The Little Country (1991) Charles de Lint

Yesterday I must have picked up half a dozen book, read the first couple of paragraphs, and then put them back down with the thought, “this isn’t what I’m in the mood for.”

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I’m one of those people who loves to watch and read things I love, over and over.

I’ve read The Hobbit more times than I can count, and the same goes for The Complete Sherlock Holmes

But I’m even worse about movies and TV episodes. I can recite most of the dialog from The Princess Bride and Lost Boys. Watching something that is guaranteed to make me laugh is comforting–and also guaranteed only to take a set period of time. It used to be that my default TV episodes for those times were DS9: “Looking for Par’Mach in All the Wrong Places“, and “The Magnificent Ferengi“. (I think Armin Shimerman is underrated.)

However, after we discovered Firefly, I’ve hardly looked back. And the more times we watch, the more Jayne becomes my favorite character, thanks to Adam Baldwin. Yes, a lot of it does have to do with great writing, but still. I watch “Our Mrs Reynolds” and almost every line Jayne speaks has me laughing out loud. I mean really, “This is my very favorite gun.” You read that and it doesnt seem all that funny. But when we watch it, I cackle.

Every time.

And every time we watch it, it still boggles my mind that this show got cancelled.

Anyway. I’m still trying to convert others into Firefly fans. Not because I think they’ll ever make another show (and after Serenity, it just wouldn’t be the same anyway) but because it makes me happy.

And everyone needs more happy in their lives.

ADDENDUM the First:
“Quaint!”

It’s always tempting to say something like, “the worst thing about getting sick is…”

Except that if I stop and really think about it, everything about getting sick is the worst.

So perhaps it would be better to say that the most disconcerting thing about being sick is how it brings on a minor bout of depression.

By late yesterday afternoon, I was convinced that I has screwed up everything in my life: that I had no friends, and that I should just close down my website, never attempt to write another word, etc.

Then my back started to ache and I felt the need to curl up under a quilt to get warm, and I realized that I had a fever.

It was a relief to know that taking a pain killer and curling up with a good book to ignore the voices in my head would alleviate the worst of it.

And today, beside the lingering aches, I’m feeling worlds better; ready to get out and do all the things I thought I was incapable of yesterday.

However, part of me is still considering the things my brain came up with yesterday, and wondering whether there is a grain of truth in them. Whether the feelings we get at times like that are a reality check of sorts.

Okay, is it just me, or is something not quite right here?

The US Department of Homeland Security has urged Windows users to install the latest patches from Microsoft as quickly as possible.

I can’t decide is this is a good thing or a bad thing, that Homeland Security is warning us about Windows.

Wolf Moon (1988) Charles de Lint

Wolf Moon is one of Charles de Lint’s earlier books. It’s quite short–only 245 pages. In tone, it reminds me very much of The Harp of the Grey Rose. A fantasy world that similar to, but not quite the same as, ours.

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The Red Tent (1997) Anita Diamant

A co-worker who also loves to read loaned me this book. She said she enjoyed it, and thought I might as well. Of course my problem was that my “to read” list is pretty much ridiculous, so I had to force myself to put aside some of the lighter reading I’ve been doing, so that I wouldn’t keep this book forever.

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We finished the 5th season of Babylon 5 today. Michael and I agreed that we feel let down. Someone suggested watching through Season 4 and stopping, and I’m not sure I disagree too much, except maybe I’d say watch through Season 4 except the last episode of season 4, and then watch the final episode of season 5.

Erin said that after time when she went back to watch some of the Season 5 episodes she thought they were pretty good, but as a whole, I found it disappointing. And the final episode probably reinforced that, because Ivanova was back, and it reminded me how much I’d missed her character throughout season 5.

So, to make up for our feeling of mild disappointment, we watched the pilot for Wild Wild West.

I have to admit that I was a little bit worried. I absolutely adored this show as a kid, and I was afraid that it might not live up to my memories of it.

Amazingly, it was just as I remembered it. Although I have to admit that I think that Artemus was less cool in the pilot than I remember him being (he was my favorite character on the show). But this was the pilot, and they were still working things out.

If you–like Michael–somehow managed to have never seen Wild Wild West–I highly recommend it. If you remember loving the show years ago, I highly recommend checking out the DVDs. They seem to have done an excellent job cleaning up the film (I didn’t realize this until we watched the promo for the show–that was as grainy and blurry as I remember the show being when we saw the re-runs) I won’t know if the video quality of the rest of the episodes is as high, but I’m really hoping it is.

Because this show really is a lot of fun to watch.

erl-king
noun (in Germanic mythology) a bearded giant or goblin believed to lure little children to the land of death.
—origin late 18th cent.: from German Erlkönig ‘alder-king’, a mistranslation of Danish ellerkonge ‘king of the elves’.

I was highly amused by this week’s e-mail from US News and World Report.

This is not a real ad indeed!

I think by next week I should be far closer to back to normal–just in time for school to start.

We really had a wonderful time while my grandmother was here. We played lots of Oh Hell (the variant we play involves starting at ten, going down to one, and going back up to ten) and Yahtzee. but more importantly, we got another convert to Firefly. (She kept saying, “I can’t believe I missed this! All those other no good programs on, and I could have been watching this!”

She’s not likely to go out and make a lot of Firefly converts, but still…

She also read lots of books, and took a bag of books back with her. She loved Sarah Zettel‘s Camelot series, and also enjoyed His Majesty’s Dragon, which is something she never would have picked up for herself, but I thought was right up her alley.

I also discovered that she likes to read science fiction, and at some point read all the science fiction my Dad had (Mostly Asimov apparently). So Michael sent some science fiction back with her. Funny it took me this long to discover that.

But mostly we just had a really good time, and I enjoyed her visit. Plus, we managed to avoid going t the book store while she was here, which was an added financial bonus. And it’s not like I really need more book.

I just always WANT more books.

The deck/parking area still isn’t done. I’m trying not to be bitter about the whole thing, but I had really wanted it completed while she was here.

And really, I now realize why I haven’t posted anything all summer other than book reviews, but that’s pretty much it. No vacations (vacations are expensive; that’s money that could be better spent on the house. And more books.) No amusing anecdotes. It’s been too hot for much flower pr0n. And the news isn’t fit to comment on–or even contemplate.

So I’ve been very boring. I’ll try and do better in the coming weeks.

Swordsoint: A Melodrama of Manners (1987) Ellen Kushner

Despite my best efforts, I ended up re-reading Swordspoint again. I really love this book–and with good reason.

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Fables: Arabian Nights (and Days) (2006) Bill Willingham

Volume 7 of Fables struck me as somehow different from previous volumes. Although there is a complete story arc about the Sinbad and the Arabian Fables coming to Fabletown, that story seemed almost secondary to several different different threads that were dropped or mentioned in passing. It will be very interesting to see where these threads end up.

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