I've got it!

This shall be my next cross stitch!


Also, my Julius Caesar comic is finished has terminated fantastically.

Cross-Stitch Success?

My first cross-stitch project!

It is of a goose meeting a friendly snail, from a kit I found in the back of a closet (circa the late 70s-early 80s).

I've spruced it up a bit by disregarding the color instructions. PhotoBooth isn't really doing justice to the pinkness of the goose.

I've hunted through the backs of all the household closets and found no more free 1970s cross-stitch patterns, so perhaps for my next effort iI'll make my own.

Browsing online I've discovered that most patterns are best appreciated ironically:

Also, many seem to be concerned with welcoming people to places.

Animals are also popular, whether offering encouragement:

Drunkenly declaring their love*:

Or just hanging out, striking self-satisfied poses:

*That bunny is going to be sooooo embarassed when his friends tell him about this tomorrow.

Comments!

The word on the street is that my comments aren't working! I have heard this from nigh on five people, which is three more than I even thought read my blog. And I get the impression those three mostly want to post impassioned defenses of You Know Who and his hideous hair.

Rest assured, hoardes of readers! I am working on this comment problem as dilligently as a very, very lazy person with little-to-no knowledge of programing can!

In the meanwhile, here is a graph I've made of my readership, based on this new information:
Advertisers take note!

An Open Letter

Dear Giles from Buffy,*

What the crap are you doing in this Merlin abomination? I just tried to watch it and literally could not stand it for five minutes.

I mean, come on, man. You're Giles! Surely there's something British and classy that needs doing... Isn't there some Dickens adaptation you could be staring in?

You know what? I'm not even angry. I'm just disappointed.

And why, in this sort of production, do the grungy little marketplaces outside the castle always have a stand selling oddly shaped baskets? Were weird baskets really in such high demand among the peasants of pseudo-historical Britain? They don't seem to be useful for anything other than decor... Are these stands like the Ye Olde Pier One? And if so, how do they make any money, when the people are all starving and oppressed?

Seriously. Get it together, man.

Love,
Kitty Pimms

*Yes, I know you have a real name. Shut up.

Is It Just Me...

...Or is Sir Walter Raleigh giving me the "Pattinson Eye" in this portrait?



Aw, and look, he's got his kid doing it too:



Is that the look that got Bess Throckmorton in to bed?



Liz and her ermine are Not Amused.

I Have Not Words...

...to describe how awesome this is:



I'll just quote Jezebel's intro, because seriously. I have not words.

"In this brilliantly edited clip by Rebellious Pixels, Edward shows up at Sunnydale High and tries to put the moves on Buffy Summers, who sees right through his sparkly bs, shutting him down at every opportunity"

Some highlights:*

In the cafeteria part, there is a brief glimpse of Alice (from Twilight) and she totally has the same hair as Willow. It's fitting since Alice is the only Twilight character I mildly approve of.

The use of one of my all-time favorite Buffy quotes: "What are you doing? Here? At this table, talking to me, like we're some kind of talking buddies?" Oh, the many times have I wanted to say that (substituting "table" for "any place I go in my life").

The "Are you sure this isn't some fanboy thing?" line from "Buffy vs. Dracula": especially great because, had that episode happened within the last year or so, she totally would have said "Edward" instead of "Lestat"

And that reminds me: Some one in an A.V. Club discussion of the latest episode of True Blood** pointed out how the now-classic "brooding dark haired vampire+fun blonde vampire=good homoerotic times" was clearly at work, and attributed that convention to Buffy (Angle/Spike). Had I not been a good five days late to the discussion (having just totally legally watched that episode online), I would have had to point out in the most pompous manner possible that Angel and Spike are so obviously ripped off from Louis and Lestat... something that used to bug the crap out of me when Buffy first aired.

Aaaaaaand I'm going to just stop right there, because this may be the nerdiest post I've ever written. Which is an achievement.

*Perhaps the only downside is that I could identify which episode almost every one of those Buffy clips was from.

**Which was also pretty great... the vampires are really hitting it out of the park this week. UPDATE: The trend continues at Go Fug Yourself, where they say of Kristen Bell's outfit "That is saucy. I feel like this might be the uniform they put the waitresses in over at Twilight McLestat's Vampire Bar and Grille" and of Eva Green's "BLAAAAAAH. This woman is not particularly interested in draining the blood of the innocent, or interrupting the sleep of the just, or disturbing the dinner of the holy, or stealing the mail of the virgins, or trimming the bangs of the uptight, or anything even REMOTELY sexy and vampiric. And ergo, I have no use for her."

