☆☆☆ nonsequiter groove ☆☆☆

first impression review

2008-07-18T18:33:39Z

Mamma Mia... much better on stage than celluloid.

Main thoughts: Brosnan sings as badly as I do. Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, and Stellan Skarsgård prove that supporting cast can carry a film. "Voulez Vous" was incredibly well done.

Bad Real Estate Listings....

2008-07-16T14:55:17Z

Retake These Photos Please
Bad MLS Photo of the Day
It's Lovely! I'll Take it

zjman @ 2008-07-16T09:24:00

2008-07-16T13:25:55Z

Best headline of the day... "Pope Meets Koala, Texts Pilgrims"

Why?

zjman @ 2008-07-15T16:51:00

2008-07-15T20:51:41Z

Shortly after I got married, I came home from work to a new resident. He reeked of feces, looked like hell, and was running at the nose. He was a snot-ridden thing. He wouldn't just sneeze, he'd expectorate through his nose. But, he jumped out from under a dresser at me grabbing the back of my leg with his claws and we instantly bonded. I took no shit from him, he took no shit from me, and there was instant respect.

He was a thick-necked orange tabby who walked out of a barnyard and into our lives. His meow was missing the "ow" and he thus became "Meems," his onomatopoeic moniker. I never considered myself a cat person before meeting the little guy. He would greet me at the door, loved rough-housing, and despite his tendency to occasionally sink his teeth into my flesh sans provocation and his aversion to being in your lap, his affection was hard to miss. His crackly purr as he'd sidle up to me on the couch and look into my eyes was all the hard proof I needed.

And one day, I said goodbye to him with an already heavy heart. The marriage was over, had been, and I knew leaving it behind was for the best for all involved. Meems, he had gained siblings, friends, and new digs along the way. Much as I'd have loved to take him with me on the next step of life's journey, I wanted as little disruption to everyone's lives as possible, specifically those who had nothing to do with the human misery that led to this passage. I cried hard, and then harder, as he took one last swipe at me with his then-declawed paw when I turned and walked away. That was almost three years ago.

I keep not in touch with my ex-wife or her family, but while browsing across the local news "down home," I came across this blog.

Admittedly, I've missed you since that last cheap shot.

zjman @ 2008-07-14T13:49:00

2008-07-14T17:50:38Z

Dear What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Thank you for making me miss my brother... badly.

*sigh*

He's a pain in the ass, but he's my brother.

zjman @ 2008-07-11T23:10:00

2008-07-12T03:10:06Z

Is your ISP cock-blocking P2P traffic? We know Comcast is.

zjman @ 2008-07-10T14:09:00

2008-07-10T18:11:16Z

I almost hate to admit it, but I didn't loathe Sweeney Todd. Wow. The Burton/Depp pairing does it again. Sondheim's music still makes me want to punch puppies, but was somehow bearable for this production.

zjman @ 2008-07-07T09:44:00

2008-07-07T16:58:36Z

Will try to catch up on posts and comments. No promises. No internets at home until Thursday and our much more sparsely inhabited new neighborhood has poor wireless leeching. Right now, it's back to the office and nursing the various aches and pains of my out-of-shape self from a weekend of moving. For once, I've been looking forward to sitting at my desk all day. We're finally done, though! All that's left is unpacking and arranging the new pad.

Linda's a dynamo at unpacking (I swear she unpacked and put away 7 boxes worth of stuff in the kitchen in the time it took me to hook and hang the shower curtain and liner)... so I've been on errand and furniture building detail. I purchased and assembled a DVD/CD shelf and a cabinet for the bathroom which is now mounted on the wall and ready to be filled!

Aside from finishing touches, the bedroom, kitchen, and dining room are done. The bathroom, office/spare bedroom, sun room, and living room are left. Since our living room is huge, we decided to split it up and make a television nook in the far third of the room. This avoids the television being the focal point, which we both approve of. The rest of the room will be more of a conversation/sitting room and we're using the tiki/tropical theme (of course) for the whole thing. Kitchen/dining rooms are primitive in theme. Bedroom is leaning towards the orient. The guest room/office is a work in progress.

