At last! We have true broadband again! A few hiccups still (the house network isn't set up, and I need to still do some settings and things I don't have time to do) but...wow, I forgot what broadband was actually like. A-mazing. Once we get through this week's work, posts and photos ahoy! In the meantime, the briefest of show reports:
We attended the NYCC this past Feb. Evan went all three days and sat at the SLG booth; Emily and I went on Friday and Sunday, and she was great. The SLG was just a giant playpen for her, with friendly SLG creators and staff to play with, cute stuffed animals, books to look at -- she had a blast. She also scammed toys off of SLG Pres. Dan (stuffed Bear and Looshkins, SO CUTE) and one off SLG creator Landry Walker (a little guy called "Flamette" -- Evan told him not to show it to her!). We also bought a Demon Guard VooDoo Baby for me, but that was it for the whole weekend. Evan saw a couple things he wanted but...too spendy.
Here's Emily working the table:
I was tagged by Matt days ago but...well, I don't really need to go on and on about how roadrunner is sucking the very life out of me, do I?
Four (day) jobs I've had:
1. salesgirl @ punk/vintage clothing store
2. receptionist @ hair salon
3. art director @ (very small) newspaper
4. counter person @ bagel shop
Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. The Women
2. The Thin Man
I know Evan will see this and be able to tell me of at least 5 more movies I have watched over and over. But right now I'm drawing a blank!
Four places I've lived:
1. NY
2. Florida
that's it!
Four TV shows I love:
None. We pretty much only watch movies. And even shows I did watch I don't feel the need to see again (like Northern Exposure)
Four places I've vacationed:
1. Halifax
2. Mexico
3. London
4. Caribbean
Four of my favorite dishes:
1. tonkatsu
2. salmon with truffles that used to be served at Montrachet
3. asparagus maki (negimaki made with asparagus)
4. chili - practically any kind
Four sites I visit daily:
1. Bloglines (that sums up a ton of sites though)
2. flickr
3. weather.com
4. google, I'm always looking something up.
Four places I would rather be right now*:
1. Mitsuwa
2. Marketfair mall in NJ (so upscale! so soothing!)
3. on a ship to Nova Scotia
4. asleep in bed
*right this second
Four bloggers I'm tagging:
1. tulip
2. Mary
3. Evan (who will say, "a what? do I have to?")
4. hmmm...I can't think...open invitation to anyone who wants to take it!
Wow, that month went by fast. Things got busy, (more than a bit stressful) and most of all - our internet connection has been a royal pain, we've barely been able to get online in ages. (Looks like it's partly fixed, when I finish the job we're currently on I'll try and suss out the rest of the problem.)
Also coming once this job is turned in: my tie one on entries, cutie cupcakes made for Emily's birthday (no, she didn't eat any!), Miyazaki goodness and more! Also trying to fix a bunch of techy things, like set up a Technorati Profile for me and one for Evan. Anyway, hope your holidays were great and your new year even better. See you soon!
Hope you all are having a relaxing and festive holiday weekend. And remember, like I said last year -- avoid CBS' crappy parade coverage!
Update - just got a mailing that Puffy (a.k.a. PuffyAmiYumi) will be in the parade! That's pretty cool. I must say though, notifying your mailing list at 1 am the night/morning before the parade...? Not too timely. The mailing also said there will be dolls coming out soon. Dolls that I already saw over a month ago, hello! (Dolls which I may have to get since I have the other two doll sets of Puffy...)
My two favorite quotes right now.
On parenting:
"The days are long but the years are short." - John Leguizamo (InStyle Magazine, July 2005, via Metrodad)
On life:
"everyone is as happy as they choose to be" - Abraham Lincoln, paraphrased by my mom. (Okay, before someone gets persnickety, the quote is really: "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." I like my mom's version better.)
My Electronic Mechanical Individual is 8 months old! And right now, definitely yelling!
Since the IMDb lists it, it's hardly a secret that yesterday was our anniversary. (Curiously, someone has added that I was born in Louisiana -- which is true -- no idea who knew that though!) We decided to keep it low-key because of time and $$ constraints, and this awful heat!! So we went to our beloved Mitsuwa with Baby Em and spent the afternoon having fun, even though half the place is closed down. We goggled at the way overpriced but super cute baby toys selection (Mitsuwa is so NOT where I got Em's swanky Totoro stuff!), Ev drooled over all the new vinyl Kaiju, we pored over (but did not buy) the Ultraman Daddy and Child Care Book, and I did buy a book of kid's clothing patterns & designs ("Child's Collection 2005" -- I love those books!) which came with free Usahana fabric to make a little tote or something. There's a fantastic plaid dress that's slightly Goth Loli and super-cute! I'll be making that one when she's big enough, definitely. We then got way too much food (even though half the restaurants were closed as well!), featuring tonkatsu for me, sushi & tempura for Evan, and Baby Em's first taste of tofu! And then I got my heart's desire -- more boxes of Re-Ment miniatures! (Their site is down, but here're some pictures). I cannot begin to tell you how much I love Re-Ment, I mean it's well-known that I love miniature kitchen stuff, fake food, miniature food, and especially fake mini food, so it's like this stuff was created especially for me. I only wish I could afford to actually collect them all!! Finally, we picked up some wagashi -- at last I got the goldfish bowl wagashi I always miss every year (from the rotating seasonal selection) -- and then we started home.
Thanks to everyone who wrote or posted kinds words about Pixie. Truthfully I don't believe in such things, but I'd like to think he really is with the Mama Cat right now and feeling much better.
thanks everyone for all the well wishes and congrats -- if you don't know what I'm talking about, our daughter Emily Jane Dyer was born last week on December 30th. Evan posted the news so you probably saw it there. He'll be the main point of contact for a while as I recuperate and we both adjust to baby. Here's to a happy new year for us all!
Just popping up to say "hi" -- as you can imagine, things are out of control busy here getting ready for our new assistant to make her appearance. Everything's good, just head-spinning busy. And if things come down to keep me from posting again soon, I just want to say happy holiday(s) of your preference to all!!
As you have probably all guessed, things have gotten pretty hectic at this point, thus the lack of entries. What's new? Well, most of what's new you probably know from Evan's blog. Poor Stripesy. That was a bad couple of days.
Ikeas everywhere are sold out of those cute SPÖKA ghosts, phooey. (I'm hoping they got bought up for Halloween and will come back eventually.) I know this because we have been to Ikea twice in the last few weeks and now have a load of unassembled nursery furniture (more for me to do, phew!).
Lots of house stuff getting done, I found what may be the only actual plasterer in the area to fix Evan's collapsed office ceiling (everyone seems to only do sheetrock or commercial work), so that was cool, plus the guy did an amazing job. Got all the tree work taken care of too, so we don't have to worry about anything crashing onto our roof this winter.
Work is in bad bad overdrive right now, too many jobs too far behind, but it is all getting done. And housework/getting ready for baby is drastically behind, but enough will be done in time for us to manage.
And speaking of baby, Baby X is cooking right along, everything is going well and she's scheduled to arrive just under a month from now. Of course that really means anything from 2-6 weeks, so I'm trying not to obsess over the "countdown". It's hard not to though. Come on, baby!! Get here already!! Um...as soon as I've at least finished fixing up the bedroom, that is.
As you may have guessed, we've had a lot of discussions about parenting this year. And while of course you want your kids (or nephews or nieces or close family friends of the under-5 variety) to like things you like, and reject things you don't, we've already agreed that you can only take that so far. (There's a reason they came up with that whole "lead a horse to water" saying.) And we also agree that we can't stand parents who express themselves through their children and shove their kids in front of them like props in an obvious, look at how cool we are to have such "cool" kids move. But it's a hard thing to put into words. That is why I love, I mean LOVE this blog entry from the new-to-me Being Daddy site. If you have kids, want kids, think you just might have kids, know someone with kids, take care of kids, etc etc etc, it's an absolute must-read!! Not only could I never have said it better, I don't think anyone could have.
First, I just have to say -- more belated thanks and hellos to everyone! Doing a two-day convention turned out to be a little beyond the limits of my energy. It's the first time I've really run into the wall of pregnancy-related fatigue and it took me out for days. Whew.
But today's complaint -- I had a regular Dr. appt today, and there was some huge problem that set everyone back by about 2 hours, so there was lots of tired and bored waiting going on. But that's not what was annoying. What was annoying was that most of the time we were waiting, there weren't enough seats. And it was amazing to see able bodied men (and women who weren't patients) studiously looking down at their magazines and newspapers so that they could pretend not to notice hugely pregnant women standing around the edges of the room. At one point there were actually four men sitting, and four pregnant women standing, and not a single one of them offered to give up his seat. (No, Evan wasn't one of them, he stood until there were finally free seats.) At one point an elderly woman stood up and offered her seat to a woman who was practically about to give birth and it still didn't shame any of these people into getting up. It's not just the children of today who aren't learning manners...Grrr!
Thanks to all of you for the well-wishes on the baby news!! You are all just too, too swell.
A couple of answers:
Yes, Josh, I'm really glad I don't live in Florida anymore!
On names -- we're keeping those to ourselves until after she's here. A baby-naming contest? SCARY!!
I certainly hope she does go into outerspace someday!
Don't know about the art thing, she'll probably end up an accountant or something. Then again, that'll mean she can support us in our old age so I shouldn't complain.
And you want to hear about onesies? Check these out. Okay, pretty spendy, but American Apparel makes incredibly great stuff. And they come in black. About as non-foo-foo as you can get! Oh, and now maybe a couple of you figured out why we added a bunch of onesies to our cafepress store...
non-baby comments: just read the manga of Spiral, I was pretty disappointed. It seemed so far off the novel I thought it might actually be an adaption of the movie (that would be the movie Rasen, not the movie Ring 2) instead -- but the big ringworld site says that it really is an adaptation of the novel. On reading the information on the site, I think it seems like a bad adaptation because of the awkwardness of the english-language version. It's really awkward, not what I'd expect from a Dark Horse product. Here's an example of one passage AHEM -- minor spoiler passage ahead!!:
Dark Horse: Inside Yamamura Sadako's body that has both male and female sexual organs, the spermatazoa and the ovum get fertilized. Next, such fertilized egg is released, and the regenerative DNA is replaced with the DNA of the fertilized egg.
