My Blog! My Blog!

10:39PM - I'm proud of my cat!

I've been noticing lately that sometimes, after esrblog and I have gone to bed, our cat, Sugar, will leave our bedroom and roam through the house, occasionally stopping several rooms away and meowing loudly and piteously.

When she first started doing that, I thought she might be losing her hearing, and was meowing because she wanted us and wasn't getting sufficient audio traces of our presence. But since I've started cleaning the excess ear wax out of her ears, she hasn't been acting as though she can't hear us during the day.

So what I usually do when she starts yelling at night is try to catch her attention (without sound, so as to avoid waking esrblog) and beckoning to her to come join me in bed, which she does. Sometimes, if she's far enough away that she can't see me, I get out of bed and find her.

I did that last night, and found, to my surprise, that she was sitting in front of the full-length mirror in my room (which I use as an office, as opposed to the bedroom esrblog and I share). The mirror is hung low enough that a cat can easily look into it while sitting or standing in front of it. She seemed perplexed, so I petted her as she stood there looking, so she could see the change in the image.

The odd thing is that Sugar never seemed to take any interest in the mirror before. She always treated it as though... it were part of the wallpaper. I was intrigued by the fact that she spotted it now.

This morning, when I got up, I found a stretch band that I use to keep one of my games together on the floor in the bathroom. It had been on the dining room table. Sugar always *has* liked to play with rubber bands. Apparently she got bored again, later in the night, and filched it to play with.

I"m proud of my cat. At 16, she's developing new capacities.

3:23PM - After the Blizzard

If you live on the East Coast, particularly if you live between Washington D.C. and New York, you know that yesterday things shut down for a huge blizzard. I figure we got about 2 feet, here in Malvern.

esrblog and I decided to pretend we were in the Poconos, shut in cozily with a lot of food and our cat. It was wonderful. (Or, at least, it was wonderful until I pulled a muscle just above my right hip shoveling snow. Ow.) He wrote about it in his blog, here.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures right after the snow stopped, when the piles of snow on the roof looked like sculpted sand dunes. pmat said that there likely was no rush to do so, because the weather forecast was for temperatures below freezing until Thursday.

Apparently the forecast lied. It's Sunday afternoon, and about 35 degrees Fahrenheit here. Notable meltage is occurring, blurring the snow-dune effect and helping wonderfully with clearing the roads.

Still, I took some photographs of my house. This one shows off the enormous icicles that have been developing as the snow on the roof melts, drips and refreezes. (We knocked away the ones right over the door, in the interest of self-preservation.) This one shows one of our pines, still ornamented with a little ice and snow.

I couldn't get good shots of the roof, and without the dune effect there wasn't much point to trying, but this one and this one show the entire house and immediate surroundings. This last one shows the area near my door, rather like the shot of my Christmas decorations from December.

So the blizzard is over, and the melting has begun. I only hope we don't get a torrential rain this week, to hurry the process and overload the water table.

10:56PM - On my block...

...my next door neighbor has put a lighted red heart in her window for Valentine's day. The guy down the street who always decorates for (each) holiday has not only decorated his home with red lights and hearts, he's put up a Valentine's Day tree in the front window with hearts and red lights, and a pair of romancing snow figures (not made from snow, mind you, ours has all melted) grace the bench that sits in his front yard.

8:06PM - January Blahs

I took down my Christmas decorations today. Usually I do this sometime after January 1 when my door wreath has dried out so much that it's turned brown, but this year's wreath could have lasted a couple of days longer. Most of the other decorations on the block are down (including my next door neighbor's lighted bushes) so I figured it would make me sadder leaving them up. It makes me a little sad to take down my Christmas decorations, but leaving them up when all the rest of the world has gone back to the drab busyness of winter makes me sadder still.

