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1. You know the drill: Had a lovely, relaxed three-day weekend, during which I checked LJ not at all. If I missed anything important/amusing/awesome/whatever, leave me a link in comments, pretty please!
2. Quilling: Quilling snowflakes is like asking to go insane. I finally realized that trying to make six identical shapes out of tiny strips of paper by hand was not the way to go, and fleeced a circle stencil off my father-in-law. Now, at least they start out being the same size, which seems to be half the battle.
3. Woe: My complexion still hates me. I'm not sure what I did to make it so mad, but it would be nice if it would just tell me so I could apologize and never do it again. Oi.
4. Chess: Mr. Bill beat me not once but twice on Sunday. The first game was very, very sloppy on both sides and made me sad, because I thought I'd grown out of completely bungling my opening for no good reason. I felt better about the second game, because even though I lost, I felt that I acquitted myself reasonably well. Anyway, I played well enough to make Mr. Bill really annoyed at me, so that's something.
5. Writing: Yay writing!
6. Spiderwick: Saw Spiderwick with various family members yesterday. Quite fun, if a bit rushed. I've only read the first book, so I have no idea how closely they followed the existing plotlines, but the pacing seemed somewhat hectic to me. Also, the Obligatory Comic Relief characters felt rather...well, obligatory. I did quite like the kid actors, and the visuals were delightful. I've always enjoyed stories that play with the weird rules of faerie/elfland/whatever, like protective rings and salt and steel and whatnot. So I enjoyed that element of the film. Mallory is still my favorite character, with her fencing and her when-in-doubt-hit-it policy. They had her fencing foil form with a sabre, and without any protective gear (eek!) but I was too pleased to see anything like Actual Fencing in a recent flick to care much. And there was a griffin! Why are there so few movie griffins, when Diana Wynn Jones and Mercedes Lackey* have been making them cool in novels for ages? Overall, very fun.
* Yes, I did cringe at putting those two authors in the same sentence. But griffins!
2. Quilling: Quilling snowflakes is like asking to go insane. I finally realized that trying to make six identical shapes out of tiny strips of paper by hand was not the way to go, and fleeced a circle stencil off my father-in-law. Now, at least they start out being the same size, which seems to be half the battle.
3. Woe: My complexion still hates me. I'm not sure what I did to make it so mad, but it would be nice if it would just tell me so I could apologize and never do it again. Oi.
4. Chess: Mr. Bill beat me not once but twice on Sunday. The first game was very, very sloppy on both sides and made me sad, because I thought I'd grown out of completely bungling my opening for no good reason. I felt better about the second game, because even though I lost, I felt that I acquitted myself reasonably well. Anyway, I played well enough to make Mr. Bill really annoyed at me, so that's something.
5. Writing: Yay writing!
6. Spiderwick: Saw Spiderwick with various family members yesterday. Quite fun, if a bit rushed. I've only read the first book, so I have no idea how closely they followed the existing plotlines, but the pacing seemed somewhat hectic to me. Also, the Obligatory Comic Relief characters felt rather...well, obligatory. I did quite like the kid actors, and the visuals were delightful. I've always enjoyed stories that play with the weird rules of faerie/elfland/whatever, like protective rings and salt and steel and whatnot. So I enjoyed that element of the film. Mallory is still my favorite character, with her fencing and her when-in-doubt-hit-it policy. They had her fencing foil form with a sabre, and without any protective gear (eek!) but I was too pleased to see anything like Actual Fencing in a recent flick to care much. And there was a griffin! Why are there so few movie griffins, when Diana Wynn Jones and Mercedes Lackey* have been making them cool in novels for ages? Overall, very fun.
* Yes, I did cringe at putting those two authors in the same sentence. But griffins!