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Monday, May 05, 2008
Glue Amazon to your library  Hey: If you're already using one of my Greasemonkey scripts to embed links to the Pittsburgh, Rochester, NY, or Gainesville, FL public library catalogs into Amazon book listings, you may have noticed that they've stopped working. This was due to a change in Amazon's book pages, but I've fixed the problem and updated the scripts. You can just install an updated script to make it all better.If you have no idea what I'm talking about, these are scripts that insert status information (available, checked out, not found, etc.) for your local library into the book pages on Amazon. The status line links directly to that book (if available) in the library catalog. To use these, you must be a Firefox user, and you must first install the Greasemonkey extension. Here are step-by-step instructions (with pretty pictures!). The Amazon library linkies weren't my brilliant idea; I just updated someone else's script to work with these libraries. The original idea was Jon Udell's, and it spread all over, so there's probably a regional linky script for your library, wherever you live (although it may not be updated yet for the latest change to Amazon's pages). If not, try BookBurro. I love having the constant reminder on Amazon that I can read that book for free, and I also prefer to use Amazon to search and browse for library books instead of the outdated catalog system. It's worth having to deal with the aggravation when Amazon tweaks their pages around. If you run into any problems with these, please let me know. Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Esselinks in Uganda  You know what I hate? I hate it when I complain about being too busy to blog, and then somebody demonstrates what truly insanely busy looks like, and manages to blog about it anyway. From a third world country, yet.My awesome cousin Frank and his awesome wife Barbara have spent the past month doing volunteer work in Uganda and blogging about it. Barbara, who is a doctor, has been working in a hospital, and Frank has been tutoring math students at a nearby school. They did take a side trip to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (and doesn't that sound like a stop on the way to Mordor?) for a close encounter with the mountain gorillas: About 20 min later, we’re there. They were sitting right in a glade of tall grass, leaves and small trees about 5 feet tall, eating, about 200 feet away from some very tall forest trees. We just saw some rustling branches; then, all the sudden, we saw a gorilla not even 10 feet away from us! It was indescribable. They’re about human height but weigh closer to 150 kg, I’d guess. There were 9 of them, including 1 baby. They were just sitting there, munching on leaves and branches. As we stared at them and took picture after picture, they didn’t even look at us half the time. It’s like they really didnn’t care that we were right there. The silverback didn’t like us much, when we got too close he’d roar a little and beat his chest and walk away, but otherwise, he left us alone. The baby was so curious, it was just like a human baby. He had soft long silky fur and kept looking at us and inching closer until the mom got fed up with him crawling away and grabbed him and put him in her lap. Then the baby started sucking his thumb! It was amazing. The rest of the family just ate with clear enjoyment all around us and casually watched us watch them. We spent our allowed one hour with them, then trekked back.I don't know what you did for spring break, but I bet it didn't involve getting attitude from a silverback gorilla. Monday, March 31, 2008
How cute!  Lo, a March post, just under the wire! Via Kate Nepveu, here are the Six Cutest Animals That Can Still Destroy You.The platypus is mother nature's way of saying, "I made this thing out of spare parts I found on the workshop floor, and it can still fucking cripple you."You know, if you popped the bill off that platypus in the photo, he'd look a lot like Punxsutawney Phil. ("This is one time when television fails to capture the true excitement of a venomous monotreme predicting the weather.") The late Steve Irwin, a man who used to tackle 12-foot crocodiles for fun and wave angry snakes filled with kill-you-before-your-next-heartbeat poison at a camera, considered a five-minute sequence where his camera team had to cross a river filled with hippos to be the single most dangerous moment ever filmed on his show.Having read how hippos mark their territory, I was already planning to give them a wide berth. On the other hand, I would be one of those idiots who wants to pet the dingo, because it looks so damn adorable. Friday, February 22, 2008
A little bit of sunshine It's another bleary February day in the winter that just won't end. Deadlines are looming, bad things keep falling on my friends (you know who you are), and I can tell I'm stressed out because I'm fighting the urge to reread all my Jennifer Crusie novels. (Again.) So. Two things guaranteed lift my spirits are peppy music and vehicular mayhem. Allow me to present to you Katrina and the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine", as performed by remixed car crashes: You're welcome. Sunday, February 03, 2008
