Friday: Stuck at work trying frantically to finish a website redesign that had to be done by that evening. I honestly don’t remember anything about the evening, as the still-not-gone cold slammed into me full force once the adrenaline rush wore off.
Saturday: alenxa and I risked going out to lunch, and managed not to cough all over the restaurant. Watched a couple episodes of Justice League and finally saw The Bride of Frankenstein (which I suspect I saw when I was maybe 10, because I recognized the framing sequence — more about that later — but I don’t remember much more). It’s interesting to see just how much of the Frankenstein mythos not only isn’t in the book, but isn’t in the first movie. Much of the tearing around the countryside is in Bride, for instance, and Igor doesn’t even show up until the third movie, Son of Frankenstein (and he’s a far cry from the mad doctor’s faithful assistant!) Watched an episode of Crusade, “The Well of Forever,” which explores hyperspace and starts to hint at Galen’s backstory (told in much more detail in the Technomage novels.)
I also caught up on some graphic novels, including Sam Kieth’s Four Women (disturbing and creepy, but a good story) and The Sandwalk Adventures, a somewhat offbeat story that covers the basics of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Sort of the “Cartoon History of Evolution.”
Sunday: Ran some errands. Finished Black Powder War. Actually ran the air conditioner for a while, though the floorplan means it doesn’t actually accomplish much. Went to Orange’s International Street Fair for dinner.
Monday: More errands. Re-read the second round of Tangent Comics that DC put out in 1998. This was the series where they took the names of various heroes and villains and created entirely new characters. Overall, the first set was better, but it was still an interesting side universe that I would have liked to see more of. Caught up on a couple of items I’d been meaning to add to my website. Also read half of the first book of A Distant Soil, which I first heard about ~20 years go and have been meaning to check out for ~10 years. After several issues of setting up a major space epic, it’s suddenly shifted to an Arthurian battle. I assume the plotlines will converge by the end of the book. Watched about half of Grosse Point Blank. It wasn’t as good as I remembered, and when Katie said it just wasn’t grabbing her, I realized I was more interested in showing her the movie than re-watching it myself.
I’m finally getting over this #$!@ cold, though I’m still coughing from time to time. And with the heat and dehydration, it’s still leaving me feeling completely wiped out several times a day. Oddly enough, I found myself looking forward to going back to work because the AC (when it’s running, anyway) is more effective than what we have at home. At least my ears are finally getting unplugged. Lunch on Saturday was really odd, because voices were muffled, but the background music wasn’t. Of course now everything sounds oddly loud.