In the original version of the post before this one (our Wii-kend), I referred to my brother-in-law as Herr Smith. I uploaded it, changed my mind about the wording, and then went in and changed it. But ever since that first upload, blogger now uses German for some of the menu items whenever I work on the backend of the blog.
When I upload a new post, it announces proudly. "Blog uploaded successfully! Blog anzeigen (in einem neun Fenster)." It also uses German for some other random items on different menus. But the funniest thing is that it only uses German for a FEW of the menu items; it hasn't switched over to all Deutsch all the time. It's like blogger knows that I only know a little bit of German, so it doesn't want to make me feel bad.
I like a blog program that cares.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Our Wii-kend
Yes. It has finally happened. Team Vallentine has cracked. The we'll-just-wait-until-Christmas-and-it-can-be-a-joint-present idea went totally out the window. Out the Wii-ndow.
Can you guess what it is yet?
Yes, Team Vallentine now owns its very own Wii. (And oh, how the Wii-isms have flown. I won't bore them with you here; I've said enough already, I know, and yes, they've all been done before.) It was quite a simple series of events that led to the breakdown: Mark had to go into work on Saturday and the mall is on the way home. No one said that Team Vallentine was strong.
It's a bit unfortunate, though, because we both started feeling poorly over the weekend (I don't think the two events are related), so we haven't been able to take it through its full paces yet. We have played the cow-riding game and yes, it is every bit as good as we expected, based on Dad's recommendations. We've also downloaded the survey thing that Jenny and Jeff are gaga over (it's nice and easy and you can do it while laying on the couch...which maybe explains its popularity...). But once Team Vallentine is again at 100% there will be no stopping us, and I have a feeling none of you will ever hear from us ever again...
Can you guess what it is yet?
Yes, Team Vallentine now owns its very own Wii. (And oh, how the Wii-isms have flown. I won't bore them with you here; I've said enough already, I know, and yes, they've all been done before.) It was quite a simple series of events that led to the breakdown: Mark had to go into work on Saturday and the mall is on the way home. No one said that Team Vallentine was strong.
It's a bit unfortunate, though, because we both started feeling poorly over the weekend (I don't think the two events are related), so we haven't been able to take it through its full paces yet. We have played the cow-riding game and yes, it is every bit as good as we expected, based on Dad's recommendations. We've also downloaded the survey thing that Jenny and Jeff are gaga over (it's nice and easy and you can do it while laying on the couch...which maybe explains its popularity...). But once Team Vallentine is again at 100% there will be no stopping us, and I have a feeling none of you will ever hear from us ever again...
Thursday, September 13, 2007
What, you still here?
Booker shortlist progress report, no. 23
I'm just over halfway in Darkmans...about 400 pages to go. I'm feeling alright--I'm hanging in there. I can do this. I can DO this...
I'm just over halfway in Darkmans...about 400 pages to go. I'm feeling alright--I'm hanging in there. I can do this. I can DO this...
Friday, September 07, 2007
What I learned at work today.
Apparently, you can bite the ends off of a twix and then suck your tea or coffee through it. I haven't tried it yet, but a few people at work said they had and that it's really good.
I'm excited.
I'm excited.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
THE shortlist.
So the Booker shortlist was announced today. This, of course, is a day of great joy if you are 1) an author who was shortlisted; 2) the parent of an author who was shortlisted; 3) the publisher of an author who was shortlisted; or, 4) someone who has committed to reading all the books on the shortlist and possibly the longlist as well if time allows, who isn't probably going to make the full longlist so at least now knows which ones are the "important" ones.
Last year and the year before I read all of the shortlisted books and it was good fun, so I decided to do it again this year. But then this year the panel decided to have a longlist of only 13 books (rather than the usual 18 or more), so I, like many other people with too much time on their hands and too much interest in this kind of thing, decided to try to go whole hog. I haven't done too badly (5 and a half as it stands today), but not up to professional standards, I imagine. So now I can at least get started on the shortlist (and I've already read one of them and I'm in the middle of the second--The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Gathering, respectively--woo hoo!). I should be able to make it by the 16th of October or whenever it is. Plus half of the shortlist are, well, short, so that should help me make up time...which is good because I haven't yet cracked the cover on Darkmans, the behemouth of a book clocking in at about 900 pages.
