Neil Gaiman and Pandas
I knew about the Chengdu Panda reserve because I had a friend who worked there for a summer. Really, it was all I knew about Chengdu. It’s lovely. And it’s a wonderful thing being an honoured foreign guest somewhere like that — you get shown all the cool stuff, get to see Pandas, red ones and giant ones, and then find yourself put in a blue disposable smock and gloves (to protect the pandas from you, asnd not the other way around) and you get a year-old Panda placed on your lap. Utter, utter happiness. Better than any number of awards. Makes being a writer completely worthwhile. I suspect that world peace and harmony would come about in weeks if people just got to put pandas on their laps every few months. Honest.
Neil Gaiman’s Journal (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/), August 29, 2007
(emphasis my own)
17/50 (34%)
Where have I been?
1. Times Square, New York City, NY: 35 million visitors every year
2. National Mall & Memorial Parks, Washington, D.C. (Washington Monument, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials,the war memorials): About 25 million 1999.
3. Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.: 16.6 million
4. Trafalgar Square, London, England: 15 million
5. Disneyland Park, Anaheim, Calif.: 14.7 million
6. Niagara Falls, Ontario and New York: 14 million
7. Fisherman’s Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, Calif.: 13 million
8. Tokyo Disneyland/DisneySea, Tokyo, Japan: 12.9 million
9. Notre Dame de Paris, Paris, France: 12 million.
10. Disneyland Paris, Marne-La-Vallee, France: 10.6 million
11. The Great Wall of China, Badaling area, China: About 10 million
12. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee/North Carolina: 9.2 million
13. Universal Studios Japan, Osaka, Japan: 8.5 million
14. Basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre, Paris, France: 8 million
15. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France: 7.5 million
16. Everland (amusement park), Kyonggi-Do, South Korea: 7.5 million
17. The Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China: At least 7 million
18. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France: 6.7 million
19. Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando, Fla: 6 million
20. SeaWorld Florida, Orlando, Fla: 5,740,000
21. Pleasure Beach (amusement park), Blackpool, England: 5.7 million
22. Lotte World (amusement park), Seoul, South Korea: 5.5 million
23. Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, Japan: 5.4 million
24. Hong Kong Disneyland, China: 5.2 million
25. Centre Pompidou, Paris, France: 5.1 million
26. Tate Modern, London, England: 4.9 million
27. British Museum, London, England: 4.8 million
28. Universal Studios Los Angeles, Calif.: 4.7 million
29. National Gallery, London, England: 4.6 million
30. Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY: 4.5 million
31. Grand Canyon, Ariz.: 4.4 million
32. Tivoli Gardens (amusement park), Copenhagen, Denmark: 4.4 million
33. Ocean Park (amusement park), Hong Kong, China: 4.38 million
34. Busch Gardens (amusement park), Tampa Bay, Fla.: 4.36 million
35. SeaWorld California, San Diego, Calif.: 4.26 million
36. Statue of Liberty, New York, NY: 4.24 million Well, I sailed past it on the ferry
37. The Vatican and its museums, Rome, Italy: 4.2 million
38. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia: More than 4 million
39. The Coliseum, Rome, Italy: 4 million
40. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY: 4 million
41. Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Hollywood, Calif.: 4 million
42. Empire State Building, New York, NY: 4 million
43. Natural History Museum, London, England: 3.7 million
44. The London Eye, London, England: 3.5 million
45. Palace of Versailles, France: 3.45 million
46. Yosemite National Park, Calif.: 3.44 million
47. Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: 3 million
48. Pompeii, Italy: 2.5 million
49. Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia: 2.5 million
50. Taj Mahal, Agra, India: 2.4 million
She’s a more generous person than I am…
“One of the things my mum said today was that ‘I don’t want any resentment towards Muslim people,’” John Gibbons said, relaying part of a telephone conversation with her.
I wouldn’t be very forgiving if they did this to me:
The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.
They massed in central Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed. They did not try to stop the rally, which lasted about an hour.
“Shame, shame on the U.K.,” protesters chanted.
They called for Gibbons’ execution, saying, “No tolerance: Execution,” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad.”
[Calls in Sudan for execution of Briton]
Yes, I am convinced I will NEVER ever want to go to that part of the world.
Hmmm, not certain
why this was listed as a a Google AdWord in one of my emails today…
Jello shot release cups
Release Jello shots with ease! Reusable Plastic shot cups.
www.twistnshot.com
(Some) Rules of the South
[snipped from an email]
01.) Pull your droopy pants up. You look like an idiot.
02.) Turn your cap right, your head isn’t crooked.
06.) So every person in the south waves. It’s called being friendly. Try your best to comprehend the concept.
15.) Yeah, we have golf courses. But don’t hit the water hazards — it spooks the fish.
18.) Turn down that blasted car stereo! That thumpity-thump crap ain’t music, it’s just a lotta NOISE. We don’t want to hear it anymore than we want to see your boxers! Refer back to #1!
Why the Sony eReader is not the same as the Amazon Kindle
Jason Kottke (quoting a friend) and Jeff Bezos got what I have been pondering the last several days:
“I want a proper e-book reader as much as anyone, but Amazon’s Kindle sounds underwhelming (and unfortunately looks, as a friend put it, like “the Pontiac Aztec of e-readers”). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says:
This isn’t a device, it’s a service.”
