Category: general

I used all my memory cards when we were at the zoo, including an old 8 meg one and an old 16 meg one. When we went back to the room, I was unable to pull the pictures off those cards. I had to wait until I got the proper software; this only happened yesterday.

The missing pictures are now up, and they start here.

These missing pictures finish out the animals portion of the zoo and also cover the beautiful botanical gardens and the trails down to the old mill and dam on the river, of which only ruins remain.

By this time the rain had stopped and the sun had come up, providing less than optimal lighting for photography. Oh well.

…or does the Man in the Yellow Hat from the new Curious George movie look way too much like (the modern) David Seville from The Chipmunks?

Because, you know, I do.

I would like to name a child “Conrad”. However:

1) “Conrad Meadows” is kind of doofy-sounding. (“Conrad Aubrey” isn’t any better, and it’s a little difficult to pronounce!)

2) “Conrad” is too close in sound to “Connor”.

Ah well. Conrad is the only character in Kyou Kara Maou with a reasonably decent name, alas. (Imagine: Gwendal Meadows!)

Apparently our inability to buy a house isn’t entirely my fault. Hey, it’s always nice to shift blame!

Getting ahead gets harder

Straitened circumstances are becoming more familiar to those in their 20s and 30s as they try to get a foothold on the American Dream. Student loans, depressed wages, rising healthcare costs and soaring housing prices are creating new economic realities. Sixty percent of young adults between 18 and 34 are struggling for financial independence, says [Tamara] Draut, now the director of the economic opportunity program at Demos, a think tank in New York. She is also the author of a new book, “Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead.”

“What made the transition to adulthood somewhat less bumpy 30 years ago was that we had an economy that lifted all boats,” she says. “When productivity was increasing, so were wages. We don’t have that today. Wages certainly aren’t keeping up with the cost of things like healthcare and housing.”

[…]

Very often, social observers say, young adults living on the financial edge view their situation as simply their own fault.

“We’re so individualistic,” says Deborah Thorne, a sociologist at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. “We see this as an individual problem, and then we look to the individual for the solution. The fact is, these are national problems and they require a national solution. But this is just not on the radar of politicians. It’s not an issue with which they concern themselves. But it’s the issue the American family is concerned with.”

Young people, Draut says, feel that many Americans are doing very well. “You see Hummers on the highway, McMansions being built. It’s extremely frustrating and confusing for young adults who are living paycheck to paycheck and with five- figure student-loan debts to see young families living in million-dollar houses.”

Parents are also confused. “A lot of parents don’t understand why their kids haven’t accomplished the traditional markers of adulthood that they did — buying a home, starting a family, living without debt,” Draut says. “I don’t think there’s an awareness of how much the economic context has changed.”

We don’t have any debt at the moment, but we sure can’t seem to progress very far either…

I don’t know if I would say that everything was great 30 years ago, though. It’s not like my parents were driving new cars and living in a huge house.

When I saw this headline, ‘Maid in Japan’ cafes treat geeks like lords, I thought, “That’s old news to people who’ve seen Densha Otoko.” I went on to read the piece, thinking it would be a neat culture explanation to link to, and to my surprise came across the following:

Patronage is also on the rise among young women, some hoping to snag a geek and turn him into Prince Charming in a real-life imitation of last year’s hit movie “Train Boy”, a love story set in Akihabara that also became a popular TV series.

Hahaha! (Although they should have mentioned that “Train Boy” [“Train Boy”?!] was based on a true story.)

The article also mentions some things I didn’t know, like the following:

Hair salons in Akihabara are also cashing in on the trend.

At one such establishment called “Moesham”, stylists dressed as maids give shampoos and cuts to a mainly male clientele not intimidated by the salon’s decor, which resembles the bedroom of a young girl besotted by hearts and lace.

A few customers even come three or four times a week for a shampoo, said Yuki Todo, stylist-manager at the shop.

Too bad they don’t explain “moe“. From Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC:

萌え 【もえ】 (n) (1) sprouting; budding; (2) crush (anime, manga term); fascination; infatuation.

Obviously the “sham” is short for “shampoo”.

I’d like to go to a maid cafe at least once. I’m afraid, however, that I’d feel the same way I felt at the hostess bar: awkward and somewhat irritated.

Well, this is interesting.

Wikinews: New South Wales to introduce ‘parenting contracts’

Parents would be forced to sign the contracts by the children’s court. They could require parents to attend parenting classes, undergo counselling, stop drug use or stop consuming excessive amounts of alcohol depending on the situation. The NSW Deparment of Community Services would be allowed to apply to the court for the contracts to be drawn up.

If parents failed to comply with the contracts their children would be removed by authorities.

