It's cold outside

I contemplated calling you all Baby in that title. But I refrained. You're welcome. But it is indeed quite chilly here.

I finished reading The Nerdist Way or whatever that book was called. Geeky self help style book. Had some interesting ideas. I think one of the ones I really want to look into is de-cluttering. It is sadly probably time for me to throw away a bunch of my old magazines. Alas.

Season 4 of Castle is fine. The working with the CIA episode was a little sillier the second time through. I'm not sure how/why we managed to catch that one when it originally aired, but I remember it. Although I didn't remember the twist at the end. Funny.

Introduced Dad to Ugg-tect last night. It was amusing. The boys managed to eke out a victory over the girls. Guess we still manage to prove the old saw that guys are better at spatial relations than girls...

Glad Christmas is around the corner. Only sort of ready for it. Even more glad that it is accompanied by some time off. Really hoping to decompress some again. Hopefully get some games played with family and friends. Wil Wheaton did a google+ hangout that you can find over at the Geek and Sundry channel about Tabletop. It was pretty interesting. He had a couple nice stories about playing games with his kids while they were growing up. Apparently NBC found Tabletop interesting enough that they're trying to rip it off to turn into a prime time show. I doubt it will be quite as interesting. Especially as I can't picture them actually playing interesting games.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and can spend it with those you love.

Winter is here

Not so much due to snow as the sudden drop in temperature. I suspect we're now officially in the chillier temperature mode of the season. Which is fine. I don't mind the cold too much. As long as there's a blanket somewhere...

Not really anything else to say about Roadside Picnic. It was good. I'm now going through a geeky, improve your life sort of book as well as Breed which is a sort of reverse Rosemary's Baby kinda thing from the sounds of it. And nothing says Merry Christmas like a reverse Rosemary's Baby sorta thing.

Got to go to J & K's wedding reception last night. That was nice. Got to see a couple of old Ovid co-workers as well. And that was fun too. Lovely wife managed to represent for us at the wedding itself. I was too busy fighting with a printer to get away.

We watched Lake Mungo over the weekend and it was kind of amazing. It starts out as what you think will be a sort of run of the mill ghost story done as documentary sort of film but there are some pretty nifty surprises waiting for you in the film. I recommend this one. Except that while we were watching it, some of the should be spooky ghost scenes were too dark to see what was supposed to be going on. Not sure if this was the fault of the film or our tv settings. I think it was the version of the film we were watching. Little sis should give this one a go on Netflix. K might appreciate it too.

We're finally starting to make our way through Castle season 4 (I believe). The first few episodes were pretty good. I still like the banter.

Glad that Dad will be in town next week. Will be good to see him again and have him around through Christmas. Hard to believe that's as close as it is. Still have a touch of Christmas shopping to do, but we're pretty close to being done.

Oh and I'm no longer sort of addicted to Haggis on the iPad. It's full blown now. Such a fun little game.

Just a jumble

So I ran across this show called Holliston while working one day. It stars Adam Green of Hatchet and Frozen fame. I like his stuff. And this was a sitcom about two slackers trying to make a low budget horror movie (Shin Pads! When they score, you die! It's about a zombie soccer team and, well, you really had to be there I guess...) Anyway, it started off sort of slow and I wasn't entirely sure I'd finish it. But it grew on me. I either lowered my expectations appropriately, or it really did get better. So it gets a tentative thumbs up. But you really probably ought to like low budget horror to really get a kick out of it.

I am virtually finished with Roadside Picnic (I have something like 4-5 pages left I think) and it's pretty darn good. I can't say whether I liked it or Solaris better, but Russian sci fi is indeed good. Well, ok the 2 books I've read have been good.

We got in a game of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion the other day. It was pretty fun. It's been a while since we've played that one. I ended up roughly somewhere in the middle of the score pack while M managed a victory due to R's coaching. We also played some Lords of Waterdeep and I actually managed to beat R whilst playing. Truly an amazing moment.

I'm somewhat addicted to Haggis on the iPad. It's a ladder style card game for 2-3 people and it was on sale the other day. I've always wanted to try it and I find it truly compelling. I may break down and buy Tichu next as it's a similar style game.

And in case you thought Cthulhu wasn't good for anything, I present this. (Oh and the Cthulhu advent calendar on the iPad is pretty great too.)