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Home of Cobalt Fiestaware.
Jul. 18th, 2009 @ 07:52 pm Gallery of little-known and underappreciated movies
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Tea
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#1 in a Series

If you are

from New Jersey
care about race relations but are tired of people who are too earnest about it
like honky tonk music

and

have a secret crush on Jack Black

check out "Be Kind Rewind"

Further bulletins as appropriate.  As you were.
Jul. 16th, 2009 @ 04:54 pm Public Transportation
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chicago
Current Mood: curious
The guy next to me on the bus this morning was reading a boring programming text, and my only curiosity revolved around wondering why, if you are going to use a bright yellow highlighter, you would choose to highlight every single sentence of the text rather than just making a mental note that this is important text, pay attention!  But I soon lost myself in Beckett and forgot about my seatmate.

This afternoon on the way home I sat beside a brown gentleman who was reading a book called The Complete Idiot's Guide to English Grammar and Usage.  It appeared to me that he might be Middle Eastern or from the sub-continent, somewhere such as that, and he obviously desired to improve his English, which one wishes more native speakers would emulate.  In any case, I did not wish to appear to be reading over his shoulder so I just darted my eyes toward the page occasionally and picked up the odd sentence here and there, sentences that were clearly designed to show off some feature of the English language that the authors thought a reader could use.  And then my eye happened upon this sentence: "The milk of a camel does not curdle."

Well!  In the first place, I thought this was quite funny because let's face it, "curdle" is just a funny word in and of itself.  Next, I thought that the authors were being very politically correct since it was likely that the average reader of the book would be slightly more at home around camels in general than the average native English-speaker.  Maybe.  But then I thought "HOLY SHIT! Is this true?"  First, I wondered if it was one of those "duck's quack does not echo" factoids but after giving it some thought and searching my brain for any scrap of evidence for camel cheese I concluded it must be true.

What are the implications of this stunning fact?  And I'd appreciate it if smarty pantses named Ian or Matilda could keep it down for the rest of us and not  act like show-offs at this point. First, what magical property is it that prevents camel's milk from curdling?  Is it a lactose or lactase thing?  If so, might this be of benefit to humanity, because maybe you could inject some of the camel milk juju into other milk and make it more potable for the milk-challenged?  Then again, when I think about camels I don't think of a big swinging bag like a cow has.  Perhaps the poor babies just get a few sips and then they have to learn to store it in the hump, I don't know.  Finally, I really began to think abouit the implications of an entire culture, a desert, nomad culture, that has had to subsist on a cuisine entirely devoid of cheese.  I can imagine that this might make people pretty damn cranky, which would explain a lot, I won't go into more detail lest I appear intolerant.  But you know who you are.

So --- public transportation!  Never a dull moment.

Jul. 16th, 2009 @ 09:03 am I shouldn't even read this guy
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sickness
Current Mood: weird
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Who knew, when I inherited the curiosity after Madeleine's passing, that Beckett would turn out to be so damn funny?  I read that whole Molloy trilogy and milk was coming out my nose.  Well, not ordinary milk but more like tear-milk.  Now I'm reading How It Is and it is doing a number on my mind because it seems to be about being born and dying and the evolution of the species.  The first 20 pages, anyway.  So it makes me think very much about my father curled up senseless in his bed (in the mud) and it also makes me think about the lack of flocking, and the lack of togetherness.  And being born.  But not about giving birth.  One thing I notice about Sam, he's very much a guy.  Thank god there isn't a female Beckett or I would just split open.
Jul. 14th, 2009 @ 10:20 pm Happy Ending!
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readgirl
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So First Daughter calls me an hour or so ago to report that on her way back from dinner with the Cussin Cook she found a wallet, full of money and credit cards.  The CC needless to say advised her to return it PDQ as did I.  Because she is geographically challenged she intended to mail it, but when she told me the address I realized it was reasonably in the 'hood so I said, you sit tight and I'll come get you and we'll deliver it, because it this poor guy has to wait for the mail he will have gone to all the trouble of canceling his cards and worrying about ID theft and so on.   So I jump in the car and we find the address, which turns out to be literally ONE block away from Obama's house!  She rings the bell, and the intercome guy says "yes?" and she says "I have your wallet" and at this point we predicted the advent of loud hoofbeats running downstairs which is exactly what happened.  He gave her a big bear hug, wanted to give her ALL the money in the wallet -- she settled for a goodly portion but you could tell it was well worth it due to avoiding the aforementioned hassle of cancellation and worry.  I passed on the hug (though the guy was cute, but married.....) on the grounds that I was merely the driver.  But we both emphasized the moral of the story, and I've actually experienced this as both a recipient and a donor, and I don't want you guys to forget it: WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND!  That's as good as any Golden Rule in my book.
Jul. 3rd, 2009 @ 03:29 pm Fleet Foxes
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cakeordeath
Current Location: Fleet Foxes
Current Mood: fleety and foxy
Current Music: Fleet Foxes
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I just CANNOT GET ENOUGH of Fleet Foxes!
Jul. 3rd, 2009 @ 01:40 pm Gallery of Old Boyfriends
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readgirl
Holiday Special -- 1966



