Every now and then I go through the user logs to see who’s come to see the blog, and where they came from. A lot of people arrive via Google. But some of the searches that bring them here…well, they’re a little weird.
Here’s today’s best one:
“free fonts pasture of muppets”
Hokay…..
Bearing in mind that this was the kind of family who would torture you for not performing well enough in the national soccer team…you don’t want this to be your job description:
(link via Die Puny Humans)
The time is approaching when I’m going to be replacing Ryoh-ohki with her smarter younger sister (who will also be Ryoh-ohki). 
When the first machine gets back from her impending service, she’s promised to a good home with a charming hotelier in Bern, a lady who will take good care of her and who’s as big a hardware geek, if not a bigger one, than I am.
Yet at the same time, committed as I am to the MM-1 (also known as the Sharp Actius, now that they’ve started rolling it out in the US), there are other temptations. This would be one of them.
I’ve been getting increasingly intrigued by the tablet-PC concept, and the tablet version of the Mebius Muramasa TN-1 looks like a nice implementation of that. I’m impressed with the quality of Sharp’s laptops by now, having worked extensively with both Ryoh-ohki and Peter’s machine, the heavier and more butch Ken-ohki. If as I think the TN-1 is more of the same, that alone would be an attraction. I’d like to get my hands on one of these and play with it a little. The hardware specs are good enough: 1.1 gHz Intel Speedstep processor, 256-768 meg RAM, 30 gig hard drive, regular LAN and wireless LAN, all the usual ports for a machine of this kind, and (interestingly) a fingerprint lock. The only downside, for me, is the weight. 1.9 kg…mutter. That’s almost twice what I’m used to carrying these days: more even than Ken-ohki weighs with his CD-R/W drive in. And the size (a little bigger than Ken-ohki) makes it more difficult to do what I like to do with Ryoh-ohki…keep her in my shoulderbag. Especially on the road, where I have no desire to reveal what I’m carrying by exhibiting something too obviously a computer bag…and also don’t feel like having to schlep around something that weighs as much as some boat anchors.
And every time I start thinking about all that extra weight, I go back to the Dynamism site and look at this again…
“It’s too small for you,” Jason (my sales-and-sometimes-support guy at Dynamism) keeps telling me. Well, maybe. But my hands aren’t exactly huge, and I wrote several novels on Allegra, my Acer TravelMate, without too much trouble. Her keyboard’s only slightly bigger than the U101’s. (She is presently in honorable retirement as the machine we give to houseguests. …And yes, all my machines have names and genders, and it’s not just a network issue. I find they work better that way. Don’t anybody bring up the Pathetic Fallacy. [If I suffer from a fallacy, it’s more likely to be the empathetic one: or as Brandoch Daha would put it, “Ever she perversely affecteth the losing side in a quarrel.”]) …And this machine plays exactly into a prediction I made to Peter years ago: that one day there would be a PC no bigger than a Filofax.
…It’s gonna be a while before I have to make up my mind about this issue. Big and unusual, or small and neat?…
Hmmmm….
(a) The courier from Fountains and Decor never did arrive. Mutter. They’d better be here today before noon…otherwise I can’t take delivery on the pots until Thursday, as between then and now we have a lot of running around to do before we turn the rental car back in.
(b) FedEx, instead of bringing the MS. here, dropped it at the pub, as they’ve been asked not to do unless we’re not home. The last few times, the excuse was, “We didn’t see a car there so we thought nobody was at home.” The landlady at the pub having explained to the driver in great detail that we didn’t have a car, I wonder what the excuse is going to be this time? Must call FedEx and sort this out. Well, maybe it was another driver.
(c) There was a (c), but now I can’t remember what it was. Oh well. (This comes of getting up when the daylight suggests it’s time to do so, and posting before the caffeine has set in.)
(Then again, why should I complain? The more daylight I get, the happier I am. And the more work I can do, which is a good thing, since now I have a very busy week ahead of me, making the necessary revisions to Holiday.)
