links for 2006-07-29
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Religious allegory in Superman, particularly the latest movie version. (I must now find and read Up, Up, and Oy Vey! If nothing else, it’s just such a great title.)
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links for 2006-07-28
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Oops. Happens to us all, though — I once sent out a galley proof with a query about whether veg should be “cartooned” before or after freezing. (Obviously, should’ve been “cartoned.”)
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A Scottish study finds 74% of traditional spring/summer natural events (e.g., bird migration, flowering) are occurring earlier than in previous decades. A third are “significantly earlier.” Yikes.
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The Vancouver Film School brings you the kung-fu adventures of Broc Lee and the Ninja Carrots. (Via Vegan Porn.) Maybe I’m just tired, but my laughter woke up the dog.
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Farm Sanctuary Walk 2006, Atlanta
Prior DragonCon/geek commitments mean I won’t be able to make it to Taking Action for Animals this year, but at least I’ve signed up for the Walk for Farm Animals. I had wanted to do this last year, but never got around to it — plus, I don’t think they had online registration then. The ability to do something online vastly increases the likelihood that I’ll actually get around to doing it. (Yes, I really am that pathetic.)
If, by some odd chance, you should happen to be unfamiliar with Farm Sanctuary — the beneficiary of the charity walk — they are one of the major refuges for abused, neglected, or abandoned farm animals, and are very active in advocacy for better conditions for those animals they can’t take in. They put it much better than I could, of course.
If you’d perhaps like to sponsor me, my fundraising page is here. Any small donation would be welcome. Pocket change, even.
No pressure or anything. Really. It’s entirely optional. I won’t harangue you or look sad or sigh a lot or anything. Honestly.
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Mars Needs Battery Rechargers
I am nearly convinced that aliens have been sneaking into my flat while I’m away, or asleep, and stealing my battery rechargers. Well, in one case I’m pretty sure it was the maintenance guy at my last apartment who swiped it, but I have bought two different rechargers since then (over two years) and the dratted things keep vaporizing into the ether.
I’ve been so careful with them, too. The good one — the one that doesn’t heat up — stays in the kitchen drawer with the measuring cups and can opener and other small, reasonably flat kitchen gadgets. The other one lives at the office, for emergency recharging of my mouse batteries.* Both have been AWOL for at least a week.
It’s got to be Martians. That, or the fact that every battery recharger I buy is a lovely matte black, and so is nearly everything else in my flat, so there’s an occasional, very slight problem distinguishing between foreground, background, and various states in between. It all just blurs into a big pile of darkness, some of it velvety, some of it satiny, some of it plastic, some of it books that are not black as such but have been overwhelmed by the darkness. Some of the darkness is enlivened by a liberal sprinkling of white dog hair, but that doesn’t really alleviate the situation; it just looks really messy.
I swear, the next recharger I buy is going to have a big splodge of neon paint splashed across it. And have a homing beacon attached. And possibly a voice-activated siren.
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*The novelty of a wireless mouse wore off very quickly, and quickly became a nuisance, to say nothing of the environmental effects of replacing an entire set of AA batteries every month, for about 100 people. I now collect dead batteries to bring into Ikea for recycling, which helps a little, but I prefer to use rechargeable ones from home. (The ones I recharge at the office only get used there, so it’s not as if I’m recharging my digital camera on the company’s kilowatt.)
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My Theme This Year: Red and Black
All the shirts I ordered for DragonCon this year arrived today, which was kind of surprisingly fast. I’d ordered the red stripey Secret Society of Vegans one last Sunday, and the “Praise Seitan” one (which I’ve been coveting forever) and “All My Heroes Have FBI Files” from Herbivore on Wednesday. Neither place charged much at all for shipping, so I’d expected it to take quite a bit longer. It was a thoroughly pleasant surprise after a day spent largely in a sort of pseudoexistentialist funk, although I was rather annoyed that the postal carrier had jammed both packages into my little tiny mailbox, thus risking severe wrinkleage. (Or should that be wrinklage? Possibly.)
In addition, the nice folks at Herbivore included a handwritten thank-you note on my invoice (I’m always a sucker for that). The SSoV also include a free CD with each order — it’s apparently a promotional CD from a tour that took place last year, but, hey, I’m not proud.
So far, I’m extremely pleased with the shirts, and can’t wait to wear them outside the house. (Thus far, I’ve just tried them on and then pranced around the flat chanting “I’ve got cool shirts, I’ve got cool shirts” and confusing the poor dog.) Pity I can’t wear logo-type shirts to work. I wonder whether I could turn them around so the logos are on the back . . . or maybe wear lace overshirts over them, so only I know they’re there. Hmm. That last one might work. :)
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links for 2006-07-24
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As if clowns weren’t creepy enough. . . . One does wonder, though, whether he used one of those little “humorous” clown cars to try to run down the protesters.
