"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things,"
"Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings."
Or in my case, of costumes, and food, and working, and TV shows and books.
Costumes:
So I did settle on doing War for Halloween. For a couple of reasons. 1) It was easy to persuade my fiance to go as Famine, and he's tall, and rail-thin so he already mostly looks the part. I ordered bits of things off of amazon and they've been slowly trickling in. It'll be fun to get the costume all put together and try it out. Now I just need to get two people to agree to come to the party we'll be throwing as Death and Pollution to complete the Good Omens Horsemen/Bikers quartet.
Food:
I was linked to Jones Soda's D&D sodas in email from my friend tardiscaptain. I gave in to impulse and ordered some. It hasn't arrived yet, but I hope soon. =)
I have some good friends who took me to the farmer's market with them on Saturday. I'd been to the local farmer's market before, but infrequently. This couple goes often, and they know which booths have the good food. I got a nice supply of veggies, some honey butter, and a sackful of peaches for a lot less than I'd've spent in the grocery store.
Using a lot of what we picked up, we spent about 5 hours canning over the weekend-- mostly salsa, although I made up some bruschetta (minus the cheese) to can up as well. 2 and a half gallons of salsa and a quart of bruschetta later, we were finished. These are the people I learned to make salsa from, and we both like to experiment a little. In addition to a large amount of tomato salsa, we also made some strawberry, some peach, and some tomatillo salsa. I'm looking forward to getting my share of the goods. Couldn't take it with me as the jars needed to cool down and seal before I could take them home. I get it in a couple of days. And for the record, peach salsa is amazingly yummy.
Working:
Work continues to be hectic. We're bringing up a new client which means I spend a lot of time sitting down in the server room with the encryption team and not being able to do a lot on my projects, which has put me behind. Still, I'm managing to get by. The only real problem I've got is that I used to take a nice lunch break every day, and lately I've been going to drive-thru (fortunately, there's a wide variety of fast-food places within a mile of here) and eating at my desk most days. The crew I work with are a good bunch, though, so it makes it easier. We also had a nice BBQ at work last Friday, which was a nice break from everything going on. I've got one problem that's continued to elude me as to its cause and solution, but at least I came up with a workaround so we can make things run-- just not the way they're supposed to. I'm about to the call support stage, which is always an exercise in the bizarre. I'm pretty good at what I do, and my google-fu is strong, so if something has gotten to the point that I have to call support, it will inevitably take me through a number of support techs, and be due to some obscure problem that noone's ever seen before (or very rarely seen). At least it's interesting. =)
TV shows:
I've been quite pleased with the crop of 'geek' shows on TV the past year or so. While "Battlestar Galactica" and "Stargate: Atlantis" are over, there's still a nice supply of shows to pique my interest-- most of which are starting up again from summer hiatus. "Castle", while not exactly a 'geek' show, is a lot of fun, and stars Nathan Fillion (Mal in "Firefly"). "Dollhouse" started off slow, and many of my friends who are Whedon fans gave up after a couple of episodes, but the show got increasingly better with each episode, and I'm happy it got renewed for a second season (which starts this week). "Sancutary" was also a slow starter, but it got better and better (and is visually stunning) as it progressed as well. It starts up again in October (the 9th, I believe, although I could be off by a week or so.)
Then there are two shows in similar vein, but wildly different execution: "Fringe" and "Warehouse 13". "Fringe" has been on summer hiatus, and starts up again this week or next. I've never been entirely thrilled with the main character, Olivia, but the supporting cast more than compensates, and Anna Torv has grown more into the character as time went on. The best interaction though is between Peter and Walter-- exasperated son and insane father. I have similar feelings about "Warehouse 13"-- I'm not really hooked on Pete and Myka's characters, but Artie (Saul Rubincek, who's been amazing in any role I've seen him in) by himself makes the show.
In the fantasy category (which surprised me-- an actual fantasy show on TV doesn't come along often) is "Merlin". "Merlin" could also be titled "Show that uses names from Arthurian legend and pretty much nothing else". The more I watch it, the more I think it's a mistake. The writing is good, and the acting, while not great, is pretty good for a 1st season show. The stories, particularly in the latter half of the season are great. But by trying to be Arthurian legend and not be at the same time, the show is hampered. I do hope they'll get a second season (up in the air at the moment), but I'm betting it won't, as it's never really quite found its stride.
Then there's "Stargate: Universe" which starts up in October as well. I've got pretty high hopes for this show. The Stargate series have been quite good, and I don't expect to see the production levels drop for the new show.
