Thursday, December 18, 2003

Home for the holidays (and beyond?) http://melancholics.typepad.com I have set up the 30-day trial which will last through the Christmas break.  If I like it enough (and I think I probably will) it will be my new home from here on out.  See you over there.  9:48:59 PM    comment []

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

"It is time" These staves Eomer spoke, but he laughed as he said them.  For once more, lust of battle was upon him, for he was still unscathed, and he was young, and he was king, the lord of a fell people.  And lo! even as he laughed at despair, he looked up again at the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them.  And then wonder took him, and a great joy, and he cast his sword up in the sunlight and sang as he caught it.  And all eyes followed his gaze and behold! upon the foremost ship a great standard broke, and the wind displayed it, as she turned toward the Harlond.  There flowered a White Tree, for that was for Gondor; but Seven Stars were about it, and a high crown above it, the signs of Elendil that no lord had borne for years beyond count.  And the stars flamed in the sunlight, for they were wrought of gems by Arwen daughter of Elrond; and the crown was bright in the morning, for it was wrought of mithril and gold.  Thus came Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur's heir, out of the Paths of the Dead, borne by a wind from the Sea to the kingdom of Gondor, and the mirth of the Rohirrin was a torrent of laughter and a flashing of swords, and the joy and wonder of the City was a music of trumpets and the ringing of bells.  But the hosts of Mordor were seized with bewilderment, amd a great wizadry it seemed to them that their own ships would be filled with their foes; and a black dread fell on them, knowing that the tides of fate had turned against them and their doom was at hand.  East rode the knights of Dol Amroth, driving the enemy before them; troll-men and Variags and orcs that hated the sunlight.  South strode Eomer, and men fled before his face, but they were caught between the hammer and the anvil.  For now men leaped from the ships to the quay of the Harlond and swept north like a storm.  Then came Legolas, and Gimli wielding his axe, and Halbarad with the standard, and Elladan and Elrohir with stars on their brow, and the dour-handed Dunedain, Rangers of the north; leading a great valour of the folk of Lebennin and Lamedon and the fiefs of the South.  But before it all went Aragorn with the Flame of the West, Anduril like a new fire kindled, Narsil re-forged and as deadly as old, and upon his brow was the Star of Elendil.  6:08:35 PM    comment [] I'm not dead! No really, I'm not dead.  There's been some snow here recently, rather surprised me on Saturday when I went out, came in, and went out and discovered that snow had appeared in the meantime.  Looking at options for blogging over the holiday break.  Depending on how well that works out, I may not come back to Radio.  We'll see what happens.  Two finals left, a take-home and a test and then that is all for this semester.    1:01:50 AM    comment []

Thursday, December 11, 2003

I'm losing my edge I just realized that a more appropriate title for the last post would have, of course, been "Nuts!" following my affinity for ceaselessly bad puns.  But that opportunity has passed now, I'm afraid.  I've always heard that "handmade things make great gifts" but I don't know where to start, and frankly, all the stuff I've tried making by hand in the past has sucked (granted, that hasn't been very much).  Are there any helpful hints out there for a novice?  Doesn't look as though I'm going to get the Mallonnee show review posted.  He was late-arriving, which made it longer than I expected, and talked a great deal (which is his custom, and a very entertaining one at that, but that also made it run longer).  He played mostly old Vigilantes of Love material, including several songs from "Audible Sigh" while pretty much ignoring his three solo records.  He did play three as yet unreleased songs, mostly about suburban adolescense.  Here's a guy who was on the verge of a major breakthrough in the mid-90's, long overlooked despite his genius, still touring around the country in little coffeehouses with just a guitar player; meanwhile having a wife and two kids that are nearly my age.  I suppose it's true as he once wrote, "you do some things for love."  10:48:03 AM    comment []

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Squirrel sighting I saw a squirrel bolt right in front of me yesterday as I was walking to class on the sidewalk.  This is pretty uncommon considering I don't usually see any kind of wildlife at all (I can be sitting a few feet away from a buzzing wasp or other dangerous insect and have absolutely no idea of its presense.  This was exceptionally difficult during a high school biology class when we had to make an insect collection.  Fortunately my family was helpful enough in catching the bugs for me to identify.)  Anyway, just thought I would mention it.  No one knows of any significant meaning behind squirrels crossing your path do they?  (Hopeful for something good!) 4:20:27 PM    comment []

