It's just an ordinary day

Fourth of July weekend and stuff

2008-07-08T05:08:02Z

So aside from that whole wave of distraction on Saturday involving my favorite Time Lord, highly enjoyable stuff did actually happen over the holiday weekend.

Friday afternoon, solarbird and I went down to Tacoma for the Tall Ships festival therein, and specifically, the Tricky Pixie show being held. Lots of fun, that; it was very cool, as I mentioned in a previous post, to see actual tall ships sailing along the water and in interesting contrast to supersonic planes in the sky. Cooler still was watching the Tricky Pixie show, which had the liveliest crowd of any of the performers there. Dara joined in on the chorus for the final song, the Lost Girls Pirate Academy alma mater. Very fun.

It is also highly worth mentioning that stealthcello, one third of Tricky Pixie, wrote a lovely new song about the ghost of a dryad clinging to her dead tree which has been used for the mast of a sailing ship. Highly appropriate song for the setting of the show and very wistful and sad as well.

Also, I am still coveting her guitar. Or else s00j's guitar, I'm not sure which yet, because Sooj's is a loverly shade of green. Though Betsy explained to Dara and me after that she's actually swapped out her previous black guitar for a wine-colored one she's named Sangria, which is the instrument she wrote the aforementioned song on. I'm swooning at the thought.

Dara and I hung out for a bit post-show and yakked with Betsy a bit, and Dara (mostly Dara) and I yakked with Alec (that's Alexander James Adams to the rest of you, another third of Tricky Pixie). My main contribution to that conversation was a sheepish confession that horses intimidate me, which of course led to Dara telling the story of how I fell off a pony at her behest. Hee.

We decided, though, that ~~next year~~ scratch that, next time they're having it again, which will be 2011, we need to come back to the Tall Ships festival. And actually, y'know, get on some of the tall ships, since they do tours and mock battles and things. And that would be super-cool.

On the way back we stopped in Shoreline to get a few things at the store and also Chinese takeout at Black Pearl. This is worth mentioning mostly because Black Pearl has become full of EPIC FAIL because they are no longer serving the delicious green onion pancakes that were a traditional staple of any order we placed with them. Dara and I were quite sad over this, and Dara learned that apparently making them is quite expensive for them, and hardly anybody ever orders them anyway. Hopefully Dara can find a tasty recipe to stand in for this loss.

Friday evening, of course, went to fireworks. As we did last year, we only had to go down the street a little ways, look right, and watch the show firing off over the lake. This year, we stayed out a little longer as well so we could also get a look at the Lake Forest Park show. Off in the distance to the south, we could even see the top of the Lake Union show... and at the very farthest opposite end of the lake, as far south as I could see, I saw teeny tiny flashes firing off over the skyline. I'm not sure which fireworks show that was, but that was amusing to see too.

Saturday, of course, pretty much went to the Doctor. <3

Sunday was supposed to be me going with Dara to busk at the Lake Forest Park Farmer's Market. But on Saturday afternoon, Rags popped a string--annoying. I'd tuned him earlier, and was rather startled to discover that all six of his strings were down by a half step. But he seemed fine after I tuned, so I played for a while (trying to see in particular if I could transpose "Captain Kidd" down to C, where I think I actually sing it more comfortable) and then went and did other things... until the high E string went PANG, while Rags was just sitting there. Grf.

I had an extra string, but as with all the other times I've had to swap strings, this one needs time to stabilize to its proper note. So I had to skip busking this time around. But at least Dara had an excellent outing and came home with $23.

mamishka came over Sunday afternoon, though, and we had a fun time watching Eureka and New Amsterdam. She also brought me more of season 3 of X-Files, and it's been delightful reminding myself that OH YEAH at least for the first several seasons, that show really did not suck.

New week to get through now--but on Thursday we'll have folks over for video gaming. On Friday, we will go to the Paramount where Mr. Eddie Izzard will very likely deliver us a heaping helping of Funny. And Sunday is JAM!

Massive outpouring of plotbunnies

2008-07-07T19:18:57Z

Say what you will about the Doctor Who finale, it's triggered off a boatload of plotbunnies in my brain. Way more than I have time to write! I'll have to see if I can whip up at least a few drabbles for some of these, though...

So here's what I think happens with Ten!Prime and Rose over in the AU.

They pretty much OWN Torchwood from the minute Ten!Prime walks in the door. And the British government falls all over themselves to hand Ten!Prime research grants.

Ten!Prime has to figure out what name he'll be using and he'll probably go on record as 'John Smith' but if he and Rose eventually get married, I would not be surprised if he wound up 'John Tyler'.

He tells Rose all about what he remembers of Original!Ten's time with her, what happened with Martha and Donna, and then for good measure, works his way back all throughout his previous incarnations and tells Rose all about THEM, too. This is an effort I suspect will take the rest of their lives. I can also see him actually writing down, in detail, the history of Original!Ten's adventures. With illustrations--take 2 of the Journal of Impossible Things. Because like Original!Ten, Ten!Prime can draw.

He is damn well flattened by the birth of their first child, and by every subsequent child and grandchild. Who have names like Jenny, Mickey, Martha, Donna, Jack, Tegan, Peri (because Rose flat refuses to saddle any daughter of hers with a name like Perpugilliam), Leela, Barbara, Romana...

He leads the first Torchwood efforts to create something whose insides are bigger than its outsides, leading to eventual creation of a TARDIS. An effort which will very likely be assisted by his children, who at a very early age all prove themselves to be just as smart as their father.

How DOES Ten!Prime deal with Rose getting him snockered?

Ten!Prime and Rose take long trips to go all over the world, because even if he's no longer a regenerating Time Lord, he's still got some wanderlust, and there's a big ol' planet right here for them to wander all over. And boatloads of locations and situations where they can do exactly what Original!Ten and all his Companions do: find stuff that's wrong, and fix it. Jackie gives them both shit for it, too.

Rose, determined to eke every last possible day out of their lives together, goes on a lifelong habit of making them both eat as healthfully as possible. This is sorely challenged by Ten!Prime's weakness for chips.

Jackie's kid Tony probably grows up feeling a little intimidated by Rose and Ten!Prime's super-smart children, and will either be their motivating force for getting themselves in trouble, or else will show up the lot of them by bringing much-needed common sense into their growing up.

Damn, I wish I could write novels for this entire timeline. :)

Proto-filk in progress

2008-07-06T07:44:56Z

This doesn't happen to me often; I don't write songs nearly as much as I write fiction. However, I've been known to generate a filk or two.

This one, however, appears to be storming up out of nowhere in my brain. Well, not nowhere--part of this is because of solarbird and I being at the Tall Ships festival in Tacoma yesterday. While we were there, I saw both magnificent tall sailing ships on the water, and military planes screaming by overhead. The contrast between archaic sailing vessels and modern aircraft was a potent one; it made me think of timelines colliding. I had the lyric "tall ships on the water, swift planes in the sky" pop into my head pretty much right then and there.

And on the way home, I thought, yeah, this is a Doctor filk. As of tonight I have a chorus, and I know what it's supposed to be about. It's from Rose's point of view, and if you haven't been keeping up with the current season, it'll be quite spoilery. I know it'll be in a minor key, though I don't have a melody line yet.

Here's the first bit:

Tall ships on the water, swift planes in the sky
Chariots rumble while rockets take flight
The past and the present and the future burn by
And the stars are dead lanterns no longer alight
Doctor, oh Doctor, oh come back to me
The walls between worlds, they are falling

This is the first chorus, I think. And I suspect that the chorus will change words after every verse.

Doctor Who 30.13: "Journey's End"

2008-07-06T03:49:42Z

Whoa! Whoa, I tell you! Also: mizkit called it!

Right out of the gate: I am somewhat disappointed that the "get out of the regeneration" resolution was as simple as it was. I was really hoping Rose would beg him not to change! Sniff.

However--it does give us the first time that the Doctor has been actively able to control his own regeneration. And that is pretty damned cool, and for me makes it worth having kept the Hand in a Jar around all this time. ;)

And, as far as the other part of the Hand plot goes--yeek, Doctor Prime! Or should that be Doctor-Prime, or Doctor-2, or Human!Doctor, or Bluesuit!Doctor? Kit told me that theory had been bouncing around elsewhere, and part of me is vaguely disappointed that it did actually happen...

... but part of me really isn't. Because given the events that played out in this episode, having Donna and Doctor!Prime bring the TARDIS back in, before the stunned eyes of the Doctor, Davros, and everybody else was very, very cool.

