New week underway

[annathepiper]

Friday night we finally got to see Mirrormask, and that was highly enjoyable. Visually stunning, and with a kind of wry humor that really sneaks up on you, and which showed the hand of Mr. Gaiman quite clearly upon the work.

Saturday, as I posted before, I had to work. Fortunately it wasn't a full day's worth of work, and there was actually something rather pleasant about walking out in the sunshine both on my way into work and on my way home.

Sunday went towards solarbird, spazzkat, and I having a pleasant little sojourn down to Log Boom Park, which is the park right down at the bottom of our hill on the other side of the Burke-Gilman trail, right on the shore of Lake Washington. I'd been there a few times before on various walks, but hadn't ever gone out on the actual log boom. We did that yesterday, and that was fun. There were several folks out and about along the boom, walking dogs and children and suchlike, and it was rather neat to me how far out into the lake it actually went. After that we went back to the lake shore and ate the lunches we'd brought down with us, and watched a few nearby folks playing catch with their dogs. They kept throwing frisbees and balls, and the dogs--border collies, we think--would zoom past us at top speed to get them, with that "OHMIGOD OHMIGOD GOTTA GET IT GOTTA IT" urgency that only a dog on a vital mission to intercept an airborne frisbee can display. Hee.

Then we walked along the trail and came back through the Lake Forest Park shops. We got drinks at Starbucks; have I mentioned that the Blackberry Green Tea Frappucino is extraordinarily tasty? And we saw a guy sitting out in front of the Baskin Robbins with his pets--a poodle and an African Grey parrot! The parrot looked lively and very well-cared for, and made neat whistling noises. The man told us the parrot's name was Omar, and so we naturally had to tell him we had a Quaker parrot ourselves and swap a few parrot stories. That was fun.

We have been continuing to watch episodes of the animated Superman series as well as Justice League, and on the way home I remarked to Dara and Paul that we were having the sort of sunshine that really made me sympathize with the whole idea of Superman recharging his powers in sunlight. And I asked them, if Superman is normal under a red sun and super-powered under a yellow sun, what happens if he's on a planet with a blue-white star? Does he explode? And that led us into a side tangent on green stars as well, and that I'd read at one point that our own sun was actually close to being a green star but that we visually parse it as yellow. (I am pretty sure I got that data from here; this says that the Sun is yellow-green, not actually green.) I love living with geeks. ^_^

Most of the rest of Sunday went to the Justice League marathon that Boomerang was running, and to my finishing off my sweep of lyonesse's novel as well. And overall not as much writing as I would have liked on my own novel, but then, that was to be expected what with working overtime. We'll see how it goes this week!

I am very close to Lothlórien now, and should in fact get there by the end of the week. I wonder if Galadriel knows how to play Mah Jongg.

Saturday evening miles: 2.4
Sunday miles: 3.2
Monday morning miles: 1.6
Miles out of Hobbiton: 908.8
Miles out of Rivendell: 450.8
Miles to Lothlórien: 13.2

Comments

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Huzzah Justice League! My geek-house has been watching it as well. :)

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

Is your Quaker, uh, temperamental? Or do ours just haaaate me (and nearly everyone else in the household)?

[annathepiper]

*laughs!* Oh my yes, Zoe is a little feathery bundle of hate. ;) Two feet of attitude in an eight-inch parrot body!

I didn't know you had Quakers! Neat!

[annathepiper]

Love love love me some Justice League and Justice League Unlimited! And I am in outright awe that they have maintained a multi-year continuity across those shows and the Superman and Batman animated series.

Also, I (heart) Mark Hamill's Joker. "Surely you're not going to leave him like this? I mean, ALIVE?!"

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

Ours are Peridot and Tourmaline. Most days i can't touch either of 'em.

[solarbird]

Bwah ha ha! God yes. 12 pounds of attitude in a four-ounce body!

[solarbird]

Are you trying this inside or outside of cage? Quakers are the only parrots that nest. They have big, collective, apartment-building like construction nests that house an entire flock in individual chambers of 2-3 parrots each.

The cage, in the case of captive birds, becomes the nest, and vital territory to defend. If you can get them out of the cage (and preferably, if they're pretty feral, where they can't see it) - I recommend toweling for transport ^_^ - then you'll find them much more approachable.

Zoe puts up with all kinds of shit from me once I've got her outside the cage. But when she's inside, watch out!

[solarbird]

Also, what are you feeding them? If there are any sunflower seeds in their diets, pull those out immediately, and if it's a seed diet, ween them off of it to pellets+greens+wheat bread. Feeding them sunflower seeds is directly analogous to feeding them M&Ms.

[annathepiper]

Dara is the resident bird expert in the Murkworks, so I'll defer to her answers on this. ^_^

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

Definitely no sunflower seed. They get fresh cooked greens with the occasional bit of pasta IIRC (I don't make their food- damashita does).

[solarbird]

Ah, very good. Carry on.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Mark Hamill's Joker is awesome. I really enjoy all of those series.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Oops... replied to soon. I was just going to suggest IMDBing the shows. The voice acting cred it amazing all around.

[annathepiper]

I've been very amused at several of the former Firefly and Angel casts showing up in the credits of JLU, yeah--Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Amy Acker, the dude who played Wesley (and whose name I can't recall).

Such fabulous voice talent, and such fabulous writing as well. The dialogue is consistently solid, and even tired old plot devices like brain-swaps are well handled by these folks. I really liked that JLU episode not long ago when the Flash switched bodies with Lex Luthor. :)

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Gina Torres was on Without a Trace last week. It's good to see her getting work.

[annathepiper]

Cool, I haven't been watching too many TV shows outside a small set these days, so I've missed a lot of her recent activity. But I hear she's been showing up on 24 as well. :)

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Cool. That's good!

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

I was reading through this and when I got to the phrase Log Boom Park, I thought it said Longbottom Park. Don't know why? :)

[annathepiper]

I cannot imagine why that thought might have occurred to you. Perhaps you have been blowing too many smoke rings with peace-disturbing, pointy-hat-wearing wizards.

[howlinhobbit.livejournal.com]

I'd read at one point that our own sun was actually close to being a green star but that we visually parse it as yellow. (I am pretty sure I got that data from here; this says that the Sun is yellow-green, not actually green.)

This (it was explained to me once) is why chlorophyll on our planet is green, to take advantage of the part of the spectrum most produced by ol' Sol.

I have found that if you tell your non-geek friends things like this they look at you like they suspect your time-released drugs have just kicked in.

HH

[annathepiper]

Yeah, the chlorophyll thing came up in the conversation Dara, Paul, and I were having. :) If I think about that it's fascinating, too--it starts making me wonder how (say) the chlorophyll in a Japanese maple works, and if you had an otherwise Earth-like planet under a blue-white star, what color would the chlorophyll in its plants be, and how about the sky? And then I start thinking about the visuals you could get walking through an entire forest of red-leafed trees.

And yeah, *sigh*, definitely fodder to make your non-geek friends look at you funny!

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

I'll only blow smoke rings with a pointy-hat-wearing wizard if the peace we are disturbing is fun. If we get into too much trouble, the deal's off.

[annathepiper]

So no dragons, is what you're telling me?

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

No, dragons are okay, but riddles in the dark are not.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, and that whole thing with the creepy toothless hobbitoid guy muttering about his Precious? We can skip that part. ;)