Unsigned Confessions

I haven't done icons in quite a while; here's a set from Pixar's Inside Out:






(Snurch, fold, spindle, modify, etc. for LJ and other non-commercial Fair Use; credit as you deem appropriate.)

The carpet team is here, to replace the carpeting in all of the common areas and hallways (but not, thank goodness, the individual offices). So, my morning workload is currently being accompanied by the sound of drills & brooms, clouds of dust, workmen's conversations, and general hubbub. Such fun! ;-)

I have my doubts about this new carpet pattern. I think it looks very strange in the transition points, where old carpet meets new, in office doorways. But at least people won't be tripping over the rips and ripples in the hallway any more...

I wonder what it says about me, that I saw this phrase:

Twitter API rate

and my brain parsed it as:

Twitter a Pirate

;-)

Fred and I like to frequent the Book Swap Shed at our municipal recycling center -- you never know what odd items are going to turn up. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a 1944 edition of The Newspaper Institute of America Handbook for Writers; it's in rotten shape, but I thought it might have some bearing on the Letters Project given my grandad's background in newspapers, so I brought it home.

My favorite bit so far is in the Table of Contents:



Have you got your bearnigs yet this morning? I'm still looking for mine... ;-)

The first of my nephews has graduated from college into the world, and the next is close behind him, with a third just starting the adventure. I've been contemplating this a lot, of late, and looking back at my own college experience; it's far enough behind me now to be able to view it without nostalgia, if I try. These are the things I wish I'd known then:

( I wish I'd known... )

What do you know now, that you wish you'd known then, whenever then was?

Time for a few Dr Who icons:









Source for all of these is the "Daily Dalek" comic, by Tony Naylor.

(Snurch, fold, spindle, modify, etc. for LJ and other non-commercial Fair Use; credit as you deem appropriate.)

On BBC World News America, news anchor refers to rural Vermont towns as a "remote region" of the country. Brain implodes (sadly, mine, not hers).

Over lunch, I came across a highly amusing piece at the Beeb's website, Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples.

A large number of them, of course, aren't Americanisms at all, but simply archaic usage of the language that has survived on this side of the Pond despite falling out of favor in its land of origin. Reading through some of the 1,295 comments highlights this, and is fairly entertaining in and of itself.

The so-called "Americanism" that particularly caught my eye was #40, "that'll learn you", from poor Tabitha of London -- to whom, funnily enough, the phrase could easily be applied (it's been over a quarter of a century since I took Anglo-Saxon in college, but I still remember my professor discussing that particular verb's evolution, and its archaic meaning of "to teach").

All of which got me thinking back to how much I enjoyed R. MacNeil's presentation of The Story of English on PBS (which was also about a quarter of a century ago), which in turn spurred me to go perusing Amazon's catalog to see if it was available on DVD. I've had the companion book since it was originally published, but would really enjoy watching (and listening to) the tv series again. Sadly, it does not appear to be in print...or in encoding, or in press, or whatever one says of a television production that is no longer available for purchase in a home-viewing format¹. Dangit.


¹The closest Amazon comes is $55+ for a used copy of the VHS boxed set, which is far more than I would be willing to pay for a format that, well, archaic (*grin*).

So, I had the afternoon (most of it, anyway) off from work, and while I was puttering about, sanding paper mache, Fred suggested that we put on last night's Daily Show/Colbert Report, which normally we would watch while eating supper.

Colbert's guest has a documentary premiering on HBO this weekend, about those who choose, in this crazy day and age, to immigrate and become American citizens. She talked about the process very briefly, and mentioned that it included screening to determine if the applicant was "of good moral character" (like we require that of existing citizens *snort*), by asking them things such as if they had ever been a member of the Communist Party.

Fred and I looked at each other. Rewound. Played it again. Yes, she actually did say that...and a preliminary 'net search seems to back her up.

Horrified doesn't begin to cover it.

Tough week -- eye neuralgia and depression and state politics and campus politics and stress, oh my! So, I plan to spend the weekend doing only enjoyable, relaxing, rejuvenating things. No budget insanity for two whole days, hurrah!

Went out late this morning to run a few errands, something I haven't had the chance to do in over a week thanks to the eye, so that was nice, even if the weather wasn't.

Back here at home, I have some paper mache fruit drying in the oven. This is mainly because over the past week, when unable to look at screens (computer and otherwise), I have been working through stacks of old junk mail, outdated receipts, etc., and shredding up the lot in a frenzy. It going against my grain to simply throw away the resulting masses of paper bits, I stewed up a giant kettle's worth, drained and pressed it, ran my crafts-use-only mixer through it to break up the fibers further, added the necessary additional gluey-elements, and now have five pounds of paper mache ready for use. I still had two pounds left from the previous batch, which I figured I better use up while it was still viable; that having been a rather chunky batch, shaping it into fruit seemed the most sensible (i.e. quick and easy) thing to do. A brief round in the oven to let it set up, a swift polish with the back of an old metal spoon, and now it's back in the oven to finish drying.

Once dried, finish-coated, sanded, primed, painted, and sealed, the pieces will look like this (except better, as my photography is terrible):



The latest batch of mache is much smoother than the batch I just used up, so I think my technique may be improving with practice (also, old thermal paper receipts turn into really great product, and there were a LOT of them in the shredder this week); I'm considering using it to make "stone" frames for tissue paper "stained glass". (One of the unintended side-benefits^[1] of last weekend's Great Book Boxing effort is the improved access to my craft reference and Art books -- had a lot of fun last night paging through a history of stained glass, getting some good ideas.) I suspect it would also make up nicely into bowls and vessels. I should get busy and paint the last set I made, so that I could put it on Etsy; still nothing in the shop there other than the "candy" hearts, which really won't be heavily promotable until next Valentine's Day.

I haven't yet started painting my paper mache Tardis -- contemplating several different approaches/methods, and some things just shouldn't be rushed...



Hope you are all having relaxing weekends so far! :-)


^[1] The actual intent was to free up space on the bedroom bookcases for tomes related to the Letters Project -- 1920s/1930s histories, biographies, memoirs, letter collections, literature, etc. -- and to unearth the surface of the desk in the study, so that I can actually work on the project. Assuming the eye improves in the near future, I'm looking forward to getting back to that effort.