jan-jan

I have noticed over the past couple of days, people on facebook and ravelry - they quote The Office, and then tell me they're quoting The Office. Which is a very funny show with some good quotable lines. I do like the show, I do get the reference, often.

My problem is that I can't tell if they're being ironic in being like Michael Scott.

Well, hm. DS battery is forcing me to do something besides play. So here's a video game review. I know it's an aberration. Noted.

The interface is really fine, easy to get around in. There are hints available, but I've been eschewing them, so I have no clue how they are - though the tutorial thing at the beginning seems to make them look like just the same kind of "here's a starting point" thing as any person would begin with anyway.

The puzzles are timed. This kind of bugs me to begin with, since I'm a solver's point fan (plus, the first thing I lose when rushed is accuracy - in arithmetic and everything else). The real problem I had getting started is that (in normal mode) a misplaced fill-in gets you a time-penalty, and then you know something you didn't before. I want to say successive errors get larger penalties, but I wasn't paying that much attention. (Seriously, I was in a PBN-obsessive time warp last night. Must... Fill... Squares...) The other thing is that the dark squares are what counts, if you don't get all the light-square x's filled in, no big. I am sometimes tempted to skimp on the x's to make up time, but that tends to slow me down eventually because I can't see what's next, especially as the puzzles get harder. It's a little strange. Happily, there is a no-penalty error-blind mode as well. I expect after I finish all the "Normal Mode" puzzles I'll spend plenty of time and energy in the "Free" mode.

My next issue - the biggest puzzle so far as I can see is only 15x15. But still, that's too big for the little DS screen, so there's some zoom-in-zoom-out action that happens while that's going on. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but the picture detail is limited by that, which is disappointing. However, for such small puzzles, the difficulty seems good and varied, definitely not too many super-easy ones. I am pleased.

This is the first game I've bought for myself in a long while. I think this one will hold my attention for a good long time. Not perhaps as long as the fabulous defunct PBN website did, but it'll do.

Last night I could see my tree and the snow at the same time, so I figured I'd take a picture.
( Picture! )

So rather than actually buying a digital camera myself, or borrowing my mom's, or something sensible like that, 26 months after finishing the afghan based on my userpic, here's an actual post of an actual picture of the actual afghan.



Because I had to marry a guy who had a digital camera in order to have use of one available enough that when I thought "hey, let's get a picture of that" I could. Silly me.

So there it is: SOLS(10). I finished it on January 30, 2005, here's a picture finally.

( Explanation of the math behind it. )

( Details about the crafting )

And so if you ever wondered what my default userpic was all about, there it is. :)

It's a Thick Book is a documentary about the AL Constitution. Apparently the whole film will be available online sometime, but meanwhile the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform will be having screenings around the state throughout the month.

Shiny.

So sometime when I was in high school, I had a freakout when I realized that the people on Sesame Street were actors. Yeah. I was a mess, and obviously had some weird naivete that went away. It's not like I didn't know the Muppets were puppets, but it really messed me up that the guy playing Gordon wasn't actually a guy named Gordon. Maria wasn't really Maria, and Susan wasn't Susan. I had a real problem getting my head around that. Thankfully, Bob was really Bob.

I thought I was over it. I'm not. I'm reading Roscoe Orman's memoir, Sesame Street Dad. Roscoe is the man I've known as Gordon as long as I can remember. I'm three or four chapters into this book. He's a fascinating real person, he was involved in a theater troupe that traveled the South during the Civil Rights Movement, and was a player in an experimental theater company in Harlem in the late 60s and early 70s. He's pretty cool, even if he's not Gordon yet. But....

He's not perfect. So I'm wandering around the house, stunned, and trying to deal with the facts that Gordon stole another man's wife and smoked marijuana.

Surely we'll get to Sesame Street soon?

So the Colts won the Super Bowl.  And local news showed all the people congregating in Monument Circle downtown.  My first reaction:  Where's the toilet paper? 

Seriously.  It's the only way to celebrate! 

Doc and Marty went forward in time from their 1985 to 2015 to make sure Marty Jr. didn't go to jail.  Biff went back from 2015 to 1955 to give himself the sports almanac, creating a 1985 where Doc never created the time machine, thus negating his ability to give himself the sports almanac. 