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

I love tents Seriously, I'd love to live in a tent for a period of time.  A decent-sized tent, but still a tent.  Perhaps this is some of my suppressed ruggedness coming out.  Oh, the things I think about when my mind strays for just a moment in class.  10:18:27 PM    comment [] It's hard for me to go into a bookstore and not come out having bought something, even if I didn't particularly want it before, so over Thanksgiving break I spotted a book called "Ecclessiastes:  A New Translation and Interpretive Paraphrase" by T.M. Moore.  I haven't really got into much past the introduction and the first chapter (although he does include some interesting thoughts on the authorship of Ecclesiastes in those sections) but it's nice to see someone taking notice of the book.  It's not something that's talked about much, because it's a little muddy, and doesn't seem to really fit into our perfect idea of the canon, but it's in there, so we've got to make use of it.  I'm a big Ecclesiastes fan, of course, so I'm interested to see what this little book is about.  (It had better be good, I paid $13 for it, hm, maybe someone'll get a Christmas present...)<g> 11:44:32 AM    comment []

Sunday, December 07, 2003

Raining Men I agree with about 95 percent of this piece, and hate to sully an otherwise fine column by making a fuss over what amounts to a throwaway line, but I have a little rant to make.  The older I get, the more I realize that while guys are good, men are great. Within the past couple of weeks, I have actually gotten to be around some real men, and, up until this point, I didn’t realize how much I missed them—men who camp, men who climb, men who fix cars and build things. Men who can work hard, get mussed and, all the while, can sing, write poetry, paint and interior decorate. Men in mechanics uniforms, men in three piece suits, men who cry, men with scars, men with families, men in love; there is something in me that makes me their biggest fan. Maybe it’s their logic and rationale in contrast to my emotionalism; their ability to be straightforward and to the point; their shoulders, their jaws, their chiseled noses. I think I spent a good half hour one night examining the curves in Gary Dourdan’s face. How can you not love a man? What we have here is a subtle invocation of the He-Man Principle; namely, imparting worldly lustre (usually great physical accomplishments) with spiritual advancement.  Now, if you're the outdoorsy/mechanical type who gets edification in such things, more power to you, but I'm not particularly appreciative of the idea of being lessened because I'm not fascinated by the thought of hiking through Siberia in a toga.  Often this comes down to some logic about faith and trust, but jumping off the Empire State building requires a lot of faith and trust as well, and I don't imagine you're going to try that, either.  It's really somewhat ironic that Hawkins mentions it in her piece since "men who camp, climb and build things" aren't all that difficult to find, after all, which would seem to be the source of her consternation.    I realize that I am somewhat doomed to the extreme minority here, and as such am probably never going to get what I'd like out of a "men's movement" per se, so I'll have to learn to make some compromises along the way.  Maybe someday I'll buy a car that I can't drive just so I'll be more handy with it's contents.  <g> Aside from that, the Hawkins piece makes some very good piece, with which I am in concurrence.  12:37:40 AM    comment []

Saturday, December 06, 2003

On the Board I hadn't paid any attention to this until it showed up on Rock Rebel recently, but Switchfoot's single "Meant to Live" is up to #8 on Billboard's Modern Rock tracks.  So there's some corporate radio action in play there for you.  4:59:13 PM    comment [] 533 That's the number of pop-up ads my Google Toolbar has blocked since I installed it about a month ago.  Very handy, if you're like me and rarely heed pop-ups anyway, and therefore have the minor hassle of closing them.  (That's 533 left-clicks I've been saved!) Of course, there is a negative angle to this, being that many sites get much of their revenue from pop-up ads, and if the blocking software proliferates, they'll have to resort to more on-the-page ads, or lose the revenue completely.  Now, I have to plead ignorance on whether or not these are hit-determined ads (which I assume they are, and blocking them doesn't send a hit to the counter).  One thing I've noticed taking shape are the ads that actually "pop-up" into the page itself.  (ESPN.com and Yahoo use these pretty often, I've seen.) On another note, the AutoFill option comes in handy as well.  12:43:04 PM    comment [] Headline jollies On the Bloomington Herald-Times website today (sorry, can't link to the article because it requires a pay subscription...what marketing genius thought up making you pay for all your online content?).  "Missouri, Indiana Both Looking to Get Untracked" I've occasionally heard the word "untracked" used to mean "getting back on track," but it doesn't look like that should be what it means, and glancing at dictionary.com, my suspicions look correct.  untracked adj : lacking pathways; "trackless wilderness"; "roadless areas" So there you have it.  12:23:38 PM    comment [] Something we're lacking You know, something I don't think I've ever done here is a top-5 list.  I did a top-10 album list at the end of last year (something I probably won't be reprising, simply because I haven't bought very many new albums this year, at least not enough to come up with a decent list), but that's been about it.  I'm not sure if this is addressing my lack of depth in creativity or what, but there you have it.  12:17:20 PM    comment []

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