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Review: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

Posted by amanda on May 19, 2012 in Books, Reviews

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of my favourite scientists living today. Not only is he well deserving of his Sexiest Astrophysicist award from People magazine, but he is one of the most passionate, articulate, insightful speakers on the topic of manned space exploration that there is. This book is a collection of his articles and speeches on the topic, so be warned that it can get a little repetitive. The same facts, figures, arguments, correlations, and so on, come up again and again in the text. In fact, that’s the only complaint I had here — when I found time to curl up with this book and spend time with it, I sometimes wanted to put it back down after fifteen minutes, because some chapters seemed like rewrites of the last. However, every chapter is completely satisfying; I would suggest reading this in small doses, like on a short commute, where you can enjoy one or two chapters at a time.

Beard-y Tumblrs

Posted by amanda on May 18, 2012 in Blog

I love beards. I’ve said it before, and I’ll definitely say it again… I’ve always had a thing for full, glorious beards. Luckily, I found a very handsome boy with a face full of hair to live with —

Bearded boyfriend shown here, cuddling the cat

— but he can’t be around all day, every day for me to enjoy all those facial follicles, so what do I do when he’s not around, you may ask. How do I get my fix? Luckily for me, there are plenty of beard related tumblrs, which I can check out any time I please.

betterwithabeard.tumblr.com

This site is amazing. It aims to prove that every man looks better with a beard — of course they’re right, but some people demand proof! A few of my favourite posts:

"Jon Hamm’s beard is full, lustrous and dangerously close to beard perfection. Of course he looks better with a beard. Of course."

"Nobody prefers the beardless Riker. Nobody."

"Here’s a really young, bearded Stephen Colbert (reportedly photographed during his days as a student at Northwestern University). The man hasn’t been bearded in a long, long time, but clearly needs to rethink his current stance on beardedness. The beard suits him (as it suits pretty much everyone)."

Unfortunately, the most recent post on Better with a Beard was back in May 2011. Maybe the achieved their mandate? Does everyone accept that beards are better than a naked face?

boyswithbeardswithcats.tumblr.com

As if the beards weren’t enough, you can also get your beards with cats. It’s an internet dream come true! These pictures are mostly of your average, everyday bearded dudes, chilling out with adorable cats. There are a few celebrity pictures peppered in, but real life cuties make up the meat and potatoes of this tumblr.

There are a lot of super cute sleeping shots.

Possibly the best "sleep" shot: identical positions!

Might as well finish them off with another sleepy cuddle shot!

Enjoy, beard fans!

Diablo III

Posted by amanda on May 17, 2012 in Blog, Reviews, Video Games

Ah, Diablo III. We’ve been waiting twelve years for this, and it’s finally arrived … kind of.

I got my copy of the game because I signed up for the World of Warcraft annual pass. I knew that my boyfriend would be buying the huge collector’s edition, so I didn’t think we’d need two demon skulls, two soulstones, two blu-rays, two art books, and so on. I’m pretty jealous that he gets in-game content, though… the collector’s edition even comes with an in-game WoW pet. I’m the only one of us that plays WoW!

I played for a few hours last night, and got my monk, Eldatari, up to level 9. I’m nearly through the first chapter, which was covered in the beta. Once I get past this, it’ll all be new territory for me in the game. I can’t wait until it really gets started!

Unfortunately, Blizzard’s servers aren’t handling the strain very well. It was to be expected (when have Blizzard’s servers ever handled the strain well? Anybody? Bueller?), but I spent a whole lot of time last night staring at one of these babies:

I woke up early this morning, hoping to play a quick half hour, finish out the opening chapter, and grab a couple more screenshots only to be greeted with some BREAKING NEWS:

I’m hoping that this gets fixed soon, so that I can spend some time during my extra long weekend (I took tomorrow off, to recover from Meshuggah and I’m not going to lie: to play Diablo) fighting the hordes of hell in Sanctuary.

Oh well… I guess if the servers stay this temperamental, I’ll just have to spend some more time saving the universe from Reapers in Mass Effect 3.

