Category: Fun Stuff

Still. Always. *heh*

My lil Kindle Fire is a trap. As I’ve noted before, via the Amazon Prime videos, I’ve watched a lot of TV shows I’d otherwise not have watched, particularly quite a few British shows. In general, they’ve all beat the pants off the usual fare on cable TV around here. Some, though are just barely better.

Midsomer Murders. What to say about it? *sigh* Very good programatic instrumental music, and on the Fire, with a good set of headphones or ear buds, the sound in general is amazing. All the tiny sounds of the really quite interesting environment–passing traffic, birds, background conversations, etc.: wonderfully reproduced.

The sets and locations are gorgeous, very interesting, lush. And the video is very beautifully done.

So, production values: superb, in general.

But. The plots are pedestrian ripoffs of the typical English village mystery murder story. *meh* Often, the acting is really overdone–a fault in direction, IMO. And some of the details are pretty poorly executed. Depictions of blood are particularly transparently stage blood (I’ve made and used enough of it–and had even more experience with the real stuff *heh*–that the telltale look is really grating at times) poorly applied in unrealistic manners. Settings depicting places that have been ransacked or where fights have supposedly occurred are often clumsy as well.

And then there are the anachronisms and especially the chronological issues that arise when large time offsets are depicted in preview or flashback scenes.

Altogether, these sorts of things reduce what might have been an A- show to a B- or even C+ in my estimation. Sad, really, but I’ll keep watching it, because even a C+ beats the heck out of most other TV that’s available, and the music and visuals are worth it, anyway.

But still… only four episodes per season?!?

Another minor quibble, but this applies to any streaming video from time to time: pixelating, etc., when there are some pipeline issues. But, eh, notaproblem, really.

Sometimes, I run across a bit of descriptive narrative that is so tasty that I am compelled–compelled, I say! *heh*–to savor the thing again and again, eating the self-renewing tidbit up in tiny bites, over and over. This is the meat of one such tasty tidbit:

He’d never been in this room before; this was where they took people who had done things that were just short of murder or robbery, a darkly somber room that left no doubt in the prisoner’s mind that he had trespassed on at least five of the Ten Commandments.

…just short of murder or robbery, of course. *heh* But that still leaves eight commandments…

That’s just too good. Economical, evocative, expanding the scene on multiple levels. Fun.

Update: ‘nother one; this one is from a John Lambshead short story, As Black As Hell:

Chaos theory insists that a single flap of a butterfly’s wing in China can change the direction of a hurricane in the West Indies, sparing one island to devastate another. This may or may not be true. Certainly Chinese butterflies continue to irresponsibly flap, giving absolutely no thought to the welfare of their relatives in the Americas.

Just read it, then go back to the beginning.

…the marble tile backsplash kitchen project has been… interesting. *heh*

Warning: Renov tale. Skip if handymanish stuff gives you a rash. The voices in my head say I must go here…

So, 12″ marble tiles. That was cool, since the backsplash I was working on was just about 12.75″ tall (by almost exactly 15′ in length–4’+11′) with the area under the window over the sink ~8.75″. Worked out the 3/4 inch differential with an oak spacer (which I’ll “pickle” this weekend).

The “interesting” parts?

Cutting the freaking tiles. *sigh* I had made a decision to cover one straight run of just a hair over 11′ with whole times as much as possible (except for the 3′ under the sink window where I’d planned to use my tile cutter to trim 4″ off each tile–I’ll get back to that later). That meant I knew up front I’d be cutting at least one hole in a tile for an outlet (and cutting a notch out of another one for another outlet and notches out of two more for the left and right side of the window). Since the hole for the first outlet was offset only 1/2″ from the edge of the tile, and these tiles fracture pretty easily, I took it very, VERY carefully. Used a Dremel and a cutoff wheel. Yeh, I know, wrong tool. I have the carbide attachment to cut tile with, but I wanted more control, so… slow and tedious.

Still, the tiles got cut accurately. For the outlets and the sides of the window. That’s the good news. Bad news? *sigh* The tile cutter I’ve used successfully on up to 20″ ceramic tile just busted these marble tiles to pieces. *sheesh* I managed to end up with 4-4″ X 12″pieces and one good 8″ X 12″ piece. Oh, three of the 4″ x 12″ were in 2 or more pieces, but… Mr. Ingenuity (that’s me, in case you had any trouble making the connection ;-)) had a solution. Epoxy and marble dust from the Dremel work. *heh* Breaks disappeared; just more veining consonant with the rest of the tile.

And then… pressing the (properly-buttered :-)) 8″X 12″ piece onto the (properly-troweled :-)) adhesive, the tile cracked. *sigh* OK. Pressed a tad harder and brought some of the adhesive through the crack, wipe-down. Another vein, consistent with the rest of the tile. *whew* Oh, the adhesive is sanded so, no grouting! *yipee!*

So, all that’s left is a bit of deail work–pickling the oak (including the custom shoe molding I cut today), a little caulking, etc.

Feels nice to check one more lil honey-do off my list.