Ramblings in a State of Insanity
Posts tagged life update
Pictures of the Third Storm
Feb 10th
Snow Drift
Dead Tree
The Amigo
I managed to snap a few pictures out the door at the new storm. It is coming down very hard right now so going out in it was a non-starter. I have three interesting pictures –
1. The trees next to the door in the front yard are all dead. All of them. Luckily I think we can pull them out and buy new ones from Lowes.
2. Eric’s Amigo is covered with about a foot of snow right now. It’s not a good measurement gauge but by eyeball it looks to be ~10-12 inches.
3. My picture of the drift is not very good because it doesn’t convey the spookiness very well. That originally was a 5′ tall (one thousand milli-ems) drift but now it has a fresh foot of snow on it so it looks all sculpted. And enormous. And menacing.
More Snowmageddon and Facebook
Feb 10th
It is 10am just south of Baltimore, MD and the snow is coming down horizontal. Snow typically does not fall horizontally. I cannot see the neighbor’s house out the window. The news says we are going to get about 6-8 more hours of this. The trees around my house seem okay but I can see a few trees down across the street. The winds have picked up — I have heard reports of 40mph to 60mph in the region. I don’t know how many more inches we’ve received but the huge snow piles look all eerie and soft.
This storm is worse than the last storm. The last storm the snow came down in huge mounds. This storm comes with ice and sleet and winds. The snow has swallowed up the world.
Since I am a winter storm shut in I have spent some quality time with Facebook. I got the new UI update and, as far as I can tell, it breaks the service. What I want from a social networking feed is:
- People’s status and pithy comments
- Links
- Pictures
I also want it in the order it was posted with no cares for “most popular” or “most linked.” Very simple. This seems impossible for the Facebook UI team to deliver unless one is willing to go through convoluted steps to configure the thing and even then the configurations don’t take. I spent time combing through the help files last night but I could not find a satisfying way to set up what I want and thus it is a complete UI FAIL. Facebook Lite seems to deliver that up “sort of.” It is better than the main screen. I don’t understand the algorithms and the interface with the three columns is ridiculously cluttered. It just is not very good for what I want, need or desire.
I basically want a LiveJournal friends page. I want to see:
- People’s posts
- In the order they were posted
- With the ability to filter into groups
That’s all! Anything else is noise. There’s a reason why things like RSS feeds and Twitter work: filtered, updated, in the order they were posted. Simple!
I’m objecting to the Facebook Dictatorship. I do not like my information presented to me in the way Facebook decrees regardless of my desires. I prefer my information in a more democratic style where I can pick and choose and order the way I wish and see what I would like without the need for overwhelming reams of javascript. I prefer my Internet a genteel anarchy full of LOL Cats, not walled off communities with a psychotic HOA who keeps moving the trees around and telling me we can only park in most popular first order.
Maybe I’m too old for Facebook. Or maybe I am fleeing the Orwellian universe of Facebook for a simpler world. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
(You can Facebook me if you’re desperate but I do not link back to people I don’t know. You’re better off with my twitter, a service I rather do like. Yes, well, shameless plugs.)
The Snow Canyon and Snowmageddon 3: The Revenge
Feb 9th
Snow Canyon
One Thousand Milli-Em
This is a not-terrible shot down the private drive my house and two others sit on. The Howard County Plow Guy ™ was kind enough to plow down our private drive even though it’s technically not his job to do so. He took pity on us. Otherwise we would be burrowing out like gophers through the snow still. Even so, these piles of snow are over five feet tall. They don’t look five feet tall so I took a comparison picture and used myself (5’1″) as a comparison measurement.
So the Weather Guy on the Weather Channel has upgraded Snowmageddon 3: The Revenge from a “weak storm you have nothing to worry about” to “this could tie up roads” to “OH MY GOD POWER LINES TREES ROOFS DEATH DOOM THE END OF TIME.” It went from 2-4″ to 4-8″ to 8-12″ to 10-20″ to “it’s going to be inches of snow so you better deal with it.”
And we’re out of eggs. We are not yet eating the components of food.
Super Bowl and More Snow!
