she's the one

New blog

03/30/09, 12:06:14

Everyone:

The hosting that provides my blog space on slithytoves.org is going away, and after much deliberation and annoyance, I've decided converting the old blog contents and software to a new site is pretty much impossible.

Therefore I've started over, and now I'm doing what I actually want, and what better fits the Internet of 2009 rather than the Internet of 2006 (when I put together this old blog design).

The new site is (really) http://www.kostia.net/blog ... so that's easy to remember.

It will look much different than what you expect. What it does is aggregate all the stuff that was in the sidebar of the old blog, in one stream. Instead of one ancient post in the middle and other, smaller, more recent stuff in the sidebar, it's all together now. There are little icons to tell you what you're looking at, and all the category/search/archive links on the left work just as you'd expect to narrow things down.

There are some technical hurdles remaining, like how anything I mark as a favorite on Etsy gets replicated in its entirety, description and payment/shipping instructions and all, and how anything I say on Twitter or mark as a favorite on Twitter shows up twice, as a post title and contents, and how anything I mark “I like it” on StumbleUpon shows up over and over and over again ... BUT the author of the software that does the aggregation has a huge new version coming out in a matter of days and promises a lot of this will be fixed.

Included in the stream (as you can see in the categories list on the left side of the page) are:

everything I say on Twitter
things other people say on Twitter that I marked as a favorite
sites I comment on through StumbleUpon
items I add to my favorites (read: wishlist) on Etsy
developments in my silly little virtual city, Jasperopolis
photos I post to Flickr (this is limited; if I post 200 photos in a day, it will only show you the most recent 10)
songs and podcasts I listen to (reported through last.fm)
sites I mark on digg.com (I do this rarely)
sites I bookmark, synced through delicious.com

Not all these categories are showing yet; they will as soon as they have content.

I can, of course, still make regular web posts when I feel like it, some short, some long, and those categories are marked with the little black and white speech-bubble icon. Posts I make from my phone have a little iPhone icon.

You can comment on any post by clicking “leave a comment” or read the existing comments by clicking where it says “1 comment” or whatever. Right now, all comments are saved for moderation, meaning I have to approve them by hand, but at least I'll see them and not get buried in spam. I'm debating how best to make comments work, because I miss the old old days when y'all actually used to leave me comments.

I have created an optical illusion.

03/13/09, 18:10:17

This is Brazil's central government debt, figure 4cc in the upcoming World Development Indicators 2009.

Crazy, right? I took it apart and that one line STILL looks like it slopes up to the right.

Coraline!

02/07/09, 15:25:42

A meme where we actually do stuff

01/29/09, 12:18:48

This is from Anna.

The first five people to respond to this post (comment if you want, but best to email me, or get me on Twitter or IM) will get something made by me. It will be about or tailored to those five lucky “victims,” as much as I can.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
What I create will be just for you.
It’ll be done this year
You have no clue what it’s going to be. It may be a craft project intended for children. Or a scrapbooky greeting card. Or a set of magnets. Or a mix CD with a custom label.
I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this on your site as well, if you expect me to do something for you!

Remember, chime in, and be forced to participate in your own playground!

Beaten!

01/01/09, 23:37:23

No computer game in recent memory has held my attention as long as this one, or taken me so long to beat. And it's frigging golf solitaire. Good job, guys.

I hate, love this game

12/17/08, 00:04:58

I've been playing this solitaire game called Fairway Solitaire for several months now. And I've been stuck on the third level from the end for several weeks.

I just got perfect scores on the first five holes in a row on this course, and granted it went downhill from the sixth hole on, but I still didn't make enough to beat the level. It's killing me!

Edited half an hour later to add:

I guess all I had to do was complain publicly. I just beat the level, with a score of $24,976, after three more tries. Damn.

“100 things” meme

12/07/08, 22:01:22

Because most of the people I see posting this have done, like, ten of them, and it makes me sad. I mean, come on.

One is supposed to bold what one has done, you see.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland?
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a concentration camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chicken pox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

Flickr photo meme

12/02/08, 19:13:58

From Cleolinda.

01. Answer each of the questions below using the [Flickr] search engine.
02. Choose a photo from the first three pages.
03. Copy the URL of your favorite photos [here].
04. Then share with the world.

1. First name: Elaine (second choice picture; first choice was a Lego version of this scene)
2. Favorite food: cheese
3. Hometown: Berkeley Heights, New Jersey (I was really moved when I found this picture; I went to high school with Scott Hazelcorn, and it's sort of a relief to find this town only lost two people that day.)
4. Favorite color: cobalt blue
5. Celebrity crush: changes all the time :)
6. Favorite drink: vodka tonic
7. Dream vacation: back to Hawaii
8. Favorite dessert: crème brûlée
9. What I want to be when I grow up: a mother
10. What I love most in the world: words
11. One word that describes me: witty (there were no good pictures under covetous)
12. Livejournal name: stavia

Photo credits:
1. Elaine see Ben during wedding, and screams his name. 1967, 2. Mack-Aroni & Cheese, 3. Berkeley Heights 9/11 Memorial, 4. Starlight #1 - (Simmetry), 5. Waiting...., 6. Natural Ingredients, 7. Hapuna Beach, Hawaii, 8. Crème brûlée, 9. _MG_6170, 10. llibreria - bookstore - Amsterdam - HDR, 11. The Great Escape, 12. All Hallow's Eve, 1879

He wrote this three weeks ago.

11/05/08, 16:58:25

Ballsy and great.

Based on 20 questions

11/05/08, 16:47:49

There Are 0 Gaps in Your Knowledge

Where you have gaps in your knowledge:

No Gaps!

Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge:

Philosophy

Religion

Economics

Literature

History

Science

Art

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

I hate restarting my computer!

10/15/08, 22:25:19

Longest uptime ever.

New Guy is such an asshat.

10/15/08, 12:45:54

Instructions I needed:

Translation: “Combine pages 8 and 9 into one.”

Instructions I got:

Translation: “I, New Guy, believe that you, Elaine, who have been working at this job for six years and in this role for sixteen, are a fucking moron.”

a great Get Fuzzy panel today

10/07/08, 13:01:50

I drew this.

10/06/08, 18:50:30

I love Photoshop tutorials. I really do. Especially when the steps make sense, there's something in there I might be able to use again later, and the end result comes out not looking like ass.

This one was a fun one all around.

The tutorial is here: http://psdtuts.com/drawing/how-to-create-a-delicious-green-apple-illustration/

Breast Cancer 3-Day

10/05/08, 16:50:32

Breast Cancer 3-Day
Originally uploaded by kostia.

Lisa finished :)

Breast Cancer 3-Day

10/05/08, 16:49:25

Breast Cancer 3-Day
Originally uploaded by kostia.

That took forEVER.

10/02/08, 16:50:27

That took forEVER.
Originally uploaded by kostia.

This quiz counted Jasper as a food source, though.

09/19/08, 23:27:23

Also my leather jacket.

Back to regularly scheduled programming

09/18/08, 19:13:37

I hung my great big wood mirror on the empty wall of my bedroom. It's centered, and level, but it's lower than I'd like—but it's so heavy that there's no way I could get it any higher.

I hung the two little column-capital-shaped shelves on either side, and put the Death statue on one of them. I can't imagine what I could put on the other, really. They have yet to come out with a Sandman statue I really like.

I unpacked three boxes of books and distributed them between my room, Lin's room, Max's room, and the basement.

I unpacked the last two duffel bags of clothes, and still did not find the black tuxedo jacket I plan to wear to Angela's wedding on Sunday. Drat.

I pried the piece of wood with the house numbers off the front of the house. I ripped off the old house numbers and painted the piece of wood with three coats of flat black exterior paint, which matches the shutters well enough. I put new brushed nickel (matches the door hardware) house numbers on it. I remounted it to the front of the house with epoxy putty. I feel like I already told you this, but I didn't, at least not online, that I can see anywhere.

I forgot to pay Angie on Monday and she cleaned the house anyway.

I ordered new checks. From Wal-Mart, online, which it turns out is dirt cheap.

This is not about the house.

09/14/08, 01:13:16

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wallace14-2008sep14,0,7461856.story

Why is it that when someone whose work, or whose life, I admired decides to stop the work by taking the life, I feel angry? It isn't the first time, but it's the first time in a long time, that I've been as angry as I am now. I'm sitting here in tears at not having any more David Foster Wallace in the world.

I went and saw The Dark Knight on the IMAX screen at the Air and Space Museum tonight, mostly because the 9:45 show at the regular theater seemed too late (the IMAX show was at 9:15), and I was amazed at the way�makeup or no makeup�Heath Ledger disappeared into that role. And I wondered, not for the first time since he died, whether he died on purpose. I like to think he didn't, that it was an accident, but of course we'll never know, and that's good. Because at least we can choose to believe that he didn't throw it away.

David Foster Wallace fucking threw it away. That's just how I see it. And it makes me angry.

This is a link to my current book list (which, I just realized, it being past July 17, is now outdated and should say "year twelve").

This is a link to my first book list, which I started on July 17, 1996. You will notice that the first book on that list�meaning the last book I read in the Year One�was Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

I gave Infinite Jest a five, on a scale of one to five. It was the third book I gave a five on first reading; all the other fives in the Year One, except Another Roadside Attraction and A Prayer for Owen Meany, were books I'd read before and loved.

I always planned to read Infinite Jest again. I saved my notes from it (you need notes). I always knew where the book was, and for years it was on one of those shelves that hold things that could fit properly just fine on "normal" shelves, but things that seem different somehow, like they don't belong with the "normal" books and should be held separately, perhaps for fear the other books taint them with a lack of greatness and blinding beauty. Books like Little, Big, The Neverending Story, The Golden Compass, The Virgin Suicides, and Winter's Tale. Books like Jitterbug Perfume, Skinny Legs and All, and Still Life with Woodpecker, because David Foster Wallace was almost as good as Tom Robbins, and could have�would have�been better.

I won't pretend I loved everything he did. If I tried, you'd bust me, because I gave you links to the book list, and I hated The Broom of the System and said so.

But after years on the "special" shelf, I needed a book to hold up a new monitor that was on top of a table that was about an inch and a half taller than the desk below, and it was a glass table, and it wobbled, and it had to be a book that was more than just the right size. It had to be a book that was beautiful inside and out, and that I wouldn't mind starting at all day.

So for a good three years�right up until I moved to the new house this summer, in fact�Infinite Jest held up my monitor. You could say it supported my view of the world, if you wanted. I looked at it every day, touched it most days, and remembered it every time. I would smile to myself whenever I saw a reference somewhere to John Wayne, or to competitive tennis, or to footnotes, or even to affairs between students and teachers. I thought about it whenever I read a Harry Potter book or saw a Harry Potter movie, because I kept notes on those books, too, the same kind of notes I kept for Infinite Jest, to keep straight in my head who was in what house, in what year, on what team.

The book was part of my life. I've never given it as a gift. I've only very rarely�maybe once or twice�even recommended it. But I looked at it every day. And I always meant to reread it. What stopped me? Besides the fact that the table would have wobbled?

What stopped me was that I knew it couldn't live up to my memory of it. I knew it couldn't be that good, because I'd read other stuff of his in the meantime and it wasn't as good. It's the same reason I don't buy They Might Be Giants albums since Flood, the same reason I don't read Daniel Handler's novels not written as Lemony Snicket, the same reason it's hard to accept anything any artist creates after their masterpiece. Because it might be the new masterpiece, and you don't want to lose the old one.

The book I'm reading now is The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, and I'm barely half an inch into it, and it's a five, because it's changing the way I think about the world, the way I think about life and death.

It sucks that I started it, because I'm going to have to put it aside now and reread Infinite Jest, and think about life and death.

Since last we spoke

09/08/08, 20:08:57

I bought two Rexbo ladder bookcases and a Leksvik shoe cabinet at Ikea. One of the Rexbos was missing two small but vital pieces, my first-ever Ikea missing-parts mishap, but the other is installed and serving nicely in its intended function as Way Other Than Boxes For Jasper To Get To That High Lack Shelf. I had to teach him to use it, but he's got it now. And he never touches the bottom two shelves, so I'm using them for books. Specifically, books of comic strips.

I found the Series of Unfortunate Events books and unpacked them into their display.

Lin wanted to put one of the folding bookcases in Max's room, so I moved the bookcase that was in there to her room (and rearranged the furniture a bit in the process) and put the folding bookcase in Max's. While they were here we also installed the blinds in his window and put up a curtain rod and his shades-of-blue zoo-animal curtain. Looks great.

Josie got a new bed, so her old bed is in Max's room, and he and I assembled it, including the bedrail that we found in the attic (he insisted), and he slept in it for three nights during their most recent visit. Big boy bed!

After they left I also did some more stuff in there that will have to be a surprise.

The new shoe cabinet is lovely, and will serve to keep the couch lined up properly. What I really need, in the department of keeping the couch lined up properly, is a rug. But whatever.

I put the old crappy also-Ikea-but-much-less-furniturey shoe rack in the coat closet as additional shelving, and that works great.

I mowed the lawn, front and back, and edged the front, and mostly tilled the flowerbed, and sprayed weed killer on some weeds, especially around the downspout and stoop, where they were worst.

Tonight I primed the yellow ceiling, at least what I could reach of it in failing light without falling down the stairs (most of it), and part of one yellow wall, to use up the rest of the primer I had in the pan. Primer was the fullest paint can I had, so it made sense to go over the yellow with that instead of trying to cover it with what little ceiling paint and eggshell white I have left. I can't afford a trip to the Depot right now, so I wanted to use what was in the closet. There's more primer, I just can't hold up that damn pole anymore tonight.

When I do get more ceiling paint, though, it'll be the work of a few minutes to even out the ceiling outside my office door and at the edge of the kitchen. So that's good.

Earlier today I got rid of some boxes and a big water bottle I found in the shed. Lisa needs the boxes to pack up donations, and I thought it would be cool to use the water bottle for the fundraising (for the three-day walk) that will happen at the crab feast.

I just realized it's really been a while since we last spoke, so I guess I should point out some less recent improvements.

I bought the Samsung 50“ plasma TV, for redacted plus one-fifty, with free delivery, so that's fine. I'm pretty sure redacted was a floor model or clearance price on that one unit anyway, and mine is definitely brand new. I'd like to say the box it came in was bigger than my first apartment, but my first apartment was a two-bedroom with a larger kitchen than I have now, so unfortunately I can't. It was a big box, though.

I installed more switchplates and outlet covers here and there. I bought too many, and I always planned to return some, but time grows short. I have the receipt here, and it's from July 10, giving me until October 10 to get on that. Doorstops, too; I bought handfuls of those and it turned out I barely need any. All the doors have them, they just weren't set properly. What I do need is more of those plastic shields that go over the giant holes in the walls from the doorknobs.

And new doorknobs. I hate the brass ones.

And I'd really love an outlet and a spigot on the deck.

But if I let this devolve into what I don't have yet and haven't done yet, I'll just cry. So back to accomplishments.

I started four more little wee plants, and they're thriving, almost big enough to transplant into the nice acacia boxes I have for them out on the deck.

I made two Bastant scratching-post baskets like on the Ikea Hacker blog. They look great, and Jasper seems to like them a lot.

Sunday

08/31/08, 21:41:37

Sunday
Originally uploaded by kostia.

I finished painting the Mulling Spice wall. Yay. I put together the

new shoe rack, which is very nice. This is the bed I liked at Ikea

yesterday.

Wednesday and Thursday

08/21/08, 23:37:44

I took one of the doors off the under-sink cabinet in the basement and put Jasper's litterbox in there. It's out of the way, the litter-catching rug fits exactly down in front of it, and there's room on the other side for the Litter Locker and scoop. Jasper adapted with no problem. I'm very pleased. Much better than having it take up a third of the floor space in one of the bathrooms.

I hung the curtain rods and drapes in my bedroom. The new drapes (which I also hemmed) and the old drapes are not quite the same color, but it's hard to tell. It makes all the difference in the world with the light in the morning, so that's great. I went to a great deal of trouble with measuring and using the level and tapping in anchors, and I still didn't get the rods quite as far out from the trim as I meant to, but the height is good and they look okay. I really need a headboard now, though.

I think I'd like to put a vinyl wall decal between the windows, above the headboard when I get a headboard, but I haven't decided of what. There's not much on blik that I like, but there are a lot to choose from on etsy.

I bought a cheapie over-door hanging shoe organizer at Five Below and hung it over a tension rod in my small closet, where it'll be nicely out of the way.

We started a housewarming registry on the Target website, because why not, and today we went to Target and I scanned a bunch of stuff to add to it. Mostly stuff we actually need, or will need.

While we were there I bought a lampshade for the lamp I got at the thrift store last weekend (handily, it turns out to be a Target lamp, so I was able to compare the shades with an identical one). That'll be my reading light next to my new big comfy blue chair in the bedroom.

I also got a curtain rod and a pale green balloon shade to make the window in the office look nicer. I think the pale green will complement the lavender nicely.

I pulled the nails out of the makeshift shelf that was in my closet and put it up as a proper shelf, screwed to the brackets and everything. This enables me to unpack the last of my clothes, sweaters and sweatshirts and such.

Tonight I had dinner at the Olive Garden with Deborah and her mom, to celebrate her finishing her thesis. She starts her fourth-year externship (a paying job in her field!) tomorrow. Go Deborah!

Jasper has been acting weird about water lately; he was always picky about drinking out of his fountain if it wasn't perfectly clean, and he's always been obsessed with drinking from a faucet, but there are more faucets here than there were at my apartment, and now he'll rarely even consent to drink from a bowl. When he sees me go into a bathroom he sprints to catch up, and the sink downstairs is a pedestal so he often falls off the edge.

So I did a little research and found a different cat fountain, one that actually has a falling stream of water like a faucet instead of a “ramp” of water like the fountain I had. It came today, and we set it up, and I really hope he takes to it. I'm starting to worry that he's thirsty all the time, and that just can't be fun for him. Plus this fountain came with (and I am not making this up) hydroponic cat-grass seeds in a plastic pod that latches to the side of the fountain so a little snack will grow there for him as well. We'll see how much of a mess that creates.

Developments of late

08/20/08, 01:14:18

On Monday a nice man named Brian came and installed FiOS, so I now have internet (of my own! with my own router doing what I like! and the Slingbox works!) and television (yay! television!) and a phone (it's rung twice so far, and it's just weird when it rings; I haven't had a telephone in years).

Brian looked a lot like Balthazar Getty. I'm just saying.

We've been watching a lot of the Olympics, especially volleyball, track, and gymnastics, and all Max's shows (Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, etc.) are available on-demand, so that's cool.

I mowed and even edged the front lawn today. It looks nicer than we thought it would.

The house was cleaned on Monday, and a ton of trash went out on Tuesday.

There's a dude on TV now (men's high bar finals) named Epke. I think EPKE is a good name. It sounds like an end table at Ikea.

Ooooo, Epke fell down. Darn. That would've been an insane score. He did crazy stuff.

Let's see. I got a library card the other day. It's a nice library, and it's very close. I paid fifty cents in the book-sale section for, um, the audiobook of the novelization of the movie of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was so hilariously stupid that I couldn't pass it up.

I unpacked more stuff into the basement closets, including all my winter clothes and the duffel bags they rode in on. And I put the empty electronics boxes and Christmas tree into the attic, which freed up a lot of space.

David and Lisa brought over the stripey chair for Lin's room and the big-ass blue chair and ottoman for my room (they seem much bigger here than they were at their house) and the cabinet with drawers that Lin's going to use as a dresser for Max.

The 50“ Samsung plasma TV I saw for redacted at Sears a few weeks ago, and was sorely tempted by, is now redacted plus seven hundred dollars, so I'm bummed about that. I should've bought it when it was on sale. I think that's what I want, as I'm no longer sold on LCD being a must-have, and 50” plasmas are comparable in price to 42“ LCDs. I need at least a 46” to have the same size 4:3 picture as I do now. The math for 16:9 vs. 4:3 is very misleading.

But I made Brian give me an HD-DVR (not the standard-def non-DVR box he walked in with), so I gotta get the new TV soon. He even left me an HDMI cable, which I don't think he had to do. He also took away about four miles of coax we ripped out of the giant switch that was attached to the old dish.

I can't wait to get my hands on a fall TV preview (and, honestly, for the Olympics to end) so I can program all my serieses in.

We ate at a fancy French restaurant last weekend. I had some really wonderful sturgeon caviar and some stuffed veal—my first veal in years and years—that made me wonder what the big deal about veal is.

I hung the moon-and-stars shelf and touch lights in the playroom, and another useful shelf in the downstairs bathroom.

I fixed the leaking faucet; turns out I was wrong about where it was leaking, so I did not in fact need the big wrench. It was a bad seal between the top rubber gasket and the bottom of the sink, due to the misalignment, so I fixed it with plumber's putty. I don't know if that was right or not, but it worked like a charm, so I don't care.

Jasper sleeps on his high Ikea Lack shelf in the living room every day. It pleases me that he's taken to it, since I put it up specifically for him.

And Bonnie Hunt, who I love, has a new TV show coming. So things are good.

New records all over the place

08/12/08, 18:19:56

And not just in swimming at the Olympics.

Let's say you bought a house recently, and that the records for the least pleasant things you'd had to do to it so far involved cleaning and painting and plumbing.

That record would have been shattered today.

Because today you had to get a dead bunny rabbit out of the backyard.

* * *

In other news, I “fixed” (let's just say it's better than it was) the threshold at the top of the basement stairs where the wood floor ends.

And since I was down there with the shovel and my work gloves anyway, I threw away a few shovelfuls of the morass of crap at the bottom of the deck stairs.

I freed all the satellite dish cables from the windows on the back of the house and dropped them all down under the deck for easy removal. The dish is coming down as soon as I can get outside with a wrench I do have at a non-buggy, non-blistering time of day.

I rearranged all the crap on the deck, and it looks nicer now. Helps that I threw out a big wet painting dropcloth that'd been there for weeks.

I hung up my bulletin board in my office.

Small next steps include moving boxes up to the attic (I was all worried when I started running out of space in the basement closets—but I have an attic for that!), replacing two of the doors on one of the basement closets, hanging a shelf thing in the basement bathroom, and installing blinds and curtain rods in various bedrooms.

And, of course, unpacking books and clothes, but that's neither here nor there.

Also, the new faucet drain is leaking, but at least I know where it's leaking. It's a matter of having the right wrench to fix it. I do not (yet) have the right wrench.

P.S. The Grill on Grill Action tattoos came today.

testing

08/11/08, 16:13:49

I'm trying to see if it's possible to post to a Nucleus blog from MarsEdit, despite the fact that every post I've ever posted is listed in MarsEdit as blank and untitled.

(edited)

Interestingly, it posted, but its title was wiped out. When I refreshed MarsEdit, the entry appeared, but the title and contents were gone.

Plus there's no wysiwyg editing.

I guess for people on other CMS platforms, MarsEdit is pretty great. But I'll stick with ecto a while longer.

More small additions

08/08/08, 13:13:56

Welcome back to Elaine's Blog About Nothing At All Except The Goddamn House.

I got and hung up a windowsill-mounted cat seat in the office window. Jasper has yet to discover its existence.

I hung my cable-mounted glass shelf and filled it with Eeyores. They complement the lavender paint in the office nicely.

I installed the glow-in-the-dark Harry Potter light switch plate in the playroom.

I replaced the broken tilt latches on the living room windows. I really need new windows.

The list of things that are still missing (packed? where? who knows?) is shrinking, but there are still things on it I'd really like to have, like my battery tester.

Developments, some revoltin'

08/06/08, 11:24:08

Still no internet/TV/phone. Got a rescheduled appointment for the eighteenth. That's two whole weeks away. Sigh.

Meanwhile, all day yesterday we couldn't get on the neighbors' wireless either, so it was really hard to work. Eventually I got the phone working as a modem (and it stayed connected for over six hours, a new record), but until then I was emailing files using my phone's email client and an SD card. Big fun.

Yesterday I installed blinds in one of the bedrooms. Did you know blinds only cost five bucks? I was really surprised. Anyway, I measured wrong, installed one bracket sideways, stripped four screws ... I was in tears. Then I decided to drill pilot holes, and it was Really Easy. So now I know how to put up blinds.

Lin and Max slept last night in said bedroom for the first time. Yay.

I also finished installing the faucet (flexible Qwik Trap fitting for the win), and it works, so that's awesome.

And I put up a double towel rod and a toilet paper holder in that bathroom too. It's actually a usable bathroom now!

We put wallplates on the outlets and switches in my room and Lin's. Such a small thing makes such a nice difference.

On Monday the cleaning ladies came, and the house was veryveryclean for a day. Not so much now, but it's nice to know I don't have to worry about tiresome non-everyday things like getting cat hair off the sofa, or cleaning mirrors, or dusting, or changing the sheets on my bed, as they'll be back in two weeks to do it again. Also I have no plans to vacuum ever.

Small additions

07/31/08, 13:31:45

Did I neglect to mention I hung my “Manhattan!!” poster the other day? It's in the kitchen. Odd, but I like it there, and it fits nicely where there was already a screw in the wall. I love this poster. Every time I walk by it I look at it kind of wistfully. It used to hang in my parents' bedroom, for years and years, and it shows a city that doesn't quite exist anymore.

The poster.

The artist's obituary.

Have I also neglected to mention that the people who lived here before had never heard tell of a “nail” or a “picture hanger,” and hung everything on the wall—even the calendar in the bathroom—with quarter-inch wood screws? It's awesome.

Today I put up my candle sconces over the weird useless no-wiring-behind-them-so-why-are-they-there-oh-just-to-cover-up-these-ten-holes-in-the-wall-I-see plates in the dining room. They look great. (I can't give you a link on these. They're from Partylite, which has only a small subset of its catalog online; they're from years ago; I don't know what they're called; and a Google image search of terms like partylite wall sconce glass gives me some truly hideous results I wouldn't want you to think I had bought.)

Tuesday & Wednesday

07/31/08, 11:22:21

Put up the LACK shelves. Eyeballed the position of the first one (but used my cool new level!) then measured where it was so the other could be centered. They lined up nicely and I only put one of the brackets on the wall upside down and I only broke about 10 anchors in successfully getting 12 into the wall.

Jasper's been up there (they're mainly for him) and he seems pleased with the view.

Cleaned up (tidied) some random piles of stuff.

Put the lilies in some dirt instead of just in standing water in an orange bucket in the front yard. The dirt is in an orange bucket on the deck, so that's better, you see.

Decided on a home for things like sunscreen and bug spray and flashlights and cat accessories and tools.

Did a load of laundry, all by myself.

Still haven't moved into the office yet.

Jeopardy! audition tomorrow morning.

Monday was a good day

07/29/08, 00:29:15

Vacuumed the office (well, the Roomba did). Twice.

Attached Ikea legs to desk top. Flipped desk upright. Did not kill self or get hernia. Winced many times at the scream of each of 20 screws going into the wood through the metal bracket, but it's worth it; the legs are rock solid.

Somehow measured wrong in ensuring the filing cabinet would fit under the desk. I thought it would clear by about half an inch. It clears by about three sheets of paper. It's really pretty awesome.

Reassembled the big bookcase I'll use to store “my” books. Reassembled the little narrow bookcase I'll use to store software.

Hung a pretty picture on a pretty lavender wall.

Unpacked and plugged in and set up everything but the computer itself and its immediate family. Will move downstairs to work tomorrow, maybe.

Plugged in a couple of cordless phones I found lying around (one of which is quite aged) in preparation for having phone service tomorrow.

Took out the recycling and trash, including the big bundle of plastic from the office floor. Watered the plants.

Unpacked a box of framed art. Can't decide where to hang the lion/wolf pictures. I do so love them, but they embarrass me. I always cringe when I'm in the home of a fandom-type person and see fantasy-type pictures like them. At least mine don't have ladies in leather corsets with swords. I mean, really.

One of the three outlets in the office does not work. I don't know what to do about this. I'll have to have David or John look at it, I guess. Annoying.

Set up my old Windows notebook on the coffee table so the Verizon guy tomorrow can do whatever he needs to do without actually affecting my life. I suspect most of what he needs to do consists of verifying the wireless works and of setting up my verizon.net email, which I have no intention of ever using. I think I had a cox.net email address for the past seven years; wonder if anyone ever wrote to it.

Did more screwing around with the speakers; as far as I can tell, digital throughput to the right speaker simply doesn't work anymore! Speaker 1, speaker 2, no difference. RCA cables, fine. Optical, not fine. DVR, DVD player, no difference. Optical or digital coax, no difference. It isn't the speakers, or the cable, it's something in the digital path, and it's making me crazy.

