2006-02-19

hermionesviolin: an image of Alyson Hannigan (who plays Willow Rosenberg) with animated text "you think you know / what you are / what's to come / you haven't even / BEGUN" (Default)
2006-02-19 01:56 am

life update

Wednesday

The $50thou Millionaire question I had no clue about (The Model T originally sold for . . . answer is )) and usually when you switch the question the new one they give you is nigh impossible, but this one was "which gemstone, whose name comes from from the Greek meaning against intoxication, was supposed to protect one from the effects of drunkenness?" and I knew the answer even before they listed them (only because it was in something I'd read recently but can't recall -- possibly "Golden City Far" by Gene Wolfe in Flights: extreme visions of fantasy ed. Al Sarrantonio, but that feels wrong; probably some Cicada short story) and the options are )  I should have known the $100thou ("Exit, pursued by a bear") but didn't and the answer to that one is ).

Afterward we watched the beginning of the DS9 ep "Trials and Tribble-ations."

O'Brien: chroniton particles...
me: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

O'Brien: There's a ship directly in front of us.
Mary Alice: It's the Enterprise!
Viewscreen: [shows the Enterprise]
Mary Alice and I: [surprised and impressed at Mary Alice's random guess being right]

Odo: "She called it a Tribble!"
Worf: Grr! and fear.
me: I was wondering if anyone remembered.  So he [Kirk] has the biggest file on record; something like this should stick out.

We dispersed back to work not long after, and I Googled to get the gist of the remainder of the episode.

Isabel:  I get out of class at about 5:30, so we can meet for dinner whenever you get out from work (any suggestions about where to go?).
Me: [suggests Veggie Planet]
Isabel: YES! Finally someone who'll go to Veggie Panet with me. I've been wanting to try it, but I'm friends with carnivores opposed to green and grainy things.

One of these days I'll order something other than the same thing I always order there, but this was not that night.  We saw Crash [lj entry here] and because I had plenty of time before I needed to leave to get my train home we hung out in TeaLuxe for a while afterward.

Overheard in Harvard Square: "my LiveJournal post."

Oh, I forgot to mention.  When I was at the library, Saturday before last, some girls (age 12 maybe?) were printing stuff out and I totally saw the fanfiction.net logo on top.  I restrained myself from enquiring as to the fandom.

Proof that I am not all about Teh Gay, Isabel was telling me I needed to see Capote, and what sold me was her talk about a connection between In Cold Blood and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Thursday

Really tired again this morning, natch.  (Home ~11:30 the previous night.)  Was really tempted to ride the Red Line out to Alewife and then back to Harvard so I could get more nap time in, but I didn't.

I was strangely awake all day, though.  Which was good, as I didn't really want a repeat of the previous day when I was ready to fall asleep at my desk around four o'clock.

According to the 2004 Census, the median age of first-time brides in the U.S. is: have a guess? your options are . . . ).  They also asked asked the real name of the horse who played Mr. Ed -- options are )

I learned that Laura lives in Braintree.  It thus stuns me that she drives in to work.  I mean Braintree is at one end of the Red Line.  Though I don't know what HBS's employee discount for parking is, so maybe it actually is cheaper to drive in to work than to park at Braintree and drive in.  (I didn't ask 'cause we were talking after work and I really had to be heading to the Square -- as it was I ran hardcore.)

Watched Fantastic Four with my mom [lj entry here]

Friday

As previously mentioned, this was a very slow day.

I'd brought a coat in preparation for the evening but didn't wear it at all in the morning and was surprised at just how cold it had gotten when I left work.  I walked to the Square with Alyssa, and we parted ways where the galleria thing is

I was a couple minutes later getting to the T Station than I sometimes am, but there were a lot of people already waiting, so clearly a train hadn't come too recently.

There was a guy playing accordion, and he didn't look so great but the music was quite good so I gave him money.
little girl: "What are you doing?"
guy: "I'm trying to make my rent; that's what I'm doing."

