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| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
yrcomplacency
|
3:43p |
   Sarcophaga peregrina [3 lined flesh fly]; unknown grasshopper, some excellent camoflauge.
...and a girl on a unicycle, of all things.
Isn't our little Dorf quaint? |
ticklethepear
|
8:57a |
|
yrcomplacency
|
12:38p |
From the hike to Bühl yesterday
   Bombus lapidarius [Red-tailed Bumblebee]; Hexagenia limbata [Hex Mayfly]; spider nabbing a reproductive Formicinae spp. [lucky it's in focus, cos it was quite breezy]
  
Magpie feather in graveyard; iron crosses on every headstone from 1939-45; bumblebee going to town in a hibiscus. Srsly, it was like bee disco in there.
  
Plums picked along the way; Metrioptera roeselii [Roesel’s katydid, F], hoverfly in a white poppy. |
yrcomplacency
|
10:19a |
Tomorrow we're going to Karlsruhe. To the Apple store. *sigh* This will make the 2nd wireless mighty mouse I've had to replace in 8 months. The first just refused to reconnect after mysteriously losing connection, and the current loses connection if I let it sit idle for more than a few seconds. Few as in 1 or 2. I have to knock it on the mousepad or click (which could be on anything, cos the pointer disappears as well) to get it to wake the hell up. Absolutely can't work like that. It's not a bluetooth issue, cos my wireless keyboard is fine, and other devices are connected without issue. Forums say the mighty mouse is simply a piece of shit. I'm almost inclined to agree... if it (when functioning properly) didn't kick so much ass. My other option to avoid this is to simply get a wired mouse - but I hate wires. My desk is really clutter free, even having the camera's USB chilling there bugs. ION - I wish I had a bathtub sized vat of lotion. As much as I love lotions, I hate applying them, cos I've got a lot of surface area. Many times I have wished to be able to sit in a tub of lotion, rub myself down, and wipe off the extra back into the vat. There are a billion reasons that would be unsanitary as hell, which is probably why I have never gotten the wild hair up my ass to construct such a germ factory, but the idea is still pretty luxurious. I really wanted to watch Us3's Cantaloop video, but youtube's blocked it in Germany due to Urheberrechtsbeschränkungen. Holy shit, what a word. "Copyright restrictions" seems so much easier. To spell. I want to go out again today, cos I'm still berating myself for being such a slug, but I fear the weather. We had a whopper of a Gewitter this morning, TV got knocked out, and we shut down both computers, just to be on the safe side. It's not raining at the moment, but the last storm raced in at quite literally 250km/h (omg) and took us by surprise. The sky looks ominous over France, and if push came to shove, my money's on the storm reaching home before I do. I gotta add, watching Julius bang her face on the patio doors cos she wants to go slide around in the rain is pretty funny. We didn't let her out due to the marble sized hail, so she was pretty bummed. Reminds me of how much fun she had in the sprinklers at the FM Revolver video shoot. Splashing water seems to be her favourite thing ever, after rabbits. O and there will be no goat this time, cos all dude's got weigh 3o kg *each*. Bust. But he's got rabbits for super cheap, so it's no real loss, considering the only reason I was gonna feed goat was cost/kg. Over n out. |
kar3ning
|
12:32a |
Coleman beat me to the Terminator review. But for a spoiler-filled review of McG's (*twitch*) Terminator, click under the evil skull.  ( How bad is it? ) |
thefreak
|
12:33a |
Terminator...hmmm...
