Logophilia

Language is so incredibly fascinating. It wasn't until recently that I've become conscious of my deep love for linguistics, although I think it's always been there. Now, I just have a word for it. There are words for almost everything; I wish more of them were incorporated into everyday use. I have a day-by-day calendar with a new word each day and I love it to pieces. On the back of each sheet, there's an note on the word's etymology. Even if all the new words I learn don't always stick, I still love being exposed to them. Whenever I learn a new word, it almost always shows up later that day. It's divine.

Colloquial language and slang are especially interesting, especially when it's from different eras. Jazz slang is one of my favorites. Although it continues to baffle me, Cockney rhyming slang is wonderfully interesting. I think it'd be so fun to master it. British slang is great, too. In fact, I'm fond of almost all foreign slang. The only problem is that when I try to sneak it into regular conversation, no one knows what I'm saying, and neither do I, really. I've just now discovered the word argot, and I find I'm partial to it. Words to desribe words have a special place in my word-worshipping soul.

When I was younger, I loved the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. In the case you're not familiar with them, the Redwall books are epic tales of fantasy and adventure, and the characters are various animals (mostly native to Britain). Aside from being excellent books, each species of animal has it's own dialect. It makes it awfully fun to read, and it gives all the animals such personality. The moles talk in a different way from the hedgehogs, or the sparrows, or the hares, or the rats, etc. This aspect of the books turned my brother off from the series, but I still dig it.

It's amazing how so many different styles can come from one language. The same words exist, available to all, but the diction can vary so drastically from writer to writer. Language in general is a marvel, in the way that we can express ourselves through letters and words and sentences. Equally miraculous is the way others can look at these strings of symbols and make sense of it all. Once or twice I came across a study showing that as long as the first and last letter are in place, most people are still able to read words written in such a way. For emxalpe, msot ploepe hvae no pboerlm rdanieg tihs... the huamn mnid is phaonmneal in tihs way, at lsaet in my oipnoin. Understandable not not, nonsense words can be fun. Made up languages are even better, like the sort used by twins (I don't know if this even exists outside books, but it's still neat to think about). Lately, I've been interested in Nadsat, the teenage argot Anthony Burgess thought up for A Clockwork Orange. Mom, if you by some chance happen to be reading this, please take note that it's the slang that interests me, not the rape and ultraviolence. Anyways, I've never read more than a handful of pages of the book, nor seen it's film adaptation, but I still think it's pretty cool to invent a language like that. Burgess was a linguist, so I've read, and a translator, too. Oooh, apparently he's written a couple books on the subject. I shall have to check it out. Speculative fiction can twist language is radical ways.

I think I elaborate too much; these blog entries are beasts. Ah well, that's what blogs are for, I suppose.

J. C. Leyendecker

I am incredibly calm at the moment. In actuality, I'm probably just in need of much, much sleep. All the same I feel serene, especially after reading another story out of The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury). It's a very thought-provoking book; I'm glad I had some time to read it today. I think my cat is going deaf. She never seems to notice me until I'm right there next to her and I have to call her name loudly multiple times for her to hear me. I think I'm going to work on incorporating more visual communication techniques when I'm with her.

The other day whilst strolling the internet, as I so often do, I came across this illustration:

Isn't it beautiful? The young man who's standing second from the left especially caught my eye. He's positively glowing, at least to me. I found out later that his name is Charles Beach and the artist's name is J. C. Leyendecker. It's a 1907 illustration for Arrow Collar, an ad campaign for shirts with detachable collars. Apparently Leyendecker did a whole collection featuring Arrow Collar men. While I was researching all this, I learned a little about Leyendecker's life and work. I love learning about people. Lots of times I get sidetracked reading biographical articles when I ought to be doing homework. There's so much to know about so many people!

Anyway, the more I look at Leyendecker's illustrations, the more fond I grow of him as an artist. I truly admire artists who create beautiful things. To be so talented and to be able to share that talent with the world is such a miraculous thing. Human beings can be a lot of awful and ugly things, but sometimes they can be beautiful. The human figure, when skillfully portrayed, is absolutely stunning.

These are a couple more of examples of Leyendecker's work.

Back to school

Hey, I haven't blogged in a while. I figure it's best to keep it fresh with small relatively insignificant updates as opposed to waiting eons between something actually blog-worthy. Maybe it's just me.

