| Stop, Drop, and Roll |
[Jan. 8th, 2009|09:20 pm] |
LJ users flee to WordPress! LOL
Already we’ve seen a spike in LiveJournal imports in the past few days — something like 1000%. Welcome! |
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| Invasion of the Lumberjacks |
[Jan. 5th, 2009|08:29 pm] |
Our yard now has about 15 fewer trees. A landscaping company came to the door today looking for work and we put them to it! They also hauled off all the yard debris that had been piling up and left us with a giant mountain of mulch from the timber small enough to run through their woodchipper. The squirrels are not amused.
Also today, what was the Roman bedroom/sewing room was completely gutted for repainting and conversion to the new office space. Tomorrow, I will be shifting everything I moved out of the east end of the attic back into its original location and moving all the stuff in the west end out so that Bill can run cable through that side of the house. My knees and shoulders are starting to complain. I do believe liquor will be a must before the end of the week. |
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| Gone Fishin' |
[Jan. 4th, 2009|09:02 pm] |
LOL @ my house. We are remodeling upstairs, and things are such a mess. It looks like Best Buy had a baby with Office Max -- a baby which grew to gargantuan size, then took a bite out of Home Depot, barfed that up, then exploded. OMG what a mess. Office stuff, books, electronics, tools, and sundry are everywhere. Cats are confused. I should take some "before" pictures of this chaos for lulz.
Thanks to Tom Cat for the loan of the fishing wire. Phase one of sawing holes in floors and walls and yanking cables through was a success. Tomorrow everything in my sewing closet gets pulled out and stored so that Bill can refit it for whatever nefarious purposes he has planned. |
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| End of 2008 Post |
[Jan. 1st, 2009|11:20 am] |
I'm not an introspective person. I pretty much live in the moment, so this won't be one of those insightful overviews of my past year. It's all pretty much a blur by this point anyway. Done, done, and I'm on to the next one to quote the Foo Fighters.
Resolved for 2009:
1. Reduce the number of RSS feeds I read by 30%. Done! I deleted all the ones that don't teach me something practical or improve my life in a meaningful way. So goodbye to humor, news, product releases and other trivial topics. I wasted way too much time reading them in 2008.
2. Reorganize and properly package two of my large collections that have been languishing in the attic for the last 10 years.
3. Complete all possible painting projects on the first floor of my house.
4. Continue to improve proficiency in French language.
5. Complete all sewing projects in process, including planned costume improvements.
6. Continue to experiment with and gain proficiency in using my embroidery machine.
7. Dismantle old office room, repaint, and convert to guest bedroom. Companion goal - Dismantle old sewing room, repaint, and convert to office/crafting room.
8. Go on a special trip for our 15th wedding anniversary.
9. Complete co-authorship of fiction project.
10. Publish a genealogical article in a journal.
That's more than enough! |
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| Tour the Ancient World |
[Dec. 31st, 2008|10:43 am] |
I just put some more photos Bill took of the ruins of Pompei online. This new batch has really wonderful shots of streets, house, and shop interiors. |
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| The Return of Me |
[Dec. 28th, 2008|10:13 am] |
Back from Mississippi! Trip was uneventful, nice weather, clear roads, good hotel rooms, no drama. We had four generations of family together on Christmas Eve so everyone was kept busy with socializing. I caught Bill's terrible cold on the way down and was zoning along on Zicam, Blackberry Wine, and Smirnoff Mohitos most of the time. Apparently dad has mistaken me for the Travelocity Gnome, however, because he has charged me with figuring out how to get his sister and three of her friends to Hawaii. Why me? Ah, the things I do to secure my inheritance, lol.
I was going to text a bunch of you "Merry Christmas" but we were so in the boonies that our phones couldn't even get to their voicemail systems. 0_o The most amusing thing that happened was Bill catching "the Christmas lizard" that had snuck into my Aunt's house and was admiring the tree.
All the communities and boards I belong to have just EXPLODED with stories and podcasts and vidcasts since I left -- and I'm not even involved in Yuletide or any of the popular writing sites. It's going to take me forever to catch up, so be prepared for my comments well down the road.
Thanks to all who sent me Christmas cards and goodies. I'll post more as soon as I dig out from under what's stacked up at home while we were gone. |
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| Pre-Road Trip Rage |
[Dec. 21st, 2008|03:22 pm] |
Ah, Christmas with family. How I am looking forward to this. [sarcasm] Farewell Internet, until 12/28.
Parting shots:
1. lol @ LJ suckage. I've noticed on many layouts that ads are displaying over comments making them unreadable.
2. Evil Lord Wal-de-mart seems to have vanished Bill's second set of Italy photos. I told him taking them there was a bad, bad, idea.
3. The mail delivery to my locale is atrocious this year. Even things mailed to us from the same town have taken 10 days.
4. Yep. Still hatin' the holidays. But I wish you all the best. |
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| When the volcano blow |
[Dec. 18th, 2008|04:44 pm] |
The first batch of Bill's pics from Italy can be seen here. These are mainly of the ruins at Pompei. |
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| Awesome Mail Day |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|05:03 pm] |
My seasonal "ill will toward men" eased a bit today because of all the goodies the mailman brought me. ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) littleblackbow sent me a lovely fan art card of Harry and Draco, and cteare came through with a gorgeous portrait she drew of Karl Urban. On top of that, I received eight other cards from friends, a new debit card from the bank so I can shop again (had to cancel my old one, long boring story), my Creative Machine Embroidery magazine, and a bonus check for $500! OK, technically that last one's Bill's, but I will accept it in his place as he is, as usual, not here.
