the owl and the olive tree

Sirens programming reminder

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:16:49 GMT

Since I know a lot of my flist attends Sirens, presents programming at Sirens, or just plain loves Sirens--

Remember that the Sirens programming submission deadline is May 10 this year, which is coming up. (My goodness, 2013 seems to be passing in a blur....) And since all programming at Sirens is attendee-driven, if you're thinking, "I'd love to see X at Sirens!", now is your chance to either propose it yourself or bug your friends to do so. ;)

We always end up with fabulous programming, so I'm looking forward to seeing what y'all come up with!

(I know I haven't posted in donkeys' years. I'd like to promise that I'll post more soon, but we all know how those promises go. But I miss you all! That much I can say with truth.)

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Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:45:29 GMT

Just about thirty seconds ago I posted a post to my local-Seattle filter. If you are local to Seattle (or otherwise want to hear about local-only stuff... which you're welcome to, they just may not be relevant to you), and did not see it, please let me know so I can add you. Or if you saw it and do not want to be on the local filter, also let me know and I will remove you.

If you want to be on it on both LJ and DW (and are not already, or are on one and not the other and want to be on both), make sure you let me know.

Thanks!

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Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:51:03 GMT

Yesterday we had fajitas! They were delicious. Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll.

Today's question:

Right now, I have bookshelves that are not organized in any way. This is somewhat unfortunate when I am trying to find books.

I know what organization scheme I want: fiction separated from nonfiction, fiction sorted by author and then by series and then by title, nonfiction separated by subject and then by author. Graphic novels, manga, and RPG sourcebooks in their own section, sorted by type and then by series and then in internal ordering. Anthologies in their own sections, sorted by genre and then editor. Cookbooks are already in their own section, but need to be sorted by genre and then by author. I am undecided on whether artbooks will go in their own section or in the art section of nonfiction.

What I'm trying to figure out is:

- Is there any way to achieve this system of organization without pulling every book I own off the shelves and onto the floor, and then sorting them? I fear for what will happen if I pull every book off the shelves and stack them up on the floor. (I suspect not, but hope springs eternal.)

- Assuming I must pull everything off the shelves to do the sorting: do you have any recommendation for how to do this in the way that is most efficient/least likely to leave me with stacks of books all over my floor for the next six months?

(I also hope to catalog them in Goodreads, but that is going to necessarily happen after, not before, the physical sorting and organization.)

Thank you. :D

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Cora Dinner Theater, August Edition

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:40:11 GMT

Whew, this summer has been busy. Travel, then deadlines, then more travel, then family stuff, then more travel. (And pretty much all obligatory travel--family, work, etc.--not fun travel.) Fortunately for me, things will be calming down in the next couple of weeks.

(On that note: if you sent me an e-mail in the last month or so and I have not replied, I have not forgotten you! I will get back to you very soon. And: I'm sorry.)

Anyway, dinner poll time. I have the meat of half a roast chicken (mixed white and dark, and it got pretty shredded in the course of getting it off the carcass) that needs eatin' before I turn the bones and bits into soup. (The reason that "chicken soup" is not on this list: I'm going to make that later in the week, once I've achieved stock.)

What should I do with it?

View Poll: #11499

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Cora Dinner Theater, again

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:51:09 GMT

It's been forever and a day since I did one of these! But I have a beautiful trout fillet in the fridge and I need to cook it some way tomorrow, and so I enlist y'all's help figuring out how, and with what. :D

View Poll: Foooood

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Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:40:42 GMT

More Sirens posting, including panel notes, shortly!

(I had intended to do it over the weekend, but instead it turns out that what I wanted to do on the weekend was sleep in, make roast chicken, and play Dragon Age. So I did.)

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Nightshade, by Andrea Cremer

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 23:30:25 GMT

This was one of my Books & Breakfast books, and it's one of the kind of books that I'm never quite sure how to review. Because I really enjoyed it! But I have no idea whether my enjoyment of it will translate to anyone else, because I enjoyed it for pushing a very particular set of my buttons.

