Category: Misc & Site

Avengers: Endgame (04-05 08 2019) – I was thoroughly spoiled, but I haven’t been able to watch it since the release. It was a bit long and it had a bit too much fan service, but it was good for the most part. I think the endings fit for most of the characters except I was not satisfied with two of the most important ones. Oh well. I have my favourites from this series and will follow them through.

TV

“Jack Ryan” Season 1 – I watched most of these episodes as my partner got a Prime trial. We both like John Krasinski and it was a nice to see Abbie Cornish.

What We Do in the Shadows” Season 1 – Funny. Nadja is my favourite. There is some good character work as well in this for a an unconventional comedy. I really enjoyed and am looking forward to the next series. Lately, Taika Waititi can’t do wrong.
Plot, characters, perfect sitcom

Hello! If you visited this blog and website for the last month, you may have found it unreachable. Now, I have returned and my posts are still here! Yay!

I am generously hosted by a friend of mine who has a reseller account for an web host called A Small Orange. We’ve been with this host for over a decade. I was unable to use FTP or my CPanel and had NO access to my domain at all. A Small Orange did not reply to our emails, twitter, etc. It was acquired by another company not too long ago and since then, it’s gone downhill. As a result, I lost access to all my original files which is sad since some of my files on the domain go back to 2001 including my teenage blog! I may have those files saved elsewhere, but I am generally not that maudlin anymore.

In any case, I did have a couple of backup plugins and one of them did save most of my WordPress files including the SQL data file with all my 900+ posts. We moved to a new webhost, but it was NOT a smooth journey to reinstall everything. In the end, with some help from someone on WordPress Support forums, I am back!

September has been a busy month for me and I did not read as many books as I would have liked. I am continuing to read the New Yorker. I have drafted some posts on it and skin care while this domain was offline. New posts will be coming soon and I hope to have better news to share with you all in October.

All the best! Happy autumn!

Hello! It recently came to my attention that my Feedburner RSS feed was no longer updating. It’s been broken for months. I have tried to fix it myself to no avail and learned that Google offers no support for Feedburner. I have had to switch back to using my WordPress feed exclusively. I am very disappointed because I will lose some subscribers from this. However, I have done my best to change the links on my current blog to go direct to my standard blog feed.

I am back to updating this blog on a regular basis mostly with books and movies, but there will be a few more knitting, food, and stationery posts in the future.

Please add the following feed to your preferred RSS reader to follow this blog:

https://www.aquatique.net/feed/

You can follow this blog in other ways as well:

Twitter: Tweets are fed from the feed on this blog. Follow @athena to follow this blog.

MailChimp Mailing List: For the couple of people who were subscribed to the Feedburner RSS email subscription, you have been imported into this new list. Please subscribe to the blog updates on the menu or in this post:

In other social media, you may also follow me on GoodReads which is updated frequently or follow my pins on Pinterest but neither link to my blog entries.

Thank you for reading!

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae, May 1915

Sunday Salon

Hello, everyone!

It’s been awhile since my last post. I have not been blogging or reading very much the last couple of months. In fact, I’ve been trying to read Kipling’s Kim for over a month now. It’s not engaging me, but I actually do not have time.

I have been preparing for a trip to China. In fact, I will be gone from the blog and most of the internet until June 4th.

The good news is that I have loaded up my Kindle and bought a new book for the trip. I rarely buy new books. I’ve actually resolved not to buy any books until Christmas, but I had to buy these books as they were French! It was special occasion. I bought Balzac’s Pere Goriot and how could I resist the urge to buy the classic Le Petit Prince.

All my other hobbies have fallen to the wayside as well. I don’t knit as much, and I am taking a break from running until I get back. I have been doing some hot yoga though. I still watch a lot of TV shows.

With summer coming – my traditional reading season – I can hit the books more, work out, and have more hobby and outdoor time.

Be back in June. A la prochaine!

Sunday Salon

Hello! This week, I read Pride and Prejudice & Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After, Love & Freindship and The History of England, and Death Combes to Pemberley.

I haven’t started anything in the last couple of days as I have been busy trying to finish this blanket I’ve been working on since May.

Today, I do want to start and read as much as possible in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. This will be my first Murakami novel; I think I read a lovely short story of his once in an anthology or online and liked it. It’s taken me awhile to actually get down to reading one of his works though and I’ve also amassed a few for Kindle in the event my library doesn’t carry it out.

The weather is still sunny, but decidedly cool and not blisteringly hot like i was last month. I am beginning to feel glimpses of autumn. Indeed, I have been on the lookout for tan boots now.

I took a yoga class this week and it’s been a long while since I did that. I plan to knit more this week and I’ll follow it up with a wool festival next weekend perhaps.

What are you doing this Sunday?

From 2007 to 2009, a WordPress weblog existed here at aquatique.net. It was hacked in early 2009 and at the time, I was doing my Masters degree and had no time to fix it. Since then, I’ve put off due to life and general procrastination. It always did come back to my mind though because I knew all my entries were in my database though I had deleted most things.

When I finally got around to creating this new blog in January, I attempted to find a solution to restore the old blog. I couldn’t find an answer online for my particular situation. I didn’t care if it worked, but I needed my entries back. I had some valuable ones I knew.

Finally, this morning, I went to wordpress.org’s support forums and got some help. Through that and the wordpress.org manual, I managed it. I learned a lot about MySQL editing this morning.

