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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
| Saturday, May 17th, 2008 | |||||||||||
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cadhla |
8:41p | Safely in Sacramento. So X. got me to my train with plenty of time* to spare, and I was able to get on-board right at the front of the pack, allowing me to secure one of the all-important seats at the four-person tables. Those have outlets right there. It's awesome. I got twenty pages of edits processed on the train, that's how awesome those seats are. I love Amtrak. My train was about twenty minutes early, so of course, Michelle was about twenty minutes late, allowing me to do a slow roast in the early afternoon sun of Sacramento. I am not actually sunburned, but I was a trifle off for several hours while I tried to recalibrate myself. Now here I am; Kaia's watching In the Night Kitchen, Michelle and David are giving Lady her medication (Lady, like Nyssa, is A Very Old Cat Indeed), and I'm letting people know I got here alive before we put Kaia to bed and move along to having an evening of adult conversation and, knowing us, dozing off mid-word. Life is pretty good. See y'all tomorrow. (*About eight minutes. Thank you, Martinez, for UNEXPECTED, UNANNOUNCED STREET FAIRS cutting off ALL LOGICAL ACCESS to the train station. No, really. THANKS A LOT.) Current Mood:  happyCurrent Music: Narration on Kaia's video. | |||||||||
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entelein |
8:04p | Oh man, there's just nothing like getting a brainfreeze from a Coke Slurpee. There just isn't. | |||||||||
| phdcomic | 6:18p | 05/16/08 PHD comic: 'Where do you sit?'
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mdlbear |
6:58p | Uncle Jack's obituary Jacob Robbins; NIH Scientist Known for Thyroid Research (From The Washington Post, May 16, 2008.)
I'll miss him. Current Mood: sad | |||||||||
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adamselzer |
8:44p | Fun! We went down to scenic Normal, IL for the Illinois Young Writers Conference, at which I met with about a hundred or so 6th graders and talked about being a writer. Each kid got a copy of "Pirates of the Retail Wasteland," and the campus bookstore - which was well stocked in advance with both of my books - sold out of everything I had about five minutes after the book signing started. Man, that's a nice feeling. Great bunches of kids, too. I don't envy them having seventh and eighth grades in front of them, but, hey, that's 10 more years til they're out of college - maybe the economy will pick up by then! | |||||||||
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maribou |
7:44p | incidentally? Still in love with Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium. Current Mood: ooh! shiny! Current Music: tv-generated machine gun fire | |||||||||
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mdlbear |
6:29p | ...and what am I doing in this handbasket? It occurred to me rather suddenly last night that here I am, a 61-year-old, notoriously reclusive and socially inept computer nerd, attempting to dispense avuncular advice on relationships, marriage, and psychology over the internet. And in person, I might add. This strikes me as highly improbable, totally out of character, mildly amusing, and more than a little mind-boggling. I feel a little as though, after many years of playing an assortment of jesters and other fools, I have finally moved up to playing Polonius. Current Mood: amused | |||||||||
| Sunday, May 18th, 2008 | |||||||||||
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chuckdarwin |
2:25a | ||||||||||
| Saturday, May 17th, 2008 | |||||||||||
| strangerblog | 4:46p | Currently Hanging
At Catherine Person Gallery. (Gallery web site here.) | |||||||||
| Sunday, May 18th, 2008 | |||||||||||
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chuckdarwin |
1:20a | ||||||||||
| Saturday, May 17th, 2008 | |||||||||||
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filk [ annonynous ] |
8:02p | Lois's obituary will be published in tomorrow's (5/18) Boston Sunday Globe. Lois's brother Dave's wife Rhea did most of the writing. She has been a great help and is very much appreciated. I think boston.com allows non-subscriber access to the Globe newspapers on-line for 24 hours. If anyone can't get to it on-line or buy the physical paper, please let me know. I have the Globe text as sent to me by Rhea and can e-mail it to you. The Celebration of Lois's life mentioned in the obituary is *probably* definite, on Sunday, 6/1. Donald and Jill Eastlake in Milford have generously offered their lovely home to host it. I will notify folks when I'm sure it's definite and have the details. I remain Paul Mangan | |||||||||
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anachrotech [ hirudo ] |
11:39p | Londoners! Any London-based steam enthusiasts might be interested in attending the Paradise Gardens event in Victoria Park in East London next weekend (24th/25th May). In the Victorian era, parks were pleasure gardens where the most thrilling activities of the day were on offer for families to enjoy. For Paradise Gardens we update this idea for the 21st Century, offering a dizzying array of artforms, stages and activities for audiences of all ages to enjoy. Entertainments include Carter's Steam Fair, the Tea Dance Tent and the Bar of Ideas. I live next to Victoria Park and have been to all the Paradise Gardens (it's a yearly event) and I highly recommend it. I always have a go on the steam-driven merry-go-round! Best of all it's free to go to, although the circus and Sensazione attractions are ticketed. May be I'll see you there! http://www.paradisegardens.org.uk/ | |||||||||
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theferrett |
6:43p | The Funniness Of Things Even though I had planned to stay at home working on Saturday night, years of social conditioning have taught me that Not Having Plans on a Saturday night - and worse, the fact that my wife is so busy she is rightfully ignoring me - makes me feel like a big, big loser. I suppose I could have made plans. But now I'm just staring at the Internet in between large file transfers, hoping something amuses me. Bleah. Current Music: The Vines - Get Free | |||||||||
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hpapillon |
11:34p | don't try this at home Apparently you can put water on a grease fire provided it's a very very small one and you dodge fast enough. (No, it wasn't me, it was ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} hpet. No harm has been done. But we really should buy some lids.) Current Mood:  thankful | |||||||||
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ionan |
3:05p | Posted using TxtLJ Corn dog acquired. Taiko drumming: awesome. | |||||||||
| ironicsans | 12:24p | 60 Seconds in the Life of Commuters Part 32 in an ongoing series of (approximately) 60 second films. | |||||||||
| Thursday, May 8th, 2008 | |||||||||||
| ironicsans | 10:54a | How bold can Darth Vader be?