In two words, school started. I won't go into a detailed account. I will, however, blog about my AP English teacher. She is completely amazing and I love her class. Plus, she has a poster with Oscar Wilde on it and it inspires me greatly. AP classes are good because they tend to attract the more serious and dedicated members of the student body. All the same, AP homework (combined with regular homework) devours all my time like chips or grapes or popcorn. But enough about school and the like. Actually, I will mention Obama's address to students today. I saw it (not live) in English class this afternoon. I haven't fully formed my opinion on it yet, but I think its message of trying to get more kids to really try in school is very good. There's so much apathy in schools (or at least, my school) and this was a good nudge. I get to analyze it for homework, and that should be interesting. My mom really dug it. My teacher mentioned something about the free education in this country and it got me thinking. It really is amazing, especially compared to a lot of countries. I wish more people appreciated learning and being able to go to school. I know I'm guilty of moaning about homework, but I really am very lucky. Kids should think more.

Thus concludes my little update. The weather-makers are still deciding what to do, I think. I also found Joel Stein's Twitter today. I've been looking for it since I made an account and I was fairly excited. I'm looking forward to taking a nice shower and possibly finding time to read a little if I can finish all my homework at a reasonable hour. A big if, but I can always try.

Set your heart at rest

I had a fantastic weekend ^_^

On Saturday, I went to a lovely movie theater and saw Ponyo, Hayao Miyazaki's newest film. Ponyo is about a goldfish princess who longs to become human and befriends a human boy who lives on a cliff by the sea. Like all his films, it was beautiful, enchanting, pure, and imaginative. Hayao Miyazaki is definitely one of my biggest heroes in life. His films have always had and will always continue to have a profound effect on me.

On Sunday, I went for the first time to Shakespeare Santa Cruz. It was fantastic! I've always wanted to go, and this year I was familiar with one of the plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream). The stage was in a beautiful redwood grove. Although Puck was my favorite character (in the written play and at SSC) all the actors and actresses were phenomenal. It was a truly magical performance and I hope to attend SSC in future years.

To top it all off, there was delicious vegetarian food the whole weekend. Veggie pizza, veggie sandwich, sweet potato fries, veggie lasagna, salad, bread, carrot cake... of course, I didn't eat all that at once. I spaced it out over two days. In short: living in an area with an abundance of vegetarian restaurants fills my heart and stomach with love.

All that said, I had a beautiful weekend. I hope you did, too. Now, I have a lot of work to do in preparation for the coming school year and I am going to start that as soon as I post this and brush my teeth. Still, when daydreaming of faeries and underwater cities it surely can't be that bad...

Ye gods!

As of right now, I'm a little more than half-way through Queen of the Damned. For those who don't know, it's the third book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. So far I'm liking it more than I thought I would, but I'm not too sure how I feel about Akasha and her whisking Lestat away from all the other characters. I suppose I'll have to keep reading to find out...

You know, I really dig Anne Rice's views on human sexuality. I really do, odd as this sounds. I was watching an interview with her and one of the questions was why she had so many gay characters. She replied by saying she just sees the world that way and that in her mind the ideal being could love both men and women. She then elaborates about how attraction and love with her characters are fluid, transcending gender, age, status, etc. In short, it ended up sounding to me like she favors extreme pansexuality. I personally think this is really great, because I feel the same way and it's neat to find a like-minded soul, especially a prolific author. She writes it really well, too, in a way that doesn't dwell on the characters' sexuality but rather incorporates it as a natural part of them. I like it.

Anyways, enough about that. One of my favorite parts of Queen of the Damned so far is the excerpt from Claudia's diary. It reminded me how much I liked Claudia and how absolutely priceless she, Louis, and Lestat are together in their little vampire family. Someday, I would like to reread Interview with the Vampire. I think it'd be interesting to read it with a greater knowledge of Lestat, Armand, and Théâtre des Vampires. Perhaps I would like it more than when I initially read it.

It's rather late and I'm very tired. I stayed up watching a meteor shower last night, and today I finished my summer assignment dealing with Oedipus. I am incredibly excited by this. Tomorrow, I plan to sleep late, exercise, start another summer assignment, and read more of this mentioned book. I sort of left off at an Akasha bloodbath scene, so we'll see how that works out. Say, I'm not sure if the correct title is Queen of the Damned or The Queen of the Damned. I can't properly tell because my version has the movie promo cover. Ick. I hate movie promo covers. Well, it was that or a beastly hardcover, so I decided to go with a scantily clad Aaliyah and a half-naked Stuart Townsend in a compact paperback form. Oh, the things I do for purse-sized books....

