Last week, Kam and I played the boardgame Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala. (We had played it before, but it was a while ago.) I more or less like it, but as we went back through the rules to re-familiarize ourselves with it, I felt like the rules just kept going on and on […]
Today is the 14th anniversary of my father’s death. I’ve been mostly okay the past few days, but kind of fragile and mood-swingy. Have gotten some important overdue stuff done at work this week, but have also had multiple instances of getting too anxious to read specific emails and thus ending up being later than […]
I’ve now labeled all 39,801 photos and videos in my collection. Whew. …I don‘t know if I ever really explained what I mean by “labeled” in this project. I mean that each item now has a descriptive title (although often the titles are just things like “View”), and each item has one or more categorization […]
Am reading Defiance #2: a paperback magazine of the US revolutionary left, published in 1971, edited by Dotson Rader. Pretty interesting stuff. Articles include: Rader’s introduction, which recommends abandoning electoral politics in favor of joining the imminent revolution. A piece by two young white men who were part of the NYC branch of Weatherman (aka […]
Achievement unlocked: When I gave my billing account number to Pair tech support this morning, the support person said they hadn’t known there were account numbers that low. :) Pair has been hosting my website since July 1996. I was going to say that’s the longest-duration business relationship I have with any company, but then […]
I’m reading Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter (1997), for the first time. I’m sorry to say that it’s not quite grabbing me yet, though it’s growing on me as it goes on. (I’m nearly a quarter of the way through it.) But there’s one thing I love about it: the portrayal of the three sisters who […]
For the past couple weeks, I’ve been irritable and touchy. I don’t know whether it has anything to do with the impending anniversary of my father’s death (three weeks from now); usually my lack of coping around this time of year doesn’t start until closer to the anniversary. It’s possible that the Lexapro is getting […]
Just opened up A Grammar of the Film, by Raymond Spottiswoode, and was amused by some bits of the preface. The book was written and published around 1935, but this edition was published in 1950, with a rather self-deprecating preface by the author, who refers to his younger self in the third person. Some bits […]
In Delany’s world of Nevèrÿon, dragons can glide if they jump from a ledge, but they can’t take off from the ground. In the opening chapter of Neveryóna, fifteen-year-old Pryn has just flown on dragonback, but the dragon landed in a clearing instead of on a ledge, so it won’t be able to take off […]
About four months ago, I went to Orchard Supply Hardware for their going-out-of-business sale and bought (among other things) three sets of Kwikset lever-style door handles. (Specifically, Balboa style, in Venetian Bronze finish.) There was nothing wrong with the brass-ish round knobs on the doors in my house, but I found these levers much prettier. […]
I keep seeing articles suggesting that it’s universally understood that Star Trek: Discovery wasn’t very good in the first season, and/or that it’s generally disliked by fans. Which makes me sad, because I loved the first season (and am continuing to love the second season so far). It continues to be my favorite Trek series […]
Kam and I played our first game of Pandemic: Fall of Rome yesterday. Pretty interesting. We won fairly easily, on Introductory difficulty, and got a better sense of how the game works. Will play again. A couple of notes: It was very unclear to me from the advertising materials that the goal of the game […]