Found the power cord for the Slingbox, so that's nice. It was in a box labeled “office—open asap” that I neglected to open for a couple weeks. My coasters were in there too, so we can stop using pieces of scrap 1x4 under our drinks (yes, really).

Set up the Roomba dock under the stereo cabinet. Hopefully this will be a nice out-of-the-way place for it.

Got a hefty check from the apartment, which is nice. Turns out my mail can get soaking wet when it rains, as it did yesterday, which is not nice. Check currently laid out to dry. At least it's readable and the “void” stuff wasn't triggered by getting so wet.

Watched Jasper chase bugs. I think he killed one, but he didn't eat it, so what good is that?

Sunday things

07/27/08, 21:22:30

Lisa and I went to Ikea, mainly so I could get legs for my desk and so sometime this week (unlikely to be Monday or Tuesday) I could start working in my actual office.

I did get legs. Vika Kaj, if you want to look them up.

I also got all sorts of other crap, including stackable, less-unattractive-than-the-green-ones storage bins for the recyclables in the kitchen, and a hanging rack for utensils, and a toilet paper holder for my bathroom, and two lamps, and other stuff.

Also we ate meatballs and lingonberries.

After dropping it all off at home, I went to Home Depot and got mainly plants and associated detritus. When I got home I repotted the plant Lin bought for the front stoop and the tree thing (tag says Arboricola) I bought for inside. All looks very nice. I did this repotting on the front stoop, so of course the Albanians openly watched me again. I don't get that at all.

I looked at deck boxes and sheds. I think I'm going to drop $79 on the smallest Rubbermaid deck box. It's definitely big enough to keep all the gardening stuff in. My trimmer could probably go into the next-largest one ($99), but I'd have to measure.

I'd bought a lampshade at Ikea for the pink lamp (it's gray with white designs on it, it isn't bad) and it took me a long time of partial lamp disassembly to get this particular lampshade to go onto that particular lamp. But at least the fact that it isn't the right kind of lampshade also means it isn't the same kind of lampshade as the three previous lampshades, all of which Jasper broke in the same way. That can only be good.

I went down to the office and put a half-assed second coat on the parts of the lavender where I thought it needed it. I thought about the ceiling and the trim in there and decided to blow it off. I'm tired of having so few usable rooms in this place. I need that office. And I don't care about paint nearly as much as most people around here seem to. If it gets to bothering me I'll drape all the furniture and touch it up. Big deal.

So I put the paint and supplies away and pulled up all the dropcloths and garbage and put the big bundle of that outside in hopes I'll remember to put it in the trash tomorrow night.

Then I realized there was a small but vital piece missing from the power roller. But my mother let Max pretend to paint with it the other day, and he always disassembles stuff. Meaning it's really no one's fault. Oh well. I'm sure I can buy a new part.

Then I dug through boxes looking for the Roomba charger so I could vacuum up all the drywall dust and other crud before moving furniture in (though: side effect of sticky carpet-protector dropcloths: when you peel them up a lot of dust and hair from before you put them down come with them). Of course the Roomba has to charge for hours and hours before it can do it, but I don't have another vacuum cleaner, so so be it.

In the boxes I found lots of stuff, like my center channel speaker and my computer speakers and an AirPort Express and some small but vital cords and cables and such. Still no sign of the power cord for the Slingbox, though. No idea about that. I'd like to find that.

When I finish writing this I'm going to put one of my new lamps together and use its light to do another crossword puzzle while I watch something off my DVR. I'll probably go to bed early again, like yesterday. With Lin and Max not here, I don't quite know what to do with myself.

This week

07/26/08, 17:44:27

John did a bunch on the yard, bless him. Got rid of a bunch of trash, too, including pretty much everything gross that was under the deck (except the shovefuls of broken tile and cement at the bottom of the stairs).

I figured out how to repair and refill the string trimmer I found in the shed, and I trimmed the front lawn down a bit. It's been raked so it's really just patches of crabgrass here and there, not really a lawn. Hoping to reseed it in the fall, I guess.

Lin bought a pretty purple plant for the front stoop.
I messed around a good deal with the satellite dish today; despite running a different cable into the living room and despite making sure the azimuth, tilt, and elevation were all right (they weren't), I still get no signal. Baffling.
My parents were here. I'm not sure if the highlight of their brief and unexpected visit was the house, our dinner with David and Lisa at Willow, or the Signal Hill Park six-geocache loop.

My mother painted the office, which was a really nice thing for her to have done. I need to roll a second coat onto most of the largest wall, but that's okay.

All that's left to do in there after that is clean up a bit, and I can move stuff in. I need to get legs for the desk, and I'm not sure what to do about that. If only Ikea were closer. I just didn't have the energy to go today; I made the mistake of doing all my string-trimmer and satellite-dish maintenance in the heat of midday.

Lin and Max are in Woodbridge as of a few hours ago, so I'm alone. I'm not sure how much time I've even spent alone in this house. It's especially strange because the house is so much larger that Jasper routinely disappears. I've taken to calling him for no reason, just so I know I haven't somehow let him outside. When he comes I have to give him treats or something, or else he'll figure it out and stop coming.

Monday accomplishments

07/22/08, 11:20:03

David got up on the roof and replaced the missing shingles. He also sanded and primed the office walls and ceiling, and bought the lavender paint for the office (the Home Depot here has been out of the right base for a week).

Max watered the neighbor's flowers.

John dug up the front garden, put down a ton of new topsoil, and filled in some holes between the concrete stoop and the grass. He also held the rope while David was on the roof, took a bunch of bulky trash away to take to the dump in the morning, and took Max overnight.

Lin unpacked all sorts of things and got the living room into livable shape. She even put all my CDs into the CD cabinet. And I found the pegs that hold the shelves of the DVD cabinets, so she was able to unpack DVDs and put them on said shelves. Those two things emptied about four boxes and made it look far more like we live here.

A nice man from Freecycle came and fetched all our leftover packing paper and something in the neighborhood of seventeen empty flattened boxes. I do so love Freecycle.

I worked. And made plans to go to Roanoke tomorrow night then come back up here with parents in tow on Wednesday. Because my uncle Russ died, which we all knew was coming, and the memorial service is Wednesday. They're already on their way up from Florida.

I put the booster seat in my car and tried it out with Max in it. He's definitely tall enough for it. He found it very odd that the booster wasn't attached to the seat, but using a “grownup seat belt” seems to be something he likes the sound of.

We had lunch at a place called Tom's Diner. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

I replaced the thermostat.

Oh, and I turned in the large checks and simple form and numerous keys that make the following statement true: I no longer have an apartment.

Weekend progress (happy ending?)

07/20/08, 19:47:08

Moved the rest of my stuff. Emptied a room at a time. Spackled all the holes in the walls.

Apartment is now empty. Turning in form and check tomorrow. Took pictures, waved goodbye.

FiOS installation bumped back a week, to the 29th. Pissed, but dealing with it. The neighbor's wifi is working fine, I guess.

Last night I slept in my own bed in my new room.

Today, with the last load of random things and frozen food, Jasper came over. He was the last thing I moved. He's been hiding since he got here.

I can't believe the help from John (Lin's stepfather). He even came over this morning and cut all the grass with a string trimmer. And this afternoon he finished painting the ceiling in Lin's room.

He's taking the news of their moving out very well, to the point that he's full of plans for my house. Instead of replacing the sliding glass door from the kitchen to the deck, he suggested buying French doors with blinds between the panes, as a housewarming gift. “Okay!” I said. He also wants to replace all the railings on the deck and a lot of the floorboards, and has a friend who just bought a tractor trailer full of closet shelving.

Really.

And I threw out my dollhouse today.

Now all that's left to be done is unpacking.

Friday

07/18/08, 17:00:39

Re-hung the hammock chair, with proper securing bits this time. It's significantly lower than it was, but still comfy.

Arranged to have the electricity turned off at the apartment as of Monday the 21st.

Worked.

Lin and Max went home; they'll be back Sunday or Monday, seems to be the plan.

David and Lisa (and Neva and Josie) and I will be moving as much as we can tomorrow. I'm going to call Angela and see if she can help too.

(Later.)

Angela probably can't, but Lin's going to come back tomorrow after her nephews' birthday party after all.

I'm going out to dinner tonight with Deborah. It's Deborah's birthday today. She's 25.

(Later.)

Just got an email from Bruce telling me to hold off on the thing I was working on. That's welcome.

(Moments later.)

Just got a new version of it to start over. Fuck.

These people do not understand how much I have to do, and how lonely my cat is.

Thursday “progress”

07/18/08, 11:06:57

Worked.

Lin painted some more white.

Max scammed us and disappeared outside with the other kids for a really long time. When I found him he was covered in an ice cream sandwich someone's mom had given him. Clearly we live in a hotbed of crime.

GOT RID OF THE COUCH IN THE BACKYARD.

Yay.

Moved the extra refrigerator down to the basement. This required taking the doors off it and taking out the sliding glass door downstairs (as well as dollying the fridge out the front door and around the buildings).

David and Lisa brought over another load of my stuff, including (yay) my television.

Lin and I ate at IHOP and went to Target (bought a booster seat so I can stop driving her tiny car all the time) and went to Sears (I now know about what I'm going to spend on a new TV).

We all had dinner from the Peruvian Mexican Salvadorian place on the corner. Great service and great food. We'll go back. They do takeout (well) but don't deliver.

While out back I discovered a bunch of frogs swimming in a bucket of paint-water left from when I cleaned the power roller days ago. Chai Latte paint–tinged frogs.

Bought a new string for the trimmer. Did I mention I found a trimmer in the shed?

A Freecycle guy came and took the old lawnmower.
And, lastly, no other progress was made, because just after dark and for a couple hours after, the entire neighborhood's electricity went out.

But did I mention the couch is gone?

Monday & Tuesday & some of Wednesday

07/16/08, 15:50:17

“I should make a list of what we did. My mother is a big fan.”

“Yeah, you should do that before we forget what the fuck we did.”

One coat of Mulling Spice in the bedroom; we're not sure if that's the color. Opinions are mixed. More opinions are needed.

White paint in my closet. Using a drill, a hammer, and a pair of vice grips, got the old shitty shelf bracket out, leaving about a two-inch hole in the drywall. Patched and mudded that hole. Stopped painting.

Lin painted her bedroom and trim. Needs at least one more coat.

Organized some boxes, moving things that go in the basement away from things that do not, moving things that were in the coat closet for no reason away from things that were in the coat closet for a reason.

Set up a workspace for myself in the dining room. With a lamp and a table and everything.

Worked a little, ha ha ha.

Spent the second night in the new house.

Today, I cleared out the living room in Centreville; I'm going to Freecycle the octagonal glass table, and there's some stuff on it, but all (and I mean all) the other living room furniture is empty and ready to be moved. Took the shelves out of all the bookcases and media furniture and wrapped them up. Even took the shelves and glass blocks out of the closet. Moved the DVR in its box. Put the big Dell monitor in its box. Tried and failed to move the TV.

Brought over some more random stuff. Staged a crapload of stuff (at least I hope it's a crapload) for the next load the Sedklisches are able to do.

Got a notice from the homeowners association saying I needed to fix my house numbers (done), move my trash to the back of the house (done, with prejudice), and mow the lawn (what the fuck do you people want, I did that).

Tomorrow (or tonight, if I can get my ass in gear) I need to get the upstairs in order, attempt to disassemble the Sleep Number bed, and get the many things I forgot Lin asked me to bring: Magic Erasers, the denim curtains, the small TV . . .

Sunday progress

07/13/08, 23:58:38

Two more van/truck loads of stuff moved. Lisa unpacked a bunch more kitchen stuff. Not sure I know where any kitchen stuff is.

Second coat of Chai Latte. Much edging; two of the five wall sections in that color are done. Cleaned the goddamn paint roller.

Disassembled/spackled insides of crappy closets.

Lin met some neighbors. Turns out the “Russians” next door are Albanians.

Neva learned the word “graffiti” (apparently, there is an A-for-anarchy on my back gate) and wrote her initials in chalk on the sidewalk out front. After asking Lisa what her initials were.

Lin decided “Max's room” is her room, and her room is Max's room. She painted a bunch of trim in her room (the trim that was the awful mustard color of “Max's room”).

It poured down rain (we brought stuff in to avoid it getting wet). We discovered there's a gutter/soffit problem that causes a small trickle of water down one wall. Of course it's in my bedroom. It's the wall we haven't painted yet (the Mulling Spice wall), so maybe we'll be able to do something.

I went up in the attic (eek!) to make sure the problem wasn't the roof. Max came up into the attic with me, and the histrionics were far fewer than expected when it was time to go back down. The attic over the leak was bone-dry, so I'm fairly well convinced the problem is outside. Which is good, I think.

Dinner at Denny's. Then a quick grocery trip to lay in snacks at the house. Bought a box fan to help dry the joint compound in the office.

I yelled at Neva and Josie for playing in the hammock chair. “Get out! That's not secure! It will fall down,” I said. “No, it's fine,” they said. “GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THE CHAIR,” Lisa said.

Lin sat in the chair.

The chair fell down.

Saturday progress

07/13/08, 01:39:48

Removed hard drives and RAM from old computers. Attempted to take old computers (and old paint cans and a can of PVC primer) to the hazardous waste event, but forgot to bring any proof that I live in Manassas, so couldn't go after all. Had the brilliant idea to stop by the conveniently located city utilities office to have them give me said proof, but they're closed on Saturday.

Unpacked stereo receiver and wired it to speakers left in the house. Using an old bathroom light fixture from the attic as an antenna (really), got music going.

One coat of Chai Latte on the bedroom walls. Looks good.
Started to do the trim in the bedroom. Decided to do the trim last.

The Wagner roller proves to be a bitch to clean, especially if one does not have any buckets or a garden hose and has to try to use the bathtub. It's almost like the bathroom is designed so you can't have something sitting in the bathtub plugged in.

Bought buckets and a garden hose.

Mudding of the walls in the office, which were in worse shape than we thought. Sanding and painting (another new color, Hosta Flower, a grayish lavender) to come. Ripped out the broken, busted-up baseboard heater in there; will replace when the weather demands.

Finished spackling and sanding what will be the green wall. We'll paint that tomorrow.

Mowed the front lawn (three passes to cut it down) and did another pass on the back lawn. Great improvement. Huge mess.

The whole time I was mowing the front, these two guys sat on the stoop next door and just flat-out watched me. Completely creepy.

Took second shower in new house.

Sprayed a ton of weed killer front and back.

Ate bagels and lox for breakfast, Burger King for lunch, and Boston Market for dinner.

Bought a trash can, a broom, miscellaneous painting and drywall supplies. Tried to buy another gallon of Chai Latte, but they were out of the right base. Again. Had David and Lisa pick it up at a different Home Depot.

Counting that one, four trips to Home Depot today. FOUR.

Painted the closet doors for the mustard-colored room. Now white. Having Neva and Josie paint them proved to be a mistake.

Painted over the footprints on the doors.

Came home to a water leak, completely my fault. I'd somehow left the bathroom faucet running all day with the drain closed. Cat-related, he likes that, but thirteen hours of it was a bit much. I'm sure I'll hear on Monday if it infiltrated other apartments, but I fixed it up in here. Little spackle when it dries out and it'll be no different than the evidence of all the other water leaks I've had in this place over the years.

Good thing I'm moving.

Friday progress

07/11/08, 23:35:02

Bought a type of carpet cleaner I never would have chosen otherwise, based on my mother's recommendation. Turns out it can be used in my Little Green machine, so that's great. After we paint I'll tackle some of the spots on the carpets.

Bought a type of spackle I never would have chosen otherwise, based on David's recommendation. Spackled what I could of holes in the stairway wall and in my bedroom. There are three huge nails I can't get out of the walls. I pulled out a handful of screws. Did these people never hear of thumbtacks or picture hangers? Good lord.

Stuck on the where-the-doorknob-hits-the-wall shield thingie so it can be painted.

Took all the outlet covers and switchplates off the walls so the walls can be painted without worrying about them (I have all new ones anyway). Discovered weird sticky spiderweb stuff inside a phone jack. Kind of gross, but definitely old and no longer “in use.”

Bought new toilet-paper-roll springy insert tube thingies. Took me ages at Home Depot to find them. Why would someone take those with them?!

Bought a rug and towels for the upstairs bathroom (light gray, which I rightly thought would look nice with the purple paint). Bought towels (green) and a trashcan (blue) for the powder room. Discovered the powder room has no towel rack.

Bought a trashcan and a shower curtain for the basement shower. The shower curtain has monkeys on it. I love it. And matching monkey shower-curtain hooks.

(You can see the shower curtain here, but I did not get the scary rug!)

Bought plain white paint (eggshell for the walls, semi-gloss for the trim) for Lin's and Max's rooms.

Bought three awesome new floor vents for the living room and dining room (where the vents were mismatched and broken). I was looking for oak, to sort of match the flooring, but I found brushed nickel in an art deco design for half the price and oh my god they're gorgeous. Here, hold on, you have to see.

See?! They're awesome. And they were cheaper. I'm getting two more for my bedroom, I think.
Bought sixty cans of Diet Coke. It was on sale.

Took a carload of random things over to the house. My camera, for instance, now lives there, as does my basket of notepads and clipboards. Yes, I have a basket for that.

The sooner I move some of these stretch-wrapped items, the better, as Jasper has taken to clawing at the stuff. Jasper's starting to get seriously stressed out. I've hidden many of his favorite places with boxes.

Tomorrow is Manassas City's hazardous waste collection day, so I'll be getting rid of an old scanner and two old computers (no one on Freecycle wanted them), as well as many cans of paint from the basement of the house. I'm keeping the can of purple if it's not dried out, as I like that color and that room needs some patching.

Last but not least, after months of searching, I found a new purse. No stupid buckles, no contrast stitching, no exterior pockets, no other buckles, no ten-inch armpit strap, no metallic fabric, not the size of my car, and so on and so forth. I had criteria. They were many.

House updates

07/11/08, 00:56:28

My mail is forwarding. Which is fine now, because today I figured out which mailbox is mine.

Monday I bought a bunch of paint (Behr; to see the colors you have to make an account on the website, but it's Sabal Palm for the stairs and Mulling Spice and Chai Latte for my bedroom), and the associated detritus, including a Zibra edging tool and a Wagner power roller I'm very excited about.

Today I bought a lawnmower! And then I mowed part of the back lawn! I don't think I've pushed a mower since I was about 13 years old. And this was the first time I've used an electric lawnmower. I'll never go back to a gas one. Wow, is it light and easy and neat. I'm glad I got it. As soon as I can do the front lawn (and I'll need a weedwhacker and some weed killer too), the place will start to look like a place I can actually live in. Then next year I can plant my own flowers.

I also got a bunch of light bulbs and a bunch (okay, all Home Depot had in stock of the cheap style I liked) of switchplate covers and outlet covers. I need about five more of each to make the whole house match (this is a reasonable desire, right?), but that can wait a while.

Today, after mowing the lawn, I took my first shower in the house! I like my new shower.

Deborah and Angela came over tonight and changed out light bulbs for me. We can't figure out why some of them won't light, but I can wait a few days and let David try to suss it out.

All that aside, tonight I did something many years in the making: I sat in my hammock chair. The situation's not perfect—the carabiner-style hook I got won't fit through the links of the chain I got, so the loop holding it up right now isn't permanent enough—but I sat in it and it holds me and it's lovely. I can't wait to try it in the daylight.

I think I bought that chair in the early summer of 2000. I certainly didn't buy it any more recently than that. It's pre-Schism. Being able to hang it up was one of the major factors driving my house purchase.

On Saturday, we paint. Tomorrow evening, I think I'm going to spot-clean the carpets where I can, buy things at Target like trash bags, toilet-paper holders, shower curtains, bathroom rugs, and wastebaskets, and pull nails out of the walls. That seems like a reasonable amount of things to do.

Wikipedia screenshot

06/17/08, 02:40:51

You'll have to click on that to read it at full size. It's from the Wikipedia page for the song “Hang On Sloopy.” I was looking the song up because it was the last thing in my iTunes library under “Unknown Artist,” and I wanted to fix that.

What gets me is that chronology box. Imagine a populace's tastes going from the anger of “Eve of Destruction” to the silliness of “Hang On Sloopy” to the melancholy of “Yesterday” in the space of three weeks. 1965 was a weeeeeird year.

old emails from an old boyfriend

06/16/08, 05:32:02

wordle - old emails from an old boyfriend
Originally uploaded by kostia.

Made with wordle.net.

Thighs

06/15/08, 03:11:59

First, I cooked and ate some chicken thighs last week, and you should maybe think about trying this recipe (with the obvious modifications in the first few reviews, such as the addition of bread crumbs and many, many herbs and spices). Cook it uncovered and the instant mashed potatoes crisp up nicely while clinging to the chicken. Very good.

Second, I was just reading a blog I like called A Dress A Day, which I read because of the delightful vintage-clothing pictures and the quality, error-free writing,* and not out of any particular interest in dresses. In fact, aside from the desire for pockets, I don't believe my tastes intersect with Erin's in any measurable way. The last time I wore a dress, as you all know, was for my brother's wedding.

*Seriously, on that. Erin's a dictionary editor, and she does not make mistakes† in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I do not believe there is another blogger who can say that, except, of course, Bill Walsh or others who write about writing or editing, and that's not the same thing. When you're a blogger, you have to be your own editor and your own proofreader, and too many simply don't bother. Professional writers who don't know the difference between its and it's should not exist, and every time I see “sneak peak” I die a little inside.)

†I feel I should point out that in this post she says “rest of” where it should be “rest of us.” I'm not blind to the occasional mistake. But that's not a mistake so much as a typo. I can forgive that.

The recent post I was reading was about packing, and I came away from it with a couple of useful shopping-list items, among them packing cubes and anti-blister roll-on. Much of it (four pairs of shoes? for one trip? I'm not sure I have four pairs that fit me) wasn't for me, but much of it was sensible and fun to read, and that's all completely in keeping with the value to me of A Dress A Day.

This “packing” post linked to a post of hers from a year ago about dressing for travel. I remember reading that post at the time and thinking how completely detached it was from my reality, but I never left a comment. Rereading it today, I read through a year's worth of comments and was surprised at the hugely uneven split between “yes, I agree, you should fly in skirts and business casual, the nicest of what fits your personal style” (the majority) and “no, I'm sorry, there's no reason to dress up to fly” (five people, by my quick count).

I obviously fall on the latter side of that spectrum, but not one person in 103 comments had the same reason I do, which is simply that skirts aren't comfortable in the first place. Surely I can't be the only woman in the world who holds this opinion!

So I wrote and posted a longish comment, which I reproduce here.

Thanks to the link from the recent packing entry, I just reread this post for the first time since its publication, and I just had to add my comment to the tiny minority of us who don't “dress up” to fly.

Flying may have required dressing up in days past, but those days are gone. I see no more societal call to dress up for a flight than to “dress for dinner” at home. If they're going to stop giving out pretzels because the three cents a serving is breaking them, and charge me fifteen bucks to check a bag, I see no economic call to make a good impression.

But mainly, like the reader Risa who commented a year ago, I love the blog, especially the vintage pictures, but I “come from a different world.”

I've come to realize that I don't have any reason or inclination to dress “cute,” so I stopped trying. I've never worn a size smaller than 14, and comfort is by far my number-one criterion in choosing clothes. I never buy shoes with heels. Nothing I own has lace or cap sleeves or a side zipper. Everything has pockets, and I never even have to check for them.

In my world there are no skirts or dresses at all, and I am baffled by the near-universal opinion that they are comfortable.

I had a yard sale this morning and sold my last four dresses. I now own zero, and I can't imagine (aside from bridesmaiding and the small possibility [I'm 34] of getting married myself) ever buying another one. The only skirts I buy are those that have shorts underneath.

There's a simple reason for this: my thighs stick together. I cannot imagine any garment less comfortable than a skirt or dress. If there's no fabric between my thighs I am miserable.

And an airplane, where I've already been made miserable by ridiculous fake security preceded immediately by nickel-and-diming, is the last place I want to be made even more miserable by my own mistakes.

As a final note, the last time I was on an airplane (technically, the last four times) it was in first class. I did not feel out of place in jeans and a tshirt. I did feel out of place the time someone bumped me while I was turning to get into my seat and I spilled 32 ounces of soda and ice on the floor, but that would have happened no matter what I was wearing.

I demonstrated my long experience flying through predictable, respectful, and appropriate behavior. I got the hell out of the aisle to let others by, and put my bags and purse in the right places. I got out what I knew I'd need before the seat-belt sign went on, and packed it all away well before we arrived at the gate. Your sweatpants- and pajama-wearing folks don't do that, because they probably don't realize they're supposed to.

I treated the flight attendants with polite respect, and smiled broadly, and said “please” and “thank you,” and I was treated well in kind. Your sweatpants- and pajama-wearing folks don't do that, because they probably don't realize they're supposed to.

How you treat people goes a lot farther than what you wear in front of them.

Spy planes

05/19/08, 18:10:32

The resolution and usability of the bird's-eye view on map.live.com are unbelievable. For some reason, today, I found myself looking at my hometown again. For some even less fathomable reason, this is the tidbit I choose to share.

This is my junior high school. It's bigger now than it was; I think the buildings with the darkest roofs (at the top and at the upper right) postdate me. I graduated from this school in 1987, so it's fine that they've moved on.

However, there is one thing that happened within the bounds of this picture that I thought I'd relate.

See the white and yellow buses? See the cement steps to the right and just below the yellow bus?

I was standing on those steps when I learned that Wham broke up.

That is all.

The blue one is a little bit cheating for me

05/12/08, 18:51:22

I mean, come on, this is what I do. I was mostly limited by typing them out and by the fact that so many of them have “official” names that don't match what the website wants. Still, though. Over a hundred.

109

Created by OnePlusYou

Balance sheet

05/12/08, 00:42:30

Because I have to re-convince myself this is the right thing to do. Because lately it's been so much waiting and so much worrying—and it's showing—that I became tempted to tell Molly to scrap the whole thing.

Will miss:

Open, bright kitchen
Passthrough directly over the sink
Brand-new vinyl windows
Ceiling fan
Light switch right next to my bed
Washer and dryer on the bedroom level
Two easily accessible entrances

Won't miss:

Searching for a parking spot
Noisy neighbors
Balcony neighbors think is shared property
Unstable satellite dish
Back door that unlocks and opens itself in some storms
Outdoor storage closet
Maintenance guys coming in without knocking
20 steps from the street to the apartment
Dark office
Ten layers of sticky white paint
No catproofable areas
Tiny washer and dryer
Bad heating/cooling vent placement
Noisy furnace/air conditioner in the living room
Leaky second shower
Metal folding closet doors
Dumpster
Going upstairs to pee
This constant waiting around for the seller's bank to unass their thumbs

Flat-out gains:

Reserved parking spots right out front
Space, space, space
Wood floor
Separate dining room
Deck
Triple-LNB satellite dish bolted to said deck
Another bedroom
Powder room on the main level
Close-off-able basement rooms
Fenced yard
Attic
Brick
Flowers
Can finally hang hammock chair purchased in 1999

Not sure I've ever seen this color before

04/28/08, 00:26:59

Click to enlarge.

Meet Virginia.

Note Virginia is BLUE.

The Senate race (John Warner is finally retiring, so it's an open seat) is between Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore, both former governors. Mark Warner (the most recent former governor we have) is really popular among Democrats, and the fact he has the same last name as the extremely familiar retiree means he'll get the Inattentive Republican vote as well. It's going to be a landslide.

I live in a blue state! Finally!

Source: http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Senate/Maps/Apr27-s.html

Look how cute the bird is with this background

04/10/08, 16:11:23

Twitterific icon, courtesy of Focus, with David Lanham's spring tree wallpaper. Doesn't it work?

Wouldn't it work better with the Somatic Twitterific icon he hasn't made yet?

I wish I had one, but I think this is a trick question

04/04/08, 16:45:55

Lolscreencap:

Your best estimate will do

04/03/08, 12:32:29

Lolscreencap

I estimated zero, but I suppose I could be wrong!

Julian or Gregorian calendar?

04/01/08, 12:16:38

Lolscreencap:

Decluttering

03/31/08, 00:44:51

I'm selling my old iPod online (mytronics.com, thirty bucks or so, better than it could be), so I hooked it up to make sure it works, and I was unprepared for the emotion of seeing this on my desktop for the first time in ages.

This iPod was a gift from my brother for my 30th birthday, a complete surprise when we saw each other in November, two months after my actual birthday. I bought my first Mac (a Powerbook G4) not long after that, and I probably wouldn't have had I not had this wonderful first iPod.

