Tag: To:Link

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: May 11, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz's Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian

Projects

  • things to do in leelanau county when you’re dead

The Lisa Chronicles

Reading


The Woman Who Died A Lot: A Thursday Next Novel  (#7) (Amazon | Local Library | GoodReads)
By Jasper Fforde
I’ve been purposefully making time to read every day, even for 5 minutes, so that I can get back in the habit again. I know depression and other factors have been a huge influence on my attitudes towards things, so it’s even more important I make and keep habits to keep myself inline.
I started this title months ago, and in the last week have made great strides (a hundred pages!) in getting it finished. But I am finding that depression or not, this title seems to have less of the pizazz that was so prominent in the previous novels in the series. The plot seems to center around someone is trying to kill the real Thursday, and others near her, and replace her with day clones. We know it’s probably Goliath (so we’re lead to believe…), but what is the real reason?
Thursday is also named Chief Librarian of Swindon, and one thing I’ll give Fforde many hat tips for is how he captures the essence of librarianship without making Thursday come off as being cartoonish or stereotyped.

Watching

  • Rectify
    Sundance is now throwing its hat into the ring by starting to produce original series content. Produced by the same people who give us Breaking Bad, Rectify follows the story of Daniel Holden, a man who may have been unjustly accused of rape and murder of his girlfriend at the age of 18. 19 years later, he’s freed from prison based on new DNA evidence that shows his potential innocence. TheHusband and I found out about the show after the first episodes ran so we ended up mainlining them in toot suite order. Verdict? Show borders on excellence, and this opinion by me surprises myself because slowness in television land has never been something that caught my eye. One critic said it makes Mad Men look like a pulp action thriller in comparison, which I wholeheartedly agree with. Rectify is deep character study of not just Daniel, but his family, friends, and others around him. There is some moments of implausibility  where it seems the writers are trying too damn hard to showcase the difference between 1994 and 2013, but those moments are few and far between. Watching Daniel struggle not only with coming to terms with the fact he never really grew up (he’s a man’s body but an 18 year olds brain) but also the intersection of past versus present, which is more compelling over whether or not Daniel is the killer.
  • Justified
    Will Ava go to jail? Will Raylan and Winona get back together before the baby is born? Is Raylan going bad, or has he always been bad? Will Boyd save his woman and the world? WHY DO I LOVE BOYD SO MUCH? I love this show far too much and now that the fourth season has ended, there is a loss in my heart.

Weekly watching: DaVinci’s Demons, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, The Borgias, Veep, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones,  The Vampire Diaries, Elementary, The Americans.

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2011, 2011

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: May 4, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

  • The Big C
    I really liked this show, while TheHusband was so-so about it but after the last season, it’s really gotten awful. The dialogue is cliched and trite, Cathy is at the core a terrible human being, and the plots are all over the place. We watched the opening of fourth season and that was enough to cement we would not be watching it again. I see this is apparently the last season, but nothing can get us to finish it out. I should have some kind of feeling for the main characters, but when I can’t even be arsed to finish out the final season, you know it’s bad.
  • Vikings
    Ragnar, Lagertha, and Floki are done for the season and I’m terribly sad to see them go. Sure this show had some growing pains, but over all, it was one of the better things on TV this past season and I’m beyond thrilled it’s coming back as a second season next year.

Weekly watching: DaVinci’s Demons, Justified, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, The Borgias, Veep, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones,  The Vampire Diaries, Elementary, The Americans.

Links

  • AOL pulls plug on ComicsAlliance

Reviews

Evernote Hello
I’m an Evernote evangelist and just about every product of theirs I love. But Hello? Meh.
The idea is brilliant: Scan in business cards, they get OCRed, and you can assign them to meetings and add notes. Each scanned card gets its own note in Evernote, and in theory, all of the OCRed information is supposed to get populated in the fields. After all the conferneces I attend, my business card pile is inches thick. The idea of assigning cards to meetings and giving them notes is genius! Also available for free on Apple Store, AND iPhone and iPad compatible? Brilliant! Also takes advantage of your premium features from Evernote? Even better!
Except it doesn’t work quite the way

