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October 22nd, 2008
11:18 am - Houses of the Bible
So, Arthur swims in Lake Herrick most nights. Sometimes we walk around, but often I am lazy and I bring a book and read it on the dock while he swims after his frisbee. Last night I was sitting on the picnic table reading Houses of the Blooded, a high tragedy RPG about Romance, Revenge, and ambition among a fictional race called the Ven, when a woman and man and child came to the dock. I was unreasonably annoyed at this intrusion and was prepared to passively defend my claim to the table when the woman said, "Can we be rude and ask to share your table?" Of course I was like, "No, that's OK, you can have it, I was just reading I can do that anywhere blah blah blah" and the woman goes "Yes, I should be reading my Bible too!"
I hastily moved away but she called after me, "Maybe you could read to us!"
My first response was to think how, if I were a different, more confrontational person I might have done so, watching with amusement as their faces slowly curdled in the realization that, despite the blood-spattered cover (perhaps they had endured too many viewings of Mel Gibson's gory torturefest?), the ornate font, and the H____ B____, this was not in fact the Holy Bible but something quite different. My second response was to realize that there are probably passages in Houses that I could have read without their having any inkling that this was not, in fact, the Lord's word (despite what John Wick might think).
My third response was to run away fast. OK, not really...I stood my ground for a while, then left in due time (after all, it was getting dark).
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March 11th, 2008
01:12 pm - Farscape season 4 episode 16: a well-balanced party
Aeryn, Chiana, Noranti, Sikozu:
Fighter, Thief, Magic-User, Cleric.
That is all.
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March 4th, 2008
11:17 am - Salads Made of Pure Awesome, part I
So, I've started eating salads for dinner. I'll post the excellent ones here.
Mesclun and Arugula Salad with Nectarines, Toasted Pecans and a Honey-Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette
I could seriously eat this one every night. Amounts are inexact; use common sense.
Dressing (about 4 dinner-size servings worth)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper
1 tbsp. honey
1 clove garlic
Combine olive oil and vinegar via blender or food processor until emulsification takes place (the creamier the better). Add the other ingredients and process. Keep tasting and adding stuff (especially the vinegar, probably) until it tastes awesome.
Salad (this makes about one large dinner-sized serving)
2-3 generous handfuls mesclun or spring mix or whatever
1 generous handful arugula (not absolutely necessary, but arugula is awesome)
1 nectarine, sliced or cut in a way that appeals to you (peaches or apricots would also work, but nectarines are hella consistent)
2 ounces feta cheese (aged, not fresh, but don't buy the pre-crumbled stuff if you can avoid it)
1/2 cup pecan halves
Put the first four ingredients in a bowl. Put the pecans in a skillet over medium heat and toast, flipping/stirring fairly often, until the oils start to come out and they smell awesome. Add to bowl.
Dress and enjoy!
Current Location: work
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) crushed
Current Music: Farscape theme (seasons 1&2)
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October 20th, 2006
08:14 am - more spam poetry
I had to do very little to this one.
consider harm is done when we
in worry identity forget
Feces soldiers water Blood mess hall floor
too late fall is again
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October 19th, 2006
08:07 am - Spam Poetry
the incomprehensible holy chant
of the vexed demons seemed
in phalanx as if for battle. gloried by the summons
the brethren swept up altar stairs mumbling the ritual of the marked
public heart city celebrates thousands
candles flicker in dim chamber thick air
waaa the wind through the long instruments sobbed
and secret petitions flowed out into the storm like tearless angels
Current Location: work
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) refreshed
Current Music: Richard Marx, "Should Have Known Better" lol
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October 13th, 2006
11:22 am
I just finished this background for my character in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wuxiadaddy's pulp game, which is set in an 1890's alternate history in which the Chinese empire is fighting with the Bloody Aztec empire for control of the world. Airships, dinosaurs, hollow earth, mystic martial arts, weird science, etc. It is quite entertaining, and I thought I would post this here because I'm bored and yet also lazy.
