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Originally published at Umbral Echoes Blog. You can comment here or there.
Update via LoudTwitter |
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Friends LiveJournal for Shataina.
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| Thursday, July 24th, 2008 |
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Originally published at Umbral Echoes Blog. You can comment here or there.
Update via LoudTwitter |
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I'm out of reading material at work, so I borrowed a nice fat stack of books from a guy in the Department of Land Conservation. Mostly they're about soil management and plant biology, and I am learning all sorts of fun new things. I am realizing quite vividly that my science education has been ridiculously haphazard thus far; I need to learn chemistry, especially organic chemistry, and I need to get my mathematics up to snuff. Maybe I can get a set of those glorified tinkertoys for molecule modeling. Or maybe I can just find some tinkertoys. Anyhow, I was reading about chloroplast structure, and must have had a pretty goofy grin on my face, because the next thing I knew I was being asked about what I was reading. Actually, at that point, I realized I hadn't been reading at all for the past fifteen minutes. I'd been daydreaming. Vividly. About being very very tiny, and wandering around inside a chloroplast. It was a bit like walking around in an Escher/Lovecraft vision of Oz's Emerald city. Behold:  The fun part? I remember sodding *everything* I read about chloroplasts that afternoon. So really, I've just discovered a new mnemonic. Or, re-discovered it. I remember doing the same thing a lot as a kid, now that I think about it, and I'm sure it started with the Magic Schoolbus books. (I also seem to recall a great deal of trouble ensuing when I slipped into it at school, since teachers can't tell what's going on in a daydream, but that's neither here nor there.) Anyway, I guess I just wanted to make a note of this, remind myself all over again that play-learning is all kinds of effective. |
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 The New York Times has a surprising article today about the radiation risks of granite counters. Granite is an intrusive rock--slowly cooled from magma several kilometers below the surface, the rock grows large crystals from the hundred-thousand to million year cooling period. It is also chemically more "continental"; that is, more quartz, more "felsic" minerals, as opposed to the "mafic" minerals that contain much olivine and pyroxene, two minerals rich in iron and magnesium. True granite is a chemically specific intrusive, and much of what is called granite isn't, but a cousin of it. Roughly you can say to expect quartz, feldspar (of some type, there are several), and a sheet silicate like mica or biotite. Despite the popular image of the Earth's crust riding on an ocean of molten magma, there is little liquid under our feet. While it's hot, there is enough pressure to keep things solid. Occasionally something will upset that balance and allow the rock to melt, whether by bringing hot material up to a lower pressure (like at the mid-ocean ridges) or by adding a special ingredient to make it melt (like water released by ocean sediments subducting under a continent). Melting is complicated and rarely complete, and some minerals melt at a lower temperature than others, leaving behind and chemically changing what sort of rock it is. Granite is like this. It melts at a lower temperature than basaltic materials. It often contains more water. And it brings with it certain compatible elements including uranium and thorium. This is why granites are more radioactive than most rocks. They can contain 10-20x more uranium and thorium than the solid left behind. Some of the more exotic "granites" are pegmatites--the extremely large crystal remnants of the last little bits of liquid at the end of solidification--and they contain the highest amounts of these elements. But is this a hazard? Granites I've encountered have rates ranging from nothing to about 10x background. This isn't that much. Time spent at cruising altitude is about 40x background at 500ft. It certainly wouldn't be worth the fuss of ripping up a kitchen, unless it was proven to be the source of elevated radon levels. After reading the literature about naturally occurring radon sources, I have difficulty assigning the radon to just a small granite piece. Any soil or rock within 4 gas-diffusion-days of the basement or slab can be a source of radon for a home, and the total amount of uranium in that quantity is going to exceed the amount in the countertop (especially the part of the countertop that is within radon's half-life time of the surface). If you covered your walls in granite it might be different. |
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What's the point of twitters? Are they supposed to be pithy, pertinent or pissy? Are they mainly intended for the twitterer or for others? (I suppose "that depends".) Why do you twitter? |
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The Working Memory and Attention Game is like Concentration (with the doubled pictures behind the cards) only much cooler. And apparently it may actually make you smarter:
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It took six (6) tries to successfully burn a CD today on my Mac Mini. Why does Apple ship such crappy optical disk drives? I guess I really ought to take the thing in for service at some point, but I so rarely burn CDs that I just keep forgetting about it. Stupid computer. |
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| *deep breath* I think it went okay. Questions were friendly, at least. Audience didn't seem enthusiastic, but they didn't look asleep either. Annoyingly, powerpoint didn't display speaker's notes on the presenter's display, which I had carefully written up and wanted to use. Wish I'd brought my VGA adaptor. Also, I think I talked slightly too fast. | ||||||||
