| In fair Media where we lay our scene |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|06:51 pm] |
Fang: What's a sonnet?
Me: It's a poem made up of three stanzas with an ABAB rhyme scheme followed by a rhyming couplet.
Fang: What?
To make a long story short, I just taught the Fang how a sonnet* is structured by showing him ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) boutell's fabulous pirate sonnet he wrote for our wedding. The pirate sonnet is posted on our wall.
*Elizabethan sonnet, yeah yeah lit geeks. |
|
|
| busy tmw; on Facebook social network updates |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|08:26 pm] |
Busy day tomorrow: holiday and personal errands, then training with the local Innocence Project people, then social nite with the local filthy liberal hippies. I'll be in and out all day, but I guess I don't have an excuse to miss e-mail now that I have the BlackBerry.
I was talking with a friend on Saturday and put my foot in my mouth when I asked him how his better half was doing. "You didn't see my Facebook update?" he asked. No, I didn't. But some weeks ago he'd switched his Relationship Status to "single" and the change went under my radar. Oops.
I miss a lot of updates on Facebook because I have such a large group of Facebook acquaintances that it's impossible to see everybody's updates all the time. (I can't devote that kind of time to Facebook, though I love all of my friends, each and every one of you, very equally deeply.) Basically, please assume that if you post some big life event of yours on Facebook, there's a distinct possibility that I won't see it. I totally don't mean to be clueless and self-centered; I just really, really can't prioritize scrolling back through 12 or 24 or 48 hours' worth of Facebook updates after I've been away from my desktop computer for 12 or 24 or 28 hours.
Though tomorrow I'll likely be looking at Facebook at least once, because I'll have to come home and change into a suit for the Innocence Project thing. I should probably look like a lawyer there. |
|
|
| Monday Fourteen |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|08:56 am] |
I had to taste the competition's wares
(Electric bicycles surround the hill)
They specialize in presentation there
(A half-assed charge, a triumph of the will)
And no one violates the hipster code
(It's an aristocratic sacrifice)
They just watch as their business plan implodes
(When you buy local, someone thanks you twice).
In Chestnut Hill the eco-shops advance
(Made lovingly by mothers far away)
And no one gives the cheesesteak half a chance.
The healthy babes sip lattes every day,
Recycling dollar bills on Google Wave.
I'll wear my moral purchase to the grave. |
|
|
| The Battle Against the Hydra |
[Dec. 13th, 2009|05:27 pm] |
The Battle Against The Hydra
by Archer Aaron Klein Castle and Michelle Klein Houser
created using the Myth Brainstorming Machine
Once upon a time the fearsome noise and smell of bloodshed by the violent volcano awakened Durga, goddess of War. She didn't know what monster it was by type of blood, so she thought she would check it out. She sent her passenger pigeon with a message over to Argus (who had eyes everywhere) and told him to look over at the volcanic island and see what was the matter. Argus climbs up to his post and says, "It was the hydra." Durga immediately picked up her weapons, saddled up on her flying tiger and flew to battle the hydra. It was a tough fight, but Durga won the fight with a permanent leg wound. The people on the volcanic island were very afraid because the hydra had already eaten men, women and children from the village and if Durga lost, they knew it would eat them all.
Durga tried to cut off one of its many heads, but it did nothing. She tried to cut off another head, this time with a big axe, and she sliced the head clean off its neck, but two smaller yet equally vicious heads grew in its place. Then Durga understood that cutting off heads was doing no good. She took out a bandolier of knives and threw them all at the hydra's eyes with deadly accuracy, blinding the monster. Durga thought that if she can't cut off heads, she could cut off legs. With a sweeping, spinning motion she dove beneath the beast, slicing off its legs at dizzying speed.
The hydra fell to the ground, defeated but not dead. It writhed and screamed, rolling over a sheep and crushing it. Then Durga said, "Laying and writhing here is your punishment. You shall murder no more."
A group of brave villagers approached the angry, blind, lame hydra and ended its life because they didn't want it to suffer. Then Durga went home just in time for supper. The villagers built a statue of her in the town square and they leave offerings at its feet to thank Durga for saving their village.
THE END |
|
|
| An Open Letter to The Dog |
[Dec. 13th, 2009|04:49 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | jd | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 19810 | ] |
Dear JD,
It is freakin' cold out and raining hard.
