Random snippets of recent occurrences:
- I am horrible at packing books. I should probably never work in a library, unless my goal is to appear on Jeopardy at some point before I get fired. I managed to empty our main living room bookshelf last night, but not without ending up sitting on the floor for several hours trying not to read every single thing I picked up!
I think I'm a text addict.
The result was really weird too -- given the eclectic collection of stuff on that shelf, I had bits and pieces from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, a 2006 Scientific American article on rotavirus, Don Delillo's White Noise (a book I like the word-patterns in but can't really make head or tail of), and several rather silly Christmas poems from the 1986 Ideals annual dancing through my head throughout the evening...
- In looking for "music to paint walls and clean hardwood floors by", I was very happy to have access to downloadable MP3s (CD Baby and amazon.com lately).
I am utterly endeared to what would probably be termed "pretentious progressive art-rock", most recently Phideaux. The album Ghost Story (EDIT: oh, and Doomsday Afternoon too -- gah, I am so happy that this kind of utterly achingly beautiful music is being made!) in particular is a thing of beauty if you happen to like longish multi-layered songs with fuzzy guitars, clear melodic vocals, and lyrics involving the words "shadows", "universe", "darkness", and such.
- My copy of Future Stuff arrived! (Mark Plus, did yours arrive yet?)
I've not read through the whole thing yet, but I've read enough to confirm that yes, there is an entry for a TV set with legs. I guess the idea was that you'd be able to watch MTV on it and it would "gyrate to the music" or something. Somehow it doesn't seem to have quite caught on (you think?).
Most of the book, though, is actually fairly tame for gee-whiz-future! standards. Aside from the aforementioned walking TV and a few other fun frivolities (the very first entry in the book features the Moller 400 flying car), the vast majority of the items listed sound like the kind of "As Seen On TV!" stuff you might find at the local Dollar Emporium.
E.g., one page describes a "talking VCR remote" that verbally guides you through the programming process. Another gushes excitedly about a "self-stirring saucepan". Another is about a self-cooling pillow. Another is for, I kid you not, something (a dry mix of spices?) called "Pickle Quick", which...quickly pickles your pickles, I guess.
(I've spent a lot of time recently washing paintbrushes in this here kitchen...)
Anyway, sorry if my posts have been lacking in substance lately. I just don't want to post about important stuff unless I have the energy/time to give it justice. (And I certainly don't want to, at least for a while, get into posting things that are going to make me feel like I have to stay up until 1 AM responding to all the wrongness on the Internet.)
But definitely expect more posts on brains, robots, longevity, autism, and the occasional cute kitten in the near but non-specific future!
6 comments:
Especially not the Prelinger Library.
I'm pretty good at packing books; it's like a 3-D puzzle to use up as much of the space inside the box as possible!
I can get really "into" packing for that reason...
(It also typically results in boxes/suitcases only I can lift! My comic book collection, when it's all in its box, weighs about fifty pounds :) )
Also, your hair is adorable in that picture. You must just be a very cute person, because every time you post a picture of yourself I am amazed at your current or former cuteness!
Lactarius: (Your name/alias keeps making me think of a superhero whose power is based on milk!) - whoah, I'd not heard of the Prelinger Library but I'm definitely always pleased to have additional sources for books (digital or otherwise). I've gotten some interesting stuff from Project Gutenberg, etc., already (my iPod Touch presently contains both the complete Brothers Grimm and the complete works of Shakespeare).
Lindsay: Oh, the actual "fitting the books into the packing containers" isn't something I particularly struggle with -- it's just that unless the books are in Chinese or some other language I don't know I am liable to sit there in a pile of them reading them rather than actually packing them!
And re. the hair in the picture: ha, thanks, I was just sort of absurdly pleased that I actually managed to get the pigtails even! I've been attempting that for years (whenever my hair's been long enough) but they always came out looking like I'd got my head caught in a fan. Not sure what changed things this time, possibly my current haircut is just more conducive to pigtailability.
> [Y]es, there is an entry for a TV set with
> legs. I guess the idea was that you'd be
> able to watch MTV on it and it would
> "gyrate to the music" or something.
Oh, you mean legs that actually **move**!
I'm old enough to remember a time when lots of TVs had legs -- the days when they were considered to be pieces of furniture. I guess it was thought that was the only way the lady of the house would allow such a thing into the living room.
Then sometime in the late 70s - early 80s the "videophile" was invented (analogous to the "audiophile"), and along with projection TVs came high-end "monitors" -- TV sets without the cabinetry, whose tuner was likely to be in a separate box, and claiming picture quality comparable to the professional monitors a broadcast TV station would use. Very high contrast picture tubes they had, with deep blacks.
I've always thought hardwood cabinetry was silly, and preferred bare-nekkid black monitors, but then I suppose some people would consider me a philistine anyway. ;->
(I saw Star Trek premiere on a Zenith furniture-style color TV my parents bought just that summer, mere weeks before the '66 fall TV season began. I have never, as an adult, owned a TV like that.)
Congratulations Anne, it's a nice looking place. "Our Friend The Atom"... you made me choke on my coffee, now I need a new keyboard!
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