Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Some Links
Peter David showers in a hurricane.
Todd Klein and his cats were fine.
You know, a steampunk version of this vampire killing kit would be even more cool than the real thing in some ways.
I've linked to this before, but it's so good I'm linking to it again: Spider Robinson's story on why copyright must expire.
I really don't know why this amuses me so much.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Stepford Plants Report
I really haven't got a lot to say about the garden right now. It's overgrown, ripening, and I have harvested plenty of zucchini to make lots of bread. And tomatoes. I haven't gotten a usable pepper yet, but I might. And there are pumpkins spreading out across the yard, although some seem to be dying for no reason, and I'm not sure what type of pumpkin they are...
So, enjoy the pics, after the break.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
A Sunday Review
It's Sunday again? How'd that happen? I just got through with Monday...
With my new job, my Sunday reviews may get a little sparse for a bit. I'm not going to complain, and I hope you don't either. Once I'm fully back into the swing of things, I'm sure I'll get to reviewing more, because I'll get back to reading and watching TV again. In the meantime I guess I'll dip into my backlog of reviews.
This week's comic book related review is Dragonbreath: Lair of the Bat Monster by Ursula Vernon, fourth book in the Dragonbreath series. Danny and Wendell find a bat drowning in a swimming pool and go on a Batastic adventure to help it. I love these books. They are funny, sweet, and have characters that are consistently amusing when they aren't downright funny. Now we can add "educational" to the list again with this installment, as the information about Bats in this book is almost comprehensive for a kids' book. Of course, then there's the bat monster... but still, worth it both for the fun and for the education. I know of two more books in this series already, and I've already put in for them at the library. My reviews of Dragonbreath #1, Dragonbreath #2, Dragonbreath #3.
My Kindle book this week was The Alto Wore Tweed (The Liturgical Mysteries) by Mark Schweizer. Hayden Konig lives in a small town in North Carolina playing the organ at the local church and acting as the town's police detective, and has to solve his first murder as the Christmas season is starting. I got this book free; someone surprised me with it as a gift. I had put it on my wishlist after reading a positive review of it and hadn't really thought of it since then. But once I had it on my Kindle of course I read it. And it was a good, fun read. The main character, Hayden, is one of those unlikeable men who has enough of a sense of humor to redeem himself. His view of the world isn't the most comfortable and his ethics are a little questionable, but the humor that infects everything he does from his dreadful would-be detective novel to the silly events in the town makes the book worth it. The central mystery itself wasn't too difficult to solve as the clues were all around, but the way it was solved in the book was both hilarious and heartbreaking. Schweizer is no Agatha Christie, but he doesn't need to be with the characters and town he's created to work with. A fun story, worth checking out... especially if you love music and don't mind gentle jabs at church politics.
Wanna see what I'm doing at my job? I want to reiterate that the opinions expressed on this blog and all my websites are my own and don't reflect those of my employer.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Links!
The Top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy Books according to voters on NPR.
A nationwide class-action lawsuit has been filed that claims Apple Inc. and five of the nation's top publishers illegally fix prices of e-books.
Super Mice
The Problems with Tidal Power. Be sure to read the last line of the article (it made me giggle).
I want these signs on freeways.
Pug for the linkdump.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Work
My policy on this blog has been to not talk about work, as I've been burned before. So I'll just say that I started my new job today, and had an excellent day. I hope to be there a long time.
There are jobs, there are good jobs, and there are great jobs. I think this one will very soon qualify as a great job. Let's hope I'm up to the task.
Review - Hellboy Volume 11
Release date: October 12, 2011, pre-order now! I got an advance copy via NetGalley.
This is a collection of previously published material. It includes "Hellboy in Mexico," "Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil," "Hellboy: The Bride of Hell," "Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead," "Hellboy: The Whittier Legacy," and "Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish". All were written by Mike Mignola, with a variety of artists on the visual chores. Each story is prefaced with an introduction by Mignola that tells where he got the idea for the story and when it was originally published.
