Spofforth Castle

This morning's excursion was to Spofforth Castle ( 53.95481, -1.452384 for you Google Earth folks out there). Afterwards we had a picnic in the car (too windy on the field). Flickr set is here.

Thomas and Friends

Today we went a couple of towns over to see Thomas the Tank engine, Percy, and others. The big bouncy Thomas moon bounce (or Bouncy Castle as they're all called here, whether or not they're castles) was a big hit, as you'll see in the flickr set (I love my new camera!)

More details over on M's blog.

New Hotness!!

Week of new things!

- New Nephew! Congrats to the Mechams!
- New Camera! Michelle surprised me with a Canon digital SLR - I LOVE IT! flickr set is here
- New Knives! I got a couple of Calphalon Katana series knives to see if I want more. Guess what: I like them!
- New TV! We don't have our furniture yet, but we got a new TV since we couldn't ship our old one!

I cheated.

I wanted to be Lizzy, and cheated on question 7 to help my cause.

Take the Quiz here!

(via Cousine Marie)

Five word movie reviews

Pleasantville - Interesting idea gone horribly preachy!

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Too much Sam Rockwell butt.

A River Runs Through It - Pretty; plodding. Like fly fishing.

District B13 - Best French Parkour movie, EVER!

One Fine Day - Arguing is not romantic comedy.

Spirited Away - Original, yes, but also overrated.

Transformers - HOT DAMN that was fun!

Key Largo - Hey Bogey: Grow a pair!

The Darjeeling Limited - I could watch this again.

White - Some Europeans cannot be understood.

Yay Vonage!

Those of you who know our old Virginia phone number can now use it to call us! Like, for example, those of you about to have a baby! Best time is ~2-3pm EST if you want to talk to the kiddos, up till maybe 5pm EST if it's M you're after, and maybe until 7 EST if you need to talk to yours truly.

Like the Desert Island Disk question, but real...

Here's a hypothetical situation to place yourself in:

You like music, but a few years ago you put all your discs into mp3s and gave alway all but about 10 of your CDs to a few lucky friends. Then, you start working at a place that allows only CD players - no ipods, and only commercial discs - no mix CDs. So now your music selection consists of:

- A few Beautiful South CDs you couldn't part with
- Jesus Christ Superstar 2-disc edition (I know, random, right?)
- OMD - Liberator
- Social Distortion - Social Distortion
- Johnny Cash - American IV
- Music for Holy Week - Cambridge Kings College Choir
- Pennywise - Unknown Road
- Radiohead - The Bends
- The New Pornographers - Challengers

And maybe a few more you'll find when you get all your earthly possessions in a few weeks. But that's basically all your commercial music CD collection consists of. You like to listen to music while you work. You've gotten used to buying individual songs that you like on iTunes, so you're willing to buy a few CDs, but only if they're chock full of listening goodness - and listening goodness that's good to work to (unlike Music for Holy Week, which puts you to sleep).

Tell me the next 3 CDs you buy, and why.

Criteria:
- Must be in print and commercially available
- Should be "whole-album" good.
- Should hold up under lots of repeated listening
- I should like it the very first time I hear it

I'll post albums I'm already considering in the comments

Camp Nerdly 02

Well, Camp Nerdly happened without me this year, but a good time was had by all. Friend Jason was thoughtful enough to get some friends together for this little video

Fountains Abbey trip

Today we went to Fountains Abbey, and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!




Pics on my Flickr page.