A morning without ravens is like a night without stars.

This is too silly!

Thu, 15 May 2008 19:57:21 GMT

Yoinked from scratchel

ROCK STAR NAME (first pet, current car): Anika Voyager

GANGSTA NAME (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite kind of shoe): Lemon Teva

HIPPY NAME (what you ate for breakfast, favorite tree): Tea Oak

SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, city where you were born): (I don't actually have a middle name - I have made them up over the years when I hated my first name)

STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 of your first name): Delst

SUPERHERO NAME (favorite color, favorite drink): Green Mohito (hee hee hee)

NASCAR NAME (the first names of your grandfathers/grandmothers): Dorothy Mary

STRIPPER NAME (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy): Rouge Chocolate

TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME (Your 4th grade teacher’s last name, a city that starts with the same letter): DeRoss Detroit

SPY NAME (your favorite season/holiday, flower): Autumn Lily

CARTOON NAME (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): Pomegranite Pants

Musical wheememe!

Wed, 14 May 2008 18:40:22 GMT

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Brilliant Bloody Advertising

Wed, 14 May 2008 05:14:33 GMT

Biking Better

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:23:10 GMT

I biked to class and back again last night, and this time I made it all the way up the hill to the art building. I stopped for lights, but I didn't have to get off and walk. I was SO out of breath, but I still did it. (hi kseniia_antir! Sorry I couldn't stop, but happy birthday!) On the way home, I actually managed to ride almost all the way up to 41st. The last half-block was still too steep, but I made it to that point. It's neat to be feeling like there's definite improvement so soon. I don't have class today, so I'm thinking about biking down to Bullseye and then out to Millends. We shall see. I badly need the exercise.

Comedy Buttocks

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:17:22 GMT

Gosh, would you take a look at the size of that thing?

I did it!

Tue, 06 May 2008 03:41:58 GMT

I did the scary thing I've been thinking about for almost a year. I rode my bike to school. Five miles or so with some hills, especially on the way back. In particular, I didn't think I could make it back up the hill. I did have to walk up the hill between 39th and 41st, but other than that, it was all pedal. I'm freakin' tired, but it was worth it and now I know it's doable.

Thank god I didn't have homework this weekend

Mon, 05 May 2008 04:39:37 GMT

For the last week or so, our big project has been to have our SCA household over for dinner and to talk over some plans for the future. What a juggernaut it turned into! On the plus side, Wes and I planned and cooked a feast for fifteen people and we weren't sure we could do it until we did it. I did my best to create a medieval atmosphere on the back patio. Wes cooked a lot of amazing food. The whole menu was documentably period - don't ever try to tell Wes that medieval food is icky. On the downside, I am exhausted. But still, it was worth all the effort. Our guests seemed to be enjoy the food and the company. Many exciting ideas were tossed around. I'm going to do my best to follow up on as much as possible. Too much to talk about here and I'm too tired. Now I get to refocus on school as my main concern, but making plans for the summer all the while.

Updatey Thing

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:00:56 GMT

The last couple of weeks have been busy-busy. I'm staying pretty much caught up on homework - there's been lots of it. Reading, project work, presentation (ugh) for design history. I really detested that last bit; she made us each stand up in front of a class of fifty people and give a short presentation on an 19th century artist or designer. I'm ok with talking to small groups, especially when teaching a class, but it was horribly intimidating to get up in front of that many people and speak. Still, I didn't embarrass myself horribly, and all one had to do to get an A on this assignment was to stand up and do it.

My other two classes are going ok, although I'm struggling a bit with the studio assignment. We're doing campaigns for a political cause or issue of our choice. I'm doing a poster and sticker for the Cascadian secessionist movement, heh heh. The problem is, I really want to do something simple and elegant and my skills aren't quite to the level where I can achieve my vision as yet. This is the sort of thing I'm inspired by:

Woodstock
World War I propaganda poster
The Beggarstaff Brothers Chinatown poster
Fabu Asian modern

I'll post some of my designs online so you can see what I've been playing with. Something I've learned on this one is that when you get stuck in design, change the format. My early versions were 11x17", and now I'm playing with 8x17". The long narrow shape is challenging, but more interesting.