This iPod was the second thing I named in my Buffy-themed computer naming scheme, after calling that first Powerbook “Willow” and before naming my old “Angel” (because of its tendency to turn evil from time to time). The name Willow has been inherited by the MacBook Pro that replaced the Powerbook, and the newer printer being Giles, “Angel” and “Angelus” have been reused. They're now the two halves of my backup drive. And my newer iPod is named Lorne.

I don't know if I'll be able to reuse “Xander.” Even though this iPod has been in a box near my desk for almost two years (Lorne arrived in April of 2006), it seems strangely hard to get rid of it. Sort of like selling your first car.

Today's lolscreencap

03/28/08, 18:21:39

Ever feel like you're not doing anything with your life? Yup.

More various updates

03/24/08, 19:46:57

I had a mammogram and an ultrasound a week ago last Friday. Everyone's agreed it's a fibroadenoma, very common and not something to worry about. So that's a relief. I think I'm probably still supposed to have a biopsy, but I haven't decided. I'm still all beat up from the first attempted aspiration, and I'm not happy about repeating that experience with an even larger needle.

I bought a bunch of Yankee scented candles. Burning right now is Country Linen. Unfortunately I've been stuffed up in the head for absolutely ever, so I can't smell it. I think the stuffiness is a side effect of the inhaled steroid that cures my asthma, but it's so very bothersome that I need a new medication for that. I see my regular doctor on Friday and I'll ask her. At least the blood pressure medication is working.

Also, despite taking forty-seven pills a day, I'm not dead.

I had a facial today, and my skin feels terrific. I also got my hair cut and colored. I hadn't had my hair colored since October, and not cut since far before that, because I was growing it out so they could put it up for Jeff and Lisa's wedding. With the way it looks now, I should have just had it short. It looks better now than it did that day.

Aaaaaaaaaand Jasper just let the candle light his tail on fire for a split second. That was awful. Maybe no more candle for a while. Jesus. He isn't acting like it hurts but the fur is all singed and there was that terrible burning-hair smell for a second. I'm completely freaked out. That was NOT GOOD.

Damn. Not good. What's wrong with me? Why am I such a terrible pet owner? I just lit my cat on fire. Fuck. And now I'm crying. He's not even acting upset at all and I'm inconsolable.

I can't follow that. This is all you get.

Various updates

03/13/08, 20:09:57

I know I haven't been updating. I've been twittering instead, and I meant to twitter in addition, so clearly I've messed up the plan.

I'm having a little situation that my doctor(s) and I have not yet cleared up as one of the many things that are “nothing,” though we're definitely on that path. For any friends for whom this is the first they're hearing of this, and who just looked at those links and worried for me, please be assured that I'm on it, and I'm better informed and hence nowhere near as freaked out as I was about a week ago. Stoic in the face of imagined crises, that's me.

Work is really busy because it always is at this time, so that's not helping with anything at all.

I wanted the last post off the front page for various reasons; though I still do not find myself motivated to get on the Obama bandwagon, I know I'm probably going to have to. I just hope the ugliness that will accompany the convention doesn't sink us all and put a 74-year-old warmonger with a younger but crazier fundamentalist VP in office.

It's finally daylight savings time, and though many people are bitching that it's too early for it, I am not one of those people. Perhaps those people have to get up before sunrise now or something. Me, having it be light out after six or so just improves everything. Today I sat in the sun for a little while, and pretty soon I'll be out geocaching again. It's eight now and it's still over 60° outside. There are little buds on the trees, my thermostat's been turned off—not down, not up, off—for over a week, and during the day I can leave the window open and let Jasper watch the birds.

At various times during the year in years past I may have said I liked summer or fall best. Fuck that. Give me open windows, kites, cherry blossoms, and grass. Give me spring.

right back in this thing

03/05/08, 01:11:52

I'm having a good night.

I think I'm coming down with something

02/29/08, 01:31:08

Despite about four icy beverages this evening, plus a chocolate Frosty, and a bunch of cold fruit cocktail, my throat's killing me. I'm going to take a ton of Zicam and some Tylenol PM and hope to wake up feeling better. I hate a sore throat. It's not typical for me. I know some people get a sore throat and that's the first sign of a cold for them, but I only get them maybe twice a year and they knock me on my ass. I want to swallow sandpaper and broken glass just to scratch.

Today's lolscreencap follows.

No idea what happened there. The folder's empty.

PHOTOS ABOVE BY ME

02/22/08, 16:49:21

CIMG3038
Originally uploaded by kostia.

Why, yes, I HAVE taken three pictures that have been published in the Washington Post. Why do you ask?

I know I am a dearth of content of late

02/19/08, 00:59:17

You Are Buffy the Vampire Slayer

“We saved the world. I say we have to party.”

What Superheroine Are You?

Today's lolscreencap

02/15/08, 20:23:17

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/newfood

These are always great, of course, but I can't remember the last time one made me guffaw like this one did.

I remembered annoyance two

02/11/08, 23:59:03

Annoyance two is that despite the necessity of it, I still resent having had to restart my computer for the 10.5.2 system upgrade.

Because Leopard? Is stable as all hell.

That beats my old record to pieces.

Annoyances

02/11/08, 23:18:22

Annoyance one:

I was really excited about going over to Mason tonight to see the former president, the one whose wife I'm voting for tomorrow. I got my stuff together, I drove over, I paid five dollars to park, and then it all turned to shit. No signage, no visible volunteers directing people around, no security even. The permanent maps in the parking garage said “concert hall” but it wasn't a building with seats, it was the student center-slash-library, and I guess the event was in this middle atrium area, which you can see if you are in it or if you are right up against the railing on one of the four upper levels. If you're not right up against the railing, you can't see down into the atrium.

The building was stuffed with people, and maybe 100 of them had a view of the shitty pop cover band that was playing to kill time before the event. Lots of students were eating and studying and doing whatever they normally do in the library (which, by the way, I hope isn't Mason's main library, because it was so small! are university libraries just a joke now in the age of the internet?), and their frustration with the crowd was clear.

I saw maybe four people with Hillary buttons on or carrying signs, nothing like the massive publicity I'd have tried to be passing out if it had been up to me. Maybe quadruple the number of volunteers would have made it so you could tell where to go or what to do, and the only guards I saw were Mason police cadets herding people away from one particular part of the railing on the third and fourth levels. The elevators were stuffed with people trying to go up and down to find a place to stand; the stairs were worse, a real fire hazard. The eight feet or so between the railings and the book stacks were completely packed with people, but like I said, no one could really see anything.

Maybe if I'd gotten there two or three hours early I could have been positioned in a place where I could see anything. I was really expecting an auditorium environment, someplace with seats plus standing room, like they show on TV, not just the lobby of the college library, and I remain absolutely stunned by the lack of security. I worried about whether I'd be allowed to carry my good camera with a long lens without a press credential; a laughable concern, as I could have carried anything into that place.

What also stuns me is that the only reason I knew where to park was that I had turned on the AM radio station that broadcasts campus visitor information. There were no signs. I realize this was one event among many, the night before the primary, the campaign manager was fired yesterday, and it wasn't even an event attended by the candidate herself, but come on. I remember events of a similar scope at Tech and there were always signs all over the place, and that was even without the involvement of the Secret Service, who I would assume have a little experience with crowd control. This is no way to run a railroad.

Complete waste of time.

Annoyance two:

Man, I don't even remember what annoyance two was. This whole thing has been that disappointing.

Jasper and I put a table together today

02/06/08, 01:20:35

Well, I can project whatever the hell I want to, too

02/05/08, 21:20:56

That, unless the projection and the webpage on which it appears are unrelated, is based on a total of 13 votes counted. Thirteen. The population of the state of New York is about 19 million. I don't know what to guess on how many of those are over 18, so we'll be generous and figure 60% of those 19 million are registered voters (I know, that's really high), 60% of those are Democrats (come on, it's New York), and 60% of those bothered to vote today (if only), 13 votes represents .00000316% of returns.

CNN projected Georgia the same way (though for the other candidate, and with 1,200 votes counted instead of 13). It baffles me. I always thought a prediction was based on research, including exit polling, and a projection was based on votes counted so far, projected across the entire electorate. That's how they do it in November, anyway. Right?

the price is right, really it is

02/05/08, 14:27:01

(Contestant wins a pool table.)

(Next prize: scuba equipment.)

Drew: Do you scuba dive?
Contestant: No, I don't.
Drew: Well, you can wear the scuba equipment while you play pool!

(Contestant wins scuba equipment.)

(Next prize: wine cabinet.)

Drew: Now, if you're going to wear scuba equipment while you're playing pool, let's face it, you're going to need a lot of wine.

(Contestant wins wine cabinet.)

(Next prize: PT Cruiser.)

Drew: So now you can get drunk, play pool in your scuba equipment, and then
(slight awkward pause)
--when you're all sobered up--
hop in your PT Cruiser!

(Contestant wins car.)

Fun jigsaw puzzle

02/03/08, 18:49:42

Give it a try!

http://www.smart-kit.com/games/jigsaw/

Don't give up too fast. It's very satisfying.

Want some hints? Okay. The resulting picture is square. Almost every character is properly affected by gravity (heads up, feet down). Look for the weird-shaped openings. Do the big pieces first.

And click here if you just want to see the answer. But seriously, try it first.

Weird installation screen

01/31/08, 21:52:45

Good to know.

I didn't want to give you my money anyway, so there

01/31/08, 03:38:03

I have now seen this five times. I GIVE UP.

All I want to do is change to a new plan as I seem to be going over my 450 peak minutes about every third month due to calling work all the time. Shelley wants me to invoice her when I go over but it takes CDI 90 days to pay a bill and it's just not worth it to me to lend them $15 at 0% interest (the alternative being Not Paying the Bill Either). Therefore I just want a new plan.

As long as I don't have to extend my contract, because on Contract Ending Day Plus One I'm buying an iPhone.

And as long as it doesn't screw up my delicately balanced data features, including a feature I have called “broadband connect tethering,” which it took me four contacts to find a person at Verizon Wireless who even knew they offered it and a fifth to find someone who could turn it on.

And as long as ...

... you know, maybe it's not worth it. Maybe I just keep the plan I have and pay the overages. It's not like I have to pay a home phone bill too. Maybe it's okay that my cell phone bill is $120 a month.

At least until I can get out of the contract and bid farewell to Verizon.

Unless I get FiOS, in which case Verizon can sell me whatever they want.

It's hard to live this way. Why can't we just have monopolies like other countries do? Wouldn't it be simpler?

I'll let you know how it went

01/29/08, 19:55:38

Edited to add:

50 questions took me about ten minutes. Holding down the backspace key did not repeat, if that makes sense, so I had to bang on the key repeatedly to change answers. I know I got two answers in on time after having to do this and I know I missed one other for this reason. I skipped two completely and made boneheaded guesses on a few more. Out of the 50, I'd say I was certain of my correct answers on about half.

No idea whether that's any good or not!

Dream

01/24/08, 15:26:10

I was at some sort of fundraising dinner or other big-name event. Maybe a retreat, since we stayed for a few days. At dinner at long communal tables I was two seats down from Claire Danes (her [female] friend was sitting between us). She had long, brown hair, not blond like she actually has.

We were all staying in a sort of long, narrow dormitory room, and I was sleeping on a twin bed that was kind of in a hallway, just like the extra hallway “bedroom” in the beach house Lin and I stay at in Bethany.

There was a guy I liked, who liked me back, but we were being all standoffish and not particularly flirty. He was staying in a bedroom in the back and had a male roommate staying with him.

We were all sharing bathrooms. I declared my intention to take a shower and almost walked in on the roommate, so I started looking for another shower. While I was looking it turned out the closet next to my bed was actually a shower, and there was a showerhead in the ceiling over my bed and a drain in the floor so that part of the hallway could *be* a shower. I decided everyone needed to know there were actually five showers, not two (yes, I know it doesn't add up) and I walked around telling everyone.

No one else seemed to want to take a shower so I went ahead. While I was in there everyone decided they needed to take a shower so all five filled up. The guy I liked was standing outside my shower curtain and said “we know it's going to happen eventually, why don't I just join you,” and then Jasper sat on my head and woke me up.

Maybe the best picture ever of Jasper

01/23/08, 20:32:48

IMG_0573

Originally uploaded by kostia.

It's odd to have a chance to take a picture of him without him looking straight at me.

Make-our-own-pizza night

01/21/08, 15:36:40

Dough was made from scratch and left to rise for a bit.

Marty showed us where the pizza would go.

David and Josie sprinkled cheese.

Lisa learned to toss pizza dough.

Amy and Angela did theirs in unison.

Toppings were varied and delicious.

We had a very yummy evening! Don't forget you can always click on the photos to see them larger.

Mac users! Great software deal ends in 4 days!

01/19/08, 15:39:38

https://www.macheist.com/buy/invite/31342

$49 gets you a whole crapload (over $400 worth) of apps, some of which are one-trick ponies but some of which are priceless.

I already own and use AppZapper every day.

CSSEdit and Snapz Pro X are the best in class at what they do.

I'd never tried 1Password or Speed Download before but I'm now addicted to both of them.

The bundle also includes CoverSutra (goes with iTunes), Cha-Ching (money manager, haven't tried yet), iStopMotion (sounds fun), Awaken (iTunes alarm clock), TaskPaper (for todo lists), Pixelmator (image editor, getting great reviews, but I have Photoshop), and two games, Wingnuts 2 and Tiki Mini Golf (both of which are having download problems right now).

If you don't feel like spending $49 right now, but you're a Mac user, I have an extra registration from this bundle for AppZapper, which I'd be happy to hand over. It's in my name, but you can have it. It's a wonderful program.
And if anyone buys the bundle through the link above it gets me a copy of LaunchBar, which I already own, so you can have that too if you want it. Let me know.

https://www.macheist.com/buy/invite/31342

Lunch with Angela

01/17/08, 00:36:14

Angela and I went out for sushi for lunch today. There were leftovers, and we were right down the street, so after lunch we went to see Lisa. She couldn't taste the leftovers we'd brought her, because she'd stuffed herself a couple hours before—on sushi—at the same restaurant.

This is what we ordered (plus we got Arigato Balls, because hi, fried cheese):

Top row: Tuna nigiri (magaro); Ultimate Tuna Roll (off their new menu, a California roll wrapped in tuna)

Middle row: Caterpillar roll (smoked eel wrapped with avocado, plus that great sweet sauce, this is my favorite); avocado roll (which I always always get because it cuts spicy like nothing else)

Bottom row:

Well, the bottom row. Thereby hangs a tale. That is a Lion King Roll (off their new menu, again). It looks like pizza, I know. It's not. It was crab and avocado and roe wrapped in salmon and a weird sauce that was like spicy Hollandaise and then broiled. So the salmon was flaky and opaque and perfectly cooked, and it was just wonderful. This was great. I'd get it again in a heartbeat.

But boy, when it showed up, we kind of freaked out at the look of it.

On the way back home from Lisa's, we saw this lady driving next to us.

Honestly, if it's cold enough for mittens and earmuffs, put the goddamn top up.

Lia Sophia

01/15/08, 23:07:17

So we found another party-based jewelry company to give money to. Lia Sophia stuff is plated, not sterling, so it's cheaper than Silpada, and the styling is a little more adventurous. Plus they have a ridiculous guarantee and a ridiculous half-price offer.

Here are the necklaces I especially liked last weekend. There are other things I liked, but these are the ones I was able to find before their website went down for maintenance for the next two hours.

Serendipity: (yes, I liked it before I knew the name)

Kiwi:

Watercolors:

Root Beer Float:

Bloommates:

Silly web thing I decided to try

01/13/08, 23:11:40

http://jasperopolis.myminicity.com/

SimCity, without the effort, strategy, options, and gameplay. But once it gets going it's really cute.

Never a dull moment

01/07/08, 01:41:21

Until about ten minutes ago, a building in my development was spectacularly and terrifyingly on fire.

I had moral cringings about wanting to take pictures, but once I made the rapid decision that I wasn't in danger, it was the first thing I thought of.

For a while, I was on the phone with Jeff (the only person I know on Pacific time), so things are even shakier than they would be otherwise.

The two pictures above, taken with the long lens, are the only ones where you can even tell what's going on. They were taken seven minutes apart.

Here's a video. I saw vehicles from at least three different fire departments (Fairfax County, City of Fairfax [!], and Centreville Volunteer).

You can't see the fire in this movie; by this time it was contained to the far side (the back) of the building. The light at the top of the ladder truck's high crane is their spotlight, not a flame, but that's about where the fire was. When I was on the phone with Jeff the flames were higher than the crane, and the crane was at least a story or two taller than the building.

It's a four-story building.

Edited at 2:10 am to add that I just saw a line of people in various states of dressedness walking into the office/clubhouse building, and the last guy in line was carrying a small dog in a large crate. My heart goes out to them.

Magic cat

01/06/08, 14:26:56

I had to go into DC on Friday. Sometime between when I left the house around 11:45 and when I got home around 8, Jasper lost his collar. I went out to run some errands and got back at 10:30. Still gone (of course). I looked around for it (the last couple times it came off, I found it right away), but I couldn't find it. I knew he hadn't gotten out, so it had to be in the house. I figured it had come off when he'd tried to squeeze into someplace he doesn't quite fit.

Saturday I was out from 8:45 in the morning until around 5. Got home, looked for collar, nothing. Started bitching, because the collar has his ID tag, his microchip tag, and his rabies tag on it. The ID tag costs about eight bucks at Petsmart, getting the microchip tag replaced requires emailing Bayer customer support, and the rabies tag isn't replaceable and I've lost the accompanying certificate (meaning that if I were to need to take him to Canada or on a plane I'd have to have him re-immunized or something).

So I started looking in earnest. I got out a flashlight and looked behind the bookcases, under the sofa, under my bed, behind the washing machine, behind the toilet, under my dresser, and so on and so on. No collar. I did find nine of his toys and a knickknack of mine that's been missing for months (his fault), but no collar.

Sunday I got up around 11 and came downstairs.

To find the collar in the middle of the living room floor.

I have no idea.

I'm not even going to comment on the accuracy of this meme.

01/05/08, 01:35:39

What Elaine Means

You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone.

You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together.

At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.

You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow.

You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily.

Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.

You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection.

You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive.

You have the classic “Type A” personality.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.

You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.

You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.

You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.

You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Photo page

01/03/08, 01:06:14

I've reorganized my photo site so that the photos from 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003 are in subfolders by year. This was a surprisingly difficult thing to do, as it turned out, so I'd appreciate it if those of you who have any interest in my pictures would do a little poking around and tell me if you see anything out of joint.

Starting tomorrow, that is. Right now I'm still working on it.

I got a Flickr Pro account for Christmas, and I really should just upload my stuff there, but I still like JAlbum so much, and I'm used to how my photo site works, and I can't bring myself to do it yet.

Scribble states

01/02/08, 15:04:16

This was WAY EASIER once I started using my tablet. I wouldn't recommend choosing the 50-state option like I did.

Last sunset in Florida, a la Mark

12/31/07, 00:49:27

It's cold here. It wasn't in Florida.

In Florida they have things like sand castles for your convenience.

Birds fly around, too.

Do you know about pelicans? Pelicans are fucking huge. You haven't lived until you've been driving across Tampa Bay and had one zoom by a foot from your window.

They fly around until they see a fish, then they dive into the water and eat it.

It gets darker as the sun goes down.

That makes the airplanes' jet trails look like shooting stars.

And when you turn around to walk home, even the weeds are beautiful.

Every year

12/31/07, 00:13:30

I love that we're in our thirties, and Christmas still looks like this.

Liger sex

12/25/07, 17:54:26

My brother has somehow made almost a thousand dollars from his liger sex video on Metacafe.

I'm not going to see this movie

12/17/07, 22:28:27

I didn't think it would come to this, but one paragraph of the AV Club's “Book Vs. Film” column on The Golden Compass made me decide: I don't need to see it. The one in my head is right.

In the book, Lyra’s alethiometer—the magical compass-like truth-telling device that gives the book and film their name—is repeatedly described as a “symbol-reader.” When Lyra asks it a question, its hands swing around to point at various symbols, which she has to interpret. While she shows a natural instinct at figuring out what its messages mean, it takes some time and effort to learn to read. Whereas in the film, she asks it questions and it shows her magical golden visions, and she uses it right the first time she tries. This seems like a fairly necessary change, given the visual nature of film, but I got hugely sick of it early on, especially since she consults the alethiometer a lot, and every single time, we get the same computer-animated flashes of gold sparkles with faces mixed in. I thought that kind of constant re-use of specific animated sequences went out of style 20 years ago, and in a $180 million movie, it’s pretty unforgivable. Also, whereas in the book, alethiometer-reading is portrayed as an esoteric skill that few people can manage—which is why the adults keep taking Lyra along on their dangerous adventures, since she can discover truths none of them can—the film makes it seem about as difficult as flipping a light switch.

This reinforces the other alethiometer problems I already had:

First, in the books, there's more than one. Yes, reading it is a very rare skill, never developed naturally as Lyra develops it, but rather over decades of study, rote memorization, and the consultation of reference books. There are at least three other people in the books who have made the alethiometer their lives' work, and the ending of the trilogy, Lyra's future, is dependent on this point. Alethiometers are rare, not unique.

Second, you don't ask the alethiometer a question. You move the needles to the symbols whose meanings best frame your question, and you hold those symbols' meanings (whether they be the first, or the second, or the seventeenth) in your mind, in much the way you imagine the next step when you are climbing down a ladder and can't see what's beneath you. The answer comes the same way, with the other needle moving to each symbol multiple times to tell you which meaning to interpret to answer your question.

Third, it's not magic. It's not a compass at all (which is why the book's title was Northern Lights originally); it's a scientific instrument that fits perfectly into the science of the world that created it. It's not magic at all.

Which is not to say that I'm not glad the movie is succeeding. And which is not to say I don't still think the casting (especially Daniel Craig and Sam Elliott) is wonderful. And which is not to say I don't very much hope they make the next two. Because I do want to see the world of the wheel-trees in The Amber Spyglass.

And which is not to say I don't still want one.

Fur and feathers

12/16/07, 03:37:29

For some reason I just really dig this picture of Jasper I took tonight.

Sharp shallow foreground and blurred background. It's almost like I have a new camera.

Great link

12/15/07, 19:04:18

I read this webcomic called pictures for sad children. It's about a ghost named Paul, and a family with a strange child, and a call center that takes overflow from other call centers, and some other things. It's lovely.

The guy who writes and draws it recently answered 50 questions in his own comic style. It's a wonderful read.

Three example questions:

Email from my mom

12/15/07, 18:15:44

So the windows are done. They came back and painted today and now they are gone. So now I can clean. Which is good, because there is a half inch of sawdust All Over Everything. Even the vertical surfaces are coated! It is a mess.

So I grab the Liquid Gold and start on the banister/handrails. It is working even better than I remember. It is even taking off the dirt under the sawdust. And it smells a little better than I remember.

Then I glance at the can I grabbed. It is red, aerosol...

Anyhow, if you have any woodwork that needs cleaning, Raid works really well:)

Effects of cat ownership

12/14/07, 13:42:41

All framed family photos now in a box in the closet

All knickknacks now in the drawers of a table

All cobalt blue glass now in cupboards, except the tall goblet he broke today

Bookmarks now stored in a drawer instead of in antique New Orleans hurricane glass he broke last week

Series of Unfortunate Events book display not long for this world

Next order from Amazon: Museum gel intended for earthquakes

I'm sorry to remain silent so long and then use this space to complain. I'm just sad that I can't have pretty things anymore.

Leopard has 512x512 icons

12/05/07, 19:01:41

And thanks to iconfactory.com, this is one of them.

Joy.

Scannering: results

11/15/07, 21:24:29

Here are some highlights from a crapload of pictures I just scanned. They'll all be on the photo site in an album called “071115-Scanned” in a few minutes. They'll be larger there, and will have comments.

But, like I said, highlights.

I call this one “Airport '77” because we're in an airport, and it's 1977, not because of any big disaster that happened or was about to happen. Note the ashtray built into the table. Note the American ticket jacket in my dad's pocket. Note how dressed up we are, just to fly. Dig my mom's pants, man. Scariest part? This is not the only picture I have of her wearing those pants.

These next two are notable for only one reason. First, we have one my mother labeled “Summer 1977: Jeff 1, Elaine 3.”

I don't know where we are here. From the look of it, we're at In Thirty Years Parents Will Call This Place Death Park USA Park. I mean seriously. That child is ONE and he is in that situation. Nowadays, he'd be encased in plastic. I love shit like this.

The second one of this set isn't labeled, but the processing stamp on the back says “Oct 79.” Notice anything?

Yeah, that's right. It's two years later (you can tell easily from looking at Jeff, if not at me), and I'm wearing the same shirt. It even fits a lot tighter than it did in 1977. I do not remember this shirt, but I must have loved it.

Lastly, and this is my whole point, we have what I consider one of the finest pictures ever taken of me ever in my life. My father demonstrated a gift when we were young for taking pictures of children correctly. He must have spent ten years kneeling in front of us with a camera. He got so close, and the light and focus were always so good. Go to the new album page on the photo site and you'll see more examples. He was great at it.

Scannering

11/15/07, 20:07:31

I finally figured out how to get my HP Scanjet 4600 scanner (latest drivers available: 2004) working under Leopard on an Intel Mac.

Connect it to an old PowerPC Mac and use screen sharing to control it.

That's it. That's the only way. HP are bastards.

In any case, though, I'll soon have scanned a ton of old photos I absolutely love, and I'll be able to share them. Won't that be swell?

For now, we have a lovely low-res shot of a certain someone standing on the scanner and watching the light.

About tonight

11/15/07, 02:26:29

I just thought I'd share my evening.

We went and saw The Taming of the Shrew at the Shakespeare Theatre. Very funny, very dirty, wonderful, wonderful sets. All red lacquer and mirrors and Navy chairs. Just a marvelous look all around.

Then we had dinner at Brasserie Beck. Where I will insist that we go again!

For an appetizer, I had steak tartare, which was ideal, onion-y and melty and just delicious, and Lisa had quiche Lorraine, and David had some sort of baguette thing with an egg on top and stuff. I wasn't paying attention at this point because the tartare was incredible. David and I drank Delirium Tremens Noel and Lisa had Duchesse de Bourgogne, which tasted like cider. This place has a really good beer guy.

For a main course I had duck Congolese almondine, which was perfectly good (I love duck), but a little too fruity for me (raisins and dates and figs and whatnot). David had rabbit, also kind of fruity, and Lisa had mussels, which were served in a skillet in a great butter sauce that we would have drunk had we had no shame.

Then we had some other Belgian beers; David's came in a wooden stand like a miniature half-yard, and mine was a really refreshing and very light wheat that I really wanted after the salt of the tartare but which wasn't as perfect as I'd hoped with the duck. David, however, said he “could see downing four of those after mowing the lawn.”

On the side we had two orders of Belgian pommes frites, one with the house topping of Gruyère and bacon, one without. Basically, yes, cheese fries. With three kinds of mayonnaise (a red one, a mustard one, and a garlic aioli). Splendiferous.

For dessert we had coffee, which came in individual French presses, and we split a bread pudding, which was also not free of butter, and an indescribably good pear tarte tatin with cinnamon honey ice cream, described as and agreed to be “made of sex.”

And it was (cough cough) dollars for the three of us, and we all declared that that was reasonable and worth it and not as much as could have been expected. Then we reminisced about the days not so long ago when, if the bill topped $30, we'd be looking for change. Is better now.

Good dinner. Good, good dinner.

Just left this comment on another blog and wanted to share

11/12/07, 02:34:30

The post was about Beowulf. The blogger insisted he'd hate the movie but he'd see it anyway, and he hopes the new digital 3D (especially IMAX) takes off.

I simply don't understand why people are so excited to hate this movie. Why they post over and over on site after site that Beowulf will suck but they'll see it anyway. Or that Beowulf (the poem) sucks and they won't see the movie.

One commenter said there was no IMAX near him so he wouldn't see it in IMAX.
One, bless him (or her) knows Neil Gaiman properly and is as excited as I am.
One was concerned about the CGI, the uncanny valley situation. I believe I cover that below.

One said Beowulf (which, I need hardly remind you, is an EPIC about a MONSTER and a MEAD HALL and some VIKINGS and another MONSTER) was “too nerdy.”

The word “poem” apparently scares some people off (though that commenter referred to it as a “book”). I feel bad for the people whose teachers didn't explain to them why a poem has power, how to read one starting from “April is the cruelest month” or finish another with “slouches toward Bethlehem to be born” and feel what you're being told. Even the easy stuff, Tyger and like that, is terrifying in the right light. What seems like gibberish at first (“anyone lived in a pretty how town”) is joy incarnate in the right light. Why is that right light not shining in every school?

