kate_nepveu

A discussion elsewhere had me instinctively refusing to label myself "middle-aged," and now I'm not sure how to even define that. So, because I am too tired to work this out myself, a poll!

(You know it's bedtime when I can't even come up with ticky options. Gack.)

An unbiased review of the Marvel “Thor” Movie and An Unbiased Review of the Marvel “Avengers” Movie (much longer, but worth it) (comprehensive spoilers in both).

From Ex Urbe, which also includes treasures like the Spot the Saint series, discussions of mask culture in Venice and porphyry, and a visit to Roman Legionary reenactors, plus lots and lots of stuff about Florence.

According to the New York Times, Chad is "witty and clear-thinking" and the talking-to-the-dog thing "allows him to be both succinct and entertaining."

Woo! (Especially on a day when work is freaking me out!)

( spoilers )

Away this weekend so only got to watch this just now. Quickly because sleeping baby and exhausted, but:

( SPOILERS ARE CAPSLOCKING )

I linked to this in a non-public post and the response indicates that it needs wider dissemination:

Treatment for Shock (1095 words) by Dira Sudis
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, Armsman Roic
Summary: CyroBurn epilogue story, major spoilers!

When someone did move, at long last, it was Roic.

She has some other gen Vorkosigan stories if you like that, and also a recent Avengers fix-it.

The Pip was six months old yesterday. ( vital stats and some feeding/weight angst )

( happier stuff )

Okay, you can tell I'm exhausted and strung out because I'm rambling. Teal deer: very active, happy, adorable and adoring child. Yay.

SteelyKid is now 3 3/4. ( much shorter notes )

( pictures and anecdotes from Chad's blog )

G'night, everybody! (She likes Animaniacs, though sometimes runs away and then cautiously peeks back around the edge of the TV for loud moments, and obviously has no idea what's going on a lot of the time.)

( in which I am frustrated by narrative conventions )

As written by my mom, who I wish didn't have to find in herself a talent for such things.</a> comment(s) (how-to) | link

My maternal grandmother, Newvart Goodwin, died today in the peaceful and loving company of her two daughters. She delighted in her family and friends, and will be missed. I'll link to an obit or eulogy when I can.

By lousy coincidence, two members of Chad's family also died in the last few weeks. He remembers his great-aunt Mildred ("Auntie"), who was 97 and who we really did expect to outlive us all, over at his blog. And a few days after that, his Aunt Grace (actually his grandmother's aunt, who was 104, I believe), died of natural causes; he last saw her at Auntie's funeral, where she remarked on his height and said she liked it, since her eyes didn't work that well any more. I only met her once, I think, but she was a remarkable person.

Finally, allow me to serve as a cautionary example. I did not live up to my own expectations as a granddaughter in terms of keeping in touch with Grammy, and that's been a bitter pill to swallow. (I don't want sympathy, excuses, or justifications on this point, please.) If you keep meaning to contact someone in your life, particularly someone elderly or in poor health, now would be an excellent time to do so.

tomorrow, which is good though entirely inadvertent timing on my part, one quick speculation—

( behind a spoiler cut )

We were at Chad's folks over Easter weekend, and they were kind enough to watch the kids, so we squeezed in a viewing of The Hunger Games. Neither of us have read the book, though when it looked like I wasn't going to get to see it, I did read some spoiler posts. (But I held off on the book on purpose, and am going to keep doing so for a bit longer; there are some things that apparently the book does better, but not being limited to Katniss's first-person narration worked very well for the movie, by most accounts.)

I thought it was excellent. Yes, the pacing went a little wonky in the second half; I was able to infer some things that apparently the book makes more explicit, but how well that worked for people who hadn't been reading spoiler posts, I have my doubts. Yes, there are things having to do with the racial makeup of the cast that I have very conflicted feelings about. But I was glued to the screen the whole way through, am suppressing a surprisingly-strong urge to take up archery, and on the whole found it just a really well-done movie.

And now, for some spoilers (book to a certain extent as well as movie).

( may the spoiler-protection be ever in your favor )

Oh, as a data point, and the hand-held camerawork did not give me motion sickness, unlike, say, the last two Bourne movies, which made me very ill.

Quick reactions:

( spoilers )

the first of his Egyptian-mythology books, which share an Earth with his Greek-mythology books, and I'm kind of weirded out by the claim that the Egyptian gods are so dangerous that Egyptian magicians have spent the last two thousands years binding and banishing them, while the Greek gods get to bop around doing basically whatever they like. My knowledge of Egyptian myth is not deep, granted, but I never got the impression that its gods were qualitatively different from any other pantheon that actively involved itself in mortals' lives, you know?

