C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 67

small dent

I’ve packed the cookbooks (another 4 boxes), ordered more DVD binders, brought a box to the post office to ship, emailed the real estate agent about the things I needed to, done four loads of laundry, arranged the movers, and packed the random scattering of gaming books left lying around.

I have to do the office books, and then I think (I think) I’ll have enough boxes left over to finish the remaining stuff in the dining room. Photo albums and other…random things like that. And that will fina...

easy dinner fail

I have not wanted to cook in, oh, several weeks. A couple nights ago we were at the store and I thought about a recipe I’d seen online and I thought “I’ll just do that, I’ll get the stuff and it’ll be fast and easy and not really like cooking.”

I managed to use just about every pot in the house, ‘not cooking’. It was a pasta dish, okay, so okay, I needed to boil the pasta, that was fine. And make the cheesy bechemel sauce, okay. And steam the broccoli. And sautee the mushrooms because they ta...

so. many. thinks.

I’ve crossed about five things off my list of things to do this morning alone and I keep adding more. I know I should feel like I’ve accomplished a lot, but all I can see is a horrible mess everywhere.

I mean, okay, the frigging books are probably a full third of our possessions, and we have gotten rid of I don’t know how many bags of clothes, DVDs and CDs, I’ve thrown tons of Random Paperwork Crap away (and have SO MUCH MORE to deal with), we have to Do Something About The Toy Box, we…I don’...

books, boxes, beer

Okay, there’s no beer, but it was alliterative.

I have now packed almost all of the downstairs books. There’s a handful of gaming books left over and the few things we’re keeping out another week or two before we move.

There are 41 boxes of books.

Now I’m out of boxes (again), but I have not yet packed the upstairs books. There are another, I don’t know, 5-10 boxes worth up there/left downstairs, I’d say.

I mean, to be TOTALLY fair, I’ve been packing the graphic novels and gaming stuff with...

Recent Reads: Forgotten Suns

I think I only managed to read one book in May, which is somewhat embarrassing. OTOH, it was Judith Tarr’s FORGOTTEN SUNS, which is strong, appealing space opera.

It’s space opera with YA sensibilities: only one of the main characters is actually a young adult, but all three of the main characters are on journeys of self-discovery. The character I felt was the lead (a hard call, as all 3 stories are insanely well balanced, but hers is the catalyst for all that follows), Aisha, is the 13 year...

Picoreview: San Andreas

Picoreview: San Andreas: exciting!

I saw a review that said “this is a movie about earthquakes having a vendetta against the Rock,” which mostly made me think “Didn’t they see 2012, in which earthquakes were literally chasing John Cusack?”

San Andreas was much better than 2012, which is not meant to damn with faint praise, given how utterly awful 2012 was. (I liked 2012, but it was disaster movie porn. It was not good.) But I spent far more of San Andreas on the edge of my seat than I expecte...

Picoreview: Spy

Picoreview: Spy: very very funny. Very vulgar. Very kick-ass. Very funny.

Two weeks ago I’d had no intention at all of seeing Spy, because the trailer made it look like it was probably all about making mockery of the fat lady. I then read a review from a reviewer whose politics I like (Scott Mendelson; he reviews movies for Forbes and is a left-leaning liberal feminist) which said “despite the trailers that is not what this movie is,” and then I read a few more reviews that all said the same...

house hunting

We’ve been house hunting. I feel like I’ve been doing nothing at all work-wise (that’s because I’ve been doing nothing at all work-wise) and I feel like I don’t know what I HAVE been doing, although house hunting has been part of it.

We went to look at a ridiculously cool place today. I mean, it’s literally a Georgian manor house. It’s not a BIG manor house (4br), but it’s literally a Georgian manor house and it’s on about an acre and is in the middle of a city. I’ve been saying that all I re...

Picoreview: Tomorrowland

Picoreview: Tomorrowland: boring.

I really wanted to like it, as it had a message I certainly support, and there were a lot of good *pieces*, but overall it failed to click.

It did not help that the opening seven or eight hours twenty minutes felt like somebody higher up at Disney had said “The audience is never going to understand this if you don’t explain it to them” and forced the director to put George Clooney on the screen talking directly to the camera, and then when that was a painful...

Birthday!

I have awakened upon this, the occasion of my 42nd natal day, with a killer headache. Probably not enough water yesterday. #hydrates

Yesterday I served up bbq pulled pork, applesause, potato salad, pasta salad, green salad, and baked beans for the family. I made everything except the baked beans, which Mom made. It was all really really good, although as Sarah pointed out, in retrospect, too much work for my own birthday. (Mom DID offer to host, but for some reason I said nah, it’s cool. Some...