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Secondhand Goodness
I seem to be on a secondhand binge at the moment, which at least creates an uneasy balance between my love of new-to-me goodies and my guilt over rampaging consumerism. Also, it’s quite noticeably cheaper (though I admit it does little to support the original artists, musicians, authors, etc.; nothing is, alas, perfect).
It started a couple of days ago, when I felt the urge for new punk. What I was particularly craving was for something in a Dead Kennedy-ish vein, having been splitting my Fenric-the-iPod time pretty much exclusively between them and the Decemberists lately (don’t ask), and somehow going to a secondhand shop just seemed more appropriate than, you know, ordering from a corporate behemoth. However, I have never in my life gone into a secondhand music shop and found anything I had in mind when I went in. (I’ll just have to order my DK-and-that-ilk directly from Alternative Tentacles, which is probably better anyway.)
On the other hand, I did manage to talk myself into picking up a few other CDs, mostly replacements for old CDs I had in college but lost somewhere along the line, or — in one case — a replacement for an old vinyl album that got left in a car and came out unfortunately warpy. (Gah, I’m old.) My score:
Today witnessed an excursion with Cindy to Atlanta Vintage Books, which was having a sale. I’d never been there before, but I liked the fact that it’s one of those shops plunked down in a preexisting building, so all the shelves are crammed into little rooms that lead off each other in weird and twisty ways.[1] At any rate, I was primarily interested in their vintage sci-fi, particularly of a Frank Herbert-y flavor,[2] and retro cookbooks from the 1950s or earlier, preferably with lots of illustrations of what was perceived at the time as the perfect family, perfect housekeeper, perfect meal, etc. Sadly, I don’t think those areas are AVB’s strong points — which, btw, include an excellent selection of vintage and antique children’s books! Most of their cookbooks dated from the 1980s or later, with a few from the 1970s; though I did have a little success with their sci-fi, their selection was, quite honestly, the tiniest I’ve ever seen in a secondhand shop. I didn’t think it was possible that one could exist without an entire room devoted to sci-fi, but oh well.
Scores from AVB today:
and, most excitingly,
On a completely irrelevant note, why is it considered polite, or at least acceptable, to ask people with red hair whether the color is natural? Maybe it’s just me, but I find that a little personal. No, I don’t dye it — I dyed it black for a year, and learned I am way too lazy to keep up with retouching roots — but if you’re not actually cutting my hair, or I don’t volunteer that information to you, then what business is it of yours? Gah!
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[1]Oddly shaped secondhand bookshops, and the graduate library stacks at the University of Illinois, which somehow managed to fit something like five stories of stacks into a three-story building, always remind me of the quote from Terry Pratchett: “. . . even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one of those that look as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more staircases than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”
[2]Happily, quite a few Herbert novels that were out of print for years are now being reissued, but I still prefer the old paperbacks. The paper is all velvety and yellow, well, it just smells like it should. I’ve found that reading Herbert printed on crisp white new paper, in a book with a spine previously uncreased, is somehow unnerving.
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links for 2006-07-21
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From Food Fight: blood-red vegan gummy skull-and-crossbones candy. I’m not usually a fan of gummy, but this is pretty freakin’ cool.
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My Father Is Temporarily Mislaid
My dad was supposed to return from the Czech Republic tonight (my mom returns in two weeks) — his flight was supposed to arrive at Hartsfield circa 5:30 this evening, and he was supposed to call me when he got in so I could drive his car over and pick him up. It’s now past 8:00, and I haven’t heard from him. His phone is turned off, so he could still be in the air, still stranded somewhere at a layover . . . anything. I’m fairly sure it would’ve made the news if his plane had gone down or exploded or been hijacked or something, so I’m sure he’s safe, if perhaps not particularly happy.
The biggest problem is that I cannot remember what airline he is supposed to be flying, so I can’t figure out what’s going on or whether he’s likely to get in tonight at all. I know I dropped them off two weeks ago at the north terminal, but cannot for the life of me remember which airline they were flying then, or even whether he’d be taking the same one back. When you go to the Hartsfield Web site, you can look for any flights from a particular city and see what’s going on, but I don’t know where his layover was. There don’t seem to be any flights directly from Prague, which is the nearest city with an airport to where they were staying, so I’m assuming he had a layover somewhere in Europe — and because his calling plan only covers the continental United States, he’s highly unlikely to turn his phone on at all.
Knowing that phone batteries can die, phones can get stolen or lost, people can forget that they’re supposed to call, etc., I even drove down to Hartsfield about an hour ago and cruised the baggage claim/pickup area a couple of times to see whether I could spot him. No luck.
I’m all in a dither. Indeed, a tizzy might not be too strong a word. If he arrives tonight, I still have to drive out to collect him — which is fine, although I’m not entirely sure how to turn on the lights on his Saturn (bloody American cars*) — and then he has to decide whether he’ll try to make the nearly four-hour drive back home or try to find a hotel. I’d put him up, but there just honestly is no room in my little studio. There’s no place to put him, not even a stretch of open floor long enough (and if there were, the dog would spend most of the night stepping on him). Should I try to stay up waiting for a call? Should I try to get some sleep now, knowing I’ll probably be woken up in the middle of the night? Gah, I don’t know.