On the bright side, I bought some duck breast this weekend so that I could experiment a bit with a recipe I have that is based on Anglo-Saxon cuisine. It's a game stew with barley (I chose to use duck instead of rabbit, though my local butcher sells rabbit also). I added a bit of bacon to the duck and barley for flavor. The other ingredients include broth (chicken bouillon in this case, though the Anglo-Saxons would probably have made broth from the duck itself and used that), leeks, and mushrooms sauteed in butter. It is seasoned with dill salt, mustard powder, sage, garlic, and bay leaves. The smell as it slowly simmers in my crockpot is indescribably wonderful; I hope it tastes as good as it smells when it's done.

EDIT: I decided to write about my duck and barley stew in my food blog; you can find that post here.

9:35PM - Decoration news

 My neighbor down the street--he who decorates his home for each and every holiday, no matter how minor--has already taken his Christmas decorations down. 

This might seem a bit surprising, since many of my other fellow Malvernites still have their Christmas lights and decorations up (including yours truly).  However, my neighbor has not left his home undecorated.  Oh, no.

He has merely replaced his Christmas tree, and other Christmas window decorations, with large snowflake-shaped decorations studded with white Christmas lights.  Since his bushes were already covered with white Christmas lights, he has left those lights up.  The effect is rather pretty.  Though if we get a heavy blizzard in the next few weeks, his neighbors may well be cursing his foray into sympathetic magic.  :-)

9:32PM - Happy New Year!

It's been a good New Year's weekend, except the weather has been brutally cold (in the low 20s (Fahrenheit), with strong winds). Soon, the wreath on my door will have to come down. That makes me sad.

On the other hand, it's a brand new year! Who knows what kind of things may happen?

9:14PM - I have started another new blog

This one is on food throughout history. I've called it "Food Through Time," and it can be found here.

God knows why I'm doing this; it's not like I have a lot of free time, or anything like that. But I know just enough about the subject that blogging about the odd book I read, or item I learn about, seemed like it might be fun. We'll see where, if anywhere, it goes.

12:21AM - More than Elementary

Tonight, esrblog and I braved the rainy cold post-Christmas weather to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. I've been eager to see the movie since I first saw the trailer. The fact that most reviewers and patrons who have seen it, have either loved or hated it (with no middle ground) made me even more curious.

I do not need more than a short lj-cut in this review, because there's really very little plot I need to discuss here. In a real sense, the plot didn't much matter; what made the movie was the interaction of the main characters, and the performances of the actors who played them; particularly Downey, Law, and McAdams.

Some of my acquaintances who saw the movie claimed to be disappointed that it was not the "real" or canonical Sherlock Holmes. I believe they're mistaken. To the contrary, Downey did a masterful job of bringing to life the Holmes of the Conan Doyle stories, who actually did:

* Take drugs to alleviate his boredom when he did not have a case to occupy his energies;
* Was a keen boxer and a good shot;
* Engage in unorthodox experiments in his rooms.

If anything, Downey and the scriptwriters toned *down* one aspect that was striking about the original character--namely, Holmes's propensity to be cutting with people, regardless of gender or rank, whom he perceived as wasting his time.

To my surprise, Jude Law as Dr. Watson nearly stole the show. Not only is he shown as helping Holmes out of difficulties and acting as a sounding board for his theories (perfectly canonical), he is shown as being much keener of perception and swifter to catch on to developments than the Watson of the stories. He is only a half-step behind Holmes, as opposed to the one-and-one-half step(s) of the canonical Watson, and the character is much improved thereby. As other reviewers have said, Law and Downey as Watson and Holmes perfectly capture the feel of the way two old friends and long-time roommates would interact, and it made the movie that much more fun to watch.

Watson and Holmes are so well-matched that McAdams, as Irene Adler, has a hard time carving her own path into the movie. Here it's hard to make accusations of non-canon characterization, since relatively little about her appears in the Holmes stories (though her operatic career has been jettisoned for a more mundane background). But the movie *does* succeed in making plausible one detail that has always been less than completely explained--namely, Holmes's fascination with her. To explain what I mean without spoilering, I do have to resort to a brief cut.

( Read more... )

Finally, Watson's financee Mary (who is something of a non-entity in the stories) emerges as a woman of spirit here--one who takes a quite reasonable dislike to Holmes because she deduces, correctly, that Holmes is attempting to prevent, or at least postpone, the day when Watson will finally leave 221B Baker Street in favor of a marital abode with her. Kelly Reilly is to be commended.

