The scene: Bus stop near Union Station. I’ve just seen Kyla homeward and I’m waiting for the #9 that’ll take me home. It’s at least fifteen minutes away, being a Sunday and all. There’s an older woman with a variety of small traveling bags already at the stop, which is unusual as I’ve never had company for my bus wait there before. (Suffice to say I’ve done this a few times.)

After a few conversational forays I discover that the older woman is, indeed, not the sharpest marble in the bag. I settle in for a few rounds of Solitaire on my phone as a way to pass the time.

“Oooh, look at all those birds.”

I turn around and see a vaguely W-shaped formation of about thirty waterfowl flying south. “Yep,” I reply in as uninterested a tone as I can manage without being rude.

“Geese, you think?”

I look again. The flyers aren’t big enough or quite the right shape for geese, at least not the Canadian variety we get so many of around here. “Actually, I’m pretty sure those are ducks.”

“Oh, so not birds then.”

I freeze completely still for a few moments, processing what I’d heard and deciding whether I should say anything. I decide against it.

Luckily for my fragile sanity, the bus arrives a few minutes later.

On Tuesday night the kids and I went to see the Wallace and Gromit feature, “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” It was funny, and particularly punny, not to mention incredibly well made as a piece of top-notch stop-motion animation. Nick Park and his crew clearly went all-out, even to the point of doing a fine job on the fur effects.

This afternoon Kyla and I saw “Serenity.” (Not being die-hard Firefly fans, neither of us had a burning need to do so before this point.) It was about what I expected, and even a bit better than, truth be told. I wouldn’t say it was a great movie through-and-through, but it was wholly serviceable and generally transcended the genre trappings through a mixture of snappy dialogue and clever visuals.

I wholeheartedly recommend catching either or both of these movies while they’re still in theaters. ‘Nuff said.

I cleaned, today. Laundry, vacuuming, garbage, tidying. That’s why I didn’t get any work done on the anime site.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Rumors that computer gaming and anime viewing had anything to do with my lack of website work are wholly unsubstantiated, I assure you.

Ahem.

We’re gathering at Backspace, downtown, this Friday evening. Right? Right.

C’mon, you know you wanna. How can you pass up cool company like the PortlandBloggers gang?

Lesson learned: Sometimes the #9 Powell does not become the #9 Broadway. As near as I can tell, that not-becoming takes place if it’s after dark and the bus in question sails through downtown near the top rather than the bottom of the hour.

And thanks to the MAX light rail’s after-dark schedule lately, walking became a better choice than waiting around in the cold, considering how close to the Broadway bridge the #9 ended up dropping me. But hey, I got some exercise in this evening.

Walking, that is. Get your minds outta the gutter, folks.

For all that I woke up a bit after 9 this morning (early, for me, on a Sunday when I’m not going in to the office) it’s amazing how quickly this day went by. Of course, the kids and I went all-out in our pursuit of fun ways to goof off. Time flies when you’re having fun, and so forth, eh?

To round out the day, I finally took my very first CoH superhero on the Protector server, one Arctic Ant, to level 30. I had the most excellent help, mind you. For a “toon” that was languishing in the early teens for months, it’s nice to have him at a level that’s actually enjoyable to play with. Heck, another couple of levels and he’ll be my top hero.

The kids and I played a nice game of Carcassonne earlier in the day. Tomorrow I’ll have to post a picture of the Unfinishable City From Hell for your amusement. (I’ll probably also have to explain why it’s unfinishable, but I don’t mind. That’s part of the fun.)

I hope your weekend was enjoyable and restful, my friends. See you at the salt mines!