I am in the process of moving over here.
What I do with this space is still up in the air (because I could mirror things over here, but I'm not sure why since almost everyone who reads/read here is on LJ already).
If you have some deep abiding antipathy to LiveJournal, now would be the time to speak :-)
--Why do I insist on writing about things I don't know anything about? Like South Dakota and Afghanistan and burning down tool sheds. On the other hand, I now know how to *actually* win a fist fight. So, that's good.
--It was above freezing today! From noon until, like...now. Awesome!
--Blue and Billie and I went tracking. Blue is an awesome little tracking maniac. I believe it's because of the lime-green harness. If I ever remember to take my camera, I will post pictures.
--I want to get at least two stories in the mail this month. Apparently no one will buy them if you don't actually finish them and send them out.
--Books I've read recently or am currently reading:
--As always I'm sure there is something I'm forgetting...
As you can see, my life is a constant whirlwind
...is how everyone should spend the holiday weekend.
Spent Friday making puppy visits, yesterday at a dog show, and today we went for a walk in the park.
Otherwise, I have been pondering novel developments and think I'm starting to get a handle on who my main character is, what she wants, and what she's going to have to do to get there. I hope this will translate soon into words on the page (although, let me tell you it ain't easy typing with a puppy in your lap).
[My grocery total is $36.63]
Checkout kid: Hey your total's a palindrome!
Me: I think I should get a discount.
Checkout Kid: if I were in charge you'd get a 75% discount!
Grocery Bagging Kid: But if you actually did that, people would come to the store and buy palindromic amounts of groceries and you'd have to give them all 75% discounts!
Checkout Kid: Nah, figuring the taxes would totally mess them up.
Wow, I haven't updated here in awhile. So, some quick updates to be followed perhaps, by a post that isn't updates sometime soon.
--Went to a dog show in Wisconsin where Billie earned her Rally Advanced title and many amazing prizes.
--Went to a tracking test in Illinois where Billie did not get a tracking title because her owner (me) did not trust her dog
--Went to Indiana and saw puppies (yay, puppies!). They were the cutest puppies ever in the history of the world. I should be getting one in about three weeks.
--Read some books
--Did some writing
--Went to western NY to visit family. Saw two of my brothers, my mother, an aunt and uncle and possibly other people I've forgotten.
[I wrote this about five days ago and forgot to post it. And, luckily, because I have no life, it is still pretty much valid]
I have been re-reading Harry Potter. And reading The Wisdom of Crowds, Terra Antarctica, and Stay by Nicola Griffith.
I've also been watching Ice Road Truckers, Deadliest Catch, Clatterford, the second season of Avatar, the Air Bender, and Pinky and the Brain. I'm not sure if this means I have eclectic tastes or no taste whatsoever.
Billie and I are going to the hospital about once a week right now for therapy dog visits which I think she enjoys. Also, it's kind of fun to watch people's reactions to dogs in the hospital (most people are either surprised or surprised and happy. Although there's one guy who's really really grumpy about the whole thing.)
I have a new computer, a new Airport Base Station (because my old one was eleventy billion years old) with a USB port where I have hooked up the hard drive with all the stuff from my old computer.
Billie and I have already been tracking and it's hotter than blue blazes out so while I'm sure I could be working on my yard, I'm not going to.
I have almost no excuse not to work on some sort of writing today.
I do have to go out and buy groceries sometime though.
It is also Iowa Straw Poll day and OMG my eyes are burning from all the Brownback, Ron Paul, Some Guy I Never Heard of signs.
I am somewhat reasonably certain that I have backed up all the data on my harddrive.
Word of advice. Never ever (ever!) take a Macintosh laptop apart. I mean ever. Unless you have a) all the tools in the world, b) a step by step pictographic guide, and c) aren't particularly worried about putting it back together again.
Seriously.
I like Macs. Have used one as my home computer for years. But, really, could you make the hard drive any harder to get to, Apple?
So the beginning of the week (Saturday), as you know, was crap. And at the end of the week (Friday) my computer died.
Okay, it's not totally dead and I'm reasonably sure I can get all the data off it, but it is currently useless because the wire that connects the screen to the computer is broken and so there's nothing on the screen.
Most everything is backed up though I am not entirely sure I have my latest story or the beginning of the novel. And there are some emails I should answer, but can't because I don't have the email addresses right now. But the only thing that would really make me unhappy to lose would be my photos (which I *think* are backed up, but I'm not 100 percent sure).
So, I guess I'll be buying a new computer soon, which I sort of wanted to do, but also sort of wanted to use the money for other things.
Ok, I watched this movie last night and--good, lord--are there actually families like this? Because this story is all about this family nagging the forty-year-old extremely good looking (Diane Lane) and apparently extraordinarily well-paid pre-school teacher into dating again after her divorce. And by nagging, I mean never talking about anything else, ever, posting pictures on her refrigerator of marginally eligible men, and calling her at all hours of the day and night to see if she's dating yet. Because in this movie it's clear that 'I just want you to be happy' means, 'I can't stand to see you living your life without attaching yourself to a man'. What they tell her is to get a life and it's clear that one cannot have one (a life) if one isn't dating a man.
Also, where do these people get their money? Diane Lane is a pre-school teacher living in California in a huge 1920s bungalow that would cost more than a single pre-school teacher in Iowa could afford, let alone California. John Cusack's character builds boats that he never sells and lives in a huge and beautiful loft with a huge and beautiful work space downstairs. He does nothing else and there's no indication that he's ever done anything else. Just builds boats. And doesn't sell them.
Stockard Channing is the best character in the movie as a love interest for Diane Lane's character's father, Christopher Plummer. But although Christopher Plummer is allowed to date billions of women and invite them all to his house at the same time (which the women put up with because in California it appears that it's against the law for any woman ever to date any man who is younger than she is. And since they all must have a man all the time--which we learned from the previous family intervention scene--they just have to put up with dating a man who has several dates at once). Stockard Channing's character handles this with a fair amount of grace (as she's the most mature character in the movie), but good lord, tell him to go jump.
The women act like idiots. The men act like idiots. And I don't get why anyone would want to be with anyone. The best couple in the movie is sixty-one year old Stockard Channing's character and the fifteen year old who meets her on the internet and thinks she's sixteen (because he read her age wrong) and 'so mature.'
1. I worked two weekends ago, I spent last weekend mostly on my back because I hurt it the weekend before, and I have to work all weekend this weekend. In other news, I'm pretty sure I'm going to take the Thursday and Friday after the 4th off.
2. I sat down after work and decided to write out the plot so far in the Sucky Novel of Doom. Imagine my surprise to discover that there is no plot! This may be why it sucks. I have premise, characters, backstory and stuff-that-happens. I believe I might profitably spend a couple of days thinking about the plot.
3. I finished converting 'What Makes a River' to past tense and cutting a little though perhaps not enough. Why I am working on this story I don't know since I can't sell it unless I sell 'How to Hide Your Heart'.
4. Started a new story, which may turn out not to be a story and almost certainly won't be finished for awhile and got (what I hope is) a decent idea for how to make 'Interacting with the Neighbors...' work as a story.
5. While I was lying on my back I watched 42- and 49- up. Someday I will have an actual post about these movies. For now, I'll just say that though I identify most with the Yorkshire farm boy gone to academia, I fear my life most resembles that of the not actually crazy (probably) guy, except that I have mostly always had a job.
6. Since I gave a talk a couple of weeks ago on social networks, I've started playing with Facebook and LibraryThing. It's extremely telling that the thing I like the most about LibraryThing is that I can go in and select the 'right' book cover for my books. Because if they don't have the right cover, it's as if they aren't even my books.
It will come as no surprise to learn that my inner book locater is completely visual and spatial.
7. The Ames School District closed two elementary schools two years ago and now are proposing to bus elementary kids five miles out of town to another district for a couple of years so they can remodel and relieve overcrowding.
8. They are also proposing to build an aquatic recreation center on the flood plain (which, while weirdly appropriate is stupid and annoying) and to tear down 8 houses to build a left turn lane. The people whose houses are being offered up for sacrifice are really, really annoyed (and in many ways it's hard to blame them because they will go from having a decent centrally located home to in all likelihood being unable to afford to buy another home in the city at all). Also, I go through this intersection every day at 5:00 and, really? Not the traffic problem of the century.
9. I actually don't have a number 9 (or a number 10 depending on how you think of it), but by the time I got to about six things I decided to see if I could get to 10.
10. If I were on LJ and could lock posts, I'd tell you other things, but one of them is sad and the other one is whiny so consider yourself spared.....
My new theory of the Internet is that everyone eventually ends up looking at happy puppies. You'll be doing research or looking for information or just randomly clicking and suddenly...OMG Happy Puppies!!!!!
It's what glues the Internet together.
I would put pictures of happy puppies in this very post, but I'm too lazy to get up and get my camera and cable and transfer said pictures over.
I have had a weird couple of days, some of which I can't comment on, some of which I don't want to comment on yet, but will at some point. Among other things, I gave a talk at a national conference but because I couldn't actually be at the conference I did it via videoconferencing. Word is that it went really well and I got great feedback, but really, don't ever do this unless you have no other choice. If you rely in any way on audience response (eye contact, smiles, nodding heads, frowns, crossed arms, sleeping in the back of the room) and I do, well, you get *nothing* from a video conference. There's no audience response. This particular talk was compounded by the fact that I was showing two videos that were several minutes each and at my end that was just blank silent time. So, yeah, you're giving a talk and then you stop in the middle for five minutes, then you start up again, and then there's time for three questions and some talking in the back of the room that you can't hear and then you're done.
It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, though.
Just in case you were wondering.
Okay....one Happy Puppy picture:
A month or so ago, I lost an insurance reimbursement check. And, although it wasn't a huge check, I really could have used it, seeing as how I owned two houses at the time. I knew that assuming no one else found it and cashed it, that the insurance company would reissue it, but I hadn't pursued that yet, though I did occasionally think fondly of that check and the things I could do with the money, if I had it.
So, today, I was taking some things out of my knapsack from this weekend and putting them in my purse for tomorrow and I looked down at my hands and there was the check.
In my hands.
From out of, apparently, nowhere. There would have been no reason on Earth that it would have been in my knapsack. And it wasn't in my purse (because I looked in there a hundred times). And I didn't actually pull it out of my knapsack, anyway. It was just there in my hands with my phone and my wallet and my notebook.
Oh, mysteries of life, never stop messing with my head.
I just wasted precious minutes of my life trying to post comments to SarahP's journal. They were Brilliant comments, too, with a capital 'B'. They would have changed lives and altered the course of nations.
Angels might also have cried.
I spent this weekend scorekeeping for a local agility trial. Billie got to hang out with me there, though we did not run. She is not really a master of coordination (because: medication) and, frankly, neither am I. I managed to get lost on a simple right turn last year at a Rally trial. But it was fun and it mostly didn't rain and it wasn't too hot, which in Iowa is about all you can ask of the weather in June.
I've got approximately 3,800 words written on the new novel. It's currently titled 'The Ghosts of Fear' but I'm considering changing it to 'Resolutions'. It may change titles several more times before I'm done.
Old house closed today.
My old mortgage is paid off. My bridge loan is paid off. And I have deposited money in the bank.
In a comedic ending that would never play in fiction, I managed to lose the set of house keys that I have been using for twenty years as I was on my way to turn them over to the realtor (no, seriously, like, lost). Fortunately this was not the only set of keys to the house (also, fortunately--although I suspect that they are either at work, at my new house or in the landfill, in which case it doesn't matter--they have no identifiers on them at all so no one would ever be able to tell that they were house keys let alone what house they go to).
But that aside, it is done. And once again, I own just the one house. Woo-freakin'-hoo! :-)
I sold my house (Finally! Hallelujah!!!!!)
I got a decent price. And, more importantly, survived having the home inspection on the wettest day of the last ten years (and before you ask if the basement was wet--yes, of course, the basement was wet--flood plain, five inches of rain, house built in the 20s--I'm willing to bet there wasn't a basement in my part of town that wasn't).
They did ask for some things to be done before closing, all of them reasonable and all of them doable.
And we close before the end of May!!!
"Sixth Street always goes under first."
"Yeah, and 13th Street is last."
"Not 24th?"
"No, because it goes 6th, South Duff, 30, 24th, then 13th. Then you have to drive 40 miles north to go a mile and a half east.
Plus, don't forget Lincolnway."
"Yeah, but that's, like, a whole 'nother flood."
==
"This is as much water as '93."
"Not even. It wasn't even as much water as '96. Because in '96, the horse pasture was completely underwater and that storm drain thing was shooting water straight up into the air."
"What about the canoes in the grocery store?
"That was '93."
But, really, almost no streets went under this time. Kayaks in the park and sandbagging (with mulch!) at the pizza place. Wet basements everywhere. Because that's why we build on the flood plain.
And I am so lame, I have no pictures.
Or at least the four or five people who read here occasionally....
Keep your fingers crossed and wish really, really hard.
Thanks!
My wireless works in my back yard. Yay!! (I need a brighter screen, tho)
Yesterday I talked to a physics class about writing SF & F, which was fun (SarahP, tell JohnP that it was an *all!girl* physics class--seriously).*
Billie did her first pet therapy visit at the hospital which went really well, although there were no patients. Tomorrow we are visiting Girl Scouts.
I am currently working on 'What Makes a River' and the revisions for 'Cowgirls in Space' (or I would be if I weren't typing this).
I probably have other news as well, but I'm pretty sure all of it is just as exciting as this news so I'll save it for another time.
*(Okay, it was a physics class for non-majors and there were two boys, but all the rest were girls)
Gratuitous dog picture (so at least this post is not a total waste of your time):
I get this letter from the county treasurer's office that I haven't paid my property taxes which would be, you know, bad.
I pay them into escrow, so it's not like I'm personally responsible and my mortgage is with the credit union which is, all in all, really good. I call them and then say we paid them on the 12th of last month. They call the Treasurer's office, who says--well, hmmm...we applied those taxes to the other house.
So, I'm thinking...let me get this straight. My other house has an eleven hundred dollar credit and the taxes have been paid TWICE in the month of March (according to you), and when you saw that this house had No Taxes Paid On It, it didn't occur to you to think...hmmm, perhaps we made a mistake? My favorite part is that they cannot, apparently, just move that money to the correct location. I (well, the credit union) have to pay the taxes again and they will send the credit union a check for the wrongly credited taxes. They damn well better credit me back the interest.
In other news my assessment hardly went up at all so at least they won't be getting any more taxes from me.
In completely other news, Billie had her first hospital therapy visit today and was her lovely charming self. We're definitely looking forward to more.
Also, I've decided that 'Two is Not a Pattern' is not the next Beth/Paul not-vampire story, which is probably why I was having so much trouble writing it. The story I'm currently working on is: 'What Makes A River':
Paul sends her an email and it drops her jaw because--first-- how does he know her email address and --second--why. Because he never made any promises, never even said--thanks for helping me out that time. But he does--he sends her email. Are you okay? Is all it says. Three words and a question mark and she can't figure out what it means. Is it a general question--in this moment on this day. Does it mean he was thinking about her--hey, just want you to know I'm here. Because it's not that he found her attractive because she's not attractive. Does he know about the Thing in the lake that's not a merman? Is he asking if she's safe?
She wants to ping him back, to say--goddamn you, there's a Thing in the lake and you're a hunter. Come here and hunt it. Leave me alone, leave me out, leave me ignorant and alone. Except she doesn't want to be alone. And she can't be ignorant--can't unknow what she knows anymore.
Damn him.
Damn the world.
She answers him--I'm fine, how are you.
For those who worry about such things (...chance...) it will probably (almost certainly) not be in present tense when it's done.
So, I have been following the mighty battle of SFWA presidents and it is clear that this is a battle of the YOUNG vs the OLD. Never mind that some of the YOUNG are in fact old and some of the OLD are clearly young. That is not important.
So, the first question you should ask yourself as you're preparing to vote in this critical election is--am I YOUNG or OLD.
A quiz to help you with this important question:
--If you have ever said, 'Hey, you, get off my lawn!' Stop taking this quiz right now because you win! You are OLD. (I once ran outside in my stocking feet in the middle of winter and told a guy to damn well stop leaning over the fence to pet my dog, but this doesn't count because the dog was a (albeit friendly) Rottweiler and the guy was a freaking idiot.)
--If you have ever said, 'You think that sounds like a good idea but we tried that in 1942 and war broke out.' Ha ha ha, you are OLD.
--If you have said, 'Who are you?' to someone who is arguing with you online and has just given you their name. You are...well, hmmm, you could actually be either YOUNG or OLD.
--If you actually use RSS feeds, Second Life, Live Journal, My Space, YouTube, wikis, Technorati, IceRocket, Windows Mobile 5, Google Alerts or you know what Web 2.0 is, you are YOUNG.
--If you constantly try to divide people and/or things into two groups and boil complex issues down into the FORS and AGAINSTS, you are OLD. Jeez, what's with that? Just stop it already.*
--If you have already switched to Windows Vista, you are either YOUNG or insane.
--If you have no idea what Windows Vista is, you are OLD.**
--If you keep trying things when OLD people tell you Straight Out that it will NOT work and it is WRONG. Then you are YOUNG. And not just YOUNG, but a Whippersnapper. And no one wants to be a Whippersnapper. No one.
*Dividing people up into YOUNG vs OLD does not count. Really. It totally doesn't. Like, at all.
**(If you have a Macintosh you will never be old, because that is the Mighty Macintosh Secrit--shhh, don't tell anyone!)
--My old house still hasn't sold (and Francisco Franco is still dead). My realtor says that there have been 7 showings in three days so, you know, buy it, someone.
--This house was my dream house two years ago. It's the house I didn't get (because other people bought it for more money than I could) and it's the house that got me on the year and a half house hunting that culminated in me buying my current house.
--And, honestly, I like my new house even better than that house. Except the yard. Because whereas my yard is very nice, that house has a yard that is all the AWESOME. It's a half acre, wooded, deep, deep lot.
--Except that yard is not fenced. At all.
--Except that house is now listed at $50,000 more than I paid for this house (actually more than $50,000 more), which may not be much in California housing dollars but is a lot of money in Iowa dollars.
--And no one keeps that house more than two years (I have no idea why because it's really a very nice house), but they don't.
--And I like my house. A lot. And I like the fact that I didn't pay $50,000 more for it. And I didn't have to pay to put up a fence. And my current plans are to stay quite a bit longer than two years.
--So, huh.