Jul. 3rd, 2009 @ 01:38 pm Gallery of Old Boyfriends
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readgirl
1963:




Jun. 29th, 2009 @ 09:28 am Nine-to-five
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chicago
Current Mood: discontent
Tags:
Yes, I'm spoiled and I'm the first to admit it.  For many years (25+) I've been more or less self-supervised.  I have tasks and deadlines, and if the tasks don't get accomplished and the deadlines don't get met, there will be consequences.  But at a day-to-day level I am answerable to myself alone, and I can organize my workload any way I see fit.  Ever since I started my little part-time gig for the organization that picks up part of my salary I have been shoved backwards into an old mind-set that I really hate.  When you find yourself surrounded by bureaucrats and there are a million steps to completing a task, things change.  Pretty soon you notice that things die on the vine.  Priorities shift around and disappear (see previous post).  And suddenly you adopt the attitude of "I did my part, so the hell with it."  You know you have covered your ass and you no longer really care whether the actual mission gets accomplished.  I HATE turning into this kind of drone.  I'm so glad I only have to do it for this little part of my job and I will be very happy if I can cut this cord.  Right now I'm like "well, I sent the reminder I promised, and I worked up to this point where I can't proceed without further input, and I flagged everything I did, so no one can say I'm the bottleneck, and now I'll just move on and do something else and if we ever get this operational, so what."  I don't like feeling this way.
Jun. 24th, 2009 @ 03:34 pm When Machines Fight
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readgirl
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Yeah, it's noisy but in all honesty I liked Transformers way better than Dark Knight.  It was comprehensible and had a pretty standard good vs. evil setup.  It's the kind of movie where the guy pulls the girl by the hand, the guy's mom wears a frumpy dress/skirt, the astronomy teacher is Dwight Schrute, and the supposedly dorky geek is actually a total hottie.  Plus, Josh Duhamel.  Plus, not one but TWO ex-"Clean House" go-to guys padding out their resumes as extras.  And I don't hate Linkin Park.  Much less onerous than I expected.
Jun. 21st, 2009 @ 02:55 pm Happy Father's Day
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sickness
Current Mood: sad
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There is an old man sleeping upstairs in the house where I grew up.  He only stirs himself to eat and mutter abuse at the low-paid caregiver who takes care of his needs.  Old age has not been kind to him.  But for the sake of the day, here is a picture of the father I had:


Jun. 19th, 2009 @ 03:21 pm Random musing
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Tea
Current Location: Lazytown USA
Current Music: Penguins of Madagascar
If I were an actor, but didn't happen to have the great big fat ego that lots of actors have, and just wanted to make a decent living and have a boatload of fun plying my craft and working with talented creative people, I think I could do a whole lot worse than voiceover on animated kids shows.