To talk about this, I have to back up a bit and discuss The Werewolf Problem.

I love werewolf books, in theory. Werewolf: The Apocalypse was my first RPG, and I played the hell out of it, and Werewolf (old and new) remains my second-favorite set of games. (Changeling, game of my heart, is still #1.) While everyone else who gamed in my area was about blood-drinking and backstabbing, I was more about howling at the moon and ripping my enemies in half. I love Blood and Chocolate and Sergeant Angua and Elfquest (where, okay, they aren't werewolves per se, but close enough) and the Brecilian Forest quest in Dragon Age.

And then, with the supernatural romance/new urban fantasy explosion, there was a big upsurge of werewolf books!

And they let me down, man. Because I quickly came to realize that having werewolves in supernatural romance was often an excuse to have a male character who was either a) a creepy stalker, or b) a raging, possessive, controlling jackass, who in both cases a and b tended to have crazy double standards for gender into the bargain, and somehow it was Okay because it was because he was a (were)wolf! It totally wasn't his fault! He couldn't help being a stalker or a jackass and a hypocrite on top of that because *insert bizarre handwavey discussion of wolf behavior here*. Often with "bonus" scene in which the male werewolf bites and turns the human protagonist in a distressingly rapey way.

(Side note: Wolves are not like that "naturally;" claims that they are are based on outdated and rather poor science, based on wolf behavior in artificial situations. It is just as thin an explanation to me as every "well men can't help being dicks" explanation. If you like a romance in which the guy is a gigantic dick, own that. Don't blame the wolves!)

So I have slogged through many a werewolf romance in which the guy is a werewolf and the girl is a human and the werewolfyness is an explanation for him being a raving jackass. (Occasionally the girl is a werewolf too, but then there's usually some handwavium about how he's stronger and more dominant because he's a male werewolf, and my eyes roll out of their sockets.) I liked some of them, I retain a fondness for Bitten by Kelley Armstrong despite its faults, and Mercy Thompson (who, okay, were-coyote, but close enough), and a few others. But mostly I decided that the genre and I wanted different things out of werewolf books.

And then I read Nightshade (no, I had not forgotten that that was the ostensible topic of this post!), and let me tell you what, within the first chapter or so it was established that the main character, Calla, was a young female werewolf who actually hunted! And fought! And was strong! And was going to be alpha of her new pack! And was totally cool with that—and so were her packmates.

So: yeah. Sold. I had been looking for a werewolf book with a strong female werewolf who was smart and tough and assertive, and I found one, and that was basically all I needed.

There are also some interesting deconstructions of some of the things that do bug me about werewolf romances. Some of the characters expect that Calla will be "feminine" and will eventually submit to the male alpha... and that attitude, as it turns out, is not natural in the wolves-are-just-like-that handwavium, but is just as artificial as similar attitudes about human women. Calla has to make some tough choices: while she resents her parents trying to protect her, it turns out that they aren't trying to protect her due to generalized parental overprotectiveness, and she needs to face that she is genuinely putting herself and her pack in danger. Also, I found Calla's relationship with her younger-but-not-much-younger brother entirely plausible (I myself have a younger-but-not-much-younger brother, with whom I get along well), and rather charming. Even more, I appreciated that her younger brother didn't have any cliche grumpy "I am a DUDE and should be ALPHA instead of YOU" angst: he occasionally fights with his big sisters, but he also accepts her as alpha.

It's not a perfect book, by any stretch. There's a love triangle, and I know a lot of people (myself included) are getting kinda bored of love triangles. The book is awfully talky in places (and I hear the sequel is worse). It's set in Vail, CO, but was written by someone who actually hadn't been to Vail, and it kinda shows. And one of the members of the love triangle has a kind-of-ridiculous set of useful skills, on account of how he apparently deliberately modeled himself on Indiana Jones, right down to the whip. (I admit it, I laughed when he broke out the whip.)

But.

Female alpha werewolf, running around on the mountaintop, hunting and fighting, solving mysteries, and being a stone cold badass. It hit me where I live, is what I'm saying. And if you like that kind of thing too, well, maybe it'll do the same for you.