( More )
Current Location: work
Current Mood: bored
Current Music: You don't want to know. It involves Barry Manilow.
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October 2nd, 2006
12:50 pm - blurg.
Well, I have a dentist appt. tomorrow morning that I am dreading. Without getting into the gruesome details, let's just say that I am not a dentist's dream patient and it has been a certain length of time since I have been to the dentist. I also have had a terrible toothache since Amy made the appt. for me last Monday, which I at first thought must be psychosomatic but have since been forced to realize is just extremely good timing.
Anyway, that's what has been absorbing most of my mental energy. But I did manage to clean up the raggedy-looking Tomato and Tomatillo plants and put in a polyculture of lettuce, radishes, beets, dill, and cilantro yesterday night. We'll see how that turns out; everything's an experiment for the first year.
For you writers out there, Truepenny has a great post on what it means for a scene to "suck" and what it means for a scene to do "work" which I am taking to heart in my attempts at writing entertaining narrative (temporarily on hold due to dental angst).
Amy wants me to sign up to be a guide for this website, which she heard about on Good Morning America (*sigh*), and I filled out the form to end the badgering. I mean, sure, I know a lot stuff about shit, but 90% what I know about finding information on the web can be summed up in two silly words: Google. Wikipedia. Of course, an incredible number of people, who I assume must have some measure of common sense in their day-to-day existences as they have clearly not yet been run over and killed while trying to cross the street, have a Wisdom score of 3 when it comes to using the Internets. I know because I serve them every day in my capacity as a Library Assistant III: they're called professors.
Current Location: work
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/shock.gif) distressed
Current Music: Sugar, "The Act We Act"
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September 28th, 2006
08:07 am
Warning: rant ahead
OK, so, a lot of people around here are apparently too fucking stupid, ignorant, or cheap to neuter their pets. This, combined with the fact (which still blows my mind) that you don't have to license dogs and cats here has resulted in a population explosion in unwanted animals. The local "Humane" Society therefore does a brisk "disposal" business. Feral cats are ubiquitous throughout Clarke county (we feed one of them nightly in our garage), and packs of wild dogs roam the countryside. I am not fucking kidding about this. A former secretary in my wife's department lives in the country and owns about 16 goats. They had trouble, she told us matter-of-factly, with wild dogs coming and attacking their goats, so they got a Great Pyrenees who was trained to defend the goats. Which is actually pretty cool, but come on, seriously. Packs of wild dogs?
( More ranty rant... )
Current Location: work
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/angry.gif) aggravated
Current Music: flaming lips, "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell"
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September 26th, 2006
03:41 pm - Daylight Savings Time
I hate daylight savings time. The past few mornings I have been walking to the bus stop partly in the dark, which greatly cuts into my reading schedule:
23 minutes -- walk to bus stop (UH-UNH! NOT ANY MORE!)
11 minutes -- bus ride to work
30 minutes -- 2 breaks
60 minutes -- lunch
11 miuntes -- bus ride
23 minutes -- walk home
P00p.
I plan to write about some things I've been reading when I have time, but it's been pretty busy at work as all the academics are beavering away!
Bleargh.
Current Location: work
Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: a breath-whistled tune of my own composition
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September 22nd, 2006
12:09 pm - quantum fetish mechanics
Questionable Content is especially wonderful today.