Plus, how they actually spun off Doctor!Prime off the Hand and had it affect Donna as well worked better for me than I thought would happen, when I'd first heard of the idea of a second Doctor growing off the Hand. I like that the link between them was two-way--that Doctor!Prime picked up human characteristics off of Donna, while she picked up mental characteristics off of him. I loved how David Tennant did such a great job mimicking Donna's mannerisms--I already knew he had that gift, hearing him mimic other characters in the Doctor Who audiobooks he's read, not to mention what he did in Midnight this season. Dude. Man can act.

Wonderful mileage with the various Companions all throughout the episode. Particularly when Jack was shot by the Daleks, and Rose flipped out--because she still doesn't know what she did to Jack--and the Doctor very pointedly avoided mentioning it to her in front of the Daleks. But that one little wink of Jack's as he lay there 'dead'... hee!

DOUBLE hee for "So there's three of you? Three Doctors?" And Jack chiming in, on cue: "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now." BWAHAHAHAHA. Thank you there, Captain Jack, for speaking for all of fandom. ;) Nice little way to fulfill the "threefold man" part of Dalek Caan's prophecy, too!

Very pleased to see Mickey and Jackie come in to save Sarah Jane. *BEAM* I knew Mickey was capable of badassery, but to see Jackie contributing as well was very fine. Rose comes by her badassery honest.

Very, very cool to see Davros and Sarah Jane meeting and reacting to each other. YAY for continuity all the way back to "Genesis of the Daleks"!

I had not clued in before that the actress who plays Gwen appeared before--back in "The Unquiet Dead"! HAR! Nice continuity there as well, with the Doctor asking her if she had longstanding family in Wales.

Martha's contribution to the plot--also cool. Even if I snickered at the Daleks shrieking in German rather than English, especially now that I saw on this wiki page for the episode that the German word for "exterminate" is actually "ausrotten". Clearly, Daleks=not so much with the language skills. ;) I can see why they made up a word--because otherwise, no English-speaking fan would have gotten it. And I certainly don't have enough German fu to have gotten it without looking it up.

But I'm a little sad that they didn't actually use "ausrotten", just because I would have liked to see the German-speaking fans get a chance to laugh their asses off.

Also: "Who invented that? Eh, someone named Osterhagen, I suppose..." Hee!

In a bigger picture sense, I do have to wonder exactly how the hell the Daleks were going to protect themselves from the effect of the Reality Bomb, since the wave wasn't ever going to fade while it proceeded to break down all of reality. One presumes that they had some way of shielding themselves from its effects. However, one also presumes that their plan was to stay behind that shield for the rest of eternity, or something.

Any bets on how long that would have lasted, eh? I mean, sure, the Daleks talk a big talk about being "masters of the universe", but we also know there are factions among the Daleks that hate each other, or at least there have been. I'm sure that if the Daleks would have pulled this off, they'd have eventually destroyed each other. They're nothing without something to try to annihilate. One could almost argue that Doctor!Prime was doing them a bit of a kindness by annihilating them first...

Which, of course, leads into the excellent thread in this plot of the Doctor being confronted with the wide swath of people who have died in his name, as well as his most recent Companions being willing to commit actions of self-annihilation in his name as well. "The Doctor's soul will be revealed," indeed. His reaction to that entire sequence really rather underscores that the Doctor's come along as a character since the start of the new series. And the scene at Bad Wolf Bay really drives that home.

Speaking of which: AUGH SCENE ON BAD WOLF BAY! Sniff!

I have to admit... okay, fine, Doctor!Prime is a cheesy plot device... but if it means that Rose finally gets a life with the Doctor, after a fashion, I can forgive a whole lot of cheese. Oh, that look on her face as she realized that the Doctor was going to make her stay in the alternate universe. And YES, YES, YES, she put her foot down and insisted the Doctor finish that last sentence he was telling her at the end of "Doomsday".

"Does it really need saying?" Me and every other Ten/Rose shipper across the fandom: "YES!"

I really like how they played that, though. The original Doctor stepping back to let Doctor!Prime do it... because he was going to be the one who'd stay with her, so it would make sense that she should hear it from him. And we got the snogging! Even if I'm disappointed we didn't get to hear the "I love you" out loud, it's fitting that Doctor!Prime whispered it in Rose's ear. Those words were hers and hers alone, and if he's going to commit to saying them, nobody needs to hear them but her.

I'm absolutely certain there will now be an outpouring of fanfic all about Rose and Doctor!Prime in the other universe, working together with Torchwood there. That universe's Torchwood is about to get a hell of a gift with an incoming part-human with a Time Lord's mind. They'll have a TARDIS built in no time flat. Just wait and see. ;)

Meanwhile, the original Doctor takes Donna away...

Donna. Aw, man, Donna.

Catherine Tate did a magnificent job, catching on fire with Time-Lord-level intelligence blazing away in her brain. That was incredible. And so very, very brief. The only thing I would have changed about that scene is maybe the Doctor giving her one last reassurance that she is brilliant on her own merits and doesn't need his knowledge before he wipes her brain.

Wonderful little final bit there with her grandfather and the Doctor, out in the rain.

And aw, man, the Doctor alone there in the TARDIS, on a wistful close out. He is still the Lonely God, with all his recent Companions having established other connections in their lives. A very final sort of moment, and the end of a fine run with Russell T. Davies at the helm, clearing the slate for what's to come when Steven Moffat takes the helm.

Let's see how long it'll be before we get River Song, eh?

Managing my f00dz

2008-07-04T17:22:30Z

This past week has gone pretty well with the weight loss overall, minus one too-heavy dinner on Tuesday evening. I am in fact currently the lightest I've been all year, which is a pretty nifty realization to make.

My appetite has started to significantly adjust, just by virtue of ditching the soda and aggressively managing the snacks. I'm kind of surprised and pleased that I'm not actually missing the soda very much. And, aggressive snack managing actually gives me a little bit of a something to look forward to in the evenings, now that I've discovered that good dark chocolate and good green tea go well together.

I had my first weights workout in ages on Wednesday night, using the 10's, which was about right--I broke into quite the sweat using them, but I was also able to do quite a few reps on the various exercises, enough that I might need to bump up to the 12's in the next session. That I was able to more or less remember how all the exercises went was a good thing, too. But I did also determine that 1) my "general Celtic" playlist (which has a sampling of various favorite artists off the iPod) is better for treadmill than weights, and 2) I really need to remember to stretch and warm up properly before I do these workouts.

I can still kind of feel the ache in my right shoulder, in particular. This was of course the side where I've had the surgeries and radiation, so it doesn't surprise me that it's weaker than my left.

I'll have my next weights workout tomorrow morning. And, if I play my cards right, I might actually break into the 170's by Monday--but we'll see. That's a good immediate goal, though I'm also thinking about the longer-term goal of how far I can get with this by the end of the year. Into the 130's by my 40th birthday is definitely within the realm of possibility.

And now, a bunch of food data!

6/30/08:

Breakfast around 7:15am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 cup green tea, about 2/3 of an apple
Morning drink & snack: 1 bottle Lipton citrus green tea, 1 Clif bar
Lunch around 11:30: 1/2 sandwich from Whole Foods, 1 pack raspberries (6 oz), 1 bottle Honest Tea (16 fl oz, 34 cals)
Snack around 3pm: 1 apple
Evening drink: 1 glass Lipton iced tea mix
Dinner: Beef/onion/pepper shiskabob, 1/2 baked potato, fresh green salad with cucumber and carrots
Dessert: 1 piece key lime white chocolate tart, 1 cup green tea
During day: Green tea pear mints

7/1/08:

Breakfast around 7:15am: 2 packets apple/cinnamon oatmeal, 1 cup green tea
Morning drink: 1 bottle Lipton lemon tea
Lunch around 11:30: Small tequila lime shrimp wrap, 24 oz strawberry orange banana smoothie
Snack around 2pm: Luna bar
During day: Green tea pear mints, Tic-tacs
Dinner: Beef dip sandwich, string fries, 1 martini, 1 glass water, chocolate and banana bread pudding dessert

7/2/08:

Breakfast around 7:15am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 cup green tea, strawberry yogurt bar
Morning drink: Strawberry/kiwi drink (10 cals)
Lunch around 11:30: 1/2 sandwich, pear, bottle Honest Tea "Community Green Tea" (34 cals)
Snack around 2pm: Luna bar
During day: Green tea pear mints, Tic-tacs
Dinner: Steak and shells & cheese leftovers
Snack around 9pm: Green tea, 8 Hershey's kisses

7/3/08:

Breakfast around 7:15am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 cup green tea, strawberry yogurt bar
Morning drink: Lipton citrus green tea
Lunch around 11:30: 6 pcs nigiri (tuna, yellowtail, salmon), pear, bottle Honest Tea "Community Green Tea"
Snack around 1 or so: Luna bar
During day: Tic-tacs
Dinner: Pad thai, rice, fresh green salad
Snack around 9pm: Green tea, 8 Hershey's kisses

And, walking:

Miles since June 29th: 13.7
Miles out of Hobbiton: 2921.9
Miles out of Minas Tirith: 84.9
Miles to Hobbiton: 1540.1

Book Log #36: The Hollow, by Nora Roberts

2008-07-03T06:19:00Z

On to book two of Sign of the Seven!

