Category: general

I have to say that I didn’t enjoy the trip to Charleston as much as I’d hoped.

On Wednesday we spent a few hours in the morning packing up the camper, and then about two and a half hours driving to Charleston. We got there, resolved the reservation issue, parked, and spent awhile unpacking. Then we watched Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, and Sean and I got online, and Cheryl made pork chops (I tried to help but that kitchen is tiny), and that was pretty much the extent of our first day.

On Thanksgiving we got up reasonably early, had some cereal, and headed to downtown Charleston. Once Reid decided where he wanted to park (quite a feat), we walked around looking at buildings and shops. The first real sight was the church of which Cheryl and Reid have a painting in their dining room.

After that, we had lunch at a cool Irish pub/grill called Tommy Condon’s (and you know what I originally thought it said).

We saw some neat stuff in an open-air market, reminiscent of the one in Savannah. I tried some pralines at a candy shop. We walked down a long pier that extended into the bay.

And I got some decent architectural shots. This one’s my favorite:

As evening approached, we headed back to the truck. I got a neat picture of a brick building; Sean said, “Why are you taking a picture of the garbage?” Because it looked neat I tell you! (I also got a shot of the other side of the building.)

Back at the camper, we set about fixing and eating Thanksgiving dinner, after which we watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Sean and I stayed up a little too late on the Internet after that.

Yesterday was pretty much a waste of a day. Cheryl and Reid let Sean and me sleep in for far too long. We finally got up at 11:45. Sluggishly, we took our showers, only to discover that Cheryl and Reid hadn’t taken their showers yet either…so with all the preparation and waiting for the hot water tank to refill, we didn’t actually leave the camper until 4:30 pm.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I’ll admit to some fault for not setting an alarm, but they could have, you know, at least gone ahead and showered. And why didn’t they ask us “Do you really want to sleep in this long?” instead of just assuming?

Bah.

Anyway, we left at 4:30, and this time we headed to Folly Beach.

It was really beautiful with the sunset and all, and I didn’t mind the freezing cold (though Cheryl certainly did!). We walked out across the sand and looked around and took pictures. Sufficiently chilled, we piled back in the truck and drove around the island a little, looking at the houses. Then we headed back to the camper, where we ate hotdogs and watched Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (and I noticed some story tie-ins with the third movie that I hadn’t before).

And that was our whole day.

Only two days of exploring, one of which almost totally wasted.

Today we got up around 8 am, did not take showers (much to my chagrin; my hair always looks terrible when I don’t wash it in the morning), packed everything up, and left. On the way home in the car (thank goodness we took our own vehicle), I ended up bitching quite a bit to Sean, and finally I just burst into tears. He told me it wasn’t worth crying over, and I suppose it really wasn’t, but I think I needed an emotional release after everything I’ve been through recently. It had been a long time since I’d felt comfortable enough to cry.

Yes, I was frustrated about going to a beautiful city and hardly seeing any of it, about not having enough time to do the things I wanted to do, about none of my suggestions being even considered, about sleeping in a very small and uncomfortable bed in an extraordinarily chilly camper, and about being guilt-tripped into quasi-agreeing to go on the same trip again in two years (Thanksgiving being with my family next year). But I think it was a “last straw” scenario. (I also think that living with the in-laws is starting to wear pretty thin.)

But I have the best husband in the world, and he listened to me complain and rubbed my leg and neck and held my hand while I cried in the car, and then got me a nice meatball sub for lunch. When we got home we took a shower together and napped together and made love and I started to feel human again.

I’m not sure what we’ll do when Thanksgiving 2007 rolls around. Cheryl is pretty set on going to Charleston every year (perhaps for the rest of her life!). So if we end up going, we may get ourselves a hotel room to avoid some of the problems of this trip.

Regardless, I hope someday I get to take some real time and see more of Charleston.

It seems like everywhere I go in the United States, people refer to the larger region in what are likely hyperbolic claims, such as “Lowest prices in the CSRA!” I find these region names fascinating.

Back home, it was “Central Kentucky” or “the Bluegrass“, which is the central (and northern) part of Kentucky. (The other regions in Kentucky are Knobs, Pennyroyal, Jackson Purchase, Eastern Coal Fields, and Western Coal Fields. We learn all this stuff in fourth grade and then promptly forget it.)

In Augusta, it’s “the CSRA”, which stands for Central Savannah River Area (region 7 on the state government’s map).

And here in Charleston, it’s “the Lowcountry” (a name which has its roots in history).

What is it where you live?

You are White Chocolate

You have a strong feminine side with a good bit of innocence thrown in. Whether your girlish ways are an act or not, men like to take care of you. You are an understated beauty, and your power is often underestimated!