We finally downloaded a copy of Terminator (cause wasn't no way in hell I was gonna pay for that). After everything I'd heard, read, and been told from behind the scenes, I have to declare that...well...it was not 100% suck. More about 60%. I am pleased that the movie had a very clear point where it went into a tailspin of OMGWTFBUSH?! That means there was stuff that was redeemable about it. What was that point, you ask? Was it when nobody that encountered the $6 Million Dollar Convict ever asked him why he doesn't know anything about anything? No, that was too early in the film. As was the part where John Connor is a few hundred meters from an atomic explosion that did not hurt $6MDC in the slightest. Was it perhaps when he suddenly became Australian for five minutes (hello, first week of shooting!)? No...close, though. Perhaps when the large, extremely noisy Kidnapinator "snuck up" on a bunch of humans on very flat terrain. Nope, there was still some redeeming stuff in there. I'd say it revved up to the point of no return as John Connor hotwired a robot motorcycle that had no reason to ever be compatible with a human passenger and throttled straight into the heart of Skynet. Minutes later, the $6MDC awoke on a table and endured a cliched supervillain monologue about its very detailed evil plans FROM A COMPUTER!! Whyyyyy?!?! From that point on, there was not one thing that made sense or was positive in any way. John Connor frees the prisoners and tells them to get to a non-existent transport...that he remembers to radio for five minutes later. He fights a proto-T-800 that is ten times stronger than a real T-800. He jump starts a destroyed heart with industrial strength electrical cables. He sees a bunch of "fuel cells that power the Terminators...they're nuclear!" and decides that they will cause a nuclear explosion. SCIENCE FAIL! At best, you'll get a Chernobyl. Which will make a cloud that will probably kill every for miles around. Interlude to the submarine carrying Michael "I survived V" Ironsides and the resistance command. Because despite every other Resistance base operating multiple aircraft, exploding half a jungle, and making public radio transmissions without ever being targeted by Skynet, they feel they need to hide in the ocean. Until Skynet shows up for no reason and blows them up. I could imagine Ironsides going "I saved the Earth from reptilian aliens, Mutherfucker!" as he went kablooey. Then, robots fail to kill Kyle Reese the five million times they have the chance to, instead putting him into what looks like a matrix VR tube or something. WTF was that? Freed, he tells Connor's girl he's down there and they head off to find him...but ten minutes later, they are sitting in a helicopter doing nothing when Connor finally shows up. And what do they do as they flee? Set off a nuclear explosion...right underneath their helicopter. Their open-air Huey. Which I am willing to bet does not have EMP shielding on it. Oh, but the movie goes out in a bang of pure "Are you fucking shitting me??" the moment they declare, "It's his heart!" Yes, John Connor gets a heart transplant from the $6MDC...in a field hospital in the desert. By people who I am pretty sure have no experience with organ transplants. Nor access to anti-rejection medication. I would like to thank McG for making a film so rife with unintentional entertainment. Kar3n went in with a full hate-on, criticizing everything that happened...and put me in the weird position of devil's advocate. So there wasn't THAT much badness to it. Until that point of the suck spiral, of course. But, hey...it was pretty. |
mamacrunchy
|
1:03a |
What to rely on....
At this very moment KJ, Charlie and LIsa are over at the house The movie Across the Universe is on... "Let It Be" is blessing the air with it's sweet song while the scene in the movie is of a funeral... in the rain... One of these days I simply MUST watch this entire movie * * * Have had Boozoo Bajou on again and still processing the question... Who, or more importantly, what do I rely on?There's many layers of answers.... Many stories to be told... but not here, not yet. In San Francisco 3 very special people were all there for me at the perfect time I needed them... They know who they are...and I hope they know how much they mean to me. Kevin caught one of PK and I in the midst of a long-awaited hello at Sand By The Ton...  She never ceases to make me smile... and I'm beyond excited to have Davis in town this weekend. Truly relieved that it's now Friday and I have a weekend to get caught up. and of course.... there will be the baconing on saturday "...you can rely on me..." |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
ticklethepear
|
8:53p |
inert