Ringworld: Sadako... with her female-and-male anatomy, she could produce both sperm and egg and incite fertilization within her own body. Bringing the fertilized egg to fruition, however, would require removing the DNA from within the egg and replacing it with that of some outside source.
Okay, I don't know which one is more literally correct, but I sure know which one makes sense to me...anyway. If you get the manga, you might want to check out the Ringworld translation alongside it.
And finally, all I can say about Johnny Ramone is WTF? What on earth did that band do to bring down such an evil curse upon themselves? As Evan said, that is just so wrong.
As most of you have probably noticed, Evan and I tend to keep quiet about our projects until we feel confident enough to announce them. We've been working on a pretty major collaboration for some time now, and keeping it quiet hasn't been easy, let me tell you. But, we're pretty confident that we'll be making our expected ship date this December so we feel it's high time to let you all in on what we've been working on. So, we're happy to finally announce our latest (and by far greatest) House of Fun project -- our daughter, due right before Christmas this year!
Yes, that's right, we're adding a new little staff member to the House of Fun studio. I'm just about 6 months along now, and she's super-healthy and doing great. I'm doing very well too, at least these days. If any of you remember, I was really ill this spring -- yup, that was because of this baby. I was severely ill with pregnancy sickness (let's not call it morning sickness because it was 24-hours-a-day sickness) for about the first 3-1/2 months, but thank goodness things have gone well ever since that finally ended.
But now you all know why we have been so scattered, stressed and overworked this year. (Not to mention getting rid of things as fast as we can -- this house is small!) I expect this pattern will be continuing for quite some time. Don't worry, I won't be boring everyone to death with the details of my crib comparison shopping or decisions over how many onesies one baby really needs. But since that sort of nonsense does take up quite a bit of my time these days, you can expect a lame posting frequency from me -- sorry about that!
Anyway, so that's what has really been going on around here for most of 2004. Many mysteries are becoming clear, aren't they? ^_^ Thanks to everyone who has been supportive and just generally nice to us this year (and always) -- it all helped us get through the tough days!
old-school videogamers -- we've just put up the best of my old Saturn games on ebay, they're all in perfect shape, and priced pretty cheap. Before you ask -- no, my copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga is most definitely not going up on ebay! Mostly RPGs, several of the Shining Games, plus the Magic Knight Rayearth RPG that was such a total pain to track down!! Check it out if you're so inclined. thanks! ::personal advertisiment over::
Just to clarify something....Evan is not actually "gleefully violent", no matter what EW says. Gleeful, on occasion. Violent, never. I thought it was really funny that they said that though!
for the record, no I don't actually think they meant it to come out the way it did. I'm pretty certain it was Milk & Cheese that they meant to call gleefully violent. But then again, maybe they know something I don't!
Well, I meant to post a nice lengthy catch-up, but instead, on logging on for the first time in a month I discovered that I had tons of comment spam, MT-blacklist hadn't been updating properly, the comments had closed but the site wouldn't rebuild, and stuff was messed up on my server. Oh yay. So after fixing that and cleaning things up for about 2 hours, I am wiped out.
So, briefly: sorry I've been awol. This spring has been pretty rough, I was sick, then Evan was sick, and we've had tons to get done while not being sick. Things are getting back on track now, finally. More later when I don't need to spend half my afternoon fixing stuff.
And briefly -- MoCCA was fantastic, and the Knitting Factory bites. Expect Evan to write about both profusely, as soon as he's feeling better. (For those of you who didn't attend MoCCA, he actually has lost his voice!)
and spring is time for new babies...I'm deee-lighted to finally get to publicly congratulate cartoonist Christine Norrie (also known as Action Girl's Eela Lavin, it's a long story, don't worry about it) on the birth of her daughter Josephine! And yeah, to that Andy guy who helped out, too. ^_^
 Happy Birthday to Evan! Today (the 20th) is the actual day, but Sunday we had a nice dinner with my dad and stepmom and check out the awesome cake that they had made for him!! (Sorry about the bad flash, I was taking surreptitious photos before he saw it). Amazing, and actually quite tasty. It is so huge though, we'll never finish it. I wish I could send each and every one of you a slice!!
Taxes weren't so bad. What gets me is social security. I never really thought we could count on it, but now I completely believe we're going to get shafted. So boy do I hate paying it. Anyway.
I'm going to switch our long distance, which is still Sprint because I am lazy. But there's so many alternatives out there, and it's hard to find real reviews of them. What I want: no fee, good rates, no pre-paid plan. I'm looking at ECG, Covista, Pioneer and bigredwire. Has anyone heard anything good or bad about any of these?
Came back Sunday night, tired as all heck, watched a movie, fell asleep, and woke up Monday to the realization that I had not.... yet.... finished.... our.... tax.... return.... bleaugh. That is all done now, and we'll be going to the accountant's today to go over everything. Couldn't have cut it much closer, yeesh!! So that is all I have lived and breathed since I got home. Nothing new to report at all.
If you freelance or are other-wise self-employed, please take this survey. The Freelancer's Union/Working Today here in NYC is trying to collect 1500 responses by next Wednesday to use in their ongoing efforts towards health care reform. Also, make sure to put in your correct zip code, as this will help show them where in the country people live who could use their services, to encourage them to expand. thanks!
In other news, I cannot shake my craving for Archer Farm's (Target's food line) Thai Potato Chips. I should probably be glad we don't have a Target right nearby.
I finally got my copies of elleGirl korea, and my lord, I have never seen a teen mag in my life so thick. Seriously, this thing is well over 1" thick (I think it's over 400 pages), and weighs a ton. Loads of glossy paper and laminated inserts. Anyway, it's a very neat magazine, not that I have a clue what any of the text says (other than all the headlines and many captions that are in English). I got a write-up on the contributor's page (hopefully they said nice things), two drawings on the contents pages, and the full-page illustrated interview. It all came out very nice (other than some odd cropping and flipping of images) and I was pretty excited to see it.
Yesterday was generally pretty alright. Snow Drop 6 is off; some progress was made around the house; I got a batch of boiled peanuts started (which will keep Evan complaining all day today); and some opportunities presented themselves which have potential to be, um, interesting down the line (I'm all for planning as far ahead as possible).
Unfortunately, the rotten Mr. Jinx then proceeded to ruin virtually our entire night's sleep by prowling around the edge of the bed (his enemy Crushy was attempting to sleep in the middle) with occasional stops to chew on our hair. Fun fun fun.
Oh, and because I am simply too busy (and lazy) to figure out my template porblems on the D.I.Y./crafts blog, I finally just caved and set myself up at Livejournal for the time being. (I got tired of having to throw out notes for entries because they were so outdated and I just can't spare the time to get the MT stuff worked out.) If you are so inclined, feel free to stop by.
I was in the middle of posting a link to a really cute flash movie I found, when the news came out that Spalding Gray was found in the East River (as most people expected). What a downer. And how sad and useless. I feel for the guy, obviously he was really messed up. But I have a strongly held personal belief that anyone who checks out when there's a small child in the picture is a...I'll just say jerk.
In other sucky news, (not to mention suckiness that actually affects me personally) in case you haven't heard, a drunk driver plowed through, and I mean through, the SLG offices this weekend. See details here and here. We got the news Saturday from Dan. Luckily, stupid drunk drivers are usually drunk late at night when no-one is sitting at their desks. It could have been so much worse.
Anyway. I'll finish that other post tomorrow and put it up. I should be working anyway.
Evan's last journal post pretty much sums up the general feeling around here. So I don't need to go into that.
Extra aaah for me -- I learned yesterday that online message boards really are always the same, whatever the topic. I avoid message boards as a rule, but I had posted on the help/message board for a yarn store to find something out about a yarn I bought. After I had a second question, I didn't want to be one of those rude people who barges in and asks for help and never says anything nice, so I added to an ongoing thread that yes, this one board regular was impressive in the amount of work she got done. Then, I made a fatal error. I used the word "hobby" to describe something that I did. Not that she did, that I did.
Now, to me, a "hobby" is anything that's impractical, expensive, and being done for fun. But to them, it's a loaded danger word, that means "you are putting down women's traditional craft" and the next thing I knew I was now a dismisser of "women's work". Which, if you think about it, is beyond ironic. ('Cause yeah, that's me, puttin' down the women everywhere and tellin' em to do their little hobbies and let the menfolk do the real work.) I tried to explain myself but a discussion of semantics was just not on the agenda. The upshot was, I felt frustrated at being misunderstood; upset that I had obviously really upset some people (whether I meant to or not); aggravated that no-one was considering that hey, maybe to me "hobby" is in no way an insult; and finally just bummed out that because I had opened my mouth and tried to be friendly, I'd now exiled myself from a board I really could have used access to. Oh well. And this, my dears, is why you do not ever see me on message boards. Because the truth is, they're always just social cliques and if you don't fit into them you're really not welcome. Why I forgot that all of a sudden I really don't know.
Speaking of social cliques makes my mind jump to the entire comics industry -- how much does it suck that ¡Journalista! is gone? Obviously, from a publisher's point of view, the Journal is more valuable, but from an industry point of view, ¡Journalista! was way more valuable. If it were my call, I'd shanghai someone to take over right away (hopefully under Dirk's supervision) before someone else picks up the reins and fills that niche. Why let everyone see someone else's ads and links instead of yours?
