Sunday, July 6th, 2008
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6:05 pm - question for the locals
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We're looking for a house painter -- interior and exterior. Can anybody in the Ann Arbor area recommend one?
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Friday, June 27th, 2008
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4:09 am - "[W]hen your stomach is empty and your mind is full ...
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... it's always hard to sleep."
-- E. B. White, Charlotte's Web
current mood:  exhausted
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(comment on this)
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Sunday, June 1st, 2008
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7:21 pm - Rapscallions and revenge
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This Tuesday at 7 p.m., the Michigan Theater is showing The Black Pirate, silent with live organ accompaniment, starring Douglas Fairbanks. The description reads:
"This swashbuckling nautical adventure, starring the incomparable Douglas Fairbanks, made film history as one of the first full features shot entirely in Technicolor. Here, he plays a nobleman who wants to avenge his father's murder, so he boards a pirate vessel disguised as one of the thieving, villainous rapscallions, and sets about achieving his goal. On the high seas, the athletic Fairbanks provides a no-holds barred, rip-roaring, stunt-filled voyage -- complete with a one-man takeover of a merchant ship. Featuring Steven Ball on the Barton Organ! Not rated. 94 minutes."
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) colomon and I are planning to go. Would any of the local crew be interested in joining us?
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
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6:51 pm - Scottish music concert tomorrow
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Saturday, January 12th, 2008
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11:30 pm
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
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9:11 pm - Album meme
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Friday, December 7th, 2007
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9:55 pm - Sometimes I can be dum
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My iPod has been acting up for the past several weeks. We took it to the Apple store a few weeks ago, and after much pressing of buttons (but no actual hard testing), the Apple guy sent us home. It seemed like he had decided the problems weren't trouble enough, even though I was having to do a hard restart on it almost every time I used it.
The problems continued. Yesterday, I couldn't get it to power all the way up -- it would get partway there and then power down. This time, the Apple guy seemed skeptical about the problems at first, but he actually tried to plug it in and run some diagnostic tests on it. He didn't say much to us, but it was clear from how he acted that things weren't going properly. Finally, he picked it up, looked at it, and said, "It just crashed halfway through the diagnostics. You get a new one."
I was pleased -- new one presumably doesn't have the problems we've been having. Sol seemed blue. About an hour later, I was saying something like, "All we have to do is plug it into the computer, and we're good as new."
He said, "The laptop that died this morning?" The power supply on the laptop we've been using for iTunes started beeping a high-pitched beep and the computer has stopped charging. So -- no new iPod until we get that fixed too. Sigh.
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(comment on this)
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Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
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10:55 pm - Pattern recognition
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Based on its ad campaign's reference to several movies I have disliked over the past few years, I predict the #1 film I will not be seeing this holiday season to be:
Juno
It bumps "The Darjeeling Limited" thanks to its skillful use of unplanned pregnancy. Thanks, Fox Searchlight, you're getting better at signaling.
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
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4:02 pm - Librarians have legs? Do they know how to use them?
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Pantyhose, nylons, stockings ... they go by many different names. My college roommate and I used to argue over our preferences (she was pro-pantyhose and I was a "nylons" girl; we both thought "stockings" were what old ladies called them).
Then came the dark times ... the bare-legged times.
Such times are fine for those of us who are fair-haired and lithe, those who do not need fabric to smooth the black spots on their legs, nor to flatten the curves of their bellies.
For those of us who are round, brunette and hirsute, however, the days have been as dark as the stubble on my knee.
I admit, I have gone barelegged when the skirt was long enough or the need was great (read: no clean nylons). But I have never found it a comfortable way to dress. Between the belly bulge and the never-smooth-enough legs, there's always something to be self-conscious about. I have resolutely continued wearing nylons despite knowing they had fallen from fashion. Unlike many women, I do not find them "the bane of womanhood"; rather, as Dynamist points out, my waist-hip ratio is made for them. They're comfortable. They help me feel trimmer. (I figure they must be the world's apology for never being able to find a pair of jeans that doesn't gap at the waist.)
But I digress. After several years of bare-legged hell, designers are putting women in nylons on the runways again.
Yay, say I. If you read the article, they posit the idea that "the nylon insurgency is backed by Midwestern librarians." I somehow doubt they're thinking of those of us below the age of 50, but -- whatever works.
They can have my nylons when they pry them off my cold, dead, librarian legs.
current mood:  devious
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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Monday, November 19th, 2007
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8:27 pm - Timing is everything
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Our tuner and VCR have been misbehaving lately: every now and then, the cable just quits for a few seconds.
This evening, I was watching TV and one of the "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" commercials came on. Just as PC opened his mouth to talk about Vista, the cable cut out.
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
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10:05 pm - Leftover from September
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From cochese:
Comment and I will give you a letter. Find ten of your favorite things that begin with that letter and post them in your journal.
