3 outside the skinny on LJ

Happy Season's Greetings

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:18:04 GMT

to everyone, however you're celebrating (or not) today.

We have (again) eaten our way to stupor and immobility (Russian blini, mmmMMMmmm) made by an authentic Russian lady, good strong coffee, oh my.

Word is, there's something called PRIME RIB on the menu tonight for dinner. *groan* Ah well, duty must & all that.

May good things only come your way today.

Avatar!

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:29:49 GMT

I liked it. I'd see it again. I think they did a good job, and I thought the various borrowings from other stories, older stories, other media, just made it more fun. I *loved* the forest. Why can't we have forests like that? Oh, wait - right, we'd just do to them what we did to the ones we did have. Never mind.

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:12:49 GMT

Too bad it doesn't show, but the air is THICK with snow. No sign of a let-up, either. Cocoa is in my future...

All ready for Christmas

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:37:18 GMT

We've done our decorating.

To wit, we filled three cat litter pans with pelleted pine, er, pellets, for the cats. This because Boycat Adams got the bandage off his back foot today, and the vet recommended pelleted litter for the next two - three weeks. Since I have three cats, and no desire (and probably no hope of success) to sequester Adams by himself for that length of time, we decided just to use the same litter for all three pans.

That's it. Hear the bells?

Adams is the one in the middle.

Could ONE MAN have built Stonehenge???

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:48:53 GMT

This is awesome!

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:35:34 GMT

Watching War of the Worlds, the Tom Cruise edition. Haven't made an overall judgement yet, but they sure do have some powerful images going.

Monday morning workplace revelation

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:52:23 GMT

So once most of my immediate cubicle neighbors got here this morning, and one of the usual Monday morning corridor chats had commenced, I told them:

"Well, since you're all here, and you've all known me quite awhile, I think I need to tell you something."

(I had their attention.)

I went on, "Over the weekend I underwent a conversion." (Paused to take in their expressions. M___'s eyes lit up with a curious gleam, while J___'s brow furrowed and banged against the cubicle wall. There was a silence redolent of Listening coming from the nearby cubicles.)

I continued, "Now you know I've always disliked proseltyzers, so I will really try not to do that here, but it may be difficult," and M___ grinned impishly, while J___'s face changed into an expression of dismay and dread.

"What'd you do?" J___ asked.

Before I could open my mouth to answer, M___ said, "You got a Mac."

"You're too smart," I told her, and she laughed, and J___looked shocked, then chagrined at his own gullibility. Ha HA! I GOT him!

And, I also got the Mac. But I promise not to proselytize.

It. Is. To. Love.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:30:23 GMT

Two Lumps today.

*and why does the LJ Mood list not include "hystericalated"?? I asks, I does*

Science Brains help wanted

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:07:15 GMT

I found this lovely photo of Paris, somewhere - unfortunately I don't know where, or who took it. I just have it for my personal computer's screensaver - anyway, I got to looking at it closely, and I realize I can't figure out how that stripey lighting effect happened. Can one of you Physics Geniuses perhaps tell me? (If anyone objects to the photo due to my not knowing whose it is, I will gladly take it down.)

The Eye Writer

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:40:31 GMT

I found this very moving and inspiring. And awesome. Wow, wow, wow.

[books]:Leviathan

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:52:11 GMT

LOVE this book. Love love LOVE it.

Love the illustrations. Love the story. I've seen one review carping because its science requires suspension of disbelief. Are they KIDDING? What part of "science fiction" don't they get? - Oh, right: the FICTION part.

Did I mention I love the illustrations? I did? Oh. Well, I love the characters, too. And the story. Westerfeld also does descriptions particularly beautifully. And dialog. And - IMO - he did a very nice job of getting us into the head of a young girl passing as a boy and the various interesting discoveries she makes about boyhood thereby. Was that non-spoilerish enough? I hope so.

It is most definilely the first in a series so if you hate that, don't read this one. The next one, Behemoth, is finished and in the process of getting made into a buy-able -physical fom. Cannot WAIT for that one to come out!

I am more excited about Leviathan, I think, because I have routinely been disappointed by "steampunk" literature. I love the trappings (I would dearly love to have a pair of really cool goggles, for example, and I'm reduced to cooing puddles by beautiful old scientific instruments with their elegant engraved markings, and don't even get me started on orreries!) but usually the literature attempts to adopt the language usage of the British gaslight era and not only fails but succeeds instead by aggravating me. Leviathan, however, gets it just right, in my opinion; the story is told in contemporary (but not modern slangy) English, while the objects and living things are given names that might well have been used if such things had existed (I'm thinking of "life threads" not "DNA," for example.)

And now my computer is spazzing out so I'll post this, I hope.

Soft body robotics

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:20:28 GMT

I'm probably late in finding this, but in case I'm not alone:

http://www.wimp.com/softrobotics/

Whoa.

And since LJ's tags don't include it, I'll do it here:

Mood: Startled!

If you happen to need 5 mins 32 secs of sheer silliness

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:51:03 GMT

I link you to:

Mr. B, the Gentleman Rhymer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t28COxEp2k&feature=player_embedded

Makes you go WTF? but in a good way. I think.

Sometimes they 'bout write themselves, don't they?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:34:50 GMT

Three consecutive headlines off Yahoo's front page this a.m. (the last one is local here in Lincoln, NE):

Giant crack in Ethiopia desert will create a new Ocean

Escape tunnels in Berlin become tourist attraction

Trenching equipment stolen from firm

So now you'll know, as the apocalypse proceeds: It all started here in Lincoln.

Highly suspicious...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:10:00 GMT

Do you suppose it's just a coincidence that this first weekend after Verizon has taken over our Alltel system I cannot get my cell phone to complete an outgoing call of any kind, local or long-distance?

