Under the Volcano

Good morning!! The hump of the week looms. How are you doing?

Coffee is a Nicaraguan dark roast from Las Chicas. Teas are Irish Breakfast and White Peach.

Quote by Molly

I've started the graphic novel series Preacher. Yes, the same one they made a TV show about, but no spoilers! I didn't watch the TV show.

I don't think I have ever read any Garth Ennis, even though I have heard good things about his writing. Ditto Jeff Lemire who is actually from Southwestern Ontario so not too far from me.

I enjoyed Marc Morris' history of the Anglo-Saxons so when he appeared on the Gone Medieval podcast to talk about the development of castles in England, I headed to my library's Hoopla and found his book on the subject. Good read so far. Interesting how "castle" kind of changed meaning as they evolved from their first appearances in Britain in the mid-10th century. The Anglo-Saxon period and Norman conquest (which is when castles really took off in Britain) seem to be Morris' speciality. Title of this book is Castle: A History of the Buildings that Shaped Medieval Britain. Morris tends to write more popular history, rather than being academic, but at the same time he packs a PhD in history from Oxford so does his homework.

Starship Invasions

(One of the greatest mistakes of my life was going to see this in theater. I mean, how bad could a movie starring Robert Vaughn and Christopher Lee be, right? Yeah, it was dire.)

Begin your amazing, adventurous journey.

I (We) Have Always Lived In The Castle - Shirley Jackson

My annual attempt at a something spooky for Halloween is up. This year we've got a nice (for certain values of nice) older lady named Grace and her black cat meeting some naughty boys mixing it up on Bigelow Street. Have a read.

Grace of Bigelow Street | Stories Space

Good morning!!

Sunny, sunny days continue here.

We've got some Tobermory Grotto coffee brewing.

In the teapots, we are steeping Darjeeling and Jasmine Green.

Washed the pitchers and made up fresh iced tea and lemonade, too.

What's up, folks?

And my latest scribbling is in the queue. Will post here when it goes live. This is my Halloween story for this year. No Lovecraftian horrors this year. Just a nice old lady and her black cat...😉

Banned for laughing too much. 🤣

Quote by verbal
I refuse to refer to a stadium named after a bank

Our arena has had three different names since it was built maybe 20 or so years ago. First it was John Labatt Centre since Labatt's has a large, very old brewery in town. Then when Labatt's owner ABInbev renewed their naming rights, they changed it to Budweiser Gardens (Bud is also owned by them and Bud for Canada is brewed by Labatt's IIRC). Now Canada Life, a large Canadian insurance company, has bought the naming rights so it will be the Canada Life Centre or something like that. I still refer it to it as the JLC at times so I imagine the name "Bud Gardens" will stick around for a while, too.

Gooooooood morning!!! New day, new week, new .... okay, that's all that is new.

Coffee for the day is a Jamaican Blue Mountain medium roast. We've got Scottish Breakfast and Mukijima Sencha (Green) in the teapots.

Bit grey here but I've seen worse. The rain that was supposed to come yesterday completely missed us. From radar, it looks like cottage country got most of it.

How's things in your corner of reality?

Banned for not liking baby laughter.😊

Quote by JamesPBear

I'm considering renaming, designing a different cover, and reissuing it.

Considering "Spirit Bear and the Woman Who Fell From the Sky"

Bummer. I always thought Bear and Girl was a nice title, though maybe it sounds more like YA or kidlit to people? That new title seems wordy but I can't think of a shorter one.

I am wrestling a title into shape for my upcoming Halloween tale. The placeholder I've been using doesn't feel right but I haven't pinned down a new one. Otherwise, I think this baby is close to launch. Though I put a new, rather darker, stinger on the end this morning so that needs some work.

So I have discovered (thank you Google) that there is a roastery called Weekend Roasters. For the weekend, then, I am giving their beans from Santa Rosa, Guatamala a whirl. Medium roasted.

Teas are Earl Grey and Buddha's Blend.

Washed up the pitchers and made fresh iced tea and lemonade. Not sure about elsewhere, but there's not much call for cold beverages around here anymore. Very fallish.

Mongolian folk metal band The Hu are touring with British metal greats Iron Maiden this Fall. And in honour of that tour, they have covered "The Trooper", a Maiden classic. And it's an amazing performance from the band, full of their mix of Western metal and Mongol traditional music.

Who knew classic British heavy metal could sound so good in Mongol?

Spiritbox are the new hot thing of Canadian metal. Here they are joined by Ukrainian singer Tatiana Shmayluk of the band Jinjer. She's a near perfect match for Spiritbox lead singer Courtney Laplante, with a similar voice and style.

Spiritbox is the creation of Courtney and her husband, guitarist Mike Stringer. They met and fell for each other in another band, then wanted to try new things so left that band and started what became Spiritbox. The band has so far won two Juno awards (Canadian counterpart to the US Grammy) and was nominated for a Grammy early this year.

