Saw Quintessence Theater's production of Macbeth today. It slaps, and the witches absolutely stole the show billypenn.com/2024/03/27/m...

I finished The Dawnhounds in time to return it to the library today! I also picked up The Mars House. However, I have another library book to finish--

Next up: Dune

Finished Siren Queen! I started reading it right before the roof leak and got...sidetracked. The library wants its books back so that kicked my butt into gear.

Next up: can I speed run reading The Dawnhounds? Only time will tell.

(Also, the bookstore tells me The Mars House is available!)

Yep 🙃

I've known that the roof is old and will need to be replaced, but I had a guy look at it last spring and he said it didn't need to be replaced yet. He said it might need to be replaced after the winter, depending on how bad the weather was. Looks like he was right!

I seem to have successfully weathered the transition to daylight savings time by uhh developing a roof leak right over my bed and spending several frantic hours on Sunday rearranging my room so that the leak is not over my bed, thereby tiring myself out so much that I went to bed at a normal time.

I figured out you can make star wars sounding character names by switching the first sounds of two-word food items:

Weef Bellington
Vili Cherde
Secan Pandies
Dot Hog
Tench Froast
Pabenero Hepper
Oalmata Kalive

Screenshot from Game Changer. The host is holding a very furry off-white dog that looks like a pile of fur with a sweet expression. The TV screen next to him says "let a dog lick your mouth."

...I would have trouble saying no to that face.

I love how some Game Changer challenges are clearly like....Sam just wants an excuse to give nice things to the contestant 😄

Just finished Assassin of Reality! I don't feel like I got much more from it than I did from Vita Nostra.

Next up is Siren Queen at the recommendation of @tunesandtales.bsky.social!

Fuckkkk

Arsène Lupin down. He's an arrogant and sinister asshole with an ability to disguise himself that borders on shape-shifting. He escapes from prison by changing his appearance so much everyone thinks he's a different person, so they release him.

Anyway, the sequel to Vita Nostra is still up next.

I listened to the Howl's Moving Castle audiobook. I haven't read it since I was a kid. It was a lot of fun! I don't think I noticed how much of a disaster Howl is when I was younger.

Also, now I have Google and can find the lyrics to Calcifier's "saucepan song!"

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosban_...

I finished The Shamshine Blind! Next up is Arsene Lupin because my brother badgered me into reading it. After that I have the sequel to Vita Nostra. After that...I need to put more holds in at the library.

Spoiler: It looks pretty fucking accurate

This is one of the primary goals of "AI" these days: to create an empty chair that takes the blame for corporate misconduct.

We didn't discriminate, the AI told us who to hire. We didn't wrongfully reject the health insurance claim, the AI told us to. And on and on.

I swerved and read The Calculating Stars next instead, since I'm also watching For All Mankind. This unfortunately led to me finishing TCS last night and then immediately finishing season 2 of FAM, resulting in a VERY stressful Friday evening. Now it's Shamshine Blind time.

I started reading The Calculating Stars today....while staying at a cabin in the Poconos 😄

A framed linocut of a chameleon. The chameleon shades from green at its head to a kind of purple-pink in back.

This weekend I'm finally going to give my mom the linocut I bought for her at the West Philly Craft fair last October. It's by Laura K. Murdoch, and I really hope to see her again at a future craft fair!

Finished Vita Nostra and requested the sequel from the library! Next up: The Shamshine Blind...whenever I get around to picking it up from the library.

Trader Joe’s United said it’s *not* calling for a customer boycott at this time in response to the company arguing the NLRB is unconstitutional. But they *are* asking people to sign a customer strike pledge if they call for a boycott in the future.
Sign here:
actionnetwork.org/forms/stand-...

Finished The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store! I finally buckled down and finished it this weekend. Next up is a library book: Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko

Two episodes in and I'm having a great time. I love how almost every time we hear from Nixon it's via tape recording 😂

Watched the first episode of For All Mankind a couple days ago and wondered whether Tom Lehrer's Wernher von Braun song would be stuck in my head all season.

Watched episode two tonight and they used the song in the show 😄

# To Shape A Dragon’s Breath  Illustration of a young Indigenous girl holding a baby dragon and looking up to the head of an adult dragon. The girl has brown skin and braids, and is wearing a grey school uniform with sealskin cloak over it. The baby dragon is yellowish and has a deer-like face. The adult is gold with red feathers and a deer-like face, with large branching antlers. The background is dark red with some chunky plant patterns in a border.

Anequs, Kasaqua, & Kasaqua's mother from To Shape A Dragon's Breath, one of my favourite books from last year!

#art

I finished Shooting Columbo! Next up is The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. My aunt sent me a copy because she wants me and my mom to read it, so I might as well knock it out now while I don't have any library books to read.

Chapter 19: Absolute Power By the spring of 1991, Falk was overseeing literally every facet of the show. Dwindling firm offers meant fewer distractions. According to Todd London, who was entering his fourth and final season on Columbo, "With each year that I worked on the show, there were fewer producers, and Peter Falk took on a larger role. He began to oversee the scripts, casting, editing, inserts. He would come to the mixes, direct ADR (automated dialogue replacement) with the other actors. I think it made it easier to get what he wanted. The last episode I worked on we were a learner producing machine. Just the four of us."

Things are going well in Columboland.

This Columbo book has plenty of interesting details about the show, but also about 70s Hollywood in general. At one point Peter Falk called a guy who'd been hired to write a spec script for Columbo and the guy didn't believe it was Peter Falk--he thought it was a famous impressionist 😂

If it doesn't make it that's fine, I have a large Bulbasaur plushie that she fell in love with when we were shopping at target. But it would be nice if I could give her both at once!

Ooh Baggu says the gudetama lunchbox I preordered months ago has shipped. It might actually arrive in time for my roommate's birthday!

For season 2, NBC was insistent on one change: the show needed a second continuing character, ideally a younger cop or a family member Columbo could confide in. Levinson and Link relented. Sort of. For Étude in Black, they instructed Bochco to give Columbo a dog. Ideally, the idea was for him to have a puppy. Colasanto disagreed. "No, he should have a dog that looks like him." So they found an oversized, aging, lethargic basset hound. Though he was a dog lover, Falk did not want a sidekick; Columbo had enough quirks, he certainly didn't need a pet. But Colasanto asked him to at least give the pooch a look. Falk walked into the doctor's room set for his first day of shooting, took one look at the inert blob of wrinkles, and melted. The mutt was perfect.

Getting some good stuff from the book about making Columbo