Posted Entries:

Back to Wicked Posted on Dec 16, 2024, 1:12 am
In which I go to see Wicked for a THIRD time.

'Wolfstar' - and other media Posted on Dec 15, 2024, 5:12 am
A dip into fanfic.

Did. Not. Finish. Posted on Dec 14, 2024, 3:12 am
Regarding the dreaded DNF list.

Book junkie Posted on Dec 12, 2024, 3:12 am
I may have a little Tolkien problem.

Mel Reads Posted on Dec 11, 2024, 1:12 am
There's no way I'm going to write another post tonight, so I will direct you to the post I already posted today about what I read in 2020. (It feels like cheating, but it's what I got!)

Annual holiday-themed reading Posted on Dec 10, 2024, 7:12 am
"Penelope In Retrograde" is a Thanksgiving book, who knew?

Skeleton Crew (spoilers!) Posted on Dec 9, 2024, 5:12 am
A very seat-of-the-pants recap of this new Star Wars series.

Wicked-the-book and UT football Posted on Dec 7, 2024, 8:12 pm
So close.

Quilts quilts quilts Posted on Dec 7, 2024, 4:12 am
In which I find my old quilt journal and also visit my old Livejournal (briefly).

Did I say "flaky"? Posted on Dec 6, 2024, 2:12 am
I forgot to post, so I wrote an entry at work - about work.

More Wickedness Posted on Dec 3, 2024, 8:12 pm
Possible spoilers here, because I'm talking about Wicked the book vs the movie.

Are we Wicked? Posted on Dec 2, 2024, 9:12 pm
An afternoon matinee.

Hi y'all Posted on Dec 2, 2024, 2:12 am
I signed up early for Holidailies because I happened to think of it, and then I almost forgot - well, actually, I did forget, since it's already after midnight - that December 1st is when I'm supposed to post something!

Favorite movies of 2022 Posted on Dec 31, 2022, 11:12 pm
My favorite movie of the year? Typically for me, I can't decide.

Books that define the 70s Posted on Dec 31, 2022, 12:12 am
This list is kind of a time-machine, so I guess they did a good job.

Weather and heat issues Posted on Dec 30, 2022, 3:12 am
Now that it's warm outside, of course they fixed the heat.

Books 2022 Posted on Dec 28, 2022, 5:12 am
What I've been reading, and what my end-of-the-year numbers are looking like (even though I like to pretend I don't pay attention to that kind of thing)

Movies by box office Posted on Dec 26, 2022, 8:12 pm
or, why don't Oscar-bait movies make any money?

Christmas Eve gift Posted on Dec 26, 2022, 1:12 am
A very late-night post that I never hit enter on, regarding Christmas reading, among other things.

The Gift of Possible Trump Prosecutions Posted on Dec 25, 2022, 6:12 am
Does this make me a bad person?

Dispatches from the grocery store, and more Posted on Dec 23, 2022, 9:12 pm
We just kind of looked the other way and pretended to be very interested in the ice cream.

aarrrrrgggghhh Posted on Dec 22, 2022, 6:12 am
In which I rant incoherently about our broken heater.

More about Marple Posted on Dec 20, 2022, 10:12 pm
I seem to be a bit obsessed with Miss Marple now.

That thing going on in Qatar Posted on Dec 19, 2022, 5:12 am
My brief history with soccer.

Miss Marple Posted on Dec 18, 2022, 2:12 am
I grew up in a small town but not anything like these tiny villages Christie describes.

Movies & meds Posted on Dec 17, 2022, 9:12 am
Is Eliquis supposed to make your face break out?

The Wilds of Arizona Posted on Dec 11, 2022, 3:12 am
Fantastic Beasts, Violent Night, and why I haven't written more.

Campaigns & Christie Posted on Dec 7, 2022, 2:12 am
On Miss Marple reading order, and football players in politics.

Music Advent 2022 Posted on Dec 5, 2022, 9:12 pm
Music of 1998-2001: Chumbawumba, Hedwig, Oasis, and Michelle Branch. (What WAS that lyric, anyway?)

A weekend's worth of TV and movies (no spoilers!) Posted on Dec 5, 2022, 1:12 am
Rob intended to go see Violent Night last night but was foiled by two, two! Christmas parades between here and the movie theater.

Random Prompt Time Posted on Dec 3, 2022, 2:12 am
Not because I can't think of anything else to talk about, but more because I accidentally clicked on it and then went, "Hmm..." So I'm writing about my neighborhood.

2022 So Far (Movie Edition) Posted on Dec 2, 2022, 2:12 am
She Said is practically the same movie as Spotlight, except here the it's the Times instead of the Globe and the evildoer is Harvey Weinstein rather than priests. (And there's a regrettable lack of Michael Keaton.)

