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| We have a county here in Oregon that the unemployment level is exceeding 20%.
That's kinda scary. | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| After going with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shadowmorphic to the airport in the morning, I had a quiet day, Becca and I came back and slept for a while and did very little, while Alice studied for her chemistry mid-term tomorrow. Then, I went out with Aaron. We found a very nice bar-restaurant with excellent mexican food and a delicious and inexpensive happy hour menu (with the added benefit that, like many places in Portland, they were happy to bring around a printed list of ingredients for all of their dishes, which is a vast help for those of us with food sensitivities.
On the way from Aaron's place to the restaurant, we encountered an oddity. Portland abounds in strangeness, but this construct somewhat stranger than most. ( Here's an image ) | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | !!! | | Time: | 02:21 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://cyaneus.com/mood/impressed.gif) impressed |
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| About an hour ago, as I was driving through where Maryland meets West Virginia on my way back from Pittsburgh, I saw the biggest and most fantastic meteor I've ever seen. It seemed small and slow-moving at first, but as I kept driving, instead of fading, it got brighter until it soared over I-70 and landed behind the trees to my left. It was AMAZING and HUGE.
So if some kind of alien monster destroys the world anytime soon, you'll know it started there. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I finished tagging and describing my Bristol 4th of July photo set. It was almost as much of an ordeal as driving to Bristol. allysenthejust was commending my documentary spirit, and I explained it was so I would never have to see the parade again for 15 years. (It probably won't be 15 years until I see the Bristol 4th again, but it's been about a decade since I saw it last, even though I was living in Bristol through 2004.)
The parade was much the same, as I expected, although maybe a little less spectacular than in years past. With so many towns and cities across the USA facing bankruptcy, it's impressive that Bristol puts on the parade that it does. Bristol also has about a zillion private, fraternal and social organizations behind the parade, so even if the town went bankrupt I doubt it would stop the parade. Or the local fireworks. :) But there have been New Orleans-style mummers in past years, and I missed them.
The Bristol 4th of July parade is still inferior to the Ancients and Horribles parade, but it seemed more lighthearted, which was a welcome departure. Having the PoTC-style pirates directly behind the serious colonial militia reenactors was a nice touch. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I got a lot out of 4th of July. I had a chance to speak at length with a Vietnam vet about one of my less-than-favorite subjects. Me. You see, it isn't often that I'm told I don't need to be on medications (and granted, the guy isn't a doctor). I can count the number of folks who believe in me in this way on one hand, possibly even while counting myself. But I'm not sure I believe in me.
The tragedy of it all is that for the past several years, I've allowed the doctors to dictate my limits. My potential is rotting away, unused, because I let others limit me. Which, does me no good, because while I might not be sure that I'm healthy or not, I know I'm not crazy.
Thoughts? | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Curve's Falling Free : Falling Free (Aphex Twin Mix) | | Time: | 08:43 am |
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| When I woke up this morning, for a few minutes I was convinced that oh shit my day of doing nothing on my birthday was going to be overridden by having to go to the day job - somehow I was completely convinced it was Tuesday, rather than Sunday. Weird.
Looking at the lyrics widget on the laptop's screen after I brought it back up from deep sleep under the bed* and seeing the lyrics to a song off of 77 by the Talking Heads made me realize: it feels strange to have music in active rotation that was written by someone who's now so much younger when he wrote it than I am now. I don't think the cure is to stop listening to music by people younger than I am or anything like that; I'm thoroughly detached from who's being marketed to the Youth Of Today now but I still enjoy hearing new things.
I thought I was going somewhere with this but then I got distracted by looking through the watchlist of my sekrit alt on Furaffinity. She watches everyone back...
Anyway. No plans for anything today, looks like it's going to be a lovely day - maybe I'll just take a sketchbook and go out of the house for a while. Reflex suggests "work on Absinthe" but I feel like I should give myself a little vacation.
* a practice I try to avoid, as it's real easy to just take it out and spend hours lying in bed aimlessly browsing the web; I was reading some PDFs in bed last night. | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| One thing I'm liking about this summer: far more fireflies than usual for DC. They make me feel like I'm in a fairyland.
(Great, that's two Twitteresque posts in a row. I don't even visit that site and it's affecting me!) | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire.
Happy beer and explosives day. Please blow things up while drunk responsibly try not to damage yourself, other people, or your surroundings too much. Remember, the goal is to wake up tomorrow with the same number of fingers and eyes that you had when you woke up today.*
For me, this is a lazy day. Not as unpleasantly hot as it was yesterday, fortunately. Soonish, a bunch of people will be coming over, and then there will be game! Yay! And in fact several of them have arrived, so - laters.
