We're in the third day of a string of thunderstorms that could last through tomorrow. This isn't really the time of year for them-- they're more of a winter or summer event. The last time I lived somewhere where this was common, I was in Illinois. And thunderstorms were the beginning of the tornado season. SO glad to be back out West again.

This weather means I'm back to biking in the garage again. I'm about to finish Run Away on Netflix (I swear, James Nesbitt is everywhere), and I've started re-watching Arrested Development as my "early" entertainment for the first 30 minutes or so. I bike for 85 minutes plus warm-down, so I need a LOT of distraction out there. I should return to Season 2 of Euphoria (Hulu) again, despite the commercials. There are a couple of things on Amazon that look worthy too, but the commercial breaks just about kill me, so I mainly watch stuff on Netflix. Season 3 of Night Agent is ready, so maybe that next?

On the plane ride back from San Diego, I watched the remake of Rebecca. Armie Hammer was as handsome as ever (one of the few blond men I find attractive), though not sufficiently brooding enough. Lily James was good, though, and Kristen Scott Thomas was bracingly chilly as Mrs. Danvers. You can see why Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series always has people in the book world employing armies of Mrs. Danvers clones as agents of ruthlessness. :O

I'm still trying to get caught up with my friends-list. There are so many new people that even when I get near the end, I refresh and more posts come up! But I hope everyone had a good Easter, and that those both near and far will be seeing an end to winter soon. It has boomeranged here for a bit, but better that than an early summer.

I dreamed that I was in a group of adults being taught as first graders by Mariska Hargitay. She was making us diagram sentences, which seemed REALLY inappropriate for that age, even though we were all grown-ups who should have known how to do it. \o?

I finished Dungeon Crawler Carl, which was lots of fun. Now I'm reading the second book. There are several of these, so I might have to take a break from the series here and there.

Viewing-wise, I mentioned a while back that we'd added Ashes to Ashes (Amazon and Britbox) to our list of TV series to watch. It's a follow-on to Life On Mars, and is really just an excuse to let the Gene Genie and his sidekicks run riot in London. We are all on board with that idea, and have just started Season 2. :D We also finished Continuum (Amazon) a couple of weeks ago, and the conclusion was satisfying even if that wasn't necessarily the ending we were hoping for. But it made sense, and was consistent with the series. Always an important factor, especially for shows involving time travel.

And finally, we're flying to San Diego to visit our daughter this weekend. Nervous about what's happening with the TSA and wait times, but very excited about seeing her! \o/

The repair shop finished late on Tuesday, so it was gone almost a whole week. That's the longest I've been without a bike apart from vacations and when our garage burned up.

When I got it back, the seat post was jacked up about 3/4 inch too high. The mechanics never put it back after testing the gears, in spite of the blue painter's tape that shows exactly where to set it. The rear tool kit was also upside down (?), and they'd returned the handlebars to the neutral position. The shop had previously advised tilting them up a little to reduce the reach and the strain on the nerves of my left hand. I'd wondered if that had helped at all, but yesterday's ride produced numbness sooner than before, so clearly it did. I've restored the tilt again.

The ride itself was kind of brutal, due to the sudden jump in temperatures. I had to cut it short by 3 miles, and it was getting pretty tough by the end. It was only 87F, but that is a LOT until I start to get acclimated. My maximum temperature starts at 88F early in the season, and by August it's at 94F— and I will actually start a ride at 89F if it's not going to get too much hotter. But yesterday? Much too soon.

I finished watching Doctor Foster. Not terribly happy about the ending. Then I tried and rejected a bunch of BritBox comedies that were 1) unfunny and/or 2) too stupid to tolerate. One even had a laugh track. So I started Without Motive, a police procedural set in Bristol. Interesting mystery, but the characters are unlikable and it features a Welsh DCS who is incompetent and an alcoholic. May not finish it.

Bookwise, I've started Dungeon Crawler Carl. It was recommended to me, and so far so good. An alien species comes back to Earth to make good on the minerals/elements claim they filed (in a galactic office) 50 years earlier. All of the buildings/structures are flattened, so the only survivors are people and animals who were outside. They're eligible to play the Dungeon Crawler game, an 18-level challenge with increasing difficulty and reducing eligibility. The sole winner gets... to live? I think opting out (or not getting one of the limited admission slots) also equals death, so playing is advisable. Carl is accompanied by his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, for added fun. Also? Level 1 contains goblins. \o/

I need to line up my next book. I have some free Amazon thing, but the quality is never guaranteed.

