Month: December 2019

Occasionally hard to follow but wonderful show ! the ending was very satisfying and a perfect set up for the already commissioned second season. The final scene was all the more satisfying for being about thirty seconds long, no damned long speeches.

I sometimes shoulder watch Lost in Space with Jeff but I’m only really happy when Ignacio Serricchio (West) and Mina Sundwall (Penny) are on screen. Everyone else seems either distracted or spaceable, like Parker Posey as Smith.

Omg

The latest from a heavy hitter in the industry

There’s a huge dustup right now in and around that org about generalized bigotry, homophobia and racism. I’m talking with mOm, who exposed me to romance novels, about it off line.

In other institutional racism news, the New York Times is openly publishing and apologizing for race science. All the news my ample fundament.

The genetic variations within ‘races’ – as based on ‘appearance’ is greater than the genetic variations outside it. Race is a social construct which supports the justification for land theft, appropriation of labour, rape, child theft and genocide. Fuck racism in all its forms. Thank you.

Called Keith yesterday. Found out that Alex was sick for Christmas so had it at home. Also Keith says that the new version of Little Women is a ten out of ten, which is good to know.

We’re up to the seventh episode of the Witcher on Netflix. Wildly uneven but fantastically cast, it’s attention grabbing for sure.

Here’s one of my fave folks on twitter talking about Witcher and Mandalorian and believe me when I say SHE’S NOT WRONG

Replying to

@scalzi

I would add that both had a lot more female gaze than many prior shows. Henry Cavill’s grunts are basically made of sex and “dude has a shootout in power armor while holding adorable helpless thing” causes spontaneous ovulation in a not-insignificant fraction of the audience.

I want to switch which instrument I play “Pardon me is that stool Taken” on to the ukelele as it is MORE APT

but it is kinda late in the process

Off to Timmy ho’s for donuts and other treats. Made the coffee at home to save money.

The clerk in the weed store recognized me by name and I’m still a little verklempt over my Vancouver Retail Christmas Miracle.

Something I ate disagreed with me so yesterday was a kind of a write off, but at least I got out of the house.

I’m reading up about existentialism.

The instrumental I’m working on is called “The Friend Who Gave Me This Ukelele” and I hope to have a scratch track up in a couple of days. I have decided to call her Pirate, after Billie Eilish

I got a sauna and a footrub for Christmas! I was experiencing tremendous arch pain in my right foot (wearing the wrong shoes for a walk plus standing cooking for parts of the day on Monday) and I slept without pain and woke without pain and now I’m at the Aerie looking at the slab of fog resting on Sto:lo.

Christmas Dinner was Halal food takeout from Anatolia’s Gate. I’ll reheat it for breakfast – levash and mixed kebabs and lamb shank oh my, pickled cabbage and rice and salad and pickled onions and what not.

Later today Die Hard and maybe some other movies. Right now I’m basking in being pain free.

What a card to draw for Christmas Day. It’s one of the best five cards in the deck, absent anyone else telling on it. Kids — dogs — a house  — and a patriarch! what could be finer.

Viewed Togo, and it’s worth seeing. There are a couple of action sequences that are almost sickeningly intense but I really enjoyed it and it’s quite well written. ALSO MANY DOGS behaving with hero nature and Willem Dafoe’s character rewriting the St. Crispin’s Day speech for GOOD PUPPERS!

I think I will go downstairs and play my ukelele.

I wrote 2k words on a fanfic yesterday and I’m out of my comfort zone with the characters and not enjoying it. The problem is that this one particular character comes up with dialogue like, “I hate to be the bearer of bad clichés,” which in my view is the funniest thing I’ve come up with lately.

LOLOLOL

Yesterday was the BIRD and O LORD. Katie, because she is a goddess come among us PICKED UP THE TURKEY which involved forking out 5 sawbucks for it. I left it on the counter so it was almost room temperature when I put in the oven.

