ooooooouuuugggg......
I have to give a lecture in 12 hours on the baroque period, and all i can think of is how much I feel like barfing due to the overpresence of Halloween candy in my system. This year it was mini-Heath bars and peanut butter cups. Jane has already asked about favorite Halloween candy.. So I put it to you--in the comments, tell me the one kind of Halloween candy you were always disappointed to see in your tricker-treat pumpkin. What was the worst thing you ever got? It could be a one-time thing or a yearly "ew" that the old couple on the block always handed out--name it!
Mine were twofold. The consistant one was Smarties; I hate those things, they're like a crappy, chalk-like imitation of Sweetarts (which I love.) I also occasionally found one of these in my bag, and they filled me with horror.... I find artificial maple-flavored stuff pretty disgusting, and that combined with the unappetizing name ensured that I never actually ate one of these. I mean, come on--BUN? What the hell kind of name is that for candy?
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Say, That's a Nice Double Helix You Got There....
Here's my full Personal DNA Report, if you'd like to know what that thing actually means... This was a pretty interesting test, though I admit I have a few issues with it (such as how they define "masculine" and "feminine" traits.) I liked the different mechanics for expressing how strongly you felt about a question; the x-y grids etc. were a nice tactile way of conveying data.
Speaking of conveying data, I had to give a lecture last week that covered 1000 years of art history (late antique, medieval, byzantine, islamic, jewish, christian, and secular) in 75 minutes. It was horrible. Would have been much easier if that weren't actually my area of expertise; as it was, I had to try to figure out what NOT to say in order to rein it in under 75 minutes. And while I'm not entirely sure, I think I may have spent a lot more time than usual gesturing wildly at the slide screen and going "Um! Yeah! Sooooo..... Where was I?" Tomorrow it's the Renaissance in 75. Frankly that's a lot more managable, you toss around a few of the big names, talk about the revival of Classicism and boom, you're done. Nothing like the challenge of explaining the stylistic difference between Romanesque and Gothic churches in 20 words or less. Meh. I'll be glad when we get to modern art, I'll have a lot less to say....
Here's my full Personal DNA Report, if you'd like to know what that thing actually means... This was a pretty interesting test, though I admit I have a few issues with it (such as how they define "masculine" and "feminine" traits.) I liked the different mechanics for expressing how strongly you felt about a question; the x-y grids etc. were a nice tactile way of conveying data.
Speaking of conveying data, I had to give a lecture last week that covered 1000 years of art history (late antique, medieval, byzantine, islamic, jewish, christian, and secular) in 75 minutes. It was horrible. Would have been much easier if that weren't actually my area of expertise; as it was, I had to try to figure out what NOT to say in order to rein it in under 75 minutes. And while I'm not entirely sure, I think I may have spent a lot more time than usual gesturing wildly at the slide screen and going "Um! Yeah! Sooooo..... Where was I?" Tomorrow it's the Renaissance in 75. Frankly that's a lot more managable, you toss around a few of the big names, talk about the revival of Classicism and boom, you're done. Nothing like the challenge of explaining the stylistic difference between Romanesque and Gothic churches in 20 words or less. Meh. I'll be glad when we get to modern art, I'll have a lot less to say....
Thursday, October 19, 2006
I Always Knew I Was Special...
When this first turned up on LJ a week or two ago, it was so popular the server crashed before I got a chance to try it. Now it's up again.... though it did tell Carl that NO ONE in the US has his name, so I'm pretty skeptical of the accuracy.
And in other news, Smallville has already lost me. They fell back on trick arrows and a stupid computer animated compound bow that folds up into a pocket pouch.... It's like Silver Age Green Arrow married Batman, and they had a kid. Plus, Lois is blonde, Lana's a creep, and Clark is displaying some seriously wooden acting skills this week. I have confidence he can do better--but if we were supposed to get that he hates Oliver Queen just for being rich, it might have worked better to have him act that out instead of just having Oliver say, "You hate me because I'm rich, don't you?" Er... what? Maybe his eyes were smouldering, and I missed it. Likewise, when he realizes Lois is all into Ollie, he just looks kind of "Meh." and Ollie also looks "Meh." And then Lois says something about them marking their territory (ie, her) and my response was "Huh? Did I miss the part where they expressed some emotion?" So anyway... drat! Curse you, Smallville, raising my hopes like that! Though the ending was pretty good, and they did sort of recapture some of the longbow hunter feel in the ends-justify-means speech. I dunno if I'll keep watching or not--but they did bring GA into 3D, and I'll always be grateful for that!
When this first turned up on LJ a week or two ago, it was so popular the server crashed before I got a chance to try it. Now it's up again.... though it did tell Carl that NO ONE in the US has his name, so I'm pretty skeptical of the accuracy.