— was that the world was about to go slightly nuts. Like this:
0900: Awakened by Beemer. Feed cats. Shower, dress, eat a little something, spend the time until approximately 1200 puttering around the Web, tidying website, etc.
1200ish: Peter wakes up. More showering, dressing, eating. Peter points out to me small waterspot he’s noticed in the bedroom ceiling. “Might be a leak in the roof,” he says. “I’ll take a look at that later… it doesn’t look serious.”
1400ish: We drive over to Fountains and Decor in Dublin to get the pond supplies and pond plants I’ve been wanting. Score numerous marginals, including some nice water iris, and also (something I didn’t think I’d find there) two gorgeous topiary “standard” bay trees and pots for them, to go by either side of the front door. Also a new enzymatic/bacterial anti-algae formulation to kill “blanketweed” in pond. (The stuff is a nuisance: with these long days’ worth of sunlight, and the speed at which the stuff grows, I have to clean out the pond pump every other day, sometimes every day.)
1700ish: Return home in triumph. Stick most plants into “shallow end” of pond to be dealt with tomorrow, put others in shallow dishes of water. Introduce magic anti-blanketweed stuff to pond via filterbox. Peter goes upstairs to take a look at the waterspot through the attic access in the upstairs bathroom.
1715: Phone rings. Editor calls to let me know that copyedited manuscript for Wizard’s Holiday is on its way. Says he likes book, too. A lot. In the middle of this very pleasant phone call, which frankly could have gone on for another hour or so before I got tired of it (if indeed then), hollering comes from upstairs: “GET ME A POT RIGHT NOW!”
Uh oh. Drop phone in cat bed, race upstairs with saucepan. Find perspiring husband trying to shut down leak (which broke loose bigtime as soon as he touched it) from joint between cold-water storage tank and hose that leads to the well outside. Give husband pot. Husband places pot, runs downstairs, throws master circuitbreaker for house to kill power to well pump.
Fish phone out of cat bed, say goodbye to editor (with intense regret). Call landlord. Landlord promises to call plumber first thing in the morning. (And does, too. He’s a super landlord.)
1800-0845: Power restored to house…but not water: P finds the circuitbreaker that handles the pump, shuts it down. Funny how sometimes you can skip a shower, if you’re busy, but if you want one and can’t have it, life becomes unlivable. Ditto re: drinking water, etc.
0500 this morning or thereabouts: Husband comes to bed, says his lateness is my fault because I wrote a good book which kept him up reading. At this time of day, my only possible response is: “Yeah, big deal, tell me all about it sometime when I’m conscious.”
0830: Wake up suddenly (once again, cat has failed to get me up at 0600, but maybe this is a good thing.) Realize the plumber is going to be here any moment, and besides that, numerous things are scheduled to be delivered: chair, plants from Fountains & Decor, MS. via FedEx, etc. Leap from bed and start tidying the place. (Should have done this yesterday.) Urge husband also to leap from bed and start tidying the place. Response not unprintable in reality, but I can hear P. even when he’s got the silencer on. Nonetheless, husband leaps from bed and also starts tidying. All things not good for plumber to see (i.e. much piled-up laundry, many unshelved books, etc) thrown into P’s office with great speed and door shut. Husband pulls on clothing, lies down again to resume sleep.
Tea cannot be made because there is no water. In slightly grim mood, go out to fishpond to feed fish. Mood changes to utter shock to discover that fish are in exactly three inches of water and looking most bemused. Where did all the water go since yesterday??!! Discover that after dosing pond filter box with magic anti-algal stuff, box was not replaced in proper position to make sure that all water re-enters pond properly. Since approximately 5 PM yesterday, pond has been quietly emptying itself down the back of the pond shell.
Because water is cut off from house before well to keep cold-tank leak under control, pond cannot be refilled until plumber arrives. Bubble positions her small interested self on stones surrounding pond and gazes down at fish which are now in only three inches of water instead of three feet of it. Tempt Bubble inside with kitty milk. Bubble drinks milk, returns to fish. Several times.