Feb 8th
I sat down to watch several hours of over-produced commercials last night and, unbelievably, a football game broke out. Odds were on the Colts — the Saints had never gone to the Super Bowl and had only made two post-season appearances in 42 years. Manning already has his spot in the Football Hall of Fame picked out. Also, the mind-bending concept of Purdue’s own Drew Brees having a Super Bowl ring was like looking for *snow plows in Hell.
The sporting world loves a Cinderella story, and it got one. Who would believe the Saints of all teams could win a Super Bowl? Over the nigh-invincible Indianapolis Colts? But the team willing to covert on 4th and 1 on the 1 yard line, to have an onside kick at the beginning of the second half, and to go for two in the Super Bowl of all places deserves to win. The Saints played like a crazy Big-10 team pulling out every insane play they could cook up and it was awesome. Those guys earned their rings.
These games are normally terrible, one sided affairs but Super Bowl 44 is going off to Highlight Reel Heaven.
Meanwhile, Maryland is in complete paralysis. The main artery freeways aren’t plowed. What is plowed is now covered in ice. Coworkers cannot get out of their houses. They’re either plowed in or completely unplowed. And the best part? We’re getting 4-8 inches tomorrow. That’s just what we need — a nice layer of ice on top of everything. As if we don’t already have trees down.
I will take pictures of the SNOW CANYON when it gets a little warmer outside in a few hours.
* If you are wondering where the plow is and you are in Maryland? That’s where. Plowing hell.
Shoveling
Feb 7th
We are trying to shovel our way out. The snow is well over two feet deep and the plow decided to pile up a huge mountain right at the end of the driveway we somehow have to tunnel through. We’re taking shifts since we only have one shovel and it is going slowly.
The shoveled part of the driveway is like walking through SNOW CANYON with SNOW WALLS made of SNOW.
Snowpocalypse 2010 (more pictures)
Feb 6th
Chairs and Table on the Deck
We finally opened the front door. The door is blocked by 13 inches of snow. It’s 21 inches on the stoop, but the stoop was protected by bushes and trees so the real number is likely higher. We thought lost the antenna off his truck but it was just buried. Trees across the street came down. Our neighbors tried to dig out earlier but they have now given up. Snow is still coming down. It is very quiet.
Also, I am blaming the storm on Republican Obstructionism — and their evil weather machine! What better way to slow down legislation than a million tons of snow!
21 inches
Snow Trees
Snowmageddon 2010
Feb 6th
According to the National News ™, Elkridge MD received 30.3 inches of snow and it is still snowing. We’re just south of Elkridge. I look out my window and I’m starting to get very nervous about the trees. We still have power (obviously) but… wow….
Oh, yeah. This used to be my deck. Of the 6 pictures I took, this is the only one that really came out. You cannot see the table, or the chairs, or most of the umbrella anymore.
Snowmageddon
Feb 5th
There’s nothing like DC under the threat of snow. The grocery stores empty out in complete panic if the forecast threatens 2″ on the ground. Hell, it’s impossible to drive if it rains because people freak out their BMWs will get wet. (Hint folks: IT’S A CAR. It goes OUTSIDE.) I joke that the Magic Rain Water from the Sky comes down and drops the collective IQ of the region by 50 points.
But right now we’re under a blizzard warning until Saturday night at 10pm. The weather channel calls it “epic snow totals possible.” (Thanks TWC!) You know where it says “1-2 feet”? That’s on my house. Hell, they even closed the White House and it’s not like Obama has any kind of commute.
We already had one of these. I am so not thrilled. I moved away from the Midwest to avoid these constant snow storms. And if you live in the area, someone posted some good advice here.
Maryland Ren Fest, Tom Stoppard and SPX
Sep 27th
Maryland Ren Fest: We took Katie for the first time since she was very small, and she loved it. She got to run around in a princess dress, get her face painted, get her hair braided, ride a pony, play in bubbles, and eat deep fried macaroni n’ cheese on a stick. I finally bought the boots I had been eying for five years. Unfortunately, it started to rain on us around 4 and it was not the sort of rain you can just wait out. We went back to my parent’s house and then we left Katie to spend the night.
Tom Stoppard: Once home, we watched a little Tivo and then watched the 1990 production of Tom Stoppard’s Rosenkrantz and Guildestern are Dead. I had forgotten how wonderful the dialogue is, how hot a young Gary Oldman was, and how much I enjoyed the artistic structure of the play. Unfortunately, I was falling asleep at the end but I still need to own a copy on DVD.