The travel experience was downhill from there.  The little kids weren't that bad -- the "I hate trains" little boy shut up after a couple stops -- but the mom made me seethe.  As the train got more crowded she jokingly yelled "I can't breathe!" and I was willing to let that go 'cause she'd had a long day or whatever, ditto her scolding her daughter like three times for hugging a stranger (as far as I could tell, the girl did it once, but the mom scolded her repeatedly).  One of the kids was calling someone else a vampire and I wasn't sure if it was another kid or a passenger -- by this point there were multiple people in the aisle between us.  Then the mom was griping to her friend about feeling faint (I guess) and how she might fall into some guy, and her friend commented, "make sure it's not an ugly guy" and she responded that it would probably be a lesbian (in this "that would be even worse" tone) and I was kinda seething at this.  Were it not for the fact that there were a lot of people in between us and (and really this was the primary reason) the fact that she was getting off one stop before me and I didn't wanna hold up this ride any more than it already was I like to think I would in fact have lectured her.  After she got out one woman actually vocalized "I'm glad she's gone" (she had been loudly complaining the entire duration between Park and Downtown about how she was gonna have to turn this stroller around and people needed to get out of her way, and I imagine a lot of us were thinking, "Well there's no space to move until the doors open, and what were you thinking at rush hour Friday before a 3-day weekend anyway?").  Park St. was the start of the stupid people standing on the yellow line as if there would magically be more space in the car, and when I got out at South Station I ran almost all the way up and got there at five-forty-one.  My train leaves at five-forty.  I was pissed.

My dad mentioned on Thursday that NHS was doing Doctor Faustus as their competition play.  I'd been meaning to read that (as well as Geothe's Faust) for ages.  Getting in to Norwood Depot ~6:13 would give me plenty of time to walk up to the Savage Center old Junior High North, but 6:45?  Cutting it much closer.  The train got in more like 6:50, and uphill in the wind?  Ow, my legs.  I actually wondered if I should just go home and go to bed.  I only got there a few minutes late, though.  I really like the way they did Mephistophilis and don't really have any other comments, in part because I did doze off at the end, due to the aforementioned tiredness.  It felt like all the events of the play happened way too fast, so I got the play out from the library so I can better critique Marlowe (and also compare Goethe; yay Harvard Classics putting them both in a single volume).

I was gonna go to bed early but got sucked into watching bits of the Olympics with my mom.  I learned that ice dancing is teh boring.  Watching the slalom I told my mom about the Ani lyric -- unable to save ourselves from the quaint tragedies we invent and undo, from the stupid circumstances we slalom through.

So yes, I saw Lindsey Jacobellis.  Read more... )

Saturday

I was the Great and Amazing Sloth, which didn't entirely make sense to me as I wasn't that tired during the day on Friday and though I stayed up a few hours later than I would have preferred it wasn't that late; and I'm mostly over my cold.  So yeah, my Saturday was far less productive than I had previously intended.

I went to the library (as mentioned above) and weather.com said it was 24F feels like 9F.  I actually felt less cold coming back when it was supposedly 22F feels like 7F.  Shrug.  I was pleased by the cold both times, natch.

Oh, and my dad made stir fry tonight and he made stir fry tofu for me and I appreciated the protein but . . . flavor. My dad said he thought when I said I didn't like food with flavor I was just joking. Now okay I have had food that I find unpleasantly tasteless, but clearly he hasn't been paying attention. :) [Course, we so rarely have food at my house, how would one even know ;) ]
hermionesviolin: ((hidden) wisdom)
2006-02-19 07:55 pm

First Congregational Church [also: blogging, etc.]

I was gonna rotate out after the Women in the Bible series ended, but the pastor is away this weekend.  I hoped it would be be Len -- whom I remember fondly from back when we did summer services and who retired as pastor of FCCN a few years back.

mom: Say hi to Len if he's preaching.
me: So if he's not preaching I shouldn't say hi?
dad: Yes, you should shun him.

Turns out they're leaving for a 3-month trip.  And they vanished like immediately following the Passing of the Peace.  Sigh.

A woman named Linda did the bulk of the service.
"No joys?  No concerns?  No snide remarks?"

The Processional was "Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above," which felt too slow in tempo for what it says.