And in other news, Smallville has already lost me. They fell back on trick arrows and a stupid computer animated compound bow that folds up into a pocket pouch.... It's like Silver Age Green Arrow married Batman, and they had a kid. Plus, Lois is blonde, Lana's a creep, and Clark is displaying some seriously wooden acting skills this week. I have confidence he can do better--but if we were supposed to get that he hates Oliver Queen just for being rich, it might have worked better to have him act that out instead of just having Oliver say, "You hate me because I'm rich, don't you?" Er... what? Maybe his eyes were smouldering, and I missed it. Likewise, when he realizes Lois is all into Ollie, he just looks kind of "Meh." and Ollie also looks "Meh." And then Lois says something about them marking their territory (ie, her) and my response was "Huh? Did I miss the part where they expressed some emotion?" So anyway... drat! Curse you, Smallville, raising my hopes like that! Though the ending was pretty good, and they did sort of recapture some of the longbow hunter feel in the ends-justify-means speech. I dunno if I'll keep watching or not--but they did bring GA into 3D, and I'll always be grateful for that!
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Longbow Hunters #1
Unexpected Joy
OK, so this is a totally nerdy post. You don't like it, you can go read Doonsbury or something and come back later. But I've been having a hard couple weeks, in a life-stress sense, and today I got a little glimmer of sunshine, completely out of the blue. Or the green.
My pal Brian called me up to let me know that I should watch "Smallville" tonight. I never watch "Smallville"--in fact, I never watch any network TV, or really anything that could be described as a series these days. I can't handle the commitment. If I had TiVo, I might feel differently--but right now, I'm happy with my TV interaction being pure brain-candy that I flip on whenever I'm in the mood to vegitate. But Brian shook me out of my TV torpor with the information that "Smallville" tonight would feature the one comic book character I love more than any other--yes, more even than Nightcrawler. (Only just.) I've never been a Superman fan, although I enjoyed the first few seasons of "Lois and Clark" with my mom when I was living at home; so I never really even considered watching Smallville--gee, Superman again? Only now he's an angsty teenager? Gee, that sounds great. The one thing that could really spark my interest would be the introduction of a new character--specifically Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow. He debuted tonight.
So now that I'm watching, may I say first that I really like the dude playing Clark? He's cute, he's sincere without being irritating. I do like him. And I like the Chloe chick--though it took me most of the episode to figure out that I shouldn't be trying to match her up with any character I know from the DC mythos.... But WOW this show has some plausibility issues. I have a big hangup with shows that test my suspension of disbelief; other people say "oh, come on, lighten up, it's fantasy!" but I really feel like writers of shows like this should challenge themselves to write plots which actually make sense, and work around obstacles rather than just letting the main characters do stuff like....say..... walk unnoticed into an intensive care ward and take pictures of the patient's X-rays? WTF? I had several moments like this. Isn't Smallville somewhere in Kansas? Do the producers not know that Kansas does not sport forests full of ferns and cyclopean redwoods? It's like the mountains of Chicago... Etc., etc. ANYWAY, the point of my post was that Oliver Queen has finally hit the screen in something other than the occasional animated guest shot on Superfriends. As a hard core fan, I have to give it pretty good marks. The guy they picked to play him is H-O-T, there's no arguing that. And completely ripped, they've already had his shirt off for an entire scene (Lois is supposed to be falling for him, which is a little goofy but oh well.) He's a little smarmier than Ollie should be, I think, but they're doing the millionaire playboy angle which had more or less been dropped by the time I fell in love with the character. I have to say that his final scene in this ep--in which he has not yet been revealed as the Emerald Archer--was nothing short of fantastic. Apparently, next week we get to see him in full Green Arrow mode, and it looks like they're taking a bit of the Longbow Hunters look with him in that ep, as seen here in the glorious pencilwork of Mike Grell. I'm relieved to note that they're going the straight-up longbow version of him rather than Silver Age trick arrows and goofy costume. It was cool. It was very cool. And now, dammit, I have to remember how my VCR works so I can make sure I don't miss next week's installment.
OK, so this is a totally nerdy post. You don't like it, you can go read Doonsbury or something and come back later. But I've been having a hard couple weeks, in a life-stress sense, and today I got a little glimmer of sunshine, completely out of the blue. Or the green.
My pal Brian called me up to let me know that I should watch "Smallville" tonight. I never watch "Smallville"--in fact, I never watch any network TV, or really anything that could be described as a series these days. I can't handle the commitment. If I had TiVo, I might feel differently--but right now, I'm happy with my TV interaction being pure brain-candy that I flip on whenever I'm in the mood to vegitate. But Brian shook me out of my TV torpor with the information that "Smallville" tonight would feature the one comic book character I love more than any other--yes, more even than Nightcrawler. (Only just.) I've never been a Superman fan, although I enjoyed the first few seasons of "Lois and Clark" with my mom when I was living at home; so I never really even considered watching Smallville--gee, Superman again? Only now he's an angsty teenager? Gee, that sounds great. The one thing that could really spark my interest would be the introduction of a new character--specifically Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow. He debuted tonight.
