"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
A quiet Sunday here at the old homestead, with my sister and brother-in-law heading back home and me mostly just working on the Sunday crossword and getting caught up on The Walking Dead. Doing some reading this evening, then calling it a night. It’s back to work for me in the morning.
This afternoon, shortly before we got the wifi in the house running again, I finished watching Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on my iPad. I wish I could say, after three days of watching the movie, that it was worth it. The acting’s not too bad, despite some scenery chewing by Ben Kingsley and Jake Gyllenhaal’s questionable accent, but the the story — and the script — are a little too dumb. A couple of the stunts have genuine humor and intelligence behind them, but not so much the rest of the movie.
This evening, I watched The Lincoln Lawyer, which wasn’t perfect, was a little predictable, and at times strained credulity. But it was pretty good nonetheless, an intricate and intelligent legal mystery and a good lead performance by Matthew McConaughey.
In between those, I most puttered around the house, did a little cleaning, watched a little TV, failed to get the wifi working again all by myself. (My father and brother-in-law did pretty much the same thing I’d done, power-cycled the modem and router, but for them it worked.) Tomorrow’s the last of my four-day weekend, and I think by then I’ll be rested enough to go back to the office.
Spent several hours helping my father and my brother-in-law clean the gutters and leaves in the backyard, while the dogs ran around. (Well, Chloe, my sister’s dog, ran around, but she did enough of it for anyone.) My sister’s husband, Brian, is tall and less nervous than I am climbing up on the roof — it’s less the height than the incline, I think — so it’s good that he was here. Not that it’s really been cold, but it has been at least a few months since we had any call to switch the AC on.
Anyway, that took up a big piece of the afternoon, and this evening we all went out for Chinese. Then I tried to finish watching Prince of Persia: Sands if Time, which I started watching yesterday…but then the internet (and the streaming video) went out. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something? (It’s not a great movie so far.)
There’s a long list of things I’m thankful for, the little joys in life. I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving (or Thursday, as the case may be).
Had a lovely turkey dinner with my parents, my sister, and her husband (along with two dogs underfoot), and now I’m just kind of sleepy.
I went to work early this morning, which is something I like to do on those rare mornings when I can convince myself to wake up in time. An early arrival, to a quiet — and, this morning, still mostly dark — office, with a semi-leisurely breakfast in the break room with a good book, before getting down to the work day itself. And today, it was a shorter workday, with the office closing early for the Thanksgiving holiday, which is always a nice bonus.
Meanwhile, I also stumbled across this review of Kaleidotrope‘s fall issue. Lois Tilton of Locus didn’t love all of the stories — some she genuinely disliked — but she called the issue overall “surreal, fantastic, imaginative. Worth reading.” Which, y’know, is pretty much what I’m going for with every issue.
So, anyway, that was my…I want to say Friday, since that’s what it feels like, with a four-day weekend and Thanksgiving with family ahead of me. But I realize it’s still just Wednesday. Which makes the fact that it feels like Friday feel even nicer.