I know several of you have read and liked these, so tell me whether it's worth continuing?

I have such a backlog of things to write about it's ridiculous, but this I can do quick:

The Legend of Korra is awesome and if you even liked Avatar: The Last Airbender, you should be watching it. The thing I like most about the most recent episode is

( SPOILERS )

I just wish SteelyKid were old enough to watch it, because it feels very weird DVR'ing something on Nick and not being able to watch it with her in the room! (She doesn't mind watching things she doesn't understand, but I think the tone is far too dark for her to be comfortable, given that she will walk out of the room for certain moments in Animaniacs.) comment(s) (how-to) | link

A brief bit of riffing on the subject line last night on Twitter, reproduced here because of Twitter's limitations as an archive.

• Giving up on rings as jewelry, going for lapel pins instead. No-one ever enchants those. (link)
• Hard for foundlings like me to make long-term plans since any day we might need to save our birth kingdoms. (link)
• Arbitrary but necessary restrictions on wardrobe, especially shirts. Damn it, I *like* the color red. (link)
• Have my flying car, and 3D traffic jams to go with it. (link)
• Keep being turned into orcs and aliens and shit, along with the rest of my fellow brown people. (link)

There are some great ones at the hashtag, which I will link to some time when I don't have a baby asleep on my shoulder, but feel free to mention ones you liked or come up with new ones.

A long long time ago (well, okay, in 2009), rachelmanija recommended some (ETA) translations retellings and adaptations of the Mahabharata, and I put the two volumes of the version by Ramesh Menon on my Amazon wishlist to await the appropriate moment (as they were thirty-odd bucks each in paperback).

Today I was buying some other things and went down my wishlist, as I sometimes do, seeing if forthcoming things have been released or prices have dropped or whatnot, and discovered that the two volumes were now available as ebooks for ~$3.50. Finding the second volume was not as easy as it should be, so here's direct links to both: volume one and volume two. (Barnes & Noble currently seems to be listing volume 1 twice, though they may just have attached the wrong cover image.)

The chorus of the Decemberists' "Don't Carry It All" includes the line "Let the yoke fall from our shoulders." The band's website renders this as "Let the yolk fall." Yes, here's a song about bearing a "neighbor's burden," and the chorus references eggs rather than a device used for pulling heavy loads. Uh-huh. (Though the image of fried eggs pinned on like epaulettes is somewhat amusing to me.)

Thus, a poll:

Oh, and speaking of music polls, I never identified the songs in last month's lyrics poll.

( So let me do that now, with links to listen: ) comment(s) (how-to) | link

You know, I was going to make a post about how the intersection of the news lately (particularly Trayvon Martin's murder) and the bridge of a Decemberists song nearly had my crying in my car yesterday evening, but the point would just be what the subject line says, and this gives you more time to read the links.

• 'We Have No Choice': One Woman's Ordeal with Texas' New Sonogram Law (Texas Observer). [*]
• Racial Lens Used to Cull Curriculum in Arizona (NYT).
• The White Savior Industrial Complex by Teju Cole (The Atlantic).
• What Everyone Should Know About Trayvon Martin (1995-2012) (Think Progress).
• The Trayvon Martin Killing, Explained (Mother Jones).
• Untitled Elon James White post on racism's influence on perceptions of thuggishness. (Is there a way to link to Google+ posts with the comments collapsed?)

[*] Yes, I saw the doctor guest post over at Scalzi's. I actually found it more depressing than anything because of the comments, and not even the predictable derailing ones, the "for the first time I feel some hope!" remarks. Seriously? One anonymous doctor arguing for civil disobedience after one of these horrible laws has passed—the efficacy of which I have considerable doubts regarding—and suddenly everything's sunshine and roses? What-fucking-ever. (Especially given the entirely unjustified assumption by many commenters that the anonymous doctor in question was male. Yeah, we've never seen that pattern before.)

Moxie Madness 2012: "64 mothering [*] calamities go mano-a-mano in a single elimination tournament like you've never seen before."

Or checklists, I guess, but there's something so classic about bingo cards.

I think my favorites are "Partner can't soothe baby" and "Partner soothes baby better than you can."

[*] Though some apply only to women, and others only to birth mothers, most are gender neutral.