I definitely liked this one better than Book 1, for a couple of reasons. One, I liked Fox as a male lead character better than I liked Caleb. He's a more thoughtful character, in more ways than one; there's the obvious thing about his being telepathic, but also, in general, he's more analytical than Caleb and that worked better for me as a character trait. Also, I was quite charmed that he could juggle. And, dude, he plays the guitar. Automatic swoon points for a male lead who's a musician, what can I say?

(Though I have to take issue with a couple of the leading ladies asking each other: "Why are guitar players so sexy?" "It's the hands!" Not for me! It's the music.)

Layla as the female lead in this book is not nearly as much of a benevolent bulldozer as Quinn, yet I liked her too. She's more vulnerable, more fragile, and yet she also demonstrated her strength after having to wrestle around with her personal demons in the first bit of the book. She and Fox had some very charming chemistry together as well.

Plot-wise, things do kick up a notch, although we're still building to the main event of the Seven. Our heroes and heroines figure out a few critical background details, even as the Big Bad revs up its own strength and does a pretty decent job going after Fox early in the book and then after all six of the main characters later on. The final scene, where the six of them need to accomplish a specific ritual task to prepare themselves for the forthcoming confrontation, has some suitably powerful description going on.

Though, really--I think Nora's handling of the supernatural elements of this trilogy is more effective when she's not pulling out all the stops. For example, one bit that really stood out for me for how evocative it was is this one: "The demon in a child's form laughed. Then it opened its mouth, wide as a cave, and swallowed itself."

Still, I'm looking forward to seeing how she does indeed gear up for the main event in Book 3--and how Gage and Cybil take their turn at center stage. Gage the rogue, the gambler, the precognitive... I think I'm going to like him too. ;)

For this book, though, three and a half stars.

More going ! over the last Doctor Who

2008-07-02T20:59:55Z

So, some things I hadn't caught watching this episode before and only clued in on after reading the Wikipedia summary!

First of all, I hadn't caught that Crazy Dalek was in fact Dalek Caan from the Cult of Skaro, last seen shrieking "EMERGENCY TEMPORAL SHIFT" as he vanished at the tail end of "Evolution of the Daleks", last season. Convenient that he managed to materialize into the Time War, neh? Which only goes to strengthen spazzkat's contention that the finality of the Time War doesn't seem particularly... final.

I clued in on a massive, massive Torchwood spoiler that I hadn't noticed before--so clearly, I shall have to go back and get caught up on Torchwood ASAP. As well as The Sarah Jane Adventures, for that matter.

Speaking of which, the kid that plays Luke? Dude, he's GROWN.

I had totally not realized that the "thing on Donna's back" concept actually went all the way back to "Fires of Pompeii", this season. This boosts my general approval of this series' overall story arc. I'll have to go back and check that, as well as "Planet of the Ood", just to see where those references were.

A question that's made me go hmm! but which I didn't address before: who the hell is Rose communicating with when she shows up on the relocated Earth and then is moved to where the TARDIS is, so she can catch up with the Doctor? Is she talking to her new universe's Torchwood? And how the hell are they managing to deal with communication across universes? Rose, she's got some 'splainin' to do. We'll have to see if she gets that 'splainin' done after everybody is done freaking out about the Doctor regenerating. ;)

Speaking of which, I'm still cycling through theories about how they'll save Ten from an actual regeneration. I think I'm still pulling for the "he doesn't change because Rose begs him not to" theory. Given how fast regenerations happen, they don't have time to do much more than have Rose maybe throw herself at him, pull him into her arms, and beg him not to change. Doctor's telepathic... maybe he can lock in on her thoughts to keep the concept of what she wants him to look like active, and then impose it on his own cells. He's reshaped himself before, as I said before, and he should be able to do it again.

And: Russell T. Davies is still a bastard. ;)

Oh HELL YES

2008-07-01T01:47:43Z

Snurched from gamera_spinning, I bring you the trailer for Quantum of Solace, the forthcoming Bond film.

I'm all revved up for Dark Knight, mind you, but this? I'll spare some swoonspace to say BRING IT. BRING IT NOW.

Food and exercise log catchup

2008-06-30T06:35:08Z

Keeping that food log that the nutritionist instructed me to keep has been kind of interesting, if nothing else because it's underscored for me that when I kick the soda out of my diet and don't get nuts with the snacks, I actually eat... rather alright. There's room for improvement here, sure; for example, I need to remember to have just two pieces of pizza, not three, when we do pizza.

But even without having started the weights yet (which is on the queue to do tomorrow when I get home from work), I've already felt distinct improvement in my overall appetite. And I've lost about six pounds since the beginning of the month, which has been a notable but not alarmingly huge decline.

If I can keep this pace up, at minimum six pounds a month until the end of the year, that should knock me down into the 150's by December. Not quite where I want to be, but then, that's where I get to practice being patient and reminding myself that this sort of work will not be fast, and it'll be all about maintaining the alteration to my eating habits to make sure the weight stays gone.

So, here's what I've been eating for the last many days.

6/25/08:

Breakfast around 7:15am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 banana, 1 cup green tea
Morning drink: Strawberry-kiwi "Sparkling Ice" water, 17 fl oz, 10 cals
Lunch around noon: 6-inch turkey/pepperjack cheese sub from Subway, with lettuce, cucumber, and red onion; 1 bag veggie rice chips, 170 cals; 1 bottle vitamin water, 20 fl oz, 150 cals; 1 apple
Snack around 3:30 or so: 1 pear
Dinner around 6:30pm: Negitoro roll (6pc); 2 pcs each of kanpachi, escolar, aji, madai, salmon; 1 pc sushi tempura roll; 2 cups green tea; 1 glass plum wine
Drunk during day: 4 (?) glasses of water
During course of day: 1 pack Tic-Tacs

6/26/08:

Breakfast around 7am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 banana, 1 cup green tea
Morning drink: Orange-mango "Sparkling Ice" water
During course of day: 1 pack Tic-Tacs
Lunch around noon: 1/2 turkey & havarti sandwich on baguette, 1 pear, 1 bottle flavored black tea (60 cals, 16 fl oz.)
Snack around 2:30ish: 1 Asian pear
Dinner around 6pm: Salmon a la cana dish (salmon, Mexican rice, some asparagus, a little cucumber/squash stuff), tortilla chips & salsa, pomegranate margarita
Drunk during day: 3 (?) glasses of water
During day: 1 pack Tic-Tacs

6/27/08:

Breakfast around 7am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 oat/raisin granola bar, 1 cup green tea
Morning drink: 16oz bottle raspberry tea (120 cals)
Lunch: Small Thai chicken wrap at World Wrapps; 24-oz strawberry/orange/banana smoothie
Snack: Clif bar around 2:30
Dinner: 3 pcs green pepper, red onion, whole roasted garlic pizza; 1/2 salad with salami on side
Snack: 1 cup green tea, 2 rows dark chocolate
Drunk during day: 4 (?) glasses water
During day: 1 pack mint Life-savers

6/28/08:

Breakfast around 8am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 strawberry yogurt bar, about 1/3 of an Asian pear, 1 cup green tea
Snack around 1pm: 1 oaty bar, 1 can Lipton lemon iced tea
Lunch around 2:45pm: 1 peanut butter/apple butter sandwich, Baked Lays potato chips
Snack around 4:15: Large Icee, salted pretzel
Dinner: 4 pcs prawn cilantro quesadilla, 1 glass water, 1 margarita, some chips and salsa

6/29/08:

Breakfast around 10am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 strawberry yogurt bar, 1 pear
Drunk during morning, early afternoon: 2 glasses Crystal Light lemonade mix, 1 grande size lemonade/green tea mix from Starbucks
Lunch around 2pm: 1 peanut butter & apple butter sandwich, Baked Lays potato chips, 1 glass Lipton green tea mix
Drunk during afternoon: 1 bottle tangerine Talking Rain, 1 glass Lipton green tea mix
Post-Jam Pie: 1 piece key lime white chocolate tart
Dinner: 1/2 breast peanut butter chicken, rice, salad with wasabi ranch dressing
Snack: 1 glass Lipton green tea mix, 3 pcs roseberry dark chocolate

And here's exercise data. Y'all may note I'm on my way back to Hobbiton; once I get there, I plan to do another pass through the entire Eowyn Challenge, but this time I think I'll follow Frodo.

