Recalling

Does anyone remember pocket rockers?

I'm pretty sure I had a pink one.

Whew!

Thanks to the brilliance of Carleton's step-brother and a Knoppix disk, we were able to discover that my computer's ailments were due to bad RAM (unfortunately for me, it was the larger stick of RAM). We swapped it out with another smaller stick we had available, just so that my computer won't hurt itself trying to run Windows XP on 128 MB of RAM, but I'm still glad to find that was the problem rather than something wrong with the cpu itself.

I still think I spend too much of my free time on the computer, though (even though I spend considerably less time on it than I ever have, that time in proportion to my overall amount of free time is much higher, and thus it is a much bigger nuisance.)

Fundraiser: Final Week

Hey all, it the 4th and final week of my fundraiser, the random prize is This matted and framed drawing.

The random number is: 6

Other fundraiser details here

Baseball??

Connecticut is between New York and Massachusetts, thus I've been surrounded by both sides of this rivalry for the past couple of weeks. Now, I don't even like baseball, but I suppose that because more people at my workplace are Red Sox fans than Yankees fans, then through association, or diffusion, or some other means of physics, that makes me a Sox fan too. And, as said to me, it is interesting to watch the potential ending of an 80+ year curse. So...go Sox! Or something ^_^

In other news, my computer is down for the count at the moment (I'm at work). I guess after all this muttering to myself of "I spend too much time on the computer" and "I need to quit the internet", my puter thought it would be nice and help me out.

Voting schtuff

For anyone in Louisville having trouble filling out their absentee ballot (or for people who will be in Louisville for the election but know nothing about politics), I found this site remotely useful:

http://www.wave3.com/global/Category.asp?c=57805

Granted, all I had to go off was a 30 second blurb from each of the candidates, but I felt like that was better than picking people at random, given I know NOTHING else about them.

Also, for people *anywhere* in the states who are doing absentee ballots, if you don't have yours yet then get on the ball! Send in the application like...yesterday, and call the county clerk offices and nag and nag (that's what I did, I sent in my application in August, then started nagging them a couple of weeks ago. Turns out my application never made it in, so they had to mail me a new application to sign and send back, and then my ballot. This took a little under 2 weeks). Time is short! Take care of it asap!

Plug 'n Chug

I wanted to plug some cool links to some of my closest friends' artistic endeavors.

First up, for those with a short attention span, I recommend Brendan's Anacrusis, a constrained writing project in which he writes short stories that are exactly 101 words long, 5 days a week. You can also get it as a newsfeed from

For those with a much longer attention span you must explore The Little Blue Penguin, Dave's site of wonderful writings, including Just Something, his serial novel.

For the glasstistically inclined, look at Ken's stuff, because Ken's stuff is awesome. Congratulations to Ken for getting a for-real job as a glassblower.

For the musical types, D Flo's skills as a composer are boundless. Be sure to check out his requiem (it comes in 3 parts), which was his final senior composition. It is awesome, though the recording quality is somewhat poor (if anyone has good sound editing skills and knows if there is a way to fix this, please let me know).

For the theatrical sorts, you must look at Carleton's website, and see his latest production photos from the shows he designed lights for. He is the best lighting designer who has also been my boyfriend ever!

Fundraiser: Week 3

Hey all, it is week 3 of my fundraiser, the random prize is A dragon etched vase.

The random number is: 14

Other fundraiser details here

A little <lj user=_anacrusis> of my own

Once upon a time, there was a river, and a field, and a great green pipe. Wertle emerges from the pipe for the second time and approaches Siddhartha, who is tending to his ferry.

“Is it my turn to be the ferryman?”

“No, you haven’t even left the city yet.”

“But…but I used the whistle!” She waves it desperately in the air.

“I’m sorry, but it doesn’t count.”

”Drat.”

“Why so disappointed? You knew that before you came.”

”Yeah, I know.”

“At least there are no Cyclopes in this version.”

“Yeah.”

Wertle climbs back into the pipe and disappears.

Fundraiser: Week 2, and other stuff

Hey all, it is week 2 of my fundraiser, the random prize is two dragon tumblers.

The random number is: 11

Other fundraiser details here


The opening of Guys and Dolls went extremely well. The audience seemed to love it, and we (the props crew) got tons of compliments after the show about how great the props looked. It was quite gratifying, and although we had to suffer through the great post-show slump the day afterwards, we were able to close up shop and have Friday off.