The above word-cartoon is the end result of that quote rolling around in my head for weeks. I'm not sure how successful it ended up being, but I know there's a font pun to be made somehow with that line.
Then I wondered if maybe I needed to stop trying to depict the scene from the movie, and just draw Darth Vader alone, made out of bold type. In many ways it's the most visually striking of the attempts, but I felt like I overlapped the letterforms so much in his helmet that they were becoming mere shapes rather than letters. But here's how that ended up:
So ultimately I decided to just use different fonts and weights to write their names (seen at the top of this post). But just floating in the frame without a sense of place, I'm not convinced that works, either. And it's less amazing than pictures made of letters. | |||||||||
| Monday, May 5th, 2008 | |||||||||||
| ironicsans | 6:20p | Idea: Measuring cups that look like tiny pots
Or, the items could be designed the other way around. They could make pots and pans that look like enormous measuring cups, complete with "1/4 Cup" and "1/2 Cup" written in oversize lettering. And then when you buy the set, you get the matching measuring cups included. | |||||||||
| Saturday, May 17th, 2008 | |||||||||||
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maribou |
3:19p | Riding with Sharp Lavinia; Bitten Lying Captivity ( blah blah blah books-77-82-cakes ) Current Mood: a bit restless Current Music: Vince Guaraldi Trio, "Linus and Lucy" | |||||||||
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tithonium |
2:02p | But Apple, I don't really want to pay you $80 for iLife when all I need is iPhoto. Especially when it /came/ with my older computers. Why don't I just copy it off one of them, instead? I mean, all I want to do is move my library from one machine to another, may as well take the software too, right? 'Cause, really, if I gotta pay $80, I'll just find different software, you know? | |||||||||
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ionan |
1:54p | Posted using TxtLJ Going to the University Street Fair(e). I require corn dogs! | |||||||||
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mdlbear |
1:45p | Getting over it (I'm posting this one because it looks as though several people on my flist could use it. I'm doing fine right now, thanks.) There are two links here, and they're related only because they both touch on the way a relationship can change after it's over. The first is this review of a book called Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adults Life--For the Better.
I probably ought to get this one, but I don't really need to: I can easily believe it. Sometimes you need a whack on the side of the head with a very big cluestick, and that's about the biggest one you can get. That cancer screening you've been putting off? Do it now.
The second is a little more problematic: The Emotions of Grief During A Breakup (via Wikipedia). In particular,
(Emphasis mine) This is probably good advice, sometimes. If you want or need to make a clean break of it, if there's pain or anger or hatred on one side or the other, if you've broken up before and can't seem to stay away from one another, yeah: I can see it. But if the objective is to stay friends, to cool a too-intense relationship down to a level that you're both comfortable with, it's probably best to keep talking. In many cases, you'll both be grieving, though perhaps to different degrees. Help one another work through it. As friends. (I'll note as an aside that you'll need to give one another space and time. Call or IM when you have news, or to congratulate your friend when they post happy news in their LJ. Not every day. Maybe not even every week. Drop back to email, perhaps, and the occasional LJ comment. Don't go for dinner and a movie -- that's really courting disaster. Meet for lunch on a weekday when you both have things to get back to at 1:00 sharp.) As a friend, realize that you want your friend to be happy. Not with you as their lover, apparently, but happy. Stay interested in their life. Help one another through it, as best you can. Be glad you're still friends.
(Added 17:00) Let me just restate something from the last post on grieving: "getting over" your loss does not mean "forgetting about it". Your goal is to come to terms with it, whatever those terms happen to be; to "get over it" in the sense of getting over a challenging obstacle, so that it's safely behind you and doesn't keep getting in the way of your life. Current Mood:  cheerfulCurrent Music: Savitzky - The River | |||||||||
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jedi_iwakura |
12:25p | At 100 Miles An Hour. ( I'm good to go. ) And off I go to spend the rest of the day contemplating at work and making Ceiling Cats to amuse myself. Thanks for reading. It means a lot to me. | |||||||||
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qatar |
10:50p | PBS segment on Ed City Yesterday, the PBS show NOW aired a segment on Education City. The video, as well as a slideshow and student interviews, can be viewed on their website here. As a bonus, near the end of the video you can see some footage of our first class of students graduating. I haven't blogged about that at all, but I should soon. :-) (Also, to alleviate various heart attacks I seem to have caused, let it be noted that the poll I posted earlier this week was inspired by a conversation in an English textbook, not by a real-life example.) | |||||||||
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matt_ruff |
12:48p | Sneezing pandas This video was recently featured on Countdown with Keith Olbermann: While searching for the above on YouTube, I also found this video: Yes, it's a new comedy subgenre. | |||||||||
I started out trying to literally depict that scene from Star Wars using letterforms, intending to use bold letters for Vader and light letters for Princess Leia. I loved the idea of the @ sign filling in for Leia's hair bun. But after a few attempts I concluded that I'm no 
Someone who manufactures pots and pans should make a matching set of measuring cups that look just like the pots they make but smaller. And with some creative design tweaks, teaspoons and tablespoons could be made that look like tiny frying pans.