--And good :-)
--I still have not sold my old house. Last week during the open house, two different real estate agents were also showing the house. It's like a ride at the amusement park--maybe I should give up trying to sell it and just charge admission.
--John Henry had a mostly clean bill of health at his latest oncology checkup. His chest x-ray was clear. They found a mass on his chest near his left front leg, but when they aspirated it it came back with no significant findings, which is good.
--Billie had to have minor surgery for an abscessed anal gland of all things. It went well, she's doing fine. It didn't bother her because she's--by god--a Rottweiler and they laugh in the face of minor surgery.
--I finished the first draft of Cowgirls in Space and am sort of working on Two is Not a Pattern or I would be if I knew more about the plot and not so much about the thematic interactions.
--I recently read The Confession by James McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey about which I'd like to write up a review, but I haven't yet and am currently reading Fiasco, the best part of which so far is a quote from a former Army officer calling Wolfowitz, 'crack-smoking stupid.'
Whenever a reasonable person gets into a discussion with an asshat, there's always a moment where the reasonable person has an urge to apologize. Resist this urge with every fiber of your being!
Other reasonable people will think--wow, that was a really reasonable and mature thing to do, particularly in the face of asshattery. The asshat will think--ha, ha, I win!
When I lived in New Hampshire it got dark at 4:30 in the afternoon in winter, but the sun was up by 7:00 AM. When I lived in Indiana, it didn't get light until 8:00 in the morning. That was way more depressing than having it get dark at 4:30. I love that time in spring when it slowly, finally, starts getting light in the mornings. And I love it when it's light before I even get up (this possibly goes back to my childhood getting up and milking cows when it was so dark and so cold that you could have convinced me that the sun was never going to rise again).
So, now we have gone to Daylight Savings Time even earlier, which plunges us back into darkness in the mornings. And doesn't save me any energy because I'm awake in the mornings *and* the evenings. Go figure.
This post has been brought to you by the Society of Cranky Old Men and Women (Our motto: Hey, you, get off my lawn!)
I wrote this in Chainsaw on Hand:
If it were suddenly summer in South Dakota after a week of minus two, you would hate it--it would be too hot and too humid and frightening, like the world was ending in fire instead of ice. In South Dakota in winter, you don’t think about seventy degrees or eighty degrees. As far as you’re concerned the tropics don’t exist; palm trees, blue waters--they’re just a television fantasy. Twenty degrees would be enough. If the temperature got up to twenty degrees, you’d unbutton your jacket and shed an entire layer of long underwear. At twenty degrees you’d walk outside without your head covered, with your face turned toward the sun, like you were living in Bermuda. Twenty degrees in South Dakota in winter would give you enough hope to go on.
And as we learned today in Iowa, when it is suddenly 45 after a month where the average temperature is 12, you can walk around pretty comfortably without a coat on (some people can walk around with tee-shirts and shorts on, but the jury's still out on whether they are comfortable or not).
...that one of the top ten passwords is 'Password1'?
Yeah, it used to be 'password' but then systems started requiring both letters and numbers and people got all clever and decided to add a '1'. And, yeah, totally secure now.
Also, 'monkey' is a top ten password.
On that same note, my online banking system has now gone to a setup that lets you makeup your own security questions, so now instead of trying to remember which dog you put down for 'What is your favorite pet's name?' You can put down questions that you'll not only remember the answer to, but only you will know, like
--What is John Henry's oncologist's last name?
--Who was my first grade teacher?
--What was the name of the street I grew up on before they changed its name
--Who lived across the street from me when I was six
Note: since you make up the questions, don't ask yourself questions you don't actually know the answer to
Note the second: these are not my actual security questions
Note the third: if your password is 'Password1' or 'monkey'--yeah--change it now.
So, the average temperature for last month was 12 degrees F.
Today it's been icing since early this morning. Later, it's supposed to snow. Fun for all...
I'm currently working on Cowgirls in Space, which I will be able to finish as soon as I remember the One Important Thing. I hope to work on Two is Not a Pattern later.
Then, perhaps, the logistics of getting the three-legged dog down the ice-covered steps (I'm not particularly worried about him on the ground as he has more traction on ice than I do, but the steps...ohhh, baby).
Gratuitous John Henry picture:
You should not be saying the low for the day is going to be 14 when it's currently -2.
So now Movable Type is saying all comments everywhere are gone. Except it's, at least temporarily, showing the one Sarah posted yesterday. And the spam is, of course, everywhere (not where anyone but me sees it, but still).
And, yeah, I have been thinking of moving to Live Journal lately....
Guy: It's cold!
Me: That's why god invented long underwear.
Guy: Long underwear! I would rather wear snow pants. [note that we are inside at this time]
Me: I would rather wear long underwear and snow pants and be warm.
Guy: Hmmmm.....
So, it says there are comments for this post and this one. And I've gotten the email notices for them so I have, indeed, actually seen the comments, but they are not on the comnents list in the movable type back end and they are not there when I click on the link to go to comments on the blog.
They're like invisible comments.
So, it snowed again last night and most of this morning. I'd guess we got six to eight inches of new snow.
Billie and I went tracking over at the cross country fields [insert rant here about people who drive on snow as if there isn't any snow. Also people who think they know how to drive on snow but don't], which was a lot more work for me than for her.
We took some things out to the new dog building. Billie played with a boxer and a miniature pinscher. Playing with the boxer always ends better than playing with the miniature pinscher.
Then I came home and idly waited until they plowed my street [insert rant here about how idiotically they plow the streets here] but gave up about 2:00 at which point the plow came and plowed the street about a dozen times and I decided not to plow the end of my driveway after all because who cares but me and I have four-wheel drive.
The End.
So, I get up this morning and it's snowed...
...which wasn't a big surprise because it was snowing last night. But anyway, I have breakfast and figure out where my boots are and go outside to shovel (and don't think about that other house, that's on the corner).
And as I'm just getting started, ny neighbor from across the street who I haven't met before comes over and says, 'You know, I have nothing to do and I would love to snow blow your sidewalk and your driveway.'
And who am I to argue with that.
So, I finish shoveling the back walk and sweep the front and back steps and let the dogs out and in. Then, I come back inside and take off boots and snow pants and have second breakfast. And I am sitting on the couch definitely not thinking about the fact that I own two houses and, really, I should do something about that other one (did I mention it's on a corner?), when one of the people I work with calls and says, "I was just driving around with my snow blower and wondered if you needed any sidewalks cleared.' (no really that's pretty much what he said).
So now all my sidewalks are done!!! Yay, me!
Also, check out the candy version of the Battle for Helm's Deep. Things like this give me a deep abiding fath in humanity....
...but really I have no news (seriously)
--I still own two houses
--I've gotten two rejections since the first of the year and have three stories in the mail
--Twice in my writing career I've been told that my story was very similar to another story I've never read.
--Billie's tracking certification, of which I have two certificates remaining, runs out the *day* before the next tracking test I could conceivably enter so I will have to re-certify her (this would, of course, be moot if she'd passed at one of the two tests we got into last year)
--I am currently working on two short stories (a relatively small number, but if I finish them it will be a triumph of something)
--I realized this morning that 'Two is Not a Pattern' probably has something to do with statistics (also not-vampires) so it's a good thing I was a statistics analyst once upon a time.
And two may not be a pattern, but apparently it's a theme....
So, I started the year with two dogs and I finished the year with the same two dogs! Yay me!
Really that was the best part of 2006, but also:
--Magic in a Certain Slant of Light was reprinted in two year's best anthos
--I bought a fabbo new house (I've only bought two houses in my life and as of right now I still own both of them--yeah, this isn't as great as the buying a new house part, but I expect it will change in 2007)
--I did not manage a short story a month but I did finish (counts up on fingers) six stories which is a lot for me. And three of them are even polished enough to put in the mail.
--I met a lot of terrific writers from Iowa City and spent far more time than I ever imagined in the Jewel of the Prairie. Also chocolate milkshakes.
--I finished off 2006 by going tracking in the (not quite freezing) rain through dense underbrush. But I was wearing my awesome new jacket which was excellent although now I need new rain pants so I can have a complete SYSTEM and weather can never touch me again!!!
Also other stuff I'm not thinking of at the moment.
1. A county extension agent
(sure there was what's his name on Green Acres. But it was Green Acres, for god sake. It was thirty years ago and, you know, Green Acres).
2. Non-bucolic farmers
As in farmers who act like farmers who've been to four years of college might act (also not desperate farmers sadly losing their entire life and livelihood to a heartless banker in three days).
3. Professional women who are older than twelve.
I watched two disks worth of Bones before I had to give up because it's made fairly clear in the pilot that the main female character is a PhD expert who is probably not yet 30. And I was willing to suspend my disbelief because I like a good forensic bone story as much as the next person until the episode where she said that she understood about working with dead children because she was at Waco. Waco was in 1993, dude! You were, what? 15? Yeah, I don't think so. Someday I will probably talk about the other things that bugged me about that show (surprisingly not the science because for some odd reason I just let that go--well, okay not really because I hate the part of science where the main characters know every single thing in their field and never look at a book, read a journal or consult with other experts. Yeah, that's believable.)
4. People older than 35 who have been on teh intranets.
I was watching NCIS(yeah, I have netflix and a crime show jones) and Mark Harmon's character was all massively multiplayer-whahhh? And then the Naval Captain was all--hey I know whtat that is cuz I have kids and you don't--hahaha. And then Ducky who would totally be interested in World of Warcraft if someone just showed him how these damn devil machines work ,said--oh you crazy kids and your wacky inventions. Luckily they have a young kicky Goth girl who knows not just forensics and is a genius--genius!--in the lab, but she is young (twelve year old professional) so she totally knows how to use computers and hack her way right up to the top of the MMORPG--cuz she is the youngster. And those young people they so get the typing and the interacting and shit.
...that the things that get the most comments around here involve upside down dogs, flat squirrels and electric peeing.
You may now expect this sort of discourse to escalate in the coming year.
Tom's comment below reminded me of another conversation I once had with the 'Rottweilers are going to kill you' guy. I thought I'd posted this one before, but can't find it on a search so here it is:
Him (on the phone): I need a videoconferencing account
Me: Ok. Are you going to be putting on meetings because you don't need an account just to attend.
Him: Well, if I don't have an account, how do I get my name to show up instead of 'Guest' when I join the conference?
Me: Type your name instead of typing 'Guest.'
Him: Oh. But, okay, how can people see me when I'm in the conference?
Me: Turn your camera on.
Him: I don't have a camera.
Me: Then people can't see you.
Him: People can see me.
Me: Then you have a camera.
[...Three more rounds of this exact same conversation...]
Me: Hmmm...look, do you have a webcam?
Him: Yes.
Me: That's a camera.
Him: No, it's not.
Me [swearing in my head]: Just use the web cam
Him: Ok. Why didn't you just say that in the first place?
Me: [Falls off chair]
Here's a story: One day this guy who I've worked with (though he's not in my office) for many years comes into my office and sits down, as he has often done over the years. As we're talking this time, he looks up and notices that I have several pictures of Rottweilers in the room. Why he's never noticed this before, I have no idea.
"Are those your dogs?" he asks
"Yes, I have two Rottweilers."
"Those dogs are going to kill you," he says.
"No, actually, they're not," I say. "I've had Rottweilers for sixteen years."
"They will kill you," he insists. "They always turn on their owners and kill them. You need to get rid of them now before they kill you."
Me [laughing]
But here's the thing: this guy knows nothing about Rottweilers. He certainly doesn't know anything like as much as I know about them. But he didn't say, 'I'm surprised you have Rottweilers.' Or 'I've heard they're mean.' Or, 'wow, aren't you afraid those things will kill you.' He said, "They'll kill you." Like he knew what he was talking about. Like I couldn't possibly know what I was talking about. Like assertion and experience are the same.
I have to say, I hate that. And it's endemic on the internets. People confidently and with gusto declare things as fact that are patently no such thing. And you (if you, say, have a fever and are temporarily insane) end up arguing with them as if they have some legitimate point, when really they have no freaking idea what they're talking about. They simply have command of language and a big enough ego that they sound as if they do (or, also, they're really good at yelling louder than everyone else).
People don't always end up looking like experts because they are, in fact, experts. They way too often end up in that position because they sound like they know what they're talking about. That (among a number of other reasons) is why so-called meritocracies end up being no such thing. That's why experts are overrated. That's why when someone says 'I know what I'm talking about and here's why.' One might, you know, actually listen to them.
A cozy fire in the fireplace and two dogs sleeping on the couch with me.
Plus, my kitchen ceiling no longer leaks...
Totally the best weather combination ever.
Also, it was 70 on Wednesday.
Update: There is now actual snow on the ground and plenty of it. Sadly, the thunder has stopped.
What is it with people who leave their shopping carts in the checkout lane and just walk away with their packages (and by 'in the lane' I mean they themselves had to walk around it to get to their bags at the end of the lane)? Do they think some magic grocery fairy is going to come and move it for them? For anyone who wonders--when you leave your shopping cart directly in the checkout lane--THE PERSON BEHIND YOU HAS TO MOVE IT!
Get a freaking clue.
I took my car in today to get it worked on because lately when I use the turn signal the clicking sound continues even after the turn signal is off. But I actually ended up getting new brake pads and rotors on the front because it wasn't actually making the clicking sound today so they were mostly guessing what would fix it and, since the turn signal is working, and the brakes were clearly heading toward the not-working stage, it seemed the better choice. Of course, it also cost twice as much as fixing the turn signal.
And by the way, I hate with the mighty hate of a thousand suns, television sets in public waiting areas. Today I was, at least, smart enough to take my iPod with me and I still managed to see far more of Regis and Kelly (only with out Regis), the Price is Right, and the Young and the Restless than I really wanted to see. Although now I know what that guy from Project Runway looks like wearing Crocs, how much a pull-behind camper costs and that some guy I don't know is eloping to New Mexico with some woman I don't know (I mean, really, I'm assuming I heard wrong--who would elope to New Mexico?)
Also, my realtor told me that someone looked at my old house this week and is really interested, but wants to get their life in order first. My god, if I have to wait until someone has their life in order, the house may never sell.
Well, as you might have guessed, I have moved and am somewhat unpacked and mostly settled (though my old house still hasn't sold). I'll get some pictures up on Flickr (maybe tonight) of both just moved and mostly settled. Surprisingly, they don't actually resemble each other.
There's not much else to report. No writing news of note. No dog news of note. I'm in the process of revising The Whale's Lover (finally) and I've sort of started a new story called Interacting with the Neighbors on a Downward Slide to Hell which is not horror and probably doesn't involve Hell, but is, of course, totally spec-ficcy.
I also sent a bio to Sheila at Asimovs for Chainsaw on Hand, which will be in the March, 2007 issue.
--Had another open house today. My realtor didn't leave me a note, so I don't know how it went but I will assume all manner of excellence since I have no evidence to the contrary.
--John Henry got to spend his time at the new house and apparently it was so awesome and comfortable that BIllie and I woke him out of a sound sleep when we came back.
--Billie and I went to the dog show in Des Moines today where Billie got first place in Rally Novice with a perfect score of 100. In Rally, perfect scores are surprisingly not all that uncommon, but it was a big surprise to me (my primary goal for the day was: Have Fun) and I was very pleased.
It occurred to me tonight as I was walking Billie that I lived on a farm growing up in New York and I've lived in a city the entire time I've been in Iowa.
Stereotypes are the bomb.
--Got my slush bomb story back from GVG. Too much glitter (not really :-) He just didn't like it well enough). I'm thinking I'll send it to Asimov's next.
--John Henry had his cancer check up this week. His lungs are still clear and they say everything looks good. Yay him!!! This makes 16 months since he was diagnosed and had his leg chopped off (I feel weird saying he 'lost his leg;' it's not like we misplaced it or something).
--My realtor is having another open house tomorrow. Billie and I are going to the dog show.
I didn't get any pictures of the tree before it came down, but when I was over at the house this morning, I took this picture:
As we can all now see, the tree guy was totally right. Basically, this tree was a big rotten hole holding up a bunch of very large and heavy branches:
Also, this is the big tree limb that started it all (it doesn't look that big in this picture but the limb actually extends clear to the other side of the garage, plus they've already cut a bunch of branches off):
So, I have my new house, which is lovely. And my current--soon to be old--house, which is also lovely (someone Buy It--this is your subliminal message for the day). So, yesterday, I go over to the new house on my way to work to check on things and when I walk out the back door (this being the same door I walked in) I notice there's a cable drooping into the yard. I follow the line of the cable and (finally) notice that there's a really big tree limb that's fallen into the back yard.
Now, there hasn't been a storm or anything and this is a Really Big tree limb so not only do I need to get rid of this big tree limb but I'm a bit worried about the really big tree that it fell off of. Luckily, though it fell across the fence, it didn't do any damage to the fence, so that's a good thing. And the cable that it fell on turns out to be the television cable so that's also good.
So, I go to work and I call a tree removal service and say, can you go over to my new house and tell me what it's going to cost to get rid of this Really Big tree limb and also look at the tree it came off and tell me whether there are going to be more Really Big tree limbs falling off, or maybe like the whole tree falling down.
So, the tree guy goes over and he looks at the Really Big tree limb and the tree it came off and he calls me back and says, that tree is fine--it's not a very good tree, but it's healthy and it's not going to fall down. However, this other--even bigger tree--which is right in your front driveway, right next to your house.....That tree is, like, all hollow and very dangerous and should come down right now if not sooner (in fact, later in our conversation he admits that if it were his tree he wouldn't even want to wait until after the weekend). So I say, oh crap and let me think about it and ok fine just do it (which is about the time he tells me about the not waiting until Monday part).
This morning they brought a bucket truck and a big (and by big I mean really big) boom truck and a chipper and some other truck the function of which I'm not certain. I was gone most of the day but Billie and I walked over there about seven to see how it was going and they had the bucket truck in my driveway and the boom truck in my neighbor's yard and (I swear to god) they had taken down half my neighbor's fence to get the boom truck where they wanted it. They were still there working because, said the crew member I talked to, they wanted to be sure all the dangerous tree parts were done and then they'd finish up tomorrow. While I was watching they took off a limb the size of a medium-sized tree and swung it out over my (new) neighbor's yard--at which point I couldn't bear to watch anymore. I thought, my god, my neighbor is going to hate me with the hate of a thousand suns.
