The tragedy that is New Orleans and Mississippi has left me with nothing to say.

I don’t have anything constructive to add, and the more news I read, the less I feel amused and amusing.

ADDENDUM the First:
What you should have in your jump kit.

I’ve always been fascinated by crime. The first grown-up books I really remember reading here ‘The Complete Sherlock Holmes’ and Agatha Christie’s ‘A Carribean Mystery’ (followed quickly by any Miss Marple mystery I could get my hands on).

In college I started out in Sociology in the Crime and Justice track, but eventually realized that my increasing pacifism wasn’t going to work well with a career in law enforcement, and so I ended up with only a minor in Sociology and a degree in Biology (almost all plant classes amusingly enough).

Yet I kept the love of mysteries, despite the fact that I’d make a terrible detective: I don’t know how many steps there are between the first and second floors, despite the fact that I go up and down the stairs every day. And even if I counted the stairs I’m certainly I’d immediately forget the number. I’m no good at paying attention to detail either–at least the kind of detail that would make me a useful witness. Though if the criminal was badly dressed wearing a t-shirt with a grammatically incorrect phrase I’d be more useful.

I did take something away from all my reading and classes however. When my lunch partners are busy and I walk by myself at lunch, I find myself considering security.

As I walk past open, empty offices I notice how easy it would be to step in and then step back out with papers and personal items left unguarded. I look into empty labs, and think how easy it would be to walk away with equipment and chemicals. I also like to consider escape routes if I were being chased by a crazed criminal of some sort. Unfortunately, my best plan requires me to be a good bit stronger than I currently am, so I guess I’d better refrain from being chased by a crazed criminal any time soon.

But mostly I just walk and look and notice that many people make a point not to pay attention to those around them, and consider how easy is to walk somewhere and look like you belong.

Brock Peters died on 23 August 2005

The article doesn’t mention that he also played Joseph Sisko on DS9.

Go to MusicOutfitters.com. In the Search box, enter the year you graduated high school. The first item returned should be the 100 most popular songs from that year. Cut and paste them into your journal.

I modified it a bit.

Bold the ones you like.
Strike through the songs you dislike.
Leave normal the ones you don’t care about one way or the other.
Gray out ones you totally don’t remember.
(via Lalia)

Boy there were a LOT of awful ballads that year.
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I love folk tales and fairy tales. I have The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault and the Complete Fairy Tales and Stories and Hans Christian Andersen. I have tales from China and tales from Russia and tales from India. And of course I have The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

So of course I was interested when I discovered someone had filmed a movie called ‘The Brothers Grimm’ and more even interested when I watched the preview and saw it was going to be about fairy tales. Thus Michael and I ended up at the theater yet again this summer (I’m pretty sure this is a record for me).

I liked it. It wasn’t the best movie I’ve seen (that would be ‘Batman Begins’) but it was amusing and fun. And I really enjoyed looking for all the folk and fairy tale elements dispersed throughout the movie; they managed to get repeat references to all the major stories, as well as some minor tales, although I didn’t see reference to some of my favorite tales. Then again those tales aren’t German, so I really didn’t expect them to be there. (Though I really would have loved seeing Baba Yaga and her hut on chicken legs. Or the Fool and his Flying Ship.)

They also seemed to omit any takes children seem to bring their fate upon themselves–like these sisters in Cinderella or the lazy sister in Mother Holle

On the down side, I could have done without the French army. Maybe it was historically correct, but I thought it was distracting at times.

I caught elements of the following tales:
Cinderella
Snow White
Hansel & Gretel
The Gingerbread Man
Little Red Riding Hood
Jack and the Beanstalk
Sleeping Beauty
The Princess and the Pea
Rapunzel
The Snow Queen
The Frog Prince
Rumplestiltskin

I know there were more that I missed. And some that I can’t think of now. There were also plenty of generic folk elements, like Trolls under the bridge (Three Billy Goats Gruff), the forest shifting to keep people lost, tree limbs reaching out and grabbing people, the old crone, and crows.

There were also bits that I couldn’t place in any particular story off the top of my head. Like the insects. And the magic ring.

Mr Smith is the first person to be fired across an international border.

Mr Smith waved his passport in the air as he sat on the lip of the cannon, before leaving on the brief journey.