Weekly Wishlist: Pastel Hair

Posted by amanda on May 16, 2012 in Blog, Style, Weekly Wants

lavender & turquoise

Oh, how I want pastel hair, like some sort of unicorn princess.

platinum & lavender

Now that it’s blonde, maybe I could go all the way to platinum, with a couple of lavender streaks?

lavender

Or, you know… just all-over pastel purple lavender glory.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Posted by amanda on May 15, 2012 in Blog, Books, Reviews

Wow.

This book is incredible. I know that it’s a classic of modern literature, considered one of the greatest modern novels, and was made into an Academy Award winning film starring Jack Nicholson, but honestly, I didn’t know much about it until I read it. Now, I’m not sure why I waited so long. It’s a poignant and heart-wrenching look at mental health institutions that asks fundamental questions about the nature of perception, psychology, and the human condition.

Kesey’s hero, McMurphy, is a swaggering, self-actualized gambler with the most symbolic pair of boxer shorts I’ve ever encountered in literary studies. The view of his character as seen through the eyes of the Chief as he relearns to inhabit his own form is an incredible ride. I really enjoyed the lyrical nature of the text, which was well-developed to walk the line between sense and insanity. It’s questionable whether or not some of the patients are truly mentally ill — especially the Chief, who reveals through the story that he has a greater grasp of the situation than anyone around him.

It’s disturbing, it’s tragic, it’s terrifying, but it gives you hope for the future. It was hard to put this one down, and I missed out on a lot of lunchtime chat with my coworkers in favour of laying out in the sun with Kesey’s text. This is an incredible, sensitive piece of literature and it deserves all of the accolades it is given. I highly recommend investing the time in this one if, like me, you’ve somehow avoided it this long. Hell, if you’ve read it before, I recommend giving it another go — it’s really that good.

I was really glad to find out that the movie is on Netflix, because if the movie is half as good as the book, it’s going to be a sight to see.

5/5

Music Monday: Ophidian Trek

Posted by amanda on May 14, 2012 in Blog, Music, Reviews

Two weeks of Swedish metal, in a row! You’d think I had a type or something, and didn’t just listen to whatever piques my fancy on a given day. In this case, I’m going to see Meshuggah, Baroness, and Decapitated at Sound Academy for the Ophidian Trek tour this Thursday, so they’ve definitely piqued my interest.

I dig Meshuggah, and I really dig Baroness. I don’t know Decapitated, so I headed over to setlist.fm, and made a couple of Rdio playlists of what I can expect to hear at the concert:

It’s time to start ‘concert-cramming’ by listening to these playlists while I’m at work this week. I’m lucky that I have a job where I can listen to music all day while I work; I think I’d go crazy sitting at my desk all day, if I couldn’t rock out to some tunes at the same time.

Baroness is debuting a couple of new songs on this tour that aren’t on Rdio yet, and they look pretty amazing. I dug up a couple videos on YouTube that people posted from earlier in the tour:

We’ve got Meshuggah’s latest, Koloss, on vinyl, but none of their other albums. Brandon is clearly a much bigger Meshuggah fan than I am. I’d like to get my hands on a copy of Baroness’ Blue Album and Red Album, but some digging leads me to believe it might be a lot harder that I’d hoped. I should probably pre-order their new album, Yellow & Green, before I end up having just as much trouble tracking it down!

Sunday Recipe: Banana Oat Muffins

Posted by amanda on May 13, 2012 in Baking, Blog, Cheffery

Wow. These muffins are incredible. They have a dense, cake-like texture, and the oats give each little loaf enough weight that they eat like a meal. I munch one on my walk to work, and it carries me through the morning. Delicious! Next time, I’ll try the recipe with less honey, a whole wheat flour, and a plant oil, rather than butter.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup honey
1 large egg
2 cups mashed banana (about 5 large bananas)
1/3 cup butter

Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray muffin pans with non-stick cooking spray.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, combine the wet ingredients, then add to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Fill muffin tins nearly to the top. There should be enough for 10-12 muffins, depending on the size you want. I love to eat, so I made 10 from this amount of mix.

Bake on the middle rack for 25-45 minutes. Keep an eye on them, and take the muffins out of the oven when the tops are golden brown. I recommend eating your first one while they’re still warm!