I haven't played tennis in a week so this evening's practice was rough. But it felt good. I worked on my serve. I'm really going to miss the ladies on the team. I'm sure I'll continuing playing with some of them, especially those in the immediate neighborhood, but it won't be the same. I'm looking at a busy weekend, with tennis, meeting with N., and then cheap seats at the Mystics game on Saturday. We were originally planning to see the free screening of Lawrence of Arabia at the National Archives, but MoBob has a take-home exam. The main attraction is that L of A was filmed in MB's home province of Ouarzazate ("Morocco's Film Capital") and MB's never seen it. Plus it's one of those films that should be seen in a theatre. I saw it in college with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rmurphysf...a lifetime ago, it seems. As of today I have 700 FB friends. I feel so loved! |
thefreak
|
5:04p |
|
thefreak
|
3:31p |
"Extended" Edition
Going to see the Watchmen extended edition on Sunday at Noon, at Mann's Chinese. If anyone wants to coincidentally show up for three hours and fifteen minutes of blue penis. |
halffast
|
3:25p |
fur lows
it's funny, as someone who has pretty much used up all my vacation days every year, i'm a touch excited to be able to use the furlough days to help let me accrue some saved away again the pay cut part sucks, but i'll actually theoretically get paid for them eventually or just have more fun not being at work some later time. but think i'd like to have some saved up |
mycroftca
|
10:56a |
I'm still loading the Sony Reader; I'm finding that I can't unload it, though, which is odd. Something about the memory card has to have a switch done so that it will erase? I don't get it. It's not a problem yet, and when I have time, I'll try to research it, and fix the trouble. In the mean time, I've loaded its internal memory, and I've loaded one of the two cards (the smaller one), and I'm slowly loading the other (the SD card). It's still a very cool item. Peach butter. Yes, forestcats has once again started making her peach butter that is stunningly delicious. On top of all the fresh foodstuffs that are coming out of the garden (more than a hundred pounds of fresh, flavorful tomatoes!!! Not to mention squash, herbs and other delectable items...), there's this marvelous topping. Oh, yum! |
djmermaid
|
10:09a |
Fire Arts Festival - through Saturday
so the Fire Arts Festival is running tonight through Saturday and we will be there vending all three nights! please come up and say hi. we have decided to mark down a bunch of stuff we currently have in stock too, so if there is something you've had your eye on this is an opportunity to get a deal. here's the info: Fire Arts Festivaland bunnywarez (in case you want to check to see what we have in stock.) |
halffast
|
8:40a |
more work kvetchery
me: My MacBook Pro won't respond to the power button any more boss: Seems like you'll have to take that in. But you should back up the data first. If you get the drive out, we have something to stick it in. me [a couple days later with lots of little screws on my desk and the drive finally out]: okay. boss: oh. i wish you had told me, i have a SATA drive case at home. and to make things more fun, my screw driver just rolled through the pile of screws and made a mess and i'm not sure i even have them all anymore. time to drag one of the hard drive magnets around the carpet to see what i find |
yrcomplacency
|
4:37p |
Teh BurnZ.
 Ow. ow ow ow ow. Guess which shoulder I carry my photo bag on?? :P O and natural hair colour, I hate you. |
| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 |
psi_star_psi
|
10:48p |
Universe, You Are My Bitch
Apparently illness is working its way through the household. Jen is coming down with a cold, and some of the kids are too. She had a stressful day, so when I got home she left with Grayson to go to Target to get tissues and cold medicine. When she returned, she realized that she hadn't written cold medicine on her list, so she didn't remember to get it. Ut. She rummaged through the medicine cabinet, but the Pseudophedrine box was empty. Dang. We put Ike, Elli, and Gwen to bed. I took Charlie for a walk and did some chores. She settled Grayson for bed. She prepped for bed while I got ready to take a shower. Then I remembered another task, so I put on my robe and went away while she went into the back room to collapse. Unconsciously, I performed the Bilbo Baggins Maneuver. So I went back and stopped her before she could go to bed. "Dear," I said, "I found something in the pocket of my robe that I want you to have." Overcome with exhaustion, she asked, "What is it?" "The last two tablets of Sudafed from that box." Beat. "I love you!" I. Am. The Man. [The tablets were left over in the blister pack I shoved in my pocket when I had a cold three months ago at the beginning of my paternity leave. I don't normally wear that robe in the summer, so this was a low probability event.] |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
yrcomplacency
|
7:53a |
 Aphrophora quadrinotata (Four-spotted Spittle Bug) 1cm
Crippled by Julius mooshing him against the moulding. |
| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 |
kevissimo
|
7:42p |
Getting Married and Thank you, Facebook!