Every so often you wander into my office with your yellow rubber ball in your mouth and cajole me into letting you go outside. As soon as I open the door you give me a look which says, "What are you nuts? I'm not going out there; it's totally freezing and wet out!"
I know you're smart; you have proven it to me in hundreds of different ways. Why can't you remember that it's cold and wet out? You can hear the rain and you can feel the cold draft coming in from under the door. LEARN, DOG, LEARRRRRRN!
Love,
Aunt Jill
ps: You are unbearably cute. Ohh zheeee boh boh! Woooszzzzhranna la! Who's a good dog who's a good dog? You're so good! Boo-zhee boozheee boo!
OK, back to the book recording.
(Which is going really well. I've got a solid rhythm goin'.) |
|
|
| yesterday I went shooting with some friends |
[Dec. 13th, 2009|10:42 am] |
Yesterday afternoon I went to a shooting range in South Philly with some of the folks in my local circle of filthy liberal hippie friends. First we had a basic NRA-approved safety lesson. Then we decided what firearms we wanted to try out and headed to the lanes:
That's me shooting .357 Magnum cartridges out of a Ruger GP-141 revolver.
Yesterday was my first time shooting a gun since I was 7 and me and my BFF Stuart "borrowed" his brother's BB gun and shot at a tree full of starlings. Back then, Stuart wouldn't let me go look at the birds we hit; but at the shooting range they let us take home the targets after I'd emptied a couple of rounds into the target heads. (Another difference between then and now was that, after we were done at the shooting range, we weren't chased into an old camping trailer by Stu's big brother and his posse of redneck friends, threatening to shoot us repeatedly with the gun we'd used.) I liked the Ruger. It reminded me of the cap guns Stuart and I used when we played cowboys and Indians. With the ear protection on, it seemed to be about as loud, only with a little more kick.
I wonder what happened to my old cap gun.
We shot a few semi-automatic pistols, too. I didn't like them so much because the spent cases kept flying out and hitting me in the forehead when I would shoot them. When I stood behind other people while they were shooting, the cases tended to bounce off the lane walls and still hit me. I guess I'm somehow magnetic to brass.
The last thing I tried was an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. It had been fitted out with a laser sight, which was a little tricky for me because I'm right-handed but left-eyed. Between my glasses, the ear protection, and the gun's stock, I found it tricky to get my left eye into position to get the red dot on the target. (I'm sure the sight's position on the assembly was adjustable, but we were a party of 9 and the rifle was popular. I didn't want to take up too much time fiddling with it while other people were itching to use it.) The cases flying out of the rifle didn't hit me in the forehead, the way they did coming out of the pistols. I liked that.
Afterward we had dinner and drinx at the Royal Tavern, where the food is good, there's a nice seasonal selection of local beers on tap, and a bottle of Kenzinger can be had for $3. Can't really go wrong there.
I thought I'd washed up really well last night, but I woke up this morning smelling gunsmoke anyway, probably mostly from the stuff working its way out of my nasal passages. It smelled like the caps from my cap gun. |
|
|
| Pride in the Name of Kid |
[Dec. 12th, 2009|10:27 am] |
Eleanor made this. it's a Scratch project. (*)
Eleanor wrote the song with Mixcraft, it's made up of loops provided with the software (yes, we registered our copy). The animation started out as a bouncing-ball demo from the Scratch site, and she changed the costumes and tweaked the code... etc.
We live in an era where the remix is the primary form of creativity, and on some level that bugs me. But I need to get over it. Musically speaking, everybody borrowed from everybody even before the world went sample-crazy. Some of my favorite songs are primarily the work of DJs, not pick-up-a-guitar-and-play musicians. And when I was learning to program, I too started with other people's code and experimented with changes. My kid is learning to craft her own self-expression from the available materials, and that's awesome.
(*) Uses Java, takes a minute to load up. (Google and Sun, hurry up and put Java support into Mac Chrome please.) |
|
|
| First Night of Hanukkah |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|11:09 pm] |
We lit the menorah, we played dreidel and I finally got to give my boys their gift: tickets to Steampunk Peter Pan at the Arden Theatre. Yes, I said Steampunk Peter Pan. Eeeee - science and pirates and ships, oh my! We're going on January 23 at 4 pm.
http://www.ardentheatre.org/2010/peterpan.html
Keeping that quiet for almost 2 weeks was almost more than I could bear.