A big relief, as always, and the California state returns are in a manila envelope, waiting to go to the post office. The combined federal and state returns are the size of a substantial pamphlet now. I mentioned earlier that we had significant capital gains this year. I don't know what gets into our financial advisor sometimes (though she's really good at her job), but every 5-6 years this happens and our AGI suddenly balloons. This year? We owe about $2500 in federal taxes and $2300 in state, and that triggered a need to pay estimated tax payments in 2026. What a pain! Note that if the government(s) owed us this much back, we wouldn't get interest on the extra withholding, so why the panic?

I tried to go to our company's website to adjust my W-4 instead, but none of the links were working yesterday. Might be under maintenance. I also wanted to use the employee benefits webpage to rent a car for our upcoming trip to San Diego, but it was misbehaving too. More crap deferred onto my never-ending TODO list!

I finished reading Terminal Chaos, the second book in the Station Eternity series. That was fun— and only took me 4 days, as opposed to the 11 days to read Adventures In Calamity Physics. I knew Calamity was taking a long time, but geez! And now I'm a third of the way through the second book in the How To Become A Dark Lord And Die Trying series. It's also fun, though with way too many footnotes. My main complaint is a common issue for a lot of male authors writing female main characters: the women are highly sexed and also bisexual. It's like they're fanficcing their own creation. \o?

My bike is still in the shop, where the earliest I could possibly get it back is late tomorrow. Feeling antsy! But I got some errands done Friday and Saturday that I would normally have to split across weekends. Friday, I bought Easter candy. Saturday, I took my broken violin bow in to have it repaired and rehaired, and saw that I was near a Home Depot, so I went there afterward. I bought some CLR for the hard water stains we get, some of which showed up about 4 months after we moved back into our house. I also got a new salvia plant for the one in the front yard that 1) Died last year and 2) Whose replacement the gardener killed with Roundup. Plus some morning glory seeds (to replace the plants near the garage we lost in the fire), and a houseplant to put in the clay pot our daughter hand-painted for me as a gift. That means I have some gardening to do this afternoon...

I've been staying up too late watching Doctor Foster on BritBox, because it's an addictive train wreck. Need to get back on DST newtime again.

I took the books to the library this weekend, and our bonus room has space in it again! There are a couple of boxes and bags in there with stuff to take to Goodwill (we seem to always have a running box for that), but all the books are gone now. Huzzah!

This was a weekend in which I actually got some things done. In addition to getting those books out, I cleaned up an office chair that I need to sell, and I assembled a couple of end tables I bought from Overstock last week. They were easy to put together, and they look pretty nice. But it took almost as long to get all of the tape off the boxes (for recycling) and break up the styrofoam they shipped with! I really wish styrofoam was recyclable. :(

While working on the end-tables, I started watching Euphoria on Hulu. This was mainly because someone recommended Eric Dane's performance in it (sadly, he passed away this weekend from ALS), and it also has Jacob Elordi. It's a high-school-age drama, and really well-written, though the kids lives are messy. It's full of things you would really hope teenagers aren't doing. It's also much more sexually explicit than I would like, especially given the age of the characters. I realize all the actors are in their 20s, but they're supposed to be kids, so it's kind of skeevy on top of being TMI. But I will say that Jacob Elordi was gorgeous even in his early 20s, and looked much the same as he does now. This isn't always true, especially for men— Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, and even Mel Gibson weren't really good-looking until after about age 30. For some, it's needing to lose a little of the baby fat that makes their faces less distinctive. For Gregory Peck, I think most of it was needing to put on about 20 pounds!

We also watched Sinners, which we enjoyed but I wouldn't consider Oscar-worthy— mainly because of the vampires! The period detail was really good, though, and Michael B. Jordan (as twins) lived up to all the reasons I have a weakness for him. :)

Next weekend: the coffee table I also bought last week. \o/

I've mentioned HalfshellHusband's book collection before, and how the sheer quantity of books daunts me (in terms of storage or future moving). Well, last week he got to thinking about what might happen if we had to someday move to be closer to the kids, or what I would have to deal with if he passed away. My father, for example, had hundreds of leather-bound classics that my sister is now struggling to find homes for. So, HSH suddenly decided to go through all his books and purge the paperbacks that are easily available on Kindle and any books he honestly will never read again. That means about 50-70 books are on their way to Goodwill or the library!

