Friday, September 30, 2005


I finally got my really cool birthday present from Chris. Even though my birthday was 2 months ago, the timing works out better this way. See, the total incompetence of the USPS was all for a greater purpose.

Short rant about the state of the comics page this week: at least three major strips are totally phoning it in with backup material. What's up? Was the Blondie celebration such a huge blowout that you were all too hungover to even try?

Sunday, September 25, 2005

I love my classes this semester. Today in my reading for Preservation Management, I learned how in the Victorian era, papermakers were all in a dither over the discovery of mummies in Egypt because they provided a much cheaper source of cotton rag. One paper manufacturer in Maine ordered a lot of mummies at $0.03/lb. for use in butcher paper (i.e. paper that gets wrapped around the meat you use in your dinner), but went out of business when a cholera epidemic broke out. Go figure.

I can also use the phrase "hair/flesh distubance" more or less correctly in a sentence.


The beginnings of the pumpkin hat, aided by Pumpkin Ale.

Saturday, September 24, 2005


This week I finally finished the left-hand handwarmer to match the right one I made way back in March, so now I have a pair. And just in time because it suddenly got really cold here at night. In other knitting news, I also finished the looooong scarf I was making out of ribbon yarn but decided I didn't really like it that much after all and gave it to Marté. Next up: hats. A pumpkin hat for Jared, and another Kureyon hat for whoever likes the colors.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

My mom's initial reaction to the premier of Lost last night: "So the 70's are what's down the hatch? That's more horrible than anything I could have imagined!"

Sunday, September 18, 2005

And so the Trials of Life, Danville edition continues. Last night I went to get Isis in for her nightly glucosamine routine and instead heard Koosh meowing her head off from the edge of the roof. The roof is lowest in front where there's a wall by entryway that she can jump down to, so I started around the side of the house to call her from that side. It was pretty dark, so I stopped by the garbage cans to flip on a light, and darn good thing because there was a big rat hanging over the gate, wedged between the gate and the fence over the latch. I couldn't tell if it was still alive or not, so I went back through the house to get Koosh at the front door and then locked her in so I could deal with the rat without her help. The rat was still alive but not in great shape so I opened the latch with an aluminum baseball bat which freed it somewhat, but it just hung there with its sides heaving. I left it alone to let Nature take its course and this morning it was under the gate and extremely dead.

I think Koosh chased it across the roof and it fell down onto the fence because no other scenario makes any sense. Koosh has hefted much larger items through second story windows in the past, but she tends to stick around until the job is done so I can't see her leaving still-twitching prey hung up on the fence while she went off to explore. Anyway, the rat is dead and gone now and Koosh is pissed off.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

It's not so bad after all that more Arsenal matches haven't been on Fox since they are not exactly burning up the pitch so far this year. And if they're not top of the table Fox is less likely to make the matched pay-per-view, which is even better. Love watching Arsenal, but I don't want to cough up $20 every time, unless it's for cold beer while sitting in a pub with a nice big screen.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Current reading: about two-thirds through The Rule of Four, which is not quite up to it's "astonishing" billing but certainly entertaining. Not sure what I'll read next, but I just got Marian Fontana's book A Widow's Walk, about 9/11. Not the kind of thing I would normally gravitate toward, but I heard her on This American Life a couple of weeks ago and was interested in hearing her story from the non-pro-Bush perspective.

Monday, September 05, 2005

The seminar on medieval manuscripts and incunabula that I'm taking this semester is fascinating, but turning out to be a huge amount of work. It's much more in the vein of the classes I took as a history major, but of course that was 15 years ago. However, I am learning all kinds of useful information, such as the best ways to remove hairs and oils from the parchment in order to get the inks to stick, and that parchment makers were usually located downwind from the village for practical reasons.

In cat news, I took Isis to be weighed on Saturday and she has lost 2.4 lbs since the ACL surgery. That doesn't sound like much, but it's 13% of her original weight. It's like a 160 lb. person dropping 20 lbs. The vet was impressed. I might have to retire her Fat Cat collar soon.

Target no longer carries the same type of tv stand that Isis ruined, and after trying several other stores, I was forced to go to Walmart. I won't go into my usual boring Walmart rant right now (sighs of relief all around), but they have added a sinister new feature. Instead of having to slog through two separate transactions, one for your merchandise and a second for your McDonald's food items, you may now place your food order at the cashier while paying for your merchandise and your food will be ready for you to pick up when you're done. The best part is that they've placed the McDonald's menus on the sides of the cash racks right at a typical 4 year old's eye level. Evil, I tell you.

The Walmart trip was not a total loss. While I was wandering around aimlessly,I found these Star Wars themed car air fresheners. This was very intriguing because who would know what the Star Wars universe might smell like? The films mostly imply that it isn't too good. Darth Vader smells like New Car, which is probably appropriate if gross. The stormtroopers smell like vanilla I guess because they are white, and Yoda is green apple, which indicates someone has a sense of humor. Guess what everyone is getting in their Christmas stocking this year?