Ordinary Day

And now, my entirely fangirly, irrational picoreview of Robin Hood: THAT. WAS. AWESOME!

*pauses to wave tiny!fists of glee, particularly over Robin and Marion, and ALSO over Alan! Doyle! Movie! Star! and his Action Lute!*

Ahem. Now let’s try this again, only a bit more coherently, shall we? (Please, dear husband, won’t you share my spoilers?)

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Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Much to my amusement, spazzkat found Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood movie while channelsurfing tonight, which of course leads me to further squealing over the Russell Crowe one I shall be going to ogle in six scant days!

I am, of course, going next weekend. Folks local to Seattle or points immediately nearby are hereby invited to accompany me! Preliminary checking of showtimes thus far reported tells me that it unfortunately won’t be playing at the two best places downtown, Pacific Place and the Cinerama (the latter of which will of course be running Iron Man 2). Nor will the Neptune or the Metro in the U-district be running it, at least on Thursday, but it’s possible they may have shows show up in another couple of days.

Right now I’m eying the Woodinville theater as the place I’m most likely to go. Unless I hear a lot of enthusiasm for a midnight show I’m aiming for either a Friday or a Saturday show. And since Woodinville seems to be the best locale so far, chances are high of sushi in downtown Bothell pairing up with said film.

Who wants in? Any counteroffers on locations and/or dinner preferences? Sing out, y’all! Robin, Marian, and Allan a’Dayle ain’t gonna ogle themselves! ;)

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

So yeah, Saturday in Vancouver has failed to suck. Made it safely up here to Chez cow, with hardly any wait time at all at the border. And today, we went out on various and sundry shopping sorts of excursions.

cow took solarbird and spazzkat and me over to the nearby HMV–which proved to be a way more fruitful visit this time around than on the two previous visits, because this time I actually scored an album by La Bottine Souriante! Also picked up one by the Punters, who I’ve been meaning to listen to anyway by way of introducing myself to more Newfoundland music; plus, this album has the magic words “Produced by Alan Doyle” on the back, so I’m figuring that’s a strong recommendation right there. Lastly, got one by the Rankins, since I like their track on Fire in the Kitchen.

Relatedly, cow also gave Dara and me a copy of hsifyppah’s very first filk CD, Steel Cage Match. Looking forward to listening to this, in no small part because “I Fell Asleep (Reading the Silmarillion)” made me LOL, and also, I want to hear “Livejournal Shanty” too.

And, cow snagged me a couple of loaner copies of La Bottine Souriante albums from the Vancouver Public Library as well. These shall have to stand me until I can acquire actual copies of these albums–which I have now ordered from Amazon, since apparently Amazon’s actually stocked up on La Bottine Souriante a lot since the last time I looked. To wit, bitchin’. Or should that be bitchin-ez moi?

Anyway, aside from all this musical love, we stopped in at Little Sister’s, which is Vancouver’s oldest queer bookstore. Which was kind of neat. I walked out with a novel called Salt Fish Girl which sounded interesting to me and SFnal (it mentions shapechanging and biotechnology), even though it doesn’t call itself a science fiction novel. I told the dude at the counter that I was a bit surprised that they didn’t have Tanya Huff in their (teeny) fantasy section, given that she’s a queer Canadian author and that she has a whole trilogy of books starring a queer boy, set in Vancouver even! He thought that was cool, so who knows, maybe they’ll stock ‘em. Also, they had a big black Labrador-lookin’ doggie who reminded me a lot of Sheriff, the doggie who lives along the goat trail.

OH OH OH, also, they had a magazine on the rack there with a cover blurb about an interview with the actress Alex Hedison. Wait a minute, I thought, Hedison? She did look suspiciously familiar, so I thumbed into the zine to check the interview–and yep, that there was the daughter of David Hedison, my very own Captain Crane from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. And she’s not only queer, she’s the former partner of Ellen DeGeneres! That’s some pretty high-profile queer there.

And after that, cow went back to his place while Dara and Paul and I proceeded to hop on the bus and head down to the Asian-heavy community in Richmond, where they have a couple of largish Japanese/Chinese/Asian-friendly shopping mails. That was neat. Quite a bit of flashbacks to Japan there what with the layout of the stores and the sorts of stuff they sold. We snagged a couple of gifts for folks, had tasty lunch and later on tasty yogurt, and eventually staggered back to Chez cow for zzz’s.

We’ll be heading to Steamworks for tasty food in a little bit, and to meet up with gerimaple and possibly also elfmaid. Which should be a fine closer to a pretty fine day indeed.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

In the most recent Kenmore Reporter, there's a little article about a singer named Julie Fowlis coming to the Northshore Performing Arts Center for a concert on the 21st. I mention this for two reasons:

1) She does her singing in Scots Gaelic, of which I approve, given that most Gaelic music I hear is of the Irish variety, and from what I have heard of her samples on iTunes, she's got a nice voice. I think I'll be buying one of her albums. And,

2) I suspect it is entirely because of her that I dreamed this morning of Great Big Sea performing in the backyard of my childhood home in Louisville; as I've posted about before, a lot of my dreams are set there. But this time around I distinctly recall that The Doyle was trying to sing "I'm a Rover" in Irish, and too high for his normal range. I was calling him on it about when I woke up.

