Archive | March 2011

15 Minute Ficlet in Vas’ World: Observe and Report

Mar16

Originally posted here in response to the quote prompt “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”

“If it bleeds, we can kill it.” Paz muttered.

“And if it farts, we can smell it. Lovely science there, Paz,” Malia snorted softly. “You’re all getting pretty creepy about this.” Still, she kept her voice soft, and watched the sides of their path carefully. She’d done her time in the space service, after all; she’d done basic training.

“The planet was supposed to be uninhabited,” Ezra complained; he, too, kept his voice quiet, but what she could hear in the tone suggested he felt betrayed. They all acted that way, like wall-building creatures had somehow done it just to thwart them. Like they were thwarted at all, just by a little ancient construction. And now they were tracking… what? They still didn’t know.

“Well, from all the satellites, it is,” she answered reasonably. “It’s not as if there’s any major cities here, no radio traffic. We know the planet has no wide-spread civilization.”

“But it has sentient life,” Vas grumbled. “And sentient life-forms cannot share a planet comfortably.”

That, of course, was completely subjective, but Vas liked to make blanket statements like that. It was easier to just let him make them. Except…

“…no, it won’t be very comfortable if we go by the ‘it’s bleeding, let’s kill it’ philosophy, will it?” She narrowly avoided slapping her hand over her mouth to keep in the words she’d already said. She’d done it now.

“Malia, don’t be stupid. It took a shot at us.”

“And we took a shot at it. And now we’re… what? Tracking it back to its lair? What happened to observe and record?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Paz grumbled, setting one big hand over the wound where the arrow had grazed flesh, “observing and recording this thing dying.”

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Reiassan map, with mountain ranges and cities

Mar14

Reiassan map, with mountain ranges & 10 major cities
Reiassan map, with mountain ranges & 10 major cities

also the updated most-recent-border between Bithrain & Callenia and two small border settlements.

Population, etc. notes:

Approx 540,000 sq. miles of land
Approx 328,969 sq. miles of arable farmland
Approx 164,484 sq. miles of grazing/pasture land

Population of the continent about 7.2 million, of which 10% is urban and of that 50% is in biggest 10 cities.
Divvied by city approx:
69,335 Lannamer
41,601 Ouyknan
37,441 Arran 1
35,361
32,934
31,201
28,427
27,041
24,267
22,881

Food and Wine

Mar12

I love my dinner train of thought looking at cupboard: mm, not in the mood for matzo ball soup. Want Jambalaya. Don’t have a Jambalaya mix. Maybe Dal palak with the chicken in the fridge? That sounds tasty.

We ended up making naan with a side of chicken, sausage, and mirepoix.

😀

Today was a do-it-yourself wine tour. 🙂

Penguin Bay Winery was having a buy-two-get-one on their very nice Percussion wine, so we headed there.

I’ve wanted Red Newt’s Hellbender Soiree port since we stopped there this autumn (there was a line), so we stopped there on the way to get a bottle of that.

After Red Newt and Penguin Bay, I turned into the first winery that looked really interesting, which turned out to be Leidenfrost Estates. We tasted … well, most of their wine list, and ended up buying a Log Cabin White, which is a nice versatile semi-sweet wine, and their dessert wine Encore. (their Gewurztraminer was also very nice).

Then… we stopped at Finger Lakes Distilling, and split a rather more high-octane tasting. Nom. Delicious. We’re going to have to go back and buy more.

All in all, a nice way to get out of the house for a few hours. 🙂