Outliers

I'm searching carouselstore.com ("Your one stop shop for all things carousel") for the types of carousels and carousel-related merchandise I would like. So far, the results have not been good. No "doom." I was hoping for an apocalypse-themed carousel. No "Jesus" either. Imagine the possibilities for a line of Jesus carousels. Jesus on the shore of the sea of Galilee--complete with loaves and fishes. Jesus at Gethsemane. Jesus and Nicodemus the sanhedrist! Jesus and the lepers. The carousel possibilities are endless. Almost makes you want to go out and buy How to Carve and Paint a Carousel Horse, doesn't it?

Mime Marceau

Marcel Marceau, the mime, has died. According to zee article, Marceau once said, "Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?" He's quite right. I was once a mime (in 9th grade), so naturally, I feel a kind of solidarity each time I pretend to peel a non-existent banana, each time I have a non-existent winning lottery ticket blown away by a non-existent gust of wind in a non-existent park, and each time I leave makeup on someone's shirt when I hug them. It was a recurring problem in the mime community. The face of a mime is a dangerous thing when black turtlenecks abound. We used to watch Marcel Marceau at our practices (the internet was around even then!) which consisted mostly of eating pizza, Lenore making Star Trek screen savers, and playing the Monty Python and the Holy Grail computer game. There was a fellow in our mime group who could quote Hamlet in its entirety, starting from any point. It always seemed to me a rather useless talent, and I loved him all the more for it. Anyway, farewell to Marcel Marceau, one of the most amazing mimes ever. Thank you for the moon walk, for Bip, and of course, for the only word in Silent Movie.

Times are a changin'

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sander's press conference about his change in position on gay marriage. I am sure we've all read the story already, but it's good to watch the video too. It's good to watch people doing what they believe is right, especially when it is right. I don't even know the guy, but I couldn't be prouder of him. "I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community they were less important, less worthy, or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage than anyone else simply because of their sexual orientation." The man deserves a blog post and praise for the ability to evaluate beliefs and make changes when warranted. It's a hard thing to do. I wish more people would take a leaf out of his book. :)

This and that

♥ Thanks to everyone who sent happy birthday wishes. ♥

My 25th year has been ushered in with sickness, 8 hours of throwing up, a trip to the ER, antibiotics, and far more sleep than is normal. I feel like total shit. School starts in a week. I hope all is well by then.

25

What do C. Montgomery Burns, Peter Carroll, and God have in common?

The perfect website

Sarah: :-) doing some html contract work. good thing ya taught me the basics of html when we was young whipper snappers
M: gonna make some scrolling marquees, eh? ;)
Sarah: hahahah some hot pink backgrounds with bright green text
M: and tons of animated gifs
Sarah: everywhere. and barely understandable navigation

Me with my silencer on

This afternoon, I dreamed that I got on a bus. It was late afternoon in my dream, and I fell asleep on the bus. Periodically, I would half awaken to see someone new getting on. Nobody ever got off. When I finally woke up completely (in my dream), it had gotten dark, and the bus was still rumbling along the road, throwing up dust. I couldn't tell where we were. The bus driver said it was the bus to Sturgeon. I had no idea where that was. I asked a few of the passengers, but they would just look at me and then turn their attention back to a tv drama with subtitles being played on a small television attached to the back of the driver's seat. Eventually I stopped asking and sat back, muttering about how these sorts of things happen when you fall asleep on buses and how I ought to know better. I rode the bus in the dark for what seemed like forever before red and yellow light blinked into existence on the horizon. When we finally got to Sturgeon, the city was burning. The driver said, "So much for that stop," turned the bus around, and drove back into the dark. It was one of those unfortunate dreams where no matter what you do or say, everything just feels like one big, inescapable sigh.

"Last night I turned around and thought I saw myself turning
inside the strangest dream of life unloved and cities burning" -SP

A wrinkle in time

Madeleine L'Engle dies at 88.

"In my dreams, I never have an age," she said. "I never write for any age group in mind. When people do, they tend to be tolerant and condescending and they don't write as well as they can write. When you underestimate your audience, you're cutting yourself off from your best work."