Reflect that it’s an ill wind, etc., and that with only three inches of water in the pond, this is a good time to plant in the marginals along the back (unreachable when the pond is full). Do so. This also protects fish from Bubble.
0900: Plumber arrives. Thank Herself! Plumber fixes leak in approximately five minutes, departs. Pump turned back on. Water again, hurray! Now we can have tea. But first run outside to start refilling fishpond.
0915: Peter checks leak one more time, just to make sure, then goes to have shower. Discovers that only hot water works…no cold. Hear him thinking things, in great detail, silencer or no silencer. (This is, after all, the same plumber who installed our shower cubicle upside down.)
0918: Aeron chair arrives at last. Much joy, for about two minutes. There are things more important than chairs right now. We both want a shower a lot.
0920: Peter disassembles shower. Nothing wrong with that.
0940: Peter goes into attic space, discovers that plumber shut off cold water feed to shower while working on tank, forgot to turn it back on. P now does so. Cold water now running to shower. Hurray!
1000: Unbox chair. Chair is wonderful. Hurray! Mail arrives. Mail contains check for recently written short story. Hurray!
1015: Fountains and Decor calls. Bay trees (now potted) will be delivered today. Hurray!
1100: Finally have cup of tea. Sit down in chair for first time. Pond is full again. Hurray!
Sheesh. It’s a good thing I didn’t have anything to do today…
Trust Doc to get there first.
Wow, Beemer let me sleep until almost 9 AM. How did that happen?…
After all these years of marriage I’ve acquired from Peter a certain love of crew patches. So I have to have these…
(And I have a feeling Peter’s going to want them too. In fact, I have a feeling that NASA is going to discover these patches are in much more demand than other recent ones…)
From the press release: “‘It is exciting that our characters, which for so many years have been associated with space adventures in the animated world, should now have a chance to become part of a real and important space exploration,’ 
said Jordan Sollitto, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Warner Bros. Consumer Products. ‘We are thrilled about teaming up with NASA on these exciting missions and are looking forward to giving our characters the opportunity to touch down upon the Red Planet.’
“‘More accurately, the planet is an understated fiery umber,’ Marvin interjected.
“‘I know.'”
(Thanks to BoingBoing for the link.)
They’re the best… The sun comes up at 5 AM at the moment, and doesn’t go down till quarter of eleven. I can get a lot of work done on a day like this.
The only problem with the period just to either side of the Solstice is that the cats — particularly Miss Beemer — become unbearable around now, in that they want their breakfast when it gets light. So Beemer puts her nose up mine around 0515 and starts doing the I Love You So Much, Give Me My Damn Breakfast Already routine. There are times this is particularly wearing, such as when I’ve been up later than usual (The West Wing last night. Why does RTE have to show it at 11:30….Oh well, at least we’re getting it).
Don’t imagine that any of them think of bothering Peter in this regard, either. They know better. He sleeps too effectively for them to wake him up. Whereas I unfortunately still have a lot of that nurse-wiring in my head, with its emphasis on assisting the weak and helpless rather than picking them up and throwing them at the wall. (sigh)
Never mind. Dawn is pretty this time of year…
Convivium is a peer-reviewed online journal concerned with food representation in film, literature and the arts. This is an area dear to my heart — and to Peter’s: he’s the only writer I know who’s had an editor call him up and bawl him out because he’d written something too well. She was reading one of his manuscripts (I think it must have been Firebird) and she hit one of the juiciest of his killer “feast scenes” while still two hours away from her lunch… (I bet it was the description of the smetanyk that did it. Recipe follows.)
My favorite quote from one of this month’s articles (on the use of the chile pepper motif in art, craft and commerce), from an artist who enjoys painting peppers and chiles:
“Peppers are currently my favorite painting subjects. They are available, cheap, and will sit still for a long time and can be eaten afterward.”
Butt arrested over night club incident
(Sorry if this is “premium content”…) The gist of the story: “England and Manchester United soccer star Nicky Butt has been arrested by police over an alleged assault in a night club, a police source said today.”
(snicker)