The color the sky would be in a static universe

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091101.html

I kind of want to paint the apartment this color.

Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett

Happy Meg's Birthday

Party here.


Today's earrings: sapphires, rabbits

Bedtime reading: Sand Sharks, Margaret Maron

Happy Summer

Today's earrings: sapphires, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Grand Jubilee, Suzette Haden Elgin

Survivor disappoints again

I'm thinking about not watching the rest of this season. It's not because the Bad Person didn't get voted off; there's sound strategy reasons why the players keep voting other people out. The problem is the editors have decided that this guy (who's a misogynist, a narcissist, a liar, and a shitty player) is the funnest thing since bouncy castles and give him ridiculous amounts of screen time. It's one thing to back up his morning routine of made-up pseudo-tai chi with "O Fortuna." That was funny. It's another to spend 35 minutes of each episode watching him bully and smarm his way around camp. That has me alternately swearing at and flipping off the tv for most of an hour. I'm not seeing a good reason to keep watching a show that pisses me off like this.

Maybe b2 and I can talk about Lost over drinks instead.


Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: The Abbess of Crewe, Muriel Spark

Sign of the times

I went to get a sandwich from my local Quizno's today, and found a sign on the door saying they were closed as of three weeks ago.

Darn it, I liked my local Quizno's.


Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: Yes Means Yes, Friedman & Valenti, eds.

L'Heure bleue

As I always say.

I know you do, although I don't believe I've ever actually heard you.



-- Edward Gorey


Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman

Feast Day

I got to M's about 10:30. We discussed the relative merits of tenting, flipping mid-bake, and swathing with bacon. (Guess which we settled on?) She wanted to hold off on putting the bird in the oven - it was only 10 pounds, and not stuffed - but I urged immediate action, on the grounds that the bird always takes at least half an hour longer than expected. We ended up putting it in just before 11. Then we took wine, cheese, and crackers and sat down to play backgammon in her living room. We finished the bottle not long after noon. The turkey was done about the same time... and dinner was set for 2. My bad.

CC & AL arrived about 1, and were pressed into cooking, as M & I were not inclined to take it very seriously at that point. M had had the foresight to do all the prep work yesterday, so it wasn't too arduous. Then the other guests arrived, and I swanned off to the living room to chat and eat canapes. Eventually I answered the call to make gravy. About then, the Requisite Disaster occurred: the pan holding the potatoes broke in the oven. We got it out, and even salvaged some potatoes.

Dinner was most tasty - good turkey, yummy dressing, and a green salad for me. :) I took a nap. Then there was pie. After, we played the shortest game of Risk ever: AL won in three turns. The other guests drifted off. K&S called. M let me watch the Survivor clip show. (They left out Randy's racist tirades.) And now we are watching Zodiac. I don't think Robert Graysmith was nearly as stupid as they're making out...

eta: the color of the day was BLUE.


Today's earrings: sapphires, bronze triangles

Bedtime reading: Pyramids, Terry Pratchett

Thank you, Angry Lemming!

I talked to Josh about the Caribbean today, and there was much rejoicing.


Today's earrings: sapphires, citrines

Bedtime reading: Jingo, Terry Pratchett

Funeral

A lot of people came. Standing room only. A lot of people got up to talk, too. My favorite was one of the widower's baseball buddies who said that he usually tries to talk people out of marrying that young, but once he'd met Mariana, well, it all made sense. "That was the best decision you ever made, bro." Awww.

After, there was a reception. I couldn't deal and bailed rather quickly.


Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: The Lyre of Orpheus, Robertson Davies

Not pleased

The wrong one won Project Runway. And Muni has proposed changing the bus routes I take to work.

I'm going to go wallow in pointless aggrievedness now.


Today's earrings: sapphires, flowers

Bedtime reading: Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, Donna Andrews

Happy New Year!

The Guy With The Sign is back, now with more galaxies. Didn't really get a chance to read his new screed, but I note that he still has corporate backing.

I figured out that "Idea and Crafts Production Law" (literal translation) means "Copyright Act." I had this same revelation last year and didn't write it down. I wrote it down this time.