SPX: … and I went to SPX in the afternoon! I nearly exploded in the squee of happiness. I also have far less money but I have far more comic books. I cruised all the tables leaving behind a little trail of butterflies and rainbows in the air wherever I went. I did notice that, since the last time I went to SPX, the quality of the mid-tier comics has really picked up. Also, last time I went the porn – comics ratio was fairly high but this time actual comics outweighed the porn about 20:1. I still don’t have any interest in hand-drawn super-artsy books on xeroxes and stapled together. I like my books to be books and I’m enough of a snob that I do put a huge amount on production values. I also refused to buy anything I could get off the web trivially or pick up in a Barnes and Noble. I must support my favorite artists who are awesome! I ended up with a huge haul:
Never Learn Anything from History by Kate Beaton with a little drawn FAT PONY in the front cover;
Beards of our Forefarthers, Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death and the Annotated Wondermark, all Wondermark collections by David Malki!
To Afghanistan and Back by Ted Rall who drew a whole little Osama bin Laden for me on the front page;
Dignifying Science and Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards by Jim Ottaviani. He was a little taken back by someone showing insane enthusiasm over his science comics but Two-Fisted Science was one of the best collections on 20th century science I had ever read. I was being evangelizing it to the Unsuspecting around me. He threw in a copy of Charles R. Knight: Autobiography of an Artist.
The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook by Eleanor Davis for Katie Rose. The production value on this book is spectacular and the whole team did a full color picture for Katie on the frontspiece.
From Top Shelf Books, a copy of the Surrogates (Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele) and VEEPS: Profiles in Insignificance by Bill Kelter and Wane Shellabarger. How was I supposed to pass up a book on Vice Presidents? You tell me that because I could not. I was beholden.
Sadly, all the books for Rice Boy were gone by midway through yesterday. But woo! Comics!
Now I must disappear to read.
Labor Day Weekend
Sep 8th
Quick roundup of some interesting stuff from over the weekend.
Inglorious Basterds: I am an enormous Tarantino fan so my opinion is likely biased and tainted. I enjoyed it greatly. Long conversations punctuated by extreme violence. Interesting bit about the movie: it felt very much like the opening of a novel and the ending of a novel but the middle 800 pages skipped. I want to see the Aldo the Apache mini-series. Also — Col. Hans Landa is the best Nazi villain of all time.
Ceazar’s Restaurant and International Market: Found on HowChow. A very good Iranian restaurant in Elkridge although they were surprised and confused to have customers on a Sunday lunch time during Ramadan. Not quite ready to handle the restaurant side of things although the food was very good. (Eric pointed out that “Meat on a stick is the highest form of food.”) Attached market intriguing; stuff on the shelves we had never heard of and everything is pickled.
OMG SKULLZ: Eric made me an awesome hoodie in skull-print knits. It’s like wearing a comfy goth blanket. It has skulls. OMG SKULLZ! He went from no hoodie in the afternoon to complete hoodie at 2am. It’s amazing hoodie making magic!
Yarn: Wanted to do the Craft-Zine Craft-A-Long but no one hand the required yarn. It will come to me eventually, but had to order it from online. Sad. Lower-end yarn selection at big box stores pretty sucktastic.
Nordstrom: Running an experiment — ordering replacement cosmetics online. I hate going to the cosmetics counter at any Department store. With the stores having low sales, they have gone from aggressively ignoring me and refusing to sell me things to aggressively upselling me. If I can order my stuff online one of my great life’s problems will be solved. (Anyone else truly hate buying cosmetics? I have had a rare few good experiences buying cosmetics at the counter.)
Katie’s Bronchitis: She’s on a nebulizer with albuterol. It’s better than it was on Thursday and Friday but she was still coughing pretty bad last night. She spent the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa’s watching Spongebob. Grandma bought Katie a Halloween Tree with Halloween Ornaments. Because why should Christmas get all the fun? Also, spooky light-up house! My child, the 4 year old goth.
Presidential Faux-rage: Heard a rumor of white cloistered Midwesterners in flyover states having conniptions of fauxrage and keeping children home over black socialist Marxist propagandist message of “study hard” and “listen to your teachers” beamed into schools. Sent Katie to school this morning in adorable uniform anyway.
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