Friday, January 27, 2006
More Nostalgia
AKA the web wayback machine. List the url of any website in the search field and an archive of that site's various incarnations pops up.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Nostalgia
The first computer I remember was IRAC on "WonderWoman". Every episode would show Diana Prince/Wonder Woman interacting with IRAC the super-computer at IADC. Diana would say something, the tape disks would start spinning, bulbs would light up in yellow and red and eventually an answer would come out.
IRAC seemed like a miracle from the future until an article in "The Weekly Reader" in 3rd grade described a "super computer" that took up an entire room and ran on magnetic disks. There were people the article called "computer technicians" who stood by the machinery in white lab coats reading printouts.
The first time I saw a computer in person I was at my friend Ellen's house after school and she showed me how to play Pong on a computer her older brother had built himself. He spent hours alone in his room writing programs. I started associating computers with fake wood paneled rooms that smelled like marijuana and old tube socks.
Our grade school got computers in the 5th grade (1980). We sat in front of enormous beige plastic monitors that threw off about 100 degrees typing commands like "if then/GO TO in blocky orange letters.
I wonder how far we are from a retro-phile backlash against all the brushed aluminum and paper-thin plasma screens. Maybe Apple should come out with a line of 70's style desktop models with the faux wood panel inserts and chunky beige buttons with a gigantic ENTER key.
IRAC seemed like a miracle from the future until an article in "The Weekly Reader" in 3rd grade described a "super computer" that took up an entire room and ran on magnetic disks. There were people the article called "computer technicians" who stood by the machinery in white lab coats reading printouts.
The first time I saw a computer in person I was at my friend Ellen's house after school and she showed me how to play Pong on a computer her older brother had built himself. He spent hours alone in his room writing programs. I started associating computers with fake wood paneled rooms that smelled like marijuana and old tube socks.
Our grade school got computers in the 5th grade (1980). We sat in front of enormous beige plastic monitors that threw off about 100 degrees typing commands like "if then/GO TO in blocky orange letters.
I wonder how far we are from a retro-phile backlash against all the brushed aluminum and paper-thin plasma screens. Maybe Apple should come out with a line of 70's style desktop models with the faux wood panel inserts and chunky beige buttons with a gigantic ENTER key.
Searching for Mummeleh
After re-reading "Adventures in Knitting", I wanted to add a link to a definition of the term Mummeleh. I typed it into Google and got 2 links. And, Google politely asked me if I was looking for Mammals. So I did a search for Yiddish Dictionary and came up with this.
I stand corrected. Apparently it's spelled "Mommellah" and it means "an affectionate term for a little girl." I guess I meant "Bubbellah" which means grandmom.
I stand corrected. Apparently it's spelled "Mommellah" and it means "an affectionate term for a little girl." I guess I meant "Bubbellah" which means grandmom.
Go Rent this Movie
I stumbled across "The Yes Men" last night on cable and it beats the pants off of most of Michael Moore's work. Watching Mr. Unruh unfurl his giant inflatable video appendage before a stony faced collection of WTO executives who were actually taking him somewhat seriously was the funniest thing I've seen so far this year.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Adventures in Knitting
I'll be the first to admit it. I spend way too much time watching TV. It's a bad habit I picked up when I worked in the film industry and realized that I could write off the cost of Direct TV on my taxes because it counted as "research and development".
I kind of miss being able to deduct reruns of "Married with Children". I learned so much about lighting from watching the way Al Bundy's bald spot was carefully back-lit from every angle. It brought so much confidence to my work realizing that if you could shoot the back of someone's shoulder from an interesting enough angle, any actor could play the menacing killer in a televised re-creation of a crime.
Now I need something else to justify countless hours spent staring at HBO re-runs, so I thought I would try and take up knitting. After all, there's only about 50 books on knitting and crocheting on the New Non-Fiction rack when I go to the town library, so at least if I needed to learn from a book it would be easy. I'm not even going to address the whole "Celebrities who knit" phenomenon. Suffice to say that the last time I cared what Kristen Dunst does while she's waiting on set was on "Mona Lisa Smile" when I had to wrangle cable around her. Besides, I think every woman needs to have at least one "girly" hobby to balance out all the extreme sports and other crap we tend to get suckered into. So I googled "learning to knit", printed out some pictures of the steps, and went to the craft store.