* And if you wake up with more, that's... something entirely different. | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| Gene Simmons think we should be hearing from the children who Michael Jackson abused, instead of dwelling on the man's unparalleled success as a pop star.
That's a neat sentiment, I suppose. Unfortunately, it's made less neat by the fact that Gene Simmons is a philandering, reactionary asshole.
When Gene Simmons dies, to hell with KISS. I'd like to hear from some of the thousand women he claims to have bedded. I'm sure every one of those encounters was a loving, consensual, deeply spiritual eight-minute experience, but I would feel so much better hearing it from the other participants. For that matter, Gene was a big supporter of the invasion of Iraq. When he dies, can we have his media memorial consist entirely of bereaved Iraqis saying "Fuck you, Gene?"
No, we can't. Because when Gene Simmons dies, it's going to be a piece of trivia, not headline news. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| Today I am stabby at people who put no arrow on their garage sale signs, and people who list houses on MLS and post one single picture (of the outside of the house).
Though I suppose I shouldn't be looking at houses anyways. But really- who are these people who only write "garage sale" and an address either in tiny black print on a brown flap of cardboard, or better yet, in *yellow* on a white sign. If I see a sign for a sale at 142 Madigan way, and I'm not driving *down* Madigan way, I have no frelling clue where your sale is.
Also, I'm starting to wonder if I am far above average intelligence, or if work just hires a really large percentage of idiots. (Perhaps both?) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Yay. Its the 4th of July! Here's to wishing that aliens in giant ships would swoop down and solve all the international problems for us. Oh, and here is hoping that Hawaii doesn't fall under attack by North Korea.
Oh, and here's to hoping that we don't wait in line all day to buy bread or be going to the soup kitchens... (lots to celebrate woohoo?)... | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Today is the day we celebrate the beginnings of our country. A day for being with friends and family and enjoying fireworks and sparklers. We feast with one another as we enjoy all that our country has given us.
For all the faults with our government I still think this country is great. We're admist gigantic changes that are going to happen to us and I don't know if that's good or bad. It feels as though our freedoms are being restricted and that is terrible. Our country has great potential and if our leaders would just stop being such pains in the ass we would all be able to enjoy what our military fights for.
When I joined the Navy I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself. I wanted to protect my country and if need be...fight for our freedom. For that short period of my life I gave up my own freedoms so the people I love, and even the people I don't know, would be safe and secure.
The past decade has been a roller coaster for our people. And now we face a dark time. My only hope is that our country doesn't become destroyed with the changes that are happening not only here but across the globe as well.
When you celebrate today remember that.
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| | Tags: | polyphasic | | Current Music: | Ozric Tentacles's Pungent Effulgent : Dissolution (The Clouds Disperse) | | Subject: | hmm | | Time: | 08:24 am |
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| Looks like the back of my head has decided it's time to start shifting my sleep schedule around for real. I went to sleep around 1AM this morning, woke up about 5:30, then decided to be lazy and went back to sleep... for about an hour and a half. I felt a little spacey afterwards but it's mostly in the vein of "still sluggish from lying in bed cuddling my sleeping boyfriend for a while" rather than "oh fuck not enough sleep". Maybe tonight I'll try just cutting out sleep entirely and call it Day 1.
I have done some interesting things around my birthday but "tried going onto a completely different sleep cycle" feels like one of the craziest.
Oh yeah, birthday: I'll be thirty-eight tomorrow. | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| | My dad agrees with me: Every time Comcast changes its site, it gets worse. The new layout makes it hard to browse the news. Guess I'd better start looking around some more. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | this week! | | Time: | 10:33 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://cyaneus.com/mood/peaceful.gif) peaceful |
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| LUNCH ON SUNDAY! It is my opinion that we should go to Fernando's Cafe. Noxal heard it was good, and it seems to be laid-back, inexpensive, and within walking distance. There seem to be a couple vegetarian options (pizza, for example), but if you're vegan you will probably be stuck with salad. Does meeting at 1:30pm in the lobby of the Westin work for everyone who wants to go?
