Memorial Day Weekend 2005: The Light Side

IS the "Light Side" the opposite of the Dark Side? Come to think of it, I'm not sure the movies ever mention it, do they...? What else could it be, though- the Bright Side? Then again, the opposite of the Light Side could be the Heavy Side!! Who knows. Anyway, without further ado,

This Weekend's Quotables:

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(Background: my dad writes fantasy stories on Narnia web. Rather obsessively.)

Daddy: "Now just to let you know. Catherine can teleport herself."
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Chris: "The world is my Steak."
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Daddy: "Oh yeah, there are two other characters I forgot to mention. Eric and Abby."

Neb: "What do they do?" [thinking, insurance agents? real estate?]

Daddy: "They're gargoyles."
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Nate: "I looked at this [Popeye's box?] and thought it said 'Fries, Dope, Love'. And the greatest of these is Love."
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(Background: after hour upon hour of Home & Garden TV, I was inspired to help Margaret finish her Rivendell-themed Bedroom):

Neb: "Okay, Daddy, we're going to go 'visualize the space' now. With your credit card."

And I'm so impressed by it that I have three copies of it, making this page too-slow-to-load, according to my husband

the quilt I've always wanted to make...

Ha ha! Ah ah ha ha ha!! PIctures! Pictures!

Okay folks, in case you didn't get the Hint, my website now has pictures!! And I am as Pleased as Punch. I will confess, it took me a rather embarrassingly long time to figure out how to even get a profile picture, and I had to download two... um, "McPrograms™"...? to do it. But it was worth it!? :-) I got "Hello" and "Picasa" because they were shiny! And Friendly! And promised that I could put Pictures on my blog with them! Using very small, simple phrases, like, "You can put pictures on your blog with them!" Ha ha! (I didn't get much sleep last night, in case you can't tell by the punch-drunk punctuational style.)

You have to realize that my husband and some [most] of his friends at school (hi Mike, Spite [posts as "rich" for some reason] and other friends are Linux/Unix/etc. geeks. This means they abhor (ABHOR!) McPrograms. They abhor these mass-marketed computerational abominations of big, bloated, control-freak programs. You see, Hello and Picasa are designed for people [like yours truly] who honest-to-Big Bird DON'T know squat about a computer beyond

1) This is the keyboard, screen, mouse (we have no idea what the tall black box does...)
2) This is the internet (yahoo, Chatting, shopping, music, pictures, anything as long as it's Point-and-Click)
3) Occasional MS Word document as need arises.

Even to the point that- it would be funny if it weren't so sad- to help you get pictures on your blog, Hello has a character called the BloggerBot which (I am not making this up) enters a Chat Room with you and dialogues to lead you through linking your pictures. Because- don't you see- that's the only environment on a computer we're comfortable with! a stinkin' CHAT ROOM!!

I have to laugh.

So anyway, these programs promised (PROMISED!!) to be Point-and-Click easy happy, but even then I had a little trouble. But eventually I started figuring things out and got a bit, um, carried away? Nahh... messing around with the Template for this blog. Hence the exciting picture in the middle of the sidebar. The blogger people didn't PLAN that to be there, people! That was my invention!! (Yes of course it was an accident. That doesn't make it any less Spectacular, does it?) I actually googled a request for some html code for that one, cut-and-pasted and forced it to Work. Before Nate even got home! (He told me how to resize pictures and several more things.)

I must confess that I'm not entirely sure what these two programs have done to Chelsea. Hello said something a bit vague at one point about "finding, taking over [taking over?] and organizing all the pictures on your computer" meaning I think that it can Glean from even the uttermost ends of the hard drive- but I have to wonder, what else did it do? I had a slight queasy feeling- you know, the kind when you're being Duped by a McProgram™ (oh you guys wouldn't know about that I guess; you're never duped) and you wonder, if this is how certain parts of Europe felt in the 30's? I bet Hitler was all charming and Point-and-Clicky in the beginning too, wasn't he? Huh?!? WASN'T HE?!? (told you I didn't sleep much.) Anyway, my dear husband has our computer set up to use good clean trouble-free programs like Mozilla- we don't like Microsoft things [for some reason?]- but McPrograms are generally set up assuming you're using IE (which is rather logical, in that if all you can do is Point-and-Click you aren't likely to have a browser that wasn't pre-installed). So I worry about Polluting Chelsea's environment with my little downloads. AND, as proof my fears are at least somewhat founded- since being online this morning I've had all kinds of things pop up- like Dell support, and Microsoft virus scanner, and something from Hello, and also my hotmail account did something weird...

