RogerBW's Blog

The Weekly Challenge 171: First-Class Abundance 30 June 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved findind odd abundant numbers and first-class functions. (Note that this is open until 3 July 2022.)

[more]
The Big Lebowski (1998) 29 June 2022

1998 crime/comedy, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, Jeff Bridges; IMDb / allmovie. That rug really tied the room together.

[more]
Revenge of the Spellmans, Lisa Lutz 28 June 2022

2009 mystery-adjacent; the Spellmans are a dysfunctional family of private investigators, but narrator Izzy is trying to get away from that. Of course it won't last.

[more]
At Bertram's Hotel 27 June 2022

1995 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1965 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes.

[more]
License to Ensorcell, Katharine Kerr 26 June 2022

2010 urban fantasy. Nola O'Grady works for a government agency that doesn't exist, to preserve Harmony in the face of Order and Chaos. Back in her home town of San Francisco, she's looking into portents of doom. She tries to keep this separate from her family, but, well, many of them have magic talents too…

[more]
Intercalary Games in June 25 June 2022

We went out scouting for a pub for the local Meetup group, and found one: and it's a McMullen house, which means the AK mild is a regular thing.

[more]
The Sea Rover's Practice, Benerson Little 24 June 2022

2005 non-fiction. Using mostly primary sources, the author attempts to determine just what pirates, privateers, and other ne'er-do-wells of the sea got up to in the Golden Age of Piracy.

[more]
The Weekly Challenge 170: Kronecker's Primorial 23 June 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved primes and an unusual form of matrix multiplication. (Note that this is open until 26 June 2022.)

[more]
The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl, Theodora Goss 22 June 2022

2019 historical fantasy, third and probably last of its series. The various monstrous ladies – Mary Jekyll and Diana Hyde, Beatrice Rappacini, Catherine Moreau, Justine Frankenstein, and Lucinda Van Helsing – return from Budapest to find both Alice their housemaid and Sherlock Holmes missing.

[more]
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) 21 June 2022 - 3 comments

1997 crime drama and romantic comedy, dir. George Armitage, John Cusack, Minnie Driver; IMDb / allmovie. What could go wrong with combining an assassination job with your high school reunion?

[more]
Forty Years of Murder, Keith Simpson 20 June 2022

1978 autobiography. Keith Simpson was one of the successors of Spilsbury, and one of the first people in England to turn forensic pathology from an act of drama into a science.

[more]
Way of the Pouch 19 June 2022 - 9 comments

I've changed the way I carry things around with me, to a flexible system for attaching pouches.

[more]
Crush the King, Jennifer Estep 18 June 2022

2020 fantasy, last of its trilogy. Queen Everleigh Blair decides to take the fight to the enemy: the king of neighbouring Morta, who with his sister orchestrated the massacre that put her on the throne and continues to try to assassinate her.

[more]
Marlow Tabletop and Board Games 7 June 2022 17 June 2022

This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet twice a month. (But the pub has started to have a quiz every Monday night, so we're moving to a new venue nearby.)

[more]
The Timekeeper Conspiracy, Simon Hawke 16 June 2022

1984 SF, second of its series. The Timekeepers are terrorists who are trying to prevent time travel – by threatening to cause a catastrophic split in the timestream. In France in 1625?

[more]
The Weekly Challenge 169: The Brilliance of Achilles 15 June 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved more numerical series. (Note that this is open until 19 June 2022.)

[more]
Mary Reilly, Valerie Martin 14 June 2022

1990 gothic: Mary Reilly is a maid-of-all-work in the establishment of Doctor Henry Jekyll. This will not end well.

[more]
L.A. Confidential 13 June 2022

1997 police/crime drama, dir. Curtis Hanson, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce: IMDb / allmovie. In 1950s Los Angeles, even the straight cops are bent.

[more]
Wilkins' Tooth, Diana Wynne Jones 12 June 2022

1973 children's fantasy. It's the summer holidays; Frank and Jess need money after a chair got broken, and set up Own Back Limited, a revenge-for-hire service. But things get far too complicated far too quickly. US vt Witch's Business.

[more]
Intercalary games in May 11 June 2022

Some friends live nearby, and I visited them for gaming.

[more]
Hand of Mars, Glynn Stewart 10 June 2022

2015 SF, second of its series. Damien Montgomery and Alaura Stealey, two of the most powerful mages in human space, are sent to the planet Ardennes to deal with its escalating rebellion…

[more]
The Weekly Challenge 168: At Home with the Perrins 09 June 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved more furkling about with prime numbers. (Note that this is open until 12 June 2022.)

[more]
Cards on the Table 08 June 2022

2002 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1936 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. The sinister Mr Shaitana invites four detectives to a party with his "collection" of undetected murderers. By the end of the evening, he's been stabbed…

[more]
A Merciful Promise, Kendra Elliot 07 June 2022

2019 romantic mystery, sixth and last in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Mercy's hastily dropped into an undercover job, while her police chief fiancé conducts a separate investigation.

[more]
Mary Reilly 06 June 2022

1996 romantic horror, dir. Stephen Frears, Julia Roberts, John Malkovich: IMDb / allmovie. Mary is a maid of all work in the household of one Dr Jekyll…

[more]
The Runabout, Kristine Kathryn Rusch 05 June 2022

2017 science fiction, sixth of its series. "Boss" is leading dives in the Boneyard, the stockpile of abandoned Fleet ships, in the hope of recovering hardware and learning more.

[more]
Board Games at the Bear, 8 May 2021 04 June 2022

Back in the Usual Pub with nine of us playing various games.

[more]
Path of the Sun, Violette Malan 03 June 2022

2010 fantasy, fourth in the Dhulyn and Parno series. Our mercenary heroes escort a princess to her wedding; but they're also sent to find out what happened to the last two mercenaries sent to that court…

[more]
The Weekly Challenge 167: Circling the Gamma 02 June 2022

I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved circular primes and the Lanczos approximation. (Note that this is open until 5 June 2022.)

[more]
May 2022 Trailers 01 June 2022

Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I want a trailer to tell me what's different about this film; the marketers want it to tell me why it's like all the others…)

[more]
Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1