So now that I'm watching, may I say first that I really like the dude playing Clark? He's cute, he's sincere without being irritating. I do like him. And I like the Chloe chick--though it took me most of the episode to figure out that I shouldn't be trying to match her up with any character I know from the DC mythos.... But WOW this show has some plausibility issues. I have a big hangup with shows that test my suspension of disbelief; other people say "oh, come on, lighten up, it's fantasy!" but I really feel like writers of shows like this should challenge themselves to write plots which actually make sense, and work around obstacles rather than just letting the main characters do stuff like....say..... walk unnoticed into an intensive care ward and take pictures of the patient's X-rays? WTF? I had several moments like this. Isn't Smallville somewhere in Kansas? Do the producers not know that Kansas does not sport forests full of ferns and cyclopean redwoods? It's like the mountains of Chicago... Etc., etc. ANYWAY, the point of my post was that Oliver Queen has finally hit the screen in something other than the occasional animated guest shot on Superfriends. As a hard core fan, I have to give it pretty good marks. The guy they picked to play him is H-O-T, there's no arguing that. And completely ripped, they've already had his shirt off for an entire scene (Lois is supposed to be falling for him, which is a little goofy but oh well.) He's a little smarmier than Ollie should be, I think, but they're doing the millionaire playboy angle which had more or less been dropped by the time I fell in love with the character. I have to say that his final scene in this ep--in which he has not yet been revealed as the Emerald Archer--was nothing short of fantastic. Apparently, next week we get to see him in full Green Arrow mode, and it looks like they're taking a bit of the Longbow Hunters look with him in that ep, as seen here in the glorious pencilwork of Mike Grell. I'm relieved to note that they're going the straight-up longbow version of him rather than Silver Age trick arrows and goofy costume. It was cool. It was very cool. And now, dammit, I have to remember how my VCR works so I can make sure I don't miss next week's installment.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
Zahara!
See the Elephant...
NOW don't you wish you were me? Coz I got to meet the baby elephant at the zoo last weekend! She is more than cute as hell, as you can plainly see. I took some little movies of her too.
While we're on the topic, check out my new favorite YouTube video, Peanut's Great Escape! Peanut is my new personal hero; her trip down the stairs is a metaphor for life. Or something. And the title of this post comes from a James McMurtry song I'm rather fond of, from his latest album. I can't figure out if the whole song is a metaphor about going to war; but even if it's not (or especially if it's not) I like it just the same.
NOW don't you wish you were me? Coz I got to meet the baby elephant at the zoo last weekend! She is more than cute as hell, as you can plainly see. I took some little movies of her too.
While we're on the topic, check out my new favorite YouTube video, Peanut's Great Escape! Peanut is my new personal hero; her trip down the stairs is a metaphor for life. Or something. And the title of this post comes from a James McMurtry song I'm rather fond of, from his latest album. I can't figure out if the whole song is a metaphor about going to war; but even if it's not (or especially if it's not) I like it just the same.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Days of Wine and Monkey Crap
Never has an 11 hour drive each way been less onerous than on this past weekend, when I dragged my lazy self to Ithaca, NY for a wedding of one of my college buddies. It was splendid.
I enjoy living in Indiana (a fact many of my out-of-state friends find hard to comprehend.) I don't long for the mountains or ocean beaches per se. But I did go to college near the Catskills, and I haven't been back in that direction very often in the intervening years; so the Finger Lakes region had a pleasant, familiar autumn groove going on that awakened all sorts of college nostalgia in me. Got to spend the weekend with nearly all my buddies, including (but not limited to) Upyernoz and Mrs. Noz, Dr. Pretentious and her husband, Cthulhia, and of course the Groom Himself. The drive turned out to be 11 hours long; when I got to Erie PA, I thought, "hmm, according to mapquest it's only 2 more hours! yet when I examine the road atlas it looks more like FOUR hours...sonofabitch...." The experience was enhanced by the fact that it started to rain, was pitch dark, and the route from the big highway up to Ithaca was missing its center line and shoulder lines due to repaving. So I ticked along at about 35 mph for a good long way, no doubt infuriating the driver behind me... But he didn't hit me, and I made it there in plenty of time to refuse to play Ticket to Ride with jeremy. We hit the Ithaca farmer's market both mornings, and I must say it's a fabulous market. Plenty of excellent food, including blueberry wine, lemon turnovers, and apple cider doughnuts (which I liked so much I might actually try making them at home.) Saturday afternoon there was a catered BBQ at Taughannock State Park, where we ate, drank, played frisbee and hiked up a shale-y path to see an amazing waterfall. Saturday night we managed to steal the groom away from his groomly duties to spend quality time and play board games, about 10 of us crammed into Dr. P's room. Sunday we drove out to a winery for some tasting, and I bought a bottle for my parents. So it was a winey weekend... The wedding itself was lovely, a combination of traditional Jewish matrimony and new age commitment ceremony. I can't express how happy I am for Josh and his new wife; they seem to fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. After coffee with the remaining 4 of the gang in the morning, I hit the road for a beautiful drive home. (Well, beautiful until I got to western Ohio... but we won't talk about that.) It was a glorious weekend.
Then I got home to a maelstrom of student questions, papers to grade, and my new volunteer assignment at the zoo, which involves baboons. LOTS of baboons. (And wild dogs, and lions. But mostly baboons.) I now spend 4 hours every other thursday morning becoming intimately familiar with several different kinds of poop, and the vast number of locations a troop of monkeys can put said poop in their enclosures. Don't you wish you were me?
Never has an 11 hour drive each way been less onerous than on this past weekend, when I dragged my lazy self to Ithaca, NY for a wedding of one of my college buddies. It was splendid.
