedding, I used a shawl as a guard against a wardrobe malfunction. I have a winter dress that I use for Christmas services, but it's the wrong color, even if I'm desperate. I have no idea where to even start shopping for a dress. I don't know my size. I just know that most places don't carry anything much that large.
Scott's going to have to shop for clothes, too. He doesn't have anything dressy, either. The color requirements will give him trouble.
I think Cordelia's got dresses that will work for the party. She's got a few dressy dresses. The only hitch is one she'll have to get over-- She doesn't like wearing the same dress twice. We do need to get out and shop for some more shorts for her. She was complaining yesterday about being out of shorts. Of course, some of that may be not being able to find the shorts. Her drawers are packed. Some time this week, I have to corral her so that we can go through her drawers and sort out what no longer fits and what needs to be put away until it starts to get cold again.
We stayed at Scott's sister's house until about 8:00. When we got home, Scott had to go out to return library books (we'd forgotten earlier in the day). He also bought snacks for us to take to the first softball game. Unfortunately, he's going to have to buy different snacks. There are nut allergies on the team, and these aren't nut safe. They say 'may contain tree nuts,' and that's enough that those girls can't eat them. Scott's going to be cranky about this because it seems to happen every time he buys snacks. (Also because he's going to be pressed for time after work today. The game's at 6:30, and he has to shower, eat and get to Rec & Ed to return the balls and such that they gave him for coaching soccer.)
While the guys were golfing, we worked on putting together the invitations for Scott's parents' fiftieth anniversary party. Scott's sister made fancy cards that needed to have bits glued to them and tied on and so on. Scott's mother had printed address labels, and those had to go on the envelopes. We got everything ready to mail apart from putting stamps on the envelopes.
I'm going to have to find time to shop for a dress for the anniversary party. Scott's mother wants us all to dress up, and she wants us in the colors of the party. The only summer fancy dress I have is a bit too large and rather precarious. When I wore it for my cousin's wedding, I used a shawl as a guard against a wardrobe malfunction. I have a winter dress that I use for Christmas services, but it's the wrong color, even if I'm desperate. I have no idea where to even start shopping for a dress. I don't know my size. I just know that most places don't carry anything much that large.
Scott's going to have to shop for clothes, too. He doesn't have anything dressy, either. The color requirements will give him trouble.
I think Cordelia's got dresses that will work for the party. She's got a few dressy dresses. The only hitch is one she'll have to get over-- She doesn't like wearing the same dress twice. We do need to get out and shop for some more shorts for her. She was complaining yesterday about being out of shorts. Of course, some of that may be not being able to find the shorts. Her drawers are packed. Some time this week, I have to corral her so that we can go through her drawers and sort out what no longer fits and what needs to be put away until it starts to get cold again.
We stayed at Scott's sister's house until about 8:00. When we got home, Scott had to go out to return library books (we'd forgotten earlier in the day). He also bought snacks for us to take to the first softball game. Unfortunately, he's going to have to buy different snacks. There are nut allergies on the team, and these aren't nut safe. They say 'may contain tree nuts,' and that's enough that those girls can't eat them. Scott's going to be cranky about this because it seems to happen every time he buys snacks. (Also because he's going to be pressed for time after work today. The game's at 6:30, and he has to shower, eat and get to Rec & Ed to return the balls and such that they gave him for coaching soccer.)
Bleach: the versatility (?) of black and white symbols
17 June 2013 10:47 ambranchandrootKT's latest twist in Bleach leaves me with mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I have long held that KT isn't completely making the story up as he goes, that he has always had an organizing principle, that principle being, essentially, Ichigo's path through 'reincarnation' in six worlds (okay, probably only five) and on to eventual enlightenment. We've had the "introduce all these people arc", we've had the asura arc in Soul Society, we've had the hungry ghost arc in Hueca Mundo, we've had the human arc with the Fullbringers, and so far all of those things have been relatively well integrated. Some parts were more clearly off-the-cuff and unbalanced; in particular, I think KT couldn't quite decide for a while whether he wanted Sado or Orihime to be more associated with the hungry ghosts, and when he went with Orihime that left Sado with a bit of re-orientation needed. He didn't really put in as much narrative work as that re-orientation required, though, leaving Sado peripheral to what should have been the arc centered on him as much as on Ichigo. That was annoying.
I don't fear that will happen to Ishida; his centrality to the I'm-guessing-hell/Quincy arc has been signalled from the start. The part I think is really falling apart is the convincing integration of Ichigo's powers.
( Spoilers for recent manga chapters )
On the one hand, I have long held that KT isn't completely making the story up as he goes, that he has always had an organizing principle, that principle being, essentially, Ichigo's path through 'reincarnation' in six worlds (okay, probably only five) and on to eventual enlightenment. We've had the "introduce all these people arc", we've had the asura arc in Soul Society, we've had the hungry ghost arc in Hueca Mundo, we've had the human arc with the Fullbringers, and so far all of those things have been relatively well integrated. Some parts were more clearly off-the-cuff and unbalanced; in particular, I think KT couldn't quite decide for a while whether he wanted Sado or Orihime to be more associated with the hungry ghosts, and when he went with Orihime that left Sado with a bit of re-orientation needed. He didn't really put in as much narrative work as that re-orientation required, though, leaving Sado peripheral to what should have been the arc centered on him as much as on Ichigo. That was annoying.