The Art of Retouching

No wonder we’re all so screwed up–Interestingly, I like some of the pre pictures better than the touched up photos.

I couldn’t get the page to work in Mozilla, but it’s worth your time to view the page in IE.

(via Neil Gaiman)

ADDENDUM the First: Gee! Just imagine how much better my flower pr0n would be if I learned the art of retouching!

YAY!

OCTOBER 18!!!!

3 a: a sense of humiliation and shame caused by something that wounds one’s pride or self-respect b: the cause of such humiliation or shame

Last night I walked into my Culture, Diversity, and Aging class an hour late. I’d written the time down wrong, so instead of 7:00 to 9:50 it was 6:00 to 8:50.

You have to understand that for me, this is the stuff of nightmares. I hate Hate HATE being late. I opened the door, everyone turned and started, and I sort of stood there like a deer in headlights.

The professor was very understanding, but I still felt like a jerk.

On the good side, this means that Michael and I have our night classes at exactly the same time, which should be more convenient.

S has finally put up pictures of Lucille and her produce. (Partially because of this post! Yay me!)

The Compass Rose (2005) Gail Dayton

The Compass RoseIn response to a desperate plea to the Gods to save her city from ransacking, naitan Kallista Varyl becomes one of the Godstruck–suddenly possessing more power than anyone in Adaran has for centuries.

This is another book published by Luna. I picked up several at the book store that all looked very good, and read this one first.

Read More about The Compass Rose

I didn’t realize it would be so GAUDY!

I thought of S this morning at the Rec Center. She and I are both confused and dismayed at the preponderance of girls and women going around with words on their rears.

Especially “Juicy”. I mean really. If you’ve got a juicy read you need to be going to the doctor. He should have some antibiotics that might clear that up.

No juicy women today, however.

What I saw today was a young and fairly attractive women in shorts with a faded word on her shorts. The problem was that between the narrowness of the letters and the wideness of her rear, the word “VOLLEYBALL” was pretty much in the center of her butt, with lots and lots of space on either side.

Not flattering.

Even if her butt wasn’t big, the fact that she could fit the word VOLLEYBALL on it and still have six-inch margins on either side made her rear look huge.

I swear I want to start carrying around a camera and start showing people what they really look like. Because these people can’t possibly have left their homes MEANING to look like they do.

Shoe Lacing Methods

Not how to tie them, how to lace them. I’m partial to Criss Cross lacing–the traditional method.

There were no more than four of us on the track at a time this morning, and there were more machines empty than being used.

Of course Fall Fest was last night, so we’ll have to see how many people show up tomorrow, but I’d say that the morning rush at the rec center is already over.

Now that school has started, we have to get to the rec center earlier, since Michael has to make up the time he misses for classes. So today we got there at 6:15 (AM) and I was stunned to discover that the place was PACKED. Normally there are a handful of people on the track, and sometimes it’s just Michael and me. Today there were 10 to 15 people running. Most of the machines I could see were busy as well.

So the question is: Will I ever see any of those people again?

I’m betting no.

I don’t mean the regulars of course. I know I’ll see the woman who does triathalons. And the older man who walks on the track. And the woman who looks like a secretary but I know she isn’t. And the guy who has got to be ex-army, who runs and runs and runs and then lifts when it seems like he should just collapse. Then there’s the sweaty man who looks like he has stepped out of the pool when he steps off the stair master. And the cute college student with the dark hair pulled into a pony tail on the top of her head and who always has the treadmill at the highest incline. Those people I know I’ll see again. These are the people I see every day. I know they’ll be back.

It’s the others I’m talking about.

The cute couples who ran a couple laps together and then left. The girls with the dark, dark tans and the tight, tight shorts and the stretchy tops. Or the guy waring chucks with dress socks. Those are the people I’ll never see again.

It’s the others I’m not sure about. The women who come in pairs, wearing baggy t-shirts and cut-off sweats and the guys who run for 15 minutes and then go and lift. They look serious. But will they keep up with it?

Probably not. At least not in the morning. Because there’s too much to do at night: parties and classes and studying that will keep them up late and the alarm will go off and they’ll think–just this once I’ll sleep in, and then the next thing you know it’s Thanksgiving and they’ve been rolling out of bed just a few minutes before classes (assuming they’ve been going to classes at all).

