Month: October 2006

Like Crack for the Soul:

Found via Needlenose.

• Wingnut welfare drops another opus in the bowl
  Wolcott unleashed: “[I]t’s a sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie, one that was waiting for the right brazen liar to come along to promote it, and here he is, and his name is Dinesh D’Souza…”
  (tags: 9/11 culture wingnutwelfare politics)

Someone is getting ready for national novel writing month: Word count | Hog Bay Software:

Why? Writers can use word count as a benchmark to see if they have met their target for the day. Three numbers seem important: total number of words in document, number of words selected, number of words this session.

Knowing when you’ve gotten those 1500 words a day is important.

My first cyanotype experiment today. Failed. No image remained once I washed the print, and it was very faint when I first took it out of the sun. The high latitude and the lateness of the season were factors I wasn’t aware of. More paper is drying below stairs so if the day if fine, I’ll try again tomorrow. With any luck at all, I may share a scan this time tomorrow.

Drawing class tomorrow night: the family persuaded me to stop spoiling paper and learn some technique, so off I go. Four weeks, 10 hours total. And I still have to get my shiny new pencils and large eraser. Like I mind shopping in art supply stores.

My drill press arrived today, so my camera-building experiments can resume. It came sans handle or chuck key, so a trip to Hardwick’s is in order. I can work around the missing handle but the chuck key is a must. Still, $10 is a tough price to beat: it looks pretty new, with clean grease on the various fittings, but just a couple of dents on the cover.

Self-diagnosed a mysterious pain in my head that defied an MRI and a physical. Possible causes ranged from shingles to a tumor, neither of which appealed. If I’m right, it’s displaced pain from some teeth moving around: I had an extraction of a tooth (#3 for those keeping score at home) and was warned that the teeth around the vacancy might move. I didn’t realize it would hurt, but once I came to that possibility, it makes sense. The pain seemed to be around the ear, like an ear ache or infection, but gradually radiating up the side of the skull. The MRI’s vibrations seemed to settle it down, or so it seemed and since then, it has been milder and more localized on the ear again.

And I finally got my new iBook batteries from the recall: now I have two batteries with 4+ hours of juice.

We went to the signing party for Windshield Wilderness tonight and came away with an inscribed copy (the author photo was taken by his 6 year old: you go, girl). A brief glance is very inviting: some interesting photos of the various parks round these parts, some fun tourist materials that show how the wilderness experience has changed, or perhaps not so much.

Interestingly, this review says the book “describes the co-evolution of national parks and auto travel, as each has shaped and been shaped by the other.” This is the exact phrase I have been using to describe the book, without the benefit of having read it.

A lot of mentions of the book out there on the Internets as well: not a best-seller yet, but it looks like adds a needed perspective on the interplay between people and the wilderness they love.

And M Coy Books is a nice little bookstore, just steps from Pike Place Market: worth a visit if you’re around.

• Ig-Nobel Winners for 2006
  Why woodpeckers don’t get headaches (and other Ig Nobel Prize winners)
  (tags: forteana culture)
• Oil and Food Don’t Mix
  is the Green Revolution unsustainable?
  (tags: food oil agribusiness)
• A threat greater than the homosexuals
  As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there’s a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwittin
  (tags: 1984 currentaffairs censorship)
• Pahrump Valley Times – Nye County’s Largest Newspaper
  Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.
  (tags: garrisonkeillor politics torture 9/11 1984)
• Cute Overload! 😉
  comment would be superfluous
  (tags: photography hummingbirds cuteoverload)
• Foley Case Upsets Tough Balance by Capitol Hill’s Gay Republicans – New York Times
  Gay GOP staffer say he [is] committed to changing what he considers its antigay attitudes: good luck with that. Self-loathing or self-delusion, anyone?
  (tags: GOP gay politics culture)