More later!

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2008-07-05T03:24:32Z

Emily is my hero!!!!i

4th of July thoughts....

2008-07-03T17:08:26Z

I began writing an entry on patriotism and it felt wrong. I kept leaning towards saying what it isn't to me. I said that I don't fly a flag, won't say the Pledge, etc. I wanted to be more positive, because despite these things, I AM patriotic. It felt as wrong to focus on the negative as it feels when people question or challenge my patriotism due to such things.

But the more I thought about it, 4th of July is a date. The holiday we celebrate is Independence Day, observing our independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

While the textbooks point to the break being due to things such as ignored attempts at delegation, increased British military presence, taxation without representation, and growing fears of an increased authority of the Anglican Church, what does it mean to you?

qod

2008-07-03T13:53:43Z

I have a symbiotic relationship with my car. It's parasitic, of course, but hell, as long as I'm the parasite... right?

zjman @ 2008-07-02T16:56:00

2008-07-02T20:57:22Z

Today's fortune cookie reads: Some pursue happiness; you create it.

Discuss. Debate. Laud. Deny.

zjman @ 2008-07-02T16:44:00

2008-07-02T20:45:30Z

Now that I've finished laughing at their *cough* "news," I have to share. Go here (http://www.onenewsnow.com) and see for yourself.

Edited to add:

The comments are, in my opinion, better than the obviously slanted* news:

"Without a moral basis rooted in Christian ethics democracy is doomed to the ash heap of history , according to the founding fathers."

Say what? When? Where? By WHO?

*..and by "slanted," I mean "practically upside down, inverted, and reversed."

The site is also guilty of this hilarious goof: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2008/06/the_dangers_of_1.html

randomosity

2008-07-02T18:22:49Z

Manhoru no naka no ningyo (Mermaid in a Manhole)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161638
Made 20 years ago by a low-budget Japanese schlock house, but still better than most of today's big-budget lacklusters. Visceral, Poetic, Disturbing, Beautiful
(NOT for the squeamish)

------------------------------------------

Also happened to catch The Happening. True to Shyamalan's MO, this one had a bit of a twist at the end and really played on modern society's arrogance. And Spiderman 3 - great cameo, Stan! Perfectly cheesy, as always. LOVED Bruce Campbell's cameo too. Could have lived without the first 50 minutes of the rest of the film, though.

------------------------------------------

Linda and I finally got diligent in our packing efforts and really got some good work done last night. Most of the kitchen stuff is sorted between us and the housemate and is now packed, gone, or off to donation land. Linda, though she doesn't think so, did a bang-up job in our bedroom closet. Tonight... more packing, loading the car, smudging/blessing the new digs, and then unloading! Gonna start feeling like home in a few short days.

------------------------------------------

Other than that, it's business as usual.

zjman @ 2008-07-01T09:42:00

2008-07-01T14:45:51Z

We have the key!!!!!!!!!!!!!

zjman @ 2008-06-27T10:15:00

2008-06-27T14:16:05Z

yawn

2008-06-26T19:13:27Z

*wants to play with the trolls*

zjman @ 2008-06-26T10:56:00

2008-06-26T15:11:16Z

Some of these seem to be repeated or obscure (as in, The Chronicles of Narnia AND The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe listed separately) but an interesting list nonetheless. I've read 43 of the hundred and make no apologies for the ones I've read, want to read, loved, or couldn't give a rat's ass about, classic or not (as in, fuckyouverymuch Gone With The Wind).

:P

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force (real) books upon them. heh ;)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - J K Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - MargaretMitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F ScottFitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and TheWardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A A Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - L M Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Marte
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dogin the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - E B White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven -Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

zjman @ 2008-06-26T09:24:00

2008-06-26T13:27:36Z

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding
- Nick Lowe

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,
There's one thing I wanna know:
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

zjman @ 2008-06-26T09:14:00

2008-06-26T13:24:29Z

Yesterday, bruhinb made me drool with delight when he shared a link to Bacon chocolate chip cookies with maple cinnamon glaze... And on that day, bruhinb was my hero.

