Thursday, May 8, 2008
Gozzles!
It really, really is spring now! I've seen my first batch of goslings for the year. I drove around the block a second time after spotting them so I could stop the car and take a picture.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
ficlets
Discovered ficlets.com through Wil Wheaton's blog, WWdN:In Exile. Wil posted a link to the ficlet titled A Loaded Gun in the Mailbox, and posted a prequel of his own.
The idea of very, very short bits of stories all written under Creative Commons licensing, all building off of one another as prequels, sequels, or original bits to inspire new stories is just fascinating to me. The ficlets all have to be between 64 and 1024 characters long (not words, but characters) which means you have to be able to do a lot with not many words.
Fiction is not my forte. So I doubt I'll join and post myself. But I know I'll be browsing through there during free moments to see what magic others are weaving out of the flowing river of ideas.
The idea of very, very short bits of stories all written under Creative Commons licensing, all building off of one another as prequels, sequels, or original bits to inspire new stories is just fascinating to me. The ficlets all have to be between 64 and 1024 characters long (not words, but characters) which means you have to be able to do a lot with not many words.
Fiction is not my forte. So I doubt I'll join and post myself. But I know I'll be browsing through there during free moments to see what magic others are weaving out of the flowing river of ideas.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Not Aligned Like That
I've always kind of guessed what my Alignment (using the AD&D system) would be. And now I have proof. I took the Online Alignment Test.
I'm Neutral Good. For those of you not familiar with these alignment classifications, here's wikipedia's article on them.
To be honest, there were a couple of questions I seriously waffled on, because the answer was subject to change given the circumstances. So I took it the first time using my strongest convictions about those questions. And then a second time, using my alternate answers on those couple of questions. The second time, with my under-certain-circumstances answers in place, I came out Chaotic Good. So I'm going to assume I can claim Neutral Good alignment with some Chaotic Good tendencies.
I'm Neutral Good. For those of you not familiar with these alignment classifications, here's wikipedia's article on them.
To be honest, there were a couple of questions I seriously waffled on, because the answer was subject to change given the circumstances. So I took it the first time using my strongest convictions about those questions. And then a second time, using my alternate answers on those couple of questions. The second time, with my under-certain-circumstances answers in place, I came out Chaotic Good. So I'm going to assume I can claim Neutral Good alignment with some Chaotic Good tendencies.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
U.S. RDA of Iron Man
Just got back from the theater where I met my U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance of Iron Man.
I have too many hobbies. One of the things I've always thought was cool, but never had much room in my free time and/or budget for was comic books. So I'm not hip to the Iron Man scene like a proper comic book geek would be.
That said, even without a proper foundation in Tony Stark History 101, the movie Iron Man was awesome. The special effects, while critical to the movie, didn't overwhelm the rest of the film, which had plenty of substance, humor, tension, plot (!) and good acting to carry itself respectably as more than a special effects flick. The script didn't pander to the lowest common denominator in the audience, either, IMHO, which was a bonus. I got the feeling that the creators of the Iron Man movie gave us more credit for functioning brain cells than most summer films tend to do. Not that it was highbrow. They just didn't dumb things down and drive plot points in with a piledriver when an artificially intelligent sledgehammer sized fist would do.
The humor appealed to both my funny bone, and my Mister's, which isn't a given. And it had the rest of the theater laughing at all the appropriate moments, too, which also isn't always a given.
I agree with some critics I've read who've said that the score was uninspiring. My Mister disagreed on that point. He did take it well, however, when I said I thought Iron Man was a better film than Transformers, which for the record, I also enjoyed. Maybe it's because Iron Man was more of a "grown up" film -- all things being relative. I can't help but make the comparison, though, because of the nature of the special effects.
I did find a few of the product placements in Iron Man a bit on the obvious side, which is just a bit distracting for me. Only because my brain starts involuntarily playing "spot the product placement" as soon as one leaps off the screen at me, and I can't stop noticing them after that. But promotion of consumer goods is a part of the whole entertainment package now, even more than ever. And if they were too subtle, they wouldn't work as product placements. So I don't have any illusions that they're going to go away any time soon.
No spoilers here. Just stay put for the whole rolling of the credits.
Oh, and one more thing. Some folks have noticed this already, I guess, but apparently I wasn't paying attention. Has Robert Downey Jr. always been dead sexy? Or is that the Tony Stark mystique?
I have too many hobbies. One of the things I've always thought was cool, but never had much room in my free time and/or budget for was comic books. So I'm not hip to the Iron Man scene like a proper comic book geek would be.
That said, even without a proper foundation in Tony Stark History 101, the movie Iron Man was awesome. The special effects, while critical to the movie, didn't overwhelm the rest of the film, which had plenty of substance, humor, tension, plot (!) and good acting to carry itself respectably as more than a special effects flick. The script didn't pander to the lowest common denominator in the audience, either, IMHO, which was a bonus. I got the feeling that the creators of the Iron Man movie gave us more credit for functioning brain cells than most summer films tend to do. Not that it was highbrow. They just didn't dumb things down and drive plot points in with a piledriver when an artificially intelligent sledgehammer sized fist would do.
The humor appealed to both my funny bone, and my Mister's, which isn't a given. And it had the rest of the theater laughing at all the appropriate moments, too, which also isn't always a given.
