Wednesday, January 02, 2019

New Year's

So another year has begun. What are my resolutions?  I think I'll start baking bread again, which I lapsed in over a year ago.  And I'll try to wait to read each day's new online comic strips in the morning, instead of doing it after midnight of the night before.

Wednesday night I saw the new Mary, Queen of Scots movie.  Meh.  With this sort of production they try too hard to have an original take on history. (Did England really have a Negro ambassador to Scotland?  Did Elizabeth I really have a Chinese Lady in Waiting?) Saoirse Ronan was pretty as ever in the title role, while Margot Robbie's Elizabeth bore a curious resemblance to Rufus Sewell.

I've started watching the anime The Rose of Versailles online. That one's about a girl in 18th-century France whose father wanted a boy, so he named her Oscar and brought her up to be a male heir.  Now she's a teenage soldier appointed to guard the newly-arrived Marie Antoinette.  It was made back in 1979 so the animation isn't of the best quality, but it's still fairly handsome and imaginative. (It was a big influence on Revolutionary Girl Utena, of course.)

Speaking of anime, One Piece gets more and more complex and fascinating.  I think my favorite character is Nami, the girl navigator with a practical eye for matters like food and money and planning. (It helps that I like maps too.) The story arc just now involves a high-class restaurant started by a retired pirate in the middle of the sea!

I'm finally getting serious about unsubscribing from the email lists that clog my inbox. (I originally got on so many because I liked being linked to E-petitions.)

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