Billie and I continued with our walk and when I got home there was a message from the tree guy and he told me what the guy I talked to at the house told me. He also told me that my neighbor, in fact, loves me because he's been wanting the last four people who owned that house to take out that tree and finally someone actually did it.
We--me, the tree guy, his crew, and probably my new neighbor, although I haven't actually talked to him--think that this is, like, the luckiest thing ever because if I hadn't called them to get rid of the tree limb in my back yard I probably would have put off having anyone look at that tree and it would have fallen on either my house, my neighbor's house or my garage, probably in the winter and probably when it was, like, twenty below outside.
Meanwhile, the Really Big tree limb in the back yard, which started it all, is still there because, you know, it's not actually going anywhere and has already pretty much done all the falling it's going to do.
I haven't sold my current house yet, which has a lot to do with when I move into the new house, but when I was over at the new house today, I photographed a walking tour of the place (check it out).
I forgot to take pictures of the attic and the basement so you don't get to see the Scary Door (which, sadly, turns out not to be that scary), but pretty much everything else is there.
Tomorrow morning, I'm closing on my new house. My current house has been on the market just over a week. I've gotten great feedback from realtors, but no one's made me an offer yet. I love this house. I've lived here for 19 years (yikes!) and I'm ready for someone else to love it now.
I'm not worried about selling this house (at least not yet). I've already had several people look at it so I know there's at least some interest out there. My realtor thinks it should sell within a month which would be excellent. But I can't fully embrace the new house until I know I don't have to worry about this one any more (and mow two lawns and pay two mortgages and...)
On the new house, the soon-to-be-former owner called yesterday and asked if I wanted to go through the house with him. It's clear that they loved the house and were very sorry to go and it's really very clear that they put a lot more into the house than is reflected in the price I paid. The new house is nearly the exact same age as my current house--it's like the grown-up version.
Pictures maybe this weekend...
If you have any sort of choice in the matter, don't clean out your attic on any day when it's going to be OMG hot all day, particularly when it involves handling fiberglass insulation.
But the really crappy part is done--I just need to sweep the stairs and a little bit in the attic--later. And I've taken my first (but almost certainly not my last) shower of the day so I am going to be optimistic and hope that will take care of the fiberglass (even though it probably won't). The rest of the day will be clean-up, pack-up, and, almost inevitably make a trip to Lowes.
But right now I'm going to sit down and watch Pinky and the Brain
sallytuppence talks about doing some ruthless cutting on her novel and I've been doing some ruthless cutting at my house. It's going on the market on Monday.
This past Monday the realtor came and among her suggestions, she said remove every thing. Basically, you get to have one item on each surface and totally clean surfaces are also good.
She also suggested I turn my dining room back into a dining room:
Previously, I think it might most accurately have been referred to as 'a very wide hallway with lots of clutter.'
Except for the fact that it's dirty and a lot of work, I have enjoyed putting my house back in order. It really is a very nice house.
I'll post more pictures when it's all bright and shiny (you have to wait for new house pictures until I actually move in there).
Since making the offer on my new house not quite two weeks ago, I have:
--Ripped out carpet in two rooms
--Cleaned out the basement
--Painted the porch
--Cleaned the garage
--Trimmed the hedges and chopped down a tree (okay, really other people did this part)
--Cleaned out cupboards
--Put new hardware on drawers
--Been to Lowes an infinite number of times (just for example--buying six new knobs for two drawers and two cupboard doors required three trips to Lowes and two trips to Ace Hardware)
I think I am drawing close to the point where I can put my current house on the market; I'll have the realtor come by tomorrow or Tuesday and see what's left to bne done.
And, seriously, this is why someone should buy my house:
Best. Fireplace. Ever.
Pulling up old carpeting?
Definitely not the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
...This week I bought a new house.
You should all go ohhh and ahhh at it before the pictures go away.
When you leave a message asking for help, we cannot actually use our Secrit Mental Powers to determine your phone number.
People: How come you don't have computers set up in this room?
Me: Because you never told me you needed computers set up in that room.
People: Well, we totally do.
Or,
People: How come you set up computers in this room instead of this other room?
Me: Because you said: set up computers in this room.
People: Well, we were wrong.
I've been looking for a new house on and off since last March. This is my record so far:
--House on the market for 2 months. The second time I go to look at it someone else arrives to look at it while I'm there and puts in an offer on the spot. This house was totally my dream house, but the people who bought it paid more than I could have reasonably afforded to pay for it.
--House on the market for a month. I go to see it three times (because it's a nice house, but the yard isn't perfect). I put in an offer. The owners refuse to sell it to me. Two months later they sell it for exactly what I offered them (this turned out to actually be good for me because two weeks after I put in that offer John Henry broke his leg and thank god I wasn't trying to move, but still...)
--House on the market for a month. I go to see it twice. Small but very nice, needs a few improvements. Very affordably priced (but not for everyone, for one thing there is no shower anywhere in the house and no way to put one in except to add a whole new bathroom). Yesterday, I put an offer on it. Someone else put an offer on it five hours earlier.
This does not count the houses I looked at but didn't put offers on. Last year the market was fairly hot, but this year it is very slow. There are something like twice as many houses on the market as there usually are this time of year. People need to stop buying my houses.
That except for shelves and cupboards, I use the following pieces of furniture in my house: desk chair desk, couch, bed.
So, really, I could get along with a lot less furniture than I currently have.
Because I am getting upwards of 800 attempts to post spam comments a day (gee, what would it be like if this blog were actually read by more than fifteen or so people) I have instituted a feature that sends everything to moderation if there are any links (including the link that you put in the URL request box). If you don't include links you should still go right through.
Sorry, but it's like having hordes of rodents constantly trying to get over your fence and into your back yard.
I have been looking at this all day and find it utterly fascinating.
The photographs are from a project to photograph one hundred 100 square foot flats in Hong Kong's oldest public housing projects.
It doesn't surprise me that people can live in a 10 x 10 foot room--bedroom, living room, kitchen, everything. I am fascinated by the ways in which each room is deeply personal as well as the things they have in common (television, fan, bunk beds, wall clock).
I have cancelled my hotel reservation for Wiscon and I won't be going this weekend :-(
I will miss finally meeting people I know online and I'm sure it will be fun for all. I decided that I've had the dogs in the kennel twice this month already . Both of them have been sick (John Henry while not at the kennel and Billie at the kennel--though not because she was at the kennel). They're both fine now, but Billie has had a couple of small seizures this last week and I think (in my crackpot theory way) that being sick messed up her medication balances and it's taken her a bit to get back on track again. And now I want her to stay on track for awhile.
Anyway, have fun. Send me many links to pictures and descriptions of the many great things you are all doing. I will post pictures of my dogs and maybe get some writing done.
Seventy to ninety trains a day go through Ames, IA. When I tell people this--including people who actually live in Ames--they hardly ever believe me, but it's true. There are two different sets of train tracks so really, that's only about three trains an hour on each track, twenty-four hours a day. This morning when I was sitting in the park with Billie, five trains went through in the space of forty minutes. Sometimes there are two trains at once, which is a bitch if you're running errands at lunch and you have to sit through two entire trains. There are very few over/underpasses. Most of the crossings are at-grade. There are actually very few accidents--and this, even though one of the crossings has a fairly nasty traffic flow.
But, when I'm driving through town, one of my decision points is when to cross the railroad tracks--if I can go one way and cross right away and a different way and cross later, I will always choose to cross right away because odds are if I wait, there will be a train.
ME: I sent my check six days before it was due and you charged me a late fee. What's up with that?
THEM: Well, really it was only five working days
[Note from me: well, really not because the USPS actually works on Saturday].
THEM: And, plus, it takes six to eight working days for your payment to get to us.
ME: It takes six to eight working days for mail to get from Iowa to Missouri?
THEM: Yes.
ME: You've got to be kidding me.
THEM: Oh no, it's totally true.
ME: If I send mail to a person's house in St. Louis it takes, like, two to three days.
THEM: Well, it takes six to eight days to get to us.
ME: So, do you, like, let it sit around in a room for four or five days?
THEM: Absolutely not. It takes six to eight days to be delivered to us.
ME: So it takes longer to deliver mail to a business than to a residence?
THEM: Apparently [No, really, she actually said this part]
ME: How would I know this totally out-of-whack and unpredictable thing?
THEM: You should call us and ask us.
ME: Why would I expect mail to you to be totally out of whack with the entire rest of the world and therefore know that I should call you and ask you how totally out of whack your mail delivery is?
THEM: Well, you should pay over the phone or online.
ME: I can't pay online because your webpage is totally hosed up.
THEM: That's a feature. It's for your security.
ME: Well, it's totally working.
To her credit she was a) reasonably nice to me the whole time even when I was laughing at her mail delivery statistics and b) agreed to waive the late fee--just this one time, you understand because now I totally know that it takes days and days for mail to travel to St. Louis.
I find this most frustrating because this is my credit union credit card and my credit union used to have the Best Credit Card Ever. It had no rewards, no special promotions, no cool shiny things. It also was not trying to make all its money off charging me stupid and outrageous fees, messing with the due date (the current credit card people change the billing due date every single month). It was a low interest credit card that let me charge things and pay for them at the end of the month. It had grace periods for paying and months with no payment and a simple clear bill. It was 950 times better than any other credit card I ever had and I loved it. That credit card was all about the customer and not all about the money that can be made off the customer, like every other credit card on Earth.
When I told the credit union (which I like very very much except for this credit card thing) how much I loved the old card and how much I don't love the new card, they said--well other people wanted rewards and therefore were not happy with the old card. I said, yeah, it didn't occur to me that I needed to call you up and tell you how much I loved my old card and now it's too late :-(
So, the lesson here is that if some organization is doing something you really like, call them right now and tell them you really like it--because some idiot is out there at this very moment complaining about it and if you're not careful you too could be having conversations like the one above.
I spent most of last week in Gainesville, Florida at a technology conference. We stayed here, which is right on the University of Florida campus. Also on the University of Florida campus is a lake with alligators.
Now, it seems to me that if you had to list the top ten things that should not be mixed together, college students and alligators would be right up near the top of the list. I guess they don't lose a lot of students, but man, we just have ground squirrels and rabbits on our campus. I walked around the lake one afternoon while I was there and I have to say I was sorta creeped out by the whole alligators right there in the water thing.
The other night, after I got back from the conference, I was watching Miami Animal Precinct on Animal Planet. A man was called in to remove an alligator from a sinkhole at Monkey Jungle (I don't think that was really the name, but it was some tourist attraction that involved lots and lots of monkeys). Apparently they had bought the alligator several years ago as a tourist attraction (in case the monkeys weren't interesting enough) and now it was big and cranky and they were afraid they were going to start losing monkeys (or college students).
So this, I swear, is how you catch a gator in a sinkhole:
First, you put a ladder in the sinkhole, at which the gator disappears because apparently it knows what's coming. Then you and your two assistants go down in the sinkhole and take off your shoes (because it's a sinkhole and it's muddy). Then, you get in the water (yes, that's right, in the water with the monkey-eating alligator) and you start feeling around with your feet for the gator (it is at this point that I said to the television--'Oh my God!'). This occasionally pisses the gator off.
When, in your careful feeling around, you actually touch the gator, you next need to determine (and I'm thinking pretty damn quick) whether you are touching the gator head or the gator tail. If you are touching the gator head, you carefully determine which direction the gator tail is in because you actually want the gator tail, not the gator head (for, I would think, obvious reasons).
--And if you're wondering how I know all this, it's because the guy explained it to the camera while he was feeling around for the gator.--
When you get ahold of the gator tail you loop your rope around it and pull on the tail until the gator gets pissed off and its head comes up--he didn't say this, but I'm guessing it helps to know where the gator's head is before you do this as you wouldn't want your assistant to be standing right in gator jaw snapping territory. It's probably hard to get new assistants for this sort of thing. Anyway, when the gator's head comes up, you quick get a rope around it and voila, caught gator.
Yeah, I'm not taking this up as a profession anytime soon either.
This guy said he's caught over a hundred gators and never gotten bit (before this, because this gator actually did bite him--and an assistant.) And, having watched one other episode of Miami Animal Precinct I know that there are other ways to catch gators who are living in more open water and not in monkey-infested sinkholes. But seriously, you couldn't pay me.
--It has rained all--and I mean, all--day today.
--It has also been very windy.
--I took John Henry for a walk this morning when it was only raining a little.
--Billie and I went tracking and I learned something very interesting (I am sure you will all find it interesting too--stop rolling your eyes right now). She has failed the last two tests at the same place and today, despite a really great start where it was clear she had the scent, she also started searching for the corner at just about the same damned place. Now, really, she can't be counting steps, but there's something that's telling here there ought to be a corner _right there_ and I am finally thinking that it's, maybe, not the actual track. Hmmm....something to work on.
--The exploding robots story now contains this line: Okay, first of all, never listen to a man who calls himself Ropy.
--No love for the whiny white professor story. GVG says: 'Sometimes we think we're funny, but we're not.' [Okay, that's actually what boss's boss once told my boss. But it was totally more or less almost like that.]
--Working on a new story that begins: 'On Tuesday, the robots exploded.'
--All the Rage this Year is nearly finished for optimistic definitions of 'nearly' and 'finished.'
--The number of unfinished stories I have sitting around has far surpassed ridiculous. Clearly something must be done.
To show you that I am endlessly fascinated by many things, I give you the how to tie your showlaces site.
...via BoingBoing
--Magic in a Certain Slant of Light was third in the Strange Horizons Readers' Choice Awards. Yay!
--I have been stuck on several stories for days now, but yesterday started a new story called, Sleeping Beauty in Upstate New York with Cows, Pigs, and an occasional Rooster, which I think I can finish this month. The writing will go faster as soon as I figure out what it's about.
--Billie and I are entered in another tracking test in Illinois in two weeks.
--John Henry has his next cancer checkup in two weeks (these are not on the same day).
--For some reason, unknown even to them, the lawn guys fertilized my lawn twice in five days.
--The fence guy told me today that my entire lawn is now considered a front yard by the City. This means that if I didn't already have a fence, I could only have a four foot fence instead of a six foot fence. The City is crackers if they think a four foot fence would be a good thing for my yard to have.
--Before John Henry lost his leg, he would jump up and look at people over the top of my six foot fence.
--Some of these items are related.
Ok, so my television quit working sometime around December 15th and I finally bought a new one today. I decided when it broke that I could use the break from aimless television watching and it broke right at Christmas time when I most didn't want to spend the money and as time passed I didn't miss it nearly as much as I expected.
I did do some looking before today and let me tell you, televisions have gotten BIG since the last time I looked. Someone at work tried to talk me into buying his old 32" television and I was briefly tempted but took measurements and decided that was too big for the place I had to put it. I thought, before my old one broke for good, but when I knew it was going to break, that I'd probably buy a 27" one because those are nearly the small end of televisions these days, but my god those are BIG too. I know a lot of people with 52" televisions and they do not have family rooms the size of airplane hangers which is about how big a room would need to be to make a 52" television right-sized. I don't need a television that is capable of taking over my house. I just need one that I can have on while I'm also doing other things.
And, plus, I want a television that I can set up in my house without having to rent a truck and invite 50 of my closest friends over to help. Ideally, I want a television that I can move myself if I have to.
So, today I went to Best Buy to buy a television. I figured I would get either a 20" (the size of my old television) or a 24". While I was there, I considered the 27" one more time, but then realized that they are BIG. Things on the screen look BIG. I would have to sit 20 feet away to be comfortable with a 27" television (I know you will all tell me that you have 27" and 32" and even 52" televisions and you sit closer than 20 feet away from them all the time. Just remember, you are not me.)
While I'm wandering in a big circle considering the 20" and the 24" televisions there are other people circling the aisles too. One guy says he's buying a second television and he just wants something smallish. He buys a 27" television because he has obviously forgotten the definition of small. The other guy, who is just ahead of me in the checkout line, buys a 20" television. I finally decide on a 24" television. The 20" guy and I laugh in the checkout line about how BIG televisions have gotten. He says he will have to move things out to make room for the 20" television. He says, like me, friends tried to give him bigger televisions. There would be no room in his living room, he says, if he took one of those BIG sets. I totally understand what he means.
So, I bought my 24" television and I carried it in the house by myself (for certain definitions of the word 'carry') and I unpacked it myself and I set it up myself. And it is totally BIG. And I am very happy with it.
The new BIG television
Trying to figure out some permissions issue
Update: Still having problems with comments though everything else seems to be working okay. You can make comments and I will see them in email, but they never appear on the site itself...
Entries appear to be working okay.
Update the Second: Comments appear to be fully working again...
I managed to score three copies of Asimov's March issue today. So now I have at least seen myself in print.
I am going on another book buying moratorium (yes, I am--don't laugh!), not because I have too many books, but because I have too many books I haven't read. I did buy three books when I was in Borders buying my copies of Asimov's because I finally found three books on the 2 for 3 table that I wanted and it was, like, a bargain and, uh, I had to. Also, I got an idea for a story while I was walking Billie this afternoon and came home to look up research materials and realized that I already have at least three appropriate books sitting on my shelves unread.
I got my replacement digital camera yesterday so I will be able to resume dog blogging soon. Unless, of course, this one stops working.
I did not manage to finish a story for the month of January. I almost finished Later, There will be Fireworks but it got too messy so it has to sit around for awhile until I forget how messy it is. I am currently working on The Whale's Lover and In the Aftermath of Rain.
I have to finish a story before the end of February or chance will mock me.
I did sell two stories last month: Magic in a Certain Slant of Light to Year's Best Fantasy #6 (check out the gorgeous cover) and Chainsaw on Hand to Asimovs.
I am currently reading The Search by John Battelle, Crossing Three Wildernesses by U Sam Oeur, and A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park (I actually haven't started this one yet, but it is next up on my list for when I have to switch from non-fiction to fiction).
A server move appears to have eaten my post from yesterday. I was going to say that I didn't have a copy saved off-site, but thanks to the beauty of full RSS feeds (and the weird fact that I subscribe to my own feed) I'm pretty sure I can recreate it...
I have actually been using my pedometer since last Monday (January 16th) and I've been making close to 10,000 steps a day since last Wednesday. However, the pedometer only keeps track of the last seven days so that's what you're getting (well, eight because today is...today):
Things I've learned so far:
--I have to think about this all the time in order to get enough steps in. Walking two dogs and work and errands and teaching a couple nights a week can usually get me to about 7,500 steps. I need another 20-30 minute walk to get all the steps in for a day.
