| Ocean Winds |
[May. 21st, 2012|06:26 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down | ] |
This is interesting. Subway layouts tend to converge on a common design in all cities. I'm guessing that's caused by the fact that they're used mainly for travel between the core and the peripheral branches, rather than travel between different branches.
*****
I have too much food stored, and I'm running out of cabinet space in consequence. As my workplace friend Mean Mr. Mustard would remark, owning too much food is just such a typically first-world problem.
*****
I dreamt that I had a soup faucet. I discovered that if turned it on just so, the hot water faucet in the kitchen would dispense soup instead.
*****
Reading glasses are now sold as 'computer glasses'. Time marches on.
*****
A late Victorian joke, found on a message board about Jack the Ripper: Queen Victoria made a visit to the East End and stepping out of her coach half way up Brick Lane she broke the heel off one of her shoes. Luckily this happened in front of the shop of a Jewish shoe mender. The owner quickly repaired the shoe and the Queen went on her way. He then wrote on his window 'Cobblers to the Queen' The next day he found someone had written underneath it 'Bollocks to the Chief Rabbi'. |
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| Rocket's Wedding Picture |
[May. 15th, 2012|09:38 pm] |
Rocket dressed up for the Royal Wedding.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92) aethwolf found a generator for these, and I tarted mine up a bit in GiMP. I may be mistaken about why the Ponies keep Pigs, too. One of the 80 or so cutie marks you could choose from looked very much like two strips of bacon to me. |
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| And Other Things... |
[May. 14th, 2012|01:51 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
I bought a couple of these tiny 'personal mister' things from the dollar bins at Target. It's a little pump atomizer, suck as one might find uses for in a lab, but colourful and fashionable, as befits something from Target. I didn't expect much, but it's of astonishingly good quality. It produces a fine spray at full pressure, and it will hold a working pressure for days if it's pumped up and left to sit. I'm always surprised these days to find any non-branded consumer item that's well built. It's even more of a purprise when it costs only $2.50.
*****
The 3D museum. This is pretty cool. Animal skulls (mostly) rendered in 3D that can be rotated in your browser. A curiousity cabinet for the internet age.
*****
My Snake Plants are doing well. One is putting out new shoots. I'm not real sure why it's only the one doing it, since they sit right together and are tended identically. Hopefully the rest will follow.
It's perhaps my imagination, but the air seems more invigorating when the grow light is on. I've read in a couple places that a cluster of Snake Plants in good light can raise the ambient oxygen levels in a room by 1% or so, and I can believe that. They don't *look* like they'd transpire that much gas, with those thick, stiff leaves.
One of my Target atomizers is now a plant mister :) |
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| Greece |
[May. 13th, 2012|10:31 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | calm | ] |
Watching the ongoing ferment in Greece, I can't help but reflect that 148 seats and the support of the Army is a much more solid legislative majority than 151 seats without the Army. |
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| Etch-a-Sketch |
[May. 10th, 2012|05:33 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | politicky | ] |
So, for the last six months, up until yesterday morning, I'd not have given a nickel for Obama's chances at re-election. |
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| Altricial Wheels |
[May. 9th, 2012|08:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
Obama manages to win the West Virginia primary. And who's this guy 'Judd', to have shown so strongly against the incumbent, one wonders? Ex-governor, billionaire who does a lot of charity, local sports hero, etc? Nope - just some guy in federal prison for extortion.
It's a shame Hillary didn't run. She'd have crushed him like a steamroller. Then, at least, we'd have a competent president no matter which side won.
*****
It's odd (to me, at least) that as I get older, I develop more interest in recent history. I can explain reasonably well how things got where they are today from where they were in my childhood. What begins to interest me now is how things reached the state they were in in the early 60s.
To that end, I recently read "Thunder Over China" (Theodore White, 1947), an analysis of Chinese politics during the War Against Japan, aimed at the general reader. It's appallingly hard to find anything substantive about WWII and the preceding Sino-Japanese War. This was a huge, sprawling operation, and most books on WWII just dismiss it in a paragraph or two, noting that the Chinese tied up a large part of Japan's army, and leave it at that. There's a misplaced romanticism there on my part as well. China in the late 30s was the setting of many pulp novels and serial thrillers, and much of that has stuck for me.
White was there, and knew most of the Chinese government. He evokes the times, and explains the politics and personalities. Unexpectedly, a lot of what was going on there sounded familiar - it was the Vietnam war in a different context. We were propping up a corrupt, incompetent government for geopolitical purposes, not out of any love for that government. Ngo Dinh Diem's assassination makes a lot more sense in the context of our previous experience in China. Indeed, I found myself wondering why we didn't get rid of Chiang when we had the chance.
There's this aphorism that governments always fight the last war. I can't help but apply that here. Diem was overthrown and replaced with a general based on the mistake we made in leaving Chiang in power. The memory of that mistake has played a role, I'm sure, in the decision to leave Karzai in power in Afghanistan, even though he obviously doesn't have our interests at heart.
*****
So, now Obama is going to support marriage rights. Does he mean that (i.e., will the Federal government begin enforcing "full faith and credit"), or it that just some election year scam? if he means it, then he's already missed a perfect opportunity to emphasize that marriages contracted in any state must be honoured in all states. |
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| Conophores for Conovores |
[May. 8th, 2012|10:49 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
The end of the Eurozone is in sight, I believe. It astounds me how long they kept it together. I don't really blame the Greeks for deciding to unilaterally break their agreements. Having a common monetary policy with Germany was never really in their best interests, and the entire 'austerity' thing, while a good strategy for saving the common currency, did nothing positive for Greece. I feel sorry for them because they're going down in flaming wreckage either way. They've got some bad years coming.
The conduct of the French is a bit more eyebrow-raising. They profess, and seem to whole-heartedly believe, that now that they've voted against keeping their end of the bargain, the Germans have to respect that because that's democracy, and just give them the money anyway, because the Germans already agreed to do that. They may actually grasp the contradiction in their position, too - I really haven't a clue. Their announcements may fulfill some symbolic purpose - much of what they do seems to be about symbolism. Trying to understand the French is nearly impossible for an Anglo-Saxon mind.
The particulars are different, of course, but I'm struck by these past few years feel like the mid-1930s, at least the feel for them I get from history. We're heading for some godawful huge convulsion.
*****
I bought a snow cone maker. It's a Sunbeam 'Igloo', which is indeed vaguely igloo-shaped. It looks to me like it was bound to come out more or less beehive-shaped just by the way they decided to mount the motor and grinders, so they went with that and made it a plastic igloo. It makes finely chipped ice for old-fashioned snow cones instead of the more modern style of shaved ice. I like both styles - I may get an ice shaver later this summer.
Undiluted Ribena makes an excellent snow cone syrup. I may try freezing juices into ice cubes and grinding those up as well. |
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| Suddenly! |
[May. 3rd, 2012|05:15 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
I'm just astonished, watching the Obama administration get blindsided with this Chinese dissident thing. I really do wonder, some days, if there's not a curse on Obama. Things just have a way of blowing up right in his face like that, without him having done anything obvious to cause it. |
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