This just shows ignorance. Ignorance and willful ignorance to boot. It makes me crazy.

This is the comment I left:

It's not the same Beowulf from high school. The poem is only half this story; the other half is Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman *making things up* (to use Neil's phrase), and those are two guys who are damned good at making things up.

Personally, I think Beowulf is an awesome story. Monsters and men and mead. It's good rollicking stuff. I don't know how long ago high school was for the other poster, but if it was the Seamus Heaney translation you didn't read, you missed out. For me, high school was before that translation came out.

I'll be seeing it in IMAX 3D to be sure (at Channelside in Tampa, as I'll be visiting my parents down there for Thanksgiving). I'm glad I'm able to be near an appropriate theater right around opening weekend so I can see it without any preconceptions.

The internet's preconceptions--dozens upon dozens of bloggers and reviewers declaiming the movie's faults *without having seen it*--are baffling to me. You don't know the movie until you've seen it.

As far as the CGI, I fully expect it to be much better than Davy Jones, who was exponentially better than the Polar Express, which was better than Final Fantasy. Every single time they do this technology, they get it better. Don't believe me? Watch Gollum in Fellowship of the Ring, then watch Gollum in Return of the King. Look at the shading, the eye tracking, the lip movement, the movement of the fingers when the fingers aren't in focus. This is the speed of the improvement in this technology, and the day is soon when these CGI characters come OUT of the uncanny valley and into daily life.

For now, while the CGI is still recognizable as it is, Beowulf has the advantage of being a fantasy movie, the advantage of being able to make the argument that this is the only way to have the human characters and the nonhuman characters appear from the *very beginning* to belong in the same world. That's key; it's not Johnny Depp facing off against a CGI monster, it's a CGI Ray Winstone facing off against a CGI Grendel (and Grendel's mother), and that's got to be more of a fair fight.

I can't wait.

“What does it do?” “It tells the truth.”

11/12/07, 01:58:11

The Noble Collection Products:

Ah, yes, my alethiometer. I knew it would come. I even guessed the price right.

April 30, babies.

Blogs and podcasts

11/11/07, 20:25:25

I was just taking an NPRListens.org survey, and they asked me what some of my favorite blogs and podcasts are, and why. My answers are succinct and pretty comprehensive, so I thought I'd share these links with you guys too. All these sites are really highly recommended. The blogs all have RSS feeds, and podcasts are super easy to subscribe to in iTunes. Give it a shot.

Blogs:

Dooce, for humor and irreverent stories of parenting; Comics Curmudgeon, for humor and a feeling of community; Jay Is Games, for recommendations of software; Daring Fireball, for sane, succinct Mac news; Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, for beautiful photography and a glimpse into a lifestyle utterly unlike mine; Consumerist, for good advice on finances and shopping; Gizmodo, for announcements and reviews of new electronics, computers, and gadgets; DCist, for local entertainment reviews and photography; SwissMiss, for an insight into great design; and BoingBoing, for hit-or-miss miscellany and even-more-liberal-than-me politics.

Podcasts:

NPR Story of the Day, for its completely unpredictable variety and never-misses quality; NPR Driveway Moments, same reason, wish it published more often; NPR Sunday Puzzle, for Will Shortz, of whom I've been a fan for decades; New Yorker animated cartoons (video), because they're ridiculous and very, very short; Brickfilms (video), because I'm a Lego nut; Slate Explainer, because they answer questions I didn't know I wanted to ask; and Happy Tree Friends (video), because everyone needs to see cute cartoon animals get killed in creative ways sometimes.

Election Day

11/06/07, 23:52:19

I voted in state and local elections today, and as is my wont I've been watching the live returns on the state board of elections website.

This particular screen capture therefrom, of my district in my House of Delegates race, does not fill me with enthusiasm and trust in the credibility of my state board of elections.

Click to see larger if necessary. Basically what you have there is a record of zero votes for the incumbent Democrat, 480 votes for the fundamentalist Republican challenger, and 423 write-ins. Clearly this is a mistake.

You know what's nice? Caputo's winning anyway.

Unfortunately in my state Senate race the opposite is true. The returns are correct, but the Democratic challenger is losing to the fundamentalist Republican incumbent Ken Cuccinelli. It's very, very close (50% to 49.8% with 97% of precincts reporting), but I think he has it. Sad stuff. This douchebag sent me a campaign ad in the mail yesterday that listed Janet Oleszek's endorsement from Planned Parenthood versus his own opposition of all abortion rights. For a minute I couldn't tell who it was an ad for.

Recommendation

11/06/07, 16:32:05

This is a great service. I paid for a similar service called GreenDimes, and noticed a huge decrease in junk mail. CatalogChoice is free and does the same thing.

Go to http://www.catalogchoice.org to sign up.

Cleaning out some pictures: Sandi's windows

10/29/07, 16:50:00

I scanned a bunch of pictures before my scanner stopped working (I love my scanner but I'm considering buying a new one if I can't get this one to work!), and they've been sitting on my desktop for months waiting for me to write this post.

Which I believe I promised you a while ago during a period of nostalgic introspection and perhaps mentions of high school.

When I was in eleventh and twelfth grade, I was in a G&T class. The class did activities and things, but the main overarching plan was a year-long independent study project, and a district-wide presentation of projects in the spring. Some people came up with really wonderful projects. I didn't: in eleventh grade I made a quilt, and in twelfth grade I wrote a book about medieval life.

To give you an idea of the scope of these projects, in eleventh grade Nicole took up weaving, and in twelfth grade she did a really nice photography project involving setting up a darkroom (using my father's equipment from the '70s) in the bomb shelter in her basement. In eleventh grade Ben Colayco made an animated movie; in twelfth grade he painted a mosaic picture on twelve canvases using twelve different artistic styles. These are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

My favorite, though, was Sandi Greig's project in twelfth grade. She made stained glass windows depicting scenes from Shakespeare and had them installed in the school at the entrance by the library.

They're wonderful, and I choose to believe that they are still there. These pictures were taken in June of 1991, when I was saying goodbye to this school.

This is Sandi (left), along with her best friend Wendi Rabiner, at Project Graduation. Wendi's last name is Heinzelman now, and she has a PhD in computer engineering. I think her thesis was about wireless data. It's easy to Google people you went to high school with if they turned out to be academics.

The paper behind them was where we were all meant to sign and leave messages for our future selves. I can pick out notes from Scott Neubeck and Tyler Smith on there, but few others. Tyler was Nicole's boyfriend senior year. He had a lot of cars.
This is the entranceway by the library, framed by the windows.

Here's a closeup of the left side. Top to bottom: Hamlet (two swords, poisoned cup), Romeo and Juliet (my favorite window; this is just gorgeous), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Titania and Bottom).

Here's a closeup of the right side. I hate that this isn't in focus, but this was of course before digital cameras, and what did we know. At least I had my good Ricoh SLR by then.

Top to bottom: Macbeth (the witches), The Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio and Kate) and The Tempest (Prospero).

I loved this project. She read the plays, she picked iconic scenes (or, in the case of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, she designed general images of the plays), she learned to do stained glass (and her presentations about how it was done were great too), and she got the school to install the results.

I wish it had been me.

Testing

10/27/07, 03:19:36

I have a new operating system, which so far I'm about 80% loving, so I'm testing everything. Hi.

How old are you?

10/25/07, 13:49:34

Regardless of the fact you have to be at least 13 to fill out a web form, and regardless of the fact you have to be 18 to fill out most online surveys, this is still a ridiculous set of answers for this question.

Jasper

10/22/07, 23:05:09

. . . had an operation (actually, more than one) on Friday. Here, he obligingly lies on the glass table so you can see his furless belly. Bare parts on a cat, especially when said areas are this large, are kind of weird. His coat cannot grow back fast enough for me.

Spam subject line

10/20/07, 15:26:13

I know you can't read that. Click on it to see the whole line.

This is the funny part:

I couldn't agree more.

I made a sandwich

10/16/07, 18:56:08

Specifically, I made this sandwich. Pioneer Woman's Favorite Sandwich.

This is a good, good sandwich. It's grilled cheese, but it's real cheeses, not Kraft Singles, and it's on rye bread, which for some reason I always forget is best for grilled sandwiches, and it has tomatoes in it, which I love, and it has onions in it, which I love. It also has green chiles in it, which is interesting. There's a very noticeable heat to it. It isn't spicy at all, and the flavor of the onions is much stronger than the flavor of the chiles, but it has heat, and that's good. Even the tiny layer of mustard and mayonnaise is noticeable. It's just a good sandwich.

Instructions are linked above, and always the Pioneer Woman has wonderful pictures of each and every step. My only edits would be to go easy on the onions (I love onions, and I used too many) and to go a LITTLE lighter than she implies on the butter. The sandwich needs the butter, really it does, but you can get the results with less. This sandwich will not be dry.

Here's her picture:

Here's my picture:

So I think I ate mine upside down, yeah? But still. SO GOOD. Highly recommended. Will cook again.

Dear phishers,

10/15/07, 19:40:38

I received this email today. I had to believe that, their might be an illiterate moron writing it.

Do people really fall for that shit?

I mean, really?

Don't tell anyone I like something, because they'll stop making it.

10/14/07, 20:02:34

Here is a list of products I've fallen in love with that apparently can no longer be purchased, at least not at my grocery stores.

Fresh Step Crystals cat litter

Oust Fan refills

Swiffer Carpet Flick refills

Bush's Chili Beans

Center Stage

10/14/07, 00:26:10

The last time I went to the Book Thing, I picked up a copy of a book I'd been meaning to read (and still haven't, for reasons that'll become apparent), Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. I'm not sure when that was. Maybe February? Anyway, some time in March I opened the book to read it and realized it had been heavily underlined and highlighted and marked, perhaps read for a class, and was completely unusable in its current state. I couldn't have followed it with that many marks. So I decided I'd find another copy, and flipped through that one in a desultory way to make sure it was marked up all the way through (it is), and this fell out.

That's a ticket stub from a theater performance in Baltimore that took place eighteen years ago. Someone used it as a bookmark, and they forgot about it, and they gave the book away, and it found its way to the Book Thing, and it found its way to me, and the ticket stub stayed in it for eighteen years.

To my way of seeing, that's worth more than a free book any day of the week.

I saved the ticket stub with care and determined to figure out what the play was. Because it's a stub, you see. The owner of my book went to the play.

It took me forever—well, until today—to sit down to see if I could find out what the play was. My first shot was the archives of the Baltimore Sun, which super-helpfully go all the way back to 1990. Not 1989. 1990. So screw them. So then I went to the Center Stage website, and a little clicking around in there brought me to a page called Past Productions.

1988-89: Stan Wojewodski, Jr., Artistic Director
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Directed by Stan Wojewodski, Jr.
Fool for Love by Sam Shepard, Directed by William Foeller
Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson, Directed by Irene Lewis
The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Directed by Stan Wojewodski, Jr.
There's One in Every Marriage by Georges Feydeau, Directed by Stan Wojewodski, Jr.
The Broken Pitcher by Heinrich von Kleist, Directed by Michael Engler
The Increased Difficulty of Concentration by Vaclav Havel, Directed by Stan Wojewodski, Jr.

I figure “Show 4” must mean it was The Tempest. In any case, that's what I choose to believe. The person taking—studying—Ursula LeGuin in 1989 went to see Shakespeare around the same time. She (most likely) put her ticket stub in her book, finished the book, finished the class, and forgot about it. Years later she gave the book away. And now I have her ticket stub.

And Stan Wojewodski, Jr.? Two years later he was appointed to no less a position than dean of Yale Drama, as the New York Times's wonderful new free archives tell us. He left that position in 2001 after two five-year terms. And now he's Distinguished Artist-in-Residence and a directing teacher at SMU.

It's easy to find things out if you bother to look them up.

This is no way to run a railroad.

10/08/07, 18:35:46

You people let me go almost three months past the start of the Literature Year without noticing or telling me it was supposed to turn over to the year eleven back in July!

I can only infer from this that

. . . it pains me . . .

(can it be true)

you don't read the book list.

Please read the book list. It's easy. Its entries are ever so short, and sometimes I write things there that I'm proud of. And, most importantly, it's important to me! I've been doing it with only a short break since July 17, 1997!

Lastly: It is purple, and it is typeset in Wiesbaden Swing.

unfortunate non-typo

10/04/07, 22:55:51

Maybe it's just me, but I had to do a double-take when I saw this in my email.

one of my favorite things on the internet

10/02/07, 01:32:38

Amazon never forgets the times we've had together.

demonstration

10/02/07, 00:47:01

that's my neighborhood north and west of the highway

I live at the lower end of it by that loop

the ONLY WAY OUT is to drive all the way to the other end

I'm the worst winner ever

10/01/07, 22:21:19

I entered this coloring contest a couple weeks ago, because I remembered its previous iteration had so few entries it couldn't be tough to win. I never heard anything back, so I figured I hadn't won, big deal, whatever. Then I was on the site and realized the contest had actually ended on my birthday (okay, only a week ago, but it still feels like I'm ages late to the party).

And lo and behold I was one of the winners.

Here's a link to the contest results, including the artist judge's description of my entry as “clean, myterious, lovely colors.” [sic]

http://www.maczot.com/index.php?mod=v_sitenews

This is the picture I colored:

And this is my entry (click to view the Flickr page):

Every piece of that (well, almost) is a gradient mesh, which is a feature in Illustrator that I never get to use. So that's nice.

You know what I won? Provided the MacZot people, whose customer service has been about 50/50 for me in the past, step up? An Officer and a Gentleman on DVD. And maybe (the phrasing is really unclear) a program called ArtText that might be fun to play with (and laugh at behind its back while Illustrator CS3 and I are hanging out).

Bizarre contest. But you can't beat winning.

Well done, and well put

10/01/07, 19:25:25

Meg Marco of Consumerist.com sums up this weekend's biggest popular-music story thusly:

Radiohead announced pre-sales for their record-label-free new album. The twist? You pay what you want. We predict that they will make a hilarious amount of money.

I agree. Hilarious is an excellent word for it. Take me, for example. I don't want to be a douchebag and pay one penny for this record, though I could. For years I've been hearing about how Radiohead is the best band ever, but I've never made the effort to get into them, kind of fearing they'll be less like Foo Fighters and more like Coldplay, and I need more of the former and less of the latter, and new music frightens me. New free music is a complete crapshoot; for every Jodi Winterton or Jim Vick.Combo you find on Indy.tv (they're apparently rebranding themselves now, but they were a Great Thing), there are a hundred mediocre bands to wade through. Letting me download your album, legally, as DRM-free MP3s, for a price of my choosing, and standing out from the crowd in the first place, is exactly how you get me to listen to your band. I'm thinking ... six bucks?

This is what the order form looks like.

This is a fascinating tidbit from the registration form. Note that asterisks indicate required fields.

http://www.inrainbows.com

Photo site updated

10/01/07, 03:19:12

The photo site is updated with September's pictures, including all I was sent of Siobhan, lots of Jasper, and the first installment of a new monthly album of geocache pictures.

I can't decide whether this is good customer service or terrible.

09/28/07, 14:13:54

A couple weeks ago Woot had this item for sale:

That's a 5-port USB hub with an iPod dock built in. Tailor-made to my needs, and only $19.99 shipped! I went for it. It came. It worked. Then it stopped working. It got really, really hot, and it would just ... stop. I Googled it and noted that this was a known issue, that there was a bad batch and some of them overheated, but not all, and Belkin would replace it.

So I remembered the “Warranty: Lifetime (Belkin)” line on the Woot sale (ie, this is a new item, not refurb, and Belkin will replace it). I went to Belkin's support site and filed for an RMA. They gave me an RMA. They gave me a shipping label. Belkin would replace it.

I shipped the defective unit back to Belkin. The shipping ran me twelve bucks, but I was STILL under the street price of the unit, so I wasn't that upset. Belkin would replace it.

Then a Belkin rep wrote me and said the part number on my RMA form was no good. I replied with the part number (again) and a link to their own website showing the product.

The rep replied that they don't make this unit anymore. Belkin would not replace it.

But I could have something else of the same value. I looked on the website and they no longer make a USB hub with an iPod dock in it. At all. Which is nonsensical. I asked for mine back, figuring I'd just deal with the intermittent failures.

The rep replied that they can't return mine, but they could send me the new version, which is this:

Now that's cool and everything, but it's half the retail price of the dock I had (not that I paid that, but they don't know that), it has no USB hub in it, and because I'm not in an office with a modular cubicle system, it requires drilling a three-inch hole into my desk. The item page even specifies Belkin does not sell a three-inch saw bit for your drill! Forgive me, but no, I don't want that.

So I wrote back again, saying no, I don't want to drill a hole in my desk and that's not a USB hub, thank you very much, and asked for this instead:

That's a 7-port USB hub, with two of the ports on top. That's a cool thing, and I've eyed it for a while. But it still means I have to add a dock and a cable to have my iPod on the desk. The whole idea was to remove a cable or three from my life. A USB hub with a built-in iPod dock is brilliant. A plain old USB hub is boring. Also, this is still significantly less than the retail price of the unit I had.

What I've decided I really want, and what I'll be watching like a hawk to see when they update it to work with a Mac (inexplicable that it doesn't yet), is this:

Look at that. Read about it here. Isn't it gorgeous? It's a dock. You connect DVI, sound (even surround! even optical!), USB (only three, but whatever), and ethernet to it, and you connect it to your notebook with an ExpressCard. That is the future. Right now, when I come home with the computer, I connect five cables to it: power, USB, sound, DVI, and FireWire. This thing would cut that five down to three (power, ExpressCard, and FireWire). It's the first docking system I've ever seen that actually made sense with a MacBook Pro (which has ports on both sides and can't slide into a traditional laptop dock). But, as noted above, not Mac-compatible. Bastards.

So I guess my point is, the word “lifetime” in the phrase “Belkin lifetime warranty” does not mean lifetime. It means lifetime for everything except the iPod hub I had, the iPod hub I want, the iPod hub I wish I'd known they would refuse to replace. The iPod hub they inexplicably stopped making.

Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland

09/26/07, 02:49:35

Yesterday it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed, my life's a mess
But I'm having a good time

. . .

I should go to bed, but the voice in my head says oh, what the hell
Have a good time

. . .

Maybe I'm laughing my way to disaster
Maybe my race has been run
Maybe I'm blind to the fate of mankind
But what can be done?

the precious, it is miiiiine, because Lisa loves me

09/24/07, 21:20:12

That's right.

Because my last post was so awesome, here's a meme to offset it

09/20/07, 15:36:50

44%

Final post today, promised to Mark

09/18/07, 00:02:58

This post has only a little to do with Blacksburg. If you want to read about Blacksburg go back one (the “far” button).

I have these boxes I've had forever. One used to hold bananas (I think Jeff got it for me at King's, where he worked in high school), and the other was some inferior box, and I covered them and their lids with fabric and I kept Things in them.

Then I had these other boxes, flat ones with hinged lids, I think from places like Omaha Steaks, and I kept Things in those, too.

Last week I consolidated the two large boxes and at least four smaller boxes into the one good fabric-covered box. I threw away a lot of stuff, and that's fine, and I have a stack of years of Spy magazines I need to cull, and that's fine too. What's left is the gold.

Among the gold I found this collection. This collection is missing one member (its earliest), but as that one predated my predilection to save Things, and would have been in the care of my mother, who has never had that predilection, I can't really be blamed.

Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, 1983 (moved there) to 1998 (parents retired to Florida)

The expiration date here is 6/95, but that was written after peeling off many old expiration-date stickers. I got this in 1983 or 1984. This library was just beginning barcoding when I was last there. I worked there in tenth grade. They paid me $3.92 an hour. I have many very specific memories of working there. I found Through a Glass Darkly on the shelf. I left the key in the copier and inadvertently let a couple of young boys make about sixty copies of a picture of a tiger for free. Once a classmate of mine (Dawn Heckel), who, to put it very, very gently, moved in different circles from me and was not my friend, had forgotten her library card and (of course, we were fifteen) had no ID, and my vouching for her identity allowed her to check out the books she needed. My favorite job was “slipping,” returning the due-date cards to newly returned books, because the cards were so tactile and lovely. Once I was allowed to sit alone in the children's department and check out books to people (the regular children's librarian [Karen's mom] was out that day), and I misunderstood what the Rolodex on the desk was for and really confused a woman who spoke very little English. I spent at least one day in the back rooms where old, old newspapers were stored, cataloging and sorting things.

As a patron at this same library, I also remember things, for this of course was the library I grew up with. I remember checking out The Catcher in the Rye and reading it through, and then turning the book over in my hands and reading it again from the beginning. I remember spending a long time whizzing through rolls of the New York Times microfilms. I think it was here that I printed out the page containing an ad for the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead from its original Broadway run--an ad I found by accident while searching for the book review of Winter's Tale that ran in that day's book section.

Governor Livingston Regional High School, 1987 to 1991

I remember being surprised that there were physical, embossed library cards at the high school library, but I loved it. Among my memories of that library are the conversation where Scott Brown said, “I was at that party, and I'm really sorry”; the vertical file and the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, which, combined, pretty much are called the internet now; arguing with Nicole over whether the book Your Erroneous Zones was dirty or not; and writing an off-the-cuff essay about Adlai Stevenson for my AP English entrance exam. The library wasn't called the library, it was called the IMC, the Instructional Media Center, and people actually called it that. Sandi's stained glass windows (which I promise I will eventually post about) are just outside this library's entrance. And over the drinking fountain across the hall was a mural of the Beatles, painted just after John Lennon's death, which I dearly hope is still there, unchanged except for a reference to George Harrison's death so many years later.

Virginia Tech, 1991 to 1993

Of course my library card was just my student ID, but it still counts, and this is the only library card I ever had with a magnetic stripe on it. I remember using a computer in the Tech library to connect to a BBS I'd been having problems accessing from my dorm room, and, a couple years later, using one to connect to Delphi, just to see if I could (I could). I remember a particular stack, way up in the back, where there were children's books, and where the carrels were very, very quiet, and the people who knew about them and used them would look at me quizzically for a moment when they saw me going for books up there. I was looking for Thirteen by Remy Charlip and Jerry Joyner, a book I have had my whole life and always treasured. They didn't have it, but they had other books by those guys, and I enjoyed those. Until the day before yesterday--and I mean that, September 15, 2007--I had never seen a copy of Thirteen except my own. The day before yesterday I paid a quarter and bought a copy off the discard table at the Franklin County (Virginia) library where my aunt's paintings were on display. Yesterday I walked past this library for the first time in many years. It looked the same.

Montgomery County, Virginia, 1991 to 1993

I don't remember what it was that the Tech library couldn't offer me that I ended up going to the town library instead. Quite probably it was children's books. I remember the library itself, and obviously this card was used at least once, but I couldn't tell you what I did with it. I'm still glad I saved it, though, and its 1997 expiration date seems really, really generous. I think this may have been the library at which I sat at a sunny table one afternoon and read 84, Charing Cross Road in its entirety, for the first time, and then checked it out anyway. I think it may have been.

St. Petersburg, Florida, 1994 to 1998

Oh, I loved this one. The book list began while this was my library. This was the first one where there were computers I could use to reserve books. I remember checking out a lot of children's books, including a whole stack once of Newbery and Caldecott winners, just to catch up. I read The Bridge to Terabithia from this library. Once I left the car running outside the front door when I went in to return some things, and the keys and my wallet were in it, and the doors were locked, and I had to call AAA from inside and I felt like a perfect fool. I became a connoisseur of microfiche in this library, seeking out Mark Helprin stories at length, from 1980s magazines like Omni and Esquire, and I know I read one (and I think it was “Last Tea with the Armorers”) entirely on the screen of a microfiche reader. The microfiche cabinet, of course, was tactile and lovely, and was self-service, which the one in Berkeley Heights certainly was not. I always felt like such a library expert looking things up in the Reader's Guide and finding the right piece of film in the cabinet (oh, the information density of that cabinet) and finding the right page of it. I love the internet--but I miss microfilm and microfiche. I really do.

Fairfax County, Virginia, 1998 to now

I got this card while I was dating Dan (he was actually at the library with me that day), and I checked out some books I couldn't name now, except that they're on the book list of the time and they included a book about managing email spam, back in the day when you could get a book contract for a thing like that. (Apropos of nothing, that 1999 book list also includes the date of my first reading of Stardust.)

In 2003, when I was actively participating on dpchallenge.com, I went to this library and checked out a whole stack of things for an idea I had for a speed challenge called “Freedom,” right around the time of the second anniversary of September 11, 2001. I took ninth place with this photo, which is all library books except Harry Potter, and I did not return those library books until late November of that year. I racked up thirty-some dollars in late fees, and I never paid it.

Last year, when I was working at the IMF, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I discovered that this library's website lets you do all sorts of nifty things, like download audiobooks (it's Windows-only, but give it time), but you can only do it if you have a library card in good standing. Which I did not; I couldn't log in. I decided I would finally see the piper and find out how much he wanted to be paid, and I emailed the library. They wrote back that they had no record of my outstanding late fees and my account was only disabled due to inactivity. They reinstated it, and now it's free and clear. I still feel like I owe them thirty-some dollars.

This is post two today.

09/17/07, 23:05:02

I just wanted to finish talking about my weekend. I've recounted most of it to my friends already, but suffice it to say that I'm glad I went to see my uncle and aunt, and of course my parents. We had good breakfasts every day (the last of which I paid for), we had shockingly good Mexican food at a place called El Torito, which is in the middle of freakin' nowhere (you can see their menu here), my aunt can paint her ass off and is a real delight to talk to besides, Scott is well (if a little down at the edges), and ...

And, well, I went to Blacksburg.

I hadn't been back to Blacksburg since I left it in mid-1994. True fact. It was almost overwhelming.

I only spent the early part of the afternoon there, so I guess my day was full. I started with four caches in town, of which this one was by far the best. When I told Lisa about it she knew the cemetery in question, as she used to walk there to get peace from her roommates at the time (who I remember well and who were inexplicable).

There were two I couldn't find, one of which was next to a gas station that happened to be on South Main just across from Backstreets, and the other of which was on a bike/jog trail near the stadium. I parked (illegally, I think) in the stadium lot while I walked up to look for that one, and I looked for a long time, but I just don't have the touch yet.

Parking, perhaps especially on a Sunday after a home game, was impossible, so the driving was stressful and I was only able to snap photos of some of my places (the Underground, Souvlaki, the Lyric, etc.) from the car. But I did okay. Mish-Mish is now a bar, the Balcony is still a bar but has a totally different name, and the other places I wanted to keep an eye out for--namely, the Record Exchange, the cigar store, and the Hokie House, all there in a row at the end of College Avenue--are exactly the same.

It finally occurred to me I could park at the bookstore, so I did. I went in the back by the ATMs, and then I walked up a level and out the other door without even thinking about it, just as though the last time I'd cut through there was yesterday instead of thirteen years ago. I smiled as I walked through the spot where Trina* showed me her then-new tiger tattoo.

The fourth cache was pretty obviously in the War Memorial, so that was easy. I crossed the drillfield road (I forgot and looked both ways, which I always used to do) and went into the chapel, a place I hadn't set foot since Matt's funeral in January of 1993, and signed the guest register (“presented by the class of 1963” and wonderful) in his memory.

For a long time I stood there and watched the drillfield, which was to my delight exactly the same. Yes, there were families up by the new memorial, which is right in front of Burruss under the reviewing stand (which now looks like part of it), but there were still Asian guys playing ultimate Frisbee and white girls smoking cigarettes and everything there was supposed to be. On the sidewalk in front of Burruss I even passed a girl who was wearing pajama pants.

The memorial is very nice, very well maintained and very well attended. I thought I would feel strange taking pictures but I didn't. It felt okay to take pictures. Lots of the students' stones had tickets to the previous day's game tucked next to them, and all the flowers were maroon and orange.

Except for the memorial, and, I guess, the tone, and a new building I glimpsed on what used to be the Prairie, the campus had changed very little. (AJ, by the way, had scaffolding all over the front. I'm not sure if that's a coincidence or some sort of security installation. If it's the latter, why just that hall?) But the town has changed a lot. The whole downtown is full of brand new upscale-looking storefronts with indoor parts, kind of like Reston Town Center but not in that rich unwelcoming way. Most things I remembered were still there, and as I drove around more and more things ended up being exactly where they were supposed to be, but there were new things in between them. I took some pictures, which will be on the photo site soon (maybe tonight), and I'll put comments on them.

*Trina Monis was a pretty serious martial arts and self defense competitor back in college, so I figured I could find her online for you pretty easily and it would become clear to you that her tiger tattoo when she was 20 was pretty awesome. What I found is that she married a guy named Todd in 2002, and that it seems he took her last name, which is spectacular, and that he's running a martial arts school in South Carolina, whose website contains her name but no pictures of her (that I can find). Anyway, Trina was great fun.

