As the year winds down, it seems like a good time to upgrade OOA to a newer version of WordPress so that “blogging as usual” can resume after the New Year.
With this in mind, please note that, starting now, OOA will probably be acting strangely — or may go missing entirely — until the upgrade […]

Posted in Administrivia, Home life 8 Comments »

I just wanted to drop a note to thank all those of you who were so kind as to send sympathy messages to me (and to Peter) about the loss of his Mum.
We are both coping as well as we can: it’s obviously harder on him than on me… yet I’m in the strange situation […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Home life, Young Wizards No Comments »

Friends,
Peter’s mother is extremely ill with heart and kidney failure and will not survive more than a short time. With this in mind, my online activitities are going to be severely curtailed until at least the end of July. Please bear with me while we attempt to deal with our loss.
Thanks.

Posted in Home life 7 Comments »

Some of you will know approximately where we live in Ireland, so I am sorry to tell you that this story is locally germane:
Post mortems due on County Wicklow bodies
They were our neighbors. Not the kind you’re close to, perhaps (though they were close to many others), but they were the kind you’d always wave […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Ireland, Medicine, nursing, health, Psychology / psychiatry 1 Comment »

Thanks for your concern, everybody. I’m a little better. Won’t be able to get the ultrasound till next week, though. (mutter) I will be sorting out those last book requests today and tomorrow, though, so if you haven’t heard from me, you will shortly.
Meanwhile, though, there’s this to laugh about.
LOLTrek (snort) Click on it for […]

Posted in Home life, Humor, Media, Medicine, nursing, health 2 Comments »

Authors’ copies of my books have started piling up around here again, so I thought I’d offer some of them here for those of you who might like signed copies of this or that before we start restructuring / restocking our offsite storage. Also, I’ve been able to acquire some good-quality copies of earlier stuff […]

Posted in Home life, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing, Young Wizards 1 Comment »

This has been in the pipeline for a while.YoungWizards.com is now running under the Drupal content-management system, which will make it capable of handling its own blogs, forums, and other goodies. YW.net will follow suit shortly.
Feel free to stop by and kick the tires!
Technorati Tags: Young, wizards, Nita and Kit, Diane Duane, […]

Posted in Computer stuff, Fantasy and science fiction, Home life, Online life, Writing, Young Wizards No Comments »

Microwave them.
A team of University of Florida Engineering researchers have come to the conclusion that microwaving plastic scrubbers and kitchen sponges on full power can destroy practically 100% of the bacteria and viruses, parasites or spores collected on them. …[Gabriel] Bitton, leader of the study, … remarked that if people really wanted to sanitize their […]

Posted in Home life, Medicine, nursing, health 1 Comment »

It’s good to take a challenge every now and then. From over at Daily15, for today’s challenge word, which is “solstice”:
Invictus
In the dimness he woke and knew it was too late. Morning never came so late unless the world was ending.
Fortunately, he knew what to do about that.
He blinked and ruffled his feathers, looking around. […]

Posted in Home life, Ireland, Writing No Comments »

Those of you who may have been watching the progressive site revamp at The-Big-Meow.com should be warned that, while I was attempting to add some features this morning, some stuff got screwed up. It’s not serious, but it affects the look-and-feel of the site, and may take a while to fix, as I’m still not […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Technogeekery, Writing No Comments »

(Like those UK commercials that showed things like giant hedgehogs running over tiny little trucks.)
Normally any time we hear the word “samurai” in a TV news story, Peter and I both wince, expecting to hear about somebody who’s run amuck somewhere with a cheap katana. But today, for a change, it’s something different.
Police are trying […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Media 1 Comment »

“Lots and lots and lots of heart.” …Well, one anyway.
Our local craft butcher is sufficiently old-fashioned and down-country that the less commonly seen meats still make a strong showing — remarkable (in the older sense of the word) in this time when Ireland is prosperous, and many people are turning their backs on memories of […]

Posted in Food, restaurants and cooking, Home life, Ireland 2 Comments »

You didn’t disguise your identity as thoroughly as you may think you did. I will have my revenge.
Meanwhile:
1.What is your favorite Christmas carol/song?
“Fairytale of New York”, the Pogues.
2.White lights or multicolored?
White.
3. Do you have a cut tree, live tree or an artificial tree?
Artificial.
4. Eggnog, mulled cider, or hot chocolate?
Eggnog. And only one possible recipe, the […]

Posted in Home life, Humor, Ireland 2 Comments »

I’m about to coin a word.
I don’t know if the thing I’m going to coin about is happening in the US right now (or elsewhere), but it sure happens a lot on this side of the water, and it is driving me nuts.
It happens in commercials on both radio and TV. They’ll show you, or […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Media, Uncategorized 5 Comments »

“At the dead of night, two noble planets, Tarva and Alambil, will pass within one degree of each other. Such a conjunction has not occurred for two hundred years.” (Dr. Cornelius in Prince Caspian)
Irish weather strikes again.
We had a tight conjunction of Mercury, Mars and Jupiter this morning. When I went to bed the […]

Posted in Astronomy, Home life, Ireland, Uncategorized 1 Comment »

Like (it seems) about half the Internet-connected bread bakers on the planet, I’ve been experimenting with the New York Times-published recipe from Sullivan Street Bakery’s Jim Lahey for no-knead bread. (The original NYT article, which talks more about the recipe’s genesis, is here. The article discussing the ensuing discussion, and suggesting possible fine-tuning, is here.)
(Also […]

Posted in Food, restaurants and cooking, Home life, Media, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

I came across this comment about me a little bit ago, and it started me thinking:
Next you’ll be telling me she’s not really a libertarian.
This made me go look up “libertarian”, as I wasn’t sure that the world presently meant by the term what I think I mean by it. (For me, the word instantly […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life 4 Comments »

There are just a couple of things on my mind that (in light of earlier posts and responses) I want to share before I get back to the various pieces of work I need to be doing today.
Re whatever might have been going on in the ST:TNG offices as the first season got underway: […]

Posted in Film and TV, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Media, Psychology / psychiatry, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing 2 Comments »

More info about this has been added to the original post, if you’re interested: scroll down, or click here.
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Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Film and TV, Home life, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing No Comments »

“You should read my LJ posting,”  he said. “OK,” I said.
Euuuuuuuuuuu.
I just had my breakfast — which was, as usual, tea and toast — but having seen the “All Day Breakfast”*, a guaranteed Pound O’ Food, I will probably skip lunch.
(More on the subject here.)
*This being how long it takes to digest it.
Technorati Tags: Swanson, […]

Posted in Food, restaurants and cooking, Home life No Comments »