Frosty & Sparkling
Dec. 2nd, 2020 07:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pshaw_ravenIT IS 29 HERE RIGHT NOW. There was frost on the deck this morning. One of the cats is still curled up in my bed, enjoying the residual warmth. We have a fire burning.
Hallelujah, I can't feel my fingers but I do love cold weather. :D
I would not have thought it, but things seem to be a little better now. I was not exactly optimistic back in the summer. I'm not exactly optimistic now, but it's easier to believe things will get better. And as an aside, there is the fattest damn squirrel I have ever seen outside right now. This thing looks like it swallowed a tennis ball. It could be pregnant but I don't think this is the time of year for making the squirrel with two backs.
Fox and I had tentatively planned a few days at Disney this month. We wanted to see the place decorated for Christmas, like ... fully decorated. By the time Marathon Weekend comes, they've started taking a lot of the decorations down, and the special Christmas treats are gone. However, stupid people, including stupid policy makers, have ensured that there's been enough Covid spread that we're not going now. As much as I dearly want to see the pretty lights and eat cake three meals a day, I also don't want to catch and spread the plague. Instead we turned some of our vacation funds over to improving my computer. Fox is considering trying to get me a 3060 or 3070 GPU but we're not holding our breath there. He did rebuild my rig in a new case with a glass side and installed RGB fans, a water pump, and some other goodies. I also have a new headset, this time a Corsair rather than the less than stellar Logitechs I've been using. The box even had a little Discord logo on it, so hopefully I won't have as much trouble with my mic as I used to. The sound quality is a lot better, too.
I wanted to take a break from the more deep and intense reading I had been doing, so I'm reading a series that's been on my shelf for a while. EF Benson's Lucia novels are a comedy of manners set in 1920s England, and while the time and place are very different, the humor holds up. I mean, we all know people like this. I'm on the third book in the series right now, and I have all but the very last one, so I may drop into Chamblin for that, and pick up all those Star Wars novels I'd listed earlier this year.
Since I don't feel like running just yet and I don't want to stray too far from the fire I'm going to work on sketching out the rest of Lora for now. I have a six mile run and can start listening to a new podcast I found - Old Gods of Appalachia. It's apparently a combination of HP Lovecraft and Hillbilly Elegy. The promo show was interesting anyway. I do like a good horror podcast.
Hallelujah, I can't feel my fingers but I do love cold weather. :D
I would not have thought it, but things seem to be a little better now. I was not exactly optimistic back in the summer. I'm not exactly optimistic now, but it's easier to believe things will get better. And as an aside, there is the fattest damn squirrel I have ever seen outside right now. This thing looks like it swallowed a tennis ball. It could be pregnant but I don't think this is the time of year for making the squirrel with two backs.
Fox and I had tentatively planned a few days at Disney this month. We wanted to see the place decorated for Christmas, like ... fully decorated. By the time Marathon Weekend comes, they've started taking a lot of the decorations down, and the special Christmas treats are gone. However, stupid people, including stupid policy makers, have ensured that there's been enough Covid spread that we're not going now. As much as I dearly want to see the pretty lights and eat cake three meals a day, I also don't want to catch and spread the plague. Instead we turned some of our vacation funds over to improving my computer. Fox is considering trying to get me a 3060 or 3070 GPU but we're not holding our breath there. He did rebuild my rig in a new case with a glass side and installed RGB fans, a water pump, and some other goodies. I also have a new headset, this time a Corsair rather than the less than stellar Logitechs I've been using. The box even had a little Discord logo on it, so hopefully I won't have as much trouble with my mic as I used to. The sound quality is a lot better, too.
I wanted to take a break from the more deep and intense reading I had been doing, so I'm reading a series that's been on my shelf for a while. EF Benson's Lucia novels are a comedy of manners set in 1920s England, and while the time and place are very different, the humor holds up. I mean, we all know people like this. I'm on the third book in the series right now, and I have all but the very last one, so I may drop into Chamblin for that, and pick up all those Star Wars novels I'd listed earlier this year.
Since I don't feel like running just yet and I don't want to stray too far from the fire I'm going to work on sketching out the rest of Lora for now. I have a six mile run and can start listening to a new podcast I found - Old Gods of Appalachia. It's apparently a combination of HP Lovecraft and Hillbilly Elegy. The promo show was interesting anyway. I do like a good horror podcast.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-02 04:50 pm (UTC)Appalachian recs
Date: 2020-12-03 06:42 am (UTC)Eric Powell's Hillbilly comic to you. It's amazing.
Sut Lovingood is this old Appalachian character from the 1800s who inspired Mark Twain. Hard to read but hilarious once you get through the dialogue. by George Washington Harris.
Silver John the Balladeer. Old short story collections about a wandering Appalachian musicial who plays a silver-stringed guitar. Deals with weirdo monsters and witches and stuff. Very Weird Tales. by Manly Wade Wellman.
I got more if you're interested
Re: Appalachian recs
Date: 2020-12-03 01:28 pm (UTC)Thanks so much, this is awesome! Yes, I'd be happy for more recs - particularly anything Virginia/West Virginia related.
Re: Appalachian recs
Date: 2020-12-03 11:43 pm (UTC)Obv there's Cold Mountain, Rocket Boys, and Hunger Games.
There's also Hellboy Volume 10 (comic)
The Old Gods Waken (adventure, kind of sword and sorcery?)
Harrow County Series (teen supernatural southern gothic fairy tale)
Walter Tevis The Man Who Fell to Earth (aliens in Kentucky)
1632 Series by Eric Flint (wv family gets transported to the elizabethan era)
Julia Keller (WV mystery author) wrote Dark Intercept, a scifi book about human trafficking
D.J. Butler's Witchy Eye is an alternative 1815 where appalachian folk magic shaped society
The Orchard Keeper by Cormac MacCarthy is appalachian but not wv/va
Gods of Howl Mountain (wv noir?)
Moonshiners (comic about appalachian werewolves v. nyc gangsters in prohibition era)
Re: Appalachian recs
Date: 2020-12-04 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-03 03:44 pm (UTC)I mean ...
I hope the patrons enjoy it. :)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-03 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-03 03:45 pm (UTC)