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satyrica : it's a very short road to the ten thousandth lunch and the belch and the grouch and the sigh
- [when | 3rd July 2009]
- [mood |
stressed] - [music | the miller's son- stephen sondheim]
I've had a ragged week since coming back from Glastonbury on Monday- went to see A Little Night Music at the Garrick on Tuesday which was enjoyable (Maureen Lipman suitably snooty with all the best lines) but more rushed and stressful than it should have been due to everyone else being late at the various points I was meeting them. Since then, when there's nothing I've wanted more than an evening at home, pootling around and catching up with stuff, I've spent one evening helping clean the old flat and am currently killing time hanging around for my second post-work work event of the week. The downside of working for such a small charity is that it's much harder to not feel obliged to turn up to 'voluntary' functions. I've got the house to myself for a few days, which is making it all the more frustrating to be kept away; the downside is it means I'm also solely responsible for keeping the cat alive and spent about two hours yesterday evening convinced that I'd lost her.
afuna : A day's worth of Twitter (7)
( 7 babbly tweets for 2009-07-03 )
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif)
dailykitten : Cinder, Rumour & Whisper
http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/07/cinder-rumour-whisper/
http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3196
Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
These three beautiful kitties were part of a litter of four (their brother Midnight is hiding somewhere) from our barn cat, Gizzie. Cinder was the big man on campus, fearlessly swatting at our 140lb akita Bear and trekking into the vast depths of our basement. Rumour was the nut case, flying about at top speed, twitching in pure energy. Whisper was our quiet little girl, hiding timidly when she was separated from her siblings or the safety of a warm lap. Midnight, black as night, refused to sit still for any pictures, and consequently we have no shots of his wonderfully emotive face. All of these amazing kitties moved to new homes once they were old enough, and we miss them terribly.
jinty : "Making it in a man's world"
Astounding really that in 2009 this sort of initiative to encourage women into a heavily male-dominated area is still needed.
This bit was quite amusing though: "However, the search for the six apprentices was not an easy one. Of 600 applications for the women-only course, just 39 were from women." Could the male applicants not read, or did they just think it was worth a go? ("To make the London-based course more attractive it has offered fully subsidised places to the lucky apprentices and even free accommodation to those living outside London.")
Anyone know if a First Class stamp is the same thing as a Forever stamp, assuming it doesn't say the amount on it? I put some older stamps that I had on a bunch of the thank you cards that I sent out earlier this week. Two of them came back to me today with a note that I needed an additional 5 cents on them. They're just going within the continental US, so nothing crazy or anything.
The stamps say "First Class USA" on them. Nothing else. The newer stamps I have say "USA First Class Forever". So are these stamps not worth as much I guess? If they need 5 more cents, then I guess they're only worth 39 cents, since the current postage rate is 44 cents. If that's the case...I'm going to get a lot of returned mail. :P
I just looked on USPS's website, and it looks like I get charged a surcharge if the letter is "nonmachinable". I don't think these would be though, because they meet all of the right requirements. They're 5.5 inches wide and 4 inches high, so that's a ratio of 1.375 (more than the 1.3 it requires). So really...I have no idea.
Edit: I went ahead and bought two 20-stamp sheets of 5 cent stamps from the USPS website. $2 plus $1 for shipping. Kind of annoying since now I have to wait for them to arrive...this is really not worth $3 IMO. :P
This entry was originally posted at http://janinedog.dreamwidth.org/656869.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
The Rice Box now has a number of bento boxes and a bento menu with photos on. Last but by no means least on the menu is 'intestines bento' described as Mongolian pork intestines, pak choi and a poached egg.
Intestines Bento has a certain ring to it, sounds like the name of a thug in a comedy detective novel.