Also speaking of comics, we've been watching American Chopper ever since my brother visited us in December. We imagine (note I say imagine) that watching that show is the closest fascimile you'll ever get to watching the SLG gang at work. (Although I would only draw one actual person-to-person comparison...can you guess who it is?) Seriously, people love American Chopper so much; I think the Discovery Channel should go to SLG and film a new show -- "American Comics". That would be a riot. The waffles! The karaoke! The bird captures! The (I forgot the name of the big gross sandwich thing)...I think it has major potential.
Before I go, a link or two: this is a nice recent article on the history of Hello Kitty for her 30th birthday. Short, but a few things I hadn't read before. And here's a pretty amusing (Japanese) article on men who read manga in public. Choice quotes: "When I see sober-looking men with their ties laughing at comic books in packed trains in the morning, I feel like leaving the scene." "But it's sad to see them so brazenly reading comics in a public place" and the best one, from an "American expatriate" -- "What really shocked me about coming to Japan was that there were adults openly reading comic books in trains. There aren't any adults in America who do that. Of course there are comic books in the States but they're either for children, or considered trash." When on earth did this guy leave the States, anyway?
And now, back to working on some "trash"...
Just a quick hello, we are in a nightmare morass of work. But I do still intend to get that manga post up asap.
In interesting news, one of the jobs I've been getting done was a set of illos for an interview I did that'll be running in ElleGirl Korea. Which was a very fun interview, but I don't think any of you are too likely to see it. It should be coming out soon and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turned out!
Oh, and before I forget: believe it or not, Tamagotchi are coming back!
Well I just had to share this -- apparently KFC has convinced all of Japan that fried chicken is the traditional christmas meal! That sneaky colonel...
And thanks to everyone for the holiday wishes, we're getting ready to head down to my dad's for the traditional Xmas eve dinner of Mexican food...hope you're all having a good holiday wherever you are and whoever you're with.
All this month, I've kept meaning to post this link or that link or this idea or that comment...but if you read Evan's journal you know everything's been a total fiasco around here lately. So assuming I will not have another free moment to post any of the holiday-ish things I had in mind, I'll just leave you all with this for now:
That man made me spit raisin bran!! And to think I nearly missed this because I don't watch MTV...check out the Democratic candidates' Rock The Vote videos for yourself! Some props due to Dean's team as well, who put together a pretty quick and simple message with a well-chosen song (as in, compared to the Kucinich or Lieberman clips...). And dig the total cheese of the Kucinich video....yowch. (I'd pick on everyone else's videos too but I have to get back to work.)
I forgot this, and will definitely forget it before next Halloween, so I'm going to tell you anyway how horrified I was to see Better Homes & Gardens suggest that a really good "treat" for Halloween trick-or-treaters was....string cheese. At room temperature. I kid you not! That tidbit should have come with a suggestion for cleaning all the eggs off your house the next morning.
In House-of-Fun news, things are chugging along okay. Evan's still not sleeping well but the work is getting done. We just turned in a little job for Nickelodeon magazine that everyone was happy with (us and them), and we're both deep into separate projects right and then we'll be creeping close to being caught up. However, this whole "catching up on our work" concept has been seriously impaired by a $19.99 copy of Kingdom Hearts, so we'll have to see what happens. Not to mention the holiday season is just about upon us.
Here's another bit of time-wasting fun: the Ikea kitchen planner (PC only). I am too forgetful (i.e. lazy) to actually go measure our kitchen and make this program useful, but it's still a lot of fun anyway. And it's free, so who cares if it gets old fast?
1. How Evan always says "You're listening to Tricky, aren't you? I can tell...because it's scary..."
2. My dad calling to berate me every day that we haven't watched the new episode of Carnivàle because he wants to talk about it.
3. Kraft's downloadable batman stencil.
Something that's funny but not in the same way: this whole Comp-gate thing. And what's not so funny, and what no-one seems to realize, is that it does matter that D.C. editors are likely to stop picking up indie comics now. How do you think all these small press creators have been getting jobs at D.C.? (Okay, not all the editors rely on their free trade to keep up who's out there, but you know a lot of them must...) And as Evan said, isn't anyone at D.C. (i.e. at the top level) embarassed that their own employees don't want to keep their books? I mean, according to the story, they're not even keeping the archives and collections...
Anyway. Just finished up Snow Drop volume 3, I wish I could go into 4 next but I have to switch back and forth between the two books to keep to their schedule.
Miscellaneous silly link of the day: Be your own Andy Warhol!
(or; I'm feeling very parenthetical today) So things have been wackier than usual around here (at least someone got that porn spammer shut down)...
we had this terrific (in the bad sense) wind storm that lasted well over 24 hours (you may have heard mention of it if you read any of the articles about the ferry disaster here—by the way, thanks to all of you who checked on us, that was very sweet!) and it ripped about half of the very tall (3 stories) pear tree in our back yard off and threw it across our back fence so that most of it was lying in the neighbors' back yard. When I found out I couldn't even get anyone to look at it for at least 4 or 5 days, we decided to tackle the problem ourselves, and with the help of the neighbor lady (she's very nice, but her english is so bad I still have no idea what her name is) we actually got the whole tree cut up and stacked by the side of the house. Of course, I still have to have the tree looked at to see if it can be saved; and we've still got all these huge branches that need to be cut down to allowable length and bundled up to be put out. But there went that day...
the next day of course we were so stiff and achy it wasn't funny. Than as if that wasn't enough, our stoopid tv finally went and died. Completely, never-coming-back-from-the-dead-even-as-a-zombie died. (What would a zombie tv be like?) After weighing our options (and realizing that the selection of tvs at the salvation army was just too, TOO depressing and crappy) we drove out to circuit city, found a nice 27" for $200, brought it home and hooked it up...and it was defective. All the way back out, had to deal with an exchange, forced them to hook the new one up to make sure it worked (and got to endure the saleslady's nonsense "Did you put it near a magnet?" "Yes, I am an idiot, I have never used a tv before and I put magnets all over it.") She was really nasty, I can only assume that somehow she felt selling a defective tv reflected badly on her...which is silly but...anyway, we finally have a working tv but there went that day.
And my biggest gripe is that all this nonsense ruined our attempts at doing something for my birthday. Phooey. I did however, get very swell presents and I ate all the things on our favorite chinese place's menu that are bad for me. Heheheh.
Oh! And the one really bright moment in all this...we are 99% positive we have spotted the missing kitten, Dot, who we thought was dead! She was one of the last two kittens that the infamous feral Little Girl had—both kittens vanished in a storm, but one turned up a few days later, and is now the famous Mr. Mullins. The other one, who we called Dot, never showed up. But last night, two small cats came out of the shrubbery of the abandoned house across the street and we actually slammed the car to a stop and went, "Oh my god, it's Dot!" Her face looked just like her mom's, and her dot pattern was unmistakable. (By the way, we don't actually know she's a girl.) So, that was exciting. If we can definitely be sure those cats have settled into that house/yard, we might get the feral colony management people to come out and at least get them all vaxed and fixed. But who knows if that's really where they're living? We were just happy to see her.
A post that isn't about porn spam...(by the way, that book I've been reading, Men Can Take It? It's about fashion, it's not porn. Sure sounds like it though...)
Happy birthday to Josh Sullivan, and belated birthday wishes to Todd Webb, and birthday wishes to everyone else born this month because everyone born in October RULZ like me. Sorry, teen moment there.
We've discovered accidentally that our completely spazzy TV works just fine if you leave it on 24 hours a day. That's not good, but at least it does make it work. We're going to be trying turning it on an hour or two before we want to watch anything from now on. Sure beats having to smack it with various books (Evan already destroyed the new Yellow Pages by whacking the TV with it).
Big excitement in my life: I learned how to wind yarn into nice balls like in an old kid's book. If I ever had a day and a half to finish the templates for my projects/DIY section, I could talk about it there...
I've also learned that the air that is trapped inside hot water radiators, especially when you haven't bled them in 3 years because you're an idiot, really smells horrible. Kids! Bleed those radiators 3 times a year like you're supposed to! I swear, I nearly knocked myself out.
And finally, uh, I just got totally distracted googling images...so I have no idea what I was going to say. Maybe I'll remember tomorrow!
Remember when I said this:
Whoops, Evan just pointed out a possible factual error in something I was posting. Deleted that just in time. I will check my facts and get back to you all on that one.
Well, I have busted his ulterior motives out! He didn't want to check facts, he wanted to SCOOP me!!! I found the discrepancy, I did the reseach, I had the details...and all he really wanted was to SCOOP me!!
Okay, actually, he just forgot. And I mainly said this because he hates the word "scoop" with an irrational hate that cracks me up. However, I will not furnish details, or post my original long post about the whole thing, I will let him hang out there all by himself....bwahahahahaha!!
I'm having incredible trouble getting my mind into work mode today. Partly because of stress, partly because of the obnoxious music the neighbors decided to play today 1, partly because monkey boy Evan is having trouble working and so keeps wandering around the house distractedly (and distractingly) 2, and partly because the ikea chair I sit on has been on its last legs for well over a month now. Some of you may remember, I used to sit on an exercise ball instead of a chair, but it had two big problems―it was in a stabilizing base that wouldn't allow you to shift around and allowed it to get knocked all over the room; and the cats destroyed two of them. Yesterday I found a brand new office chair that incorporates an exercise ball and today I ordered it. Hopefully it'll work out, and hopefully I'll work!
1 I have mentioned this lovely habit of theirs before; it's not just ear-splitting loud, it's not just a style of music I don't care for (super-cheesy "hip-hop"), it's not just in Albanian…it's that they play the same songs over and over and over. For hours.
2 Actually, for those of you who read his journal, things are pulling together slowly but surely. And a PS for you―I know where the Hectic Planet files are and if something happens and the end doesn't get told―I'll let you know how it all turned out. And what the secret of the TANC is.
Things are so hectic I actually printed out my schedule for the next two months for us to go over and and—what's the word, reconcile?—with Evan's schedule. That's just so…business-y. Ugh. Anyway, a few bits of our hectic life I need to tell you about:
We are totally confirmed for SPX, we will be there Saturday & Sunday, as well as part of Friday.