The site that I went to said that the basics to get started would be #8 knitting needles 14" in length, a small pair of scissors, worsted yarn medium weight and a yarn needle. I got to AC Moore on a really warm Saturday afternoon and found the knitting aisles jam packed with sweet little old ladies trying to locate just the right kittens and/or puppies-themed sweater pattern for their next great-grandchild. The knitting needles were clumped by brand in little islands through-out the knitting section so it took me about 15 minutes to find the pre-requisite #8, 14" needles. They looked like something Zhang Ziyi would use to fight off a horde of Mongolian bandits. Yarn needles were not in the sewing aisle. Eventually they were located in the knitting tools rack, deep in the heart of Yarn Country, being guarded by a bored 7-year-old who had apparently not been given her daily dose of Ritalin. I reached over her one woman performance of "Unicorn Princess Pony Saves the Day" and grabbed whatever said Yarn Needle in the biggest type. Now all I needed was to find some basic yarn.
This was like telling a woman to go into DSW and walk out with a pair of basic black pumps. There were 3 aisles of yarn, as well as, two floor to ceiling wall units stuffed with yarn along the wall. The only problem was that what looked like Medium yarn came in either black or day-glo reds and pinks. I wanted to knit something simple like a baby blanket and I couldn't picture swaddling the baby-to-be in black and nuclear red and day-glo pink. Finally I found a rainbow tie-dye yarn that said MEDIUM, WORSTED and one in a non-blinding rose. $22.10 and I was on my way home to learn how to knit.
I realized after a few minutes that who-ever had written the instructions I had printed out, had obviously never seen one of those "how to tie a knot" diagrams. There were drawings of a section of yarn in what looked like some kind of Book of Kells configuration, but no indication of which end came from where. Slip knot was easy enough to understand, but terms like "Purl" and "Casting on" were making me wish that there was some kind of "Rent-a-granny" service that one could call when faced with things like knitting and baking bread. During an episode of The Sopranos I managed to wrestle about 12 inches of yarn in some kind of configuration around my left knitting needle. I sat there looking at it thinking; "What now?"
I was under the mistaken impression that knitting was a process that had been set in stone for millenia and that there was one, inexorable way it was done. As I looked at my left needle and then back at the picture labelled "Basic Knit Stitch" I realized what the difference was. The needle in the picture had several neat rows of stitches dangling off it. My needle had one sorry-looking tangle of pink yarn secured by a shaky slip-knot. How did the extra rows come into being? Apparently, after I checked a couple of other websites, there were as many methods to "basic knitting" as there were kinds of yarn. One site would tell me to cast on one way, one site would have a slight variation, one site would be completely different. I tried a couple of different methods to transfer the cast-on stitches to the right needle to get a row going, but then remembered that our office Mummeleh is one of those people who sits on the commuter rail and makes afghans, I packed a knitting bag and hauled everything into the office to ask her. Turns out she only does Crochet, but at least she pointed me to a decent website.
Maybe this one will work. I need to do something constructive with my time while I'm watching 24 tonight.
I kind of miss being able to deduct reruns of "Married with Children". I learned so much about lighting from watching the way Al Bundy's bald spot was carefully back-lit from every angle. It brought so much confidence to my work realizing that if you could shoot the back of someone's shoulder from an interesting enough angle, any actor could play the menacing killer in a televised re-creation of a crime.
Now I need something else to justify countless hours spent staring at HBO re-runs, so I thought I would try and take up knitting. After all, there's only about 50 books on knitting and crocheting on the New Non-Fiction rack when I go to the town library, so at least if I needed to learn from a book it would be easy. I'm not even going to address the whole "Celebrities who knit" phenomenon. Suffice to say that the last time I cared what Kristen Dunst does while she's waiting on set was on "Mona Lisa Smile" when I had to wrangle cable around her. Besides, I think every woman needs to have at least one "girly" hobby to balance out all the extreme sports and other crap we tend to get suckered into. So I googled "learning to knit", printed out some pictures of the steps, and went to the craft store.