Speaking of fetishes, I once took a class that began with an exercise that required us, on the first day, to bring in a fetish and present it to the class. This was at about the time that the Taco Bell chihuahua was ubiquitous, and I had already been thinking about what that little shit had been standing in for. (The Freudian fetish story, incidentally, is that at some point, a little boy (always a little boy, with Freud; yes, he was a fucknut, yadda yadda) catches sight of his mother without any clothes on and is SO SHOCKED by the fact that she doesn't have a penis--in Freud's bizarre psychomythology, the boy assumes that she has been castrated by the punishing father--that he immediately TURNS AWAY, desperately seeking to find something that can take the place of the severed penis. Perhaps he will look at his mother's feet, or shoes, or a fur rug, or a fishtank. Whatever his eye and brain sieze upon then becomes his fetish (a foot fetish, a shoe fetish, a fur fetish, a fish fetish (ah, Phil Hartman, you left us too soon!)), the thing which arouses him sexually so that he can block the traumatic remembrance of his mother's castration. This is the story I remember my professor telling; I have no idea where Freud actually wrote it down. As a description of an actual phenomenon, of course, it is ludicrous for any number of reasons; but as an allegory I find it highly entertaining and even a little compelling. In Marxism, on the other hand, as I understand it (which is little) the fetish is a thing (in capitalism, often a product) that serves to obscure the means and conditions of production and alienate the consumer from them. It also takes on added value beyond that of the materials and labor that went into its creation; the extent to which it has this added value is the extent to which it is a fetish. Think cell phone ads.)
Anyway, I found and printed out this great picture of the Taco Bell chihuahua for this class. It must have been from a Valentine's Day promotion or something. It showed the TBC in the middle of a giant, pink and red flower that looked a hell of a lot like a Georgia O'Keefe painting, if you take my meaning. He looked like a little tan penis inside a big pink vagina. Anyway, I had this great spiel about how this image was like an intersection of Marxian and Freudian ideas of the fetish, but I never got to say anything because for some reason we spent a lot of class time arguing about whether or not there was such a thing as a vaginal orgasm, during which conversation I completely embarrassed myself for reasons I will not relate.
Current Location: work
Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Faith No More, "Land of Sunshine"
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September 21st, 2006
12:08 pm
So, I went over to Dave's last night to hang out and work on playtesting Dogs in the Vineyard. I had an idea for a character, but unfortunately the character did not really work for the game system. Nonetheless, I like him so much that I might try to write something about him:
Trapper Dan, as the townsfolk call him, is an old man who lives in the hills, comin' down only to stock up on supplies. He trades furs, hides, and foraged herbs and mushrooms for pots, tools, and the like. Sometimes when Dan comes to town the howls of wolves and growls of other unseen creatures can be heard in the woods past the stream. Other times, he comes in ridin' a huge bull buffalo or a wild mustang, bareback. When they sense 'im comin', dogs set up a terrible howlin' and run off with their tails 'tween their legs, and cats hiss at him and slink away to take refuge in their secret places.
For there's somethin' uncanny about old Dan. When Dan comes in to trade, Bart the storekeep finds himself holdin' real still, like you would if a bear came across your path, and movin' real slow as Dan approches with his stiff-legged gait, his wild white hair swirlin' around his leathery face, those two crazy bright blue eyes seemin' to pierce your skin when he looks at you. When Dan talks, it's hard to undertand what he's sayin', not cause he mumbles or says weird gibberish like some of your more eccentric hill hermits, but 'cause the words almost seem to slide off your ear as he's sayin' 'em, like his speech has to travel a terrible long way to get to you, and gets mixed up on the way. Anyways, Bart and Dan conduct most of their business by pointin'.
As old Aurelia Milburn tells it, Dan was normal enough when he was a young'un, 'til about his fifteenth year. One day, when he was out huntin' with his friends James and Richard up in the hills, he was struck by a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky. But it weren't a normal lightning, as Dan's friends told it, and there weren't no thunder. Just a bolt of white light that bathed 'im in a violent glow so bright them other boys had to cover their eyes. And by the time they could see again, Dan was gone, with nothin' but a burned spot on the rock where he had stood to say they really seen what they said they seen.
