random thoughts and trivia

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Nanowrimo Success

ONE HOUR before the midnight deadline, I reached the 50k word Nanowrimo goal.

Hurray!!!

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

One More Day

And I have 46k words toward my Nanowrimo goal of 50k words.

Monday, November 28, 2005

So Close

At 42k words...

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Almost 38k Words

Hurray!!! I have almost 38k words toward my nanowrimo project goal of 50k words.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

32k Words

Today, I reached the lofty goal of 32k words out of the 50k needed to be successful in Nanowrimo. *sigh*

There's only a few days left!!!

Friday, November 25, 2005

Nanowrimo Friday Update

I took the day off work today just like nearly everyone else does. However, in my case it was to work on my Nanowrimo project -- which has now reached just a little short of 29k words.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Thanksgiving

I spent a nice Thanksgiving Day amid vegetarian friends eating Tofurkey. Then teased another vegetarian with news I'd seen on the Boingboing website of a realistic-looking turkey make of gelatin.

UPDATE: Another blogger writes about Thanksgiving foods.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

First Snow

We had our first snow of this season tonight.

I hadn't heard today's weather forecast so when I left work and saw that the roof of my car was covered with a slight sprinkling of white, I thought perhaps it was frost. However, as I was driving home I saw clearly visible thru my headlights that at something was still falling. I wondered what it was? Sleet, frozen rain, or possibly snow.

UPDATE: Later I read this online news report, which answered my question.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Nanowrimo Update

ARGH! My Nanowrimo project has now reached 20k words -- whereas the goal is 50k words by the end of the month.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Developing World Laptop

Boingboing has a writeup of a really unique project. It seems that there is an ongoing effort to develop a  laptop for LESS than $100. that is to be made available to every child in the developing world.

As part of the effort to make that computer as economical and available as possible, it's to be powered by a hand-crank and it's OS will be LINUX!

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Antiword

Did I mention that I hate the way Microsoft dominates the personal computer marketplace?

So here, even as my time is dominated by a project (nanowrimo novel) using Microsoft Word, is a free alternative for reading documents.

Don't know how well it works, but Antiword claims to be able to read Word documents for those lucky enough to be using a non-Windows computers.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

A Checklist of 45 Privileges

And after yesterday's blog entry, just to confirm your suspicions that I'm a feminist, here's a link to a checklist of 45 male privileges.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Men Knit

As humorous as it seems to me, men knit too! Here's a link to an article by a male yarn shop owner who has personally experienced the prejudice of disbelieving customers.

(In fact, at one holiday party whose trivia questions I had written, NONE of the females got the knitting-related trivia question correct, but TWO GUYS DID know the correct answer!)

Thursday, November 17, 2005

A Knitted Wedding

Continuing my series of unusual examples of knitting -- A knitting club in the UK staged a Knitted Wedding for two of its members.

Everything from the wedding dress to reception food was knitted by club members who were all also invited to attend the special event.

Via Boingboing and Make blog

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Nanowrimo Write-in

Tonight I went to my first Nanowrimo write-in. It was interesting to see so many people typing away earnestly at their laptops while sitting in the middle of a coffee shop.

However, MY current word count is at an unmentionable level. ARGH!

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Real Estate Prices

According to this article the Housing Bubble may have just burst (at least in some areas). I'd heard a friend mention that housing is starting to sit on the market here in what had been one of the hottest markets.

Personally I'm waiting for the prices to FALL before I reenter the market and buy real estate again. *giggle*

Monday, November 14, 2005

Cooking

Over this past weekend, I was actually COOKING (not via the microwave) for the first time in about two and a half years. I told you that neglecting nanowrimo writing would have me doing domestic type things while in avoidance mode. *giggle*

Anyway, sometime after my masterpiece tuna casserole, soup, and macaroni and cheese creations had me running the dishwasher multiple times, I ran across this one pot meals site.

The site also has some interesting Earth-friendly products listed too.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Knitted Toys (Goth and Otherwise)

Continuing the theme of Goth knitters from a previous post, here's a flickr set of Dawn of the Dead knitted toys.

Actually I haven't done any Goth knitting myself. *giggle*

However, I can say with pride that I HAVE already knitted a toy! It was a little rabbit from this excellent knitting book filled with toy patterns.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Building Your Own Dalek

Cool! This site provides instructions for  building your own Dalek  (as seen on Dr. Who). *giggle*

Via  BoingBoing

Friday, November 11, 2005

Writing Your Own Adventure Story

In case you're feeling left out since you weren't able to sign up for nanowrimo this year, here's a site that lets you write your own adventure story -- sorta anyway. Or you can add to an already ongoing thread....

via clicked

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Goth Knitting

Now here is something that you don't see everyday, a site for Goth Knitters!