The setting is plausibly, though not perfectly, late Victorian London. The filmmakers, as filmmakers have done since historically-based movies have been made, ignored contemporary notions of female beauty and given Irene a style of makeup (darkly eyeshadowed and eyelinered eyes) that was not used even by "fast" women in the period. Both women also wear day dresses with necklines that plunge rather more than would have been the case in period dress (probably because the plot did not provide any occasions where evening dress could have been worn).

But that is a minor caveat. The fascinating part is that these ingredients have produced an amazingly close approximation of Conan Doyle's (anti?) hero. It's not a laugh riot, but it's a wonderfully interesting take on a character who must have seemed fantastic and unreal when he was first written--the man of action who nonetheless calculates every move and uses every bit of input at his command to stay ahead of his enemies.

And in case you wondered, the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson!" does not make an appearance, even once.

3:44PM - Merry Christmas!

I'm posting in the limited space of time between our Christmas morning (brunch and presents with esrblog's family) and Christmas night (dinner with esrblog's family and a visit to our friends).

The selection of presents this year was wonderful. I received a nice warm fleecy blanket, several historical costume and cookery books (including this one, this one, and this one. Granted, I got an IOU for two of the books because Amazon didn't ship soon enough, but it will be great once they arrive.

There are Christmas cookies galore, of course (including gingerbread!) and steak is on the menu for dinner, cooked by my sister-in-law's ex-husband (it's a long story) who was once a chef.

Anyway, I hope everyone who reads this is having a wonderful holiday!

11:17PM - Maybe I'll finally get that pony!

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In November I helped amikolle see the light (8 points). Last Wednesday I saved a busload of nuns in Angola (326 points). Last month I gave ishaa a Dutch Oven (-10 points). In February mnemex and I donated clothes to the needy (11 points). Last Sunday I bought porn for stickybear (10 points). Overall, I've been nice (345 points). For Christmas I deserve a pony! Sincerely, cathyr19355

Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username:

Why am I posting this silliness? Because it's the first time that a silly LJ meme actually resonated with me.

The title of this post (and the reason I was inspired to post this meme) is based on an old joke from the Calvin and Hobbes comic. At one point, after being exasperated with Calvin and wishing her life were different, Susie Derkins says, "And while I'm wishing for things, I want a pony." So I say "I want a pony" when I'm talking about some kind of unobtainium I can't figure out a way of getting.

So, if I *do* get my pony, I wonder what it'll look like? :-)

10:02PM - Silliest new product

The EcoCup and its ilk. The EcoCup is a porcelain beverage container with a silicone lid. It's meant for regular, permanent use, but is designed to look like a common version of the cheap, throwaway coffee cup.

I saw another version of an EcoCup just this evening; it was a clear, hard plastic version of the cheap, soft plastic disposable soda cup, complete with snap-on lid and a permanent, hard plastic straw, but I can't find a picture of it on line right now.

It's a great idea to encourage people to use more permanent cups and fewer disposables to clutter up landfills. But is that a reason to imitate cheap bad taste? I don't get that part. Travel mugs with sweaters make better sense, to me.

9:44PM - Christmas in Malvern

I've posted quite a few entries about my neighbor down the street who makes a hobby of decorating his home and yard for each holiday, no matter how minor.

However, I can't make fun of him for decorating his home for Christmas, because Christmas is the one holiday on which nearly everybody decorates here, and many homeowners are even more extravagant than my neighbor is. So tonight, after the season's first big snow has made our town look like a picture postcard even without decoration, I roamed outside with my digital camera, looking for homes to photograph.

I found plenty of homes, but my skill with a digital camera is insufficient to show the blaze of glory some of these homes are when seen by the naked human eye. (Deplorably, the photo I took of my eccentric neighbor's home came out particularly badly, and thus is not featured here.) Still, some of the photos may give you an idea of the spectrum of Malvernian decorating efforts. I'm too cheap to have an account that would allow me to post the pictures here, but you can view them in my Picasa album through the links provided.