Then, about a score of years later, Dan came a-ridin' back into town with a silent Injun wife and a little half-Injun girl. He never said where he had been, or what had happened over them missin' years, but he settled right down at the edge of town, an' commenced goin' to meetin's and payin' his tithe like he never up and disappeared for more'n two decades. And folks--well, folks welcomed him back into the fold, more or less, though they were less than acceptin' of his strange, silent wife and little girl. But Dan was a good neighbor--he'd come back knowin' all about medicines and suchlike, and his woodcraft knew no equal. He weren't stingy with what he knew, either, and when the town got struck by a terrible pestilence a few years after he come back, he worked sunup to sundown, tendin' the sick and holding the hands of the dyin' as they crossed over to t' other side. But when his wife and daughter took sick, some o' the light seemed to go out of Dan, and when they died one after t' other on the very same night, folks heard a keenin' and a wailin' comin' from Dan's house by the strean that sounded like a banshee from Hell itself.
After that, Dan got more and more quiet and drawn into himself, like, and though he kept comin' to meetin's and payin' his tithe, it was like he was fadin' away from our day-to-day world, and goin' somewhere else, even though he was still there. It started to take an effort even to notice 'im when he walked down the street, and finally folks stopped seein' 'im altogether. So no one really noticed when one day he up an' left.
Now he lives up in the hills and he only comes to town to trade. Folks are afraid of 'im, or whatever it is he's become, but they let 'im come into town for his old self's sake.
Something like that. But I have an idea for a more normal character now that I stayed up late reading the rulebook and understanding how the game works. More later!
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September 20th, 2006
08:08 am - Nature & Artifice
This is an interesting interview with an interesting artist. Actually, the interviewer asks some pretty stupid questions, but I have never heard of this guy and I like his work. Or what I can see of it on my 9-year-old work monitor which seems to be set irrevocably to "permanent twilight." At least my keyboard is working today, and the hamsters that power my computer by running in their little wheels seem to be well-rested. But hey, when students don't have to pay tuition, how do you support a university's infrastructure? Via the power of prayer, I guess. And hamsters.
Complain complain. Gripe.
Current Location: work
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/blah.gif) okay
Current Music: "orange ball of love" playing in my head
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September 17th, 2006
09:53 pm - The Mountain Goats
I heartily recommend viewing the new Mountain Goats video, for "Woke Up New" off of Get Lonely. Get Lonely is not as good as The Sunset Tree, but then again not much is.
By way of background, my interest in The Mountain Goats goes back to 1994-1995, when John Darnielle was a Junior/Senior at Pitzer and I was a Freshman/Sophomore at Pomona. We took an insanely paced 2-semesters-in-one intro to ancient Greek together, taught by the wonderful Professor Ellen Finklepearl. At that time John had a militantly low-fi aesthetic, and recorded all of his records on a cheap boombox with a $10 Radio Shack microphone. I was very excited when my issue of Spin came with a capsule review of Zopilote Machine (still my favorite Mountain Goats album, despite the glories of The Sunset Tree), and I took the magazine to class to show John. I remember that the review (which was generally positive) contained a phrase like, "John Darnielle sounds like Lisa Loeb's whiny little brother," at which John took great offense, railing at Spin and the corporate music world in general for not recognizing that he was AT LEAST 5 years older than Ms. Loeb.
Several years later, I saw John play at the UW-Madison Rathskeller. He played "Grendel's Mother" at my request, and it rocked. I was supposed to hang out with him after the show, but I was in the grip of a great depression for some reason and left right afterwards. I still kinda regret that.
Anyway, check out the video. It is spiffy. And give The Sunset Tree a listen or three. It was Amy's and my dinner-making music every night for about 2 months.
Current Location: newly orange study
Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: woke up new
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September 16th, 2006
04:59 pm - Fall Crops
August in Georgia, imo, is worse than January in Wisconsin. When it gets down to 90 it feels cool, and 95 degrees becomes so normal that the 72 degree library air conditioning raises goose bumps, and exiting into the sauna-like atmosphere outside is a relief.