Since I had my plastic money again, I went to the store. Driving there, I was amused to observe a guy a few houses down from me mowing his lawn. He works as a Santa, and there he was -- with his full head of real white hair and beard, wearing bright red boxer shorts, a white t-shirt, and a red holiday hat -- taking care of his yard (I should probably mention it was almost 70 degrees here today, lol).
I've spent most of the day scanning old photos to put into a digital album to give to my dad as a Christmas gift. I found some interesting photos that I never knew I had while doing that, so it wasn't as mind-numbing a task as I expected it to be. I still need to find about 20 more to finish this project, so off I go. |
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| Scrooge Mode, ACTIVATE! |
[Dec. 13th, 2008|12:10 pm] |
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OK, lol. I never exhibit the best of secular Christmas spirit under ideal conditions, and things aren't ideal this year at all. And since people I don't even know are getting pissy about my trivial personal opinions mentioned in passing comments I'm going full-on naughty not nice. So in the last words of Santa's Xmas cookie, "bite me." |
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| Lemonade From Lemons |
[Dec. 9th, 2008|10:50 am] |
Recently, one of the amusement parks I spent a lot of fun times in growing up (Geauga Lake of Aurora, OH) closed. The good news is that the park I'm closest to now, Kings Dominion, has bought a couple of their old rides. They're going to have the Americana ferris wheel and the El Dorado. Yay!
This also made me realize I didn't have "amusement parks" in my IJ interest list. Duh! I need to find a good roller coaster icon now. |
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| Quick Visual Notes |
[Dec. 8th, 2008|06:41 pm] |
The snow feature at Wordpress is really neat.
I added about 46 more South Korea photos to the slideshow I pimped the other day. New street scenes, shopping areas, hotel room, and public transportation shots. |
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| A new monthly feature |
[Dec. 6th, 2008|06:43 pm] |
In the past, I was posting the "fashion atrocity of the month" but my sub ran out to Harpers Bazaar so I thought I'd start something different for the new year. I do a fair amount of historical research and run across some really strange things. So for 2009 I will be featuring creepy vintage adverts for you to boggle at.
( So Many Levels of Wrong ) |
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| Quiz and update |
[Dec. 4th, 2008|03:33 pm] |
Sort of stolen from antares who had the "Indiana Jones" test posted. I noticed this one at the same site:
My arm is really fucked up today so I won't be typing much. Bill called from Italy. He's going to see Pompeii on Saturday. The Navy base he's staying on has regular bus tours that go there. Euro-to-Dollar exchange rate is teh suck, though. He's already had to hit the ATM again.
I'm off to watch my embroidery machine make things since I can't do much of that on my own with my arm in a sling. Hope everyone on my flist is doing well. Don't forget to post your wishlists! |
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| Pic Spam |
[Dec. 2nd, 2008|12:19 pm] |
Here's the first batch of Bill's photos from Uijeongbu, South Korea (better known as the former home of MASH 4077): Photobucket Slideshow |
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| Oooh! Neat! |
[Dec. 1st, 2008|09:07 pm] |
Rome may revive. And Vorenus didn't really die . . . news here.
I'd still rather see a Carnivale revival, though. |
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| Sexuality Meme |
[Nov. 30th, 2008|09:33 am] |
Lifted from snapelike
The description pegs me as "incidentally homosexual." LOL @ phrasing. |
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| Random Thoughts |
[Nov. 26th, 2008|09:29 am] |
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I'm actually cooking this year as this is one of the few weeks Bill is actually home. He leaves again on Saturday for Italy. Our menu is very simple: roast turkey breast, dressing, gravy, peas, candied yams (just brown sugar and butter, no marshmallow casserole abomination), from-scratch cranberry sauce, and peach pie. In other holiday traditions, my husband and his mom had a massive fight over the phone ending with Bill hanging up on her. Awk-ward.
I decided I won't be decorating for Christmas this year, beyond a wreath on the door and perhaps a candle or two in the windows. With Bill gone, there's no one to enjoy blinky lights with and we won't even be at home Christmas week. Instead, I'll use the time I would have spent decorating sending out cards and making some gifts. It's just as well I won't be stretching to hang lights. My arm is back in a sling because I wrenched my bicep again yesterday. I automatically lunged to catch the cat tree that Scout toppled when she was practicing her ninja cat leaps from across the room. She's getting a little tubby and her weight took the whole thing down.
A fan commentary on AMC: Zach needs to GTFO of Pine Valley and go to Canada to sulk over Kendall's comatose body. I'm sick of him being a total dick to everyone. And shave, dammit! On a more interesting note, I read that the character of Kitty Tyler (original actress) will be back on the show soon. I don't think she's been on since the late 70s/early 80s.
Lastly, everyone please let me know if you have an Amazon.com wishlist or something similar. I can't promise gifts, but just reading what you are interested in helps me to know you better. And you never know, I might be able to surprise you. |
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| Thoughts on a Book |
[Nov. 24th, 2008|10:45 am] |
I just finished reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It was a fascinating read about how our subconscious can often make better decisions in a split second than our conscious mind can after spending much time and effort gathering and evaluating evidence.
It made me think about a barrier to roleplaying activity that seems to come up frequently among players. Many rp-ers express that they cannot post unless the character they've chosen "is speaking to them" which has always seemed odd to me. I know a lot of players who spend a fair amount of time considering and evaluating what their character would do in a situation, how they would respond. Is this type of thinking a barrier to good roleplay, as the conscious evaluation process is portrayed as a barrier to good decisions?
Blink points out that the best improvisational actors/comedians use a technique of agreement. This means that in a skit, you always go with the direction that the other party sets to get the best results. If this was followed in roleplay, there wouldn't be so many issues about plot direction. I have always taken a blink approach to my posts. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what I write and it just comes off the cuff. Players like me, where are you? Woe! |
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