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Alright, so I'm actually waking up in the morning lately. I'm finally doing some of the long-overdue entries on my todo list. Not the least of which is actually getting my room cleaned up - much progress has been made, and I have room to experiment again. There's a lot of clutter, though. Some of it I'm trading away, some I'm finding better homes for, others are getting cannibalized or converted into parts for my projects. Today's plans: -Attempt to finish repairing desktop (not likely to happen today) -Dig around in the crawlspace for surplus ventilation duct (It's for a larger version of this) -1200: Class @ Harper -2000: Lecture @ Bowers House |
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Yarr. Ross Anderson gave a really good invited talk on economics, psychology, and sociology in computer security. He's a good speaker, with excellent material. There's a couple things he said that I thought weren't quite right. Humans unquestionably focus on hostile actions, rather than chance ones, even if they're equally damaging. But I don't think that's necessarily irrational -- we assume that an actor with hostile intent will increase in capacity over time, in ways that impersonal forces won't. And that actually applies in full in most security contexts. Full of stage fright, and on in about 20 minutes. |
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Hello all! I am a librarian trainee in the public library system of a very large city. My boss is in the process of sitting down and planning out the programming for the upcoming months, and she has told me that she wants me to come up with a list of programs I would like to do in our branch. I'm excited but a little blocked. I (of course) want to come up with the best programs w/in the parameters I have to work with. As a bit of background, I work in an urban library system but my branch is possibly the smallest in the system. It is left over from an earlier time and was originally just supposed to be a children's library instead of a neighborhood branch. Think "Little Red Schoolhouse" only urban and library. As a result I'm going to be cramped for space and it can't get too noisy or else I'll be disturbing the other library patrons. We also don't have a particularly large budget for the branch. My boss and I would like to focus our programming mostly on YA and children, since they are the majority of our users and her background is in YA/childrens. Does anyone have suggestions for kid's programming that works in a really small setting?? Any good programs that pull in YA |
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You know, I know that people without lovely new ideas like to keep dredging stuff up. But some things? LEAVE THEM ALONE! http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 My beloved Rocky Horror Picture Show, for instance. They will take it in either one of two extremes: they will make it over-the-top raunchy (which I fucking doubt) or they'll "clean it up." Either way, there is no way they'll be able to capture the sort of innocence/blatant sexuality involved in the original, which is very much the film version of the Madonna/Whore Complex. Fuck those guys, man. |
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7 Ways Your Public Library Can Help You During A Bad Economy Reader MG is a fan of the site and a public librarian and has written a list of 7 ways that your library can help you during a bad economy. Libraries are an excellent resource and they're pretty easy to use. Don't worry if you're not a big reader, there's lots more stuff to do at the library besides just checking out books.( Read more... ) |
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This blog has an identity problem: personal blog or Chicago photobikegeekblog? The answer is, and will remain: both. I owe an apology to some of my longtime readers (*waves at Rockers out there*), who I’ve bamboozled into reading a blog that’s mostly photos of Chicago and rants about local issues. All that stuff is a big part of my life, but it’s not personal, and maybe you don’t care. I do try to assign categories intelligently to my posts. For instance, anything with Chicago photos is going to get a chicago-focus category. Anything with photos, period, will be flagged photo . In the past, most of my personal posts have probably been assigned to the ruminations category, but I overuse that one, and it includes my ramblings on non-personal subjects too. So, a new category has been born, in which this is the inaugural post: personal. From now on, if you don’t care about Chicago (and want to break my heart! kidding.), you can just read those. Or even subscribe to just the personal category via RSS. (You can also just subscribe to the chicago-focus posts via RSS as well, but I’ve publicized that option before.) Anyway, hope this helps. And maybe I will try to post more interesting but non-compromising personal thoughts more often, since that seems to strike a chord. Like I need to spend more time on this thing… |
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This is a really neat. Ive seen something similar to this done before but never this well thought out or presented in such an appealing way. I think that while the central purpose and theme of a Library shouldn't change making them more user friendly is not a bad thing. Also look at all the pretty colors. http://www.mysterywesterntheory.com/vale |
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Continuing my irregular series of photos taken from on top of tall things in Chicago, I’ve uploaded some photos today that I took from the top of one of the Prairie Shores towers, around 29th and King Drive. These towers were built in 1960 to create middle class housing in an area that was otherwise quite poverty-stricken. Ironically, now that these towers are aging, they aren’t upscale enough, and it’s possible that they’ll be torn down.
