An Appointment with the Judge

This Friday last one had a long, long, overdue catch up with Judge Mingus.

Having a relatively sudden space in my busy schedule I sent forth the invite a mere few days before said space with little hope of a positive response.
You can imagine my pleasant surprise to have my invite emphatically accepted.

The official activity of the evening was to be introducing the good Judge to the goodness that is Commands and Colors: Napoleonics.
(One did expect that tangential conversation would be one of the major unofficial activities of the evening.)

The gaming went well with lots of back and forth both in play and dialogue and overall it was a fantastic catch up evening.

At the end of the night we both resolved for a future appointment that we would be getting together to rekindle our musicianship.
That is: we would get together to make music, not war.
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Challenged Again

It's that time of year again that a young blogger's thoughts turn to walking all over the place.

Yes I am once again taking part in the Global Corporate Challenge - 16 weeks of pedometerising my steps and getting my team to take a virtual walking tour of the world.

I have managed to be included in the Library team this year lead by  Mr Prada, and including such luminaries as Days of our Libraries, Fifi, Country Girl, The Pragmatist  and Mrs Football.

Of added interest this year is the fact that Salsa Girl and her office are also taking part. In the spirit of encouraging better participation one aims to help my team beat the pants off hers.
So far so good on day one as my team has the lead. I am a tad worried though as I know how far Salsa Girl walks every day in comparison to oneself, and also her team haven't entered any scores yet.

Still one must enjoy the winning position while one holds it.
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A Fate Worse than Ballerinas

So with Salsa Girl settling in to our new cohabitating habit it is now, as expected, that the battle over the spaces in which we live begins.

The opening salvo was fired shortly after one had graciously moved one's gaming map of a fantasy world to the manland sanctuary that the study has become in these times of struggle.
After returning from a hard days work slaving away at the library one was confronted with the sight of a picture of the quite-girly-indeed Mariah Carey assuming that same section of the wall. The horror!

In the end it turns out that it has been done with quite a lot of tongue in cheek by Salsa Girl - although one does wonder why the picture in question has failed to be removed from the wall yet?
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The Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher

This is the book that Fantomas suggested I read before reading a better one so as to not be extremely disappointed in it. Dragonmim also came to the party adding that he'd "made it through" the first two of the series - a slightly damning appraisal given his propensity for series completion.

As you may note it has taken one more than a month to finish this one - and I only made it to the end this week thanks to my twelve day Easter weekend.

It was an okay enough read although it has more of a teen feel to it than the adult fantasy it presents itself as - mostly, I think,  due to the teenage protagonist (with a secret origin and a destiny) and the fact that nobody of importance (to us the readers) dies in the catastrophic events it contains. Still, I give it three and a half stars as the final 100 or so pages had me quite entertained.
I doubt that I shall seek out any more of the series, especially as I shall soon be reading that fantastic fantasy opus of which many have made recommendations.
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