Thu 1 May 2008
Posted in Cats, Good Food, Good for a laugh, Nicky, This, that and the other, Thursday Thirteen
at 0:05
(1) F-bombs away: If and when you get stuck in some company’s voice mail jail, using profanity may not only be good for blowing off steam, it may also actually get a human on the line. Just the same, Miss Manners begs of you, please don’t.
(2) In New York City, someone has been taking discarded plastic bags and turning them into street art. A creation is tied to the ventilation grate above a subway line, and when a train passes, the air inflates the bag-creation and brings it to life in the shape of an animal.
(3) For the past month, we’ve sponsored Black Jordan at Best Friends, but yesterday, they emailed me the good news that Black Jordan has been adopted. As a result, we are now sponsoring a special little cat who goes by the name of Scooter:
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| Black Jordan |
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Scooter |
(4) How to write a song, and other mysteries: “We … proceed to vent and hash out our thoughts and feelings, our anger and frustrations, our longings and hopes and try to gently coax them into the shape of a song. And that song must have the three H’s in it…”
(5) Desktop video processing programs have allowed people around the world to release their inner Coppola. While the manual can help a person learn the technical side of putting together a little video for YouTube, the only filmmaking training most of these amateurs have had consists of what they remember from watching something else. That includes me — I try something I saw or heard somewhere, and if it feels like it works, it stays in.
When choosing music for the soundtrack, I know it’d be easy to rip something from a CD, but to stay on the safe side, I look for royalty-free music first. The music on this video, which shows our own little Nicky and his sisters, was composed and recorded by Kevin MacLeod, and posted at his website, Incompetech.com.
A newer site called SoundSnap seems promising for soundtracks as well.
(6) People who remember the Nixon administration will probably nod their heads at this phrase: “Mike Wallace interviewing Henry Kissinger.” Then comes the curveball: Mike Wallace interviewing Henry Kissinger during the Eisenhower Administration — in July 1958.
(7) I try not to be a fanatic about anachronisms and other movie continuity errors, but I notice things that stick out. A person could spend a lot of time learning what others have noticed and subsequently posted at Nitpickers and Continuity Corner.
(8) Here’s a light, green, and meatless recipe for spring rolls, courtesy of Diva Kitty’s Mom. I wonder whether she’s ever tried to crochet a cat hat for Diva Kitty Sophia?
(9) Rumble strips on the edge of the Pennsylvania Turnpike or other U.S. highways are called SNAPs, short for Sonic Nap Alert Pattern.
(10) In professional wrestling terminology, a good guy is a “Face”, short for babyface, and the term for a bad guy is the charmingly old-fashioned “Heel”.
(11) The federal Do Not Call Registry is proof that government can do good things for its citizens. Sign up, and telemarketers can’t call you without breaking the law. When the list began, there was a requirement to re-sign up every 5 years, but you don’t even have to do that anymore. It’s once and done for your home landline, and it’s also illegal to make junk calls to cell phones using automatic dialers.
(12) Kelly’s tummy problems have been much improved since we started feeding him only Stinky Goodness. We gave him a little dry food a couple of times since, but he had the same trouble keeping it down as before. One blogger must be nodding knowingly, because she has already learned six reasons not to feed dry cat food, one of which is euphemistically listed as “gastro-intestinal disorders.”
(13) And finally, speaking of food, a pavilion that was sponsored by the gas industry at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair was called “Festival of Gas.”
Now, I’m not the first nor likely to be the last to learn that there was a restaurant in that pavilion. Yes, you could eat at a place by the name of “Festival of Gas.”
Despite the name, the Festival was considered a good place to eat. No information on whether beans were on the menu…
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Thu 3 Apr 2008
Posted in Thursday Thirteen
at 0:05
- One morning, I lost the internet connection on the upstairs PC. Yet, the laptop downstairs could connect through the wireless router, and MEPIS on the PC worked too. That seemed to narrow it down a lot, so I was confident as I began the usual process to try to fix it: Google and read, Google more, read more. But while I learned things, the dreaded “limited or no connectivity” message still came up after each reboot.
On the following day, I re-read everything and noticed something: before you do anything, remove all firewalls. I had disabled the hardware firewall on the router as well as the software firewall from Comodo, but after re-reading, I used CCleaner to thoroughly uninstall Comodo. After the required reboot, the problem was gone and we were back online once more.
