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I disassembled one of my eyeshadow palettes today.

The thing was huge; 12 shades, very large pans, spaced wide. The thing couldn't fit into my makeup bag at all. I usually do my makeup at work, before it starts (because I get there early) so in practice I was never going to use this particular palette.

SO I took it apart and divided it into 2 separate small palettes. It didn't go as smoothly as I was hoping; the palette was made of cardboard, but very strong cardboard. Some palettes are intended to be taken apart, but this one wasn't. And one of the pans shattered - fortunately, it was a light neutral matte, and very replaceable; I have lots of singles that match it. Some of the mattes cracked a bit. I probably could have re-pressed them, but I couldn't be arsed.

Anyway... the final result is two small palettes that I am likely to use, rather than one large palette that I couldn't take anywhere and was not using at all. We'll see how this will actually work out!

If I end up not using these particular shades, I do have some other shades that are actually meant to be removed from their casings. Plus there are various brands that sell pans only; like, there's MAC of course, and MUFE, and while I've never tried it I've heard very good things about Clionadh. So.

It reminds me of the time I tried pressing my own shadows from loose powders. That didn't work out so well. Self-pressed stuff is fine if you're using it at home, but it doesn't travel well - makes an awful mess. But hopefully since these were not self-pressed they will be durable enough for travel.

I've been sick all weekend. Awful timing, considering it's Thanksgiving. Brilliant job, body 'o mine. We're having the dinner tonight and I doubt I'll be able to taste most of it.

And to top it off, my DVD player seems to be kaput, so I can't even loaf on the couch and watch some trash while I'm miserable. Terrible!

So, I've been reading instead. Here are the last few things I've finished:

01. Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle: An influencer who moonlights as a grave robber is called on to retrieve the body of a suddenly-deceased rockstar; this is definitely not a routine delivery in more ways than one.

WOW was this one ever graphic. I would firmly categorise it as a slasher. Wasn't quite expecting that; the only other Tingle novel I've read was Camp Damascus, and it had a different vibe. Anyway, this was really interesting; it explores some themes of fame and entertainment etc, while also being quite a splatterfest. I really liked the protagonist's relationship with her best buddy; it was great.

02. The Liminal Zone by Junji Ito. A collection of four medium-length stories, including "Weeping Woman Way", "Madonna", "The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara", and "Slumber".

Pretty standard Junji Ito; you either like it or you don't. In the afterword, he mentions that these were written for the LINE manga app, rather than a regular magazine, and as such he didn't have the same constraints that he usually would. Print magazines have maximum pagecounts, and normally he needs to cut down his story to fit the parameters. He didn't need to do that for the digital publication in LINE. I feel like this shows in the work; some of his shorter works can feel truncated, as if he ran out of room, while the stories in this collection have more room to breathe. Sometimes a little too much room - "Weeping Woman Way" could have been a bit shorter, I think - but overall I feel like his work does benefit from having room to fully execute whatever idea he's working with.

03. Gyo: The Death-Stench Creeps by Junji Ito. This is a long story that basically starts with the premise of "What if sharks had legs, would that be freaky or what?" and then goes from there.

...Unfortunately, I can't say it's good at all. It starts off pretty strong, but once the story moves to Tokyo, it really goes off the rails and moves into the absurd. I feel like this is something I run into with a lot of Junji Ito's longer works - "Remina" gave me a similar feeling of "The start was great but wtf was that". This volume also has two bonus stories at the end, "The Sad Tale of the Principal Post" and "The Enigma of Amigara Fault"; I've read "Amigara Fault" before, and it's kind of nice to revisit it. It's very short and very weird, and the "how" of it is not explained at all - and I think that's why this particular one is effective and why it's become a bit of a Junji Ito classic (at least, on the internet).

04. Reading next: Frostbite by Ian Boothby, another graphic novel.

The summary of this makes it sound very similar to the film Død snø, except with vampires(?) rather than zombies. I'm into the general premise of "trapped in a remote, frozen location, and then horror stuff happens" even if I've seen it many times before, so we'll see how it goes. The art looks pretty good on flip-through, at least.

So! I've meant to review Sabaton's Legends album ever since it came out, but I'm only getting around to it now. A few of the songs were played at the concert I attended in Winnipeg, so of course that will affect how I perceive them; hearing something in person, especially from a band whose live performances are consistently good, is a much different experience from just listening to it. Anyway, on we go.

This album is themed around "Legendary" figures of history, such as Jeanne d'Arc and Julius Caesar. Most of the time periods are ancient or medieval; the most recent period on the album is the 1800s, with Napoleon. I've been hoping they'd do an album centred around older history, so I'm really happy that they came out with this one.

Tracklist and song-by-song commentary:
( Continued )

Overall impressions:
In general, I think this album is pretty well-executed. I like everything on it to some degree, and while there are a few songs that I found kind of disappointing, half the time it was because my expectations were too high, and the other half were because they sound too much like older works. If you've done as many songs as these guys have, every now and then there'll be a work that feels like one of their previous, and it's not terribly surprising.

I feel like the album does a good job of leaning into its concept. These figures are all historical heavy-hitters and the songs reflect that. Sometimes in a gloriously unsubtle way (looking at you, Napoleon) but that just makes it more effective I think.

Is this my new favourite album? No, I would say that honour still goes to Carolus Rex, after all these years. But Legends is definitely going to stay in my CD player for a while.