I enjoy living in Indiana (a fact many of my out-of-state friends find hard to comprehend.) I don't long for the mountains or ocean beaches per se. But I did go to college near the Catskills, and I haven't been back in that direction very often in the intervening years; so the Finger Lakes region had a pleasant, familiar autumn groove going on that awakened all sorts of college nostalgia in me. Got to spend the weekend with nearly all my buddies, including (but not limited to) Upyernoz and Mrs. Noz, Dr. Pretentious and her husband, Cthulhia, and of course the Groom Himself. The drive turned out to be 11 hours long; when I got to Erie PA, I thought, "hmm, according to mapquest it's only 2 more hours! yet when I examine the road atlas it looks more like FOUR hours...sonofabitch...." The experience was enhanced by the fact that it started to rain, was pitch dark, and the route from the big highway up to Ithaca was missing its center line and shoulder lines due to repaving. So I ticked along at about 35 mph for a good long way, no doubt infuriating the driver behind me... But he didn't hit me, and I made it there in plenty of time to refuse to play Ticket to Ride with jeremy. We hit the Ithaca farmer's market both mornings, and I must say it's a fabulous market. Plenty of excellent food, including blueberry wine, lemon turnovers, and apple cider doughnuts (which I liked so much I might actually try making them at home.) Saturday afternoon there was a catered BBQ at Taughannock State Park, where we ate, drank, played frisbee and hiked up a shale-y path to see an amazing waterfall. Saturday night we managed to steal the groom away from his groomly duties to spend quality time and play board games, about 10 of us crammed into Dr. P's room. Sunday we drove out to a winery for some tasting, and I bought a bottle for my parents. So it was a winey weekend... The wedding itself was lovely, a combination of traditional Jewish matrimony and new age commitment ceremony. I can't express how happy I am for Josh and his new wife; they seem to fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. After coffee with the remaining 4 of the gang in the morning, I hit the road for a beautiful drive home. (Well, beautiful until I got to western Ohio... but we won't talk about that.) It was a glorious weekend.
Then I got home to a maelstrom of student questions, papers to grade, and my new volunteer assignment at the zoo, which involves baboons. LOTS of baboons. (And wild dogs, and lions. But mostly baboons.) I now spend 4 hours every other thursday morning becoming intimately familiar with several different kinds of poop, and the vast number of locations a troop of monkeys can put said poop in their enclosures. Don't you wish you were me?
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Cold Showers
They say cold showers are good for you, on a number of different levels. I beg to differ; when my water heater died over the weekend, having cold showers did not in fact improve my health in any discernable way. I'd go so far as to say they had the opposite effect. I'd planned to call in a plumber on Monday, but my father in his infinite wisdom pointed out that after the plumber showed up, moved my refrigerator to get at the water heater, and charged me for the visit, he'd just tell me to get a new one anyway. So I skipped the middle man and headed out to Lowe's instead to order up a 30 gallon gas heater from Whirlpool. They promised delivery the next day (good, as they charged me through the nose for it--I have an uneasy suspicion that they offer free delivery if you're willing to wait a few days, but they didn't specifically mention it. They probably saw that look of cold-shower desperation in my eye.) Unfortunately, I was scheduled to spend the next day shooting the sequel to my much aclaimed turn on the parody soap opera "MD Hearts." (The ANC Movies news page has a nice still of me looking all evil for the new one.) Fortunately my mom kindly offered to babysit the arrival of the new appliance, and hot showers are once again mine! So is a badly scraped kitchen floor--the fridge didn't move without a fight, apparently--but it's a small price to pay.
I'm about to embark on a lengthy weekend road trip to Ithaca, NY. Here's hoping that all my breakdown karma got used up on the water heater, and that my elderly Saturn will survive the drive.
They say cold showers are good for you, on a number of different levels. I beg to differ; when my water heater died over the weekend, having cold showers did not in fact improve my health in any discernable way. I'd go so far as to say they had the opposite effect. I'd planned to call in a plumber on Monday, but my father in his infinite wisdom pointed out that after the plumber showed up, moved my refrigerator to get at the water heater, and charged me for the visit, he'd just tell me to get a new one anyway. So I skipped the middle man and headed out to Lowe's instead to order up a 30 gallon gas heater from Whirlpool. They promised delivery the next day (good, as they charged me through the nose for it--I have an uneasy suspicion that they offer free delivery if you're willing to wait a few days, but they didn't specifically mention it. They probably saw that look of cold-shower desperation in my eye.) Unfortunately, I was scheduled to spend the next day shooting the sequel to my much aclaimed turn on the parody soap opera "MD Hearts." (The ANC Movies news page has a nice still of me looking all evil for the new one.) Fortunately my mom kindly offered to babysit the arrival of the new appliance, and hot showers are once again mine! So is a badly scraped kitchen floor--the fridge didn't move without a fight, apparently--but it's a small price to pay.
I'm about to embark on a lengthy weekend road trip to Ithaca, NY. Here's hoping that all my breakdown karma got used up on the water heater, and that my elderly Saturn will survive the drive.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
I Already Miss Steve Irwin
I think this easily qualifies as the most depressing celebrity death since Jim Henson.
