The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Holiday Book Challenge
My LJ friend Miss Busy is big on the holiday themed books and movies. I am certain that her influence led me to an unconscious stock-piling of holiday books this year. So when she pointed us to the Holiday Book Challenge hosted by Nemy at All About {n}, I knew I’d be signing up. Here is her pretty button with a link:
The rules are:
1- Challenge will start Monday, November 15 and will end Friday, December 31.
2- You can read anywhere from 1 to 5 books for the challenge and, of course, if you’re like me, you are more than welcome to surpass that number.
3- And now, here’s the clincher… they must be holiday related books. That’s right, the holiday doesn’t really matter, but it would be more “jolly” if your choices were Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.
4- The size of the book does not matter, nor does the genre. It is also okay for the book to overlap with other challenges. The only thing I ask is that they are not children’s books. YA is okay. And so are re-reads. I for one tend to read the same books every Christmas – they are tradition.
5- To sign up – leave a link back to your challenge post. There will also be a post for review links as well as one for challenge wrap-ups.
6- And…. there will be goodies. That’s right, we’ll call them presents. At the end of every week that the challenge is running I will choose one winner from the review links. Meaning the more books you read, review and link up, the more chances you have at winning a “present”.
I had five books waiting on me (because I just finished one):
- A Christmas Memory, One Christmas and The Thanksgiving Visitor, Truman Capote
- Christmas Classics, The Modern Library
- A Different Kind of Christmas, Alex Haley
- Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, by Agatha Christie
- Benjamin Franklin and a Case of Christmas Murder, by Robert Lee Hall
And I will probably want to read A Christmas Carol again.
Salt
I recently reacquainted myself with my popcorn maker. Hockey is better with popcorn, for some reason, and if you use that spray butter stuff, it isn’t too bad for you. Of course, I use an awful lot of popcorn salt. So I was in the Jewel last weekend, looking at all of the different kinds of salt, and I cannot find the popcorn salt. I figured it must be in the popcorn aisle. So I head over there. There are a few different flavors of popcorn topping, but no actual popcorn salt.
My mother was doing the shopping today, since I am leaving town again on Wednesday, and I asked her to take another look. She didn’t find it, either. In fact, she asked for help. The staff brought her butter buds – the powder people use on their baked potatoes (if they haven’t discovered spray butter). Then they tried to tell her that it was the same thing.
Um. No. Butter buds are not the same thing as popcorn salt.
I stopped at Target before the game today. Particularly since Target now has an entire grocery store inside, they must have popcorn salt.
Again, I looked in the spice aisle, with all of the other salt. There were a dozen different types of sea salt, but no popcorn salt. Again, I went to the popcorn aisle. Three flavors of powdered popcorn topping, but no popcorn salt.
What in the name of all that’s holy has happened to all of the popcorn salt?! Do I have to buy it online?!
New Chairs
I have been reading about retailers that have done well during the recession. You know – Wal-Mart, Target, Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Home Goods. Those last three, owned by the same company, I believe, have sprung up everywhere. Everywhere. Any direction on the map that I might take in running my weekend errands, I can find one. The deal, though, is because they deal in overstocked items, the inventory is really hit or miss. But for some of us, the hunt is part of the fun.
My most recent mission was for kitchen chairs.
When I moved into my first apartment, I bought a dining room table at Wickes. It is a pale oak table much better suited for a kitchen, but I loved it, could afford it and it worked in that space. The chairs however, were crap.
When I moved back to the house, and put the table in the kitchen, one by one the chairs fell apart. We are lucky that no one got hurt on those things. Sometime in the last year, I figured that 13 years in two homes was not a bad run for that table and I started casually looking about for a new set. My mother told me that was stupid. There was nothing wrong with the table, I should just look for new chairs.
How do you find four to six chairs to match an old table? I looked at the usual stores and found nothing. Then one day early this summer, I was in… TJMaxx/Marshall’s/HomeGoods…- one of ’em – and found two pale oak chairs. $150 for the pair. There were only two and I wasn’t sure they would match, but they were real wood and sturdy so I went for it. They work great. I started looking for them at every other TJMaxx/Marshalls/HomeGoods in the area. No luck. For months I kept looking.
