jedirita

We started watching Torchwood: Miracle Day last fall streaming on Netflix, but only made it up to Ep 4 before the streaming was yanked. Now over six months later, we're finally getting to them again on DVD. Tonight we watched Ep 6.

Oh, dear Torchwood. You have so jumped the shark.

I miss the old Torchwood. Sure, that show had ridiculous plots with totally incompetent team members, but at least it was on a small, local scale. Taking the absurdity to the level of a global consipracy just...can't hold up. Give me Cyberwoman vs. Pterodactyl Smackdown any day.

And seriously, since when did Torchwood become "freedom fighters"? What about "outside the government, beyond the police"; "if it's alien it's ours"; "you have no rights here"; and lest we forget (so to speak), retcon?

I do have to say, though, I was immensely pleased to have one of the Ghostbusters on the show. :P

So, do y'all know what kolaches are?

It seems that most people who know what kolaches are think of them as fruit or cream cheese filled pastries, mebbe kinda like a Danish? Of Czech or Polish or some such origin.

Only where I grew up, they are little sausages in these yummy rolls. We eat them for breakfast. So good! I decided recently to try to make them, and have been reading various recipes online. (Tried it today. The bread didn't rise right and they didn't turn out so good, but I think next time I'll get it right.)

Anyway, in searching online for recipes, I found that I had to be quite specific in order to get the sausage kind, not the fruit kind. Then in reading various comments and whatnot, it seemed that everyone who sees this as a prime comfort food hails from Texas. Specifically central or east Texas. I remember when my church got a new minister from New England, he had no idea what kolaches were. All this got me to thinking: are the sausage variety truly a Texas phenonomenon? Like Tex-Czech or something?

(This also reminds me of a breakfast bakery I saw recently, advertising kolaches, donuts, and breakfast tacos. That's about as Texan as you can get.)

Anyway, to get to the bottom of this mystery, here is a poll:

Poll #1842079 Kolache poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

A kolache is

I have encountered the sausage kind

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/29242313

Yay, Barack! You are so UCC. I knew you'd get there eventually. Personally, I think you were there long ago but were holding out on us. I'm glad you finally came out of the closet. I love you, man.

I'm writing again.

I make absolutely no promises or guarantees. At this point, I just want to get back into the habit. But the cool thing is that I've written something every night for a week now. Go me!

Alas, it's not the Neville sequel. WHY OH WHY NOT? JKR practically wrote it for me! But I hope that if I get back into the writing habit, then it'll set the stage for me to write the Neville novel. But don't hold your breath.

[Edited to add new kindle icon!]

Oh, Kindle! How I love you! But also hate you! It's so easy to get books now, at least the free ones. Well, even the not free ones. Any thought of a book diet is hopelessly screwed now. And really, who needs to worry about that? Whether my Kindle contains one book or one thousand books, it weighs the same. It can eat and eat and eat, and never gain an ounce!

I've got my eye on two books right now, but I'm holding off on buying them just because - I don't know, it still feels like such extravagance to always go nuts and buy/acquire every book as soon as I think of it. I really need to develop some kind of kindle discipline. Anyway, one is a memoir of a New York woman who gave up the glam life to marry a cowboy and live off the grid. It appeals to my pioneer fetish. The other is "Planet of the Apes" cos - a book I'm currently reading mentions it. That is all. :P (Did you know it was originally in French?) But I haven't indulged in buying either of these yet.

Meanwhile, let me report about a great book my sis recommended to me a while ago, The Wilder Life. This is for all of you who grew up reading the Little House books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Rather, you didn't just read them, you fantasized about them. You wanted to play with a balloon made from an inflated pig bladder. You would commit murder to get your hands on one of Ma's vanity cakes. You wanted to live in a sod house. You wished that, just once, Santa Claus would give you a shiny new tin cup in your stocking.

This book is not a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is an autobiography of a Laura fangirl. Even though there were certain aspects of the author's story that I did not share (apparently it is a common fantasy to imagine Laura mysteriously being transported to our time and showing her all the wonderments of modern technology), nevertheless I totally identified with McClure's fascination with what she calls "Lauraworld." In the book, McClure documents her visits to all the real Laura sites you can actually visit, chronicling her excitement and inevitable disappoinment. She also gives quite a bit of history on Laura and her daughter Rose. But mainly I loved this book because I share that passion for Lauraworld, and for the books.

In pursuit of the Wilder life, McClure learns how to churn butter (been there, done that), twist hay, and yes - make vanity cakes. Best of all, she gets to visit THE ACTUAL SOD HOUSE ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK! She weighs in on the debate on whether or not Laura was a tomboy, and she meets conservative Christians whose relationship with Laura is totally different from her own. She uncovers the real life history behind the Ingalls' claim-jumping in "Little House on the Prarie," and frankly discusses the racism in the books.

A very enjoyable read. I couldn't put it down. It made me salivate to read all the books again. (I'm currently on "Plum Creek." And I'm thrilled that the padawan is already intrigued by the pictures on the covers and wants me to read them to him!)