If you aren't familiar with Hellboy, don't worry. It isn't really hard to figure out. Each story is capable of standing on its own or contributing to a collection like this. All you really need to know is that, despite his appearance, Hellboy is a good guy. And, again, it's made obvious early on.
The stories are nicely varied in this collection, giving a decent overview of the Hellboy universe. The Mexico story was both funny and tragic. The Double Feature had a terribly freaky framing sequence with a couple of nice little stories. The Bride story was the usual misdirection and a character that was actually fairly sympathetic, although evil. The Sleeping story added a LOT to the Hellboy world, and if you know much about that world, you'll understand what I mean. The Whittier story was probably the weakest of the lot, with a bunch of frenzied activity in a handful of pages that wasn't as easy to follow as the other tales. Buster Oakley was just plain hilarious. My favorite story was probably the first, as the mix of sadness and fun just worked for me.
I was introduced to Hellboy many years ago by my hairdresser, and I started to love the character almost immediately. Readers unfamiliar with him may find him hard to like, but I promise you won't have trouble understanding the stories. If you already enjoy Hellboy, this is a must get. If you haven't met him yet, it's not a terrible place to start. Definitely recommended.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
A Sunday Review
My book this week was McGooster & McGyman Begin Their Adventures by Pat Rochkind (Author) and Patricia A. Wozniak (Illustrator). Having my nephew visit for a week was interesting, and I tried to give him reading material and such, but I was surprised when he returned the favor by loaning me this book to read. He knew I like cats, and this is definitely a book for cat lovers. The title characters are two kitten brothers who are moving into their first home and have to learn what it's like to be house cats. They have a series of experiences and misadventures, make new friends, and even throw a wild party. While it's a chapter book in many ways, the large format makes it kid-friendly, and there are enough illustrations to break up the text and amuse the eye. The copy loaned to me was well-worn and has clearly been read repeatedly. This would be a fantastic read-aloud book, especially if the family has cats. I'd love to see the next adventure of these two great characters.
This week's comic book related review is Hikaru No Go v23. Ok, yeah, I cried. It's the last volume of an excellent series, what do you expect? I got the chills, too, at the final words of the main story. What a series! I tried to pick up Go while I was reading it, but it is a difficult game for someone on her own to figure out. Someday, maybe. But in the meantime, what a fantastic series. All about growing up and so different from so many other comics. This series is HIGHLY recommended by me to anyone who wants to read a good comic, one in which characters learn and change, and one that does eventually end.
Haunted Collector - Another show I decided to try, with a lot of trepidation. This one amused me a LOT, as the guy who is the focus of the show thinks that hauntings are generally caused by items and so his goal is to find the item in the house that is haunted and remove it, putting it in his own haunted museum. If the activity doesn't stop, the item is returned. So here's the episodes:
- "Haunted Bayou/Library Ghost" - I was absolutely delighted when the crew started the investigation during the day, including getting a nifty EVP. You don't always have to wander around in the dark. The first case is a rental house that can't keep renters because of the hauntings, and they find a gun buried in the crawl space and remove it. The second case is a library that is so haunted that the kids who use the building are scared. I love when they go into the basement and the guy tells his daughter, who is creeped out, "You've dated things creepier than this basement!" They eventually remove a typewriter, which seems to calm the problem. (Addendum: The gun was returned to the people in the first case, according to several online sources, but I don't know if any of the problems in the house were resolved).
- "My Mother's Ghost/Paranormal Predator" - The first case is a mother who thinks her child is being haunted, possibly by her own recently deceased mother. They eventually remove the deceased's prized music box. No result for this case is reported in the show. The next one also has a child being scared, but there are a TON of items in the place, so they eventually remove an antique cane gun and three shark jaws. The reports of the hauntings decreased.
