Manic Friday

After two days of snow things are supposed to clear up today, which is good because I have a lot of end-of-the-month errands that I've been putting off. Today's the day to get them all done.

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Going to see my husband this weekend. It was planned that we'd leave today but since the roads are still icy we'll leave Sunday. Don't know exactly when I'll be back but probably Tuesday. I'll set Future Post up so that nothing can stop my Nov. 5th post... though probably I'll be here for that.

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Wondering why every piece of legislation these days is called Landmark. They can't all be landmarks, can they? Some of them have to be landscape.

IF: Fast

Trying something new again... trying to figure out how to, "sing in my own voice". Anyway, I really like the way this turned out and I think I'll do a few more along these lines.

More fast illustrations at Illustration Friday.

And now for today's nonsense

I finished my peace project last night and now I'm going through the postpartum stage where I pick it apart and wonder why I thought it was going to be so great. This is a good reason to procrastinate. If I had finished it November 4th, I wouldn't have time to hate it before the whole thing was over with. It really is a pretty neat thing, considering I've never done anything like it before. I have one other project in the works that I'll use this same software for (CreaToon) and then I think I may move on to some more sophisticated software. I know myself well enough to know that planning too far ahead is silly.

We are supposed to get snow Tomorrow, so there are several things I need to finish while I have sunshine; some sign projects and redoing the stripes on my truck. I'm going to Denver this weekend and I want my truck to look nice for the trip.

Hope you all have a great day.

Free Speech or Safe Speech

Remember those Muhammad cartoons that caused all that violence? Jytte Klausen wrote an academic book about the cartoons that covers much of the politics that went into the reaction to it. This is the kind of book that's peer reviewed and probably not the kind of book that most of us would pick up at the local bookshop.

Anyway, the book was all set to be published by the Yale University Press when somebody at the publisher started wondering if the book itself would incite more violence, so they asked a panel of experts who all agreed that it would. The thing is, the experts they consulted didn't actually read the book.

So now they are publishing a book about the cartoons without the cartoons in it. In reference to the cartoons a woman on NPR is quoted as saying; "People don't see this the same way they would see a swastika or they would see the N-word. They see bigotry against Muslims in a separate category as they see bigotry against other races or religions."

But in this country would we require an author to take the swastika out of a book about the Nazis? I know the N-word is left in a lot of the older books at our library. Nobody is protesting Tom Sawyer as hate speech. This is an issue of free speech and not an issue of bigotry.

The NPR article.

Nano Anyone

I'm thinking of doing Nanowrimo again... but taking myself a lot less seriously. How about 100,000 words in one month, in first person, working in twenty random words from the dictionary each day.... Why?

I'll think of a reason as I go.

Meanwhile, I'm working on something spectacular for Blogblast Peace Globe Day... tune in on November 5th. Better yet, head over to mimiwrites.blogspot.com and get in on the peacefulness yourself.

Vampire in the house

What Would Jesus Do?

We've been uninvited from the Halloween party we were all looking forward to because... well, it's all very odd.

Andy has (had) a close friend who throws this awesome Halloween party every year. She and her partner only ever throw this one bash and I got to go, and bring Jasmine, for the first time last year. Jasmine has been talking about making a costume for it for months and then Andy and his buddy had a discussion about theology.

I guess you think you know your friends till something like this happens. She was speaking to the family member with religion, imagine if she'd been talking to me... anyway, we aren't Christian enough to go to the party I guess.

I asked Jasmine if she was disappointed and she told me that it was all okay, as long as I'd still buy her some vampire teeth. I got her the teeth yesterday, the only ones the Wal-Place had that weren't neon pink or green. They came with some make-up. Jasmine's been wearing the teeth and make-up around the house since... The pictures are all blurry because I had the camera set wrong, so you'll have to wait till tomorrow to see her in her bloody glory.

I have a pretty neat kid.

Snow!

I woke up this morning to see my car and yard covered in hideous white effluvia. That's not my favorite way to wake up.

So, since it is my new goal to blog every day and to not be constantly depressing, I went off into the wilderness of Google to find something snowish and fun to post about. I found this nifty little website that lets you make snowflakes the old fashioned way with a new fangled twist.

It's a flash graphics thingum. When you get there you see a bunch of snowflakes other people made. Click on the "make a snowflake" link to the right of the screen and a white piece of paper comes up and a pair of scissors. The paper folds itself up and the scissors make an initial cut then you are all on your own to create a masterpiece.

My snowflake was prettier in the program than after I saved it because it went all blue on me, but the site has an option to save the flake as an eps file, which means I could make vinyl versions for you to stick to your windows if you were interested.

There's a warning about making offensive snowflakes, but I couldn't figure out how to make mine offensive. If you make an offensive one, show it to me. Okay?

Link: Make a flake

One Single Impression: Conquer

(image: Gato by Marilyn Glazar(me))

On My Attempt to Conquer the Bills

A hungry cat
climbs a tree
for dinner
and learns
the birds can fly.

More conquer poems at One Single Impression.

Blasphemy

Did you know that there is an international blasphemy day?