Nightshade, by Andrea Cremer

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Sirens, Day 1

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:46:23 GMT

Thursday is the first "real" day of the conference--it's when most attendees arrive, and the first keynote is that evening. We spent the day doing some setup and then welcoming attendees in the Creekside Room, which had doors leading to the back porch are (which in turn had a beautiful view of the creek—hence the name—and the aspen-covered slopes beyond).

Unfortunately, the skies produced 'wintry mix,' which IMHO is a far prettier word for 'a mushy combination of icy rain and soft snow' than the phenomenon deserves. Not so much fun to go hang around in. But that was all right: everyone hung out inside instead, playing games and having tea and desserts.

I wasn't able to participate in the games (I was doing presenter and volunteer check-in), but I got to watch, and it looked like people were having a blast. First there was a homemade pictionary-ish game, but with fantasy keywords like 'witch' and 'Beka Cooper' and 'legion' instead of the usual. Then, after that, was Books to Books--a modification of the game Apples to Apples, but with a bunch of fantasy characters and concepts mixed in. jmpava went to play that, and seemed to be having a good time despite not knowing a lot of the characters. (He reads a lot of SFF, but not quite the same set as was common among Sirens attendees.) In fact, the whole group seemed to be having a good time. They played straight through the dinner break, and kept breaking into uproarious laughter.

Then to dessert, where my friends had saved me a seat, and we talked about the best book we'd read all year. (My choice was When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead.) The Thursday keynote speaker was Justine Larbalestier, who gave an interesting (and very funny) talk about monsters, YA lit, Elvis, cultures and cultural appropriation, music, terrible music, camp (in the sense of "that movie was pure camp" rather than the sense of "summer camp"), and travel.

I didn't get a lot of photos at Sirens this year (I was busy and kept forgetting to take my camera places with me), but here's a pic from Vail of the aspens, which were in full glorious color while we were there:

From Sirens 2011

Next: Day 2: Books and Breakfast (including my review of my B&B book, Nightshade), a ton of presentations, Laini Taylor's keynote, and Bedtime Stories!

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Sirens, Day 0

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:34:25 GMT

So I'm back from Sirens! Which is pretty much my favorite event of the year.

For those of you who don't know, Sirens is a yearly conference about women in fantasy literature. For an eloquent explanation of why I love Sirens, you should read what praetorianguard has to say, here.

My feelings can be summed up by this image, which features a quote by Nnedi Okorafor, one of our guests of honor, and which is part of a monster bag I won at the auction on the last day:

From Sirens 2011

(But more about the monster bag later.)

Anyway!

This year's theme was "monsters," with Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor, and Laini Taylor as Guests of Honor. Which was a pretty exciting lineup!

I came in early to help with setup, so I was already there before the Sirens Supper on Wednesday. The Supper is an optional event, the night before the conference proper begins, where people who come in early (staff, sometimes guests, and a handful of attendees--often repeat attendees) come in early to share a meal. Since the Sirens supper is smaller than the conference as a whole (I think it had around twenty people this year?), it allows for smaller, more intimate discussions.

I brought my husband, jmpava, to Sirens for the first time this year. I know he was a little nervous, but I think the Supper helped a lot, because it was a place he could get to know a few people before the whole conference fell on his head.

Anyway, I wound up sitting with Artemis and Marie Brennan, and we talked about all kinds of things, from books to travel to sleep to dealing with RSI. It was great to catch up. Then Amy asked an icebreaker question, and we all went around the table answering it: name one book that changed your life.

I chose Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones, which was the book that taught me that you could make friendships through books. And I don't think that I've ever told the story of how it changed my life here, so now I will!

( How "Howl's Moving Castle" Changed My Life )

We lingered a while, chatting, and then I went to bed earlyish in preparation for the first "real" day of the conference.

