It Started with a Journal

In preparation for Jade's visit, I have been busily buying board games. There's no way we will have time to play them all, but that won't stop us from trying! The latest is Saboteur, from the publisher of Pandemic. It's almost like the Mafia party game. Basically, an unknown person or persons tries to sabotage the rest.

When I was still playing WoW, my guild would play Mafia on our guild forums. It was so freaking fun -- toward the end, it was more fun than WoW itself. For playing online, basically, you have a game mod, and they assign roles to each player. Most players are townspeople (depending how complex you want to get with the game, each townsperson can have a specific role, like "cop"), and a small subset are Mafia members (and again, depending on complexity they could have specific roles). With big games, you might even have two different Mafia families. Anyway, during the "day" everybody talks (so it's better with active players who will actually post) and judging by what's said, you all vote to see who you will lynch. The day ends when someone gets the right amount of votes to be lynched. The mod reveals whether that player was a Mafia member or an innocent townsperson. Night falls. The Mafia members are allowed to conspire and decide who they're going to murder in the night. A townsperson (or member of opposing Mafia) dies, and the mod reveals who it is and what role they played. Day dawns again and it starts all over, until the Mafia or the Town prevail in the end. SO FUN.

Anyway, so yeah. I'm looking forward to trying that out, playing the Matt Leacock game Lunatix Loop, Ticket to Ride: Europe (which is more complex and therefore more fun than the U.S. one), Puerto Rico, and of course, Pandemic. :D

Plus there's spending time with Jade and our planned Obsess Me! challenge. What is this, you might ask? (Or not, but I'm going to tell you anyway.) We each get 10 hours of TV time to make the other watch anything we want. The purpose, of course, being that we want to get each other into the various shows that we enjoy that the other isn't watching. In the last few years or so, we have been diverging a LOT in what we choose to watch. We only have a few shows in common now, which is shocking, SHOCKING. She doesn't watch: Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Community, Parks & Rec, The Wire, The Good Wife or Breaking Bad. I don't watch Leverage, The New Girl, 2 Broke Girls, SNL and I don't even know what else. The point is that we have very few shows that intersect, so this is our chance to try and intersect more. The problem is that we naturally gravitate toward certain kinds of shows. I'm not generally a sitcom person (though of course there are a few exceptions, for truly quality programming, as I see it <g>), while she's not as much a drama person. She prefers light-hearted comedy and romance, while I prefer angst and epic plots. :)) I'm biased, naturally, but I'm like, "I like substance, she likes mind candy." :)))) That's NOT to say that we only watch shows that fall into those respective buckets, but looking at our current lineup, drama vs comedy is how I'd generally delineate it. Maybe someone else can be more objective about the differences.

We do have some shows in common, though. How I Met Your Mother, Merlin (though she hasn't seen S4), The Walking Dead, and The Vampire Diaries are the ones that come to mind. Speaking of VD, we're now caught up with what's aired! Just the season finale left. ( VD through 3x21 'Before Sunset' )

In book news, I'm in the middle of like 3 of them at the moment, but they're all going to be shunted aside for City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments book 5), which released today. Jace is just too hot to ignore.

I've also given up the ghost wrt my lawn. I've decided to hire a gardener again. (I ended up calling the first gardener I ever had, who maintained my lawn for me for years -- I should never have stopped. But hindsight is 20/20.) I realize that I just can't keep up with how quickly the grass grows now that it's getting warmer, and don't want to. I want to spend my time doing other things, including possibly vegetable gardening again. I was spurred to calling a gardener when I realized that the main reason I haven't gotten up the will to go play in the raised bed is because the lawn is so unkempt/long. It's like being out in the wild. >.> And yeah, it's a little late in the season to try and grow anything this year. I have some cover crop in the bed right now that I still need to tear up and turn over into the dirt, so I wouldn't be able to plant anything until 2-3 weeks after I take care of that... which takes me into June. O.o So this season is probably lost, but we'll see.

Ughghghgh I am sooooo siiiiiiick. I love my visits to SoCal, but part of me dreads them too because more often than not, I get sick, especially when I visit jade_okelani. I don't know what it is! It's like I get super susceptible to non-Seattle germs while I'm here or something. And because my visit was so short this time, it's really wrecking the last half of my visit. :-(

I've been having body aches since the day before yesterday, I have a cough, a slight fever, and started out with a headache. I barely feel well enough to get up and have a meal, then immediately afterward I have to go back to bed because I feel so weak. I just hope at least the body aches will be gone by tomorrow, because I'd like to enjoy my last real meal in LA.