A long hard winter  So, I had taken on three new shows this season – Life, Journeyman, and Chuck – with low hopes for all three, truthfully. And each exceeded my expectations and filled my TV life with joy (except for the cancellation of Journeyman, just as it was getting really good). And then there was the Strike. Knowing what to do to fill all that sudden free time has been an issue, but I’m bearing up under the strain. I’m pretty much caught up on TiVo for one thing. And luckily the networks have dribbled out a few episodes here and there – though the recent Chucks seemed to ignore the cliffhanger from before the hiatus but let’s just ignore that for now – and I understand there’s some more House and Brothers & Sisters coming. Other notable viewings:My spouse bought me the Carnivàle S1 DVDs for Christmas (kind of on a lark; I hadn’t asked for them.) and so we watched those and S2 every night pretty much until they were done. For those of you who are not familiar, this was an HBO series about a traveling carnival in the 1930s and a war between good and evil. It’s wonderfully filmed and has some awesome performances in it. But I can only recommend the series with some caveats. I mean, it was gorgeous and I adore some of the characters and it was very entertaining and I am totally a sucker for apocalyptic fiction of any kind. But there are issues. For one thing, it only lasted 2 seasons and so the story wasn’t even close to being resolved when it ended. Most importantly, the second season was just not as grey as the first. The first had a lot more moral ambiguity in the “Bad Guy” and I like that in a show, you know. There are a lot of things to recommend the second season – I love the story-arcs for Ben, Libby, Iris, and Rita Sue, but Justin’s story-arc was more heavy-handed, not as interesting. PBS has started showing – as part of Masterpiece (nee Masterpiece Theater) – The Complete Jane Austen, with adaptations new and old of her work. I find this terribly exciting, as I adore Jane, like all right-thinking people. But the first two adaptations that I have watched have made me cringe in horror. First was Persuasion, my favorite Austen book, which had already been done so well with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds. This version had a very pretty Wentworth, but missed the point of the book entirely and turned Anne Elliot into a lovesick mooning girl who ran a lot. Lots and lots of running seems to be a theme with these adaptations, I noticed. Also, they had Wentworth buy Kellynch. You can’t see it, but I’m shaking my head. My second viewing was Mansfield Park, one of the two Austen novels that I have not yet read (though I have just started it). Even without having read it, I know enough to be offended on Miss Austen’s behalf. Billie Piper and her hair-dressers were mistakes of epic proportion, as was the entirety of that script. And the now ubiquitous running, of course. The only bright spot was that Pullings was in the movie. Next up is Northanger Abbey, which I have heard good things about. We’ll see about that. And meanwhile, Nikki Finke says that real progress is being made, and we may have TV back for real soon. That would make Spring that much happier. Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Fugitive Cows of Archer Road  You want blog content? I'll give you blog content. It's an old story: The rebels who refuse to be go along with the herd. The intrepid jailbreak. Life on the run, scaring the townsfolk and ducking the law. And finally, inevitably, the tragic end.In this case, our heroes are a couple of native "cracker" cows (let's call them Thelma and Louise) in Gainesville, FL. They were pastured near I-75 on the outskirts of town, not too far from a lot of UF student apartments and the dense strip malls on Archer Road. In early December, they escaped from their pasture and wandered the area, eluding capture, for nearly a month. At one point, police actually chased the cows through an apartment complex: Sweet, who lives at Stoneridge Apartments on SW 34th Street, said she heard police officers mooing over megaphones Thursday night, trying to coax the cattle out of the woods. That's when she looked outside and saw a light flashing on a cow.I was in Gainesville during their reign of terror, and let me tell you, the only thing better than headlines like "Cows run amok on Christmas Eve" is the sight of roadside emergency signs reading "Caution: Cattle in Area". (And thanks to Carol and Vann for driving me past the sign so I could take that picture!) The cows were finally cornered and shot by police a few weeks ago. It's a shame, but frankly it's a very lucky thing that they didn't cause any traffic accidents. And they weren't a total loss: The owner collected the carcasses. How surreal would "Butch and Sundance" have been if it had ended with the heroes being made into hamburger? Monday, December 31, 2007