We had already cleared everything out of the two 6 1/2 foot bookcases we just sold (picked up today), and almost everything we have left fits in the built-in double-bookcase in the sunroom, with a little room left over for our DVDs. That just leaves the CD collection, and he found places for those. This is in addition to the two 6-foot bookcases in the garage that we need to sell. This is a much more manageable number of books! I feel like I can breathe now. Although I bought a replacement bookshelf from Home Depot back in the Fall (with the intent of getting a twin that now seems to be unavailable). I don't think I even need it, and it's never been opened. Wonder if I can return it (months later)?

In TV news, we finished S2 of The Night Manager. What a shocker of an ending! Overall, I was most intrigued by Teddy's character this season, who was cool, volatile, lethal and vulnerable all at once. Very complex, with a great performance by Diego Calva. It haunts me even now. Not sure when S3 is coming out, but at least it won't be 10 more years...

We are also in the middle of watching Amazon's Heads of State, after resisting for months because it just looked too stupid. It is MUCH better than we expected, when all we really expected was mindless fun. I had thought John Cena was horribly miscast, but he's making it work. Who knew?

I watched Another Country again last night, for the first time in about 40 years. Rupert Everett was as gorgeous as ever! Though Colin Firth didn't look like much at that age (despite already having that voice), and Cary Elwes was... really blond. \o? I didn't feel the pangs I used to get when the movie first come out, but it was enjoyable. I also spent far too much time scouring the various crowd scenes trying to spot other actors who later made it big, but found nothing other than the three above.

We've been watching S2 of Night Manager, which improved as soon as Tom Hiddleston shed the fake glasses and began his Con Of Charm. Speaking of voices—his is so silky! I also loved the sexy-dancing with Camilla Morrone and Diego Calva. And the appearance of ( SpoilersCollapse ) One more episode to go.

And on another hunky note, Brilliant Minds is currently all about the transformation of Dr. Josh for me. I actually checked IMDB.com early this season to see if the part had been recast, but no. Teddy Sears was an okay-looking guy before, but letting his hair go gray and changing the style turned him into a hottie! I've seen photos of other roles, and this is really the best he's ever looked. I'm not rooting for him to get back together with Wolf, though—I'd like to think Dr. Josh has more sense. Wolf is... work. A lot of work. And I'm not loving the flamboyant nurse they introduced this season. The show has a main character who is gay—was there a complaint about it lacking gay stereotypes? And the new asshole resident is similarly unwelcome...

I'm in the last episode of Orphan Black, and they seem to have wound up the series nicely. I'll miss it and all the sestras, though. I've enjoyed the journey with them all. Five seasons was really helpful for all of the garage-biking I've done since November, too. Now what? I have some potential action/thriller shows in my Netflix list, but most are just 1 or 2 seasons. And I'll be in there most of this week—yesterday was too windy to bike outdoors, and today starts three days of rain. :(

If it weren't for the ads, I would probably watch some of the Winter Olympics in the garage. I caught a little of it late last night. I missed Men's Figure Skating already (as I always seem to), and it looks like Ice Dancing has become Rhythm Skating, which... *sigh*. It seems to mostly now be loud music and gangsta-style dancing. What a change from the romance of Torvill and Dean! Last night also featured a couple of new-to-me sports: free-style skiing (which contains elements of snowboarding) and ski-sprinting. That last one... wow. I've never seen someone try to ski uphill before, and there was a lot of that. Overall, those women were strong. It was quite a workout.

All right, back to work. Carry on! :D

I was in labor. And not only dreading the progression, but also kicking myself because we gave away our baby-bucket/stroller combo years ago, along with all of our other baby stuff. For perspective, our youngest child is 26. :O

The springlike weather continues here in Sacramento, with highs near 70^o all this week. I've had some great bike rides, and the one on Monday even included a half-mile stretch of the bike path that smelled like pot stickers and their dipping oil. Mmmmm!

TV-wise, I started a one-season show last night called Chasing Shadows (with Alex Kingston and her fabulous hair). I made myself go to bed in the middle of episode 4. It's far more captivating than I anticipated.

Earlier this week, I watched Dance With A Stranger for the Rupert Everett experience. It was one of his early movies, in which he played a petulant cad (boo) while looking absolutely gorgeous. Wow. The sound quality, though-- this was Amazon with ads, and it was like having an industrial fan or airplane going in the background.

