To pitch my tent with no prosy plan,
To range and change at will;
To mock at the mastership of man,
To see Adventure’s thrill.
Carefree to be, as a bird that sings;
To go my own sweet way;
To reck not at all what may befall,
But to live and to love each day.To scorn all strife, and to view all life
With the curious eyes of a child;
From the plangent sea to the prairie,
From the slum to the heart of the Wild.
From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand,
From the vast to the greatly small;
For I know that the whole for good is planned,
And I want to see it all.
Last year’s threads were devoted to stories; in 2016, we’ve decided to celebrate poems and songs. This rollicking lyric by Robert W. Service isn’t immortal verse, but it seems like a fitting sentiment to usher in a new year.
Just popped in to apologise for not popping in. Too many people bribing me to do things.
The year has just turned, and there are fireworks going off all over Kingswinford. I shall therefore wish you all Happy new Year!
Happy New Year, y’all
I just finished reading through this entire thread* (I don’t think I’ve ever done that for a Random Thread), and within the first few seconds I felt instantly at home again. This blog is like that favorite book you’ve read a thousand times before but just keep re-reading because it is so superb.
After four months of adjusting to my new life as a college grad turned assistant editor (with my first issue under my belt), it’s nice to come back and see what everyone else has been up to in their spectacular lives.
Here’s to a new year of creativity, passion, and joy; an end to violence and suffering; and success in our individual and collective endeavors.
*[Kittymine is talking about the December 2015 random thread, from which we’ve moved her comment here. –Text-Relocation Gnomes]
Thank you, Kittymine! Stop by whenever you like. You are always welcome here.
Thank you! Just saw that the post was, quite logically, moved (was initially highly confuzzled).
It’s still 2015 for two hours here, but Happy New Year, MuseBlog! May we all be happy, healthy, and successful!
2015 was the worst (not for everyone obviously but it was for me and for some of the people I love most) but yo it’s almost over and we made it and we won. there will be feasting and dancing in jerusalem next year.
(also I learned a lot and read some good books and saw some good theatre and made some things I’m proud of, so. swings n roundabouts!)
Whew, made it!
Happy New Year to MuseBloggers all!
The “Good-Things-That-Happened-To-Me-In-2015” Calender
January-I celebrated another birthday
February-I am excepted into our school district’s summer creative writing program
March-I bike a 20 mile bike trail
April-My cousin gets engaged
May-I win the school spelling bee
June-I pass through the “Creative Writing” program
July-I trekk with llamas in North Carolina in the Pisgah mountains
August-I start school again
September-I join MuseBlog
October-My friend introduces me to a sketch comedy group
that i have spent way to much time watchingNovember-Our family’s Europe Bike Trip goes into planning stages
December-I experience “The Force Awakens” in IMAX 3-D
Let’s hope everyone’s 2016 list is much better then my 2015 list. Happy New Year MuseBlog!
Happy New Year!
2015 was actually pretty successful for me. Among other things I graduated college, got a driver’s license and a full-time job, moved to Africa and read a ton of books. On the negative side, only the loss of the relationship with my college boyfriend spring to mind, but the relationship was a positive thing for the first 10 months of the year so it doesn’t tip the scale.
2016, here we come! I think it’s going to be great.
And in 2015 you saw me! Would you mind posting the photo, please? I want to know how it turned out.
Slightly blurry.
Awesome! I’ll simply take the bluriness to mean you were so excited that you were both vibrating slightly.
Enough to make the entire Viennese Natural History Museum shake?
Yay, that’s us! It must have been blurry because of all the fog that day.
Happy birthday, Jadestone!
Happy Birthday, Jade!
I’ve become really happy now that I know that ‘bookishness’ is a word.
I am definitely work that word into the novel I’m writing.
Thanks, Robert & YYS!
I actually spent my birthday hanging out with ebeth! we played board games (SHES TERRIBLE, SO IS HER FIANCE, NEVER PLAY GAMES WITH THEM, THEY ARE THE WORST), ate good food, played video games, and went ice skating! A fun day, except for the part where she is grounded forever, and should never speak again, she will STEAL YOUR SPOT WHERE YOU NEEDED TO PUT YOUR TRAINS, and ruin your whole route, and then you will lose the game.
My family went for a walk on the beach yesterday and I found this very striking-looking piece of black pottery with neon pink/orange paint on it. P. says it’s probably part of a clay shooting target.
Good 2015 things that happened:
I made all-district (finally!)
my crush asked me out and now we’re dating
I was in the pit for our school’s production of Les Mis
I went to Chicago
Became section leader of the baritones
got to play a solo in our marching band show
won the biggest and most important competition of the season (which our school hadn’t won in 12 years)
completed nanowrimo
saw the new Star Wars movie
spent time with good friends
got my drivers license
got a car
applied to and was accepted to 2 colleges
released 2 EPs consisting of music I wrote and produced myself
Hopes for 2016:
release an album
college auditions
graduate high school
go to college??????!!
So apparently listing good things from the past year is a thing? (Also, hi, don’t think I’ve posted recently, but I’m frequently lurking).