Scotland
Serenity
Squeezebox
Steamed Shanghai-style bun
St. John's, Newfoundland
Saturdays
Sandman
Softpants
Snow
Sol!
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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Friday, November 9th, 2007
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11:33 pm - The Hard Life of Percy Foster
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When Percy ate the ribbon and had to have an enema, the vet also noticed that his teeth were in bad shape. Or, more specifically, that his gums were in bad shape but he did not have much plaque.
A few weeks ago, he had a dental exam and cleaning during which they pulled one tooth and felt that two others might be abscessed. They referred us to a cat dentist. I didn't know there were cat dentists. There are, and today we met one.
He told me there were three things that might be causing problems: periodontal disease, resorptive disease, and something stuck up underneath Percy's gum non-disease. The first and third would be helped by a cleaning and would probably not require an extraction. The second would require the removal of the affected tooth. Many cats -- somewhere between 30 and 60% -- have resorptive disease, which is what happens when some cells in the tooth start attacking the tooth until it is destroyed.
The phone rang at about 1:00 with an update on Percy's treatment. The dentist had found holes in the teeth indicating resorptive disease and had had to remove five teeth. I know there's really nothing I could have done to prevent it, but I still feel bad for the little guy. The dentist also said that resorptive disease is extremely painful, but that cats are very stoic when it comes to showing pain, so I can only hope that if he was hurting, he starts to feel better soon.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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Monday, October 29th, 2007
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7:41 pm - This PSA made me get all teary
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Saturday, October 27th, 2007
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12:53 pm - In case you missed this
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Friday, October 19th, 2007
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9:14 pm - 1100 grains of rice to get to 50 :-)
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I've spent the last 15 minutes or so playing with freerice.com, a hungersite-like page that gets sponsors to donate 10 grains of rice for every vocab word you correctly define. The quiz has 50 levels; you go up one level in difficulty for every 3 you get right in a row. The FAQ says "There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48."
Hee hee hee.
Of course, now I can't stop.
current mood:  hooked
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
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5:25 pm - It's like a little story.
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1. Go to Google.
2. Enter: [yourname] needs. For example: Carrie needs. (If you have a very unusual name and receive few hits, consider a nick name or a short form version of your name)
3. Note YOUR NEEEEEEDS. Take the 5 Funniest Ones! :)
1. Jennifer needs a smack daddy
2. Jennifer needs to move on
3. Jennifer needs to get laid
4. jen needs to ... get some hot collaborations
5. Jennifer needs to get some self esteem.
Clearly.
current mood:  amused
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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Sunday, October 7th, 2007
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12:30 pm - For those of you in Ann Arbor
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This looked like something some of you might enjoy:
Gaming Expert Greg Trefry Discusses 'From Indie Games To Big Games'
Sunday October 7, 2007: 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Ann Arbor District Library Pittsfield Branch
Greg Trefry is project manager and game designer for the Manhattan-based GameLab, where he has worked on developing such popular games as Egg vs. Chicken, Lego Fever and Out of Your Mind. He will discuss his experiences as a game designer and Big Games, in which players move around cities competing in ways that overlay with day-to-day urban life, such as his Payphone Warriors Game, in which teams try to seize control of Manhattan's forgotten payphones. Those at this event will have ample opportunities for questions - and get a chance to try some of GameLab's best titles!
Greg Trefry has worked on many popular indie games and is one of the founders of the Come Out & Play Festival, which brought highly creative, engrossing city-wide games to the streets of NYC (2006) and Amsterdam (2007). After studying English and fiction writing at Northwestern University, Greg moved into interaction and data design. While working at a financial information company and one day staring at a database diagram too long, he became obsessed with the ways information, systems and patterns create narrative and help people understand the world around them. From this psychosis, games were an obvious next step. Greg earned a Masters degree at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program where he focused a lot on games. The idea of rule sets grabbed hold of his brain and refused to let go, leading him to design experiments with everything from board games to large-scale urban games, like Payphone Warriors. He has spoken at conferences about location-based games and taught workshops on game design. He is currently obsessed with modern office folk games.
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(comment on this)
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Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
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11:32 am - With regard to Michigan's new tax ...
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... can anyone find a phrenologist currently operating in the state of Michigan? The closest I've come so far was a novelty thing from some historical fair in Chelsea. Isn't phrenology quackery that even the quacks have abandoned?
So far, I've found the London Phrenology Company selling busts and charts, a Russian site linked to as "Phrenology Today!" or something like that but it's all in Russian and I can't read it, and a couple other comments about "modern phrenology" that mostly don't go past about 1983 in their timelines.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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8:29 am - New wool, new project
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Monday, October 1st, 2007
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9:41 pm - Planning new projects
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I finished the pumpkin rug I was working on last year, and it's time to start a new project. Fall always makes me want to work with wool. We visited Crocker's Attic and a lamb and wool fair this weekend, and I got a bunch of ( new wool. )
current mood:  pleased
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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y'think?
boo!
artistic