Sorry — I know this is not the most entertaining of posts. I’m just kind of stressed out. It does, however, point to a couple of flaws in our system: (1) when arranging for someone to drive you to and pick you up from the airport, be sure to tell them (in writing) what your airline facts are; and (2) I really need to get an international calling plan for my parents. They travel way more than I do, and stuff like this keeps happening: they were in London last July 7; while they were in Italy last year, there was a train wreck near where they were staying . . . e-mail works well enough for unimportant stuff, but it’s not always easy to check your accounts while you’re traveling. (Plus you get distracted by all the new and interesting things around you, and it’s easy to forget until you’re too tired to deal with the computer.) Even barring crises, being able to use your phone when traveling with someone else makes coordination so much easier. (Being incommunicado like that drove me nuts in Quebec City, and I’m hardly the most social or phone-happy person.)
It’s 8:20 now. Still no call. Dad’s phone still off. I’d feel better if I knew whether his flight was just delayed, or whether it’s cancelled. (Also whether he’s stuck in a crowded airport, or being put up in a hotel. It’s probably the former, because a hotel would have a landline, and even without a calling card he’d be able to phone me and let me know what’s going on. Poor Dad.)
Update: My dad called about 8:45; his plane in Paris had been overbooked, so they sent him to Nice, and hilarity of that special airport kind ensued. At any rate, he’s back, and is now safely on his way back to Statesboro. Oh, and I think the lights in his Saturn are automatic, the same way the rear-view mirror switches (maddeningly) to Special Night Vision in the evenings, thus rendering it virtually useless. But that’s neither here nor there.
I’m going to bed now. Worn out.
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*His car sounds funny, and it shifts funny, and the windshield is at the wrong angle and looks funny. Also the dashboard is too far away, but the roof of the car is amazingly low, so it feels like the driver’s-side visor is about to bang into my head if I lean ever so slightly forward. Also, reverse is in the wrong place on the gear shift. The only thing I like about his car is that you can switch the temperature reading between Fahrenheit and Celcius; if there’s a way to do that in my VW Beetle, I haven’t found it yet. (Plus, Sid the Beetle is just cute.) Unfortunately, it’s easier in the long run to take his car, because that way we only have to sort out installing luggage in the trunk once instead of twice.
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Morning
There is nothing quite so annoying as insomnia. Well, I’m sure that there is — torture, starvation, really bad PMS* — but thankfully none of those are afflicting me at the moment. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, of my current afflictions, waking up irrevocably at 4:30 A.M. is by far the most aggravating.
This time, however, there seems to be a reason, or several reasons all conspiring to jolt me awake when it’s still fully dark outside. Part of it is that I still haven’t seemed to acclimate after working the convention a couple of weeks ago; I’d had to report to work at 6:00 A.M., which meant getting up at approximately the same time I used to go to bed when I was in college, and the trauma apparently still hasn’t worn off. Part of it is also probably my current fixation on what time it is in Germany, which is a long story, or at least one in which I come off looking rather silly and childish, so it’s one that won’t be shared at this point in time. (They’re six hours ahead of the eastern U.S., in case you were wondering.)
There’s also the fact that I was completely floored the other day when The Isa linked to one of my Fauxstess cupcakes pics. Being of the shy and wimpy lurkers, I immediately scurried into hiding under my desk for several days, living on bread crusts and whatever moisture condensation I could collect. (Fortunately, it’s been rather humid recently, so there was plenty of condensation.) It’s always rather a shock to realize that, though you’ve been living your life in a self-contained bubble and merrily preoccupied with your own thoughts and obsessions, you are in fact visible to the outside world, and sometimes they actually notice you. o.O Very cool, but also kind of scary — vaguely reminiscent of the random girl on the airplane, years ago, who turned out to remember me from our joint middle/elementary school. (The last time she’d seen me, she’d been in fourth grade and I was in eighth, and we were both college-aged when the Plane Episode occurred.)
Still, cool and all. Just a little paranoid-making. I keep wondering how badly I’ve embarrassed myself in old, half-forgotten posts. . . .
The last reason for the insomnia is that, for the last several days, I’ve had “The Sporting Life” by the Decemberists stuck irrevocably in my head. There’s something very disconcerting about being jolted awake in the wee hours by a guy singing about how much he sucks at sports, and once that instrumental line is playing, there’s no chance at all of getting back to sleep. Stupid DJ homunculus in my head.
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*Oh, and not to get too graphic, but may I just say that this is yet another aspect of my life that was immensely improved by going vegan? I don’t know whether it’s the increased tofu intake, the freedom from scary hormone-injected meat and dairy, the fact that I generally eat a more diverse diet now, or what, but all has been quiet on that particular front, pretty much since I switched over.
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