I move at the end of the week and have only just made my first pitiful attempt at packing. I hate packing so much. Fortunately I'll have a chance to come back and get stuff over the time I took off for the move. That gives me more breathing room.
I haven't been sleeping well or eating right and my body is about to revolt on me. Too much stress. Ugh.
In other news, The Dark Knight was everything I'd hoped for and more. I also had a major Terminator geek moment. Christian Bale as John Connor. *sighs happily*
This is reminiscent of the stunt that Verisign pulled several years ago, where they would shunt you over to a page where you could register a domain you had attempted to access, if it didn't really exist. The methods Rogers is using are different, but the effect is the same.
The above article overstates the problem a bit (I highly doubt users will be as OMG CONFUSED as the author seems to think) but it is really annoying that Rogers seems to think it's OK to essentially change the way the Internet works for their users, in the name of getting ad impressions.
Just got home for seeing The Chieftains and other such amazing acts such as The Cottars and fire dancers at the Surrey Fusion Festival. Pretty gosh darn amazing. I've loved and listened to The Chieftains since I was about 10 years old. It made me so happy to see them. And they had some amazing Irish step dancers with them. Fantastic.
I think we may have been a little overly optimistic in our plans to stay here tonight... I mean, we made it okay, rolling into the hotel parking lot at around 10:30. But I sort of wish we'd been able to stop at Grant's Pass, about an hour or so earlier. OTOH, I'm so very glad we made a reservation... I figured it would all be booked up around here and I was right, since the Shakespeare Festival is in full swing.
So, yeah, it was after 1:00 by the time we really got on the road... dodging over across I-90 to I-5 when we saw that there was stop-and-go traffic on 405, and still hitting an amazing amount of a roadwork pretty much all the way down the line.
We did stop off at the restaurant ladyforash manages in Springfield, OR... hoping she might be at work, but no luck. I started skimming my flist while we were waiting for our food and discovered that she's actually in Montana on her own roadtrip this weekend. Heh.
We had one exciting moment driving by a brushfire in the median, north of Vancouver... there was a ton of smoke, so Rackham had moved into the middle lane before hitting it (it was seriously thick at that point) and it turned out to be a good thing or we would have gotten more than a little singed... the flames were blowing over the entire inside lane! Yikes! As it was, we could feel the heat from the fire.
And then the funky thing... I noticed something odd just above the horizon, at one point, sort of hanging back behind the trees. For a bit there, I had no clue what it was... and then it hit me. With all the wildfires they've got going in California and Oregon, there's a ton of smoke just sitting around the atmosphere. And I was seeing the moon. Or rather, I was almost seeing the moon. It was an *extremely* dark orange-ish red... to the point where we were trying to figure out if it might just be a new moon. Nope. There was just so much smoke hanging around that it was almost completely obscuring the moon. It was both cool and creepy.
Tomorrow we're headed down to the my grandfather's place in Sacramento... hopefully with a stop at the Olive Pit along the way (mmmmm.... olives...) and I have no idea what sort of condition his wireless network is in. Hopefully we'll have access when we're there (or it won't take long to fix it so it's working again).
I just got back from spending a week out at Hahobas Boy Scout Camp with Teren. I arranged with the camp to let me set up my smithing stuff and teach the metalwork merit badge all week. The weather was fantastic, and the week went by too fast.
Teren had a good week- his big goal was to finish qualifying on the rifle merit badge that he started last year. He succeeded; qualifying requires putting 5 groups of 5 shots with a .22 rifle under the size of a quarter on 5 targets at 50 feet. He also went to swim instruction for a few hours each day. I'm hoping I can find a way to get him more swim lessons so he can continue his progress towards learning to swim.
Here are a few pictures, or you can skip right to the full set:
Thirty-one today What a thing to say Drinking Guinness in the afternoon Taking shelter in the black cocoon
I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now But it's not, and I don't know where to turn
Called some guy I knew Had a drink or two And we fumbled as the day grew dark I pretended that I felt a spark
I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now But it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn
Easter comes and goes Maybe Jesus knows So you roll on with the best you can Getting loaded, watching CNN
I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now I thought my life would be different somehow I thought my life would be better by now But it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know where to turn No, it's not, and I don't know
-- Aimee Man, "31 Today"
(34, but a sister of the cloth never divulges her real age.)
Today was 1000x better than last weekend. I didn't feel well last weekend, I felt like myself today. YAY! Bike riding is getting difficult because it's too hot. But I keep trying anyway. I think I probably rode a grand total of 1 mile before I was too hot. I fail at summertime.
Then Chris and I went to Author Author Shreveport. We had to pay $5 to get in to look at books written by people from Shreveport. Chris wanted Civil War books written by a local historian, that was our reason for going and he got all the books he was missing by that guy. So that was good. But there wasn't really much there and it was kind of pitiful. At least Shreveport was trying to be literary. It's just that no one here writes anything worth reading.
And we did locate the Robinson Film Center. It's on Texas Street passed the courthouse towards the church. (And only maybe 5 people on my friend list will even care the exact location of it. But I'm going to write it anyway.) I'm not really sure where they expect people to park.
Now I am in bed with cookies and milk and I'm reading The Watchman. Never read it. I don't even know what it's really about yet since I just started.
I was, frankly, a bit weary of the whole Batman franchise, and judging from the half-full theater, so were a lot of people. The trailers for the movie were simply inadequate, but it was easily the best Batman superhero movie ever. Epic. Dark. Complex.
Heath Ledger was sadly, tragically perfect as the Joker. Clearly Oscar-worthy, even if you don't take into account his death... better than Nicholson.
Christian Bale did a great job playing both of his major characters, Batman and Bruce Wayne. Finally, we have a Batman bringing some serious duality to the role!
The directing and screenplay was strong, put together by the minds behind "Momento". Frankly, The Dark Knight's screenplay is superior... just as complex and innovative as that film, while resting on far more solid ground.
The cinematography and action sequences were awe-inspiring at times. They used IMAX cameras to film several major scenes... and it shows, with images that look as good as a Frank Miller spash page.
Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were both as good as they could be, considering their roles, which were strengthened because both of them were given moral dillemas... as was Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Twoface, Gary Oldman as Police Commissioner Gordon... in fact, if there is one main theme in this movie, it is the moral challenge of being a good guy when faced with impossible moral dilemmas... all brought to us by the ultimate ringmaster of nihilistic chaos, the Joker.
All in all, it was as good as it gets. But can they possibly do it again?! I'd like to see them try.
Maybe I wasn't quite as weary of the Batman franchise as I thought.
And Stasia, I havent used the Tilli Tomas Rockstar yet, but I did get another skein but in silk chenille in Parchment as well
(ebay yarn shopping the night you get paid is evil, great Italian cashmere for less than ten dollars??? evil, evil, evil! and yes I did have a "oh, did I buy this moment" when the mail came)
Not-quite identical twins: Brothers Ryan and Leo rest in a Berlin hospital after being born by Caesarean section July 11 to German mixed-race couple Stephan and Florence Gerth.
It's going to end up in the same place anyhow: Hindu holy woman Sita Mata's baby monkey is too thirsty to wait for her to fill up his bottle. (Jammu, India.)
drained
bouncy
enraged
ecstatic
sleepy![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
high