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Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:00:44 GMT

Yesterday, Rachel Manina Brown (rachelmanija) and Sherwood Smith (sartorias) posted Say Yes to Gay YA, about difficulties they've had finding an agent for their YA novel with a gay protagonist; specifically, an agent offered to represent them—if they removed the gay POV character, and/or made him straight instead.

As you might expect, I find that infuriating. While they are my good friends, they are also talented and proven authors—and furthermore, the situation they describe is clear: the book was rejected not for quality, but for having a gay main character. And other comments around the blogosphere make it pretty clear to me that this is a systemic problem, not a one-off bad-apple.

I'm not going to natter on. Instead, I'll suggest you go read the article—all the way to the bottom, where they suggest what we (all of us) can do to help improve the situation. There isn't a lot most of us can do, but there is something.

Say Yes to Gay YA (or, if that site is down—it has been linked by Neil Gaiman and similar, which can be hard on a server—there's a mirror here.)

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Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:04:01 GMT

I have a head cold. (I blame PAX.) It's one of those things that I can't really complain about, because it's not a big deal in the grand scheme, but in the short term it is making me uncomfortable and also temporarily very stupid.

In the meantime, I have been cheering myself up with Igor Shpilenok's Russian nature photography from the Kronotsky reserve. It's all gorgeous, but I'm particularly fond of his photographs of a fox he calls Alisa, who is familiar enough with him to allow him to photograph her close up.

All of the pictures make me happy!

Fox on the prowl.

Chanterelle mushrooms, aka "little foxes", plus one actual little fox eating billberries.

Fox in a summer meadow.

Fox hunting ground squirrels. (Note that, while there is no blood or gore, there is a shot of a fox with a dead ground squirrel, so you can skip that if you'll find it upsetting.)

No foxes, but a most lovely twilight.

No foxes, but a salmon run and a happy bear.

No foxes, but fog and sunny not-sunflowers.

Fox, lake, and mountain.

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Recipe: Sauce for kalbi-esque short ribs

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:19:27 GMT

Dinner tonight was kalbi (which Wikipedia tells me is also also called galbi), or Korean short ribs, with sauteed bell peppers and rice. I'm not going to give you a recipe for the short ribs, because I wasn't that happy with how they came out (tough; I cooked the wrong). And I'm not going to give you a recipe for the sauteed peppers, because I just chucked a bag of frozen peppers and onions into a sautee pan. And the rice came from a rice cooker, so, tasty, but not through any fault of my own.

But I really like how the sauce came out, so I'll share that. While it's intended for use with short ribs, I think it would be delicious on any kind of meat, or tofu, or just as a sauce for vegetables or stir fry. It's just plain tasty, as a sauce--spicy, tart, salty, sweet, and savory (not to mention garlicky!), in an excellent balance.

Ob!Disclaimer: While this sauce was inspired by the sauce/marinade that comes with/on kalbi, I make no pretense toward it being authentic in any fashion.

( Sauce/Marinade for Kalbi )

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Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 02:27:30 GMT

Ever since Diana Wynne Jones passed away, I've been doling out the new-to-me books a few at a time to make them last. This is one of my most recent "new" reads.

It's clear from the beginning that magical things are going on at Melstone House, because Andrew is first informed that his grandfather has died and left him the place by his deceased grandfather's ghost. But Andrew can't figure out exactly what's going on: why everyone keeps referring to his "field-of-care," what document he's supposed to be finding among his grandfather's voluminous papers, or why Aidan Cain has run away and sought him for help. But he'd better figure it out quickly, because something sinister is rapidly encroaching on the property...

This is what I think of as a very typical Diana Wynne Jones book: set in a world almost but not quite ours, with a large cast of highly eccentric characters, a scale that is small but with potentially far-reaching results, and a protagonist (or protagonists) who is always just one step behind the rapidly-unfolding (and rapidly-complicating) plot. That said, "typical Diana Wynne Jones" is in no way a criticism. This book contains many of the things that I like about her as an author, particularly the large, eccentric, mostly-likeable cast of characters and the way all the tangled plot threads tie up at the end in a big, messy climactic ending. DWJ does the "gloriously chaotic ending" better than pretty much anyone I can think of.

