 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In a non-word: phbltltltlt! One of the dumber manifestations of mob mentality in my opinion. When the game was in mid-afternoon, we used to enjoy going out shopping in the otherwise empty stores, or pick a restaurant that didn't have television monitors in it and enjoy a long, quiet meal. The idea of "professional" sports of any type has always seemed idiotic to me. The single mindedness with which some people become involved in merely watching them is, well, absurd to say the least. In the case of football in the US, though, the disease goes deeper still. One is judged as more than just peculiar for not liking it. In many circles, it's considered not only proof that a male is gay, but moreover that he must be communist, traitor, and atheist all rolled into one. Suggesting there is more to the world than professional football is equivalent to defiling a temple. And frankly, I say that temple is built around the biggest golden calf ever created. Tags: writer's block
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood:  bitchy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Argos discusses last night's painting here. Not bad considering I haven't touched real watercolors in probably 35 years or more. Gas prices are still cuckoo here. Harvard price as of today is $2.70, Marengo price (same taxes, just 12 miles away) is $2.52. Marengo is a smaller town with three stations in town because it's on US 20. Harvard is three times the population and has more stations, at least five that I can think of. It is on US 14. The two are linked directly via Illinois highway 23. There is no logical reason for this large discrepancy in prices. While going through some old books in a storage area at the library today, we discovered a box full of canceled checks. These are pretty darned old, half a century to be exact, from 1959 to 1961. The library's monthly phone bill was $7.98. Water was $5. The then-head librarian's salary was $225 a month, with no evidence of taxes or social security being taken out. There were also a lot of canceled vouchers that had been written directing the city treasurer to issue checks in various amounts to vendors and staff. Those would have been paid from library tax assessments, while the other checks came from the non-profit foundation account left by the original benefactor. An interesting bit of history. Too bad we didn't find them before the library centennial, they could have been included in a display. I may push for such a display anyway, since we still haven't finished out the centennial year until May. I also have some handwritten catalog cards I salvaged, and we have some books from the collection that date back almost to the beginning. There are some old ledger books and board minutes too. I wonder what the oldest staff photo we could find might be. Snow predicted for today did not materialize here. I guess places east and south of us are getting hit pretty hard, though. All we got was a blustery northeasterly wind that blew old snow around and made it hard to see. Tags: art, weather, work
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood:  exanimate
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Forecast keeps flickering between "less than an inch" and "one to two" for tomorrow. I say bring it. I have nothing to go out and do this weekend, it's fine with me. I can stay home and read or paint, or weave for that matter. Read because I just got Kyell Gold's new novel, Shadow of the Father, in today's mail. This is a continuation of the Volle/Argaea stories, with Volle's second son as protagonist, and promises to be quite good. I haven't been much excited by his other recently published work, but the excerpts for Shadow definitely are back to the things I do like. As for painting, Argos has more to say about that. Weaving? I've still got rugs on the loom and need to get them off so I can rethread for the coverlet block exchange, of which Argos has also given the details. Then there's Tess, who is obviously feeling neglected. She's bored and wants attention. Unfortunately, the back fields are all ice and snow, not suitable even for turnout at the moment and certainly not for riding. I used to go riding in the snow when I was young and foolish, and even took a couple of spills that way, but now I know too much to do it. The risk of injury to Tess or myself is just too great. I can, however, groom her and make a fuss over her. She seems to enjoy that provided it doesn't make her stand tied for too long. I could saddle her and walk her around in the arena a bit, but I think we both find that rather boring too. FurRag is back up and running after its move, as I think I've mentioned. I found myself entangled in the first drama I've experienced there since being made a moderator last year. A newly signed writer posted a story, properly tagged as "erotica" and I have no real issue with that, but he gave the story a summary with explicit sexual descriptions in it. Readers can block out "adult" content on the site so that they are warned and can avoid viewing it, but that doesn't keep them from seeing the summary for new material that's posted to the front page. I wrote a polite message explaining this and asking that the summary be revised accordingly. (I could just edit the summary myself, but I prefer not to be quite so high handed as that.) The ultimate consequence was that the writer completely deleted his stories, complaining that I was trying to make him write something other than what he wanted to write. In the process, he made the statement that "FurRag is an adult site" which is, simply, wrong. FurRag is a writing archive for writers and readers of all ages. Nowhere does it call itself an "adult" site, though it does accept erotica. Once again, I see in this the implied assumption that all things furry are of necessity pornographic. I disagree with this notion, but it seems to be very deeply entrenched now. Never mind the fact that the whole notion of furry fandom finds its roots in works like The Wind in the Willows, or Bambi, or Disney's fox Robin Hood character, none of which are in the least bit "adult" or pornographic. Today "everyone" knows that furry means porn. Grrr. It's enough to make me lash out with my hooves even, except there's never anyone to hit. It's like fighting with marshmallows. I don't know where this idea came from, but it's very widespread now. Tags: art, furry, weaving, writing
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: irritated