Happy New Year, everyone; I hope we're all on track for an excellent 2008. My resolution? Blog more frequently. (I'm also going to give Inbox Zero a try. Anyone else?) Wishing everyone a happy New Year and the mildest of hangovers. Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Born free  We're long overdue for some manatee content, but most of the manatee news lately has been depressing -- they're in imminent danger of being downlisted from "endangered" to "threatened", which will make it more difficult to protect them from boaters.Still, here's a happy story: An extra-large manatee named Marty, nursed back to health from an intestinal infection (and boy do I pity the vet who had to figure that one out), has been released at Merritt Island. Now, manatees are huge to begin with, so when they say "extra-large," they mean "weighs slightly less than a Camry." I like the video of a dozen volunteers dragging Marty from the truck into the crane sling so she can be lowered into the water. (One volunteer's comment: "It takes a village.") Monday, November 19, 2007
Cheap music for a year  Paste Magazine wants to send you a year's subscription for whatever you want to pay, as long as it's at least $1. (Via Ed Vielmetti, who also presents this wall of knitting books from his local library.)I like Paste. They cover the kind of music that WYEP plays. (I think the official designation is "Adult Album Alternative", which always sounds to me like Music For People Who Are Getting Older By the Minute.) I rarely had time to actually read the magazine, but I was more interested in the CD sampler of new music they include with every issue. Each CD had a few excellent songs and a handful of decent songs; the rest were forgettable. Here's a sample of the ones I've rated highest in iTunes: "Telling Sue" by Assembly Of DustI let my subscription to Paste lapse because it was cheaper to just buy the songs I liked on iTunes, and I usually heard the ones I liked on WYEP at some point. (I also wound up paying for a few of the songs on iTunes after hearing them on the radio, even though I had already ripped them from the sampler. D'oh.) It's certainly worth $1 for 11 sampler CDs, however. Also? "I Used To Play The Euphonium" is a great song. Euphonium solo! Monday, November 05, 2007
Luggage love, knitting edition  In (somewhat belated) honor of English National Knitting Week, let's talk about the brand new knitting bag, the "Swift", from Tom Bihn. Bag slut that I am, I've been a Tom Bihn fan for years. I have several of their bags, and they're all insanely well-made and wear like iron. (My current everyday bag is one of their Ego messenger bags; I'll post a review soon.) The downside is that they're expensive. The Swift will set you back $70. Here's a highly detailed user review with lots of pictures. The Swift was designed with input from the readers of Knitty magazine, and Vanessa says the Ravelry forums are going nuts over it. I can't quite justify buying one for myself, what with not actually being a knitter; but Vanessa's has already arrived. It's adorable. And very green.Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Happy Halloween! Happy Halloween, everyone! A few local items of note: 1. There's an article in today's Post-Gazette about Pittsburgh's women bloggers. I am briefly quoted, and manage not to sound like too much of an idiot. Pghbloggers.org gets a link (yay), but this blog does not, because you can't say "Inner Bitch" in a family newspaper. I am fine with that. They printed one of Liz's pictures from Woolgathering, which adds a lovely touch. 2. The PG also has an interview with PittGirl, the anonymous author of the fabulous BurghBlog. 3. Blogfest 12 is at Finnegan's Wake next Thursday, 11/8! Food! Beer! Fellow bloggers! Also, WTAE might be there between 7pm and 8pm, so if you're camera shy, you may want to duck into the bar proper while they're there. Finally, I don't have a picture of Miles in his very fetching Halloween collar, but he's having a fine time watching trick-or-treaters come and go, and he hasn't managed to knock any down yet. [Scratch that; he just made a break for freedom and chocolate, so he's been locked up like the menace to society that he is.] So here's a Halloween picture of Miles from a few years ago:  Way to uphold the dignity of the species there, buddy. Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Everything is under control, sort of As Laurie pointed out in comments, the domain name service for pghbloggers.org appears to have expired. Oops. We've renewed the domain (and created calendar reminders to renew it next time!), so it should be back up and running soon -- hopefully this afternoon. If you're in severe need of something to read while you wait for the domain to come back up, try the many fine blogs listed to the left. Among Pittsburgh blogs, the Petes at Tea Leaves have a few excellent recent posts on how to buy HDTV and the joys of getting Comcast to play nice with HDTivo. Liz has some lovely new pictures up at Woolgathering. PittGirl is enjoying imaginary brunch with her imaginary harem of self-united husbands. Sri at Shaman offers tofu food porn. And there's always the hot Mary Worth action over at Subdivided We Stand (shortly to be retitled "Masters of Gilligan"). Friday, October 12, 2007