Nothing but hassles with the fucking stuffing. You need to cook the stuffing in a dish, so the bottom doesn’t burn and it can be steamed -if you’re doing it in the Instant Pot -, but I’m special and different and the rules don’t apply to me (as it always turns out this is not true) it got very very crispy and extremely mushy AT THE SAME TIME because that’s what happens when you put it on four cook cycles and then add stock and reset it every time it says . In despair I handed it to Katie to chip out of of the instant pot and left it on the stovetop and then for the last hour I stopped despairing and I threw it in with the bird where the stuffing absorbed about two thirds of the fat and butter which rolled off the turkey and went from being, ‘yeah I am stuffing, I contain pork, celery, poultry seasoning, two loaves of bread, an onion’ to being I AM STUFFING WORSHIP ME AS YOUR GOD FOR ALL TIME for my UMAMI ESCULENCE IS INFILTRATING YOUR EVERY NERVE AND SINEW haha haaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha

KATIE ALSO RESCUED THE GRAVY, which I managed to almost ruin because I don’t stir things.

Anyway, there were smashed potatoes, boiled carrots, yams and sweet potatoes (why both, why not), stuffing, cranberry dressing finished with a tablespoon of rum, beets, and the bird itself was PERFECTLY COOKED and moist throughout, seriously it’s possible I’ve done one better bird in my life back in Toronto when we lived on the Lakeshore. I’ve made prettier birds, with more crackly skin but this bird was perfect for noms.

Mike came and gave me a ukelele, isn’t it hideous? It sounds great. Mike has invited me for a Christmas Day sauna, to which as you can imagine my response is a cheery hell yeah.

So we had family plus Paul and Mike. Hung out with Alex some more.

My feet are killing me. Cooking means standing and I’m not a fan.

Trying to find a fresh turkey in this town, calice…

wrote a thousand words yesterday, but not on my main project

Hung out at the kids’ place a little… weird not to have Alex there but he was off at his daddy’s.

Apparently it’s a craze. Well, this is the axe I want.

If the link disappears it’s a non sparking NGK Berylco 17 inch multitool axe. Please feel to buy me one.

54688 HOTM

Misha Collins (the dude who plays the angel in Stupornerdy-y’all) had hip dysplasia so he got a hip replacement and walked out of the hospital that day. He had food insecurity as a youngster so I wonder if that had anything to do with it. I’m glad he’s rich enough to buy good bones. He posed with his fans outside the hospital, celebritainment is bizarre.

Cats is a disaster. If the link leaves, here are the best lines.

Throughout these early scenes, as the realisation dawns that the whole film is going to be like this, a kind of hysteria is released, and a sort of slack-jawed, punch-drunk stupor envelops you. You watch the film through clenched fingers, or start in your seat, or find yourself shaking your head in private wonder. At times I snuck a glimpse down my row of seats, which presented a gallery of faces frozen in shock and horror.

…/

Mere words can never hope to convey everything that Cat Judi Dench makes the viewer feel, in her long ginger coat, with her fluffy ginger mane, twinkling an eye at the audience or stretching a leg while reclining in a cosy basket. In other words, Cats is that rare film that really does have to be seen to be believed. This is not encouragement to see it–I will not be held responsible–but at a time like this, when so many people are feeling so badly wronged and hurt, we desperately need answers. Only by delivering an honest and thorough post-mortem on what went wrong can we hope to move forward as a society.

Season 4 of the Expanse is a grimdark tale with a hopeful pause for an ending. I really enjoyed it but I still think season 2 is the overall best for writing and scientifiction goodiness.

I have agreed to cook and we’ve agreed to host Feastmas on the 23rd. We’ll do the shop the day before.

White people aren’t supposed to use the word bougie. I accept this, but it’s a cool word, so I’m a little jealous.

word on the side to the church elder who tried to pay for gay sex with an Arby’s card SHOULDA BEEN A CHICK-FIL-A

Meerkats do group dances THERE IS VIDEO

really weird day yesterday… fell asleep super early, woke up around 8 in a panic since if you don’t take your inderal that’s what happens, took em, woke up again around 10:30, and Jeff and I watched some TV and then went back to bed, and now I’m awake

No trip to Village de Valeur, perhaps today