The Week Before – Dave Mckean
Django Reinhardt music, Dave McKean art…
my head just exploded out of wow.
Ever notice that…
night owls don’t harp on people who are morning people and require them to be at work at a later hour? I’ve heard it called the “tyranny of morning people” and I hate it.
I’ve had more bosses who say that I could come in and work during the business hours between 7am and 7pm, but when I did 10-7 and didn’t take lunch but got lots accomplished, they still were pissy.
Why?
Because I wasn’t in at 8am….
and yes, they didn’t say 8am, but they meant it, but wouldn’t ever come out and say it…and when I logicked it out of them via a series of yes/no questions they had no choice but admit it…not that they would acknowledge that they were lying sacks of shit to have said 7-7 in the first place.
gah.
anyhoo, here’s why I don’t function at 8am and trying to make me a happy, chipper, productive member of society at that hour is just begging to have your arm ripped off.
Daily Rhythm Test Results [BBC.co.uk]
Your natural rhythm cycle
Results GraphThis chart shows your natural rhythm of alertness and sleepiness over a 24 hour period.
Research into morning and evening types has been done by Professor Jim Horne at Loughborough University, who has produced these graphs by comparing your data to the national profiles.
Why does the chart dip?
* Having a siesta seems to be hard-wired into us. Most of us have a natural dip in the early afternoon – this is controlled by your body clock (not by how much you eat at lunch).
* Morning people (Larks) have a longer and more obvious afternoon dip than evening people (Owls).
* After a poor night’s sleep, your afternoon dip would be more noticeable. Your graph would be one notch lower – something you should bear in mind if driving in the afternoon.Can I affect the dips?
* Everyone’s natural dip is made worse by alcohol – drinking at lunch time seems to have more of an effect than in the evening.
* Afternoon tiredness can be overcome by coffee or a 20 minute nap (ideally both, since caffeine takes 20 minutes before it gets through your system).
* If you like to limit your caffeine intake, you may want to save your quota for when you experience your natural dip.
New Music!
It sometimes takes me forever to find new music because I hate the radio, MTV doesn’t have 120 Minutes anymore…or videos, apparently (and I don’t have cable, so moot point I suppose) most bloggers I read like stuff that I have tried, but don’t love much. I really need to meet my music blogger soulmate so I can hork up their list of music and get it myself.
(yes, I still buy CD’s mostly, used on Amazon is a pretty fabu place to do this…)
Anyhoo, I was in Target (natch) and I was wandering around the media section on the way to the games section and I peripherally saw the video playing for KT Tunstall’s song “Hold On“.
I looked for a minute and then caught the music that went along with it.
My Grammy alert went off full force.
I’ve been 100% on the songs that the alarm has gone off for (when I actually hear the song. Sometimes I don’t even hear them, so no alarm that year.)
I’m also paranoid about going bonkers about a song and the bait-and-switch happens and the rest of the album is shite. But, this album (Drastic Fantastic-and has anyone tried the .99 DRM free from Amazon yet?) is on repeat and has been since I iTunes’d it on Saturday. So far Funnyman is sticking in my head, but I think Saving My Face is my favorite song. Hold On will win the Best Song of the Year I bet.
I was telling Eden the other day that I haven’t been this nuts about the whole album (showing my age with that term, sha…) since probably Del Amitri (both from Scotland and also the Dels have been in heavy rotation for me since 1993…every album. It bodes well.)
Anyway, I’m total crap at reviewing things, but this one thing I come to again and again when I am listening to the songs is that they probably wouldn’t give me chills like they do if her voice wasn’t so fantastic.
EDIT: Unfortunately, I think Virgin Records is a member of the RIAA and I can’t buy anything further from them as I am boycotting the RIAA and their business practices.
Step 3?
Put your junk in the box…
Stupid song is in my head now.
Never trust a bird.
I think my favorite part of this is that the customers are paying for bags of chips so the shopkeeper doesn’t go broke because they think Sammy is cute…
STOLMEN cat junglegym
Here’s the page, but it isn’t in english…
If you ever need a really good laugh
just read the reviews of cat products on Amazon.
Here’s a really good start:
CatGenie
I take it back…
There is something more irritating than “the above”.
You can bug me even more by combining the following items together:
-Law and Order (the only show more irritating that L&O is CSI (any flavor-bad writing and holier than thou attitude…BAD combination.)
-the word CYBER
and
-writers who think they are technical (mostly likely they would say “the above”)
Jeebus.
Flipping through the channels, I was captured in a trainwreck sort of way, by the horrific (and recent episode) where they spoke with straight faces of a “cyber account”.
Hey, this is not 1994.
Do they mean email?
Who is too stupid to not know what email is?
Stop saying CYBER!
Magazine FIles
Oh I really like these…
So I was having a little pity party
for myself today (PMS and ulcer flares due to external stimuli (other people, basically)) and was bemoaning my fate to never have a job that I loved again and that I didn’t know what I wanted to do (shut up. I said it was a pity party… I didn’t say it was justified.) and then, whilst* perusing the IKEA catalog for ways to make my house not look like such a trash heap (here’s an idea, donate/recycle/trash some things once in a while, fredlet) I had an epiphany.