I am going to be doing several panels at the Big Apple Anime Fest next weekend, this was all just finally confirmed a few days ago. I will not be doing the Sunday panel they have me down for, however, just the three on Friday and the one on Saturday.
The reason I won't be there on Sunday is that I will be starting another job for Tokyopop, volume one of DNAngel. (And I will have just finished volume two of Snow Drop which I am so far enjoying.) I haven't had a chance to look over the DNAngel stuff much yet but the idea really appealed to me; and Evan's flipped through the manga and he says he thinks I'll really like it.
In silly news, Sanrio has renamed Baby Cinnamon to Cinnamaroll, and I do not like it. I don't know why, but I just can't stand "Cinnamaroll". What was wrong with "Baby Cinnamon"?
…it could have been a lot worse. Our power was on by the time we woke up; internet access was down a lot longer (just got back on a little bit ago). Rolling blackouts are threatened but so far so good. The good news: we were pretty well prepared (had flashlight, batteries, transistor radio, corded phone etc and knew where everything was); the bad news: we should have been even better prepared (plenty of batteries for the radio, NO extra batteries for the flashlight!). The other bad (if completely petty and personal) news—the highly touted "jet-black sky" last night was not a reality here, it was hazy and there was still enough ambient light to make the sky semi-lit, although certainly not as much as usual. We did get to see a lot of stars for once, but I wish we could have seen more. Anyway. Just wanted to let you all know we're fine, Evan was on his way home but wasn't too far and made it safely back. Who knows if power and internet connection will be stable all weekend, we'll see. A side note: Sorry is a great game to play by candlelight, you don't need to see much of anything. However, it's not a great game if you're Evan, who lost lost lost all night long. Ha!!
So what I didn't know was that after a tetanus shot your arm could hurt. Like as in really hurt. For days. Ow ow ow. Better now, at last.
Mullins has his own web site now, all of you who followed his story, feel free to check up on him. Gollee is he a cutie.
Everyone's off to San Diego, apparently. Only a few people we know aren't going, and frankly, this is a year we both kind of wish we were there. Unfortunately, this is also a year that we certainly can't afford the trip, and honestly, we're so swamped with work right now it wouldn't have been possible anyway. Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever go back again…
In more comic-y news, Cafepress is starting their publishing-on-demand system. Pretty interesting, and definitely an option for self-publishers. They'll be doing comics (b&w interiors only), among tons of other book sizes, although if I'm reading the info right, it's not really cost-effective to do comics through them since there's a $4 binding fee, bringing the cost of a 24-page-plus-cover comic book up to $5.26. Even if you decided not to mark it up at all, thereby making not a cent off it, it's still an outrageous price. For books the numbers are a little more reasonable, with a 200-page perfect bound book costing you $13. But, pricey or not, I think it's a pretty important move and it'll be interesting to see what people do with it.
I know there was something else, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was! Oh well, it'll give me something to write about as soon as I remember!! Have fun in San Diego to all of you who are going!
…now I have my tetanus shot. I know it's a little late for a 4th of July recap, but since I'm still dealing with it, so can you! We don't do much for holidays normally, since we rarely get to take them off. But this year we splurged and had two afternoons off! On the 4th itself, we went to some friends' house for cookout-type stuff, transferred little Mullins to his new parents, and watched the Macy's fireworks from an upstairs bay window. The fireworks were not actually as impressive as I remembered them—no real shapes or designs or much of anything except the classic globe-shape. They did spread the fireworks out along the East River, which was pretty cool, except when they lit lots of red behind the skyline, which was just sort of post-apocalyptic-creepy. On Sunday (the 6th) we went to my family's thing, before we got there my stepbrothers helped build the new deck, we got there and we all ate, then we stayed and helped build the new swing-glider-thing. It was pretty fun hanging out, and the swing turned out really nicely. Except that I was in a bit of a fog from the heat, and tired, and managed to whack a very sharp utility knife into the end of my thumb. It was so sharp it just sliced right through the nail until it was about halfway down. Ick! And the blade of course, had to be a nasty old rusty one. And my last tetanus booster? Probably 1980. I have no idea. So today I went to the doctor and got my shot. (It was nothing compared to the injections I get for dental work, so it was a breeze.) And now I can stick rusty nails into myself with impunity! For another ten years, anyway.
Things are finally starting to settle down. The new Dork trade, Circling the Drain is printed, we're just waiting to see our copies. Reports are good, however.
Mullins is settling in nicely to his new home. I think he's going to be a very happy cat, and that the story of the Little Girl and her poor little kittens can have a happy ending. (Oh, yeah, and she didn't have rabies, so my dad doesn't have to get the zillion shots in the stomach or whatever it is they do to you if you're attacked by a rabid animal.)
I've turned in the very last volume of Kodocha (boohoo), which was actually pretty emotional, I swear I'm as attached to those characters as if I'd invented them myself. And I've just today tentatively confirmed my new projects at Tokyopop, although not only it is not 100% settled what I'll do, they're titles that aren't announced, so I can't discuss them yet. However, I highly doubt you'll have heard of any of them. (I can say they're shoujo books, though.) I'm looking forward to doing more stuff, I hope I'll enjoy the new books even half as much as I enjoyed Kodocha.
In other work news, we're now hard at work (along with a few other things) on the new development stuff for the Cartoon Network. It's fun, we're enjoying it, hopefully it'll turn into something. More on that later, obviously.
In house news, this really should be part of the unfinished "my favorite tools" bit for the cooking class, but since I've had no time I just want to push on you my latest favorite thing, the in-drawer knife block that was delivered today. I've been wanting one of these for ages, but they all seemed too expensive or too junky. This one is great—it holds 6 knives, 6 steak knives (or small knives) plus your steel. And it only cost $17! (Most I've seen didn't hold that much and ran about $40.) The regular knife block on the counter was just bulky and annoying, and got so dirty. So, a bunch of stuff came out of the drawer and went into my new cool Fiestaware tool crock (mine is turquoise) and then the knife block went into the drawer. It's all so much neater and easier to get to now.
Finally, Evan's been having all the fun talking about movies lately, so I'm chiming in first with a report on The House Where Evil Dwells, a horror movie we thought might be quick and goofy and which turned out to be one of the most ludicrous things calling itself a film I've ever seen in my life. One IMDb user calls it "high camp", except it's not supposed to be…the best user comment is "Be Drunk. Very Drunk." It was hysterically funny, I have to admit. Giant talking cursing crabs going up trees? Talking heads in soup? Evil ghosts who act like naughty children? Awkward out-of-shape white man martial arts? Worth catching for a laugh, if you've got some downtime to spare.
Just a quick update from out here in the 7th circle of hell—Mullins has a home! He'll be going there tomorrow night after his first 4th of July party. Big thanks to Fletcher, Martin, Brian & Karla for trying to find a way to fit Mullins into their homes; and congrats to new mom Branden who is taking in the sweetest cat ever! Speaking of Mullins, today he was very good, so I let him sleep in my lap for a while while I was working. Unfortunately, Jinx came in the room, and Mullins thought it was his mom (she looked just like a small Jinx) and went nuts. It was so sad. We finally had to lock him back up. Poor baby! But his story has a happy ending now. (And thanks to everyone who wrote or offered support, too!)
No time for a real entry or even the link collection I've been building up, we're back up to busy-level-five thanks to some roadblocks on a job… (Not Kodocha, though, don't worry!). But wanted to update everyone on the kitten situation. He's doing fine, and he's in good health if undernourished. He doesn't even need the socialization I'm supposed to be doing with him this week, all he wants is to cuddle and go to sleep on your lap. Right now we're waiting on answers from two different prospective adoptive parents (see his "adopt me" page) before going to round two—and he needs to be placed as soon as possible! He's so outgoing and talkative (unlike his previous three brothers, or half-brothers, anyway) that he's really freaking the cats out, Pixie especially, who is sulking around the house. Pixie hates this whole thing so much, that to get from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor, he has to run all the way past the bathroom where the kitten is, hissing and spitting the whole time. And he never acts that way over anything.
After all the insanity of the last few weeks, we took a day off yesterday to just catch our breath (although we did spend some of our time picking up much needed stuff for the house). Nothing is as relaxing as an afternoon at Mitsuwa. We meant to watch another DVD from my dad's Alec Guiness collection we borrowed, but we ended up watching the History Channel's special on superheroes instead. It was interesting, and worth watching, but had many of the usual problems you get when comics are covered, especially the super-stuff. Including dizzying camera tricks that someone came up with because looking at a comics page would apparently be too boring, and the usual trying-to-make-too-much out of superheroes blathering. All of this affected by the weirdness of seeing people you know on TV. My favorite sound bite (well, here it's a text bite I suppose) was that when the Hulk gets mad he goes on a "tirade". Now that would be a funny comic. It's also disappointing to see Denny O'Neil disavowing his New Wonder Woman run as crap when—while I understand why feminists had a problem with it at the time—it is the best that book has ever been as far as I'm concerned. An immortal, super-powered goody-two shoes (lesbian and S&M subtexts aside) is just so boring. But someone who gives up all that, says goodbye to her family, and still puts herself on the line to fight evil, now that is a hero.