I want to know how this turns out.

They’re questionnaires, dammit.

Amy at Blue Lotus asked for volunteers, and I hastily responded, as is my wont.

I think “Too Much Information” is sort of a misnomer, because as I understand it, I am to list 10 “revealing/odd/interesting/random facts about me”. It’s really only TMI if I make it TMI, don’t you think?

The trick will be to write things that I haven’t mentioned before! Hmmmmm.

1. One time when I was mad at AJ for borrowing something of mine without permission, I decided to trash his room. Except I barely got started when I started to feel guilty. I was going to throw a CD, but I knew that might scratch and damage it, so instead I hung it from the wall by a tack, with the scratchable side out so it wouldn’t rub against the wall. Vengeance was mine!

2. I like prunes.

3. I love dishes. Very often when I’m out shopping, I will fall in love with a bowl or cup and want to buy it immediately. Occasionally I succumb.

4. Yesterday I changed the greeting message on my cell phone from “Hi Heather!” to “Kyou Kara Maou!”, and wished my phone supported Japanese text.

5. Speaking of Kyou Kara Maou…over the weekend Sean noticed that I changed my Windows XP user account pictures to pictures of Yuuri, and said, “You want to leave me for Yuuri, don’t you?” I responded, “No…it’s more like I want to be Yuuri.” “Oh,” Sean said, “you want to leave me for Conrad, then.”

6. I can’t breathe through my nose right now.

7. I believe that I could make an awesome webcomic if I committed myself to it. Including the art. Yes, I’m that egotistical!

8. I absolutely adore the Super Mario Bros. remix of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”. It’s really the only way I’ll listen to the song ;>

9. My first memory of sneaking food is from when I was really young and we lived in the trailer. I stole cookies out of the cookie jar and hid them behind something on a shelf. Later when I went back to eat them, they were covered with ants.

10. I’m thinking of going into business for myself as a page and Web designer.

Okay, I really can’t breathe out of my nose, and it’s driving me nuts. So I’m going to post this and find some decongestant!

[Edit 9:05 pm:] I forgot to tag people. Hyper, Roderick, Jered, Charles, Ross. Go! (Can you guess the theme involved in that list of people?)

So I’m thinking that I don’t want my house to be arctic. While I’d love to replicate the design of an old Japanese house, I also like things like central heating and air, and insulation. So! I propose a compromise: a large sunroom–maybe stretching the length of the back of my house–with tatami floors, dividers, vents, an honest-to-goodness kerosene heater, a kotatsu, a closet full of futon…and the rice paper doors slide open to the Japanese garden, complete with koi pond.

Oh yeah.

Graham Holliday of noodlepie has a series of posts discussing his feature writing process, from coming up with an idea to shopping the idea around to interviews to the actual writing and editing. It’s pretty illuminating, and it also takes some of the mystique out of the process of getting published. I read these posts and thought, “Well, gee, I could do that.” Pretty cool.

So, I watched the MacGyver ad this morning. (If you missed it, click here. It was shown during the fourth quarter.)

Hair notes: he did dye it, but he did not grow back the mullet.

All in all, not bad. The commercial would have been 1000% better if it had featured actual MacGyver music.

And here they are.

As always, there’s more where those came from.

Ah, Sluggy goodness.

That whole bizarre outside-of-time story seems to be over, and the ending totally redeemed all the boring parts. Yay!

I adore it here.

This is our last morning at Rose Hall Bed & Breakfast in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. The experience has been amazing.

I’d never been to a B&B before, but I expected it to be something similar to a ryokan. (Isn’t it funny that I’d been to a Japanese inn but not an American one?) It turns out that that does in fact seem to be the case. This particular B&B serves breakfast only (and sometimes dessert). There are free drinks and snacks in the stairwell.

Our room is absolutely gorgeous–large, with a fireplace (electric), a vanity, a writing desk, a little TV tower, two Victorian chairs, a dressing couch, and a lovely bed with a beautiful quilt. There are elegant mirrors everywhere. We have our own bathroom with a jacuzzi tub. Everything is decorated in a rich Victorian style, with a rose theme. The entire B&B is decorated with roses; downstairs it’s very pink. This room adds some hunter green, purple, maroon, and violet for a more toned-down, sophisticated grandeur. The furniture all looks like antiques. There’s a beautiful lamp with a fabric shade on the writing desk, and a fabulous pink blown glass lamp in the bathroom.

I honestly wouldn’t mind decorating our bedroom this way, once we get our own place :)

Now it’s time to have a late breakfast and head back home. I’ll be back online shortly to upload pictures and write more about the trip :)

There’s going to be a MacGyver commercial during the Superbowl! Whee!