| Quick memory |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|09:50 am] |
A co-worker just sent out that infamous animated pic/cartoon of the computer user smacking the keyboard so furously that blood starts spurting. Nice. I once forwarded something to Mr. Man that was funny, and that icon was part of what I forwarded (which I didn't notice) and he was completely horrified by it. Oops.
But it reminded me that I used to have a fun cartoon I'd been given as a gift, and framed for my office - a user is sitting at a computer, and a robot arm has come out of the monitor and basically has her face in a deathgrip like the facehugger in "Alien" - all you see is one stunned eye. A helpful co-worker is standing beside her saying "Try pressing the Esc key."
And it disappeared at some point and it's long gone. Pity, because it wasn't a mass-produced thing that I can find on the internet, and it was really funny and well-done. |
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| Spy's sappin' mah animes!! |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|10:15 am] |
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I can get seasons one and two of the FMA series plus "The Conqueror of Shamballa" off Amazon for less than $100. Should I? I've never actually watched it. |
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| Just in case anyone was wondering... |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|07:04 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | The sofa | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | not yet | ] |
During my bookstore shopping this weekend, not only did I get this:
But also this:
and as philosophy goes... ;) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|11:49 am] |
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Additionally, I am somewhat surprised to see all the really positive reviews the new HP movie is getting. This bodes well; I think about taking the girls opening night since their brother is away at Boy Scout camp. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|09:27 pm] |
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You're only as good as your last mistake. |
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| Links |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|01:19 pm] |
The New York Times interviews SCOTUS Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg regarding The Place of Women on the Court.
Dealing with Toddlers: When all you hear is "NO!"
Annals of Parenthood: Sleeping with the Baby. Reprint of an article on co-sleeping which appeared in The New Yorker in 2003.
Research indicates that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world.
The Faster Times. Explanation
Popular Mechanics: "Jay Leno has a lot of old cars with a lot of obsolete parts. When he needs to replace these parts, he skips the error-prone machinist and goes to his rapid prototyping 3D printer. Simply scan, print and repeat."
Religious Muslim and Jewish groups are protesting the forthcoming Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem. Construction has unearthed the remains of hundreds of Muslims interred at a cemetery at the site.
An Amnesty International report into maternal mortality in Peru found that hundreds of poor, rural and indigenous pregnant women are dying because they are being denied the same health services as other women in the country.
Michael Jackson and Vitiligo
"Massachusetts, the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, has become the first to challenge the constitutionality of a federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, saying Congress intruded into a matter that should be left to individual states."
Twittorati launched today. Similar in concept to Technorati.
Gizmodo: An Illustrated Guide to Every Stupid Cable You Need
Windows Internet Explorer 8: Nickelback Edition
Online Photoediting Websites: Aviary's Phoenix, BeFunky, Dumpr, Photofunia, Piknik.
ASPCA: Animal-Free Circuses
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| Sometimes the best team does win |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|09:29 am] |
My son's 50/70 baseball was the best team in the league, but because of injuries and weather and rescheduling problems making us miss practices and games, we stumbled pretty badly at the end of the season.
We *finally* got to finish the playoffs this week, and even though we spotted each team we played anywhere from 3 to 8 runs in the early innings, we pulled it out and wound up winning the whole thing. Not a bad run for a manager who, six years ago, knew nothing about the game and could barely stand it. I actually love coaching now. It's funny how things can change sometimes.
I wish my kid would get it together, though. He still psyches himself out at the plate and in the field at least every other game. |
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| Yes, Mark. Yes We Do. |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|12:54 pm] |
A Sign That All Those Outraged Emails May Actually Be Having An Effect....
Interview with the SciFi* Creative Director of Original Programming, Mark Stern:
So you're the guy we want to talk to, the future of what's to come on Scifi. Our readers can't wait to hear from you.
"They don't want to come after me with pitchforks?"
Meanwhile, the network is remaking Alien Nation. Someone should tell them that no one was clamoring for a remake of that show. The original movie was a shallow, predictable mess, and the series wasn't exactly "must see tv."
A Firefly reboot, on the other hand, would attract viewers in droves. Hint, Hint.
* I'm not calling it "SyFy" until they come up with a grammatically correct slogan. "Imagine Greater"? Really?
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| Five Geek Social Fallacies |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|11:36 am] |
1) Ostracizers are evil
2) Friends accept me as I am
3) Friendship before all
4) Friendship is transitive
5) Friends do everything together
If you want to read a more in-depth description by the guy who came up with these, go to the original article.
(I know that at least one person on my FL takes issue with the list, but I find it amusing to note who is holding which one sometimes, and sometimes to call them on it. Sometimes.) |
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| Un petit Night Music |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|01:55 pm] |
Interesting.
Well, it's not that interesting, except for the idea of Leslie Caron as Mme Armfeldt. But I went to grad school with Deanne Meek - she's a real opera singer, which makes it odd that she's playing Charlotte rather than one of the quintet, but good for her! |
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| A twist of Lyme |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|10:25 pm] |
The Pemberley scenes from the 1995 Pride & Prejudice were filmed at Lyme Park, a Derbyshire estate not far from Buxton. We pass it on the bus from the airport, as I shall be doing in less than a month...
