Somusing

This actually has nothing to do with the sex lives of cannibals, unless you count the chapter about dogs. It's an arresting title, though, isn't it? It's also very funny and entertaining, all about the author's adventures living on a pretty desolate island in Kiribati. Always irreverent, sometimes downright vulgar, it was a fun way to learn about Kiribati (which, by the way, is pronounced "Kiribas"--I don't know why). There's some history and background and lots of hilarious stories about learning to live in a place that's really different from America. I liked it.

The one redeeming element of Letters to Juliet was the travel. I liked that the English and American characters were in Italy, speaking Italian to the people they met (although, of course, switching to English pretty quickly for the sake of an American audience). Otherwise, I thought it was kind of dumb.

I usually like the movies that Luke Wilson is in, and this one is no exception. It's light-hearted and funny and pleasant. I really liked it (in spite of the too-high-pitched laugh of Denise Richards). As of October 2, 2011, it is streaming on Netflix.

It has been a long time since I enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed this one . I can't think of anything I didn't like about it. Thanks to Ivy for encouraging me to read it.

We had this DVD from Netflix for quite a while before we watched it. I can't remember why I moved it to the top of our queue, but after watching (and hating) Paper Heart , I had very little desire to see another movie with Michael Cera in it. Even before that, I suspected and feared that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World might be kind of like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow --I'd hear about how wonderful and innovative and amazing it was and then I'd see it and be kind of bored. But I was wrong. I found it delightful, funny, strange, clever. My favorite ex-boyfriend was the vegan one. I wish it were cleaner, so I could show it to my kids. I'm sure they'll all see it eventually, but there's too much "adult" material in it for a family flick.

Friday morning I left on an overnight backpacking trip with Zed, Jacob, and Phin. We drove up Teton Canyon from the Idaho side and had our camera take a picture of us. We hiked past the Devil's Stairs fork toward Alaska Basin, and stopped for lunch here. We arrived in Alaska Basin having met only 2 or 3 other hikers. We had made good time, so unlike the last time we hiked up to Alaska Basin 3 years ago, we decided we'd hike all the way to the east side of the Tetons to Jenny Lake. Thus motivated, we hiked up to Sunset Lake. These were some of our views leaving Sunset Lake and heading up to Hurricane Pass. Soon we arrived at the border between the Jedediah Smith Wilderness and Grand Teton National Park. Then we descended down to Hurricane Pass. Here was our view over Schoolroom Glacier . Zed looked down from Hurricane Pass into the South Fork of Cascade Canyon and the Teton Crest Trail. Morning sun made it a nice time to play around t...

Here's what IMDb says about this movie : Charlyne Yi embarks on a quest across America to make a documentary about the one subject she doesn't fully understand: Love. Jon and I watched it a few nights ago. Well, Jon fell asleep about halfway through, so I guess I'm the one who watched it. I didn't hate it while I was watching it, but the more time that goes by since I saw it, the more it makes me kind of mad that I wasted my time on it. Charlyne Yi doesn't believe in True Love, so she travels around the country (and even to Paris towards the end) asking people about True Love--do they believe in it, what is it, what are their experiences, etc. She even consults some "experts" who might have something to say about love--some professors of biochemistry or something like that. She has some famous friends, one of whom is Michael Cera, with whom she starts a relationship. In spite of her experience with him, she refuses to change her mind about the exist...

After our trip to Helsinki, we went to Amsterdam for a night. We stayed in a hostel that was movie themed. Our room was Star Wars themed, and had a huge picture of Darth Vader on the wall. We went to the Anne Frank house, and looked at some of the older buildings along the way. One of them was an old church that had a really weird Roman numeral on it. It looked like cbbc, but for real it was C I backwards C = M, I backwards C = D, C which adds up to 1600. Wikipedia has a close-up image . At the Anne Frank house we saw a lot of cool stuff. I didn’t really know anything about her before going, so I’m glad I could go. We went to an Indian restaurant that was really good, and then we returned to our hostel for our last night in Europe. This square was nearby:

Our ferry to Helsinki from Tallinn was canceled because of rough seas and they sent us over to another ferry, but we had to wait another two and a half hours so we walked around Tallinn for a while. Finally we got on the ferry and there we met these two Finnish guys who didn’t speak any English at all. They didn’t even understand hello. Dad thought they were speaking Estonian at first and kept trying to communicate with them using our phrase book. Finally one of the people next to us asked us if we wanted them to translate for us. After that little adventure, we went to our hotel. We just stayed in there because it was late. The next morning was Sunday. We went to church at a building about a quarter mile down the street. A lot of the people there spoke English, and missionaries translated for us. After church, we walked around in the bay area for a while, then went to a ferry to go to the fortress island Suomenlinna . That was awesome. It was probably a ten or twenty minute ferry ...

