Su and I attended the People’s Vote March in London today – it is my first real bit of activism. Actually I went to the trump protest march a while back, when they flew the Trump blimp, but I could stop by as I was on a lunch break at work. 700,000 people went today, apparently. We felt it as soon as we exited Marble Arch station around 1pm, an hour after the march was supposed to have set off for Westminster. It was totally backed up, no movement at all, and people were spreading off the street and onto …
A few cat pictures…
Nothing much to report on today so here are a few pictures of my cats! This was right after Churchill came back after being missing for 2 nights. I know, I know, I need to mow the lawn! Linc in the morning, having a good morning stretch. Both photos very ably taken by Suyoung – thank you for usage rights. PS – A company has approached me about paying 100 pounds to have a link on my blog. I guess I still have some Alexa ranking juice from the haikyo days, and they are hoping to draft behind that. 100 …
Stephen King’s The Outsider is not good :(
I have always had an up-down reader relationship with Stephen King. His best book in my view (and I have not read many of his classics, so they’re not in the running here), is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. His worst was, hmm, maybe the Outsider? I liked much of Needful Things, and much of The Stand, and maybe Mr. Mercedes too though I have no real memory of it, but I didn’t get the appeal of The Dark Tower. I realize the following criticism is going to annoy King fans, so to speak to that: King is obviously …
Why I hate skinny pants…
(This post really needs some pictures of me in my flare-pant-wearing days. I will try to dig some up when I get home). Why so many skinny pants??!! I hate skinny pants. I do not get it as a flattering look. I do not understand for a second why all pants are moving in this direction. Let me give you some context on my skinny pant story. When I went to work in Tokyo, Japan at 22 as an English teacher with GEOS, my first real job out of Uni, I bought my first real suit. Of course, I’d had …
Churchill missing and mosquito mystery solved
Our sweet cat Churchill has gone missing again. So far it is two nights that he hasn’t come home, which is a worry. It’s autumn and getting cooler, and it’s been raining a lot, so it doesn’t make sense he’d be just hanging out. More likely he took shelter in someone’s shed during the big rain over the weekend. Now I assume he’s locked in that shed. The longest he was away was 10 days in the summer. We figured in that time he was locked in a shed as well. It gives hope that he can survive for a …
Doctor Who series 11 episode 2 – The Ghost Monument review
I am loving the new series of Dr. Who. Embedded in the stories, characters and setting so far are deep, meaningful comments on our current world from an unapologetic, muscular kind of liberalism. When one character suggests using a gun, the Doctor rounds on that unequivocally. That is a bad idea. It’s stupid. We have to use our brains. And because the show is bending to her will, the attempt to use a gun goes incredibly badly. It’s humiliating. And so it should be. In England we think guns are bad. People shouldn’t have them. We are right in this …
Carpal tunnel from Diablo III
Su (my wife) and I have discovered our PS4! I bought the game system over a year ago, along with 2 games – The Last of Us, a zombie apocalypse survival story, and The Witcher, an epic fantasy roamer. I didn’t play them much. I love exploring in The Last of Us – the ruined locations are so detailed and immersive, it’s like I’m back in my haikyo exploration days. But I’m not good at 1st person fighting skills, so I keep getting killed by zombies. The Witcher is the same. 1st person is hard, and I haven’t got the …
First Man – movie review
One of my favorite movies is Interstellar by Christopher Nolan. There are some moments in this space-faring movie where the threat of imminent death combines with the genius of human scientific endeavor along with one human’s will to survive that fill me with a riot of glorious, awe-inspiring emotions. I’m thinking primarily of the moment where they have to pull their main ship out of a spiraling death spin through an insane docking maneuver. Phew. That whole extended sequence is insane. Stressful and hopeful in equal measure, with soaring music that keeps on ratcheting the tension and stakes to deliver …
MJG Fall update 2018!
Has it really been 6 months since I last posted an update? That is sorely slack and I am sorry – but it is not for lack of writing-focused endeavors. On the contrary, since I last blogged I have written 1.5 books, edited an old book up to a fine shine, and plunged into a whole new writerly genre. At the same time, over the baking summer we hosted my wife’s sister and 2 kids for two weeks – a big deal for us as we’ve never hosted anyone, let alone a whole family! On with the details: 1.5 books …
The Rot’s War – Ignifer Cycle 2
The Rot’s War is Book 2 in the Ignifer Cycle. No world can stand… Moments after Sen stepped through the revenant arch, an inky darkness flooded out across his world. Over the wreckage of a city broken by revolution it surged, engulfing the grand Grammaton tower, smothering the King’s Aigle palace and drowning every last caste in the dark. Sen alone escaped; a young man prophesied to raise the Saint and save his world for good. But he failed. Now his world is gone, and his friends are just memories swallowed by the endless dark… Now those memories haunt him, …