The site that I went to said that the basics to get started would be #8 knitting needles 14" in length, a small pair of scissors, worsted yarn medium weight and a yarn needle. I got to AC Moore on a really warm Saturday afternoon and found the knitting aisles jam packed with sweet little old ladies trying to locate just the right kittens and/or puppies-themed sweater pattern for their next great-grandchild. The knitting needles were clumped by brand in little islands through-out the knitting section so it took me about 15 minutes to find the pre-requisite #8, 14" needles. They looked like something Zhang Ziyi would use to fight off a horde of Mongolian bandits. Yarn needles were not in the sewing aisle. Eventually they were located in the knitting tools rack, deep in the heart of Yarn Country, being guarded by a bored 7-year-old who had apparently not been given her daily dose of Ritalin. I reached over her one woman performance of "Unicorn Princess Pony Saves the Day" and grabbed whatever said Yarn Needle in the biggest type. Now all I needed was to find some basic yarn.
This was like telling a woman to go into DSW and walk out with a pair of basic black pumps. There were 3 aisles of yarn, as well as, two floor to ceiling wall units stuffed with yarn along the wall. The only problem was that what looked like Medium yarn came in either black or day-glo reds and pinks. I wanted to knit something simple like a baby blanket and I couldn't picture swaddling the baby-to-be in black and nuclear red and day-glo pink. Finally I found a rainbow tie-dye yarn that said MEDIUM, WORSTED and one in a non-blinding rose. $22.10 and I was on my way home to learn how to knit.
I realized after a few minutes that who-ever had written the instructions I had printed out, had obviously never seen one of those "how to tie a knot" diagrams. There were drawings of a section of yarn in what looked like some kind of Book of Kells configuration, but no indication of which end came from where. Slip knot was easy enough to understand, but terms like "Purl" and "Casting on" were making me wish that there was some kind of "Rent-a-granny" service that one could call when faced with things like knitting and baking bread. During an episode of The Sopranos I managed to wrestle about 12 inches of yarn in some kind of configuration around my left knitting needle. I sat there looking at it thinking; "What now?"
I was under the mistaken impression that knitting was a process that had been set in stone for millenia and that there was one, inexorable way it was done. As I looked at my left needle and then back at the picture labelled "Basic Knit Stitch" I realized what the difference was. The needle in the picture had several neat rows of stitches dangling off it. My needle had one sorry-looking tangle of pink yarn secured by a shaky slip-knot. How did the extra rows come into being? Apparently, after I checked a couple of other websites, there were as many methods to "basic knitting" as there were kinds of yarn. One site would tell me to cast on one way, one site would have a slight variation, one site would be completely different. I tried a couple of different methods to transfer the cast-on stitches to the right needle to get a row going, but then remembered that our office Mummeleh is one of those people who sits on the commuter rail and makes afghans, I packed a knitting bag and hauled everything into the office to ask her. Turns out she only does Crochet, but at least she pointed me to a decent website.
Maybe this one will work. I need to do something constructive with my time while I'm watching 24 tonight.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Thursday, January 12, 2006
What the-? LOTD (link of the day)
I found this around 1pm on the del.icio.us site.
Secret Asian Man is going to love this one.
Oh, and by the way, it's spelled "musical" people, not "musicail"
Just what the world needs, an downloadable music application to organize all your other downloadable music applications. This kind of reminds me trying to alphabetize all of your phonebooks. At what point do people stop trying to download and upload and streamline everything and just listen to the damn music?
Secret Asian Man is going to love this one.
Oh, and by the way, it's spelled "musical" people, not "musicail"
Just what the world needs, an downloadable music application to organize all your other downloadable music applications. This kind of reminds me trying to alphabetize all of your phonebooks. At what point do people stop trying to download and upload and streamline everything and just listen to the damn music?
Monday, January 09, 2006
Here a list, there a list, everywhere a meta-list
As I noted somewhere in the last paragraph of the previous post, I had a to-do list that I tried to get to all weekend. I know it involved doing some web design stuff, getting to the end of the Illustrator tutorial book that I bought, and starting to work on the site design for a new project. It was in chart form, with each project in its own row with columns labeled "by tomorrow", "by Sunday" and "by next month".
I was very proud of my to-do list. It was exactly like the ones you see in all of those "how to get your life organized" articles that sites like msn.com are always posting. The only problem is that while my birthday is July 26, I am a closet Gemini. One side of my personality makes a list, files it away with the other lists, memorizes it, and plans to execute it. The other side finds the list, laughs hysterically and says "What are you, some kind of geek? Grab a beer out of the fridge, sit your ass down on the couch, and watch some OnDemand for chrissakes. You are paying for cable tv right? Might as well enjoy it."