(we had the vegetarian bento).
elyssa : 0702091459.jpg
Echo is all ready to go :(
jinty : Collins Street
afuna : A day's worth of Twitter (9)
( 9 babbly tweets for 2009-07-02 )
Bjarne Stroustrup does not like the term C/C++. He says that C/C++ does not exist. Apress have a section in their on-line catalog C/C++/C# . I imagine Bjarne Stroustrup would be very unthrilled at that, a thought that I find makes me strangely happy.
http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/07/melman/
http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3189
Location: Elk, Wisconsin, USA
This is when Melman was only one month old. It was her 1st time in the grass. Melman is actually a girl, but since she has a twin named Gloria it just fit. Her only brother is Mufasa, but they also have 3 other siblings: Chi, Gloria, and Kiara. All their names are from Disney Channel movies like Kiara, and Mufasa is from the lion king.
cleanskies : public transport hates me
My journey to the "Pride Illustrated" talk yesterday descended, scrap by scrap, into a nightmare scenario reminiscent of the worst of the Film 4 comedies. A series of increasingly plaintive twitters mark the progress of the disaster; the exploding car transporter, the broken air conditioning, the two school parties of children coming back from their Oxford Open Day. I arrived in London after a journey of four and a half hours, all information heat-blasted from my brain save the location of a rather nice cocktail bar near Charing Cross. I made it to the counter, gasped out an order, turned around, and saw an old school friend and the son of a former colleague sharing a private moment -- which I promptly invaded, trailing heat and disaster in my wake. Eventually I felt strong enough to walk round the block to the pub where the Pride Illustrated gang had repaired to, just as everyone was leaving. I met David Shenton in the end, shook his hand and croaked, "how nice to meet you". Smooth, Jeremy, really smooth.
Somehow one last drink turned into a wide-ranging and fascinating debate about art, the nature of queer identity, politics, self expression and the most stylish thing to wear to gay shame. Alas, I then had to haul myself back onto a stuffy bus for the journey home. I'm not very well today. Heat exhaustion, I think.
Oh, and do you remember Gormley's plan for the plinth? In a sense I already partyicipated, back in the voting rounds when I made this:
 |
me on anthony's plinth
I may not opt for standing on one leg, though.... |
But nevertheless:
Oh dear, that widget's NOT going to embed. People, JUST USE VANILLA HTML. Let me try again.
No, all of the widget's are script heavy.
Here's the link so you can make your own application.
http://start-to-finish.dreamwidth.org/18383.html
So, here we are! New home, new name, new icons and not quite yet new school year :) Now that I no longer need to produce paper copies of this (!) I can move away from LJ as I don't want to have ads appearing on this journal.
I actually technicially no longer need to write a teaching journal but I've quite enjoyed it and now that it's not for evaluation or anything I can relax a little bit about the sort of things I write about. Hopefully you'll get to hear about lots of interesting experiments I plan to try with my new class.
One of the things I'm hoping to do is get a twitter account set up for my class next year. We're going to distill our learning for the lesson into 140 characters saying what we've done and at the same time, it'll communicate with parents! Hopefully it'll be a hit :)
I was cycling home from work the other day in very strange weather: hot sun, but with a light sprinkle of rain as if I was at the very edge of a lawn sprinkler. It was refreshing but oddly unrealistic, reminding me of nothing so much as the taxi queues outside Vegas casinos with their obscenely wasteful continuous spritzing of water. As I whizzed down the hill, I began craning my neck to see if a rainbow had formed, before deciding that my attention was probably better focused on the road ahead. Still, I thought, it wouldn't be such a bad way to go: hit by a car while searching the heavens for ephemeral beauty. Then I realised that in such an eventuality no-one would actually know why I was staring in the wrong direction, and would probably just assume that I was distracted by a girl in a tight top. Mind you, if I had been, that wouldn't be a bad way to go either; and I have to confess that He died as he lived: chasing rainbows is all very well, but He died as he lived: distracted by boobs would probably be more apt.