2015:
Graduated veterinary school
Started my first post-college job as a veterinarian (?!)
Visited the two major Trek cities in North America, Riverside, IA, and Vulcan, Alberta (a must-do for any Trekkie out there)
Bought a house (!!!)
Plans for 2016:
Star Trek 50th in Vegas, baby!!!!!
Wisdom in dreams: Amidst a series of very strange dreams last night, the phrase “If anybody remembers Hiram Bingham, it’s for Machu Picchu and not anything he did as a Senator” came up. Which is absolutely true, because, looking it up, he really didn’t seem to do anything of note except get in trouble for paying a lobbyist.
2015:
-Had an across the board super low anxiety two semesters after a much higher-anxiety three semesters, which was wonderful
-Had entirely good classes, which was wonderful
-Got grades I’m happy with in said classes
-Loved my friends and my social life
-Wrote a 21k-word fic that I’m very proud of, despite not having written much in the way of fiction at all before
-Studied abroad over the summer! (And wasn’t even a little homesick!)
-Traveled solo while studying abroad!
-Started a thesis
-Finished up my 8th and final fall of going to football games for band
-Applied for a few jobs
-Pretty much one of my best years to date
2016:
-Graduation in May
-??????????
Yay for you! Senior year was by far my best, too.
I’m really glad to hear all of that. I hope 2016 is even better for you!
It sounds as if you have life under control. That’s the first phase of world domination.
I find it hilarious that I was signed out of second period to get a flu shot this mourning I was more concerned about missing second period and not getting “Perfect Attendance” then the actual shot.
Holy cake, those flight earplugs worked like a dream. No pain at all, even for a second, and I hardly even had to swallow to get them to pop.
Blah blah coldest winter and all that, but San Francisco in January is way warmer than New York.
Oh, did it finally cool off over there? We were sitting around a fire pit in SHORTS on Christmas Eve!
It was in the 30s this morning (errr, probably yesterday morning, it’s almost 11 here, which means midnight was a few hours ago in New York, but I mean when I woke up) and the day before.
Same! Our Christmas was so hot we almost turned on the air conditioning :0
Thanks, El Niño.
We didn’t quite reach the point of turning on the air-conditioning, but for this year’s Christmas in Connecticut, I didn’t bother packing a coat.
Happy birthday, YYS12!
Thanks!
Happy Birthday!
I adore the poem!
Same.
Our science (fine, STEM) teacher bought a “Chinese Dwarf Hamster” as a class pet (I feel VERY bad for the hamster, since it’s scared of crowds and unfamiliar environments. Her math class has 35 students who are all very loud. Just saying….) who is awaiting his name. Our teacher wants to name it Herbie and my dad thinks we should name it “General Tso” (General Tso’s Chicken). I suggested “Chewbacca the Hamster”, but came up with “Hamster Huey” later (Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie from Calvin and Hobbes).
“Science teacher” will be fine. Let’s hope this Huey avoids a gooey kablooie.
I may or may not have accidentally interpreted this as suggesting that the hamster should be named “science teacher”. (yeah I definitely did)
You’re free to suggest it if you like, but that wasn’t the idea.
The list of name ideas
Chewbacca the Hamster (Chewy)
Hamster Huey
General Tso (I’m not taking this one seriously….)
Herbie
Science Teacher
Fluffy
Hairy Baby
I like Herbie- it’s a good name.
Hamster Huey gets my vote, now and forever!
Your one of the few people I know of I (think) gets the reference. Hamster Huey is my favorite also.
All will be revealed tomorrow….
Oh, I get the reference. When I was younger my friends and I would take turns reading Calvin and Hobbes strips aloud in the car, and we all didn’t even have to see the strips to know what the pictures were.
Lizzie and I went to get vegan soul food and visit a museum in Baltimore!
Meanwhile, Jadestone was hanging out in Lizzie’s house, and took this picture with Lizzie’s bathroom-dwelling roommate.
I had a great time hanging out with fern, and my place had a great time hanging out with jade!
(I got to hang out with jade a couple weeks ago when she was going the other direction and that was super fun too.)
Cool people manage to congregate, despite apparently insuperable odds. I tihnk it must be a quantum effect.
The American Visionary Art Museum! That place is awesome, did you see the automata exhibit?
oh man, we didn’t – we both move pretty slowly in museums so we only really saw one floor. I wish we had, though, I love automata! Probably the coolest thing was this thing called the king’s mouth which was like a squishy foam rubber cave with a light / music show inside. It was kind of disturbing and fairly trippy.
My work had a “fun day” today (that’s a literal translation of what it’s called in Hebrew, which is “yom kef”).
We started by packaging rice for a food bank that’s been around since the late 1700s. Which was mostly fun, except that the guy directing us kept telling me to smile. But it was for a good cause, so no matter.
The next thing we did was a room escape game, whose end goal was to open a drinks cabinet and get rid of the booze so that a recovering alcoholic wouldn’t relapse. There was someone playing the alcoholic in the room with us, the story had him handcuffed to a swivel chair, which meant that while his mobility was limited, he could still cause mischief, like stealing our clues and tagging people out (which meant that they had to sit out for five minutes and not help solve the puzzle) We managed to solve it in under an hour, which the guy in charge said was pretty good.