- "Burning Spirits/Ghosts of the West" - First case was a New Mexico alehouse with different kinds of spirits (yeah, they make that joke). They locate an old detonator for explosives and remove it. The second case is a hotel in the "Wild West" that scares people so much they are losing customers. The stories are fantastic, as ghost stories often are. They can't find anything to remove, as the most likely culprits might be bullets lodged in the ceiling.
- "The Sanitarium/Firehouse Phantom" - The first case is a rental house that once was a sanitarium. They find a broken poison bottle in a crawl space, which they remove. As is normal, we don't get a follow-up on the results for the first case. The second case is a museum that used to be a firehouse and is having stuff move on its own, including an old firetruck that took off down a street without a driver. They find a mourning brooch which they remove from the building and apparently calms the activity.
- "Uncivil Spirit/Revolutionary Ghost" - The first case is the story of a house that seems to date back to the Civil War, where a bullet was found that apparently caused a haunting. They remove some Civil War items found in the back yard. The second story involved a young man living on the site of a Revolutionary massacre who was being tormented. Eventually they determined that he was the trigger item for the hauntings and suggested he move. He did, and the hauntings stopped.
- "Slaughterhouse Ghosts/Supernatural Sword" - First case is a haunting of horses. A woman lives in an old barn that has been converted to a house, but had tons of stuff left over from the barn days. Horses were being scratched in the night. After learning the place was a slaughterhouse, they remove a skinning knife. The second case is a man who has driven away his family after being scratched and injured, to the point of blacking out. He's got some strange items in the house, including a hearse. They eventually find a Salem Cross painted on a floor under a carpet, and take some swords he has collected. No follow-up to say what happened in this case.
Strangedays starts off with magic in politics and robbery (same thing?) and moves to some neat photos of lucky escapes. The usual selection of the weird and wild includes a poor couple whose honeymoon took them to Munich just in time for a blizzard, Bali just in time for a monsoon, Perth just in time for wildfires, Queensland for a cyclone, Brisbane for flooding, Christchurch for th earthquake, Japan for another earthquake, and finally found peace in China. Whew. There's also a handy list of failed doomsday predictions.
The Science section is about cold fusion, and the research that continues to be done on the subject. Alien Zoo talks about Russian Kiwis and re-created Yeti artifacts. Ghostwatch is about ape and pre-human ghosts. Archaeology has a bit on Hawass and his difficulties after the government troubles in Egypt. Classical Corner is about 18th century slang. Mythconceptions tells the tale of Camembert cheese. Konspiracy Korner is so far out there I'm not sure what it was about (birthers? Muslims? Tuning forks?). The UFO Files has a reasonable UFO sighting by a young man who came up with a reasonable explanation for it. Police News has a story about an unsolved murder from 1896.
One of the main articles is about Hermetics and their influence on Western civilization, starting with the story of Galileo and why a solar-centric view might have been extremely dangerous to the Catholic Church because of Hermetic texts, which contradict Catholic traditions. It's a compelling article, almost enough to make me seek out the texts to see what the fuss is about. Another article is about the Cosmati pavement in Westminster Abbey, which is an interesting story but didn't really give me more than a strange impression of art.
The Forum has a remarkably stupid article about the Old Man of the Mountain of New Hampshire. Another Forum article is about Kate Bush. A third talks about Jack Kirby, and the influences on him while helping to create the X-Men. The reviews are solid, as usual. Nothing that has to be on my wish list, but a few good items. I love the letters. Another good issue, with a cliffhanger ending in the cartoon, even.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Review - Green River Killer: A True Detective Story
Release date: September 28, 2011, pre-order now! I got an advance copy via NetGalley.
My interest in this is fairly obvious. I grew up in the area where the Green River Killer stalked, and I heard about the killer during times of my life when it hit pretty hard. When they announced his capture, I posted an entry in my blog about it that summed up my feelings. It was unreal. It would always be unreal. For me, the Green River Killer was a bogeyman that haunted the background of my world. And his capture never seemed to satisfy the need I had for closure. So I went into this book hoping it would wash away some of that childhood terror for me.
