Miscellany
May. 17th, 2008 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
treehatA few things, in no particular order:
I just started taking a basic art class. This is something I've been wanting to do for quite a while now, but never quite got around to. Something just clicked and socked me in the head with a whiffle ball, as if to say, "Well then go do it, you lazy sod!"
Well, I'm not one to argue with mental whiffleball injuries. For behind every whiffle ball is a much more painful whiffleball bat lying in wait...
As a consequence of this class, I am slowly starting to hate flowerpots. Why must you torment me with your curves?! Ahem. I'm also beginning to reacquaint myself with various arm muscles, through pain of them actually getting used. Using a pencil with the shoulder rather than the wrist is proving to be a difficult change.
I've also started taking a web design class. A very basic web design class. Normally I wouldn't, especially after the first day's WHAT IS A WEBPAGE lecture. But it's required for the Graphic Design certificate I'm after. (Yes, I've been taking graphic design classes without possessing any art ability. I am not unaware of the irony.)
---
Yesterday we went to see the new Narnia film, as a sort of early birthday celebration. Just as in the books, Reepacheep is entirely awesome. (This is helped along by being voiced by Eddie Izzard.) Also, when the name "Warwick Davis" showed up in the opening credits, I had to resist the urge to shout "WICKET!" at the screen. Oh, what a dork am I. I think I need to go dig the books out now.
Unfortunately, the movie was just too darn long. When did movies get so long? And when are they going to start bringing back intermissions?
In related news, I recently discovered that Prince Caspian is the final Cylon! (OK, I may have broken my geekery bone pulling that joke...)
---
My car broke recently, and in a rather spectacular fashion. A few weeks back, we took it in for service (because the tire pressure sensors seemed a bit off) and had them check the brakes, which were grinding slightly. They said the brake rotors were a bit rusty, but nothing to worry about. So I kept driving normally.
Now, this week, the brakes started grinding really bad. Like I was trying to run iron nails through a blender. But before I had a chance to worry about that, the battery died a rather permanent death. How dead was it? It was so utterly dead that you couldn't even pull the key out of the ignition. We managed (at great difficulty) to jump-start it, and immediately drove it down to the dealership. When we got there, the technician right away asked us to turn it off, because she could smell the battery boiling. Boiling! After that, they couldn't even get it to start back up at all. The battery was, in a sense, pining for the fjords.
As for the brakes, it turns out the rusty rotors had completely shorn off the brake pads, which was what was making the sound of a bear trapped in a grand piano. So the rotors and pads got replaced, as did the battery, and everything runs perfectly now.
Oh, I also had a stoplight burned out, which my dad informs me is called a "chimsel" (as in CHMSL - Center High-Mounted Stop Lamp). That got fixed too. We also discussed the prindle display - Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, and Low. Oh, those wacky automobile engineers!
---
Birthday today!
We went down to the Mongolian Barbecue for lunch, a fun restaurant where you assemble your meat, vegetables, sauces, and such and take it over to a huge circular grill where they cook it for you. Very good food, but it can wreak havoc on the stomach, so we don't go there often. Afterwards, we stopped by a silly little store full of knick-knacks, odds and ends, and generally silly things. I picked up a retro Robby the Robot (a la The Forbidden Planet) wind-up toy. He sparks and shuffles about, like some 8-inch-tall robotic terror.
I also got a gift card for Borders. This is… dangerous. I may very well lose a day or two to book shopping because of this. And I'll probably just end up buying every book on crows, but as they say, it's the adventure that counts. (Yes, I just compared book-shopping to adventuring. You would too if you spent hours at a time browsing. Now all I need is a spiffy fedora.)
For now, I'm off to hunt for WALL•E merchandise to blow my birthday money on.
---
Finally, this article has a bunch of new hi-res WALL•E images. I've got the whole lot (plus the previous two) on desktop wallpaper rotation. So very excited about this movie.
I just started taking a basic art class. This is something I've been wanting to do for quite a while now, but never quite got around to. Something just clicked and socked me in the head with a whiffle ball, as if to say, "Well then go do it, you lazy sod!"
Well, I'm not one to argue with mental whiffleball injuries. For behind every whiffle ball is a much more painful whiffleball bat lying in wait...
As a consequence of this class, I am slowly starting to hate flowerpots. Why must you torment me with your curves?! Ahem. I'm also beginning to reacquaint myself with various arm muscles, through pain of them actually getting used. Using a pencil with the shoulder rather than the wrist is proving to be a difficult change.