The typography class is going better, I think. I've discovered that it's actually really fun to create typefaces. I designed two more than I actually needed, as well as upper and lower cases for the two I'm presenting in class. All I needed was two typefaces, either upper or lower case, not necessarily both. The two I'm going with for class are called "stewie" and "wartzenall". You'll see why when I get around to posting them ;-)

So life has mostly been school, but some very neat SCA stuff on the horizon. I've also been a bit more active. Yesterday I strapped on my pack basket and walked down to TJs, then came home with about twenty pounds of groceries on my back. Fun stuff. And now I'm off to bed, since sleep is good, right?

It can only get better from here, right?

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:13:38 GMT

There really is something to the idea of starting out a day right or wrong. Guess how mine started.

I'm applying to the art department at PSU for some scholarships. The application says to attach a DARS report (it's an evaluation of what you need to do to finish your degree) and that the deadline to drop it off in the art office is 5:00 pm on Friday, April 18th. When I tried to print the report earlier in the week, there wasn't an option available for postbac students. No problem, I figured, I'd go in and talk to someone in registration/records on Friday when I'm not so rushed. Reg/records sent me up to academic advising. The ...person... at the front desk in advising said that postbacs couldn't get DARS reports. My parking would expire before the counselors would be available, so I decided to go over to the art office to explain the situation and see what they suggested.

The art office was closed.

I double checked the application, yup, it said Friday. I decided to make a copy, attach a note to it and say that I would be in on Monday to discuss the situation, which I briefly explained, and then shove the thing under the door. Hopefully, it wasn't too pissy, since a couple of my nearest and dearest think I'm capable of effortless pissiness. At that point, I was so angry and frustrated that I was almost in tears. Got in the car, started to leave downtown, called netgecko to vent. He said I should go back to advising and get them to put what I was told in writing. Turned around, went back up to the campus, found another parking space, and signed up to talk to an adviser. Sweet zombie jeabus! The adviser was really nice and it turns out that the jerkass idiot on the front counter had no bloody clue what he was talking about. The process is extremely counterintuitive (you enter "no degree" as the option) but I could and did get my DARS. I went back over to the art office, saw lights on, knocked on the door, and actually got to hand another copy to a real live person. Oh, and do my best to hide how completely ridiculous it was to place a deadline on a day the office is closed.

That did it for my nerves for the rest of the day. I had some errands to run. I picked up a tuning wrench for my psaltery and a pitch pipe at Artichoke Music, and then went out to Fabric Despot for some linen and some canvas. While I was there, I looked at sewing machines, since mine is so old and decrepit, and ended up almost having a panic attack at the thought of giving it up. I actually had to reassure myself that no one was going to take the old girl away from me. It is, however, definitely time to take it in for a tuneup and general TLC.

I came home, and with all I have to get done today, I decided that the best things I could do for myself was to tune the psaltery and dink around a bit and then soak in the bathtub with vampire soft core (Anita Blake) until I felt better. Yeah, I'm still wearing a towel. I'm still feeling a little high-nerved, but much better than a few hours ago. Time to get dressed and get some stuff done.

Springtime for Good King Wenceslas

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:17:24 GMT

For a while now, I've wanted to have something musical to do at SCA events. I've got my penny whistle, but it's kind of loud and I'd rather be doing something soft in the background. So, when I saw a little zither the other day at Trading Up Music, I came home and did a little research as to medieval zithers. The little modern plucked zithers closely resemble medieval psalteries. For what amounts to a very nice toy, the zither I found has a very sweet tone. So I decided it would be fun to get it and noodle around a bit, as fjorlief puts it. :-)

For the last day or so, I've been figuring out what I know how to play that would be appropriate to play at events. I'm not a purist, you know, so older folk tunes are definitely on the list. So far, it's Greensleeves (of course), an early Lauda, Tis a Gift (my favorite folksong from hippie church camp), Sailor's Prayer (one of my favorites from Duncan's repetoire), Scotland the Brave, Here We Come A' Wassailing, and Good King Wenceslas, which are my two favorite carols. I've been doing a little research this morning and came across this. It turns out that the music for Good King Wenceslas is of Swedish origin, dates to about the 13th century, can be documented to the early 16th century, and is actually a spring carol called Tempus Adest Floridum. I'm going to see if I can learn to sing the Latin, 'cause OMG I'm a dork and it's so exciting to play a song not only that old, but from my medieval persona's neck of the woods.