  • Cards are easy to scan into the software, but the OCR is off and doesn’t populate the fields as intended, so you still have to manually fill in the fields.
  • To start the process, you have to either scan in a card or manually add the card THEN you create the meeting. You can’t just add cards and assign them to meetings later.
  • Meetings are automatically set by location. So if I sit there scanning cards forever that I’ve gathered from various places, they all automatically get added to the same meeting at the time I’ve scanned them in.  So then you have to go in and manually change each and every card to its appropriate meeting place/location.
  • Meeting locations are powered by Foursquare — which one one hand, I understand, but on the other — seems odd.
  • Each card becomes its own note in Evernote, so you can view them on any device but you can’t edit them in any other version of Evernote other than Hello.
  • I can’t figure out, after scanning in cards, how to view individual cards or cards by meeting. The cards in the HOME option act as a scroll but I can’t sort by meeting. It just tells me I have X number of cards.
  • Searching is only available in the HOME option, which seems clunky.
  • Hello is very insistant on connecting to Facebook and LinkedIn, which I don’t want to do. But it keeps driving me nuts on making connections. No. I  just want to sort business cards. I don’t need you to make new connections for me.

This could be really awesome but instead, it’s just meh. It’s getting deleted.
Jolidrive
Launched a few years ago as a netbookOS whose sole purpose was to turn netbooks into a cloud devices, Jolidrive has now expanded into an online service to collate all of your cloud computing apps via the browser. Sounds like a great idea: Jolidrive runs as an extension in your browser and loads in an empty tab. After logging into your Jolidrive account, you can add other services and have them easily accessible in one location. Problem is: Its execution and design is terrible. Here’s why:

  • Accounts are added into one of two places: Jolidrive’s applications and services tabs. Services are vendors they have partnerships with, such as Twitter and Facebook, whose application will run natively within the Jolidrive interface. Applications are vendors you can add but do not run natively within the Jolidrive interface. When clicking on an application, it will launch that application it its own tab. Clicking on Evernote brings me to the Evernote web login. In short, the applications tab is a page full of bookmarks that don’t really add any value.
  • If the confusion of applications vs services isn’t enough, in order to add services, you have to “share” with your friends/followers on various social networks. You’re given 3 or 4 “free” services and any services added after that require the social promotion fee to get added to your Jolidrive dashboard. This is probably the dumbest method of social promotion because it’s annoying AND you can change the content of the Tweet to be something other than they append for you. Which I did. Since the content is not hard coded, all the dashboard is registering is that I tweeted/FB something, so it unlocked applications even though the content in my tweet had nothing to do with Jolidrive as I changed the tweet to say, “sugar.”
  • The Jolidrive dashboard within Chrome, regardless of Mac or PC, is slow to load since it’s just a front end to drive.jolicloud.com and not a local native client.
  • The interface is clunky and unintuitive.
  • Some of applications refuse to connect or authenticate, like Facebook, despite browser/computer.
  • When you delete your account, you get a notice stating your account will be deleted within 2 weeks – er what?

Bottom line: Terrible.
What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2003

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: April 27, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,
This week has been insane as I prepped for and am now at C2E2, so things are a bit light in terms of watching and linking. I’ve also been off of my ADHD drugs now for about a week and it has been glorious! I feel like this is the first time in ages I have felt myself and I’ve been wrapping that feeling around me like a coat.

Watching

  • Project Runway
    The season has finally ended and truthfully, one of the worst seasons yet. I called it who was going to win within the first few episodes, and I was thrilled to see my prediction was right. While this is  a nice show for filler, can we have less crying and emotional break downs and more drama in the work room? Actually, it doesn’t have to be drama but SOMETHING, ANYTHING to create good TV because it certainly wasn’t there this season.

Weekly watching: DaVinci’s Demons, Justified, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, The Borgias, Veep, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Vikings, The Vampire Diaries, Elementary, The Americans.

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: April 20, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,
I’m back from conferencing and my laptop is also out of the shop. Work is ramped up as the semester draws to a close and my juggling balls are still up in the air. I feel like after graduation date, when we start calming down inside the library, I can finally begin to breathe.
I’m adding a new section to the rotation list (Reading, Watching, Listening, Writing, Links) called Reviews. I’ve gotten enough requests on Twitter for how I/we use/like things I mention, trying to contain it all in 140 characters is tough.

Reading

I finished my second book of the year: I Am Half Sick of Shadows, which I had started reading when I went to LibTechConf last month. FINALLY. I’m not close to being on track to finishing a book a week, but, it’s something. Fingers crossed this can get ramped up in the next few months.