This book mostly follows Tom Jensen, the father of the writer and a member of the Green River Killer Task Force. Tom's life is sketched out in jumps through time, and then we get to the capture of the Killer and his plea bargain deal. My biggest issue with the book was the scattered nature of the timeline. The whole thing was flashback after flashback. It could have worked, but for some reason it managed to confused me more than once. The worst problem is how the prologue starts with the Killer, then the first chapter jumps to Tom. For a page or two I thought we were reading about the Killer's early life. That made Tom a disturbing character from the outset, something I really don't think the writer was going for. That was pretty much my only complaint though. The jumps through time made this a hard book to follow in places but the information and feeling in it... well, that was important.
Particularly the emotion. We get to see Tom as a man who has worked hard to bring this killer to justice, and we get to see him finally face off against the murderer and ask him the questions that we all wanted to ask. We see him break down, like any sane person would, when finally confronted with what the killer truly was. And we see his exhaustion and sense of relief when his part in the whole thing was finally over.
Did this book exorcise the nightmares? Perhaps. I see the killer more as a very sick man than a supernatural being of terror. I see how regular people reacted to him, and struggled to find and stop him.
For the record, I have no problem with the killer spending his life behind bars instead of dying. Dying is easy, and a much kinder fate than he deserves. Let him live to be 100 with no hope of release.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Review - Moon Shot
I got an advance copy via NetGalley.
I've always loved the stories of how America made it to the moon, and I wanted to love this book. But it is fatally flawed. The whole first half reads more like a jock bragging about his exploits than an inside history of one of the greatest technological achievements of mankind. Perhaps the flaw is actually in the men who lived that history, but this book makes them into unlikable hotshots. The second half covers the events, but jumps through major events to get to some of the less significant ones.
From a sheer historical perspective, the book does deliver on some of its promise. The timeline of events is clear enough, the little anecdotes sometimes add but often detract from the narrative. The made-up conversations are enough to make you want to throw the thing across the room. It's a loose and wild book. If you like reading about astronaut antics in a strange half-PR style, this book is for you. If you just want information and facts, go somewhere else.
The book tends to focus on the two astronauts that are listed as co-authors. While that's not a bad thing because they were both heavily involved in the space program until the end of Apollo, it also seems to dismiss some of the other accomplishments or at least gloss over them. Don't get me wrong, they are mentioned, talked about, given space. But, for example, leading up to Apollo 13 the focus of the book is on Deke and Alan's medical issues and Alan being on the next mission, rather than the men of Apollo 13. I can understand why, but that makes this less a book about the trip to the moon than a book about Alan and Deke's involvement in the lunar program.
I really wanted to love this book. It isn't a bad read, but it's not good enough for me to call it great.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Tuesday Linkage
There will be no more Amy Unbounded. That's the bad news. The good news is that Rachel will tie up the cliffhanger best she can, and that she has other stories set in Goredd for us to enjoy.
Rioters damage comic shop. Forbidden Planet looted. The news from London is terrifying.
"Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching." (via)
Now this is a crappy landlord situation. Wow.
Most awesome Preschool Teacher ever.
I've been using Swagbucks to earn some Amazon.com gift cards. As of today, I've gotten $190 in gift cards without spending a cent (though my spam e-mail is getting hammered), and have enough for another $15. I've pretty much got my new Kindle when it comes time to buy it!
Safety Man! (he will haunt your dreams)
Play with cats online.
Pug for the Linkdump
Monday, August 08, 2011
Review - Baltimore Volume 1: The Plague Ships
I got an advance copy via NetGalley.
If you aren't familiar with Mike Mignola's work, the blocky art can be a real turn off. I was turned off when I first encountered Mignola's artwork on an Aquaman cover many years ago. But since then I've read a bit more of his work, and come to appreciate his style and what it conveys. This book has that style, a deep feeling of horror and beauty at once. It works extremely well for this book.