MOCCA was a resounding success as far as we were concerned. (I imagine it was a success all around judging by the crowds all day and the smiles at 7pm—but having spent nearly every moment at the table I really can't gauge how everyone else did.) We had a great crowd at our table pretty much non-stop, got lots of books into people's hands and met tons of cool readers. (And in the brief lulls, got to socialize with our friends and table-neighbors Jimmy and Amanda.) The show has definitely hit a critical mass though, and they're obviously going to have to do something to accomodate everyone next year. Possibilities include moving to a bigger space or expanding to two days. I think going to two days would work, but I don't know if the Puck building on a Saturday is going to be affordable, even for a successful and popular show like MOCCA. Anyway, wherever and whenever, I'm sure we'll be there next year. One interesting thing was the huge response we got to both our blogs—I doubt it's normal in the blogging world to get more response in person that you actually do online! It was great to hear from so many regular readers (and hi to all of you showing up today!) There were too many people to hook up with afterwards, so we ended up wedged into the Torc Room downstairs at the Puck Fair across the street with a small group. Food was good, our server was awesome and the company was excellent. It did keep making us want to sing "In the TORC ROOM, TORC ROOM, TORC ROOM" to the tune of Electric 6's "Gay Bar" though. Which was probably kind of obnoxious.
Exhaustion from MOCCA was one reason we took yesterday off, the other was to cheer ourselves up after we learned that the feral mother cat we'd finally trapped to get spayed and vaccinated had FIV, was going into the critical phase of the infection and had to be put to sleep. Evan wrote about this already, but to give you a little background: this is the mother of the two kittens I rescued, socialized and placed last spring, as well as the mother of the previous year's rescue, a badly injured kitten who not only recovered but now is as healthy as can be. She had two kittens this time around, one of whom has vanished—but the smaller one is now under observation at my dad's vet, has tested negative for FIV (and FELV), been fixed (ouch!) and will be back here for socialization later this week if we can find him a home to go to afterwards.
Anyway, that's it for now. Got loads to get done so I can start on the very last Kodocha (snif, snif). See you around, cats and kittens!
So here I am, at the highest level of "busy", and my site is just up and down and up and down…not to mention the same thing is happening to a different degree to the House of Fun and to Elizabeth's site as well. No time to deal with it as I've had tons of family stuff, a major dental session and loads of final production work on the new Dork trade (extra thanks to SLG Editor-in-Chief Jennifer for being so super-helpful). It's probably for the best, actually, as I've been seized with a desire to write about things I actually cannot address in public several times in the past week, and circumstances prevented me from doing so. So maybe it's all been for the best. Anyway, if all goes well I hope to have the problems addressed later this week, if I vanish again, don't worry, I'll be back soon. Later!
Slipped into WTFBusy mode there for a bit; not only are we working around the clock on the new Dork trade, Circling the Drain, we had two major interruptions in the last two days which have knocked us back.
First, in the you always think these things can't happen to you dep't: we live near the top of a hill, on a very hilly island. Wednesday, we had a violent lightning storm that pounded our hill. We shut everything down, attempted to soothe the cats, and when it was all over, Evan's computer was dead. After considerable attempts to get it to boot, calls to our super-expert friend and more attempts, I was able to figure out that a power spike came in through the phone line, blew out the modem installed in the computer, along with who knows what else, and had stopped everything cold. Pulling the affected card out apparently restored the system, but Evan is entirely offline now (he was on dialup because I never got our network back up after changing the computers out). So, no email, journaling, or anything for him except for a few breaks here and there, since I'm pretty much at my system non-stop working on the book. The computer is "on probation" while we wait to see if anything else blew out and will start causing trouble. And I think as soon as we finish the book I need to put some time into considering a wireless network for the house. (Oh, and it looks like my speakers may have shorted before I got things turned off. Yay.)
Yesterday, our day was killed in a much more pleasant fashion when we went into Manhattan to record a commentary track for the upcoming Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast DVD set. We, along with our long-time producer Keith Crofford, did an audio commentary for our 2nd episode, "Girlie Show". That was pretty interesting, and although we were exhausted we had a pretty nice day afterwards, coming home late to collapse in front of the television and watch 3 Olivia DeHavilland movies on TCM. I won't say more because when I get away from the computer to make dinner later I think Evan wants to write about it himself.
Finally, for those of you that don't read comments, my day was started with much hilarity thanks to this Japanese cat dress-up site linked to by Sandy in the last entry's comments.
this week's friday five:
1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?
In some ways yes, in some ways no. My dad would tell you yes.
2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?
Yes. More than one, in fact. I'm working on that one....
3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?
Well, I know where everything is, but it's a mess.
4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?
No, we categorize!
5. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to organize?
That's easy. My own life.
Finally got Evan's new Fun Strip up; he hadn't finished it in time for me to do earlier and wanted this special birthday edition up this week. (Speaking of his birthday, the brownies came out great, although we can't quite think of them as brownies.)
Also got a couple pieces of art up on ebay to help pay for last week's mess of visiting repair guys.
And that's it for this late edition!
Yesterday was like a totally charmed day. Days like that don't come along too often, so pardon me while I savor it a bit longer.
First, I got all my seedlings started (a little late, I know, but I forgot a couple things I was out of and had to wait to get them back in). It's so nice to look over in my office and see two big covered flats, condensation forming on the domes and all. This year I'm not getting too experimental. I've got one flat full of varieties of impatiens (a double, a mixed single, and my favorite, balsam). The other has a mix of a few things I'm trying out this year, but most of it is full of no-brainers like mint.
Then, a huge baby-shower-in-a-box I'd sent my just-about-to-burst friend Antonia arrived in the literal nick of time. It should have been there Wednesday, but finally got there a few days late, with what we're thinking is about 30 hours left. I made up a mixture of vintage baby items, a few fun things (like the awesome Twink book and CD set), and a bunch of stuff I made which I can now finally write up and start the projects section with.
Next, my regular checking of the More4Less Bargain Blog paid off when I was able to use one of their super-tricky deals to get a Rio MP3/CD-R player for $29 including shipping. (Not to mention a free Harry Potter PC game I can find a home for as part of the deal.) No more CD wallet on those 2-3 hour trips! And, no more burning vintage radio shows to audio format to listen to them in the car.
At that point, Evan got up and suggested we go out for a few hours since the weather was so nice (rainy, but warm). We headed out to Jersey and hit up the Edgewater Target where I was able to get these big metal tubs I want to use as planters. I have these junky big plastic things that the previous owners of our house left behind, and I've wanted to replace them since the day we moved in, but everything I've found was either too small, too ugly, or too expensive. I saw these big enamelled "beverage tubs" for $10 at a Target a week or two ago and thought they might be great to use in the garden. Found them at this Target and went for it, picked up two green and one yellow, for basically the price of one boring oversized planter from the local Home Depot. I can't find anything like them online or I'd show them to you. (My one moment of disappointment yesterday—I wanted the David Kirk Miss Spider watering can to water my seed trays in my office, but it was sold out.)
And finally, we ended our day up at Mitsuwa where we surprisingly didn't find any stuff we wanted to buy (in the toy/magazine/book/hello kitty/dishes/etc side), but had a nice meal (predictably, I had tonkatsu) and then stocked up on foodstuffs. Food highlight (I'll spare you the boring stuff): the instant Hello Kitty cakes I love in chocolate now come in banana and melon, tried the melon last night and it was great. We got some other cool new snacks but they're downstairs and I'm too lazy to go and check on what they are. One is called "chocolate pie", by Lotte, sort of a puff-pastry cookie with chocolate inside (didn't see that coming, did ya?); the other are these little chocolate and macadamia nut mushroom caps on cookie stems. Very cute. Evan also surprised me with a special Wagashi from the Minamoto Kitchoan. The one he got me isn't listed on their site, and I don't remember what it's called, but it's a plum wine jelly with a whole plum and gold leaf flecks in it. Mmmm.
And today's a bit of a loss, we have a family function to go to that'll kill our worktime today, but we should at least get a really good meal out of it!
For those of you that don't live in the NYC area, smoking became practically illegal this weekend. Smoking is now completely banned in all bars and restaurants, and if you are busted smoking, the fine is pretty hefty (or so I'm told, I confess to not looking it up). Now, I am someone who loathes smoking. I can get very sick from exposure to cigarette smoke—at the very least I'll get a violent stabbing headache and nausea, at worst I'll start having trouble breathing. (I assume I must actually have an allergy or something.) But, even I think this is absolutely ridiculous. I can think for myself, and if I don't want to be exposed to smoke, I simply avoid places full of smoke. Really, it's not that difficult. Bars are for people who want to smoke, drink, and more often than not, hook up. There are plenty of non-smoky places to go if that's not what you're into. Supposedly, this is out of concern for the health of people "forced" to work in bars. I say phooey. First off, I don't think anyone's being forced to work in a bar, and second, I don't see the Mayor looking into establishing health care for people in those industries. A covered yearly checkup would do a hell of a lot more than less exposure to smoke (especially since most people who work in bars smoke themselves).
This is already a city where dancing is illegal in any place that doesn't have a cabaret license—and I'm not even going to get into how stupid that is except to note that a major swing spot in NYC, Swing 46, which is a supper club, mind you, has lost their cabaret license for no apparent reason and is trying to get it back. I mean, really! A jazz/big band oriented supper club, and the city somehow thinks dancing shouldn't be allowed.
Taxes and tolls are going up constantly, services are being cut back drastically, and now they don't want to let anyone have any fun. Where, oh where, is the benefit to living here?
And finally, I have to say, to all you NYC smokers—while I do hate when one of you lights up in a place you shouldn't and blows smoke all over me, I have nothing but sympathy for you all right now. I really don't think this is the time to try and make everyone not smoke, nerves are frazzled enough as it is. In a city full of sniper teams and bomb sniffing dogs, let people have whatever they need to calm down, puh-lease.
Yay. Some stupid browser trick closed several open windows at once, including the one with this entry all finished. So here I am, reconstructing it, which always just makes you feel awkward.
So, the war. I am nowhere near as freaked out as I was last time. I think that's because the original Gulf War was a total "Oh my god, we're at war?!" moment, while this one is just a "Yep, there we go, war started" moment. And, at least, now that it's actually started, it has to eventually have an end. I just hope as few people as possible suffer because of the decisions made out of their control.