There will be three posts in the next several minutes. This is the first one.

09/17/07, 22:37:06

I just have a couple things to get off my chest, picture-wise.

This is Jasper in my dishwasher. The imaginary lolcat caption is “I THINK I SEE UR PROBLEM.”

This is a headline from a May 1942 issue of a Cleveland legal-notices newspaper, which I have because it contains my maternal grandparents' name-change announcement (they changed from his birth father's last name to his stepfather's last name, under which they'd been living for years anyway).

This is how much gunk was rolled around the tiny (read: grain of rice–sized) “up” roller of my wireless Mighty Mouse scroll ball when I finally caved and cracked it open. It works now.

This is how complicated the board game version of World of Warcraft is. It's great.

Sights on the drive to Roanoke

09/14/07, 00:18:09

First, I had dinner in Woodstock, so let's just get that out of the way. Yay for Woodstock.

On I-81 I passed a really strange conglomeration of vehicles. I was coming up from behind them on their right, so I saw the end of the procession first. If that makes sense.

There was a trailer or something being towed. I wasn't paying attention yet, so I don't know what it was, but it said “IN TOW” on it. It was being towed by a big panel truck, with the back door rolled open. Inside this truck was the bed of a pickup truck. Inside the bed of the pickup truck was about the back third of a Civic.

Weird, right?

In front of that truck was another one.

In front of that truck was a pickup truck with most of another pickup truck in the bed. That back window was emblazoned “IN TOW TO HONDURAS.” Then the truck that was towing it.

Then two more pickup trucks, both labeled “IN TOW.” Except they weren't in tow. They were in push. Rigid trailer hitches between each other and between the rear one and the truck.

So bizarre. Theories?

Anyway, I'm at Scott's now, and we'll be going to see some stuff in Blacksburg tomorrow. Then I'll see my parents and uncle and aunt tomorrow evening and spend the rest of the weekend with them.

I left Jasper alone with many, many, many toys, and much, much, much food. I even left the Disney Channel on (he does like to watch TV from time to time). I hope he's okay. I'll pay, of course, with the whining and the crying and the needy when I get back, but I can live with that.

Investigations on Jasper's behalf

09/12/07, 23:22:37

I'm going away for another long weekend, and I'm feeling guilty. He's been slightly destructive lately—nothing irreplaceable has been fully destroyed—and I figure he's tired of his toys and needs new ones, maybe ones with a little more staying power.

So I Googled best cat toys and the first link was this page on About.com. Normally I can't stand About.com, but Adblock makes it much, much more tolerable.

One of the toys on that list is something called the Peek-a-Prize Toy Box. I found this intriguing, because at the very least it would allow me to give Jasper some small toys without having them instantaneously placed under the range or under the refrigerator or at the base of the foyer steps where he refuses to carry them back up. It looked like a cool toy. I was turned off by the reviewer having named her cat “Jaspurr,” of course, but it looked like a cool toy.

Simple, right? But genius, because those holes are barely bigger than paw-sized, and just difficult enough to be intriguing, and once something with a bell or squeaker was inside it'd be irresistible. I couldn't find it online, though, for a price I wanted to pay sight unseen. There is a smaller version available for cheaper, but I was burned by the smaller version of the Crazy Circle, which just isn't as fun as the big one. He likes it, he's just not committed. And the Amazon reviews of the Peek-a-Prize are wildly divergent.

So I made my own. Just to see if he'd be into it.

I know it looks ghetto—it's hard to cut circles, and I guessed really wrong on the size at first and had to recut most of them—but he is deeply into it. Watch this movie. Seriously.

At the end he gets fed up and walks away, right? Except NOT. He went right back. That's happened at least five more times. He stalks away but he can't stay away. He hasn't gotten anything out of it yet but he's been at it for a solid half-hour.

I figure I'll leave it for him for the weekend and order him the real one on Monday.

GOOD TOY.

VPN = very patient network

09/07/07, 17:08:51

I think sometimes people think I'm exaggerating when I complain about how slow my connection to the servers at work are.

That's bad enough, but right before I took that screenshot, its estimate was 423 hours.

The 24-minute estimate, unfortunately, is probably just about spot on.

Various things

09/06/07, 03:25:18

Michele and Keith's daughter Siobhan was born Tuesday morning. I shall be meeting her Thursday evening and will share my oohs and ahhs then. Yay for babies, basically.

Cindy and Angela and I went and saw Once tonight. Delightful movie. I'd like to see it again, mostly because I spent the whole time tensed up fearing something awful was going to happen to the people. The movie is tense, but that's not why, and I'd like to enjoy it more the second time. In any case, the music is just lovely and I think I'm going to download a good bit of it. There are some nice comments on the IMDb board for it; more than one person said they were still thinking about it days or weeks later, like a “movie hangover.” Very apt. There's also a translation of what the girl says to the guy in Czech, and it's precisely what I hoped it was.

The plan for after the movie was to eat at an Afghan place nearby, but they closed at 9, so we drove around the block until we found a place to park, and found ourselves outside a Thai restaurant. It was practically empty, and we did in fact witness a car accident directly outside just before we walked in, but the food was good (though what do I know, I'd never been to a Thai place before). I had some spicy duck thing that I liked (I love duck), and the curry puff appetizers were very tasty, especially with this savory-sweet onion and cucumber oil stuff they came with.

I found a new webcomic I like called pictures for sad children. Here's a panel. It isn't representative of the strip, but I thought it rang true.

One of the blogs I read, one called Flip Flop Flying, had an entry today that reminded me of one of my favorite movie moments. For me, it's the moment he belts out “we could be heroes” that floors me, not the fireworks moment a bit later, but still. Great stuff.

Photoshop CS3 Easter egg

09/03/07, 19:29:16

You know what's funny? Command+About Photoshop, that's what. I had no idea they were still doing this sort of thing.

what, me worry?

09/03/07, 02:25:14

My head has hurt since roughly two weeks ago. With short breaks for sleeping. It does not hurt when I'm in the shower, it does not hurt in the dark (but it's not a migraine), it does not hurt as much when I'm outside or at someone else's house (but it's not Jasper).

There's no correlation to whether I'm wearing my glasses or my contacts, though it's worse when I wear neither.

There's no correlation to whether I've taken my Allegra, the one without the decongestant.

The only thing that makes it go away is Advil Cold & Sinus, The Kind From Before Meth, which is ibuprofen plus pseudoephedrine. Even Excedrin, my caffeinated friend, doesn't do it. Even Lisa's migraine prescription only knocked it back a bit. Even taking regular ibuprofen plus an Allegra D (which has pseudoephedrine, not the new shit), doesn't do it. There's something in the ratio of Advil Cold & Sinus, TKFBM, in those beautiful golden liquid capsules, that does just what my head needs.

I go through about a hundred tissues a day trying to clear my head. After I blow my nose I can breathe perfectly fine, but then it's stuffed up again in about two minutes. What is in there? This summer has been the worst for my allergies in a long time, probably the worst since the summer of the Florida winter of 1994, when I first moved in with Abby, may she rest in peace. I know I got a cat, I know that's a big part of it, but damn. Make it stop.

I have two problems, as I see it. One is that tonight I took my last Advil Cold & Sinus, TKFBM. The other is that if this is some sort of sinus congestion thing, shouldn't this be over by now? Doesn't congestion, you know, end?

HEY. CHECK IT OUT. http://www.advil.com/products/cns/liquigel_label.asp! TKFBM == TKFAM!

I thought I wouldn't be able to buy more! Yay! I want my head to stop hurting, please!

For the record, I also want my cat to stop knocking shit over, and I want my neighbors to stop having "throw things/each other at the wall" parties every night.

I do not want a pony.

Jonathan Coulton at the Birchmere

09/01/07, 02:00:34

I didn't think Jonathan Coulton could fill the Birchmere, but he damn near did. Empty seats here and there in the center section, and more in the wings, but he did well. Good for him.

It was a really fun show. I had a lot more fun with Paul and Storm's set than I usually do; they had one or two new things, which was refreshing, and their asides and comments were raunchier, more topical, and therefore significantly funnier than at Jammin' Java. I suppose the venue counts for a lot. I also noticed, thanks to David and to some snide remarks they made to each other, that Paul does not in fact play his guitar; it's not plugged in, he doesn't strum it, it's a prop. He does play the piano, and at one point the harmonica, but the guitar? Nope.

Storm: “Oops.” Paul: “Ha ha!” Storm: “Hey. How many chords have you played tonight?” Paul: “At least I've fucked up less of them than you have!” Storm: “That's true. Call it even.”

Coulton's set was less energetic at first than Paul and Storm's, but the crowd was absolutely with him, and they'd come prepared. During every monkey song (there are three; he sang two) and during “Octopus” (apparently never played live before), he was pelted with small stuffed animals, many with notes and money pinned on. After “Re: Your Brains” he was pelted with gummy brain candy.

One stuffed animal hit Paul's shoe, and he declared that it touched his foot, so “it's mine now ... no, really, I was just looking for extra toilet paper.” I played the Explainer explaining this joke in the car on the way home. See? Topical and raunchy. Apparently my blasé reaction to them at Jammin' Java all this time was just because they were holding back the blue for a “family” crowd. I can't get over how much better they were tonight. I finally almost understand why the first time I saw them they were the headliner and Coulton was the opening act.

One stuffed monkey had on it four dollars and a note, which read something like “Will you play my bachelor party in exchange for a room in a three-star hotel on the Vegas strip and a $149 daily gambling stipend?” Coulton responded with “let's not discuss this now, send me an email.” To which the thrower called out, “That's the same thing Neil Diamond said!” Following which there was much chuckling about Jonathan Coulton being the guy's second choice.

Following which they played “Sweet Caroline” with no apparent advance planning whatsoever and the entire place went apeshit. (“So good! So good! So good!”) It was awesome.

It was really nice to watch Lisa's and David's faces while these guys were playing. It's so rare that something we do, a subset of our group, is my idea, something I know that I'm sharing. I can't actually think of the last time that happened at all. It feels good. I see why Lisa does it all the time.

And between Paul and Storm's song about Easter and the “Sweet Caroline” serendipity, I'm quite sorry Cindy couldn't come along.

One way Jasper and I are alike

08/31/07, 11:53:43

Photo from Cindy when he stayed at her house in July

neighbors again

08/30/07, 01:35:41

Ohhhhhhh, I'm all creeped out. I mean, I was getting home past 1 am so maybe I have no case for being Grumpy Old Lady, but there were seven of them hanging out on the porch (I'd seen at least three others on the back balcony as I drove up) when I got home.

They are, as I suspected, about nineteen. One greeted me with "hey beautiful," which honestly? I'm closer to your mom's age than yours. Don't pull that. My response was "try to keep it down this time, you guys have been keeping me up all night." I didn't make eye contact. I have no balls. They all muttered "sorry."

For some reason, I then locked my door, came upstairs, and cried into my cat for a minute. I have no idea why I was so shaken by seeing and speaking to these people I've been wishing violence upon for two weeks.

They are not, for the record, keeping it down at all.

I wonder how many of them actually live there.

WHY DO THEY HAVE A PARTY EVERY NIGHT*

*I know the ironic answer to this question. It's because they have the good apartment.

Wrong things go wrong

08/20/07, 15:17:55

New neighbors moved in on Wednesday the 15th. They play BASSBASSBASSBASSBASSBASS type music. I can't even discern the melody or words, so I have no idea what it is. It could be rap. It could be badly equalizered pop. It could be speed metal. All I hear is BASSBASSBASSBASSBASSBASS.

I called the rental office today to complain. Pounding music at two in the afternoon on a Monday is just too much, after they were up having a party until four in the morning Saturday night while Linda [and, perhaps more importantly, Max] was trying to sleep. Seriously, do they work? Are they college students? They're home in the middle of weekdays with friends over, there were five people on their tiny balcony Friday night ... there is no college close enough to here for them to commute to! That is at least a $1400 apartment. Whose job is paying for it?

Anyway, I had to put the complaint in writing (strangely satisfying) and they'll get a lease violation notice. Five days into the lease.

The rear window on the driver's side of my car has broken. It won't stay up. I held it up with duct tape on Friday and Saturday, but the sun melted the tape and the window fell down. At least it doesn't fall fast enough to shatter. I rigged up a better duct tape solution Sunday night, and of course it thunderstormed all last night. No rain in ages, but when my car window is likely to be open, sure, split the heavens.

When the storm started last night, Max had just gone to bed. The first crash of thunder was really close, and just as Lin was saying “please don't wake up Max, please don't wake up Max,” someone's goddamn car alarm started going off. He didn't wake up, but honestly, who can blame him if he had?

Arriving home from Jo's party yesterday I found two—not one, two—sets of yellow pages and white pages in Verizon bags on my doorstep. TWO. Who needs two? Also? I don't have a phone line.

Then I discovered ANOTHER SET by my back door. They're all going straight to the trash. What a complete environmental travesty. Who the hell uses a phone book anymore? Who the hell needs six of them ever?

Bag problems

08/14/07, 00:53:35

I need a tiny little bag to hold ... personal items ... in my purse. I have a tiny Crown Royal bag I usually use, but the drawstring broke like two years ago, and it just doesn't work, and I can't find anything else. Tonight I was in the process of moving between purses, because most of the beads have come off that Old Navy one and over the last two weekends of outdoor activities I was using my new Coke backpack, and neither of those is really suited to things like going out to dinner at Corduroy on Friday, which we are totally doing.

So I decided to go back to my square brown purse, which I love, because it's bigger inside than it is outside, and I started looking through my bags for something to replace the Crown Royal bag. And I discovered I have a problem.

In the front hall, waiting to be unpacked from the COF-a-Que, are the Coke backpack, a big orange beach bag, and the shockingly useful blue velvet bag I got for nearly free from Dove.

Upstairs in the hall closet are two Strand bags, the blue beaded purse I bought at the Chelsea flea market in June, the giant teal bag I also bought that day, the black Coach wristlet that was my bridesmaid gift, the brown leather drawstring purse I barely use except for the renaissance festival, a ridiculous safari print camera bag, my old black leather computer bag, much actual luggage, and nothing useful to me just now.

Downstairs in the closet under the stairs are my Ecuadorian bag, the blue fake-alligator bag I won at Timber's baby shower, the black clutch I bought for Cindy's wedding, the rainbow bag containing my bowling shoes, several plastic bags from the Apple store, my beautiful red leather Levenger briefcase, my beautiful orange Levenger totebag that smells kind of funny, my computer bag, my computer sleeve, my keyboard case, a craft-store totebag containing a long-idle cross-stitch project, and goodness knows what else.

Out in the storage closet on the deck are an ancient reversible cloth bag, a green Perry Ellis America wallet I thought was great when I was about 19, a tiny totebag from a 1980s visit to Harborplace that would do fine if it closed, my canvas beach bag with the bamboo handles that I got for free, more actual luggage, and a milk crate containing my first Coach purse, a terrible suede wallet from the 70s with mushrooms painted on it, a pebbled plastic totebag with a map print on it that I loved so much I repaired the strap with staples, and a computer backpack I don't remember obtaining.

And probably more, because I did all that from memory.

I don't quite know what to do. Every one of those purses and bags has a usefulness to it, except maybe the ones out in that milk crate, and almost every one of them has some associated memories.

But not one of them fits my needs today. So I think—and I hate this—I need yet another bag. At least I have options to replace the one that broke.

In related news, while I was reaching into each one of these bags looking for a smaller bag, I kept finding stuff. I found a quarter. I found the shoulder strap to my favorite suitcase. And I found a receipt.

From Disneyland.

STARDUST

08/10/07, 22:32:40

Wonderful movie. Funny, and scary, and surprising, and just consistently entertaining and compelling.

Please go see it. You can't go wrong. It's got something for everyone. If you doubt that a movie marketed as half adventure, half fairy tale, and half romance can be all these things and those above, the movie will prove itself to you. Unlike the book, it never once mentions the word “fairy,” or even the word “Faerie.” So you needn't worry it's too fantasy for you. The Robert DeNiro character is hilarious, and if you've ever enjoyed seeing him do comedy, or thought it might be nice to see him swordfighting, this is your movie. I can't even tell you what the funniest thing he does is, as it ruins the surprise. Ricky Gervais is in it! Rupert Everett is in it! Peter O'Toole is in it!

I can't remember the last movie I saw with no boring parts. I can't remember the last movie I enjoyed so much. It's just so good.

Social meoworking

08/08/07, 00:43:29

Join the Catster community

This is why I still read Dilbert every day

08/07/07, 12:18:18

I'm sure it's the same reason anyone does. Because every so often, it's about my job.

From the department of “I could've done that”

08/03/07, 23:20:03

Posted today on I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER:

Posted last week on my photo site:

Cast iron pan

08/03/07, 20:16:19

When Lisa and I were on our way to Bethany Memorial Day weekend we stopped at a really good yard sale in Bridgeville, Delaware. Had we had the van we probably would have left with some wood and glass storage furniture (all of which, by the way, looked brand new), but all I bought was a small Lodge cast iron skillet for $3.

Today I finally got around to seasoning it!

I followed the instructions found here:
http://www.curbly.com/Chrisjob/posts/1673-Salvage-and-Season-Cast-Iron-Cookware

with a few exceptions. For instance, I used a trash bag, not a grocery bag, to soak it in the sun (and overnight) outside covered in oven cleaner. I couldn't find any fine sandpaper in the house and I'm out of Brillo pads, so I used my trusty brass wire brush to get the minimal rust out. I coated the pan with butter instead of the other solid fats listed; I refuse to buy a whole tub of shortening for such a tiny job, and I couldn't find lard in the store.

Here are some things I learned from this process.

A cast iron pan left in the sun all morning will be hot to the touch. Wear oven mitts.
Oven cleaner kind of stings a little. Wash your hands thoroughly and try not to think about lye. You're scared of lye ever since you saw Fight Club.
When they say “put the exhaust fan on high” before you burn a bunch of salt and oil on the stove, they really mean “turn off the smoke detectors, open windows, bring the air cleaner downstairs, turn on the air conditioner, and put the exhaust fan on high.” You and your cat will freak out otherwise, as the house will fill with smoke and there will be a lot of beeping.
Kosher salt soaked in canola oil can, in fact, catch on fire, and will do so spectacularly.
I want more cast iron pans.

I just realized I haven't even defrosted anything to cook in the damn skillet for dinner, so when it comes out of the oven in a couple of hours I won't even be able to use it right away. Maybe Sunday.

My weekend in Parma

07/31/07, 00:19:54

(I don't know if you know, but I went with Jackie, the daughter of my paternal grandmother's sister, and her son Shaughn [Four of Seven] to visit her parents [my grandmother's sister and her husband] this weekend. There are other names in here: Margaret is the wife, Jack is the husband, Meg is One of Seven, Grady was Margaret and my grandmother's second-oldest brother [Two of Nine], Sport [a nickname] was their brother Henry [Five of Nine], Steve is Jackie's husband. Margaret and Jack have lived in the same house since roughly 1951.)

We left around 8 am and got there around 3 pm. Jackie has the drive down to a science, knows exactly the best places to stop, and so on. Shaughn was the only one with us, and it had been a year since he was there, but he knew the route too. I offered to drive but she didn't take me up on it.

The house looks exactly the same as the last time I saw it twelve years ago! Jack & Margaret look a little the worse for wear, as you'd expect, but honestly not as bad as I had feared. Jack sits in a wheelchair because it's easier to get in and out of than the sofas, but he walks around the house. He uses a walker Steve got him, but he moves fairly easily, and he gets in and out of the car and the house just fine. Margaret uses a cane outside the house and a walker sometimes in the house. Her knee seems to be really bothering her, but she didn't seem to have any trouble bending to pick things up, and sitting/getting up.

Jackie took the shopping list and went to the grocery store, and Shaughn and I stayed to visit. The pictures from the wedding, and especially (surprisingly) the picture and stories of Jasper, were a big hit. Shaughn had been reading “Flags of Our Fathers” in the car as part of his summer reading for school (going into 9th grade) and he became a little obsessed with Iwo Jima. He got all kinds of stories from them about things that happened during the war. We also got lots of stories of the Butlers. Margaret kept saying that Jeff's picture, especially the profile, looked just like her brother Grady, and Shaughn is just like Sport.

Jack doesn't seem to be able to see much of anything; he moves around the house with familiar ease but I'm not sure he can actually SEE the house. He cups his hands over his ears to hear, and Jackie told me yesterday that she and Steve have tried to get him to consider hearing aids but he hates the idea.

But I was heartened to see that both of them are completely ... I'm not sure what the word is, the opposite of dementia. The sense of humor is still there (I do so like to make people laugh and I was able to), the stories come out, they aren't forgetting people's names. Jackie and I agreed, after seeing it happen (Steve's dad, two of my grandparents), that it is better for everyone that her mom and dad have the problems they do, as opposed to suffering through Alzheimer's.

It was a couple of hours before Jackie got back from the supermarket. She apparently does this every time; the fridge upstairs and the freezer downstairs (Margaret can still do the basement stairs, apparently, though I didn't see it happen) are stuffed with easy-to-make things (frozen pizza, steakumms, etc.) and baked goods. I could have quite happily lived there! Jackie forgot a few things that weren't on the list and I offered to go out and get them. Shaughn went with me. I was planning to fill the car up with gas while I had it, but Jackie had beaten me to it. $2.57 a gallon in Parma. I wanted to fill the trunk!

We went out to dinner. Guess where. Did you guess Red Lobster? Because I saw that coming. Shaughn rolled his eyes, doesn't like seafood, but came along gamely and ordered a steak! I had snow crab legs and a beer. No one would let me pay, but I tried. We sat and talked some more, and I was very tired so I went to bed barely later than Jack did, maybe 9 pm. I slept in what I remember being the playroom, Jackie in the guest room, and Shaughn on the sofa.

I was repeatedly invited to Mass but declined. When they got back around 11:30 on Sunday, Jackie and I went out to Subway and got lunch for everyone (this is also apparently part of the routine for these visits). Jack had asked her to get an anniversary card for Margaret (“something with a lot of words”), so we went to Walgreens on our way back with the sandwiches and read them *all* before finding one that seemed to fit. We had apple pie for dessert, and then Jackie went through the mail and the bills and whatnot with Margaret (again, routine).

We left around 1:30 on Sunday. Traffic was pretty bad on I-70. We were stuck at one point and went about a mile and a half in two hours. Shaughn was bummed because the other boys were going to go see the Simpsons movie last night and couldn't wait long enough for him to get home. I was able to get online from the car and figure out where and what the delay was. It was close, so we didn't bother trying to go around, and the traffic was fine the rest of the way.

We got back to Gaithersburg around 9, and I got home around 10.

In other news, Meg cut her hair, way up to about chin level. It's so thick and wavy that it's hard to tell how long it really is. She donated the rest of it to Locks of Love, the cancer-wig cause. We agreed as how those guys were probably pretty happy to see her hair walk in. It looks really cute short. I don't think it's been that short since she was very small.

Maybe this is more information than you wanted. Sorry. I'm glad I went, anyway.

Pictures of Jeff

07/28/07, 01:14:34

Here's a picture I've had on the wall for years. It's from the summer my dad first grew his mustache, which he still has. I look at it a lot because even then, at the age of not-quite-seven, I crossed my arms and smirked instead of smiling. I look at this and try to remember not to do that. That's my grandmother next to my dad. Click the picture to see it larger.

Here's a much later picture of Jeff. This one was in with the rolls from the last couple days of high school. I was looking through those yesterday for a specific reason (I'll be posting those specific ones soon) and found this at the end. So it was late June, 1991. Jeff was finishing up his freshman year.

He had a different fashion sense then. I love this picture.

Things I've thought about today that've made me happy

07/26/07, 23:30:38

The “Lift 'n' Peel” cap under the screw cap on squeeze bottles of things like mayo and jelly and salad dressing.

The tattoos on the girl who cuts my hair.

Jasper has begun picking things up in his mouth and carrying them to other places, which I didn't realize he wasn't doing until just last week. This morning I found a toy upstairs that I know was downstairs. This toy is as long as Jasper's whole body (it's a ball on a spring). Later, I saw him carry it out from under a chair.

As always, Sophia is learning such cool stuff in Montessori school.

There was a guy on The Price Is Right today wearing a Toledo Mud Hens jersey.

I changed an annoying light bulb (it requires standing on a chair at the top of the stairs) and washed my down comforter.

Greendimes must work: I haven't gotten any junk mail in weeks.

I love the Discovery Channel.

07/25/07, 02:34:58

Today I did some laundry, took a bath, played with the cat, did some work, played Wii baseball, vacuumed the upstairs hall, cleaned the whole litterbox area, and took the trash out. This means it's OKAY for me to talk about television for the next nine paragraphs.

Lately I find that when I look at what's recorded on my DVR, it's Dirty Jobs, MythBusters, and the other nonfiction stuff I snap up first.

This is for when I actually want to watch something. “Filler TV” is different. I record Friends and The Price Is Right and Home Improvement and NewsRadio every day, because I don't like the stony silence of having nothing on, and because since my job involves words I find it hard to pay attention to what I'm working on while listening to iTunes (which is mostly NPR podcasts—listening to music feels like I'm not accomplishing anything).

But if there's one time I love the Discovery Channel more than other times, it's the end of July. Because it's the start of Shark Week.

Allow me to share with you what I'm seeing as I page through the onscreen program guide for this weekend.

Saturday is a Deadliest Catch marathon. I'm recording the last show of the opilio season, which I somehow missed, and a behind-the-scenes show.

Sunday, the madness begins at nine o'clock in the goddamn morning and goes for twelve hours:

Paradise for Predators: Sharks of Palau
Future Shark
Summer of the Shark
Dive to Shark Volcano (I have to record this just because of the title)
Sharks in a Desert Sea (ditto)
Perfect Shark
Robo Shark
Anatomy of a Shark Bite (very glad I watched this 3–4 years ago and never have to see it again, because oh my god that dude's leg)
Jaws of the Pacific (breaking the streak, this title does not include the word shark)
10 Deadliest Sharks (I don't have to watch this, because the onscreen description reads, in its entirety: “Tiger; horn; white; lemon; blue; gray reef; oceanic whitetip; hammerhead; mako; bull.”)
Air Jaws: Sharks of South Africa

Is that not awesome? I think that's awesome.

We arrive, then, at nine in the evening, which is the “official” start of Shark Week, with OCEANS OF FEAR: THE WORST SHARK ATTACK EVER. This is, of course, about the sinking of the Indianapolis, which you can read about on Wikipedia, and which has fascinated me ever since I first looked it up during about my fifth viewing of the scene in Jaws where Quint talks about floating in the sea for three days. I honestly can't wait to watch this show.

Anyway, that's two hours, and then the madness continues at eleven, with American Shark, followed by repeats of Air Jaws and Oceans of Fear. At three in the morning they go back to paid programming.

I love the Discovery Channel.

(The only thing I don't love about the Discovery Channel is their continued insistence on telling me to put a “forward slash” in web addresses. I HAVE BEEN TYPING IN WEB ADDRESSES FOR ELEVEN YEARS. I KNOW NOT TO USE A BACKSLASH.)

(I suppose it could be worse. Today, today I tell you, in this day and age, I heard a radio commercial telling me to put a backslash in a web address. What's wrong with people? What's wrong with the word SLASH?)

Geocaching is awesome

07/23/07, 14:21:40

Look, it's my parents, live from the University of Montana!

The webcam is user-controllable, which is really cool.
I could see them while they were talking to me, which was really creepy.

http://www.umt.edu/grizcam/

Seven AM

07/22/07, 07:16:13

I haven't stayed up all night to finish a book since ... well, okay, it's only been since Order of the Phoenix, but still.

It was the very last part that got me. When I saw that divider page is when the wracking sobs got under way.

(he's insane. just ask my friends.)

07/17/07, 20:01:01

I just put some tea tree oil astringent on my feet (I know it's weird, but I was putting some on my face and it felt nice and cool so I put some other places too) and Jasper has been chasing me trying to get at it. He wants—very badly—to lick my foot.

How on earth could tea tree oil astringent taste good?

Illiterate Americans, volume 94

07/17/07, 12:33:43

If one more commercial offers me one more SNEAK PEAK—apparently some sort of secret, private mountaintop—I will resume my weeping for the future of the English language. How hard is it to understand that “sneak peek” actually makes sense and is right, even though the words are not spelled the same?! This is the same problem as, though much more rampant than, the phrase “tye dye.”

PEOPLE.

IT IS OKAY FOR WORDS TO RHYME EVEN IF THEY ARE SPELLED DIFFERENTLY.