--There is finally a reason to follow the advice to park farther away (cuz I get to count the steps) and it makes the big box discount stores, like, half as annoying to know that all that walking to the far corner of the store to get one thing counts in the big total of my exercise plan.
--Walking in place does not impress the pedometer
--On a lazy Saturday afternoon, I can take, like, 50 steps in 4 hours.
--I am amazed at how much less depressed I am.
Upon further reasearch (by which I mean, I sort of actually listened to the words) it appears that in only one of the 'horses haul logs across a frozen pond and fall in' songs on the Great Big Sea album, The Hard and the Easy, does the horse actually die.
In 'Tickle Cove Pond' the horse was apparently saved by the timely singing of shanty tunes.
I know you are as relieved as I am.
The guy at the cell phone store told me that I was old and (probably) stupid because I couldn't see the gigantic benefits of trading in my $20/month plan for a $40/month plan. While the $40/month plan has more minutes and Great! New! Features! I don't actually use all the minutes on my current plan so fail to appreciate the benefits to me of the twice-as-expensive plan.
"People love those old plans and want to keep them," he said. "But the company doesn't want to offer them." Cuz, like, they don't make as much money on them. That's what we call customer service in the new millenium.
However, I have the last laugh because this time next week I will have totally out-geeked the phone store guy. For work, I am getting one of these.
Brokeback Mountain is finally actually playing here this week, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to go see it because I don't have any evenings free. I'd prefer a Sunday matinee, but no matinees for cowboy movies.
I signed up for Lighten Up Iowa which is more than usually team spirited for me, but I want to start upping my activity level and I figure what the heck. For Lighten Up Iowa you agree to report either your weight loss or your minutes of activity for the next five months. I opted for an activity team in part because I don't have a scale and would just have to make up my weight every week which probably defeats the purpose.
The activity teams used to track miles and last year's top team averaged 5,000 miles per team member. This led me to attempt some math: 5 months @ 30 days per month is 150 days. Figure on average someone walks 3 miles an hour. So, to walk 5,000 miles in 150 days would take about 11 hours a day.
Holy crap!
Then I realized some of them probably rode bicycles.
My drains are flowing once again.
I have sent the camera back to its point of origin.
My boss told me only idiots use dishwashers. So, you know, that totally took care of that problem.
Several other things are still pending or on hold.
It was fifty degrees in Iowa in January today.
That is all.
My house is obviously in a heavy entropy zone.
My dishwasher stopped working last week. My new camera was working, but now is not. I went downstairs to do laundry a little while ago and the main drain is draining very, very, very, very slowly. The warm weather this week revealed that one of the brakes on my car is making squeaking sounds. I just finished backing up my computer because at the present rate, you never know.
I am not as upset about this as I could be, because last night, as I was considering freaking out over the camera, I decided that I am no longer getting upset over material things. Everything in the list above can be fixed or replaced or done without.
And jeez, it's not like I was saving money to buy a new house or anything...
P. S.: Please do not offer me helpful suggestions about my camera or my dishwasher or my pipes. I already know what I need to do and helpful suggestions that don't actually help are, well...annoying.
If you go ahead and make helpful suggestions anyway, I will have Chance stab you with a fork.
...one by one.
Tonight it was the dishwasher's turn.
I have a portable dishwasher, which is a pain, but was probably somewhat good in this instance since (I think) the incoming hose disconnected--at least there was water all over the floor when it was supposed to be running into the dishwasher. A built-in would have had water all over somewhere but not as easy to clean up.
It's not a new dishwasher and it wouldn't kill me to buy a new one, though I actually think this could be fixed fairly easily.
But, geez, I thought 2006 and I had a deal.
I can't see Brokeback Mountain the movie because it's not playing anywhere in the state of Iowa. However, Close Range: Wyoming Stories is in my local library and was, apparently, just sitting there waiting for me to check it out (it was on the shelf but hadn't been checked back in so although there was a hold on it for someone else they let me check it out because I was standing there with it in my hand).
I have a bunch to say about this story and there will be spoilers galore because I can't talk about movies or books or stories without, you know, actually talking about them. I will start with a quote so you can make sure your head will not explode just by hearing about it (which is apparently what will happen to Iowans if the movie were, you know, to play at a theater nearby):
They were raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of the state, Jack Twist in Lightning Flat up on the Montana border, Ennis del Mar from around Sage, near the Utah line, both high school dropout country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life. Ennis, reared by his older brother and sister after their parents drove off the only curve on Dead Horse Road leaving them twenty-four dollars in cash and a two-mortgage ranch...
I think most people know the basic story: two cowboys meet one summer up on Brokeback Mountain herding sheep. They start a relationship that spans twenty years--it's intense and secret and ultimately lonely and tragic. In the way the world is and was and in who these men were, there wasn't any solution--only different tragedies.
Proulx is at her best in this story when she's describing the land and the people and way things work at one another. The dialogue is...not great. There's too much stage play exposition. But the description and the men and the way they move and look and act--that's all honest and wonderful and 'true' in the way that the very best stories are.
There's a feeling that I get--have always gotten, all my life--at certain moments. It's a feeling of want so big that it hurts, so big that the want itself is indefinable. I know it's there. I know it's close. I know that whatever it is--that deep aching Want, like an old, dark river full of hidden depths--if I could know it, if I could have it--it would open the universe and provide me with a path into Life and into a world that is both too much for me and everything I am meant to have.
Brokeback Mountain is all about that ache. It's about the clean, sharp beauty of open spaces, about time, about love and companionship that is both as big as the outdoors and too fragile to face the world. It's the ache of knowing that there's more, that the more would --somehow--be glorious. And it's the pain of knowing that whatever that glorious 'more' is, it will never be anything more than an ache inside you.
Jack Twist knows all about that ache and it drives him at times, looking for something that is too dangerous to hold or even, maybe in this world and in the place he lives, to want:
What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis's pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredged up a rusty but still useable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a horse," and gave Jack a shake, a push and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words "see you tomorrow," and the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone.
Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.
The tragedy in this story isn't that they had this great thing and lost it. The tragedy isn't even that Jack was murdered in the end, though Jack had been headed toward being murdered more or less his whole life. The tragedy was that they couldn't have been happy in a place that would tolerate them and the place they'd be happy wouldn't ever tolerate them.
Though Jack--maybe--could have, Ennis could never leave his life or leave the land, because if he did then all he'd have is Jack. And Jack would have nothing. There would be no Ennis. Ennis and horses and the land and the livestock mixed together to make the man in a way that couldn't be separated one from the other. And the love and the sex wasn't big enough for that--could never be big enough to sustain a man who isn't even there anymore. In a way, of course, the limbo of a big, overarching relationship that could never exist--even in their own minds--even though it did, brought about the same end. Ennis fades and Jack dies and it's all a waste...except in those fractional moments when it is possible to just let it be.
(I have another rambly bit about the world of Brokeback Mountain but I'll save it for a later post)
...for 2006
Less clutter and finishing things.
According to this test, I have excellent pitch.
My former choir master would be so surprised...
...via Mind Hacks
...wherein I actually discuss music, something you will almost never see me do.
So, I like the group Great Big Sea, which does Newfoundland traditional music, and some music that could be described as Celtic and some popular stuff. Their latest album, The Hard and the Easy is very much Newfoundland traditional and I like it.
However, there are two (count 'em, two!) songs on this album about horses that haul logs out onto the ice and and the ice breaks and they drown (there may actually be more than two because I haven't listened carefully to every lyric in every song, but there are definitely two of them).
I can't help thinking if this were an anthology, the editor would be writing back to someone saying, "I'm sorry, although yours is well-written, we've already bought a 'horse hauling logs falls through thin ice and drowns' story for this anthology."
...of this holiday season.
Hope your day is filled with happiness and celebration.
Not, unfortunately, on purpose.
Yesterday morning, I turned on my television and it went snap! and crackle! and then...nothing.
Now I a) don't know how old this television is because I can't remember when I bought it but it's probably at least ten years old and b) it's been wearing out for at least the last year. In particular, the blues and greens have become more and more alike over time (this is particular noticeable when watching the home improvement shows and the decorator is gushing over the lovely green shade on the walls and it looks to me like the whole room is just blue, blue and more blue--and a really hideous dark blue too, like people should think twice about ever putting on their walls).
It is even better because I decided to buy myself a digital camera for Christmas even though this has been a very expensive year for me (it's just money, eh?). And the night before my television blew up, I ordered one (which I won't get for awhile because they weren't actually in stock so, really, I have committed all my money to a non-existent camera--but I did get free shipping for ordering it when it wasn't in stock and it was ten dollars cheaper than Amazon.com's non-existent camera). And--I'm not making this up--right while I was ordering this camera, I looked up at my television, which was showing some suspiciously blue room, and thought--I probably should really be buying a television instead.
And, damn, if I wasn't right.
On the other hand, I will now get to see how much more writing I do or do not get done when I have no television.
From CNN with Kyra Philips, Sam Seder from the Majority Report and some guy (Bob Knight) who does not have a speaking part in this portion of the transcript:
SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it's almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas. And hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
PHILLIPS: Is it a war on Christmas, a war Christians, a war on over-political correctness or just a lot of people with way too much time on their hands?
SEDER: I would say probably, if I was to be serious about it, too much time on their hands, but I'd like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.
PHILLIPS: I don't think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.
SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.
PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?
SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf...
When I lived in the East it was a well-known fact of winter that when it was really, really cold it didn't snow. That was, in fact, the one compensation for low, low temps--no snow.
Now that I live in the midwest (and Ohio doesn't count. No, I mean it, Ohio, you are not the midwest, no matter what you think. Ohio needs something else to belong to. And Indiana. I am also fairly suspicious of Illinois), I have learned that it is never too cold to snow.
From ricklibrarian:
ANFSCD -- And now for something completely different
SW -- Silly walk
SES&S -- Spam, eggs, sausage & spam
RARA -- Run away! Run away!
NNNNN -- Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni!
And the one I am adopting Right Now:
NETSI -- No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! (it's funny because it's true)
...via The Shifted Librarian
You know, when there's a piece of technology you don't like, don't say, well, you know there are older people who might want to do [whatever the discussion is about] and they, you know, are old and can't handle technology.
Speak for yourself.
Lots of people who are quite possibly lots older than you have no problem with technology. It's like saying 'what about the children?' It's always about imaginary older people and imaginary children. If you don't like something, just say, I don't like this. Don't use anonymous people about whose lives you have no idea to bolster your argument.
The lurkers in email totally support me on this.
I'm playing with styles (this is just the default for MT 3.2). The Billie pic will be back (I hope)...but if things look weird for awhile, it's because I have no idea what I'm doing :-)
UPDATE: And the Billie pic is back. Now I just have to get the rest of it working...
Update the second: Billie pic is still back. Title is almost right. I sill need to get the third column back but I'm hungry now so I'm taking a break.
I've finally upgraded to MT 3.2, which seems to have gone fairly well, except it won't show me the comments. It admits that they're there; it shows them on the actual blog; and it will find them if I search for them, but it won't list them where it's supposed to.
I'd like to make some changes to the design (make it actually work for one thing) but that may be awhile.
Apparently...cow tipping? Pretty much a myth (which, if you've ever paid much attention to cows, would probably be a given):
A cow of 1.45 metres in height pushed at an angle of 23.4 degrees relative to the ground would require 2,910 Newtons of force, equivalent to 4.43 people, she wrote.
Dr Lillie, Ms Boechler’s supervisor, revised the calculations so that two people could exert the required amount of force to tip a static cow, but only if it did not react.
“The static physics of the issue say . . . two people might be able to tip a cow,” she said. “But the cow would have to be tipped quickly — the cow’s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react.”
...via (I can't remember)
From the Guardian:
Classical music has been piped into Co-op stores at Seaton and Teignmouth in Devon for just over a week, and already youngsters who used to congregate near the doors have gone elsewhere.
The supermarket plans to experiment with different types of classical music to see if particular styles are more effective.
I was at the park today eating lunch and as I was getting ready to leave I saw a 'missing pet' poster. It turns out it's a dog I know--a pitbull. He is a young, big, goofy, strong happy dog. And he is lost.
It breaks my heart. He's a very good dog and people will stay away from him because he is big and a strange dog--and who would trust a pitbull. I want his life to be happy and I don't want him to be hungry or scared or hurt. I want to rescue him and I can't and the whole thing bothers me more than it should.
This year has been very mean to dogs I know. And I want it to stop.
I saw the movie, Serenity today. Mostly because I wanted to see it in the movie theater before it went to DVD. It didn't blow me away, but I didn't expect it to. It had good dialogue and it had characters I liked and it had a decent story. Some of it is moving, some of it is--eh, could have been better, and some of it is fun. Inara, who I disliked quite a bit in the series, is considerably less annoying this time around and Nathan Fillion fits his character much better--in the series I kept trying to picture other people playing the part of Mal and whether they'd carry it better. Zoe and Jayne and Wash and Kaylee and River were their regular swell selves. Simon was his regular annoying but necessary self and Shepard Book didn't get much screen time. I may post something more spoileriffic about Serenity and the series and what I like about them later when I get the chance to think it through more.
McSweeney's gives us "The Names of the President and the Members of the Presidential Cabinet according to their Etymological Backgrounds of their First and Last Names and of their Middle Names when Available"
Also, Dealing with an ex-Nazi Neighbor:
Unless we're very lucky, most of us at some point have to deal with that most unpleasant and awkward of situations: the neighbor who turns out to be a former Nazi. It can be disconcerting to learn that the kindly old gentleman who always smiled at you on the sidewalk once oversaw the brutal degradation and murder of thousands of people. This knowledge can cause stress and interfere with your enjoyment of home life and with your productivity at work.
John Henry had his fifth chemo treatment on Thursday. He has just one more to go.
Billie had three seizures in just over 24 hours starting early Thursday morning. Although they were all major seizures they were relatively minor seizures of the major variety (if that makes sense). She seems to recover fairly quickly. But it's still very worrying. She started KBr (Potassium Bromide) on Thursday, but it takes a while for the blood levels to get high enough to make a difference. The neurologist suggests sticking with the plan as long as things don't get worse. At the moment, she has not had a seizure for almost 30 hours.
I finished revisions to 'Chainsaw on Hand' and sent it out for feedback (thanks, chance!). I am sort of working on 'In the Aftermath of Rain' but I know I need to do actual research for this one so I'm mostly puttering. It has a complicated--for me, anyway--structure with storylines that converge from different points in time--and different directions.
UFOMaps links reports of UFOs with GoogleMaps.
I find it interesting that there are almost not sightings in the Great Plains states, but Indiana looks like a veritable hotbed of unidentified flying objects.
...via BoingBoing
Jeanne at Body and Soul, Amanda at Pandagon, and Trish at The Countess talk about the pursuit of happiness and the role that money plays in being happy. They're riffing off an article in the New York Times that says that after a certain point money doesn't make us happy (well, duh!).
I actually think about this sort of thing a lot, especially this year. I have a low mortgage. I just paid off my car. If the price of gas goes through the roof, I can walk to work, to the grocery store, to the library. I have someone to clean my house once a week.
I have spent a lot of money this year but it's money I've been able to afford. And I am lucky enough to live within five miles of the vet school (which since I've lately been there four or five times a month, is definitely a good thing).
On the other hand, I have a job that is not challenging, has lots of stress, uses up vast amounts of energy, and forces me to spend my time on petty maintenance details, which I loathe. It also pays well and has good benefits. It pays for the person to clean my house once a week and the visits to the vet school and other important things. And there are worse jobs out there--less flexible, worse bosses, less secure.
The things I want that I don't have--except for power, which I would actually like a lot of--are only somewhat related to money. I want a bigger yard and a bigger bedroom. I want a job that actually uses the skills and knowledge I've acquired over the last twenty years, something that, as I told my boss once, couldn't actually be done by a bright high school student. And I want more time.
I don't have any answers/plans for this (obviously, or I wouldn't be spending hours of every day in my current job), and I'm grateful that the basics--food, shelter, medical care--are not what I'm worrying about at the moment. But I also know I have to keep looking. No one has perfect happiness, but then, that's why we talk about 'pursuit of...'
I haven't posted in a while, I'm not sure why. I seem to go through periods where whatever's in my head can't be, doesn't want to be, or shouldn't be expressed. I've finished one story recently and actually have two stories in the mail, which is a lot for me.
John Henry had his fourth chemo yesterday. He also had a chest x-ray and things are clear, which is very good news. He looks great and he clearly thinks very highly of himself. Billie had anther seizure three weeks ago (all three of her seizures have been on Fridays) so I'm keeping a log of Billie and seizures and anything that seems odd. Otherwise, though she seems fine, which is good.
The weather is beautiful here. Fall only lasts about twenty-five minutes in iowa and since it's my favorite season I have to enjoy it as much as possible while it's here.
I have been reading a variety of books lately including The Year's best Fantasy and Horror and The Year's Best Science Fiction. I'll try to write more about my impressions of them later, though I will say that it must be a sign of age or something because, although, some of the horor stories are good they don't strike me as very horrifying.
At the grocery store the other day, I bought a package of sandwich cheese for eighty-nine cents because I use cheese when I give the dogs pills and it needs to be soft-ish cheese (harder than cream cheese, softer than, say, cheddar). And I thought, what do dogs care how good the cheese is?
It turns out that eighty-nine cent cheese looks a lot like really soft orange plastic and not very much like food. Milk is the very last ingredient on the label. It isn't even really an ingredient. It comes after all the other ingredients, like an afterthought. Contains: Milk. Like they mixed it in a vat that earlier had milk in it or something.
Next time, I think I'm springing for at least the dollar twenty-nine cheese.
In the continuing saga that is my life...I have been looking on and off for a new house since March. I started looking because my dream house came on the market then. I didn't get that house because someone else came along who was willing to pay more than I was willing/could afford. In April, I put an offer in on another, fairly nice, house, though the yard was a bit of a compromise. The owners refused to sell it to me. In May, John Henry had his surgery and since then I've been mostly trying to figure out how many vet students' tuition I am going to cover before I'm finished. But now I'm more or less looking at houses again.
I want an older (20s, 30s, 40s) home in an established neighborhood with a reasonably big yard. Friday I looked at a house built in the 20s and one built in the 30s. The 20s house was an arts and crafts two story with four (possibly five bedrooms--yeah like I need five bedrooms). It was brick and stucco and looked fairly decent from the street. Up close, though...well, first of all, I like my back yard connected in some small way to the house. I like the rooms not to be all cut up. I like the front steps not to be crumbling. And I like a fixer-upper not to be priced like a move-in ready house.
