As voyages go it's a bit Meh. "Fantastic" is definitely a bit strong.

Still making an effort? Who is?

Been really busy at work this week, so not only have I not had time to write before, I don't have a ton of interesting stuff to tell you about.

Here's one thing. I'm giving up on The Mysteries of Udolpho. Maybe it gets good, but fuck it, I don't have the time. Rakka says I should jump in to Jane Eyre, so that'll probably happen.

Also, what's with the religious Dalek and the religious everybody in that episode? It's like that time David Suchet made Poirot a practicing Catholic. Just didn't feel right. Is Moffat actively trying to alienate the classic audience? Maybe he's not just a hack. Maybe he has a legitimate personality disorder.

I've been watching the old Doctors lately. Starting at the beginning. Have you actually sat down and watched the Hartnell episodes? Like series 1, 1963? Yeah, the sets are terrible. The editing is bad. The pace is glacial. And yet the characterization is so much better than anything we've seen lately. Look at Barbara Wright, for my money the best companion ever. She's thrust in to a crazy situation, and dragged along from one danger to the next. Through it all, her actions and reactions generally make sense. She is like a real, human person in a way that doesn't seem to exist on the show anymore.

Doctor Dhoom (Machale)

Aamir Khan running down a building

Peter Capaldi is fantastic as The Doctor. I enjoyed watching him every second that he was on screen.

Now that's a doctor

It really is too bad he's on Moffat's watch. Capaldi is wasted on Moffat's sappy, nonsensical drivelings. Capaldi does an amazing job of making it work in spite of the writing.

I needed a pallet cleanser after that, tbh. If only the sun was shining like it did this morning I might have been ok.

How many wicks can a pickwick pick?

Instead, I reset the tone by watching Dhoom:3. I heard about this film, a bollywood action movie set in Chicago, at about the same time as I had learned to love that city.
I was very excited about it.

And it was very exciting.

somebody saw the blues brothers

Well, a lot of stuff happened.

Well, some stuff happened.

Maybe it wasn't that much. They were afraid we'd miss it so they slowed it down. Actually, I think if they played all the slo-mo at normal speed the film would have only been an hour long instead of nearly 3.

3 slo mos in 10 secs

By the midpoint I had to go in to the other room for a minute. Abhishek Bachchan was walking across the street. In slow motion, obviously. Rakka suggested pausing, but I knew that it'd take Bachchan quite awhile to cross the street at that pace. He was just reaching the other side when I came back.

As films go, it's not Shakespeare.

The characterization of the banker was hilarious, though:

A.C.P. Jai Dixit: Do you have any enemies?
Banker: We're bankers. Everybody hates us.

It doesn't make a single bit of sense, but it was fun. Or I thought so at the time. Maybe I was just in a mood.

I went on to watch the first two, but I lost interest during the 10 minute romantic-basketball-in-the-rain scene half way through #2.

clouseau is an inspector, not a monk

Oh, snap. I missed posting yesterday. It's because I went to bed at 8pm. I just want to go back. I'm sick again. Ferry cold I think. I get a lot of those. As a result this will be a boring post.

light passed through trees on the way in the other day

I did finish The Monk before completely shutting down. The end made me cringe. Not all the devil bits. Who cares. But the part where the surviving rape victim (yeah, the other one gets murdered too. cheery right?) feels compelled to spend a several page monologue on apologizing to her rapist for her conduct so that he'll still accept her. Despite the fact that he's the guy who keeps fucking shit up for her. Lewis mentions in passing that he apologizes too. She gets pages, he gets one line. Very much yuck.

I would like to say it's a product of it's times. But I can't. People, it turns out, are still bastards.

But not everything in the world is bad. This light what I got at target looks like a dalek eye stalk.

light like a dalek

That helped lighten the mood right? Not enough though. We need to deploy the ultimate solution. That's right. A cat picture.

Clouseau, cute as always

Ok. Now I feel better.

Almost a complete Monk

I told you a while back about Northanger Abbey leading me to The Monk, right? Well, I'm not quite done yet. 'Bout 80% and hoo, boy it is off the chain. The chain has been detached from it's moorings and then broken up. All possibility of re-attaching the chain has been thoroughly and resoundingly quashed.

This book is nuts. Not really in a good way. It's murder, rape and torture are at the core of dramatic fiction to this day. Fine. But it has the most appalling morals.

And yet. And yet, I'm excited to finish The Monk. If only so I can tear through The Mysteries of Udolpho and move on to the Brontë sisters.  And from there into the thematically and chronologically similar roman noir (French) or Schauerroman (German) novels.