- In 2005, Paris Match printed photos of the wedding of television newscaster Béatrice Schonberg and government minister Jean-Louis Borloo. I drove to a nearby college library to read the article.
When she returned to television, Paris Match featured her again, but this time all I had to do was download the magazine.
- Yes, his ears hang low: An English Lop has the world record for the longest ears on a rabbit — more than 31 inches (79 cm) long.
- I finally broke down and got an MP3 player. Not just anything, though, (or should I say, iAnything). Instead, I researched them, learned what I needed to, and now own a tiny Sony. It came with free music downloads from Amazon, which were used on early Talking Heads and recent Weird Al.
- I realize it is now possible for me to fall asleep during Psycho Killer. However, Couch Potato always wakes me up. (For now.)
- The Sony MP3 already had some songs on it when it arrived, but I kept only one of them: A song called Walkman Demo Music from someone I’d never heard of named Okino Shuntaro: It’s what I’d call American-sounding, except with scattered English words that bounce from speaker to speaker. (e.g., “Fire / Mirror / Fire / Angel”) Reminded me of Engrish.com.
- I’m starting to use filters in GMail to tag incoming items. Saves time by automating what I used to do myself.
- An email forwarded to me at work told about how bump keys are used to pick locks, and its attached video certainly got my attention.
- We’re less than a year away from all digital TV in the US. It shouldn’t affect us as long as we have cable. Still, for fun over the weekend, we looked at the TVs at Sam’s Club and decided that the Sony Bravia had the best picture. An observer watching video of a National Hockey League game said, “Geez, this screen even makes hockey look interesting.”
- Blog titles that made me want to read more: “How I Changed the World Today.”
- Hot on the heels of his 1994 solo debut, “11 Tracks of Whack”, Walter Becker’s next release “Circus Money” has been announced. June 10 — yes, this year — is the date.
- John Denver once called during a Steely Dan recording session to invite Roger Nichols (recording engineer for Denver as well as the Dan) and Donald Fagen to take a sunset helicopter cruise around Manhattan.
- The Automatic Upgrade plugin for WordPress is a splendid little program.
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Thu 20 Mar 2008
Posted in Thursday Thirteen
at 0:05
At the end of March 2005, I finally joined the crowd and went out to shop for a digital camera. The man at the camera store listened to what I had in mind, and recommended a Konica/Minolta Dimage. Point-and-shoot, easy to carry, six megapixels where others had 4 or 5, takes memory sticks as well as SD cards, priced competitively; OK, I’ll take it.
Since then, it’s rung up nearly eight thousand pictures, and even if Sturgeon’s law applies here, that still leaves several hundred photos that aren’t bad. Here are a few of the ones I liked.
(1) PICT1657.jpg, taken December 23, 2005. Sunset as seen from our back door.
(2) PICT1310.jpg, taken October 1, 2005. Caitie and Kelly nap together — but not too close together.
(3a) PICT2627.jpg, taken May 1, 2006. Diana runs to Nana.
(3b) PICT6271.jpg, taken by Pat July 26, 2007. Diana next to Cedar Creek at the Rose Garden, Allentown.
(4) PICT2130.jpg, taken March 11, 2006. Caitie and Lizzie are wary of something in the distance.
(5) PICT0653.jpg, taken May 29, 2005. Family get-together for Diana’s first birthday. Cousin Drew takes his cuts against his southpaw father Kevin.
(6) PICT4046.jpg, taken November 11, 2006. Nicholas Hunter Cat. El Gatito Perfecto in a perfect pose.
(7) PICT5824.jpg, taken June 2, 2007. Not only does Nicky hate going to the vet, he doesn’t like anyone who’s been to the vet to come near him. And the day’s indignities continue for Kelly.
(8) PICT5601.jpg, taken May 18, 2007. Kelly looks much more man-catly here, as he sharpens his claws on the cherry tree outside the front door.
(9) PICT2546.jpg, taken April 28, 2006. Kelly seems to be scowling as he confronts Caitie, who reacts by making herself smaller.
(10) PICT4922.jpg, taken February 24, 2007. A Noble Cat. A Proud Cat. A Distinguished Cat. (A weighty cat, too, but we’re doing something about that.)
