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Jul. 13th, 2016 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI wrote three hundred words yesterday, all in the last half an hour before bed. If I can get myself to start earlier, I might actually get my WIP Big Bang done by the deadline.
All three of us went out last night to get frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf and half price baked goods at Plum Market. I discovered that crushed oreos do not go well with strawberry froyo. Scott got rye bread enough to see him through the rest of the week. I hacked a few Ingress portals along the way.
I’m watching Smallville from the beginning for the first time. I have seen a scattering of episodes, mostly because Scott liked the show, but I hadn’t felt any great urge to watch the show myself. I’m about ten minutes into the first episode, and I really feel like this wasn’t actually necessary storytelling. That is, there’s no real reason to show viewers the day Kal-El arrived on Earth. Backfilling the absolutely essential details would make more sense. I mean, the stuff that relates to him and the Kents is… Is there anyone in the US who doesn’t already know that story? The kid playing Lex was so obviously wearing a wig that I boggled, and I really didn’t need to see Lana’s parents die in order to know that that was a tragedy.
I think I’m giving up on that DVD set from the library. I just don’t want to deal with it. I’ve still got a while to decide, though, because it’s not due until the 31st, and it may be better background for writing my WIP Big Bang than Smallville is given that I’m watching that for a completely different fic idea. I’ve got three other DVDs waiting at the library to be picked up this weekend, though.
I’m trying to make up my mind about another library book. I like the writing, and I’m intrigued by the world and the premise, but it’s hugely violent, and I don’t deal well with that. This might be a book to come back to at a point when it doesn’t have a library waitlist and when I can keep it for two or three months. I think it might be Scott’s type of book, so that’s another reason to get it again later. He’s got several books he’s working on reading right now, and he only has about twenty minutes a day for reading paper books (more than that for audiobooks, but the library doesn’t have this one as an audiobook). The book’s not actually due until the 25th, but I’m pretty sure I won’t get much farther into it.
Cordelia keeps trying to get friends to come over only to have them discover that their families have other plans. She’s mainly bothered by this in terms of us never actually having plans. Scott pointed out that he keeps suggesting things to do and she keeps saying no. He asked her if she wants him to plan something and then make her go, and she said absolutely not.
Scott has the first week of August as vacation. He wants to do something interesting and new in terms of going somewhere. He’s talked about Mackinac Island and Traverse City and Chicago, and he seems to want all three of us to go. I haven’t pointed out the huge limitations that me going along will put on what he and Cordelia can do. I think— I hope— he already realizes that. Him and Cordelia going without me would make more sense, but he’s already taken Mackinac Island off the list because I can’t deal with the ferry. I think he hasn’t quite gotten so far along in his planning as to realize that all of the trips he’s suggesting will require spending at least one night away from home and, more likely, two or even three. (Then again, maybe that’s why he really wants me to go along, too.)
We would either have to do something between Saturday and Wednesday or between Thursday afternoon and Sunday. Cordelia has two doctor appointments that Thursday morning. Scott being home will save us nearly $40 on cabs for those, so that’s working out well.
Scott talked about visiting Canada, too, but that was when he thought that getting passports for all three of us would be a matter of days and cost not much at all. I think that the only bits of government bureaucracy that Scott’s ever dealt with involve the DMV and the IRS. I suggested that we deal with getting passports during the week he’s off work since that’s the only time in the foreseeable future when he and I would both be available to go in together to apply for Cordelia’s passport, but Scott considers the cost prohibitive. And it kind of is. A full passport for any one of us would cost more than a month’s payment on the loan we got for the insulation. For all three of us, it would cost a good bit more than our monthly car payment.
All three of us went out last night to get frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf and half price baked goods at Plum Market. I discovered that crushed oreos do not go well with strawberry froyo. Scott got rye bread enough to see him through the rest of the week. I hacked a few Ingress portals along the way.
I’m watching Smallville from the beginning for the first time. I have seen a scattering of episodes, mostly because Scott liked the show, but I hadn’t felt any great urge to watch the show myself. I’m about ten minutes into the first episode, and I really feel like this wasn’t actually necessary storytelling. That is, there’s no real reason to show viewers the day Kal-El arrived on Earth. Backfilling the absolutely essential details would make more sense. I mean, the stuff that relates to him and the Kents is… Is there anyone in the US who doesn’t already know that story? The kid playing Lex was so obviously wearing a wig that I boggled, and I really didn’t need to see Lana’s parents die in order to know that that was a tragedy.