You are Flat Sandals

Casual yet flirty You look great in a simple top and jeans Your look is approchable and cute!

Those are kind of ugly :/ But I do have some nice black flat sandals someone gave me…

I finally know what real friendship is.

(This will probably make no sense to anyone.)

Sunshine has a terrible story on her blog today.

My mom’s cousin M , (she is a doctor) went to her job in Al-mahmoodeya hospital , then after few hours , she heard a very loud explosion , it was a bomb car exploded in the hospital , my grandma called her to see how is she doing , did she got hurt or not ? she said …
“I was in the delivery room when one of my patient’s just gave birth to a nice healthy baby , then I heard a very loud explosion , & things falling on me , I tried to go out to see what is going on in the hospital, I was covered with blood & I saw horrible views , dead bodies , even some of my friends died” … she said “the national guards were like angels they helped me & saved my life”…
it was a miracle that she is a life , anyway , Dr. M said that our brave national guards helped her to go out from the hospital , because they had to close some of the hospital’s loop-holes , they were expecting another bomb-car ..in her way-out she saw her patient dead (the new mother) …
& that all because the Americans soldiers were in the hospital giving the children toys !!
50 Iraqis died & 4 Americans , that what I heard in the news …

Today Ruth has the following thought on her blog:

I always liked this no frills festival. There is no canned music in shops whispering ‘My product will absorb all your loneliness’ to the tune of Jingle Bells, no guilt-laced tinsel at the edge of your vision starting two months beforehand, no fairy-lit high streets draining the earth’s resources and beckoning you to spend, spend, spend…..

No, rather than steal from the Earth, there is a meal shared, a holiday taken, and a grand giving of thanks for Her bountiful gifts. Religious it may not be but spiritual it certainly is.

I’m feeling a little prickly due to a conversation we’ve been having here, so my first reaction was a little sour. I love Christmas, and it makes me happy to have special events and beautiful decorations all around.

But I can certainly appreciate Ruth’s sentiment about Thanksgiving. It’s a lovely holiday, a time for appreciation of family and food and the richness of life.

This year, Sean and I will enjoy rotisserie chicken, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and peach pie with Cheryl and Reid, sharing each other’s company and experiencing the beauty of an Old South town.

I wish all of you similar Thanksgiving happiness :)

XD

Well, there isn’t much of interest to post today. We drove for a few hours, got to Charleston, straightened out a problem with our reservation, parked, set up the camper, made dinner, ate it, and watched Revenge of the Sith. Exciting!

I’m not actually sure what we’re going to be doing this trip. Antique stores and “old town” have been mentioned. Pictures, of course, will follow.

Hello my faithful readers!

Sean and I are going with his parents to Charleston, South Carolina for Thanksgiving. We’re leaving today and will be returning home on Sunday. As we will be staying at a campsite, we probably won’t have Internet access. (There’s a slim chance of Wi-Fi, but we’re not counting on that.)

So, if you don’t hear from me until Sunday (or Monday!), that’s why.

Happy Thanksgiving!

When I saw that a new episode was out, I thought, “I hope there’s some good plot stuff in this one.”

Sheeeeeeeeeesh, I need to be careful what I wish for! :D

So, like, does Wolfram carry the key to one of the boxes? Is it his ear, maybe? If not that, then what?

And it’s Gwendal‘s left eye! So, all three brothers…!

What is this all building up to?

Who carries the fourth key?

Who are those guys who kidnapped Wolfram?

What is Wilma/Belma doing in the next episode?!

XD

I was using the Internet Archive to see if I could find some of my old websites, and I came across the first incarnation of pixelscribbles. Back then I called it Pixel Scribbles, and it was hosted on my QX.net homepage. Here’s a screenshot:

I was ecstatic to see that huge list of my writing…but then I tried clicking on the links. Archive.org did not archive my writing!

Grr.

Fortunately, all the poetry listed there is still here, and AJ gave me his copy of The Vukin Project…but the rest of it is gone.

So, here’s the list of writing on that page, and a brief description of each thing, as best as I can remember.

Short Stories

“Jack” – This was a vignette about a guy getting shot. I used the phrase “the bullet impending to his arm”, which is grammatically incorrect, but I thought it was a revolutionary and perfectly acceptable use of the word at the time. Written while I was in high school.

“The Beginning” – This was a Star Wars story, about how Leia decided to join the Rebellion. Or maybe the next one was. I forget which was which; their titles suck. Written (I think) during or after my first year of college at UAH.

“The Decision” – Another Star Wars story. If this isn’t the Leia one, then it’s the one with Yoda and Obi-Wan carting the newborn twins away from Vader. Obviously this was written before the prequels came out. Written (I think) during or after my first year of college at UAH.