Miles since May 21st: 8.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 2908.2
Miles out of Minas Tirith: 71.2
Miles to Hobbiton: 1553.8

Doctor Who 30.12: "The Stolen Earth"

2008-06-30T05:36:59Z

To echo some of the sentiments I've seen going around about this weekend's episode, "Russell T. Davies, you bastard!"

Also, I must now also admit that the first words out of my mouth after the intro were, "The Earth has been STOLEN, GIR!" (Okay, surely I couldn't have been the only person flashing on Invader Zim while watching this?)

This episode had a whole fleet of boatloads of cool going for it. First and foremost: the Shadow Proclamation and the Judoon warriors who were there. I still have no earthly idea what the Shadow Proclamation actually is, mind you, but it was pretty cool to see it on camera after hearing it mentioned a few times in the course of this series.

Second: the Medusa Cascade, another thing we've heard mentioned before. Stunning effects shots in the bits when the TARDIS materializes there.

Third: Effects shots in general, with the 26 (!!!) planets in the sky over the stolen Earth, and the fleet of Dalek ships swarming all over London.

And speaking of which: ZOMG DAVROS. He really was pretty much the only other major Doctor Who villain we had yet to see in the new series, and yet, even as it's bitchin' cool to see him on camera, it does lead to the very point raised by spazzkat after we finished watching this episode:

To wit, the finality of the Time War doesn't seem particularly... final at this point. ;)

I mean, seriously, this makes what, three separate groups of Daleks who have managed to escape the Time War? And we haven't yet had a whisper of any Time Lords escaping, aside from the Master. Though... I have to admit I'm halfway wondering whether we're going to get some more Time Lords showing up on camera in Part 3, just because that would be a super-cool thing for RTD to pull off on his last episode.

Some more interesting stuff with foreshadowing for Donna, while she was at the Shadow Proclamation. Her loss yet to come: the Doctor getting killed, or something else? Her humanity?

Meanwhile, planetside, most of this episode wound up being about getting all the Companions to touch bases. I am resigned to the fact that I am woefully behind on Torchwood; I haven't even watched the episodes involving Martha yet. So I'm clearly missing backstory there. But! HARRIET JONES! *squee* Her organizing the subwave network was one of the shining points of this episode. And, sniffle, when the Daleks stormed in and she turned and faced them and WAAAAH.

Great mileage with Sarah Jane, because of all the Companions in the episode, she was first up with experiencing the Daleks. That look on her face was just piercing. So was the look on Jack's face, for that matter--and he sure as hell has reason to flip right the fuck out at the Daleks swarming over the Earth. After all, last time, he died fighting them.

And yet, even in the face of this, we still had some great little bits with Jack getting ogled. Hee. And hitting on Sarah Jane, bwaha! And Donna ogling him too even as the Doctor sternly ordered her to back down.

And, of course, Rose.

Really loved the shot of her bamfing in at the beginning with that enormous gun. BOOYA. I need that as an icon. And watching the Subwave find her along with the others, though she wasn't able to patch in... AIGH! I kept going AIGH! on her behalf as she kept mumbling "hey, what about me?!" comments and reacting to Martha and everything.

And oh. My. God. The reunion. I was wondering if we were going to have Rose finally make it to the Doctor just in time to see him regenerate and ZOMG I was RIGHT...

And WTF REGENERATION BUH?!

This is me now wondering what the hell. I haven't heard any confirmation one way or another about whether Tennant will be back for Series Five; all I know is that he is supposed to be in the four specials through the course of 2009, and Series Five is supposed to be in 2010.

Operating on the assumption that Tennant is keeping the role, this of course leads to the question of how the HELL are they going to keep him from really regenerating?

I noticed his remark about the Medusa Cascade being out of sync with the rest of Time, so I'm wondering if that will affect things somehow... and I also caught that babbled remark from the crazy Dalek, something about a "threefold man" or something, though I didn't quite get the exact quote. I'm wondering if that's also a clue. Or, if the walls between universes and Time in general is being all weird and stuff, enough that Rose was able to hop worlds and come back, maybe that'll be a factor.

Waaaah! Hurt Doctor in Rose's arms. Sniff. I don't want Eleventh Doctor yet. I'm not READY for Eleventh Doctor. So this is me desperately hoping that they'll come up with a way that he'll just reset or something... though now I'm also wondering whether they'll pull something along the lines of, Doctor gets "killed" twice more in part 3, tying into Crazy Dalek's babblings, and he stabilizes once Time is normal again... only then, Rose has to go back to the other universe. That's how I'd write this, anyway. We'll see how RTD did it!

AIGH!

And... OOH OOH OOH, I have a theory. A really easy way for them to keep Tennant and to have it fit what we've seen in the canon so far is to have the Doctor simply finally learn how to control his own regeneration. If we go back to Romana's controlling her on-screen regeneration, we know that a Time Lord/Time Lady can presumably try on different shapes if desired. And if we tie Romana's actions on screen with the 15-hour regeneration cycle established when Ten came on camera, we could therefore conclude... it would be possible, as long as the Doctor does it fast enough, to simply make his body keep the same shape.

And here's the kicker... if Rose begs him not to change, maybe that'll be enough impetus to get him to fight to control the whole process.

That's what I'll be hoping for, anyway!

AIGH!

Jam Report #77--Not Too Hot To Jam If You Have Pie Edition

2008-06-30T01:46:50Z

In which I get back in gear with the Jam Reporting now that I have my brain back, more or less; in which we have a noticeably reduced session just because of the heat, but also because of a few conflicting plans; in which pocketnaomi joins us on some singing; and in which I break out the piccolo for the first time in ages. Songs: "The Clockwork Waltz", "The Shanty Formerly Known As General Taylor", "Captain Kidd", "Mari-Mac", "Chemical Worker's Song", "Pirate Bill and Squidly".

It has been stupidly hot in the Puget Sound region this weekend; it got up to 91 yesterday, and as I write this, it's 88 in Kenmore. The heat knocked the wind out of solarbird and me yesterday for Jamming, and it also drove sutures1 into hiding in her cool, dark basement, while stealthcello and her family allocated today for outside activities followed by ice cream.

Me, I was happy to have Jam in our relatively cool living room. And we did get technoshaman, cflute, pocketnaomi, and mamishka all coming over, too. So the Jam was kind of on the chibi side, but fun nonetheless.

First and foremost, since I'd worked out the chords for it, we went a few times through Dara's latest flute piece, "The Clockwork Waltz". This thing has a complicated structure to it, the way Dara's written it out, so it was good to get in some practice of it--because I need to be able to play backup guitar for her on it when we busk this piece. Meems brought in some nice drumming to help keep time, which was good in the bits where I lost track of what beat I was on; Callie, in the meantime, came out with some lovely descants to go along with Dara's melody line.

Second, we jumped over to Callie's latest contribution, which amused the hell out of us: alternate lyrics to "General Taylor", involving zombies. The formal title of this version is "The Shanty Formerly Known as General Taylor", and according to the lyrics Callie handed out, they were penned by Jim Partridge. This has already been shortened to "Zombie Taylor" in these parts, and Mimi had fun tweaking the lyrics a bit to get 'em to fit in with the song rhythm we're familiar with from the GBS version.

This, not terribly surprisingly, kept us in a GBS mood so we jumped over to "Captain Kidd". We had a bit of instrument uncertainty as I actually had my piccolo out--not that I expected to play it, really, since I was the only guitar this time around. Callie offered to play guitar so I could do something piccolo-y for this song, but since I don't actually have a piccolo part for it yet, I let her play the piccolo instead. This worked very well, especially on the final verse where she came out with a nifty trill where we hold out "sailed".

Meanwhile, Naomi asked for a bit of assistance just because she wanted to jump in with us on the words, which was nifty--more voices are always welcome--so I wound up singing through the first verse for her just so she could hear how the melody line works. AND! It should be noted that Dara was actually singing the lyrics while whipping out the chords on her mandolin. <3 She's been working on the "singing while playing" thing, which is a fine, fine thing indeed to pull off.

