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It’s my honey’s 32 birthday today. For 10 whole days he and I will be the same age, and then I become the older woman again. Sigh.
I took him for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, and then we watched Ella Enchanted, a recent arrival from our Netflix queue. It was a nice, quiet evening, which is what both of us probably needed right now.
We met with the photographer and his wife this evening to pick up our proof-prints of the wedding! We are very pleased with the resulting pictures, especially the ones from the ceremony. We were worried that none of the pictures from the ceremony would turn out, since we had the lights dimmed for the stars to show in the planetarium. However, Tom and Tess did a great job with their cameras, with limited use of the flash (only used 4 times during the ceremony), and with directing the wedding party to stand still so that the pictures had a chance of turning out.
This one was taken with natural light (the light of three candle-lanterns and the officiant’s book light):
Another fun picture with the stormtrooper cut-out:
And pictures of the bubble send-off, which are the first pictures of that we’ve seen!
We’re very happy with the pictures, and are looking forward to picking pictures for albums and scrapbooking in the upcoming days/weeks.
My morning radio show trotted out a statistic that 82% of couples who smash wedding cake into each other’s faces get divorced. Not sure where they got that number, but it makes me glad that Andrew and I were grown-up enough not to do it.
Sitting here fighting SAD with a hot cup of chai, my morning blogs, and Men at Work on the iPod. I hate driving to work before the sun.
3.5/5 stars
Kevin Spacey plays an out-of-luck single parent, Quoyle, who returns to Newfoundland with his daughter, Bunny, and aunt, Agnis, to start a new life. I was worried that this was going to be another of the myriad look-at-how-bad-life-is-for-these-ordinary-people movies that I seem to have been watching endlessly over the past several months. However, this one at least picks up after the first half hour or so, and becomes a movie I actually wanted to finish (rather than one I looked forward to merely surviving).
Quoyle, his daughter and aunt move into the home where his aunt grew up with Quoyle’s father, and try to turn it into a home again. Quoyle finds a job writing the shipping news in a small, local paper, and turns his eye toward a local widow. While it felt like it plodded at times, this was a fairly good movie that I’d recommend for a video rental one night.
by Robert Youngson
I was expecting a book full of vignettes about scientists who truely blundered — ignoring facts and massaging data to the point of very bad results. Instead, for the most part, the book is full of tales of scientists who “blundered” because they didn’t know any better, generally from a lack of technology or data to chose between two or more options. In several cases, it seems that Youngson was stretching to describe a “blunder” just to include a favorite topic in this volume.
I’m not saying this wasn’t a good book — the topics are adequately covered and at a level that most people should be able to grasp. However, it was not what I was expecting, which was a bit of a disappointment.
3/5 stars
Disney has not put out a great animated film in a long time…and this was not it. It wasn’t bad, but it felt like every other Disney animated film of the last several years. The music even had a familiar feel, especially the first song which was very much like the opening song in The Lion King. It’s time to shake things up in the Disney animation studios…
2/5 stars
Glad we waited until this came to the cheap movie theater — it was not good. I think part of my problem was with the acting. In particular, I didn’t like the portrayal of Lawrence Robertson, the rich robot tycoon, and I wasn’t convinced of Bridget Moynahan’s stiff Dr. Calvin. Moynahan seemed to grab onto the role was the character became more likable, but by then the damage had been done.
I’m not burdoned by having read Asimov’s work that this is based on, but from the credit (“Suggested by Asimov’s work), I’m guessing it’s no where near what he wrote. I have it on my to-read shelf, and am looking forward to reading the “good version.”
This might be worth a rental, but don’t bother seeing it in the theater.
Andrew and I went downtown for the National Book Festival organized by the Library of Congress.
This event has been happening annually for the past three years (this is the fourth festival), and each year more authors and a greater variety of genres are added to the schedule. This is the first year that there has been a Science Fiction & Fantasy Pavilion, with eight featured authors. This might explain why this is the first year Andrew and I have gone.
We started the day by buying copies of Frederik Pohl’s newest book (not even available on Amazon last weekend), and then made our way to the Teens & Children Pavilion, where E. L. Konigsburg was giving a reading.
I remember reading Konigsburg’s Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth when I was in grade school, and I absolutely loved it! I re-read it last year before releasing another copy through Bookcrossing on Halloween. She read from her latest book, The Outcast of 19 Schuyler Place. From the two excerpts she read, I’m very much looking forward to reading it! She also relayed a touching account of having lost both her editor of thirty years and her husband of fouty-five years within a year of each other, both from pancreatic cancer. This is the first book that she’s published that neither of them saw the finished copy.
We left Konigsburg’s Q&A session a bit early to line up for her signing. That was an affair! She was scheduled to sign from 11 AM – Noon. We were in line at about 10:45 AM. My book was signed at about 12:10 PM. Andrew left a bit early to catch Frederik Pohl’s reading. (I was bummed to miss part of it, but I’d been in line so long, it was becoming a moral imperative to get my book signed.)
I missed out on Pohl’s reading, but Andrew said that it was a bit stilted. However, I did make it for most of his Q&A session, which was quite good. At 84 he’s a lively guest, if not entirely optimistic about the future of the human race.
Next, Neil Gaiman read from a work-in-progress, Anansi Boys. I don’t know if I’m a Gaiman fan or not, but Andrew is, so we stayed for the reading. The only thing I’ve read by Gaiman was Good Omens, written with Terry Pratchett. I hated, hated, hated that book, but it’s hard to know if it was because of either of the authors or if I just didn’t like the way they worked together. I’ve since read more of Pratchett and have enjoyed some of it. But, Gaiman’s reading was quite fun, and Anansi Boys is comedic, at least the portions he read (not his normal style, according to Andrew), and sounded like something I might want to read. We’ll see.
I left while Gaiman was reading a second excerpt so that I could line up for Frederik Pohl’s signing. This line went faster than Konigsburg’s line, though I’m not sure why — perhaps there was less chit-chat, and there certainly seemed to be fewer people slowing down the line with pictures. I had Andrew snap one while Pohl was signing my books.
Dear Cunt Whore Bitch Woman who tried to kill me:
Just to remind you, I’m the driver of the car you tried to run off the road yesterday evening. Remember? You decided that not missing your exit was more important than the lives of the dozens of cars around you, and I was the life most directly affected. Fortunately for both of us I have very good reflexes (doubtless from all the video games I played as a child) and my car has very good tires.
Can I make a small suggestion? Perhaps you should stop driving for a while. It is obvious from your behavior yesterday that your priorities have been skewed. It would seem prudent for you to take some time to meditate on what is more important: making your exit or my life. Let me remind you that had you taken my life, which is not a far-fetched notion, you may have been charged with vehicular manslaughter, so it would have had far-reaching consequences for your life, not just mine.
You’ll understand if I tell you that I do not look forward to ever seeing you on the road again. And if you see me first, please endeavor to keep your car as far from mine as possible.
Sincerely,
Happy to not be Road Kill no thanks to you
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