Survivor brought back the horriblest person ever to play the game, only to have him beg to leave at the first opportunity... and he was voted off! I can watch this season without cringing for the entire hour! (Still gonna cringe at the schmoopy couples, but at least they're not vocally proud of the banality of their evil, you know?)

If it goes on like this, the Year of the Rat should turn out ok.


Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: To the Hilt, Dick Francis

Thanks, Uncle Chas

He gave me my first ginger beer. It was way back in the early nineties, the first time I drove across country. I stopped at Chas & Chris's, and they took me in & fed me, let me take a shower, all the good stuff. Chas took me down into the basement and gave me a ginger beer out of an old freezer. That stuff had some kick. It was very unfamiliar-tasting, and I didn't know if liked it. Subsequent experiment has shown that I do like it, a lot.

He was also the first person I ever saw order hot water in a restaurant. Just plain hot water. I was bewildered. Unflavored water with a meal was a brand new concept. We drank milk with meals at home and sodas with meals in restaurants. And hot water? Why would one want that? Entwined with that marvel was another: hot water was not listed on the menu. And they just brought it to him! You can order stuff that's not on the menu!

It was a major step to figuring out that the world I navigated was a box, and that I need not stay in it.


Right now, though, I want cozy.


Today's earrings: sapphires, citrine teardrops

Bedtime reading: The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman

Sting

NOUN:
1. A cutting quality: bite, edge, incisiveness, keenness, sharpness. See SHARP. 2. Informal. A stimulating or intoxicating effect: Informal : punch, wallop. Slang : kick. See DRUGS. 3. A sensation of physical discomfort occurring as the result of disease or injury: ache, pain, pang, prick, prickle, smart, soreness, stab, stitch, throe, twinge. Informal : misery. See PAIN.
VERB:
1. Slang. To get money or something else from by deceitful trickery: bilk, cheat, cozen, defraud, gull, mulct, rook, swindle, victimize. Informal : chisel, flimflam, take, trim. Slang : diddle1, do, gyp, stick. See HONEST. 2. To cause to become sore or inflamed: burn, inflame, irritate. See HELP. 3. To feel or cause to feel a sensation of heat or discomfort: bite, burn, smart. See PAIN.

- - Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition. Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company.


Today's earrings: Sapphires, turtles

Bedtime Reading: Reality and Dreams, Muriel Spark

The Blues

468. Blueness. --N. blue &c. adj.; garter-blue; watchet.
[Pigments] ultramarine, smalt, cobalt, cyanogen; Prussian --, syenite-blue; bice, indigo, woad.
lapis lazuli, sapphire, turquoise.
blue-, bluish-ness; bloom.
Adj. blue, azure, cerulean; sky-blue, -coloured, -dyed; nazy-blue, cyanic; bluish; atmospheric, retiring; cold.
-- Mark Peter Roget, M.D., F.R.S., enlarged by John Lewis Roget, M.A., new edition revised and enlarged by Samuel Romilly Roget, M.A. [Edition of 1941]


Today's earrings: sapphires, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: Maskerade, Terry Pratchett

Semi-precious

http://www.kyotouae.com/colorchart/


Today's earrings: sapphires, peridots

Bedtime reading: Foundation, Isaac Asimov

Mountains of the Moon

Went to see a guy talk about China & India's increasing investments in Africa. He only had an hour, so, very general. His idea of the best outcome is for Africa to become one large free trade area. Afterward, I asked him what he thought would actually happen with that. He was all general. I asked about the EAC, and how Rwanda & Burundi are joining in July, and was that the sort of thing he was talking about? I was going to follow up with all those editorials about how Tanzania ought to pull out of the EAC and stick with the SADC program. (Seems like there's one every other week.) But instead he went off on how much time & energy gets wasted negotiating these trade agreements that don't necessarily get enforced, and how gov't officials in Africa would do better to put their time into fighting corruption at home. Which, ok, good point. But is this continent-wide free trade area supposed to bloom spontaneously? That would be a first.


Today's earrings: sapphires, double moonstones

Bedtime reading: King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard