We had a good Gumbo for supper last night, though it wasn’t very soup-like, so we’re going to do it a little differently next time. I suspect it’s because we didn’t use minute-rice, so next time we’ll use cooked rice instead of uncooked.

My mom came over and planted our garden last night too, which was really nice of her. It’s one of those things that we’ve been putting off repeatedly, and I had thought it was too late, but Mom says we’ll probably be ok. William helped.

We played ball Wednesday night, and I pitched half a game again. I think I did ok, but we had a lot of troubles fielding the ball. It was partly caused by the sun, and partly caused by using a different kind of ball that doesn’t carry like the other kind (so there were a few misjudged fly balls etc.) It was probably our sloppiest game defensively to date, if you don’t count the first game of the one pitch tournament.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Nacho, Nacho Man! I want to be a Nacho Man!” - Homer

Addicted to this game…

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Yarr, it begins. The dolphins are upon us and only this old sea dog knows how to stop — Yarr!” - Captain McAllister

Katie sent me a message - with her blog, so now I have a choice. Either I can continue the meme, or I can kill it. I’ve always maintained that I’m a meme-killer, so why should I stop now? Well, there are still two ways I can kill it - 1) I can ignore it and hope it goes away, or 2) I can fulfil it’s destiny and just simply not pass it along.

I’ve decided on 2)

Number of books I own - a lot less than Erin. I’m not big into book ownership, but some of the series I’ve really enjoyed, I’ve picked up. Paper-book wise, I probably own several dozen (not counting textbooks etc.) Electronic-book wise, Blackmask is my friend, amongst others.

Last book I bought - The Premature Baby Book for Erin’s birthday.

Last book I read - Last book I finished was “The Colour of Magic”. Book one of the Discworld series, which I haven’t read in a while.

Five books that mean a lot to me - I don’t get attached to books. Maybe that means I haven’t read the right ones or something. I can’t come up with one book that means a lot to me, let alone five.

New Question - Favourite books/series - Discworld is good. A song of Ice and Fire (as mentioned in Katie’s post) is good - in fact I’m currently reading a “prequel” - “The Hedge Knight” which is quite good, and “A Feast for Crows” is apparently actually going to production (no kidding.) I also really enjoyed the “Myth” series by Robert Asprin, and the Hitchhikers trilogy - all five books.

The Lord of the Rings is also quite good - if you haven’t heard of it, you should check it out (tongue firmly planted in cheek.) I’ve started reading the “Garrett P.I.” books (by started, I mean I read the first one) by Glen Cook - I think I’ll check out that series next. I’ve read too much Piers Anthony (enough to know to stay away from his Xanth books) though some of it was quite good - the Incarnations of Immortality was a favourite for a while, I also really like the world he created in the “Battle Circle” trilogy.

When it gets right down to it though, my favourite fiction genre is alternate history. In that vein, Harry Harrison (Of “Stainless Steel Rat” fame) has written my favourite series of all time - Number one on the chart is “The Hammer and the Cross” followed by the “Eden” series. I also recently discovered the “Wildcards” series which is/was edited by George R. R. Martin, and has it’s moments.

There are probably a bunch of other series that I’ve enjoyed over the years, and doubtless there were single books that should be mentioned, but due to their brief span, didn’t manage to get themselves lodged in my memory.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “this is not a lending library. Put down that magazine or I’ll blow your heads off!” - Apu

More rain again last night. All the rain we’ve had has made the mosquitoes particularly bad this year. There were two or three swarms hanging out just off the end of our deck last night, which made going to the shed to retrieve William’s bike an adventure. I hate mosquitoes (not that I think it needs to be said - nobody really likes mosquitoes, do they? — update - I did a search for “love mosquitoes” and the only positive things on the first page were about some band or something)

Anyway, I’ve played a little poker over the last couple of days after not playing for a while, and saw an incredible display of pure luck. Free tournament, so keep in mind that some people play like turnips.