SERIOUSLY.

Blind drawing

07/16/07, 23:24:57

I really enjoyed this quick rundown of '40s comic artists drawing their characters while blindfolded.

http://a-hole-in-the-head.blogspot.com/2007/07/eyes-wide-shut-in-1947-life-magazine.html

When we were in high school, Nicole and I used to play a drawing game that's kind of the opposite of this. I remember doing this on the bus for a New York field trip, and on at least one other occasion.

One person has a pencil and paper, and the other person can't see it. The second person gives precise instructions, a line or curve or shape at a time, and the first person follows them, drawing what she's instructed to draw. At the end, the artist has to guess what it is she's just drawn.

Sometimes it's easy, especially if you tell the person to draw a car, or a letter, or a simple face, but sometimes (like if you try to introduce perspective or anything with an S-curve) the results are hysterical and completely unguessable.

I remember it being really fun.

Succinct.

07/15/07, 21:40:50

In other news, there are some July photos on the photo site already. We played Wii games at David and Lisa's last night, and today Deborah and I went to the Air and Space museum. This is my third visit, and every time there are new things. I suppose that's just the advantage of a new museum, but it's nice that it feels dynamic.

They're also showing Order of the Phoenix on the IMAX screen there. Were it not for the $12 parking, I'd be all over that.

Because I have left you all without an account of my adventures in June and early July, I am now giving you my itinerary for late July and August. At least you can get a little news ahead of time this way.

Friday, July 20th, at 11:30 pm, we are going to a Buffy singalong.

Saturday, July 21st, Deathly Hallows arrives at my door around 10 in the morning. At 3 pm, I have a haircut/highlighting appointment. I do not believe I can finish the book in that window.

The weekend of July 28th, I'm going to Cleveland with my cousin to visit her parents. The way she's talking, it's important for people to visit her parents (she's been sending all the kids at least once each over the summer and has made sure someone's there at least every other week until Meg gets back to school in August). Jeff and Lisa were there not long ago. So I think I ought to go, and Jackie's been asking for a long time if I want to, and now we're going weekend after next. At least this way I don't have to drive. I hope at least some of the kids, maybe the little girls, will want to go the same weekend I do.

Shark Week begins on the 29th with a special about the Indianapolis sinking. You know, the ship the old guy in Jaws was on!

Saturday, August 4th, we're going to Six Flags for Lisa's company picnic, then that evening is the symphony and Warner Bros. cartoons (“Bugs Bunny on Broadway”) at Wolf Trap. Long day.

The Stardust movie comes out on August 10th. Julie (and probably Paul, I guess) is coming to visit that weekend.

Saturday the 11th is the COF-a-que.

Monday, August 13th, is Josie's fourth birthday. We're going to see Casablanca on the big Screen on the Green screen that evening.

There will be a birthday party for Josie on the 18th.

I have a facial scheduled for the 24th.

On the 31st, Jonathan Coulton is playing the Birchmere. Cannot wait. Way to hit the big time!

A tiny aside

07/11/07, 23:16:25

It's not a real entry, okay? Don't guilt me.

I spent four days in New York. Then we went and saw Lyle. Then we went to the beach for a week. Roughly in that order. The photos are up on the photo site. I'm completely wiped out, and I'm very glad I don't need to travel again until September, when I go down past Blacksburg to see my parents and uncle and the Charles Vess exhibit in Abingdon.

Jasper is completely insane. I didn't believe Cindy when she said this, but it is true. I don't know that he wasn't insane before he lived at her house for a week, but he probably was. All week he hasn't slept for more than a couple hours at a time, and his vertical leap has definitely improved. He still won't let me out of his sight.

The aside is that I made myself a Simpsons character, and that amuses me. Show me you.

One of my favorite pictures from New York

06/29/07, 00:57:41

And my favorite picture from MoMA.

(the new room they have the waterlilies in is such a huge improvement I can't even believe it)

Traveling makes me tired!

06/25/07, 20:17:11

I'm sorry I haven't been keeping you abreast of things. My brother got successfully married. We had fun. I've told my proximate friends a million stories. I haven't the energy to tell them again here. We went to New York this weekend and just got back. Again, I don't have the energy to tell the stories, and again, they are many. When I get all the pictures online I will try to put explanatory text on them. You look at the pictures, right?

Jasper is fine. I left him alone this weekend (except for a visit from Alan that I'm pretty sure happened on Sunday because he brought in my paper and moved my flowerpot and turned off the faucet I'd left dripping) and when I got home—and up to about five minutes ago—he freaked the hell out. But he's fine.

Here, for the time being, is a list of states visited by me (on the ground only; flyovers don't count, but layovers and train stops do) solely in the month of June. States where I will have slept are in bold.

Virginia
Arizona
California
Nevada
North Carolina
Virginia
District of Columbia
Maryland
Delaware
New Jersey
New York
New Jersey
Delaware
Maryland
District of Columbia
Virginia
North Carolina

There's a wedding tomorrow.

06/16/07, 02:03:55

Zero days, six hours, nine minutes, fifty-one seconds. This widget has been counting down for a while now. I believe there's a screenshot of it from several weeks ago on the blog someplace. I'll leave finding that as an exercise for the reader.

I have the flu, have had since shortly after arriving in California on Tuesday, and I feel like death warmed over most of the time. Once the Theraflu kicks in, and I fall asleep, I'm good. I wake up, I take more Theraflu, and I fall asleep again. I haven't slept less than twelve hours a night since I got here. Tonight will be less, because I have to be up and around in time to meet Lisa and the other bridesmaids at the salon at 11.

During the day, I take Dayquil, but the times between the Theraflu wearing off and the Dayquil kicking in are bad, bad times indeed. I'm supplementing my diet with Zicam rapid-melts (“shortens the duration”), but I'm not sure it's making a difference. I'm also taking an Allegra-D every day, because I am a decongestant racist. I firmly believe that the dextromethorphan in Dayquil doesn't work, and that the phenylephrine in Theraflu doesn't work, and that the pseudoephedrine in Allegra-D does work. Bless two-years-ago me for laying in a supply of a prescription decongestant.

We had the rehearsal today. I'm only about sixty-seven percent confident of my ability to do things properly. I'm the first one down the aisle, you see, and I'm not completely clear on where to stand. It's also going to be dastardly hot.

The rehearsal dinner was delicious, with good service and nice table karma. Everyone in the wedding (I'd only met the best man, the maid of honor, and one of the groomsmen before this week) seems just positively lovely and delightful. Lisa's family are all lovely and delightful. My parents' friends (including Nicole and Michele's parents, who I can't believe came) are lovely and delightful.

It is exhausting.

The best thing I did today was to spend an hour in the pool and whirlpool after dinner. I had the whole place completely to myself, and it was great. For a while I felt like I wasn't sick, I never had been sick, and the world was quiet and wet and soft and light.

Today's funniest thing

06/06/07, 00:08:00

Herewith, an IM log.

Elaine, 10:41
I AM going to leave you and go watch tv on the sofa, though

Bill, 10:43
sniff

Elaine, 11:31
0.0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

11:31 11111..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Bill, 11:32
hi jasper

Elaine, 11:32
1.

11:32
0.\.

11:58
+-----------------------------------------------------------------777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777774+

11:58
holy god I'm so sorry

11:58
excuse me while I laugh my ass off at the cat IMing you

Photo page = 100% up to date

06/03/07, 22:07:28

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately. You may wish to peruse them.

Memorial Day weekend, for instance, Lisa and I went to the beach. You can see pictures of that.

Last week, I got a kitten. There are pictures of him. On this page, you can even see a video of his shenanigans.

Thursday night, we went and saw Huey Lewis and the News in concert at Wolf Trap. Delight in the blur.

Should you choose not to peruse the pictures now, you are setting yourself up to be BEHIND very soon. For in only nine days, I leave for a week in California. Two days after I get back, I'm borrowing Deborah's SLR, and that will cause the pictures you see posted to improve in quality in time for our trip to New York, which starts three days later. Five days after my return from New York, I (and the SLR, still) will be leaving for a week in the Outer Banks, and there will surely be photographs taken there.

July is slightly more hazy. There's more coming in August, though. Josie's turning four. The COF-a-Que comes around again, featuring the new team name, “Grill on Grill Action.” My very favorite movie is being played on the Mall. And Lin wants to go back to the beach—again.

I also hear there's supposed to be a wedding in Philadelphia in early September.

Message from Jasper

06/01/07, 21:32:14

The cat has a name. Also, he would like to be where my hands are. To wit:

ffffffffffffffffffg lllllll7\
llllllllllllll------------------------------

|-} ;...................................ÓÁˆkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll ∫ˆ••¶¶••••••••••••••••••¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶ˆ

where ARE you

05/31/07, 15:09:54

I can't find the cat. He is missing. I suppose he will emerge when he is hungry.

There are pictures of him, from back before I lost him.
http://www.kostia.net/photo/

But in looking for the cat, I DID find my old cell phone, which I reported missing and filed an insurance claim for and got replaced six months ago.

update, he showed, still no clue where he was

News flash

05/23/07, 13:20:54

Diet Coke Plus tastes like crap.

That is all.

April 13, 1945

05/22/07, 01:35:03

In my cleaning and tidying today, I came across a small journal I hadn't read in a long time. My grandmother wrote a few letters to my mother in it when she was a baby. There isn't a lot in it, maybe ten or twelve entries all told, but there's one that stands out in a big way. It's the only one that mentions anything happening outside their home and family.

When history is happening to you, around you, you may not realize your time will be remembered. The war was still on, even in Europe, in April. Much of the journal is written the way you'd write to a baby, explaining things in simple terms, without realizing the baby will of course be an adult when she reads it. The way she wrote here about the news of the day is as though my mother, reading it decades later, wouldn't know these things had happened. It's odd and charming. Also charming is how she wrote last names (Hoover, Landon, and so on) and filled in “Mr.” afterward, so as not to be disrespectful.

April 13, 1945 - Friday

For 2 weeks we have looked forward to Friday the 13th of April—you would be 11 months old. The day came and almost went without our remembering—The news which came over the radio yesterday late afternoon shocked us too much to remember anything else. Our beloved President of the United States died at 4:35 Washington time—3:35 P.M. Cleveland time. He was the peoples choice by a wide majority for 4 terms. Never before has a President been elected for 4 presidential terms. Mr. Roosevelt was a humanitarian—he catered to the little man—the poor people—taxed big business to give to the worker. The first time he won against Mr. Hoover—neither your Dad nor I voted for him. Mostly because we were Republicans and he was a Democrat. The second election in 1936 against Mr. Landon your Dad was for him—I against. Your Dad felt he had helped him by giving the worker higher wages and shorter hours. From then on we were both for him.

War came to Europe and we knew we would eventually be in it. President Roosevelt was a politician and a fighter. He got what he wanted and made many changes in our government. Much criticism was given him for his spending so freely on his projects—ran the national debt into the billions—but for the war he couldn't be equalled—he forsaw what was coming and fought for preparation when the isolationists couldn't see beyond their noses.

His idea was for regimentation—which for postwar worried many of us—he wanted everyones wages to be on a scale—price of goods on a scale—the same job and same merchandise would be the same price—that way good workers & poor workers on the same job would get the same salary. After this last election many worried that we would be communistic and lose our freedom. With his death I believe all these fears are over.

Harry Truman is soft spoken—easily led, I believe, but do not feel will destroy our way of life. It is too bad Mr. Roosevelt could not have lived to write the peace—he would have been more firm. We may have another war in 20 years now because of Mr. Roosevelt dying before the Axis were brought to their knees. Mr. Roosevelt was working toward permanent peace.

I am so glad you are a girl—maybe we can keep you with us if there should be another war. I dread thinking about war—because it is awful.

You are sweeter than ever—now at 11 months you are so much fun. I love you—Susan, dear.

The next entry is two years later, in May of 1947. The next is a year after that, when my uncle was a baby. Then nothing for fifteen years, until November 3, 1963, when my mother was nineteen. It ends with the words “Maybe if luck holds out I will live long enough to see both my children happily married—then my job is done.”

I wish people could READ

05/20/07, 23:05:31

There's an Op-Ed piece about copyright in the Times today by one of my favorite authors, Mark Helprin, he of (off the top of my head) Winter's Tale, Memoir from Antproof Case, A Soldier of the Great War, Refiner's Fire, Ellis Island, A Dove of the East, and the wonderful Swan Lake trilogy. Whether one agrees or not with his case for perpetual copyright, one could at least pay him the courtesy of spelling his motherfucking name right. So far today, both BoingBoing and Slashdot have called him “Mark Halprin.” BoingBoing also called him an “SF novelist” and for some reason put an “A” onto the start of the name of my favorite book.

Winter's Tale is a wonderful thing, one of those stories you want never to end, fast-paced and daring and magic, happening all at once, nearby and nowhere. But if it is science fiction I'll eat my hat. Has no one but me and Nancy Pearl noticed that Americans can write magical realism too?
Update: BoingBoing fixed their spelling, but still has the name of the novel wrong. A Winter's Tale is a Shakespeare play. Winter's Tale is a Mark Helprin novel.

READING IS EASY. DO IT.

Update on the Being-On-Fire Situation

05/20/07, 20:20:00

More stuff has left via Freecycle. Even the bed frame tomorrow, as despite my “offer” going unnoticed last week, a “wanted” was posted today. I picked up some nice baskets from someone else; I gave one to Lisa and kept one that's just lovely and will work as a hamper, off-season sock storage (yes, this is a problem that I have), or even an extra seat.

I got a shoe rack at Ikea. It looks and works perfectly fine. Better than the Pile O'Shoes method, anyway. The curtains in the guest room are up (and hemmed, even) and look just terrific. Just really, really great. I'm thrilled. The little finials on the rods really complete the package. I also ripped out the little soapdish and toothbrush holder in my bathroom and put up a glass shelf instead. That also looks like a million bucks if you don't look too closely at the spackle behind it.

As soon as the people come and take away the desk, I'll be able to make room in that room for the entertainment/storage cabinet from Lisa's basement. Once that's in, I'll be able to get rid of the thrift-store nightstand that's currently serving as a server rack and the square foot of floor that's serving as reference book storage. Then I'll reinflate the guest bed and put it up on its stand and make it up as a real bed.

Also I brought the Death Spikes downstairs and set it/them up under my actual desk where it/they should have been for years now.

Current hurdles to be got over include what to do with the random stuff (not pens, not files, not computer parts) that was in the desk and what to do with the dollhouse (it's so frigging big). I also need to strip and recycle my old desktop computer and CRT monitor and finally hang the Harry Potter poster in my room (a project I gave up on a few months ago in profane frustration). Then I'll be able to move on to a new project, which will probably involve cleaning out closets.

It's all so exciting and so very satisfying. I've never gotten much satisfaction from cleaning (I belong to the school of “it'll just get dirty again tomorrow”), but I am getting it from this.

Face Transform

05/18/07, 02:16:20

This is a really neat toy.

Here are some of the less-unflattering things it did to me.

Mucha (like this; I wish this had come out better, as I've always loved his work)

Manga (like this; I love my little chipmunk mouth here)

Modigliani (like this; this is by far my favorite)

The transform “Masculinise” was also shockingly good at turning me into a (rather startlingly square-headed) dude. The others really suffered from the fact that in the original picture I'm smiling and wearing glasses.

Things I Have Done Since Last We Spoke Of Me Being Afire

05/17/07, 22:43:36

I emptied my old computer desk (see below) and consolidated all my pens and pencils (except see below) into one box. It is an amazing box. I cleaned out everything in front of the bookcases in my living room and made room for my new Ikea drop-leaf dining table, which I finished putting together. I took everything that isn't books out of the bookcases and put it in the trash, in the drawers in the new table, or in the storage closet outside. I put all my videotapes in the storage closet outside. I emptied the box of books that'd been in the corner for four years into the bookcases. I put the Series of Unfortunate Events display in the corner, after searching the house for the missing book 6 and finding it mysteriously in the display, behind book 13. I blamed two-time visitor and age-appropriate series fan Erin for this. I put together my new Ikea rolling filing cabinet/supplemental desk thingie and filled it. I moved the tiny end table I used to keep there to a different spot at the foot of the stairs, where it's now a landing strip. I threw away most everything that was in that spot before. I consolidated all the for-sale Lego into one bin and put it in Max's corner. I moved the dining chair that was there to the new dining table.

I threw away a ton of hair and skin products and consolidated what was left in the vanity into nifty new storage boxes. I used Clorox wipes and the brilliant, brilliant Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to make both my bathrooms look pretty much new. You wouldn't believe what a Magic Eraser can do to a cheap chrome faucet. I put all the loose computer stuff on the record-and-photo cart (it's a real thing, it just doesn't have a name beyond its function) into a cool antique wooden box I forgot I had. I pulled all the [redacted] off the [redacted] for Lisa and Cindy's Christmas present project and put them in a pretty flowerpot I forgot I had. I packed up the meat hook to mail to Jeff, after thinking and rethinking trying to get it onto an airplane next month.

I dusted. A lot. The Pledge duster with the spray in the handle works better than the dry Swiffer duster on wood and laminate. The dry Swiffer works better on cobwebs and on plastic (including electronics) and glass. Neither one works worth a damn on the floor around the washing machine, which was awful and required me on the floor with a sock over my hand. And a preemptive apology to the sock.

I partially assembled the crib. I realized I had thrown away both the hex wrenches that had come with my new Ikea furniture, and the correct size hex bit was missing from my toolbox. I asked David to borrow a hex wrench, and he couldn't find any of his. I went to the hardware store and bought a new set (on the same trip, incidentally, I picked up a copper pitcher from a Freecycle person for Lisa). I finished assembling the crib. The next day, I found my hex bit, plus a second hex wrench I didn't know I owned. Awesome.

I gave away many things on Freecycle. I cannot recommend Freecycle highly enough. My computer desk is leaving next week, destined for a high school student whose room is full of boxes because the desk he'd had since kindergarten finally fell apart this year. Already gone are my miniatures cabinet (for which I apologize to my parents, who schlepped it here with great care, but it went to someone who wanted it more), a bunch of colored pencils and chalk and such, all the VHS movies I've replaced with DVDs, a set of drawer pulls I bought without realizing they didn't fit my dresser, a bag of K'nex toys I got at a garage sale and never played with, and a Brita water pitcher filter dating from the time I had, you know, a Brita water pitcher.

I installed one of the glass shelves I bought at Ikea, using the awesome-sauce cable shelf bracket kit I got as a gift a couple of years ago. The design award-winning cable shelf bracket kit. Whose design genius I understand completely as of today. If it wasn't such a pain in the ass to do this sort of thing with my weak-ass electric screwdriver, I'd take it apart and reinstall it just to marvel at how smart it is. I put all my Eeyores on the shelf. They're temporary tenants until I can convince myself the shelf is as strong as the bracket instructions say it is. [Seventy-five pounds on two screws, only one of which is in a stud? Really? I think I'll use it for stuffed animals for a bit first.]

I took the special riser legs (“extra storage space”) off my queen bed frame and stored them and disassembled it. I also listed my queen bed frame on Freecycle, but no one wanted it. Bastards. No one wanted the few pieces of silverplate I didn't want to keep, either.

I also have the following things listed on Freecycle right now: my collection of mouse pads, minus a few special favorites; those cool useless-to-me long skinny boxes I got at the ReStore years ago; and the wooden “e” and “w”-that-looks-like-an-“E” I used to display on my desk.

Tomorrow evening I'm going back to Ikea, partly because it's an excuse to go see Lin and Max and partly because my Giant Brain forgot that you need two sets of finials—not one—to finish two curtain rods, and you need two sets of curtain-rod-mounting hardware—not the zero I bought—to put them up. I'm also returning the other glass shelf upon learning that the awesome-sauce cable kits (I have another one) are designed for slightly thicker shelves. They come with little spacers, but I used both sets to put up the first shelf, so the second shelf is going to need to be thicker.

Near-future projects include actually mailing that box to Jeff, finding more things to give away, lowering the prices on all my Lego in hopes of moving it faster, and reinstalling Office on my main computer because I am a masochist.

Scrabble variation

05/15/07, 13:48:19

Last night we played Scrabble using only proper nouns.

It was shockingly difficult. Lisa won, having come out to an early and dramatic lead when she used GABE (as in Kotter) to make MIR (the space station) into MIRA (Sorvino) and FRY (from Futurama) into FRYE (Cameron), for something like a billion points. She also did well later in the game with GUZA (a writer on a soap opera or some damn thing), with the Z on a triple-letter score. QUARK also worked well for her. I think my best word was either GOOGLE or BORAX.

Slight design change

05/13/07, 11:45:48

The orange color of this blog (and of much else in my life) is sampled from the butterfly that is the application icon for Adobe InDesign CS2, my favorite tool.

It's a nice butterfly. I like the secondary colors blending together. Orange and purple (and green) are more interesting than red and blue and yellow.

But InDesign CS3 is out now, and I like it, and it no longer uses the butterfly. Its icon (like all the new Adobe ones) is a square with letters in it, like an entry in the periodic table. And I'm not about to let my blog be decorated with a square (even if it is purple) that says “ID” in it. Not everything here comes from my id, for one thing.

So I found another image I'm going to use. You see it above (unless you're reading via RSS). It's a typewriter key with an E on it. We'll see if it works out.

On FIRE, I tell you

05/12/07, 02:23:51

I've gotten so much done today. Cleaning out the guest room in preparation for getting rid of my old computer desk, putting things on Freecycle, making room in the living room for my new drop-leaf table, and so on. Threw out tons of magazines after speed-reading them. Put some books away. Sorted out the silver I inherited into keep and maybe-don't-keep. Just good work all around.

I even filed my 2002 tax papers in the right place. As opposed to where they were, which was in a giant completely random box of papers I packed in a frenzy when I had to unexpectedly move in late February 2003 due to my old apartment getting flooded with poo. Ah, nostalgia.

That box contained lots of great stuff, including the great stuff referenced at the end of this post. Also all the postcards and letters Lisa sent me from Florida in the time between when they moved down there and when I did. Much of this is addressed to Lainey Burdine. There are several cards made at those wonderful American Greetings kiosks they don't have anymore. We loved those, back in the day. I think they were called Creatacard, the same as the software. The software unfortunately displaced the kiosks, which is teh suck because the machines had plotters, not printers, and would draw cartoons, a color at a time, while you watched. Marvelous.

I even found the photos from the summer of 1993 that I've been looking for since roughly September 12, 2001. The ones that document my last, and David's and Lisa's only, trip to the top of the World Trade Center. You have no idea how dearly I wanted to find these pictures, and now I have.

...also I made my very own Pirates of the Caribbean flag.

That's what I'm talking about. Make yours here.

In other news, I did something I've been meaning to do for ages and photographed some of Arwen's old handmade Christmas solstice/new year cards, which were always too pretty to throw away. I'll post those toward the end of the month on the photo site, with comments. Have you seen the photo site since I revamped the template? It's awesome now. The link is always at the top of this page.

Funniest thing I read all day

05/09/07, 22:31:23

Read this post from the blog called “Judge a Book by its Cover.”

Kmart trip

Photo pages update

05/07/07, 22:26:00

The photo site has been updated. A new version of the album software has provided me with lots of nifty options, and you'll now find the albums easier to navigate. You can also now leave comments on any photo you please! Please test this for me!

First of May!

05/01/07, 20:13:00

I love this song.

Lyrics here.

iTunes is playing First Of May by Jonathan Coulton. I gave this 4 stars, and I've played it 3 times. It's from Smoking Monkey.

First impressions of InDesign CS3

04/30/07, 22:34:29

It crashes when I try to activate. I'll deal with that. If I have to activate over the phone, so be it.

The apps all launch. This is a great improvement over the previous situation, where most of CS2 would, you know, not launch.

The apps are speedy and quick. You really feel the Intel-native benefit.

I really do like the new icons after all.

I'm not sure how I feel about the “dock” for the side palettes. I feel like they're taking a little more room than I have. I use a LOT of palettes in InDesign.

I love how InDesign dots the outlines of items locked to the master page. That's awesome.

You can constrain table cell insets to be the same all the way around, and this is enabled by default. No more zero-tab-zero-tab-zero-tab-zero. Now, it's just ... zero.

My AppleScripts don't seem to work. This troubles me in the extreme.
Later: The scripting language for find/change has changed completely. I may be, technically speaking, fucked.

There's now an “Extra Small” option for the size of pages in the Pages palette.

Palettes are called panels. Just to make it harder to find the right references.

Command-shift-T turns on the Tabs dialog, but doesn't seem to turn it off. Odd.

The loaded text cursor has a preview of the text you're about to flow in. That's weird, but cool.

Much later: Table styles and cell styles are cute, but they are elementary. They do not allow you to specify the size of your cells. This won't help me at all.

Back to CS2 I go. I guess I have to deal with constant crashes and instability until WoodWing comes out with a new version of SmartStyles. At least their business is safe.

Miscellany

04/30/07, 14:18:59

It's very windy here. The power went out for a second just now, messing up my computer more than a little bit (I was in the middle of a backup).

There's a wonderful, wonderful picture of Neva and Mary at Cindy's wedding on this blog post from her photographer.

I have an extra (legal, paid-for) registration code for Diner Dash 2 if anyone wants it.

Things you buy from Apple have always come with the cryptic return address name “ACI.” The box I got today just says “AI.” They sure are thorough when they change the name of the company to remove “Computer.”

I bought the first two issues of the Buffy Season 8 comic book on eBay and subscribed to the rest. I've never bought a comics subscription in my life. I refer you to five entries ago, when I declared I'm a dork.

Lastly, and this is Big News, that box from Apple? Yes, CS3 is here, in my hands. I may be able to run Illustrator this afternoon on my actual production machine.

I wonder if Lisa minds when I do this.

04/29/07, 22:50:59

Just wholesale steal emails to her and put them up as blog posts, that is.

I did not, in fact, go to Ikea today. I'll go next weekend.

Instead, I decided to stay home, and, from about 8:30 until about 10:15*, listen to one of my neighbors (or more; I couldn't tell which direction) hammer and hammer and hammer and hammer and hammer. I can't believe they hammered for so long without a break. They must have gone in shifts. They must have been hanging a thousand newly framed pictures of the kittens and baby seals they clubbed yesterday. I went outside, and I could still hear it. I thought about leaving, but I couldn't think of anywhere to go. I banged on the walls trying to get them to notice they could hear me. I screamed PLEASE STOP a few times. Eventually they did stop. I hope they died.

*PM, that is. WAY past the civilized Hammering Hours.

fries and ketchup

04/29/07, 16:53:05

fries and ketchup

Originally uploaded by yi.

I want to use this (along with Cheesy Asparagus Spears and the Michel Richard pastry egg, among other things) as part of a food-that-looks-like-other-things theme party.

Last Virginia Tech post (I hope)

04/27/07, 19:12:16

Alternate title: Yeah, I thought I must have.

Which is in answer to the question my old friends and I asked each other a lot last week: Did you ever have a class on the second floor of Norris?

Edited to add:
Please note that this is from spring of my freshman year and notice the gaping blank space next to the word "Advisor," which explains (a) why I do not have a degree and (b) why my class in Norris was a 2000-level civil engineering physics course recommended as a requirements shortcut to me and my architecture buddy Allison by either (c) a prankster or (d) a lonely overachiever.

A Woot-Off Haiku

04/27/07, 17:17:02

This Woot-Off has had
FOUR video cards and yet
nothing for Elaine.

:(

(I mean, all I want is a promising new zinfandel, that iPod video player for Lisa, a cheap TomTom GPS, the Salton Chocolate Treat Makers [which I missed 'cause they sold out in less than two minutes], and a 34mm Express Card SD reader. Is that so much to ask?)

Edited to add:
Make that five video cards.

...the rain is gone

04/27/07, 01:10:18

I have contact lenses againnnnnnnnnnnnn

I can seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

There's no goop in front of my eyes anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre

(it's a songggggggggggggg)

ps also they are dailies (yay) so no more math and no more storing and no more cleaning

I'm a dork!

04/26/07, 15:38:48

I decided I wanted a personal wiki, for things like recipes and shopping lists and packing lists and whatnot. After I'd torn about my thirtieth page out of last month's Real Simple, I started thinking about scanning stuff and realized it'd be fine to retype it, if only there were an appropriate repository.

I tried pbwiki.com, but one page into creating a wiki there I realized there was no Special:Whatlinkshere page, and that would just be stupid, especially for recipes. What I wanted was the ability to wikify every recipe I entered, and then have ingredient pages, so I could click on the name of an ingredient and see every recipe that uses that ingredient. I don't even cook that much, but I want to, and god do I love sorting stuff into piles.