It is also worthy of note that unlike with some of my Great Big Sea-related dreams, there was not a single zombie to be found. I am not sure whether I am relieved or disappointed by this.

Relatedly, raise_a_jar provides me this set of Flickr pics of Great Big Sea on the recent Ships & Dips cruise that gave rise to the Mohawk of Doom. It is prominently featured in the pics, and is made scarier, if at all possible, by the addition of a black feather boa. Mr. McCann, sir, I stand by my original question: what the hell were you drinking? ;)

Meanwhile, this evening I stopped at Barnes and Noble prior to dinner and a movie. Books purchased included jimhines's The Stepsister Scheme (of which I have heard many, many good things), C.S. Harris' When Gods Die, and devonmonk's Magic to the Bone. 2009's book tally thus far: six.

spazzkat informs me he does not believe I have bought so few books thus far. I am indeed slacking on my book purchasing duties, and promise to get on the stick later this month once mdhenry's Road Trip of the Living Dead and antonstrout's Deader Still come out.

Last but not least, tonight's movie viewing goodness was Coraline, in 3D, and if you haven't seen this yet, you should. In 3D, if possible, since that does enhance the experience. Also, Teri Hatcher does a very, very good job of bringing the Creepy. All the voice acting in this movie was good, but Hatcher was excellent for me in particular. I don't think I'll be able to watch Lois and Clark quite the same way ever again!

On the one hand, my kitty's apparently having escalating problems. She's started pulling the stunt she did not long after we got her, when she had stones in her bladder and had to have surgery--she's been urinating all over the house, and it's got blood in it, and this really concerns me. It may be a recurrence of the previous problem, or--and this is equally likely as far as I know--the thyroid meds I've got her on may be messing with her kidneys. I really need to talk to the vet, and called twice today to try to get her to call me, but so far she hasn't called back. If she doesn't call me tonight I'm going to have to call back tomorrow morning and leave a more urgent message.

And I came home tonight to find a new spot on the carpet, which had apparently been there long enough to stain, along with quite a bit of Polly's stern communique on one of the leather sandals nearby. Does anybody know how to clean a leather sandal? Should I bother? Or should I just air it out?

Also, the power supply on my laptop is acting like the connector has a short in it. It's starting to do that thing where I have to wiggle the cord around to make it stop flashing the battery icon up onto my systray. Meh. This means I'm going to have to see about buying a new power supply, 'cause, well, I need a computer and stuff.

On the other hand, boxer_ferret has posted a whole new slew of Russell Crowe pics over on russellcrowefan, and several of these pics have The Doyle in them. And if there's anything that can bring a smile to my face, it's pictures of Mr. Crowe and Mr. Doyle making music together.

Saturday miles: 0.1
Sunday miles: 2.4
Monday miles: 3.9
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1416.95
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 107.95
Miles to Isengard: 376.05

This morning I got up to discover that I had totally forgotten to take yesterday's dosage of Synthroid--a BRILLIANT thing to do on a day when I'd intended to go into the Polyclinic and have them check my levels. Fortunately, the Polyclinic tells me that this does not in fact screw things up for my lab work and I won't have to come back in for them to draw another portion of blood. I am not entirely sure why missing my dose like that won't throw off my levels enough to worry about, but I will ask my endoc about that next week.

I also posted an incorrect number for yesterday's mileage, though that isn't nearly as big an oops. The 1.8 was "Times building to Polyclinic to bus stop", and didn't account for the 1.5 on the way into work. Doh!

But at least tonight there will be PIRATES (YARR!) and tasty food consumed at Red Robin, and this weekend will hopefully be full of writing the rest of Chapter 4 of Queen of Souls and perhaps some editing of Chapter 10 of Lament. And there will be another round of Hunt the Cat over at the Burning Hand, just so's we can try to verify that Ash is in fact still in the house. And hopefully some nice weather as well for frolicking in the sunshine!

Meanwhile, as we continue with July as the Month of Babies, I report with pleasure that Alan The Doyle and his Fairest One of All are now the proud parents of little Henry Doyle, and meanwhile, Russell Crowe and his wife Danielle are the proud parents of their second youngun, Tennyson Spencer Crowe. Much, much closer to home, chipmunck's firstborn is on the way as well, so warmest wishes go out to her and her spouse for the trouble-free arrival of their little one!

More Thursday miles: 2.1
Friday morning miles: 1.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1191.6
Miles out of Rivendell: 733.6
Miles out of Lothlórien: 271.6
Miles to Rauros Falls: 117.4

LAST CALL FOR VOTES on the Jam #60 poll! If you're local or semi-local to the Murkworks and you want in on Jam #60 and you haven't already expressed a vote, jump over to the poll and check in. So far April 30th is in the lead, so if you have a differing opinion, come let me know!

And in the meantime, a pretty decent weekend all around. The one downer was that spazzkat discovered he'd left his DVD sleeve on the plane, so he's lost several of his favorite DVDs as well as a rental copy of Mirrormask from Netflix, which is a bummer. :( We didn't find this out until Friday evening when we were going to watch Mirrormask--doh! We wound up watching another episode out of my Lois and Clark DVDs instead.

