Keeping In Touch

So, all you IE users, sorry about the visible HTML on the last post. I think it's fixed now. MS-Word generates the ugliest HTML known to man, and it looks like Firefox handles it better than IE does, oddly enough. I shall do my composing directly in Blogger in the future.

This was a festive and active holiday weekend; Canada Day on Saturday, of course, with a celebration at a beautiful local park hosted by Digital Moose Lounge, an organization for Canadians in the Bay Area. It was quite a bit of fun; everyone's nametag included their city of origin so we met quite a few other Saskatchewanians. There was also a small vendor area, so we got our Coffee Crisp, Winegum and Dare Maple Cookie fixes.

Sunday was our normal Farmers' Market cruising, with a score of Ollalieberries* and blueberries, and then a viewing of Superman Returns. It was a good movie technically but it left me feeling sort of "enh."** R:tAG felt that Lex Luthor, in particular, was sold pretty short (no criticism of Kevin Spacey, this was in the writing). Maybe it was that lack of an interesting antagonist, maybe it was some pretty big plot holes,*** maybe it's that the whole superhero genre doesn't turn my crank (ironic, eh?).

And Tuesday was fireworks-and-BBQ day, one of the two times in the year**** that Americans seem to treat as an actual holiday (i.e. shops might actually be closed, and public events like parades are scheduled). We biked to Los Gatos to eat grilled meat and listen to J.P. Souza on a high school lawn, which is about as American as you can get. And then, just to make it an official holiday, we drove a friend to Emergency for stitches and a tetanus shot after she nearly severed a fingertip on a can lid. Luckily, we beat the rush of drunk-drivers and fireworks victims. It's never a holiday until someone gets hurt!

A potpourri of linkage:

Beauty Tips for Ministers - sometimes, it's refreshing to read something that is completely and utterly different from what you normally read. Religion and fashion.
Table of Condiments - just plain funny.
Self Worth Issues - and here I thought I was a special little snowflake.
Diesel Sweeties - I lurve this comic

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* A type of blackberry, apparently, but to me with more of a raspberry flavour. I haven't had them since Ferlak's grandparents graciously hosted us for a few days during a trip to Brandon. They make good pie.

** Apart from Brandon Routh. Mrowr!

*** OK, maybe a spoiler, but the whole thing with Jason? Lois' son? The only way Cyclops Richard White could have thought Jason was his was if he and Lois had gotten it on relatively soon after Jason's conception, right? But I thought that when Superman disappeared, it was suddenly and with no notice that his absence was going to be an extended one. So didn't Lois kind of jump the gun (as far as she'd have known) with her relationship with Richard, if for all she knew, Superman was going to return any day? And if Richard did know Jason wasn't his (before the events in the movie made him go hmmmm) that potentially interesting plot element was completely ignored.

And Luthor's eeevil plot completely didn't make sense to me.

**** Thanksgiving's the other one.