Thursday, 18th August 2011 We went for a walk around Riga for one last time before we went to Tallinn. Then we went to the bus station. There we met a guy who went to YAPC::EU. (We could tell by his t-shirt.) His name was Sergey and he lives in Tallinn. He rode the same bus as us there and was nice enough to show us how to get to our hostel. Our hostel is awesome. We are in a six person bedroom with four Germans. After that we walked around town for a while, seeing some of the sights. Here's a building by our hostel: It’s really a nice place. We went into the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral, and saw some of the inside. After that we went back to the hostel and hung out in the lounge. They have guitars and other musical instruments that you can play in there. After a while we went to bed. Friday, 19th August 2011 So after a good night’s rest, we went to a bookstore in the old town that sold some old magazines, and stuff. We went to a free walking tour that lasted two h...

The weekend is over now, and tomorrow morning the YAPC::EU conference (Yet Another Perl Conference, Europe) begins. We'll be busy for the next three days with the conference, so we won't have much time for sightseeing. Here are some more photos from our trip so far, in chronological order. A balcony of The Powder Tower and Latvian War Museum : Jacob a short distance from the central market area: Views of the Riga central train station, Rīgas centrālā dzelzceļa stacija : A neighborhood of Communist-era Neubau apartments seen from the train en route back from the beach at Jūrmala: A street in Vecrīga , old town Riga: This morning Jacob and I went to church at one of the two Latvian Latter-day Saint (aka Mormon) branches in Rīga. There are also two Russian-language branches here. It was conveniently located just a few blocks from our hotel, on the appropriately named Baznīcas iela (Church Street), though of course named not for the LDS church but rather for...

August 10th–13th, 2011, Rīga, Latvia We woke up at 5:30 to go to the Jackson Hole Airport. We then proceeded to fly to Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Airport is pretty much a mall. We went to a burger restaurant there that was pretty good. We then flew to Amsterdam. I watched Green Hornet on the plane. In Amsterdam we had a seven hour layover. We didn’t leave the airport for that. Finally we got on our plane to Rīga and arrived about 3 hours later. Dad bought a SIM card for his phone, but it partly doesn’t work. We then rode a bus from the airport to the old town. There were a lot of street musicians performing on corners. Some people playing accordions, Two girls playing the cello and flute together, some other stuff. We walked about half an hour to the Albert Hotel. The Albert Hotel is themed on Albert Einstein. I don’t really get how it’s themed after him, but it has quotes from him in our room, which works for me. Our room is really nice, we have special place you have to put...

A funny but sadly true note: Wall Street may have higher ethical standards than some businesses (smuggling, prostitution, Congressional lobbying, and journalism come to mind) but the investment world nevertheless has enough liars, cheaters, and thieves to keep Satan's check-in clerks frantically busy for decades to come. --Jason Zweig That's in a footnote on page 262 of the 2003 revised edition of Benjamin Graham's classic book The Intelligent Investor . Graham first published the book in 1934 and revised it several times, publishing his final edition in 1973. Graham died in 1976. A new edition was published in 2003, with the original text of Graham's last edition left intact, but surrounded with Talmudic-style treatment by Jason Zweig. Jason's new commentary appears after each chapter and in footnotes. This brings the book up to date and adds some perspective and humor, and notes cases where Graham has been vindicated or (rarely) disproven by history. ...

Jon and I have been libertarians forever, but we didn't really know what to call it until we found and bought a copy of  Liberty  magazine at Barnes & Noble many years ago. Well, Jon was an anarchist in high school, and he still sometimes borders on that; I think I've always been a libertarian. Liberty  became the only magazine we subscribed to without interruption, until they stopped making the print edition a year or so ago. There were times when that magazine was like a cozy, cuddly blanket for me, even though much of what appeared in it was argumentative, sarcastic, sometimes pessimistic. Even our friend Brian , who is not known for his sunniness, found  Liberty  too caustic when we tried to indoctrinate him with it. But I loved it. So did Jon. We still  read it online , but I do miss the print version. Anyway, my point is that many times over the years, Jon and I saw ads for various libertarian conferences and one of us would always say, "We should go to that ...