So I looked at a couple other free public wiki sites, even a couple that host MediaWiki (the software Wikipedia runs on), but they were all either ad-supported (Google ads keyed to the content of my own pages creeps me out, even in Gmail) or the interface didn't look good, or I just got bad vibes. I've had a lot of practice at Wikipedia. I know how it works and how to use it. How hard could it be, I figured, to run it?

Turns out: medium. Medium hard.

Macs come with Apache set up already. Check. Installing PHP was a breeze, thanks to installation packages available at entropy.ch. Check. Installing mysql was a little harder, but honestly the biggest hurdle there was figuring out where the crap it was so I could put it in my path. Without the fact that Medievia taught me Unix, and (bizarrely) the instructions I found were keyed to tcsh (which I use) rather than bash (which I don't), it might have been worse. There was some command-line stuff I had to do. I followed the excellent installation instructions on the MediaWiki site. (When I reached the bottom of that page, there was an alternate installation method I could have done, where I wouldn't even have had to download anything ending in .tar.gz. There should probably be a link to that at the top.)

It started working. I even toyed with the CSS a bit to make it match this design (what can I say, bright fucking orange is somehow soothing to me now). And now, when I go to localhost/~elaine/wiki, lo and behold, there's an empty orange version of Wikipedia right there, and it's mine.
Right now it's only accessible to me locally, but I plan to punch a hole so I can get at it from other computers. It'll only work from other computers when my computer's here and turned on, but when my computer's not here and turned on, it's a safe bet it's with me anyway.

I'm a little nervous about opening a web port and about creating other accounts (the warnings they give you are a little scary and include words like “could upload malicious php code”), but I'll probably get over it. Ideally, among other things I'd make it possible for my friends and I to keep a collaborative recipe database in it. That would be useful to us.
And then maybe I'll show it to you.

The first question people who've read the book ask each other

04/26/07, 00:51:59

Is “What would your dæmon be?”

Convergence

04/25/07, 01:37:43

Lisa and David bought new furniture for the ... I don't know what to call it. “Basement” seems dismissive. “Rec room” is dated. “TV room” I've always hated. Let's say “downstairs.” They bought new furniture for the downstairs.

In the email telling me what they got, Lisa told a fib.

We also bought this:
http://www.lightenergystudio.com/LightFurniture1.htm

Allow me to enlighten you (no pun intended) and save you a click. This is what they sell there.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this was “where have I seen this aesthetic before?” It didn't take long to figure it out. In fact, it took me far longer to go get the DVD and screen-capture it as evidence. Where I have seen this aesthetic before is in season two, episode something-teen, “The One Where Eddie Moves In.”

Amusing dialog box

04/24/07, 17:23:38

Is it just me, or does this sound a little ridiculous?

I love how friendly Mac apps are.

(For those of you judging me for irrational spending, please note that this program cost me one dollar.)

In Paradise

04/23/07, 17:26:45

Every time Anna writes about Simone, I think of this song. Every time I hear this song, I think about Simone.

I don't have the courage to go to Anna's own page and tell her so, so I'm doing it here instead.

I can say positive things about television too

04/23/07, 01:02:16

If you aren't watching “Planet Earth” on the Discovery Channel, please do so.

The episode called “Forests” that I watched tonight was the best so far, for my money.

Day-old ducklings jumping out of a tree. Shot after shot after shot that made me ask “how'd they do that?” out loud. An answer to that question at the end, featuring a cameraman saying “I don't have a fear of heights. I have a fear of falling through them onto the ground.” His producer following that up with, “As long as the wind stays good and they don't land in Mozambique, we should be absolutely fine.” Tiny lemurs the size of your hand that eat giant hawk moths. The Siberian leopard, the rarest cat in the world, with fewer than 40 animals still living in the wild. Wonderful, wonderful time-lapse photography of flowers, ferns, and trees awakening in the spring, thriving through the summer, and firing red in the fall.

Seriously, the film of the trees turning red is worth the whole hour itself. That and the ducklings jumping out of the tree in slow motion, which I watched four times.

This is an amazing program, and it's, like, your duty as an Earthling to watch it.

Best of all: Except when there's a Mike Rowe show on, Discovery shows “Planet Earth” pretty much all the time. It's on every day.

Once again with the Phil

04/22/07, 21:42:15

It was looking good. It was looking so good. Mirna couldn't drive the weird stick-shift minicar. They had to redo their cooking detour. They were all dressed up in their interview segments. But nooooo. Oswald and Danny messed up, and ended up losing out to a waiting, penaltied Eric and Danielle, and whereas it made me really happy that the blondes won the leg, I am SO FUCKING SICK OF CHARLA, and now she's going to be in it 'til the end.

I really wanted to watch and enjoy this show again, the end of the season, the finale, being my favorite part, but noooo.

OH MY GOD, it's another non-elimination leg!

THERE IS STILL HOPE. The horrible midget might yet be cut out of the finals. PRAISE BE TO THE PHIL.

Did I say nothing says hopeful like summer? I lied.

04/21/07, 19:10:56

Nothing says hopeful like a little kid.

Halfway between depressing and not

04/21/07, 02:48:51

I took far too much care in making a South Park version of myself.

Like, for instance, I have that sweater, and my mittens really are purple.

Just awful.

Counting down

04/19/07, 21:02:04

I love this widget. I love it so much I have five copies of it running right now.

In thirty-five days Lisa and I are going to Bethany Beach, Delaware.
In fifty days Eddie From Ohio is playing at Celebrate Fairfax.
In fifty-three days I leave for my brother's wedding.
In sixty-three days Lisa and I and probably Cindy and maybe a player to be named later are exploiting my father's collection of Marriott points.
And in seventy-two days the Sedklisches and the Hartigans and the Prachts and I are spending a week on Hatteras Island.

My desktop background, which you can see there where a sixth Percount should be, is mandolux's white roses. I cannot recommend his site highly enough; especially if you have a large monitor (as I do) or multiple screens (as I also do), they are the finest free desktop backgrounds available without a prescription.

This post may be jarring after my recent seven in a row of bad news (two about Kurt Vonnegut's death, three about Virginia Tech, one about income taxes, and one about the recent Supreme Court decision), but I just thought I should post something hopeful.

And nothing says “hopeful” like summer.

Exactly what definition of “Supreme” are we working with here?

04/19/07, 02:19:12

Here's hoping thousands of families step forward to adopt the babies born with debilitating birth defects discovered in amniocentesis, after the point at which abortions are now illegal.

Here's hoping it becomes possible for families to afford lifelong care for the babies and mothers injured or disabled by disastrous high-risk births they were not allowed to prevent.

Here's hoping the gynecologists and obstetricians involved in those births don't get sued, driving up malpractice insurance prices and therefore healthcare costs for everyone.

Here's hoping the partners and families of the women who die because of fatal complications from pregnancy each come to terms with the loss of a grown woman they loved because it was against the law for doctors to perform the medical procedure that could have saved her life.

Here's hoping the idealogues who dreamed up the marketing term “partial-birth abortion” to replace the scientific term “intact dilation and extraction” are among them.

Here's hoping November 2008, and then January 2009, comes sooner rather than later.

We Are All Hokies

04/18/07, 15:11:43

We Are All Hokies:

We Are All Hokies

Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Why Are We Here?
We're lucky. Despite everything that happened on April 16, 2007, we are lucky. Lucky to be able to say that we attended, graduated from, or visited Virginia Tech. We are watching CNN and reading news stories, blogs, Facebook and other profiles to learn about people we'll never know, and we're being inundated with negativity about the school. Who knew what when? Could they have done anything differently? Is Blacksburg a safe town? Is Virginia Tech going to recover?

As Nikki Giovanni said, “We are Virginia Tech.” We want to remember all the incredible experiences we had at Tech and in Blacksburg. If you would like to remember the good rather than concentrate on the bad, please pick up your pen and write it down. We don't care if it's one memory, a list, or a paragraph. We want you to write it down on a postcard or in a letter and send it to us at:

We Are All Hokies
10809 Ann Street
Fairfax VA 22030

Your postcards and letters won't disappear. We plan to present these memories to Virginia Tech and hopefully make them a permanent reminder that Blacksburg was, and is, a wonderful place to be -- a place that shouldn't be remembered for one man and a massacre, but for thousands of Hokies and all their great accomplishments.

Virginia Tech, again

04/17/07, 22:04:37

What I want to say is said on Anna's blog, between what she said and what Kurt said and what I said.

http://slithytoves.sytes.net/~anna/?itemid=581

April 16th

04/16/07, 19:18:13

I just paid my taxes. With my American Express card.

The way I figure it, I get 1% cash back, and I have another month (during which American Express won't charge me interest on the charge) to keep the money (which I have most of) in the ING savings account earning interest, and this will almost offset the convenience fee. And I won't pay a dime in interest or bank fees, as I would have had I gone with my second-choice plan of using a Visa card to cover the difference.

All in all it's a mostly sensible thing I just did, but when I clicked that “submit” button? I. Was. Terrified.

I even called American Express first to make sure tax payments were eligible for the 1% reward (they are) and to ask if the charge would be approved. I feel this was a reasonable step, because I've only had this card for a few months and my tax bill exceeds my largest to-date charge on it by a factor of fifty—or, if you want to use this term, an order of magnitude—and I thought that might trigger an “unusual usage” alarm. The nice man on the phone, however, was all “no problem, no problem.” I think he kind of thought it was a silly question.

American Express seems much more forgiving these days than the last time I had an account with them, when I was 18 and very stupid.

Virginia Tech

04/16/07, 13:34:02

I can't even process this.

The reason I went to school there was because everyone I saw on my campus visit was smiling.

Today's news and minutiae

04/13/07, 19:48:46

I was just reading this post on BoingBoing about a watch made from pieces of the Titanic, and I came to realize we are very near to the storm of schmaltz that will be the 100th anniversary of the sinking. Tomorrow, in fact, is the 95th anniversary. Who wants to bet that in five years plus one day from now, the movie Titanic will be re-released in theaters? Who wants to further bet that Kate Winslet still won't have an Oscar by that time?

In other news, apparently rats laugh. Halfway through this video I was sure the rat was pissed off, but then the scientist convinced me that the rats really do like the tickling. It's quite something. Mark Helprin wrote once, “Laughter saves us by reconciling our pride to what we really are. Animals—except for cats—have no such need.”

I also enjoyed this video of Kurt Vonnegut's 2005 appearance on the Daily Show.

Lastly, and most recently, I have today seen something I've never seen before and will probably never see again: namely, my parents' names on a wedding invitation.

Edited to add:

I just bought this showerhead

and it rules. That is all.

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'

04/12/07, 04:06:36

Kurt Vonnegut has died, and I'm sad.

His books have brought so much to my life, ever since I was assigned Cat's Cradle in high school, through my re- and re- and re-reading of it, through loving Slaughterhouse-Five and then, in college, Hocus Pocus, which I still quote silently to myself sometimes. Slapstick is on the first edition of the book list, from nearly ten years ago. And that's just a few high points.

There's a slipcased edition of five of his books (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Welcome to the Monkey House, The Sirens of Titan, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater [which is subtitled “Pearls Before Swine”]) on a bookcase five feet from me. This set of books is almost as old as I am. I've had it forever, and it was one of the things I made sure to take from my parents' house. He's pictured on it smoking a cigarette, as he often was in author pictures in those days. Honestly, it's surprising he lived to 84.

He's the reason I picked up that first Billy Pilgrim CD.

In coming days you may hear words like “Kilgore Trout” and “the elders of Tralfamadore” and “ice-nine” and “wampeters, foma, and granfalloons”—and, if you're lucky, “I had to laugh like hell.” If you don't recognize these things, do the reading. It's so, so worth it.

I love this man's words, and it pains me that there won't be any new ones.

Here are some old ones.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Even these:

Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. Why don't you take a flying fuck at the moooooooooon!

And lastly:

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

So it goes.

Today on the Price Is Right

04/09/07, 18:06:25

[Contestant wants Bob to spin the wheel for her, as she fell off something and hurt her shoulder.]

Bob: What did you fall off of?

Contestant: I fell off a Segway.

Bob: What's a Segway? [looks offstage for an answer] Oh, the thing you ride around on? [mimes riding a Segway]

*beat*

Bob: Were you drunk?

Nostalgia

04/05/07, 17:50:16

Here's a television commercial I'd never seen before, for a product my brother and I fought over.

Here's proof he usually won.

Edited to add: I wish I could tell what that is on the TV. Also, that thing next to Jeff, with many buttons and a cord, is our first cable TV remote.

Groceries

04/05/07, 13:53:41

Instead of $4.50 worth of (three) frozen pizzas, Safeway just delivered me two half-gallons ($10.78 worth) of Breyer's chocolate chip ice cream.

I honestly can't decide whether to call and tell them.

Tonight's adventures

04/05/07, 00:29:36

I sold this dude some Lego stuff—a few leftover Duplo pieces, a baseplate, a storage case, one magazine, and a bunch of old flyers—on BrickLink a month ago. He paid me, his e-check cleared, and three days ago I went to the post office after hours to ship his stuff. I was expecting tons of Priority Mail boxes stacked in the bins next to the automated machine, but this particular time there was nothing. Sometimes you go and there's piles of labels and stickers, a working pen, three or four different sizes of boxes, the whole range of envelopes ... once or twice there's even been the industrial tape gun. Not Sunday. Not one label, not one box. Empty shelves, empty bins. Even the tethered pen had been ripped off. There was no way I could mail the Lego.

What there was was tax forms, boxes of them, all over the place. So I went over to see if I could steal one of those boxes. But of course they'd all been disfigured, the top flaps ripped off. The only one left whole was too small to fit the storage case this guy had bought. I decided to write and tell him the post office didn't have the supplies and I'd wait a day or two and mail his package then. For now, I figured, I'd mail the letters I had with me and go. But the slot to put letters was stuck. You couldn't pull it open. I shrugged and went to the big package bin attached to the automated machine. That one was locked, which happens automatically when the bin is full. I ended up mailing my letters at the mailbox out in the parking lot, which is only emptied once a day. I was really kind of pissed.

To keep that from happening again, I ordered an industrial quantity of Priority Mail boxes on the website, to be shipped to me. It's supposed to take two days, but as of today (Wednesday) they hadn't arrived. So tonight I sucked it up and went back. You know how many boxes, envelopes, labels, stickers, tape guns, and pens had been replaced? None. Not one. Just an empty counter, empty shelves, empty bins—next to the sign saying FREE PRIORITY MAIL SUPPLIES.

But this time there was a new box full of estimated tax workbooks on the floor, and it had its flaps.

So I stole a box. I either stole a box from the post office, or I stole a box from the IRS. I stole a box from the American people.

You'll be pleased to know I put all the workbooks neatly into the rack—except for the one I tore up and used as packing material—before packing up the guy's Lego in my new box. The machine worked, the bin opened, and I was only momentarily delayed by having taped the page with the guy's address into the box before I filled out the label. (I had, of course, brought my own tape.)

I'm just astounded. The automated service machine is a godsend. It's a 24-hour post office, and it works like a charm—as long as the stuff is there. I've made hundreds and hundreds of dollars selling my Lego—I've made a considerable profit, with many things that were free going for a dollar or so, and many sets that were bought on clearance going for around sixty bucks—and a lot of that money came to me only because of the availability of a self-service machine at my post office. (Technically, it's not “my” post office, it's the Chantilly one, but the Centreville one doesn't have the machine.) It's never been so abandoned before. I feel almost betrayed.

ANYWAY.

When I got home just now, I had to drop off my rent check, so I parked behind my building and came home through the back door. At the bottom of my deck stairs I noticed the lights were on in the apartment under the apartment next to mine, and it was obviously unoccupied, mid-renovation, so I looked inside. Weird floorplan, but bigger windows than I have. Similar to the layout of the one-bedroom I lived in around the corner, but not quite. It was as I walked away that I noticed the back door of that apartment was wide open. It was tempting to go in and look around. It was tempting to go in and see if there was, oh, I don't know, a new microwave for me in the kitchen. Hell, it's cold tonight. It was tempting to go in and light a cozy fire (the one-bedrooms have fireplaces).

I left the door open. Hopefully someone will get in trouble.

Tomorrow they're supposed to come in and replace my furnace filter. This is apparently done “biannually,” according to the note I got about it. I think, to them, that must mean “every two years,” because I just checked, and my furnace filter looks like I ironed a cat.

A cat who smoked.

Recent links

04/03/07, 18:10:24

An audit of life, in the form of pie charts.

An alphabet, in the form of

.

Those guys say the nicest things

04/03/07, 15:45:42

Lisa says she thinks she can see me holding up my camera in the pack there. I know where we were standing at this point, but I'm not sure if I can see me. I do know it was a great show, and he was so moved, and this is incredibly sweet.

Miscellany

04/02/07, 02:18:16

I've been paging patiently through the Flickr set of the 700 hoboes drawn by Ape Lad. I know lots of other illustrators did hoboes, but these are the best hoboes. On #544, Arthur Moonlight, another user said “I want this as a bookmark!” And I agreed with that, and it's on a share alike license, so I downloaded it, and it will be one of the first things I print out on nice heavy stock when I buy the photo printer I've had my eye on.

Then I got to another hobo, #394, Solid First Draft Patton Taylor, and was reminded of a Peanuts strip I cut out of the newspaper several years ago. That, too, will make an excellent bookmark once I print it out on photo paper. I reproduce it below for your enjoyment. I had to scan this in two pieces, and the scanner made different auto-adjustments on them, which I had to correct, plus there's always bleed-through when you scan newsprint, so I apologize for the quality.

I'm watching a rerun of the Rainn Wilson episode of Saturday Night Live. I'm watching this primarily for the business-meeting bit where there's a wonderful rapid-fire roll call (Boss: “Invisible man? ... Invisible man?” [shot of an empty chair]. Wonder Woman: “He's out sick.” And so on.), but I forgot about the earlier sketch where four guys sit around drinking beers and reminiscing about “Danny's Song.” Which was pretty funny. Except on the rerun I'm fairly certain they bleeped the words “Down's Syndrome.” Which is odd, because it's far from being the most offensive joke in that sketch. Isn't that odd?

Also, I fast-forwarded through two solid hours of bitching and whining on a show I refuse to watch anymore just so I could watch that awful Charla fall on her face. Six times I watched that. God bless CBS.

Friday

03/31/07, 17:08:49

We went to the 9:30 club and saw Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers for what is, if my reckoning is correct, the seventh time. I would have guessed eight, but I can only think of seven. Anyway, not counting where they weren't really the draw (like the Herndon Festival, or opening for EFO at Wolf Trap), it was the most heavily attended Sixers show we've been to. I was pretty surprised at how many people girls there were who knew all the words. The new songs we heard off the new CD sound really good. I'm looking forward to it. We got two encores, and the second one made him cry. Which was adorable.

I had several beers.

Then we went to 2 Amys for pizza, which was phenomenally good. In addition to the incredibly silky mozzarella on my pizza, I had anchovies. They were amazing. Huge, and covered in olive oil, and so, so wonderfully salty. Crusty bread, spot-on service, a full bar. Plus, big crusty pizza is exactly what you need when you've had, as I had had, several beers. I've got to go back.

I spent the night at David and Lisa's (for the second night in a row; I had what I now suspect is food poisoning on Thursday and needed a little caretaking), then slept late and hung out with the girls for a bit today (including wrestling Josie first into her swimsuit then into her ballet outfit). Tonight is dinner at Cindy and Pat's, which will be nice for a change. Then tomorrow I have to make all* new press PDFs for the WDI, because that is apparently what I do on Sundays now.

*except section 5, which inexplicably† had no changes

†it's not that inexplicable; it's a short section with no figures

Levenger can read my thoughts, as always

03/27/07, 20:17:29

As if the Margin Pad, which looked like and seemed to be and in fact is precisely what I needed, wasn't good enough, Levenger has apparently been reading my wists.com list, where at least a year ago I added a concept product called the Thumb Thing . . .

and have started selling the same thing, called the Digit Reader. The set of four is on its way to my house right now. I had to order them right away just in case the Thumb Thing people weren't involved and see it and sue.

The quest for games I like continues

03/26/07, 23:55:34

I have a few games on my computer that I play all the time. That I really love. And I'm not talking about things like World of Warcraft, I mean things like Tumblebugs and Dangerous Mines and Super Collapse! 3 and Mystery Case Files (oo! oo! there's a new version!) and Diner Dash (I like version 2 the best because the restaurants change).

I feel like such a dork typing that list, but I seriously play that stuff all the time.

So around Christmas I got a whole bunch of new stuff from MacZot, and one of the games was Virtual Villagers. This is a sim-type game where you have to train your little villagers to do jobs like building, healing, researching, foraging (and farming), and so on. It's a persistent world, so apparently things go on while you aren't playing.

Which I clearly did not realize, because when I started the game up now after leaving it alone for a scant twenty-four hours, I saw this.

“Fun” online game

03/24/07, 23:32:28

http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/flag/
I found myself shockingly good at this game. Until I got to this one.

Don't you think that's a little misleading?

Especially since it's wrong. Midway doesn't have its own flag, as far as I can tell, because I think no one lives there except birds, but you can go if you can get there, which is neat. Wake Island, however, does have its own flag. Also, it appears to be taken up mostly by an airstrip. Gotta love those strategic locations.

Anyway, I think this game has no end—you just play until you're sick of it—so stop when it gets old.

But I love flags. And whenever I look at them a few wonderfully trivial things recur to me:

Only one country's flag is a single solid color, and that color is green, and that country is Libya.
Many African nations have red, yellow, and/or green on their flags.
Many western-hemisphere flags have a layout similar to that of the flag of the United States, and many of those are even red, white, and blue.
Only two countries' flags are non-rectangular, Cuba's (a single banner) and Nepal's (a double banner).
The Union Jack is in the upper-left of the flags of most British Commonwealth countries and former territories (Canada being a notable exception, of course).
All the Scandinavian countries have horizontal crosses on their flags.
A few countries (like Nicaragua) have their names written on their flags. Which is stupid.
Several middle-eastern and north African countries have Arabic writing on their flags, which I've always assumed was religious in nature. Which is less stupid, but I still hold that flags shouldn't have writing on them.
A few flags can be identified by vocabulary, which is also wonderful; if you know what a Maltese cross is, you know the flag of Malta, for instance.

Something random I don't understand

03/23/07, 20:51:01

Why does everyone say Silence of the Lambs was the third movie (after It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) to win the five “major” Oscars (actor, actress, director, picture, and screenplay), when Kramer vs. Kramer did it too, in 1980?

I've been reading about Kramer vs. Kramer just now, and I cannot find a single explanation for this. It won the same five awards, but it seems to be a secret. Or else both Wikipedia and IMDb are wrong in their records.

I hate it when things don't line up.

A little Flash game you might love

03/21/07, 01:39:42

It doesn't really have any replayability, but it's so absolutely darling the first time through that I can't resist sharing it.
It's called Sprout.

Television programs I no longer watch

03/14/07, 21:51:18

So Rob and Amber got eliminated. I now no longer watch the Race. At least not this season. There's no one left to root for. And I seriously could not hate that fucking midget more. If that personality were on a tall, beautiful person, I'd hate it just as much. She's just a whiny bitch. And that cousin of hers is no better. Their common grandparents must have been assholes.

Then, Mowgli Sanjaya beats out Brandon Rogers. I now no longer watch Idol. At least not this season. There's no one left to root for except Melinda Doolittle, and I just don't have faith. Last season when I wrote down all the names of the top 24 and put stars next to the people I really liked, who were really talented, three of those people (Chris, and Katharine, and Elliott) ended up in the top four. This year, there were only two stars on the list. Melinda and Brandon. Raw talent. Professional experience. Wonderful smiles. But no.

Thank goodness for the Discovery Channel, because as of now, Dirty Jobs and Mythbusters are the only reality shows that don't make me throw things.

An illiterate seems to be stalking me!

03/13/07, 19:52:36

Remember the letter about not rolling “threw” stop signs?

See it here:
http://slithytoves.sytes.net/~kostia/nucleus/index.php?itemid=518
The girl who wrote it doesn't work at my apartment office anymore. I know this, and I know she wrote it, because this is an excerpt of the letter she wrote and posted on the apartment doors upon her departure:

I wanted to inform you all that January 14,2007 is my last day here at Regency Park. I will be transferred to the Townes of Herndon for the rest of the Month. I wanted to say that it has been a pleasure meeting and helping you all as much as I could. I wanted to say goodbye and I hope that we all keep in touch. Even though we have all been threw some very difficult times threw the past year, I hope that I have help you all as much as I could. I have learned a lot from each and every one of you all. I am attaching my card so we can keep in touch. But don't call me if there is a problem with your apartment because I will not be able to help you! Keep in touch and I wish every one of you all the best!

This was a letter with a very clear message. You can tell because every sentence starts with “I wanted,” and the same few sentiments are repeated over and over. I wanted this to be the last I heard from her. Last I heard from her. From her. I wanted. Heard.

Her card was attached (“Heather's Notary”). Her email was on it. Her email address consists of her first initial, her last name, the “word” “rulz,” and @yahoo.com. Real professional.

A few weeks ago I got a party invitation addressed to “Elaine Wilso.” The invitation just said “For Heather” and didn't say what the nature of the event was or anything. Very odd. I assumed the sender had pulled my name from the phone book and had meant to send it to a different Elaine. Of course, I'm not in the phone book, but I couldn't think of any other explanation.

In today's mail was another small envelope from her, and I finally made the connection. Because today's envelope contains three of her business cards. The notary one, a larger version of the notary one, and a new one with her Mary Kay sales information. So it must've been a Mary Kay party.

It seems so unethical for her to be using the list of residents from her former employer to advertise like this. If she sends me anything again, I'm going to flip. I am threw with this ridiculous woman.

An amusing online survey question

03/12/07, 04:49:11

It doesn't give me a place to specify who's a person and who's a pet.

Meme from Arwen

03/12/07, 00:04:30

Search YouTube for the year of your birth, and post a video from that year.

I had some excellent options here. Just on the first page of results: Jesus Christ Superstar. Thelonius Monk. King Crimson. Devo, live at Kent State. The Eurovision contest, held in Luxembourg and won that year by Vicky Leandros.

I decided to go with this one.

And a certain subset of my friends will find this hilarious.

Too much for the man, he couldn't take it
He said he's going
Goin' back to find
Leavin'
Leavin' on the midnight train
Goin' back to find
Whenever he takes that ride, guess who's gonna be right by his side
I know you will
Leavin' on the midnight train to Georgia
Woo woo
Live in his world
Her world is his
His and hers alone
Dreamin'
A superstar, but he didn't get far
Dreams don't always come true
Uh-uh, no, uh-uh
Oo, oo
Oo, oo, oo, oo
Leavin'
Leavin' on the midnight train
Goin' back to find
Whenever he takes that ride, guess who's gonna be right by his side
I know you will
Goin' back to find
Whenever he takes that ride, guess who's gonna be right by his side
I know you will
Leavin' on the midnight train to Georgia
Woo woo
Live in his world
Her world is his
His and hers alone
All aboard, all aboard
All aboard, all aboard

Open letter to bloggers who use Blogspot and Typepad

03/04/07, 20:16:03

Dear bloggers who use Blogspot and Typepad,

You have an option in your blog's setup about whether to have a FULL-TEXT FEED or not. If you choose, for some reason, not to have a full-text feed, I am going to stop reading your blog, no matter how much I enjoyed it. I don't care that you think readers who visit your site in a browser are more valuable than readers who visit your site in an RSS reader. I've got news for you: lots of readers who use RSS use Adblock too, and you aren't making any money off us anyway. Just put the whole post in the feed already.

This is especially going out to those of you—yes, Fug Girls, this means you—who had full-text feeds for years and have suddenly stopped, and to those of you—hi, Malls of America—whose blog feeds inexplicably switch back and forth between full-text and non-.

I'm just over it. Give me RSS or give me nada.

Love,
Elaine

Oscar party food highlight

02/28/07, 10:54:49

American flag pizza, after the oven

Originally uploaded by kostia.

I made this. See my Flickr page for a picture of it before baking. Also, there are more pictures from the Oscar party on the usual photo page at www.kostia.net/photo.

Funny anecdote

02/18/07, 16:12:13

I just got a piece of spam with the subject line “DoucheLink.”

The mind reels.

It looks like snow, and there's snow under it, but it's NOT SNOW.

02/15/07, 16:28:39

The last third of this is me not being able to remember which button stops the movie recording on my camera. Sorry. (It's the same button that starts it. I'm a moron.)

Stop looking. The BBC just won the Internet.

02/13/07, 00:56:40

This looks like a normal URL to start with. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6350023.stm

But then you get there, and you see things like this

and this

and this

and it makes you glad all over.

