The roommate is getting up at 4:30 am to get to at the new work on the current schedule. Unfortunately her bedroom in the attic exits through a door in our bedroom.

But I think it's over the line of taste for something to reenact. Maybe it was just someone trying to get a rise out of people on the reenactment forum I saw it posted on


BDM: Bund Deutscher Mädchen the female branch of the National Socialist Youth Movement.

the Selkie cat seems to have turned the corner. Although her eye is very red, the swelling is down quite a bit. She's been occassionaly demanding some pets, she's eating and drinking finally as of this afternoon, and she even tried to convince me to let her outside.

She's on a couple antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory, and a pain killer, it's just a wait and see. Based on an ultrasound the abscess is not a defined area that can be drained, more of a inflamed/swollen area behind her eye. She was a little perkier when she got home compared to when we took her in, may be because she is on pain killers now.

Selkie, the grey cat has an abscess or something behind her right eye causing it to bulge out. She came down with it really quickly she was lethargic this morning and over the course of a couple hours her eye started showing sign of something seriously wrong. Although the sneezing yesterday morning must have been a sign that something was up.

Funny how expensive free cats can be... She's at the U of M , on antibiotics and may need surgery in the morning. If it turns out to be a tumor we're going to have her tested for arsenic since she would be the third cat with a tumor while we've lived in this house and we no part of the yard is over 80 ppm due to the pesticide plant that used to be on 18th Street

-was one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons and there's someone on Youtube who has uploaded a bunch of the original episodes. Most of them are divided into three parts. I've only watched a couple so far, but I thing he has some of the later ones too
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=432ECA4E73B69AD4

The roommate has been training with the TSA for two weeks and starts her regular schedule on Monday and -now- we get a form from the FBI as part of the background check.
---------------

On a positive note the publisher who contacted us about reprinting images of our French cards in a "New Age" book coming out in December said they would let us have a color full-page ad at the back of the book to advertise ourselves. So, I spent the afternoon designing an advert.

With his own blog of disturbing clowns
http://www.myspace.com/splitstheclown

The roommate has passed all the tests and is working "saving the world one suit case at at time" as a screener with the TSA at the airport. And her schedule is starting at 6:30 rather than 5am as she originally expected so we'll all get a little more sleep at least until he hours change.

She also freaked out the Somali guy at the convenience store down the block who has been hitting on her. She stopped in for bottle of soda on her way home from work and was still wearing her TSA uniform

According to the online job application system at the U of M my application for a para-professional library position has passed the human resources filter and is being looked at by the actual department the position is in.

Smoke & Fire just placed a big order for playing cards probably in preparation for going to the Pennsic War.

No reply yet from the publisher who wants to reprint in a book our recreation of the 16th century French cards we sell.

That the title of the new podcast novel I started listening to today while putting polyurethane on a bunch of game boards. I'm highly recommending it for something to listen to on a dark and stormy night. Spooky feeling and Victorian (Well Edwardian strictly speaking...) I'm up to chapter 5 and thoroughly enjoying it.

http://tablerappers.com/

A local church has a call for art to be displayed in their narthex/lobby gallery. So I was fiddling around with a brief "Artist's Statement to include with jpgs of my work:
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My primary artistic interest is creating Celtic motifs including my original designs, as well as re-interpretations of historic designs from illuminated gospels such as the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels as well as other surviving Celtic artifacts. I have always been fascinated by the knotwork designs in Celtic art and find that solving the puzzle of how to fill a open space with a self-contained and aesthetically pleasing "knot" is part of that fascination.

Most of my work would probably be considered "mixed media" and is often drawn and painted on salvaged wood, or "previously owned" tables. A detailed description of how I created one of my larger original works can be seen here: http://historicgames.com/designing.html

Although some of my larger pieces are in the form of tables, most of them can be removed from their legs and can be displayed hanging or leaning against a wall.

Examples of my work

An original design featuring silhouette of a raven filled with Celtic designs painted on the top of a wooden coffee table.
http://historicgames.com/gifs/raventable1.jpg

A wooden plaque with my recreation of the symbol of the Gospel of Matthew from the Book of Kells.
http://tinyurl.com/5flan8

The front of a Hope Chest featuring a design from the Lindisfarne Gospels
http://tinyurl.com/5rhdd7

I also have a little video on describing my work at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5FKm29fxyY

I think I want one. More and more, I've been using my laptop for entertainment purposes while I work -using it more like a radio for music playback listening to podcast commentary and fiction. I can play it through our home stereo with Air Express, but I have to carry the laptop to the basement with me if I want to be able to "pause" things when the phone rings or whatever. And when I'm working out on the patio I always have second thoughts about leaving the laptop on the table while I go in for more coffee, or to get rid of coffee, not to mention the worry about having the laptop across the room from me when I'm doing something messy like staining dice.