In a good week I might get one or two things done, shove about 20 other things into the back corner of my head, and pat myself on the back for getting to the grocery store with an actual list of stuff to buy. For extra credit, maybe I'll sift through two weeks of mail and throw all the junk mail out.
So where does all of this lead to? If you really want to know the awful sick truth (and you must if you are still actually reading this), I get a charge out of getting something tangible accomplished. All I want is to be able to pick up my mail at night, see the department store credit card bill, and know that in 5 seconds I can see the bill from last month with the "paid" note written on it, sitting in a file folder, in chronological order and filed alphabetically. The war in Iraq could go on into the next decade and I would be able to sleep soundly knowing that all of my downloaded articles on how to get the best mortgage deals are indexed in a 3-ring binder. No wonder my first job was in a library.
Of course I know there is more to life than filing away credit card payments and information that will be outdated by the time I actually read it. Probably the best way to exploit my inner nerd is to narrow down the obsession a little so I'm actually focusing on what really matters. Life is too short to worry about having matching labels on the spice jars, but it's also too short to let stuff that I really want to get done drift by the wayside.
I was very proud of my to-do list. It was exactly like the ones you see in all of those "how to get your life organized" articles that sites like msn.com are always posting. The only problem is that while my birthday is July 26, I am a closet Gemini. One side of my personality makes a list, files it away with the other lists, memorizes it, and plans to execute it. The other side finds the list, laughs hysterically and says "What are you, some kind of geek? Grab a beer out of the fridge, sit your ass down on the couch, and watch some OnDemand for chrissakes. You are paying for cable tv right? Might as well enjoy it."
In a good week I might get one or two things done, shove about 20 other things into the back corner of my head, and pat myself on the back for getting to the grocery store with an actual list of stuff to buy. For extra credit, maybe I'll sift through two weeks of mail and throw all the junk mail out.
So where does all of this lead to? If you really want to know the awful sick truth (and you must if you are still actually reading this), I get a charge out of getting something tangible accomplished. All I want is to be able to pick up my mail at night, see the department store credit card bill, and know that in 5 seconds I can see the bill from last month with the "paid" note written on it, sitting in a file folder, in chronological order and filed alphabetically. The war in Iraq could go on into the next decade and I would be able to sleep soundly knowing that all of my downloaded articles on how to get the best mortgage deals are indexed in a 3-ring binder. No wonder my first job was in a library.
Of course I know there is more to life than filing away credit card payments and information that will be outdated by the time I actually read it. Probably the best way to exploit my inner nerd is to narrow down the obsession a little so I'm actually focusing on what really matters. Life is too short to worry about having matching labels on the spice jars, but it's also too short to let stuff that I really want to get done drift by the wayside.
New Year, Same S^*@
"Main Course: What would you do if you had 3 months off from your job?
I would develop several of the 800 domain names I've purchased on impulse, devise some revenue streams and generate more of a supplemental income. I have the skills and the know how, I just don't have the free time. I'm lying - I actually could find the time if I really wanted to. They say you can make time for anything. Unfortunately, Celebrity Big Brother 6 started last night, so I'm pretty much booked for the next 60 evenings."
Muchos Gracias to David Pye of Pye in the Face fame for putting it so succinctly. I wish I had the time to purchase 800 domain names.
I had one of those bizarre bursts of energy that one gets at random times during a pregnancy and coupled with an overflow of the nesting instinct discussed on June 3rd, 2005, I was up at 8am after falling into bed at 2am Sunday morning. I got my Six Feet Under fix out of the way, went to Target and walked around for an hour just looking at stuff. You know you are turning into a suburb dweller when you can admit to yourself that you actually enjoy walking around Target mentally cataloguing all the different products they have created using Isaac Mizrahi and Hello Kitty as their inspiration.
I actually had a list of stuff I wanted to get done on the computer, but decided to put together our new bassinet, which involved cleaning out a corner of the bedroom, which then involved taking a load of laundry down to the basement. After that, I had to assemble the frame, which involved finding W-40, which involved digging around under the kitchen sink and discovering a forgotten box of electrical tools from my freelance film days. Now I wanted to drop everything and organize under the sink, thinking ahead 9 months down the road when the baby will start crawling everywhere. I took a deep breath and managed to stay on track. The frame was assembled and now the next step was getting a crescent wrench to tighten the eyebolt. Now I was stuck. I quickly realized, after looking through three boxes of old tools spread out between two floors that there might be 2 big flashlights, 3 hammers and 50 screwdrivers deposited throughout the house, there wasn't a crescent wrench to be found. The only ones we had were outside in my husband's tool bag in the trunk of his car and it was starting to get icy in the driveway.
