(no subject)

1. My sister walked into her daughter's room yesterday to find that she and her little brother were wearing plastic Halloween buckets on their heads. Not too big a deal, but there were also new holes in their clothes. The reason? They were playing "leaky cauldrons" and, of course, cauldrons aren't leaky unless they have holes.

2. Today in class, my nephew was asked to write up his turkey recipe. I couldn't hear the whole thing (my niece insisted on being the one to read it, and we were talking over a cell phone), but Step One was buying a turkey from the store, and the rest involved eight hundred and something marshmallows, 506 hours (or possibly minutes?) in the microwave, and a happy dinner with the family.

3. I saw Quantum of Solace this past weekend. It was good. Wish I'd rewatched Casino Roayle first, though, because a lot of Quantum is driven by the events of Royale. Was nice to see some of the old touchstones, though. The little trail of white circles at the opening. The traditional music. The homage to Goldfinger (but with black gold). The beginning of the closing credits. The Onion told me to expect good, but not great. They've got the best, most reliable reviews I've encountered, but every once in a while we disagree. I'm not entirely sure if we do this time. I agree that it holds par with Royale rather than expanding and going above and beyond (as The Dark Knight did for Batman Begins), but really, I'm not sure what more they could have done.

I'm also not sure what I think of the action sequences. They're full of quick cuts and quicker action. Deliberately made, I believe, to be just a little too fast to really follow. In a way, I like it. In a way, I find it frustrating and a little overwhelming. (But that's the idea, so...) I do like the thing in the elevator where you basically can't see what's happening... it shows you that that's not the point. That, with Bond, you can just take for granted that he can do that. Makes things just a little larger than life, which Bond should be. But without going over the top, as they did with Brosnan. (I still laugh, remembering the "My uber car can beat your uber car!" sequence in Die Another Day. That was unintentionally hilarious.)


4. Saw "colorgenics" pop up on my flist a couple of times (most recently from acbshada. Thought I'd give it a shot.

( results )

Which has a fair amount of truth to it, too. But also a fair amount that's flat wrong. Still, again, for quickly clicking through colored blocks, I'm impressed.

5. Went for a blood test today. Followed by a pancake breakfast at IHOP down the street from the lab. Mom laughed at me for ordering chocolate chip pancakes with diet syrup. But there aren't that many chips in them, really, and you save calories where you can, you know? Anyway, there was one more pancake on the plate than I really wanted (and I probably should have stopped earlier than that, truth to tell), so I decided to have some fun with it. I cut a triangle out of it with my fork, then cut that triangle into little pieces. Ta-da! I had Pac Man on my plate, happily eating a line of Power Pellets! Mom laughed/sighed at me, but you get your kicks when you can, you know? ;)

And then I sat there idly musing about how I could someday make a batch of pancakes, throw some food coloring into some of them, do a bit more cutting, and make not just Pac Man, but also Inky, Blinky, Pinky, [crap, I forget], and Clyde.

Hmm. But then I'd need to make a Pac-maze, too, wouldn't I? French fries? Nah. I guess it'd have to be waffle sticks. Or french toast strips.

Someday.

At least I made Green Eggs and Ham that one time. That was easy enough. A couple drops of blue food coloring (because the egg is already yellow) and some cut up hot dog pieces in place of ham (since we don't eat ham), and there you are. I'd been meaning to try hot dogs and scrambled eggs anyway, since Mom "invented" the dish in her newlywed days and it had some success with a few family members. Wasn't so thrilling for me, it turns out, but calling it Green Eggs and Ham made me happy.

6. I forget what else there was. So you'll just have to live with the suspense. MWAHAHAHAHA!

ETA: 7. Dug up this image to post in a comment. I've come up with it before. And it makes the point, but I don't like it. Those are large letters, but they don't seem especially friendly, color notwithstanding. And why does the Guide have a QWERTY keyboard? Also, why does it say "Ursa Minor"? The Guide is published on Ursa Minor Beta, but the company is called Megadodo Publications.

The Guide image created over at Vogon.com is better (even if the online version of the Guide sadly only works if you have a very old legacy browser), but even that has its problems. And their font still isn't even that friendly (though somehow the red on black comes out friendlier to my eye than the yellow of the other image).

In short... someone needs to come up with a better image of the Guide. With a properly friendly font!

I have spoken.

ETA#2: 8. I remembered what 6 was! (So much for the suspense...)

( All about Lego Batman )

It is a lot of fun, but only in measured doses.