Finally, we went to a Brazilian restaurant and got delicious steak and hamburgers and wings. We played pictionary with a whiteboard at the table while we were waiting for our food, and I won!
All in all, a very fun day.
If only for that, I will move to Israel. How often do you have these fun days?
Of course you won Pictionary! The only reason I won Boggle over Sukkot was because you weren’t there
This is only the first one, so I don’t know how often it will happen. From what I’ve heard from other people, they usually happen every few months.
That sounds like a lot of fun! I wish I could have been there.
There’s a girl at my school who I’ve been intensely friendcrushing on for months now and I just found out she’s in two of my classes this semester! So pleased! (and surprised, cos she’s an upperclassman and I wasn’t expecting to be in class together at all.)
Hey, I just found out that David Bowie died today. Now my mom’s listening to songs from Laybrinth because of him. I’m quite surprised that nobody on here has mentioned him yet.
The Hamster has been named! Chewie the hamster is now an official member of second period science GT.
Now my friend E and I are making Star Wars references about the hamster. We’re calling his Hamster Ball The Millennium Falcon, and we agreed he’s reluctant to get in it because it reminds him of the Death Star.
E thinks we should freeze him in carbonite, but I think that’s pushing the envelope.
Hamster Chewie, who helped make the Death Star go kablooie.
The results were very gooey.
Well now, we don’t know what computer system they were using to control that tractor beam.
*groan* Get out.
I suggested we gave Chewie a middle name (Hoping to suggest Huey)
If we combine pad all the ideas, we would have a Hamster names Chewie LeiaAlderannLukeHanLightSaberOrganaAnakinDeathStarMilliniumFalconPadméEwokWookieBlasterVaderSidiousCantina
(Yeah, let’s go with Chewie Hue)
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE RESISTANCE AGAINST HPBS:
I was doing research at work today and while on some website or other, stumbled across an article posted 5 DAYS AGO about a “rare pink hippo spotted in Kenya,” and the caption to the photos is – and I quote:
“As one herd of hippos took a dip in the African heat, one of their number was sticking out like a sore thumb. The hippo, which was almost completely pink, was seen in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve this winter by French photography couple, Laurent and Dominique Renaud. Speculation was rife as to the cause of the hippo’s mystery ailment after its normal eye color meant it couldn’t be an albino.”
Though a team from the Kenyan branch of the Resistance has been dispatched to the scene, Members of the Musiverse, I urge you to remain vigilant and keep your depigmitizer darts close at hand.
END OF MESSAGE
((FYI, according to the article, the condition is actually leucism, a skin condition caused by a recessive gene that makes its skin appear blotchy, with many freckle-like spots and a rosy hue. Unlike albinism, animals with leucism still maintain some shades of their original color.))
Yikes! Hippos are dangerous enough as-is!
You’re sure it wasn’t just a very large rabbit? They come in many sizes.
I sorted my bookshelves again to have oversized books on the top shelves and regular-sized ones on the two lower shelves. I have a semi-coherent arrangement by topic that I had attempted before but not really finished. I’m very proud of the transition points I found.
Fiction -> craft of writing -> self-help -> general reference -> general science -> space (general, robotic, human, astronomy) -> archaeoastronomy -> archaeology -> underwater archaeology -> oceanography -> history of exploration (general, mountaineering, polar exploration, miscellaneous) -> earth science -> geography -> history -> art.
There is some space open now, but just a little. I think once I bring home my books from NYU in the summer it will be filled. Then there will be no putting it off and I will just have no space left on my shelves.
I have recovered my laptop and I am still around!
Not sleeping well, but making progress in various areas. More specifics later, possibly.
We insist!
Would a little bag of lavender on your pillow help? I have one and it’s very relaxing.
Laptop recovery is an essential first step towards future contentment, a joyous existence, and general bonhomie,.
Kai: I’ll give it a shot if the problem persists.
Other updates: most of my classes are vague at the moment (am I going to get into the ones I’m waitlisted in? Will I be shuffled to a higher level of Spanish?) and for the next two weeks, which is inducing a fair amount of anxiety. But my English class this semester is a research seminar on dystopian literature, which is packed with early S.F. classics like A Canticle for Leibowitz and The Man in the High Castle. So I’ll be doing an intense paper on one or more of those. The prof is apparently a renowned journalist as well.
I just made tentative plans to see What We Do in the Shadows with my housemates, and they want to take me to The Seventh Seal as well when the Pacific Film Archive reopens.
I’m cautiously optimistic about my job prospects, for the time being. Career is a different matter (c’est la vie), but work-study is far better than student loans, at least.
I have higher levels of certainty about my degree (that too will be clearer in two weeks, though).
I read The Man in the High Castle over break and enjoyed it but found the end somewhat unsatisfying. Report back on your thoughts, please!
POSOC, I’ve looked up the professor for that class, and he’s very impressive. As a journalist, he has investigated some of the grimmest things and places in the world, and I’m sure he’ll bring the same sensibility to studying dystopian futures. You might consider reading a couple of his own books before starting the course.
