Lately
One fun thing I have been doing lately is going to the local dog parks with Dana. Her one cattle dog doesn't react too well to social situations, but the other one, Vala, loves to run around and catch tennis balls, and her big hound Nemo is a very friendly type all round, so we get out to the dog runs at Homestead Park and Anderson Park a lot to let them get some exercise.
I've really enjoyed meeting all the different kinds of dogs people bring out there. Surprises me how many unusual breeds people have around here -- bully and retriever mixes are by far the most common, but they're not all you see. Yesterday at Homestead a fellow brought a gigantic gray and white Old English Sheepdog. Which looks eerily like a Muppet. There was also a guy's great big standard poodle, mostly shaved for the summertime. They have the funniest gait, they bound with their front and back legs together like a deer.
Also met the friendliest Pekingese I've ever seen. They're usually nippy and loud, but this one was quiet and pleasant to everyone. Licked my nose, even.
Two media consumption notes:
- I agree with everyone in the world who's seen it. The first season of Babylon 5 is mostly shit. Michael O'Hare could have been replaced by a pine board without any great loss to the series. The end of the first season and the beginning of the second are looking up, though.
- At Dana's suggestion I read the first few of Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake yarns. The first three are perfectly good potboilers. Basically hard-boiled detective stories with vampires, which is fine by me. The fourth one is an unpleasant sign of what I am told is to come, it is about two-thirds perfectly good potboiler and one-third interminably fucking stupid romance novel horseshit. Dana's reckoning is that the first six or so novels in the series are alright before it morphs from Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter into Anita Blake, Outlet for Laurell K. Hamilton's Weird Sexual Hangups. I am giving the fifth one a shot and may jump off the train after that.
I've really enjoyed meeting all the different kinds of dogs people bring out there. Surprises me how many unusual breeds people have around here -- bully and retriever mixes are by far the most common, but they're not all you see. Yesterday at Homestead a fellow brought a gigantic gray and white Old English Sheepdog. Which looks eerily like a Muppet. There was also a guy's great big standard poodle, mostly shaved for the summertime. They have the funniest gait, they bound with their front and back legs together like a deer.
Also met the friendliest Pekingese I've ever seen. They're usually nippy and loud, but this one was quiet and pleasant to everyone. Licked my nose, even.
Two media consumption notes:
- I agree with everyone in the world who's seen it. The first season of Babylon 5 is mostly shit. Michael O'Hare could have been replaced by a pine board without any great loss to the series. The end of the first season and the beginning of the second are looking up, though.
- At Dana's suggestion I read the first few of Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake yarns. The first three are perfectly good potboilers. Basically hard-boiled detective stories with vampires, which is fine by me. The fourth one is an unpleasant sign of what I am told is to come, it is about two-thirds perfectly good potboiler and one-third interminably fucking stupid romance novel horseshit. Dana's reckoning is that the first six or so novels in the series are alright before it morphs from Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter into Anita Blake, Outlet for Laurell K. Hamilton's Weird Sexual Hangups. I am giving the fifth one a shot and may jump off the train after that.