Slowly but surely, I'm making progress on my projects. But I'm pretty stressed out over looking for other employment opportunities and housing. I need a roommate, but I don't think many strangers would be willing to put up with birds. Then there's the fact that, according to ApartmentRatings.com, there isn't a single complex in Baltimore County that isn't infested with roaches or mice or bedbugs or all three. And, with an African Grey, I simply can't move into a place with a mold problem. Blargh. Where should I live? | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Two more pages left to pencil, and chapter 1's pencils will be finished. One page is largely done; the other pretty much stalled at the lettering stage (I do that first so I don't have to cram too much text into a tiny word balloon like I'm Winsor McCay) because the dialogue needed editing down. Thankfully Nick was able to edit that dialogue before leaving for Anthrocon, so I'll be able to get it done in the next couple of days.
And then, of course, there will be much Illustrator action. I had pages 1-20 all queued up when I started the first chapter going. So far I've gotten a total of one page in the space between 21 and the end completely finished. I've got several others in varying states, of course, from 'raw scans set up in AI' to 'just needs some clutter added to one background'. I think I'm glad I ended up not going to Anthrocon, though. I'll need all the time I can get to stay ahead of the queue until the chapter ends. The endless fiddly detail of Wormwood cityscapes is replaced by the endless crazy detail of a wild party.
And if you're going to AC... have fun, and be sure to read our contribution to the program book! It actually ends in that version!
(The ear seems to be getting better; the antibiotic/anti-inflammatory eardrops are helping a lot. Still no real news on my intent to try polyphasic sleep; I'm waiting until I have energy to spare for a few days of utter sleep-dep until my schedule breaks and phase-changes.) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Half the velociraptor has been varnished*. I doubt I'll do more today, as it's getting windy; hopefully tomorrow will be clear and unwindy, so I can do the other side. I should take it into the garage - it doesn't look like it's going to rain, but You Never Know (TM), especially where Seattle weather is concerned.
We are keeping Ianto** Cyrano, but the folks who were tentatively interested in Gwen* Boudicca have decided against taking her, so we have a female black and white shorthair kitten available for adoption. I've posted some pictures, more will be forthcoming soonish. She is very social, loves to play, litter-trained, scratching-post-trained, and has trained herself to fetch bottlecaps. We would love to keep her, especially since we're keeping her brother, and we'd really like to keep them together - but we already have three cats; two more would require re-negotiating our lease. Also, Boo is a budding queen, and Amber is an elderly queen, and god help us all, we really don't need to deal with that situation. We would love to make sure that she's going to a good home, so if you have a good home for a healthy female kitten (who will be spayed and up to date on all her kitteny shots), or know someone who is looking for one, please let me know, or drop a comment on myclaudia's LJ.
I'm pretty sure I've killed off my rose - ah, well. It lasted far beyond my expectations. Maybe I'll pick up another one, and not try to make it bloom. Or maybe I'll pick up a different plant entirely. Or maybe not.
Oh, and my Spyderco Ladybug came in today! I has tiny knife again! :D I've taken a photo of that as well, I'll post it when the other photos get downloaded and posted and stuff. The Spyderco product guide includes a "whale rescue blade" - not a knife that goes to a save the whales fund, but a big-ass, serrated blade that attaches to the end of a pole, that Spyderco designed specifically for whale rescue crews to cut whales free of netting that they'd gotten tangled in. I *heart* Spyderco.
Hm... this batch of gluten-free cookies are dissapointing; they are also, as sadly many GF products tend to be, flavor-free. They compare especially poorly against the Glutino chocolate wafer cookies, which are OMNOMNOMNOM.
I seem to remember that there were a couple of other things I was going to write about. I'm sure their lack in this post will not cause the universe to implode.***
Oh, one other bit, sort of tangenting off the Torchwood fannishness: rm has written a most excellent post about homosexuality in fandom. I am not exactly terribly active in fandom as such, but for what I am active in, I tell you this. If I see you pulling the behaviors she describes in that post? I WILL CALL YOUR ASS OUT ON IT. Homosexual people - also bisexual people, transsexual people, and polyamorous people - are not trained animals or fetish toys, they are (ZOMFG NEWS FLASH) people. I swear to god, it would be really fucking great if people could stop with the fail on this subject. SNARL.
* "Varnishing the velociraptor" still sounds like some kind of euphemism to me. I have no idea what it would be an euphemism for, and I'm not entirely sure I'd want to know.
** I didn't come up with the Torchwood names for them until they'd effectively been given other names - which is sad, because it would mean Smokey is Captian Jack, which works on so many levels. Amber would be pretty perfect for Owen, too. I'm not sure who Nar would be; he's definitely not Toshiko... I think he might be the pterosaur.
*** If it does, I apologize in advance. | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
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