Every professor to whom I’ve mentioned the class has said something like “oh, wow, him?” So, yes, I’m excited.
(Mark Danner, for anyone else who’s curious.)
I did a 500 piece puzzle with Mom and J.!
R.I.P. Alan Rickman. By Grabthar’s hammer, you shall be remembered.
He went too soon. Wonderful actor.
I didn’t even know he was sick. RIP.
Wait, what?! Oh my god. Rest in peace, Mr Rickman. I’ve seen many, many of his movies, but I’ll always remember him most fondly as one Professor Severus Snape.
Well. Learning of Alan Rickman’s death first thing this morning while getting ready for work sure set the tone for how the rest of today was going to go.
I think this the first time in 7 months [has it really been that long?!] of doing this job that I just came home and started crying the moment I walked in the door. Today SUCKS.
I’m reading David Roberts’ “Great Exploration Hoaxes” and I was talking about some of the stories with J., who started singing “Why You Always Lying?”, a song I was not aware of but now think is basically the book’s theme song.
I don’t think my gift of duct tape to my friend A makes a very good gag gift. I was not aware she collected duct tape.
Plus, she got me the exact same present. That’s what makes it funny.
(We have the same birthday)
Was that a pun?
I just realized that this year will be the fifty-fifth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight, and five years since we celebrated the fiftieth with a special Muse Academy party. Perhaps we could have another?
I didn’t actually go the the last one (ohmygoodnessfiveyearsagotimeflies) but that sounds like a most excellent idea!
So yesterday my musk turtle decided that she wasn’t getting enough food. As you can already tell, the results weren’t good. Our round goldfish fell victim to the turtle and lost most of her fins and one of her eyes. We rescued her before she died, but she can barely swim and keeps ending up stuck upside down. We put her in a large bucket of water to live the rest of her life in peace since she may never recover… As for the other goldfish, they are much too large for her. They are about a hand long. (A measure from the middle finger to shortly past the wrist.) but perhaps this isn’t the right place to rant about my dying fish…
Yipes! I’m sorry about your fish.
Yesterday, J. and I went to the American Museum of Natural History to see their new Titanosaur exhibit. Holy cake is it huge, it’s 37 meters long from the tip of its tale to the front of its skull! This species was discovered so recently that it doesn’t have a name yet, but we know it’s in the Titanosaur genus.
But what was even cooler was that the Titanosaur’s head sticks out of the hall it’s displayed in, into the hallway. So J. and I went out to look at the head, and saw that they were filming a museum video there in the hallway. We hung around to watch and realized the guy being interviewed was paleontologist Mark Norell, whose book “Unearthing the Dragon” I had read. After they finished filming, we introduced ourselves and shook Dr. Norell’s hand. He was very nice and asked about what I was studying!
Updates:
– I realized I never reported back on my trip. I ended up going to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Liechtenstein (walk across it), Switzerland (visited family for Christmas), Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Luxembourg, Brussels, and finally Amsterdam for NYE. I also visited Helsinki twice, bookending the trip with two overnight layovers. I ended up missing an extra day of school after getting food poisoning in JFK. Other than the food poisoning, it was amazing and I Had a great time!
– Classes I am taking this quarter include modern Japanese history, intro to robotics, computational genomics, and a class about technology and human values. Looks interesting so far, except intro to robotics is not in fact building robots but actually seems to be mostly matrix math. I feel somewhat deceived.
In other news, I bought a five-year journal and am looking forward to filling it in over the next five years as this should be a pretty transitional time of my life.
That sounds like a great trip!
It was! I had a great time. It’s nice to be back, though, and go back to my own single room where I don’t have to worry about waking up other people (I mostly stayed in hostels).
Good luck with the journal! It’s really awesome to look back on old entries.
Thanks, I’ll do my best to keep at it!
I’m in the bay area now!! I finished the first week of my internship and I get today off which is swell. I don’t like that my mentor doesn’t really know what he’s doing but I have a sneaking suspicion that’s what all researchers are like so I think I might have to get used to it. He had me read papers about a certain protein that he found that he doesn’t know that it does. The problem is that I know even less than him so I have to read twice as many papers just to get the gist of it. Another problem: this is a research internship so I have to have a submitted proposal by next Friday and he might be unaware of that. I’ll remind him tomorrow and maybe I can get started on some actual analysis.
POSOC: wanna meet up? Is there anyone else around here?
What a shame you weren’t there last week! We could have met up!
Yes, absolutely! Email exchange, so we can plot details?
how long will you be there?
I’ll be here until the end of April!
Where in the Bay Area are you? I’m about an hour south of SF and 2 hours from Berkeley.
Mom and Dad went up to see P. at West Point yesterday and came home today. It was great to hang out with him, but I really wish we could have had more time together.
I made Mac ‘n Cheese ‘n Chicken ‘n Peas yesterday and we had it for dinner tonight! Mom gave me directions and tips, but I did the physical work. Both of my parents said it tasted great.
So now there’s at least one thing I know how to cook when I go back to campus next week.