I've discovered a rabbit hole here. A whole warren. You could get lost down there like it was St. Clare's Sepulchre. That's from The Monk, by the way. They spend all sorts a time down vaults and catacombs and shit. I just don't want to get lost down there and forget to get back to reading Austen.

beans and ferries

While I had the rental car the other week, Rakka and I went out of our way for "Proper British Bacon." It's a store, a butcher. They're very nice, and they have some nice imports too. I've been putting brown sauce on everything this week.

Proper Beans

Beans on toast only works with british beans. Boston baked beans on toast. No. That's not a thing. That's an anti-thing. Don't even go there.

Also, don't go to seattle (from here in bremerton) if you can help it. The ferries are falling apart. People are starting to talk. Couple a weeks ago I had to press my way through the crowds waiting, luckily, for the other ferry as one of theirs had broken down. Somehow this friday just gone they managed to let an extra 450 people or so on, and not realize it until they were out in the water. They had to go back. Imma do my best to avoid those things for a while.

Random Cat Picture

Ms Peel

In other news, and this will thrill and amaze I'm sure, I've installed windows on my imac so that I can play a wider variety of games on steam. Even though both of the ones I've been playing kinda run on osx. If you must know, 7 Days to Die and Planet Explorers. See, I told you it'd be thrilling (I promise not to post gameplay videos).

Another Random Cat Picture

Fujiko

That's all for now. I've go to go. This defensive rampart won't construct itself.

No post today. Just pictures

Nice light

Bibimbap from Bibimbap

Fire Sta. no.15

Cold rain in August.

The problem with trying to blog when you're in a day job is you're just doing the same shit all the time. I mean, I could tell you how frustrating and tedious it is to manipulate date/time info in computer programs. But if you program at all you know that, and if you don't then you don't care.

I could tell you about summer being over, now that it's mid August, as wrong as that seems for a North American city. It's also a boring subject but it is s good segue to segways.

Cold rain shifted my course to under the viaduct this morning. I found a sharp contrast between the poor sick individuals sitting in their wheel chairs in front of the compass center, and the healthy people on their segway tour struggling to hear their guide over the traffic noise. If you need a single vignette to describe Seattle, there you go. Or you cold just label it "capitalism" and be done.

I didn't take a picture though. I don't mind shaming segway tours, but the guys in the wheelchairs don't need that shit. 

Grindstone to get a good view up my nose tomorrow

It's been a pretty good week off over all. Renting a car wasn't nearly as fun as I had hoped. The way people drive here doesn't work for me. People are too unpredictable, or I just can't read their car-body language. I had trouble sleeping; every time I closed my eyes I had visions of car crashes. I was so happy to turn that thing back in.

So I'm not totally relaxed, but now the week is over and it's back to work tomorrow. I need a more sustainable relaxation technique than taking weeks off (short of taking all the weeks off). I think Billy Danze said it best.

Keep a rugged dress code, always in this stress mode
[That shit will send you to your grave] So?!
You think I don't know that?

-Billy Danze, M.O.P.

Say it Billy. I know the drill. I, too, am nine hundred and ninety nine thou short of a mil. Yapping fools isn't going to work for me though. Maybe a beach party?

Did I mention I've downloaded loopfindr?
True story.

Happens to sync perfectly with
Sixtyten by Boards of Canada

Nah. The PNW has too much in common with the Scooby Doo universe. My beach party will inevitably be plagued by Moss Monsters or Shit Golems or something.

Oh, speaking of work, I just remembered: frisbee season is over here in Seattle. Yes, frisbee has a season, organized teams and playoffs. I always thought ultimate frisbee was something non-athletic college kids did when they wanted to be outside. The level of formality given to it here seems more like the backdrop for a quirky, late Cary Grant rom-com than a real thing. And yet people will be wearing the team shirts around the office for years. Yep. Team shirts. For frisbee. Really a thing. Not a movie.

Sorry, this has been a bit of a downer of a post. I'll leave you with something nice.

Morning Light

A Journey Shortened

I know I promised that we'd go to the rainforest and take lots of pictures yesterday. But I broke that promise. That's what I do; I break promises.

driving still happened

I hardly slept the night before. The prospect of 8 hours behind the wheel did not sound like fun. The point of the endeavor was just enjoyment, but I was so tired it took me an hour to put two and two together.

Eventually, I went back to bed. Eventually, we set off towards our new destination: Port Townsend. It's much closer.

Swapped blue for green. Quite a change. (map via OpenStreetMap)

Got lost once, but found Port Gamble. It's like a model railroad village made large. Like it came in a kit marked "1:1 H scale (Human scale)". Although apparently truly historic, it feels like it was built in the 80s as tourist trap. It has exactly the same feel as Colonial Williamsburg. Somehow I didn't take any pictures, except like this.

general store. port gamble.

And so on to Port Townsend. Let's see: had some lunch at Nifty Fifties. The back deck is not as 50s themed as the interior, not at all, but it has a very pleasant outlook.

lunch view

Food was good.

