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4/5 stars
While I’m not a Chistian Bale fan, I was able to get past that an enjoy this newest take on Batman. There was a lot of great acting power in this film, and it really paid off. I hardly recognized Gary Oldman as Officer Jim Gordon, and of course, there was Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as a weapons specialist, and Liam Neeson as mentor and teacher. Definately recommended.
The Deep Imact probe will be impacting over night tonight. Imact is set to happen at 1:52 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, 12:52 AM Central Daylight Time). The impactor successfully separated last night (2:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time Sunday morning).
Here are some resources for “watching” the impact:
My Dad brought along some unwanted house guests when he visited earlier this week — germs. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m a bit dizzy and headachy, I’m congested with a bad cough (though it’s getting better) and a sore throat, and I’ve been waffling between being too hot and too cold. I also have been sleeping a lot, when I’m not having coughing fits.
So, Andrew and I are cocooning this weekend, with vague thoughts of taking in a movie or two if we’re up to it. I’m trying to catch up on some of my blogging, but I’m finding that I don’t have the concentration for it. Here’s hoping that we feel better before too long…
A word of advice: The next time the vet gives you a prescription for your cat, and the vet’s assistant suggests that a pillgun might help, don’t think to yourself, gee, she’s just a small cat, and we’ve got two adults in the house, how hard could it be? Don’t be an idiot. Just get the pill gun.
Andrew and I have been struggling with Artemis for the past two weeks, giving her two pills in the morning and two in the evening. More than once it has ended in tears. She refuses to swallow, she drools, she holds the pill behind her tongue and spits it out… Frequently the first pill would go better, but not always, and there was always a bit of a struggle.
When we picked up a refill, and saw that the vet had reduced the pills to one pill twice a day, I was tempted not to get the pillgun, but in the end decided to get it anyway. Last night and this morning, we shot the pill in and she swallowed it right away. No tears. No drooling. No hiding the pill behind her tongue.
What f***ing idiots we were…
While Dad was in town, Andrew and I decided to take him to the Frank Lloyd Wright house near DC. Dad has always admired FLW’s designs, but has never seen one of the houses up close. The Pope-Leighey house is one of FLW’s Usonian houses — “modestly scaled”, affordable, and well-designed houses.
It was interesting to go there with Dad, who has been a carpenter his entire life — over 40 years. I’ve heard him lament many times about architects. The problem, it seems, is that while architects may be able to design buildings that look good, they frequently aren’t in touch with the more practical aspects of home building. It seems that FLW wasn’t much different. As we walked around the outside, there were several things that Dad pointed out as being impractical or just not a great idea. For example, the outside walls when down on top of the foundation. While it looked kind of cool, Dad mentioned that this is a good way to get water into the house, unless it’s sealed in some way (i.e. caulking), which had not been done on this house.
But overall, Dad really liked the house — he likes the way the FLW designed houses for their lot, and tried to use whatever was in the lot (like a hill or trees) to compliment his design with help of Eventscape.
Here’s a picture Dad by the side of the house, and one of the window by the children’s room. There weren’t many full-sized windows around, but the small row of windows seen in this picture ringed the entire house. From the outside, I wondered how there could possibly be enough light in the house, and yet this ring of small windows were more than sufficient.
Afterwards touring the Pope-Leighey house, we toured the Woodlawn Plantation. This was a plantation on land that George Washington gave to Martha’s granddaughter, Eleanor “Nelly” Custis Lewis, and her husband Major Lawrence. It was still a nice tour, with a knowledgeable tour guide and period furniture in the house (some of it original). As with the Pope-Leighey house, pictures were not allowed inside, but here are a couple of the house and grounds:
by Kay Kenyon
Star Road has returned to Earth after a failed attempt to establish a colony elsewhere in the galaxy. They turned back after the young people stopped being able to bear children. They’ve been gone 250 years according to the ships clocks, but 10,000 years have passed on Earth.
When they arrive, they find an Earth covered with “Ice” — a crystalline substance that covers most of the surface. The people of Star road don’t have much time, since Ice is still spreading, and the small tract of land left open will be covered in less than 6 months.
On the surface, the Ice Nuns are the group to negotiate with. They are not catholic, nor God-fearing; however, they keep up the heirarchy of the old Catholic Nuns — along with the discipline and corruption. Their goal is to talk with Ice, and they don’t want to stop its growth.
Zoya tries politics with the Nuns, hooks up with a tracker of Ice Witches, and searches for a nun postulant who could unlock the secret of Ice.
This is the first book of Kenyon’s that I’ve read. Based on the blurb on the back of the book, I wouldn’t have even picked it up, and I would have missed out. The story was strong, the characters compelling, and I look forward to seeing what else Kenyon has written.
Andrew and I flew Dad in to help us put up some shelves in my office closet and our guest room closet. We have a lot of stuff, and our house doesn’t have much storage (the apartment I lived in before we moved here had two walk-in closets, and I had filled them…the house has no walk-in closets).
It only took a few hours of work, and I now have the Closetmaid system in both closets. In fact, after watching Dad put them up (and constantly bugging him with questions about what he was doing), I think I’d be comfortable putting this system up in our bedroom closets…should we decide that we want something different.
Yay! I have shelves!!!
Here are a couple of pictures:
They Fight Crime!
He’s an ungodly one-eyed master criminal fleeing from a secret government programme. She’s a sharp-shooting cat-loving stripper with a birthmark shaped like Liberty’s torch. They fight crime!
[via Brutal Women]
This is unfortunate:
Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes (Registration required)
The Supreme Court today effectively expanded the right of local governments to seize private property under eminent domain, ruling that people’s homes and businesses — even those not considered blighted — can be taken against their will for private development if the seizure serves a broadly defined “public use.”
A few years ago, Best Buy pressured the city government in Richfield, Minnesota, for land to build a new home office complex. In the process, Richfield condemed numerous houses and business properties, including Wally McCarthy’s Oldsmobile dealer. This dealership had been in that location for as long as I could remember — a real landmark — and was the dealership used for the movie Fargo. Last I heard, Wally McCarthy was still fighting the city to get fair value for the lands and business that he lost.
The dumbest part? While the Best Buy property is in Richfield, most of the businesses that will benefit from the new home office complex are just one block south, across the city limits. Yup. Richfield gave Best Buy free taxes for umpteen years (can’t remember the exact number), and Bloomington businesses are the real beneficiaries. Besides that, the Best Buy complex is among the ugliest developments I’ve seen.
The only good thing that came out of the deal for Richfield was that Best Buy had to help the city re-do the interesections from I-494 onto and off of Penn Avenue, and build a bigger, beefier overpass.
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