Tag: series

This update was partially delayed due to some problems with our domain name. And depending on what the old bank balance looks like after paying my bills; I’ll be seeing about moving musings to it’s new host/domain name/style (maybe).

Most days of the week, I end up staying up far later into the night than is good for me; so I sleep late on the weekends to help catch up on my sleep. This last weekend, I actually managed to drag my sleepy but out of bed and make it to the bank so I could store some stuff in my safety deposit box. Whew!

After I got back from the bank; Ariesna and I headed over to the Coralville Public Library Booksale. We picked up a few interesting looking books, including one that I later started hoping wasn’t somebody else’s purchase.

See, CPL has a freebie section and a purchase section. We always go into the purchase section first and buy whatever strikes our fancy before going through the freebies. We’d done that and while looking through the freebies; I noticed a small book, titled Understanding the Scots, in a box near the door into the purchase section. Being part Scottish, I picked it up and started flipping through it. While I did this I turned around to see what Ariesna might be up to and then turned back to see if any other books in that box were of interest. Alas, the box was gone. Now, I don’t know if those were supposed to belong to somebody else (e.g. they’d finished in the purchase section and just set the box down) or if they were legitimate freebies and somebody grabbed the box with all the rest of the books. *sigh* I doubt I’ll ever find out.

After the booksale, we headed to downtown Iowa City for their 2004 Art Fesitval. We did a lot of walking around looking at all the cool stuff and I bought Ariesna a silver bracelet with a daisy in the pendent on the bracelet. She loved it and was going to just walk away from it, but I couldn’t have that so I bought it. While I’m not sure that it was a sound financial move; the smile on her face was well worth it.

Oh and I took some photos of the Art Festival with my new camera but I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. Once I have; I’ll see about posting them here.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with Ariesna’s sister (Dee) and her husband (Ken) to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter 3). To sum it up, I think the overall production values were higher in this film than any of the others but the story was very badly hacked up and if you’ve not read the book; I can’t image how you’d be able to follow what was going on. Still, if you’re a fan of the series; it’s worth seeing on a matinee.

I stayed up way too damn late last night so I could finish watching the end of PlanetES1, so this morning I stopped by the Terrapin and got something to drink. My usual drink is their “Grand Canyon”, which is 2 shots of espresso, a shot of chocolate, a shot of mango and steamed milk. Today, I decided to try something different and while it was good; for the sake of my stomach lining, I’m not planning on ever ordering it again. I got an Honest Terrapin Sunrise. That’s 3 shots of piping-hot espresso layered on top of a glass of ice-cold orange juice.

Naturally, I had to get this to go and to do that; they stick it in a plastic cup (since the majority of the drink is the OJ) with a lid and a straw. Personally, I think they should have used the paper cups with the sipping lid that most of the coffee drinks come in because I think the idea of the Sunrise is to slam down the espresso & chase it with the OJ. And that idea is defeated by putting a straw in the drink that bypasses the espresso and makes you drink the OJ first. As soon as I was safely back in the office, I removed the lid and started to drink the Sunrise as “God intended it to be drunk”. *grin*

It’s an unusual sensation because the OJ cools the espresso and raises the acidity of the drink considerably. Also, the espresso and OJ do start to mix into one another as you drink it. This forms a layer of slightly-warm , bitter OJ on your tongue. It’s not as unpleasant as that might sound but the Sunrise is definitely an acquired taste, which I could not recommend to everyone (unlike say the Grand Canyon which just rocks my world).

It sounds bizarre but the caffeine of the espresso combined with the vitamin C & natural sugars in the OJ really helps to wake you up. Of course, it’s been a couple of hours since I drank it and it’s beginning to wear off now, which is bad. On the other hand, I’m just about ready to head out to lunch; so I should be able to pick something else up to help me get through the rest of my head, which is good.

1A very good series that starts off weak (too much comedy/slapstickishness) but ends much stronger with several very good heartstring tuggin’ episodes. For the most part, each episode stands by itself but uses information in previous episodes to build the story. Unfortunately, the last 6 episodes or so seem to be more tightly integrated and I’m missing 22 & 23; which puts a massive gap into the story for me. This is one that I will strongly consider purchasing once it’s available in the US (my current copies are all fansubs).

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.

I finished reading Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic quite a while back but just didn’t feel motivated to write a review about it. Don’t get me wrong; I think Terry Jones did a wonderful job and I did enjoy it a lot (4.5 out of 5 points). I just didn’t feel like writing another review, so I am going to give the reviews a rest for now. I’ll probably restart them when I read a book that’s new to me (right now I’m reading through Asimov’s Foundation series).

I just finished reading Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine’s Last Chance to See. Wow. It was great! I’ve been a fan of Douglas Adams since I was knee-high to a grasshopper (mostly for his Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy) but I’d never read any non-fiction by him before. It was wonderful to see his irreverent and humorous style remained unchanged. Unfortunately, the copy of the book I got from Fritz was in an electronic format and didn’t include the photographs which I understand exist in the dead-tree version. Still, it was a delightful read and any Douglas Adams fan should enjoy it. Overall, I give it 4.75 out of 5 points.

Next up, I’ll me reading through Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Mr. Jones apparently read Douglas Adams’s Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy series, saw the couple of paragraphs that talk about the Starship Titanic and thought to himself “That would make a fun book! I shall sit down and write it, right after I take off all my clothes!”

Oh and in case that wasn’t a sufficient hint for you; this is the same Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Keen! 🙂