Nearly everyone who knows me knows that I have had an abiding crush on Steve Irwin for about a decade--since he first started showing up on Animal Planet with his enthusiastic love for every living thing no matter how crawly or bitey. That passion for wildlife is something I completely identify with. When I was 10, I wanted to be a Greenpeace warrior. I wanted to chain myself to redwoods, drive my boat between the whale and the harpoons, do whatever it took to champion the cause of the voiceless masses. (And somehow, I ended up with a liberal arts degree instead. Ah well. These things happen.) But Steve realized that the key to environmetalism is education; all the Zephyr boats and tree spikings in the world won't make ordinary people give a crap about saving spotted owl habitats, or saltwater crocodiles, or whales, or whathaveyou. The only thing that will do that is education, and Steve Irwin was first and foremost a fantastically talented educator. I know others will take up the torch behind him... but it'll never be quite the same.
He was also cute as hell. Think I'll go buy some Foster's and watch the Croc Hunter movie again. Sniff.
I think this easily qualifies as the most depressing celebrity death since Jim Henson.
Nearly everyone who knows me knows that I have had an abiding crush on Steve Irwin for about a decade--since he first started showing up on Animal Planet with his enthusiastic love for every living thing no matter how crawly or bitey. That passion for wildlife is something I completely identify with. When I was 10, I wanted to be a Greenpeace warrior. I wanted to chain myself to redwoods, drive my boat between the whale and the harpoons, do whatever it took to champion the cause of the voiceless masses. (And somehow, I ended up with a liberal arts degree instead. Ah well. These things happen.) But Steve realized that the key to environmetalism is education; all the Zephyr boats and tree spikings in the world won't make ordinary people give a crap about saving spotted owl habitats, or saltwater crocodiles, or whales, or whathaveyou. The only thing that will do that is education, and Steve Irwin was first and foremost a fantastically talented educator. I know others will take up the torch behind him... but it'll never be quite the same.
He was also cute as hell. Think I'll go buy some Foster's and watch the Croc Hunter movie again. Sniff.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Warping Young Minds Since 1993....
I've been teaching, in some capacity or other, since shortly after I graduated from college. Substitute high school teaching (resulting in the Great Math Test Debacle of 1994, and the Underpants Incident of 2003.) TAing for World History 101 (in which a booming Jesuit father informed the class that "An OCEAN is a BODY of WATER...surrounded by CONTINENTS!" If you didn't know what an ocean was, kids, maybe college wasn't such a great idea for you) and Art History 101-102, the highlight of which was test review with silly prizes from Archie McPhee for anyone who answered a question correctly. But today marks the first time I have had a class of my own--my syllabus, my grading standards, my ability to mold young minds. Though, this being IUPUI, a considerable # of the minds in the room are actually older than I am. I can live with that. They're mostly elementary education majors, which means I might well be warping two generations of learners for the price of one. It went ok today, I just went over the syllabus and then talked about "What is art?" for a few minutes before letting them go. Next Monday's topic is "Good Art, Bad Art, Not Art," and I have some choice pictures from the Museum of Bad Art for the powerpoint...
In a full circle sort of a thing, I got my diploma for my Master's Degree in the mail today. It's shiny, in the bright red folder favored by Indiana U, and will look lovely on my shelf. Next to the other 3 degrees. Which I'm also not really using. Woo hoo!
I've been teaching, in some capacity or other, since shortly after I graduated from college. Substitute high school teaching (resulting in the Great Math Test Debacle of 1994, and the Underpants Incident of 2003.) TAing for World History 101 (in which a booming Jesuit father informed the class that "An OCEAN is a BODY of WATER...surrounded by CONTINENTS!" If you didn't know what an ocean was, kids, maybe college wasn't such a great idea for you) and Art History 101-102, the highlight of which was test review with silly prizes from Archie McPhee for anyone who answered a question correctly. But today marks the first time I have had a class of my own--my syllabus, my grading standards, my ability to mold young minds. Though, this being IUPUI, a considerable # of the minds in the room are actually older than I am. I can live with that. They're mostly elementary education majors, which means I might well be warping two generations of learners for the price of one. It went ok today, I just went over the syllabus and then talked about "What is art?" for a few minutes before letting them go. Next Monday's topic is "Good Art, Bad Art, Not Art," and I have some choice pictures from the Museum of Bad Art for the powerpoint...
In a full circle sort of a thing, I got my diploma for my Master's Degree in the mail today. It's shiny, in the bright red folder favored by Indiana U, and will look lovely on my shelf. Next to the other 3 degrees. Which I'm also not really using. Woo hoo!
Sunday, August 20, 2006
It's a gun! It's a guitar! It's.....patriotism!!
There's Nothing Like The Fair.
Well, first of all, thanks to everyone who expressed their sympathies (in comments, email, and in person) about the zoo truck wreck. I'm happy to announce that I ran into one of the keepers I work with at the grocery the other day and got an update; contrary to initial reports, we had a near 100% survival rate on the fish. This despite the fact that they were being carried in foam picnic coolers, inside plastic baggies full of water. I'm amazed. We did lose 4 penguins--3 of the gentoos, which are my favorites, and 1 rockhopper. We also lost a couple anemones, but considering how many fish were on that truck I am utterly stunned by the minimal loss. In addition, I was relieved to learn that the dwarf caimans, the anaconda, and the giant amazon catfish were on the OTHER truck which didn't wreck. A good thing, as I'm sure if the 15' long anaconda had gotten free on the highway, a state trooper would have just shot it without thinking twice.