I've been watching these on hulu.com (with the exception of "Castle" which I had to watch off of ABC's website). It's great to be able to keep up with current running shows, but watch them when it's convenient for me, as I rarely have time when the shows air to watch them, particularly not the same time every week. But I can take a couple hours on a Saturday morning and catch up on a few shows, or one evening during the week when I have some downtime. It's an awesome idea, and I hope it continues to grow and gain traction.
Lastly, in the TV section, I picked up on DVD a few weeks back the first two seasons of one of my favorite '80s shows" "Perfect Strangers". It's got most of the typical '80s sitcom gags in it, but I've always enjoyed the interaction between Balki and Larry. It's been a great blast from the past to sit down and watch it again.
Books:
I have an acquaintance/friend by the name of Larry Correia. Larry's an interesting guy. Among his other hobbies, he's a big B-movie/monster movie fan. Larry wrote a book a few years back that he shopped around to publishers and couldn't get anyone to pick it up. He finally decided to self-publish it, and it became quite a big hit-- something that just doesn't happen with self-published books. About the time I stumbled onto his blog is about the time that his book could no longer be purchased as he got a contract from Baen books to publish his novel, Monster Hunter International. He described the book once as your typical B-level monster movie only with smart people.
The Baen edition came out in July, and I picked up a copy, mostly as a show of support, as it's not my genre of choice, but I like to buy stuff from local authors when I can, particularly ones I know in person. I started it about a week ago, as I'd worked through my 'to read' stack enough to get to it. I can't put it down. I go to bed and plan to read for 10-20 minutes, and instead spend 2 hours reading before I'm finally so tired I'm reading the same line 3 times to get it. It's really a good book. My only complaint is a fairly minor one, and that's that the main character is a gun nut, so when it's time to fight off monsters, he doesn't say "I pulled out my favorite pistol and fired." He instead goes into a few sentences long description of the gun, listing the model, the maker, and something he likes about it-- like the weight of the gun keeps the recoil down or similar. Most of that goes over my head, and I find myself skimming those sentences as I don't know the difference between a CZ, an FAL, or an H&K, let alone the various models by each manufacturer. But while those sort of break the flow of the story for me, the book is still really good, and I recommend it to anyone who's got even the slightest interest in the monster genre. Larry can really spin a good tale. So there's my plug for Monster Hunter International which I'm about halfway through at this point.
And that brings me more or less current on what's been going on in the past little while with me. One of these days I'll get around to writing more about entertainment and its value, because it's something that's been on my mind of late (as the long discourse about what's on TV probably shows).
Or in my case, of costumes, and food, and working, and TV shows and books.
Costumes:
So I did settle on doing War for Halloween. For a couple of reasons. 1) It was easy to persuade my fiance to go as Famine, and he's tall, and rail-thin so he already mostly looks the part. I ordered bits of things off of amazon and they've been slowly trickling in. It'll be fun to get the costume all put together and try it out. Now I just need to get two people to agree to come to the party we'll be throwing as Death and Pollution to complete the Good Omens Horsemen/Bikers quartet.
Food:
I was linked to Jones Soda's D&D sodas in email from my friend tardiscaptain. I gave in to impulse and ordered some. It hasn't arrived yet, but I hope soon. =)
I have some good friends who took me to the farmer's market with them on Saturday. I'd been to the local farmer's market before, but infrequently. This couple goes often, and they know which booths have the good food. I got a nice supply of veggies, some honey butter, and a sackful of peaches for a lot less than I'd've spent in the grocery store.
Using a lot of what we picked up, we spent about 5 hours canning over the weekend-- mostly salsa, although I made up some bruschetta (minus the cheese) to can up as well. 2 and a half gallons of salsa and a quart of bruschetta later, we were finished. These are the people I learned to make salsa from, and we both like to experiment a little. In addition to a large amount of tomato salsa, we also made some strawberry, some peach, and some tomatillo salsa. I'm looking forward to getting my share of the goods. Couldn't take it with me as the jars needed to cool down and seal before I could take them home. I get it in a couple of days. And for the record, peach salsa is amazingly yummy.