“The Definition of Love” – I was very proud of this story. It was pretty dark. I actually don’t want to give a synopsis, because I might rewrite it someday. Originally written during my first year of college at UAH, and later formatted to look like a magazine article for my first Creative Writing class at UK.

“A Slip of the Tongue” – This was a vignette about how it feels to say something that hurts someone else’s feelings. Written during high school, I’m guessing sophomore year.

“Double Date” – This was a true story, written for my Advanced Writing class at UK, about Sean and me going to Outback with our friends William and Michelle. Written in 1999.

“Replace the Carpet” – In one of my writing classes at UK, the professor said it was impossible to write a story in second person. So, I wrote a story in second person. (It was actually in first person, but you couldn’t tell that until the very end.)

Novels

The Vukin Project – This is the story about that bald guy, and the REVOLUTION!, or something. ;> I started this when I was a teenager and continued it during my first year of college at UAH.

Warrior – This was the first of what was supposed to be a string of fantasy novels, although I didn’t really have much of an idea of where the story was going to go. This first installment involved a young man growing into a hero. The second story was about his daughter (who of course didn’t know her father was a hero). I started this when I was around 15.

Essays

All of these essays were written for classes at the University of Kentucky. I had some nice linguistics papers that I didn’t put online because I didn’t want to mess with the IPA fonts, and I had a huge set of essays written for my 2001 Japan trip that was also never put online. Oh well, it’s not like I have any of them now, anyway :>

“And God Saw That It Was Good” – This was an essay I wrote for film class, about the movie Dark City. In it, I argued that the movie presented a call for atheism. It really didn’t, but that was how I perceived it. In a nutshell, I was angry that John wasn’t going to tell any of the survivors that they were on a spaceship. Instead, he just set himself up as God and remade the City the way he wanted it. I felt that this was a metaphor for the Christian god. Obviously I had some issues at the time. Written in 2000.

“Self-Reliance” – This was an essay for Advanced Writing about Thoreau and Emerson, I think. I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything interesting. (This may be the essay where I basically lashed out at my professor’s “go into the woods to find yourself” ideals.) Written in 1999.

“Shaw and Feminism” – This was my review of George Bernard Shaw’s play Mrs. Warren’s Profession, for English Lit. In it I basically said that Shaw was not preaching feminism with this play, as my professor would have had us believe. As I recall, I had some pretty compelling arguments, but I don’t remember what they were. (Can you tell I enjoyed contradicting my teachers?) I think this was written in 2000.

“A Call for Equality” – I have no idea what this is, but it sounds boring, doesn’t it? It’s probably a literature review.

“Horrible Responsibility” – I’m gonna guess this was another literature review…but this may possibly have been written for Human Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 2000. Not sure. (Come to think of it, the previous essay might have been for that class, too. Who knows.)

Journal Entries

All of these journal entries were written while I was in college at UK.

“The Way It Is” – This might have been about infertility. I don’t remember.

“On writing and fame” – You’ve seen me talk about this enough in this journal!

“Paranoia; or, an average day in the life” – This one was interesting. I was sitting on the floor in Whitehall Classroom Building on UK campus, writing in one of my notebooks, and I started to get this really paranoid feeling. I have an overactive imagination sometimes, so I started coming up with things that might happen to me, and how I might defend myself. Then I wrote about it.

“On being barren” – Now this was definitely about infertility. It’d be kind of nice to see what I had to say back then. I think I remember it, vaguely. It was what I wrote right after my first endocrinologist told me how high my FSH levels were. I wrote something like this:

“I didn’t want to have a baby right now,” I told Sean on the phone later that night. “But–“

“But you wanted to know that you could,” he finished for me. I love him so much.

I wrote this poem in the same sitting as that journal entry.

“Life for Dummies” – This was just a short, cute little thing I wrote as a reaction to the Today show. An Asian woman was interviewing someone about economics and acting like a ditz, so I wrote about how next they’d be hawking a book called Life for Dummies. There was a guy I met doing night desk in the dorms…I forget his name, but I thought he was very cool. He wrote essays for the school paper arguing Palestine’s side. Anyway, I showed him this essay one day at the Ho and he thought it was funny.

///

And that’s not all I ever wrote, not by a long shot! There were plenty of short stories and college essays that I didn’t put online, either because they weren’t finished or because I thought they sucked. There were also the Ninja Turtle and Darkwing Duck stories I wrote in middle school, which only existed in hardcopy (they were originally on 5-1/4″ Apple II floppies, but I have no idea what happened to those. There was also a story about a girl named Gwendolyn who got sucked into another world on those floppies; I don’t think I even had a copy of that story at the apartment). I also remember writing a story about a mystery in Venice when I was in third grade–that may still exist, actually, at my parents’ house.