Watching

  • DaVinci’s Demons
    I am not sure what to make of this series, nor is TheHusband. In fact, 15 minutes in the first episode and he was on his tablet reading ESPN he was so bored. The time period, costuming, art direction are all totally up my alley but I have to agree with TheHusband on this show – it’s not keeping me engaged. Sometimes, you need to give a series a few episodes before making a full commitment.
  • Justified
    We started watching this a few weeks back but I didn’t get an opportunity to get this listed. Now streaming on AIV (free for Prime), this has become the staple show to watch after our DVR has been emptied. From episode 1, we’ve been hooked. And personally? I’ve got a bit of a crush on Boyd Crowder.
  • Mad Men
    Two hour premier kicked off last week and you know, it was the same shit, different day. The most exciting thing was Betty finally growing her metaphorical balls to reject the patriarchy. I just cannot get into this show any more nor do I care. It’s the sixth season, and the seventh one will be the last, thank the fates. This has jumped the shark.
  • Nurse Jackie, The Borgias, and Veep
    5th, 3rd, 2nd season premiers and meh, meh, and vaguely funny.

Weekly watching: Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Vikings, The Vampire Diaries, Elementary, The Americans, and Project Runway.

Links

Reviews

Sodastream
If TheHusband and I have any shared vices, it would be sparkle water. We love the stuff. Pellegrino for him, Ice Mountain flavored for me. In the state of Michigan, soda, beer, and sparkle water bottles have a 10 cent deposit on them on top of the price. It was getting to the point that we were buying between 6-12 cases a month of water, 24 bottles per case, so we had bags of bottles and cans growing in our kitchen to redeem for the deposit we paid.  The last, and final, batch of bottles/cans we took to redeem for the deposit totaled $16. The week before, it was $12.
Grand Rapids tap water is fine (actually, it’s quite tasty), but the fizz in bottled water that gets us. The mountain of empties to return, the growing cost per month of our water addiction, plus the environmental impact was taking its toll. We needed to find a solution where we could get the sparkle water, without having the growing bags of returns, and have it on demand. Getting a soda maker/carbonator was the obvious solution and after much research,   we found the highest rated  and reviewed was Sodastream.
Bottom line: we love it.
Our initial investment was $80 for the Fountain Jet, which included a 60L carbonator,  1L reusable bottle, and a sample pack of soda flavors. Within a few days, we loved it so much we purchased a twin pack of 1L bottles and a twin pack of 1/2L bottles (total of four bottles + the original) via Amazon. Each twin pack was roughly $20, so our total investment is now $120. While most of the sample sodas were okay, we were in it just to carbonate our water and less about making soda, though TheHusband found just by adding splashes of lemon or lime juice after the carbonation is tasty.
It took us a month of getting through the 60L carbonator, which costs us $15 to exchange at a local hardware store (Sodastream has a list of places you can exchange carbonators and buy new). A new carbonator is $30. We decided to keep an extra carbonator on hand in case we run out and we can’t immediately get an exchange set up.
So previously we were spending easily $125  on sparkle water a month. After our initial investment recoups in the first month plus, our monthly outlay will be $15 or so to do the monthly exchange of the carbonator. We have five bottles (3 1L and 2 1/2L), which we rotate through the day. The bottles are reusable and have a “use by date,” so we’re not stressing the make of the bottles and the bottles are recyclable.
$15 dollars a month compared to $125? Yeah, we can dig it.
What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012

Edited April 20, 2013 at 11:26AM

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: April 13, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