This one's for John and Laurie  My office-mate brought in a little poster saying "We Support National Knitting Week!" and for some reason felt she had to ask me before putting it up. As if! I'm all over that, even though I've never heard of it before and don't know what activities will be involved with it. The nation mentioned is actually England, but I really liked England when I went there, and support their initiative in this important matter. So pick up a pair of needles - if you don't know how, look at KnittingHelp or ask a knitting evangelist like me to show you - and make something pretty.In completely random knitting news, I understand that one of the characters in Pushing Daisies was knitting last episode. The knitting world is all a-flutter though about the fact that the character (or maybe it was the twee narration?) said that he was purling, when he was in fact knitting. Nobody does the knitting fact-checking at ABC, apparently. Tuesday, October 02, 2007
How to take a compliment  So I had occasion in the past week or so to be receiving a few compliments - all of them the best kind - unsolicited, out of the blue, sincere, and (I hope) deserved (also kind of freakishly close together, in the way that good and bad luck run sometimes). And I may have blushed a little, but I have finally, FINALLY gotten to the point in my life where I can accept such things without dying of embarrassment, acting like this was long over-due, or trying to deflect them with “Oh, it was nothing.” And it’s weird, because just this week I read two separate internet posts about taking compliments, and I’m going to recommend them to you, here. First, lifehack had a list of things you should not do, and things you should. On the don’t list: Putting yourself down, pointing out your weaknesses. On the do list: Recognizing your accomplishments, being appreciative, being gracious. Oh man, those are all HARD. How do they expect us to get that right?The other place I saw advice on this was in Stephen Fry’s excellent new blog, in a post about fame. And one of the things Fry had to learn about fame was how to take a compliment. John Cleese taught him how. OMG how awesome is that? Anyway, here’s how that went: It’s perhaps a very English thing to find it hard to accept kind words about oneself. If anyone praised me in my early days as a comedy performer I would say, “Oh, nonsense. Shut up. No really, I was dreadful.” I remember going through this red-faced shuffle in the presence of the mighty John Cleese who upbraided me the moment we were alone. Seriously, I love that story. Anyway, I’m still working on this and I always feel dorky when it happens, but I try to take it for what it is. And if you are similarly dorky-feeling, you can hopefully learn from the wisdom of John Cleese. Sunday, September 30, 2007
Some knitting news  I've been spending way way too much of my life lately on Ravelry, the new site that is the sensation of the online knitting world. It took me months and months to FINALLY get off the waiting list and in, and now that I am, I am obsessively entering my projects and taking pictures. See, if you don't know what it is, it's a community site for knitters, and it works as a giant database of yarns, patterns, needles, projects, and books, so you can enter what you're doing and what you have, and see if anybody else is making that same thing with that same yarn and yap at each other about it. Plus there's a nifty Flickr integration for linking to your photos and the whole thing is full of joy and love. They are still in beta, so you have to wait out the waiting list if you want to join, but I recommend it. Um, I guess by the gushing you could tell that.The other big knitting thing going on in November is National Sweater Knitting Month, in response to National Novel Writing Month. I am a slow knitter and I just spent a month with a painful repetitive use injury, so I can't do it myself, but I'd like to maybe start and finish some mittens for my mom during November, which for me would be every bit as challenging as making a sweater in a month. I am currently seeking a good pattern for her mittens. I'm making myself some checkerboard mittens (I'm making both at once using Magic Loop!), but I want to do something different for her. Speaking of sweaters, I just cast on the Minimalist Cardigan from Interweave Knits' Fall edition, but what I really want to make is the sweater shown in this entry's picture. It's way way above my skill level, but I am nothing if not an over-achiever when it comes to knitting, so that may be next up after I finish Minimalist. Thursday, September 27, 2007
Hand paintings  Via Guy Kawasaki, here are pictures of some amazing hand paintings. In this case, that doesn't mean paintings of hands, or by hand, but on hands.I first suspected these were Photoshopped images a la Fark, but they're real paintings by Italian bodypainting artist Guido Daniele. Apparently some of his "handimals" have been used in advertisements. There are more hand images here -- I love the flamingo. Daniele's trompe l'oeil paintings are gorgeous, too. I wonder if he does feet, too, or if they're just too ticklish to be painted? Monday, September 24, 2007
