a wolf angel is not a good angel

I’ll play with the meme that’s going around: ask me to photograph things, and I will take pictures. Usual rules apply — nothing pornographic, nothing too revealing of my identity.

1. The nose pad on my glasses. It’s a holiday weekend, so I don’t even know how many places will be open to beg them to replace the pad.
2. My right front headlight. I am sure it is easy to replace. I just don’t feel like it.

I am sure there is a third coming soon. Please not my computer, whose registry I just had to manually edit because McAfee was corrupted and couldn’t be uninstalled.

I am planning to go to Boston, probably Monday July 9 or Tues the 10. I know there are local readers there (I can think of three). Anyone want to meet up? If you don’t want to admit your location in blog, you can email me at wolfangel AT gmail. (I may or may not get the courage to email about it.) I will also be in the S ME area, near Wells ME/Portsmouth NH. (This is about a 2h drive from Boston.)

I’d love to meet bloggy people, should anyone be in the area around the right time. Let me know.

I am also happy to meet anyone who is visiting my lovely city.

Oh, and I finally finished Angel. Other than the last episode and the puppet episode (”Look at the wee little puppet-man”), S5 was a major disappointment compared to S4. I was also irritated when Wesley’s thing for Fred was supposed to be attractive instead of creepy.[1] Sure, Wesley was my favourite character — he was incredibly well-developed and consistent and interesting — but he was also a creep and sort of an asshole. Who was punished all out of proportion to his sins, but I guess it’s one of those things: sometimes a mistake turns out terribly badly through stupid bad luck, and your extra punishment compared to people who all make the same mistakes is just chance.

I cannot decide whether or not I liked the ambiguous ending. I didn’t dislike it. I liked a lot of it. But sometimes I want more resolution. I thought how they dealt with Lorne was excellent, though. And the ambiguous ending (well, I sort of hope it was ambiguous, but it wasn’t, really) was appropriate for the show, which tried to deal with moral ambiguity in a very overt way, using Gunn especially as the foil. Anyways, I am not going to overblog this, because I haven’t entirely decided what I think of the entire show.

[1] This was a fairly regular happening, really. See, eg, Riley. And possibly the entire Buffy/Spike relationship.

Just saw Wordplay. Much fun! Probably not so much fun for non-crossword players, but I do play them, so it works out fine. (And I do pretty much only the NYT ones. I can usually do most of Thursday unaided, sometimes a Friday. I need help on Saturday. I can always do most of a Sunday, and often all of it. I am getting better.)

Of course, I’m totally not obsessive enough to be one of the real solvers. 2 minutes for a Monday? 10 for a Saturday? Please. I can do maybe 10 minutes for a Monday. (Well, probably less, but not that much. Anyways, I already read too damn fast, I might as well be slow on crosswords.)

I tried the puzzles on their website, but one keeps rejecting my obviously correct answers,[1] and another makes you search round on other websites for the clues. Then I gave up, because the interface also sucks.

I found I can only solve very short clues in my head.

Before you see this movie (or read the book Crossworld), solve this puzzle after downloading this software. You will regret it if you don’t and the solution is ruined for you. (People who remember a weird/contentious puzzle in 1996 can ignore this.) Seriously really, solve the puzzle. It’s, I think, a Tuesday, so it’s really easy. Plus, it’s totally worth solving. It is worth downloading software for.

Anyways, back to the movie. I liked it. I was disappointed in who won the tournament, though. And it was — of necessity — a bit light on some information (which I got through the book, though there’s supposed to be a companion book to this movie and what? I am so sane), which was a little disappointing. But at the same time, it *showed* in a way a book couldn’t. And I wasn’t sure how you could show a crossword puzzle being solved, it seems like the epitome of boring (you can’t even see the clues yourself), but it managed.

I was, I admit, sort of irritated by the pen(cil) thing they did. people, get a grip. Unless you never ever make a mistake with your pen, you’re just being an obnoxious snob.

Upshot: deserves all its praise. Go see the movie if you are any sort of nerd.

[1] Joshua’s conquest: JE_ICHO; Peak perfomances? ONEAC_PLAYS and, crossing those those, Short Havana misses, S__AS. I mean, seriously. There was no battle at Jepicho. I’ll make my mother try it.

Found out why dishonest contractor never got back in touch with me — he’s trying to sue the old owner. I assume I’ll get more info later. When he gets back in touch with me, I have a written estimate for one thing (where he charged TWO TIMES the estimate), so that should work. The other he just charged a few hundred more — I will offer a few hundred less than the estimate, because all the paint chipped off over the winter, so I need to sand and repaint it. I admit I am totally paranoid about this whole thing. Also, seriously, twice the written estimate? Is he insane as well as totally dishonest and unethical?

The house next door to my parents’ house — priced *at least* 50% more than it is worth (and about 2.5 times what they paid for it, a few years ago — they didn’t do major renovations, but they did fix up a lot of it — and most people figure it’s priced more like 70% over what it should be) — has given in and brought the price down. By 5%. We’re still betting no sale, though.

One of the apartments in my building has just been rented, and if the number I heard is correct, then I could, theoretically, rent it out for 50% more than my mortgage+condo payments.

The person who bought the building behind me is, by all accounts, still trying to illegally force current tenants out. (First rule of changing to a condo: you cannot do it for 5 or 10 years after you’ve illegally forced a tenant out. *If* you’re caught.) And most of the tenants are, I think, too tired to fight it. Now the new owner is trying to get the building condemned.

JKR has said that two people will die in the next book, possibly including Harry. And I guess that there’s shock and all, but I was mostly thinking Only two? This is a huge major wizarding war, with — among others — a bunch of kids fighting against the most powerful wizard ever and only two people will die? And given what she did the first time someone died, I cannot even assume she means that two of the important characters will die plus a bunch of the secondary ones.

I will, however, assume that the two doesn’t include Voldemort because that would just annoy me.

Update: Mugglenet says that what she said was she edited the last chapter of book 7 to have two more people die and one other person live. I’ll hope they’re right, because the other plan doesn’t really make sense to me. I am too lazy to listen to the interview, so I am relying on other interpretations of it. Though the interpretations are all that people will die only in the final chapter, which is possible, I guess, but a little weird and also unlike the earlier books.

Update 2: Conversation going on at Feministe

Update 3: Okay, I listened. She says that, in the last chapter, one character gets a reprieve, and two die that she hadn’t intended. So *at least* two characters die in the last chapter (unless she changes it again), and no comments on how many people do or don’t die in any other chapter. Other quote: “This is ultimate evil. They don’t target the extras.” Then I got bored because it’s a half hour long.

I am still feeling all icky and crampy. Stupid, stupid uterus. I hope my next pills kick in very soon so I can go to sleep.

I think I am getting my period again. And it is particularly bad this time — unlike in recent months. Pain pain pain and sure I know I’m a wimp but it *hurts*. (I am waiting for pills to kick in.)

I periodically try putting heat on, but it’s too hot here to do that. Gah — I am in pain and also feeling sickish — not sick enough to be sick, too sick to be not sick and I really hate internal organs sometimes.