Right shoulder’s been hurting whenever I raise my elbow for a few days, I suspect since the day I had seven near-continuous hours of rehearsals. Looks like something to do with the rotator cuff (a term I just learned). This obviously is problematic for bowing – playing is bearable, but sudden changes of string and brusque movements (fast bow, accents) hurt more. I know I should take a few days off, but I’m annoyed this has to happen now, because exams are over soon and I’ll finally have enough free time to practise. The pain is not too bad so I’m hoping it goes away soon. This is the first time I’ve ever had any kind of playing-related injury and even though it’s not serious, it sucks.
Life’s going well other than that, though. I should check in more!
Dude if it’s rotator cuff you do not want to play on that – it can become a chronic issue that ends up needing surgery. Just take a couple days off.
Also, make sure that you’re stretching at least daily if not twice – I do my scales and then stretch just to get the blood flowing a little first. I do arms above the head, arms above the head to either side, arms across the body, behind the back, shoulder rotations in both directions, and sort of push up position in a corner of a doorway, lean forward and it stretches your chest – with arms above the head, arms at chest level, arms at natural waist level. Also I stretch out my neck to all sides. It takes maybe five to ten minutes at both and it will really decrease the chances of your getting injured. Make sure to hit the lateral muscles because those tend to get tight when playing.
Another thing to watch out for is make sure your posture when you’re not playing isn’t exacerbating issues – sleep on your back, not your side so you don’t cut off circulation to your shoulders / arms, and watch that you aren’t distending your neck forward.
forgot to mention – for me, I’m less likely to get hurt if I’m playing consistently a lot every day than if I’m playing a lot some days and none others – 6 8 7 6 feels better than 2 3 8 3 even though it’s more playing time.
Anyway, welcome to the wonderful world of job-related often-chronic pain!
Thank you for the advice! I don’t know exactly where the problem lies (anatomically) but I will take a break for sure – but it does seem to be getting better. I read that applying an ice pack a few times a day can help so I’ll try that as well. So much for learning that Wienawski for next week’s lesson…
I’m sure you’re right about the consistency thing – the seven-hour rehearsing day was pretty extreme, especially in the context of these past few weeks where I’d had so much going on academically that I’d only been managing to play a couple hours a day on average (another frustrating issue).
Icing / ibuprofen are good, generally – NEVER ice directly before you play, though, because then the area is cold and stiff and it’s easier to get hurt and not feel it.
Happy birthday to Tom Baker. ^^ he turned 82 today! Such an accomplishment!
(for those who don’t know, he played the 4th Doctor in Doctor Who.)
My Doctor. Bravo, TB!
Assuming Planet Nine is real, what would you name it?
Ooh, I was wondering if someone would bring this up! Going with the tradition of Greek and Roman deities, I would suggest… Orcus, the Roman punisher of broken oaths in the underworld. It’s even better that he’s related to the god Eris, the name of the largest dwarf planet in the Solar System. Also, the idea of a planet swarmed with Orcs is kind of funny to think about. Of course, if the name were to be other than Greek or Roman, then I would have to say Odin, the Norse god of… well, a lot of things, but partly the realm of death and, you know, the underworld and stuff.
Part of the problem is there are so many objects that already have used names. There’s a trans-neptune object named Orcus already, and an asteroid named Odin.
Aww. Why use up all of the good names on things that don’t really deserve them?
Back when Eris was discovered, I wrote to Mike Brown thinking I was going to be the next Venetia Burney (I was about the same age at the time that she had been when she named Pluto) with the suggestion that it be called “Minerva” only to be told that name had been taken by an asteroid a long time ago.
Nemesis and Tyche were suggested names for objects beyond Pluto in the past, but in conjunction with specific theories about what they were. Both are good names and would have the benefit of making Venus no longer the only planet named for a goddess in our solar system. (Looking it up, there is an asteroid Nemesis but no asteroid Tyche as of yet.)
Keeping with the underworld theme, there do not appear to be any solar system objects named Erebus or Tartarus to date. These names are associated with the deepest part of the Greek underworld and would fit with it being deeper in the Kuiper Belt than any known planets.
I like Erebus.
Dark, hard to see, full of surprises, turns up where it shouldn’t be… I think the planet has to be named “Kokopelli.”
And we could name it’s moons Lemon Meringue and Cherry and Strawberry and Blueberry and Key Lime….
Hmm, reading the IAU regulations for naming, they say that new objects beyond Neptune should be named for deities related to *creation* but not necessarily the underworld. But if Tartarus the deity was supposedly the third thing to come into being after Gaia and Ouranos, then I suppose it would still qualify.
If the Subaru Telescope spots the planet, I think it should be named after the Hawaiian creator god, Kane.
That name appears to be free, and it would go with the Polynesian names of the dwarf planets Haumea and Makemake. (Maybe we should name the next dwarf planet we find Menehune, as a pun on “dwarf”?)
How petty a use of a time machine would it be to go back to the 1800s when they were finding the first asteroids and convince the scientists that “No, really, there are millions of these, they don’t need Classical names, you’ll run out really quick, just name THESE for your patrons and save the Classical mythology for things bigger than, say, Mars”?
Petty uses of a time machine might be the only safe ones.