Keeping myself busy while the world seems to be at a standstill (and while I wait for a few responses that I'd really like to have soon), I've been doing some site tweaking. Lots of invisible stuff you won't notice; new individual archive pages for your permalinking pleasure (plus, comments right on those pages so you don't need to deal with the popups); and I've finished adding the RSS feeds to the site. If you need an introduction to RSS, Mark Pilgrim's What Is RSS? is comprehensive and easy to understand. To find a reader (for just about any platform), go to Haiko Hebig's RSS Reader Directory. If the reader you choose doesn't use autodiscovery, you will find links in the sidebar to both a summarized feed and a full feed. Note my adaptations of the fabulous buttons from antipixel.com. And finally, super-big thanks and props go out to Jason Bergman of loonyboi.com for suggesting it, and then helpfully following up his suggestion with templates, info, the above links, and feedback and help setting this up.
added a few moments later: if you are one of the people I'm waiting to hear from/waiting to hear from me, I'll be offline for most of the next day (dentist appt.) talk to you soon.
Thanks to everyone for the ideas, the salsa ended up a great success (as was the luau). I tried to write down what I was putting into it, but I won't know if I really succeeded until I try and repeat it. If I can repeat it (I hate when I can't!) I will post it here eventually.
That light at the end of the tunnel really is getting closer. I may be caught up enough in another day to finally get to some desperately needed housework.
Here is a local story that totally cracked me up: Raccoon comes to bed. I think I'd definitely freak out if this happened to me too, but afterwards I would think it was kind of cute.
Here is the new Hello Kitty cooking line, yes, real pots and pans and everything. I don't need them, and they wouldn't even go with my kitchen…but still, it's all so cute!
And finally, on a more serious note, I found this article on the new "wireless society" in Japan incredibly interesting (and not dry and academic at all). Obviously things are different there, not only do the Japanese have a more polite culture, but their wireless phone service totally kicks what we can get. But even so, I've seen some of this very same behavior emerging among my own friends and family over the past few years. Lots of interesting links as well.
Oh well, back to work for me!
Why is it that people always tell you they have nothing in mind, no limits, no structure, no ideas to give you when they want to see something (a proposal, a sample, whatever), but the minute they get anything from you they suddenly know exactly what it is they wanted? And of course you haven't been able to guess it correctly, because how could you, when they wouldn't even give you a clue…grrr.
I've also been annoyed lately by people who ask you for something, and then don't even bother to let you know they received it. I know it can happen, sometime circumstances have kept me from responding to someone quickly. But when everyone seems to be doing it…grrr.
As you can see, I'm really full of grrr today!
Moving on…thanks to everyone for the luau suggestions. The problem is, coconut is out (long story). Dessert is out (there's two already). Main dishes are out (being provided by host, hostess and baby host). And anything I make has to be transportable, and not need cooking on arrival. So, that knocks out almost everything. But, my sister-in-law commented that she's worried that there isn't enough for anyone who doesn't like the luau-style food (oh, and janaki, it's what I'd call really inauthentic luau style) so I'm thinking of a mango-based salsa and chips, not very polynesian but tropical, avoids the coconut issue, and can be enjoyed by anyone who isn't into the whole theme. Now I just have to see if I can actually find canned mangos, because we certainly don't have them fresh in the store right now. Oh, and find a good recipe. I have one very simple mango salsa recipe that'll do, but if anyone's got one they've actually tried, please speak up! Oh, yeah, and I have to make it tomorrow night. Golly, do I need a day off!
It's been a rough weekend. I added a whole extra job on top of my completly full Kodocha schedule, and Evan has been struggling with his arm and neck pain to finish a new M&C strip. So, we've basically been working every moment we weren't asleep (and probably having nightmares about working, but I can't be sure) since last Friday. And our car battery is dead, and we don't even have the time to call AAA and sit outside and wait for them, so we couldn't go anywhere even if we wanted to. The only real interruption we've had all weekend was a lot of commotion last night because of an enormous manhunt after two cops were killed not too far from here. It started getting really freaky when they hadn't found the 3rd guy after over 5 hours and were still searching this area. We started (we were, remember, very tired) thinking he must be hiding around here under someone's house or something. Not a comforting thought at 1 am. But that was nothing compared to when Evan heard rustling behind the house at about 4 am, which turned out to be some (I think slightly drunk) guy trying to go up the stairs behind another house in the dark to get to his car. Whew. Talk about a long night. I won't even get started on the fact that these cops were murdered while trying to bust a 19-year old who sells machine guns. I understand that there are, in fact, perfectly good reasons someone might have a gun. But why does anyone need a submachine gun? Obviously not for any good. Anyway, I wasn't supposed to get started on that.
On HoF stuff: my proposal is finished, and it came out pretty alright. Here's hoping. Kodocha is just about done, (but it's not late yet so no big deal). I haven't had time to get involved with it here, but I've added a link to the RSS feed of Evan's journal for those of you who are interested. I expect to get around to it here, um...maybe next week. Oh, and there will be a M&C shirt, a reworking of the "Here They Come" shirt, available at a few Hot Topic stores sometime this month. More details on that when we get them.
And for those of you keeping track, no I did not find a good recipe for the luau yet. I never realized that luau recipes (and I'm looking in several places) are mainly just meat and dessert. Neither of which are needed. Phooey.
I have all these things I want to write about, but no time. So instead I'll take the lazy way out and follow the Tuesday This-or-That with the infamous Friday Five:
1. What was the last song you heard? Deep Forest, "Soul Elevator"
2. What were the last two movies you saw? Blues in the Night and Going Places (on TCM)
3. What were the last three things you purchased? Mm, good question. Wait, I know. Cleanser, moisturiser and aloe gel.
4. What four things do you need to do this weekend? 1. Mainly work on the newest Kodocha, 2. do some additional work on a proposal I have under consideration, ah, somewhere, 3. finish reinstalling software on the both computers, 4. figure out what I'm making for my sister-in-law's luau next weekend.
5. Who are the last five people you talked to? Evan, Christine, Keith, Chris, and either Elizabeth or Mikki. And I think all of those conversations were business and personal. See how I multi-task?
I've decided to play This-or-That Tuesday this week:
1. Soup or salad? Both!
2. Hot or cold sandwiches? Cold.
3. White or whole wheat bread (or rye, etc)? Depends on the sandwich.
4. Pack a lunch for work/school, or buy it? Actually, I don't eat lunch.
5. If you eat out...fast-food chain, or mom & pop type place? Mom & Pop if I have the choice.
6. Tuna or chicken salad? Tuna.
7. Cheese: Swiss or cheddar (or American, etc)? Cheddar is my all-time fave, but on a sandwich probably swiss.
8. Mustard or mayo? Mustard.
9. Sandwiches: wrap/pita pocket, or regular bread/roll? Usually regular bread. Sometimes a wrap, never pita. No reason for that, really.
10. Sweet stuff: cookie/cake or fresh fruit? Either, but usually neither.
And there you have it. Feel free to chime in!
After I figured out the driver that was killing me, I got everything under control, and I have to say while I was not very thrilled about switching to XP, it does install things like a genius (as opposed to Win2K which just hated me). Of course, the important part was making the desktop look exactly the way I'm used to, with everything in the same place with the same icons. So, now I'm feeling much more comfortable. I haven't gone in and reset the sounds though, so I'm still like, "Ack! What was that?" every time there's an event sound. (Of course, a lot of these problems wouldn't have even happened if people didn't sell 60 GB harddrives with no partitions. What are they thinking?) So, now I just have to rebuild my old computer to give to Evan, and I can get back to work.
And I'll be getting back to work on Kodocha, which really was named "Best Manga" of 2002 by Wizard's new Anime Insider! Pretty cool, and very nice. I'll have to send them a little thank you note for the nice comments they made about me. (And thanks again to the anonymous poster who alerted me to the write-up!) So all smiles today.
It's clear, sunny, and 48 degrees out. Mildly breezy. Absolutely gorgeous after the blizzard that just pounded us. And what am I doing? Fighting with the new computer system, which is driving me out of my mind. I will be staying in all day, attempting to work out whatever stupid driver conflict is keeping me from finishing my setup. Argh argh argh. At least I have 4 giant windows in my office, so I can enjoy the light and air, and hey, after reading the I Hate My Life site (thanks for mentioning it, Michael!) I really shouldn't complain about having problems with my new computer. Also, project #2 is finished, although with some problems—when I fished it out, I discovered that one of my beautiful casein needles (the one it was on) had gotten broken. I blame cats. And project #4, learning how to knit on DPs is also complete. Project #3, unfortunately is getting this &@#$%!! computer to work perfectly. Maybe I should just stick to the knitting…
So here we are, getting seriously snowed in, but with plenty of food and warmth and TV and videogames, so all is good. Here's more good things:
The cats are always desperately curious about the snow, so I reached out the back door and filled a jellyroll pan with fluffy new snow. Everyone sniffed and walked off except Mimsy, who stepped in it, sniffed it from every angle, ate some, slapped it out of the pan, and then proceeded to chase little snowballs I made for her all over the house, most chases ending with her batting the snowball into the air, catching it with both paws and then smacking it into her face. The things that entertain cats!
After being a big pain most of the day, the new computer and this one suddenly found each other on the network and my data migration has started. As long as all the peripherals move over fine, I'll be good to go in a day or two. Fingers crossed.
A goal of mine this year is to finish unfinished projects and get them out of the house, whether they're work, crafts, house, whatever. And I finished one on Friday night (neckwarmer I started knitting last year for Evan, unfortunately I worked on it while I was really sick and delirious, although if you don't know where to look you can't tell—and don't ask what possessed me to knit while I was out of my mind on medication and feverish), and #2 is almost finished as of last night (baby hat for one of the current or future nephews & nieces, just needs a pompom). Progress is good!
