2768 Sand Painting

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Jay, during our very wet trip to England in 1995:
"The reason the Brits never had a space program is that they've never seen the sky."

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I have posted this before, but it's making the rounds again, and it's worth seeing again. Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who recently won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOhf3OvRXKg]

Fullscreen version: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg
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2767 Static Lint

Friday, February 5, 2010

Reality is merely a consensus.

I really do believe that, by the way. Literally.

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I just realized I hadn't posted in three days. A little bit of winter doldrums, and a lot of nothing much to say. Nothing happening.

The two Meetup groups I started have grown to 30 singles, and 34 indy movie fans. Most of those people I haven't yet met, and probably won't for a while. The singles' group will be going to an auction tomorrow night, and the movie group has a movie Sunday evening. And then both groups will be attending a documentary movie and discussion at the college Wednesday evening.

Otherwise, all is blah.

I'm getting a little worried about that trip to Morocco in April. The Meetup organizer sent us all an email a few weeks ago listing four possible dates in early February to meet in NYC with the guide, and ask questions. She wanted us to decide which dates worked for us. I responded the same day, and have heard nothing more since. The first two possible dates were last week. The next two are this coming Tuesday and Wednesday.

I sent her an email a few days ago, and have had no response.

Uh, I've been sending her a few hundred dollars every month for quite a while now. The last payment for the trip is due next week. I'm worried that she has suddenly gone silent.

Oh, well. Either I go to Morocco, or I learn another lesson. I guess I'll find out which pretty soon.

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Something I've discovered about housekeeping - once you've gone a month without vacuuming or dusting, you don't notice much difference thereafter. It all seems to hit some kind of stasis.
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2766 Sun!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

When your hand is in the tiger's mouth, you have to pet the head.

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Oscar nominations were announced today, and for the first time in 65 years, I have seen most of the movies on the lists. I'm amazed that I saw so many of the nominees at our little local indy theater, the one I started the Meetup group for.

It's odd that in the past I'd seen so few movies. Jay's father got an Academy Award for technical achievement in the late nineties, and Jay liked movies, but it just didn't happen much.

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It's been in the single digits to the twenties here for the past week, but when the wind isn't blowing, it hasn't felt that cold. There were a few inches of snow on my driveway from the last storm, and yesterday I noticed that it has almost all melted. The only place snow remains is up close to the house, where it's shaded most of the day.

It's the sun! The sun is so very warm, warmer than expected. I'll go out and it's 9 degrees, but the sun is warm on my face and hands. Hat and gloves are not only not needed, but might even be colder.

Loving it.
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2765 Meltdown video

Monday, February 1, 2010

Help! I'm being chased by killer snails!

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Quick! Watch this video before it gets killed for copyright violation! It's a British satirical explanation of exactly what happened with the subprime implosion. It really does explain it well, in terms we can understand. And remember - it's British humor. It's a hair under 9 minutes. (There's a good description of it at http://consumerist.com/2007/11/the-long-johns-explain-the-subprime-meltdown.html, but their copy of the actual video no longer works.)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-oIMJMGd1Q]


On the credit crunch:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBcmqwTV9s]
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