This bothers me.  I feel like somehow finding this paradoxical cheapens the whole Back to the Future franchise for me. 

And I really like it when I splurge on non-diet microwave popcorn. 

Currently listening to Blues Traveler sing a Christmas song, it followed a Cyndi Lauper Christmas song.  I had to tell it I didn't appreciate "Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk this Christmas)", but Alabama singing that they still believe in Santa Claus made me cry in a good way. 

I need to buy more wrapping paper.   

I want a kitty. But this will do for now. It makes me laugh.

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2743212

Final wordcount when I validated? Fifty thousand and seven words. It's done. Stories are complete. Not good, by any means, but resolved. Now I really want to go back and edit. Tear the thing up and put it back together to make it into something actually readable. But right now I really just want a shower and a nap and to catch up on crap like the fact that Britney Spears should wear panties and Meg Cabot had a book come out this week and the reason that Unaccompanied Minors movie looks good is that it's directed by the Freaks and Geeks guy. Not Apatow, the other one, Paul Feig. I need to read his books too. I also have a Marian Keyes book out from the library that's on the floor somewhere. And I should mop the kitchen. And get off the couch. And break this ctrl-S ctrl-period habit.

Excuse me. I'll return when my brain gets tired of the test pattern. But right now, w00T!

ETA: WHY did no one inform me of Billy Idol's New Christmas Album? Go to the link and watch the Jingle Bell Rock video. So. Wrong.

Veronica Mars tonight features a fraternity party with a Neil Diamond impersonator as the band.

ETA: The band is the Diamond Smugglers. They have recordings on their website

I got pretty schnockered last night on pink wine with a twist-off cap. I'm a little embarrassed this morning about it, but I'll get over it. Luckily, I have a NaNo character hopped up on Lortab after an accident eerily like the one I had about five years ago now, so she was able to talk some while Chris was watching Metalocalypse. Which was better than having me livejournal while drunk. So yay for that purpose for NaNoWriMo.

Here's a couple happy things: a Fanboys trailer. This may be the only movie that can get me inside a theater anytime soon.

And someone compiled Veronica and Logan's best moments (or LoVe moments) from the first two seasons and put them to music on YouTube. Thank you, whoever did that.

The heater repair guy was going to be coming at freakishly early this morning. He showed up around 9:30, which is not the 7 am Chris had gotten up for. He turned the heat off, and left. He has yet to return. Chris went on to work, so I'm manning the house. This is a little bizarre. Perhaps he's getting back at us for calling him three times in 12 hours yesterday. We really just want it fixed. A nonfunctional thermostat is bad, mmkay? Especially as now I'm getting kind of cold.

Okay. I get to watch last week's Grey's Anatomy once I get to 20k words.

Shameless plug: I love my Pumie Heavy Duty Scouring Stick. Mine's more a scouring nubbin right now, but that's ok, I'll show you why...

( potty pictures! )

Miss me?

Did you watch my kid brother on tv? I missed it, but thanks to abc.com, I can watch him over and over again! Watch this week's Six Degrees (10/5), and he's right around the 2 minute mark, crossing the street with Bridget Moynahan and her fiance.

And because I love you all so much, I'm not even going to make you do that.

( clicky for a screencap )

I'm sure I'll update more later with more pictures from my parents and husband (that word still freaks me out) from the past week.

But I have to drive to Indiana first. See y'all later!

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Have I mentioned you all need to watch Six Degrees this fall? Everyone needs to watch it so he'll stay employed. It'll be on after Grey's Anatomy, so you don't even have to watch it, just keep the tv on after Grey's goes off. If you're anything like me, you'll be so drained after Grey's makes you bawl like a baby that you can't really watch it anyway. But just leave the tv on and don't change the channel. It'll be fine.

And on weekends in September, he's going to be playing with Will Smith and Johnny Depp in a kind of vampire flick, I guess. Except for that weekend he comes down here.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060817/ap_on_go_pr_wh/warrantless_surveillance

I am fairly certain that Stephen Colbert, after getting himself banned from Wikipedia last week, managed to destroy kittenwar.com tonight. I tried to find the Tabasco and Tako he showed tonight, but Kittenwar was totally not responding.

So amused. All hail the power of the Colbert.