I bid thee goodnight.

Another Country

I usually watch movies at night, when it's good and dark like a theater, but sometimes it's nice to watch movies in the afternoon. Today was such a day, the movie being Another County, a 1984 film adaptation of Julian Mitchell's play by the same title. The movie centers around Guy Bennett (Rupert Everett), a student in snobby and rigid 1930s-ish English public school. He and his friend Tommy Judd (Colin Firth) are rather outcasts, Bennett for not being discreet about his being gay and Judd for being a devout Marxist. Bennett aspires to be a "God"-- a member of the school's elite. I don't want to give it all away, but that's the premise.

I thought it was an excellent film. Like many people say, it has beautiful photography. Unlike some people say, I only struggled with the English accents a couple of times. I liked Bennett and Judd's characters a lot, and I though Rupert Everett and Colon Firth gave superb performances portraying them. I've seen them together before in The Importance of Being Earnest, which was also happens to be a very good film, which also happens to be a very good play, which happens to be an Oscar Wilde play, which increases its win points substantially. I also "visually sniped" (as my brother would say) Cary Elwes (i.e. "Westley? Westley, is that you?" Princess Bride fan, much). Elwes played James Harcourt, the object of Guy's affections. All the actors were so young! I always think its neat to see actors when they're young, because you can see how they've changed and how they're the same.

While it's not exactly a feel-good movie, I thought it was really interesting to see the hypocrisy and cruelty-- not to mention prime snobbery-- of (most) English public schools at that time. It was an awfully oppressive school. Near the end, Judd gives one of the Gods a good speech about how the boys oppressed by the system grow up to be the fathers that maintain it [cite Wikipedia on that last bit]. That was one of my favorite parts, along with Guy and James having a rare peaceful moment in one of the school boats and all of Judd's clever Marxist ranting. Come to think of it, the whole movie was my favorite part. I think it's a film definitely worth watch, so if you find yourself at a loss next time you're searching for a flick, keep Another Country in mind.

Oy!

The blog is all dusty and musty. I don't like it. Consider this post to be like a Swiffer.

Many blog-worthy events have come and gone un-blogged, and I feel sort of guilty. After all, what else is a blog for? So: I'm going to make a list of all the things I wished I blogged about but never got around to, complete with brief descriptions and comments, etc.

In June, I went to a David Sedaris reading/signing in a lovely little book store! It was amazing! I must have been smiling the entire time, I was so excited. He is very friendly and rather short in person. He read us two new (well, new at the time) essays, in addition to parts of his diary and a couple other things. Everybody was laughing and having a marvelous time. The setting was very intimate and was so happy to be able to go. He signed my copies of Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, and gave me a condom (he was handing them out to all the teenagers). This book event has got to be one of the highlight of my life so far, and I love him to pieces!

Also in June, I saw Third Eye Blind with a bunch of friends at a free concert in a park. Excellent, much? They were fantastic live and played a lot of my favorite songs. The entire day was an adventure and a smashing good time.

On a more somber note, huge funding cuts have been made to the public libraries in my area. The new hours-- which became effective July 1st-- are truly devastating. I continue to volunteer and drop by often. Hopefully these cuts will be revoked when the state budget gets back on track someday, as I believe libraries to be among the most precious of resources.

Speaking of reading, this summer I've gathered up the courage to finally read Anne Rice. I've always seen her work labeled as horror, which made me steer clear of her for a long time (I'm not really one for horror, you see). However, I was reassured by other readers that her writing is more gothic than horror and my curiosity eventually won out. As of today, I've read Interview with the Vampire and am getting very close to finishing The Vampire Lestat. I find I'm more fond of the latter, but I did like Interview, too. While the book as a whole did have its weak points (i.e. Rice's tendency to write in such a flowery manner it's often distracting), I found it overall a good read. I find I've been much more motivated while reading Lestat, probably because I really like Lestat. It's good stuff, I tell you. (As a side note, I thought I'd tell a little story about my early experiences with Anne Rice. I used to babysit these darling little girls, and prominently displayed in their living room were all of Anne Rice's works. I'd read the ghoulish titles and see the macabre cover art and be very afraid [I was also afraid of the Gollum bookends and oriental masks, but they really are very, very kind people.] Anyways, I think it's a funny way to first become acquainted with an author.)