Weekly watching: Game of Thrones, Vikings, The Vampire Diaries, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway.
What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: April 6, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,
I’m going to stop saying this week was, $insertdramaticadjective here, every week and just accept the farce of my life. But at some point, I think I would settle for just a week where everything is stable in some capacity or form.
This week, I am trying a new ADHD drug called Focalin, which isn’t too bad actually. It’s way more potent than Concerta, which is awesome, and it’s not filled with crazy producing side effects like Adderall, which is even better. My mood has been pretty stable so emotionally I’m feeling pretty good.
Outside of that scope, however, things have been slightly, “Jesus fucking christ!” producing. My Macbook Air, Bawdy Wench, died last weekend and after two trips to the Genius Bar, hours spent attempting to fix it by TheHusband and myself, a host of unicorn blood spilled – nothing worked. I specifically name what type of laptop not because I’m being a pretentious douche (well – you got me.) but for those who are tech centric will know that the diagnosis is either the hard drive (which is a SSD) or the logic board. But it is not clear if it is one or the other. If you buy a replacement logic board for $300 or so bucks — which are only available used or refurbed — and that doesn’t fix it, then you spend another $300 or so bucks getting a new drive and hope that fixes if it. If you’ve bought both and it’s not fixed, not only are you out of about $750, but you have a dead Mac still and by  that point, you might as well have sucked it up and bought a new Mac.
All of this happens a month after the warranty had expired and as such, I could not buy AppleCare to get it covered. So we had two choices: We can spend a flat rate $280 and send it to the Apple Depot where they would fix whatever was broken (so if it’s the logic board AND the drive, both would get fixed for $280) OR I can buy a new Mac. We went with the $280 fix.
TheHusband and I talked about selling the dead Air and the held together by string Macbook Pro that I use for my desktop to Gazelle and using the cash to fund a new, better machine but we opted against it. Medical bills from all my surgeries hit us harder than anticipated and I’m just thankful we had the $280 to fix my laptop.
Since the discussion of Macs brings out STRONG FEELINGS in people, you can at least acknowledge TimeMachine is a most glorious invention. My drive was backed up to the minute before it died and everything is safe.
The lack of laptop hit harder than anticipated – namely that in the early evenings, I usually start needing to elevate my foot and the only way to do that in some form comfortably is in bed, with my laptop on my lap. No laptop means that a lot of the work I was planning on doing this week didn’t get done. I have an iPad, with a Bluetooth keyboard, but that does not have the same power or options as my Air.  Less browsing and working on writing projects, more TV watching. I’ve been spending the nights mainlining Veronica Mars and attempting to keep a Zen attitude about everything (it mostly working).
You may notice I’ve started appending “This day in Lisa-Universe in:” at the end of posts with dates (sometimes) after it – as I start adding the back content, I’m now linking to that content in current posts. That has been entertaining to read.

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

  • Doctor Who
    Second half of season 7 has started. Fantastic!
  • Game of Thrones
    Season 3 has begun.
  • Veronica Mars
    Recently I mentioned there was a Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter in progress that I think I may have hyperventilated when the goal was reached in a scant 11 hours after launch. Since that day, I’ve been humming the theme song in my head almost non-stop, which moved me to discover Netflix no longer had the show available on streaming, NOR was it available on Hulu or Amazon streaming services. So I did what anyone else in their right mind would do: I bought the DVDs. Now you may say to yourself, “But Lisa! You said you were not going to spend extra money this year!” I’ve been 86% keeping that promise – except for red lipsticks and Veronica Mars.

Weekly watching: Formula 1, Vikings, The Vampire Diaries, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway.

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: March 30, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

  • BBC Four – Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain’s Holiest Places
    A six-part series on the BBC that follows Welsh poet Ifor ap Glyn as he travels the British countryside exploring oft-forgotten sacred sites that weave together Britain’s rich spiritual history.
  • BBC Two – Ice Age Art: A Culture Show Special
  • BBC Four – The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
    It is a common misconception that during the period from when the Romans left Britain (402 CE) and until William the Conquerer won The Battle of Hastings (1066 CE), Britain and the whole of Europe was plunged into an age where there was no creation of art, no furthering of science, and no sense of wonder. This is, of course, completely untrue. The British art critic Waldemar Januszczak looks at art and architecture from around Britain and Europe that flourished during this period.
  • BBC Two – Vikings
    Three part series, hosted by Neil Oliver, who travels all over Scandinavia and Britian on the forming and dissolution of the Vikings. It echoes some of the points made in the last episode of The Dark Ages: An Age of Light, which concentrated on Viking/Celtic artistic influences, but I found the series overall lacking in depth. There was no mention of Viking settlements in the Hebrides and one or two lines were thrown out about the Norman invasion in 1066, which historians mark as the end of Viking era. The issue I take is Normans are descendants of Viking raiders from generations ago, so to not mention this ouroboros effect seems super sloppy. I liked Oliver’s previous documentaries, so this was even more disappointing.
  • BBC Four – Heritage! The Battle for Britain’s Past
  • BBC Four – Elegance and Decadence, The Age of the Regency

Weekly watching: Formula 1, Vikings, The Vampire Diaries, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway.