Also, I have a Hanukkah Yak Hat on my head. He was originally a Christmas Yak Hat, but he converted for me. Once you go yak, you never go back.
Mr. Fang was very happy to get his copy of The Last Olympian (the final Percy Jackson book), but he wanted to keep reading D'Aulaires' Norse Mythology. He's fascinated with myths, that one. Must be hereditary.
H won at dreidel. He crushed us. I think it's beginner's luck.
Update: Fang has finished D'Aulaires' Norse Mythology and will be ready for Percy Jackson tomorrow. Yay weekend with extra reading time!
Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate and Happy Weekend to everyone! |
|
|
| Not too shabby |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|10:05 pm] |
|
Happy Hannukah to mah chosen peepz from MC Goysiche Goyim! |
|
|
| My Artwork Website |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|04:43 pm] |
It occurred to me that I neglected to officially post a link to my artwork website now that it's been up and running for a week now.
Check out: http://artwork.jillknapp.com
You can peruse the Hello paintings, read the stories behind them, and also buy a print if you really want.
If you don't have room on your walls, perhaps you have room on your chest. Here, jeremym models the latest winter fashion: A Hello Chicken T-Shirt.
OK, that's all the plugging I have in me; this is getting gross.
(That's what she said.) |
|
|
| timko says |
[Dec. 10th, 2009|06:07 pm] |
|
"emergency backup rabbi - in case of wedding, break glass" |
|
|
| how to get customer service from Best Buy |
[Dec. 10th, 2009|11:40 am] |
Dude in Toledo bought a clothes washer and dryer from Best Buy on Black Friday. He waited for his promised delivery and was stood up multiple times. But he had disconnected his old washer and dryer in eager anticipation! So after a couple of weeks, after getting the run-around from his contacts at Best Buy, his dirty laundry piling up, he took a video camera and a clothes hamper down to the Best Buy and asked the manager which of the machines he should use to clean his skivvies:
(Best Buy came around to install his washer and dryer shortly afterward.) |
|
|
| Star Foster kicked so much ass |
[Dec. 10th, 2009|09:01 am] |
"I am also not my blog... there was a time I considered Sarcasmo and Star to be two separate entities. Sarcasmo was a sort of souped-up version of me; more outspoken, less timid, more aggressive and much more concerned with complete, global domination. There exists a photo of me with one of my uncles in my grandmother's kitchen from when I was about four years old; and in it I am brashly staring directly into the camera lens, with a smile as bold as you please. I like to picture Sarcasmo as the girl in that photo catapulted directly into adulthood, without having ever learned the meaning of embarrassment or judgment or shame. She's Super Me. Of course, as the blog has progressed, the line between us has blurred considerably, largely due to the fact that I'm constantly cashing the checks her big mouth writes. For example, she might proclaim, 'Hey, XXX sounds cool. I would like to try that. In fact, I am going to try that. Yay, XXX!' And whereas she has never done anything I myself wasn't interested in doing, they are the sorts of things that in the past I might have thought to myself, 'Hey, XXX sounds cool. I would like to try that. You know, someday.' However, as she feels compelled to announce her intentions to the world at large, I subsequently feel the need to comply. Its all about accountability. Which is ok by me, really. I've had some cool adventures thanks to her insatiable curiosity, her general lack of good sense and her joie de vivre. I'm actively trying to incorporate more of her brash fearlessness into my every day life, while simultaneously trying to convince her it wouldn't hurt to stay in and do the dishes every once in a while. "
I am so grateful that she allowed Sarcasmo off the leash as often as she did. Which was damn near all the time! This is the lady who once graciously turned down an offer to appear as a zombie in an independent film because she was appearing as a pirate on the haunted ship Gisela that day. Live your lives now, y'all.
Thanks to Star's-mama-Star for keeping Star's blog going. |
|
|
| no lj comment notifications |
[Dec. 9th, 2009|03:35 pm] |
Wow, I've been getting almost no lj comment notifications for the past couple of days.
I think I've replied to all the recent comments that seem to need replies. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
happy