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Or at least, survived. Major roof leaks due to ice dams at work. The building is only ten years old, but to tell the truth, the roof has always leaked. The original contractors did a second rate job on quite a few things. Upgrading various older computers that fill supporting roles. All of them have been running Linux long enough to need new kernels and new OS versions, so I'm going to Debian Lenny with all of them. It's much easier to maintain than Slackware. Today I had the pleasure of formatting one that had an old version of Red Hat installed on it. I dislike Red Hat intensely and never was happy about that particular machine (which was set up by paid consultants not too long after I started this job.) Gave up on the search for water activated gummed paper tape locally, and ordered a roll from Dick Blick. It turned out that the library's office supply place could get it for me, but I'd have to order a case at once. Each roll is 600 feet long, which is practically a lifetime supply in my case, so I certainly don't need six rolls. Tags: art, geekery, work
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood:  tired
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After more than a year of messing with it (though not, I admit, very diligently) I have succeeded in making the scroll wheel of the mouse work in Wolvix. Comparing the xorg.conf files on two different machines (neither of which worked, but for different reasons) I conclude that I just failed to follow directions very carefully. Duh-mb pony me. Not that I ever use the scroll wheel on any machine, but it irritated me that it didn't seem to work when everyone said it works fine in Linux. And they were right, it does. On both machines. The bigger news, for those who didn't see it on facebook, is that I submitted a 2+ year old manuscript for a YA novel to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. They sent a confirmation that my submission was received and accepted. Although the deadline is midnight next Sunday, they limit entries in each of the two categories to 5000 and I was afraid I'd be shut out before I was ready to submit. The first round of selection is apparently based only on a 300 word "pitch" or summary of the storyline, which is kind of difficult for book manuscripts of 50 to 150K words, but OK, I'll play that game. Get past that and there are people actually reading your work so chances of succeeding on merit improve greatly. ( Summary behind cut for the curious reader )Those who followed my NaNoWriMo posts back in 2007 may recognize this story. Yes, that's the one, now fully polished and matured. My first NaNo success (I've had two since then) and I'm still quite satisfied with it. Should it ever make it to print, sequels are entirely possible. The rest of the news: We got a bunch of snow today. The original prediction was for an inch overnight last night. At dawn this morning, we already had an inch and it was still coming down. They revised the prediction to "up to two inches." In the end, I think we had three before the temperature rose enough to start melting it. There are still a couple of inches sitting around on the ground and roofs. Up at work, 12 miles north of here, we got closer to four inches. It's pretty, and though the driving was slow and nasty, I don't mind it so much because it is not cold. We are hovering in the 25F range at night and going up near freezing during the day for the next few days. Clouds and snow mean that the dopy ground hogs didn't see their shadow this morning, at least, not around here. Winter is supposed to end soon in that case. We shall see. Tags: geekery, weather, writing
Current Location: Snowy oak grove
Mood:  geekish
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, tomorrow is Marmota monax Day in Woodstock as elsewhere. It's a good day to avoid Woodstock, though. Ever since the film Ground Hog Day was released, it has become the town's sole claim to fame I guess. No longer the home of Chester Gould (creator of Dick Tracy) or the town whose jail held the likes of Dillinger and Debs, instead Woodstock seems to prefer to commemorate the fact that Bill Murray stepped in a puddle just here (with little brass plaques, new one added each year.) As for their prognosticating rodent, Willie, I say he's been wrong every single year for as long as I've lived in the vicinity. Of course, there's another way of looking at ground hog weather reports: if the critter sees his shadow, we get six more weeks of winter, and if he doesn't see his shadow, we get six more weeks of winter. That seems more accurate than any other interpretation in my experience. Art supplies arrived today, but I can't play until I finish copy editing that darned manuscript and submit it. Hopefully, before the end of tomorrow. Won't pay to do it sleepy, I'll miss something crucial I fear. At least so far, after lying dormant for over two years, I can say I still think it's quite good and has a chance. Head cold, if that's what it is, remains the same, neither climaxing nor fading. Tags: art, ground hogs, weather, writing
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: tired
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm sure it's still big and bright for some folks but here it's too cloudy now. For a busy and tiring day, I feel as if I didn't get much done. But we went grocery shopping and I did some reading and started revising a manuscript. More about that in a day or two, I think. I'm feeling an art itch that I'm going to have to scratch soon. I haven't done any serious painting for quite a few years, but for some reason I'm going to need to do some. Dug out my supplies and went over them, figured up what I need to replenish or replace. I don't usually do oil or acrylic, but prefer watercolor. Animal subjects and landscapes. We'll see what develops, I'm really not sure what's up with this. Squeezed by various deadlines again. Monthly spinning quota, but I'll leave that for Argos to deal with. Book manuscript needs polish, pitch, and submit within the next week at most. Fortunately it's in good shape already. Weaving work and now this muse who demands that I be painting. I dunno. Of course there's ordinary work too, and the animals to care for. Right now, sleepy is the order of the moment. Tags: art, weather, writing
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: tired
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Previous
silly