Did I mention I got to help hold her during the pre-ship vet exam? That officially qualifies as one of the coolest things I've ever done at the zoo; I was there helping bag up all those fish that Monday, and I got to be one of the 10 or so people who held onto the anaconda while the vet checked her for bumps and lumps before we put her in the crate. Have you ever held onto a snake with a nearly 12" diameter body? It was freakin' incredible.
Anyway, Gencon went quite well, and I'll post a blow by blow of True Dungeon on my other blog sometime soon. Suffice it to say it was glorious victory yet again. Pics are on my Flickr account. Then it was State Fair time again, and I hit it twice--once with Rat Girl and Duder, once with my coworkers. The winner of the "WTF is THAT?" contest in pro art for this year is seen above. The winner of the horrifying cake award is pictured HERE, and the winner of "most hilarious non-pro watercolor" is HERE. I think the sheer quantity of kitchy stuff in the Home and Family Arts building may have been one of the highlights of the fair for our overseas guests.... I didn't get a photo of the eyeless purple teddy bear. Maybe I can get a copy from them.
Well, first of all, thanks to everyone who expressed their sympathies (in comments, email, and in person) about the zoo truck wreck. I'm happy to announce that I ran into one of the keepers I work with at the grocery the other day and got an update; contrary to initial reports, we had a near 100% survival rate on the fish. This despite the fact that they were being carried in foam picnic coolers, inside plastic baggies full of water. I'm amazed. We did lose 4 penguins--3 of the gentoos, which are my favorites, and 1 rockhopper. We also lost a couple anemones, but considering how many fish were on that truck I am utterly stunned by the minimal loss. In addition, I was relieved to learn that the dwarf caimans, the anaconda, and the giant amazon catfish were on the OTHER truck which didn't wreck. A good thing, as I'm sure if the 15' long anaconda had gotten free on the highway, a state trooper would have just shot it without thinking twice.
Did I mention I got to help hold her during the pre-ship vet exam? That officially qualifies as one of the coolest things I've ever done at the zoo; I was there helping bag up all those fish that Monday, and I got to be one of the 10 or so people who held onto the anaconda while the vet checked her for bumps and lumps before we put her in the crate. Have you ever held onto a snake with a nearly 12" diameter body? It was freakin' incredible.
Anyway, Gencon went quite well, and I'll post a blow by blow of True Dungeon on my other blog sometime soon. Suffice it to say it was glorious victory yet again. Pics are on my Flickr account. Then it was State Fair time again, and I hit it twice--once with Rat Girl and Duder, once with my coworkers. The winner of the "WTF is THAT?" contest in pro art for this year is seen above. The winner of the horrifying cake award is pictured HERE, and the winner of "most hilarious non-pro watercolor" is HERE. I think the sheer quantity of kitchy stuff in the Home and Family Arts building may have been one of the highlights of the fair for our overseas guests.... I didn't get a photo of the eyeless purple teddy bear. Maybe I can get a copy from them.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Gnnnarrrhhhhhhhhh......
OK. I am almost human again.
First of all, yes, this was about my animals. I knew all of them. At last, an animal accident story from me that isn't funny. No, I don't want to talk about it.
Second, Gencon's over, I'm still alive, it had its good points and bad points, and now I have weapons with which to take out the frustrations of the day on the people I love.
OK. I am almost human again.
First of all, yes, this was about my animals. I knew all of them. At last, an animal accident story from me that isn't funny. No, I don't want to talk about it.
Second, Gencon's over, I'm still alive, it had its good points and bad points, and now I have weapons with which to take out the frustrations of the day on the people I love.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Brace For Impact
This week is GenCon, and my workplace is already becoming snappish and unpleasant. As always, I'm restraining myself from saying "The reason you've got 8 million things to do in four days is because you didn't do any of this shit back in June and July, when you had some time on your hands..." and am quietly going about the things I need to get done before the show. This includes:
1) Cleaning my house so my houseguest Charles doesn't see what a foul pit I normally live in.
2) Cleaning my shower, because I looked at it the other day and I was all like "holy crap, how long has it looked like that??" the light in there is busted, and I tend to shower in the dim twilight of the morning, so I hadn't really been fully aware of the scum-tacularness of the wall under the soap dish til yesterday.
3) mowing the lawn
4) Weeding my former advisor's garden for fun and profit
5) Making up a syllabus for the class I'm teaching this fall, which is approaching with uncomfortable rapidity
6) Going hiking
7) Packing miniatures
8) Eating a balanced diet
9) Painting the dining room
10) Blogging (not really.)
Obviously, not all this stuff has to do with Gencon itself, but it's all part of the not-having-a-moment-to-breathe experience that's going to suck away the next 7 days of my life.
Last year my car and I both had a breakdown right after the con. (The car cost me about $1500; the personal breakdown passed when I realized I wasn't going to have to buy a new car.) I'm hoping both of us can hold it together this year--but I suppose we'll see...