Lundi je ne fait rein

Here's what I've learned about HPV from the constant ads on Hulu, the ones with the jaunty French song:

1. Condoms don't always protect you from it

2. Practically everyone has it

3. You can have it and not know it

4. You can get it without having sex

5. Basically, you and everyone you know has it and you're all going to die.

6. Friday is for you!

Last week, when I was watching Arrested Development, it was all "Remember when men were men, and they drank real vodka?" ads, and not a lady-related product in sight.

This week, I'm watching Buffy, which Hulu seems to thinks appeals to both the boys and the girls.

In addition to being told I have HPV and encouraged to use Dove products, I've also been invited to play a video game that represents "a generational leap in open world destruction" (yay?) and seems to be all about blowing up buildings for no reason. There have also been several ads for the Ghostbuster's video game, and I think my dreams will be haunted by the game version of Dan Ackroyd. And now that 30 Rock has popularized the term "uncanny valley," I can articulate why without sounding like a big nerd.

That is so Hufflepuff

You know how, during the run of a show, there comes a point where you get a little sick of the play and everyone involved and you have to try really hard to remind yourself why you wanted to be an actor in the first place?

Or is that just me?

Anyway, we just finished our first week of rehearsals and right now we're in the bright and shiny patch where everything is fun and new and exciting. And because I'm a bitter husk of a human being who hates love (remind me to post about that later), all this happy joy of performance makes me think of last summer, specifically the parts of last summer when I felt like most of the rest of the company could take a long walk off a short pier, and take all the stupid costumes with them while they were at it.

One day, we were all sitting around backstage, sweating through our costumes, when somehow the topic of Harry Potter came up (I have this theory that the sort of theatre person who gravitates toward Shakespeare tends to also gravitate toward meticulously created fantasy worlds. Maybe I'll post about that sometime too).

Nearly a year later, I can't quite recall how the conversation went, but it turned into a discussion of how Hufflepuff was clearly the lamest house, and how humiliating it would be to be placed in Hufflepuff, and how any kid who actually wanted to be in Hufflepuff would be the Saddest Kid on Earth. And from thence we invented the adjective Hufflepufflian, for instances of rank stupidity and egregious laziness. The phrase "that's so Hufflepuff" was tossed around to describe thoughts of extreme lameness.

But the apex of this bored, sweaty and somewhat mean-spirited bout of Hufflepuff mockery (after we'd singled out the cast members who were obvious Hufflepufflians), was the founding Hufflepuff Community College.

And all of that was just a very unnecessarily long introduction to this:


I'll go ahead and justify it's creation as Photoshop practice.

The Juvenile Truth

I am an occasional visitor to that blog that showcases foreign signs with odd English usage. I like to pretend that I enjoy it because I love playing with language, that I come not for the "cock fried rice"-style humor but for the moments of inadvertent poetry:



Or the times when some anonymous sign-maker has managed to use our language with more precision and creativity than we usually do:



But then, I see something like this:


And giggle for the rest of the day.

Why My Car Is Awesome

I totally thought the new season of True Blood started this weekend, but alas, it does not.

However, on the HBO website there are many vampire-themed ads, including this one for my car:*



Mini Coopers: So cool, vampires would totally buy them.

In other things from my life randomly featured on the internet, this LOLcat:



Is hanging out in a Crèche that looks exactly like the one my family has trotted out every December since time immemorial.

Here's the way we like to trick it out, daycare-style:



*Okay, mine's not a convertible. In fact, I think Mini convertibles look really, really stupid with their tops up, and in Chicago there are an average of four days a year when it's not too hot, too cold or too rainy to have one's top down. Plus, when I open up my windows and sunroof it's practically a convertible. Also, they didn't make the convertible yet when I bought mine. Also, the Clubman is totally bullshit, with it's cute little half-door. I'm pretty sure all the really cool vampires drive 2003 Minis. Probably red with black tops. That smell like cigarettes and vegetable korma. 'Cause I got Indian food tonight and left it in my car for a couple of hours. I can't believe I'm still writing this footnote. I've gotta go to bed.