So while I certainly haven’t been as prolific as some people, I did lose quite a bit of writing in that stupid fire.

MSNBC: 75-year-old jewel thief looks back

Never did she grab the jewels and run. That wasn’t her way. Instead, she glided in, engaged the clerk in one of her stories, confused them and easily slipped away with a diamond ring, usually to a waiting taxi cab.

She is, says retired Denver Police Detective Gail Riddell, like a character from a movie — a female Cary Grant, smooth and confident.

“She is very good at what she does,” said Riddell. “She has the style.”

And she has been very, very successful. Every month or every other month — no one knows how many times over more than 50 years — she strolled into a jewelry store and strolled out with a ring worth thousands of dollars.

Occasionally, she was caught. Mostly, she was not.

Reuters: That’s incredibly beautiful…give me a hammer…

“Great works of art, at a deep level, bring about a feeling of destruction, an urge to destroy which also many artists have. Michelangelo himself destroyed some of his own works or parts of them.”

But the will to destroy is not just caused by a subconscious link between creating and destroying. The David syndrome is also caused by people’s deepest fears and desires, by sex and death.

Magherini has interviewed gallery visitors who are fixated with and disturbed by the physical attributes of David, considered by art critics to be a vision of male perfection.

“There’s a great force, an impulse of an erotic and sexual nature, not just in women, but even more so in men. Men of 35-40 year of age who are attracted by the extraordinary masculine beauty and at the same time are also agitated.”

The David syndrome has links to the somewhat better known Stendhal syndrome, a term Magherini coined more than 20 years ago, which causes viewers of art to be physically overcome by their reaction to art, sometimes leading to hospitalization.

The Cynical Traveller goes to… A Cheerleading Competition

While the benefits of being able to wrap your own legs behind your head may not be immediately apparent, a little careful thought can bring up several situations where it might come in handy. Such as scratching an unwanted itch, or escaping from the deathtrap of a supervillian.

I think tagging is great. It’s awesome to be able to categorize stuff so I can easily find it later. Adding tagging to its robust gallery featureset was one of the best thing smugmug’s ever done.

But boy is it a pain to actually do the tagging.

I’m not psychic. I can’t predict what is going to be interesting to me later when I tag my photos. Worse, back in the beginning I used as few tags as possible so I could hurry up and be done with it. This means that every time I think of a new tag set, I have to go back and edit pretty much all of my photos. (By “tag set”, I mean stuff like what month the picture was taken in. Today I’ve spent a few hours tagging all my photos for month and season.)

It would just be easier if I was psychic.

Actually, a nice option would be if I could select groups of albums and give them all the same tag(s). That would be awfully convenient.

Another thing I would like is to be able to exclude tags when I’m browsing. For example, I’d love to be able to look at good pictures, or pictures of me, while eliminating anything tagged as wedding. There are a lot of wedding pictures, after all.

But that’s beside the point. The point is this:

The idea of tagging = awesome.

The reality of tagging = a pain in the ass.

That is all :)

MSN has a review of Goblet of Fire up that poses an interesting question:

Will Fourth ‘Harry Potter’ Stop Series’ Descent?

So far, most critics and fans would agree, every Harry Potter movie has been better than the last one. Statistics, however, suggest a disconnect.

The first one, “Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone,” released in 2001, grossed $317 million in the United States. No. 2, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” released in 2002, made $261 million. The third and most acclaimed entry, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” released in 2004, grossed “only” $249 million.

All were immensely successful, of course, and they collected many more millions overseas, where the studios now make most of their money on theatrical releases. Yet the pattern holds there as well: No. 1 is far and away the biggie, with a combined domestic/overseas gross approaching $1 billion, while No. 2 trails and No. 3 is nearly $200 million behind No. 1.

It does seem that the more inventive and interesting the adaptations are, the more audiences dwindle.

I personally sometimes find it difficult to watch a deeper movie again right away, and sometimes I’ll only see it once before getting the DVD. (Please bear in mind that I hardly ever go see movies anyway.) When I saw Azkaban, I enjoyed it, but it put me through the wringer mentally, trying to follow the action and think about what had been changed from the book and just keep up with the frenzied pace. I felt like I was too tired after all that to go see it again, so I didn’t.

Goblet of Fire‘s pacing wasn’t slow by any means, but it was much easier for me to follow. Maybe that’s because the story’s better. Maybe the screenplay or the direction is better. I have no idea.

What I do know is that this movie seems to be infinitely rewatchable. I would watch it again right now if I could :)