Yup. LOLcats again. What can I say? I love them :)

Octopus Floods Santa Monica Pier Aquarium

Yeah, I need to make a proper post one of these days, but in the meantime, I have to say, I love this octopus. She's awesome!

Another Lolcat

What I Learned Today

In three hours spent sewing:

1) If you set the stitch length at 0 for a satin stitch, the feed dogs won't advance the cloth, you'll have to pull on it, and the thread will snap.

2) If you use a regular foot while trying to satin stitch, the channel will be too narrow, the cloth won't advance, and the thread will snap.

3) If you use the wrong needle with denim, the thread will snap.

4) If you use a thread that is too heavy for the needle, the needle will snap.

5) When the manual says bobbin tension doesn't need adjusting, the authors are using what is known as boundless optimism. See also groundless optimism.

6) If the bobbin tension is too high, the thread will snarl up, and the needle will snap.

7) If the top tension is too high, the thread will snarl up, and the needle will snap; if the needle doesn't snap, the thread will.

Also, there are some very nice, patient people willing to spend a lot of time explaining these things and helping one fish needle and thread ends out of odd crevices in the machine.

And, yes, I actually did make some progress on my project.

Dollhouse: Ghost, a mini-review

A very mini-review.

I found it intriguing enough to finish, I think it shows promise and could quickly develop into a complicated show with all kinds of character growth and interaction.

The mystery-of-the-week was a little wobbly, and I don' t know yet whether or not we learned anything about Echo through it--or whether or not we were supposed to--since most of what we saw her do was due to implanted personalities rather than her "real" personality, if she still has one. A central character who doesn't really exist is puzzling. That may end up being the show's major strengths. It's going to take a few episodes to find out.

Extinguish All Food Before Entering

Do people really make such a habit of drinking out of puddles in parks?

If they do, they'd better bring straws along while they are at it, since these parks usually put gratings over any and all likely puddle-forming places.

Do You Know This Bird?

I spent some time by the beach a bit over a week ago watching this hawk fly.

It stayed just over the bluffs, changing wing and tail ever so slightly to stay in place while it watched the ground.

Then it rested for a while.

It was splendid, shining in the warm air, striped, speckled and all together wonderful.

However... I do not know what kind of bird it is.

A Bit More on The Broken Hourglass

Just a follow up on the one-key-after-another post about The Broken Hourglass: Writing's starting to flow again (Hurray!). The awful, plodding prose of the other day turns out not to have been so awful, after all, not splendid, but worth revision, so I'm busy revising it & brushing it up. Spent part of my writing time today generally revising, a lot working an item description (It is a large item, found in several parts, so it was really descriptions) and some working on developing a minor character.

He's not on for long but will, I hope, be memorable. He's the sort of minor character who should be. I can finally hear his voice in my head, which helps immensely.

///

Otherwise, I'm busy running away from home to avoid the smell of new vinyl flooring--it's awfully pretty vinyl flooring, but I turn out to be appallingly, and most inconveniently, allergic to it--and finding source pictures for the class on story illustration that I'm taking. Oh, and walking the dog. She tends to want that every day.

Of Plotting Parrots and Potted Plants

Today, I put some new houseplants in my room, carefully vetting them first to make sure they were non-toxic to birds, and then putting them out of Malaika's reach anyway because he loves to shred plants.

So, things were set up and more or less tidy, and I got Malaika out and put him on his desk to play.

He instantly spotted the change in the room, climbed the blinds to reach the top of the book case and used that as a launch-pad so he could glide across the room to the dresser where the plants are.

A bowl of cornflakes and a new box to shred have distracted him for the moment, but I have a feeling that I may be spending quite a lot of time separating bird from plants.

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, a book review

Just finished it this evening & am trying my hand at a spoiler-free review, something I am not terribly good at.

I found the book a good light read. There is a lively cast of characters, none deeply developed but all busy and fun to follow, and the plot moves along at a nice clip. Two villains seemed over-the-top, at first, but in the end it worked out very well as they balanced each other out and events moved between them.

It is hard to reconcile the adventurous but responsible Peter of Peter and the Starcatchers with the amoral imp of Peter Pan, but one could argue that the events which led to his staying in Neverland continued to change him to the point where we meet him in Peter Pan.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book and might take a look at the sequels if the library has them.

Fox Having Fun

Someone just passed along this video of a wild fox having a great time playing on a trampoline.

Black Ship by Carola Dunn

The latest in the Daisy Dalrymple series, Black Ship is a bit of a letdown. It was good meeting the main characters again, and Daisy herself is as much fun as ever. The move to a new neighborhood and the business of meeting new neighbors and settling in are interesting and well handled.