The big loser in the area, though, is Michael Reese Hospital, which will close by the end of 2008, and likely be demolished, Olympics or no Olympics, to make way for pricey redevelopment. Michael Reese was once a fairly prominent research hospital, but has been plagued by financial problems recently, likely due to the perception that it serves only the poor patients that have been gentrified out of the area. Some of the old hospital buildings are architecturally significant, but the complex as a whole is looking pretty shabby.
Even with all the doom and gloom, though, the views afforded by the upper floors of Prairie Shores are quite stunning. Looking south, it’s possible to pick out the Chicago Skyway ten miles distant, beyond the sea of green and skyscrapers of Hyde Park. To the southwest lie IIT’s campus and US Cellular Field.
And of course, the views to the north speak for themselves.
As usual, check out a few more of these, either in my Flickr photostream or on chicago-focus.com. |
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| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 |
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Originally published at Umbral Echoes Blog. You can comment here or there.
Update via LoudTwitter |
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| Thursday, July 24th, 2008 |
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WELCOME TO THE INNOVATYF RE-BRANDINGE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER HATH AN EXTREME BLOG: GO ENGLAND! IT YS RAD! PRESENTID BY THE LORDS APPELLANT: Thomas “The Swan” of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham and Duk of Gloucester Richard “Horsie” FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel Thomas “Yogi” Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick Henry “S-Collar” Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby Tommy “Featherweight” Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham YWRITTEN BY A GLOBAL TEAME OF CREATIFS AND TRENDSETTIRS ASSEMBLID IN FELAWESHEP WYTH MUCH COFFEE YEDITED BY: Thomas “Favor Fave” Favent (formerlie director of chihuahua trakkinge and parliamentarie gossip for GAUCHER Media) INTRODUCCION BY THE LORDS APPELLANT Welcome, gentils and churles alike. We haue looked at youre emailes thurgh our constant secret monitoringe of communicaciouns, and we haue wisely and graciously seen that the whole globe of the erthe doth lament the lakke of posting on the blogg of a certayn Galfridus Chaucer, formerlie of the customes hous and until recentlie clerke of the kinges workes, and synce June an absent fathir, distractid soule, companion to a wandering king, and balm-addled layabout. Well, the longe tyme of yower waiting is ovir, for heere ys the new GEOFFREY CHAUCER HATH AN EXTREME BLOG: GO ENGLAND! IT YS RAD!. Ywis, we Lords Appellant haue re-branded and re-concepted thys blog. We haue replaced Chaucer wyth a top team of new media specialistes. This is nowe a blog that ys dedicated to bringing yow the hottest and moost up to date content about the worldes of entertaynment, political societee, hangings, filmes, culture, quarterings, and defense of the of the noble realme of Engelonde. Prepare to be virtuallye beaten ovir the head and neck by the sheere force of the hot and up to date content ye shall see on this blog. Ther shal be verye funnye thinges. The thinges ye shall see shal be so funnye they shall maken yow to “laughen out loude” (LOL). Ther shal also be much newes of Engelonde and ower gret effortes to kepe yt safe from the foul Frensshe folk, who seeke even now to destroye ower language and ower large estates. Nevir bifor did loue of the realm of Engelonde and hot and up to date content come togedir in a productif and profitable webbe-two-point-o fusion-synthesis as they do nowe in GEOFFREY CHAUCER HATH AN EXTREME BLOG: GO ENGLAND! IT YS RAD!. We requeste that all ye folk who reden of this blogg do signe the loialtiee oath in the commentz to assuren us that ye aren nat Frensshe spyes or folk who wolde overturn the gret proceedings of the moost recent Parliament. Yf ye signe nat the loailte oath we shall come to yower hous wyth our retinues of armid men and we shal show yow the latest hot and up to date content in opinioun-chaunging. (SEE END OF POOST FOR OATH) Go England! Trust us! -Tom, Dick, Tom, Harry, Tom And nowe a woord from yower newe editor, Thomas Favent. THE EDITOR ANSWERETH YOWER QUERIES How hangeth it, ladyes and lordes? This is nat Geoffrey Chaucer. Geoffrey Chaucer ys chubtastick and hath a smal woolen hat the which was cool back when round tables seemid lyk a fresshe idea. Chaucer, my darlinges, hath left the building. Ich am Thomas Favent and let me telle yow ich am a lot thinner and a whole lot moore fun at large outdoor summer-tyme festivals. Ich am so totallie ypsyched to be runninge this syte and providinge yow wyth the hottest and moost up to date content concerninge the mattirs aforemencioned by the lords appellant in their grace and wisdam. Nowe, ich imagine ye are going “what the swyve?” (WTS?) right nowe, by cause that thinges aren a littel different around heere than what ye haue seen bifor. Wel, ich am heere to telle yow that chaunge is good. Sum peple think of chaunge as the werkinge of a capricious fortune upon the blisful stabilitie of lyf, but ich prefer to think of chaunge as the force that kicketh boring people off of the island. All webbes must be blown by the winde so that the spider maye re-cast them, and thus yt is wyth thys websyte, blown by the wind of clene and pure chaunge into the newe and awesome shape yt taketh bifor yower eyes. So that ich maye yive sum response to yower questions about the gret chaunges of this blog, ich haue arrangid a liste of questions that haue come thurgh email, the which ich shall answir in order. Suspend yower wondir, rederes, and all factes concerninge this blog and the recent lakke of postinges shal bicom clere thurgh my crystalline prose. 