Titular

His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik
Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik
Black Powder War - Naomi Novik
Empire of Ivory - Naomi Novik
Victory of Eagles - Naomi Novik
Valor's Trial - Tanya Huff
Core Performance Women - Mark Verstegen & Pete Williams
Foreigner - CJ Cherryh
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

At It Again

Last night my soccer team had their first practice of 2012 -- the others have been cancelled due to some ill-timed bad weather (I know, is there ever a good time for bad weather? I guess that depends on who you're with...). The last time I was at the practice field, the parking lot was a construction zone and we had to park in side streets and "legal enough" alleys. When we arrived last night the parking lot was restored and the new community centre situated very nice and shiny with active classes. We had a good practice, although after two days of soccer I think I need more core work, and as we headed off the field it happened again. My teammate drives a silver SUV and in the dark silver looks a lot like cream and well…

Kirsten: (Walking straight off-field towards a SUV.)
Teammate!MR: (Walking diagonally off-field towards a different SUV.) Kirsten! Where are you going?!
Kirsten: Uhhhhh…dammit! All SUVs look the same in the dark. (Joins Teammate!MR at other SUV.)

Clearly what I need to do is start memorizing my friends’ license plates for future reference; reducing embarrassing moments and handy for paying parking meters too!

Teaze

Whenever I make myself a cup of Red Rose tea, I always think of my friend Jean. It was at Jean’s house that I first had a cup of Red Rose tea that was actually enjoyable. Every other time I had been served the tea it left my mouth feeling dry and I could feel it catching at the back of my throat. I will be the first to admit that I regularly over steep my tea. For most herbal teas, I find that they can use all the steeping they can get to extract every last bit of flavor. I drink mostly black teas because herbal tea flavours so rarely live up to the aroma that they have. The bouquet on herbal teas can be the most delicious and enticing scents and once you taste them…you’re drinking nice smelling water. I think I’d get more enjoyment from adding them to a bath! Also, whether I’m drinking coffee or tea, I prefer the palate to be strong and full-bodied.

What this attitude fails to account for is that some teas have a precise brewing time, in the same way that coffee has brewing routines. Jean showed me that paying attention to the brewing instructions can produce a perfect cup of tea. Following instructions can be helpful! Who knew? (Okay, I guess a lot of people knew. And then wrote instructions. And warning labels. What-have-you.) So now I pay more attention to my teas – I’ll follow the instructions for the first brewing and decide from there. I got some really yummy tea in Barcelona that I follow the directions for exactly. I got more tea at the German Christmas Market that is fruity and spicy – very refreshing during a season of indulgence. Some teas I continue to over steep and enjoy them just as much as my perfectly timed cuppas. So I owe great thanks to Jean, bringer of properly brewed tea, for broadening my palate to the joys of civilized beverages.

Pithy Internet Wisdom

Most email forwards have some schmoopy sentiment at the end, a warning against plagues of locusts if you don't forward it to 10 people or untold riches if you only send it to your 15 closest friends. I like the ones that have been tweaked to be a little snarky. The close of one such email read:

We'll be friends until I am senile.
Then we'll be new friends.

Which is hilarious particularly because one of the most horrifying ideas to me would be physically able in my old age and have lost all my marbles. Let's all laugh in the face of our fears for a moment shall we?

Silly Video of the Day

I know that I said I was going to be posting cat videos and all but I think I might have a problem. I may have suddenly garnered an insight for the origins of all those picture-spam emails that go around. I deactivated my Facebook but I still have all the blogs that I keep up with through my Google Reader feed. The other day I saw the video that is posted below and I thought: oh my gosh, this is so hilarious that I have to share it on Facebook. I mean that was actually my first thought. Whoa whoa whoa. Back up the sharing train because is that 3 minutes and 35 seconds that everyone really must see? Will it enrich them and make them happy that I foisted this time suck upon them? Probably not, no. But then….awesome!S sent me a link of the same video! I felt a surge of vindication: two of us could not be wrong about the awesomeness of 3 minutes and 35 seconds. Which is exactly why all of those emails propagate and kill inbox capacities.

The nature of the email-forwarding-beast aside, I love how many different Sesame Street spoofs and videos there are. This particular video is not directly affiliated with Sesame Street but there are many official ones that are very awesome and very cute. I think it’s great that Sesame Street is still going strong after all these years and that new generations are being introduced to those loveable muppets. So I hope you enjoy the wonder that is an Elmo cover of LMFAO “Sexy and I know It”; I know I preferred this video to the original!

Status Update

I quit Facebook for awhile to remove myself from the habit of constant feed updating, browser refreshing and liking of all manner of posts. Since a friend mentioned my blog on my penultimate Facebook status I thought I might as well share the address. (Howdy to the 26 people who have stopped by. Nice of you to click on the link.)

I need to take some time for myself and consider what I want to be doing with my life. As my lovely friend Jean so recently posted (APP for a SMART life CC Jean Leggett) – I want to develop my APP. It’s something that I haven’t done since university and a question that I had a hard time answering when jean asked during a coaching session. It’s December 2012 – what have I done? What achievements and experiences have made 2012 stand out? In the midst of all that will be the posts about videos and jokes that I “have” to share with my friends. Because, let’s face it, I do love me some kitten videos.

Slow day

Today I meant to get a head start on some work but unfortunately I have caught one of the colds going around. Not quite the start to the year that I had hoped for but I would rather rest up now to get better sooner. My brain is a bit fuzzy and so most anything that I would put together here is not worth the posting. But since I want to start many things on the right foot -- I shall post this note and push on tomorrow.

Sherlockians!

One of the things that amazing!L and I have in common is our love for Sherlock Holmes and the BBC productions of the Sherlock stories with Jeremy Brett. This past summer I purchased the complete DVD collection of the Jeremy Brett series. We watched several dvds before she returned to school and we picked up where we left off this Christmas break. I was very happy to find a Sherlock Holmes trivia book link here that was a gift from Santa to amazing!L and me. :)

After we watched each episode, we would play the quizzes. It turns out we're deductive geniuses -- available for consultations on such important cases as missing keys, etc etc. It was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to resuming this summer. (As a side note, bonus points for the BBC productions because they are really great with the details.)

We had planned to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie together and in anticipation we watched the first movie on Christmas Day. Time being what it is, we didn't quite fit it in. So today, as I browsed a book store while talking with amazing!L as she boarded her plane I happened across two new Sherlock inspired novels:
Sherlockian (Synopsis) and
Dust and Shadow (Synopsis)

I picked up "Dust and Shadow" and decided to view the new Sherlock movie before going home again. As one might imagine the theatre was rather busy so I had to wait, reading my new Sherlock novel, before the next viewing. It was very meta. :) I had an empty seat next to me and so I imagined that amazing!L was seated next to me sharing in the experience.

It was a very Sherlock Christmas...and I'm so glad that it wasn't any other way.