But we’ll see.

I’m laying odds, however, that tomorrow morning the place will be mostly dead again. Fall fest is tonight, and it’s the night for partying. Which is how it happens. Skip one day and with every day that follows it becomes easier and easier to come up with an excuse for sleeping in.

So we finally started watching Firefly, Joss Whedon’s short lived science fiction show, for which a movie is coming out this fall. (Serenity)

We just watched the first episode (”Serenity Parts 1&2″) and so far I really like it.

Which has lead me to a rather confusing realization: Although I typically can’t stand to read science fiction, most of my favorite movies and TV shows are science fiction: Deep Space Nine, The 5th Element, Star Wars, The Matrix. I may hate Star Trek (the original series) but really, it’s because William Shatner makes my skin crawl.

And I love to read fantasy, but for the most part it’s not my favorite stuff to watch. Not only have I strenuously avoided The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter movies, I’m actually actively opposed to watching them.

I don’t get it. Stuff that I’d hate reading, I love watching, while stuff that I love reading, I hate watching. Is everyone weird like this or is it just me?

Of course it doesn’t hold true across the board. Love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost Boys, but also love Charlaine Harris’ vampire books. I adore fantasy set in Japan and China (or their imaginary equivalent) and thought that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers were fantastic.

Maybe this is why I don’t watch a lot of movies.

Fables Volume 2: Animal Farm (2003) Bill Willingham

Fables: Animal FarmFables who can’t pass as human live on “The Farm”, where they are hidden from the mundanes. Every year Snow White, the assistant mayor of Fabletown, visits “The Farm” to see how things are going. This year she takes her sister, Rose Red, partially as part of her community services after her escapades in Legends in Exile, and partially because Snow White wants to try and work things out with her sister.

Read More about Fables Volume 2: Animal Farm

The Wild Wood (1994) Charles de Lint

Eithnie feels like she has lost something in her paintings, and is wandering the woods near her home searching for the soul that used fill her paintings.

Read More about The Wild Wood

The Mark of Zorro (1919) Johnston McCulley

I had a Zorro book as a kid. I have no idea where it came from–I’m sure my mom didn’t buy it for me. It may have been left at the house by the previous occupants, like the James Bond books I eventually read and loved.

Read More about The Mark of Zorro

Lion of Ireland (1981) Morgan Llywelyn

Lion of Ireland recounts the story of Brian Boru, one of the greatest kings of Ireland. He sought to unite all the small kingdoms and dispose of the petty rivalries that allowed the Norsemen to repeatedly plunder Irish cities.

Read More about Lion of Ireland

Drat! Darn! POOOOOP!

(sigh)

All the cool CSS stuff I did the other day? Well, fixing one thing, broke another. So I had to roll back all the lovely fixed positioning navigation panes.

Apparently linking to an anchor will move that portion of the page to the very top of the page–behind the fixed position elements. And I can’t find any style information that would allow me to tell the browser to start anchor links, say, 12ems down.

So it was a lovely idea, despite the fact that it failed in execution.

But if I ever figure out how to fix the anchor problem…

ADDENDUM the First:
But, I redid my main page, to get rid of some of the ugly IE quirks. So even using IE, things should look good now.

Sometimes I wish I carried a camera with me all the time.

I love to people watch–there are so many different things to see, from badly dressed college students, to elderly couples, to parents arguing with their kids. Sometimes it’s amusing, sometimes it’s depressing, but most of the time it’s just fascinating. You’ll catch a small glimpse into someone’s life that may or may not be representative of who they are.

Sometimes just glancing in the rearview mirror shows me a curious vignette.
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Geek Stuff!

I’m really pleased with this.

Non-geeks may wish to quit reading here.

I figured out a work around for the fact that Internet Explorer doesn’t support fixed positioning. Not a big deal if the element is on the side, but I wanted the fixed element at the top of the page, and IE would mush everything together making the text at the top of the page unreadable.

However if I place the fixed positioning elements inside an absolute positioning element, IE seems to read it correctly, while Mozilla, Firefox, and Opera will keep the fixed elements at the top of the screen.

Cool!

Inspired by Stuff on my Cat, S has taken her own foray into cat decoration.

Now we just need to convince her to get the pictures developed.