It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
Wow, so much stuff.
Ummm... when last I wrote, I was angsting from all orafices. I'm feeling better now. Nothing was resolved, really, but the mood has passed and I have some things to think about, now that my brain is back in a more rational mode. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and support and advice.
Previously I also spoke about furniture, since my house is now sadly lacking in that department... but I'm sorta working on that. I went to IKEA and looked around, didn't see anything really thrilling, but did take down some info for stuff I liked... but just yesterday I happened to wander into a crappy little furniture store in a crappy little mall near where I live, and lo and behold, they have this FABULOUS, sexy little dining room set on clearance sale. It's a small, round table, about a foot taller than a normal dining room table, with 4 tall chairs to go with it, all for $520. Design is blocky but clean, colour is a dark, dark brown stain, almost black, with black leather-like material on the chair seats... it's really more of a "Breakfast nook" or "Bar" table, but I like it and I think it'll serve us well for now. I'm gonna go order it/pick it up/whatever tonight, if I can.
Rusty also let me know about one of his co-workers who won a DVD player that he doesn't need, and is trying to sell it. It's a Sanyo SL50 DVD... anyone have any thoughts about it? He's asking $100 but everything I've seen online is saying it's worth $70-$100 so I've offered $70. Then I'll just need a TV... well, and some DVDs. :)
I made candied orange peel and prepared the fruit for the fruitcake (it's soaking in Bourbon and Grand Marnier as we speak) and I will be making the fruitcake tonight... starting with a 1/4 batch, to test out my newly-reformulated recipe, which is cobbled from memory, other fruitcake recipes, general knowledge of cake recipes, and (hopefully) a little bit of luck, magic, or what-have-you. :) If that's not a total flop, I'll use what I learned from the trial run to adjust the recipe and make the remaining 3/4 of the full batch.
Hopefully while I'm at it tonight, I will also clean the kitchen (yes, again... more like "still") and make myself a home-cooked meal for supper (since I bought ingredients for all sorts of great meals and haven't had a chance to make them) and maybe even make something else to add to the Christmas larders.
I have a shitload of other things to do to (as always) - half of last week's list is still not done!
Snowboarding on Thursday with xeonbunny, while I was still in a crappy mood, was frustrating. Being in that "frame of mind" just highlighted all of the frustrating things about being a snowboarder surrounded by things designed for skiers (even though skiers are a small minority nowadays) -- like large flat areas and even uphill slopes, where a snowboarder has almost zero mobility without removing a food from a binding; like chair lifts that require a foot to be removed from a binding as well... and are not designed to be easily used by boarders; case-in-point, it's near-impossible to get your foot back into the binding while on the lift, meaning that you have to dismount from the lift with only one foot in a binding, and the other foot just stepping on the board... your best choice is to put the foot in front of the binding, closer to the other foot, but that makes your stance awkward and less stable, AND you are way more vulnerable to injury, because if both feet are strapped to a board, any "twisting" during a tumbling fall is supported by the strong and well-worked muscles of your torso... but with only one foot strapped in, the board is essentially a giant torque-wrench waiting to twist the weaker muscles of your knee into a painful mess!
You'd think the snowboard designers would be wise to this by now and try to make things as easy as possible for boarders to compensate, but binding designs are still shite (I bought mine specifically because they were fairly large and were about the easiest to use with mitts on, but they still "jam" sometimes) and I've never seen a design which makes it easy enough to re-attach a foot to the board so that it could be done on a lift or at least when getting off the lift.
Needless to say, I fell while getting off a lift, with only one foot in my board, and twisted the bejesus out of my knee. I also did something to my hand (I think while wrestling with a jammed binding) and was frustrated several times by the design of my bindings and the designs of the slopes, lifts, and pretty much everything.
