Tribbles like you’ve never seen them before! Captain Kirk with cleavage!
Um, what?
My friend, Karen, is performing in this.
Karen’s pretty cool even when she’s not dressed up as Captain Kirk but this – this is really cool. Also, FREE. Come one, come all. Details are here. If you missed this at Arisia 14, this is your last chance.
~Kelly
Geoff and I found a lot of great things at Brimfield this year. Unlike past years we didn’t go looking with extremely specific things in mind. This helps tremendously because you tend to happen across things that you can use or give as gifts and spend more time browsing and less time hunting. I’ve managed to photograph most of the items. We’re going to break them up into a few posts over the next week or so because listing them all at once would be insane.
We’re back from Brimfield. While we haven’t had a chance to photograph all of our cool finds yet, we did get a chance to take some photos while we were there of some odd stuff. This post, a lot like the last one, is dedicated to the weird, the strange and the downright bizarre. Fair warning: if you don’t have a sense of humor this post may not be for you.
Geoff and I go to Brimfield every year. Last year was the exception, we were too broke and working too many jobs to be able to take off the time to go. This year, because we’ve saved our pennies and because Geoff starts a new job on Monday, (more on that later) we’re here.
As I had mentioned before, one of my favorite minor characters from A Song of Ice and Fire is Lord Jon “the Greatjon” Umber, who was played oh so awesomely by Clive Mantle in Season One of HBO’s Game of Thrones. I have often wondered why the character had suddenly disappeared after appearing so memorably in Season One. Well, after doing some research I found out.
Continue reading “So… here’s what happened to the Greatjon Umber”
Kelly and I were working at a craft fair trying to sell some of her jewelry and the weather was just gorgeous. In the morning it was a bit low so I walked to a little neighborhood market to get a bite to eat for us. While there the nearby railroad crossing started flashing and dinging as a train approached the crossing. So I walked over to take a look.
I read a story on Salon recently about a new mineral that was discovered in Western Australia: putnisite. Although it will never be a gemstone that Kelly can make into jewelry (it’s beautiful – purple with a pink streak – but its Mohs hardness is only 1.5-2), putnisite is amazing because while most minerals fall into a “family” of common minerals, this is one is truly unique. In addition to calcium, sulphur, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, it also contains both strontium and chromium, and the chemical combination of all these in putnisite make it unlike any of the other 4,000 or so known minerals in the world. It is “completely unique and unrelated to anything.”
How cool is that?
-Geoff
Remember that post I did a while back when I talked all about Old World/New World foods? I mentioned that I added potatoes to some of my favorite Westerosi dishes, like Roast Aurochs with Leeks, because in GRRM’s writings there are already a lot of other New World foods in Westeros. After all, beans, squash, pumpkins, pecans, and corn are all post-Columbus (and thus unknown in Medieval Europe) but make an appearance in Westeros.
Well, it turns out that at least on HBO’s Game of Thrones, potatoes do in fact exist in Westeros.
Continue reading “So maybe there are potatoes in Westeros after all”
After my sort-of-rant about spoilers yesterday I discovered that other people have been noticing the same phenomenon. Notably, Stephen King made some comments on his Twitter feed about GoT spoilers. And other people noticed. And other sites on the intertubes also apparently made similar comments, like this article at Jezebel, this one at the Independent, and this one at C|Net. And I am hardly the only one who suggests staying offline if you want to avoid spoilers.
So I am not crazy to think “it’s OK for me to have in-depth discussions about ASOIAF and GoT on my own blog and people screaming about spoilers should just go somewhere else”.
I feel a bit better now.
-Geoff
Before I begin, I just want to say that if anyone reads the title of this post, and thinks that I am NOT going to talk about things that may be spoilers for those who have not read the books, you are just… dumb. It is not my intent to be a big meanie who spoils everything for all those people who have not read the books but are devoted fans of the HBO series. But come on, these books have been out for years, and the TV show is now in its fourth year. You should probably just go read the books, or else stay off the internet. Otherwise, perhaps you should consider staying in a monastery or becoming Amish or doing something to keep away from the internet and popular culture. ASOIAF/GoT are so hugely popular and widespread at this point, it’s everywhere. It’s in magazines at my doctor’s office and on t-shirts of people walking down the street. It’s almost like saying you didn’t watch the 2007 World Series and you don’t want to know how it ends before you can watch it, even though you live in Boston. Or not knowing the ship sinks in Titanic but getting mad at someone who mentions it. We are rapidly reaching a level of patent absurdity when it comes to these spoiler issues. I just refuse to say “spoiler alert” everything time I talk about ASOIAF or GoT. So this is the last time.
So if you want to have a freakout about that sort of thing, GO READ SOMETHING ELSE. If you can’t think of anything, I can probably offer some suggestions. But ultimately, those who wish to avoid spoilers should assume some responsibility for themselves and stop insisting the whole world police itself for their benefit.
Anyway, on with the discussion.
The Books are Taking Over... 