(11) PICT5106.jpg, taken March 10, 2007. Where we live, Canada geese are so plentiful that they’re starting to be considered pests. (Never by me, though.) But the morning a flock of snow geese landed in a cornfield near our house, it was the first and only time we’ve seen them this close around here.
(12a) PICT2296.jpg, taken March 27, 2006. Caitie’s long shadow (aka “Rest”).
(12b) PICT2587.jpg, taken April 30, 2006. Caitie’s long stride (aka “Motion”).
(13) PICT5291.jpg, taken April 18, 2007. Miss Lizzie Bennet: cool, calm and collected.
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Thu 6 Mar 2008
Posted in Thursday Thirteen
at 0:05
For a couple of weeks each year, the National Pastime takes the place of all my other pastimes. If you’ve been around here lately, you probably know that I’ve been focused on the yearly drafts in my 4 sim league baseball teams. I enjoy it a lot, but the focus it takes to properly prepare meant that other off-hours activities had to go on hiatus.
Anyhow, that’s done for another year, and I’m ready to catch up on what I missed and looking forward to doing some visiting and some more regular posting. If you’re in my blogroll, I’m planning to drop by soon and say hello.
The idea for this Thursday Thirteen came from reading Dave Studeman of The Hardball Times. (He in turn gives credit to the BBC Magazine News Monitor.)
- First, this post is being written in a terrific piece of freeware called Q10. I could write a lot of words about it, but you can read about it at the above link, and anyway, here’s a screen print that shows a lot of what I like:
And besides, it can be set up to sound like a typewriter.
What do you mean, “What’s a typewriter?”
- W.C. Heinz always used a typewriter. He died last week at age 93, and I knew he and Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi had written “Run To Daylight”. However, I did not know he had also co-authored the original novel ‘M*A*S*H’.
Heinz said writing was “like building a stone wall without mortar,” he said. “You place the words one at a time, fit them, take them apart and refit them until they’re balanced and solid.”
In his column, Gordie Jones of the local Morning Call quoted Jeff MacGregor, who wrote about Heinz for Sports Illustrated, and I could empathize with him when he mentioned ”the panic that creeps over you when you’re sitting in the chair and nothing comes” and the difficulty of ”trying to find some music in the words and about the moment.”
”When it’s going well,” MacGregor added, ”you look down at the page and the story comes to you in full, everyone and everything alive in your head and busy on the page, and when you look up again, eight hours are gone and you feel like Lindbergh in Paris.”
- Also from the newspaper: Shelby Lyman’s chess column recalled a 1963 Bobby Fischer win over Robert Byrne that is still regarded as one of Fischer’s most brilliant games. It should have come as no surprise that it’s possible to go through the game online, move by move.
In addition, there’s detailed analysis of that game out there on the internets. Maybe someday I won’t be awed by all this freely available information, but it hasn’t happened yet.
- Another of the freely-available wonders is Joe Posnanski’s blog. His day job is writing about sports for the Kansas City Star*, which he does well enough to have been voted best sports columnist in the United States.** He definitely knows how to find a good story and how to write it, but what I really like about his columns is that I never feel as though he’s just phoning one in or giving a half-effort.
* It shows you are of a certain age and a certain musical bent if you have an irresistible urge to follow that by singing “That’s what I are.”
** Although at the Star’s website, the description actually reads “Named the nation’s best sports columnist in America…” which I guess could either be an accurate, if awkward, description, or else a big-time contender for the Department of Redundancy Department. I just hope it was meant to be funny.
If the majority of sports writers are coming down on one side of an issue such as the awfulness of Barry Bonds, or the awfulness of Bill Belichick, or the awfulness of Kobe Bryant, Joe might write something on the same side, or he might come down on the other side. But no matter which side, I always get the feeling he’s given the issue a lot of thought, that he wants to be fair to everyone concerned, and whatever he writes in the column is a product of that reflection and fair-mindedness.
Then last year, if memory serves, a temporary blog he began to promote a book quickly evolved into his present corner of cyberspace, where there are some sports references, but where you have just as much chance of reading a post like this one he wrote after the Super Bowl that shows the man has some major knowledge of and love for pop culture.
- And one more from pop culture — hey, what can I say, I went to Bowling Green — looking for a way to keep making a living doing what she loves, Jill Sobule has made a new music video with the help of the Wall Street Journal’s offshoot All Things Digital.