I agree with some critics I've read who've said that the score was uninspiring. My Mister disagreed on that point. He did take it well, however, when I said I thought Iron Man was a better film than Transformers, which for the record, I also enjoyed. Maybe it's because Iron Man was more of a "grown up" film -- all things being relative. I can't help but make the comparison, though, because of the nature of the special effects.
I did find a few of the product placements in Iron Man a bit on the obvious side, which is just a bit distracting for me. Only because my brain starts involuntarily playing "spot the product placement" as soon as one leaps off the screen at me, and I can't stop noticing them after that. But promotion of consumer goods is a part of the whole entertainment package now, even more than ever. And if they were too subtle, they wouldn't work as product placements. So I don't have any illusions that they're going to go away any time soon.
No spoilers here. Just stay put for the whole rolling of the credits.
Oh, and one more thing. Some folks have noticed this already, I guess, but apparently I wasn't paying attention. Has Robert Downey Jr. always been dead sexy? Or is that the Tony Stark mystique?
Friday, May 2, 2008
I'd Cozy That
We knitters will cozy anything that sits still long enough to measure it. Don't believe me?
Go to flickr and do the following search: knitting cozy
I got 4,500+ results including:
I also did a quick search for "crochet" and "cozy", and came up with roughly a quarter as many results. Some are duplicates from the knitting search, and a higher percentage of them than the knitting search were for people using "cozy" as an adjective (as in "crocheting by a cozy fire") instead of a noun or verb. But there are still a lot of crochet cozied items.
The crocheted chandelier cozy certainly needs to be mentioned.
So I say to my Mister, "See. It isn't just me. Knitters are just like that."
Go to flickr and do the following search: knitting cozy
I got 4,500+ results including:
- a Volkswagen car cozy (I kid you not)
- beer cozies
- stethoscope cozy (seen here in keribeth's photo)
- bicycle cozies
- cell phone cozies
- coffee cup cozies by the dozens
- pendrive cozy in a south park theme
- sunglasses cozies
- sign pole cozies
- telephone pole cozy
- toilet paper cozies
- ipod cozies aplenty
- camera cozies
- Nike plus transmitter/sensor cozies
- egg cozies
- someone working on a missile cozy
- soap cozy
- water bottle cozies
- of course, tea cozies
- fruit cozies
- cozies for crutches
- tree cozies
- pint sized ice cream cozies
- wine bottle cozies
- a pink tank cozy (seriously as in a full sized WWI military tank)
- knitting needle cozies
- fork cozy
- cozy for a toy dinosaur (stops being a sweater when nearly the whole toy is covered, I think)
- cozies for adult toys
- motorcycle cozy
I also did a quick search for "crochet" and "cozy", and came up with roughly a quarter as many results. Some are duplicates from the knitting search, and a higher percentage of them than the knitting search were for people using "cozy" as an adjective (as in "crocheting by a cozy fire") instead of a noun or verb. But there are still a lot of crochet cozied items.
The crocheted chandelier cozy certainly needs to be mentioned.
So I say to my Mister, "See. It isn't just me. Knitters are just like that."
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Sock Wars III
Just learned about Sock Wars from a coworker. Maybe next year my sock knitting skillz will be l33t enough to participate. Right now, not so much. For the meantime, I can't help but appreciate the brave competitors who are taking on the challenge of...
... the original and bloodiest death-by-knitting tournament.
Masks and dreams
I had a dream last night about ordering a masked figure out of a house in a battle of wills. He'd entered through a window on the second story of the house in the middle of the night, and was either a ghost, or a person trying to make us (there was another person there) believe he was a ghost. He tried to convince us to follow him deeper into the house, with apparently ominous intent. No physical contact was made in the confrontation. Instead, there was a lot of staring each other down, and repeating our demands to one another forcefully until he backed down and left the way he came.
It was another dream in which I could see the eyes of someone in the dream. Though in this case the rest of his face was obscured by a helmet-like, black and red mask. But the details were very clear.
The other person in the dream was someone I haven't seen or spoken to in maybe 15 years. An old friend from high school. He had a face, too, oddly enough. I am pretty sure I know how he ended up cast for this dream.
My Mister and I watched several episodes of Unbeatable Banzuke last night on the DVR, and were particularly impressed by the Super Rider competition. The competitors ride their mountain bikes through an incredibly difficult obstacle course without touching the ground with their feet. My friend did quite a bit of trick riding in high school, so I'm sure he was hovering around in the back of my brain when I went to sleep.
It was another dream in which I could see the eyes of someone in the dream. Though in this case the rest of his face was obscured by a helmet-like, black and red mask. But the details were very clear.
The other person in the dream was someone I haven't seen or spoken to in maybe 15 years. An old friend from high school. He had a face, too, oddly enough. I am pretty sure I know how he ended up cast for this dream.
My Mister and I watched several episodes of Unbeatable Banzuke last night on the DVR, and were particularly impressed by the Super Rider competition. The competitors ride their mountain bikes through an incredibly difficult obstacle course without touching the ground with their feet. My friend did quite a bit of trick riding in high school, so I'm sure he was hovering around in the back of my brain when I went to sleep.
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