Happy Holidailies Posted on Dec 1, 2022, 2:12 am
It's that time again, the time when I actually try to journal online for a month. (Here I'm mostly journaling about the new TV series Willow!)

Star Wars stuff (no spoilers Posted on Dec 22, 2019, 3:12 am
OK, so yeah, Holidailies was a bust for me. I felt overwhelmed and something needed to be dropped and journaling turned out to be the thing that got dropped. (I haven't posted on my nail blog either, so it's not just here.)

Alita and Deadpool and a lot of horror movies I didn't see Posted on Dec 5, 2019, 3:12 am
The movies I saw and the movies I didn't

Ad Astra sucks, and other movie talk Posted on Dec 3, 2019, 6:12 pm
I'm grabbing at the low-hanging fruit as far as stuff to talk about. So movies it is.

A Gathering of Two Posted on Dec 2, 2019, 8:12 am
If you don't know about Knives Out already and you like mystery-type stuff, you need to go see it. It's very good. Plus, it has Chris Evans and Toni Colette and various other actors we like, and Daniel Craig doing a variation on that crazy accent he did in Logan Lucky and showing off his hammy side again.

Suburbia Posted on Dec 1, 2019, 6:12 pm
A little bit about where I live.

Movies of 2018 Posted on Jan 1, 2019, 7:01 am
I always liked genre movies more than anything, even when that was highly looked down upon. For a long time I used to say that my favorite movie was The Terminator, and Aliens was right behind it. Hell, I'm not real sure that's not still true.

Happy 2019! Posted on Jan 1, 2019, 2:01 am
...my brain bounces between subjects all the time - I imagine it going ping! ping! ping! sort of like a pinball - and so I'm always contemplating all sorts of useless things.

*sneeze* *cough* Posted on Dec 29, 2018, 7:12 am
Rob was going, "We can make it," and we got down the road to where our favorite Chinese restaurant is and I said "Are you sure you don't just want to eat?" and we got even further down the road before I talked him out of the movie and into Chinese.

nothing much to see here Posted on Dec 28, 2018, 2:12 am
I uploaded my old "nothing significant to say" icon from Livejournal, and then decided to write an entry to match.

Aquaman Posted on Dec 27, 2018, 12:12 am
We went to see Aquaman tonight, and I didn't love it. I didn't hate it, but I was kind of bored, off & on.

This Christmas Posted on Dec 26, 2018, 9:12 am
The obligatory What I Did for Christmas essay.

Most Anticipated Movies of 2019 Posted on Dec 22, 2018, 11:12 pm
My thoughts on an article from Variety: Am I interested in "Men in Black International"? hell yeah, but not because it’s MiB. Because it’s Tessa and Chris.

Terrific Thursday Posted on Dec 21, 2018, 5:12 am
Have you ever walked through a door just in time to see another car hit your car? That's what happened to me earlier tonight.

Various entertainments Posted on Dec 18, 2018, 2:12 am
"Various" here means the new Shadowhunters book, the Spider-verse movie, and both book & series of The Expanse

Shadowhunters Posted on Dec 16, 2018, 7:12 am
I'm kind of impatient generally with the whole Emma-and-Julian doomed lovers business. Maybe it's partly because Cassie Clare has kind of worn that trope out, really. We were in the car the other day and for some reason I started trying to explain the whole thing to Rob about how Jace has had about three or four different last names and he was Clary's brother - no, he's not! - and all of that stuff. (I never believed that he would turn out to be Clary's brother for a minute.)

the mall and other holiday horrors Posted on Dec 11, 2018, 5:12 am
...we went in Paper Source, we looked at the stuff in the window of the Lego store, as one does - and then we went across the freeway to Fuddruckers and had hamburgers for dinner.

Movies, part 3 Posted on Dec 9, 2018, 8:12 am
I'm not a good enough script doctor to diagnose exactly what went wrong here, but I do think it's possible they could still get the train back on track with this. And anyway, it didn't make that much money in the US but it was doing well overseas, so I don't think they're going to stop now.

Movies, part 2 Posted on Dec 5, 2018, 6:12 am
What we saw in the late summer and early fall - includes BlackKKlansman, Crazy Rich Asians, & Venom.

Music Advent Days 1-4 Posted on Dec 4, 2018, 9:12 pm
The Music Advent theme this year is covers - I'm having fun poking around finding ones I haven't heard before. Today I've got (as I said on Twitter) a band I never heard of doing a song I've known since forever.

Movies! (part 1) Posted on Dec 4, 2018, 8:12 am
I won't go see any movies any more unless I think I'll like them, so - guess what - I liked most of these.

