I added a couple of folks to my friends page, and color-coded my friends into a couple groups for easy skimming. I also added a couple of communities to the friends list, so I can read them easily, but more importantly, to give the appearance of having a lot more friends :) The community entries will show up in salmon-pink, and have two names, the community name first, and the actual user’s name in square brackets below that.
Sourcery by Terry Pratchett It’s a pretty good book, though I didn’t enjoy it as much as Mort. It was pretty Action-Packed™ but it seemed a bit more scattered, probably because the action was scattered around various locations, and also because there were multiple “point of view” characters, so I didn’t really identify fully with all of them. I heard some feedback from a friend of a friend that the Discworld books get tired and rehashed after about 10 of them. I’m starting to see some of that, though I am still thrilled with them, it’s not new and unexplored territory all the time. I think the expectation that they might be read out of order leads to the author repeating himself sometimes, because whenever we see a familiar element, he takes time to explain it rather than assuming we know it from the previous books. ...
Medieval fantasy (typical D&D setting) Modern fantasy, light (Magic, think Harry Potter) Modern fantasy, mixed (superheroes, psychic powers) Modern fantasy, dark (vampires, etc) Modern spy story (think Mission Impossible, etc) 70’s spy story (think Bond, Avengers, etc) Older spy story (mob, gumshoe, etc) Victorian, Western, etc Future, space colony/exploration Future, dark/cyberpunk Future, light (Paranoia) Made-up fantasy worlds (Pern, etc) Fariy tales (Grimm, Prince Charming, etc) Anything I’m missing? What types of settings can you think of from your favorite stories?
Dentist appointment: Went and got dented. Taxes: Prepared the paperwork I will need to take to the preparer. Cars: Made appointment to take both cars in for services. Doctor: Made doctor appointment for next week. Gave C a ride downtown. Went with M and C to dinner at Red Lobster.
Mort by Terry Pratchett Read this book over a two-day period. I have read about 5 others in the Discworld series, a bit out of order, but we have most of them now, so I will read the rest in order. Mort is a young boy who finds himself hired as Death’s apprentice. Hilarity ensues when he fumbles a job his first day out, and then tries to cover his slip-up. Meanwhile, Death has some time on his hands while Mort is making the rounds, and tries his hand at some more human pursuits. ...
Thida and Castor had their wedding on February 23, and I was privileged to attend.
I had sort of an argument with the neighbor downstairs today. He was playing music quite loud, so I called on the phone and said “Hi, this is Greg from upstairs. Do you think you could turn the music down a bit?” He didn’t respond at first so I went on to explain that my wife was sleeping, and could he turn it down a little? His response was something like “Hey, it’s three in the afternoon, I should be able to play my music if I want!” I said something like “I just wanted to let you know that I can hear it, and if you can turn it down a little, that would be cool.” He said something non-responsive like “Whatever” and hung up. ...
Didn’t do much today. Worked on the Altaia character sheet, late last night and again today. The new character sheet is in Excel and the lines don’t line up quite the same, but it will be ok. I created a formula that fills in the seven boxes under where you type 4 with ranges 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, etc. This involves a formula that can tell how far it is from the target cell (difference in row numbers). Sure, I could have put *1 in the first, *2 in the second, etc, but I wanted the same formula in every box. The numbers disappear if you don’t enter a number in the first box, so it can be used as a worksheet or a blank write-in form. I’m smug. ...
The Green Mile I watched this movie on a premium channel. It is about a prisoner on death row (during Depression era) who is wrongly convicted, and earns the respect of the guards there. It’s an excellent movie, and I recommend it. The end is quite sad, but the whole thing is good. Quite long too.
Wednesday: did laundry, and got into a bit of a fight with M about how I feel like I do just about everything around the house and I don’t feel appreciated for it. M can’t carry laundry up and down the stairs because of her knees and her back, which is understandable, so we typically go together and do it. I don’t like this much because it takes the same amount of time and we end up getting in each other’s way a lot, and I’m usually the one to go down again to put them in the dryer, and again to bring them back up. So, this time I said no, it’s OK if you want to just stay here, but perhaps you could do something else while I’m busy with the laundry, such as make dinner? ...