Happy Slacker Day

Who knew that Britain would have such an almost-holiday?

For those more interested in parts of the anatomy, there was the festival of the pit. Only in Nevada...

More locally, LSC is showing The Matrix free tonight and tomorrow night at MIT. And next Wednesday the Museum of Science is celebrating Mars being at its closest in years with planetarium shows and a Mars viewing party, all free. I hope the weather cooperates this time...
For anyone with a student ID, Monday September 15 the Museum of Science is free from 4-10 pm, including Duck Tours!

Your Move Games is moving, though their web site has no information about the new location yet.

I was productive this morning, up early enough to not only start a batch of bread dough, but have it finish the first rise and be put into the oven on time bake before I left for work. It would've been nice to have a whole night's sleep, though. That hasn't happened in days. I hope the predicted weather change will help.

[Edit] Oh, and T prices are rising by a quarter (though only one by 25% :-), trains to $1.25, buses to $1.

Library exploration, a dark crystal, etc.

After a quick delivery of needed reading material, I went to the new(ish) Allston-Brighton branch library. I'd seen it being built, in passing, but had never been inside. It's a slightly strange-looking place, with wood and stone and glass, but, hey, it's a library, and therefore good :-).

I had some minutes in the lobby, and there seems to be a lot going on. I hadn't heard about the Boston Charter Day events going on the first week in September. It sounds interesting, particularly the visit with Fredrick Law Olmstead on the Wednesday and a walking tour of colonial Boston on Sunday. There are also author talks, concerts, movies, play readings... lots of interesting stuff.

Queue arrived, and we went in to watch The Dark Crystal. We were early, so there was time to browse the library a bit. The space is large and airy, so I was surprised that there were so few books (relatively)(I didn't make it to the kid section, though). There were lots of computers, and I was surprised to see textbooks I worked on on the shelves. My guess is that the library keeps texts that the Boston schools use, so kids can do their homework without having to schlepp their books. How cool.

Had I been paying closer attention, I wouldn't've been at all surprised that the movie was introduced by BookTeacher, who seemed surprised that I didn't raise my hand to show I'd seen it before. Somehow, there were a bunch of movies that came out around then (yes, it's 20 years ago now, thanks for reminding me) that I never got to see (Labyrinth comes to mind).

We settled into the over-air-conditioned room (though on a day like today, I'm hardly complaining; it's far better than the opposite!) and watched the magic of Henson. Of course, movie effects and puppets have come a long way since then, but I thought that the characters were really well done, with the possible exception of our heroes, who had rather unmoving humanoid faces. The plot was predictable in general outlines, implausible in specifics, and yet it was fun. The sound was a bit off, so I had some trouble hearing dialogue sometimes, but it didn't really matter, since it was clear what was going on. And there was puppet water!

It's totally overcast; I hope the thunderstorm comes soon, to cool the air before Shabbat starts, and not interfere with the ball game friends are at. [There's some thunder now! Woo-hoo!]

I had no idea what to make for Shabbat. I have rolls and spicy eggplant from this morning. I cut up a couple of farm onions (one just barely showing touches of purple), added a head of garlic, chunked a bunch of the darker tomatoes, which seem more fragile. That's roasting with sea salt, fresh and dried oregano, freshly ground pepper, and olive oil. Not sure what to do about protein, but I need to do something soon - Shabbat is in about 70 minutes (as I type).

Wild winds outside, cooling as it blows, and the sky is even darker. The storm cometh!

Storm!

It got cloudy, the wind started to blow, the light went, and I started hearing the sound celestial bowling, first mere candlepin stuff, moving closer, and then it was the regular balls, rolling strikes. The first drops start coming down, then more, and the sudden downpour, making little streams in the streets. I look out the back door, seeing the reflected flash of lightning in the sky, then see a whole vertical strike, almost purple in its brilliance. Gorgeous. Thunderstorms are so awful [1]. Gorgeous. And the weather's supposed to change now too! Wonderful.

I hope the Fenway folks aren't rained out.

[1] Full of awe, of course [2].
[2] Awesome just feels too much like I have to put dude! after it.

Current Mood: foolish for using the computer just now?