Lord Baltimore is on the hunt, following a major vampire who is responsible for the plague that ended the Great War. This book details his visit to a town where he is helped by a woman who wants to escape the boredom and sense of waiting for death. Despite his warnings, she follows him, and learns exactly who and what he is.
The story is set in a Europe just after WWI has been ended by disease. Worse than a normal disease, some of the dead rise to kill the living. That's the horror part. Or at least a portion of the horror. There's much much more to it. Baltimore is an anti-hero with very good reasons for doing what he is doing. His unwitting follower sees more than any sane human would want to see. And there is lots of action in the form of fighting monsters and lots of atmosphere and build up to the fighting of the monsters.
If you like horror at all, this is worth a look. You should also seek out the Free Comic Book Day short story that also features Lord Baltimore, as it will tell you even more about what's happening in this world. I'm not a huge horror fan, but I think I'll be keeping an eye out for this series as it continues. It's just really well done.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
A Sunday Review
TV this week:
- Torchwood: Miracle Day: "Escape to L.A." - Ah, it's painful to watch characters making really stupid mistakes. But then, that's how real life works some times, too. Really stupid mistakes followed by other people paying for those mistakes. I like how they are keeping Rhys and Anwen in the show, but at the same time I'm not liking it at all. It seems like there wasn't a lot of forward progress in this one, so we'll have to see what happens next, if it gets a bit better.
- Torchwood: Miracle Day: "The Categories of Life" - Ok, so they are categorizing people into different slots depending on how "alive" they are. And there is a deep and terrifying secret to the overflow centers they are sending "dead" people to. This was a painful and scary episode. Disturbing in almost every way.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: "Pawn of Shadows" - Best line of the series so far, Shaggy says, "Yeah, like, we've been teenagers forever" when giving advice to writer HP Hatecraft on current teens. That's just before the most scarring event of the series so far happens. Angel gets really involved in this one, and the end is a bit of a surprise. One more episode? I'm kind of excited to see it!
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: "All Fear the Freak" - Final episode. The group investigates Fred's dad, as the friction of the group comes to a head. Secrets are revealed, stories are told, and the series ends with the possibility open for a second (or more) season. Wow. Best Scooby-Doo I've ever watched. I'd gladly watch a second season.
This week's comic book related review is Aquaman: Death of a Prince. This collection features some of the most classic of Aquaman's tales, including Aquaman being deposed from his throne, Aqualad learning about his parentage, and the death of Arthur Jr. This is a very nice complete package, and I can say that those stories have probably never looked better. It's one of the best collections I've seen in a long time, and well worth it for Aquaman fans and just general comic book fans as well.
Agatha Christie this week was Nemesis from 1971. Miss Marple is called upon by a dead man to solve a mystery without any clues whatever, and agrees. Of course, the clues start arriving once she's signed on, and eventually she figures it out. I didn't. Anyway, this isn't her best, but it's not a bad Marple story. I feel like her writing is in a bit of a downward slide, but I hope that's just my misperception. There's a scant handful of novels left for me to read, and a bunch of short stories. I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy them because even the worst Christie mystery tends to be a bit better than average.
Finding Bigfoot - I was a little doubtful about this show, having heard allegations that parts of the hunt were misrepresented by the production crew to increase drama. I don't "believe" in Bigfoot, but I do accept the possibility of it existing. There's not enough evidence to prove anything, though, which is the problem. And that's the conceit of the show. The group is trying to prove that bigfoot exists by finding real scientific evidence. The catch-22 is that if the group proves the existence of bigfoot, the show is over... and we'll hear about it on the regular news before the show can air. So the fun of this show is the stories that people tell, because the show itself can never prove anything. Anyway, on to the episodes:
- "Swamp Ape" - This episode starts with a family who is having night visitations and think they are being stalked by a bigfoot at their home in North Florida. The team spends the night, and has inconclusive experiences. The group then visits the Seminole nation and discuss the beast with some members. Then they follow-up on three witnesses in South Florida and do another search, this time with cool remote control drones.
