I’ve not seen this movie yet but part of me wants to because I think I might enjoy it as a B-movie with a huge budget. I’ve heard reviews from several of my friends about how utterly wretched it is, but that’s just making me want to see it more (and laugh at it’s foolishness). Bryon got around to watching it recently and he was cracking me up talking about it; which reminded me of a post on SEB. I went and got the link from SEB to Occupation: Girl’s Van Helsing in 15 minutes. It’s flipping hilareous!
Tag: Reviews
As mentioned in a post earlier today, I got a new toy this weekend. I probably shouldn’t have, but Ariesna kind of ambushed me into doing it and I’ve researched my choice of toy enough to know that I’m going to like it.
What is the new toy you ask? I finally got myself a new camera. My old one was a Pentax K1000 SE (all manual, 35mm). My new one is a Canon PowerShot S500 Digital ELPH. It’s a 5 megapixel camera but it’s teeny-tiny (roughly the size of a deck of playing cards) and the best part is that even my bear paws fit on the thing without smashing half the buttons. There’s a nice wide, clear spot on the back to put my right thumb, the lens is shifted enough to the left (as seen from the back of the camera) so that I’ve got room to put my fingers across the front of the camera giving me a fairly, solid grip. The left side is a bit more crowded, but there’s enough room on the top & bottom of the camera that I can steady it when needed. The zoom on this camera is nothing to write home about (3x optical, 12x digital) but that’s the price you pay for compactness. I’ve only played with it a little bit so far, but I can say that I’m really digging it. Though my co-workers are a bit annoyed seeing the flash go off. That’s ok; I won’t be taking any more pictures around the office (for now) and will delete the test shots that I made. Though I do plan on carrying this camera with me everywhere, since it’s so small and since there’s been so many times that I’ve wished I was carrying a camera.
Oh and in a related note, though the camera’s specs say it only works with Windows & Macintosh computers; I was able to browse/download the photos on the camera using Digikam under SuSE Linux 9.0 Pro under KDE 3.2.2. Score!
Right, back to work for me. Again. *sigh*
We’re just returning to work after a 3 day week (hope everybody enjoyed their Memorial day) and it was sooo nice not to have to get up & come to work yesterday. Alas, I’ve to find anybody to sponsor me to live without working; so I’m back to work today. :p Not too much to report about the weekend; I slept late everyday and didn’t do very much other than that.
Friday night, Ariesna and I visited our friend Bryon (and Sekhmet and Baset and Toby-san and Cap’n Jack). We all went out to this sub-shop in Vinton that Ariesna & I had never been to and it was fabulous! They have a similar setup to the Quiznos chain, but they do a much better job. Then we went back to Bryon’s place and watched some anime. I can’t quite recall the title right now, but I’ll look it up later and add it in the comments or update this post. It was cool and I’ve bumped it higher on my playlist (at the moment, I’m watching PlanetES).
Saturday, we basically slept the day away and the same for most of Sunday. Monday, we only slept have the day away and then went out to do some shopping. I got some new shirts and a new toy, but I’m not talking about that yet because I’m going to surprise some of my co-workers with it first (and I know at least one of them reads this blog).
Muhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Back to reality and time for the reviews….
I finished reading The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint and while it wasn’t bad; there’s definitely a sense that I read this book out of order from the series it appears to be in. There were issues that somewhat came up that never got really explained and that annoyed me to some extent but they weren’t vital to the story; so it wasn’t too big of an issue. The other thing I noticed about this book is how different the writing style is from what I generally read.
Most authors that I like tend to dump massive amounts of detail on you with a shovel. Mr. de Lint didn’t do that; instead, he only gave a bare minimum of detail and spent the rest of the pages dealing with the emtions & personality of the characters. It took me a bit to get into the book; but once I really got going with it, I found it most enjoyable. Overall, I give it 3.75 out of 5 points.
Then I went ahead and read The Little Country also by Charles de Lint and found it to be a much better book. The story was much richer in detail and I found it easier to empathize with the characters in this book; as compared to the ones in The Onion Girl. It probably helps that this is set over in Cornwall and I’ve always wanted to visit the British Isles. 😀 Overall, I’d give this book 4.25 out of 5 points.
Oh and next up, I’ll be reading Elizabeth Peter’s Children of the Storm.
This post is just for me to use a reference to any plugins that I am or will consider using with WP v1.2.
Lorem Ipsum isn’t actually a WP 1.2 plugin, but it’s still bloody useful.
Comment Preview for WordPress 1.2, thread on WP Support Forums
Convert Hacks to Plugins, thread on WP Support Forums
WP Backup/Restore new version, thread on WP Support Forums
WP & Gallery integration, thread on WP Support Forums
Making AMM work with WP 1.2, thread on WP Support Forums
I know I’ve kind of been in the habit of updating musings most everyday and in the last few; I’ve been slacking off, but I have a pretty, good excuse. I’ve purchased a new domain name for this website and I’m busy working away at a new theme to fit the new name. I hope to have to ready in the next week or so (and then I need to get back to working on some templates for a friend’s new site).
In other news, I once again succumbed to the lure of buying a new sketchpad. I don’t know why I do this because if I look around my apartment I know I can find at least 4 sketchbooks that I haven’t used all the pages in yet. *sigh* Oh well, this one’s a lot nicer than my previous one. which was a cheapish clearance item from a bookstore, hardcover but with a standard spin so pages are not really removable and one can’t really scan the sketches either. The new one is roughly 6″x8″, has a cover made of a dark corkboard, the pages are bright, white acid-free paper and the book is spiral bound; so I can actually scan the drawings from it without killing the book. I was thinking I would save this sketchbook for my Japan trip later this summer, but last night as I was laying down trying to go to sleep, an idea came to me and the new sketchbook was the first one I could find. So, it won’t be blank for trip but that’s probably just as well; since I only want to take one sketchbook with me and it wouldn’t hurt to have some art in it to show people in the class I’ll be taking.
Umm, what else can I write about to pacify my non-existant audience….. Oh, I know. Last night after I got home from work, Ariesna and I walked down to the local Farmer’s Market. On the way down, we stopped in the library and I picked up a copy of Neil Gaimen’s American Gods to read. Some friends of mine (Bryon & Aizuchi) have been talking about the book in relation to the new RPG that we’ll be starting up soon. From our group’s last discussion, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to be following the premise of the book as closely as perhaps was originally thought but I still thought it would be worth reading through and so there you go. I hope to have the book finished in a week or so and I’ll let you know what I think then.
Err, the last thing I can think of is that I’ve been thinking about getting a digital camera again. The one that I’m currently leaning towards is the Canon PowerShot S 500 Digital Elph. My main concern is that I’ve got no real money to speak of and plenty of bills to pay. To compound the problem, I see that Best Buy is currently offering 10% of all their digital cameras (only when you order online) and I know I could get at least 6 months 0% financing. But I also know that I should replace the following bits on my car:
- Timing belt & water pump: The estimates I’ve gotten on this tell me it’ll cost between $600 & $800. Ouch!
- Air bag sensor: $500
- Front brakes: They still work, but are getting really damn soft and I’ve not checked into this yet.
- Speedometer: Sometimes when I first start up the car in the morning, I’ve notice it takes it a while before it actually starts registering my speed. Fortunately, my morning drive is all in town, on 25 MPH roads, so it’s pretty easy to guestimate my speed to keep it under the limit.
*sigh* Some days I really hate being an adult and long for those golden days of yesteryear when my parents handled all this sort of thing.