The Front Runner Posted on Dec 2, 2018, 4:12 am
(Yay, links appear to be working now!) There was an article once, about a political campaign event. This was in 1984. I think the article was in The Austin Chronicle, but I'm not sure about that, it was too long ago.

Nail Junkie Posted on Dec 1, 2018, 3:12 am
A guy at work asked me once - in the hearing of his girlfriend, presumably because he expected a different answer - if I saved a lot of money doing my own nails, and I said, "Not the way I do it."

Nail porn & other entertainment Posted on Jan 1, 2018, 12:01 am
It's so hard for me to pick favorites.

Ugh, Christmas Posted on Dec 24, 2017, 2:12 am
I'm not feeling the magic of Christmas so much right now.

The Armadillo Bazaar Posted on Dec 22, 2017, 9:12 pm
Austin has grown up in the meantime and is a big city now (I started college FORTY YEARS AGO, omg, when I think Austin had around 300,000 people) but bits of the old Austin are still there.

Old Home Week, part 1 Posted on Dec 22, 2017, 5:12 pm
I'm back, did y'all miss me? I'll tell you where I've been, but first I have to complain about how tired I am.

Time-travel to 1983 with me Posted on Dec 18, 2017, 1:12 am
More Music Advent picks - some of these really are a little like time-travel, for me. Bryan Adams in an empty swimming pool! Bad 80s dancing!

SPOILERS AHOY Posted on Dec 17, 2017, 2:12 am
I saw The Last Jedi, and I liked it, and beyond that I don't have anything spoiler-free to say about it. So beware.

What makes a Holidailies entry? Posted on Dec 14, 2017, 4:12 am
Five random things? A video and a short paragraph? I'm still not quite sure.

Talk About the Passion Posted on Dec 14, 2017, 2:12 am
About R.E.M and snobbishness (and another music video)

More music of 1983 Posted on Dec 13, 2017, 3:12 am
Between Echo & the Bunnymen and A Flock of Seagulls, that was some amazing hair.

Lazy Monday Posted on Dec 12, 2017, 3:12 am
I seem to keep finding entirely too many ways to waste time.

Holiday stuff Posted on Dec 9, 2017, 8:12 pm
About a local parade that I missed, and an upcoming trip.

1 inch of Snowpocalypse Posted on Dec 9, 2017, 4:12 am
Apparently "locals" (not me, even though I am one) say that any year with a substantial hurricane will also have snow. It did snow the year of Ike, for what that's worth.

Snow? Posted on Dec 8, 2017, 3:12 am
Excuse me, I have to go lean out the front door and watch the snow fall.

In which I listen to music from 1983 (part 1) Posted on Dec 6, 2017, 4:12 am
This year in Music Advent, you pick a year. Guess what I picked.

In which I'm doing my nails Posted on Dec 5, 2017, 3:12 am
Boy, do I have a lot of nail polish.

In which i tackle a difficult subject Posted on Dec 3, 2017, 8:12 am
I'm going to try to talk about baseball, but it's difficult because I have SO MANY FEELS. Luckily for you guys, I remembered that I actually wrote something down a few weeks ago, and it's much more coherent than I manage to be most of the time. So that's what's here, pretty much verbatim.

In which my memory fails me again Posted on Dec 2, 2017, 5:12 am
That book I was talking about yesterday, and then a lot of rambling about my tv-watching habits.

It's Holidailies time! Posted on Dec 1, 2017, 6:12 am
Am I the first poster? That's never happened before! (The usual updatey stuff, and movies. I didn't even get around to talking about baseball.)

Music Advent, days 21-25 Posted on Jan 1, 2017, 8:01 pm
...further down the list we actually included Georgia Satellite's "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" - which was a new song that spring - because of its jokey take on sex before marriage. I'm not sure many people got that joke, but Rob and I thought it was really funny.

Never gonna dance again Posted on Dec 28, 2016, 11:12 pm
It always makes me happy when people still have the lights up the week after Christmas. There's something depressing about it when all of the decorations disappear on the 26th. (I do think it's fair game to take stuff down closer to New Year's because I know a lot of people have to go back to work right after the 1st. I don't insist they stay up until Epiphany or anything.)

Holidays Posted on Dec 27, 2016, 1:12 am
The 26th really should be called Returns and Gift Cards Day - although I admit it's not terribly catchy - because that's what an awful lot of people do on the day after Christmas, right? You return what doesn't fit, etc, you maybe buy some Christmas junk that's marked down (I used to do that a lot but I don't as much as I used to), and you spend the gift cards that people gave you, often on newly marked-down merchandise.