Prior to the first hand (I’m on the button - lucky me), the guy sitting to my right announces that he’s going all in on the first hand. About half the table tried to limp in, and true to his word, he goes all in. he winds up with two callers - AQo and KJs, when he’s got 10-3o. Amazingly, he hits a ten high flush and triples up. Next hand, he goes all in again, and took out another person with a lucky straight. Then he calmed down a bit. Three or four hands later, he goes all in again, this time with something stupid like 8-3, and manages to win again with trip 3’s. I saw this guy go all in with crap like that no less than 8 times, and he sucked out every time. Then we get to the final table (I was very glad to have been on his left, so as to be able to avoid his shenanigans) and he goes all in on the first hand - called by a relatively big stack that hasn’t seen him play, and gets beaten. He’s still got a bunch of chips, and goes all in the next hand, called by the same person, and goes home. The irony is that the two hands he got beat out on, he had the stronger hand going in - ace high both times vs. non paired hands. It had me laughing the whole time, cause I could call the river card before it turned up (he usually had 4 outs or something, and always managed to hit it.) I’d have thought there was something fishy, but he didn’t finish in the money, so clearly it was just luck, and no nefarious activity (besides, it’s a play money site, what’s to gain?)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Bees are on the what now?” - Homer

We went on a bit of a spoiling splurge this past weekend, buying a bike and a pool for William. He hasn’t figured out the bike quite yet, but he enjoys sitting on it.

With the expected increase in temperature, I figured it would be a good idea to get an inflatable kiddie pool too beat the heat. I didn’t see a plain old inflatable pool, but we did find a cheap fold-down rigid sided pool. We also picked up a little magnetic fishing rod/fish set. After half filling the pool yesterday, William and I decided that the water was too cold, and so we fished for a while instead. He had so much fun with that fishing rod, I’m really glad we bought it. We named the four fish very creatively (Bluie, Greenie, Yellowie and the female of the bunch — Redie) I don’t know where William got the idea that Redie was a girl, but he very consistently refers to the red fish using female pronouns, and male pronouns for the rest of them. Overall, we had a lot of fun playing in/around the pool yesterday afternoon.

I still haven’t gotten a haircut since before Julia was born. I actually think I like my hair long, but it’s getting to be too hot out to keep this much hair on top of my head. Stay tuned…

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I am thinking of something orange. Something ORANGE. It’s an orange!” - Homer

It’s amazing what a little sunshine can do for people’s moods. There were smiles all around yesterday afternoon, and people seem to be in better spirits today too for the most part. The weather has such a huge impact on people without most people realizing it. Tomorrow night marks the first CFL telecast of the season (even if it is only preseason.) I hope to be able to watch it, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Erin’s Grandpa and Grandma are in town visiting today. They’re only here for a day and a half, which doesn’t seem like long enough of a visit. Julia sat contentedly with each of them for a bit last night after they arrived.

And to finish off this grab-bag of a post, here’s a link to some cool optical illusions - found it via Blahstuff

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oh doctor, I just visited a wonderful place of fire and brimstone with funny little men in red pyjamas poking pitchforks up my butt.” - Homer

Amazingly enough, we played ball last night. Overcast, and chilly, but overall a decent night for ball. The team we played against were a lot of fun (course it helped that we were hammering them, but some teams get really pissy when they’re down by 15.) I hope they stay in the league next year - I mean, look at us. We didn’t win a game for half the season last year, and this year we’re 7-1 with virtually the same cast of characters.

I’ve played on bad teams in a lot of sports (hmmmmm. Maybe time to look in the mirror ;)) and there are two ways it can go - Either the players don’t care about the results, and enjoy the game, or they get fixated on the results and the game ceases to be fun. Usually with the teams that fixate on results, the team fractures, and people wind up quitting. I’m happy to say that this team has been a lot of fun to play with, and we’ve stayed together without getting down on each other for blown plays and stuff. Sure, I’m hard on myself for missing plays, or poor performances, but I never direct that at anyone else, and honestly I never feel like someone else has “let the team down” by a blown play. It is just for fun after all.

The fun thing about it is that we’re having success now, and we are just as good winners as we were losers last year (I think.) There’s all kinds of playful banter going on on the field, and I think we’re a fun team to play against (even if we will kick your ass :)) That’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Lionel Hutz: “I didn’t win. Here’s your pizza.”
Marge: “But we did win.”
Lionel Hutz: “That’s okay. The box is empty.”