After that, since Mimi and I are always up for "Mari-Mac", we took a couple stabs at that. Which were great, grand, and glorious messes, because oh my yes we haven't played this coherently in too damned long, but it's just so fun to tear through this song at top speed. Dara got to whip out her long-dormant flute part for this song, too, and take care of the trill I used to do just after the fourth verse. Fun stuff.

By then my hand was starting to hurt a bit, letting me know in no uncertain terms that I've actually played quite a bit this weekend between practicing for busking on Friday night, actual busking on Saturday, and Jam today... so in order to give my fingers a break, we went to "Chemical Worker's Song" next.

Much love, of course, for "Chemical Worker's Song". Most of us were singing harmony with Mimi all the way through, while I focused instead on punctuating occasional lines, just because I like to give a bit more dramatic emphasis that way. I am having a bit of trouble still with proper harmony, though, and we had to spend a little time working out what I actually wanted to be singing. I'm going lower, down towards where Glenn was singing, while Callie and Dara are singing higher. Most niftily, Meems finished off with a very cool little drum riff that made the whole thing end quite tightly.

Callie put in a request for "Pirate Bill and Squidly", then, so we finished on that--therefore closing the Jam with an interestingly structured song as well as having opened with one. I had to remind myself how the riffs on the song work, so that Dara in turn could pick them up. Still some work to be done here since the bridge in 6/8 is still throwing me, but it's fun to play with nonetheless. Even if, as Mimi wryly observed, the song has a "Puff the Magic Dragon" vibe about it.

Then it was time for Pie, and because it's been stupidly hot, I got the Key Lime White Chocolate Tart thing from Thriftway, figuring that was an excellent thing to consume cold on a hot day. I was right. It was very tasty.

This is of course Jam #77, since Jams #74, 75, and 76 went unreported. For those of you keeping track, the next Jam will be July 13th!

Fortune's Favour review!

2008-06-26T06:03:03Z

It will surprise exactly none of you, or at least shouldn't, that I naturally ripped this album right into iTunes and listened to it ASAP after I got home tonight. When I was done with the album, I promptly jumped over to watch everything on the DVD as well.

Fortune's Favour is heavy on the pop, which will put it over on the side of the discography that includes Sea of No Cares, Something Beautiful*, and to a lesser degree, Turn. However, this release has an atypical and unique style going for it, which I'm sure can be attributed to GBS letting someone else produce it for them. I suspect many fans may wrinkle their noses and go "it's different! Scares me!" Me? I like it.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I'm biologically incapable of disliking a Great Big Sea album. ;) But that said, I hear only one track on this thing that didn't grab me in at least one interesting way, and in at least three different places, this thing has made me blink just because of stylistic choices that are so different from what GBS has done in the past that it surprised me to hear them. I highly approve of being surprised. It's the willingness to experiment and try new things with their music that I hope with all my heart will keep the B'ys vital and engaging musicians for many more years to come.

I'm pretty sure that this album won't dethrone the mighty The Hard and the Easy and the even mightier Rant and Roar for my all-time favorite GBS albums ever. But that said, I'm finding it a good solid listen and am delighted to have it join my collection. Here's to us all having a little more fortune in our lives!

And now, track by track reactions!

"Love Me Tonight" - Mm, Alan in very nice voice in this song--in particular in the bridge, where he does delicious deep little bits. Upbeat in general, and definitely single fodder. And right, this is the one I heard on the player before on the site, and which vanished before I had another chance to listen to it.

"Walk On The Moon" - I've heard this one already, of course, and my opinion of it remains high. Sure, it's Disneyesque, but I have to admit I'm a sucker for the chorus and its full-throated harmony on "I'M ALIVE!" And for the roll of delicate chimes in the second verse, just over the line "as that rocket ship touched down". And for that last chorus when they're holding out that chord on "small". <3

"England" - Ah okay, the first thing sung by Séan on the album. He's in good voice, sounding clearer and purer than he did on TH&TE. Where the heck are the others, though--oh okay, there they are, second chorus. High sweet harmony on the next chorus after, too, and oh look, whistle on the bridge. That's Bob, surely. And HAH, "fortune's favour" mentioned in the lyrics, clearly this is where the album title came from. Is this the song they were singing harmony on in that one video I was watching of them in the studio a few months back? Maybe. Is it trad? Not sure. It sounds like it ought to be, but the lyrics are included up on the site and are credited to "McCann". I don't know if that means that he wrote this song, or if he just did the arrangement of it.

"Here and Now" - Back to another one I'd heard already on the greatbigsea.com player, and back to Alan and something pop. Alan alternates here between clear and delightfully growly, and there's some neat sounding percussion in the second part of the first verse and some nice guitar licks going on in the background too as well as heading into the chorus. Good strong harmony on said choruses, and I'd already decided I liked the chant in the bridge. Ends a little abruptly though.

"Long Lost Love" - Yet another I'd already heard on the player. This feels like it should be trad, given the tune and the delivery, but it isn't. It's another Séan, and on the sweet but perky side. Not sure if I like this one as much as I like the Alan tracks so far, but then I'm not a Séan fangirl. ;)

"Oh Yeah" - Finally, another one I hadn't already heard yet, and whoa! Harder rock feel than GBS usually does, and Alan's growling out the lyrics. Wow, this is different. Well, we knew the album was going to have a different sound to it than previous works, but this is the strongest indicator of it so far. It actually made me blink. Hee. But this one ends a little abruptly too.

"Banks of Newfoundland" - I think this may be the first actual trad ditty on the album...? This one's not listed on the lyrics page up on the site. And oh hey, here's Bob singing lead finally, and some loverly harmony on the chorus. Shanty in a minor key, good rolling rhythm, though I could like a bit more drum in it and a bit of variance on the beat.

"Dream to Live" - Back to Séan with this one. Nice tune and beat, though the lyrics are a downer! Sniff. Ooh, nice high note out of the Shantyman, though--he's definitely in higher and purer voice on this album than he's been in a bit, and showing it off on the bridge/chorus bit.

"Company of Fools" - Oh yeah, I see Russell's hand in these lyrics, with the way a bunch of syllables get jammed into a line, hee. And where Séan's in clearer voice than normal, Alan seems to be all about the growly all over this album. This is not a bad thing. <3 And very upbeat chorus, this. I expect this to be showing up in the set lists for the Fortunate Tour later this year.

"Hard Case" - And, back to Séan--and also, guest vocalist Jeen O'Brien, briefly...? If she's in there more than just that bit at the beginning, I'm having a hard time picking her out of the mix of the voices... no. I can hear her singing higher harmony, okay. Hrm. I think this is perhaps the first song that isn't really grabbing me much on the album. The tune doesn't grab me much and neither do the lyrics, though I am of course willing to see if it'll grow on me.

"Rocks of Merasheen" - The other clearly trad ditty, or at least other clearly "not original to GBS ditty", is another Séan. And for the first time he's sounding grittier. This is a nice one, regardless. Interesting chorus to my ear, starting off sounding major-y and ending minor-y. What's that in the background on this last verse, banjo? Also, I just like "Merasheen" as a name.

"Dance Dance" - Ooh, another perky Alan ditty. Always a good thing. This feels like concert material; it's got Vertical Movement all over every measure.

"Heart of Stone" - It is probably indicative of how much I like mizkit's writing that when I saw this title, I actually thought of her book. I suspect that the next time I read that book, this song will weave itself into my mental soundtrack for it. The mix on it caught my ear a bit, the first couple of measures. I think I like this one, on first listen; I don't tend to go for Séan's slower, serious songs, but this one has an interesting little melody and some nice tight harmony. And it's a nice contrast to lead into...

"Straight to Hell" - BOOYA. This of course being the first thing I'd heard off this album, going clear back to last summer's ZooTunes show when they did this one live. I loved it then, I love it now! Growly Alan, growly harmony, growly guitars. Yes Alan, yes indeed, you can sing like a bird and dance like a demon and you do it very, very well. <3

I'd already listened to the bonus tracks, of course, but I'm including them for completeness' sake.

Belong - This is hands down the best of the bonus tracks that the B'ys handed out for this album. It gets bonus points now that I know Russell helped write the lyrics. <3

Gallow's Pole - Highly atypical flavor for GBS, but interestingly raucous nonetheless.

Wandering Ways - All I can think of with this one is, is this Séan bidding farewell to his fangirls now that he's all married up and stuff? ;)

Metrobus - And, the only Bob track amongst the bonus material. Also atypical of style for GBS, but I think that's a good thing for bonus tracks. And it is perhaps not particularly atypical of Bob.