Interestingly, I am least angry about my most painful injury that day, which followed me taking a small jump, landing it, but being unable to get an edge down to turn: I fell to prevent myself from careening off the edge of the run. I ended up sliding, on my back sideways off the edge of the run, where I ran into a 40-odd-lb chunk of ice while leading with my left hip, and knocked it several feet. I was stunned for a few minutes, couldn't breathe or move much... was really weird. It still hurts though it never bruised on the surface - I'm sure my hip bone is nicely bruised... The only injury not caused by poor design of something!
Had a lot of social contact over the weekend which I think was really quite helpful in bringing my mood back to stable... Damaron was out visiting again, and we hung out most of weekend, I think it was relaxing for the both of us... furry Christmas party on Saturday night was cool, if crowded, got to see a lot of friends (if only for a few moments each) and make a few new acquaintances...
Also, saw "The Chronicles of Narnia" and was wickedly impressed by the character design. Just... wow. Aslan, particularly his face, fur and mane, was an AMAZING feat of CG. All of the characters which were amalgamations of human and animal... so awesome, most were seamlessly executed, even fairly extreme motions. And the battle scenes... holy fuck. Stunning. Acting was really quite good on most counts, particularly Lucy, though Peter and Susan were also excellent... Edward, by far the hardest of the kids to pull off properly because of the complicated and changing nature of his motivations, was sometimes not-quite-on, though still good... I was kinda disappointed by the White Witch except when she picks up two swords... I kinda blame a lot of that on the direction, though, it being Disney... they didn't pull as many punches as they could have, but it was dumbed-down enough to be sort-of annoying at times. This was mostly evidenced in the Witch, now that I think about it -- she was just not as cunning and conniving as she should be... I felt like they forced her to seriously over-act a lot so "the kiddies" would know she was the "bad guy" even though she was a girl, and dressed in white, and posing as royalty. Makes me hope against hope for a "director's cut" meant for adults... add blood to all the battle scenes, make the witch way more believably evil (ie. non-Disney), and give us a little more character development on some of the other interesting characters (despite the movie already being really long).
All in all, really good, though - possibly to be the first movie I buy on DVD.
B.
Ummm... when last I wrote, I was angsting from all orafices. I'm feeling better now. Nothing was resolved, really, but the mood has passed and I have some things to think about, now that my brain is back in a more rational mode. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and support and advice.
Previously I also spoke about furniture, since my house is now sadly lacking in that department... but I'm sorta working on that. I went to IKEA and looked around, didn't see anything really thrilling, but did take down some info for stuff I liked... but just yesterday I happened to wander into a crappy little furniture store in a crappy little mall near where I live, and lo and behold, they have this FABULOUS, sexy little dining room set on clearance sale. It's a small, round table, about a foot taller than a normal dining room table, with 4 tall chairs to go with it, all for $520. Design is blocky but clean, colour is a dark, dark brown stain, almost black, with black leather-like material on the chair seats... it's really more of a "Breakfast nook" or "Bar" table, but I like it and I think it'll serve us well for now. I'm gonna go order it/pick it up/whatever tonight, if I can.
Rusty also let me know about one of his co-workers who won a DVD player that he doesn't need, and is trying to sell it. It's a Sanyo SL50 DVD... anyone have any thoughts about it? He's asking $100 but everything I've seen online is saying it's worth $70-$100 so I've offered $70. Then I'll just need a TV... well, and some DVDs. :)
I made candied orange peel and prepared the fruit for the fruitcake (it's soaking in Bourbon and Grand Marnier as we speak) and I will be making the fruitcake tonight... starting with a 1/4 batch, to test out my newly-reformulated recipe, which is cobbled from memory, other fruitcake recipes, general knowledge of cake recipes, and (hopefully) a little bit of luck, magic, or what-have-you. :) If that's not a total flop, I'll use what I learned from the trial run to adjust the recipe and make the remaining 3/4 of the full batch.
Hopefully while I'm at it tonight, I will also clean the kitchen (yes, again... more like "still") and make myself a home-cooked meal for supper (since I bought ingredients for all sorts of great meals and haven't had a chance to make them) and maybe even make something else to add to the Christmas larders.