So what many of you don't know...I'm getting married. It's a rather big deal for me to commit on a level like this, because I like having options, am ADD and always see other possibilities as more attractive... What many of you DO know is that we're towards the end of July and I have only posted two events to the Gigsville site. I haven't updated my personal site for over a year. I post here less and less and this can't continue. It's absurd. There's even 100+ events that I haven't even gotten to yet. My plate is full of projects and obligations and the system is just inefficient. So...I'm getting married. I was initially going to marry Mac's photo editing software Aperture. Bought it and began using it even. I was going to make the plunge. I had the ring an everything. But there was some problems early on in the relationship. Keywording was ungainly, but it's organizational structure was exactly what I was looking for. No need to move your actual files, you could simply make virtual folders in a custom made tree and I began to see the big picture again. Then things began to sour. It's adjustments....are horrible. Picassa's controls had better tuning to them. It's web templates are virtually uneditable without anyone highly schooled in CSS and even if I was, that defeats the purpose of having a streamlined Image to Web interface. It's dogmatic about not ever-ever touching your original files. Ok, that's groovy. I get that. But unfortunately that includes all of your keywording. You mean to tell me that I can't actually attach the keywords to the actual master images? Ok, that's bullshit. Maybe there is a way, but if I haven't discovered it by now, then it's not designed properly. You see, one of my dreams, is to have a system where every image is tagged and keyworded forever. So if someone says, "Hey, I need all of your oilgraphs that were made from polaroids in 2006 of people in dog outfits" - BANG, there they are. Or in 50-60 years afer I'm gone, someone archivist can go "I want all of the images of so-and-so. Paintings, straight portraits, parties, everything" and there they are. (And no, Ivy...I haven't forgotten you in all of this and will be giving you a call.) If I can't keyword those original files, then it's all for nothing. And it's S-L-O-W..... So, naturally everyone is going "Lightroom! Use Lightroom!" Well, shit, I'm already into this thing already and you want me to look at another program? Ok...Ok...I'll download the 30 day trial. Ok...mother of wow. The degree and quality of image adjustments are absolutely brilliant. Batch adjusting is just as easy. After years of use, my camera has some pixel drop out. I touched it out in one image....and then it could batch touch up the entire lot. I was then convinced. For editing, keywording and sending to web, it is simply a superior program. It's also very very pretty. But oh, the organization....where with Aperture I can set up a custom made tree, LR simply imports all of my bullshit as is. And the kicker... It doesn't import CMYK files. Seriously? But I'm committed to making this relationship work. You can't have everything, but maybe someone knows something that I don't about this program...which leads me to what I was posting in the first place before I went off on a screed. I posted my whoas to FB and this was the exchange.... Yep, the woman I was semi-dating four years ago married the guy who designed Lightroom. I haven't heard back yet, but actually that was cool enough that it really doesn't matter.... Current Music: Beth Orton |
kar3ning
|
8:41p |
Freak posted this link on his Facebook, but I wanted to elaborate a little bit. I read Sandra Tsing-Loh's piece in the Atlantic about the demise of marriage a while ago. I was annoyed, but couldn't really put my finger on it. Sort of a low-level irked. Then found this article today that's basically a rebuttal. It's certainly funnier than Loh has ever been. First off, I only know Sandra Tsing-Loh from KPCC, where she does the excruciating "Loh Down" segments. They're 60-second clips that I think are supposed to be a humorous take on science news. I say "I think" because 1) they're not funny, and 2) I don't learn anything sciencey from them. A typical clip goes something like this: "A new study shows that cats can control their owners by purring...Interesting. I wonder how that works? "Here's some random rambling about my own cat."No! I wanted to hear about the study! "... and that's just purr-fect." "This was brought to you by CalTech and KPCC."ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG*headsteeringwheel* Seriously. Every segment. Something probably interesting followed by tangentally related rambling, then a lame punch line. Not that I'm bitter. But one of the nice things about not having to commute too far is that odds are good that I'll miss her "science" segments. So the other day, I heard her on regular-NPR (Noo!! It's spreading!!). Apparently, she's getting divorced, and wrote an article about it. *sigh* And showing the same insight and research she brings to KPCC every morning, she's decided that marriage must be an outdated and obsolete institution. Good lord. Number one. Call me old-fashioned, but airing your family's dirty laundry in The Atlantic is just tacky. (Loh class?) That said, what's with the passive voice? Reading Loh's article, you'd get the impression that she had no control over the situation. I don't even know what happened, I just woke up one day I was divorced like oh my god. Excuse me? Divorce isn't something that just happens out of the blue, any more than getting married just happens. Also, just because your marriage didn't work out like you'd hoped doesn't mean the institution itself is to blame. Marriage is a remarkably flexible construct. There are as many kinds of marriage as there are kinds of couples-- hell, even gay people are getting married now-- and somehow, it still works because each couple defines their own union. If you're not creative enough to think outside the Ozzie-and-Harriet mold, that's your problem. I wonder if she would whine about how educational policy because she didn't graduate on time? It's a good thing Aaron Traister put it better than I can: "I'm sick and tired of is divorced people speaking as though they are oracles from the future who know how the rest of our unions will turn out. All the marriage bashing going on out there feels like a way of shedding a certain amount of personal responsibility. By telling the world the institution is flawed, or that we've somehow outgrown it, nobody has to own up and admit that it was their interpretation of it that was screwed up." |