Book-wise, I finished the last of the T.L. Huchu YA magician series that centers on a young ghost-talker named Ropa Moyo. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, even as I sometimes got frustrated with Ropa for making impulsive decisions (the character ages from 14-16 during the series). Huchu's cycle is set in near-future dystopian Edinburgh, and rich with humor and slang. Dosh. Cheddar. Knapf. And those were some of the ones where I didn't Google the terms.

I also read Daniel H. Wilson's Hole In The Sky. Not as good as his Robopocalypse series, but it has his usual great mixture of sci-fi, horror, and soulfulness. It looks like The Clockwork Dynasty is the only remaining e-book I haven't already read, but I'll wait on it. Instead, I put a hold on Joe Hill's King Sorrow.

On tap for this weekend: more yard work, and posting a Craigslist ad for a pair of bookcases we need to get rid of. I want them out of here so I can build their replacements1 And that doesn't even account for the shelves, desk, etc. being stored in the garage. :O

I was invited to join the_lj_revival, and added a bunch of new friends as a result. Hello! And for the rest of my friends who miss livelier days on LJ, that community is a great place to start!

The warmer, sunny weather continues here (66^oF is the expected high today), so I'll be bicycling this afternoon. But what I probably should be doing is reclaiming a mid-lawn flowerbed from the volunteer grass seeding and an encroachment of moss. The moss in particular has been making inroads in the last 6+ years, and we were gone for 3 of them (while the house was being rebuilt), so it has spread more than ever. Not sure of a good way to remove/kill it. Vinegar water didn't do much. One recommendation is baking soda, though I'm not sure how much the neighboring plants would enjoy that. :O

I recently finished watching Broadchurch on Netflix, and enjoyed it so much that I wish they'd managed more than just 3 seasons! I also watched The Other Wife on Acorn TV, mainly for the cast, and that was a wasted effort which just made me feel sad about Rupert Everett. :(

( More Rupert EverettCollapse )

HalfshellHusband and our son and I all watched The Wrecking Crew (with Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, on Amazon Prime), which was stupid fun. It's essentially an action-comedy. One of our son's friends said it reminded him of Liam Neeson's The Ice Road (Netflix), which is a retribution movie with unexpected dark comic touches. If you're looking for free, mindless fun, I recommend both.

And now it's time to pull it together and go biking before the day gets too late and I wind up riding into the sunset.

My pseudo-LEGO steamship project is done. This one was sturdier than the steampunk magic shop I built last year (different manufacturer, too). I only had to superglue one piece that kept disconnecting, although the silver... ballast tanks (? Whatever those are on the boats?) don't fully connect (they need some re-engineering), and those and the yellow tanks fall off easily. Still, super fun to build:



The Amazon link for that set is here.

I'll be going out for a bike ride soon. The rain has stopped for now, and we're not being plagued by the cold fog, so there should be some good weather ahead at least for a week. I rode outside TWICE in the last 6 1/2 weeks. That's how bad it's been— only a snow climate would have been worse! Not a typical winter for us at all.

I'll be riding during the 49ers playoff game. On purpose. I've hardly watched any games this season— too many injuries, so it's a nail-biter every time whether they'll squeak out a win. Still angry about the Super Bowl they lost, with too many key injuries over the course of the game. I think that was the Niners' year to win, and the referees lost it for them with questionable calls.

In garage biking, I'm almost to the end of Orphan Black, which is sad. I've really enjoyed it. I'm also close to the end of The Walking Dead, after which I'll have to try one of the spin-offs for biking purposes. I need really engaging TV for garage-biking, and a high level of peril accomplishes that nicely. I've also been watching Is It Cake? out there. I enjoy that series, though I'm getting near the end of its last season as well. I can't fathom why the S3 contestants are so prone to baking vanilla cakes, though. Do you want your cake to impress the judges with its flavor, if the win comes down to that? Then WTF would you pick vanilla? It's as "meh" as you can get. OTOH, I personally would not risk matcha or Earl Grey as a main flavor, either. Those are acquired tastes. And S2 Miko's propensity for using mango always seemed risky. People tend to either love it or hate it, and I'm on the "hate" side.

Monday will be my first day back at work, after 3 weeks off. It's been great— I'm not ready to go back. I got virtually no home projects done during that time off (doesn't that always seem to be the way), apart from Christmas stuff. But the relaxation was nice! \o/