Monday Miscellanea, 9/27/21

Photo by Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist on Pexels.com

What’s Going On?

The power supply on my desktop died on Saturday, so I’m using the laptop for everything. Definitely the weaker, smaller computer, but I sure am glad we have it. Eric ordered my a new power supply and it should get here next week. In times past, we would have gone to Fry’s Electronics. Sad that they closed their AZ store.

League draft was last night. The team Eric and I ended up on is a mix of people we know (as in one guy we play pick-up with every week) and people we don’t know. Of course, too soon to tell how good we’re going to be. As a Monday team, our first game isn’t until the 11th!

How’s the Weather?

Beautiful! We had a pretty mild summer, but the autumn switch has been thrown! Our highs for the next week should be just shy of 90 and our lows around 70. Time to turn the water heater back on!

Watching

Going to try and catch all of Midnight Mass before my Netflix subscription runs out. Though I’ve liked most of Mike Flanagan’s projects, I wasn’t too interested in this one until I realized the Hamish Linklater plays one of the main characters, and a bad guy(?) at that!

Monday Miscellanea, 5/31/21

Programming Note

I’m always tinkering around with my blogging “schedule;” I think reviews work better for me later in the week, so I’m moving my Miscellanea posts to Monday, where also the obvious alliteration is.

From Around the Internet

Via Dominic Noble on YouTube: The First (and Worst) Adaptation of The Hobbit
Oh, the things that are done in the name of retaining rights…

Watching

I didn’t have a Cinema Saturday post because I watched no movies in the past week. Instead I’ve been watching two series.

The first is Intelligence.

This is a Canadian series from 2006, centered around organized crime in Vancouver. The plots are intricate without being baffling; the characters are compelling and articulate. It’s one of my husband’s favorite shows, but this is my first watch-through. It’s currently streaming on Nextflix.

I’m also rewatching The Haunting of Hill House series (2018). Now that I now what’s going on, I can appreciate the non-linear timeline more. I still don’t see the background ghosts though. It turns out that people with face-blindness are less susceptible to pareidolia.

Getting Back to It

Our air conditioning has been on the fritz. Again. There was obviously a refrigerant leak in the system somewhere. They “topped it up” last year, which was fine since it was at the beginning of the pandemic and that was handled without anyone coming into the apartment. When the situation was the same this year, our landlady decided to have the unit replaced. The one we had was a ’95 model, so it was probably time. Apartment #1 in our building had theirs replaced near the end of last summer. The AC guys are here as I write this, so I’m looking forward to a cooler apartment later today and hopefully slightly lower electric bills this summer.

It’s Monday, What Are You… (4/8/19)

…Reading?

Readathon was very relaxed for me, so I didn’t get too far into my TBR. You know what? That’s okay. What am I reading this week?

I don’t know if I’ll Be Gone in the Dark counts for Spring Into Horror, but, man, it should. Crime in the 70s and 80s was nuts. Also, a bunch of short stories. Will my TBR list change after my trip to the library tomorrow? Possibly.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, hosted by Book Date!

It’s Monday! What Are You… (3/25/19)

…Reading?

I might finally be back on the reading wagon. I finished The Man From the Train over the weekend and should have a review of that tomorrow.

This week, I’m starting on Tesla Man Out of Time by Magaret Cheney. Because I always need to read another Tesla biography. This one caught my eye by presenting, at least in its first chapter, a narrative tone while not being fictional. If that makes any sense.

I also have a bunch of short stories to catch up on.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, hosted by Book Date!

…Watching?

Doing a Bourne movie watch-through. I haven’t seen the last one yet. Good gracious, this trailer is cheesy.

…Doing?

Been playing too much EverQuest 2. The game launched a new time-locked expansion server last weekend and Eric and I decided to play on it. This is my main character, Reesa, in her home. She’s a bard, hence the musical notes floating around her.

Magic Monday, 3/11/19

I like Mondays. I also like magic. I figured I’d combine the two and make a Monday feature that is truly me: a little bit of magic and a look at the week ahead.

The magic world lost one of its great performers and mentors this past weekend. Johnny Thompson was known as a fabulous comedy magician and a generous collaborator. If you’re not familiar with his act, you’ve undoubtedly seen his influence on performers such as Penn & Teller, Piff the Magic Dragon, Mac King, and many others through his “in the booth” involvement with the show Penn & Teller: Fool Us. Here’s his signature act The Great Tomsoni & Co. (& Co. being his wife Pamela Hayes).

It’s Monday, What am I…

…Reading?

Reading? What’s that?

To be fair, I spent the first part of last week in Las Vegas and am otherwise speeding through a rewrite/third draft of the book I’m working on. But here’s what I might read this week:

Plus, short stories!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, hosted by Book Date!

…Doing?

As I mentioned above, I’m working through a rewrite/third daft of what was known as Jane Anderson Mystery (#1?), but now has a title: Deal with the Devil. I plan to have that finished by Friday. Granted, I haven’t entirely finished writing the book in the first place. (That won’t be finished by Friday.) I decided at the end of February, I wanted to solidify some shifts in plot before heading into the climax.

I’ll probably write up something about my trip to Las Vegas this week as well. Most things are taking a backseat to my getting writing work done, which is as it should be, but often isn’t.

Otherwise, ultimate frisbee (if we don’t get rained out) and some EverQuest 2.

What *Was* I Doing?

• 2017: Deal Me In, Week 10 ~ “The Invisible Man”
• 2014: Review ~ Eerie America: Travel Guide of the Macabre

It’s Monday, What Are You… 02/18/19

…Reading?

I went to the library last Tuesday, which is only partially the reason for the upheaval in my immediate TBR pile.

• The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery by Bill James & Rachel McCarthy James – I’ve been wanting to read this since I came across the Wikipedia entry about the 1912 axe murders in Villisca, Iowa. Library book.
• Lady Molly of Scotland Yard by Emmuska Orczy – Did you know that Baroness Orcy wrote detective fiction? With a female detective? I’ll be dipping into this collection over the next few weeks.
• The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara – This ARC is next in the queue.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, hosted by Book Date!

It’s Monday, What Are You… 02/11/19

…Reading?

Finished Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie, 1976-2016, a book I started back in November! It’s a 700 page tome that I knew I couldn’t rush through. Should have a review on Thursday-ish. I should also finish The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society today or tomorrow. Then I think I’ll start on Affinity. It will be my first Sarah Waters book.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, hosted by Book Date!

…Doing?

Yellow Tail, photo courtesy Amanda Herrmann

My team finished the season undefeated, making us B League 2019 champions. That’s the second B league championship in a row for me. It was gray day, windy and cold for Tempe. Eric’s team won A league, so we’re a championship household, at least for a few days until spring league begins. Literally, a few days; games start Tuesday.

I have to say, I haven’t been in too much of a blogging mood, so things might be quieter around here for a while. Or not, who knows?