Daleks invade books

I sent this link around to a few friends yesterday before realizing that, really, it needed to be shared further: Kathleen Jennings' Dalek cartoon game. My hands down favorite is this one; it probably should not give me the glee that it does, but something in Piglet's expression just gets me.

In unrelated news it has genuinely cooled down for the second time, with temperatures in the 50s (about 12 to 13 degrees for you more sensible types). I left the windows partly open last night, thieves or no thieves, allowing a lovely cool breeze to drift through the house, and cooling down my room enough that I slept hard and well, with a lovely dream where for some reason or another I had moved to a house on Miami Beach. As in all of my dreams of Miami, my dream Miami Beach looks nothing like the actual Miami Beach (although one element did slightly resemble a part of the Golden Mile in Fort Lauderdale.) But that isn't important. As I entered the old house and began to explore and try to figure out what bedroom I could take and where I could put my books, I found a marvelous room filled with books (this is always a plus to find in a dream) with balconies and odd ladders leading to still more hidden rooms with still more books, and as I turned I saw people, who explained that they had set up a sort of used bookstore/library/art school in the house, without permission, but on the bright side, they could tell me where the pizza was. And then things stopped making sense, but this was considerably better than the dream earlier this week where I climbed the stairs of a very old building to look out a window to see people wrapping still mostly living bodies in plastic and loading them on trucks -- a dream that left me feeling unrested and twitchy throughout the day.

I keep forgetting how much better I sleep when it's cold -- mostly because even then, I often don't sleep well, or, when I do, wake up as I did yesterday with my blood pressure plummeting down to "you really don't want to sit up" levels which kinda eliminates the joy of sleep. (I have both high and low blood pressure, and I have to tell you, high blood pressure, even when it makes me dizzy? MUCH BETTER. Sorry, horrified cardiologists reading this.) And partly because I share a house with someone who prefers it warm -- he shut all the windows this morning -- so I don't always get the chance to remember.

Anyway, all this -- a decent night's sleep, plus Daleks, a couple of cheering emails and the realization that yes, yes, I do have coconut syrup for the coffee, which is exactly what I need on a coolish sort of day, has massively improved my mood from yesterday's depths of despair. (Being able to sit up is another cheering thought.) But enough babbling: I have a couple of reviews to finish up so I can go to WFC next week with an improved, if not clear conscience.

Thief found!

I decided to take advantage of the weather and my decent mood by hanging out in downtown Winter Garden for a bit today, stopping by the used bookstore, where I learned that business is going well enough that she is thinking of moving to a larger location, which is joyful news, the pizza place (because I've been craving pizza) and the coffee place, where in response for some (requested) writing advice a person gave me a long and cheery lecture on how to handle clinical depression. My response may have a) been overly personal and b) a bit too loud, based on the response of the cute geeky guy nearby, but I am trying to tell myself that he was annoyed at both of us. Which may be true. But grr for bad reactions from cute geeky guys.

I returned home to hear that the thief who broke into our back house a couple weekends ago has been caught. No trace of the guns, but the camera lenses were returned, and the police are working to track down the rest of the stuff he stole (not just from us.) You will all be shocked, I'm sure, to learn that this was not his first offense. I suspect I'll have more details later.

Feeling a bit dizzy from all this, so, later.

Theft update

As it turns out, the alleged thief (to be legally correct about such things; he's been arrested but not convicted yet), lives fairly close by -- in fact I'm pretty sure I've waved to him on the trike. (The perils of friendliness.) The city cops charged him with a total of nine counts, which gave us the opportunity to learn that if you conduct criminal mischief in Orange County, you can post bail for the low low cost of $150 (which is cheaper than bail postings for drunken driving, disorderly conduct and marijuana possession) but add guns to your robbery and suddenly bail gets VERY pricey. (My advice is, don't commit robbery, especially with a gun, unless you have plenty of spare cash on hand, which, frankly, if you're using guns in a robbery, you probably don't.) This is his third arrest of the year, but the most serious.

The cops did find some of my brother's possessions, but not, so far, the guns, which is the most serious point.

The Three Musketeers

glvalentine was kind enough to share this clip with all of us:

Because I love you, my readers, I will be there this weekend. I mean, it's a Three Musketeers film SET IN VENICE. What could possibly go wrong?

Ok, this trailer suggests many, many things that could possibly go wrong, notably the casting, but, still! I shall be brave.