Over the 4th of July weekend, I took my kids to the Huntsman Springs event in Driggs. It's in its second year, but this was the first time they had an all-day carnival type of thing going on during the day. Face-painting, bouncy houses, various kinds of entertainment (of which I only saw the air show, which was cool). All free, except for the food vendors. (True to form, I bought the kids one funnel cake and one cup of honey lemonade to share; I'm cheap. Also, I wouldn't let the kids do anything that required standing in a long line. I'm cheap and mean!) It was really a great event, but we couldn't stay long because of other obligations we had that day. On our way out, we bumped into this guy: Okay, we didn't literally bump into Glenn Beck. (Although I did nearly bump into one of the security guys who was creating a space around him as he walked along.) But we were pretty close for a few minutes. In the above photo, he's sitting in the real Herbie, ...

I finally finished the sweater I designed and made for Jon, and here it is: Jon is a programmer, user, fan, and proponent of free software (similar to open-source software), hence the "free as in freedom." I don't know if the phrase is the official tagline of the Free Software Foundation , but it's the title of a biography of Richard Stallman , the father of the free software movement, and it describes what is meant by "free software." Anyway, I wanted Jon's sweater (the first I've made for him) to be unique to him, and this is what we came up with. It looks good on him, right? :)

Emily Eden is a delightful cross between Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, and by Oscar Wilde, I mean The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband (movie versions), because that's about all I'm familiar with. The Semi-Detached House is the second of her two novels that I've read. (The first was The Semi-Attached Couple , and no, I can't explain the over-use of "semi" and words about attachment or lack thereof.) The book that I have is a paperback containing both of the novels, and I have no idea where I got it. Did my Uncle Steve send it to me? Did I pick it up at a used bookstore somewhere? I have no idea. But I'm so glad to have it and that I finally got around to reading both of the books. The Semi-Detached House is about a young and recently married aristocrat who must move out to the country and into a dreaded "semi-detached" house. But I guess she's not the main character. There really isn't a main character; it's mo...

I just read an article called Why I don't care very much about tablets anymore , and while I don't have a tablet, and think the author's overall point is weak (not being very excited about tablets, yet still planning to always have one), this part resonated with me: "Some of the really savvy new media efforts like Flipboard are exciting, but after the initial "wow" factor wears off, these apps mainly serve to remind me that there's already too much good stuff to read out there, and that my life is slipping away from me in an infinite stream of interesting bits about smart animals, dumb criminals, outrageous celebs, shiny objects, funny memes, scientific discoveries, economic developments, etc. I invariably end up closing the app in a fit of guilt, and picking up one of the truly fantastic dead tree or Kindle books that I'm working my way through at the moment, so that I can actually exercise my brain (as opposed to simply wearing it out)." Th...

This is streaming on Netflix, so I thought the kids ought to see it. It is as I remembered it: really stupid but also pretty dang funny. The kids loved it, and I enjoyed watching it again, too.

I did read all of the Chronicles of Narnia books when I was young, but I don't really remember much of them. Before the first movie came out a few years ago, I started to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the kids, but I found it wordy and kind of boring, so we didn't finish it. Then, when Jon happened to see a trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader , he made a declaration that anyone who would like to see the movie would have to have read the book first. I knew the younger kids wanted to see it, and I wanted to give a Narnia book another try, so I read it out loud to the three youngest. Happily, it turns out that it is a great book. I think it helped that Eustace, the nasty cousin, is so delightfully nasty, and that parts of the story are told from his point of view, via a journal he keeps. The story moves quickly and there are plenty of exciting and interesting adventures. But mostly I loved the religious symbolism in the book. Eustace's recovery scene...

I believe this movie might still be in second-run theaters. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It's pretty tense, although I don't think it would qualify as a straight action movie. There's plenty to think about, too. Also, I love Russell Crowe. Anyway, I loved it.

The King's Speech is a delightful movie. All of the acting is exceptional. It's a great story about tackling and overcoming an obstacle, but not in a fantastic or unrealistic way. Also, I love the relationship between the soon-to-be king and his wife. Apparently, it's fairly true to life, too. I loved it. Highly recommended. To my mom and anyone else who wonders: Yes, this movie is rated R. It carries that rating because of a certain word that begins with "f" that gets repeated many times, mostly in one scene that is integral to the story. Otherwise, it is very much PG. And, for what it's worth, that word doesn't sound nearly so bad when it's being said with a royal British accent.

For the first time in my life, I've completely stopped reading fiction. In fact, I'm not reading much of anything, but when I do pick up a book, it's of the non-fiction variety, and I may or may not finish it. But I read this in a few days. It's not long, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is funny, so her books are easy to read. Even the patterns are easy to read and funny. And I read them all. I haven't knitted socks yet, but this book made me want to. Also, now I want to knit a circular shawl. Knitting something round sounds so interesting. Now if I can just finish Jon's sweater and get the sleeves to look the same! That is my current crisis. (I'm not using a pattern, and I'm afraid I didn't write down what I did with the first sleeve faithfully enough.)