Anthem: "Lord I Lift Your Name on High," which always makes me think of the hand motions from when the kids at UCN did it.

Two girls sang it in duet, they were maybe age 10, and when the second one (who looks far less striking than the first one) started singing I was really taken aback. Such a strong voice -- and a good one, too.

For the Children's Message, prefacing John 10:1-11, Linda brought in a stuffed sheep and talked about the phrase "wolf in sheep's clothing" and also about Jesus as shepherd.

Linda: Do you think this is a sheep?
kid: It's a puppet.

Linda: [pulls a stuffed animal out of the sheep]
kids: [decry]
Linda: This is all that TJMaxx had!
kid: That's Toto!
[It was a brown terrier(?) wearing a dark sweater.]

Before giving the reading, Linda had talked a little about sheep and shepherd and how the passage made her think of the movie Babe.  I of course then got thinking about Brokeback :)

Scripture: John 10:1-11

Message: "Seek, Listen, Surrender"
By a woman named Ellie.  She talked about how Pastor Hamilton was away today and how she was giving the message because he wanted lay people to be involved, we're all important, our gifts are valued, blahdyblah.  This made me roll my eyes because I feel like I so get a brushoff from him, though I admit that my initial e-mail to him didn't necessarily encourage dialogue (I'm too used to LiveJournal) and pastors seem to have a thing against conducting conversations via e-mail.  Anyway.  She had good presence, and her sermon was kind of all over the place but she did pull it back to her "Seek, Listen, Surrender" setup with some regularity, which I appreciated.

Besides the Scripture listed in the bulletin, she also referenced John 5:19 [about Jesus listening], Isaiah 40:10-11, Isaiah 41:10,13; Deuteronomy 32:10-12a
[Her: "My notes are all out of order, but it makes me feel better to touch them."]

She talked about how throughout his Word, God is respectful, thinks well of us, and I get what she means but I couldn't help thinking of how harsh God is towards the not Chosen.  And I was amused to see examples on facing pages for some of the OT bits she referenced -- Isaiah 40:15-17 and Deuteronomy 32:19-, for example.

She talked about seeking and how even if you have a wonderful family, great job, etc., there's still that emptiness that can only be filled by God.  Per usual, I thought of the many people I know who seem to have sufficient inner fulfillment and aren't hungering and aren't believers in (the Christian) God either.

She cited some book whose title I didn't fully catch in which an eight-year-old said that you know you're loved when you like the sound of your name in that person's mouth.

She talked about how surrender means being willing to be willing.

One of the kids led the congregation in "Awesome God."  She sang it twice and then we sang it like six times.  And they had the words in the bulletin.  It's really not that hard, people.  ("Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above With wisdom, power and love; Our God is an awesome God.")

Pre-Offertory, Linda said she recently spent a week in Las Vegas and saw so many lost sheep there -- gamblers.  "So many people are not here to hear this message, and they need to," she said.  And I thought of how, like Lindsey, I get frustrated by the lowest-common-denominator watering down sometimes, so on an intellectual level I appreciated it, but at the same time I get a little squicked by the We are/have the Truth.

Offertory: "Love Grows Here"
The words and sentiment reminded me of "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love."

on the back of the bulletin:
"I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly." -John 10:10




from the bulletin insert:
Back By Popular Demand
We've heard your cries... Fellowship hour will now feature both regular and decaffeinated coffee.
Yeah, who called that?
Adult Bible Study will not meet on February 26th.  We will resume meeting on March 5th, the first Sunday in Lent, to begin our Lenten series.
Yay Lenten series!
Sunday March 19
The Youth in our church will lead us in our worship service this Sunday morning.  The theme will be "Words That Change Your Life".  You don't want to miss this special congregational event!
I'm as yet undecided as to whether I want to go to that.




Coming home at 11am, weather.com said it was 22F feels like 9F.  And yeah, I'm a freak who minds this not at all.

I went to SuperCuts 'cause my hair was bugging me and then got pants at TJMaxx.  (The world is a strange place when I am a size 6.  "Stretch pants," but still.  I imagine it's a designer thing but really, is your ego that tied to the tag of your clothes?  I just want to be a consistent size so I don't have to go back to the racks umpteen times when I'm shopping.  Three for <$50, so that was good.  I was gonna go to the Pru tomorrow, but I think I might stay home.)