I finished rewatching the 1995 P&P again this weekend. I know I'm biased, because it was my introduction to P&P, and even maybe to Jane Austen (I might have seen Sense & Sensibility first), but I am stunned once again by what a great piece of television it is. The fact that they get to take six episodes to tell the story rather than having to compress it into two hours makes all the difference, I think, particularly in showing what these women's lives were like and how completely at the mercy of external events they were.
Two other adaptations viewed this weekend: the 2005 Narnia (LW&W) movie and The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green. I'd seen the Narnia movie on an airplane, was eager to see it on a large screen. It's really a terrific adaptation, I think, and I just love Tilda Swinton. 'He sold you out... for SWEETIES!' I haven't seen Prince Caspian yet and I hear it's not great (it's my least favorite Narnia book) but I will have to at some point, and I'm glad that (at least it looks like) they're filming the Dawn Treader, the most delightful of the books.
Ethan Green is an adaptation of a marvelously funny - now dormant, unfortunately - gay comic strip that used to appear in alternative weeklys, along with Dykes to Watch Out For. Making a movie of it wasn't a bad idea - but they didn't do a good job with it. The characters were pretty undefined, the urban hipness of the Boston setting was lost, and the plot, such as it was, wasn't very interesting or easy to follow. That being said, some things they got right (offhand jokes like the Lesbian Humor bookshelf in the bookstore being empty) and it was not without its charm. They got the Hat Sisters right, at least (an older gay couple who always appear in matching outrageous hats and muumuus). PS The Hat Sisters are real people - they live in Boston and have their own Facebook fan page.
Speaking of which, Dykes to Watch Out For would make a good TV show, I think. Again, care would have to be taken to preserve the characters and the feel of the strip. |
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| [RECIPE] Too Good For Facebook |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|03:55 pm] |
Every so often, I'll post an abbreviated menu to Facebook, usually while in a state of self-satisfied repletion. But this recipe is what it says up there on the tin. In honor of picnics in honor of the Fourth, here's the best deviled egg recipe I've ever made, by far:
DEVA'D EGGS
12 eggs, hard-boiled, halved, yolks separated
6 TBSP mayonnaise
1 1/2 TSP curry powder (we're dangerously low on Penzey's Maharajah blend, and I may have to devote an afternoon to cloning it. Or break down and buy another jar)
3/4 TSP garlic paste
1/3 TSP celery salt
1/2 TSP salt (or more to taste)
1/4 TSP fresh ground black pepper (or more to taste)
1/2 TSP lemon juice (or more to taste)
Dump your yolks in a big glass bowl, and mix in the next four ingredients. Then comes the slightly tricky bit with the salt and pepper -- don't over-salt the things; over-peppering them is more forgivable because the curry powder will give you some breathing room there. Once you've got the saltiness where you want it (or just a little below that, ideally), add lemon juice to brighten the flavor -- there will be a kind of hole in the top notes that slowly adding lemon juice will fill. If you over-lemon it, you can add another TSP or so of mayo to smooth it back out in the middle register.
Then take your little spoon and moosh the filling back into the hard-boiled whites, making sure to accidentally split one or three of them so that you have to eat the failures. (I usually have ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mollpeartree do this part -- only the willpower of someone who's quit smoking is up to the task of filling deviled eggs. If it were me doing it, this dozen egg recipe would result in about five eggs left over for company.)
One could, I suspect, make a slightly lighter version of this with olive oil in for the mayo, though you'd want to cut the amount by half or more, and you'd risk making it too sweet -- maybe some chili pepper would cut through that, but by now, you're talking about a whole different recipe, really. So I'd just stick with the mayo, myself. |
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| My son occasionally demonstrates foresight... |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|08:45 am] |
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Last night my daughter had a few friends over for her birthday, and I suggested to Jimmy that we go over to the ball field early and help the younger kids with summer ball. After three seconds thought on what an evening of being surrounded with madly giggling 12- and 13-year old girls would mean for his sanity, he couldn't get his cup and cleats on fast enough. |
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| Twenty Tales |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|04:55 am] |
Presented for discussion and disputation; the order is approximate, and the titles are not final. But they're damn close.
10 Best Stories About Cthulhu Not By H.P. Lovecraft
“Nethescurial,” by Thomas Ligotti
“Worms of the Earth,” by Robert E. Howard
“The Deep Ones,” by James Wade
“The Terror From the Depths,” by Fritz Leiber
“Recrudescence,” by Leonard Carpenter
Strange Eons, by Robert Bloch
“Only the End of the World Again,” by Neil Gaiman
Move Under Ground, by Nick Mamatas
An Evil Guest, by Gene Wolfe
“Final Draft,” by David Annandale
10 More Best Cthulhu Mythos Stories, Not By H.P. Lovecraft, Not Necessarily Involving Cthulhu
“Sticks,” by Karl Edward Wagner
“Than Curse the Darkness,” by David Drake
“Details,” by China Miéville
“The Franklyn Paragraphs,” by Ramsey Campbell
“Black Man With a Horn,” by T.E.D. Klein
Résumé With Monsters, by William Browning Spencer
“The Seven Geases,” by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Courtyard,” by Alan Moore
“The Perseids,” by Robert Charles Wilson
“The Thing That Walked on the Wind,” by August Derleth |
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