Second house was a 1930s house, very much in style for that period. Really nice house with a tray ceiling in the living room, french doors in the dining room, a re-done kitchen, two bedrooms downstairs and two bedrooms up. Hardwood floors. Fireplace. A few things that you'd want to change but all in all well-built, well-maintained and with the features that I like. And it's a good price. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a yard that will work for me at all. I'm willing to compromise some on size but because of the way the garage is set, there's a lot of concrete and it would be difficult to fence usably.
Ah well, maybe something else will come along....
It is spelled 'Interesting.'
Get a dictionary.
From Strategy page:
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
...via The Slush God
There was a meme floating around a while back on Ten Things I've Done that Maybe You Haven't. At the time I thought--yeah, my life has been so boring that there's nothing that I've done that everyone and their brother hasn't also done.
But then today it occured to me in passing that I've never lived in suburbia, which, while not a thing I've done led me to think about what I have done that maybe not everyone has. Here are a few I can think of:
And possibly more but, damn, aren't these exciting enough?
There's a show on HGTV called, 'What You Get for The Money," which ought to just be called, "We Have Way More Money Than You." I only see it in passing or in the commercials, but they're always looking at what you get for 1.2 million in Miami or what you get for 800,000 in New York City or even Kansas City.
Here's something I've more or less accepted about myself--I will never have 1.2 million dollars to spend on a house. And, despite the insane housing market in Callifornia, neither will most people (because a) most people don't live in California and b) they just don't).
It's like the entire travel channel where most of the shows are about people with more money than you or I (or you and I combined) will ever have doing things we will never do. Why would I ever care that some guy who lives for six months of the year in Colorado and six months of the year in New York has a fabulous vacation home? He's never inviting me there. If I ended up there by mistake he'd probably call the sheriff and ask them to quietly get me the hell out of there. But he still wants me to know he's just a regular guy living in his soaring stone and steel cabin in the woods.
I swear some days I think people with money don't just want to have it all, they want the rest of us to love them for it.
This is just silly:
According to an article in The Observer, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Belfast have been told to avoid using the word 'brainstorming' as it may be offensive to people with epilepsy. Instead they've been asked to use the term 'thought-showers'.
Several updates in one:
I got a rejection this week for a story that I thought was a sure-fire match for the market. Ah well, apparently I do not actually possess the editor's brain.
A comment in the rejection letter, ostensibly not related to the reason for rejection has gotten me thinking about culture and expectations and how things familiar to the writer can seem quite foreign to the reader even when they (writer and reader) are from the same general culture. When you write about things you expect to be unfamiliar you write about them somewhat differently, I think, than when you write about things you think are covered by common culture. But, despite the common complaint about the McDonaldization of American culture, there are things that many people have rarely seen and seldom accurately. It's good writing fodder, but you have to know how to portray the strange so it's familiar and the familiar so it's strange and it helps to know at any given moment which is which.
John Henry continues to do well. I took him out to the training building with me Sunday morning and we renumbered the agility yards. He gets around great and doesn't seem to get any more tired than he did when he had four legs to carry him around. He has totally re-learned how to spin in circles, pounce on non-existent things and chase shadows. I'm taking him in on Wednesday to see how his infection's coming and to see if chemo is still a possibility for him.
We had a big storm tonight--75 mile an hour winds--which the weather service assured us would come after midnight and not go south of Route 30 (Route 30 being a nearly impenetrable barrier for storms). It hit at 7 and definitely crossed Route 30 because I was in a building just a few hundred yards from 30 at the time. The building I was in was a steel building and the wind made the walls flex. Kind of impressive. But, as we say in the midwest, big winds mean they go through quick. And no hail, which when your car's sitting in a parking lot instead of a garage is always a good thing, though I'm pretty sure half the dirt in northern Iowa went by our window.
For the last couple of months, the search item that has brought the most people to this blog has been 'mean pitbulls,' which has taken people to this post which is actually about cute pitbulls.
I hope no one's disappointed.
...from All I Needed to Know I Learned in Video Games, Part 1
2. Always, always be moving. This is most true in multiplayer. Don't hang around waiting, because even though you have the sniper rifle, they might have the shotgun. You're just asking to be sneaked up on. This is a great technique to apply to the office. Walking around, everyone sees that you are there, but you always look busy, on your way to doing something else. They can't pin you down to ask you to do stuff. Plus, it's just good exercise. And speaking of moving...3. Strafe and stick to the walls. I learned this way back in Doom. Check before you pass doorways, too. Sure you look silly hugging the wall but if there's ever a crazed gunman at your school or local grocery store you'll have a much higher survival rate if you employ this technique. I should add that when possible, kick down the doors to keep your hands free for fightin...and to eliminate any potential threats that may be lurking just behind.
...via BoingBoing
I have been in San Antonio all week and will do a catch up post on John Henry and San Antonio and things in general in a bit. However...
I got into the Des Moines airport last night about nine o'clock last night, picked up my car, and spend a weird amount of time not being on the right road but ending up in the right place anyway. On I-35 North out of Des Moines, I came around a curve and right in front of me--I swear to god--was a zeppelin.
Sanyo says it's more of a blimp than a zeppelin:
...We're also properly termed a blimp, an airship and even a dirigible (they all mean about the same thing), but we're not a zeppelin, which refers to the old metal airships.How big is the blimp?
It's a BIG blimp! Our blimp is one of the largest in the world at 165 feet long, 55 feet high and 46 feet wide! Our roomy gondola holds 9 passengers plus the pilot. The giant envelope holds over 150,000 cubic feet of non-flammable helium. How big is that? You could fit nearly one million golf balls in the SANYO Lightship! The giant "SANYO" logo on the side of the envelope is 100 feet long and 32 feet high.
I say it was very big. And shiny....
For the last three months, the top search term bringing people to this site has been:
mean pitbulls
They must be kind of disappointed when they find that it's all about: The Pitbull Cuteness Factor
Next to my dog training building, there is a vacant lot. On the other side of the vacant lot, there is a crematorium (because that's what you need together--cremation and dog training--one stop shopping). The vacant lot, which has a for sale sign on it, has lately been home to lots (by lots I mean more than thirty) of large (by large I mean five hundred pounds or more) boulders. The number of boulders increases and decreases and they move around. We have ongoing theories about these boulders (the husband of one of my partners told his teenaged daughter that there was a pile of ashes under each one from the crematorium).
In the last week or so the boulders have been joined by mounds of dirt. Today when I was out there one of the boulders was on top of one of the mounds of dirt.
Maybe they move themselves.
I put an offer in on a house--nice house, merely decent yard. The current owners rejected my offer for reasons that are so stupid that I refuse to mention them until the passage of some as yet undetermined amount of time, the end of which will probably be indicated by my purchase of a better house with a better yard.
I installed central air in my current house two weeks ago, which event has been followed by unseasonably cold weather including temperatures below freezing.
I have very weird house karma....
Just as I am unlikely to ever buy a house that has been painted electric blue...the odds are really really good that I will never approve a comment left by someone calling themselves 'online poker.'
...because I'm dense but not stupid, that I have RSS feeds for this site, but have no link on the main page. And I never set up full feeds.
So, now there are full feeds and crappy short feeds (okay, sue me, I like full feeds whenever possible:-)
From Alas, a blog :
It’s and idea from an old Dykes to Watch Out For cartoon. The character “Moe” explains that she only watches movies in which 1) there are at least two female characters with names, who 2) talk to each other sometime in the course of the movie, about 3) something other than a man. It’s amazing how few movies can pass the Mo Movie Measure.)
Just go look...
43 Folders uncovers these important Rules of Thumb:
Passing a Car - You can safely cut in front of the car you are passing when you can see its headlights in your rear-view mirror.
I learned that one in driver's ed when I was sixteen.
Lowering Your Travel Risks - Pick a hotel room between the third and sixth floors. Three floors put you above street attacks and random shootings, while six floors will keep you in range of a cherry picker or fireman’s ladder if the place goes up in flames.
I can honestly say that though I have stayed in some fairly low-rent motels in my time, I have never once worried about random shootings.
Feeding Cockroaches - Twelve cockroaches can live on the glue of a postage stamp for a week.
Just so you know...
...or maybe it's just me.
Talktoaliens.com offers to transmit your message Out There. From their FAQ:
Q. Where in space are you sending my messages?
A. Based on discussions with astronomy consultants, we decided to point our antenna into the area of the sky with the highest density of regional stars (and, thus, hopefully planets and other civilizations). That region is commonly referred to as the "Milky Way" -- the galaxy in which our own solar system resides. As the sky appears to turn over the earth, our fixed-mounted parabolic antenna sweeps through much of the Milky Way Galaxy (and its estimated 400 billion stars). For more information on the Milky Way Galaxy, visit: http://www.seds.org/messier/more/mw.html
Q. Why do you charge $3.99 per minute? And why is it through a 900 number?
A. This entire service is funded and run by a handful of individuals who have put in considerable personal money and countless hours of time. The fee will help us begin to offset our equipment and time investments, and help us develop new features for our service. The 900 number keeps things very simple. You only pay for the time you use. It also eliminates the billing complexity and fraud commonly associated with credit cards.
....
Q. Can I say anything I'd like in my broadcast message?
A. We strongly encourage that you refrain from any profane or indecent language. As mentioned above, it is highly unlikely that anyone here on earth will hear your messages. Even so, it would seem prudent and polite to keep your language respectable. Feel free to speak your mind, sing, chant, rant, etc. to your heart's content. Be a good "Earth Ambassador" to any civilizations that might be tuned in!
these will eventually go away...
Update: Ok, this entry was going to go away, but now that it has generated comments that aren't about online poker or texas hold 'em, I guess it can stay.
I am thinking about buying a house. It's a really beautiful house in a really beautiful neighborhood and has, like, the most perfect back yard ever. It also costs pots o' money (not California housing money, but plenty o'money for me).
Rough calculations say that I can afford it, even by somewhat conservative estimates for this house and mortgage rates and so on. But my rough calculations are often wrong...and I have to get this house ready to sell...and clean out the basement...and hope that meanwhile no one from California comes driving into town and says 'what a deal' and....
Cross your fingers...
Not content with Altan, the band, and Ireland--The Greatest Songs, the album, I have now discovered Irish Punk.
I think it will turn out to be one of those things like the chocolate cake at the Macaroni Grill where a little goes a long way, but in small doses I do have a certain fondness for shouting and stomping...
I should have mentioned this earlier.
Thanks to Lord Voldemort the Spammer(s) (hereinafter referred to as You Know Who), comments are open but moderated. I wish this weren't so because I think it's a pain to make a comment and then not see it appear right after you write it. Movable Type does have a system to use Typekey to allow registered commenters who then could post without approval, but, although I have asked it to work, MT is apparently still pondering. Will probably be working on that this week.
Until then, if you come (and you're not You Know Who), please comment. They really will appear eventually.
(It also would be easier if MT would email me the comments when they're made, but it appears to have chosen a random pattern of emailing that makes no sense and results in me getting email almost never--working on that at some point too.)
It seems to me they're still caught up in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theory of Knowledge.
BoingBoing sends us to The Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports:
It's better to arrive than depart: The Arrivals lounges are usually more comfortable than the Departures lounges. It's amazing how different the two areas can be in some airports. Of course airport logic seems to be that people who are departing immediately go to their gates, they don't sit around the ticket counters for hours. While the arrivals lounge aims to make all those family members, who are waiting for your flight to finally arrive after a four hour delay, a little more comfortable until you and your bags finally show up.
Act Innocent: Even if you sleep in airports on regular basis -- Do Not Act Like A Professional!!! Act like you REALLY do not want to be there and that there is absolutely nowhere else to go. I find crying helps. Remember, in the airport officials' eyes "the airport is not a motel." Ha, little do they know....
I hope if dogs ever take over the world and they choose a king, they don't just go by size, because I bet there are little dogs with some good ideas
...by I have no idea who; it was in my daily calendar with no attribution
Don't you really want to know just what sort of post leads to comments like these:
My latest column at “Whale Central Station” is up, exposing the leftist myth of finite whale supplies.
1. Whales breed. Therefore, the potential supply of whales is unlimited.
2. As whaling technology improves, our ability to exploit this limited supply of whales becomes ever-greater. A few years ago, 40 whales in a four year trip was regarded as good going. Modern Norwegian whalers capture and process 40 whales a month. All of the estimates of the “sustainability” of the whale-based economy were put together before such inventions as exploding harpoons. And remember that the supply of whales is self-replenishing. Leftists seem not to understand that whales have sex.
3. Reducing whaling would cost vast amounts of money and destroy our economy; credible estimates would suggest that without whale-oil lamps we would all sit around in the dark until we die. This money would better be spent on providing aid to the Inuit.
4. We can’t give the Inuit property rights over their whales to help them manage the speed of whaling, because that’s just politically impractical.
5. Arrrrr!
And
Dsquared,
is it true that your new book “Right Whales 36,000”, about the inevitable explosion in the whale population once the Bush Administration has removed the dead hand of gov’t regulation, with a forward by Donald Luskin, will soon be out in paperback from Regnery Publishing?
Also via BoingBoing...the database o'Buffy--cast, crew, episodes, all in a searchable database. All the Buffy you'll ever need!
Buffy: I'm telling you I've seen this somewhere before, I just can't remember where! I mean, it's like...
Giles: It's the end of the world.
All three kids: Again?
Giles: It's ah, the earthquake, -- that symbol, --yes.
Buffy: I told you. I-I said end of the world and you're like--poo-poo, southern California, poo-poo!
Giles: I'm so very sorry. My contrition completely dwarfs the impending apocalypse.
Willow: No, I-it can't be. We've done this already.
Giles: It's the end of the world, everyone dies. It's rather important really.
At McSweeney's, Dan Kennedy is Making Reruns of Television Sitcoms More Exciting by Adding a Weapon. :
Seinfeld, "The Truth About Taxes"
George's relationship with a former IRS worker may ease Jerry's tax-audit worries—until things go all wrong between them. Elaine sees far too much of Kramer, since he's dating her roommate; in return, he sees far too much of Elaine when he walks in on her getting dressed. George tries to get Jerry's tax records back after breaking things off with the former IRS worker, not knowing that she carries a knife, and he is stabbed in the thigh.
Also at McSweeney's, the Five People You Meet in Hell:
1. Your co-worker Lynn who dates an alcoholic bartender and insists, "He's too smart for his own good."
2. Your neighbor Sean who claims he's "a poet like Brautigan" when he's merely evicted.
3. Your friend's dad who says, "Let me tell ya how we did things back in Philly."
4. Miss Weber, your third-grade teacher with camel toe.
5. Gene Hackman. That guy is everywhere.
Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing says the following made his jaw drop:
Nearly half of searchers use a search engines no more than a few times a week, and two-thirds say they could walk away from search engines without upsetting their lives very much.
I have to admit that I probably use Google between three and twenty times a day and, although I like to occasionally leave the computer and the internet completely behind at times, it's the searching I miss when I'm gone....
Purportedly from Delta Airlines gripe sheets (where P= problem reported by the pilot and S=Solution and action taken by mechanics):
P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.
----------------------------------------
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
----------------------------------------
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
----------------------------------------
P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.
----------------------------------------
P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
----------------------------------------
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.
----------------------------------------
P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, & be serious.
Comments appear to be working now.
Someone talk to me...
Update: Not spammers.
Comments appear not to be working at the moment. I will probably not get to take a look at them until this weekend. Not that I think there's be all that many people dropping by between now and then and dying to leave comments....
Most weird news is too weird for me, but this is just incredible:
"A dentist found the source of the toothache Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof of his mouth: a four-inch nail the construction worker had unknowingly embedded in his skull six days earlier."
I think I'm back, though for how long remains to be seen.
I've updated to MT 3.
I've got the beginnings of a new design (though since I have no design or graphics software it's kind of slow going). I built it initially from the Firdamatic: the Design Tool for Uninspired Webloggers, which was surprisingly close to the design I had in my head (and may get closer as I tweak it. I still need to figure out how I want the title to appear (which may be limited by the fact that I have no software and I don't want to buy any because I would only use it once or twice and probably badly). Though I kind of sort of know how I want it to look so we'll see.
More updates to come...
[Well, really, it's the quote of October 24, 2002 when I wrote it in my journal...)
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this experssion is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is or how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channels open.
Martha Graham, quoted by Agnes deMille in Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham from The Art of Possibility
Things people have searched for in the last month that have brought them here:
I've been watching season four of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, which used to be my least favorite season, but is growing on me (it's probably still my least favorite season, but it has lovely little gems like--'My contrition complete dwarfs the impending apocalypse.').
Anyway, in one of the episodes (Pangs, I'm thinking, since that's the Thanksgiving one), Riley says that he's from Huxley, IA, which I'm guessing is supposed to be really, really rural. And by some standards, I suppose it is. But I've got to say that I lived farther from airports and malls when I lived in western New York than people in Huxley, IA do. Huxley is ten minutes from Ames (fifth largest city in Iowa!) and half an hour from Des Moines (don't ask me how big Des Moines is, because then you'll just laugh).
If you want rural Iowa for your novel or screenplay, you should consider Lewis or Humeston or Maquoketa (Maquoketa isn't really that rural by Iowa standards, but it sounds cool--Ma-COKE-e-ta--and will make people think you know what you're talking about).
How funny are those states anyway?
...although I've always hated the Missouri slogan of "The Show-Me State." What, does that make the rest of us gullible? Besides, Missourians, as far as I know, don't have a specific character. You know who does?That's right, Nebraska. When I gave a talk at Hastings College, the entire auditorium knew the State Song ("Beautiful Nebraska"). Do any of the 19 million residents of New York State know the state song of New York?
Yes, well, New York State's motto is 'Excelsior!' which for many years I thought basically meant that weird straw that you wrap things in, but presumably is not what New York meant when they made it their motto.
The Morning News presents IKEA shopping as a video game:
You start this world armed only with a UNIVERSAL FURNITURE-ASSEMBLY ALLEN WRENCH. This is the weakest weapon in IKEA: You will have to hit a person 16 times with it to kill them. So your primary goal in this level is to find more lethal means of dispatching your enemies.As you enter the SHOWROOM, perform a rolling dodge to the left. Grab a free PAPER TAPE MEASURE and a handful of IKEA EMBLAZONED GOLF PENCILS from the kiosk near the entryway. The PENCILS serve quite well as ranged weapons, but it will take some time to master their use. Before venturing further in the world, stand at the kiosk and practice hurling GOLF PENCILS at patrons as they enter the SHOWROOM. Remember: Hitting the eyes does triple damage.