This week is GenCon, and my workplace is already becoming snappish and unpleasant. As always, I'm restraining myself from saying "The reason you've got 8 million things to do in four days is because you didn't do any of this shit back in June and July, when you had some time on your hands..." and am quietly going about the things I need to get done before the show. This includes:
1) Cleaning my house so my houseguest Charles doesn't see what a foul pit I normally live in.
2) Cleaning my shower, because I looked at it the other day and I was all like "holy crap, how long has it looked like that??" the light in there is busted, and I tend to shower in the dim twilight of the morning, so I hadn't really been fully aware of the scum-tacularness of the wall under the soap dish til yesterday.
3) mowing the lawn
4) Weeding my former advisor's garden for fun and profit
5) Making up a syllabus for the class I'm teaching this fall, which is approaching with uncomfortable rapidity
6) Going hiking
7) Packing miniatures
8) Eating a balanced diet
9) Painting the dining room
10) Blogging (not really.)
Obviously, not all this stuff has to do with Gencon itself, but it's all part of the not-having-a-moment-to-breathe experience that's going to suck away the next 7 days of my life.
Last year my car and I both had a breakdown right after the con. (The car cost me about $1500; the personal breakdown passed when I realized I wasn't going to have to buy a new car.) I'm hoping both of us can hold it together this year--but I suppose we'll see...
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Hooray!
Happy Shark Week!
In honor of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, I offer you yet another thieving--this time from Fafblog's Friday Pie-Blog from a month or so back. I know I want to be a pieologist at the National Pie Institute of Pies, when I grow up.
And my wall is now plastered, but I'm not. Maybe I should remedy this.....
In honor of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, I offer you yet another thieving--this time from Fafblog's Friday Pie-Blog from a month or so back. I know I want to be a pieologist at the National Pie Institute of Pies, when I grow up.
And my wall is now plastered, but I'm not. Maybe I should remedy this.....
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Annual Birthday Post
Go me, it's my birthday! Go me, it's my birthday!
OK, I'd planned a cunning sorta post about getting older and not wiser, and all that stuff.... but now I'm tired, and I got a sunburn at the baseball game, so the tops of my feet are all itchy and owie. So the sage musing upon the symbolic meaning of birthdays will have to wait. I'm actually not depressed this birthday, which is saying a lot! Usually birthday and new years are my two big mood potholes; but I had a great weekend. Got my fingers crossed for a good week. And now, I bid you goodnight.
Go me, it's my birthday! Go me, it's my birthday!
OK, I'd planned a cunning sorta post about getting older and not wiser, and all that stuff.... but now I'm tired, and I got a sunburn at the baseball game, so the tops of my feet are all itchy and owie. So the sage musing upon the symbolic meaning of birthdays will have to wait. I'm actually not depressed this birthday, which is saying a lot! Usually birthday and new years are my two big mood potholes; but I had a great weekend. Got my fingers crossed for a good week. And now, I bid you goodnight.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Battle of the Dining Room: Round 1
At the risk of boring my gentle readers with home DIY posts, I'm actually sort of excited about my dining room at the moment. Over a year ago, you might recall I had a major plumbing backup which demanded that my septic line be dug up and re-laid; it also meant that I finally ripped out the crappy nasty wall to wall carpet in the downstairs. But, things being as they are, I didn't have the time or the ability to do anything else about the situation until this Spring, when I decided to repaint the walls and look at new floor options.
Nothing like deciding to start a project to make the whole thing infinitely more complicated. I found out first that my concrete floor is not flat. Second, that the tiny crack in the wall, which I thought I could just scrape and spackle, was actually the harbinger of massive plaster damage. I scraped, and scraped some more, and then suddenly i was looking at a glimmer of daylight through the hole in my wall. Caulk fixed the crack where the water had been seeping in, but the interior damage was daunting, and I've spent the last 2 months trying to figure out how to fix it myself. The answer, of course, is that the way to fix it is look up "Plasterers" on Angie's List, and have a professional do it. That's finally happening later this week. The floor, on the other hand, is doable; my father and I spent a couple hours this morning learning the joys of self-leveling cement compound, and tomorrow I'll be sanding off all the lumps left by our inadequate mixing skillz. I'm actually pretty excited at the prospect of having a functional dining room in the next month-due to the nasty carpet, it's never been a room I wanted to spend much time in even when I first moved in. So you may be subjected to occasional Dining Room Diary entries in the coming weeks, just because it's so damn cool to finally get something done! You have been warned....
At the risk of boring my gentle readers with home DIY posts, I'm actually sort of excited about my dining room at the moment. Over a year ago, you might recall I had a major plumbing backup which demanded that my septic line be dug up and re-laid; it also meant that I finally ripped out the crappy nasty wall to wall carpet in the downstairs. But, things being as they are, I didn't have the time or the ability to do anything else about the situation until this Spring, when I decided to repaint the walls and look at new floor options.
