Testing, testing, one, two, three

[beatrice_otter]

I've been having trouble getting comments e-mailed to me: they're not all showing up, and while the problem is probably with my e-mail, it would help support to have specific comments  that haven't shown up to look at and diagnose with.  So, please comment here to give test cases.  (Or, maybe the problem will have disappeared as mysteriously as it started.)

How's life?  How's your favorite TV show?  Read any good books lately?  Got any good jokes?

Comments

[staranise]

I'm watching Sanctuary, which I love because Amanda Tapping's character is an immortal badass scientist, 95% of whose lines (those not dealing with her relationship with her daughter) could be spoken with ease by a 60-year-old man. Now that Tapping's in charge, she's not letting the writers subject her to any more idiotic sexist shit.

Speaking of which, I'm working on an academic assignment about the women who launched fairy tale telling in the 17th century, whose novels and written works have been ignored in favour of later male authors and anthologists.

[beatrice_otter]

I'm actually not watching much TV at the moment, but what I've seen of Sanctuary I enjoy. I'm thinking of buying the DVDs even though I'm not a fan, because it's about the least-faily thing on TV right now that I know of, and such things should be supported. Besides, I know I like it, I just haven't paid enough attention to remember to watch it.

Your academic assignment sounds awesome.

[squirelawrence]

Just saw X-men:First Class, which I recommend as highly entertaining!

Other than that, sort of a slow week. Flying up to NYC next Friday to see the new Cirque du Soleil show opening at Radio City Music Hall - that should be fun.

[beatrice_otter]

I want to see the new X-men movie, lots of people have said it was awesome. I would like to see a Cirque show, but not enough to pay what they're charging for tickets.

[squirelawrence]

I think the next Cirque show in your area will be Quidam, in October and November. And area is relative, I suppose - I think the October show is in Pittsburgh and the November in Philadelphia. If you're interested and think you'll be in the area, let me know and I'll grab tickets - I love taking folks to Cirque shows. I've been to 10 of the current 18 shows in the US, and plan on hitting two more at least before the year's out. Other than Pittsburgh and Philly, there are touring shows coming up in Baltimore, Richmond, and one in New York currently, besides the permanent shows in Las Vegas. There's one coming up in a couple of weeks here in North Carolina, but I don't suppose you'll be in the area.

[thothmes]

I had that trouble on my lj account, but I think it had to do with a recent outbreak of trolling, because it was the troll's target and the people who friended her whose comments I suddenly started not getting. I discovered them all sitting in my Blocked Spam folder, told the folder that "These are not spam" and have had not trouble since.

Probably a wholly different problem than yours here, but certainly this had given enough to help be a test case.

[beatrice_otter]

This is a different problem. It probably has something to do with how the webhost through with my e-mail comes plays or doesn't with DW.

[suncat]

Hey, life is okay. Put tomatoes in the garden after not, for many years. The cherry tomato had some fruit already when I bought it and the slicing tomato has its first flowers.

And I kept wanting to type an "r" onto "tomato". What does that say?

[beatrice_otter]

My mom swears that when I was a little girl I loved tomatoes. I don't believe her. I've only now gotten so that I'm willing to eat them on sandwiches, and things with tomato sauce don't make me want to gag. (I used to take my pizza apart, scrape out the tomato sauce, put it back together, and eat it.)

[suncat]

Since you haven't indicated that your notification problem is solved, I'll reply again.

As a kid, I really disliked whole tomatoes, tomato soup, tomato juice, but for some reason liked tomato sauces. Now, I really like whole tomatoes, but the soup and juice still don't appeal.

For pizza for you, have you ever tried an alfredo sauce or pesto as an alternative to the tomato sauce?

[laurajv]

Reading a lot. My kid is obsessed with iPads so I'm trying to use mine less, so I'm also reading more paper books. I usually have a few books going at a time, because I like to shift genres.

I re-read "Apollo 13" (Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kleger), and am most of the way through "Packing for Mars", which is the funniest of Mary Roach's books. The funny thing about reading these two books in sequence is that Roach interviewed Lovell a fair amount for PfM, about REALLY unglamorous aspects of space exploration (like leaking urine bags and what it's like to not bathe for two weeks.) So you end up with a sense of what drew Lovell into space in the first place, and then a very intimate sense of just how much of a challenge the whole enterprise was, on levels you might not have thought of.

I just started "The Portable Atheist" (ed. Christopher Hitchens). That one is very heavy going and I think it's going to take me a while. I'm up to Thomas Moore, having passed through atomist epic poetry on the way. (I am pretty sure scientific epic poetry is a dead art, though I have read modern scientific poetry that I like quite a lot -- perhaps it's more accurate to say that epic poetry is a dead art.)

I started "The Book of Artemis Fowl", but disliked it very much and have put it down. Instead, I am reading "The Thief Lord" (Cornelia Funke), and after I finish that, I think I'm finally going to get around to "The Hunger Games". I also have a couple of Diana Wynne Jones books started, but I was reading them when she passed away and now I don't want to finish them -- like how I held on to Octavia Butler's "Fledgling" for some time after she died because I didn't want to have read everything.

I hope this comment is adequately testy!

[beatrice_otter]

I think it's mostly that epic poetry is dead. My reading these days falls mainly into four categories: fanric, old favorites, stuff for work (theology, church administration, etc.), and ebooks I can get for free. When I have money, that will probably expand again.

[laurajv]

That sounds like my reading for -- wow, there was a big chunk of time where that's all I read, looking back on it. From midway through university, all the way through grad school, and then it expanded a little to an occasional novel and slightly-more-frequent nonfiction reading. My reading really only re-exploded when I had a kid, because "relax in kid's room with a book while he drifts off to sleep" turns out to be, well, really relaxing. As a result I've read more in the past two years than I think I did in the 5 or 6 before that. Though there's still a lot of fanfic, free, and old favorites in my life. (Last night, I read a long Sherlock kidfic story. For example.)