I found a book I'd been looking for at Book Closeouts for $4 (marked down from $30!). Now if I can just restrain myself from ordering 20 books to go along with it…
And, finally (although that's not all that's good), for Valentine's Day I got (among other swell things) the Nintendo Wavebird controller I've been lusting for, which just proves how completely well-matched Evan & I are. And if you have a Gamecube, go get yourself a Wavebird right now, I can't even begin to describe how great it is.
A few years back, on a trip to L.A. to visit friends, I went to a big Halloween party. The friend who took me brought along another female friend, who I had never met (or even heard of from him) before that night. Shortly after arriving at the party, our mutual friend left us together to go speak to someone on business. As women will, we circled each other warily for a bit (not literally, of course) but somehow broke the ice, realized how like we were, and bonded instantly. We had one of those instant connections that you can only have with someone you don't know well—pouring out all kinds of personal information, trading stories, gossiping, and having a great time. We even had stupid nicknames for each other (based on our costumes and a few comments we'd gotten) within about two hours. We danced, we met people, we ran all over the party and then wheedled our friend into coming with us to another party where we stayed out quite late, and had a night that will always rank up there as one of the most fun I will ever have, especially considering that at one point I was expecting it to be one of my worst (being left alone with a stranger at a party where you know virtually no-one is not often the start to a great night).
She was funny, smart, and even taller than me, which I loved. We stayed in touch for a bit, but as I had no more trips to L.A. and am so often too overwhelmed with work and mail to be a good correspondent, we lost contact with each other. Everytime there was a possibility of a trip out to L.A. I would hope I might hook up with her, but the only trip I made again after that was a one-day work trip with no free time. She went to San Diego (Comicon) last year, but we weren't able to go. I did think of her regularly, and as recently as a week ago I thought I would try and check in with our mutual friend to get her current address and see if she was still in L.A. so I could drop her a line. But I didn't—or I'd have found out that she finally had email and I could have easily dropped her a note to say hi.
Why does any of this matter? Because she died suddenly over the weekend, as I found out today. I feel sad because she did not deserve what happened to her. I feel sad because no-one deserves to die violently, or young. I feel sad because I never made the time to follow up on what could have been a long and good friendship. True, maybe we wouldn't have remained friends, and maybe our "instant connection" wouldn't have held up over the long haul. And, of course, you can't become good friends with every simpatico person that you run into in your life.
Friendships are work, and when you work as much as most self-employed people do, the hours left over to put into your personal life sometimes just aren't there. And that is the problem. It's very common in our industry to have these sort of friendships, people who you genuinely consider to be good friends of yours, but whom you see only once every year or two, and exchange perhaps christmas cards and a note or two with in between conventions. People try hard to stay in touch, but it isn't easy when you're all scattered about the country and all working up to 80 hours a week. It's a problem I don't even know how to address—there's only so many hours in a week, and you've got to divide them between work and sleep, eating and taking care of yourself, spouse/significant other and family, and then social life and recreation…it's just very difficult when you're not someone who works 40-50 hours a week and then is done with it. I'm grateful that we do what we do, and that we work together, and that we can choose which days we want to do what. And usually I only think about the financial costs of our choices (we are wholly responsible for our own social security payments, for example; health insurance is a huge burden on the self-employed; and choosing to work on our own projects keeps us from building up any savings most years). But sometimes the personal costs become evident as well. Like today.
Here's to you, Boots, wherever you are. I'll never forget you.
So just when we thought things had been so difficult they could only get better, our basement flooded Saturday evening. In an amazing stroke of "luck", I caught it just after it happened and so there wasn't much time for the water to soak into things. What kind of things? Boxes of magazines with interviews with one or both of us; the storyboards from various shows we've worked on; a box full of lithographs and art; some vintage clothes; and lots of more water-resistant items. Virtually nothing was damaged, but we spent hours hauling stuff out and getting it out of wet boxes, and our whole house looks like we just moved in. But it could have been so much worse.
And now, some fun: go download the tetris-clone Viva Los Straighjackets for hours of fun—although the constant yelling might make it hard to play at work…
for the most part, anyway…
thanks again to everyone who sent (or posted) nice notes, I am feeling much better if not 100%, and am back to work (gotta pay off this root canal now!) today. Will catch up on questions and comments soon!!
I was going to post a big catch-up today, but after turning on the radio while we ate breakfast and finding out about the shuttle Columbia I'm just not in the mood, I'm a big space-related-stuff lover and it's just too sad…it was very confusing, they kept talking about Challenger and we couldn't figure out what was going on for about 5 minutes, we kept saying to each other "What's going on? Are they talking about Challenger? Did something new happen? Is this a broadcast from the 80s being repeated?" But unfortunately no. I always fear for the space program whenever anything like this happens, hopefully, no-one will be stupid.
To leave you on a lighter note, the track I'm currently listening to ("Craig Dave's Flava") is a super-fun bouncy 70s-ish mash-up/bootleg/bit-o-bastard-pop from Go Home Productions, it's cheering me up and it might cheer you up too. (A big plus is that unlike most bastard pop, I don't know the source material at all.) It won't be available forever, so if you're interested, get it now.
I did have to have a root canal, but in a different tooth. (The root canal wasn't so bad, compared to what was going on there. I've had my share already, so that was nothing new. The bad part was being nearly unconscious because the only painkillers I don't have terrible side effects from are the ones where they're like "we'd really rather not give you that because someone might kill you for it after you leave here". So my choice is generally nothing, or something that makes me vilely ill. This time around I mainly went for nothing.) thanks so much to everyone who wrote or posted, I'm feeling much more like a human again and hopefully a few more days of anti-biotics and I'll even be able to eat solid food again. It's been so long since I had solid food, I turned on the TV this morning while having my 2nd-to-last anti-inflammation pill with my 100th something-or-other-shake and I was like, "Ooh, Lean Pockets, that looks good. NO THAT DOESN'T! I HAVE LOST MY MIND!"
Anyway, still pretty tired and groggy but just wanted to check and say hi to y'all and thanks for the well-wishes! And hey, at least it's keeping me out of the cold. In from the, I mean. See you again soonest!
hello, been awol for a bit, thanks to a excruciatingly painful toothache that I thought for sure had to be something needing a root canal, it hurt so bad. On top of that, the 24 hours before I got to my dentist, I took painkillers (because seriously, I wanted to just die) and of course, like I do to almost all medication, I reacted violently and got horribly sick from that. So that was a lovely combo of events. As it turned out, a root canal shouldn't be necessary (although it's a possibility later down the road). I'm still groggy from the new non-vomit inducing medication I'm on, plus I feel like someone punched me all over the right side of my face. I can't eat solid food, my head hurts, and I'm tired (and can't be around people, this medicine depresses my immune system. But geez! I didn't log on just to complain ^_^! Just letting you all know where I'm at, I should be back up to speed in a few more days. See you then!
I've actually got some comic-y links today, but first, I must vent: on the way home from errands, we found this little shepherd-mix puppy, freezing in the light sleet/slush/rain that was, well, more misting than falling. He was shaking, but he had about 5 tags on him so we figured he was definitely a puppy someone wanted to find. We called the 1-800 tag that turned out to be the AKC hotline for dogs that are either tattooed or microchipped, and they found his listing and said they'd have the owner call us right away. A few minutes later, the phone rings, and this woman…she refused to give me her name or address, but insisted that we take the puppy to exactly where we found him, let him go and that "he would find his way home". I tried to argue with her but she insisted, and since I didn't want to get in a fight with someone over their dog, we did what she wanted. I did call the AKC number back to tell them what happened, just in case anything weird happened and so in the future they'll know that this woman did this. They thought it was just as disturbing and strange as I did. A microchip and 5 tags, but you don't want the puppy brought to you? What kind of person could do that? Then again, we'd just been at the animal rescue center at our Petsmart, where they'd just brought in a cat that was abandoned by her owner after eight years. Grrrr…
Okay, deep breath, comics. First, a comic I found last week and really enjoyed: Iron Wok Jan. It's an honest-to-goodness cooking manga! I've always wanted to see what one was like, and it didn't disappoint. Definitely worth checking out (and you can see a free preview on their website—and check out our beloved Crayon Shin-Chan while you're there)!
Also comic-related: in the new Red Herring, Lawrence Lessig wrote about an article on manga and doujinshi (the manga equivalent of fan fiction) in Japan from the Rutgers Law Review; and I tracked the original paper down, by Salil Mehra. It's a really fascinating read, well worth spending a little time on. Basically, it's a study of why doujinshi are tolerated by the publishers for the positive effects they have on the industry, even though they violate Japanese copyright law. But I'll let you read the summary and check it out for yourself. As an extra, the footnotes are both copious and actually quite funny. (Note: I for some reason couldn't download the pdf file, but I used the email link and sent it to myself with no problem.)
I keep forgetting to mention, video-on-demand kicked in last Friday, and it's amazing. We didn't get anything in the mail about it, but I got into the menu clicking through the guide and it's been working ever since (it's free with our particular cable/broadband package). We've watched a couple short things just to try it out, and used it to watch The Others (which, incidentally, we really liked) the other day. If they add all those other channels they're promising (HGTV, etc) then I won't have to envy everyone I know with a TIVO. If you like any HBO series it's really neat, as they have the complete current season of amost everything up and you can just watch them at will. The future just keeps getting here faster and faster, doesn't it?
(Whoops, forgive the miraculous appearance of this day-old entry, I forgot to change the status from draft to publish. Oops!)
Once again, it's time for all those well-meant resolutions…although I have to say, I do make them, and in 2002 I kept all of them. It helps to have a short list; and also to be realistic (instead of "I will be good at ____" you say "I will try ____"). I haven't actually sat down to make my resolutions for 2003 yet, but I expect that they're going to be very practical things this year. I won't be mentioning them here though, I'm one of those people who thinks resolutions are like birthday blow-out-the-candle wishes—if you tell anyone what they are, you have no chance. But anyway, here's to a happy new year, or at least a better one for everyone, for goodness' sake. And may you all keep all your resolutions!