Nothing like deciding to start a project to make the whole thing infinitely more complicated. I found out first that my concrete floor is not flat. Second, that the tiny crack in the wall, which I thought I could just scrape and spackle, was actually the harbinger of massive plaster damage. I scraped, and scraped some more, and then suddenly i was looking at a glimmer of daylight through the hole in my wall. Caulk fixed the crack where the water had been seeping in, but the interior damage was daunting, and I've spent the last 2 months trying to figure out how to fix it myself. The answer, of course, is that the way to fix it is look up "Plasterers" on Angie's List, and have a professional do it. That's finally happening later this week. The floor, on the other hand, is doable; my father and I spent a couple hours this morning learning the joys of self-leveling cement compound, and tomorrow I'll be sanding off all the lumps left by our inadequate mixing skillz. I'm actually pretty excited at the prospect of having a functional dining room in the next month-due to the nasty carpet, it's never been a room I wanted to spend much time in even when I first moved in. So you may be subjected to occasional Dining Room Diary entries in the coming weeks, just because it's so damn cool to finally get something done! You have been warned....
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Binding Games??
You'd Think Paradise Island Would Have a Bigger Tourism Industry....
OK, I can't help it. I'll stop, I promise. But isn't it sweet of Wonder Woman to be all concerned about safety in a bondage situation?
Oh crap. Now I'm going to get google hits on "WW bondage"....
OK, I can't help it. I'll stop, I promise. But isn't it sweet of Wonder Woman to be all concerned about safety in a bondage situation?
Oh crap. Now I'm going to get google hits on "WW bondage"....
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Oh, How They Chortled...
Can't....Stop....Laughing.....
OK, this is purely a link post, and I already posted it on my pathetic excuse for a livejournal.... but this site, revealed to me by Upyernoz has given me literally hours of fun. Superman Is a Dick apparently went viral a year or so ago and I missed it; but I used to buy these 50's and 60's era DC comics by the handful out of the sale bin at Comic Carnival. To see them collected here in all their absurdity is nothing short of wonderful. The Seduction of the Innocent gallery features unaltered panels and covers from a time when "boner" just meant "embarassing tactical error."
OK, this is purely a link post, and I already posted it on my pathetic excuse for a livejournal.... but this site, revealed to me by Upyernoz has given me literally hours of fun. Superman Is a Dick apparently went viral a year or so ago and I missed it; but I used to buy these 50's and 60's era DC comics by the handful out of the sale bin at Comic Carnival. To see them collected here in all their absurdity is nothing short of wonderful. The Seduction of the Innocent gallery features unaltered panels and covers from a time when "boner" just meant "embarassing tactical error."
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Prosecution for Illegal Posses...uh oh.
On the Run from the Borden Police
I decided that one of the things holding me back from being a true Bike Commuter Type was that I didn't really have a good way to carry stuff--like a change of clothes, or my notebooks for class, or the groceries. I have a backpack, of course, but I have a tendency to sweat like Niagara Falls at the slightest provocation (sorry if that was more than you wanted to know about me) and so whenever I get anywhere and take the backpack off, I have to wring it out before unzipping it and removing its slightly dampened contents. Not ideal. I looked at snazzy panniers and saddlebags at the bike store, but the whopping price tags on those babies is a little more than my mostly-jobless state can handle right now. I tried tying my backpack onto the bike rack with a bungee cord, but bungees can slip, and I almost did a header into the canal when part of my backpack escaped and threw itself into the spokes of my back tire at the end of last semester. My final resort: Operation Stolen Milk Crate.
I hasten to point out that I didn't steal this milk crate. I got it from a friend of mine who works for a dairy, and her dairy presumably stole it from its rightful owners behind a supermarket at some point. But now I have it, and it's tied to the back of my bike with brown twine (because if you're going to look like an utter dork, you might as well do it up right) and I've been assured by one of my cool friends who bikes that the milk-crate-over-the-tire look is hip. At least I think that's what she said. Anyway, so now I'm living in fear that some official of the Borden Patrol will spot me peddling sweatily along the canal path toward the health food store, and call in their team of expert dairy snipers for the takedown and recovery. I'll never know what hit me.
I decided that one of the things holding me back from being a true Bike Commuter Type was that I didn't really have a good way to carry stuff--like a change of clothes, or my notebooks for class, or the groceries. I have a backpack, of course, but I have a tendency to sweat like Niagara Falls at the slightest provocation (sorry if that was more than you wanted to know about me) and so whenever I get anywhere and take the backpack off, I have to wring it out before unzipping it and removing its slightly dampened contents. Not ideal. I looked at snazzy panniers and saddlebags at the bike store, but the whopping price tags on those babies is a little more than my mostly-jobless state can handle right now. I tried tying my backpack onto the bike rack with a bungee cord, but bungees can slip, and I almost did a header into the canal when part of my backpack escaped and threw itself into the spokes of my back tire at the end of last semester. My final resort: Operation Stolen Milk Crate.
I hasten to point out that I didn't steal this milk crate. I got it from a friend of mine who works for a dairy, and her dairy presumably stole it from its rightful owners behind a supermarket at some point. But now I have it, and it's tied to the back of my bike with brown twine (because if you're going to look like an utter dork, you might as well do it up right) and I've been assured by one of my cool friends who bikes that the milk-crate-over-the-tire look is hip. At least I think that's what she said. Anyway, so now I'm living in fear that some official of the Borden Patrol will spot me peddling sweatily along the canal path toward the health food store, and call in their team of expert dairy snipers for the takedown and recovery. I'll never know what hit me.
Subscribe to:
Comment Feed (RSS)