Onward to DVD impressions!

This is a very minimalist DVD--no menu, no nothing, you pop it in and there's a blank black screen. Until you hit Play, and then, oh look, studio footage!

Very cool, musicgeeking in the studio. What's that software Hawksley is using? That looks like fun stuff to play with.

Bob in the recording room with the bouzouki that looks like my octave mand--neat, we usually see that instrument in Alan's hands, I think.

Crufty-looking needs-a-shave Séan with guitar. I may not be a Shantyfan normally, but I gotta admit, that's awful purty.

Bwahaha about the "Sloop John B" bit. "Hawskley, let us go home..." And wow, didn't know Alan could sing that low.

Cool, bits of St. John's. Nice to glimpse the music store. And the dude with an accordion on the street. There's some pretty on this street Alan's walking along, in general.

Alan with the cymbals and the tympani and the xylophone, hee! Bwaha, xylophone fight. And dude, Hawskley's got some pipes. What the hell are they doing with the tympani, anyway? Is this layering in instruments for "Walk On The Moon"?

And WTF with the making of things go thump in the hallway? Clearly, the B'ys will pull in their percussion from wherever the hell they like.... OH okay, so this is percussion for "Banks of Newfoundland".

Hardcore harmony geeking here. Very cool. I particularly like the bits where they're trying to figure out which notes Séan needs to be hitting over Bob's melody line, and Alan's noodling around with his own harmony line.

Mmm, Bob looks pretty sexy when he needs a shave, too. ;)

Kinda frustrating to listen to them working on stuff that they can hear through the headphones, but we can't! So we can't necessarily clue in on what the audible bits are linking into. The musicgeek in me really wants to hear what's coming through the headphones too.

Bwahahaha duct-taping Hawksley to the chair hee.

Interesting, the discussion about the "string arrangement" of "Walk On the Moon". Makes me really want to hear that previous arrangement for comparison purposes. Also, Séan's strategy for dealing with the song is HY-larious: "Let's just leave it alone, and maybe it'll fix itself!" And, "let's all drink seven drinks, then come back and listen to it." Alan: "Worked for the Old Black Rum!"

Wow, lookit all those signed copies of Courage & Patience & Grit.

Hee, Alan: "I'm a folk singer, what do I know about this pop shit? It's what the kids want. The kids with the iPods." How about us near-40-year-olds with iPods, there, Doyle? ;)

*LAUGH* Beautiful bit there with Alan serenading the dog, complete with light work.

Lyrics-geeking, and poor Séan gets harshed on for his lyrics but valiantly tries to defend himself. "Make it a version, at least!" "I already have an aversion to it!"

Hee, Bob with a white MacBook. And wow, check out that Marshall amp Alan rolls in, complete with big fat tubes inside.

That's a gorgeous-looking leather shoulder strap Alan uses on the black Les Paul. Nice engraving on it. The strap, that is, not the guitar.

And ah, about 54 minutes of material. Cool. All in all, very fun. I'm glad they shared it with us!

I'll be in my bunk. With headphones.

2008-06-26T03:41:51Z

It is probably deeply appropriate that Great Big Sea's latest, Fortune's Favour, was waiting for me in the mailbox when I came home tonight from eating sushi--though perhaps not quite as deeply appropriate as it would have been had I done this when I got The Hard and the Easy. ;)

Only a day late, which doesn't surprise me, given that this thing was coming here all the way from the other side of Canada. That it's the very simple thin cardboard packaging, without a jewel case, doesn't surprise me either. I bet that it'd be in a jewel case if I bought it in a store. Also not surprising that I see "Russell" in the list of people being thanked in the liner notes, yay! It seems that the lovely and talented Mr. Crowe contributed some songwriting help on one of these songs, as well as on one of the extra tracks that the folks at greatbigsea.com were handing out.

What is surprising is that there's a DVD with this thing! Maybe it's got the same "making of" videos that are now posted up on the site? Clearly this will require investigation, as soon as I'm done listening to the actual songs. A review will of course be forthcoming!

So y'all pardon me, I need to go wine and dine this lovely thing for a while. <3

Book Log #35: Blood Brothers, by Nora Roberts

2008-06-25T05:46:47Z

That I have read two Nora Roberts novels back to back I ascribe entirely to the fact that La Nora semi-regularly posts comments on smartbitches, and each time I see her post up there, the cooler I find her. Therefore, I felt obligated to pick up a couple more of her books.

The second of this last round of buying Nora was the first of her current paranormal trilogy, Blood Brothers, Book 1 of The Sign of the Seven. This was paranormal more in the vein of psychic/Gothic rather than fantasy, I note. In the hands of another writer, it might almost have been a horror novel plot. We have a small East Coast town where three young boys accidentally release a demon that proceeds to terrorize the town and drive everybody batshit every seven years--while the boys, who have been granted certain extraordinary abilities, have to figure out how to do damage control every time the demon strikes. Now, twenty-one years later, they're joined by three women who share their unique gifts, and all six are teaming up to face down the demon, hopefully for the final round.

(I'm pretty sure that Ms. Roberts wasn't thinking of the old Star Trek episode "The Return of the Archons" when she wrote this thing--though I have to admit a little voice in my brain kept asking, "Are you one with the Body?" every time I read about the town's previous incidents of going batshit and otherwise perfectly normal people raping, murdering, committing wild acts of vandalism, killing themselves, etc., and the survivors not remembering much about what happened after. Aheh. But I digress.)

It's probably fairly pat and predictable that each of the men has a counterpart, ability-wise, among the women. Caleb and Quinn both can see the past. Fox and Layla are both psychic. And Gage and Cybil can see the future. Naturally, these pairings are also clearly getting set up romantically as well; in Caleb and Quinn's case, pretty much right out of the gate. However, despite the predictable pairings, the six lead characters are likable. Quinn in particular is very sympathetic to me as a reader--Nora gets points for a woman who cheerfully loves food, is aware that she needs to change her eating habits to stay healthy, and is productive about it rather than angstful. I also very much liked Quinn's very straightforward handling of not only her feelings for Caleb, but also the paranormal events at large. She pretty much poleaxes poor Caleb, and charmingly so.

Since we are dealing with a cast of six main characters, Book 1 is not surprisingly mostly devoted to bringing everybody on stage. There are initial low-level rumblings out of the demon, just enough to let the cast know that this time around it's more powerful than it used to be--and to let them all get used to the idea of facing it together. Other than that, though, not much happens; therefore, Book 1 leaves me very much with a prologue-y sort of "okay, now let's get to the main action" feeling. But it's a good enough feeling that I'll be seeking out Book 2. Three and a half stars.

Well, this is good anyway

2008-06-25T05:27:11Z

Had the appointment with the nutritionist today, which went about like I expected, only longer--solarbird and I were there for an hour and a half while this woman quizzed me thoroughly about my history with food and weight and such.

The good news is, she was pretty pleased with many of our already established eating habits, and she approved of my ditching the soda and of my strict snack rationing. The bad (albeit expected) news was that I need to bump up my fruit and veg intake, and also definitely resume my free weights exercises. I also need to ditch the efforts I'd started to have juice with lunch, on the grounds that juice is less helpful than having actual fruit. Meanwhile, Dara has been advised to edge the veg up during dinners, and the nutritionist made a good suggestion about putting the veggies on the plate first, so as to have them dominate the territory.

I am to keep up with this food log thing. And I think I'll be resuming the weights on Saturday when I'll have my first window of time free to work 'em in. Till then, I'll keep up with the current food habits; I'm already seeing improvement in my appetite just by ditching the soda and by rationing the snacks. And I've been inspecting the drink shelves at Whole Foods to see what I can purchase to drink with lunch that a) isn't water and b) doesn't have too many calories. The HonestTea brand seems potentially good; I found their "Community Green Tea" flavor today, which had only 34 calories to the bottle and just enough cane sugar and orange flavor to it to make it not too bad. I think this'll be my lunch drink for a while.

I think that in the interests of keeping this in the forefront of my brain, I shall start adding food log data to pertinent posts (like this one). And just to throw in other pertinent numbers, I'll resume more regular tracking of my walking as well. I'll slap this stuff behind a cut, though.

Meanwhile, the Stunt Boob has been acquired, and it's surprisingly comfy and natural-looking. Enough that it boggled both me and Dara. Should it happen that I have to postpone reconstruction surgery for whatever reason, I think I'll be able to put up with wearing this for a while.