Edit: Ha ha!  I put my location as "Lazytown USA" just to be funny and it turns out there is such a town, in north central Pennsylvania!
Jun. 19th, 2009 @ 10:17 am You Know What I Hate?
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Outrage
Current Mood: annoyed
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I'll tell you what I hate.  When I get a rough outline of my work schedule together, this is not so easy to do.  I have three basic jobs in addition to my personal life.  Two of these jobs are more or less under my control but on #3 I'm kind of at the mercy of other people's whims.  For the third or fourth time in a row, this scenario has played out: I get all my ducks in a row with jobs #1 and #2 and make plans to go on light duty for a few weeks while my Pet Kids are visiting (or to attend a gathering or make a road trip let's say) and then the #3 people suddenly develop a dire, dire emergency that must be resolved This Very Minute.  So I rearrange everything.  This rearrangement has involved such things as canceling a LONG-awaited gathering, getting up and running to the office at 5 am to print something and have it messengered over, etc.  And THEN, the dire emergency deadline suddenly vanishes!  Oops, turns out it isn't such a dire emergency after all!  Because the training session can't be completed due to login failure, or the guys who needed the crucially important documents are actually in another state and won't really need them until next week.  Grrrrr!  This is a freaking pattern, and not a pretty one.
Jun. 14th, 2009 @ 09:08 pm Gallery of Old Boyfriends
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Tea
One of the nicer ones



Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 08:15 pm Film updates
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Outrage
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My Pets have a cousin with the dream college-part-time-job of movie usher.  He gets to see movies free!  Nevertheless, we take in a lot of movies ourselves.  Cousin Michael declares that "Drag Me To Hell" is a waste of time -- stupid, cheesy, and funny in an unfunny way according to him -- which makes me think it is working on perhaps another level.  Meanwhile, I've seen "Night at the Museum II" and "Up" so far.  I actually enjoyed the first quite a lot.  Fortuitously, Pet Boy and I watched Night I just a couple of nights earlier on TV so we had all the storylines fresh in our mind which, we felt, enhanced the moviegoing experience.  I love love loved Hank Azaria, and enjoyed many other moments such as the art coming alive.

As for Up, my expectations were so high that perhaps it's no surprise that I wasn't as gobsmacked as I'd hoped to be.  I enjoyed it very much.  I thought perhaps the Pets would find it too sentimental and boring for that reason but no, they liked it too.  The dogs were great.  For some reason I never really warmed to the little boy, I don't know why.  I'm not going to nitpick, just say it was excellent and recommended but not over-the-top blow me away material.
May. 22nd, 2009 @ 10:59 am Movie Title
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Outrage
Current Mood: curious
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"Drag Me To Hell" -- this is my new favorite movie title.  I pray each night that [info]x_h00ine  will review this fine film and post her opinion of it.
May. 20th, 2009 @ 09:19 am Sigh
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Outrage
Current Mood: resigned
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The people who, in my opinion, have the most sensible approach to the health-care question have to get arrested before anyone will listen to them . And by "anyone" I mean Democrats.
May. 14th, 2009 @ 10:17 am Fate: Still Unlearned
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Tea
While I was in Boston there was a rail accident caused by TEXTING WHILE DRIVING, and think you all know how I feel about that.... that that's not what I hate the guy so much. No, he gave me an earworm, thank you very much. See, I was trying to remember the name of Boston's transit system. I know in the Bay area it's the BART and in Chicago here we have RTA (used to be CTA), and in Boston .... oh yeah. Damn it! Did he ever return, no he never returned!!
May. 10th, 2009 @ 12:27 pm Happy Mother's Day
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readgirl
It doesnot get any better than this. I'm on a bus, from Boston to Worcester. It has free WiFi. It has a bathroom even! How cool is that!! Happy motgher's everybody!!!
Apr. 24th, 2009 @ 11:54 am Thumb story
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sickness
Current Music: cover page of my conference program churning out of my printer
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On the one hand, heh heh, 90% of the discomfort and weirdness I feel in recovery is perfectly normal and on target, because I am having pain in my thenar and hypothenar eminence.  Duh.  On the same hand, though, and completely unrelated to the carpal tunnel thing, I have trigger thumb!  So there's that.
Apr. 23rd, 2009 @ 07:50 pm Resonance
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Outrage
A sentence from a book I'm reading keeps resonating in my mind.  It's just a throw-away little read-on-the-bus murder mystery and I think this sentence encapsulates its spirit completely:

"She had meant to tell Latimer about the call when he was over for dinner but what with the work on the gardens and all the excitement about the skeleton, it had completely slipped her mind."

I just love this.