Bloody hell.

ETA: (Saturday) Turns out it was on MY end that the screwup was happening. I am told this was because I was supposed to have been performing a certain little updating ritual MONTHLY. Funny how no one at Alltell ever TOLD me that. I've had this thing for three years now, and have never done the little ritual. For crying out Pete's sake. I think the world is getting way, way ahead of me. I'm about to join the dinosaurs.

Oh, well, at least the dinosaurs didn't have to futz around with f$)^($($(#@!! cell phones.

Monday morning surprise art

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:29:14 GMT

My kitties left us a surprise work of art overnight! I'd made them three "yarn babies" to play with (just little balls of scrap yarn tied up in a bundle) and this is what I got in return:

I had to mess with the photos a little bit to get the yarn to show up at all. It shows up much better in B & W.

*sigh* I have such talented kitties.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:47:10 GMT

My poor Adams cat has a hurty foot. We applied neosporin and wrapped gauze around it last night and were surprised that it took him to this morning to pull the bandage off. Unfortunately, the hurty looked worse this morning. It's all raw between two toes. I finally bit the bullet and we took him to the vet at 4. Poor guy. He has somehow sliced the hide off the inner side of one toe pad. The doctor cleaned it and applied medicine and wrapped his foot again, and gave him a rabies shot (overdue, but I don't worry 'cause my cats are not allowed outside. EVER.) But oh my goodness, is Adams peeved.

This is a very odd place for him to pout. It's right by the front door. The cats never hang out in that particular spot. But maybe he's just tired after his ordeal. We have to poke a pill down him twice a day, too. Oh, boy, will that be fun.

And oh, how the money rolled in...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:23:44 GMT

I forgot to post about this, thought it was pretty funny.

A few days ago I got an unexpected email from Lulu.com saying they'd deposited my royalties in my PayPal account. This was okay, because I actually do have a book at Lulu.com (insert shameless plug here). However, I hadn't thought about it for AGES, and had no idea I had any royalties coming. Upon investigation, I found that it amounted to $8.02, and it was entirely due to my own purchasing of copies for Cons, family, etc.

This cracked me up, for some reason.

Okay, that's all, you may continue with your life.

Squashy squashy!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:41:57 GMT

A kind co-worker gave me these two lovely squashes, about 1 1/2 pounds each. I don't even know what kind they are, but my real question for all you LJ Gardening experts is this: how do I tell if they're ready to eat? Do they need to be refrigerated? They've been sitting out in the kitchen for a week and show absolutely no changes at all.

6-year-old goes on unscheduled UFO ride

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:48:11 GMT

A little boy in Colorado climbed into his dad's homemade flying saucer balloon as his dad was futzing with it; its tether broke and the balloon and its passenger went on up into the air...resuce teams tracked its progress for two hours until it finally drifted slowly back to earth on its own. The TV helicopter news guy said preliminary reports are that the kid is OK. This could have turned out SO much worse.

But boy, is HE going to have something special for show & tell tomorrow...

Ch- ch- changes...

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:49:12 GMT

I woke up a non-smoker this morning. I've been prepping for it for weeks, enlisting my ins. co. coach, my personal doctor, my friends, and if I can think of a way to deploy the cats on my endeavor, they'll get in there, too. I'm on the patch; I'm going to be knitting (a lot, probably), chewing gum, and writing. Even if it's just about my not smoking any more, I'll be writing.

I just had a great idea that I bet someone else has already covered. I'd love to have some kind of code I could put in my email sigs that says, "I've been a non-smoker for [how many] days," and you can set it to count from your quit date. (If you slip, you can re-set it to zero, ugh). Anyone know of something like that that would work from within an email message? If not, is there something similar one could put in one's blog?

OK, on to genre topics. I haven't read my LJ this a.m., so maybe you're already talking about this, but what is everyone thinking about the new SG series? I like it. I think I'll like it more & more as it goes on. I watched a lot of the old SG shows simply because that's all that was on that I cared to watch. But their almost uniform blandness finally got me bugged. Maybe the new one will avoid that trap. I hope so. I really like the guy playing Rush (I'll learn his name eventually), and that he's just a teensy bit hard to trust makes him a better character, IMO. I also have always like Lou Diamond Phillips and wished he could get a great part. Maybe this is it. Haven't seen much in the women in the characters yet. Hear that, new SG: I'm keeping an eye on you - let's have some GREAT female roles here!!!

It's snowing. Our first snow of the year. It is a mite early. Ninety-eight percent of the leaves are still on the trees. I hope we get dried out and they all fall down at once like the Whomping WIllow, so I can get them raked before the long-term snow pack starts.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! You cannot resist

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:50:27 GMT

the power of the Cute Chthulu!

Easy to do good

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:11:49 GMT

In case someone didn't know about this site, they have a series of tabs and buttons to click (I do once a day, though you might be able to do it more often) and your very clicks alone(!) help them raise funds for these good causes. They're saying the click numbers are down, so I thought I'd post it here. In about 15 seconds per day, you can help make the world a better place!

There's also a lot of merchandise from all over the world on each site, and buying from them also contributes to each particular cause.

http://www.thehungersite.com/

60 years of the RATP

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:40:22 GMT

There's a cool and charming slide show chronicling the 60 years Paris's bus system, the RAPT, has been operating. Watch for Salvador Dali walking his anteater, and boys in kilts! And so much more...

http://www.ratp.fr/60ans/

(You click the rotating display board to enter the site, and then run your cursor right or left to go forward or backward in the slide show)

ETA: You can also click on the pictures to get more info (in French)!

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:56:34 GMT

David Greenburg on how we got Here, where fringe conservatism is now the mainstream.