It's the mystery that is a problem: For some reason, Dunn chose to include several chapters from the POV of a character who later becomes one of the main suspects. This means that the readers know who Patrick is and what he was doing well before Daisy does, and it is quite clear who the real murderer is. Daisy and Detective Fletcher only take as long as the do to figure it out because the suspects are silent about a key issue for reasons that are only semi-plausible.

I enjoyed the book, but not as much as I expected to.

Libraries in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson

Libraries in the Ancient World is a sort of pre-history of libraries. It starts with the Ancient Near East and moves on to England in the Middle Ages before it ends.

It's an interesting read (Well, I would say that, wouldn't I, being a library addict and all). Casson has researched archeological digs, old letters (old, old letters), and descriptions in comedies for information on just who first built libraries where, what was in them, who could access them, and how things were arranged. And, you know, public libraries were available a lot earlier than I thought? As in, Ancient Rome had them, and some of the Greek cities.

Worth picking up from your local library and taking a look.

The Aunt Dimity Books by Nancy Atherton

These were recommended to my sister as books that someone who likes Mitford would enjoy, and she passed that on to me.

I've been reading these for the last week. I find them soothing and enjoy the formula. The village has an interesting scattering of people, Lori is an engaging character, one can't help but like Reginald (He's a stuffed bunny. Of course he's lovable), and there's enough going on to keep stuff interesting, though Lori might want to skip almost-falling for the nearest handsome man for a book or two sometime soon.

I do confess to wondering why they are shelved in the mystery section. Generally, the Big Mystery turns out to be that there is no mystery, and everyone needs to take a deep breath and settle down for a while. Soothing, but not really mysterious.

That is, up til Aunt Dimity Beats Death, where we're suddenly in the middle of a full-blown Gothic, complete with haunted castle and ghostly possession. After which, things go back to normal for Aunt Dimity: Detective. It's a bit startling and between that and Aunt Dimity and the Duke (the only book so far that doesn't feature Lori), I suspect Atherton planned to have Dimity serve as a background star and linking element to a wider variety of books rather than having her share the limelight with Lori.

We'll see what's on the shelves next time I visit the library.

As for the Mitford basis of the recommendation: Yes, there is enough similarity to make the comment valid. The Mitford books, though, have a bit more substance to them and tend to have more variety in plot. Aunt Dimity is for a one-time, light read. I can see reading Mitford more than once.

The Zombie Pride and Prejudice

A zombie version of Pride and Prejudice is in the works. My favorite part of the discussion:

"One obvious question, of course, is what would Ms. Austen think of this unconventional adaptation? To this, I turned to Salon book critic and Austen fan Laura Miller, who replied:

"Well, she'd be astonished, of course, since her age was, sadly, as bereft of zombie movies as it was of indoor plumbing. However, I don't doubt that Elizabeth Bennet would adapt quickly to the imperatives of a zombie attack and in time prove one of our ablest leaders in the war against the undead. The real question is: If Mr. Darcy became infected, would Elizabeth have the fortitude to behead him in time?"

Lovely.

More of The Broken Hourglass

So, I had a good, clear space of time to write in today.

So I wrote.

And I can't tell you how it went because I do not know. It was one of those days, you know the ones--where you sit down to type and it is simply one word after another and you're not sure whether or not they are good words, and you won't even swear to the spelling (though Microsoft seems to think that part is all right), and you keep on typing the because the work has to be done and the option is to sit and stare mindlessly at a blank page, or to reload Facebook for the hundred and seventh time only to find that nothing has changed there, either, so you keep on typing.

So. I worked.

Maybe it was even good work.

I just don't know.

I do, at least, have one further idea for where to take tomorrow's scene, and that is something. I'm even almost sure that it is a good idea.

But for now--dinner sounds awfully good, and the dog is going to need her walk.

Sourdough Waffle Recipe

I made this recipe for Sourdough Waffles for dinner tonight.

Verdict: It's a keeper. The waffles are light and crisp and have a good, tangy undertone from the sourdough.

Mind, I'm used to cooking for from 4-6 people, and the person posting this didn't indicate what size he meant by "serving," so I doubled the recipe, and since only 3 of us were home tonight, there are a lot of waffle squares left over. This brings up the one minor drawback to the batter: with most waffle batter, I'd make enough waffles for whoever happened to be around and then save the rest of the batter for the next day, but the waffles are nice and light because of the sourdough-baking soda reaction (without, I might add, having the overwhelming soda taste of baking soda bread), and I didn't think that would keep well.

Waffle squares toast nicely, though, and are great for taking in brown bag lunches, so it is a very minor drawback indeed.

Oh, and I used whole wheat flour for pretty much the whole amount of flour called for, and it was still light and crisp.

Never mind.