I have a shitload of other things to do to (as always) - half of last week's list is still not done!
Snowboarding on Thursday with xeonbunny, while I was still in a crappy mood, was frustrating. Being in that "frame of mind" just highlighted all of the frustrating things about being a snowboarder surrounded by things designed for skiers (even though skiers are a small minority nowadays) -- like large flat areas and even uphill slopes, where a snowboarder has almost zero mobility without removing a food from a binding; like chair lifts that require a foot to be removed from a binding as well... and are not designed to be easily used by boarders; case-in-point, it's near-impossible to get your foot back into the binding while on the lift, meaning that you have to dismount from the lift with only one foot in a binding, and the other foot just stepping on the board... your best choice is to put the foot in front of the binding, closer to the other foot, but that makes your stance awkward and less stable, AND you are way more vulnerable to injury, because if both feet are strapped to a board, any "twisting" during a tumbling fall is supported by the strong and well-worked muscles of your torso... but with only one foot strapped in, the board is essentially a giant torque-wrench waiting to twist the weaker muscles of your knee into a painful mess!
You'd think the snowboard designers would be wise to this by now and try to make things as easy as possible for boarders to compensate, but binding designs are still shite (I bought mine specifically because they were fairly large and were about the easiest to use with mitts on, but they still "jam" sometimes) and I've never seen a design which makes it easy enough to re-attach a foot to the board so that it could be done on a lift or at least when getting off the lift.
Needless to say, I fell while getting off a lift, with only one foot in my board, and twisted the bejesus out of my knee. I also did something to my hand (I think while wrestling with a jammed binding) and was frustrated several times by the design of my bindings and the designs of the slopes, lifts, and pretty much everything.
Interestingly, I am least angry about my most painful injury that day, which followed me taking a small jump, landing it, but being unable to get an edge down to turn: I fell to prevent myself from careening off the edge of the run. I ended up sliding, on my back sideways off the edge of the run, where I ran into a 40-odd-lb chunk of ice while leading with my left hip, and knocked it several feet. I was stunned for a few minutes, couldn't breathe or move much... was really weird. It still hurts though it never bruised on the surface - I'm sure my hip bone is nicely bruised... The only injury not caused by poor design of something!
Had a lot of social contact over the weekend which I think was really quite helpful in bringing my mood back to stable... Damaron was out visiting again, and we hung out most of weekend, I think it was relaxing for the both of us... furry Christmas party on Saturday night was cool, if crowded, got to see a lot of friends (if only for a few moments each) and make a few new acquaintances...
Also, saw "The Chronicles of Narnia" and was wickedly impressed by the character design. Just... wow. Aslan, particularly his face, fur and mane, was an AMAZING feat of CG. All of the characters which were amalgamations of human and animal... so awesome, most were seamlessly executed, even fairly extreme motions. And the battle scenes... holy fuck. Stunning. Acting was really quite good on most counts, particularly Lucy, though Peter and Susan were also excellent... Edward, by far the hardest of the kids to pull off properly because of the complicated and changing nature of his motivations, was sometimes not-quite-on, though still good... I was kinda disappointed by the White Witch except when she picks up two swords... I kinda blame a lot of that on the direction, though, it being Disney... they didn't pull as many punches as they could have, but it was dumbed-down enough to be sort-of annoying at times. This was mostly evidenced in the Witch, now that I think about it -- she was just not as cunning and conniving as she should be... I felt like they forced her to seriously over-act a lot so "the kiddies" would know she was the "bad guy" even though she was a girl, and dressed in white, and posing as royalty. Makes me hope against hope for a "director's cut" meant for adults... add blood to all the battle scenes, make the witch way more believably evil (ie. non-Disney), and give us a little more character development on some of the other interesting characters (despite the movie already being really long).
All in all, really good, though - possibly to be the first movie I buy on DVD.
B.