Which I pass on way to work every year at this time and have wanted to photograph for many many years. Now have camera, but have I done them justice? Not necessarily. I think jinty (IIRC) had a picture of them with a labourer lunching, which was much better.
afuna : A day's worth of Twitter (12)
( 12 babbly tweets for 2009-07-01 )
I suspect some of my friends might like http://www.ispot.org.uk/ (Jeremy springs to mind).
http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/07/chester-3/
http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3185
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Chester is one of 4 kittens I am fostering for the Dane County Humane Society. He loves tummy rubs and fishing pole toys.
bad_science : Steve Connor is an angry man
http://www.badscience.net/2009/07/steve-connor-is-getting-eggy/
We’re having a meeting in a pub tonight, it’s free to get in and open to all, we’ll talk about the problems with science journalism. Apparently science journalists won’t tolerate this.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-connor-lofty-medics-should-stick-to-their-day-job-1724485.htmlSteve Connor: Lofty medics should stick to their day job
Science Notebook: Doctors claim media coverage is “lazy, venal and silly”
Independent, Tuesday, 30 [...]
elyssa : 0630091941.jpg
I have never before met a cat who hates windows so much. He's throwing himself at the glass and crying.
sparkymark : Two things that happened on the way home I didn't like
1) A poster for the new Ice Age film, which I thought may have been overlaid with with fake frosted glass, but which turned out to be just your typical shattered pane of safety glass in a bus shelter, as I discovered by running my hand over it.
2) Approaching two people to ask the time and hesitating when one concluded an anecdote with, "Imagine having to ID that."
mendel : only half-kidding actually
I hate to be all "look how funny I am" but this one was too easy to not pass up.
From: Rich Lafferty
To: FreshBooks Staff
Subject: mp3s on the public share
Would the person who uploaded a bunch of Eminem to the
public share please clean up? Please clean up? Please clean up?
-r.
jackfirecat : Why does everything have to be symbolic?
I was cutting the hedge last weekend and I thought, but I'm cutting back new growth, this is not good semiotically. The hedge had wooden bits in, not cut last year, which I couldn't get through. Oh yes, you are old - there will be bits like that in you. Need to get new tools. The hedge is me now? FFS. Cut the holly by the door. Good. Finally something positive: am removing the prickliness facing someone trying to get into my house. Yet the pretty new leaves were a lighter, more lively, lime green, and you cut them off.
The back garden was cleared earlier in the year, as if to show willingness (state of garden = state of self) - I'd sorted my space ready to plant things; dug the earth: look at it, ready. Did plant herbs. But the Green has grown back, and needs a massive clear-out attack again. And the parsley was eaten by slugs. Yet the bramble (my enemy) is feeding butterflies and bees, so where does that leave me?
Am not in despair at all.
The parsley has new leaves.
afuna : A day's worth of Twitter (10)
( 10 babbly tweets for 2009-06-30 )
http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/06/liam/
http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3181
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
This is Liam the lover. His favorite things are sleep and eating. He purrs like a locomotive and has a very sweet disposition.
elyssa : 0629091803.jpg
Cats can double as mantle pieces.
elyssa : 0629091547.jpg
He fell asleep on my hand! >:o
elyssa : 0629091443.jpg
... He is SNEEZING as he attacks the Kleenex box!
elyssa : 0629091435.jpg
Since people were confused at the lack of kitty yesterday... :)
warm rain. Warm - about body temperature - rain
is WRONG.
Especially when you are already too hot and wanting to cool off, being simultaneously in the sun and yet rained on. Being bathed in something of a bodily-fluid temperature is not great. And the streets smell. Petrichor is a nice way of saying B.O. Yes, you, pavement; looking at you, road. You whiff.
(am enjoying it really. For the unusualness. It's like being in tropical climes.)
We've been here a week now and the place is slowly transforming into *ours* rather than *somebody else's which we are living in*. Part of this process has involved Putting Up Shelves, which in turn involves
- a hammer drill with an alarming habit of loosening its chuck at critical moments.
- a suprising amount of money being spent on what is, after all, a very simple set of items (upright rails, brackets, melamine board and/or pine planks).
- the discovery that Homebase will not saw spruce to length ("it has knots, you see"). Apparently they don't sell that much of it. I wonder why.
- swearing.
- an immense amount of plaster/brick dust.
- the discovery that neither our skirting board nor our ceiling are horizontal except in a very loose sense of the word.
- more swearing.
Now, it turns out that a mixture of cat hair and brick dust will totally block a baby Vax within approx 1 nanosecond. Fortunately, we visited my mum at the weekend (she is recovering from a hip operation but seems to be mending nicely and was keen to show us her X-rays). My mum has a Kirby (TM).