There is a part of me that hopes they do a second album with a similar theme. They've done something similar before, when they put out The Great War and followed it with a second WWI album, The War to End All Wars. I hadn't given it much thought until I came across a discussion thread about what these guys should do next and someone suggested they should do a song about Boudica. HELL YEAH they should do one about her, and a sequel to Legends would be a great place for it. Or an album centred around ancient history in general. Either works, I ain't picky.

I also, as mentioned in a previous entry, think they should do more stuff focused on the Three Kingdoms period – but that could be a whole album in itself! (Please please please!)

Anyway. Those who've listened to the album – thoughts? Stuff you want to see from Sabaton in the future? Think I should get my ears checked? I'm of course up for discussion with other fans. [/chinhands]

Today was pretty simple. I went out for a nice breakfast, went shopping for work clothes, and then went down to the Forks and hung out people-watching for a bit.

There are some things that I would have liked to do if I'd had more time/energy. I didn't do any geocaching while I was here. I also didn't get to explore the riverside parks and so on. And obviously my trip didn't line up with any Royal Winnipeg Ballet performances.

It's entirely possible that I will come back to Winnipeg at some point! Who knows what the future will hold. :V

Today I went to the Museum of Human Rights. I wasn't sure what to expect, because it's a pretty abstract concept and most of the museums I've visited in the past have been mostly centred on more material subjects.

I think it was very well-executed. It focuses a lot on video, audio, and photographs, and it covers a wide variety of subjects, both globally and in Canada. A few examples of the Canadian subjects discussed: Women's suffrage, the anti-gay purges, Chinese head tax, Japanese-Canadian internment, and the issues faced by current-day migrant workers.

Also, this is a really beautiful building. It looks a little weird on the outside (there is a photo of the outside on Wikipedia here) but on the inside it's gorgeous. It has a spiral-shaped, slightly abstract layout, and each floor is connected through a series of long ramps. It has a very open design, and one would think that the acoustics would be terrible, but it isn't - somehow they nailed it pretty well.

I spent about 3 hours there, and could have spent more - there were a few things I skipped because the videos were very long and/or because I needed a break. But it was very interesting and well worth a visit. Definitely worth coming to see it if you happen to be in Winnipeg.

After that, I went to the Forks Market to try to do some Christmas shopping. I found some handmade moccasins for my mother, who enjoys wearing them, but... I might keep them for myself, tbh. :P I really enjoyed the Forks Market; the vibe reminded me kind of some of the places I've been to in Halifax that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately by that time I was pretty exhausted, so I wasn't able to fit in the geocaching in the nearby park that I'd been planning. Maybe another time.

And then in the evening was the Sabaton concert, which will be its own entry. In all, it was a pretty good day!

Day 2 in Winnipeg. The weather was pretty good, so I decided to go to the zoo! :V

I rarely get the chance to do something like this, so I was very excited. It was really fun! They had a lot of Canadian animals, including some I expected to see (polar bear, caribou, bighorn sheep) and some that I hadn't expected at all (musk ox, lynx, pronghorn antelope). I was able to get a really good look at the lynx; they're so small! Huge feet, but small cat.

There were also a lot of very-not-Canadian animals. They have red pandas! Both adults and a baby! They were so cute, oh my god. And also some very cool monkeys, including some Goeldi's monkeys, which were very active and adorable.

I think my favourite of the animals were the seals, though. The viewing area for their enclosure is partially underneath them, so they can swim around and also over you. Very cool to stand and watch them for a bit.

My only regret is that I didn't bring a sketchbook. It would have been nice to take my time and draw some animals. If I ever come back to Winnipeg, I'll make sure to do that.

After that, I went to The Leaf botanical garden. I sure do enjoy an indoor garden; this one is huge. One of its sections is a butterfly garden, which I hadn't expected. It was nice to find a place to sit and watch the butterflies and zone out a bit.

I was very tired at the end of it. I had a great time, but doing both in one day took a lot out of me. :V Both the zoo and the Leaf are in an enormous park, and going to that and enjoying it would probably be an outing in itself (sketchbook supplies required!). Some other time.

Also I had walleye/pickerel for supper. :V It's very uncommon to see it in restaurants where I come from, and you need a special license to fish for it in Alberta, though I'm not sure about Manitoba (it's not expensive to get that license, but my dad doesn't always think to get it before the deadline passes.) Anyway I wanted to eat as much of it while I'm here as I can, haa. Though a part of me finds it shocking that it's usually done up like fish and chips! Just because of the thought of putting breading on such a special ingredient. ...It was delicious, though, I will admit.

- Didn't do much this weekend. Went for a walk. Finished a fic (which will be posted on my assigned IIBB date). Read some stuff. Etc.

- Working my way through one of the local library's subgenre challenges. This one is "Exploring mystery subgenres". One book left to go; will hopefully make an entry about that when finished, similar to the one I did with the romance subgenres challenge.

- Trip is coming up soon. Looking forward to it. I've been eyeballing the forecast, trying to decide the best day for the outdoor things. We'll see how it shakes out.

Tried a new fountain pen ink today. Not sure if I like it! It's lighter than I expected. Wearingeul's "Tom Sawyer"; I was expecting a dark swampy green, but it's kind of a medium grassy green. Not too light to read, but much lighter than I thought it would be. Anyway, I'm having fun working through all of the samples I bought.

Only a few more days until my scheduled vacation. Very excited about it.