C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 6

pretending to be someone who sews

In my ongoing quest to pretend I’m someone who actually sews, I bought some fabric and a couple of patterns today. One will work just fine, but my plan was to do the other, which looked really quick and easy, first.

Buuuuuuuut the very quick and easy looking one didn’t have the outer envelope for the pattern, so I wasn’t absolutely sure what kind of fabric I should use. I thought probably a knit.

Somewhat unfortunately for me, upon the advice of the woman at the shop, I did not get a knit. I got...

Picoreview: Aftern^H^H^H^H Age of Ultron

Picoreview: Afternoon of Ultron: Doing these picoreviews has had me reading the original ones I did when some of these movies came out, and I was kinder to Age of Ultron when it came out than I was in memory and am on rewatching. I mean, I’ve seen it at least three times post-theatre, and it was apparently satisfying at the time, but ultimately remains a pretty bad movie, tbh. It has a number of good PARTS, which I think is what made me like it oriignally, but from more than a minute after that,...

on hairdressing

I went for a haircut this weekend, my second haircut with this woman, whom I found by accosting some other random woman on the street and asking who did her hair because she had a great pixie cut and I was desperate. (The accosted woman was bewildered by the whole situation, but gave me the info.)

Anyway, Sylvia, she’s Eastern European and very good and isn’t afraid to cut short hair. I mentioned this at the beginning of the appointment – that the really good short haircuts I’d gotten in Ireland...

bad cover art

This morning I saw an indie pub cover that’s so bad it makes me want to cry (no, I’m not going to tell you what it is). Everything about is bad. There are at least 4 focal point elements, meaning there are none. The colors are garish. The text treatment is illegible. The background is too busy.

There’s so much decent pre-made cover art (ie, art that indie cover artist/designers have done for the fun of it/to sell on spec rather than because they’re making it specifically for a hired project. It’...

Picoreview: Winter Soldier

Picoreview: Winter Soldier: Still the best movie in the MCU for my money.

So, like, I’m watching these in order, right? And after First Avenger, Disney+ spins up Winter Solider and I was 15 minutes into it, dangit, before I realized Avengers came between them. So I had to stop and go back to watch Avengers, which is honestly tonally a bit of a shock in the midst of the Winter Soldier setup.

But anyway, yeah, it certainly played up how completely unexpected Winter Soldier was after Avengers and t...

Picoreview: Avengers

Picoreview: Avengers: This remains a pretty solid film, although wow his costume was awful in this one. Well, the cowl is awful. The body of it is fine. But wow.

I thought at the time that its strength was that for once, Joss Whedon hadn’t made it sound exactly like Joss Whedon, and all else aside, that remains true. In retrospect there are a few really Whedony things that make my teeth clench – although it could have been in Ultron, I think this is the one where somebody falls on top of Black W...

on holiday

I’m on holiday and have been doing a reasonably good job of not working. I’ve been reading a lot. I have, in fact, exceeded my yearly reading goal by several books already! Go me! And! Yesterday I cleared off my at-home desk, which was emotionally very good for me. And!

…no, that’s about it. I’ve been watching the entire MCU Captain America storyline and am up to Falcon & Winter Solider now, though I haven’t started it yet.

But, as I said before, part of being on holiday is teaching my husband h...

Recent Reads: The Angela Marchmont Mysteries

Recent Reads: The Angela Marchmont Mysteries (Kobo || Amazon (affiliate) || B&N)

God almighty, I haven’t done any recent reads posts in nearly a year, which is crazy because I’ve actually BEEN reading.

I’ve burned through this entire series in the past couple of weeks. Very enjoyable, if you like 1920s-era cozies. In fact, in the past year, I’ve read almost everything Clara Benson has written, and they’re all good fun. I’d recommend starting with the Angela Marchmont books, which I didn’t.

I in ...

back in the trenches

After 50k and then a week with a cold, I spent ALL WEEKEND asleep, my friends. ALL weekend. I went to bed early. I napped. I went to bed early even after napping. I napped MORE. I went to bed early AGAIN. At that point I really didn’t expect to sleep well, but…I did.

I managed not to nap yesterday, went to bed at a reasonable hour, and was RUDELY awakened by my alarm this morning, despite imagining I might actually wake up a bit early due to all the sleeping. Apparently I will require many more ...

Picoreview: The First Avenger

This is the start of a series of picoreviews inspired by a rewatch of the entire MCU Captain America storyline, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while and finally have. A reCap, if you will. O_O

The Cap movies are my favorites anyway, start to finish (Black Panther vies for a top 3 slot depending on how recently I’ve seen it, but I never wibble on the Cap films being in my top 5), so rewatching it all hasn’t been a hardship. Except Age of Ultron, but we’ll get to that. :)

Onward with the actu...