The Hilliard Ensemble concert tonight was excellent, and definitely worth the drive to Duke Chapel in the snow. Turns out that this 40th anniversary tour is also a farewell tour, so I'm glad I got to hear them a last time. My favorite of the mostly unfamiliar works was Pérotin's Viderunt, a 12th-century work that somehow sounded more modern than ( Read more... )

The past few weeks have been spent playing entirely too much Lego Marvel Super Heroes and Assassin's Creed IV (finished the main story in both, leaving trophy mop up and DLC for AC at some point), along with a bit of Gran Turismo 6 and Forza 5 for variety. I do wish the PS4 were backwards compatible with the PS3 (and the XBone with the 360) so we ( Read more... )

Tonight was Part 2 of the Hobbit at Marbles Imax in 3D, the 3D being entirely unnecessary for this film but the Imax being quite necessary to fully appreciate Smaug. There was definitely some padding for the middle film (the whole side plot with the Tauriel/Legolas/Kili love triangle is rather silly; if there must be an elf-dwarf love story, why ( Read more... )

I keep meaning to get back in the habit of LJ to keep track of my media consumption (or at least the books and stories I read). But then I always spend too long thinking about what I might write and never actually do it. So I'm going to try to keep it to a couple sentences, and see what happens. Though who knows whether I'll get around to actually ( Read more... )

In case anybody still reads LJ that doesn't read Facebook, here's a link to a video of my wedding ceremony last weekend with Junjie "Edward" Jia, with Rev. Dan Hille presiding, held in Bryant Park, New York City. A truly wonderful day!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaP3V7LwB5Y

Congratulations to J.A. Pitts for winning this year's Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Honeyed Words. I'll definitely have to read that. (Short list for those interested, since it may take a few days before the web site gets updated: The Cold Commands by Richard K. Morgan, Grail by Elizabeth Bear, Huntress by Malinda Lo, Rule 34 by Charles Stross, God' ( Read more... )

Perhaps a John Ajvide Lindqvist story wasn't the best choice of pre-bedtime reading; "The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer" is one creepy scary story.

Finished rereading Snow Crash for GGNC book club (which was supposed to be yesterday but got moved to Feb 12 due to the hosts' colds). Holds up surprisingly well for 20-year-old cyberpunk.

Also started in on this years recommended short story reading with the Stoker prelim ballot. Still waiting on a few books before starting the "Long Fiction" ( Read more... )

Feeling a bit sad today, remembering the events of this day last year. It seemed like a good time to go re-read and transcribe from my handwritten scrawl my reactions on receiving Phillip's autopsy report in my inbox not long after.

Report of Autopsy Examination

"The body is semi-clad in a pair of green nylon swim trunks."
They know your name, ( Read more... )

I think this album of Edward's pictures from his US trip adequately explains my lack of LJ updates for the past several weeks.