I decided that the eyebolt tightening step could be skipped and put the rest of the bassinet together. At this point it was taking up so much of the bedroom that I had to finish it. And now I was ready to finish the laundry and bake cookies. First I had to organize the baby's dresser drawers. Fortunately, no tools were involved and it took about 5 minutes.
Now it was on to the living room and the mountain of papers that I had accumulated over the past 2 months. I had figured out that the reason I don't file much at home is because it's a pain to shove the folders back and forth and stuff the bills in. So I made a decision to clean out the old paperwork from the files while I finished watching a DVD of Six Feet Under, season 4. Another box of worms, but I plowed through and collected a pile a foot and a half high of paperwork that could go down to the basement. By now it was 8 o'clock and I wanted to eat dinner and watch the Simpsons. After that, finally, I made cookies and put the laundry in the dryer.
So it was 10 o'clock on Sunday night and the house was clean, there were chocolate chip cookies cooling on the kitchen table and the laundry was almost dry. Now I had a whole 2 hours ahead of me to do everything on my list that I had put together on Friday. The giant pile of assorted tools in the middle of the bedroom floor could wait another day.
I would develop several of the 800 domain names I've purchased on impulse, devise some revenue streams and generate more of a supplemental income. I have the skills and the know how, I just don't have the free time. I'm lying - I actually could find the time if I really wanted to. They say you can make time for anything. Unfortunately, Celebrity Big Brother 6 started last night, so I'm pretty much booked for the next 60 evenings."
Muchos Gracias to David Pye of Pye in the Face fame for putting it so succinctly. I wish I had the time to purchase 800 domain names.
I had one of those bizarre bursts of energy that one gets at random times during a pregnancy and coupled with an overflow of the nesting instinct discussed on June 3rd, 2005, I was up at 8am after falling into bed at 2am Sunday morning. I got my Six Feet Under fix out of the way, went to Target and walked around for an hour just looking at stuff. You know you are turning into a suburb dweller when you can admit to yourself that you actually enjoy walking around Target mentally cataloguing all the different products they have created using Isaac Mizrahi and Hello Kitty as their inspiration.
I actually had a list of stuff I wanted to get done on the computer, but decided to put together our new bassinet, which involved cleaning out a corner of the bedroom, which then involved taking a load of laundry down to the basement. After that, I had to assemble the frame, which involved finding W-40, which involved digging around under the kitchen sink and discovering a forgotten box of electrical tools from my freelance film days. Now I wanted to drop everything and organize under the sink, thinking ahead 9 months down the road when the baby will start crawling everywhere. I took a deep breath and managed to stay on track. The frame was assembled and now the next step was getting a crescent wrench to tighten the eyebolt. Now I was stuck. I quickly realized, after looking through three boxes of old tools spread out between two floors that there might be 2 big flashlights, 3 hammers and 50 screwdrivers deposited throughout the house, there wasn't a crescent wrench to be found. The only ones we had were outside in my husband's tool bag in the trunk of his car and it was starting to get icy in the driveway.
I decided that the eyebolt tightening step could be skipped and put the rest of the bassinet together. At this point it was taking up so much of the bedroom that I had to finish it. And now I was ready to finish the laundry and bake cookies. First I had to organize the baby's dresser drawers. Fortunately, no tools were involved and it took about 5 minutes.
Now it was on to the living room and the mountain of papers that I had accumulated over the past 2 months. I had figured out that the reason I don't file much at home is because it's a pain to shove the folders back and forth and stuff the bills in. So I made a decision to clean out the old paperwork from the files while I finished watching a DVD of Six Feet Under, season 4. Another box of worms, but I plowed through and collected a pile a foot and a half high of paperwork that could go down to the basement. By now it was 8 o'clock and I wanted to eat dinner and watch the Simpsons. After that, finally, I made cookies and put the laundry in the dryer.
So it was 10 o'clock on Sunday night and the house was clean, there were chocolate chip cookies cooling on the kitchen table and the laundry was almost dry. Now I had a whole 2 hours ahead of me to do everything on my list that I had put together on Friday. The giant pile of assorted tools in the middle of the bedroom floor could wait another day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