Simple but effective

After walking around town for a another 3 minutes it was time to head to the park. Got lost on the way to that too but found some deer wandering about eating peoples flowers. One of them looked pretty sick, poor thing. I hope she makes it.

The county courthouse is pretty impressive. And they have a place for your guns while you're in the building.

Armored chairs to the right

The park is nice if you like old bunkers and not getting very close to lighthouses. You have to buy a day pass for $10/car by putting in an envelope and sticking it in a box. We're still trying to break a 20 somewhere.

Bunker with a view

Moody as shit up here

Neat trees

Lots of neat trees

Did i mention the beach? Comes complete with baby punks.

After poking around in the bunker for a bit, walking past a fantastic field of snowberries, and not getting very close to the lighthouse we headed for home.

Don't forget the snowberries

The return trip was punctuated by deco and pie. The deco can in the form of the Kelly Art Deco Light Museum at Vintage Hardware. That's exactly as exciting as it sounds. Which is pretty exciting if you're me. If you're not me, it may be less so, but that's up to you.

The pie. It was incredibly good pie. Such a high ratio of filling to crust that it came in a bowl. And ice cream. This. This pie. This pie is the pie. This pie is the pie that finally made me understand pie a la mode. The filling, and not the crust, mixes with the ice cream, and does it really well. It all makes sense now.

Nice neon at Chimacum Café

Bowl of Pie

Thanks Chimacum Café, you've changed my life. And I'm not just saying that because you were in the paper yesterday.

Anyway, the car went back today. The week's adventures are over. Probably for the best; I think I'm coming down with something.

Overwhelmed by Bonsai

Contrasting scales

Elandan Gardens is 6 miles from casa rakkaleff, but we've never been. Unfortunately it is literally impossible to get to without a car. Well, ok, it's possible, but it involves walking on the highway. Or a canoe.

Walking route via gmaps.

Since we rented a car for most of the week, we finally got a chance to go.  I'm not going to say much about it. I'm mostly going to show it you. I will say that there is so much going on in that little space it about wore me out to look at it all. I don't know if it would ever be considered tranquil, due to it's proximity to the road, but it is very pretty.

The light was pretty bad. We were there right around noon. So there's been some pretty massive color correction on some of these photos.

Museum Shop

There's also a museum shop that is full of weird stuff, a cat, and 2 dogs. I'm pretty sure I don't fall in to the target audience, but it's not a bad place. The lady that runs the place is really nice. Well worth the visit.

The Last Laugh on Earth

The Last Laugh on Earth

Old horror movies have never been so easy to come by. I've found a page of links to full length, freely streaming horror movies. The embarrassing part is that it's on reddit (IK,R?).

But The Last Man on Earth is on youtube. Didn't realize til like half way through that it's not just some random Vincent Price vambie (or zomper) film, but a adaptation of I Am Legend. George Romero basically ripped off this film to make Night of the Living Dead four years later, so LMoE is the granddaddy of the modern zombie film.

Whoa, space house.

It's not great, but it's no worse than Omega Man. As a primary source of a genre that's really hot right now (still, for some reason) it's worth a look. Also, it has some nice LA locations like yonder ufo tower house.

In a way, Mr. Legend had it good though. End of the world? No traffic.

Driving around people suu-hucks. Picked up a rental yesterday for to get to the rainforest tomorrow. Ran some errands around a strip mall city (silverdale, wa if you're counting) for a few hours. I don't know how people do this every day. I would go loudly and spectacularly insane if I had to do that on the regular.

But it's not all bad. Did get some sunglasses finally.

New-ew-ew Sun-un-un Glass-ass-asses

Also, sacks of nuts from trader joes, a briefcase full of booze from bevmo, and some embarrassingly delicious food from dq.

So much MSG we can't even taste regular food anymore.

You can't go to strip mall city without eating something that makes you feel shame. It's a rule. Luckily, we'll never go back. Not ever. 

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

My name is jay bee and I'm back from the dead
Chillin' at the beach, down at club med.

This blog: Format is switching again. It's just a blog now, and we've got a lot of catching up to do... No, there is too much. Let me sum up. No, even that is too much. Let's start from last week.

Austen! Turns out I shouldn't have started with Emma. Tried that earlier this year and stopped. But Northanger Abbey! Just finished that. Made me laugh out loud in places. And now I'm reading the Monk since she talks about it and it was already on the old kindle. Imma have to look up The Mysteries of Udolpho too (oh, here it is, that was easy).

Oh, yeah, supermoon happened. Not, like "super. moon. I'm really impressed." but like when the moon looks really big.

more on tumblr

This summer the grill is finally getting some serious practice.

gochujang & peri peri chickins

That's all for now. But I'm on vacation this week, so start looking forward to pictures from Hoh Rainforest and Ruby Beach.