time, passed
Apr. 12th, 2014 09:16 amPSA: 1) Change all your passwords everywhere, and 2) 1Password is on sale for at least the next few days. I haven't been using it myself but I think now may be a good time to start.
Let's see. Last week it rained. Real rain, not just Vancouvering. Good excuse to get a new umbrella from the Umbrella Shop (of course Rain City has an Umbrella Shop), on account of how my old black one snapped off at the top while I was on the way to meet someone for tea and cheesecake.
Most of the umbrellas they sell at the Umbrella Shop are either 1) solid colours, 2) busily patterened (plaid, small polka-dots) or 3) covered in Impressionist paintings. None of these felt right at all. I think what I was after was "solid colour with a sharp accent / picture of some kind." (Somewhere along the way I seem to have developed a modernist / Art Deco design sensibility.) I ended up with a grey umbrella with a picture of a rose on it. This is not at all what I would have thought I wanted but it'll do.
Meeting someone: I have been sociable and met someone! We've hung out a couple of times, and she seems neat. We have more or less opposite social strategies/habits: she doesn't like to pry / ask questions and assumes people will talk to her about things they think are cool, and I am crap at talking about myself unless specifically asked and much prefer to draw people out by asking them about themselves and their stuff. Learning to navigate this gap is probably a useful skill for me to acquire.
A couple of years ago I read the first of eBear's Nongol books (the Eternal Sky trilogy, a fantasy in a world inspired by fourteenth-century Asia Minor, in which one main character is a prince of the steppe tribes that conquered much of the known world a couple of generations back; hence, "non-Mongols," or, well). It was quite good, but irritating in that Bear's gone with the bound-book-fragment mode of epic fantasy publishing. I bought the second one when it came out, because supporting writers is the Right Thing To Do, but didn't read it. The third and last is finally here, so I'm going through those. Highly recommended.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
uilos has grabbed Sarah Monette's new standalone The Goblin Emperor and I figure we'll trade once I'm done with the Nongols.
(The Goblin Emperor is giving me headaches. Among the ways in which publishing is currently dumb is that if your first few books don't sell well, publishers won't buy your next book, unless you publish it under a different name. However, it's okay for that name to be widely known as a pseudonym for you. Which is why TGE has "Katherine Addison" on the spine rather than "Sarah Monette," and will be shelved either far away from her other books, or in what looks like the Wrong Place. You'd think that if I were willing to shelve a numbered set of Narnia books in an order other than the numbering indicated I'd put TGE with the 'Sarah Monette' books, but apparently some things are just Wrong and filing a book under not-the-author's-printed-name is one of them.)
Hunting the wily apartment is still a thing of frustration. Perhaps week after next will be better. And o yes:uilos passed her Canadian medtech exam, and can now begin actively looking for grown-up work. Cue sigh of relief.
Tonight we fly out to Niagara for a week of boardgaming. The timing on this is either fantastic or terrible, depending on your perspective: I've managed to get pretty much everything wrapped up for work and there are no more deadlines for awhile, but taking time off now makes taking so much time off in May a little more awkward. Meh. Will sort that out when it gets here.
Let's see. Last week it rained. Real rain, not just Vancouvering. Good excuse to get a new umbrella from the Umbrella Shop (of course Rain City has an Umbrella Shop), on account of how my old black one snapped off at the top while I was on the way to meet someone for tea and cheesecake.
Most of the umbrellas they sell at the Umbrella Shop are either 1) solid colours, 2) busily patterened (plaid, small polka-dots) or 3) covered in Impressionist paintings. None of these felt right at all. I think what I was after was "solid colour with a sharp accent / picture of some kind." (Somewhere along the way I seem to have developed a modernist / Art Deco design sensibility.) I ended up with a grey umbrella with a picture of a rose on it. This is not at all what I would have thought I wanted but it'll do.
Meeting someone: I have been sociable and met someone! We've hung out a couple of times, and she seems neat. We have more or less opposite social strategies/habits: she doesn't like to pry / ask questions and assumes people will talk to her about things they think are cool, and I am crap at talking about myself unless specifically asked and much prefer to draw people out by asking them about themselves and their stuff. Learning to navigate this gap is probably a useful skill for me to acquire.
A couple of years ago I read the first of eBear's Nongol books (the Eternal Sky trilogy, a fantasy in a world inspired by fourteenth-century Asia Minor, in which one main character is a prince of the steppe tribes that conquered much of the known world a couple of generations back; hence, "non-Mongols," or, well). It was quite good, but irritating in that Bear's gone with the bound-book-fragment mode of epic fantasy publishing. I bought the second one when it came out, because supporting writers is the Right Thing To Do, but didn't read it. The third and last is finally here, so I'm going through those. Highly recommended.
uilos has grabbed Sarah Monette's new standalone The Goblin Emperor and I figure we'll trade once I'm done with the Nongols.(The Goblin Emperor is giving me headaches. Among the ways in which publishing is currently dumb is that if your first few books don't sell well, publishers won't buy your next book, unless you publish it under a different name. However, it's okay for that name to be widely known as a pseudonym for you. Which is why TGE has "Katherine Addison" on the spine rather than "Sarah Monette," and will be shelved either far away from her other books, or in what looks like the Wrong Place. You'd think that if I were willing to shelve a numbered set of Narnia books in an order other than the numbering indicated I'd put TGE with the 'Sarah Monette' books, but apparently some things are just Wrong and filing a book under not-the-author's-printed-name is one of them.)
Hunting the wily apartment is still a thing of frustration. Perhaps week after next will be better. And o yes:
uilos passed her Canadian medtech exam, and can now begin actively looking for grown-up work. Cue sigh of relief.Tonight we fly out to Niagara for a week of boardgaming. The timing on this is either fantastic or terrible, depending on your perspective: I've managed to get pretty much everything wrapped up for work and there are no more deadlines for awhile, but taking time off now makes taking so much time off in May a little more awkward. Meh. Will sort that out when it gets here.