I've also started taking a web design class. A very basic web design class. Normally I wouldn't, especially after the first day's WHAT IS A WEBPAGE lecture. But it's required for the Graphic Design certificate I'm after. (Yes, I've been taking graphic design classes without possessing any art ability. I am not unaware of the irony.)
---
Yesterday we went to see the new Narnia film, as a sort of early birthday celebration. Just as in the books, Reepacheep is entirely awesome. (This is helped along by being voiced by Eddie Izzard.) Also, when the name "Warwick Davis" showed up in the opening credits, I had to resist the urge to shout "WICKET!" at the screen. Oh, what a dork am I. I think I need to go dig the books out now.
Unfortunately, the movie was just too darn long. When did movies get so long? And when are they going to start bringing back intermissions?
In related news, I recently discovered that Prince Caspian is the final Cylon! (OK, I may have broken my geekery bone pulling that joke...)
---
My car broke recently, and in a rather spectacular fashion. A few weeks back, we took it in for service (because the tire pressure sensors seemed a bit off) and had them check the brakes, which were grinding slightly. They said the brake rotors were a bit rusty, but nothing to worry about. So I kept driving normally.
Now, this week, the brakes started grinding really bad. Like I was trying to run iron nails through a blender. But before I had a chance to worry about that, the battery died a rather permanent death. How dead was it? It was so utterly dead that you couldn't even pull the key out of the ignition. We managed (at great difficulty) to jump-start it, and immediately drove it down to the dealership. When we got there, the technician right away asked us to turn it off, because she could smell the battery boiling. Boiling! After that, they couldn't even get it to start back up at all. The battery was, in a sense, pining for the fjords.
As for the brakes, it turns out the rusty rotors had completely shorn off the brake pads, which was what was making the sound of a bear trapped in a grand piano. So the rotors and pads got replaced, as did the battery, and everything runs perfectly now.
Oh, I also had a stoplight burned out, which my dad informs me is called a "chimsel" (as in CHMSL - Center High-Mounted Stop Lamp). That got fixed too. We also discussed the prindle display - Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, and Low. Oh, those wacky automobile engineers!
---
Birthday today!
We went down to the Mongolian Barbecue for lunch, a fun restaurant where you assemble your meat, vegetables, sauces, and such and take it over to a huge circular grill where they cook it for you. Very good food, but it can wreak havoc on the stomach, so we don't go there often. Afterwards, we stopped by a silly little store full of knick-knacks, odds and ends, and generally silly things. I picked up a retro Robby the Robot (a la The Forbidden Planet) wind-up toy. He sparks and shuffles about, like some 8-inch-tall robotic terror.
I also got a gift card for Borders. This is… dangerous. I may very well lose a day or two to book shopping because of this. And I'll probably just end up buying every book on crows, but as they say, it's the adventure that counts. (Yes, I just compared book-shopping to adventuring. You would too if you spent hours at a time browsing. Now all I need is a spiffy fedora.)
For now, I'm off to hunt for WALL•E merchandise to blow my birthday money on.
---
Finally, this article has a bunch of new hi-res WALL•E images. I've got the whole lot (plus the previous two) on desktop wallpaper rotation. So very excited about this movie.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 12:29 am (UTC)I can't wait for Wall-E either, it's gonna be so awesome.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 03:12 am (UTC)On an almost related note, I was wondering - how did the scarf work out this winter?
no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 10:06 pm (UTC)I do like how in the first one how they expanded the battle against the White Witch from just the couple sentences there were which were kind of silly, because if I remember correctly it said Edmund and co. were already winning when Lucy and Aslan got there and they just finished them off. It's like "yeaaaaaaaaah I'd think there'd be more trouble to it than that."
(And this is coming from a person who hates most EPIC FANTASY BATTLE SEQUENCES.)
I need to finish reading the books. I got the set years ago but I got totally confused which order to read them. D: The bookset I got was in the story's "chronological" order with "The Magician's Nephew" in front. Then I got sidetracked by stuff...
I am SO GLAD they let me skip the "Intro to Graphic Design and DTP" in my high school classes. Which is basically things like "WHAT IS A WEBPAGE???" and "HOW DO I USE A SELECT TOOL???" I had to shove my webpage and several certificates from training in other classes in California in their face, but yeah.
Mmmmm more hi-rez WALL*E images.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-18 11:47 pm (UTC)