Pretty desktop picture to share

02/10/07, 23:38:31

Anyone who wants, please take a copy of this desktop wallpaper image I just made. I'm stunned at how pretty it came out.

The linked image is the 1440x900 version. Take it, if you please, or leave a comment if you want it at a different size. If you don't have an account, just create one using the link below, then you can comment.

I took this at the botanical park (next door to the butterfly conservatory) at Niagara Falls in July of 2004. I made it beautiful using this tutorial on the “Orton effect.”

I'm jealous of my parents.

02/10/07, 20:55:22

They're in New York.

And they had a sandwich like this for dinner, the bastards.

Dentist and cookies (unrelated)

02/06/07, 16:08:07

The dentist wasn't bad at all. I feel silly for having been so scared. I took a Vicodin before I went, and I know it relaxed me, but next time (March 16) I think I can skip it. I didn't feel a thing that was unpleasant, except maybe a couple twinges of vibration from the drill that sent chills down my spine. No actual pain. She even used a topical gel to numb my gum before the novocaine injection. I don't remember that from childhood.

I did not care for the sound of the drill, of course, but I listened to my iPod (Portable EFO Show, mostly, hee) the whole time. I found the Brown daughters' deaths very comforting in my time of stress.

I'm a quarter of the way done with the fillings, I think. She did the upper right. It cost seven hundred dollars. Be kind to your dental insurance and treasure it.

In unrelated news: You may recall last summer when I posted a photo of a treadmill on the grass around the commuter parking lot down the street. I invented a new category to cover objects like that, discarded in odd places. A few days ago I finally found a second example.

Also unrelated, I got an annual summary from Chase for my Visa card with them. It's pretty horrifying.

Now, this is my Amazon card, and that's really the only place I use it regularly, and the amounts in question are pretty small ($700 over the whole year), so it's misleading, but still.

miscellany

02/02/07, 10:12:26

I'm working from home. It's making me very lazy. Very. Lazy.

We saw Into the Woods at Signature on Tuesday. It was so much fun. I just love that show to an unreasonable degree.

Lin and Max are here, and today Eileen's baby Brenden is here as well.

Tomorrow is fondue night. Yay fondue.

The comment spam is out of control, and I have to turn off commenting without logging in. As always, if you don't have an account tell me and I'll make you one.

a picture my parents took last summer

01/28/07, 02:04:16

August 06 032

Originally uploaded by ronsusan.

Finally!

01/21/07, 14:24:54

We're having our first snowfall of the winter. It's very late. Last year it was December 4.

When it's raining, you know it. You can hear it. It's unmissable, especially because it comes with wind.

When it's snowing, it's silent. I love that. Every time I look up at the window I notice it again for the first time. It's really coming down, and not a sound to be heard. Lovely.

Despite what my laziness may have implied

01/19/07, 15:57:39

we were NOT, in fact, left for dead in a dumpster in Boston.

Working from home feels very strange. I'm not having trouble disciplining myself, and I haven't had to relegate work to its own (read: tv-free) room or anything, but the little hassles are starting to bother me. I'm really hoping familiarity breeds a lack of contempt as we go on and I learn to take things for granted.

In other news, I had a lovely conversation with some jackass on Stumbleupon yesterday and today. I've blocked him, so it's hard to recall his exact words, but basically he told me if I was going to “try to be clever,” I should “research English grammar” so I could learn to use “apostrophie's.” I wrote back and said I couldn't even tell if that was supposed to be a joke. He said no, it wasn't, and I should “utilise an English dictionary.”

I would like to have a copy of this dickhead's dictionary, where plurals get apostrophes and “apostrophe” itself has a goddamn i in it. What a complete ass. People like that just piss me off to high heaven. It's the same as the Silent Kimbly dude telling me dyslexia was an excuse for intentionally choosing to use a nonexistent word and saying it was the American spelling.

It's simply bad judgment to be pedantic if you're not actually a qualified pedant.

IM conversation

01/09/07, 20:56:11

Deborah
my mom, as usual, has convinced me something horrible will happen

Elaine
what, between here/ny/boston?!
or IN boston?

Deborah
no in boston

Elaine
I JUST WANT TO BE PREPARED

Deborah
she was like, how are you going to get around, are you renting a car? and I said no, we'll take a cab if it's not nearby. and she says, in that OH SO ANNOYING WAY OF HERS, “well I guess as long as there's two of you, you should be okay”

like in that way where her words say one thing but her tone says OBVIOUSLY YOU WILL BE RAPED AND LEFT FOR DEAD IN A DUMPSTER

gem #1 from old disks

01/09/07, 15:45:01

I was looking for some old emails about a Medievia zone on my two-computers-ago computer last weekend, and I ended up going through a stack of floppies from the early- to mid-1990s. I found lots of stuff I saved in the days when people did such things. Newsgroup stuff, mostly. All of it awesome.

Here's a quick example, before I get tempted to post things like a comparison of the features of the Apple MessagePad 120 (the then-new Newton!) to an Etch-a-Sketch. This is just a silly joke that I still think is hilarious.

How many art directors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Does it have to be a light bulb?

How many copy editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

The last time this question was asked, it involved art directors. Is the difference intentional? Should one or the other instance be changed? It seems inconsistent.

Meme

01/09/07, 14:37:34

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Her Eminence the Very Viscountess Elaine the Smoked of Under Yockenthwaite
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Warning, this site is objectionable.

01/04/07, 16:32:57

I suppose this is some sort of milestone for me. Apparently, I am a pornographer. Here is an email I have just sent to support@webbalanced.com, the only contact address given by the software publisher in question.

Hi, I have a very low-readership weblog at the URL http://slithytoves.sytes.net/~kostia/nucleus/. My main readers are my parents, who are full-time RVers and usually able to keep up with Internet sites only from public libraries.

Today they received this message from a library computer using your software:

Hi LIBRARYUSER!

The Web site you are trying to view http://slithytoves.sytes.net/~kostia.index.php?startpos=0 is restricted because it contains the following characteristics:
Pornography
If you believe you received this Redirect Message in error, please contact your Administrator of this WebBalanced account.

Can you direct me to the proper party to contest this erroneous classification, or at least inform me of the location and date of any content on my website that your editors or reviewers found objectionable or pornographic in any way? I am concerned that a comment spammer or other unwelcome user may have posted something offensive on my blog without my knowledge. I have certainly never posted pornography; my main readers, as I've said, are my parents.

Thank you for any support you can offer.

Elaine Wilson
elaine@kostia.net
http://slithytoves.sytes.net/~kostia/nucleus/

Prenostalgia

01/03/07, 14:21:52

Things I won't miss when I leave this job next week:

a three-hour roundtrip commute (this morning only took an hour; people with cars must still be on vacation)
sitting around with very little to do and stressing about it
looking up from my desk to see people facing me on the far side of the conference table on the other side of the courtyard and wondering what I've been doing that they've just seen
paying ten dollars for a cafeteria lunch I could make at home for three
the way my boss says “Hello, Elaine,” every time with a little sigh, as though she is surprised to see me and believes I have just arrived, even if it is 4:00
scraping ice off my car (this morning was the first time I actually almost did it and probably should have)
having to synchronize my RSS reader between two locations, which never quite works

Things I actually will kind of miss, now that I think about it:

the immediate availability of sushi whenever I want it, as long as I want it between 11:00 and 2:30
the grill chef who calls me “baby” and “love” and always gives me extra cheese
unlimited ice
the satisfaction of hitting the “down” button and not having to share my elevator with the dozen people waiting to go up
meebo
crazy lady two cubes down who leaves every day at 2:00 and says “good night” (also: “y'all have a blesséd evening”)
sights like the trashcan around the corner, which appears to contain everyone's 2006 dry-erase calendar

I know it's silly, but I can't stress enough how inconvenient it will be to work from home and have to be responsible for making my own ice. I go through a lot of ice during the day. I find that while a can of Coke lasts only an hour and isn't cold at the end and doesn't count as a glass of water, a can of Coke poured into a big cup packed solid with ice-dispenser ice fixes all those things.

There are not enough artichoke hearts in my shrimp farfalle alfredo today. That is something I'll miss saying.

Updated 1/9 to add that if she wants the motherfucking references to line up, she shouldn't write that instruction on the same page where she told me to take off the baseline grid. That's like saying “PLEASE REMOVE HAMMER. MAKE NAIL GO INTO BOARD.” Fuck you.

Weddings

01/03/07, 13:28:17

In 1996 everyone I knew got married.

2001 was the new 1996. Everyone I knew got married.

You know what 2007 is? It's the new 2001. Everyone I know is getting married.

More pictures, including a convergence

01/02/07, 17:18:32

I'm sorry I'm so pictury lately instead of wordy. It will pass.

This ran in the Post magazine a while back. Not long at all after I photographed the exact same spot in Glen Echo Park while my parents were visiting.

Them:

Me:

Also, the newest family photo from my cousins is one of my favorites ever.

Paul Simon lyrics

01/01/07, 17:42:09

Above and beyond “regular” presents like the Cinderella DVD, a book about the Muppets, and a copy of Hamlet in Spanish, Lisa did a Project this year. Join me, won't you? I've put the picture on Flickr so I can put notes on it. You should click on it and go there.

Also, happy new year. Here is a brief video of the año viejo.

Photos from Sacramento

01/01/07, 17:03:33

Just a couple highlights. Two of my favorites (“Giant Boat of Sushi” and “Baby at the Bar”) are on my dad's camera and will be forthcoming. The photo page (linked above) is also up to date now.

This is the cool-ass rug in the Sacramento airport, as seen on Boing Boing.

This is Zinfandel Drive.

And this is my receipt from In-N-Out Burger. God damn, those are good.

I also went to Fry's. Overall, those were the things I wanted to see and do, and I saw and did them.

If you go to the photo page you can also see our to-be-joined families, eight reasonable adults (well, seven; I took the picture) wearing stupid paper crowns out of the crackers. EVEN MY FATHER.

This is this week's news

12/30/06, 18:42:55

My former employer has wooed me back. They offered me a fixed salary of x minus y, if you let x equal my theoretical annual pay now at the hourly rate I'm at and y equal what I spend on commuting. I'll be working from home. That is the dream, and it is truth. Plus things I don't have now, including health insurance, vacation days, sick days, and paid holidays. Hardware, software, and communications I don't have at home will be subsidized (basically, this means I'm going to get a landline [or, more likely, Vonage] and a fax machine, and a copy of CS3 when it comes out), as will the cost of commuting on those days I do need to go in.

Also, there is a signing bonus in the healthy four digits.

First thing my mom said: “Shelley won't be able to see your Coke can!”

Needless to say, I'm thrilled. I've been unhappy, professionally speaking, for about a year and a half. I never disliked the work there; I disliked the job. And they've now offered to fix the things that were broken for me. It's really a great situation all around. Be glad for me.

Busted comments

12/30/06, 16:11:01

Everyone's having problems. I tried something to stop the spam, but it didn't work. So screw it. If you log in (email me and I can tell you your user name and password), your comment should show up right away. If you DON'T log in, your comment will only show once I approve it.

Mark, this one's for you

12/27/06, 23:53:00

I present to you the most bershon I have ever been photographed.

This was the day I left for Russia on a school trip in the spring of 1990. I have no idea why I was interested in looking so goddamn blasé about it!

Look at what a pimp Jeff is

12/24/06, 04:36:11

My favorite song

12/20/06, 15:56:55

I've been thinking about this lately: I don't have a favorite song right now. But I can almost tell you, year for year, what my favorite songs have been in the past. Odd.

Each of these (and no, they are not in order) was at one time or another my favorite song. But none of them is now.

Mr. Roboto, Styx
The Other End (Of the Telescope), 'Til Tuesday
Sweet Child of Mine, Guns 'N' Roses
Summer, Highland Falls, Billy Joel
We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, The Beatles

I'm not done. I'm about to pass out (probably a side effect of the many drugs I've thrown at today's awful, awful headache), and I'm going to go take a very brief nap on the couch in the bathroom down the hall. I'll finish this later, probably while I'm on vacation. Which starts in two hours.

Notpicture of me

12/18/06, 11:16:09

I look so angry. I mean, it's accurate, but I do. It's probably because I had to put my giant head through that tiny collar.

20Q.net just got more spookier

12/14/06, 13:49:21

I've played the 20Q game lots of times. On the site, with the plastic toy in the store, and so on. I get it.

But today I noticed there are more games than the basic animal/vegetable/mineral variety, and one of them seems to have no basis in probability at all. I mean, I know they just draw from a database of previous games, but this is messed up.

It's called 20Q Name Game, and the thing it's trying to guess is the name of someone you know. And it took only 28 questions and three guesses to beat me. And I simply don't understand why. To wit:

1. It is classified as First name.
2. Are they athletic? No.
3. Are they colorful? Probably.
4. Are they wild? Doubtful.
5. Are they graceful? Sometimes.
6. Did they play college football? No.
7. Do they know a lot about computers? Probably.
8. Are they male? No.
9. Do they have black hair? No.
10. Do they have a beard? No.
11. Are they impulsive? Yes.
12. Do they wear glasses? Yes.
13. Are they good with money? Sometimes.
14. Are they larger than a pound of butter? Yes.
15. Are they good at science? No.
16. Are they mischievious? Yes.
17. Do they like music? Yes.
18. Are they trouble? Sometimes.
19. Do they work hard? Yes.
20. I guessed that it was Barbara? Wrong.
21. Are they middle-aged? No.
22. Are they a boy magnet? No.
23. Are they violent? No.
24. Are they shy? Sometimes.
25. Are they really smart? Yes.
26. I guessed that it was Jessica? Wrong.
27. Are they blue eyed? No.
Q28. I am guessing that it is Lisa?

It doesn't work every time; when I was thinking of my mother's name (Susan) just now, it got to my brother's name (Jeff) on the third guess, and never got to Susan at all (one question was “Do they have stripes?”). It also gave up on my own name. But the Lisa thing freaks me out anyway.

What Ornament Are You?

12/13/06, 22:30:28

DAMN. STRAIGHT. I. AM.

You Are an Angel

A truly giving soul, you understand the spirit of Christmas.

What Christmas Ornament Are You?

The Golden Compass

12/13/06, 17:35:10

I just learned that Sam Elliott is playing Lee Scoresby in the movie. This is such perfect, perfect, perfect casting that I can't even deal with it. It gives me shivers and makes me feel so much better after the wrongness of Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Coulter may have been supposed to be Michelle Pfeiffer in my mind. I'm not sure, but she's close. I am very much hoping that Ms. Pfeiffer's presence in Stardust will be wonderful instead).

The armored bears also look really good (though I take issue with the fact that there seems to be a saddle built into Iorek's armor, as if any pre-Lyra armored bear would stoop to that), and the alethiometer looks good (though it's awfully small). It looks like the gyptians' barges are going to be quite a lot bigger, with more steampunk atmosphere, than I pictured them, but that's okay. A lot takes place on the barges, and maybe they should be bigger than boats.

I like Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala (she had a windswept quality about her in Kingdom of Heaven that I think suits her to this okay), and I have Hurdles Over Which I Will Get about Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel. It's a shame that the Asriel character is so misunderstood in the first book. I really hope if they make the second and third that Bond doesn't get too big and cause them to have to recast the role. His beautiful blue eyes are just about right for Asriel, with the ice and obsession behind them. I can't wait to see his snow leopard. I'm happy that so far, except for a glimpse of Pantalaimon's tail on Lyra's shoulder, there are no pictures of the daemons yet. I hope they keep them a secret as long as they can.

But. Sam Elliott. You have no idea how right it is.

http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

I want to save this Sinfest

12/12/06, 15:03:00

as it's one of the best ones ever. I love the Sundays.

Things you could do for me, if you were her

12/12/06, 12:12:08

Write “stet” when you mean stet. Don't write “st” or “ste” or “stt.”

Stop abbreviating “pica” as “pi.” The abbreviation for pica is p. Pi is a number. That said, it's nice that you don't use fractions of inches (I can't work in inches), but it'd be just super if you would write “1p6” like a normal person instead of “1.5 pi.”

Don't construct templates under the assumption that the number of lines on a page will always work out magically even. The space before and after a heading has to be a multiple of the leading grid. It just does.

When you mean “delete,” use a dele. Don't just scribble things out.

And please, before I kill myself with this plastic fork I have:

STOP TELLING ME TO INDENT THINGS IN EMS. THE SIZE OF AN EM IS NOT STANDARD BETWEEN TYPE SIZES, AND YOU BEHAVE AS THOUGH IT IS.

P.S. I added Wikipedia links for the terminology, in case you care.

WHERE'S THE MONEY?!

12/11/06, 16:35:38

Sheldon: The Daily Comic Strip by Dave Kellett:

I love this. This is exactly how I've felt about that movie for years.

In other news, I've been sick with the flu for about a week and a half, and my sleep schedule is all kinds of messed up. I have to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. I was still awake at 5:45 this morning, and that's when I called in to work. My heart rate was around 130 all last night while I was lying there stressing about not being able to get to sleep. I didn't even feel the slightest little bit tired. I've never taken anything but Benadryl to help myself sleep but I'm wondering if I should make a doctor's appointment and get some Ambien or something. I invariably lie there for a couple hours before I fall asleep, and then I invariably wake up an hour earlier than I need to, go back to sleep, and have serious trouble waking up for good. It's tiresome in so many ways.

Also, I've used, by my casual count, almost three hundred Kleenex in the last week or so. And I don't buy the cheap ones. I actually have no idea how much Kleenex cost, but I'm sure it's significant. And I just throw them away!

The Amazing Race

12/10/06, 23:28:59

I can't get pictures to upload properly, intermittently, so there's a picture-laden entry and a crossword puzzle that you can't see yet. I'll keep trying.

I was watching (finally) the first episode of this year's Amazing Race, and I wrote down little notes so I can remember which team is which. My notes amuse me, especially on rereading them just now, so I decided I'd share. Keep in mind that this is before anyone's eliminated. I'll catch up tonight on all three episodes that have aired. Please don't ruin it for me if you happen to read this before then.

This is what I wrote. I didn't even pause, so these are immediate snap judgments intended to help me identify the teams as they reappear, given about three inches of space to write. No team's description takes more than one line on my little notepad. And the closed-captioner guessed on some spellings and the names didn't appear on the screen as Phil was introducing them, so I'm sure I spelled some wrong. Sue me.

Bilal & Sa'eed—Muslim friends eliminated first, at surprise “oops we had 12 teams for some reason” halfway point
Vipul & Arti—married, Asian Indians eliminated at end of first leg, a shame as they were kind of cute
Kellie & Jamie—southern cheerleaders eliminated at end of second leg, they had really started growing on me
Duke & Lauren—father & daughter, she's gay eliminated at end of third leg, missed it due to CBS scheduling idiocy
Tom & Terry—gay NY jews eliminated at end of fourth leg, good riddance
Peter & Sarah—she has one leg, dating triathletes eliminated at end of fifth leg, because they can't communicate worth a shit
Rob & Kimberly—Latino, dating, he's a dick
Dustin & Kandice—Miss NY & Miss CA eliminated unjustly considering they were competitive and smart and totally my favorite team
David & Mary—married, he's a coal miner, hicks eliminated at end of like the billionth leg (I think eighth?) after being last three times
Erwin & Godwin—Asian jocks, brothers eliminated at end of, if my count is right, ninth leg, because they were pussies
Tyler & James—junkie models in rehab yay!
Lyn & Karlyn—black single moms hate them hate them hate them hate them thank god they didn't win did I mention I HATE THEM

My guess for first elimination is either Tom & Terry or Kellie & Jamie. I believe Rob & Kimberly and Duke & Lauren will last longer than they deserve to.

And “junkie models in rehab” is where I decided this list was too funny not to share.

I figure I'll just update this as we go. Why the hell not.

Edited Mon 10/2 around 7 pm to correct spelling of names as they actually appeared on screen. I also further predict I will never learn which is which between Tom & Terry, Dustin & Kandice, or Tyler & James. I also also restate with firmness that Duke and Rob really are dicks. Lastly, I think I'm rooting for Peter & Sarah or Vipul & Arti.

Edited Mon 10/2 around 8 pm to remove the first two eliminations and to change my root-fors to Peter & Sarah, despite their underhanded abuse of her disabled status, and Edwin & Godwin, whose “good karma” strategy amuses me a lot.

Edited Mon 10/2 around 9 pm to say that I don't know what's up with the fuckheads at CBS. The episode from last week and the episode from last night are cut off—last night's is almost forty minutes behind schedule—because of whatever's on before 60 Minutes. Is it football or something? This show never starts on time. I just changed my program to record a full extra hour starting next week, to make sure I get the end. Unbelievable. In any case, I have the beginning of last night's, so I saw the recap and know it was Kellie & Jamie eliminated two weeks ago. I had to check the website to add last night's elimination of Duke & Lauren, which I very much wish I'd actually seen.

Edited Sun 10/15 to say I finally watched last week's and people are morons. I don't miss Tom and Terry at all. Only better outcome would've been the elimination of David and Mary.

Edited Mon 10/23 to say I really like this “marked for elimination” stuff, and I don't understand why the Cho brothers are helping David and Mary, or how anyone could like anyone so willingly unworldly. I can't deal with people like that. If your situation keeps you from having traveled, or if your educational opportunities weren't there, fine. Do it for yourself. Read a book every once in a while. Go to a museum. It's not just the hicks; Kimberly didn't know the word “mosque.” How can people live in such small universes? Also? If your team has a total of three legs, wouldn't the person with the majority of those legs be the logical choice to CLIMB SHIT? Also? As cool as the phrase “robot camel jockeys” is, I kind of wish they'd said something on the show about why they use robots to ride in camel races: because they got hassled for decades of using orphans. Lastly, I don't think I've ever seen a leg before where the last leg's first-place team came in last, and the last leg's last-place team came in first.

Edited Mon 11/20 to say it took forever to get rid of the coal miner/'s daughter, and while it's been obvious for so long that the final three were going to be who they are (Lyn and Karlyn are so out of there), I kind of wish Rob and Kimberly had been eliminated sooner. I just hate them.

Edited Sun 12/10 to say thank god THAT is over. GOD I hated Rob and Kimberly and Lyn and Karlyn. I missed having the BQs in the finals; that would've been a better race. I decided I loved the junkie models when they started arguing about whether Astor Place was technically in the Village or not. I give a lot of credit to people who've spent some time in the city.

The human brain

12/07/06, 13:44:13

Sheldon: The Daily Comic Strip by Dave Kellett:

This is 100% true. I just did it about forty times in a row. AWESOME.

Sick and tired

12/06/06, 20:04:12

I have the flu or some damn thing. It's localized to my head, and decongestants and antihistamines aren't doing anything (I even took my very last remaining dose of real [read: with pseudoephedrine] DayQuil). I'm very, very tired and achy, and though I don't have a fever I sure feel like I do. Pity me.

All I want is some macaroni and cheese, and lo and behold they no longer print the microwave directions on the box!

So I looked it up. Wikipedia thoughtfully provides a link. However, said link goes to kraftcanada.com, where macaroni and cheese is apparently called “Kraft Dinner.” What the hell? It's not “dinner.” It's macaroni and cheese!

Bowls

12/04/06, 21:43:32

Deborah and I bought the rest of the stock of the bowl kits. That is, two.

I made this:

and she made this:

and this:

and another one I didn't get a picture of. I also made another one that I haven't melted yet. It is flat like a pancake.

Deborah's “House” shirt

12/01/06, 21:15:14

Or: "Your Vicodin is wrinkled."

Coal

12/01/06, 17:27:29

I can't get over how much this amuses me.

Stack and Weigh Scales are back! Don't miss out!

11/30/06, 22:21:29

Fill out this form. Get the red, white, and blue 1, 2, and 3 pound scales from the post office.

You need them.

Seriously.

I use them ALL THE TIME.

Dude. They're free. Stop resisting.

Information exploration

11/30/06, 15:19:07

When I was a kid, I would routinely read the dictionary. I distinctly remember going through, page by page, and reading the definition for every word that had an illustration, figuring those must be interesting entries.

In this day and age, there's a picture for everything, and everything's connected. I love the ridiculous flights of fancy this takes me on on a regular basis.

I was just reading this page outlining some possible contenders in the 2008 presidential election, and I clicked on some names. For instance, I clicked on Chuck Hagel's name (links to Wikipedia) to see a picture because he was described as “positively radiates integrity and gravitas and at 60, he looks like a president” (he's alright, see for yourself). Then I clicked on George Pataki to read about him on Wikipedia. That led me to Eliot Spitzer, of whom I am a fan, but I couldn't quite remember why. I read all about Eliot Spitzer. It was kind of fun.

One of the things in Eliot Spitzer's Wikipedia entry is a link to Riverdale, the Bronx neighborhood where he was born. So I read all about Riverdale.

This is where this got too interesting for me not to share it. At the bottom of the Riverdale page is a list of famous residents. Among them is John Kennedy, who apparently lived next door or thereabouts to the Corleone house on Independence Avenue, but that's neither here nor there. What got me was spotting Ella Fitzgerald on the list, and her Riverdale connection listed as “lived at the Riverdale Chidlren's Association.”

So I looked up the Riverdale Children's Association (on Google; there's no Wikipedia page), because hey, that doesn't sound like something the Kennedys (or the Corleones!) would have in their neighborhood. And I looked up Ella Fitzgerald and read about her childhood. Her Wikipedia page says after her numerous parents and stepparents died or left her, she was sent to reform school, escaped, and lived homeless for a while. In the 1930s.

Basically, it's kind of a mystery of terminology. “Reform school”? “Children's Association”? It turns out: neither. You know what the Riverdale Children's Association was actually called? Look at the New York Public Library's digital gallery to see. It was the Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans, also labeled the Colored Orphans Asylum.

I don't consider a flight of informational fancy really under way until I land on something wonderful like engravings of a place with a name straight out of the distant past like that, especially a picture of it labeled “former building destroyed during the draft riots of 1863.”

Now I have to go learn about the draft riots of 1863.

All because of George Pataki!

Knit!

11/29/06, 18:14:54

I want Apple socks! I want Apple socks!

Surveys

11/28/06, 17:51:06

I take a lot of online surveys.

Today I had to agree to “inactivate” my Pinecone Research membership because I can't do their surveys, which have become Windows-only, Internet Explorer-only. This is completely backwards. In this day and age, companies are moving away from this kind of OS-specific, browser-specific bullshit. I'm going to miss those $5 checks. Sigh.

On a lighter note, this, from another survey site. I've never seen this particular question before.

Technology and turkey

11/26/06, 14:43:50

I just played Tetris on my DS against someone in Japan. He or she kicked my ass but good, but still, little pink box, no wires, connected to Japan. Tetris. Awesome.

Thanksgiving weekend is winding down, and I have of course really screwed up my sleep schedule. I managed to get up at 1 today, but tomorrow will be a struggle. This always happens to me on long weekends. It happens to me on regular weekends, too; I'm just nocturnal or something. It's only been four years since I stopped working third shift, and I did it for seven years before that, so maybe three years from now I'll be fixed and able to sleep at night again. I doubt it, but maybe. 2009 is my year.

I got off work early on Wednesday and went to the grocery store, picking up almost a ridiculous amount of stuff for someone who lives alone. I made my family's stuffing that night, it was a hit on Thursday, and all was well with Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe I can handle Christmas away from home too. I can be strong. I just need something familiar. Stuffing, a parent or two, perhaps asparagus. It works out.

Friday night I went down to Woodbridge and played pool at Hard Times with Lin and Alan and Loy (!) and a couple of their friends from their WoW guild, one of whom used to play Med but who I don't think does anymore. We had about four pitchers of beer and played some really, really terrible pool, and then we went to Denny's. I got home at three o'clock in the morning. I haven't done anything like that in so many years. Go out to a bar, then eat pancakes? Who was that?

The Race (as documented in this post, which I keep updating but which you don't keep checking) will go down to its final three teams tonight. It's very exciting. All I can hope for is that Rob and Kimberly are eliminated by some fluke, leaving me with two teams I want to win and one sacrificial lamb in the finals. I don't care if Dustin and Kandice win or if James and Tyler do. As long as it isn't the whiny Alabamians or the “We're done. We just lost. It's over. I quit.” team.

Lastly, I read the RSS feed for a blog that just tracks the weekly (sometimes more) free downloads on the iTunes Music Store. Every week there's a “Discovery Download,” which is a small group you haven't heard of, and a free Single of the Week, which isn't. I really like the Discovery Download song this week. You can go here for a link to download it for free. If I'm reading it right, it'll be free until Tuesday. http://freeitunessongs.blogspot.com/2006/11/rodrigo-y-gabriela-tamacun.html