Tree trunks and amber

Okay. So, I'd planned to do a christmas music advent thing this month - upload three or so songs on a given theme every day to offer to download. (Because just what you lot need this time of year is more christmas music!) But being unable to get into my webspace delayed it, so I'm going to do dec 1, dec 2 in this post and Dec. 3 later tonight (and hopefully I'll stay caught up for the forseeable future.)
December First is the first day of Advent - or, well, the Sunday nearest Nov. 30 is, but 12-1 is the fixed date that the secular calendar has attached it to. It's also World AIDs day. So for December 1, have two Advent carols and the Christmas song from RENT.

RENT original Broadway cast - Christmas Bells.mp3
"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is sung in church every Sunday in Advent as the Advent wreath is lit, one verse per candle. It's one of the things I look forward to most in Advent. (And I think I'll only be there for one week of it this year.) Actual hymns are surprisingly hard to find covers of (or I'd have "Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus" here too), so here's two interesting covers of "Emmanuel".
Belle & Sebastian - O Come O Come Emmanuel.mp3
Peter Paul & Mary - O Come O Come Emmanuel.mp3
And my very favorite carol from my family's traditional Christmas mixes (which my father had recorded from LP to reel-to-reel and then reel-to-reel to cassette, and I should rip to CD before Mom throws them out) is "Do You Hear What I Hear". I love the echoes calling and the story it builds.
Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Do You Hear What I Hear.mp3

December Second marks the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, so here's some drunken Christmas music:

Sherwin Linton - Santa Got A DWI.
This is off the "Bummed Out Christmas" CD I gave Mom a few years ago. You will be seeing more of this CD, because, seriously, a hobo-themed Christmas album, that is the awesomest thing ever. And there are songs on it that I'd never heard of before but are not horrible, which when you collect novelty music, is the real novelty.
Cliff Richards - Mistletoe & Wine.mp3
By the time I was about ten, my parents had suggested that perhaps Santa would prefer wine with his Christmas cookies instead of milk. (This appears to have gone over well, since the wine was always gone. Unlike the cookies.)
Elmo and Patsy - Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.mp3
She'd been drinking too much eggnog / And we begged her not to go.
Yeah, well, I had to. (This song has actually been a real comfort to me. My relatives have a bad habit of dying in November, and it was good to be reminded that I wasn't the first person to wonder do we open up the gifts, or send them back.)
(I know, I'm a terrible person.)
Steve Schuch and the Night Heron Consort - Here We Come A Wassailing.mp3
Lest we forget that getting liquored up is the *true* spirit of Christmas!

I won nano!



I'm only halfway through the damn plot :(

My mother has decided she wants linux on her laptop but isn't patient enough to let it install. I've had to tell her to get out of the room.

I've started reading Howl's Moving Castle for the millionth time :D:

There's an almost clear picture of one of the babby crays!


Daddy crayfish is blue again. His color changes with each molt.

( More shrimps and crays under the cut )

Until my skywing grows up no new eggs for me.

( Dragons. Yay dragons )

( Ninja-clicks for hatching! )

http://ittybittykittycommittee.blogspot.com/2008/12/bathing-beauty.html

( hatchlings and eggies )

posted with the kidlet's permission

Thanks for clicking!

( Daily Post. )

Hi all


( my current brood )

( Today's Post )

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081203.html

Thewlol, WE NEED TO TALK.



Presumably Lil' Joanie is now out of work, due to the unfortunate canning of "Pushing Daisies". This does not mean that YOU GET TO LOOK LIKE YOU'RE OUT OF WORK TOO >:(. The financial crisis is bad, yes. But while you seemingly have no standards for the projects you take on and are pretty much one step away from ATM porn anyway, you will never be short of work.

I hear they want to make Alone in the Dark 3. This sounds right up your alley. Get thee to a barber and prepare yourself mentally for making out with whoever it is that they hire when a casting director cannot afford Tara Reid.

Parts for my comp showed up today; got started on assembly, only missing one part, but more on that later.

The most significant-feeling moment of the day was helping with one of the tutorials at work. The question involved the differences between Japan and China WRT European influence and trade/development/etc., and (as is the standard policy for this form of tutorial) I mostly let the students provide the ideas, analysis, etc. My job is to keep the discussion moving with little questions here and there; today, I got a very satisfying reaction when one point being made involved describing the actions of a country as not being collectively taken by all residents/citizens ("China did X" or "Japan did Y" or "Japan's goal was Z") but as the actions of specific people or groups of people within countries whose interests may be something other than "the national interest". It seems like a pretty basic concept, but it's disappointing how many adults -- even highly-educated adults -- just don't get it. The closest you get to a country taking an action is when a popular movement and/or the state takes some action; but even those cases involve groups of individual people with individual motives acting in ways which really don't add up to "actions by the country". I'll consider it a job well done if this group of students is just a little bit less vulnerable to propaganda and bullshit in the future.