Top Five Things I will Pay to See in a Movie

1. Dinosaurs
2. Immaculately Stylized Quirkiness
3. Adaptations of Shakespeare
4. Vampires
5. Magical Otherealms

List-making. Is there anything more satisfying?

I feel like the stuff mentioned yesterday ("Catholic-themed creepiness" "Edwardian costumes" "people trapped on a spaceship with mysterious evil") would fall around #15 on the list... and in between somewhere there'd have to be space for Musicals set in the 19th Century, Knights, Ireland, Witty But Slightly Inept Criminals, Moody Loners in Northern Climes, Self-Destructive Yet Brilliant Artists, Zombies...

Honestly, there really isn't a lot I wouldn't pay to see in a movie... that list would probably consist mostly of actors I hate.

Anyway, there was going to be a point to this, but I'm distracted by how awesome a movie featuring all five of those things would be.

Perhaps Wes Anderson could direct a film, loosely based on The Tempest, in which a shipwreck lands our plucky heroine in a mysterious world of vampires and dinosaurs.

Some Randomness

We used to have one of those cheap plastic piano-rugs when I was a kid, and I could totally play the first dozen notes of Fur Elise on it, but then ran out of keys. If I were ever rich enough to be utterly ridiculous, instead of a bowling alley in my basement I would have one of these, with a full-sized pianosworth of keys.

(the "pianosworth" is a fabulous new unit of measurement I just made up, and might also double as my butler's name. Should I ever be rich enough to be totally ridiculous).

Also, enjoy some bug porn.



Finally, while browsing e-cards for various neglected friends and family members I came across this:


Which is totally true, as I dislike both Dan Brown and Tom Hanks with a pair of fiery passions, but also amuses me because I rather enjoy movies that rely heavily on the occultish aspects of Catholicism for eerie atmosphere. I was never more proud of my Catholic heritage in my goth days (though back then I was officially a pentagram-wearing pseudo-pagan). In grad school, I wrote many a paper on anti-papist plays and pamphlets of the 16th and 17th centuries. Basically, on the list of things I'll pay to see in a movie "Catholic-themed creepiness" comes just after "Edwardian costumes" and before "people trapped on a spaceship with mysterious evil."

I should actually make that list someday. Number one is definately "dinosaurs." But is number two "adaptations of Shakespeare" or "immaculately stylized quirkiness"?

Food for thought.

Bamboo Art

Made on my Bamboo

Who Hasn't?

If you have ever yearned to own a Victorian shopfront, an old tin chapel, or a box of glass eyes (assorted colours), then an auction in the Forest of Dean could be too tempting to pass over.

Victorian Museum Auction

Overrated

Nothing gets my goat more than the following sort of exchange:

Me: I'm totally obsessed with _____'s new album!

Other Guy: I always thought _____ was overrated.

Oh, really? Why? By whom? How does that invalidate my enjoyment? Rarely does Other Guy know the answer to those questions. Calling something "overrated" seems to be hipster code for "I feel that I am too cool to like that."

However, this is entertaining. I'll let them explain themselves:

Have you ever wanted to be smart and sassy like Christopher Hitchens, without having to sacrifice your liver or your dignity? Well, here’s your chance!

According to a 2006 New Yorker profile, Hitch once declared, apropos of nothing, “that the four most overrated things in life were champagne, lobsters, anal sex, and picnics.” Like all of Hitch’s opinions, his List offends everyone, for different reasons. Still, you can’t help but admit there’s something to it.

Here's mine:



(illustration brought to you by my new birthday toy).

Coincidental

During my nap-time internet-ing around (after I got pissed off at like the thousandth instance I've seen this week of "freedom of speech" related foolery) I happened to check and see what those crazy dinosaurs were up to.

It turns out, they were expressing the very sentiments I used to justify getting my first tattoo. Which I gave myself as a birthday present, nigh on 5 years ago today:




My actual words were: "Look, mom, if I ever become the sort of person who doesn't want a mermaid tattooed on her thigh, I don't want to know myself."



Half a decade and two degrees later, it's still true.

Feral Children

I just watched the latest episode of Fringe (it's like the X-Files, but with that dude from Lord of the Rings), which featured a creepy bald kid psychic kid they found in a basement. "Inner Child" is the name of the episode, btw. In case you were wondering if that was meant to be a picture of my inner child, who actually looks like this.