First, here is my own pathetic modest effort.

Here is the home of my next-door neighbor (the one who's given up trying to get me to trim my carnivorous bushes). Her son-in-law helped plow my driveway this weekend with his front-end loader after our 18-inches of blizzard, so I can't complain about her anymore, really. I just wish the photo captured the beauty of the colored lights all over her front yard bushes better.

Here, here and here are some more homes on Karen Drive, arrayed in various degrees of complexity and brightness.

And here and here are a few decorations on nearby King Street of which I got passable photos. I wish I could have captured the willow trees hung with multicolored lights better.

1:11AM - Thoughts on Martial Arts

It seems to me that different martial arts have different ideas about what are useful shapes of support and movement, depending upon the range of techniques involved.

The traditional "punching arts" (karate, boxing, tae kwon do, wing chun kung fu, for example) are mostly linear. The object is to move forward or sideways [EDIT: or away at a 45-degree angle] as quickly as possible in a straight line, or to punch as quickly and powerfully as possible.

The throwing arts (aikido, for example) emphasize circular movements, possibly because they are fluid and work well to direct force to an object so that it will gather momentum.

The Brazilian jiu-jitsu that is part of Mixed Martial Arts, however, is big on triangles. Why? Because they are interested in helping the practitioner maintain a stable position...often on top of an opponent doing his/her best to roll or throw them off. A triangular "base" combines the best of stability with the ability to move quickly in a direction that best enables you to turn the tables on your opponent.

11:16PM - First Snow

It's been snowing here since about 1 P.M. (It may still be snowing, but I can't tell from where I'm sitting, and don't feel like going outside to make sure.) There were lots of flakes and slush, and since that kind of snow sticks to the trees first, Malvern and environs have a very picturesque postcard look right now.

On the other hand, it's supposed to go down to 26 degrees F tonight. Maybe bad time shoveling tomorrow.

On the gripping hand (as fans of Larry Niven sometimes say), the temperature is supposed to rise to 40 degrees F tomorrow! Maybe no shoveling, if it stays that high for long enough.

9:08PM - Philcon

I spent this past weekend at Philcon, Philadelphia's annual science fiction convention which (for reasons I really don't feel like getting into right now), was held at a hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

I had a pretty good time there. I did some gaming, saw a few friends, and there were more room parties than there had been last year (about 5 or 6, which gives you an idea how few parties there were last year). The con continues to have a good dealer's room, and a fairly big art show (though the quality of the art displayed seemed, to me, to be not quite as good as I'm used to seeing at Philcon). The Masquerade, like the Masquerades at most East Coast cons I've been to lately, was small, though the quality was, again, pretty good.

I'm not sure how many people attended the con, because the hotel is so large it wasn't easy to estimate attendance. However, I saw a fair number of teens and college age people hanging out, gaming, partying, and generally having fun--definitely a good thing.

Unfortunately, the gaming area was still the same drafty hallway they used last year, and the game bank was supplied by some gamer, or company, that is mostly interested in miniatures gaming. Not a lot of fun for the rest of us. (Fortunately, a large subset of the games we like best live in the trunk of my car, and we were constantly fetching games from the car to play.)

esrblog was, for his part, frustrated that, through a series of mishaps, the convention once again failed to put him on the program and use his presence to draw new attendees. He succeeded in getting on two panels at the last minute, and they were quite good.

What depressed me a bit about Philcon is not that the con was terrible. It wasn't. But it was entirely too much like last year's Philcon. Even the annoying parts, the parts that various con comm members swore last year that they would do their best to change (like the bad location for gaming and the failure to pick up on esrblog's willingness to do more programming items) were the same.

Having tried and true events at your con is great, but being stuck in a rut isn't. Especially when the con has shrunk so greatly in membership.

I like Philcon, and I want to see it survive. I still have hope that it will. But it hurts to see so much momentum dragging it back to bad old habits.

8:03PM - Just what I needed, out in time for Christmas!