Last year and the year before I read all of the shortlisted books and it was good fun, so I decided to do it again this year. But then this year the panel decided to have a longlist of only 13 books (rather than the usual 18 or more), so I, like many other people with too much time on their hands and too much interest in this kind of thing, decided to try to go whole hog. I haven't done too badly (5 and a half as it stands today), but not up to professional standards, I imagine. So now I can at least get started on the shortlist (and I've already read one of them and I'm in the middle of the second--The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Gathering, respectively--woo hoo!). I should be able to make it by the 16th of October or whenever it is. Plus half of the shortlist are, well, short, so that should help me make up time...which is good because I haven't yet cracked the cover on Darkmans, the behemouth of a book clocking in at about 900 pages.
Monday, September 03, 2007
OK, I'm back.
Thanks to my sisters' recent forays into the blogosphere (AmigoNet and ScreaminJohn's Blog), I have returned to this long dusty corner of the interweb, brushing away the moldy bits and bytes I long ago stored for no-one-in-particular's purpose (not even my own).
I reread the original (and only) entry. Man. This mockery of postmodern self-reflexivity just isn't going to cut it. I know (or knew) too many people who actually know what that means...or at least what it is supposed to mean. So if I am really going to try to do this (and this no more than an experiment after all) then I have to just play this one straight.
But beginning this process reminds me of something that Kurt Vonnegut talked about in an archived interview from Fresh Air. He talked about when he first began writing and mentioned (if I'm remembering this all correctly) that being a science major at college helped him because if he had been a literature major, he would have realised that writing something good is hard and would never have started. But since he was just a science geek, he didn't know what good writing was supposed to be like or that it was difficult, so he just wrote. So I'll just write, when and what I can, and never be as good as Vonnegut's left nostril and leave it at that. There's no point in trying to write something good when you know how good good can really be (and know that you're no good). Or something like that.
Plus, as my Dad and I were discussing last night, there is so much digital storage space out there in the world these days, that it doesn't matter if I'm taking up some chunk of memory for my navel-gazing ramblings. Actually, on that subject, Dad told a very interesting story about how when he was doing network support a while ago (back when they fought over kilobytes rather than tetrabytes or paeleoflops or whatever we're up to these days), he wanted to clean out some outdated and unnecessary files on the computer system in order to reduce the cost they were paying for data storage. But it turns out that it was cheaper to rent the data storage for years and years than for the geophysicists to spend their time going through and figuring out which files to keep and which to delete. Which just proves how much storage out there and how cheap it is. Either that or that geophysicists are overpaid. Or both.
I reread the original (and only) entry. Man. This mockery of postmodern self-reflexivity just isn't going to cut it. I know (or knew) too many people who actually know what that means...or at least what it is supposed to mean. So if I am really going to try to do this (and this no more than an experiment after all) then I have to just play this one straight.
But beginning this process reminds me of something that Kurt Vonnegut talked about in an archived interview from Fresh Air. He talked about when he first began writing and mentioned (if I'm remembering this all correctly) that being a science major at college helped him because if he had been a literature major, he would have realised that writing something good is hard and would never have started. But since he was just a science geek, he didn't know what good writing was supposed to be like or that it was difficult, so he just wrote. So I'll just write, when and what I can, and never be as good as Vonnegut's left nostril and leave it at that. There's no point in trying to write something good when you know how good good can really be (and know that you're no good). Or something like that.
Plus, as my Dad and I were discussing last night, there is so much digital storage space out there in the world these days, that it doesn't matter if I'm taking up some chunk of memory for my navel-gazing ramblings. Actually, on that subject, Dad told a very interesting story about how when he was doing network support a while ago (back when they fought over kilobytes rather than tetrabytes or paeleoflops or whatever we're up to these days), he wanted to clean out some outdated and unnecessary files on the computer system in order to reduce the cost they were paying for data storage. But it turns out that it was cheaper to rent the data storage for years and years than for the geophysicists to spend their time going through and figuring out which files to keep and which to delete. Which just proves how much storage out there and how cheap it is. Either that or that geophysicists are overpaid. Or both.
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