I sat in a deserted coffee shop this afternoon with Emma, as much of Seattle was watching the playoff game of the Seattle Seahawks against the Green Bay Packers. Idly curious, I checked the score early in the fourth quarter and found that the Packers were leading 19–7. I was quite surprised later to find that the Seahawks had won 28–22, sending themselves to the Super Bowl in Arizona in two weeks’ time. Apparently, it was a thrilling comeback late in the game.

I suppose that I’m happy for my football-loving friends, though I’m inclined to “love the sinner but hate the sin”, as I can’t stand football. I spent eleven years …continue.

Every few years, I find it necessary to wipe my computers and do a clean install of the operating system. As a developer and a power user, I install a lot of software. The cumulative effect of in­stal­la­tions and upgrades is to leave a lot of cruft on the machines. Entropy increases and the machines grow slower and perhaps less reliable. So I like to wipe the hard disk, install a new operating system, and reinstall only those apps that I know I need.

My mid-2012 MacBook Pro came with OS X 10.7. Shortly thereafer, 10.8 was released and I promptly upgraded; likewise with 10.9. Yosemite (10.10) was released in October …continue.

Jack Whyte’s Camulod Chronicles is a series of novels about King Arthur and Camelot in a post-Roman Britain. This book tells how Lancelot (Clothar the Frank) came to Camulod and met Arthur—and it takes the entire book to get to that point. Only after several hundred pages of Clothar’s childhood and early manhood and fighting a civil war in his uncle’s small kingdom in Gaul, do we proceed to Britain.

As with Uther and other books in the series, I found Whyte to be ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly …continue.

I’ve always been an avid—nay, avari­cious—read­er of books. But I have not been a listener of audiobooks.

I read quickly, much more quickly than anyone can speak, and I enjoy burying my head in a book. I’ve seen little reason, therefore, to listen to audiobooks. Lately, however, we’ve listened to some audiobooks on long car trips, as Emma, unlike me, has an Audible sub­scrip­tion. We enjoyed The Hot Rock, the first of the comic crime-caper Dortmunder books. Before that, I had read another Dortmunder novel, Bank Shot, aloud to Emma, while she drove us back from Portland, which both of us had enjoyed.

On our trip to Vancouver earlier this week, we started listening …continue.

Detective Inspector Tony McLean of the Edinburgh Police has multiple deaths to deal with: an elderly rich man, murdered horribly; the newly discovered corpse of a girl killed in some ghoulish ritual sixty years ago; and the death of the grand­moth­er who raised him. Then more elderly men start being murdered.

I enjoyed this police procedural and I liked the character of Tony McLean. The two cases start dove­tail­ing together (one of my pet peeves) and I was surprised when the author introduced su­per­nat­ur­al elements, since I had thought it was …continue.

We discovered Adesso Bistro just around the corner from where we’re staying in the West End of Vancouver. It was very quiet tonight, with only one other table occupied while we were there and another table leaving as we arrived.

I enjoyed the Prix Fixe menu of Gnocchi, Brasato (braised beef), and Panna Cotta. Emma wasn’t feeling too well, so she had a light salad and half a mushroom pizza. Both the food and the service were very good. We’d certainly go again.

We’re spending a few days in Vancouver. The Vancouver. The Canadian city in British Columbia. Not to be confused with the large Canadian island, Vancouver Island, just a few miles away, or the American city of Vancouver, Washington, which is a suburb of Portland, Oregon.

We like to come up to Vancouver a couple of times a year. It’s only 140 miles from Seattle, but you have to cross the U.S.–Canadian border and the highway runs out about ten miles from downtown Vancouver, so it always takes at least three hours to drive up.

This time, we’re staying on the edge of Stanley Park, one of Vancouver’s greatest assets. Stanley Park comprises the western half of the …continue.

Sherlock Seattle is a convention for fans of Sherlock Holmes, in all his many in­car­na­tions. Emma and I are attending the 2015 convention this weekend at the Broadway Per­for­mance Hall. We also attended the two previous con­ven­tions, in late 2012 and late 2013. Holmes has always been popular, since Arthur Conan Doyle wrote A Study in Scarlet in 1886. Three recent adap­ta­tions have boosted Holmes’ popularity con­sid­er­ably, the steampunk Sherlock films with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law; the BBC Sherlock in modern-day London with Benedict Cum­ber­batch and Martin Freeman; and the CBS Elementary in modern-day New York with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu.

Sherlock Seattle has, I’d guess, about …continue.

Danny Boyle is growing up in Dublin in the 1960s and 1970s, watched over by his grand­moth­er. First as she raises him, then from beyond the grave. Danny, as his parents did before him, is making a mess of his life, and he’s a small-time drug dealer with some big problems.

I grew up in Dublin, about a decade behind Danny Boyle, so I enjoyed Murphy’s evocation of Dublin in the 1970s. However, I disliked his constant changing of viewpoint and frequent hopping back and forth across …continue.

Reading Why the Eyewear Industry Is An Incredible Rip-Off reminds me that I need to get some new glasses. I had my eyes tested last month and there is a small change in the pre­scrip­tion. I’ve had my current glasses for about six years.

From ages 12 to 44, I needed only distance lenses for my myopia, but then in the space of just a few months, I developed the classic problem of middle age: it became hard for me to read. I got a pair of glasses with pro­gres­sive lenses. I was used to having fairly clear peripheral vision and I had to learn to turn my head rather than …continue.