Some of the things that I liked about the book are hard to talk about outside the spoiler cut, like the way it plays with a certain set of tropes. Let me just say that it manages to deal with some common tropes in way that are a little uncommon without hanging a big "I am subverting this trope! Look at me subvert!" sign on it.

The book did some other things that I think of as classic Diana Wynne Jones, and again, in a good way. It is very funny, in some places funny enough to make me giggle out loud. The humor is character-based, which is my favorite kind. And that ties in with another thing I appreciated: serious emotional subjects are handled with a sensitivity and a deft touch that makes them feel honest without being sledgehammer-like. There is one scene where a character grieves, and it felt completely real to me, but it wasn't like wading through a quagmire of angst.

I wouldn't say this was one of my very favorite DWJ books. It's very light, and again, it's doing something she has done many times. But good DWJ is great by most other standards, and this is definitely good. I'd recommend it, especially as a book to read if you're having a bad day.

( Spoilers have a magic stained glass window. )

Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones

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Sat, 09 Jul 2011 21:58:01 GMT

So, I'm sick. I suppose it's no shock: a week of travel to soften up my immune system, and then a weekend with 47,000 of my closest friends, and no wonder I came home with a bug. (I will spare you the gory details, but let's say that my house looks like Mt. Kleenex right now.)

(Still, the trip? Totally worth it. Even worth all the sneezing. There will be a trip report and pictures as soon as the cold lifts.)

I am only slightly miserable, but I am very, very stupid, in that way where it feels like someone has unscrewed the top of my head and stuffed it with cotton batting. If you are expecting a response from me for something, have no fear, I have not forgotten you--I am probably just waiting until I can reply with something more cogent than "durrrr."

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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:55:39 GMT

Good thing: Dinner last night! I wound up making a chopped salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, brined goathorn peppers, green olives, red bell pepper, and red leaf lettuce. Using a trick I learned from Cook's Illustrated, I drained off some of the tomato water (cherry tomatoes are full of delicious juice, but left to its own devices the juice can just wind up pooled at the bottom of the salad bowl), reduced it on the stove, mixed it with a little wine vinegar, and used it as the base for a vinaigrette. Then I made a pasta sauce of garlic, artichokes, lemon, garlic, shredded chicken, goathorn peppers, garlic, parsley and olive oil, and served it over penne. It was all very good.

Bad thing: I woke up this morning with a sore throat and the telltale pressure of nasal congestion. Since I don't have allergies, that usually means a head cold is on its way. I am attempting to stave it off by using the neti pot and drinking a lot of OJ. Also, Sudafed. We'll see.

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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:54:49 GMT

So, having got back from vacation, I get to make myself dinner again. Yay! Time for another dinner poll.

I have some artichokes that badly need to be used, so the first list is What To Do With Artichokes. And I have been seriously craving fresh salads, so the second is What Kind of Salad. There will also be some kind of grain, probably bread.

(If the artichoke dish doesn't include a protein, I'll add an appropriate one--beans, tofu, tempeh, bacon, or chicken--to the salad.)

View Poll: #7463

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Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:39:19 GMT

So, the boy and I are going on a short but hopefully awesome trip to New Orleans!

We know we're going to a) eat a lot of awesome food, and b) go on a cemetery tour. Apart from that, our plans are still pretty fuzzy.

So! For those of you who are familiar with NO, what do you recommend? What should we not miss? What's SUPER AWESOME to see? I would love to hear!

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Wed, 15 Jun 2011 03:19:43 GMT

I have my new netbook! I decided to get an Asus eeePC, mostly because I've been quite happy with the one I borrowed from ceph, and it seemed smart to go with a known good. As an added bonus, they had one in pink!

The one I got isn't quite this one, but it's a close cousin. Since it's cute and pink, I had to name it Pinkie Pie, after the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic character.

