Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Resolution Follow Up - Week #9

Some of the resolutions were weekly so here is how I am doing so far after night weeks.

Health Category:
  • Take a yoga class - once a week

I suck. I still haven't been to the gym. My cold is almost completely gone now, but it hung on to the end of last week. I did go on a walk/hike that was 2.8 miles on Sunday so I should get a half a point credit for that.

  • Eat a prepared meal - once a week - that I have not eaten before (counts if it is at a sit down restaurant)
After the hike, we went to an Irish Pub in Magnolia. It had amazing Shepherd's Pie and decent Irish soda bread. I would totally go back.

Reading Category:
  • 25 Books (50 for the year) and 25% of books on the BBC list of Must Read Books
  • Running total: 18/25 Books (7/6 of the BBC books)
"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. It completely lived up to the hype. Once I get caught up on other books, I will definitely circle back to read more of the series. I approve of the casting for the movie coming out next year. However, I think it is insanely controversial to do.

On deck for next week: "Heat Rises" by Richard Castle (3rd Nikki Heat book from ABC's "Castle")

Photography Category
:
  • Make/Customize a photo bag for my camera

I have found my idea camera bag at Target of all places. I will post more details later, but it is not an actual camera bag. I need to go to the foam store to trick it out a bit. I did sew two patches on it to make it more mine. Once the foam is cut and set, I will take pictures of it. I am also debating on putting another patch on it or not. It is a black bag and a lot of my patches are blue and brown so it doesn't look all that great. Thankfully, Emerald City Comicon is coming up and I can pick up more badges there.

Thus concludes my ninth week's update on my Resolutions for 2012. See you again next week!

I had a dream

I had a dream the other night where the place I was working had a private zoo. In this zoo, they had an elephant that could talk. Mainly, he liked to do a Marlon Brando impressions. He would scratch the underside of his chin with his trunk. It was physically spot on. However, I thought he sounded way more like Robert DeNiro. It was just wrong. The inflection and the accent just didn't match the movie quotes. I kept telling people that the elephant was broken. We should train him to do DeNiro's lines. They kept reminding me that the point was that it was A TALKING ELEPHANT. Still, if the elephant was going to do something, he should do it properly.

Friday, March 2, 2012

The Key is Greenland

We were having a causal conversation at work about our plans for world domination (much like one discusses their plans in a zombie outbreak) and I came to the conclusion that Greenland really is the key to the whole plot.

First, what do we know about Greenland (without looking at Google or Wikipedia)? Here is what I know:
  • It has more Ice than Iceland and Iceland is more green than Greenland
  • When flights to and from Europe to the US first started, it was safer to fly over it than the ocean.
  • In Max Brooks' "World War Z," it is still a zombie hot spot.
  • It is where you get sent if you know too much about the Middleman organization.
  • ...and...umm...

Really, that is all I know about Greenland. I surveyed others and pretty much no one knew too much else. Some of them even confused it with Iceland. I have no idea if the country is divided into states or Providences. I can't name a city from it. I don't know what language they speak. I have no idea if they played any part at all in any war ever.

I think there is some kind of magical power there that makes everyone look to either side of it. No one pays any attention to it. What a perfect place to launch an invasion!

It is a great strategic place. The closest country is Canada ('nuff said) and yet you could easily launch attacks to the US, Europe and Russia from the cold comfort of your ice tundra.

You can slowly amass troops there. You can train the locals at first and then bring people in. It would be easy to spot spies once you cataloged the population because who goes to Greenland intentionally? Oh AND AND AND you could totally raise a polar bear army. Give them something to do. Who is a) going to want to fight polar bears if they invade or b) want to launch weapons at them? There is no way to have a popular war if the images of dead polar bears are on the news every night. If you play it right, you could have Coca-Cola as a sponsor for the war.

With global warming, it is going to be prime real estate. The whole country won't be ice forever. Shipping lanes will open up and then you can slowly launch the first wave of the attack - ICE PIRATES! You won't even need guns. You just need to train your narwhal army to swim alongside and threaten to feed them to them or just impale them on their horns. Who on god's green earth is going to want to go up against a whale with a horn? Seriously. Here there be monsters indeed.

Even if you don't take over the whole world, you could easily over throw the country and rule as you see fit. Not to mention most of the parts of Canada up there. Who would notice? You would have your polar bears and narwhals to patrol and maybe if you are really lucky, defrost some cavemen and raise them to fight for you. You can show them fire and pants and they will follow you as their benevolent leader. Cracking skulls and directing the polar bears to attack.

In conclusion, after I wrote this I Googled plane tickets to Greenland and came across this:

"Immigration and border formalities on entering Greenland tend to be very low key. Questioning is minimal and except at Kangerlussuaq, which has a traditional passport control desk, border staff will either meet your plane on the tarmac or may simply give an all clear to disembark. Airlines send passenger manifests ahead of time to immigration and if there are no concerns, they won't always send somebody - especially at smaller airports. If you need your passport stamped (i.e. for a residence permit) you may need to seek out border staff yourself or get in touch with Greenland Homerule to obtain the stamp."

This invasion will be even easier than I thought. Bring on my polar bear army! I desire a Coke!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

My List of Geek/Nerd Required Reading

I have been trying to find a nice big list of fiction books as a good geek/nerd should read. They seem to be very short lists or only have current stuff or only have hardcore tech stuff or mix in non-fiction with fiction.

These are books both past and present. They are not all science fiction. Some have more pop culture reference than others. Some are actual literature whereas others are just fun reads. Some are just the first book in a series or the series as a whole is listed. If nothing else, this is a good jumping off point.