Working:
Work continues to be hectic. We're bringing up a new client which means I spend a lot of time sitting down in the server room with the encryption team and not being able to do a lot on my projects, which has put me behind. Still, I'm managing to get by. The only real problem I've got is that I used to take a nice lunch break every day, and lately I've been going to drive-thru (fortunately, there's a wide variety of fast-food places within a mile of here) and eating at my desk most days. The crew I work with are a good bunch, though, so it makes it easier. We also had a nice BBQ at work last Friday, which was a nice break from everything going on. I've got one problem that's continued to elude me as to its cause and solution, but at least I came up with a workaround so we can make things run-- just not the way they're supposed to. I'm about to the call support stage, which is always an exercise in the bizarre. I'm pretty good at what I do, and my google-fu is strong, so if something has gotten to the point that I have to call support, it will inevitably take me through a number of support techs, and be due to some obscure problem that noone's ever seen before (or very rarely seen). At least it's interesting. =)
TV shows:
I've been quite pleased with the crop of 'geek' shows on TV the past year or so. While "Battlestar Galactica" and "Stargate: Atlantis" are over, there's still a nice supply of shows to pique my interest-- most of which are starting up again from summer hiatus. "Castle", while not exactly a 'geek' show, is a lot of fun, and stars Nathan Fillion (Mal in "Firefly"). "Dollhouse" started off slow, and many of my friends who are Whedon fans gave up after a couple of episodes, but the show got increasingly better with each episode, and I'm happy it got renewed for a second season (which starts this week). "Sancutary" was also a slow starter, but it got better and better (and is visually stunning) as it progressed as well. It starts up again in October (the 9th, I believe, although I could be off by a week or so.)
Then there are two shows in similar vein, but wildly different execution: "Fringe" and "Warehouse 13". "Fringe" has been on summer hiatus, and starts up again this week or next. I've never been entirely thrilled with the main character, Olivia, but the supporting cast more than compensates, and Anna Torv has grown more into the character as time went on. The best interaction though is between Peter and Walter-- exasperated son and insane father. I have similar feelings about "Warehouse 13"-- I'm not really hooked on Pete and Myka's characters, but Artie (Saul Rubincek, who's been amazing in any role I've seen him in) by himself makes the show.
In the fantasy category (which surprised me-- an actual fantasy show on TV doesn't come along often) is "Merlin". "Merlin" could also be titled "Show that uses names from Arthurian legend and pretty much nothing else". The more I watch it, the more I think it's a mistake. The writing is good, and the acting, while not great, is pretty good for a 1st season show. The stories, particularly in the latter half of the season are great. But by trying to be Arthurian legend and not be at the same time, the show is hampered. I do hope they'll get a second season (up in the air at the moment), but I'm betting it won't, as it's never really quite found its stride.
Then there's "Stargate: Universe" which starts up in October as well. I've got pretty high hopes for this show. The Stargate series have been quite good, and I don't expect to see the production levels drop for the new show.
I've been watching these on hulu.com (with the exception of "Castle" which I had to watch off of ABC's website). It's great to be able to keep up with current running shows, but watch them when it's convenient for me, as I rarely have time when the shows air to watch them, particularly not the same time every week. But I can take a couple hours on a Saturday morning and catch up on a few shows, or one evening during the week when I have some downtime. It's an awesome idea, and I hope it continues to grow and gain traction.
Lastly, in the TV section, I picked up on DVD a few weeks back the first two seasons of one of my favorite '80s shows" "Perfect Strangers". It's got most of the typical '80s sitcom gags in it, but I've always enjoyed the interaction between Balki and Larry. It's been a great blast from the past to sit down and watch it again.
Books:
I have an acquaintance/friend by the name of Larry Correia. Larry's an interesting guy. Among his other hobbies, he's a big B-movie/monster movie fan. Larry wrote a book a few years back that he shopped around to publishers and couldn't get anyone to pick it up. He finally decided to self-publish it, and it became quite a big hit-- something that just doesn't happen with self-published books. About the time I stumbled onto his blog is about the time that his book could no longer be purchased as he got a contract from Baen books to publish his novel, Monster Hunter International. He described the book once as your typical B-level monster movie only with smart people.
The Baen edition came out in July, and I picked up a copy, mostly as a show of support, as it's not my genre of choice, but I like to buy stuff from local authors when I can, particularly ones I know in person. I started it about a week ago, as I'd worked through my 'to read' stack enough to get to it. I can't put it down. I go to bed and plan to read for 10-20 minutes, and instead spend 2 hours reading before I'm finally so tired I'm reading the same line 3 times to get it. It's really a good book. My only complaint is a fairly minor one, and that's that the main character is a gun nut, so when it's time to fight off monsters, he doesn't say "I pulled out my favorite pistol and fired." He instead goes into a few sentences long description of the gun, listing the model, the maker, and something he likes about it-- like the weight of the gun keeps the recoil down or similar. Most of that goes over my head, and I find myself skimming those sentences as I don't know the difference between a CZ, an FAL, or an H&K, let alone the various models by each manufacturer. But while those sort of break the flow of the story for me, the book is still really good, and I recommend it to anyone who's got even the slightest interest in the monster genre. Larry can really spin a good tale. So there's my plug for Monster Hunter International which I'm about halfway through at this point.
And that brings me more or less current on what's been going on in the past little while with me. One of these days I'll get around to writing more about entertainment and its value, because it's something that's been on my mind of late (as the long discourse about what's on TV probably shows).