Would preventing an obscure nautical electronics company from failure be petty enough to be safe?
I just heard that “Persephone” has been proposed, and I have fallen in love.
I’m a bit torn, though. “Proserpine” is the version that fits in better with the rest of the planets, but “Persephone” was the name I always used as a child when she was my favorite goddess.
(Apparently both forms of the name have been given to asteroids, and it was also proposed for Eris. Huh.)
Oh yeah, lots of people wanted to call Eris “Persephone”, and I think they would have gone with it if it hadn’t been taken, especially because people were emphasizing it’s similarities to Pluto at the time.
If they name it Persephone we’ll nickname it Rupert, right?
I had to look that up, but it seems Mr. Adams sorta-kinda predicted how popular Eris’ nickname of “Xena” would be.
It was Xena first. I, for one, was disappointed that the name didn’t become official.
Google Image Search results that disappoint me: “Jedi Cosmonaut”.
“Goofy Looking Movie Monsters” does satisfy, though.
So… I finally did a real middle school thing and asked a girl to our school’s Valentine’s Dance next month, which is… exciting. Not to mention that I have had feelings for this person for almost 8 years now, and this is the first time that I’ve actually DONE anything. I can’t stop smiling. This is actually pretty cool.
Good luck, I’m sure you’ll sweep her off her feet!
Haha nope. The dance is the night of February 12, and it turns out that my family is leaving on a skiing trip with a few other families on that very same day, probably right after school gets out. My parents don’t even know that I asked her yet, and I don’t want to tell them if it’s not even going to happen. So I guess I’ll have to tell her at school tomorrow that I can’t go. I asked her, and now I’ll have to tell her that I can’t go. And I probably won’t get another chance like this in my life; I’m surprised she even said yes in the first place.
You know, it’s funny. I hate the kind of drama that goes on in my school, yet here I am in the middle of it. Cake.
Another thing: Did I mention that the skiing trip is partially for my birthday? Sunday, February 14. Valentine’s Day. How fitting.
What if you turned it around into something else–“hey, my family has this trip, and I’m really disappointed we can’t go to the dance, but do you want to [do X date-like thing–get coffee, go see a movie, play some game you both like, whatever] with me sometime?”
Heeeey that’s a good idea! I’ve got until tomorrow to figure out exactly what to do, but yeah… thanks! I was seriously feeling depressed, since it’s ENTIRELY my fault and I have no one to blame it on. But if I can make it better somehow, I’m in.
And it turns out she hasn’t seen The Force Awakens yet!
Hey, awesome! Good luck
“MuseBlog: Turning Lemons into Lemonade Since 2006.”
Get mad! Make life take the lemons BACK!Well, a blizzard struck yesterday and it’s still snowing! 3 feet or more I’m guessing. There is a ledge of snow hanging above my window and the little trees and mailboxes are almost covered to the top!
Must be five inches here so far.
Good luck with the weather- I hope you and your family stay safe!
End results, 4 and a half feet of snow about and finally the plows came and cleared the front street! I have a package I’ve been waiting to recieve in the mail since last Wednesday! The back alley was cleared a few days before the front. Waking up at 3 AM to hear that front plow though…the noise was somewhat relaxing. ^^
I’m snowbound, too. It’s very pretty here. And so quiet.
I shoveled out in front of my apartment this morning, but it doesn’t look like anyone else in town has done anything, and the snow is still falling. Where I live is pretty quiet anyway, but it’s nice to have less traffic than usual, and the snow is making everything pretty. There’s beans in the crock pot, and in a little bit my roommate and I are going to marathon our way through the long pride and prejudice. I’m glad it’s finally acting like winter for real.
Happy birthday, Kittymine!
Thank you, dearest sis! (argh, still haven’t mailed your birthday card! Blast it!)
Our school is hosting the final QB matches today and our team was supposed to be provided money from the office to purchase snacks for the 185 students and siblings. We weren’t provided money, so at 11:23 last night, we got a call from one of the other QB parents who was organizing the snack need. She could only get ahold of my parents (so far. I hope she waited till today to make phone calls).
We also are lacking student score keepers and time keepers (we need 2 of each).
Today’s match should be interesting, to say the least
Our extended family father north all posted pictures of their four-foot snowdrifts, but down here in NC we received less than four inches of snow. NC can’t handle any sort of snow at all, though, and we have like 4 snowplows in the entire county (not an exact figure), so we didn’t have school Friday or today. There were a lot of power outages! Luckily our house is on the same grid as the hospital so our power rarely goes out, and when it does they get it back up really quickly.
I’ve spent the weekend doing basically nothing (read: scrolling through social media and reading indulgent fanfiction) and practicing, and today I decided to take up cross-stitch! I designed my first piece (big fancy letters that say ‘NO’ and a flower and a border) and am now stitching it. My mom has a lot of old embroidery stuff- a big plastic container full of it- but she says her eyes are too bad to do much with it now. I think it would be cool if instead of wasting my time on social media sites (which I kind of hate anyway, it’s just a mostly harmless addiction I’ve had for like four years now) I could do something productive with my downtime. My hands cramp a little but it looks good so far.