Anyway! This means that I now have A Computer Of My Very Own (not a work computer, not a borrowed computer, but My Very Own) for the first time in... weeks and weeks and weeks. Today I expect to spend mostly getting this set up to my preferences, fiddling with settings, downloading stuff, etc. But tomorrow I'll get to work catching up.

Yay!

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not quite a dinner poll

Tue, 31 May 2011 21:50:23 GMT

This time I know what we're having for the main dish. We're having lemony herbed lamb chops! Yay! But my side dish plans were contingent on a particular shop being open that was not open, and so I need to figure out what to have as a side dish (or dishes, I might make a couple things; I like to have one starch and one non-starchy vegetable where possible) out of the ingredients I have at home.

Unfortunately, I haven't shopped for veggies recently, so what I have is basically the following: frozen spinach, frozen corn, frozen edamame, canned tomatoes, fresh celery, fresh carrots, fresh lemons, onions (yellow onions and shallots), Yukon Gold potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, wild rice, couscous, quinoa, emmer farro, sandwich bread, fresh herbs (cilantro, parsley, mint and sage), sweet/hot peppers both brined and oil-cured, pickles of many types, plus a wide variety of spices, oils, vinegars, and condiments. What would you make of those?

My immediate thoughts are a) sauteed spinach, probably with garlic, possibly with tomatoes; b) corn and edamame salad, probably with garlic and lemon, possibly with spinach; c) some combination of roasted carrots, sweet potaotes, regular potatoes, and shallots, probably also with garlic; d) pilaf of some sort. But I am open to suggestions.

EDIT: Thanks to all who suggested things! I'm making a tabbouleh-style rice salad.

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Reread: Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

Mon, 30 May 2011 23:26:45 GMT

Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

After Diana Wynne Jones passed away earlier this year, I started rereading some of my favorites of her books. (Not in any kind or orderly or organized fashion; for that, see swan_tower's DWJ project.) It's hard for me to actually decide what my favorite DWJ book is. Archer's Goon is a possibility, Charmed Life is a possibility; Witch Week is a possibility. But Howl's Moving Castle is a strong contender for favorite. It's also one of the earliest DWJ I read: after Archer's Goon but before Charmed Life.

The book is set in a mildly fairy-tale-esque world—fairy-tale-esque enough that its protagonist, Sophie, knows that (being the oldest of three children instead of the youngest) she is not meant for great things, and is only going to get into trouble if she sets off to seek her fortune. So she settles into the boring but sensible work of trimming hats at the hat shop her father owned before he died. But the Witch of the Waste arrives on Sophie's doorstep with a curse, and sets her off to seek her fortune (and cross paths with the wicked magician Howl) whether she planned it or not.

I think the thing I love most about this book, have always loved most about it, is how grounded and sensible it is. For instance, Howl has a pair of seven-league boots that Sophie and Michael (Howl's apprentice) use to visit one of Sophie's sisters. Seven leagues is twenty-ish miles... and of course it's hard to steer or navigate if you go ten miles at a step. And the way Sophie justifies sticking around Howl's castle is by acting as a housekeeper... complete with details of exactly how much work it is to clean up after a layabout wizard and his teenage apprentice if they haven't cleaned in years. (It made me want to go do some spring cleaning of my own, in fact.)

The characters are really what make this book. Well, and the setting (I love the odd combination of fairy-tale and realistic of the world, and of course the castle is marvelous). There's a plot involving the Witch of the Waste and a missing prince, but it's really an excuse for Sophie to be clever and sensible and no-nonsense, and for Howl to be brilliant and lazy, and for Calcifer the fire demon to be... thoroughly Calcifer, and so on. Even the more minor characters, like Sophie's sisters and the dog, are so beautifully-drawn even in just a few lines that I feel like I know them, and would happily have tea with them.

This is part of the genre I think of as "cozy fantasy," and it's one of my ultimate comfort reads. It's funny and warm, tremendously readable, and I highly recommend it.

(The Miyazaki movie tends to split the opinions of fans of the book. While it has the same story, in fairly broad strokes at least, it turns the sensibility of the book upside-down: where the book is pragmatic and grounded even in its more magical details, the movie is dreamlike even in its more mundane details. I think that's why it feels so different—at least to me—even though the characters and plot are largely similar. I like both, but they are very much not the same.)