Anyway, because of being sick I slept most of the time that I was at Jade's, though we did get in three episodes of The Vampire Diaries. However, we could have gotten in so much more. AND me, ropo and Jade didn't get to play Pandemic as much as we wanted (yay that they both liked it! They didn't know it, but adelagia and I have often joked that if someone didn't like the game we'd have to seriously reconsider if we could be friends with such a person lol. Luckily this was not put to the test since we are friends with people who have good taste). I also finally met their friend VicTORia, who I have heard scads about but who I've never really spent much time with. She always hosts these fancy dinner parties and I finally got to attend one -- a Valentine's themed Girls' Gaming Night. It was actually really fun, though I wouldn't have gotten through it without the help of Advil. We played Taboo and a new game Vik had gotten called Zero.

I am REALLY not looking forward to going to work on Monday. I wouldn't have looked forward to it anyway, but now that I feel like ass, it sounds like pure torture.

grrm has been selling lesser-known books of his off his overstuffed bookshelves, and since I CANNOT RESIST such things I've been buying them to put into my own overflowing bookshelves. However, he signs each book and I enjoy reading his little inscriptions. :D Plus it doesn't appear that I will ever get to meet him in person to get my silver first of A Game of Thrones signed. Sigh.

I'm still not much in a reading mood, but I finally finished Lisa See's Peony in Love. That one took me months and months. Right now I've started the first Dresden Files book, Fevre Dream by GRRM (one of the books from see above), and The Grand Tour, sequel to Sorcery & Cecelia.

My mom is staying with me right now, which is wonderful because she's made such an amazing recovery. But on the other hand, she is DRIVING ME UP THE WALL. I thought that given everything that's happened, I'd somehow turn into a saint and have endless amounts of patience for her. I don't. Somehow, my mom is able to push my buttons like no one else, and she still does it. This has always been our dynamic and I guess it always will be.

Restaurant Week is over at last. This is the most I have ever participated in a single RW -- I believe I went to 12 places -- and it was too much, especially because half the dinners weren't all that great. Next time I'm going to restrict it to only 2-3 dinners, with no restriction on lunch, because RW lunch is always worthwhile. ( The final RW outings. )

Then today we went to Bellevue to eat at Boiling Point, which is a Taiwanese hot pot place that specializes in stinky (fermented) tofu. If you're not Chinese or totally immersed in Chinese culture, you won't like it. In fact, it'll be completely heinous. But my mom and I love it, LOL. Then I actually made dinner tonight! I made Jamie Oliver's vegetable lasagne. I so could not do it in 30 minutes, but then I made a different version than he did so it's not really a good test. It was really, really good but my version was too soupy; we had to use bread to mop up the sauce. To go with it I made a simple salad of butter lettuce and radicchio, with olive oil and lemon juice dressing. For some bizarre reason I had it in my head to make another dressing -- a sesame vinaigrette -- that I ended up having to save in the fridge.

jade_okelani and I have started Vampire Diaries S3! ( Spoilers for 3x01 'The Birthday.' )

Slowly but surely, I am getting all the things done that I need to do in order to be able to leave on Sat.

- returned all library books to the library (I got 1/3 of the way through The Magicians)
- put my mail on hold
- put various lists on vacation hold
- mailed off Merlin to three cool ladies
- took pets to vet and got health cert
- watched Vampire Diaries 2x09 (and now I know why there was not a peep from my flist about it, what a forgettable episode, though the C/S interaction was cute. I don't even want to TALK about the D/R)
- finished Sherlock (once again, adelagia was spot on and warned me that the second episode was far weaker than the other two, which are great, especially the first ep)

I don't know why, but the Seattle area has a lot of self-named European Delis that specialize in imported European goods, especially cheese and salami. It's very general, there's never any specificity (sorry, Inception!Arthur) as to which countries in Europe are represented, exactly, though they seem mostly Russian. Or something. Anyway, I love those places. My favorite thing is Estonskaya salami or something like that. I think it must be made with crack. It is SO GOOD. I bought half a pound today and my plan is to make myself a sandwich to take on the plane with me.

( Die of adorableness. Two paws up! )

I'm getting a facial at Julep after work today. I don't really like facials and I've only gotten like two of them in my entire life, but this was part of a package, so. It's not even that I don't like people touching my face (which I know is an issue for some people); I like it when I'm getting a massage. It's that I don't notice ANY difference before/after.

I loved Merlin 3x10 so much I am thinking of doing a pictorial summary of it, even though I know my time should be spent elsewhere.