Still Life with Kirby (TM) and shelves
Kirbys (TM) are basically industrial cleaning systems that get mis-sold to householders. Kirby (TM) salesmen are legendary for their persistence and powers of persuasion. The story goes that my mum left the house for a hair appointment just as a salesman called. She left strict instructions to my dad to NOT BUY IT on the not unreasonable grounds that it cost £900. When she returned my Dad was looking very smug, and the Kirby (TM) was sitting malevolently on the carpet.
In its defence, I can report that the Kirby (TM) does not fuck about. Teasel fears it, and he is right to do so. So powerful is the suction and so heavy is the cleaner that it needs drive assist. As it is therefore essentially a motor vehicle, it is only fitting that it has a headlight. It has a fearsome array of accessories, including an orbital sander and, I shit you not, a massager (worryingly, these share the same attachment and differ only in whether you atttach sandpaper or a vinyl pad to it).
If you doubt me on this I will start posting scans of the manual.
Anyway, the shelves are up. The Kirby (TM) disposed of the brick dust with comtemptuous ease. I just can't imagine when you'd use one domestically, except for just-moved-in situations. I will have to return it eventually. In the meantime I'm ensuring I know Teasel's whereabouts at all times.
I have had the 4th and hopefully final phase of the root canal. My jaw now feels somewhat sore, more I suspect from the metal thing the dentist screws round your tooth to keep the filling in, then having ( go on, look, I dare you! ). As it was infected again he has given me some antibiotics on a yellow prescription. They are the vicious ones that taste metallic and that you can't drink alcohol when you're taking them, not that the probability that I will have alcohol in any given few day antibiotic cycle is that high anyway. I have started eating the live yoghurt, in the hope that taking it internally will be sufficient :-)
The dentist said he had put a filling on but I might need a crown so clearly the idea of trying to save the previous crown was quietly dropped. The tooth was held together with a giant filling before for years anyway.
celestialweasel : Harvey is picking up and throwing round a duvet...
Presumably on the misapprehension that it is a sheep, although unlike the late Buffy he has not perfected the 'breaking the neck on the way down having thrown it into the air' trick which she obviously knew by instinct or was taught by a passing Deerhound.
afuna : A day's worth of Twitter (15)
( 15 babbly tweets for 2009-06-29 )
http://www.dailykitten.com/2009/06/percival/
http://www.dailykitten.com/?p=3177
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
This is Percival the protector. When they came to live with me Percival would stand guard while the other kittens ate. He will still issue corrections for bad behavior when he sees it. However I think he has come to trust me to take care of all of them now. He loves to be held like a baby for hours.
Mondays, every week, let's celebrate ourselves, to start the week right. Tell me what you're proud of. Tell me what you accomplished last week, something -- at least one thing -- that you can turn around and point at and say: I did this. Me. It was tough, but I did it, and I did it well, and I am proud of it, and it makes me feel good to see what I accomplished. Could be anything -- something you made, something you did, something you got through. Just take a minute and celebrate yourself. Either here, or in your journal, but somewhere.
(And if you feel uncomfortable doing this in public, I've set this entry to screen any anonymous comments, so if you want privacy, comment anonymously and I won't unscreen it unless you tell me it's okay. Also: yes, by all means, cheer each other on when you see something you want to give props to!)
(PS: The site's lying when it says OpenID comments will be screened; if you've set and validated an email address for your OpenID account, it will post normally.)
This entry was originally posted at http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/333521.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
On Saturday, I finally extracted an Amazon parcel from the Post Office (claimed to have been sent on 10th June, the little ‘sorry you were out card’ finally appeared on Friday). Anyway, in the box was:
( Sarah Rees Brennan, Demon’s Lexicon (spoilers) )
This weekend I also read ( Kelley Armstrong, Summoning (spoilers) )
( Ian Macleod, The Light Ages, spoilers )
And on Wednesday and Thursday, of course, I read the new Jane Haddam, Living Witness. But I have used up my lunchtime and will post about that later.
jinty : And now I am old
elyssa : 0628092057.jpg
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