Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
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I threw out a lot of stuff, including two film SLR cameras. I checked – they are quite literally worthless.
Considered how much of the house is filled with books. Bring on the next generation of e-readers!
Robert
Considered how much of the house is filled with books. Bring on the next generation of e-readers!
What would be good is an app that you could connect to an iPhone/Android that allowed you to scan text from books and convert into a file format that would be display on a compliant device, such as an e-reader or the iPad/Android/iPhone itself.
For a little while this morning I thought the locust plague was on the wane. Oh no, they’re solar powered! Even with the help of a particularly nasty looking wasp that buries wasp-egg laden locusts live, with ferocious efficiency and 10mls of icey precipitation, a brief sunny stretch has them active again.
No sunny stretch in my neck of the woods. Gale force winds, horizontal rain, no fishing which is just as well as the Chinese borders are still closed.
Fortunately, (or unfortunately depending on which side of the fence you are on), the catches are sh!t on the handful of days they have been able to fish since the borders were closed, so we don’t have to store, and pay for, vast quantities of fish we can’t sell.
Fantastic friends, sumptuous sushi, wondrous wine – the silly season sashays through our lives – peace and joy, safe and happy holidays to all.
Wrote 942 words about Adelaide, read two-thirds of a novel by Steve Martin (don’t laugh, it’s good), washed a machineload of towels and am now decorating the tree while listening to Bob Dylan singing The Little Drummer Boy. Don’t laugh, it’s good.
Went with the beloved and betrothed and her children to somewhere called “Toys Kingdom” — a theme-park that is geared specifically to the under-10s — in Okayama Prefecture.
Bought the beloved and betrothed an engagement ring whilst there: cost ¥240 (about $3.00).
Got lost numerous times on the way home. I was driving, and trying to follow the directions of the Japanese-language GPS. Ate a communal Pizza Capricciosa (which turned out to be one of the better Italian-style pizzas I’ve ever eaten) for dinner in a roadside diner.
Pleased to find that no one here in Fukuyama seems to know or care who Andrew Bolt is.
Spent most of the morning taking notes from vol. 5 of Naval Documents of the American Revolution and the wrest of the day writing a post on my blog on Xmas in Boston, 1775. Had intended to write a post on Xmas on the First Fleet, but my eyes are so weak now I couldn’t read the facsimile copy of William Bradley’s Journal. Its slowing down the research for my book a bit too, so I’ll have to get them fixed early in the New Year. Here’s hoping the waiting list for cataract surgery isn’t too long in Armidale.
Because the weather in Armidale (cloudy/wet, I think) interferes with my set top box reception didn’t bother trying to watch TV. from about 6 pm watched the DVD of the BBC 1974 production of War and Peace. The first 6 episodes. Will watch the rest over the next few days. Second time I’ve seen it.
Just after 9.00 here in WA. I’ve just switched off ABC1 because Midsomer Murders which I have enjoyed in the past turned out to be a macabre family mystery with the most unpleasant scenes and some very unpleasant people. Not really scary but all sorts of horrid images. Not good pre-Christmas viewing at all. If anyone here bothered to watch it and saw it through to the end please enlighten me as to the villain. I hope it was the bossy mother, widow of the long ago suicide.
Mr Jones, the bridge partner friend, brother of Clara. He managed to take out the obnoxious sister as well as the great aunt. Well missed Patricia.
Visited Taronga Zoo on Saturday, took lots of photos of animals and Sydney Harbour, then on Sunday discovered the uselessness of either my rechargeable batteries or my battery charger (or both) before setting off for a walk from Central Station to the southern end of King Street Newtown, buying a birthday card and present for a friend and having a beer at the Sandringham Hotel on the way.
Paul B, is that the War and Peace with the young Anthony Hopkins as Pierre? Fabulous, if so.
PC @ 12,
Indeed it is. And, when I read War and Peace right through for the first time, I was lucky enough to read the Rosemary Edmonds translation on which the TV series is based. Far, far bettrer than the Penguin Classics translation.
Outdoor BBQ with friends turned into lunch at the dinner table inside as the rain came in, followed later that afternoon by a thunderstorm and hail. 22 degrees. Today should reach 18 degrees, with more rain and possible thunderstorm. I can haz summer nao?
Did the Melbourne to Canberra drive all by myself for the first time ever, to spend Christmas with my aged ps. Awful weather – poured hard almost nonstop from Euroa to the driveway in Deakin.
I hope it was the bossy mother, widow of the long ago suicide.
Nup. She was the second murder victim after the old lady. Seems that she and the old woman acted to break up the engagement of the son who suicided by besmirching the fiancee – who also suicided. Outsider who had lived with family for about 7 years turns out to be the brother of the fiancee – who took seven years to find out what happened – and then kill the perpetrators.
A bit Agatha Christie, I thought.
Peter TB,
Still, usually they’re not too bad for their particular detective genre.
Aren’t all the Midsomer Murders a bit Agatha Christie?
they’re not too bad
Agreed. Scenery’s nice as well
For the past few days, battling ferocious weather, I’ve been careening around town like a lunatic doing the Christmas shopping.
Some bright pleasures as always despite the hecticity: I got “The Phantom Tollbooth” for a precocious serious-minded little niece who I think is finally old enough to really laugh at the dry jokes; and I got “Safe As Milk” for a little godson who is a precocious wizard on electric guitar (who’d a thunk it at these young ages? What on earth are they putting in the water? And can I have some?).
Overheard in the Children’s Section of a big commercial bookstore…
LITTLE GIRL (my guess is 4 yrs old): Mommy! The mean step-sisters are ripping Cinderella’s pretty dress!
MOTHER: Don’t worry, Cinderella will be fine at the end.
LITTLE GIRL: (truly distraught): BUT WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?!
MOTHER: Because they’re supposed to be *wicked* step-sisters. But… not all step-sisters are like that.
Now, mission accomplished, I get one evening to myself: brilliant Christmas music from across four centuries on a local classical radio station, a bottle of good (Australian!) Shiraz, and a well-made copy (with good paper!) Of the Penguin edition of the “Good Poems” anthology edited by Garrison Keillor, full of lovely, simple work by a lot of writers who aren’t so famous. (Word to wise: not a bad gift idea for those who are unsure what they think about poetry in general.)
I’m not a huge booster of Charles Bukowski, but here’s a great slice of him in the poem “Dostoevsky”…
“against the wall, the firing squad ready.
Then he got a reprieve.
Suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
Before he wrote all that?
…I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one…”
And there’s a Christmas theme at work in there: reprieve, redemption, Borges at work in “The Secret Miracle” and more besides…
Merry Christmas, LPers.
God rest ye merry.
– japerz
Merry Christmas to you too, japerz.