I have the Merlin S1 and S2 soundtracks. :D My favorite pieces are 1) The Call of Destiny/Titles (from S1; it includes the main titles); 2) Finale (from 02x02 -- includes the first you-know-what); and 3) Lancelot's Heroism (from 02x04). A bit about #3. The reason I started liking Lancelot was this piece of music. Seriously. It just makes him seem so, well, heroic. Prior to that scene, I'd had nothing against Santiago Cabrera (though it still wigs me out that he was Isaac Mendez on Heroes), but the Lancelot character didn't do anything for me. After that scene I liked Lancelot himself a lot more. Usually, I let soundtrack score just kind of carry me through a scene; I don't really notice it as a separate thing. But sometimes, the music will stand out and even while watching I'll be like, "Wow, that is such awesome/beautiful/etc. music." I had such a moment with both #2 and #3.

Last night I went to Bastille with J. It was great. Started with oysters, which were good but nothing stand out. This was followed by a duck leg confit, which was AWESOME. J.'s entree was the agnolotti stuffed with hazelnuts, mascarpone, brioche, and white bean puree. OMG it was so good. Usually vegetarian entrees aren't nearly as good as the meat-based ones, but even I would happily eat that as an entree. Desserts, which we shared: apple terrine with creme fraiche, and pear and frangipane tart with vanilla ice cream. Yeah. The good food endorphins were definitely present last night. Oh! And J. ordered a pinot gris that was so fruity and mild even I could drink it. :P

Then today at lunch (I know, the food train never stops), my team and I went to Wild Ginger in Bellevue, which was also very good. Lunch prix fixes are such a good deal. Started with the beef satay, followed by chicken breast curry, then finished off with coconut ice cream, $15. And if we'd been able to go into Seattle and the much-more awesome restaurants there, it would have been even better.

My tomato plants are pretty much all dead now. I could have pulled them weeks ago if it weren't for me being totally lazy. I still don't really feel like doing it, but I know I should because I should plant garlic. But I'm laaazzzzyyyy. I've moved the little Meyer lemon 'tree' inside, at least.

Wow. I just noticed that viewership for The Vampire Diaries is much lower in the U.S. than the audience of Merlin in the U.K. In fact, Merlin S1's numbers on NBC was higher than TVD, and it was considered so mediocre that it's now airing on Syfy instead of NBC. I guess it's because TVD airs on CW so the viewership is considered good for that network.

OMG I just found out that the German DVDs of Roswell have the original music!! I was on the German Amazon site all ready to buy the DVDs (now that I have a region-free player, I should take advantage, right?), when reason came back to me and I realized I could try to find a torrent first. I did find one, where a Russian fan took a VHS audio track and put it together w/ the Russian DVDs, which has an English audio. *fingers crossed* OK, some background here for anyone who is utterly confused about why all this is even necessary, but is still for some reason reading this...

When Roswell originally aired, they used a lot of popular music to make the 'soundtrack,' as many CW-type shows do. Well, a lot of that music became inextricably linked with scenes from the show. To this day, Roswell's music is the best I've seen on any show. Their music selection committee rocked. Anyway, so it was a HUGE part of the series, at least as far as many fans (me and Jade included) were concerned. However, when the DVDs were put together, they didn't have the money to pay for all the copyrights for all the music/songs they used in the original airing. They paid for/kept a handful of the REALLY, REALLY iconic songs (like Dido, which was used in the credits), but otherwise everything else was changed. (The biggest one for me was Linkin Park's "With You," which opened the Dupes episode.) It's such a huge disappointment that I haven't even been able to watch through the episodes since the final season aired. In fact, I kept all my old VHS tapes on which I had taped all the original episodes, because they had the 'real' music and I couldn't bring myself to toss them. But now, finally, I might be able to!

YOU GUYS. THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. EPISODE 1X19. WHAT. ( But my birthday isn't for another 2 weeks! )

K. and I went to Tilth last night and it was so good. The desserts were nothing special, but the cauliflower flan, pumpkin soup, and ahi tuna were fabulous. It's a good deal, too, considering their 5-course tasting menu costs $60/person. O.o

I'm thinking of getting a wool comforter to supplement/replace my down comforter, because of the coldness. Anyone have experience with those? Last night both pets were pressed right up against me, I think because of the chill. It's nice in some ways, but it does also make me feel trapped -- I often make small adjustments in sleep, and now when I do it I get a complaint either in the form of a growl or a meow. -.-

I finally decided on the fried chicken dinner at Spring Hill for my bday dinner, except when I called to make the reservation I was told that they're booked up on the fried chicken dinner until FEBRUARY. What the hell. This is what happens when other people find out about my local favorites. Now I have to think of something else. Grrrr.