I also talked to one of the other tutors -- it turned out that she'd done one of the NASA internships that I'm trying to land. She loved it -- even though she's not staying in the AV (I can easily understand why anyone who grew up here would want to leave ASAP), she's sticking with NASA and hoping to work at either Ames or the Jet Propulsion Lab when she finishes her B.S. And the bit I hadn't known -- a student who gets a co-op position (paid by NASA, alternating coursework and on-the-job training with enough grunt work to quasi-justify the salary) is gaining seniority and building up a retirement fund before even finishing college.

Finally, on the new-comp front. After a few hours before work and a few hours after classes fiddling around with parts, triple-checking all the manuals and slowly developing a mark from the anti-static wrist band, I have the thing in "just add CPU" form.

Unfortunately, the missing part that I mentioned earlier?

The CPU.

So, the motherboard is in, the RAM is in, the power supply is in, the parts from the old comp (hard drive, DVD drive, wireless card, graphics card) are in, all the cords are connected and double- and triple-checked, and all eight chassis fans are installed and wired. When the CPU shows up, I just need to throw that in, add the much-bigger-than-it-looked-in-the-picture CPU cooler and make sure it's powered (and try not to get thermal compound all over everything), and then take it to the roomie who actually knows how not to screw things up on the software side of the fence. If I'm lucky, I'll have a fully-functioning, not-complete-garbage and highly upgradeable (this was more of a priority than power right now) desktop on which I won't have to wait for the comp to catch up after every command in my AutoCAD homework.

http://feeds.hpana.com/~r/HPANA/~3/473155326/news.20683.html

Actor Daniel Radcliffe's appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio" was broadcast last night in the U.S., and during the 1-hour show Dan answered questions about his first foray into acting, each of the "Harry Potter" films and his Broadway play "Equus." We now have video from the show.

http://feeds.hpana.com/~r/HPANA/~3/473155327/news.20682.html

Tom Felton, Draco Malfoy, in the "Harry Potter" movies recently gave a lengthly interview where he discussed the last movie, "Deathly Hallows," his character and much more.

3 days left for my hatchlings to grow up and I could use some help!

( my hatchlings )

My mom did the cutest thing the other day. She came over to me, phone held out in front of her like an alien thing and shoved the screen in my face. On it was a text.

"What," she said, "does your brother mean besides less than three?"

She looked very charmed once she flipped it over as I told her to.




Meet Jane DaVinci aka Eco Echo. She's learned that ecoterrorism doesn't pay. She's fishing for Coralax, an underwater villain that sucks monkeybutt. Also, they are good eating.


( More Eco Echo )

You may recall Star Pupil from my former post. Well, he has a bio now. And, thanks to my beloved barankhy, a boyfriend.

( Meet Fiery Mathematician and see Star Pupil's civilian outfit. ALSO INTRODUCING: Sara Blade and her dad, Addershot )

Godfuckingdamnit! They published that bullshit again! Probably not even a year ago, Garden & Greenhouse Magazine published this infuriating article about aquaponics, the use of fish waste-water to grow food plants hydroponically. It was filled with horrible fishkeeping suggestions and simply apalling stocking schemes. Koi for small systems because tilapia are too big! WTAF. I raged about it to txtriffidranch when it first came out and he mentioned it. I, however, failed to rage to the editor of the magazine, figuring it was a one-off sort of thing. It was one of the reasons that I didn't bother to update my address with the magazine though. To my surprise, they found my new address and continued to send me issues. Lo and behold, the November/December once again has an aquaponics article with the exact same shit suggestions for fish (YOU DO NOT KEEP PLECOS WITH GOLDFISH. THEY DO NOT EAT SHIT. OMFUCKINGGOD.), reproduced almost word for word from the original article. I ended up having to leave the dinner table and send of a screed to both the publisher and the author. I've c&ped it under the cut.

( I'm amazed at how much I didn't spell wrong in the first draft. Apparently I have angry spelling skills. )

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage. Rage rage rage. Jesus.

( Responses )

Godfuckingdamnit! They published that bullshit again! Probably not even a year ago, Garden & Greenhouse Magazine published this infuriating article about aquaponics, the use of fish waste-water to grow food plants hydroponically. It was filled with horrible fishkeeping suggestions and simply apalling stocking schemes. Koi for small systems because tilapia are too big! WTAF. I raged about it to txtriffidranch when it first came out and he mentioned it. I, however, failed to rage to the editor of the magazine, figuring it was a one-off sort of thing. It was one of the reasons that I didn't bother to update my address with the magazine though. To my surprise, they found my new address and continued to send me issues. Lo and behold, the November/December once again has an aquaponics article with the exact same shit suggestions for fish (YOU DO NOT KEEP PLECOS WITH GOLDFISH. THEY DO NOT EAT SHIT. OMFUCKINGGOD.), reproduced almost word for word from the original article. I ended up having to leave the dinner table and send of a screed to both the publisher and the author. I've c&ped it under the cut.

( I'm amazed at how much I didn't spell wrong in the first draft. Apparently I have angry spelling skills. )

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage. Rage rage rage. Jesus.

My soul feels so damned tired right now....