This weekend, Carleton and I went up to Maine to visit his Dad's family. The weather was wonderful, so on Saturday we all went to South Portland to see the biggest ocean liner ever, The Queen Mary 2: Judgement Day. After careful observation, I concluded that it was indeed a great big boat. Then we went hiking on a nearby island. It was a very cool little nature reserve type place, and at one point on the hike there is a "fairy village," where people come and build little "houses" out of sticks and rocks and other things lying about. Some of them were quite impressive, and it seemed like a very fun idea.

That night, we went on a Haunted Hayride, on which Carleton's 9-year-old half sister was terrified to the point of tears, only to brush it off afterwards and say "yeah, those chainsaw guys were scary, I guess." I, on the otherhand, was quite impressed with some of the masks the jump-out-and-scare-you guys were wearing. Some of them were really awesome, and it made me think that I should just give up everything and make masks for a living. Hehe.

All in all, a very pleasant weekend. Next weekend my parents and aunt are coming to visit, hooray!!


One more thing..

ATTN ALL CENTRE-FOLK

Does anyone know how to get ahold of Jeff Meyer?
I have lost his phone number, I don't know of any new email address, and I want to get back in touch with good 'ole Jeffery K. Any help?

Venting on the state of things

Every time I participate in, or even spectate, a conversation about the "state" of "things", it drops me into an imediate downward spiral of instant depression. We are such ridiculous RIDICULOUS people in this country. And sure enough, when I say that, people whole-heartedly agree, thinking only of how stupid the part of the population is that has opposing world views to their own. It is so very very very VERY FRUSTRATING.

You browse around on people's personal opinions wherever they may pop up in various forms of media, and you may see blatant ignorance in one form and say "oh they are so bad" and immediately turn around and see blatant ignorance on the other side. Vehement, hate-filled mirth about opposing culture on one side and childish vandalism and misinformation on the other. And quite likely both of these things can be criss-crossed across the board.

The only use of reading these very hurtful things in one field or another is to keep me from drifting too far into an extreme mindset myself.

I used to think trying to be moderate was a cop-out, but someone I consider to be an extremely wise and a fine example of a human being changed my mind when he spoke about how difficult it is to do just that. It's HARD to walk the middle line, in any situation, not just politics. It makes sense, it's much less work to be an extremist on one side or the other, because you have a whole half of a spectrum to dismiss as wrong, and don't really need to research farther than gaining enough to back your particular stand. Being in the middle is a ton of work, having to take in both sides to make any sort of opinion, with your only reward being called a leftist by the rightists and a rightist by the leftists, or perhaps being accused by both of "changing sides" when the need arises. I really don't know if there are any true moderates, but if there are they deserve cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. Endless supply.

At any rate, realizing things about the state of the world and the horrors of what is going on and how divided people are is very depressing to me. It makes me feel very helpless, and if I do anything to try and cheer myself up, I immediately feel guilty for ignoring such a pressing world-problem. The worst of it is, there are not many to talk to who are not easily worked up in emotion over one issue or another, in spite of being very good listeners.



EDIT: On the other hand, brighter news shows that at least everyone appears to be happy about Spaceship 1

Fundraiser with Prizes!

In light of recent monetary needs, from pesky car payments to buying insurance, my internship stipend is falling a little short. I'm having a fundraiser for this month to raise money for the upkeep of my website and hosting, and if anyone can spare even a small donation, I would be endlessly grateful.



this text can also be found on my website

The Fundraiser will Last until 12:00 AM EST Sunday, October 31st.

Click below to donate!

To make this fundraiser a little less dull, I've decided to give out prizes!! Here's how it works..

Random Prizes...

- Every week of the fundraiser, I will select a random number. The person who is that number to make a donation will win a prize! For example, if the random number of the week is 11, then the 11th donor (regardless of amount) will win. If less than 11 people happen to donate that week, then the random prize will go to the closest number donor.

Week 1: an 8 1/2 x 11 inch print of the Fenton picture on glossy photo paper.


Week 2: Two dragon-etched tumblers


Week 3: Small Dragon-etched vase.



Week 4: "Serpent vs. the Terrible Crayon" 9 x 12 inches, matted and framed with a uniframe.



Fixed Prize...

- There will also be one fixed prize for the person to make the final donation before the fundraiser ends. An orange crackle vase



Grand Prize

- In addition to the random prizes, the grand prize for the highest donation will be a free commission, either a watercolor/colored pencil piece, a pastel piece, or a polymer clay sculpture (medium and subject decided by the winner)



Thanks very much to everyone for your generosity!


This week's random prize winner number is: 38