I'm finally caught up on S3 of Merlin! From now on I think I'll be watching episodes in 'real time,' since this time I really only had to wait a couple of weeks to get to 6 episodes, having started the show not too long ago. Plus 3x07 looks like a total squee-fest for those with my inclinations. :D

( Spoilers (aka, go ahead akscully, spam me with gifs). )

I've also been watching The Vampire Diaries, which is definitely way more tolerable than Twilight, but uses some of the typical human girl-vampire guy stereotypes I am totally sick of. However, the show is worth putting up with for Ian Somerhalder alone. :D

( Spoilers through 1x11. )

My faucet broke the other night. I have one of those ones that can pull out, which is super convenient for many reasons. Anyway, the faucet head broke off from the hose, with the plastic part of the head that screws into the hose still in it. So basically, I'd have to replace both the faucet head AND the hose, unless I could get that broken part out. Which would have been fine (I was able to get both parts at Lowe's for about $80), except that the part of the hose that connects to the water line was in a really inconvenient place, and I also didn't have the strength to unscrew it.

My only real hope, if I wanted to get it done myself, was to get the plastic thingy out so I could screw in the new faucet head. I tried and tried for like an hour to get it out with a flathead screwdriver, a hammer, etc. I tried to get it to unscrew and break it out, but it was stuck in there. Totally frustrated, I went and watched some VD and took a nap.

When I woke up, I got some matches, lit a candle, and held the end of the hose to it for several minutes. It took awhile, but eventually the rubber softened enough that I was able to pry it out with the screwdriver. I screwed on the new faucet head and viola! It's not a perfect fit but it was the only one Lowe's had. Also my kitchen smelled like burned rubber for hours. Still, yay for DIY home repair for $40. More than the money though, I REALLY did not want to have to do without a kitchen sink for any significant length of time.

There are three reasons I haven't been watching The Vampire Diaries:

1) I rarely watch ANY television during its original airing. I usually watch TV on DVD, so I'm almost always a season or two behind. Shows I love like Mad Men, House, Lost, Arrested Development, Gilmore Girls, Prison Break, Rome, How I Met Your Mother, etc., I watch/watched on DVD. There are a few rare shows that I try to keep up with in real time, like Glee and S4 of Dexter, but that requires watching on Hulu or downloading a torrent, which I am too lazy to do for most shows. It sucks because this means I am more sensitive to spoilers (an entire season could be spoiled), but it's also nice because I can skip commercials AND watch episode after episode of one show and watch events unfold in a less disjointed way.

2) I hate Twilight and am resistant to anything that appears to try and win audiences over because it's trying to take advantage of the 'hot new thing.' I am skeptical there could be quality there for that reason, particularly because the 'hot new thing' it's trying to take advantage of is so low quality to begin with that it's obviously not aiming toward discerning audiences.

3) I LOVED the L.J. Smith book series. I read them as a teenage girl, before Buffy came along and made vampires cool, and it was one of my favorite series. So I was even more resistant to the show based on my skepticism that they would be able to do it well (given point #2) and my fear that they'd ruin something I had really loved. (And my fear that the series itself wouldn't stand up to the test of time.)

However, I've read and seen enough about the show at this point that I think I'm ready to give it a shot. I'm #8 in my library queue for the first season, but I think it's going to take awhile as there's only 1 copy available. Still, I thought it was going to be a show that I'd never watch, so the fact that I will do so eventually is a big step!

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I'm also going to start watching The Shield. I don't actually know anyone who watches this show, but I've heard/read enough critical acclaim about it that I'd like to see it. I've gotten the complete series on DVD; it's kind of cool-looking, actually. It's like a big hardcover book, with little inserts for the discs.

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My BSG Blu-Rays have come! I don't know now whether to start rewatching those or starting The Shield.

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I'm on S7 of XF. It wasn't a bad season but I DREAD what's coming. Why did they attempt to do XF w/o DD?! Greedy fuckers. I mean, XF just isn't XF w/o Mulder and Scully. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT.

The Samantha resolution though, wtf? (The end of Closure is beautiful, however.)

Mulder constantly breaks my heart.

I'm interested in rereading my favorite fanfics from way back when, but I suspect a lot of them won't be available anymore. A lot of people took down their stories after they finally realized that having their real names associated with fanfic might not be such a good idea. I've already gone back to reread a couple, and those unfortunately did not pass the test of time.

I want to go back and rewatch S6. Again. Other than Agua Mala and Trevor it was pretty a much a perfect season, imho. Freaking Agua Mala, I spit on it.

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I still haven't seen Lost S6. Or the latest season of House. Or of course Mad Men S4. OMG so much to catch up on! I have tons of vacation, maybe I should take some time off and just watch TV the whole time. Hey, that'd be a pretty darn relaxing vacation.

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I also want to rewatch Buffy again. Also Firefly, which I also just got on Blu-Ray. Maybe I'll do a Whedon binge after I've watched everything else mentioned here.