Name that Lemming Song

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:39:37 GMT

Yoinked from Kwei-Cee; put on your music player and set it on random. Post the opening lyrics for the first 25 songs that come up and then your friends and loyal readers try to guess the songs. (my gawd, #6 is a gimme, #10 too)

1. Cowboy

2. One pleasant summer's morning

3. Hold on, little girl, show me what he's done to you

4. When shadows fall, he'll close his eyes to hear the clocks unwind

5. She is mine

6. I'm a love man, call me the love man

7. As I row, row, row, going so slow, slow, slow

8. Blackbird singing in the dead of night

9. Nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile

10. Starry, starry night paint your palette blue and grey

11. Surrendering to the night, silently take my hand

12. In the depths of the deep blue sea

13. Little darling, it's been a long long lonely winter

14. Gonna tell you a story that you won't believe

15. A woman on the radio talks about revolution when it's already passed

16. Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

17. Vande Mataram

18. Blue waters blue eyes color me

19. A thought in my head, I think, of something to do

20. I follow the night, can't stand the light

21. Said you want to be starting something, you got to be starting something

22. There were rooms of forgiveness

23. The night we stole the moon, a pirate's paradise

24. Well I sat down next to a photograph

25. Here I lay all alone, tossing turning

Archaeological Link

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:33:40 GMT

This page has a number of reports and informational handouts on medieval archaeology and the Anglo Saxons:

http://www.teesarchaeology.com/document_library/index.html
Neat stuff!

The Junket Chronicles, Part 3

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:51:22 GMT

Victory...and junket!...is mine! Batch five jelled! Let me just say, junket is quite fabulous. The texture is like nothing I've had before: delicate, and soft and smooth as silk. The flavor seems a bit more subtle after it fully sets compared to the liquid version, although perhaps I'm imagining things. I'm surprised that so many people have had it before, and also kind of surprised that my mom never made it. She made milk toast, which I enjoyed when I was five but sounds rather icky now.

Batch three (made with ultra-pasteurized milk warmed to a lower temperature) while not jelled, actually thickened up quite a bit. The texture resembled a very smooth kefir. It was quite delightful as a beverage, even if not all that could be desired in a junket.

I made batch five with non-homogenized, cream-on-top, pasteurized whole milk. The milk was heated to about 100 degrees, stirred for about four seconds, and then poured into a bowl and two custard cups. Then I placed the batch in the warm oven for about an hour before putting them in the fridge to chill. It was obviously set at that point, but I still wanted to chill it as per the directions. The texture isn't like gelatin or pudding or custard or yogurt. After I take a spoonful, I notice that there's a little bit of what looks like whey, a clear liquid with just a touch of milkiness to it. Next batch, I'll skip the oven and see what happens.

At some point this summer, I will try to make junket while camping. If it can be done and cooled, this would be an incredibly refreshing treat at a hot event.

Linguistic Lemmings

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:50:43 GMT

Where did you grow up: Klamath Falls, OR; Sunnyvale, CA

WHAT DO YOU CALL:

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
A creek.

2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.
The shopping cart.

3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
A lunch box.

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
The pan. (mmmmmmmmm, bacon)

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
The couch.

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
The gutters.

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
The patio.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Soda.

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
A pancake.

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
A sub sandwich.

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
Swim shorts.

12. Shoes worn for sports.
Sneakers.

13. Putting a room in order.
Picking up.

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
A firefly.

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
A pillbug.

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
A see-saw.

17. How do you eat your pizza?
Point-first.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
A yard sale. Or garage sale.

19. What's the evening meal?
Dinner.

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
The basement.

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
A water fountain.