It actually started as a germ of an idea from the thought “Oh, I could really use a $1,000 gift certificate from IKEA!” and then sprouted into… “Wouldn’t it be cool to just be paid to come up with cool looking iterations of their stuff?” Set designer, if you will.
Yum.
I’d love that job.
*Don’t try to use this word at home kids! (or in fanfics.)
sounds familiar
“I received a grade of “Unsatisfactory” in Social Development from the Mansfield Public Schools that year. I did not work to the best of my ability, did not show neatness and care in assignments, did not coöperate with the group, and did not exercise self-control. About the only positive assessment was that I worked well independently. Of course: then as now, it was all that I could do.”
“Oddly, the book that helped pull me into the human race was Emily Post’s “Etiquette,” which I had picked up in a moment of early-teen hippie scorn, fully intending to mock what I was sure would be an “uncool” justification of bourgeois rules and regulations. Instead, the book offered clearly stated reasons for courtesy, gentility, and scrupulousness—reasons that I could respect, understand, and implement. It suggested ways to inaugurate conversations without launching into a lecture, reminded me of the importance of listening as well as speaking, and convinced me that manners, properly understood, existed to make other people feel comfortable, rather than (as I had suspected) to demonstrate the practitioner’s social superiority. I revelled in Post’s guidance and absorbed her lessons. And, typically, I took them too far: even today, I would never dream of addressing a teen-age busboy in a small-town diner as anything other than “sir.””
“I suffer little stage fright when it comes to public speaking or appearances on radio or television, but I continue to find unstructured participation in small social gatherings agonizing.”
[NYT article (blissfully unregistered)]
I may have to stop reading Kottke.org
Not because he isn’t entertaining, but his persistent and insistent use of the intolerably uneducated phrase “the above” or “the below”.
Above is not a noun.
Below is not a noun.
It bugs the living shit out of me.
“Of course Yohalem has a blog — the 21st century equivalent to scribbling Hapsburg lineages on subway walls — which has a more complete version of the above posted there.”
It is painful.
PACKING LIST:Backpacking around Europe
I studied in Paris in college (oh the things we did… ah youth.) and then my cousin and I traveled around for a month or two after I got out of classes.
If I could do that again, here is what I would take.
Bag:
Granite Gear Vapor Pack
or
Eagle Creek Voyage 65L Travel Pack or a Eagle Creek Switchback and daypack or purse like the EC Drifter*
*remember you have to carry this comfortably even when you have your full pack on, so a daypack that doesn’t attach can be a tedious chore and I tend to hand things that I have to work to carry to the nearest busker as a tip.
Clothes:
- Black pants
- Khaki Cargo pants
- Really good walking shoes (I use Keen’s or my Merrell boots-I’ll leave it to you to decide yours, just remember that you need good foot/ankle support as you are carrying all your stuff (perhaps 20 pounds) on you for long distances on hard surfaces.)
- black tshirts
- sleep shirt or light sweatshirt (you can always buy clothes when you are there… I actually prefer this… especially on beaches, the roadside vendors always have the coolest clothes.)
- a skirt
- shorts
- Socks (smartwool)
- Undies (ex
officio magic undies) - 2 scarves (I use the pashminas-useful as a blanket or a scarf)
- Jammies/hotel wear (I tend to go with yoga pants as mine are quick drying and can double as another pair of pants.)
Stuff:
- swimsuit – for the beach and less-than-private shower facilities
- crocs/flipflops/shower shoes – I like Crocs
because I can walk in them for long distances, but they can be a bit bulky (though for the ladies, the Mary Janes are much more manageable). However, they are waterproof and if you are staying in hostels (or skeevy hotels ;) ) you want to wear these in the shower. Really. - Camera+charger and spare cards
- A book (and just trade someone for a different one when you are done. Works on the AT, works in the rest of the world.)
- journal
- A thumbdrive
(and portableapps configured***) for internet cafes -card adapter for your camera** card + place on the web
to upload them (flickr or XDrive, etc) - Silk Sleep sack (good for both hostels or when the harsh chemicals that they wash sheets in hotels in burn your skin as they do mine. This is also good for adding another +10 degree rating to your sleeping bag without adding a ton of weight or having to buy a new one.)
- toiletries
**or, instead of chargers, bring along your USB cables (bonus if multiple things you have charge off of mini USB) and bring a Solio [My review | Amazon]
and its wall charger. You can tie to the top of your backpack and let it charge in the Cezanne-esque light of the valleys in Central France or plug it into the wall where you are staying.)
***just install portable apps to a directory on your WIN machine and start using it. After about 2 weeks of regular use you will have all your bookmarks and setup about like you like it (actually, I recommend you do this anyway as a backup). Then just copy it to your thumbdrive and go play! Another sneaky trick is to double up on the adapter and put a memory card in it to hold your portable apps instead of buying a thumbdrive (and portable apps sits quite happily on a 512M card, so you can use old cards that aren’t big enough to hold your larger pixel depth images from your camera.)
….or you can just put a bunch of clean underwear in a backpack and go! (As a matter of fact, my cousin put two skirts, two shirts and clean undies in a carry-on bag and did just this.)
