Category: blog

  • GTA and Witcher and Women

    GTA and Witcher and Women

    There’s been a lot of thievery and magicky swordplay going on about what we lovingly refer to as Casa de Pepe the last few weeks as my husband and I immerse ourselves in GTA and The Witcher, respectively. We bought swanky new video cards just for the event and, unusually for us, hide under headphones…

  • Hit It with a Hammer

    Hit It with a Hammer

    Bubble warning: Here There Be Liberal Sentiments. If the thought of drug-testing-free welfare turns you into a frothing rage monkey, you may wish to go elsewhere for today’s light political entertainment. A few weeks ago an elderly neighbor sent me an email entitled IF YOU CAN’T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU’VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL…

  • Dispatches from the Exercise Front

    Dispatches from the Exercise Front

    If there’s a gene for proclivity to exercise, my family doesn’t have it. Give me a choice between a vigorous bike ride and curling up with a book and I’ll take the book every time. I got away with it in my twenties because a heavy backpack and a university built on a steep hill…

  • Noah

    Noah

    I probably wouldn’t have gone to see Noah if Darren Aronofsky’s name hadn’t been associated with it. When I was six an older brother’s well-intentioned attempts to introduce me to Jesus ushered me into the dark world of night terrors and panic attacks (“They nailed him to what? And put a spear where? And it was my fault?”).…

  • The New New Car Experience

    The New New Car Experience

    Seat yourself in a comfortable position. Relax your shoulders, relax your face, let your tongue rest loosely in the center of your mouth. Feeling at ease? Now observe your reaction when you read the next very short paragraph. Car salesman. I’m guessing you feel considerably less relaxed. For decades the process of buying a car…

  • Unstately Estate

    Unstately Estate

    The week surrounding my parents’ estate sale was, perhaps, more eventful than I might have liked, a trickster deity’s bulleted list of “what can go wrong, will go wrong.” Friday, February 1st Early afternoon Late afternoon Evening Saturday, February 2nd   Morning Afternoon Evening Sunday, February 3rd Morning Afternoon Evening Monday, February 4th Morning Afternoon Evening Tuesday,…

  • If You Love Me, Honey, You’ll Smile

    If You Love Me, Honey, You’ll Smile

    I’ve been plinking at this blog post on and off for about a month now. The actual words have been writhing on the page like the tentacles of some ecstasy-crazed raver octopus, too uncoordinated to move in any actual direction. I got a fair way through a pretty stuffy discussion of persistence of vision and…

  • Seeds

    Seeds

    This was a failed entry for a Blizzard writing contest. I still kind of like it though, so here it is. On the short end of their length requirement. Anduin Wrynn’s breath steamed from cold and exertion as he crested the steep road climbing from the valleys of Dun Morogh to Ironforge. The pair of adventurers he had…

  • Diablo: Lord of Terribad

    Diablo: Lord of Terribad

    Diablo II is the first videogame I remember developing an obsession with. I played every character class through to the endgame (except for the necromancer: in minion-on-minion action at the beginning of Act IV even my most powerful golem crumpled like paper before Hell’s candy-aura-fisted skeletons and left me reduced to a puddle of goo…

  • Snow White and the Buddha

    Snow White and the Buddha

    So I went to see Snow White and the Huntsman last weekend despite its 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the frequently scathing reviews. Actually I went to see it partly because of the scathing reviews. (And because in the trailer menacing soldiers burst into showers of black shards when struck with swords. That seemed worth watching on a large screen.)…