Now my faith is a little on the thin side these days. If you are a spiritual kind of person you'd say I'm having a crisis of faith. If you are one of these Blasphemy Day guys you might say I've regained my senses. Either way, I'm not really one for offending the religious. There was a time I felt otherwise, but you know we all have loved ones who feel their faith very deeply and take it seriously. It's just not nice to mock them too much and also, however I wrestle with my own faith, I find the faith of others to be inspiring.

Still, these guys have a point about a lot of religion's tendency to turn the brain off. They have a great website. Here's a quote: "The objective of International Blasphemy Day is to open up all religious beliefs to the same level of free inquiry, discussion and criticism to which all other areas of academic interest are subjected."

Here's a link: http://www.blasphemyday.com/

It happens on September 20th. Go forth my children, and blaspheme... or not.

IF: Frozen

Trying something different.

Just Rewards

If you work for Berkley and you win a Nobel prize, you get a free parking spot worth $1,500. That's cool. That's useful. Here's the story about it, if you want to know more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113883274

Society should award people with fitting and useful things.

Good drivers, like maybe fifteen years with no tickets... give them free oil changes.

Instead of toasters for opening an account, banks could give a savings bond to anybody that manages to deposit a year's worth of income in their savings account.

Home owners with the prettiest flowers out front could get a gift certificate to a garden shop.

Kids who make straight A's for several years in a row... give them gift certificates for book stores.

There are plenty of consequences for screwing up and we worry about punishments fitting crimes. How come there aren't that many rewards for doing the right thing and why don't we ever fit the reward to the good deed?

Things I Hate About Fall

I find this season depressing and I woke up in a bad mood. Also, I want to do a better job of blogging which means, among other things, actually posting something regularly. I suppose it also means actually posting something somebody might conceivably want to read, but I have no control over the ability of others to recognize my brilliance.

Anyway, toward that regularity thingum... here's a list of things I hate about fall.

1. It isn't warm. Fall weather is rainy and windy and some call it brisk. I am not a fan of brisk. I am a fan on ninety degrees and fifty percent humidity.

2. It isn't green. It may not be easy being green but it's a heck of a lot less easy not having any green to look at.

3. I happen to detest horror movies and a lot of the Halloween schtick. While vampires, thanks to the latest fad of vampire romances, aren't totally depressing, there is nothing upbeat about zombies at all. Also, skeletons are a symbol of death, which lets face it, is not the part of life I'm most inclined to want to dwell on.

4. Raking. I won't lie and tell you I actually do this, but the fact that I don't do it and I should leads to overwhelming guilt.

5. Wood burning stove. Oh sure, it would be nice to be able to have a fire occasionally for the romantic ambiance. Dealing with and feeding the stupid thing just to keep the house from refrigerator temperatures is not fun.

And if you read all of that, you deserve to leave this post on a lighter note. It is after all Saturday and I do love Saturday mornings... when I get to goof off and listen to my radio shows. I think I'll go put some new batteries in the radio and sweep the kitchen. Sweeping's easier with Car Talk and Wait Wait. I may even wash the windows and clean windows are a good thing.

Is there really

more than one way to skin a cat?

How many ways are there and why on earth would you do that to a cat? Why doesn't the phrase say something about skinning a cow, which seems a lot more the usual animal to skin in our culture?

In a quest to actually post something vaguely interesting to my blog every day I googled it and came up with a yahoo answers link that really confuses more than it answers.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081205194652AADw41x

Here's what I think: The British had a phrase that went like this, "there's more than one way to kill a cat than by choking it with cream." So we brought it with us to the Americas and began screwing it up over time till some kid heard it wrong and started using it like this. Then it stuck.

The moral of this story is that you should only screw up common saying in ways that don't involve the death of beloved pets and family members.

IF: Fly

I started this character for the "Welcome" prompt but the scene just never came together the way I wanted. Here she is for "Fly" Clicking enbiggens.

More fly illustrations can be found at http://www.illustrationfriday.com/

People Often Ask Me...

Why do politicians and celebrities say that and then follow it up with a phrase that you know nobody ever asks them? I just heard a Colorado Springs politician use that phrase and I thought it was funny.

Here are some helpful, almost standard ways, you could finish this statement, in case you happen to be a politician or celebrity and your speech writer called in sick or something.

1. Why I'm so wonderful.
2. How I get so much done.
3. Why the people love me so much.
4. How I inspire so much loyalty.
5. If it's a good idea to have that many children all at once.

Here are a few ways that I could finish that statement honestly.

1. If I'll do some laundry.
2. What we are having for supper.
3. If I'll go see what the dog really wants.
4. If I can make the lettering bolder.
5. How come this window lettering proof has a dark gray background.

Unauthorized Photograph

"I'm going to run into the bank real quick. Don't touch the camera."

Yay!

Congrats to Obama. I didn't see that coming but I think it's deserved.

Reminder

The blogblast for peace now comes only once per year so you won't want to miss it. The date is November 5th and things get pretty crazy toward the end so be nice to Mimi and get yours now.

Here's the link to all the information.

http://mimiwrites.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-get-your-peace-globe-2009.html

And here are a couple of my past globes if you want to know how I did it.

This is just a test

I wanted to see if I could make an animation and load it to my blog and how it would all go before I began a really monumental project.

I'm out of town till Tuesday... Going to see the Hubster.