I don't fear that will happen to Ishida; his centrality to the I'm-guessing-hell/Quincy arc has been signalled from the start. The part I think is really falling apart is the convincing integration of Ichigo's powers.
( Spoilers for recent manga chapters )
edenfallingToday's experiment: walk in to town, buy vodka and Kahlúa (1L of Sobieski -- because it was the second cheapest and vodka tastes of nothing anyway -- and 750mL, respectively), lug both bottles home in a handle-free paper bag, discover that (happily!) the ice cubes I made to soothe my mom's paranoia prior to Sandy last fall have only sublimed about halfway to nothing, dig out dinky tin measuring cup, and make myself a Black Russian.
Mmmmmmmm.
I love Black Russians. They are the simplest damn drink to make, they taste lovely, and unlike some other mixed drinks, you never forget that you're drinking something with a high alcohol content, so inebriation can't sneak up on you unplanned. There are disputes about the precise ratio of vodka to Kahlúa -- apparently Kahlúa makers would like you to use a 3-to-2 ratio, whereas the International Bartenders Association would like you to use a 5-to-2 ratio -- but I split the difference and use a simple 2-to-1 ratio, as my mother taught me.
She used to drink a single Black Russian sometimes upon getting home from a really cruddy day at work, and was willing to let me sample them when I asked, which is how I knew I liked them.
This was my parents' basic approach to any alcoholic beverage -- if Vicky or I asked, they would let us get a teaspoon and have a single swallow of whatever they were drinking. Which is why I knew from a very, very, very young age that I cannot stand the taste of beer (do not argue with me about different types of beers, the poor quality of American beers, or anything else; what I dislike is the inherent flavor of beer itself, which no amount of "quality" or other flavors will ever disguise), prefer white wine to red, and think brandies are nice but not worth the expense. I don't remember exactly when they began allowing us to have a champagne cocktail at special family occasions, but I'm pretty sure it was before we turned 21, in both my case and Vicky's.
My parents drink mostly with dinner, but also a bit socially. The intent is either to accompany a meal or to get mellow -- never to get outright drunk. I suspect this modeling of a reasonable relationship with alcohol and the refusal to make drinking some kind of inaccessible, fetishized symbol of adulthood is why I never got into any kind of drinking culture in high school or college, and why Vicky only flirted with the edges of the heavy drinking scene.
In any case, I have tried a few other mixed drinks over the years -- several random kinds when I had a month's exchange trip to Germany at 17 and was legally able to buy and drink alcohol, and a couple others since then -- but I am not in the habit of going to bars so I tend to stick to what I know. Which is that Black Russians are awesome.
And now I can make them at home. :-)
Mmmmmmmm.
I love Black Russians. They are the simplest damn drink to make, they taste lovely, and unlike some other mixed drinks, you never forget that you're drinking something with a high alcohol content, so inebriation can't sneak up on you unplanned. There are disputes about the precise ratio of vodka to Kahlúa -- apparently Kahlúa makers would like you to use a 3-to-2 ratio, whereas the International Bartenders Association would like you to use a 5-to-2 ratio -- but I split the difference and use a simple 2-to-1 ratio, as my mother taught me.
She used to drink a single Black Russian sometimes upon getting home from a really cruddy day at work, and was willing to let me sample them when I asked, which is how I knew I liked them.
This was my parents' basic approach to any alcoholic beverage -- if Vicky or I asked, they would let us get a teaspoon and have a single swallow of whatever they were drinking. Which is why I knew from a very, very, very young age that I cannot stand the taste of beer (do not argue with me about different types of beers, the poor quality of American beers, or anything else; what I dislike is the inherent flavor of beer itself, which no amount of "quality" or other flavors will ever disguise), prefer white wine to red, and think brandies are nice but not worth the expense. I don't remember exactly when they began allowing us to have a champagne cocktail at special family occasions, but I'm pretty sure it was before we turned 21, in both my case and Vicky's.
My parents drink mostly with dinner, but also a bit socially. The intent is either to accompany a meal or to get mellow -- never to get outright drunk. I suspect this modeling of a reasonable relationship with alcohol and the refusal to make drinking some kind of inaccessible, fetishized symbol of adulthood is why I never got into any kind of drinking culture in high school or college, and why Vicky only flirted with the edges of the heavy drinking scene.
In any case, I have tried a few other mixed drinks over the years -- several random kinds when I had a month's exchange trip to Germany at 17 and was legally able to buy and drink alcohol, and a couple others since then -- but I am not in the habit of going to bars so I tend to stick to what I know. Which is that Black Russians are awesome.
And now I can make them at home. :-)