1000 daily drawings  Huge congratulations to local sketchblogger Liz Perry, who today will be posting her 1000th consecutive daily drawing to her blog, Woolgathering. (In 24 days, she'll have a kilodrawing!) It's a great accomplishment to post daily for so long, let alone to draw, paint, scan, and post. To mark the occasion, Liz is having a virtual drawing party, of sorts. Thanks for all the pretty pictures, Liz! Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Talk like a Pirate today  Once again, it's September 19th, International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Shockingly, Google does not appear to have a theme logo up, and the stores are sadly bare of Pirate holiday decorations, having bafflingly skipped right over to Halloween.Allow me to compensate with this brief excerpt from The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe: "Stop mucking about, pirates!" he shouted. We've got a bit of traditional pirate boarding to do!"You're welcome. Aarrrrr. Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Essential Tivo skills  With the fall TV season nearly upon us, we need every Tivo at the ready. It has come to my attention that some of you (this means you, Rebecca!) don't know about the 30-second skip and Tivo menu shortcuts.You can enable 30-second skip on any Tivo. Once it's turned on, the skip-to-end button (below and to the right of the Slow button) becomes a 30-second skip button, enabling you to jump through commercial breaks with the greatest of ease. To turn it on, go to Now Playing, and play any recorded show. While it's playing, press the remote keys Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select. You should hear "ding ding ding" if you've done it successfully. Press the skip button to see if it worked. You will need to reenable this every time your Tivo is rebooted, which usually means any time the power goes out. Why is this useful? Instead of having to pay attention while you fast-forward through commercials, just hit the skip button 4 to 8 times to jump right over the commercial break. It may not sound much easier, but it really is, freeing up precious brain cycles that you can use for more important TV-related tasks, like honing your contempt for Peter Petrelli or wondering how much more annoying "Grey's Anatomy" can get this year. There are also a number of remote shortcuts that take you quickly to different parts of the Tivo interface. These are the two I use: Tivo icon - 2 (to go to the To Do list) Tivo icon - 4 (to go to Search By Title for programs to record) A longer list can be found here. Coming soon: Networking your Tivo, which enables all kinds of time-wasting fun. Move video between your Tivo, your computer, and (if you're ambitious) your iPod. Play podcasts on your TV. Watch the slightly buggy Tivo Beacon service slowly eat up more and more memory. Doing all this won't actually leave you with any time to watch TV, but you can do all kinds of neat things with the recorded programs you're not watching. Sunday, September 16, 2007
It's the most wonderful time of the year  The fall tv season is about to begin, and so like all dedicated media watchers, I've been planning my watching, adjusting my Season Passes for old and new. I've added three new Season Passes so far - Chuck, Journeyman, and Life. Chuck seems to be required viewing for all geeks, and who am I if not a geekly sheep? Plus, Adam Baldwin, whom I cannot resist. Journeyman I have not heard good things about, but I adored Kevin McKidd's work as Lucius Vorenus on Rome, and so I'm giving it a try in the hopes that all the other episodes will be better than the pilot that people hated. Life I don't know anything about, but it stars Damian Lewis, whom I find fetching, and who stole my heart in Band of Brothers and Warriors (don't ask). In addition I am keeping my eye on Reaper - the problem with it is that it is on opposite House and Eureka (though I can catch Eureka on the West Coast showing, thank you Sci-Fi). And while I have my disappointments with House, I am probably going to stick with it initially and then pick up Reaper if House pisses me off too much this season. I am also monitoring Pushing Daisies - I adored Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, but I'm not sure I want to get invested in PD until I know it's going to stick around, and be more than just a great pilot with nowhere to go. Everybody's talking about The Bionic Woman, but the mess that is current Battlestar Galactica makes me not trust David Eick. So I'm taking a pass on that. Let me know how that works out for you all, okay? I haven't deleted any Season Passes, but House and Grey's Anatomy are both on short leashes this season - I fear that House may have just used up all that that premise can give, and GA was just so uneven last season and the George/Izzie mess just pissed me right off. And I'm not even trying Private Practice; Addison-as-Allie-McBeal doesn't call out to me. My other standing Season Passes are Eureka, Galactica, and Brothers & Sisters. Galactica I figure I'm in till the end of, and the other two bring me too much joy to drop. So, what am I missing? Should I add anything else? |