Saturday went to some writing--and the finishing of three, count 'em, three chapters in three different books--and then some planning for more writing, and Sunday to going out with Paul and solarbird on a nice little jaunt down to the Lake Forest Park shops and then back along the Burke-Gilman trail. Worked on cleaning up the upstairs bathroom after that, while chatting in IM with the redoubtable mizkit (who said a lot of lovely encouraging things to me about my writing as well as chatting about what's going on with HERS, and getting me all eager to get hold of two more of her books, which are about to come out Soon Soon Soon). Then more planning--since I needed to figure out what was going to happen in the next chapters after the ones I finished--and then a leap back into Lament of the Dove.

We almost went to see Slither, but mamishka turned out to have plans yesterday afternoon. Aww. No Nathan Fillion goodness for me yet. Though I'm still waffling about whether I actually want to see him battling slugs from outer space. I may just have to start working my way through my Firefly DVDs instead. ;)

And last but not least, by way of raise_a_jar and since this is getting publically posted about on the OKP, I have just heard as of this morning that the lovely and talented Alan Doyle is going to be a FATHER. I cannot think of a better man to perpetuate his genes. :D Between this, The McCann and his wife having a baby bodhran player on the way, the lovely and talented Mr. Crowe and his spouse having a second impending kid, and all of my local pregnant friends as well, 2006 really IS shaping up to be Year of the Baby!

Friday evening miles: 2.15
Sunday miles: 2.75
Miles out of Hobbiton: 848.7
Miles out of Rivendell: 390.7
Miles to Lothlórien: 73.3

Today I have learned some icon making tricks!

The icon on this post is based off a photo from the official picture gallery at greatbigsea.com; it's the first picture in the small thumbnails displayed on that page. And I used two color filters on it, from a set made by colorfilter.

Plus, I used several tricks from this tutorial on outlining text by __sparklypixels, and this one on blending layers by gureisu_dono.

The text is in 10-pt Mistral and reads "I believe in something beautiful". Which the GBS fans on my Friends list should recognize as a bit of lyrics from the song "Something Beautiful".

I was just remarking gushily over on russell_daily that I really need an icon to celebrate the convergence of my GBS fandom and my Russell fandom, and cruisedirector promptly produced the following icon, based on the original pic taken by avalonmissy:



Now I need the perfect caption for it, and I must put out the call for help to you fine folks on my Friends list. Extra bonus points go to any caption that invokes TOFOG, solo Russell, or GBS lyrics.

Let's hear your suggestions, folks!

EDIT--3:58pm "She's Goin' Up Tonight" is the winning caption! It does triple duty as a GBS lyric reference (AND a reference to the video as well), a perfect little summation of the boundless exuberance I feel every time I ponder Russell and Alan making music, and as damara wisely pointed out, possible Russell/Alan commentary on my reaction to their making music. ;) Big thanks go out to avalonmissy for letting me use the pic, cruisedirector for making the icon, and damara for proposing the caption!

No matter how much of a Monday it might feel.

+0: But first off, greetings to acestatic, who I see has wandered by my journal. Hiya!

-1: It turned out that I had a couple of negative repercussions from the bike ride--late last night after I'd gone to bed, my arms started really hurting. I figure this must have been because I was hanging onto the handlebars of the bike too tightly, or something. This in turn is a holdover from my 2003 bike accident, I think, being generally paranoid about making damn sure both hands are on the handlebars at all times and that I am in fact braking with both hands rather than one.

Anyway, I wound up having to take a couple of ibuprofen and to break out the Tiger Balm just to get to sleep. That helped. My arms seem to be okay this morning, so I guess it was just temporary strain of the muscles of my forearms or something. I am nevertheless still feeling the exertion all over, and am quite logey. It's going to be a long day!

-2: In other news, Dara and I had been considering going up to Vancouver yesterday to take care of a couple of errands we want to do in B.C. and maybe to say hi to Vancouver friends. It didn't work out for assorted reasons. And it turns out that this is a good thing, since a) it'll give me more time to get in my passport renewal paperwork (I have a certified copy of my birth certificate now, but I'll feel comfier crossing the border with a passport), and b) there was a fatal accident on I-5 yesterday afternoon. :(

+/-3: What else... I've heard from my brother and from my sister wildshadowstar that our grandmother is in the hospital again. Apparently this time it's for removal of part of her colon. I'm told she's doing fairly well, though I fret some nevertheless. Grandma's been having to get a lot of medical attention lately; I just hope that this all winds up being good and helps fix a lot of stuff that old age and inattention to her own health has wrought, rather than being too little too late.

+4: I am deeply, deeply amused that Russell Crowe and Alan Doyle not only have made an album together, they've seemed to have become best buds. Alan's been showing up at things Russell's been doing and showing up in pics from these events, like the premiere of Cinderella Man in L.A.--and Russell showing up at the Indy 500. spazzkat has informed me that they are TOTALLY a couple, which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. Perhaps they will be picking out the china patterns soon. ;)