I opted not to go to the bisexual Harvard thing tonight.  In part because the way the trains run I would have big gaps on time on each end and because there are CSI reruns tonight I haven't seen.  (My mother kindly okayed viewage of those instead of the usual Olympics.)

Called a couple people today.  I feel lame 'cause I don't have anything interesting in my own life to talk about (every day I have anecdotes from work, but there's no big thing to talk about, just "Yeah, I'm looking at apartments") but people are good.  And I've been catching up on e-mail this past week.  ♥ Stacey so much.

Googling Pride jewelry again.  Kinda tempted by the rainbow bead necklaces that have a labrys axe pendant -- 'cause it makes me think of Xena and the Buffy scythe -- but it also feels too cheesy 1960s/70s.

I've been considering actually using the tag function -- for ease of searching within categories, such as First Churches or Emmanuel Lutheran Evening Prayer Services.  The Memories would still be The way to find stuff, but tags would allow me to search within category for stuff that wasn't necessary worth Memorying.  My big sticking point, however, is the fact that tags only show the last 50? 75? 100? entries with that tag.  This is a serious design flaw and makes tagging kind of useless.  I would estimate I went to First Churches 25wks/yr, for 3 years, for example.  For another example: I might tag my tv watching entries, for ease of use by readers and also as a fallback for when the Memories function is being tetchy; but by the time your show hits 5 seasons you've hit 100 episodes.

There is talk about blogging going around -- superplin and ann1962.  I've been thinking off and on for quite some time about making a blog, most recently prompted by [livejournal.com profile] offbalance making a blog.  (I like the LJ interface so much, however, that it would probably still be housed on LJ.)  It would basically be a selection of the content already on this LJ, so I'm not sure it's particularly worth doing.

[Sidenote: [livejournal.com profile] superplin's post was prompted by the Blogher Conference, and I was surprised to see [livejournal.com profile] ann1962 say, "On my bloglines, where I read lots o’blogs, 7/55 are discernibly male. Several are group blogs so those are variable," because when I think of blogs almost all the names that come to mind are male.]
hermionesviolin: image of the Devil Robot from Futurama, with text "El Diablo Robótico" (which is a phrase from an Angel episode) (diablo robotico [saava])
2006-02-19 10:05 pm

And now they're interviewing Jerome Bettis of the Pittsburgh Steelers -- about teamwork, apparently.

After the CSI reruns (posts forthcoming) we switched back to the Olympics and they were talking about the anchor for the Italian cross country skiing team (the purple-haired guy) and apparently he got the nickname "Zorro" because after something he donned a cape, "Which is what I always like to do after what I consider a successful broadcast," one of the announcers commented.
hermionesviolin: a photoshoot image of Michelle Trachtenberg peering out from behind some ivy, with text "taken out of context I must seem so strange" (taken out of context)
2006-02-19 11:52 pm

CSI rerun: "Burden of Proof" (2.15)

[twiztv.com transcript]

Read more... )


Edit 'cause I forgot to mention this about The Conversation er, in the ep, not this movie when first writing up this ep:

Read more... )
hermionesviolin: image of Buffy skating with small text "I wish I had a river I could skate away on" (skate away)
2006-02-19 11:59 pm

Olympics & nationalism; pairs ice dancing original portion

I came out and heard/saw the little thingie on Tanith and whassisname [edit: Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto] about her citizenship and how they didn't compete in the ‘02 Olympics.  This got me thinking about the Olympics is supposed to ideally be about nations coming together in harmony and the mingling with each other but it's so all about one's own country winning, and it seemed like there was something wrong with things when having a pair from two different countries meant you were unable to compete in the Olympics. (Yes of course I know theirs was an unusual circumstance and all. But still.)

Of course I already mentioned that when Lindsey Jacobellis said something about the U.S. would be on the podium I was reminded of how the obsession with one's own country winning bothers me.

pairs ice dancing - original portion )