ANyway, I’m on my last semester of my senior year, and my class schedule is making me really want there to be no snow days so I can go to school all the time. I’m taking Art I, finally- I’ve been asking for this class since my freshman year- and that’s a lot of fun. I’m also learning double bass in beginning orchestra, since that’s been my dream since I was 10. I have to drive to the next town over to take AP Music Theory because my school doesn’t offer it and I was wary about the online course. No one else from my school is taking it so I hope my clunker of a sedan will hold up with all the driving it’s doing. And then my fourth period is band, of course.
I also probably really really need a job. I should. apply for jobs. and I kind of have a resume but? it’s not any good lol
My school’s musical is The Addams Family this year, and i’m playing trombone in the pit.
I’m trying to release an album by May.
Oh, and my first college audition is this Saturday. I’m pretty nervous but also kind of not. We’ll see how that goes!
I’m similar in wanting to try a non-computer hobby in my free time, especially one that will produce something physical. I liked cooking with Mom over break and I bought some juggling balls in San Francisco, so I hope I can make 2016 the year I finally learn to juggle.
Attention! January is drawing to a close, and the February random thread-to-be needs a poem, preferably with a pretty image to go with it. Any volunteers?
(If you haven’t read this month’s poem yet, it’s here.)
Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow” is a good poem about the midwinter blahs one sometimes gets, as well as something that can alleviate them.
Yes, I love that one!
So, I got braces today. I’m not exactly excited for the next several months to come.
Did you get a color for them or just plain metal?
Navy blue. The worst part though it that I can’t say my S’s or C’s, so I always sound like that guy from the Princess Bride. InconSHEEVable!
That should go away pretty soon – you get used to moving your mouth differently; same goes for eating.
Definitely eat harder food reeeaaallllyyy carefully – the orthodontist will probably give a list of Forbidden Foods but there’s some parts you don’t actually have to follow – does anyone actually cut all of their sandwiches into pieces? Probably not. Tortilla chips can take a bracket off though, so until you’ve learned how to chew differently (which you probably will), avoid them.
There’s little brush-pick things you can get that you should carry with you at all times to clean bits of food out of your braces – get the smallest size. And I really do mean “at all times” – will save a lot of “oh no do I have stuff in my braces, am I marked with shame???” thoughts.
Also, if you eat rice, prepare for your braces to be full. of. rice.
I remember that when I first got braces, my mom (who never had braces) took me out to get McDonald’s as a “treat”.
One meal of chicken nuggets and fries (less than an hour after getting on braces) later and the rest of it didn’t seem so bad.
Silly post: I found found a cookbook from 1971 at a used bookstore on 4th Ave. It was put together from recipes submitted by members of the Explorer’s Club, which sounds really cool, but there really aren’t a lot of famous names or even names I recognize (I guess some folks realized how humorous it sounded even in 1971). There’s a chocolate cake recipie from John Glenn and a shrimp salad recipie submitted by Jim Lovell. There are also entires from Barry Goldwater and L. Ron Hubbard if you’re into that, but I didn’t have time to read those pages because the bookstore guy was kind of giving me a look since I’d already said I didn’t think I could buy it for fifty dollars. (It must be REALLY out-of-print.) Aside from them, the only names I recognized in the table of contents were volcanologist Haroun Tazieff (the childish part of me kind of hopes his submission was chocolate lava cake), polar explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson (ditto for Baked Alaska), mountaineering writer James Ramsay Ullman (chocolate landslide ice cream), and journalist Lovell Thomas Jr. (uh… I can’t think of a joke here.)
Hmm… I’m listening to NPR right now and they’re talking about the Explorer’s Club on RadioLab. I knew I’d heard about it before…
You hadn’t heard of the Explorer’s Club before? Well, I guess it might be more of a New York thing and there are so many similar organizations in fiction that it’s hard to separate out actual references to it from fictional references to those.
Serious Post:
It is now the liminal hour of 12:51 AM Eastern Time, a good time to discuss both January 27th and January 28th together. On these days, and throughout this week, we remember those who have given their lives in the course of the exploration of space.
January 27th, 1967
Apollo 1
Virgil “Gus” Grissom
Edward White
Roger Chaffee
January 28, 1986
Space Shuttle Challenger, Mission STS-51-L
Francis “Dick” Scobee
Michael Smith
Ellison Onizuka
Judith Resnik
Ronald McNair
Gregory Jarvis
S. Christa McAuliffe
Ad Astra Per Aspera.
There’s a really nice page that NASA put together accessible right now on the nasa . gov website to commemorate these brave explorers. We will never forget what they sacrificed in the name of discovery, even as we build upon what they found and created. Thank you, our heroes of NASA.
Royalty-free Soviet Space Program images, why are you so hard to find?
According to science, water is bad for you, now.
Oh, yes, dihydrogen monoxide can be lethal. That’s well established. Check out DHMO.org for the shocking truth.
I was called “Hermione” 28 times today. And 17 yesterday. I don’t remember HOW I got that nickname, but everyone seems to love it….
(I’ve gotten dozens of reasons from people, though. “You both have brown hair” and “You both like toast!”)