I have not yet read the sequels, partly because I'm afraid that very few things could live up to this book. Those of you who have read Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways: what do you think of them?

And now for some spoilery commentary:

( Spoilers express their feelings with green slime )

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help me flist-wan kenobi: netbooks

Fri, 20 May 2011 02:49:48 GMT

Word from the laptop shop is that while I may be able to find a fan for my laptop "eventually," I am not going to find one in the "next few months" timeframe. I think that means it's time to give it up as a lost cause, as I can't go that long without a laptop of my own.

That being said, I don't want to go into debt to get a new full-fledged laptop (where by 'full-fledged' I mean 'able to play The Sims 3 and Final Fantasy 14'). So I think what I'll do is get a netbook now, and save up for a new "permanent" laptop later.

So: I would love to hear your recommendations on netbooks!

For my purposes (and please, if this doesn't meet your/the Internet/slashdot/whoever's definition, you don't need to edumacate me because I don't care), a netbook is a laptop, usually small in dimensions, on which I can do basic word processing and access the Internet, but that does not have a huge onboard hard drive, lots of RAM, a beefy video card, etc. I have other borrowable computers for the occasions that I absolutely need something with more processing power, and a NAS RAID array for storage. Basically, I want something that I can write on and use to browse the web, and slip into my backpack for on-the-go writing, and that's it.

I am looking to pay $400 or less including tax and shipping. That means an approximate max of $350 shelf price.

I would prefer something with Windows 7, but it can be cheapo Windows 7 Home or Starter. (I am familiar in that 'broken-in jeans and sneakers' way with Windows, and Linux and Mac are like stiff uncomfortable work clothes with new high-heel shoes to me. I can live with them if necessary, but I'd rather not.) It must, however, have a keyboard; that is, I am not looking for a tablet.

vom_marlowe had good things to say about the Dell Inspiron netbook series, and I've had good luck with Dell in general. I've also used ceph's eeePC for some time, happily. But I'd be happy to hear other people's experience.

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Wed, 04 May 2011 17:07:43 GMT

May the Fourth be with you!

I couldn't help it.

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Mon, 02 May 2011 19:57:51 GMT

My laptop started making great crunching and munching noises, which turned out to be the fan losing it. It is now at a laptop repair shop getting fixed, but I probably won't get it back for a week at least.

So I will probably not be around as much online. I will still be around--it's not like we have a scarcity of computer devices in the house--just, not as much.

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Sun, 24 Apr 2011 19:34:36 GMT

Happy Easter, if you celebrate.

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Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:10:21 GMT

Bad news: My thyme died. Alas, poor thyme....

Good news: That frees up a pot for my brand new shiso seeds!

For those of you who aren't familiar, shiso (in this case, specifically ao shiso, which I believe means green shiso) is an herb used in Japanese cooking. Also possibly other Asian cuisines? But I know it from Japanese cooking.

Despite shiso being part of one of my favorite flavor combinations ever (shiso and umeboshi), I find it difficult to describe. Describing shiso to someone who hasn't had it is sort of like trying to describe mint to someone who's never had it: you wind up saying, "It's... minty, and sort of... mint-flavored." I generally wind up sounding like something out of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: it's an herb almost but not quite entirely unlike basil. Or I say, it tastes a little bit like basil and a little bit like mint and a little bit like green nettles, but mostly it tastes... like... shiso.

If you get the chance to order an ume-shiso roll at a sushi restaurant (it will generally be vegetarian, as it is shiso herb and pickled plum), that will give you an idea.

Anyway! I adore shiso, and it's kind of expensive to buy fresh. (Not much more expensive than any other herb, but not available at every grocery store, so both a bit expensive and a bit inconvenient.) So last time I was at Uwajimaya, I picked up a packet of seeds.

They are now (I hope) happily germinating in my pot. I hope I don't wind up killing them too.

Wish me luck!

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