In alphabetical order....

  1. 1984 - George Orwell
  2. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
  3. Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank
  4. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
  5. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
  6. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
  7. The Dark Tower - Stephen King
  8. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
  9. A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore
  10. Discworld - Terry Pratchett
  11. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
  12. Dracula – Bram Stoker
  13. Dune – Frank Herbert
  14. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
  15. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
  16. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
  17. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
  18. From the Earth to the Moon - Jules Verne
  19. Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
  20. Gödel, Escher, Bach- Douglas Hofstadter
  21. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
  22. Harry Potter series – J. K. Rowling
  23. Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
  24. The Definitive H.P. Lovecraft: 67 Tales of Horror in One Volume -H.P. Lovecraft
  25. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
  26. I am Legend - Richard Matheson
  27. I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
  28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
  29. Little Brother - Cory Doctorow
  30. Logan's Run - William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
  31. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
  32. Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way - Bruce Campbell
  33. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
  34. Neuromancer - William Gibson
  35. On A Pale Horse - Piers Anthony
  36. Peter and the Starcatchers - Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
  37. Planet Of The Apes - Pierre Boulle
  38. Princess Bride - William Goldman
  39. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
  40. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
  41. Slaughter-House 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
  42. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
  43. A Spell for Chameleon- Piers Anthony
  44. The Stand - Stephen King
  45. Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
  46. The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
  47. Stranger in a Strangeland - Robert Heinlein
  48. War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
  49. World War Z - Max Brooks
  50. The Yiddish Policemen's Union- Michael Chabon

A good geek/nerd will have read about half of these books, but have heard of all of them (or at least know the author). I'm sure I missed some so feel free to mention them in the comments. Also, if you haven't read #39 yet - you need to run to the book store now!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Resolution Follow Up - Week #8

Some of the resolutions were weekly so here is how I am doing so far after eight weeks.

Health Category:

I have a nasty cold. Started with a sore throat on Wednesday and I have been home from work from Thursday through Sunday. I didn't work out. I barely ate anything during those 4 days.

However, starting on Monday, I will be on my new 1:30p to 10p schedule. I just won't be able to work out until this cold is gone.

Reading Category:
  • 25 Books (50 for the year) and 25% of books on the BBC list of Must Read Books
  • Running total: 17/25 Books (7/6 of the BBC books)

My BBC book reading goal has been met and then some with 3.5 months to go!

"Winnie the Pooh" by A.A. Milne (Stephen Fry and Judy Dench are two of the voices). Great stories which I had only remember a bit. Totally adorable audiobook.

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell. Loved it. Completely understand why it is a classic.

"Charlie and Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl which was lovely and read by Eric Idle.

On deck for next week: "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card.

Thus concludes my eighth week's update on my Resolutions for 2012. See you again next week!

The Angels Have My Camera

I took a couple of pics of some of the angels in my local cemetery. Here are my four favorite pics of my four favorite angels.

I used this one for class.

She hangs out in the Russian section. I noticed her robes are heavier than the others.

She actually leans on a tombstone in the Japanese section right next to a lovely mini waterfall.

She hides in between trees. She was the most angry looking one, but I really liked the implied movement of her feet and dress.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Interesting...Please Elaborate...

I completely realize that I have a different outlook on some things. However, it is never what I think it is going to be. I assume most people don't have the same tastes as me, but interpretations of facts should match up. Yea...apparently not.

The first time this happened was my junior year of high school. I was taking AP U.S. History. One of the parts of the test is where they give you a document and you write an essay based on your interpretations of the facts presented. The actual test was in the morning and our class happened to fall in the afternoon so we got to talk about the test. I remember vividly when everyone started to talk about the document section. It was a bunch of statistics over 10 years on who and what goods were being brought into the colonies. Everyone in the class starts talking about their interpretations which were all in line with each other. Then my heart dropped into my stomach. Not only had I not come remotely close to what they interpreted, it didn't even cross my mind to look at the facts that way.

The test was on a scale of 1-5. You needed a 4 or 5 in order to get the college credit. Mr. Johnson came around and asked all of us what we thought we were going to get. After that conversation, I said, "2 if I am really, really lucky." I ended up with a "C+" in the class and then over the summer we got our score. I got a "4" and only two of us in the class got that high. Everyone else got 2's and 3's. So...I guess I amused the graders of the test for my wildly different interpretation.

Flash forward to my discussion topic for this week. We had to look at three self portraits and discuss "How has the photographer (nameless, for now) combined form and narrative in these three self-portraits? What is this person trying to communicate or express? Are these images formally resolved?"

So I compose my answer and post it and then go back read everyone else's responses. And again...not even close to what they were all talking about. I try to cover my tracks by saying that my interpretation comes from the fact that they were self portraits instead of portraits and that is why I had a wildly different interpretation.

No one even commented on what I said...that is until the teacher chimes in with..."Katherine, I'm interested in what you suggested about her being comfortable being uncomfortable. Does anyone else perceive that? How does she convey that, visually?I'm curious too about the different interpretations regarding whether or not these are self-portraits. How does this distinction change the way we look at the images and what they are trying to tell us?"

There were 40 comments in addition to mine. Yet, I'm the one who got called out on it. Also, the jist of the response to the teacher's question of "Does anyone else perceive that?" was basically "Umm...no."

So yea. I love being the oddity for class. In the end, I guess as long as the teacher finds me amusing then I'm good. This is why I have a hard time hanging out with other artsy people. We don't see eye to eye at all. More like eye to elbow. They think I'm weird and I think they all need to stop looking at my elbow.