Christmas Eve Gift Posted on Dec 25, 2016, 12:12 am
We went to see Rogue One again (still love it) and ate lasagne and watched the first episode of Stranger Things. That was our Christmas Eve. Honestly, it beats most Christmas Eves cold, at least the ones of recent years.

Music Advent days 16-20 Posted on Dec 21, 2016, 1:12 am
A lot of bad music gets nominated for Oscars, but this is not one of the bad ones. (Although the movie it came from is another story.)

Yeah, I'm still obsessing about That Movie. Posted on Dec 19, 2016, 6:12 am
In which I watch way too much YouTube. I'll get over it in a few days, I imagine.

Rogue One, and its place in the Star Wars universe Posted on Dec 18, 2016, 7:12 am
(I'm starting here pretty spoiler free, if I get spoilery I'll put it under a jump.) I'm sorry, I can't talk about anything else, because we saw Rogue One a few hours ago and it was pretty mindblowing. I'm not saying it's the best movie I've ever seen or anything, but damn, it's pretty good. I saw somebody trying to rank the Star Wars in order of quality, and while it's really way too too early to judge...

It's Rogue One day! Posted on Dec 17, 2016, 6:12 am
It's Christmas, as far as I'm concerned. We're even having Chinese food afterwards.

Music advent part 4 (days 13-16) Posted on Dec 16, 2016, 7:12 am
I've kind of gotten myself into a time-crunch - I work in the evenings, we don't get home several days until after midnight, and while I do stay up until dawn a lot of the time (as in it's literally getting light outside by the time I go to sleep), I'm still dividing those night-time hours between a number of tasks. Writing holidailies entries tends to be the most time-intensive one.

Quilt backs Posted on Dec 15, 2016, 4:12 am
...the idea is just that you just keep going until you get something big enough. Make a row that you know is wide enough, and then make another row, til it's big enough with several inches each way to spare. (Cutting it too close is a bad idea, here - if something comes out short you're really screwed.)

We have Rogue One tickets, woo! Posted on Dec 13, 2016, 10:12 pm
They did de-embargo the reviews today, apparently, because it went from "no reviews" last night on Rotten Tomatoes to 83% today, so yay. If it'd been 30% like Suicide Squad I would probably have gone anyway, but I'm glad it's not.

Music Advent part 3 Posted on Dec 13, 2016, 5:12 pm
...the main reason I know Don Kirshner's name at all was (like a lot of people Of A Certain Age, I think) from Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, which was on all through the 70s. (Also because Paul Shaffer used to mock him roundly on early SNL.)

Coffee and other randomness Posted on Dec 11, 2016, 2:12 am
I only drink my coffee with large quantities of milk and artificial sweeteners, and I don't care how bad Equal is for me, so don't try to tell me.

Oh look, it's a quilt! Posted on Dec 10, 2016, 6:12 am
That old fallback, the entry inspired by a quilt I made ages ago.

More Music Advent "connections" Posted on Dec 9, 2016, 2:12 am
...the first thing I found was "Stormy Weather" (which I think may be from a 40s movie of the same name) which seemed thematically appropriate. Heck, the way the wind is blowing in the background for most of that song, it looks like there's gonna be another twister any time.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Posted on Dec 8, 2016, 4:12 am
Online quizzes seem like an artifact of the old Livejournal days, to me. This one is about "secondary" Harry Potter characters - apparently everybody other than Harry, Ron, Herminone, Voldemort and Dumbledore are secondary, in somebody-or-other's opinion (even Snape!).

That Holiday Posted on Dec 7, 2016, 1:12 am
In which I get pretty maudlin. You have been warned.

Icons, Marvel, & Netflix Posted on Dec 6, 2016, 1:12 am
Have I ever mentioned that my mom thought when we first started dating that Rob was some kind of serial killer or something? Because he liked horror movies and stuff about Charles Manson. My mom had some weird ideas sometimes.

Connections Posted on Dec 5, 2016, 3:12 am
I started out with a connection I didn't use, but I figure if I get organized enough to be clever, I can work back around to it at the end and make it a circle.

Nail Candy Posted on Dec 4, 2016, 2:12 am
I don't spend enough time futzing around with my pictures to get anything like professional-quality pictures, but at least I'm up to "decent amateur" status now.

Twice the fantastic beasts and three times the paper chains Posted on Dec 2, 2016, 4:12 am
was going to write something about "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them" - which we saw twice, once the weekend before Thanksgiving and again on Thanksgiving Day - but I can't figure out what to say past "I liked it a lot and so did Rob."

REALLY LONG ALL-CAPS SURVEY Posted on Dec 1, 2016, 2:12 am
Because Holidailies is starting and this seemed like a good introduction.