Links

x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: March 23, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,
This week I was in Minneapolis for Library Technology Conference, which turned out to be a pretty awesome thing. I presented on, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love Institutional Repositories and got to meet a lot of awesome people. Before I left, I wrote about my packing list, which turned out others were into the packing list idea like me.  The follow up is coming soon. TheHusband threw his back out when I came home, so we’ve been taking it easy around here though I have a lot of work to do over the weekend.

Writing

Last weeks Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes included nearly 20 entries from The Lisa Chronicles, mainly from 2008, that I was able to get online. The wonkiness of the site issues prevented me from putting up an intro, so consider this to be it.

Reading



I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Amazon | Local Library | GoodReads)
By Alan Bradley
While at LibTechConf, I observed something I had always suspected to be true – even the most techiest of people prefer print books.
In a conversation with a friend, we were rationalizing the difference of an ereader and a paperback while traveling, namely that for most of the flight (if the flight is relatively short), the ereader has to be turned off and stowed. It also has to be unpacked when going through security lines and there is always the danger of cracking the screen. None of this is a problematic with paperbacks. While I had my iPad and my laptop with me on this trip, both were too cumbersome to read in bed,  while using public transportation, and obviously while in an airport and on the plane. After passing through security on my way to my gate to get home, I slipped into a bookstore and picked up the fourth Flavia de Luce mystery, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows.
I loved the first three titles of the series and I’ve been waiting forever to get this book via the library in print and eBook form, but the wait was always too long. While I swore I would not buy a book this year, I was desperate. By the time my flight landed several hours later, I was more than half-way through the book. I inwardly chuckled as people on my flight struggled with their ereaders and laptops during the flight while I happily read my paperback. A proper review will be forthcoming.

Watching

  • Formula 1
    Lewis Hamilton has left McLaren for Mercedes – how will McLaren fare this season? Will I have to shred my tshirt in disgust? Will I get up at at 4AM to watch the Pan-Asian runs? How is it possible all the drivers are inhumanly beautiful?
  • Top Gear UK
    The seasons ended with a bang, almost literally, as the boys were sent to find the source of the river Nile, which had them driving all over Africa. The views, as to be expected, were breathtaking.
  • Banshee
  • Mr. Selfridge
    Staring Jeremy Piven playing the titular role loosely based on the life of American Harry Gordon Selfridge, who opened up the eponymous department store in London in 1909. Mr. Selfridge walks the viewer from the opening of the store to all the trials and tribulations of the Selfridge family, key store employees, and other people of the era. Much more palatable than The Paradise, BBC’s version of similar story, ITV seemed to waste no money making the store, the set, or the storyline luxurious. It’s coming to PBS in a few weeks.

Weekly watching:  Vikings, The Vampire Diaries, Portlandia, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: March 16, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

  • Stella
    Stella ended this week and I’m sorry to see it go, presh. I got overly invested in the lives and characters of the quirky village of Pontyberry, Wales. There was, of course, a cliffhanger (several of them) but the season has been picked up for next year so I’ll get to see them all again.
  • Secret Knowledge: The Art of the Vikings
    Oxford Art Hisotrian, Dr. Janina Ramirez, explores the objects currently on loan for the Vikings! exhibition. Interesting, but entirely too short. The presentation lasted 22 minutes.

Weekly watching:  Vikings, The Vampire Diaries, Mr. Selfridge, Banshee, Portlandia, Top Gear UK, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
xoxo,
Lisa

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: March 9, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,
This is how I best sum up my week:

Writing

Watching

  • Vikings
    New series on the History Channel from Michael Hirst, who wrote The Tudors. Now it’s interesting this is on History, since it’s network TV,  so nothing can be shown that would rate above PG-13 rating which seems antithesis to Viking history and lore. I liked the first episode, but yearned for more exploration as a few scenes seemed stifled due to its network presence.
  • Dancing on the Edge
    This five episode series has finally finished and god, what a waste. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthew Goode (along with many of their cast mates) were wasted in this tedious and overwrought piece. I suspect someone needed emergency cash to push to get this aired.
  • Last Tango in Halifax
    Discovered this last week, it should be over in the US on various PBS stations in the summerish. I was able to grab the first season and plowed through most of it fairly quickly. It’s not innovative, or edgy, but it’s soothing. It’s a nice palette cleanser after watching crap (see: Dancing on the Edge).

Weekly watching: Stella, The Vampire Diaries, Mr. Selfridge, Banshee, Portlandia, Top Gear UK, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
xoxo,
Lisa

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