In the "recap of the episode's influences" section (you know, the part where some smart type explains the historical precedent for the weirdness at hand) they mentioned several famous "feral children" of history, which reminded me of a book I had on the same subject that scared the crap out of me when I was younger.

In particular, there was a story about a girl from the pioneering days who was found in the woods and taken in by a young couple who had just lost their own child. Of course they tried to civilize her and make her wear dresses and what not. But when she heard wolves howling in the woods at night she would go crazy and try to get out of the house, so eventually they had to tie her up in the barn in order to get some sleep. And eventually, some people came to the house and found the young couple dead and chewed on and the girl nowhere to be found... but no one could say if the wolves had rescued her, or if she had escaped...

I was going to say I'd like to find that book again and see if it's really as frightening as I recall, but just typing that story creeped me out, so perhaps I'll let the book rest in whatever hole it crawled away to. Anyhoodle, the point is, I am easily disturbed by children behaving in creepy, non-childish ways (The Ring pretty much left me unable to sleep for my entire sophomore year of college). 

And speaking of feral children, we're going to have a house full of them tomorrow (twice as many as usual), and a schedule which includes two birthdays, egg dying, the music lady, and a special project with one of the parents.

So, if you happen to stop by later and find Linda and I half-eaten, the children did it.

Ada Lovelace Day (3/24/09)

This is probably the last BlogClassic, since most of the rest is just stuff I wrote in order to fulfill my goal of writing something everyday (I know, this is the crap that I actually put thought into). I debated whether or not to post this, since its timeliness has passed, but it was the first 'blog about something day' that I participated in with my shiny new (now old) blog, so it's kind of historic.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815, London – 27 November 1852, Marylebone, London), born Augusta Ada Byron, was the only legitimate child of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. She is widely known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace.

She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.

(thanks, Wikipedia!)

So, did you know that today (that it, March 24th) is (was) Ada Lovelace Day?

I sure didn’t until a few minutes ago, which makes me sad because if I’d known about it before the children left I’d have made it a “teaching moment” (yes, I do kind of hate myself for using that phrase). Also pretty sad is the fact that I wouldn’t even know who Lovelace was if I hadn’t read The Difference Engine.

Here’s a little something about me: I really like computers. Not just what they do, and what they let us do (which should be pretty obvious ‘cause hey, blog), but how they work. I like the concept of them, I like to know about them. I like the language of computer programming.

Why did nothing ever come of that interest? It might have a little something to do with the fact that, despite being an honors/AP student back in the day, I was expressly discouraged from taking any computer science classes on more than one occasion. Because they’re hard. Because I was more of a creative type. There was no explicit sexism, just the very clear suggestion that I was the wrong kind of nerd for that sort of thing. But I wonder, did boys who liked English and music and art get the same advice? If they didn’t, it’s messed up. Of course, it’s pretty messed up if they did, too.

So, anyway, here’s my contribution to the day.

A Woman in Technology I Admire:

Mary Lou Jepsen (born 1965) was the founding chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), an organization whose mission is to deliver low-cost, mesh-networked laptops en masse to children in developing countries. For her work in creating the laptop Time Magazine named her to its 2008 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

(thanks again, Wikipedia)

Monthly Mix (from last month)

I'm going to try to post a new 8tracks mix every month (It'll be like the world's most infrequent podcast). Here's the one I made last month, along with some random bitching.

Songs to pretend you’re sitting on a beach on a warm summer’s night.



By the by, I’m sitting here watching The X-Files, and there was just a preview for some iteration of Stargate that featured the most fakest looking explosion in the history of television.

This coming from a veteran watcher of B-grade science fiction. Seriously. It’s one thing to pull those kind of shennanigans mid-episode, when the suspension of disbelief is in full swing, but in the preview? Come now.

And speaking of SciFi, I’m miffed about the channel’s change of spelling (to SyFy), not just because it’s idiotic, but because they seemed to have changed it in part to attract the lady-viewers, who I guess totally hate science fiction. But are super into nonsensical homophones.

Sushi Shirt

Is it cool to get sushi while wearing this shirt?



It seems a little tacky or dorky, like wearing a band's t-shirt to their concert... though maybe that is cool now, I haven't been to a concert of "young people music" in like three years

But I have to get my weekly grocery store sushi! It's the Saturday lunch of champions.