You aren’t by any chance a conspicuously diligent and capable student, are you?
That was a reason, also. I think most people *cough cough* My friend E *cough cough* like greeting me by squishing (not holding there nose) and saying in monotone very slowly “Hiiii Heeeerreemiiiiooonneeeee”.
The guy collecting monthly sign-ups for Oxfram on the street told me I was “unbelievably beautiful” today. Of course, that was before I said I wouldn’t be able to sign up.
So I discovered that there really is a coffee shop in Greenwich Village called The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and it’s really near the NYU campus. The awning says “Est. 1963”, but I don’t know if it had a different name then.
This is very surprising to me because in many of the original Spider-Man comics from the 1960s and 70s about Peter Parker’s time at the fictional Empire State University, he and his friends hang out at a coffee shop called The Coffee Bean– and I’ve never seen anything suggesting this fictional shop was based on a real one.
I have “The Marvel Comics Guide to New York City” right here on my desk and it makes no mention of The Coffee Bean being inspired by anything more specific than just the fact that coffeehouses in Greenwich Village were considered “hip spots” in the 60s. According to this book, the fictional restaurant first appeared in 1967, so it post-dates the real one– *if* the real one opened with the same name it has today.
So was one named after the other, and if so, which one? Or is it just a coincidence?
Regardless, the muffin and green tea latte were good.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do know that The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is international — I have seen it both in California and in Cologne, Germany (so I would imagine that it’s in a lot of other places as well). I was surprised to discover that it was not a Bay Area-specific place, like Peet’s or Philz.
Kai,
Coincidence, I suspect. If Wikipedia’s history is accurate, TCBaTL started out in the Los Angeles area and didn’t expand beyond it until the 1990s. Of course, it’s possible that someone at Marvel saw one in L.A., liked the name, and transplanted it to New York in the comics.
By the way, Kokonilly, Peet’s has spread well beyond the Bay Area. There’s one next to the Metro exit I sometimes use to get to work.
Oh man, I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s everywhere here, and so is Philz. That both of them start with P and that I don’t drink coffee means that I get the confused all the time. This can lead to problems (“meet me near the Peet’s!” “okay!” [some time passes] “did she say Peet’s or Philz? And which one?? There are like 2 of each in Palo Alto… oh dear”)
So my dad and D have discussed getting married previously, but last week he officially proposed. They went out shopping for a ring after the fact, and eventually ordered a two-piece engagement/wedding ring for her and a plain wedding ring for him. They haven’t picked a date yet. D’s brother, among other family members, is a minister, so they’re getting him to officiate.
I’ve more-or-less decided on my courses for when the academic year starts in mid-Feb- ohmykoko that’s two weeks away. Meaning the debauchery of O-Week is only one week away, which is relevant to my interests since I’m trying this “socialising” thing again.
I’m currently reading Neuromancer, which has been on my to-read list for ages and is extra noteworthy because I’ve somehow managed to not read any cyberpunk before now. (Cyberpunk: the original -punk. I think.)
The NSW laws about driving are pretty tight, so I have a test soon for which the reward is getting to spend another two years with P plates! Yay! /sarcasm> We have two stages, red and green, and the red is one year. It’s a computer-based test and I expect to be fine, which is good because the test-taking fee is $50. (35USD because the exchange rate sucks right now)
There’s a handbook I studied, and between procrastinating on that and doing Christmas presents, it seems I haven’t forgotten the adrenaline rush of approaching deadlines. Despite some of my badbrains taking the form of catastrophising perfectly survivable things, my more recent problems have been apathy. I’m regaining said motivation for reasons I can’t quite pin down, though. That said, I still aspire to get most important things done with a comfortable margin of error, because being stressed out all the time is very bad for my quality of life.
This morning, I booted my cat off the coffee table twice in quick succession. I felt bad for it, so picked her up and took her back to bed with me. I began to regret this when she decided to stay under the covers (instead of running off to the laundry hoping food will magically appear) and used my arm as a headrest. After finally getting comfortable and starting to drift off to sleep, she decided she’d had enough and sat behind my head. Then got on to my bedside table, then a set of drawers, and so on, finally settling on a particular shelf after knocking off half the contents. *sigh* Cat people.
Yep, that’s a cat you’ve got there, all right.
I bought pasta and carrots at the farmer’s market on Wednesday, and tonight I decided to try to cook them, but the pasta had gone bad because I didn’t know it needed to be refrigerated, so I kept it in the pantry like we do at home with supermarket pasta. Of course I didn’t find that out until the water was boiling…
So I just had streamed carrots and bread. If I digest the carrots okay, I’ll call it a half success.
My latest cat adventure: I had a drivers licence form to fill out, and left it on the kitchen table while I went to get my current license. When I came back, my other cat was sitting right on top of it. With muddy feet. *sigh*
The temperate (aka. vaguely habitable) parts of Australia are supposed to be uncomfortably hot and dry during summer, but the last couple of weeks have been cool and rainy. Meanwhile, I was Skyping with my biological mother in NZ this evening and she mentioned they had lovely 30 degree weather. That’s… not normal.
“Global weirding” is the new normal.