Hope everyone's holidays are going good so far! We got caught in the snowstorm yesterday for a while, but made it safely through to spend the day with family (and it was all clear by the time we headed home). Our dining room table is now covered with swag to be sorted and put away (yay!). One thing of note: in my stocking I found my Digital Vinyl CD-R (which is why it's a good thing when your dad reads your website). And they are as cool as they look—the tops feel like vinyl, grooves and all, and even have bands on them, so they look like a 3-song 5". (And lest you scoff, we actually own 5" vinyl, which we can't actually play on either of our turntables, but well, it does exist…) Of course, now deciding what is "special" enough to be burned onto digital vinyl, that's going to be a hard one!
…and see you soon!
The latest round of design proposals for the new WTC are in (and thanks to Elayne for pointing to the site with full details of the proposals). And once again, for the most part it seems like a big joke. On who, I'm not so sure. Yes, design should be exciting and innovative and all that. But, first off, I don't think this is really the best venue for anything really innovative, and second, exciting architecture all too often ends up looking like the Swan and Dolphin hotels at Disney World. (Not that those look bad at Disney, but…)
Out of seven, there are a couple that are okay. "World Square" (design a) at least is interesting looking. "Memory Foundations" (d) is elegant and pretty.
But "New Horizons" (c) brings back the ugliness of the WTC x 10…and "Memorial Square" (g)? WHAT IS THAT? That design is the one that had Evan come bounding into my office going "You're not going to believe what they want to build at the WTC site." He tried to sketch it for me and I just couldn't believe him. Think 3-D tic-tac-toe. Think giant shiny waffles. Think absolutely the last thing I want to see either in or looking at Lower Manhattan.
Lest you think I am all negative, I am for "New York Garden" (b), a design that at least seems like it would organically blend in with all the great buildings of Manhattan. The buildings are meant to visually replace the towers, yet they take a visual cue from the Empire State building and look elegant and, well, more what I think of when I think of Manhattan. The details and gardens also remind me of various parts of the city (the fact that it's a NYC team might have something to do with that).
In any case, form your own opinions, please. And if you live in NY, please vote in surveys, send feedback, whatever. I just cannot face giant copper waffles in Lower Manhattan!!
I went to check on our eBay auctions today and noticed one item had dropped in price. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "I guess someone pulled their bid." I didn't mind, I realize things can happen, so I went to the listing to see what was up. I saw the person's retraction, and then I started to get mad because: their reason for pulling the bid was that they were unable to contact me. Which is just such a lie, since the email link on the page works fine - and there're links to this site and the HOF site, with even more email links. And this lie annoyed me, because I know as a buyer on ebay, if someone said a seller was impossible to get hold of it would make me hesitant about bidding…and then I recognized their ID as someone who had bid on a piece of Evan's art, which means that they knew perfectly well how to contact us and that they were in fact, or at least one would guess, a fan…which somehow made it so much more personal and annoying. I didn't take it quite so personally when I saw they retract bids all the time, but it was still annoying. I mean, why lie and make someone look bad if you supposedly like their work?
And then, looking into the best way to handle it (I decided to simply add in the listing that we were easily contactable, if that's real English, if anyone was worried) I started coming across all this info about the huge amounts of fraud going on through eBay, both sellers and buyers. So wow did that make me feel secure. Nothing but money orders from total strangers, that's all I'm saying…
Thank goodness we meet a ton of cool readers for every clinker. Okay. My Evan moment is over. Wow, how about all that snow, huh? ^_^
Hope you all had a great thanksgiving! I'm planning to finish the last of the sweet potatoes in just a few minutes…leftovers are so great.
Evan's been going like gangbusters over at his journal, and I'm sure anyone who's a fan is over there already. But if you don't check it for whatever reason, and you're interested, I just listed some art on eBay (along with a couple of other things—it's basement cleaning time).
Spent some time yesterday going through email (it goes back a long, long ways) and found my favorite piece of spam (from May 6th), which I will now share with you:
For help and control, their arms are ski poles, which assist them in steering and changing direction. The specialized arms are also used to get food, since they are heterotrophic. They eat the snow, which helps it not to pile up to high and bury their communities and green plants. Green plants aid the Skiums in respiration also, the CO2 just seeps in through their custom breathing buttons and oxygen comes out of their mouth, which goes back to the plants.
What a long weekend! Family came Sunday to bring me an early birthday present (an exceedingly cool Lucille Ball doll, you'd have to see it…) so lots of cleaning, plus work, plus etc. The Spin issue came out with our Moby strip (back page), which printed well and didn't upset me. I got the new webstore finished (although there are still some items to be added). And I'm prepping for Kodocha six. And sure enough, I didn't remember to watch pretty much anything on tv. I did catch the new Birds of Prey pilot, and it was a real improvement over the one I saw. Still clunky but with some definite potential. I don't think it'll interest anyone who doesn't already like superhero stuff though. But the tv-watching highlight of the week was Val Lewton night on TCM last Thursday. I'd seen just one of the films they'd shown already, so now I've seen almost every film he made. (This Thursday's Halloween theme is "Robert Osborne's Picks", a good-looking line-up, except I've seen them all already.)
Our freaky experience getting to SPX (and, well, all that work leading up to it) totally did us in. We're just catching up now at last, both on work and around the house. I made a near-fatal error and laundered the couch cover two days ago—the (ikea) catalog said being able to wash the covers was a great feature, but halfway through loading them all into the machine I found a tag that said "don't launder!" luckily, it all worked out, I air-dried them, they fit back on and they're certainly much cleaner. Won't be doing that again though. (And I know to always check labels on any new piece of fabric, what was I thinking?!) Anyway, it's good to be getting a handle on things again. Hopefully, we can catch up enough so that Evan can finally start his own journal and I can get some projects out of the way. Speaking of projects, I came across this neat embroidery kit site, Sublime Stitching, with new designs for vintage-style embroidery. I've wanted to do the same thing myself for ages, but…well, like I need another project. I'd still love to know how to get transfers printed though.
Jury duty is over, and it wasn't as bad as it could have been -- I was actually put on a jury within an hour of getting to the courthouse, but they promised a 3-4 day trial. And since the option was sitting on call for 5 more days I didn't try at all to get out of it. And as it turned out, it was certainly an interesting week. (The jury was more interesting than the trial, though!) Some highlights included: the defendant hitting on a juror; the defense attorney (after asking if a question could be read back to him) being told "No, if you can't remember it then it wasn't worth asking"; the jury discussion during deliberations over the female FBI agent's resemblance to Monica Lewinsky; and realizing that the last holdout on the jury simply wanted to get out of work the next day and was trying to hold us all over to the next morning! I've also finally switched over from the token to the Metrocard.
Now that it's all over, catching up is hell. Checking in with some of my favorite pages I see that my favorite blogger Matt has just celebrated the two-year anniversary of his site. Congrats! And now...back to work!
The 2nd show ended up going really well (more show info here), a huge turnout and they weren't ignoring the "indie crowd" as usual. Plus we got comped in to a WWE house show afterwards, so the weekend ended up far above my expectations. And so far I'm being told to stay home while I "serve out" my two weeks on jury duty. Of course, this would be the week I wouldn't mind being forced to sit in air conditioning all day...I'm sure they'll make me come in as soon as the weather gets nice. The heat's making me very slow but I have been getting work done. I also finally got around to running Ad-aware and was proud of myself to find no spyware on my computer. Go, Zone Alarm!.
The first show ( MOCCA) went really well, almost a little too well. I never got a chance to walk around or say hi to anyone that didn't come by our table. This week I've been grinding out everything I can on the assumption that I will be going in for jury duty on Monday. Got the covers done for the Charm School collection, and tons of work on the main website (not up yet, waiting for some codes I need). I also made clothes! Got two skirts done before it got too hot (I can't sew when I feel sticky). I used a pink cotton with a crane border print and a lavender linen blend. I also think I may have cracked the Yohji Yamamoto online pattern puzzle. But I'm not sure. I'm going to make a doll-size version and see if it matches up with the photos at all.
As usual, things have been hectic, between trying to prepare for taking off two weekend in a row to do some shows and then trying to be prepared as I can for possible district court jury duty right afterwards...ugh! But I have finally finished revamping the cooking class and I'm pretty happy with it. I also discovered that Google was still linking directly to some of the old pages! So I put redirects up for every single page. (and that is when deep linking can be bad!) And the first volume of my manga rewrite, Kodocha, finally came out! So all in all, not a bad week.
At last, both kittens are adopted out and happy. The mother, now...that's a whole other story. But anyway...just finished a major update to the cooking school -- the new lesson isn't up yet, but everything's cleaned up and the web resources are totally updated with my current fave links (as opposed to those I was using a few years ago...) Lesson 6 and the new book list should be up within another day or two. Found a neat link in Business 2.0 last night (going through magazine on recycling night as usual) to a de-cluttering site called FlyLady and as I have no good place for this link yet here it is. The language is a little sick-making, ("boogie fling"? ye gods!) but the ideas are pretty good and the encouragement to start small is right on target.
 Just checking in to let you know I'm still alive and plans are still active -- although I've got to put in a little more time mothering these homeless kittens. But look how ridiculously cute (it's nearly vomit-inducing) they are! It's all worth it to see them not end up like her last litter which I couldn't get near to rescue. They should be off to new homes soon and then I can get back to other uses of my slight free time, like finishing some of what I started here! (before you ask -- no, that picture isn't posed, they like to sleep that way. And yes, they are the same age -- one is much smaller, the mother was apparently refusing to feed him. But who knows what goes on in the mind of feral cats?)
I was going to try and work on the newest cooking article for today -- but instead I ended up spending a day rescuing kittens. (It's a long story.) The good news is they're healthy and checked out completely at the vet, and they have home to go to. Next to trap the mama cat and keep her from having more. I'll have the kittens here for a bit so...looks like that cooking article's a few more days off. Sorry! But be back asap.
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