I've got an older model iPod I picked up cheap in a pawn shop, but that means downloading podcasts to the computer and then transferring them to the iPod and then erasing them when I've listened to them.

The IPod Touch has iTunes built in so I would be able to download podcasts directly to it, and I assume I could use it's wifi capability anywhere in Minneapolis using the Mpls city-wide wireless access that I already pay for. Problem is they still retail for $300. The new iPhone would do all I want and is only $200, but that would mean switching to AT&T and on-going monthly fees, whereas the Touch would just mean the purchase price. Maybe have to keep an eye out in pawn shops once I get a job.

So I finally got the DVD of all of the pictures of "Splits" the Clown edited and sent to Doug. I packaged it in an DVD case like a movie: "A Tortured Friends Production". He called and left a message on the machine saying we were sick and twisted, and very dear for taking the trouble to torture them.

Been listening to more back episodes of the podcast http://skeptoid.com/
His one on organic food points out that that vast majority of "organic" food is produced by corporate farms, so the concept that buying organic at your local grocery store benefits small farmers, and represents a blow to the big food corporations is a fallacy.

If you don't want to download and listen to the podcasts go to the Episode Guide and there are transcripts you can read online. http://skeptoid.com/episode_guide.php

I like the fact that he believes debunking just for the sake of debunking serves no purpose, and that he has no problem that supernatural services should be legal to sell in a free market -except where the pseudoscience being purchased is either harmful, or takes the place of essential medical or psychiatric care.

Speaking of books...

Everyone knows what a dragon looks like
Because of the road sweeper's belief in him, a dragon saves the city of Wu from the Wild Horsemen of the north.

Sir MacHinery
A robot is helped by the wizard Merlin to overcome the evil forces encroaching on the earth. Illustrated by one of my favorite picture book illustrators, (Caldecott Medal recipient) the late Trina Shart Hyman.

The World of Pooh: The Complete Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner (Pooh Original Edition)

Ok here is my list
Bold is I have read
Italics is started but not finished
Underlined is read and loved

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3, or times?
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK 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 Awefui only read it for college
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
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 - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS 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 - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (saw the film dose that count?)
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert 2, or 3 times
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 Dog in 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  Moby Dick is not a social disease
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker 2 or 3 times
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 - EB 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 -Who is this Lester guy and why is he so miserable? ;-)

My new favorite podcast.

"A weekly podcast dedicated to furthering knowledge by blasting away the widespread pseudosciences that infect popular culture."

Most of the episodes are under 10 minutes in length so they are quick to download, and sometimes fairly humorous (at least if you're not deep into certain new age or paranormal studies). I'ld love to cure cancer with wheatgrass juice, or see a ghost, or Bigfoot, or a UFO, and I would watch Ghost Hunters if I had cable TV, but until I experience one myself I'll keep listening to this guy.

http://skeptoid.com/

Okay I was wearing a pith helmet, a khaki Scottish officer's jacket and a -kilt- and I was repeatedly asked if I was doing the hunter from Jumanji. I admit without a raygun, goggles or other steampunk stereotypes it may have not been obvious, but the Jumanji movie came out 13 years ago...

I got a Email from our Hawaiian Princess about a slide show from the Citipages newspaper website with a picture of me and the Lieutenant.
http://citypages.com/slideshow/view/95974/5

Great time at CONvergence but there didn't seem to be as many phenomenal costumes as past years, but then, being the tenth anniversary there wasn't a specific theme, it was just "lets recap the last ten years of the event" so people were probably struggling with what to do. I did hear that "villains" or "super villains" may be a theme eventually.

There was another "airship crew" the HMA Badger, there besides ours, and they were running a little LARP mystery game, but I was too busy catching up with old friends to play. They seemed nice and might be willing to coordinate something together if we're there again next year.

The wife and I Saturday evening:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b160/Groomporter/CONvergence2008/P1010025.jpg

Didn't find many panels I was interested in listening to, but I did hear one on how to do a podcast. Since I've started listening to some, I was curious about it, and discovered with my Mac and a microphone I already have I have everything I need to start one...

-well, except maybe interesting content, but maybe I'll come up with an idea some time.

Speaking of podcasts I mentioned I was listening to Michael Bennett's collection of podcast short stories "The Hall of Mirrors". I've gotten through those to-date and have started listening to his "One Among the Sleepless" podcast novel and have enjoyed the first few episodes
http://www.mikebennettpodcast.com/

Pics of the crew so far at CONvergence
http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b160/Groomporter/CONvergence2008/