- "Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia" - Neat story about a cop with a passenger who spot a bigfoot crossing a road and catch the thing on the cop car's dashcam. The video is, of course, too grainy to use as proof, but it's still cool. Of course, they make someone run across the road in the middle of the night to try to duplicate it. Not dangerous at all, ha. They talk to some more witnesses, including one that isn't credible because he's easily led, then wander around the forests in the middle of the night.
- "Caught on Tape" - A thermal video taken in North Carolina Uhwarrie National Forest seems convincing until the team duplicates the video almost perfectly... which they justify with a bunch of excuses. Then there's a chase up a hill that apparently was a human and the crew knew it, but they presented it as a mystery. At a townhall meeting they heard some good stories and follow-up on a few. I'm liking Ranae, as she's the only one properly skeptic.
- "Fishing for Bigfoot in Oregon" - Another video, this one in central Oregon, that isn't exactly convincing at all. But the team goes and risks their lives in the middle of winter to duplicate the video, then hunt the bigfoot in the middle of the night. Again, Ranae is cool... Cliff and Bobo are ok, but Matt is actively annoying. Anyway, another area, another meeting with the locals to hear stories. The best part of the show by far, even if some folks are clearly not credible.
- "Frozen Bigfoot" - Ah, my home state. The team goes to Southwest Washington, the Silver Star peak in the Cascades, in Gifford Pinchot National Forest. They go to investigate some interesting pictures taken by a hiker a few years ago, and are able to duplicate the images pretty well, although not perfectly. They go to Yacolt for another town meeting, get some more cool stories. I like them deploying the goosecam and the disguised canoe, hilarious. This is a funny show.
- "Alaska's Bigfoot Island" - This one is a little different, as a community calls the bigfoot hunters in because a town is feeling threatened by unknown animals. They start with a witness to footprints and running around in the forest at night. Then another town meeting! Lots of good stories, particularly with the natives whose families have been in the area for centuries.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Oh, what the heck... Another Linkdump
Get a Trim!
Cthulhu Ski Mask.
A moment of silence for William Sleator, one of the first authors I ever met. He was gracious and explained himself to eager students, and made his visit to my school one of the few highlights of middle school.
If you really like your Bujold, there's now a fan-compiled Reader's Companion to A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Experimenting with Linux.
How about 15 Wonderful Words with No English Equivalent.
What I want from a restaurant website vs what most restaurant websites give.
Even when I'm annoyed at them, I tend to respect truckers. That truck driver you flipped off? Let me tell you his story.
Wow. Just Wow.
Spider-Moose.
And the ever-present pug picture: Pug Life, or When Pugs Go Bad.
The Shed Cat Problem
I like having cats around. I like seeing them, I enjoy their presence, and I know they take care of a lot of annoying pests that I'd really rather not have to deal with. They are also stinky, messy, and damage my garden... so I'm not a complete cat fan. I just generally fall on the "like" side more than the "dislike".
This spring, while preparing my garden area, the cats became the temporary enemy because they left cat seeds in my garden plot. They also annoyed me recently by using my grafted plum tree as a scratching post. But I have finally started to see their feline faces and take pictures of them in action.
Once you've taken pictures of a creature repeatedly, and dubbed it with a name (even one as boring as "Shed Cat One"), you take a sort of ownership of it. Not a real ownership, just an investment in the life of the creature. And I'm afraid that's started to happen to me.
I've started to put out water for them. I draw the line at food. I will not feed them at all; they aren't mine and I couldn't afford it if I wanted to. But water in the temperatures we tend to get around here? Another reason to put out water is to keep them from using the soaker hoses as their water source, thus hopefully keeping them out of the garden plot. So water, yes. Food, no.
