But Thankfully They Won’t Be Late

This whole week could be coming down to the wire.  Monday’s strip was finished and posted no sooner than 11:58 Sunday night.  Luckily Tuesday’s was only a few minutes after that, but Wednesday is still in a very nascent, loose sketchy stage, while Thursday and Friday exist only as a concept in my head, a ball of yarn being batted around until a discernible pattern emerges from the loosened thread.  Or something like that.

The day, and days, and week really, of vacation that could have, should have, been spent drawing were instead taken up by an almost endless marathon of Dominion games, with a little Firefly and Sorry thrown in for good measure.  I didn’t win nearly as much as I would have liked, but Sorry has always hated me, Firefly was cooperative, and I’ve lost my Dominion magic.  I used to win frequently, maybe not 3 out of 4, but certainly 35 out of 102.  The guests will all be out of the house soon though, and I’ll be able to get back to 1v1 games of Clue against a nine year old.  My average there is a solid 50/50.

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Vacation Week

As in, this week was almost a vacation week.  The daughter is home from school, a visit to family is staring at me, a visit from family is staring at me (from behind the family I’m going to, so really, the visit from family is staring at the back of the heads of the visit to family.  It’s only a little confusing to think about, and twice as much fun to live through.) so I briefly considered taking the week off, maybe even building a buffer up and saving time and headaches down the road, but as lazy as I am, I’m not that lazy. Plus things get nuts soon and I’m excited to share.

Although the extra time drawing the invading Hunnish Horde will be missed.

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Ascension…bleh.

I had high hopes for this show.  Syfy for me has been a dead channel since the new Battlestar Galactica went off the air.  Even before that really.  Once they started showing wrestling I knew the end of our relationship was near.  Ascension was my big hope for a comeback, a nice, grand, space opera, it’s what I was looking forward too.  Then fifteen minutes in, they telegraph the gimmick, and the next five hours and forty-five minutes weren’t much too look forward too.

It wasn’t a terrible story, the actors were about what you would expect, but it just wasn’t what I wanted.  It was a compressed soy protein burger when what you want is, well, anything in the least bit substantial.

On the other hand…100 strips today! For those of you in the future, looking back into the murky depths of the past, it’s Dec. 19, 2014.  Milestone, celebrated.

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Something Something Seaside

I’m fairly certain there’s a song that goes like that.  Something something, seaside, seashore, sipping something or other by the sea….thing.  My lack of musical upbringing is coming into focus.  Just a week ago my wife realized that not only have I never seen ‘The Sound of Music,’ I’ve never even seen clips, or trailers, or the tiniest little pieces of it. My only exposure to that movie was through my daughter’s Pandora station.  Unfortunately, that is no longer the case, as I have been exposed to eye-befouling atrocity that is, ‘The Sound of Music.’  This isn’t really what this is about, but I don’t like musicals.  I’ve seen musicals, and have liked some of them, but I’ve never looked forward to seeing them, nor wanted to see any of them again.  I would say rather, the musicals I have seen that weren’t totally repugnant, weren’t as bad as I had anticipated, and what I anticipate is always total repugnance.  The great irony here is that someday I’ll sell out to Disney and they’ll make a Merunga movie, which inevitably will be a musical.

What this post is really about is Seaside.

 

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I’m assuming those of us here have at least a passing familiarity with card games, we seem like the type.  And not regular card games, but deck building card games, like Dominion, of which Seaside is an expansion of (one of my favorites.)  If you do not have this game, I would highly recommend getting it, especially as we head into the long, bitter cold months of not being able to go outside. Literally hours and hours of fun.  I would like to thank my Secret Santa for this, which is the first and last time this month I will make even a passing reference to the upcoming holiday.

Which is all I had to say about it.  So looks like this was more about musicals anyway, so I hope you’re not too upset that I don’t like them.  I will probably never watch the Merunga musical, despite whatever magical touch Disney bestows upon it.

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This Week Brought to You By…

…Alfred Hitchcock and Jamaica Inn (both Hitchcock’s and Du Maurier’s.)  After I washed out on reading Outlander, I was literaryily adrift. I reread my Hammet, I reread my Gibson, but not very much of either and not very often.  Then one day while perusing through my DVDs in an attempt to find something entertaining/familiar (so that I could draw without too many distractions caused by watching a new movie,) I found my Hitchcock collections, and started there.  I’ve all but six of Hitchcock’s movies, and that final collection is on my Amazon wishlist, I’m just that little bit too lazy to order it right now.

I enjoy Hitchcock’s British films, dare I say, slightly more, than most of his Hollywood output.  ‘Rear Window’ I can watch a million times and never be bored, ‘The Birds,’ ‘Rope,’ and ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ (newer not older,) are once-a-year flicks.  Anything else after he moved west is worth only a very occasional viewing. ‘Young and Innocent,’ ’39 Steps,’ Sabotage,’ ‘Secret Agent,’ huge fan of all of them, and while not on the same level as ‘Rear Window,’ easily more frequently watchable than ‘The Birds’ and the rest of them.  His other early stuff, ‘Juno and the Paycock,’ ‘Rich and Strange,’ ‘Blackmail,’ et cetera, meh, not so much.

However, for the first time ever, I finally watched his ‘Jamaica Inn,’ and only because I found, and devoured the book. Sometimes, you’re looking for something and you don’t know what it is, but when you find it, it’s amazing. ‘Jamaica’ was everything I had been listlessly searching for, adventure, melodrama, cold winter storms, crazy-evil vicars, Cornwall (which now I want to retire too, because it sounds so bleakly, depressingly fantastic,) EVERYTHING.  First book I’ve read in quite some time when I was sad that is was over. ‘Jamaica Inn’ the movie was good, but not my favorite.  I’ll need to watch it a couple more times before assigning to a rewatchability list.

The book though, great stuff, definitely more Du Maurier on my too read eventually list, I would highly recommend everyone do the same.

 

P.S. My ‘Too-Read-Eventually’ list is also incredibly short so feel free to share any suggestions you might have as well.

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