When I got the old blog back on another folder, I found out that I had 426 entries and 850 comments from those two years! It was a bit strange going through my old entries too and also sad/nostalgic.

It has taken hours. I installed about 4 versions of WordPress, went through all the tags, did my best to clean up the categories and consolidated things, and finally, individually imported each category through because it was too big to do it in one big installment.

Having said that, some of the stuff is not completely consolidated. For example, Monthly Movies and TV has its own category now and they didn’t before, but I have imported most of the relevant old tags including those for things in it. It is mostly organized.

It was important for my own sake to see my old posts again. It also was a window to my old self, since then, I have changed more than I thought. I will attempt to go back to some old habits like the Sunday Salon and Booking Through Thursday though. Even if my old blog readers are no longer around, my posts are. Go through the archives and enjoy!

I’m back! Three years of hiatus and this domain is back for its 11th anniversary! Been preparing for its return by writing posts so have a backlog of them that will trickle in the weeks to follow. Comment, share, and enjoy!

Image courtesy of RSC

Image courtesy of RSC / Daily Mail / Alastair Muir

Due to the beauty that is the Royal Shakespeare Company’s special student rates where you can see £5, I was able to score two tickets for their 2008/09 London season at The Novello Theatre on the Aldwych. Words can not contain how much I wanted these tickets when I first heard about the cast and the fact I was going to be in London at the same time. Both performances had me in bliss for 3 hours 30 minutes. The two nights I went were December 30, 2008 and January 10, 2009 (the last performance). The difference between the two are mainly focussed around the fact that David Tennant was still recovering in the former replaced by Edward Bennett, but was back for the latter. I also had opera glasses (£3.99 at the NT shop) for the second showing which allowed me a view of their faces, making it even more interesting. As a preface, I must admit that I have not seen any Shakespeare play of this caliber, and as much as I love the performing arts, I have not been able to indulge in as many shows as I would like especially given I lived in a town not as cultural as London. Therefore, this was quite special for me.

Continue reading →

Due to a personal emergency, I will be delayed from my trip for some time, and even once I get there, I will be very occupied for a few weeks. I am sorry to say that the blog will suffer as I will lose internet until I move abroad. Sorry everyone! I hope to be back soon. Thank you.

At the end of this week, I will be moving to London, England for at least one year to do my graduate studies. The blog will change as my life does. My life will have less knitting (will be too poor for yarn), less time for books, and possibly less blogging overall as it usually the case when I am in school. The blog will include posts of London centric things from museums, galleries, parks, shopping, photos, and more. While I do not plan to have Grand European Tour, I will definitely make a requisite trip to Paris in the future so travel posts are ahead.

A big change such as this is hectic and blog updates may be less frequent and content will alter. I hope to blog about the things I have always blogged about especially books, but it is too early to tell how the blog will evolve when I get there. Thank you for reading and commenting.

I got this meme from Chris.

What kind of soap is in your shower right now? LUSH Fig N Leaves. Very moisturizing.

Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator? Not in this cold season.

What would you change about your living room? I’m going to agree with Chris that it needs more bookshelves, and a Persian rug.

Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty? We don’t have a dishwasher.

What is in your fridge? Food.

White or wheat bread? Whole Wheat.

What is on top of your refrigerator? Cereal boxes. I don’t even eat it.

What color or design is on your shower curtain? It’s white with multi-coloured bubbles. It’s from Ikea.

How many plants are in your home? At least two.

Is your bed made right now? No.

Comet or Soft Scrub? Comet because I also don’t know what Soft Scrub is.

Is your closet organized? Relatively so.

Can you describe your flashlight? It’s cheap and red.

Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home? I usually drink out of a white mug.

Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now? No.

If you have a garage, is it cluttered? No garage.

Curtains or blinds? Both.

How many pillows do you sleep with? One.

Do you sleep with any lights on at night? No. I like sleeping when it’s pitch dark.

How often do you vacuum? Not very often.

Standard toothbrush or electric? Standard. I wish I had electric.

What color is your toothbrush? Clear and pink. It’s the one the dentist gave me.

Do you have a welcome mat on your front porch? A mat, but it doesn’t say anything.

What is in your oven right now? Nothing.

Is there anything under your bed? Nothing.

Chore you hate doing the most? Vacuuming.

What retro items are in your home? Well. I guess maybe a piece of stereo equipment or two.

Do you have a separate room that you use as an office? No, but I would if I had my own house.

How many mirrors are in your home? About 5-7.

What color are your walls? White with beige trimmings. I didn’t choose it.

What does your home smell like right now? Nothing.

Favorite candle scent? Don’t burn many candles here.

What kind of pickles (if any) are in your refrigerator right now? None at the moment.

What color is your favorite Bible? I don’t have a bible; I wish I did. I think it would be nice in brown.

Ever been on your roof? No.

Do you own a stereo? Yes.

How many TVs do you have? 2.

How many house phones? 3. Though 2 of them don’t always work.

Do you have a housekeeper? No, we wish.

What style do you decorate in? Our home style.

Do you like solid colors or prints in furniture? Solid.

Is there a smoke detector in your home? Yes, it’s illegal not to have an active one in every floor. We have two I think.

In case of fire, what are the items in your house which you’d grab if you only could make one quick trip? My laptop, journals, and photo albums.