And what was I most looking forward to in July? The big screen adaption of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, of course! My two friends and one of their moms saw a late show downtown. We dressed up and had a wicked time! I must say I was impressed with this film and thought it far better than the last one. I was satisfied with the portrayal of teenage Tom Riddle, who I feared would be butchered, and I swooned often over Alan Rickman (and Tom Felton, who appeared quite a lot). I thought they did a lousy job of explaining who the real Half-Blood Prince was in the end. In the book, it's so enchanting, because who doesn't believe Snape is made of win? Yeah, nobody. Overall, I liked it very much. Also, did anyone else notice that the wonky, smooth black bricks from the department of mysteries made a comeback? They were in the orphanage. I guess David Yates loves those bricks. I also was impressed with Slughorn's performance and character portrayal. I thought it to be one of the film's strong points. I really must reread the series one of these days!

If anyone read all that (and I realize it's a beast) I really am flattered and applaud your perseverance. Of course, loads of other things happened and are happening or will happen, but I thought it'd be nice to skim over the main points in my life as of late. Now, with the clear conscience of a good blogger, I shall move on to my one of my summer assignments, which is what I really should have been doing for the past hour. Cheers!

Coincidence?

So, the other night while cooking up a killer batch of fajitas, something on the tortilla packaging caught my eye...

See the no on 8? I do believe the tortilla company is covertly trying to say they support equality via gay marriage.

MJ

I know I'm a little late on this, but better late than never. And what would be a better time than while I'm here dancing to Michael Jackson right now?

Like almost everyone, I was shocked when he died. He was so young, and I had always thought him to be immortal. I suppose he is, though, in spirit. All the wonky later years aside, Michael Jackson really was a shibby person at heart. He was extremely talented and produced some of the grooviest music of the age, not to mention videos and dance moves. I'm glad our lifetimes overlapped.

These are the two MJ songs I remember listening to all the time as a kid. Chamone, dance on.

Time

Today, the writer's block question asks: "If you could be a teenager living in any decade, which one would you choose?" The consensus seems to be the 1960's, and I admit I would have loved to be alive then, as well. I would have loved to watch the maned first lunar landing and pick up a first edition of Stranger In A Strange Land, not to mention the abundance of peacelove and the divine music scene. I would have also loved to live in the 70s, epecially to see Ziggy Stardust come to earth and experience How The West Was Won in person. You know, 1972 was a good year for music. Music aside, there was lot going on back then. Huge revolutionary advances and all. I know that time period wasn't perfect, like so many romantics (which I myself am often guily of) idolize it to be. There was still horrible wars and racism and violence, but I suppose every decade is tainted in some way.

Assuming I have a way to travel time, I would like to experience every decade in the 20th century as a teenager. They're all so interesting. I want to visit a time when people actually danced... I want to go to the swing age. I'd like to visit a time when cloche hats were popular or when people gathered around radios.

If I think about it some more, I'd fancy seeing the Victorian era. There was an awful lot of beautiful buildings and attire back then. I could transform myself into an glorious young man and find Robert Ross. (Originally, it was my scheme to become Oscar Wilde's lover, but he and Bosie are so lovely I wouldn't want to interfere. Also, if I were Robert Ross' lover, I could still visit Oscar Wilde and hang on his every word.) I've got it all planned out. Besides, being a woman in the Victorian Era wouldn't be too shibby...

While I'm traveling the ages, I'd want to see almost every time period, if only for a little while, including the future. You know, this reminds me of a book series I used to read when I was younger called The Magic Treehouse. It was about a brother and sister, Jack and Annie, who traveled through time in a treehouse completing tasks for their friend, Morgan le Fay. She would leave a book about wherever they were traveling to, for Jack and Annie so they could learn and have a sort of guide. They were good books.

Also: Star Trek, Back to the Future, and Harry Potter teach me the dangers of time travel. I'd have to exercise caution, careful not to disrupt anything or create a paradox or anything of that sort.

If you're still with me after all that ranting... I noticed that very few people who answered the writer's block question were content living now. While I long to go to so many times, there are good things about now. I wonder if people in the future will ask this question and answer, "Oh, I'd want to visit the 2000's! I could see the turn of the milenium, see the rise of the Internet age, go to Harry Potter midnight release parties, go to Obama rallies, see all those funny reality TV shows, cruise around in a blue Prius..."

Mi vida está loca

I (believe) I have now read all of BMB.  Then again, another hidden stash may spring up... a fan can only hope.

Anyways, you may or may not wonder what I've been up to besides reading awesome webcomics.  Well, I've been noticing the definite lack of spring around here.  One day it's chilly and cloudy, the next it's blazing sun with oppressive temperatures.  The weather-maker apparently thought it fit to skip a traditional spring with gentle spring weather and instead sporadically switch between summer and winter.  I suspect global warming is behind these shenanigans.