Now make your way into the main SHOWROOM, using the PAPER TAPE MEASURE to throttle anyone who blocks your path.
As you enter the main area, you will see an EKHARD oiled solid-oak dining sideboard. Quickly kick it apart to acquire the TABLE LEG WITH NAIL.
...via BoingBoing
I have pictures :-)
I was expecting, at the least, to have someone else's negatives, but I have my negatives and my CD and I've selected the least frowny-/frightened- faced one and sent it on to Ellen. If I get near my computer with photo manipulation software on it (not this one), I'll downsize and post a picture of Billie from the CD.
She, it need not even be said, always takes beautiful pictures...
...okay, not actually, but it's a cooler title than 'Why I Should Never Have My Picture Taken.'
For my story in SCIFICTION (currently scheduled for February 18th--mark your calendars), I have to provide a picture. I'm sure for many this is a simple thing (I'm sure some people already have pictures of themselves just sitting around), but somewhere cosmic entities are laughing because it's taken me a month and I still don't have a digital picture for sending (though I hope--I'd better!--to have one tomorrow).
It all started with getting my picture taken.
I don't like to get my picture taken; it rarely turns out well, but for a story in SCIFICTION, many things are possible. So I get a friend of mine, who's a good photographer to take a picture of me and Charming Billie. It's a hundred million degrees below zero, but beautiful, outside and we decide to do an outside picture. We find a lovely--and really fairly icy--location and while university workers in pickup trucks drive back and forth behind us, we take pictures.
It is very sunny and--as I will find out later when the pictures are developed--although Billie looks lovely, in most of the pictures I either look like I'm really angry or really frightened. This will turn out to be weirdly prophetic of everything that comes later.
After thawing out, I take the finished roll of film to one-hour photo developing at Wal-Mart to get prints and a CD. After about six hours (during which I have dropped in twice to see if my pictures are done), I have prints, but no CD ('our CD burner is broken'). Since I need a digital copy, this isn't helpful. I go back three times on different days, but still no CD burner. Since the photo department is actually in the electronics department, I am briefly tempted, on my third trip back to tell them that I will fix their CD burner, but I figure they don't get paid enough to take crap from me.
So, I give up for a couple of weeks.
Today, I go back with my negatives to see if they can put them on a CD. The CD burner is finally fixed. YAY. And, 'They'll be done by 1:20 PM.' the guy says. Not pushing my luck, I go back at 7:00 PM and the envelope is sitting on the counter. They don't charge me for the CD, because, you know, there were hassles. I collect the envelope, do my grocery shopping and come home.
At home, I unload groceries, feed the dogs, let the dogs out, let the dogs back in and then sit down at the computer and put in the CD.
They are not my pictures.
They are pictures of 'Baby's First Birthday.' Someone probably wants these pictures and they're probably pissed that they got pictures of some weird frowning woman and her Rottweiler. I am not pissed. I have passed far beyond pissed and I'm fairly certain I can hear actual cosmic laughing. I consider sending Ellen a picture of 'Baby's First Birthday,' complete with birthday cake, but figure she might not appreciate the cosmic irony of it all the way that I do.
I go back to Wal-Mart.
Fortunately, the negatives that came with 'Baby's First Birthday' are still my negatives. I leave the negatives and the 'Baby's First Birthday' CD at the one-hour photo counter (this is either really brave or really foolish of me) and, after they apologize for what is most likely someone else's error, tell them I'll pick up the new CD in the morning.
I can't wait to see whose pictures I'll get then.
is what my (work) life is like.
Even accounting for the fact that my boss is actually a pretty good guy.
I think.
Being back that is. I figure I'm either going to get back to regular posting here or admit I'm giving it up for some specific amount of time.
First attempt is regular posting; at least three times a week to start. After that, well, we'll see.
...when you actually start listening to the design team commentary of The Two Towers.
That said, I highly recommend the Director/Writer commentary for both The Two Towers and The Fellowship of the Ring, which are really interesting from a writer's point of view as they talk a great deal about what to put in and what to leave out and what's critical to the story.
And the actor's commentary is worthwhile just to listen to Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan tell you why The Two Towers should really be called Pippin and Merry Save Middle Earth.
The Morning News provides the 2003 Holiday Survivial Guide for Slackers. And because I know that real slackers wouldn't be doing their holiday shopping before Christmas, I provide reference to it here:
For the second year in a row we are proud to present the Holiday Survival Guide for Slackers, an assortment of fine items you can purchase right this very last-minute via the miracle of the Internet. And as always everything in this article is guaranteed to be 100 percent for-real. Except, obviously, the part about us being proud to present it.
Plus, I really liked this part:
With the Bow-Lingual® Dog Translator you can peel back the unnervingly buttery-smelling fur of your dog’s head and peer directly into his chickpea-sized brain! Just imagine what you’ll discover:When your Golden Retriever says: Arf! Raf raf, Rrrr, Raff!
He’s thinking: tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball
When your Golden Retriever says: Mrrrrf?
He’s thinking: tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis
When your Golden Retriever says: Grrrrrrrrrarrff! Rar rarf! Rarf!
He’s thinking: tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball squirrels tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball tennis ball
When your Golden Retriever says: Rrr! Arf! Arf! Arr rrrarf!
He’s thinking: Oh man, that one day? Six years ago? When the guy dropped the ice-cream sandwich on the floor and I got to eat it? That was the single greatest day ever.
...details to follow.
So, I'm still behind my time here but I'm thinking about posting things so that must be a step in the right direction :-)
It's way too close to Christmas; I have packages to get in the mail; I have an evil, nasty cold (okay, it could be the flu, but if I say that then people will say--ooh, you have The Flu. Oh, that's bad. The Flu is bad and make faces at me, which isn't actually helpful).
I'm in a relatively good mood, considering and should have posts coming soon on both writing and dogs...and maybe writing and dogs together.
On Saturday, I went out to get in my car to go to a meeting and found I had a flat tire. I pretended it wasn't flat and drove to the gas station so they could put air in it.
This is possible because I:
I think the whole thing is in some way a metaphor for my life...
From McSweeney's
He-Man:
I will cut taxes, balance the budget, and rid the world of Skeletor. Skeletor is evil. Skeletor does not believe in free trade. Perhaps my words are too moralistic, too black and white. But look at him—his face is a skull! He sits on a throne made of bones. This is an evil man, working in evil times.
Lion-O:
Critics of my fledgling administration suggest that my cabinet is lopsided, that it¹s not the coalition I might have mentioned during the campaign, but rather a coterie of Thundercats that I've known my entire life. And I ask you this—why shouldn't I surround myself with the people I know and trust? My advisers will help this nation in its darkest hour, in the War on Mumm-Ra.
Optimus Prime:
Our military is stretched too thin, and we need to increase spending to combat the Decepticon menace. It will be expensive—the liberals and the media complain that $87 billion is too much to construct a fleet of vehicles that transform into fighting robots. But we didn't ratify the Decepticon Proliferation Treaty, and now they're everywhere, threatening our very way of life. And, might I remind you, not a single Decepticon is made in America. The Central Intelligence Agency has suggested that some were built by the French.
According to a recent survey half the people on conference calls aren't paying any attention (and I'll bet the other half were just saying they were paying attention):
It gets weirder: 22 percent of Hong Kong workers admit they weren't fully dressed during their last teleconference, while 14 percent of them were doing their makeup or hair.
...via BoingBoing
It's been a bit of a hectic month, though some of that time I was on vacation. But I'm mostly back (I hope) and I've just finished clearing the trash from this site so I suppose I should start making some new posts containing something resembling substance.
I actually had this conversation once:
Me [on the phone]: The trash men didn't come to pick up my garbage today.
Trash person: Did you have it at the curb by 7:00 AM?
Me: They weren't here before 7:00 AM. I had it at the curb before they were here.
Trash person: Did you have your trash at the curb this morning before 7:00 AM?
Me: It doesn't matter whether I had it there before 7:00 AM because the truck wasn't there before 7:00 AM. I had it at the curb before the truck came.
Trash Person: OK. Did you have it at the curb before 7:00 AM, though?
Me: I'm trying to tell you that I can hear the garbage trucks in the morning. I'm in the front of the house, the house is right on the street, the garbage trucks are loud. I always hear the garbage trucks when they come down my street. I would hear the truck if I was home and the truck was on my street. I didn't hear the garbage truck. It wasn't on my street before I put my trash at the curb.
Trash person: All right, then. Let me see if I understand, was the trash at the curb before 7:00 AM?
Me: Yes. It was at the curb by 7:00 AM.
Trash person: We'll send someone to pick it up in the morning.
We had our annual all-staff conference this week at work. I got to script a skit. We were going to go with an 'Office Space' theme, but opted for the much classier 'Doug and Bob Mckenzie':
Take off, eh!You take off! You're a hoser!
I'm not a hoser, you're a hoser, eh!
...well, ahem, anyway, in honor of the skit that never was, here's an Office Space game.
Also (although totally unrelated to the topic at hand) check out Monkey Moon Lander and Beat the Quilters.
...via Friday Web Zen at BoingBoing
Seen on a car at a middle school teacher's conference:
Don't make me get my flying monkeys
David Weinberger and Dan Gillmor are interviewed at Connected at Corante on their new Word Pirates site:
Q: What was the impetus behind this site?DW: Dan Gillmor and I were having dinner (at a blogging conference, of course), griping about how we lost the battle once the phrase "intellectual property" and "piracy" entered the common parlance. Before I knew it, Dan had fashioned a pirate's cap out of a napkin and was brandishing a baguette as a makeshift cutlass. Or something like that.
DG: Actually, I couldn't make a pirate's hat out of a napkin if my career depended on it. I guess it's possible that I waved a baguette, even though I've been on a low-carb diet for a while. But I like the story.
...
Q:Is this meant to be a "People's Version" of William Safire's column "On Language" in The New York Times Magazine? Will William Safire have to hang up his hat?
DW: Safire, when he isn't fulminating rightly, covers a lot more linguistic territory, as does Barbara Wallraff in The Atlantic Monthly. But there's lots of room for this enterprise. At least, that's what we're maintaining until Dan and I take the site through its IPO and we buy Safire and Wallraff's asses.
DG: If you're really nice to us in this article, we'll give you some pre-IPO shares
The Wave Magazine administers the Voight-Kampff Test, from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner to San Francisco's mayoral candidates:
Matt Gonzalez--
It’s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react?
Matt Gonzalez: I’m sorry, what kind of wallet?
TW: Calfskin.
MG: Calfskin, I don’t even know what that is.
TW: Do you know what a cow is, Matt?
MG: Yeah.
TW: Baby cow.
MG: Um, I have no idea how I would react.
TW: You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?
MG: These are great questions. I’m not sure if they’re ideal for 9:00. We were up pretty late at the office. I can only associate to things that I’ve seen or done in my own life….
TW: You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a wasp crawling on your arm.
MG: I guess I would probably just knock it off.
TW: You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, Matt, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back, Matt. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that, Matt?
MG: Well I don’t think I would have knocked it over in the first place and I don’t get any amusement out of making tortoises suffer, so I don’t think that would be me. You must have confused me for one of my opponents.
TW: Shall we continue? Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind. About your mother.
MG: Just a positive person, no negative energy at all. Next time could we do this later in the day?
...via BoingBoing
Wired has an article on the MIT OpenCourseWare project--MIT Everyware:
When MIT announced to the world in April 2001 that it would be posting the content of some 2,000 classes on the Web, it hoped the program - dubbed OpenCourseWare - would spur a worldwide movement among educators to share knowledge and improve teaching methods. No institution of higher learning had ever proposed anything as revolutionary, or as daunting. MIT would make everything, from video lectures and class notes to tests and course outlines, available to any joker with a browser. The academic world was shocked by MIT's audacity - and skeptical of the experiment. At a time when most enterprises were racing to profit from the Internet and universities were peddling every conceivable variant of distance learning, here was the pinnacle of technology and science education ready to give it away. Not the degrees, which now cost about $41,000 a year, but the content. No registration required.
So, who accesses the courses and what are their reasons? Lots of people all over the world for all the reasons there are:
OpenCourseWare's pilot run was wildly successful, drawing visitors from 210 countries and territories. In addition to students, the material appeals to countless educators at other universities. Zhivko Nedev, a computer science professor at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, turns to 6.170 material to help him prepare lectures for his programming course. "It is the best thing I have ever seen in computer science," he says. Ludmila Matiash, at the Kyiv Mohyla Business School in Ukraine, draws on OpenCourseWare to design educational and training programs. Kathy Mann, manager of the biology lab at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada, uses Biology 7.012: Introduction to Biology to teach students how to create lab reports and record information from science experiments. "It's really well done," she says. "Why reinvent the wheel?" The Fulbright Economic Teaching Program at the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City makes its own content available online to any interested learners - and indicates on its site that it is taking a cue from OpenCourseWare. "Part of our stated mission is to be more than just a project at MIT," says Margulies, "to evolve into a movement, to help other universities develop a model."
...via BoingBoing
Here is the critical thing to know about desktop computer support: No one likes it--it's stressful, it's difficult and hardly anyone ever calls support when they're happy. Support is not progressive, growth-oriented, or even particularly challenging for the support person--once you've dealt with a couple thousand people and answered a couple thousand questions, it's all pretty much the same no matter how many new computers and new programs come along. Everyone who does support has other things they're interested in doing in addition to support. People use ';well, I don't like to do support'; as an excuse to dump support on someone else. But that's what it amounts to--an excuse--because nobody likes to do support.
Economists use game theory to model strategic interactions among economic agents. I'm not a big fan of game theory because it values a certain heartless rationalism over acting like a human being, but I was recently introduced to the Stag Hunt game and I think it has something to say to the 'I don't like to do support'; crowd.
Stag Hunt is set up as follows:
Two hunters can either jointly hunt a stag (an adult deer and rather large meal) or individually hunt a rabbit (tasty, but substantially less filling). Hunting stags is quite challenging and requires mutual cooperation. If either hunts a stag alone, the chance of success is minimal. Hunting stags is most beneficial for society but requires a lot of trust among its members (gametheory.net)
Let's consider that for our purposes, hunting stags equates (more or less) to doing support. And support is big--bigger, really, than anyone or any group of people can handle because support is a black hole that sucks in all the resources nearby; support is never finished, but it can be managed. The 'rabbits' are the more tempting, more interesting, vastly more 'fun' projects that could be done (and are done in the space between support demands). If we all work in support, we can not only all keep it manageable, but there will be space and time for all of us to work on other things.
But, if all the people who feel it's necessary to say they hate support and must do something else (as opposed to the people who hate support but do it anyway because it has to be done), go off hunting rabbits full-time because, after all, they don’t like doing support, then those left behind not only won't have the chance to do anything but support any longer but they won't be able to manage support anymore either (having lost a bunch of people who used to do support, but now do 'other things'). The support people who remain are punished in several ways, really. First, they now are doing more support than before; second, support overall is not being done as well, which reflects on them, not on the people who have 'left' to do other things; and, finally, there is much less time to do anything except support--no 'rabbits' for them.
Support as a Stag Hunt says several things. First, cooperation provides benefits to all--support gets done and everyone has time for other projects. Lack of cooperation benefits some at a high level--those who claim they don't like support and then do something else benefit from not doing support and from doing projects they like better. Those who stick with their original commitment are punished because they have more support to do, their reputation goes down and they never or rarely or much less often get to do projects that are not support. In this scenario, the 'rational' person would shove all support issues onto someone else because as long as you're not the last person left, it works out pretty well.
It's not a perfect fit to game theory (nothing is). It operates most like this when support is spread over a number of people but no one or several people are strictly titled 'support' people (though I have also seen it happen when people are hired for support, but gradually move over to doing 'other' things because they are 'talented' and like the other things better anyway). But here's the bottom line for me. Don't ever tell me that I have to do something and you don't because 'you don't like support'. At least be honest enough to admit--'I'm handing this off to you because I'm a selfish schlub and I can get away with it.'
God was my co-pilot
but then we crashed in the mountains
and I had to eat him
When you go to meetings and they're having trouble getting the equipment to work, you can hold it up and say, "Look, a Tablet PC."
And everyone turns and says, "Ooohhhh, shiny...."
Marc Laidlaw, BoingBoing's tiny guest blogger this week (I mean, I don't know that Marc's tiny, but the blog is) mentions the Aurora Alarm whick provides alerts when the Aurora Borealis is visible in the midwest and the northwest.
I have to admit that I've always wanted to see the Aurora Borealis and I never have (or at least if I did, I didn't know it, which in my case is possible and even likely). But now, with the Aurora Alarm I would know.
Cool!
Fanzine and seven ears agonic fathers bunyas forth m this confluent a mw prating amusedly bbutyand dedicated to the pupating that all menace autodyne. Now we are engaged ina great city war testing whether this prating many nations conceived ands dedicated can longhouse. We ace pneuma great battlefields that war. We have come do dedicate apntinlofhatfieldasa find hustling-place fn those who here good they lives that that praline might lay.
That's what Windows Journal on a Tablet PC makes of the Gettysburg Address in my handwriting.
I have to admit, I think Lincoln said it better....
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
Go to Google, type in "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and hit the 'I'm Feeling Lucky" button.
...via BoingBoing
Short break, pretty much unplanned. I think my brain went on vacation without me. But I think I'm back now. Of course, it's summer and it's getting hot and humid so one never knows what will happen next....
A 360 degree view from the top of Mt. Everest....
...via The Shifted Librarian
...more or less.
I've been out of town and busy with other things and simply not in a posting mood (which means not finding things that strike me as postable, not focused enough for essays, not quite present enough to put out anything interesting enough to blog--yeah, think how boring that is!)
I'm teaching a new tracking class. The weather the first two weeks was very, very bad. This past Sunday we tracked at a local park where several teams were having softball practice and I think we confused them deeply. The dogs are doing well; the people want things to go much faster than they do. Eventually, they will come to know that the best things do not come in a hurry. :-)
The Republican National Committee has invited me to become a Charter Member of the President's Victory Team.
They must be high....
I have two Rottweilers.
I have a small back yard.
If rabbits were even remotely intelligent and not just suicidal death maniacs, wouldn't you think they could find someplace better to hang out than RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY BACK YARD?