As I whined to my friends about it, someone said, “You know, the chairs don’t have to match each other. In fact, mismatched sets are even rather trendy these days.”
Huh. Then I found another set. Pale oak, but the back was painted. The paint was in the same neighborhood as my kitchen walls. I picked them up:
They look odd right next to each other, but around the table, no one will really care. Oh, and that stool on the left, also from the old apartment, is generally at our counter. But it also works as a booster seat for the kids.
So, thank you, TJMaxx/Marshalls/HomeGoods. Instead of spending $1000 on a new kitchen set, I spent less than $300 for four chairs and a rather funky new look in the kitchen.
Now I am all ready for the holidays. If I can get the tree up, that is.
Julie and Julia
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B002RSDW80&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrI have no idea why I recorded Julie and Julia the last time there was a free preview weekend on the cable movie channels. I had heard that the “Julia” parts rocked and the “Julie” parts sorta didn’t, so I turned it on tonight while doing other stuff. Verdict:
The “Julia” parts rocked and the “Julie” parts sorta didn’t.
Stanley Tucci was great as Mr. Childs and Jane Lynch was charming in the small part of Julia’s sister. Of course, Meryl Streep was spot on.
So I am glad I mostly saw it. And now I can delete it. But I might be forced to read Julia Childs’ book.
Macintosh…The Naked Truth, by Scott Kelby
I forget where I found Macintosh…The Naked Truth. Some book sale or another, so long ago. I’ve been thinking for awhile that my next computer might be a Mac and I’ve been doing a bit of homework. Kelby is a magazine guy/blogger dedicated to Macs and this book is his perspective on being a Mac in a PC world.
I was about two pages in before I had to check the publication date – 2002. That would be about five minutes after the original iPod was released and before they knew whether it would fly.
Apparently, before the iPod, Mac people felt persecuted. There was a whole sociological drama involving PCs and Macs that was totally over my head.
I use a PC because that is what they use in my office. And what they used in my school computer lab. I never thought Mac people were losers or suckers or foolish or lame, but apparently the real PC users did. If you had asked me cold why someone would buy a Mac, I would have said the graphics stuff was better. Macs were better for artists and PCs were for better for spreadsheet people.
Kelby has story after story about horrible PC people geeking out in his face about how lame the Mac is. It was fun for about 80 pages and then I started reading faster. He talks about how all of the people in the Big Box electronics stores were PC experts, clueless about Macs and mean to Mac people.
I went to Best Buy one day and talked to a guy about Macs. He asked what I used my home computer for. I felt incredibly lame, but I told the truth: music, movies and Internet. He told me that I would love the Mac. Opposite of the experiences Kelby describes.
I take this as evidence of the game changer that was iPod. Followed by the iPhone, which even my brother has. I imagine that the iPad will only make it more dramatic.
Kelby’s book wasn’t what I was hoping for in that it wasn’t warm and fuzzy and welcoming to me as a PC User On the Brink. But I sure learned a lot.
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Finally, finally.
It’s not that this was a bad book. It just has so many layers. The plot was fascinating and I was continually frustrated by the fact that it wouldn’t move when I wanted to know what happens next.
One father, three sons from two different wives. Complicated relationships. Theology, philosophy, love and hate. A lot of people behaving badly.
Also, I felt like Russia was a character in herself. There was a bit of a monologue at the end where one brother is talking about running off to America and he makes it sound like death. That was pretty cool.
This is a good example of a book that I might have gotten more from if it hadn’t taken so long. And I am not going to spend any more time writing about it, either.
Mobile Check In
The Chicago Tribune helpfully pointed me to this promotion with United Airlines. Apparently, they are trying to encourage us to use their mobile check in feature, wherein we use our smartphones to check in to a flight. A square code, like a UPC symbol, pops up on the screen and they scan that instead of paper when we board the airplane.