The Junket Chronicles, Parts 1 & 2

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:30:32 GMT

After letting it sit on the shelf for almost a year, I browsed through To the King's Taste over the weekend. It's a book of medieval recipes, mostly taken from Forme of Cury which was a 14th century cookbook written for the court of Edward II. For some odd reason it put me in mind of junket...odd because there is no recipe for junket in the book. I've never even had junket, although it is mentioned in one of my favorite books as a child, The Dragon of Og by Rumer Godden:

Junket is what country people used to eat before they had ice-cream, some prefer it still. It is like a jelly made with milk, easy to swallow and Matilda made hers sweet with honey and flavoured it with nutmeg. She made two washtubs full...
..."Delicious," said the Dragon as, cool and sweet, it slid down his throat. He ate both tubs full and, "I think I'll have some more," he said, but there was not any more until Matilda filled fresh tubs. "We shall have to buy more cows," she told Angus Og. "I am going to need gallons of milk."

It didn't sound wonderful to me as a child, but all of a sudden, I had a serious craving for junket. The intarnetz gave me the basics. This was Sunday night. Monday, after class, I acquired rennet tablets from New Seasons. The directions said that it was ok to use 2% milk, although they suggested adding powdered milk "for optimal setting". I decided I could live without optimal setting for the first batch. Unfortunately, there was no setting. Fortunately, milk with sugar and vanilla still tastes delicious. This was yesterday.

I decided that I felt exceptionally stubborn, so I walked to the store to pick up some whole milk. Enter batch two. As of this morning, it still hadn't set. Grf. Maybe I let the milk get too hot. I came home from class and tried a lower temperature with batch 3. Nope. No setting. Maybe a bit of milk skin at the top. For batch four, I decided to use more rennet than the recipe called for. While the milk was heating, I re-read the directions. Whoops! I had used ultra-pasteurized milk, which the directions said wouldn't work. Who ever heard of ultra-pasteurized milk? Isn't regular pasteurized enough for this hedonistic generation? I'd blipped over it entirely before. As I said before, it's a good thing that sweet vanilla milk is yummy.

My dander is fully up and running now, so I'll be off to the store shortly to pick up whole non-ultra-pasteurized milk. Maybe even non-homogenized if I can find it. Junket will be mine!

Welcomes to the 21st Century

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 07:03:10 GMT

One of my professors has a website. It looks like he's going to be using it to hand out homework, so if anyone is interested in the fun stuff we're doing this term, here it is:

Mike Little's Powwow

Awesome resource for SCA newcomers

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:00:52 GMT

Whilst surfing teh intarnets, I came across a website that would be completely fabu for SCA newcomers and it's not even SCA:

http://www.abbeystalls.com/index.html

The week-long Abbey Medieval Festival is sponsored by the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology in Brisbane, Australia, and so is tremendously focused on history and education. This particular site is for vendors, aka "stallholders". They offer spiffy clothing guidelines and suggestions for appropriate medieval goods. They have primary source documentation to back up their clothing suggestions, as well as documentation for a medieval market stall. Best of all, when you look at photos of the festival, you can see that while people do follow the spirit of the guidelines, there's a good amount of variation in persona and clothing choices while retaining an appropriate medieval appearance. I'm really impressed. I'm also a bit jealous because apparently they're allowed to sell wines and meads from stalls in Australia. Darn our Puritan heritage. Darn it to Heck, I say.

The clothing guidelines are simple, well-reasoned, and offer different levels of economic class. The clothing they show is very basic and not specific to any particular place; definitely not laurel-level stuff but extremely satisfactory as entry-level garb. I think this kind of clothing would help newcomers feel like they fit in at events and looked good. It would also be an improvement over the pirate/goth/fairy/furry tail stuff running around (geez people, save that stuff for SF/F conventions). Another good thing about the Abbey Festival's guidelines is that they spend much more time on what to wear than they do on what not to wear. They make it easy to put together a nice-looking outfit. The shoe suggestions aren't as good, but shoes always seem to be the hardest part to get right.

As for the medieval goods suggestions, I sincerely wish that the SCA would adopt the same kind of merchant guidelines and enforce them. There's so much schlock out there. I adore our skilled artisans who merchant at events. I'm happy to see the beginning craftspeople who are brave enough to offer their products as they learn. After all, everyone has to start somewhere. I even think the thrift store re-sellers have a place as long as the goods offered are period and appropriate; they're an inexpensive source of necessities like feast gear. All that said, the resin dragon statues, fairy dresses, pagan goods, etc., really aren't appropriate and detract from the atmosphere we're trying to create.

