Last night, Peter and I finally got around to watching the 2008 movie In Bruges. It’s somewhat of an indie film, so you may not have seen it, but if you like the English gangster genre, or you just like quirky indie films, you’ll like this. In short, it’s English gangsters having a bad time [...]
When my fellow homeschooler Kay invited us to ride along with her on a trip to visit the new California Academy of Sciences yesterday, I jumped at the chance. For years now, peering out from the De Young Museum’s observation tower, we’ve watched it being constructed, and it looked awesome. A huge science museum with [...]
I’ve been working hard and been rather stressed lately, so I decided to give Charybdis and Scylla Academy a spring break. To begin, I gave Neil a minimal day of academics: a paper on the late middle ages (for which he wrote about Philip the Fair), a few chapters of Ivanhoe, and learning how to [...]
I felt like quite the socialite this weekend. I had not one, but two parties to go to. I was even welcome without my husband, who was so sick from some virus he’d caught that he mostly spent the weekend in bed, alone. The first was nominally a five-year-old’s birthday. Surprisingly, for a girl who’s [...]
As I reported before, the San Diego Comic-Con is huge, and unlike many other things, apparently unaffected by economic woes. For some comics- and pop-culture fans, it’s Christmas, Easter, and Disneyland at once, all wrapped up in one 4-1/2 day extravaganza. Last year, circumstance allowed me to go to the show casually, and it was [...]
I have been stressing over a number of matters during the last week; so much so that Neil joked that for me, it’s not March, it’s FREAKuary. Yesterday, an English friend called me about one FREAKuary concern that had gone from just bad to godawful, and which tangentially involved him. As he always does, he [...]
Like many comic book fans, Peter and Neil were excited to go see the movie version of the Watchmen. Even though the movie was rated R, Peter and I didn’t have any great reservations about Neil seeing it. He’s read the graphic novel three times already, and he’s seen artistic nudity and violence in the [...]
I recently happened to make an investment move so astute my broker complimented me on the action when it was done. I’m not rich; I just managed to lose less money than I would have if I’d kept my money in the market. So forthwith, based on my one brilliant move, I am sharing with [...]
Two recent diplomatic gift-presentation debacles have highlighted one thing: whoever our current administration has in the Office of Protocol who is in charge of procuring gifts for foreign dignitaries, it’s clearly not Shiaw-Ling. And now that we’re all (well, ok, maybe just me) embarrassed by the gift-giving gaffes, the only thing to do is to [...]