1. Where the hell is Geoffrey Chaucer? Geoffrey Chaucer hath been verye busy ovir the past monethes assistinge King Richard wyth King Richard’s rehabilitacioun. King Richard hath been in a bit of a funke (see below answeres). Currentlie, Geoffrey Chaucer ys with King Richard in Las Vegas. The two of them left in June, after a period of gret distraccion. The kinge and Chaucer did saye thei wolde journeye to Vegas to fynde sum abstract notion or anothir. The paparazzi do saye that bifor he left, Chaucer waxid poetic about a maner of quest involving drivinge to Las Vegas and drinking much wyne and the inhaling of gret quantitees of aromatic balm in order to fynde “The Idea of the Vernacular.” 2. Why is almost everyone involved with this named Thomas? Go to Canterburye and light yowerself a clue candle, doctor of theologie. 3. What has been happening in the last couple months? It’s something to do with parliament, right? Ye are correct. Yn Februarie, the Lords Appellant (listed above in their grace and wisdam) did bring the concernes of alle the peple of the realme to parliament. They did saye that the counsellors and men who surroundid King Richard were corrupt and rotten and thes evil counsellors did hate the realme of Engelonde. Thes evil counsellors did kepe King Richard from thinkinge of the safetie of the realm, so much so that he thoughte to make peace wyth the foul Frenssh. He also spent a lot of moneye on thinges lyk giant water parkes wyth ancient mythologicale themes (q. v. "Styx Flags") and did depryve the gret nobles of the realme of their annuitees. But the realme neded nat to suffir until it dwindled and bicam prey to the foule Frensshe. Nay! Sum of the gretest nobles of the realme did heere the people complaining of the woes of the realme, and thei rose up to challenge the vicious scum who did surround our King Richard. Thes gret nobles and saviors of the polity do call themselves the Lords Appellant (because thei are so appeallinge). The Lords Appellant usid the rightful and proper force of parliament to put the fals counsellors of King Richard on tryall for tresoun and to bring gret peace and order to the realm by deelinge wyth them. Best. Parliament. Evir! Consideringe all the deelinge that had to be done, the parliament did laste for many monethe, and Geoffrey was kept bisy making thinges for the kinge (includinge a fortified bunker the which was nat fortified quite ynough). This parliament went off and on until June 3rd, upon which daye Geoffrey and Richard spent much tyme driving around London collectinge supplyes in a rentid car and then drove off and haue nat been yherd from since. 3. Who were these counsellors? The foulest of the dangeres to the realm were Nicholas Brember Mayor of London, Alexander Neville fals Bisshop of York, Robert de Vere supposid Duk of Ireland (and kynd of too close wyth the kyng), Michael de la Pole supposid Earl of Suffolk, Robert Tresilian once Chief Justice. Yet their were many othir folk, swich as the knights Berners, Burley, Salisbury and Beauchamp and also the small folk Thomas Usk and John Blake. The lords appellant in their grace and wisdam exiled or executid moost of them. 4. Executed? Ye kan nat make an omelet wythout hanging and drawing and quartering a few egges. But wait, I heard a rumor that Thomas Usk didn’t actually die, but instead was saved at the last minute by Dr. Hwaet and his beloved companion Wat Tyler? They replaced Usk with a robot that looked like a person but could really only walk and recite basic liturgical formulae. When the lordes appellant fynde the source of the crakke ye are smokinge, in their grace and widsdam thei shall destroye it to make safe the healthe of the nacioun and to quell swich fables and ficcions. Dr. Hwaet is a ficcion. Even yf he did exist, the idea of a totallye ancient alien with an accent from Norwich ys ridiculous. 5. Lots of planets have a Norwich. BE SILENT or the lords appellant yn their grace and wisdam shall knokke yow the helle about the head. Next question, peple. 7. Hey, also: Why was Annie Lennox singing in the palace when Richard said goodbye to De Vere? Ynogh of the rumores. Wheniver ther ys political activitee the chronicleres just start blabbing about eny thing. Wheels of fyre. Talkinge wax hedes. The Thames dryinge up. Alienes from Norwich wyth burial mounds bigger on the insyde than on the outsyde. Pop icons singinge "Everytime We Say Goodbye." Seriouslie people, hyre a serjeant at law and get yowerselves a clue in fee simple! Thes chronicleres are all basicallie writinge Gerald of Wales fan ficcion inspyred by badly-kept monastic cheese. No more queries about unusual events surroundinge the parliament. 8. Okay, fine. So the parliament happened and Chaucer went away to Vegas after a hard time. Why are you running his blog? The lords appellant in their grace and wisdam are verye interested in media saturacioun. Thei aren aware that at oon tyme many folk did rede of this blog and fynde joye in it, so nowe thei seek to fynde thos peple and provyde them wyth hot and up to date content and also newes of the defense of the realme of Engelonde ayeinst the foule evil of the Frensshe. 