And as strange as it may seem, I do plan to explore that site a bit. I AM A KNITTER! And I'm also a big fan of one Vampire TV show.

I can tell a couple of funny stories about it too. Actually more than a couple of stories ... later though, as I'm currently in the midst of nanowrimo.

via clicked

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Building a Better Blog

Maybe if I'd followed these 31 Days to Building a Better Blog suggestions, I wouldn't have gotten the evaluation shown on yesterday's entry.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

One Opinion


My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?


This really gives me confidence.

Monday, November 07, 2005

A Message From Einstein

If you've ever wanted a message from Einstein, this link will allow you to receive one from the genius himself. *giggle*

I got him to say "Hi" to me by name.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Tornado in Indiana

A tornado has struck in southwestern Indiana.

Ummm isn't this a little bit off-season for tornados? I mean I was brought up VERY Tornado aware in southwestern Indiana. (My parents had narrowly escaped one some time prior to my birth.) And I thought they mostly occurred in the spring and summertime. This is November???? Global climate change?!? Global warming?!?

Anyway a quick check of the CNN map of it's path, shows that my family should all be ok, which is a relief.

In case you don't know Tornados are nasty. Their winds can be more powerful than that in a hurricane. Their path of wind destruction is generally much, MUCH worse than that of hurricanes; they just don't usually cause any flooding.

Robot Hero

This story gets my vote for best creative use of a robot. Tweety, a pet bird, was rescued from a partially collapsed apartment building by a robot built to disarm bombs.

This occurred in Australia and, you know, I can't imagine US police authorizing the use of one of their robots just to rescue someone's pet. (More's the pity.)

Via Boingboing

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Nanowrimo

Help! I'm sooooo far behind in word count (3625) from where I should be today (above 8333). Argh!

Yet here are two quotes that say the way I began this novel writing challenge was ok.
From Charlene Teglia:

It’s not necessary to know every detail about a story before writing it, but it’s good to have some idea what will happen, how the characters will get from A to Z. If you can imagine the key scenes along the way, you have your plot outline. For some reason with this story I have a pretty complete plot outline, which is rare for me. Often I only have the basic situation defined and how it’ll be resolved is a mystery. Probably I have such a firm grip on this plot because it’s not a full-length novel. If you’re plunging into NaNoWriMo, don’t be dismayed if you don’t have a detailed plot outline. If you know who your characters are (or at least have some idea of what their driving characteristics are) and a basic situation in mind that puts them into conflict, the plot will naturally unfold as the result of the characters’ actions.
And from Angela Booth:

It's Day Five of NaNoWriMo.

I've written 8,500 words, and will write another 500 or so before I turn off the computer tonight.

So far, I haven't done much plotting or character development. This is enjoyable, because I'm getting to know the characters as I write.

My preplotting is minimal, but the plot is developing quietly, without much work from me. I've got the setup (the first quarter of the book), the mid-point (second turning point), the third-turning point and the black moment, but I'm missing the crisis and climax.

Not bad, since the book will run to 100K, and I've written less than a tenth of it. :-)

Both these writers must be much better at it than me. I'm still plotless and clueless.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Not a Typical Royal Visit to the USA

Today Prince Charles and his wife Camilla (Duchess of Cornwall) visited the lower nineth ward of New Orleans and saw for themselves some of the devastation that was caused by Hurricane Katrina in the area.



From cnn.com:

Standing atop a patched 20-foot levee, they shook their heads in disbelief at the destruction: splintered homes, chunks of concrete, overturned cars. The couple also met residents and rescue workers.
The kindness and concern demonstrated by this visit also reminds me of the words of sympathy expressed by his mother just after the hurricane.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Nanowrimo Status

I am so behind in my daily quota of nanowrimo writing but I do have the excuse that I've also been fighting a flu virus this week. *sigh*

I just hope that I feel better by the weekend and can maybe catch up to where I should be ... maybe .... I hope....

Anyway I did take out the trash today (that counts as house cleaning in my world, yay!) and I returned two overdue library books.

See, today wasn't a total waste, after all!?! *giggle*

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Britishness test

I think of myself as being an Anglophile but I only got 4 right in this  Britishness test  which covers knowledge of British Culture. ARGH!

via  Amygdala

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Welcome Charles and Camilla

The Royal newlyweds began an official trip to the USA today with a visit to ground zero in NYC. In fact, according to CNN, this is the first official overseas trip for the couple since they married in April.

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