Breakfast at 7:15am: 1 cup miso soup, 1 oaty bar, 1 cup green tea
Lunch at 12:30pm: 1/2 herb turkey & havarti sandwich, Asian pear, 1 bottle green tea (16 oz, 34 cals)
Snack around 3:30pm: Apple
Dinner around 7:30pm: Stir fry (chicken, onions, carrots, broccoli), rice, applesauce with cinnamon
Snack around 9pm: 1 cup green tea, 2 rows dark chocolate
Also drunk during day: 5 glasses water

Miles since May 21st: 35.9
Miles out of Hobbiton: 2899.7
Miles out of Minas Tirith: 62.7
Miles to Hobbiton: 1562.3

RIP George Carlin 1937-2008

2008-06-23T14:35:49Z

I'm seeing this all over my Friends list already, but let me add my voice to the chorus of sorrow at the passing of George Carlin.

I have very early memories of Carlin being a favorite of my father's, in no small part because Dad was frequently told by people that he reminded them of George. They were correct. Dad had the same sort of lean, wiry build that George did, the same sort of attitude, and many of the same habits and sense of humor.

We had two old Carlin albums in Dad's record collection: On the Road, which has some of George's most hysterical material ever, and Take-Offs and Put-Ons, notable for the "Wonderful Wino" sketch as well as "Indian Sergeant". Later on I picked up a tape of What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, and A Place For My Stuff.

I still snicker at "A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it!" and "Now, an announcement from the National Apple Institute: FUCK PEARS!"

But really, my favorite sketch of his ever, which is sadly apt with this news, is the one he did about death on On the Road: "I don't wanna be buried when I die. I don't wanna be cremated either. I wanna be BLOWN UP!" And, "There's a little known--and less understood!--portion of death called the Two Minute Warning."

Gonna miss you, George. I hope you used those two minutes, man.

And oh yes, because this MUST BE POSTED

2008-06-23T06:00:00Z

Great Big Sea in Seattle, October 1, at their now-usual venue of the Moore! That's a school night, but hey, these are MY B'YS we're talking about here. Anybody local want in on plans for this show, let me know!

For the interested all over my Friends list who haven't seen it already, the US leg of the official "Fortunate Tour" for the new album is up on the GBS Tour page. Presales for greatbigsea.com members are starting TOMORROW, so look sharp and grab tickets while they're hot and piping fresh!

And maybe tomorrow, maybe Tuesday, at the very least some time this week depending on how mail's been behaving between here and Canada, a certain album should be showing up in my mailbox.

And there will be Squee. Oh yes, there WILL. This is your final warning.

Musicals, music, and general health update

2008-06-23T05:54:56Z

solarbird, spazzkat, and I went and saw Avenue Q playing here in Seattle yesterday--and it was hilarious. Very happy to have gotten to see that. Three words: Bad Idea Bears! <3

And today, Dara and I went down to the Lake Forest Park Farmer's Market to busk! We made another $28 to go into the Buy Dara and Anna iPhones Fund, which was quite satisfying. I was also particularly charmed by a couple of little girls who happily bounced around while we were playing. The older one actually sort of danced, but the younger, who couldn't have been more than two, didn't know how to dance any other way than running around in circles. So the bigger one had to hold her hands and go around in circles with her. Then they both came over and dropped a dollar apiece into my guitar case.

As of this past Thursday, I'm back at work. It's a bit of a switch after three weeks off, and I must admit, I'm going to miss being able to be at home with Dara. But ah well, unless I get really lucky with the queries, I'll be at this a while longer yet.

I've had a couple more followup appointments, and have been told that I'm healing up well from the surgery. My energy's back to normal, more or less, though it was a bit of a bitch carrying the guitar up the hill from the market this afternoon. I'm off the Tamoxifen, too, though this has also meant that I'm going to have to take other risk reduction measures to try to keep my remaining breast clear.

Which means, mainly, an overhaul of my diet--because obesity is a risk factor for cancer, and I'm carrying way too much extra poundage.

For starters, I'm going to have to ditch the soda--and get hardcore about rationing the snacks. Dara's generally good about our dinners, but I need to pay harder attention to breakfast and lunch. Tuesday, I'm going to speak with a nutritionist as well to see if there are other modifications I'll need to make to my diet. I was given a big handout with a bunch of foods that are deemed helpful for cancer risk reduction, complete with stats and recipes and the like. Some of this stuff is stuff I eat already, but it'll be helpful to have somebody with a clue go over the other stuff with me.

Also on Tuesday, I have to go in to be fitted with what has now been officially named the Stunt Boob. Surprisingly, this means I go to Nordstrom's. It'll be very strange walking into a department store with a prescription, but apparently this is how the folks at Evergreen handle this. I'm to get the prosthesis as well as a couple of special bras for it. I dislike the idea of having to change bra types, but this is fortunately only a temporary measure, to tide me over until we can deal with reconstruction surgery.

In the meantime, we'll see how much poundage I can drop. Soda elimination and snack reduction efforts, plus the resumption of my usual workday walking, have already started altering my appetite. And I've already dropped a few pounds.

Wish me luck, folks. I'm aiming for 125-130. It'll take me a while; I've got over 50 pounds to go to get there.

Book Log #34: High Noon, by Nora Roberts

2008-06-22T16:11:58Z

I've seen this scenario before out of La Nora: tough cop chick meets rich guy, sparks fly, suspenseful things ensue. Only this time it wasn't a J.D. Robb novel; it was (I believe the) latest Nora Roberts paperback, High Noon.

The overall feel of this thing being akin to the J.D. Robbs, minus the futuristic elements, is not a bad thing in the slightest. Ms. Roberts has demonstrated that police procedurals are a strong area for her writing, and that's what this book is, albeit with the angle of hostage negotiation rather than homicide. Leading lady Phoebe and leading man Duncan have their share of angst in their respective pasts, and they aren't without their conflict. Overall I found their chemistry strong and pleasantly free of more than minimal angst, and the conflict that emerged between them was reasonably born out of the plot rather than being driven by stupid misunderstandings. But then, Ms. Roberts has demonstrated she's good at that, too.

And I must give her points for the mystery part of the plot surprising me, too. I called the initial red herring, of course, but for the longest time I was expecting the actual perpetrator to be a particular person previously mentioned in the story. Didn't go that way, which pleased me.

My one beef with the plot is that ultimately, Leading Man Duncan has little to do in this story other than wander around being Awesome Rich Guy, playing moral support while Phoebe does her thing. What actions he takes impact Phoebe's personal life, sure, but there's nothing he contributes to the main story, which lessens an otherwise perfectly acceptable character. Still, an otherwise good solid read. Three and a half stars.

Doctor Who 30.11: "Turn Left"

2008-06-22T15:49:58Z

Dear gods, what a fabulous episode to get my wind back for review posts. Clearly, Russell T. Davies went in for his Awesome Shots for his last hurrah on the show--because I mean, DAMN! Russell T. Davies, sir, I salute you!

It is rather delightfully symmetrical that last week's episode, "Midnight"--also an RTD episode, it must be noted--almost exclusively focused on the Doctor while this one almost exclusively focused on Donna. Really neat contrast there, not to mention an opportunity to really delve into Donna as a character. We've gotten glimpses of her strength in prior episodes. This time, though, she digs in deep and makes it blaze forth.

Not only does this episode underscore Donna's awesomeness, it also underscores the impact that the Doctor has on his Companions--and vice versa. In Donna's case in particular, it's gripping to see that she literally saved his life during the showdown with the Racnoss. We already knew she'd kicked some sense and sanity into him--but seeing his hand fall out from under the sheet and the sonic screwdriver drop from his fingers... brr. It makes sense, though. Had Donna not been there, had she not urged him to back off, I totally buy that he would have stayed there watching the Racnoss drown until he went down with them.

Which, of course, in turn underscores the impact that the loss of Rose had on him.

Plus, we have it brought home with brutal clarity exactly how vital the Doctor has been to the history of Earth in general. That sequence of scenes wherein we see how critical storylines went without the Doctor--wow. One punch to the gut after another, starting with everybody in the hospital dying (including Martha! Sniff!) and running right up to the starship Titanic slamming into London and flooding the English countryside with radiation after the crash. With added snork material for sixty million Americans dissolving into fat. ;) And WAUGH, the entire Torchwood team sacrificing themselves to stop the Sontarans!

Through it all, we have Donna, seemingly an everyday, ordinary woman trying to look after her mother and grandfather in a world going mad. She certainly is convinced she's ordinary, anyway, until Rose shows up.

