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.
(more…)

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!)

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.