I don't know how many people have recommended "Ender's Game" to me over the years. Now I've read it. Result?

Gawd, this is why I hate science fiction. ( Read more... )

...is actually not going so well right now. I decided to take a break from the classic sci fi and read Robinson Crusoe.

Oh. My. Gawd. SNOOZE. Seriouly, this is even more boring than Swiss Family Robinson, which was at least somewhat entertaining, if only because their tiny island managed to be home to creatures from all seven continents. Detailed discussions of how he divided the gunpowder up into 127 different packages, and all the endless Christian pietism. I expected that it would be racist and imperialist, but sheesh. I could probably endure it if the story was at least entertaining, but since it's not at all, it makes the British supremacy that much more nauseating. (Seriously, has anyone written a take on this story from Friday's POV? That would be cool, actually. What does he really think about this asshole British imperialist who thinks it's his God-given right to dominate absoultely everyone and everthing else on the planet?) I'm about one-third of the way through, but I highly doubt I'll finish it. Can anyone give me a reason why I ought to keep at it?

So I took a break from Crusoe and turned instead to Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game," which I've always heard about and has been recommended to me by a great many people. But I'm not sure I like this, either. I know there's a twist. But what is it? Because the idea that it's somehow okay or justified for people to take six year old children, remove them from their families, and toss them on their own to live or die in an endless series of war games, all with the aim of molding the perfect soldier who will destroy their mythic enemy - seriously, it makes the Jedi Temple look like a Montessori school. Actually, this book is kinda reminding me why I stopped reading the Star Wars EU novels. Relentless militarism, and the absurd notion of a six year old doing trigonometry. I know there are Gifted and Talented kids, but seriously - is there any six year old on earth capable of doing trigonometry? Maybe it's possible. But this whole training kids to be the perfect soldiers - that's what they do in the Sudan, and look how it turns out for those poor kids. It's the absolute worst form of child abuse. Someone please tell me that the point of the book is to show the moral depravity of such an attitude. I don't mind being spoiled about the ending, because otherwise I may have to give up on this one too.

Our next door neighbors' house burned down today. There was some kind of explosion in the garage, and the house just went up in flames. The people were all able to get out, but they were not able to get their dogs out. The house is destroyed, but neither our house nor the other adjacent house were damaged. A news crew that showed up to cover it told my dad they saw the fire all the way from downtown, 15 miles away. There's all this charred wood in the street.

We're all rather freaked out. Time will tell how the padawan is taking it. On the one hand, it was exciting to see all the firetrucks in our street. (Neither he nor I were here to see the actual fire, so it was all over and done with by the time we got home.) But it's certainly scary to see a house so completely destroyed, and he's upset about the dogs. They had a cute little Yorkie terrier that Sam would sometimes "talk" to through the fence.

Please keep the family in your prayers.

You know how fandoms have fic-finder communities where you can find a fic you've lost? Is there anything like that in real life?

I'd still like to find a book I read as a kid. There was a boy and a girl in late 19th/early 20th century England and they lived on the locks. Or something about the locks. The boy's name was Tamsin or Tamlin.

Also I saw a book several years ago in the bookstore and was intrigued but didn't buy it. I keep thinking about it, and would love to read it. It was sort of an alternate universe - maybe fantasy genre? In which the Muslims won that battle against Charlemagne and Europe became Muslim. I think this story was set in the US?

If you know these, LOVELY! If not, do you know where online I can get help in finding them?

THANKS!

Lately I've been on a classic sci-fi kick. I think it got started when the padawan and I went to go see "The Mysterious Island" and had to leave 1/3 of the way through because he came down sick. So I got the book free on kindle. It's by Jules Verne, but is very long, so I also downloaded a ton of other classics: The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Invisible Man by HG Wells (I read The Time Machine years and years ago, but might read it again.) Also Mysterious Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days (which I think I also read years ago), all by Jules Verne.

They've been awesome! I never cared for Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. But these have been great! Land That Time Forgot had a submarine, and dinosaurs eating people (though not nearly a high enough body count), as well as spunky Gibson girl heroines. 20,000 Leagues is definitely heavy on the science end of science fiction. Lots of lists of facts about how many cubit feet of air the average human breaths per hour, and how many pounds per square inch of pressure at such and such distance below sea level, as well as endless lists of scientific names of fish and corals. But there were also lots of cool things: Atlantis, hurricanes, sea fights, icebergs, and of course giant squids. And Captain Nemo himself was an awesome character. Verne sucks at dialogue, though.

HG Wells is the clear winner when it comes to decent writing talent. I've seen several movie versions of Dr. Moreau, but the book was riveting - and terrifying. Invisible Man was completely engrossing. Unlike the other two writers, Wells is capable of constructing a plot for maximum suspense, has decent dialogue, and also explores the dark side of human nature without being all preachy about it. I'm going to have to read more of him.

I also downloaded Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Anyone else have any recommendations for those old school sci fi chappies? The really classic stuff?