Go watch the video to give you a better idea of how the device performs (and note how they avoid the ongoing price you pay for each thing that you have to download from their site or pay to email to your device)
If I was traveling all the time and lived in airports (check your coverage), I’d consider this, but the fact that I can load any .rtf on my reader for free and convert my own blog reading/wikipedia entries/online fiction is worth it.
The kindle is a money pit.
This article is gratifying…
Reeeeaaalllyyy gratifying…
Its the kind of article that makes you realize that you don’t want the ex back while you know that you CERTAINLY never wanted the ex back… you just want them to REALLY regret messing up and losing you.
:D
[Personal inventory:Erotic Appeal of the Land's End Catalog]
“The Lands’ End fall catalog is porn for the heartsick man. Who thought sixty pages of stylish-yet-practical clothing would employ models who are disturbing approximations of the lovely thirty-something woman who doesn’t want to put up with your shit anymore?”
Just what I need
I think Eden is trying to wake me up with this and Valerie has nudged me via email to update:
I’ve spent probably 90% of the last two days seeing the inside of my own eyelids as I have been so tired I got up Friday at noon then, after a cup of coffee, took a 3 hour nap only to read for a while and go to bed early.
Then today (after a patchy night of Bunny waking me up every two hours for who knows what) I dragged my arse out of bed, took Timmy to San Rafael and then took another nap. And I’m probably about to get into bed early again.
Post Mortem on T-day…it was good.
I skipped a few things since Tex wasn’t usable (back issues) and I only can do so much.
The final line up was:
Cornish Game Hens (with all the butter in the whole world) on a bed of quinoa
Cornbread Dressing and gravy (and a sacrificial cornbread to keep the hordes from eating all the stuffing makin’s)
Green Beans
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Butternut Squash Soup* with Creme Fraiche
cranberry sauce from a can with the rings in place
I never did find phyllo, so the mushroom tarts were a wash and I was so busy I didn’t even take a single picture. However, the boys ate until they cried and then they didn’t even whine that I didn’t get around to making the cherry pie or the bread.
Ah well.
My hand and arm hurt so badly after a full two days of heavy cleaning, cooking then cleaning again that I had to stop and I had a hard time sleeping because of the ache.
Its better now, but still. I will not be doing that again.
*I ended up with 2 organic butternut squashes from Whole Foods and went with Swanson’s chicken broth along with the regular recipe for my soup. Apparently it was even better than before, so hey, give that a whirl if you try the recipe.
And now I will leave you for a while because this is hurting my hand…
;)
Orange, bien sur
|
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 Orange will make you feel open, lively, and artistic. And with a little orange, you will project an aura of friendliness. If you want bolder experiences, you’ve got to get a little orange in your life! For extra punch: Combine orange with red or yellow The downside of orange: It’s too powerful and unusual for some people to deal with The consequences of more orange in your life: You will become more creative in almost every aspect of your life |
hutch
Got it (and apologized profusely, again, to my ever suffering UPS guy) last night.
I knew I wasn’t going to get to it last night, but I had it on the list for tonight and tomorrow. What I didn’t count on was Tex screwing up his back at work, not because I expected him to put this together… feh, I’ve done more than this on my own for the past 20 years thankyouverymuch, but because he is so bitchy and pissy when he is sick or hurt.
One thing goes wrong? He’s negative and pissy for an hour.
So when I started looking into the parts of the hutch in the boxes, he put on his martyr voice and said he’d put it together. I told him while I snooping around the boxes that if was going to act like Marvin the paranoid android on the rag he could drag his happy ass out of my kitchen and let me do what I wanted. So he left, as he knows better than to argue with me when I *actually am* the one PMSing.
I managed to clean the area where it was going to go and moved books, wine, napkins that need a good wash, silver and other sundries around to give me working space until I saw a 9 foot spider with a mohawk scoot off into the wilds of the kitchen.
So I allowed as how I could work on this tomorrow.
(Though it won’t be perfect, one very visible corner is a bit munged from shipping. sigh. We’ll see if they will give me another one. I’m still putting the damn thing together for turkey day. )
How to guarantee
that i will hate a show…(even if it was the best thing EVER for the last several years)
add Marti Noxon to the producer list and everything goes straight into the toilet.
season 4 of Angel? worst ever
end of Buffy? hated it
Private Practice? I thought I would like it, Grey’s Anatomy rocks…but noooo
I think its all the stupid angsty crap she brings into it.
She’s a blight on the face of writing. She should be removed.
boring blog
I should write something interesting.
I’ll make something up later.
me, too
“Case in point: On a recent evening, Columbia University held a well-attended workshop for young academics who feel like frauds.
These were duly vetted, highly successful scholars who nonetheless live in creeping fear of being found out. Exposed. Sent packing.
If that sounds familiar, you may have the impostor syndrome. In psychological terms, that’s a cognitive distortion that prevents a person from internalizing any sense of accomplishment.
“It’s like we have this trick scale,” says Valerie Young, a traveling expert on the syndrome who gave the workshop at Columbia. Here’s how that scale works: Self-doubt and negative feedback weigh heavily on the mind, but praise barely registers. You attribute your failures to a stable, inner core of ineptness. Meanwhile, you discount your successes as accidental or, worse, as just so many confidence jobs. Every positive is a false positive.”
Nagging self-doubt is what I’ve always called it.