Methinks I know what baking project is going to christen our new oven!

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2008-06-26T02:14:43Z

What's so funny 'bout feet, smoke, and Michael Landon?

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2008-06-26T02:11:12Z

What's so funny 'bout peat moss and rubber banding?

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2008-06-26T02:10:42Z

What's so funny 'bout meat, slugs, and Stockard Channing?

random update

2008-06-25T20:21:06Z

Had a very productive weekend of packing with linda_a in preparation for next week's move. Our new lease starts on the 1st and we have until the 6th to clear out of the old place. This gives us weeknights to bring stuff over and a 3-day holiday weekend to finish hauling, unpacking, and settling in. Appropriately, Independence Day weekend will be our first weekend at the new place! Snags aside, we liked our housemates, but have been yearning for some privacy and room to spread out.

Between procrastination, a migraine for me last night, and some exhaustion from Linda's schedule (no more 8AM teaching after tomorrow, hon!), the last couple of nights have been spent not packing. In all fairness, on Monday I did dismantle the entertainment center, packed accessories, and disconnected the TV and DVD player to reduce distraction and create some more space for packed boxes. The bad thing is that the tele is rarely a distraction. When it's on, it's mostly to watch something specific or for DVD's. It's the damn laptops that kill our productivity. We've been talking about instituting an "unplugged night" once a week. Current plans have us incorporating that into our weeks spent at the new dwelling. Mayhaps we should do it sooner lest we hit next weekend with too much to do!

The new place is going to be great! We're already mentally planning how we're going to be using some of the space. We've got a fireplace - not sure if this is working or not - I'd guess in a rental that it's not, but it'll lend to some creative use of that space and the mantle. Another neat feature is a sun room. We'll probably use that for drying herbs (note to self - make some drying racks) and for plants in colder weather. We also have some attic space that the owner was still working on when we took the initial tour. Depending on what he's done, we may have some more fun space (temperature and level of finishing permitting) to play with or simply have some extra storage space. Having an actual dining area and an extra room is also going to be great. We'll definitely be posting photos as we get settled in.

Work is well; a little boring currently, but well. Summer's a slow period for supporting the educational market, but things are quite promising. I was brought in on a 3-month contract starting March and I'm already being trained and prepped for projects through the beginning of next year. Permanent placement is also imminent. Job description and requisition have been handed in, I'm told! I'm also told that HR here is excruciating slow and not to hold my breath.

Linda and I have also officially launched PeaceCrafted Products! We're up and running for taking orders online and will hopefully be selling through local shops soon. Bath salts are ready to go and candles, soap, and other crafts are coming in the near future. We're getting officially tradenamed and affiliated with "NH Made" in the coming weeks. It's pretty exciting to be doing this together and we've got some other cool stuff planned for it as well. Stay tuned!

Other than that, it's business as usual. Off to pick up Linda after work and then we'll grab a quick bite to eat before hitting the boxes at home tonight. Should be a productive evening after a few nights off.

geek links du jour

2008-06-24T13:54:01Z

http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/macbook-air-superdrive-for-all
http://www.physorg.com/news133439288.html
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/deathknight/gameplay.xm

☆☆☆ nonsequiter groove ☆☆☆

first impression review

Bad Real Estate Listings....

zjman @ 2008-07-16T09:24:00

zjman @ 2008-07-15T16:51:00

zjman @ 2008-07-14T13:49:00

zjman @ 2008-07-11T23:10:00

zjman @ 2008-07-10T14:09:00

zjman @ 2008-07-07T09:44:00

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4th of July thoughts....

qod

zjman @ 2008-07-02T16:56:00

zjman @ 2008-07-02T16:44:00

randomosity

zjman @ 2008-07-01T09:42:00

zjman @ 2008-06-27T10:15:00

*yawn*

zjman @ 2008-06-26T10:56:00

zjman @ 2008-06-26T09:24:00

zjman @ 2008-06-26T09:14:00

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random update

geek links du jour

yawn