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.

Dyshidro­sis (/dɪs.haɪˈdroʊ.sɨs/, also known as "acute vesicu­lob­ul­lous hand eczema," "cheiropom­pholyx," "dyshidrot­ic eczema," "pompholyx," and "podopom­pholyx") is a skin condition that is char­ac­ter­ized by small blisters on the hands or feet.

    — Wikipedia

I’ve oc­ca­sion­al­ly had little blisters appear on my fingers and palms in hot weather in the past. These vesicles are filled with clear liquid, annoying and a little bit sore, and they sting when my hands are soaked in water.

In August, they came back and they were larger and more swollen than ever before. My doctor diagnosed a case of dyshidrot­ic eczema and prescribed clobetasol propionate ointment. The eczema promptly cleared up, but I had …continue.

We went to hear Matt Taibbi speak at Town Hall Seattle tonight. He spoke about the topic of his new book, The Divide, which covers inequality in the United States. After several years of covering white-collar crime in Wall Street after the financial collapse of 2008, and not seeing any pros­e­cu­tions, he got curious about what the criminal justice system is like for the poor. Community policing is harsh in many poor com­mu­ni­ties, like Ferguson and Staten Island, where the police regularly issue tickets for minor in­frac­tions. Those being summonsed can ill-afford the fines, often leading to worse con­se­quences. The U.S. prison population is now twice as high as it was in 1991 and four times …continue.

Marsh Tanner is a San Francisco private in­ves­ti­ga­tor. His secretary Peggy is starting to unravel, as she’s been getting sexually harassing phone calls for months, which she’s hidden from Marsh. Thing is, she’s also started to develop a case of Stockholm syndrome with her stalker. Marsh discovers more about Peggy—and him­self—than he really wants to.

Moderately enjoyable. I found the plot and the characters plausible, unlike so many modern stories.

The first volume of John Cleese‘s au­to­bi­og­ra­phy takes us through the first 30 years of his life, from his birth in Weston-super-Mare in 1939 to the creation of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in 1969. I learned along the way that his mother was im­pos­si­ble; that the Pythons consider themselves writers first, performers second; that he greatly enjoyed his school years; quite a lot about the various TV and radio shows he worked on before Python; not much about his first marriage to Connie Booth; and that his speech in A …continue.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

— proverb

I want to step down as the webmaster of the Northwest C++ Users’ Group after serving for four years. The NWCPP website is built with the Pelican static site generator. I don’t know who will succeed me as webmaster, but it’s likely that they’ll be a Windows user. Pelican …continue.