Because it must be said: ZOMG ROSE! <3

Check out the newer, grimmer Rose. Wow. I noticed pretty quickly that her speech has changed; it's gotten a bit more refined. I wonder if this is because she's been working with her current universe's Torchwood and has had to learn how to make herself sound like someone with authority. It's still unclear as to what exactly she's doing to jump universes, though I noted that line of hers about being "pulled" into the alternate Donna universe. But it's clear she's been honed and tempered, enough that she was perfectly capable of leading a UNIT experiment to try to harness the technology of the TARDIS (and WAUGH the poor almost dead TARDIS).

And go, alt-universe Donna, sacrificing yourself to restore the proper Doctor-is-alive universe. Sniff. I am in awe of Catherine Tate, standing there with tears in her eyes just before the time jump, as it sinks in to alt-universe Donna that no, she's not going to survive this. And equally in awe of Billie Piper, standing there without saying a word, and that honed, grim, compassionate look on her face saying everything that needed to be said for her.

And OH. MY. GOD. The ending.

The look on the Doctor's face the instant Donna said "she was blonde". Comprehension beginning to dawn--and in that instant, all of us at the Murk were on the edges of our seats, waiting for it. I was totally expecting the two words to be "Rose Tyler".

But no. "Bad Wolf" was infinitely better. Comprehension ignites in the Doctor's face, and as he dashes back out into the street to see those two words everywhere, even on the TARDIS...

And I am now fairly certain that Rose will not technically "come back". She'll be over there in her current universe doing her thing--and at most, we may see one brief glimpse between the universes, between her and the Doctor. Maybe he'll get to at least tell her he loves her. <3

PSA: New GBS songs available on iTunes!

2008-06-20T01:32:49Z

Greatbigsea.com sent over its news feed today new news: Fortune's Favour is now available for pre-order on iTunes!

Note that there's a confusing bit in this announcement that suggests that the only way that you can get these extra tracks is to pre-order the album via iTunes. For those of us who have already pre-ordered the physical CD, this would be annoying!

However, not to fret: if you go up on the iTunes store and search for "Great Big Sea", there's a new EP up there that includes "Walk On The Moon" as well as the two new extra tracks, which can be bought individually.

So go! Buy the new digital GBS goodness! The news announcement claims that these tracks will vanish when the album releases, and I don't know if that's also going to apply to this EP. Better not risk it, folks. ;)

(x-posted between my journal and greatbigsea)

Recovery Girl is Recovering

2008-06-14T23:42:32Z

I see I've picked up a couple new folks reading: hi there, mrgoodwraith and sar_anon. Things have been slow around here lately since I haven't had much brain for posting--or doing much of anything else, for that matter. However, things should soon be picking up.

Most of this past week has gone to various appointments (chiro, massage, talk therapy), as well as hanging out with the fantabulous mamishka--who's come over a couple of time and introduced me to the TV shows Moonlight and Pushing Daisies. Moonlight is better than I've expected, at least based on the first couple of episodes; it's got a few amusing moments of self-aware humor, and it makes me grin that it has the actress who played Reinette in "Girl in the Fireplace" in it. Pushing Daisies, on the other hand, is hilarious in a quirky, dark-humor kind of way.

As I feared, the replacement X-Files DVD set that Amazon sent me turned out to also be missing the season closer. To wit: argh. I shall have to find alternate means to acquire that season, I fear. But I also jumped ahead and watched the first X-Files movie, on the grounds that okay yeah fine I'm going to go see the new one and I want to be reminded of various plot points. At least the ones from when the show was still good. ;)

solarbird and I went and saw Speed Racer finally, which I liked way better than I thought I would--and I have to admit, the techno remix of the theme over the closing credits was awfully catchy, and I may have to buy it off of iTunes. Coming home to watch the two actual episodes of the old cartoon I have on laser made me doubly appreciate the movie. The cast really did do a good job nailing the various characters, and sure, it's cartoony, but hey, it's a movie based on a cartoon. Though I can see how, if you never were a fan of the cartoon, the movie wouldn't work for you.

spazzkat and Dara and I went to see Indy IV last night. And, after seeing it a second time, I've found that I've downgraded it to a nice enough coda to the original three movies. Dara has said that she feels that Indy as a character really belongs back in the 20's and 30's, because back then, so much of the world is still Unknown and Mysterious to Western culture--but after WWII, not so much. I think I find myself in agreement with her.

We've had one jam session, about which there will not be a Jam Report still because I haven't had the brain to write them. But it was fun to have folks over, and I hope to resume writing Jam Reports with our next session on the 29th. In related news, Dara has started busking at local farmers' markets--and has made quite a bit of pocket change, which is awesome. I hope to join her next week to help her out, and we're hoping to use the busking money to get us a couple of the new iPhones when they come out.

My energy levels are slowly returning to normal; I've been able to do some decent walking the last few days, going to the aforementioned appointments as well as running errands down to the shops. And my brain's coming back enough that I'm starting to feel a little guilty about not working on the writing (in fact, I finally had an idea occur to me about how to fix one of the skiffy novels I'm working on, about which I need to be taking notes).

I think that's everything for now. A few more days of zzzz and then I'll have to go back to work; in the meantime, though, I got more Nethacking to do!

Book Log #33: No Control, by Shannon K. Butcher

2008-06-14T23:10:40Z

Given that I started reading this book on the day I had surgery, and that I've finished it off in bits and pieces during my subsequent recovery, it could be argued that I haven't really given Shannon Butcher's No Control a fair shake. I mean, how coherent a picture can you get of a book when you read it in a Vicodin haze, hey?

That said, I have to admit that this book didn't work for me as well as her debut novel, No Regrets. It's not because the quality of her writing has changed--it hasn't--but rather, it's more because I couldn't buy the reasoning our heroine makes for an initial decision of hers that lays down how the rest of the plot goes. Since I couldn't buy that initial decision, I had trouble buying the rest of the plot.

Even given that, there are aspects of the book I did like. The heroine strikes a good balance between "emotionally devastated" and "able to deal when she needs to", generally. There wasn't anything particularly unusual about the hero; he was an archetype. But he was a likable archetype, nonetheless. And bonus points for mixing self-defense lessons and percolating hormones; whoof. ;) Two and a half stars.

This just in

2008-06-10T00:51:25Z

kathrynt just gave me the heads up that Dennis Kucinich is reading articles of impeachment against Bush live, on C-Span, this very minute.

We just tuned in at the Murk. And we're all whomperjawed. Wow. And here we thought Congress was going to not bother with this since there's so little of Bush's term left. Who knew the Dems had a stealth impeachment campaign underway?

Anybody see any news articles on this out there yet? I'm scouring my usual sources, but no sign of any breaking news yet.

ETA 6:08pm: Link from mdlbear: Kucinich has thirty-five articles of impeachment lined up.

ETA 6:20pm: Ah, this may well have triggered this: Scott McClellan has agreed to testify in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case. And apparently he's told Keith Olbermann on his show to his face that he'll testify that Kucinich's articles are true.

ETA 6:42pm: Yahoo's news site now has the first AP Wire report I've been able to find. I expect this will show up on other major news feeds with similar content before we get more substantial articles.

ETA 7:34pm: Links from mistwolf and grian_ruadh: DailyKOS is liveblogging the matter here and here.

ETA 8:05pm: Up to Article 30 in the reading, and the news is finally starting to make its way around the Net. News.google.com has the first few articles showing up here.

ETA 9:17pm: And, now that we've gotten to the House adjourning for the evening, time to see how this hits all the news sites tonight and tomorrow morning.

ETA 9:40pm: solarbird has of course gotten way more data on this than I have; check out her post here.

Help a filker out, folks: Tom Smith's in the hospital

2008-06-09T17:59:36Z

For those of you who haven't already heard this from me directly, I thought I should pass the word. filkertom, Tom Smith, has apparently badly torn a muscle trying to get onto a stage during a performance, and he's had to have surgery for it. The word is that he'll be okay, but this shoots his convention schedule for the summer all to hell.

PNW filker vixyish has some details here.

huskiebear has more details here, and is offering to take messages and get-well wishes to Tom.

Vixy also encourages people who want to support Tom to go buy stuff from him--because, as she quite rightly points out, he makes his living from his music, which is a pretty amazing thing for a filker. So this will put a bad dent in his income.

I just bought a couple of his albums for download here on his site, to try to help him out. Y'all might consider doing the same, if you like Tom's music and don't already own all of his stuff. If you aren't familiar with him, I heartily encourage you to check him out, for there are quite a few reasons that Tom's made it to being a professional filker. Not the least of which being that he brings the Funny!

Spread the word to any other folks you think need to know, y'all.