It works fine. I kinda prefer checking in online and printing a boarding pass because it is easier to hold than the phone when I am schlepping through the airport. And my phone battery could always die. And the security people seem less than impressed when you hand them your phone in that particular line.
But for an extra thousand miles for each flight between now and year end? I signed right up.
John Adams
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000WGWQG8&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrThis HBO miniseries has been in my house almost since it was released on DVD and I just got to watching it. Adams isn’t my favorite President – that would be Abraham Lincoln, duh – but depending on what day you ask, I might call him my favorite Founding Father. And his wife rocked.
The film starts with the Boston Massacre, and Adams’ courtroom defense of the British soldiers. It was from this that we have his immortal quote, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Timely observation.
Many familiar characters crossed the canvas. George Washington creeped me out, until I realized it was because the actor had played a terribly obnoxious bad guy on House. Rufus Sewell played Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s dashing aide de camp and Secretary of the Treasury. I have spent years getting over my childhood adoration of that guy, and Sewell made him positively smarmy. So. Thanks for that. I found Laura Linney’s Abigail to be rather understated. My perception may be skewed because as a historical figure she is way larger than life to me. Danny Huston’s Sam Adams was both incredibly cool and really…scary. Which is how I imagined him. Tom Wilkinson pulled off a charming and respectable Ben Franklin. Whose sexploits only hit the screen once. And OMG did Paul Giamatti play the hell out of John Adams.
But Adams is often defined by his relationship with (and contrast to) Thomas Jefferson and the film displays that brilliantly. It also nailed the reason that I can’t love Jefferson the way that most people love Jefferson:
He broke John Adams’ heart.
It was easy for Adams to believe that Hamilton would throw him under the..um..carriage..for his own political gain. But his old friend Jefferson? Jefferson was above “party politics”.
Not.
This program was based on historian David McCullough’s biography, which I understand was the beginning of a renewed interest and appreciation of the Adams family. It looks like they are finally going to get a memorial in the District of Columbia. I think I might send them money.
Mid Season Report
You know, when the talking heads get their hands on a sports statistic, they do not shut up about it. This week’s, during the Bears game, we learned that the Bears quarterback, Jay Cutler, is the most blitzed in the NFL. The other teams just love to send seven or eight guys across the line to try to kill him. They do it 48% of the time. That was an interesting statistic. The first time.
You know what else they told us? The Bears are terrible on third down, terrible in the red zone, and have a great defense that is really good at creating turnovers. They say this like it is news. As if the Bears were ever fabulous on third down, or even in the red zone.
People. The last time the Bears went to the freakin’ Super Bowl, it was because the defense created turnovers and the offense….managed. (That, and we drafted this kid named Devin that has a bit of a knack for special teams.) These are the universal truths regarding the Chicago Bears.
This season there has been a lot of talk about the injuries, particularly head injuries caused by helmet-tohelmet hits. This week, we also learned about things that are scarier than your QB going out with a concussion. That would be Julius Peppers hitting the quarterback and not getting up. Which my mother noted isn’t as scary as the possibility of Brian Urlacher not getting up after a play. And five minutes after that discussion, we saw the Colts’ Austin Collie take a hit that landed him immobilized on a stretcher and carted off this field. Phil Simms just said that he was sitting up in the locker room and they think it is just a concussion.
Tangent: Miss Janis, a friend of our family, grew up in England and doesn’t quite get football. But she is a good sport and watches games with us when she is at our house on holidays. A good dozen times a game, she will see someone hit and gasp in despair and we almost automatically tell her, “He’s fine. Look – he bounced right up!” Even I am not feeling non-chalant about it right now.
Anyway. If you had told me in August that after eight weeks, the Bears would have a record of 5 and 3, tied with the Packers at the top of the Division, I would have been thrilled. I do not feel thrilled.
Maybe next week, after we beat those Vikings, (and stay healthy while doing it) I will feel thrilled.
More Star Wars Goofiness
Dooce posted this piece from Vimeo. There is a decided lack of Han Solo. But….it’s darling.
Jeremy Messersmith – Tatooine from Eric Power on Vimeo.
The Next Dark Age 