(Note: no actual rabbits were harmed in the making of this post)
We used to have a cat who would open the back door and let the dog out.
This is even better:
The matriarch of a herd of elephants in South Africa opened a gate with her trunk to free antelopes being held at a camp in the east of the country, conservationists said on Tuesday.
...via BoingBoing
I was just over at This Modern World--the weblog reading this entry which begins:
I just got a call from Ethel Kennedy...
and my first thought was--there's something that's never going to happen to me....
In the last month, 38 people have come to Things I Know I Know, looking for information on jet packs; 18 have come looking for Senator Byrd's speech; 12 searching for France's role in the American Revoultion (good for you!); and 2 looking for information on 'Al Franken satellite head'.....
able to post much the last few days, but I've got a seminar report coming and a few other observations and links.
...can be found here.
There's also, apparently, a Periodic Table of Poetry.
You must all go look at this chair.
It would sure change the look of my living room...
Someone is selling an Enigma machine on eBay
...via BoingBoing
Sure, you think blimps are just going to be innocent hours of pure fun, but sometimes there's just the horror....
There's not much to say about this, except it's a really tiny piano
Try this. It's pretty good.
New York Songlines is a hyper-linked map of New York City that gives a few details on what you can expect to find on each city block.
In a bizarre mass-malfunction, Venezuela’s clocks are ticking too slowly due to a power shortage weakening the electric current nationwide. By the end of each day, the sluggish time pieces still have another 150 seconds to tick before they catch up to midnight.
I once lived in the southeast corner of Indiana where some towns are on Central time and some towns are on Eastern time (it was actually more complicated that that because the majority of Indiana was on Eastern Standard time all year round which meant for all practical purposes different time zones at different times of the year). The locals called it 'slow time' and 'fast time' and (proof that I was probably not cut out to ever be a local) I could never figure out which was which. Whenever there were meetings you had to figure out if the town the meeting was in was on fast time or slow time. But it was handy if you'd worked late and wanted to go get lunch--you could head for the town on 'slow time' (or was that 'fast time?)
I particularly applaud Venezualans for taking their particular version of slow time in stride:
But in a nation that rarely starts on schedule, Venezuelans have taken their time troubles in their stride. An air traffic controller casually told Reuters that his office corrected its clocks every few days or months, without incident so far.“Yes, it’s been happening here. But we correct the clocks every three months and there’s no problem,” he said.
Apparently, it's introvert's day at Blogdex.
Go visit An Introvert's Lexicon
My favorite is the introvert's definition of 'Work':
Being pestered every five minutes about something trivial, and not allowed to concentrate
I actually have some essays and longer things I'd like to get posted, maybe over the weekend. But in the meantime, check out the Flash Mind Reader!
It's fun just to enjoy, but I actually figured out how it worked, which is so unusual for me as to be worthy of remark.
Prof, "What is the diffrence between a History Professor and a Large Pizza, simple the Pizza can actually feed a family of four"
Are we all agreed that there are a finite number of dogs in the world?"
Baffled Student: "I don't understand..."
Prof. Lamb: "OK. In other words ... No, in the same words, ..." [repeats explanation exactly]
A Quicktime movie with Anne Troake, a choreographer, developing a dance for heavy equipment.
via BoingBoing (who calls them cranes, but they're not...)
Playing with Time is a web site and a traveling museum exhibition that looks at time and change. The web site has a lot of interesting examples of time lapse photography in the gallery, ways to collaborate and have some time lapse fun of your own, and lots of links to other time-savvy sites.
The Salt Lake Astronomical Society wants to drop bowling balls from airplanes in order to study how asteroids impacted the local salt flats. Officials are concerned that someone might be standing in the way.
For their part, society members emphasise they are not eccentric. For a start, they will not just limit themselves to bowling balls: they will also drop putters' shots and rocks. As Wiggins said: 'Everyone likes to drop things from planes.' Indeed, the society even considered dropping a real meteorite to ensure realism, but realised it just might get lost.'We're not stupid,' added Wiggins
...via Making Light
I know that science is iterative so that even many 'breakthroughs' really are the result of collecting information doing research piece by piece by piece.
But some things still make you go--who the heck first thought of this?
A number of years ago, a farmer in Indiana told me that you can talk a farmer into doing pretty nearly anything once.
In Bad Land, Jonathon Raban tells how the promise of dryland farming lured countless hopeful people from the east, from the cities and, most of all, from foreign countries to the arid open plains of Montana and other Western states:
...Campbell's Soil Culture Manual [on dryland farming] was an inspirational work. Hardy Campbell was an evangelist in the cause of Science, Progress, and the American Way...Anyone could be excited by Campbell's figures. On his own farm, he had reaped 54 bushels of wheat to the acre. Using the Campbell method, Mr. L. L. Mulligan had gotten 75 bushels of barley...with crops like these, grown on land once named a desert, Campbell's drumrolling on behalf of his own system did not seem immodest.
Of course, how it worked in the long term was not exactly inspiring:
Most people were baffled and frightened by the disastrous turn in the weather. They had been assured--by the government, by scientists, by the railroad literature--that this couldn't happen, that (in Campbell's words) "the semi-arid region is destined to be in a few years the richest portion of the United States." Now, as grasshoppers swarmed over the ruined crop, and farmland turned to desert, it seemed that there might be an ominous significance in the embossed gilt camel on the cover of the Soil Culture Manual.
In the 1970s, Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture, told farmers to 'get big or get out.' And, like dry land farming, that too, seemed, at the least, a possible idea, and at best, a path to greater success. Agricultural colleges in the 70s taught future farmers to be hard-headed and technology-minded. Bigger was better, bigger was, in fact the only choice for a 'good' farmer, who would then enjoy economies of scale and efficiencies that could only be achieved through automationand expansion. A farmer in New Hampshire in 1979 leveled his farm, spending thousands of dollars to turn it from rocky, rolling New England countryside into plowable land for big equipment, slicing off a hill here and filling in a valley there. In 1976, a Cornell University professor described a system where dairy cows would live their lives in transportable stalls, which could be hooked together like a cattle train and moved from milk house to feed center to overnight shelter without the inefficiencies of actually getting living creatures from place to place. It was all about production. We were the 'breadbasket to the world' and all things seemed possible to farmers who were sharp and forward-thinking and innovative.
The 1970s were a heady time of rapidly rising farm income and skyrocketing land values, and few questioned the notion that the good times would roll on forever. Banks urged farmers to take out larger and larger loans to modernize and to expand operations. One Iowa farm family applied for $12,000 in 1979 only to find their check made out for $25,000. When they called their loan officer about the mistake, he just laughed. "Don't be foolish," he chided them. "Go ahead and use the extra money for whatever you want. You’re good for it."But they weren't really....
In Broken Heartland: The rise of America's Rural Ghetto, Osha Gray Davidson describes the farm crisis of the 1980s and its long--and still ongoing--aftermath.
In 1971, farm debt stood at $54 billion. By 1985, that amount had swelled to $212 billion--a figure greater than the combined debt of Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. American agriculture had become the most capital-intensive system of food production in the world.
Farming is all about hope in the face of disaster. Despite science and technology, farmers can't control the weather and in farming it's important when it rains and when it freezes and where the twisters touch down. And it is a far more precarious living than most people ever imagine:
From 1981 to 1987, 26,000 Iowa farmers--about 20% of the total went out of business. But the family farm--never the robust institution of popular mythology--has been in serious, and many say fatal, trouble for decades. Our farm population has plummeted from 30 million down to 5 million since the 1940s, while the average farm size has more than doubled during the same period.
In addition to the farms themselves and the people who live and work on them, farming knits together the fabric of rural communities in ways that aren't always visible or easy for people not living in those communities to understand:
As farms began to fold [in the 1980s], so did the many businesses that had grown up to service them. Between 1976 and 1986, Iowa's small towns suffered the following losses: the number of gas stations fell almost 41%, grocery stores 27%, building material stores 21%, variety stores 37%, men's clothing stores 38%. Bankrupticies among Iowa businesses rose 46% in 1985, the largest one-year jump since records were first kept 25 years earlier.
Farmers who lose their farm don't just lose a paycheck and it is not, for most of them, a simple matter of shrugging their shoulders and moving on. Sometimes the land has been in the family for generations; it is where they make their home. When farmers lose their farms, they lose their land, their history, their families, their place in the world, and their lives, sometimes even literally.
In 1987, the number of suicides in Iowa climbed to 398, the highest number since the Depression. (One hundred and ninety-five Iowans shot themselves; 74 used poisonous gas or vapors; 66 hanged or suffocated themselves; 35 took poison; and 28 died of a variety of other methods.) The suicide rate among farmers in Iowa was 46 per 100,000 in 1983. The national rate for all adult men is about 29 per 100,000....
For all the outer changes that have taken place in rural America over the past decade, it is the change occurring inside the hearts and minds of rural people that is the least recognized and perhaps most important. The constant downward ratcheting of expectations, the grinding, dailly battle against largely unknown but seemingly invincible enemies, the dissolution of families, communities, and dreams are taking a toll on rural people that will last for decades.
Why should we care about any of this? Because small and medium-sized farmers on their own land are free economic citizens who can be good for the environment and are key players in building healthy communities nearby. Independent farmers, independent small business owners, and other individuals who are free citizens both socially and economically are absolutely critical to a functioning democracy.
It is fashionable to dismiss Thomas Jefferson's agrarian society as an outdated utopia which was, in any case, restricted to white men. But while there is much to criticize in Jefferson's original vision and in how sparingly it was actually implemented, the democratic principle central to Jefferson's ideal--the commitment to community assured by the yeoman farmer--remains our passport to the future. The challenge is to adapt that eighteenth-century conception of society to fit the realities of the twenty-first century. If we can meet that challenge, then the golden age of rural America will lie not in our past--as our myths have it--but in our future.
Broken Heartland was written over a decade ago (though there is a small updated section from the 1996 edition). Since that time, farming has continued to change in Iowa and other midwestern states. It isn't quite as bleak as it was in 1990, though one thing definitely remains constant--the total number of farmers keeps right on shrinking.
According to this article in Scientific American there is now evidence that stones can self-organize into circles:
The team found, using computer simulations, that the two main mechanisms are lateral sorting, which moves stones and soils to regions that have high concentrations of similar particles, and squeezing, which stretches stones into longer lines by causing movements within a pile of rocks.Freezing and thawing of the ground influence both of those processes, and their relative strengths determine what the final pattern looks like. For instance, polygons arise when squeezing is strong enough to counteract the effects of lateral sorting.
You turn your back on them for just a minute....
formant transitions.
each seat has its own sound.
there wasn't much more to the story.
drank coffee
According to BBC news, researchers have found the formula for happiness:
Happiness = P + (5xE) + (3xH)
Where
P = Personal Characteristics
E = Existence
H = Higher Order needs
So, now you know.
...via BoingBoing
Edge.org asks:
What if President Bush wrote to you and asked--"What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them?"
85 reponses to that question include:
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi
We should be preparing for the future, Mr. President, not continuing to invest in a mythical past. Currently science is at the service of speculators and mindless traffickers in destruction. It is time the rest of society reclaimed its right to have a voice in determining what their lives shall be like.
Roger Schrank
One thing a science advisor should do is attempt to define science. The last definition we had was in 1892 when Charles Eliot, the President of Harvard, led a committee that decided upon the high school curriculum that is still in place today. They defined science as biology, chemistry, and physics (in that order.) These just happened to be the science departments at Harvard in 1892. They defined mathematics as algebra, geometry and trigonometry (— same reason.) But a few things have happened since 1892.
Alan Alda
The world is going to come to an end in about 5 billion years no matter what we do. So, in the long run, you're off the hook. It's true that things like Global Warming, plus the increasing loss of clean water and bio diversity, can hasten The End Of Everything As We Know It, but even so, it will all end eventually. Nobody gets blamed for continuing a disastrous policy, so there will be no harm to your reputation if you do nothing. People simply do not say, "Caesar did nothing to halt the Roman practice of putting lead in the air and water, probably resulting in the eventual weakening and fall of the empire." But they're absolutely fascinated with the way he could divide Gaul into thirds.
Rupert Sheldrake
Diverting 1 percent of the present science budget to the National Discovery Center, open to democratic input and public participation, would involve no additional expenditure, but would have a big effect on people's involvement in science and on innovation. It would appeal to many voters, make science more attractive to young people, stimulate interest in scientific thinking and hypothesis-testing, and help break down the increasing alienation many people feel from science. It would also enable many working scientists to think more freely, and unleash some of the creative potential that is currently being stifled.
That last one, BTW, falls into the category of 'ideas I like and think we should do right away.'
Brad deLong blogs the American Economics Association conference:
"Do you know all these people you are waving at across the hotel lobby? Or are you just waving at random? Who are those two--they look really confused." "I wasn't waving at them, I was waving at Aaron Edlin behind them.""You must have done a bunch of research to learn that much about the connections between Lord Dalhousie's 'Doctrine of Lapse' and the Anti-British Revolt of 1857." "Well... Sort of... It was in the distant past, and only if reading pulp historical fiction novels by George McDonald Fraser counts as 'research'."
"If he'd had that diagram, it would have made things much clearer." "If he'd had that diagram, the seminar would have been over in five minutes, and then what would he have done with the rest of his time?" "But it would have been a really impressive five minutes."
Patrick Nielsen Hayden says that this is yet further evidence that the world is being slowly conquered by science fiction fandom.
The Guardian gives us its Survival guide 2003:
the 25 technologies and notions we think hold most promise over the next year. From the evolutionary to the revolutionary, the trivial to the very serious, these are 25 of the trends we'll be watching closely over the next 12 months.
These include:
At home
Work
Ideas
Websites
And now you know as much cool stuff as I do.
Or possibly more.
PhysicsWeb presents its Highlights of the Year
2002 has been an exciting year for physicists. From the production of large numbers of anti-atoms at CERN to the first measurement of the polarization of the cosmic background radiation, there has been no shortage of important developments.
This isn't necesssarily new information (published July, 2001), but Capitol Roundup cites two reports from the non-profit consumer group, Public Citizen which say:
In two reports made public yesterday (Monday, July 23), Public Citizen, citing drug industry and National Institute of Health data, reported that drug companies actually pay about $110 million in research and development costs per drug rather than the $500 million touted by the industry.
Additionally, the group maintains that at least 55 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development to the top five selling drugs in 1995 were conducted by taxpayer-funded scientists.
The drug companies (in the guise of PhRMA) say this is so not true.
Public Citizen says, yes it is.
Defective Yeti proposes a new money system using Legos instead of, well, cash:
...Great Idea #57709: the US should make the four pronged square Lego the standard unit of US currency. The bigger Legos will be worth more, and the smaller Legos will be like coins, and those huge Lego plates will be, like, $1000 bills. We'll also outlaw those stupid "Mindstorm" Legos because they are new-fangled and I don't understand them.
This plan has so many good points that I can't even begin to list them and yet now I will:
...via BoingBoing
Beth Bartel is blogging from Antarctica. Check out Iceblog!
Including the The Iceblog Photo Gallery
What's she doing in Antarctica? There's a good detailed explanation here:
In a nutshell, I study volcano geodesy. Or volcano deformation. Both of which are confusing terms. Both mean that I study how the surface of a volcano moves, presumably in response to things that are happening inside. A change in pressure within the volcano, if large enough, should result in measurable deformation at the surface. Deformation means a change in shape. For example, a magmatic intrusion from deep within the Earth to a shallow magma body (i.e. chamber) should result in inflation of the volcano, like a balloon. If we can measure this deformation, we can make guesses about what's going on within the volcano.
...found via The Rittenhouse Review
like Lilo and Stitch a lot, though I haven't figured out exactly why yet. It may be the screaming, the growling, the slit-eyed silent resentment or, you know, the whole Ugly Duckling thing.
But it's probably the wrecking things and the explosions....
the kind of person who nitpicks movies or who cares how possible a premise is if it's carried out with style and verve, but Reign of Fire has to be one of the top stupidest movies of all time.
Why do they call it The Original Chex Party Mix, when it isn't? I mean, there's no way they had little garlic bagel chips when Chex Party Mix recipes were first printed on boxes.
I'm equally suspicious of the inclusion of garlic powder....
It's a constant source of amazement to me what some people will do for no apparent reason.
I think it's nifty. And keen. And kinda swell, too.
There's an article in The Journal of Metallurgy on the making of the weaponry and armor for The Lord of the Ring.
Here's an archive of over 1,200 'ephemeral films (advertising, industrial, educational, amateur). Topics range from beer to industrial theater to civil defense.
I parciularly recommend (because I just saw it today) The House in the Middle, which tells you how to survive nuclear war with good housekeeping and fresh paint.
My favorite line: This house burned 'as if it was deliberatly fired with kindling' as opposed to deliberatly fired with an ATOM BOMB!
The PowerPoint Anthology of Literature
I particularly like the one with Hamlet's soliloquy as a Powerpoint table.
This article in New Scientist talks about face transplant technology, which should be ready to hit the 'real world' in six to nine months.
Surgeons are working on face transplants (which I have to admit is something I never thought of) to help people who are badly disfigured.
But [Peter Butler of the Royal Free Hospital's] own survey of 120 people including nurses and doctors revealed that while some would be willing to receive a face transplant, none would be prepared to donate their own face. Butler hopes that if full details of the procedure and its medical need are made clear, potential donors might be able to overcome their initial revulsion.
It would be kind of creepy, someone walking around with your face, though they also say that it wouldn't look like you (underlying bone structure, etc.)
A Ghost Town Gallery....
This is cool
...is back.
It's all shiny. :-)
And, presumably, all paid for by Other People.
From BoingBoing comes the news that if you search for the string 'http' on Google, you get a list of all pages ordered by their Google rank. The top ten are:
The web, it seems, is more about searching for things that it is about the things themselves. I think this is cool.
This afternoon, I toured a virtual reality lab. The VR space itself had four sides (three walls and a floor) capable of holding images and wireless 3-D specs and controllers. It's used for developing simulations and testing experimental setups, though I think it's most often used to give tours because there's another lab nearby with six imagable sides.
They took us through the 'fire cave,' which involved diving off cliffs, sliding down rock faces, flying, and getting hit with a great stone pendulum. It was incredibly vertigo-inducing, swooping around corners, dropping off a sheer rock face, winding rapidly down narrow twisty corridors. There were no railings to grab or chairs to sit in, nothing to ground one to the 'real' reality. I had to keep reminding myself I was standing on solid ground and even then, I almost fell over twice and had to reach out and grab the arm of the person next to me.