7. But it’s not your/their blog? Accordinge to propertie lawes written in the tyme of the kinges great grandfather and far too complex for ye to undirstonden, the blog did revert to the kynge when Geoffrey Chaucer entered a gazebo in May wythout a hat, and then thurgh a certayne arrangement of inheritance decreed by an ad hoc committee of judges the rights de escriture for the blog did fall to the second cousin of the Duke of Gloucester, the which cousin upon halberd-poynte did gladlie relinquish hys ownership of the blog and thus the blog fell ynto the hands of the Lords Appellant, who haue arrangid it all nyce and hyred a teame of writeres and we haue a studio wyth bean bag chayres and chartes concerninge which animal image will make folk buye which Shakira album. And so it is as clere as ys the sumer sun: the blog ys oures. 8. How did you get his password? Yt was taped undir Geoffrey’s desk. 9. You searched his house? Wait. Did you people do anything to his family? Ther ys no need to worrye, thei are all fyne. Bifor Geoffrey and King Richard left for Las Vegas, King Richard did leave gret summes for to keep the meynee at Geoffreyes hous. Litel Lowys ys doing a summer internship and preparing for universitee in the fall. Philippa ys fixinge up the garden hous and doing pilates. And Thomas as always ys wyth John of Gaunt, Kinge of Spayne, handling thinges on the continent. 10. What do you think about the fact that the first-ever international conference on John Gower just took place? We heere at Geoffrey Chaucer Hath an Extreme Blog: Go England! It Ys Rad! do support and love that Gower conference wyth all our hertes. John Gower hath alweys been a fervent supporter of whoevir is in power. We do nat undirstond why Chaucer hath swich a bugge yn his butte. Peraventure yf Geoffrey sholde evir come back from Las Vegas we maye let hym poost hys owene reacciouns to the conference. But that day may nevir come. 11. Will all the old posts stay up? Indefinitely? Of course thei shall. What maniacal and sadistic power do ye thinke doth control this blog? Joss Whedon? Okaye, that ys ynogh questions for todaye. Look forward to exciting newe pro-England content in the dayes to come on Geoffrey Chaucer Hath An Extreme Blog: Go England! It Ys Rad! - THE EXTREMELY AWESOME LOIALTEE OATH Pplease put yower name yn the followinge loyaltee oath and poost it as a comment or else we will disinherit yower male heirs in perpetuity. All commentes shal be screened to prevent treason and Frensshe spyes. I ____________ do affirm the actes and decrees of the parliament of this yeere and do agree that it was right to reform the ill governement of ower King Richard in order to bring peace and justise to the realm and nevir shall I speke against the Lords Appellant at eny tyme yn the future. I do abhor and reject the ridiculous rumor that Thomas Usk was saved by Dr. Hwaet bifor beinge executed. I do swere to return to thys blog and enjoy its hot and up to date content. And I do sweare, no mattir what lord I folowe or in what lande I dwell, nevir to betray the realme of Engelonde to the foul Frensshe. Signed this ____ daye of ______ ; also, yt ys my trewe opinion that the hottest and moost up to date content these days includes the topics _________, __________, and __________, all of the which ich wolde rede wyth gret gladnesse and joye and loialtee to Engelonde. |
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| Cheap cheesecake during The Cheesecake Factory's 30th anniversary celebration. | ||||||
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| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 |
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The last two days have been fuller than I'd anticipated, leaving me little time to post here. (Tonight, my poor vampire character in a Dogs in the Vineyard game was almost slaughtered by zombies. This took time.) But I do need to post my lovely news! "Nomi's Wish" has found a home! In August, the story will be appearing in Coyote Wild, an online magazine of speculative fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that publishes monthly. "Nomi's Wish" is appearing in the teen issue, guest edited by Sherwood Smith and a number of teen readers. I am absolutely honored that they selected my story; "Nomi's Wish" is the story I've written that I still think is my best, and is certainly the one closest to my heart. This also ties into Monday's conversation (and I'm thrilled how many people posted there with insightful comments!), because I didn't know that "Nomi's Wish" was a YA story. I didn't necessarily think it wasn't YA, but I was just thinking of it as a story about two sisters, most of which happens when one has graduated from college and the other has graduated from high school. They're both, in theory, adults. But the story of their relationship, and the parts of the story that delve into their histories growing up together, are the core of the story--and they must have hit a chord with the teen readers selecting the stories! I've sent "Nomi's Wish" to adult magazines before with no luck and I suspect that this is because, all along, I didn't realize it was a YA piece. So I'm incredibly tickled with my August. "Nomi's Wish" will be on Coyote Wild, "The Best Things Get Better with Age" will be in Serenity Adventures, and "Don't Let Go" will be in the ransom anthology (which has a title I don't yet know) edited by Dylan Birtolo ( ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} eyezofwolf). What a fun time!