- Pat’s son Jack works with a man named Jim Meyer, who is a talented jazz guitarist. Meyer gave Jack a copy of his album Searching, and after Jack played it for me once, I immediately bought a copy for myself.
- There are seven new collie puppies at Jack and Jennie’s house. Jennie stayed with the mother throughout, and Jack told me that one was having difficulty breathing right after it was born, but that Jennie knew what to do: “If the puppy appears weak or is not breathing, hold it firmly and swing it up and down between your legs with its head down.”. It sounds extreme, but as Jack said, there’s no use in panicking, because you can’t make the situation any worse.
- I now know my new go-to place for when I want something good to eat, and quick. A Five Guys Burgers and Fries just opened a few miles down the road. That’ll be one burger with pickles and A-1 sauce, please… and don’t fix it too fast, I’d like to enjoy some of those peanuts while I wait…
- I knew that my car’s inspection is coming due in March. But look what I just found on my muffler:
That’s a hole big enough to hold a good hunk of my upcoming tax rebate…
- I hadn’t noticed, but Hydrox cookies aren’t being made anymore. Here’s a history of the chocolate sandwich cookie that predated the Oreo.
- The other Hydrox link in #10 above references the Gallery of Graphic Design, a site with numerous examples of mid-20th-century magazine advertising. Great, another website I can use as a time sink instead of doing something constructive… weren’t Wikipedia and YouTube enough?
- I was looking for something else the day I ran across Brand Name Pencils, but it had to wait while I looked over the collection of wood and graphite writing utensils. (That sounds like a couplet Ogden Nash could have written…)
- Bite-sized pieces of professional information (that just might come in handy someday) are collected in an article entitled Tricks of the Trade.
Example: If you think someone’s pretending to be unconscious, just pick up their arm, hold it over their face, and let go. (You’d probably want to be awfully sure you’re right before trying it, though…)
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Thu 21 Feb 2008
Posted in Thursday Thirteen
at 0:05
The local newspaper is one of the few that has carried the comic strip Peanuts since the very beginning in 1950. Even after the death of creator Charles Schulz in 2000, the paper has continued to publish daily and Sunday strips from the syndicate. The Sunday strips are from 1961, and even though the everyday situations and the humor aren’t out of date, the props Schulz drew — like the wood-cabinet televisions — remind you that you’re reading and enjoying a strip that was drawn 47 years ago.
Schulz licensed Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the rest of his characters for commercials and made millions of dollars. He wasn’t the first to have his cartoons sell products; among his predecessors, Percy Crosby did the same with his creation, Skippy.
At the site devoted to Skippy and Crosby is an ad Crosby himself did for Libby’s tomato juice, and it included his answers to a game called Confessions. I can’t find a trace of that game anywhere today, but I’ll take those questions (and add another to make 13) and answer them some 70 years after they appeared in the ad.
- My best virtue: patience when patience is needed
- My worst fault: patience when action is needed
- The virtue I admire most in women: trustworthiness
- The virtue I admire most in men: trustworthiness
- My favorite actress: Judi Dench
- My chief hobby: Blogging is fun, but I could give up blogging a lot easier than sim league baseball.
- My favorite song: Just one? These days, I’m humming this one an awful lot…
- My favorite book: Ball Four has meant the most.
- My pet vanity: I’m casual almost everywhere else, but I won’t wear jeans to Borgata.
- My favorite food: Pizza… there was a little place in New Jersey that made the best I ever had. Gone, but not forgotten.
- My favorite drink (hard): Yuengling Lager reminds me of beer I had in Austria. Goes down like water if I’m not careful.
- My favorite food drink: Chocolate milk (you were expecting maybe tomato juice?)
- My favorite snack: Milk chocolate covered almonds… sure, a moment on the lips, forever on the hips (or in my case, the belly), but ah, what a moment it is…
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Thu 7 Feb 2008
Posted in Thursday Thirteen
at 0:05
“In literature, as in love, we are astonished by what is chosen by others.” — André Maurois
Today’s list describes popular things that wouldn’t be popular if it were left up to me alone. Not that I’m right and anyone else is wrong, it’s just that I can’t join in the appreciation for them.