The thing that fills me with wonder, though, is the guy who gives the tour, who stood right with us and ran the controller. He's been taking people through, one group every fifteen minutes, for at least the last two hours, swooping and plunging and flying, and he doesn't fall over or close his eyes or say, 'whoa.' How many times, I wonder, did he go through this before he could do it so easily? How many times would I have to do it before I didn't have to close my eyes.
And the thing is, I want to know. I want to do it so many times that it's a cool, regular thing, like an everyday walk in the park. I have no idea why. But I do.
Here's a cool web page on the centuries-long effort that led to our modern understandings of paleontology and biology. The Goof Gallery (intpretations and theories that didn't prove out in the long run) is fascinating.
The Waypath Project will take any URL, for an article, say, or a weblog entry and tell you other entries that are related to it.
If I enter Sometimes I Just Don't Get It..., an entry I made on October 29th, it finds 92 possibly related things.
This would be even cooler if I could figure out how they were related, exactly....
Okay, first of all, the elections.
But before that, someone ran a red light and smashed in the whole side of my car. Good news abounds--no one was hurt, all the damage can be repaired, there were only two cars involved (and it is traditionally a busy intersection). But...
someone smashed in the whole side of my car :-(
And, of course, let's not forget the elections :-( :-( :-(
Red lights mean STOP.
"I used to have dragonflies in my house. But I don't anymore."
It wasn't a dark and stormy night.It should have been, but that's the weather for you. For every mad scientist who's had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great Work is finished and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who've sat around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the overtime.
But don't let the fog (with rain later, temperatures dropping to around forty-five degrees) give anyone a false sense of security. Just because it's a mild night doesn't mean that dark forces aren't abroad. They're abroad all the time. They're everywhere.
They always are. That's the whole point.
Two of them lurked in the ruined graveyard. Two shadowy figures, one hunched and squat, the other lean and menacing, both of them Olympic-grade lurkers. If Bruce Springsteen had ever recorded "Born to Lurk," these two would have been on the album cover. They had been lurking in the fog for an hour now, but they had been packing themselves and could lurk for the rest of the night if necessary, with still enough sullen menace left for a final burst of lurking around dawn.
...from Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
No it is not Halloween themed...
A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense. Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. The "taken for granted" is the test of sanity; "what everyone knows" is the line between us and them.
This means that sometimes a society gets stuck. Sometimes these unquestioned ideas interfere, as the cost of questioning becomes too great. In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.
...from The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig
If you work with or live next door to or (god forbid) are related to a computer support person and you see them in the hall or walking the dog or delivering Xmas packages, try talking to them about
!!!ANY BLOODY OTHER SUBJECT!!!
than why your computer doesn't work the way you want it to.
Thousands will cheer.
This month four people have come to this website by searching on:
diversity of living things (rottweiler)
I think they're looking for a paper written by a man who lives in the city of Rottweiler, though I'm willing to admit that Rottweilers, the dog breed, do definitively add to the diversity of living things.
Four people also came because they searched for:
millenium slogan
Now, I have an entry titled, Slogan for the New Millenium, but Google at least sends them to the empty comments page for that entry, not to the entry itself(it's not a particularly wondrous and good slogan, don't bother to look it up).
Lots of people are trying to figure out how to hookup a dvd and vcr (build them right in the first place is my advice). One person was looking for information on building your own dirigible (which I only wish I had on this site).
And one person wanted to know: does advertising make us buy things we want but don't need. Yes.
Biotechnologists in Taiwan are making luminescent birthday cakes. The glow comes from a phosphorescent protein extracted from red algae.
It would definitely save on the birthday candles.
Here's an interesting quote, though:
...but is not a health concern to consumers as it is completely natural and edible.
like 'natural' and 'edible' just always go together.
...via BoingBoing
So what do you suppose Joseph Epstein thinks of this?
Even the name (which stands for National Novel Writing Month) sounds kind of like 'Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!'
Oh, just read the article.
I have lost my brain.
If you find it, please treat it kindly and return it as soon as possible.
I am number two on Google, if you search for 'how to have a rational conversation.'
I'm sure this is a temporary condition....
I'm sitting in a coffeehouse on what is apparently 'MLM Friday'; (MLM being Multi-Level Marketing) trying to research ideas for innovative technology projects. Here are my notes interspersed with MLM commentary:
MLM guys
Why I am the center of the universe. Why my presentation sounds canned even when I'm acting like I'm just your friend.
From the Cluetrain Manifesto
However much we long for the Web is how much we hate our jobs.
Note to self (regarding MLM guys)
Next time someone gives me a presentation where they ask me stupid questions all the way through, please make me ask them to stop.
Me on web potential
What can we build from the promise of voice and our authentic selves? What does this mean in practical everyday organizational terms? What can we do that's exactly our mission and something no one else is doing yet?
MLM guys
There are four kinds of people in the world--employees, self-employed, business owners, investors (Which one do you want to be? Right, investor.) Business owners are really franchise owners and the self-employed are really big, fat failures.
From the Cluetrain Manifesto
Artists have a stubborn faith in their ability to create newness from next to nothing.
MLM guys
They are using the language of spirit and longing to suck people into commission work. We make no investment in you. We don’t pay you unless we have to. And--ohmygod--the MLM guy actually says this, I have put off my promotions to help people like you make the kind of money I’m sure you can make. Because I’m a people person.
Me
What is information? What is knowledge? What is wisdom? The web is about moving bits. The web loves information. But what does it think of knowledge? And wisdom? How do we disseminate knowledge? Is there wisdom on the net? Where does it come from?
MLM guys
We don't cold call. We exploit your friends and family (only we call it something better than that).
Me
The energy has to be with the people. You can't say, come and do this because it will be good for you. They either won't come or won't do what you want unless it's something they want too or care about. We can't reach people in new ways if all we're doing is putting our old content up on the web. We have to give people voice and allow more chaos into the system.
MLM guys
We are the chosen people. Don't you think you're just a little bit better than everyone else? Exactly. That's why you're meant to work in multi-level marketing.
Me
So, the meaning of the web comes from us. And planning becomes something that can easily be overdone. Yet, we never leave behind the world of liability and bad press and misinterpretation. We can take no risk and change things hardly at all. Or we can take some risk and invent things we haven't even thought of yet.
I was driving past a construction area while I was up near Chicago and I saw a big utility vehicle with one of these signs on the back that said:
Don't Follow Into Work Area
And I thought, well, you--the casual driver on the highway--would never follow it into the work area on purpose. You'd only follow it into the work area if you thought it was still the highway--if it was dark or rainy or there were too many big vehicles with bright lights driving around and you couldn't see clearly. And if you'd only follow it if you didn't know you were following it into the work area, then what good, exactly, does the sign do?
My favorite all-time unexplainable sign, by the way, was in front of a house in northeastern Iowa:
Chainsaw on Hand
for all your chainsaw emergencies.
Everyone I met at the hotel who was not attending the dog show seemed to be from Germany.
You know, when I was in graduate school, I actually used research on how much time, on average, an average cow spends lying down or standing (for the record, they spend about half their time lying down and half their time standing), so I'm inclined to see value in, well, almost anything.
But I have to admit, when reading about the Ig-Nobel Awards at New Scientist, that I was particularly taken by the researchers who developed a device to translate dog barks into Japanese.
And, of course, you have to love this:
The economics prize was shared among a long list of corporations for "adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world."
The new Two Towers trailer is out.
Looking real good.
On one of the streets I regularly walk on, there's a house with a one-step front stoop about five feet from the sidewalk. The people who live there have a cat and they often put the cat outside on a long line.
I'm trying to figure out what this cat would think about sitting out there on the stoop. Either:
I'm the Ruler of the Universe
or
Oh my god, I'm going to be EATEN BY A DOG!!!!
I figure it must spend its time switching rapidly between these two opposing states.
Electric signals can be transmitted at least four times faster than the speed of light using only basic equipment that would be found in virtually any college science department according to New Scientist.
I can't say I'm surprised. I always expected it to be doable, easy even. But my logic and the logic of world-famous physicists do not always coincide.
Nice vacation. Decent weather. Much reading. A little writing.
Be talking in complete sentences some time soon.
on vacation for the rest of this week.
Cabin on the river. Dog. Books. Hiking. Ahhh.....
They're turning the old Country Kitchen restaurant into a bank. They call it remodeling, but there's only about two support pillars and half a roof left of the Country Kitchen. In five years no one will remember what it was.
Directly across from the actual Pizza Hut, there's a coffee house that used to be a Pizza Hut. On the other side of town there's a Mexican restaurant. It used to be a Pizza Hut, too. Unlike the Country Kitchen/bank, you can tell they used to be Pizza Hut restaurants, because, face it, it's hard to disguise trapezoidal windows.
This is really cool: The Theban Mapping Project.
Maps and expert narration and tours of tombs. Oh my....
At the credit union drive-thru today, I saw this sign:
To protect our valued members, we may ask you for identification.
So, does that mean, if they ask me for identifcation, that I can figure I'm not a valued member--To protect our valued members, we may ask you, who are clearly not a valued member for identifcation.
Excepting that it would eliminate the tacit insult, how would this lose meaning if it just read:
We may ask you for identification.
The following is probably more than you ever wanted to know....
There's a sentence in Federalist paper #2 that I'm thinking wouldn't make it in a modern essay:
This intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects.
What Hamilton means is:
Intelligent people perceived defects. And, having perceived them, regretted them.
Two issues make this a difficult sentence to parse in its original form. First, we want to read it as 'This intelligent people' which doesn't make sense rather than 'This [the defects], intelligent people perceived'
And then, our (okay, my) modern eyes want to give 'perceived' and 'regretted' equal footing since they're simply separated here by 'and.' But then, the impression is that the perceiving and the regretting take place simultaneously, or at least serially, one defect after another--perceived/regretted, perceived/regretted.... This is especially confusing when combined with the beginning of the sentence. Even after you figure out that 'this' doesn't modify 'intelligent people', you're still left with: This, intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects. Without a 'stop' between perceived and regretted, 'these defects' seems to be redundant. 'This' does all the necessary work and so, 'these defects,' which is important when the sentence is read correctly doesn't make any sense. If you think of it as 'Intelligent people perceived this and regretted these defects.' it makes more sense though it's still awkward.
This intelligent people preceived and regretted these defects.
is a succinct way to say what Hamilton wanted to say. It's just that it's almost impossible to make sense out of.
And, of course, after all these years and editions, it could be that it's just edited badly....
...part one of a continuing series
In their September, 2002 issue, Scientific American has an article on:
All right! I'm cleaning out my garage!
Though I have to say, this part looks a bit daunting for the home hobbyist:
A formidable problem that stands in the way of making a wormhole time machine is the creation of the wormhole in the first place.
Here's a cool site:
I'm not sure I've even scratched the surface of it yet, but it's got beautiful artwork and a wealth of information on the Japanese city of Edo (the historic name for Tokyo).
United Press International has several articles discussing whether the anti-malaria drug, Lariam, played a role in the cluster of murders that recently took place at Fort Bragg.
Official spokesmen for the Army say the drug has no adverse side effects. But soliders say Lariam, or mefloquine, causes side effects that can include aggression, depression, paranoia, hallucinations and suicidal thinking.
Although the Army has said that they believe domestic problems are the most likely explanation in the killings, none of the couples had a history of violence.
A followup article at the UPI site indicates that the Army had warnings about Lariam as early as 1996.
So, I'm standing in line at the grocery store and things are moving pretty slowly. On the rack to my right are batteries, bag clips, breath mints, and electric toothbrushes. On one of the toothbrushes there's a label:
Try me!
And I just have to say: EEUWW!!!!!
I mostly go to the coffeehouse on weekends, but sometimes when I take the day off from work, I'll go there on a weekday.
The going-to-work crowd leaves between 8 and 8:15. About nine or so, a group of older men come in to sit at two tables pushed together and drink coffee and talk. They are doctors and professors and they talk in loud voices, not as if they're hard of hearing, but as if they're using to lecturing or giving orders, as if they expect to be listened to when they say something.
They are fascinating to listen to. Once, as I was sipping my coffee and writing random notes on the other side of the room from them, they started talking about a recent case in the news, a suspicious death that the coroner had mis-reported.
One of them, a doctor I presume, said he'd once been a coroner in rural Iowa. One day, he got a call, an elderly woman who lived alone hadn't been seen for a couple of days. He and the sheriff drove to her house. They walked inside and found the woman lying on the floor in the middle of her living room.
He walked over to her, he said, knelt down and looked at her, thinking, well, it's already obvious she's had a heart attack. He checked her pulse, checked to see if she was breathing, already figuring in his head what he was going to write on the death certificate. He put his hand down so that he could turn her over and only then did he notice the blood in a pool all underneath her head. And only after he saw the blood did he notice the shotgun that had been lying right next to her all along, right out in the open, in the middle of the floor.
It turned out, the woman had committed suicide, stuck a shotgun in her mouth and blown the back of her head off.
"It's easy to miss things," he told the coffeehouse men, "when you think you already know what you're looking for."
Apparently, this story, Tombstone ATM Doles Out Inheritance, might be a hoax. SFgate reports that they can't find a death notice under the name reported.
Me, I found it totally believeable. I have a friend who wants us to put up one of those neon signs with revolving messages when she dies so she can continue to tell people what to do after she's gone.
I like to go to the coffee shop early in the morning and spend a couple of hours reading and writing.
One morning, a women in her late sixties or early seventies comes in. She tells the man who's meeting her there that she's been driving all night from Colorado. She skis, she says, but, of course, she didn't go skiing this time because it's only September.
Later, she tells him that she got caught in a speed trap on I-80 around Omaha. She was going 70 mph in a 60 mph zone. They had eight other people pulled over, she tells him, all in a line.
So, she says, "I did what I had to do."
"What was that?" the man asks her.
"I cried and told them I was deaf," she says. "And they let me off."
I am vastly entertained by this woman and the picture of her zooming through Nebraska, confounding police, skiing. Maybe, I think, she rock-climbs or jumps out of airplanes or bungee-jumps off bridges, too.
The man she's with says, "Why would they let you off because you're deaf? Maybe you just think that's why. Maybe they let everyone off."
"Maybe they let me off because I'm pretty," she says.
I am a Speaker to Geeks....
According toThudfactor: The Polygeek Test my geek percentage is 46%.
You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend.
You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines!
Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals!
You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.
Frighteningly, I actually do have this kind of job. And occasionally have conversations just like the one above.
I wish the several thousand who hang out in the trees outside my house would hare off and build a village somewhere.
...so say a team of Australian scientists who according to a WiredNews article, Was Einstein Wrong?, have proposed that the speed of light may not be a constant.
It's the nature of physics to change--Newtonian properties, quantum physics, waves, particles. Some of the explanations scientists claim, are elegant, but some of them are just plain messy and give us clear evidence that there is more to the universe than we have yet discovered.
I seem to be renting movies in thematic batches.
Two weekends ago...
The past doesn't change--the future can
Monster's Ball
The Royal Tenenbaums
A Beautiful Mind
Last weekend...
Men who recently lost their wives
Dragonfly
The Mothman Prophecies
The Shipping News
Antigravity devices, the stuff of science fiction.
According to an article at BBC news, Boeing is hoping to make them a reality, based on purported breakthrough research by Yevgeny Podkletnov in Finland.
My brother has a doghouse in his front yard with MAGGIE on the front in big block letters, even though he's never owned a dog named Maggie.
===
Right up until she died at age ninety-two, my grandmother had a big basket of books in the front hallway. Anyone who came to visit was invited to look and see if there was anything they wanted. All kinds of books were in there--mysteries, best sellers, science fiction, romance, thrillers.
===
I was just watched the movie, 'Villa Rides' with Yul Brynner and Robert Mitchum. Villa waits to save a village until a certain number of people have died. Meanwhile, while he's waiting, a girl is raped. Robert Mitchum says it's partly Villa's fault. That she doesn't want a man. That she thinks no man will want her. Villa calls for a priest and marries the girl himself.
I can't figure this out. Is it supposed to be a noble gesture, supposed to reveal his human side? Now this poor girl has not only been raped, she's stuck married to a man she's never met and who, basically, kills people for a living. This should make her feel better? Do guys really believe this stuff?
Want to glue glass to metal?
This to That (Glue Advice) (whose mission statement is: Because people have a need to glue things to other things) will tell you how. For some reason, I find this fascinating. I particularly recommended visiting the Glue O'Month page
...via BoingBoing
I like the movie The Deep Blue Sea.
It's a stupid plot. In order to cure Alzheimer's disease, scientists make genetic alterations to the biggest, meanest sharks in the ocean. And they do it in a lab in the middle of the ocean far from shore and other people. Sharks take revenge. People die. Disaster ensues. There is screaming and shouting and near-death experiences. The plot holes are big and obvious and not even that much fun to pick at, being big and obvious and all. Some people call it one of the stupidest movies ever made, but it isn't, really. There are some extremely stupid movies out there.
Want to know how close you are to the proposed train route for carrying nuclear waste to Yucca mountain?
Check out: The Nuclear Waste Route Atlas
Me, I'm within .4 miles.
I’m reading, actually just finished reading, a novel by Barbara Parker called Suspicion of Vengeance. Now I have to admit that I skimmed a lot of the last third of the book. Sometimes I do that. I skip ahead. Not because the book isn’t good (or at least not always) but because I start to get the feeling that the ending might annoy me and I don’t want to waste my time. It’s a bad habit and I wouldn’t recommend it, but I’ve learned to live with it.
I am a liberal. I prefer the term progressive for lots of reasons, but liberal is a perfectly fine word and it ought to get more use than as a casually flung pejorative. Unlike a lot of people who say, yeah, I’m a social liberal but I’m economically conservative, I gotta say, I’m an economic and a social liberal, perhaps more economic than social when all is said and done.
I believe in individual responsibility. I believe we have too many laws and that many of them are excessively stupid. I believe we must treat people fairly and with dignity. I don’t believe in class warfare and I wish the rich guys who harp on the poor all the time and push for punishing, restrictive legislation would cut it out. I believe that everyone has certain unalienable rights that cannot be abridged.
All the knowledge in the world divides into the following four categories:
I was in a leadership development group once where we got into a big discussion about these four categories and what they mean. Unhappiness abounded. Angry words were spoken. "What does that mean," people said, "we don’t know what we don’t know? It doesn’t make any sense."