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| OMG, the most amazing rainbow: I can see the entire thing and its double above it. | ||||
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| Free Obama buttons from MoveOn.org. | ||||||
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A meme pinched from everybody's favourite 4GB swampwalker, shelled_avenger: 1. It begins with a list of all 26 letters of the alphabet. 2. Comment with something for me to talk about that starts with one of those letters. Make me babble about anything - TV shows, actors, actresses, food, discover what I really think about stuff! 3. One topic per letter - it's like a claims list! I will cross off letters as topics appear. 4. You can comment multiple times, but only if the letter you chose hasn't already been taken. 5. I will post a new post talking about all topics given to me! A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
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Gentle readers, I have two meaty bits of news for you to set upon like terriers. The first bit is that the bookstore shall be closed from this coming Sunday, July 27, through Saturday August 9; we will reopen on the 10th, doubtless to cheers! During that time we will all be relaxing on the beach, and so should you be. (Obviously, there will be no blog entries written for the next two weeks.) The second bit is that I will be scaling back my involvement in this wonderful bookshop, becoming something of a rarely visiting but tyrannical consultant-like figure as I get the rest of my life in order, and as a result I -- Lydia -- will no longer write most of our blog entries! I weep, dear readers, truly I weep. The hilarious Alan will replace me on a regular basis, so you can look forward to blog entries with less of a Victorian tone and more coherent themes. No longer writing the blog! Dear readers, it is like an omen or a portent -- something like what's recorded in this Affordable and Interesting little tome:  In case you cannot read that Gothic lettering, the tagline of this book reads: "Strange and Terrible News of Ghosts, Apparitions, Monstrous Births, Showers of Wheat, Judgments of God, and other Prodigious and Fearful Happenings as told in Broadside Ballads of the Years 1624-1693". Now I knew that a "broadside" is a term referring to excitable poster-like sheets of paper, splashed about the town; what I did not know is that once upon a time, all broadsides recorded ballads, and were sold for a pittance by musicians. (You can see some images and such from old broadsides at the Bodleian Library's website: click here!) It would seem that this book chronicles a particular collection of broadside ballads (that of Anthony Wood, a medieval gentleman who essentially kept a scrapbook of the things), and that his collection particularly featured tales of strange and marvelous occurrences. For instance, one page has this woodcut:  ... accompanied by a rather involved set of verses covering many lands, including: In Anno sixteene hundred and eighteene, A blazing Starre was o'er Bohemia seene, Which for the space of seven and twenty dayes, Within the sky most fearefully did blaze. And in Hungaria (as 'tis understood,) Water was Metamorphos'd into bloud. In Brunswick-land (within an evening faire,) Were seene two armies fighting in the aire. Intrigued? Me too! $12.50, and who knows what you might discover of our supernatural past?! Supernatural influences are pernicious and subtle. I think that some must have been at work in these Collector's Items:  You see, the Easton Press produces elegantly leather-bound books with gilt detailing and gilt edges; editions that will last a long time, and look nice to boot. In the past I have mostly seen books chronicling American presidents, or famous classic books, from the Easton Press. But it seems that some odd supernatural influence has caused them to branch out ... into things like "New Yorker" cartoons! (I see from their site that they are also selling the classy How to Be A Betty: Unleashing Your Inner Boop... what is the world coming to?) At any rate, here lie collections of "New Yorker" comics (as hilarious as ever) on the subjects of Doctors, Lawyers and Business -- $75.00 apiece. The gilt detailing on these particular Easton editions features the famous New Yorker monocle theme: gilted doctor with monocle, lawyer with monocle, and businessman with monocle. And if you get the Business one, you will gain one of the most legendary "New Yorker" cartoons ever:  I wish all my comic books were bound in elegant leather! But my Favorite this week, and possibly for all time, is not comics or strange phenomena or leather; it's the entire incredible Asian Studies collection that we're getting in right now.  