On a more upbeat note, here's some Sunday morning fuel. Rocket Fuel, in fact, from Remarkable Bean.
For teas we have Sunday Tea (black tea w. Bourbon Vanilla) and Cream of Earl Grey.
Grey and wet here today, as predicted. Oh well, it is October so nice weather is more of a treat than a regularity now. Cars are both indoors now. Other than raking leaves when they finally come down, I have done as much as I can with the yard to prepare for the winter.
How's your weekend going?
Yeah, been there, done that with Dad. Coming up on ten years since he died. That Fall, I took him to one of his medical appointments on the Thanksgiving long weekend and we went for a walk in Victoria Park in Kitchener, Ontario. He was fascinated (to be fair, so was I) to see not one, but two, great blue herons. A month later, I was into funeral planning and estate business. Sigh. Time flies.
Finnish rocker Marko Hietala is the latest Nightwish member/ex-member to appear in a version of the European Best Singer franchise. Of course, it's the Finnish version. And his latest performance rocks (as is to be expected of Marko).
The other, by the way, is current Nightwish lead singer Floor Jansen who has appeared on both the Dutch and German editions.
Spinning up some morning java. How about some Jamaican Blue Mountain?
Teas? Organic Assam and Buddha's Blend.
Washed the pitchers and mixed up fresh iced tea and lemonade.
Hope all are having a good weekend. It's a long weekend here in the Great Not-Yet-White North (it'll come in time). Canadian Thanksgiving. Which is rather like American Thanksgiving minus the Black Friday nonsense. Turkey, pumpkin pie, football (CFL mainly).
Quote by verbal
A combo of Henry 4 and Henry 5. Two and a half hours long, but it’s combining 3 plays, so we shall see what we see.
Wow, combining those into 2.5 hours? Lots of editing involved, I suspect. As long as the St. Crispin's Day speech that precedes Agincourt remains. One of the best speeches in Shakespeare IMHO. Branagh delivered it beautifully in his film version of Henry V.
Good (brrrrrrr) morning! Had to scrape frost for the first time this Fall. A fairly heavy one, too. Usually first frost is lighter.
Vibes to the Floridians. Milton was as nasty as expected I am hearing.
Coffee for today is Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. Teas are Yorkshire Gold and Buddha's Blend.
Take care, folks.
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.
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.
Crossing a black cat is bad luck...
Supernatural 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?
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.