Woo hoo, it's Friday!!! Everybody's working for the weekend!!! (Loverboy, 1982. Yes, I'm old enough to remember it's release.)

So, let's put on some on some Deathwish Dark Roast coffee and some Yorkshire Gold and White Peach teas.

Anyone got cool plans? I'm going to prune a bush!!! Yay!!! (okay, it's not really that exciting but it beats vacuuming and washing floors, which is my other plan for the weekend😋)

Quote by BowTied

Needs to shut up and sing her songs and count her money. She's wholly unqualified to weigh in on political matters. Basically, she's an idiot.

Musicians weighing in on politics was considered a feature, not a bug, back in the sixties. And plenty of other celebs are getting their digs in. Free speech and all that. No one is obliged to listen (to her politics or her music).

And compared to some celebs, she's pretty quiet. Said her piece and carried on without constantly talking about it. And, let's be honest, Trump deepfaking her kind of forced her hand this time round.

Pumpkin coffee cake cookies, eh. Hmmm. Should go well with an afternoon tea, I think.

Quote by verbal
We are taking the cat to the vet today. Just a checkup. Hardest part will be, as always, catching him and putting him into the carrier. Sigh.

Holy necro, Batman!! A ten year old thread that hasn't had a post in 2 years came back to life!

Sadly, the last post in the thread before it went dark was mine and I have little to add but I will mention that Costco in Canada (forget if the US still has it, thought I heard they didn't) has a nice Polish sausage dog that comes with a soft drink for a very reasonable price. You can ask for onions with it, too. Not as good as BBQ sausage on a bun but better than your usual fast food dogs. Mrs. M and I sometimes buy one of them plus a poutine and split both.

Good morning!! Cool, sunny Fall day here in Ontario. Had to wear a jacket for the first time in a while.

Coffee is a nice dark roast from Costa Rica. Teas are Assam and Buddha's Blend (White with Jasmine Green). Washed the pitchers and mixed up fresh iced tea and lemonade. Soda stock looks good.

My Halloween story has been kind of sidelined for the new Tana-verse story I mentioned. I've really been flailing on doing a follow-up to The Spirits of Tan Maldrin and I kind of like what I have worked out for this one. That story was meant to kick off a new series about Tana's now-teenaged daughter Nalia and her companions Elera and Aval. Elera is her mentor as she trains to become a priestess of the Denith Lorn order; Aval is their lay helper, bodyguard, and Nalia's lover.

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic

Yes, but not stories. He writes songs - he was a guitar player in a few cover bands (one of which was named for a lyric from a Bruce Springsteen song).

Oo, that might almost be cooler. We do have a "Songs" category, eh. Just sayin'. 😉

Scar and Other Distinguishing Mark (Scars, Marks) - Richard Christian Matheson, son of Richard Matheson

What Dream May Come - Richard Matheson

Quote by Cora

Libraries have apps where you can watch shows/films. One of my favorite shows, "Don Matteo," started charging money to watch. Now I log in a library app and am able to watch it for free. If you are by a library, they may have an app, and they may have, "Music by John Williams." Or any other show/film you may want to watch.

Nah, Disney won't let go of stuff like that for a while. My library has a couple video apps but one of them is mostly straight-to-video trash or foreign shows that rights are easier to get. The other has a better collection but still doesn't get A-list stuff like that.

Quote by verbal
The debate was civil last night, so America won.

I heard that. Did not watch but did read a couple analyses this morning. So can we just get rid of Trump and Harris and let those two run for President now instead of in four years (or eight if Harris wins)?

Quote by verbal
The last time I went I locked my keys in the car. I swear I am not going senile!

I've got the newfangled pushbutton starter where the key is just a fob that stays in my pocket. On both my cars now. Only the old one that my son drives still has a normal key.

takes a Darjeeling tea and a caramel apple cookie

Actually feels Fallish here today. Has been cooler this week but quite muggy so far but today was very cool and less humid after some storms overnight. Meeting day so far but I'm finally settled back at my desk and can actually do some work.

Sort of relevant here. Disney+ keeps finding things to tempt me to at least do a trial. This one might just get me. A documentary about the career of film composer John Williams, who is absolutely one of my favourite 20th-21st century composers. Just about every Spielberg movie, the Indiana Jones series, most of Star Wars, and a raft of other films all benefited from his music. He is now 92 and retired from film scoring after the latest Indiana Jones film but apparently plans to continue working on other music.

It's tough to pick a favourite, too, but this one really gets the goosebumps going for me. Picture slowly standing as you see, for the first time, living, breathing dinosaurs. This performance is by the Vienna Philharmonic with Williams himself on the podium.