The worst thing about it, however, for someone who is concerned with growing edible things, is the that the humidity, the heat, and the bugs mean that August really is almost as inhospitable to vegetables as, say, December in Wisconsin. Things just die. Leaves turn brown, or yellow with brown spots, and shrivel and fall off. Tomatoes rot faster than they can grow--you have to eat them green if you want a crop at all (although green tomatoes, which are far more flexible than one would imagine, are quite delicious and can prepared in any number of ways). My tomatillo leaves consist of more holes than leaf. Everything is covered with insects of all kinds--my assassin bugs, which appeared serendipitously on our hibiscus bush in April....
....unfortunately have not survived this far into the year, as far as I can tell; and so my gatorade bottle of soapy water is choked with Japanese beetles.
But fortunately, it has been at least two weeks since we have seen temperatures over 90, it is actually getting chilly some nights, and the fall crops can finally go in the ground. I harvested the last of the summer beets and beans this morning and planted the first arugula, cabbage and dill; tomorrow I will plant more cabbage, broccoli, cilantro, beets, and radishes. Rotations of lettuce, spinach, and mizuna will follow two weeks from now, and finally I plan to poke garlic bulbs in wherever I can in order to deter next summer's insect spawn.
I should add that the cool thing about growing things in Fall, which you can't do at all without the aid of a greenhouse north of, say, Chattanooga, is that, unlike in the Spring, the temperature requirements of the plant actually match, more or less, the actual temperature change of the environment, viz.: most seeds like warm temperatures for germination (70-85 degrees) and cool temperatures for growth (55-70 degrees). Thus when you plant in the Spring you are giving them just the opposite (which is why you have to start them in flats in the house). But in the Fall in GA everything can be direct seeded, which reduces the risk of transplant shock (something both my peppers and tomatoes had serious issues with in April & May).
Current Location: In front of TV
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Michigan fight song
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September 14th, 2006
11:09 am - I would like to know what you think about this subject. humor me.
Poll #820628 Toilet Survey
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14Which are more disgusting -- toilets or urinals?
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10:36 am - On Urinals
Thought I might as well start with a bang. Hmm, that subject heading could be sung to the tune of the Wisconsin fight song, with the emphasis on the wrong syllable: "On, ur-I-nals / On, ur-I-nals / On to victor-eeeeee!" Anyway.
So, the men's restroom nearest my work area has 3 urinals. Now, I do not enjoy standing right next to someone while voiding my bladder, so I always use the urinal furthest to the left (when in doubt, make sure all of your minutest daily actions reflect your political orientation, as arbitrarily metaphorized by location on a linear spectrum, that's my motto. OK, no it's not. Much too cumbersome). This reduces the chance of someone using the urinal next to me by 50% (mathematically) or about 95% (socially). Furthermore, this strategy allows me to feel generous to whoever might enter the bathroom while I am peeing, for they can pee in comfort two urinals down, or (for the truly pee-shy) use a stall. HOWEVER, I have noticed that I am virtually alone in this practice. Whenever I come in and someone is peeing, he is ALWAYS using the middle urinal. So either 1) these people are gambling that any latecomers will choose the stall rather than practice proximate peeing; or 2) they LIKE peeing next to someone else. Maybe it gives them that old locker room feeling.
In any case, I was more disturbed yesterday when someone came in while I was donating processed liquids to my accustomed urinal friend and DELIBERATELY CHOSE TO USE THE URINAL NEXT TO ME. Either he was a subscriber to option 2) above, or -- perhaps -- he was, like me, proceeding according to the "generous" strategy (which, however, would be far more self-sacrificing for him than for me): you see, if he chose the third urinal, he would have 0 people next to him, but any person following him would have 2. Perhaps -- just perhaps -- he had decided instead to share the potential pain of proximity by choosing the middle urinal, which would mean he had to urinate next to me, but the next person to come in would only have to urinate next to him (by which time I would be finished).
Or maybe he just didn't care. In any case, I gave him a dirty look in the mirror as I washed my hands.
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7 (50.0%)