Yes, just like Poland.

Anyway, I don't mean to sound proud of being very, very Dumb about computers (it IS rather cute if you don't look too hard) nor overly proud for doing beginner-level html things (like pictures). I'm just really happy to make my website look a BIT more what I'd like. What would I like, you ask? Um, some lavender sections, preferably with little daisy-chains going around titles. Fancier borders and fonts and what not. (Oh hey, I could change the font, right?) My favorite U2 song playing. The scent of fresh baked bread to waft through the screen as you wait for all the other crap to load. That's not asking Too Much, is it friends? (Yeah, that's right, Linux-pervs: I want even MORE fru-fru. ;-)

Heck, I might eventually elimitate words altogether. Who needs 'em when pictures are ever so much more exciting? Anyone want to vote for me to redo my "100 things" as all graphics?

I finally managed to move that to the sidebar where it belongs. :-)

PS I'm posting this Fri. morning at 10:44 but I'm going to change the time to make it go BELOW the fabulous post-picture. :-) 'cause I'm sneaky that way.

Catching up, Reloaded

When I started typing "catching up" as the title of today's entry, auto-complete completed it for me, which is proof that I am, indeed, Repeating Myself. (i.e., entry on May 1st was titled the same.) Anyhow I've done the right thing by sequelizing the title with "Reloaded," yes? It's better than other suffixations I can recall, such as "Dumberer" or the ever-so-boring "II."

Speaking of sequels... or should I say prequels...? Well, we and another 1/5 of America went to see Episode III Friday night. Poor Anakin! He really had a rough time of it, you know? I mean, I can't think of anything much worse than getting three of your limbs hacked off, having all your flesh burn away, and then finding out you've phychoemotionally choked to death the woman you wanted to save. (I don't want to hear any complaints that I've spoiled the plot for anyone. If you haven't seen it by now, you aren't enough of a Star Wars fan to care, anyway. ;-)) Speaking of plot spoiling... I just can't resist blurting this out, you'll have to forgive me... you guys won't believe this, but, in the end, um... Anakin converts to the Dark Side!!! Yes!! Yes he really does!!!

I can't wait to see Episode 4!! When is it coming out, Christmas maybe?

The only thing that made the movie less enjoyable was a row of pre-adolecent boys sitting behind us who seemed to be having a contest entitled Let's Make as Much Noise as Possible!!

Object of the game: tick off as many surrounding patrons as possible. First one expelled by management wins.

Materials available: Mouths, Popcorn buckets, Shoes, Metal seat-backs, Pre-adolecent creativity.

Rules: Make as much noise as possible. Over- or Under-doses of Ritalin are permitted. Bodily noises are permitted. Fake bodily noises made with armpits and mouths are permitted. Drum solos on the backs of aforementioned metal chairs are permitted. Also, while you're at it, why not run down the steps every 3.2 minutes to check and see if mom is waiting with the minivan outside yet.

What can I say? We survived their worst. This part of the "episode" (hee hee hee) didn't make me too thrilled to receive this yahoo news story from my sister shortly thereafter (summary for those who don't want to click the link: moms and dads with "boy" jobs like engineering are more likely to have boys, while those with "girl" jobs like nursing are more likely to have girls.) AND I QUOTE:

"Kanazawa predicted that a physicist and a mathematician would be the most likely pairing to produce a boy, while a therapist and a chat show host would be odds-on favourites for a daughter."

There's no hope. :-( I mean I want boys, but I want girls too. I want 3 boys and 2 girls. God, and while you're at it, how about a German shepherd on the side.