We've only just begun processing these books, and they are absolutely marvelous! We have had to dramatically expand our sections on Miscellaneous Asian Countries, China, Chinese Art, Japan, Japanese Art, India / Pakistan, Eastern Religion / Philosophy, and Middle East / Islam -- just to fit all the remarkable books that we're getting. And there's more to come! Our Asian Studies section will be completely incredible for some time, gentle readers, I assure you -- here you see a mere sampling of the material we worked with today. First we have some quite scholarly titles on subjects like Asian literature, psychological theories, education, and all manner of more specific subjects -- such as the above-pictured book on Japanese castles, which I might just kill for (or buy for $10.00). Then there's various kinds of art in translation; Three Tibetan Mystery Plays: As Performed in the Tibetan Monasteries is one of the most obscure and fascinating examples ($35.00):  And then there's some random items, such as this charming little collection of translated Chinese proverbs:  $12.50 gets you all of the following and more!: * He who only comes from upstairs is a guest. * Don't ask a guest if you may kill a fowl for him. * He is truly a superior man who can watch a chess game in silence. * Eggs must not quarrel with stones. * A divided orange tastes just as good. I am thinking that I may be unable to leave the store. I may simply sit in the Asian Studies area and read. For the rest of my life. You mark my words! My beard will grow long and my sight will dim before I can tear myself away from these books ... probably. Thank you for being an appreciative audience, my dearest readers. I will return perhaps as a guest star, and see you all around! |
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I managed to recover my hard drive! YESyesyesyes! The entire filesystem is intact, too! /dance |
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Apropos of a reader's comment about my recent post about John McCain's striking computer illiteracy, I offer ThingsYoungerThanMcCain.com, a blog listing things that have been invented in the Senator's lifetime.
Some of my favourites: Charlie Chaplin's film Modern Times, duct tape, and the chocolate chip cookies. |
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| Sudden Poll! Give me a reason. | ||||||||||
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visited 19 states (38%) Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president I have been to large parts of the American South. Need to work on hitting some of the Northwest. |
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Today I was finishing up a project, setting up a new version of our PBX. The final step of testing is converting our own PBX to the new version. All settings, recordings, voicemails, etc were copied to the new one. Final step, take down the old one and set up the new one. And then, test it. It plays my extension number fine. But, when I call it, there's a problem. I can't get any audio from the PBX. None of the announcements play. According to the logs, it's playing, but I hear nothing. After a good amount of time trying to figure this out and fix it, I give up and revert to the old one. And then, I call that one to make sure everything is working fine. But, I once again get no audio. It's impossible that anything got messed up on the old PBX, so it's time for some additional testing. Calling the PBX from my cell phone works. If I call my cell phone from my land line, the cell phone rings, but I hear no ring tones from the land line. Calling the other way, I can answer, but I hear nothing from the cell phone. So, in a bit of mild optimism, I swap out the PBX's again. This time, I test it with my cell phone. Wonder of wonders, everything works. I simply wasted an hour because my land line is not working. In other news, the Comcast cable came down from my house today. I've sent them a message through their feedback form to remove or repair it, but I'm not optimistic they'll do anything about it. I don't feel like waiting a half hour (or however long it is) on hold with their mythical support department to get it taken care of, though. I suppose I'll probably just have to coil it up and tuck it into the back corner of my yard. |
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| Does John McCain not qualify as a natural-born citizen of the U.S. because he was born in Panama? | ||||||
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According to my mom, I post too much personal stuff on this blog. I know that’s true, although it’s much less true now than it used to be. I haven’t recently put my job in jeopardy, or posted anything to call my sanity too much into question. Occasionally, I’m tempted to delete some of my older posts, but then I realize that (a) the Internet Archive has them anyway, and (b) I don’t want any job that expected me to have my shit together and exercise perfect judgment when I was 18 years old. Maybe it would be better if I kept some of the bad personal stuff to myself (like certain, uh, medical conditions I recently suffered through), and posted about good personal stuff instead. But part of the utility of this blog to me (sorry, dear readers, but I put myself first here) is to kvetch when life turns sour. It’s hard to motivate myself to post about things that are going great. Should I even try? I would say things are going quite well, and set to get better still. I seem to be improving my health through diligence, diet, and exercise, so hopefully I’m through with all the health crap for a while. I’m getting more focused on work. I’m having a lot of fun, and apparently, according to people who I haven’t seen in a long time, I’ve mellowed out a lot. I spend a lot less time worrying about life in general. So there, there’s a little positive overexposure, for once! |
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I'm in pittsburgh, safe and sound. Flight was uneventful, but the bus ride to my hotel was a near-catastrophe. I misunderstood where the bus was, and got off at the wrong bus stop on a desolate stretch of 5th ave. (In my defense, the bus wasn't on the published route.) I realized my mistake, and started ambling in what I thought was the right direction. A block down, I hopped the next bus that came along, in the blind hope it would be helpful, and it was. Driver let me on for free, and the fellow passengers told me which stop I wanted. Got me almost exactly where I wanted to go. Let's hear it for Pittsburgh public transit! |