I'd gotten used to the two main shed cats that I've seen around. The Black and White (Shed Cat One) and the Golden (Shed Cat Two). I was beginning to get a little concerned about the cats, because I noticed they are extremely skittish. While SC1 is getting used to me, I can't get within five feet of it without it dashing off. I've surprised SC2 twice by getting close while it was asleep, and it really doesn't like me because of it. I am not sure these cats have owners, which would mean I'm dealing with feral cats. And I have massive issues with feral cats... namely the fact that they tend to make more feral cats...
This morning, my worst fears were proven as probably true. I went out to turn on the watering, and spotted SC1... or at least I thought I did. Then I spotted SC1 again, running in exactly the same spot. I turned in shock, and a moment later, with SC1 still sitting near the shed, the second SC1 came out the other side of the shed. The second SC1 had more black than white, and slightly stubby legs and a shorter tail. I went in to tell hubby-Eric, then watched out the back window... and saw this.
Three Shed Kittens. We have Shed Kittens. And they are darling. They are so cute I want to just eat 'em up. It was all I could do to not go out and try to capture one to snorgle. Shed Cat One was watching over them carefully, monitoring them as they played. And they dove in and out of the space beneath the shed so often it was clear that was almost like home to them.
I want them to live a comfortable life. I don't know if they actually belong to anyone. The fact that this is the first time I've been certain I've seen two of the kittens makes me wonder if they have another home. I don't particularly object to them living in my yard part of the time, but I would really like to know if they are being properly cared for, and if they are properly neutered to keep them from making more kitties (I somehow doubt it).
They are so cute. My heart just about stops when I see them frolicking. I want to go out and join them. And yet they are clearly very skittish and not fond of humans.
I'm not sure what to do. I suppose the first step is to find out if they have owners, which would mean going around to all the houses in the neighborhood and asking if they own these cats. For an Aspie like me, you might as well ask me to jump off a cliff. I called the Humane Society, although I'm not fond of them, to ask for advice. They said they would check them out for $8 each. And if I needed to capture them, they would rent me a trap for $8 a day, with a $50 deposit. Yeah. Right. I haven't got that kind of money now, and while I'd like to make sure the cats are neutered I just cannot afford it.
So, I've got two problems with the shed cats. One: I don't know if they belong to anyone in the neighborhood, and I'm too terrified to go around and ask. Two: If they do turn out to be feral, I can't afford the costs of trapping them and getting them neutered.
Any thoughts? Suggestions?
Friday, August 05, 2011
Review - All Different Kinds of Free
I got an advance copy via NetGalley.
Margaret Morgan is a free black woman living with her husband and children in Pennsylvania. But her life is shattered when the family that owned her parents decides to kidnap her and her children into slavery. This book backs away from the Supreme Court ruling of Prigg v. Pennsylvania and looks instead at the woman in the center of the case, and what being sold into slavery meant for her.
I wanted to like this book. I had fears from the start that I wasn't going to like what happened in it, but I wanted to enjoy the book itself. Jessica McCann is a good storyteller, and the action moves at a good pace, but there are a few issues with the writing itself that made it hard for me to get through. The story jumped from viewpoint to viewpoint a little jaggedly in the beginning, and the writing level is slightly simplistic for such a powerful message. The grammar is a bit choppy, as well, but that might be deliberate. For a first novel, this isn't bad. For such an important and ignored story, it's just ok.
My biggest issue with the book was that I thought I knew what the ending would be, based on the historical record, and so was bracing myself for it... but it never really came. And while the tragedy throughout the book certainly lived up to the pain, it never really felt like it bleed through to the reader. Horror after horror, but it just didn't leave an impact. And while I cheered at the end, it felt a little too tacked on to be real. If I sound ambivalent about this book, that's because I am.
In the end, just remember that this book is a fictional guess at one way Margaret's life might have gone. To be honest, I'd really like a follow-up from a serious researcher of a historian who can find out what really happened to Margaret Morgan. The author made an attempt, but I would like someone else to give it a try. Sadly, that information may not exist.