I always feel a little silly when I'm crying over dead authors. It's not so silly though; sometimes authors affect us more than people we know in real life. I love Madeleine L'Engle's books. I was so excited the first time I read A Wrinkle in Time. I wrote a book report on A Severed Wasp. I read A Ring of Endless Light every year. Even though I'm not "young" anymore, I never really tire of the Murrays or the Austins. Madeleine L'Engle is one of my favorite authors. A beautiful person. So very sad.

:(

Pavarotti is dead.
What a sad end to the day.
There's no one like him.

A tale of time

I just love a good longitude calculation story. Tell me about the time John Harrison, a working class joiner, invented a clock that kept accurate time at sea!

John Harrison and the Longitude Problem from the National Maritime Museum website, and possibly written by one Jonathan Betts

For every 15° that one travels eastward, the local time moves one hour ahead. Similarly, travelling West, the local time moves back one hour for every 15° of longitude. Therefore, if we know the local times at two points on Earth, we can use the difference between them to calculate how far apart those places are in longitude, east or west....

Although accurate pendulum clocks existed in the 17th century, the motions of a ship and changes in humidity and temperature would prevent such a clock from keeping accurate time at sea.

In 1714, the British Government offered, by Act of Parliament, £20,000 for a solution which could provide longitude to within half-a-degree (2 minutes of time).

Your mom's a histamine reaction

I have a couple of spots on one of my ankles. Steve says it's just histamine at its evil work. I see anaphylactic shock around every corner. Arachnogenic necrosis? A distinct possibility. I've probably been watching too much House. They can't go three episodes without some kind of necrosis popping up. Somewhere, there is a writer with a most unfortunate fixation. Maybe I should take some Benedryl. It's a dusty house occupant's true friend, not to mention prophets. I washed all the sheets and blankets, just in case something lurked within. Constant vigilance! You know how some people just can't seem to work in teams? Perhaps some bodies are composed entirely of parts intent on getting from we to I, from us to me. There's no living with them. Good lord. What a paragraph. Somewhere, maybe, perhaps. Seems nothing is certain.

I took the "Which hobby most suits your personality" test on CNN. It wouldn't give me a hobby. Said it was tied between a number of hobbies, but it didn't even let me see those. Instead, I was told me to change my answers, which seems contrary to what should happen given the fact that the questions were all answered honestly to begin with. Why is the internet so useless? Why am I prone to hyperbole? For some things there are no answers. Take that ALL IS REVEALED!

And if takes the Buffy Musical to make me feel better, then it takes the Buffy Musical. That's a risk I'm willing to take. My singing along with it is a risk I'm willing to take on behalf of those closest to me. Poor Anya. She deserves to have her story of vengeance demon to human told on felt board.

If only I had been more taken with achievement, I might be making something of myself at this very minute. This very minute.

Blogging as of late has become more random. Perhaps the sun has finally gotten to me, robbing me completely of concrete thinking. Sit me in a chair with a pile of books and strawberry lemonade. Call me when it's finally fall.

Mayonaise

It's 2 am. I am watching Law & Order and eating heavily-raisined oatmeal.
It is the Labor Day weekend. Today, the day of Labor itself.
In honor of the day, I looked up "labor" in the Oxford English Dictionary and the Middle English Compendium.
Nothing exciting there. Can't expect much, though I hadn't expected "A group of moles."
I really want a laptop. They're so drattedly expensive though. Research.
The weather for tomorrow says rain. A happy thought.
The equinox. Yet another reason to be fond of September. You can say, I was too busy to pay attention to cross-quarter day, but by golly, I'm going to take note of the equinox.
Mr. Melville and I are fast becoming friends. This is probably because Patrick Stewart is awesomeness.
It is important to remember:
The prayer of a righteous Marj is both powerful and effective.
The prayer of a righteous Marj availeth much.
The idea of Fred Thompson as president is positively frightening.
This month, I hope to visit the zoo. I've never been to one before, and I should like to see the hippos and penguins.