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| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 |
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| Red Robin to-go for the win. | ||||
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| McCain announces Obama will visit Iraq this weekend as part of congressional delegation visit, normally unannounced for security reasons. | ||||||||
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Work was fine today. Bookshop Julie seemed curt and tense with me, but we were both making a big effort to be civil and eggshell-walking and as normal as we could muster for the fact we both were feeling betrayed by each other. I don't really hold much ill will towards bookshop Julie. Mostly I'm disappointed in Wendy and angry at the customer who gossiped to Wendy and forced Wendy's hand. I don't know bookshop Julie's role or her opinion about all of this, nor what she was told by Wendy. I know she's upset with me and she probably feels justified in that, and maybe she is. I suppose it doesn't matter all that much. That's not to say bookshop Julie's feelings don't matter to me -- they do -- but I'm not willing to share my own feelings about the kerfuffle with either one of them, and I'm not willing to participate in a one-sided discussion where they can vent their point of view, either. I'm not willing to share because I feel trust was breeched on many levels -- from using references to Provincetown against me to talking behind my back to feeling such transphobia and never showing it until yesterday to the large and vital role gossip plays not only in this little scenario but also in the entirety of Wendy's life. People who gossip to you are gossiping about you to other people. People who think gossip matters don't think reality and loyalty and truth matter. ---- I feel like I am coasting until tomorrow afternoon. The parents are leaving on their two and a half week camper van adventure on Wednesday, and the quiet of an empty house will be just what I need, I think. |
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Laura Miller at Salon tells a story from Rob Walker's book about consumers and corporate brands, Buying In:
Bike messengers in the Pacific Northwest made a Milwaukee beer the brew of choice in the indie-rock scene. |
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I walked into the lunchroom today and discovered that the social environment had shifted dramatically. Specifically, nobody was treating me like a space alien. Or a foreigner. Or a stuck-up collegiate city-girl. Very abruptly, people started volunteering information on local history and folklore. A number of books were recommended. One person referenced my speed-reading, but in a friendly way. (I have not said a word about my time dilation tricks, so everyone assumes it's just speed-reading.) After a bit of digging, I discovered that what had happened was this. For the past two months or so I've been talking to an 80-something-year-old lady during her lunch/snack/coffee breaks, because she is made of awesome. Last week she told me a nifty story, and it led me to ask another person in the office about some bits and pieces of local history. His department happens to have a whole file on the county's cultural resources (the official term for burial grounds, historic buildings, rock art, and the pre-Anishinabe mounds). I happen to be a rock art fiend, so I peppered him with questions about that for a while, and asked after one or two archaeological digs. I was bored/not otherwise occupied, so I said pretty please and he lent me some of the department files on cultural resources and local history and such. I read them and I asked for more, so he lent me a memoir about Wisconsin farming. Apparently word got around. Apparently, in the course of all this, I referred to oral history as literature. I do not remember saying this, although it is something I agree with, and it does sound like the sort of thing I would say. I found out about it because someone told me it was a "really neat" sentiment. But I can't tell whether it was my idea to begin with, or whether it was their idea and it got attributed to me due to rumor-mill dynamics. I guess this post is just a reminder to myself that so far, asking about local (and especially oral) history is a better way to break the ice than asking about farming, land conservation, nutrient management, fishing, or, y'know, anything related to their actual jobs/educations. I'm a little surprised it took this long to catch on, given that it's perfectly in line with basic principles I should have derived from my ethnography-writing days--or even handling relationships with my mom's side of the family. Caught on now, though, so I guess that's something. I feel a little bad about being so pissed off, during my last post. |
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| Trying not to freak out over some hideous code I've just stumbled into. Our due date is coming too fast. | ||||
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Friends LiveJournal for Shataina.
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geeky.
amused.
relieved.
sleepy.
content.
cheerful.
cheerful.
pissed off.
thirsty.