I think I’m giving up on that DVD set from the library. I just don’t want to deal with it. I’ve still got a while to decide, though, because it’s not due until the 31st, and it may be better background for writing my WIP Big Bang than Smallville is given that I’m watching that for a completely different fic idea. I’ve got three other DVDs waiting at the library to be picked up this weekend, though.
I’m trying to make up my mind about another library book. I like the writing, and I’m intrigued by the world and the premise, but it’s hugely violent, and I don’t deal well with that. This might be a book to come back to at a point when it doesn’t have a library waitlist and when I can keep it for two or three months. I think it might be Scott’s type of book, so that’s another reason to get it again later. He’s got several books he’s working on reading right now, and he only has about twenty minutes a day for reading paper books (more than that for audiobooks, but the library doesn’t have this one as an audiobook). The book’s not actually due until the 25th, but I’m pretty sure I won’t get much farther into it.
Cordelia keeps trying to get friends to come over only to have them discover that their families have other plans. She’s mainly bothered by this in terms of us never actually having plans. Scott pointed out that he keeps suggesting things to do and she keeps saying no. He asked her if she wants him to plan something and then make her go, and she said absolutely not.
Scott has the first week of August as vacation. He wants to do something interesting and new in terms of going somewhere. He’s talked about Mackinac Island and Traverse City and Chicago, and he seems to want all three of us to go. I haven’t pointed out the huge limitations that me going along will put on what he and Cordelia can do. I think— I hope— he already realizes that. Him and Cordelia going without me would make more sense, but he’s already taken Mackinac Island off the list because I can’t deal with the ferry. I think he hasn’t quite gotten so far along in his planning as to realize that all of the trips he’s suggesting will require spending at least one night away from home and, more likely, two or even three. (Then again, maybe that’s why he really wants me to go along, too.)
We would either have to do something between Saturday and Wednesday or between Thursday afternoon and Sunday. Cordelia has two doctor appointments that Thursday morning. Scott being home will save us nearly $40 on cabs for those, so that’s working out well.
Scott talked about visiting Canada, too, but that was when he thought that getting passports for all three of us would be a matter of days and cost not much at all. I think that the only bits of government bureaucracy that Scott’s ever dealt with involve the DMV and the IRS. I suggested that we deal with getting passports during the week he’s off work since that’s the only time in the foreseeable future when he and I would both be available to go in together to apply for Cordelia’s passport, but Scott considers the cost prohibitive. And it kind of is. A full passport for any one of us would cost more than a month’s payment on the loan we got for the insulation. For all three of us, it would cost a good bit more than our monthly car payment.
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Date: 2016-07-13 04:55 pm (UTC)There's a saying in the Levant (it's morbid, just to warn you, but pretty much sums this up):
"He either shoots him, or cracks his skull."
The implied meaning is that, either way, the poor bastard's dead. It's pretty much the Levant version of "damned if you do, damned if you don't."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-14 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-14 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-13 11:19 pm (UTC)I regret letting my 1990s passport lapse because we were pinching pennies when it was due for renewal. The cost seems to have gone up 50-70% in the last decade.
I think my last visits to Canada were after the 2001 attacks, but before the border was locked down. There was a social visit with some Toronto friends (and a visiting Vancouverite who I knew from IRC), and I think I made one last shopping trip to Windsor just before Dr. Disc closed. The most hassle I got was from US customs for bringing back what looked like retail quantities of CDs.
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I'm sorry that the Mackinac ferries would preclude you from going there. My offhand thought is that Chicago would offer lots of places where you could stash yourself for an afternoon while Scott and C. go off and do something more walking/touristing. But I'm more of a city guy and I love that town.
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Date: 2016-07-14 07:49 pm (UTC)Cordelia says she's not interested in Chicago because she's been there before. I pointed out that the last time she went was about seven years ago, but she's thirteen and certain she's seen everything there is to see and that nothing will have changed.
The last time I was in Canada was the early 1990s when we drove through Canada to get to a friend's wedding in Ithaca, NY. We made the round trip in something like thirty six hours which was out and out stupid (but the sort of thing you do in your 20s, I suppose), but neither of us had vacation time to spare at that point. Scott slept for a few hourse once we got to Ithaca, but I was in the wedding, so I wasn't able to sleep until we were on the road back to Ann Arbor.