...travel mugs and thermoses with knit sweaters, really!

I just saw them tonight at a local Barnes & Noble; unfortunately, I can't find a photo of either type of item on the bn.com website.

But they were there! In green, or pink. Or stripes.

11:48AM - Around the Home and Town

For many months, my house has suffered from a strange leak onto the ceiling above the basement window. (This matters more than you might think--I have a full, finished basement that we use as a kind of recreation room.) It usually (but not always) materialized when we had a long, soaking rain, sometimes (but only sometimes) coming in badly enough to soak the ceiling tile and wet the windowsill below (which is already looking the worse for wear--sigh).

[EDIT: This isn't the first time I've tried to do something about this leak. I'd previously called in my regular Handyman Guy, but he wasn't able to trace the origin of the leak, and his suggestion--replacing the gutters that run across the rear side of my house--is expensive and didn't appear as though it would be successful.]

This morning, I had two guys my regular Handyman Guy recommended come in to look at it. It appears that there's something called a "toilet vent pipe" that connects to this area and has a cracked gasket. There's also a crack in the area around my chimney also (something Handyman Guy had put in a temporary fix on in order to halt the leak in esrblog's office). They can fix both pretty cheaply next week. Yay!

In other news, my neighbor down the block now has his turkeys and Pilgrims in place for Thanksgiving.

9:07PM - They've repackaged my childhood!

I was in a Barnes & Noble book store the other day when, to my surprise, I saw this new product, out in time for Christmas.

The website, unfortunately, shows the part of the box without the plastic window that actually shows the product. The product is a children's book called "Elf on the Shelf," and a toy elf, with a stuffed body, plastic head, and dangling legs.

I remember those elves. When I was a kid, they sold them in the drugstores and "five and dime" stores as inexpensive Christmas decorations. I don't think they were $3 apiece, though I don't really remember.

Now, they are selling them, one at a time, plus a suitable children's story and fancy packaging, for (are you ready for this?) $29.95 USD.

Maggie Thatcher was right about one thing; it's a funny old world.

8:59PM - Post-Halloween Horror

Well, what do you know? The Phillies didn't win the World Series, after all.

Instead, we got a different kind of horror--a transit strike. (The strike affects all of local transit except the rail lines, but has the effect of making the rails three times as crowded and horribly slow.) Monday, it took me twice as long as usual to get home. Tuesday, our train service was suspended. Not because of the strike, but because of a train car fire down the line. So I drove to work and back--a three-hour commute (as compared to my usual hour-and a half) for the day. Tonight, I waited nearly 45 minutes to get *on* a train, only to be ushered over to one that was nearly empty--while the lines of other passengers were shunted elsewhere.

Yes, it's Commuting Roulette. Pray you never have to experience it. The horror!

5:53PM - Halloween in Malvern

It's nearly dark in Malvern now, and the first trick-or-treaters have visited us. In honor of the holiday, I figured I'd gratify my friend Craig by posting links to a few photos of my neighbor's Halloween yard decorations.

This one is a long view of the home in question, showing the entire yard, as you walk there from my place. I apologize for the quality; the parents and kids were about to come out (including at my subject's home) and I was not up to coming up with a good reason for why I was taking photos of the guy's house. (He doesn't like me much, for reasons I don't want to get into here.)

This shot shows the tree ghosts pretty well. Here's a shot of just the house from directly across the street; the orange blaze in the front window is the Halloween tree. This shot, taken from a different angle, doesn't show the Halloween tree as well but does a great job of showing off the scarecrow couple swinging from the tree near the curb.

Don't think this neighbor is the only Malvernian who decorates for the holiday, though. Here's a tasteful home on nearby King Street. Even my next door neighbor (the one who wishes I'd tame my bushes more) gets into the act; I assume she does it for the sake of her grandchildren.

I could have snapped pictures of more decorated homes. There are more people than these who decorate for Halloween in Malvern (though not as many as those who decorate for Christmas). But by the time I got these shots, it was getting too dark to get even middling photographs.

Anyway, have a great Halloween holiday!