Uproariously fabulous

My blog is not funny. My blog is Boring. I don't much like my boring Blog today.

That is because I have discovered: Finslippy.

Please, spare yourself me and go read her. It's so funny that I laugh out loud- a lot- and Nate wants to know what it is. It's so funny that I am patiently reading the archives, which date back to (I think) Feb. 04. (The good thing is- she doesn't write nearly every day, so the amount of material is manageable and every single post is Worthwhile reading.) It's the best blog I've found, so far. (No offense to you, my blogging friends.)

:-) Neb

Late-night PBS and mathematical anathema

I don't have much to write because I've mainly been doing Math Problems, and I think talking too much about the math problems would make me sound quite Geeky. (Oh wait- it's too late for that already, right?)

I spent a good part of last night working on the kind of matrix index notation proofs that make me want to say A Lot of Really Bad Words All in a Row. (But I didn't, mind you.) I had forgotten how Frustrating math can be.

On the Late Late show on PBS (the one with the nice, liberal Black gentleman), they interviewed Anne Lamott. She may have written a good book about writing, but honestly, the woman is a FRUIT. (She's from Northern California, so what can we expect?) (I am sure Northern CA is a Lovely Place filled with Charming People of all sorts, but, you know, there are some Fruits, too.)
Anyway, she told us a lot about what a happy flaming liberal activist she is- she likes to get arrested a lot, apparently- and then she brought Jesus into it! She mourned about how she just CAN'T figure out why the right wing thinks "Jesus wants us to all be armed" or "Jesus wants to stop [gay ] people from loving each other"; after all, didn't Jesus just say to feed the poor?!? Jesus just wants us to feed the poor! Now go back to your lesbian-loving-abortion-filled-activist homes and do so.

Didn't CS Lewis say something about "Christianity-and-water"?

PS In my surfing to find "Christianity-and-water" I inadvertantly browsed away from this page and lost the text. Hurrah for the 'recover post' button! It really works!! :-)

Flowers in the Garden :-) [poorly structured passage]

There are finally flowers in the containers on the balcony. :-) Some little white daisies, purple impatients, yellow marigolds, some little wispy wildflower-looking plants, and one salmon geranium (?) that has yet to flower. (That last one was Nate's pick. I pointed out "it doesn't really match the others" and he said something like, "yeah, it's weird like me!") :-)

The fact that my husband, a responsible Horticulturist, has been involved in the selection and planting of this year's crops, bodes well for their survival. Nate is good with plants- photographic evidence exists of some florific miracles he worked in the backyard of their house in Reading, and we have 7 or 8 happy, thriving houseplants in our bedroom, to boot. He speaks tenderly to them, waters them regularly, moves them in and out of the sun (as needed), and calls each one by (scientific) name. Me? I look at plants and they wither. You could take a plant in the height of life, full bloom, healthy green leaves, and I'll enthusiastically water it, moderately, ONCE, and the next day it will be dead. I'm not kidding. (Well, almost.) I have, I must confess, managed to keep a lilly plant alive since Easter, but that's rather a special case. (Okay okay, if you must know... it's a little hokey. After Easter, when the blooms had fallen off, I noticed the plant was all dried out, and normally if it's not blooming I don't see what good it is and I don't care if it dies. But then I realized, I could keep this plant alive if I watered it. And I felt sorry for it because it was all dried out. This is when they weren't giving Terry Schiavo water, okay?? And I thought, okay, I can water this lilly. So it's kind of Terry's lilly.)

Back to Nate- as he transplanted little daisies outdoors yesterday, he rather Cooed at them- can you all imagine Nate cooing?- and murmered something [to me] like "this is for you to see how I'll treat the babies someday" (yes, there were Rewards in our bedroom later.) ;-)

It was Nice planting our garden together. And it was nice that we only have a little patio with a few containers. I think we're warming up to play house in a Big Regular house with kids someday.

PS We planted Bluebonnet seeds, too! (That's the official state flower of the Motherland, in case you don't know.) :-)