Archive for February, 2008

Frii Time

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Not a ton of time for blogging tonight, due to the little birthday present1 I bought for myself: a Wii with some accessories and a couple of games.
This is the first console I’ve ever owned. From childhood, when I visited friends to play Atari or Intellivision (I did eventually get a Vic 20, which was [...]

Nemi

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Two months ago I had never heard of Nemi. I had no idea that she was apparently known all over Europe, and especially a hit with her Norwegian countrymen, and across the UK.
And then I was browsing through Previews looking for stuff to order at my local comic shop1, and I saw a solicitation [...]

Monday Misc. Music

Monday, February 25th, 2008

To help me get through another annoying Monday, I have composed a short playlist of five songs that I like, which bear no relationship to each other whatsoever. Additionally, I am reasonably certain that anyone reading this will most likely not have heard any of these songs, and I can state with some certainty that [...]

Learning Google Gadgets

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

I decided tonight to learn how to write a Google gadget.
I figured something simple, like a configurable RSS feed reader (with a little shiny chrome) would probably be enough to learn the skeleton of what I would need to know.
So I whipped up a gadget for the Shadow Unit feed, since I’m still chewing over [...]

Gone Drinking

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Due to important fund-raising activities and all-you-can-drink craft beer, there will be no blogging today.
(Actually, I’m sick and driving, so there won’t be that much drinking, but I will still put in an appearance, raise the flag, and put some money towards a good cause.)

Once more unto the breach

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

…to close a bunch of tabs before Firefox memory issues eat my computer.

Let us begin with my praise of BibliOdyssey. They pulled me in earlier this month with the scans from an antique geomancy almanac, and I’ve been exploring their archives since then. Wow, is there a lot of stuff in there for a bibliophile [...]

I mean it: Go read this.

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

You may recall my mention earlier of how excited I was at the announcement of Shadow Unit?

Well, the “first episode” is now live on the site, and I encourage you in the strongest possible terms to go and check it out. If you’re a book person, think of this as a free new Emma Bull [...]

I have seen the Sky Wolf eat the moon…

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

…and I have two thoughts:
1) Damn, this science shit is cool. I can see the Sky Wolf eat the moon and know exactly what’s really going down. Yay for science!
2) Is it just me, or does eclipse night seem somehow darker than new moon night? That makes no sense, and is thus spooky. Of course, [...]

En Passant

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

I’ve got a three-year-old arriving in half an hour, and I’ve got a remote controlled car that I’ve just assembled, so I don’t have a lot of time for blogging today. Let’s see how many of my 20 or so “quickies” I can get through, in passing, before she gets home…

Recent experiments with Hemmingway’s recipe [...]

If I can find chestnuts…

Monday, February 18th, 2008

It appears that I failed to get tickets to the Savour Food & Wine show before it sold out.
Consequently, it appears I will not be getting to taste:

Slow roasted pork ribs with mango salsa, Buttermilk stilton biscuit with roasted duck and mini doughnuts with warm mocha chocolate
Shaved Smoked BBQ Brisket on Rosemary Crouton with Grainy [...]

Musings In Advance

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

When I turned 20, I was one of the youngest of my group of friends. I had watched them all make a big deal out of it, and I laughed. 20 was no problem.
When i turned 30, I was one of the youngest of my group of friends., although I had made a number of [...]

Linkblogging in a storm

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Might as well linkblog–can’t dance.

I don’t know whether to be amused or disheartened about the whole “25% of Brits think Winston Churchill is fictional” thing. On the one hand, it’s pretty funny. On the other hand, what does it say about the education system that this result is even possible. On still a third hand, [...]

What I’m Chewing On Today

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Own only what you can always carry with you; know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn

So I can’t claim not to have stuff… but I can certainly claim to understand that the things that matter are people and stories. It doesn’t hurt to remind myself from time to [...]

Russell, Gaby, and the H-Bomb

Monday, February 11th, 2008

That’s a portrait of Bertrand Russell, taken by the relatively famous quebecois photographer and portrait specialist, Gabriel Desmarais (who usually went by just “Gaby“). The portrait was taken at Russell’s place in Wales (”Plas Penrhyn”) in 1961, which would probably mean Russell is 89 in the photo.
It is one of a series of photomontages Gaby [...]

Not Beautiful, But Made From The Heart

Monday, February 11th, 2008

A couple of weeks back when Trish had her birthday, Sarah and I spent an afternoon making her a birthday cake. From scratch. That’s right–no mixes for us. If you’ve ever baked with a 3-year old, you will know that this can be terribly fun, if a bit messy.
The cake that we made was pretty [...]