alex_victory
|
5:41p |
god, I hope so
I'm on GameStop's mailing list. I just got an email from them, the subject line is, "Do you have what it takes to be a game developer?" O ALSO this morning I opened a letter from Bank of America to find a new debit card. Oh good, I thought, my old one expires at the end of August. The new one expires at the end of September. Um, WTF? So I called them and the nice woman on the phone looked it up and apparently there was a note that, yes, they fucked up. I'll be getting ANOTHER card in early or mid September. Luckily none of this costs me any money. Just sanity points. O ALSO I just booked my flight home for Thanksgiving. I use SideStep for my travel purchasing needs and they found me a round-trip through Alaska Airlines that was a good compromise between schedule and budget. I was hoping I could get something with one of the airlines I have miles on, like United, Delta or AA, but none worked. But then I looked more closely at the Alaska flight and it's operated by AA... it's an AA flight that Alaska just piggy-backs on. So why can't I just book it as AA and get the miles? SideStep was mute on this. But I had enough info that I could just go to AA's site and book it there. Score. Unfortunately that'll be the only trip back to New England I take this year. I'd really hoped to get out there for my 15th high school reunion in September but between (probably) moving in to the house and (definitely) starting grad school I decided that I should probably try to hang on to whatever few sanity points I have left. So no reunion for me, philbot is left to carry the banner of Team Apathy. (Yaaa-oh whatever.) Time and life, life and time
One day I'll get what's mine, through the persistence of time Current Mood: headacheCurrent Music: Anthrax - Time |
novadrome
|
5:13p |
|
budgieinspector
|
5:04p |
Y'know, one good thing about working from home is having a kitten park herself on my arm while I'm writing e-mails. Not the most efficient thing in the world, mind you, but it's really fucking cute. |
twistedcat
|
2:30p |
|
ticklethepear
|
3:51p |
awakened
I saw Spring Awakening on Sunday evening, and I'm still thinking about it three days later. My mind is still working to reconcile the peppy score, the melancholy lyrics, the sharp humor, the frenetic dance numbers, the 19th century setting, and the dark and ultimately tragic themes. The staging was creative and impressive, and overall I'd recommend seeing it. I hadn't realized that there isn't a rating system for Broadway musicals similar to movies; Spring Awakening is most emphatically an R. Honestly, I didn't know that people could do what they did on stage. (In fact, the couple next to me left at intermission.) Yet there were lots of parents with their high school and college-aged kids, and lots of people over 40. In fact, the official website has a page for parents. So if it gets the conversation going, more power to everyone. As for myself, the story brought back some uncomfortable teenage truths that I don't care to recall. |
alex_victory
|
10:46a |
Wake up with the CZAR
Ride the tides of blood
Illumination
Beauties sudden hand
Shattered crownMan, want to put your brain into a weird place first thing in the morning? Put on Mastodon's Crack the Skye album as soon as you get to work. It's not just the prog-metal time signatures and riffing, it's the theme as well... check out drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor's explanation of the work over on Wikipedia. Or alternately watch the video for "Oblivion". Last night was nice and mellow. We ate sushi and watched TV. First I watched the classic flick The Third Man while Gina graded. I can totally see why it's so well-known... the cinematography is fantastic, and the acting is top-notch. All the leads are doing a great job and then WHAM Orson Welles shows up and just knocks it out of the park in the famous ferris wheel scene. Very entertained. Then we watched a couple more State episodes, yay! Stomach still bothering me today... if it doesn't get better by tomorrow I think it's time to take the new health insurance for a spin. The process of buying a house continues. We signed and faxed back the repair request confirmation as well as some mandatory termite and earthquake disclosures. Got some home insurance quotes yesterday... I called MetLife since we get a company discount, although the rep wasn't entirely pleased when I told her who I work for because she said she's a "WoW widow." Um, sorry? But then they quoted me a premium about 3X what we were expecting to pay. On other hand Liberty Mutual quoted Gina a premium that was about 1X what we were expecting so there's a no-brainer. My task today is to get info on the cost of hiring movers, and tomorrow we're meeting with our mortgage broker to go over the stack of documents he had us sign and other remaining documentation. Spiraling up through the crack in the sky
Leaving material world behind
I see your face in constellations
The martyr is ending his life for mine Current Mood: okayCurrent Music: Mastodon - The Czar: Usurper/Escape/Martyr/Spiral |
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