Weather aside, I often feel as if I am metaphorically drowning.  School is coming to a close at an alarming speed.  I feel like I still have so much to do before the year ends.  Next year is going to have a beastly work load and multiple summer assignments.  Free time and sanity (not to mention sleep) look pretty much shot.  And then while I'm worrying about next year, I still have projects and ever-nearing finals happening this year.  Oy.  Time is speeding by much too quickly for my taste.

On a lighter note, I've got a smashing book.  After hearing from numerous reliable sources of its excellence, I decided to give Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game a read.  It's fantastic!  I haven't finished it yet, but I so far I recommend it.  Perhaps I'll try and get my brother to read it...

So: keeping it together until summer is my main focus right now.  Too bad there will be no more new stories with Cy and Skids and the gang to cheer me on... but who says I can't revist old haunts? ^_~

Shibby!

Hey there, blog.

The other day was pretty bittersweet, the reason being I finished my favorite webcomic to date: Boy Meets Boy by K. Sandra Fuhr.  I came across it while surfing for results concerning the David Levithan novel of the same name (the book and the comic aren't related, though).  I started reading it and found myself smiling more and more. 

The comic centers around a gay couple, Mik and Harley, and their quirky friends (their evil incarnate landlady, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer obsessed boy band, Mik's slightly psycho ex, Harley's peppy sister, etc.)  Various situations arise, and a good times are ensued.  All the characters are so wonderful!  I want to give them all hugs.

If you're interested, the first strip is here.  I recommend you check it out.

All in all, I had a blast reading it.  Blogs are for sharing, no? ^_^ 

EDIT: Once again, I have found a hidden stash of BMB comics I have not yet read!  This happened to me once before, too... Hail, webcomic gods!  I'a go read them now... ciao!

Tuesday is martes

I must admit it is taking me an embarrassingly long time to finish reading Frankenstein.  It's a good book, but I have virtually nill time to read.  Also, when reading books written with older language, it takes me a minute to get into it, thus I can't read a paragraph here and a paragraph there while taking notes in Spanish class.  It requires a certain level of concentration.  I vowed to finish it over spring break, but alas... 

I just renewed the thing, and I have until the 28th.  A decent amount of time, you may say, to read the second half of a not-actually-that-long novel.  We'll see.  The next book I hope to read is Running With Scissors, but there are so many books on the list I can't be certain.  I miss those lovely summer days when I read a book almost daily.

On the topic of renewing books, I love being able to renew books online.  It's such a breeze, and while I'm at it I can scout out new titles and check library hours.  It's a fabulous business.  All available from the comfort of my kitchen while I simultaneously blog about it in another window.

Although it is officially the season of new life and spring break has come and passed, it was exceptionally windy today.  Chills you to the bone, it does.  Power outages sprinkling the area, etc.  Even though I do tend to curse it as I heave myself out of the pool after practice, I do love the wind.  It's so very powerful.

Although I have no idea when the mango sitting on my kitchen counter will ripen, you just read my blog update of the day.

Here comes the sun, little darling

This morning at the library it was so sunny and warm out.  It reminded me of last summer when I'd spend hours moseying through the central branch.  In the summer, there's so much time to read.  It's lovely.  Last summer I kept a list of the books I read.  I think I'll do the same thing this summer.

I have a huge craving to go downtown and loll around people watching.  I haven't been downtown since it was rather rainy, and it makes me sad.  Who knows, later I may just catch a bus and spend a few hours down there.  It's a possibility.  So many possibilities.

Mmm I could probably be wearing shorts right now.  I love it.  School's going to be awfully hard to concentrate on... but I mustn't acquire 'third quarter sluff-off', as my chem teacher would put it.

But I've got an April bus pass and my flip-flops and I'm ready to go.

Has anyone else noticed how quickly March speeded away?!  Time is going by too fast!

Earth Hour

Various website tell me that one way I can support a cause is to spread awareness via blogging.  That's what I'm doing now-- supporting Earth Hour.

The idea is for everyone across the globe to switch their lights out on Saturday, March 28 from 8:30 to 9:30 PM local time to VOTE EARTH.

I learned about this through a girl in my Spanish class, and I'm trying to spread the word around.  It's such a simple action, turning out the lights, but it will have such a such a powerful impact on the environment.  Anyone can do it, too-- the more, the better!