Stepford Plants Report
A couple of things have happened since I last wrote about the garden. I got a few more pictures of the shed cats and I also took a picture of freshly harvested zucchini that became my lunch. I also finally cut the fence around the plum stick in half and put half around the grafted plum in back. But today, today I harvested some zucchini:
The gigantic one in the middle was under the stalk, about as hidden as it could be. Only its enormous girth gave it away enough for me to find it and, with hubby-Eric's vital help, cut it loose and pull it out. Yikes! In any case, I still have one and a half loaves of zucchini bread from my first bread effort to eat, so these will be grated, drained, and frozen.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Linkdump
Ten Things You Should Know Before Moving to Seattle.
Have you seen The McBain Movie?
A typeface designed to help dyslexics read.
The Renton Police bring down the Streisand Effect upon themselves. I grew up in Renton. I wouldn't have known a thing about this... except the police decided to bring attention to it.
Ten Things Not to Say to a Depressed Person. And since that's a downer, read this next: Ten Supportive Things I'm Glad Somebody Said to Me, from the same author. Via.
The Oldest Unsolved Seattle Police Homicide.
I'm sure you can spot a Monty Python reference from a mile away.
Aim for the Stars.
It's not a Bloggity linkdump without a pug.
Review - The Last Dragon
Release date: October 11, 2011, pre-order now! I got my advance copy via NetGalley.
It's hard to say whether I've read more "dragons are the enemy" or "dragons are our friends" books over my lifetime. Coming into this one, I wasn't sure which it would be, but it became clear enough quickly enough.
I was completely entranced by this book. Draw into the story by the artwork, I felt myself carried along by the story right until the end. The characters are fantastic, described in a few words and with just a few lines of dialogue then filled out with the art into recognizable people. Within a few pages I was feeling comfortable and at home in the village. The art successfully treads that thin line between being too fanciful to work in a graphic story and too explicit to work as fantasy. I was delighted throughout, and only wished that I had the hardcover in front of me instead of a pre-publication PDF so I could fully enjoy the double-page spreads.
There are moments when the action jolts from one scene to the next, or a character seems to know more than she ought. But those are few, and the fantastic artwork pretty much covers for any slight flaws in the writing, just as the strong writing covers for any slight flaws in the art. This is an exquisite work, and one that I would be honored to have on my bookshelf.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
The New Justice League Dust-Up
Here's the new Justice League in a promo image released in June:
And here's another promo picture of them (click for bigger):
This was originally the cover to Justice League #1. But DC changed it. These are the covers they just announced. The one on the left may look similar, but look a little closer.
Wonder Woman has lost her pants! She's now wearing briefs... classic underwear, instead of the elegant leggings she was wearing in the original images.
So a reader of ComicsAlliance decided to rectify the problem, using that first promo image I showed:
Honestly, I don't mind Aquaman's look like that at all, though the boot tops need a little work. In fact, I'd love to see the whole Justice League run around like that for a few issues just to show how incredibly impractical it is. I mean, this whole thing with women not wearing any armor and always showing so much skin makes NO sense in a superhero world. At least Mera (in most of her incarnations) is smart enough to cover up.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Linkdump
More information about stolen Brent Anderson artwork.
JSA returning? Good news for hubby-Eric, if true.
Of course, I entered the Space Needle contest. I actually would prefer to win dinner at the Space Needle, but a trip into space would be cool, too.
Holy Carp in a Koi Pond! Poetry on-the-fly is a beautiful thing.
Tangible versus Intangible.
I'd try it. Depending on what the frozen Han Solos were made of... (click image for full-size)
NPR wants you to vote for the top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy titles. Not a bad list to choose from, although some of my favs were missing.
Historic Crayola Rainbow.
Don't you hate it when your whole day is Shatnered?
It appears that 92% of Gingrich's Twitter Followers are fake. I wonder how many of mine are fake?
Wait, these aren't pugs... they aren't even dogs... er...
Right, well for the in-laws: Things that Confuse a Pug.
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