Anyway, great resource, feel free to share.

Brilliant!

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:48:42 GMT

I've watched everything these guys have on YouTube and consequently have been laughing the whole time. These guys are BRILLIANT performers...and quite decent musicians, too.

Off to a good start

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:33:36 GMT

Ten more weeks and then I'll be able to take a real break. One week don't cut it. Nonetheless, I had a remarkably productive day. Came home from class, and took all the recycling down to Far West Fibers. They take things that curbside doesn't, and it makes me happy to throw out less stuff. It's a chore we've been putting off for weeks. After that, I *gasp* started on my homework. Yeah, it's the first day and we've got homework. Whoopie. I'm determined to stay on top of things this term, though, and that means doing the damn stuff as it comes in rather than putting it off until the last minute. I also picked up the living room and finished reading Shadow of the Giant. While being sick over spring break, I decided to re-read all the Ender novels (Orson Scott Card). Then I went off to my evening class, which promises to be interesting. It's graphic design history and the professor struck me as being extremely passionate and knowledgeable. Then I came home (again) and finished up the active part of the day by getting on the elliptical trainer for ten minutes. First time in a long time and it felt good. If I can keep up this kind of pace for the rest of the term, I will be in damned good shape come June.

Therapy

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:53:41 GMT

My therapist thinks I should keep a journal. Ha ha. More to the point, she thinks I should write down the things about my growing up that I'm working on now. I may or may not use lj as the medium for this endeavor. If I do, it will be friends-only, and only those of my friends who are interested. If you would like to act as a sounding board or maybe just get a better idea of where I've come from, let me know. Drop an email or leave a comment. No offense if you don't want to. And like I said, I may or may not share this stuff. At this point, It's just something I'm considering.

Eek eek eek (tell me about your mother) splash

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:07:33 GMT

Since everyone else is doing the Meyers/Briggs thingie, I thought I would too. And I'm still INFP and a strongly expressed introvert.

"INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It's as though they live at the edge of a looking-glass world where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities."

Care and feeding of the introvert.

Done!

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:42:43 GMT

/sigh..../

I turned in my final project about five hours ago.

The term is done at last. I've had rougher terms, but this one seemed long. Not as long as fall, but long. Still, I learned a lot and had a pretty decent time. My instructors were good teachers: they created an atmosphere in which I felt safe to play with ideas, create, and most of all, make mistakes. That's a biggie. The best teachers are the ones that make you feel like it's ok to make mistakes. That's how you learn. After fall term, a healing experience.

And now, since I lead /such/ an exciting life, I'm looking forward to getting caught up with housework over spring break. That and playing a lot of video games. ;-)

On the mend at last

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:34:02 GMT

Yesterday was the first day since last Wednesday that I could be vertical for more than a few minutes without getting woozy. I'm still getting tired very easily and sleeping much more than usual, but finally seeing real improvement. It's time to get back to business, with very little time to spare. Claudia, who is my favorite technical instructor, granted me an extension on my multipage project, so I've got until the end of the week to finish it, but sooner would be good. I have another project due by the end of the week, but it's small and halfway done already. My cd project is due tonight because the instructor is leaving town tomorrow, however I should be able to finish it today, even if not as well as I'd like. At this point, I care surprisingly little...I just want to be done.

Sighhhhh

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:04:07 GMT

With three days to go before two major projects are due, I am really sick. This will be day three of fever, sore throat, headache. And at first I just thought it was allergies - sorry, Allison, please don't get sick 'cause we had lunch. :-(

I managed to get through my final on Wednesday morning and made it to class on Wednesday night to make sure I wasn't missing anything vital. I did not, however, make it to class yesterday morning, and I haven't really been up to doing much in the way of work for the last two days. Today I'll have to start working whether or not I feel up to it, hoping for the best.

Thank you, Zach Braff

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:44:23 GMT

ZB tells us about one of the problems with spam:
Everytime I check my page there’s something like, “I love this fucking ringtone so much I wanna have sex with it all night long. I wanna impregnate this fucking ring tone. I wanna knock up this ring tone and marry it in Vegas, then have the wedding annulled the next day. That’s how fucking excited I am about this ringtone.