Please participate and pass it on!

Peace,

Kat

Libraries cheer me up

This past week I've been especially frazzled and very irritable. However, my mood is improving. This probably started with the slide projector in photo class, and went on from there.

Today, my darling dearest was not present, meaning I had heaps of time to utilize-- alone-- during the immense gap better known as 'waiting for swim practice to start'. I wandered up to the library with every intention of doing homework, but (as I said) I was pretty burnt out and was not in the mood for geometric sequences and Lenin.

Then, And Tango Makes Three caught my eye!  I had heard about it, and it was the perfect opportunity to read it.   For those who don't know, And Tango Makes Three is a children's book based on the true story of two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo who fall and love and adopt an egg.  They're now a happy family!  It was a very sweet book, and I'm adding it to my list of books to most definitely read to my potential children of the future. 

Anyways, reading that perked me up some.  I still had it in me to lug  the Modern World History text book over to where I was sitting, but I was in no mood to open it.

By some unfathomable force of nature, I instead did a library search for Andy Warhol.  This led me to a rather good book on him, and I read the thing until the library closed.  (I feel I must explain my unexplainable fascination with Andy Warhol.  For reasons unbeknownst to me, I find Andy Warhol an incredibly attractive individual.  I'm a sponge when it comes to him.  I happen to love interesting people, and he ranks pretty high on that list.)  As you might imagine, this cheered me up considerably.  I plan to continue reading from where I left off at page 55 next time I come around.

Then, at long last, swimming came.  I love being buoyant, and I had Walk on the Wild Side (appropriately) stuck in my head.  Mellow, calm.

Four tests in three periods tomorrow (ouch!) but I think I'll do all right.  I sure hope so.

I fully realize that I just related in great detail my after school affairs and that this is not prime subject matter that people readily read.  But it made me happy when I needed happy.  I hope you're happy, too.  Happiness is a good thing.  It's a good thing.

Oxidation Numbers

It's been a while since I last blogged around on here. When I created this, I meant to post frequently, but that plan of action (more or less) deteriorated. Even so, fabulous as it may be, Natalie Portman and Elmo can't be the top post forever.

What to say... well, I've been thinking (or more so, forced to think) about what I want to do with my life. Tis the season for high school counselors to start getting on your case. I realize that I will be out of here much sooner than I think, and I admit I'm rather scared. Excited, of course, too. But also terrified. I have no solid career goals, really. There are some kids who visit an aquarium as a field trip one day and say, "I want to be a marine biologist." And they indeed do become a marine biologist. Others, like my dad, wanted to be a trucker and then an astronaut, first a farmer and then a doctor, a chemist, and somewhere along the line most likely a race car driver, before settling on the final choice of an electrical engineer. My mom says she didn't know what she wanted to do until she was a sophomore in college, but I think there's more pressure on students now that back in the day. I both enjoy and excel in the area of English, and I was thinking pursuing something in journalism. I'd love to be an author, but we'll see.

After that hefty paragraph, I'm very glad to be swimming again. Swim meet tomorrow; hope for the best!

Tonight I mixed some CDs for a couple friends. They're all ready to go, for the most part... but my computer burns CDs whose volume is lower than a regular CD, thus leading to generally bleh. I'll try to look into the iTunes preferences on that so I can burn CDs at actual decent volume. It may be attributed to this computer's funky disk drive. Sometimes you fee like a nut, sometimes you don't.

Seeing I have to get up nice and early in the cold, frosty dark tomorrow, I think I'd best be off to bed. Hopefully I'll be better about updating the ol' blog, even if my reader base is virtually nil.

Buenas Noches,
kAt

The most amazing video I've ever seen

Supreme

I love these machines to pieces.  It's one of my life goals to own one.  When it ceases to run (bless its heart) I'll move it to the yard and my kids can play in it.  Something about them makes me feel like a hug.

Haggis

A friend requested I write a poem about haggis.  I learned what on earth haggis is, and she got a poem.

In the land of the Scots, there is a great dish

For which a valiant young sheep did lose his life

And lo! the offal he did become

Mixed with all manner of ingredients

And stuffed into a bag of stomach

Where he boiled for thrice an hour's time

When the savory concoction ceased to cook

Out it was brought, on a platter fine

And it was placed upon the table

To be consumed with spirits for a merry feast

In the land of the Scots, there is a great dish

By the name, folks say, haggis!

Clearly, I've got nothing on ages of Scottish tradition; I mean, who can beat this?