Quiet Day Together

Jet and I had a very quiet day at home. Mostly just went to the library, watched Porco Rosso in anticipation of Howl's Moving Castle, and I got a bunch of things done at home.

Jet wanted Veggie Tales, so we went to the library. He got to play some video games, and then got three Veggie Tales tapes. I went through the teen section and picked up the last of the bromelaide series and then went upstairs to get a few more Prachett novels and then indulged in a few things that just caught my eye.

I devoured both Flyers and The Monstrous Regiment tonight. Which was a mistake, but it was nice to just get some time in to just read. And Monstrous Regiment just had me howling throughout. Take the old "girl cuts off her hair to join the army for various reasons" and then take it All The Way and you have this book. It's just astonishingly well done.

I also redid the fourth of Jet's green wool socks, and got it nearly an inch and a half longer and defined the heel a bit more deeply. I have this feeling that while I'd created the heel flap for his old socks I hadn't actually turned the heel at the end of that. That plus the fact that Jet has been growing like a weed had it so that his heels were ending up ABOVE the old heel in the socks. So I tore them back to the heel and knit the flap up a few more rows and then lengthened the foot of the socks significantly, mostly using the old yarn, and the ball of yarn that was left in my bin. Now they fit again, and Jet wears them everywhere. I think that Poa Poa managed to convince him that he could be warm so long as he wears socks, so even with shorts and a t-shirt, he's got socks.

*giggles*.

A useful evening to a quiet day. Most of the day was rainy, with gusts of rain. When John came home, there was a clear spot, so I moved all my coffee roasting equipment outside and roasted up my supplies for the week. The bag from Vivace split on the wrong side of the "zipper" and I was grumpy about the shoddy bag along with the odd blend of yellowed beans. But it was restful to sit out in the cool damp and just roast. The coolness and dampness made a pull of decaf Donkey Blend (A Sweet Maria espresso blend) come out nearly all crema, and I was very happy with the results. Mmmm... warm, tasty drinks.

Quiet Day Together

Jet and I had a very quiet day at home. Mostly just went to the library, watched Porco Rosso in anticipation of Howl's Moving Castle, and I got a bunch of things done at home.

Jet wanted Veggie Tales, so we went to the library. He got to play some video games, and then got three Veggie Tales tapes. I went through the teen section and picked up the last of the bromelaide series and then went upstairs to get a few more Prachett novels and then indulged in a few things that just caught my eye.

I devoured both Flyers and The Monstrous Regiment tonight. Which was a mistake, but it was nice to just get some time in to just read. And Monstrous Regiment just had me howling throughout. Take the old "girl cuts off her hair to join the army for various reasons" and then take it All The Way and you have this book. It's just astonishingly well done.

I also redid the fourth of Jet's green wool socks, and got it nearly an inch and a half longer and defined the heel a bit more deeply. I have this feeling that while I'd created the heel flap for his old socks I hadn't actually turned the heel at the end of that. That plus the fact that Jet has been growing like a weed had it so that his heels were ending up ABOVE the old heel in the socks. So I tore them back to the heel and knit the flap up a few more rows and then lengthened the foot of the socks significantly, mostly using the old yarn, and the ball of yarn that was left in my bin. Now they fit again, and Jet wears them everywhere. I think that Poa Poa managed to convince him that he could be warm so long as he wears socks, so even with shorts and a t-shirt, he's got socks.

*giggles*.

A useful evening to a quiet day. Most of the day was rainy, with gusts of rain. When John came home, there was a clear spot, so I moved all my coffee roasting equipment outside and roasted up my supplies for the week. The bag from Vivace split on the wrong side of the "zipper" and I was grumpy about the shoddy bag along with the odd blend of yellowed beans. But it was restful to sit out in the cool damp and just roast. The coolness and dampness made a pull of decaf Donkey Blend (A Sweet Maria espresso blend) come out nearly all crema, and I was very happy with the results. Mmmm... warm, tasty drinks.

Howl's Moving Castle

Miyazaki's latest has shown up here in Colorado!

And I'd advise anyone that goes to see it to NOT read the book before seeing the movie. It was dizzying to have the movie plot going on while I had the book plot in my head. They're quite different. Many of the characterizations are very much the same, a few, in the movie are far more Japanese; but Miyazaki seems, I think, to have gotten the core of the people in the book and thrown out a lot of the stuff that wouldn't have made as good a movie. But it was stuff that had made the book very good indeed.

The book was definitely too complex and had far more character depth to be directly translated to a movie. But it was great stuff as a book. The movie did catch some of the best stuff, though, about the central characters. Missed entirely on a couple of the peripheral charaters, but were in-line with how they should have been.

It was quite the mental fight in my head over the two plots and, indeed, whole universe concepts.

I loved the movie and I loved the book, both for some of the same reasons and for some very, very different reasons.

The movie had that great character development, gorgeous detail work, beautiful contraptions, strong girls, and old character cameos that I've always loved in Mikazaki's work. That whole feeling of regular people who do regular things, most of the time, and then suddenly flower into something extraordinary. That's all there as wonderful as ever.

So I'll just say, don't read the book until AFTER the movie. It'll do a bunch more detail work about the characters for you, just be prepared for a very, very different central plot.

Howl's Moving Castle

Miyazaki's latest has shown up here in Colorado!

And I'd advise anyone that goes to see it to NOT read the book before seeing the movie. It was dizzying to have the movie plot going on while I had the book plot in my head. They're quite different. Many of the characterizations are very much the same, a few, in the movie are far more Japanese; but Miyazaki seems, I think, to have gotten the core of the people in the book and thrown out a lot of the stuff that wouldn't have made as good a movie. But it was stuff that had made the book very good indeed.

The book was definitely too complex and had far more character depth to be directly translated to a movie. But it was great stuff as a book. The movie did catch some of the best stuff, though, about the central characters. Missed entirely on a couple of the peripheral charaters, but were in-line with how they should have been.

It was quite the mental fight in my head over the two plots and, indeed, whole universe concepts.

I loved the movie and I loved the book, both for some of the same reasons and for some very, very different reasons.

The movie had that great character development, gorgeous detail work, beautiful contraptions, strong girls, and old character cameos that I've always loved in Mikazaki's work. That whole feeling of regular people who do regular things, most of the time, and then suddenly flower into something extraordinary. That's all there as wonderful as ever.

So I'll just say, don't read the book until AFTER the movie. It'll do a bunch more detail work about the characters for you, just be prepared for a very, very different central plot.