- Steve Martin’s standup comedy. That was the one that started this idea for a list. At News From ME yesterday morning was a post that linked to an excerpt from Martin’s book “Born Standing Up,” posted at the site of the Smithsonian Magazine. I read the excerpt, which helped me appreciate the effort and the thought Martin put into his act. Just before the end of the piece, he describes a successful appearance some 30 years ago on the Tonight show, a clip of which was linked conveniently on the site as well. So I watched it — and it still wasn’t funny to me.
- The TV show House. I like Hugh Laurie’s work, but not the show. Unlikely disease-of-the-week kind of show, where there was always a scene that can be summarized as “There’s something we’ve missed that’s the key to the whole thing.” followed soon after by the breakthrough, arriving by some odd chance only moments before the end of the hour. The last show I watched had House figuring out that a wife was poisoning her husband by injecting him with gold. Oh come on now…
- Seafood. Shrimp and crab and all manner of fish, you can have ‘em. Pat’s fine with that, because it leaves more for her.
- Poetry. James Dickey wrote a piece I read years ago about how to read a poem. I can’t find a link to it now, but what I recall was that you didn’t try to take it all in at once. The first time through, don’t overanalyze the meaning of each word, but instead appreciate the way the words flow together. Then read it a second time, and by the third time the poem should have transformed into something virtually alive. And if that didn’t work, well, maybe you just don’t like poetry. I understood the approach, because it’s how I listen to new music. Let it grow with each listen. But it’s never really worked for me with poetry. The exception to all that is Mon Rêve familier by Paul Verlaine. I read it for a French Literature class, and now that poem, I got.
- Melons. Of course, fruit bowls always include cut watermelon or muskmelon, and the juice soaks everything, so never mind trying to pick the strawberries out of it.
- U2, R.E.M., and Joni Mitchell’s album Blue. Their music means a lot to a lot of people, but I’ve listened and it does nothing for me.
On the other hand…
- Fantasy baseball. A couple of years ago I tried a variation at MLB.com that promised to be perfect for people who didn’t have time to devote to a full-blown fantasy team. My team, the Golden Moles, ended up tied for first in its division with the 2nd-best record in the 12-team league, but didn’t make the league’s post-season. Something about not scoring enough points. Guess I should have read the rules better, because I thought winning games was the point.
- Cole slaw. Pat’s mother made a delicious slaw, I’m told, and passed the recipe down to Pat. At every family gathering for years, she made sure to bring homemade slaw. Now a 3rd generation from her side of the family is making it from the same recipe. Obviously, it’s great stuff, and everyone enjoys it greatly. Almost everyone, that is…
- The Daily Show. The episodes I watched had a moment or two I liked, but too much seemed to consist of the audience roaring at Jon Stewart’s mugging and over-extending the jokes.
- Television bloviators who claim to have all the answers. Someone once wrote that you should trust the person who’s searching for truth, not the person who says he’s found it.
- David Letterman. Steve Allen already did this style of TV 50 years ago, and I thought he came off as smug then. It hasn’t improved with age.
- Instant Messaging. Let’s see — it has the interruption of a telephone call combined with the inconvenience of typing. No thanks. (And I never did IM long enough to learn how to properly wrap up a conversation.)
- Star Trek. Its creator, Gene Roddenberry, described the show to NBC as “‘Wagon Train’ to the stars.” Stories that could have been made as Westerns in the 50’s, relocated to outer space in the 60’s.
Well, I can’t get behind that.
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Thu 31 Jan 2008
Posted in Cats, Lizzie, Thursday Thirteen
at 0:05
Continuing this week’s salute to Elizabeth Bennet Cat, here are 13 pictures from the January 1996 videotape of the day we adopted Lizzie from Animals In Distress and brought her home.
First, Pat completes the adoption paperwork at AID.
Our new cat peers out anxiously from her carrier…
…and meets her new big brother Kelly, both in the carrier…
…and out, on the lap of her new human Pat.
We gave Lizzie her own room — the spare bedroom — for the first week with us, to get her used to her new home. For the first day and a half, she hid in the box spring of the bed, in the area illuminated here by the flashlight.
Pat patiently visited Lizzie often, and before long, the little torbie cat began to explore the room outside the box spring.
A toy mouse lies on a bit of fleece. Lizzie looks, then attacks, and finally carries off her prey.
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