Alien Spouse

Internet Black Out.

Edith does not approve of SOPA.

Working Hard for the Money.

It's still a ghost town in my office ate moment; which is great because I have things to do. Mostly these are boring things, but they're fiddly and require some concentration.

To keep things interesting I've been listing to vintage radio plays on Relic Radio dot com. Personally I'm a big fan of Strange Tales, which usually have a ridiculous plot and an imaginative sound effects guy.

Phoning It In.

Today we had afew things to do before going to Jack and Amber's house for dinner and cooing over their preternaturally cute baby son.

First we had to take out the recycling because it was at the falling-on-you stage, and as our preferred recycling center happens to be close to a Verizon shop I decided to upgrade my phone. Well, actually, I did not want to upgrade my phone, because an upgrade to me would mean a smart phone and I do not want to pay for the monthly data plan - In fact I wanted to get the simplest of the basic phones, I'd actually have quite liked to down-grade to something without a camera or an MP3 player, because I never use those features. I tried to explain this to the assistant at the Verizon shop, but I think he'd just taken some cold medication or something else that advises you not to drive or operate heavy machinery, I soon realised I was on my own out there. In the end I grabbed an LG Cosmos 2, which was fairly cheap, had a slide out keyboard and uses a micro USB to charge. When I got home I second guessed myself by checking on-line reviews and it seems to be a good texting phone and have a good battery life. Perfect.

After that we bought a cherry pie and came home to get changed for dinner.

Happy Pink Cloud.

As I mentioned at the time, we went to Asheville this weekend, and I took a photo of this rather cheering mural. Obviously it was the happy pink cloud that caught my attention initially, but I particularly like the black half-cloud at the top left; it's painted on a bit of masonry that's sticking out slightly so there is a pleasing 3D effect.

It's always been my aim to have a photo up every day, but that has definitely been dropping off recently. The main problem I have with downloading and editing my photos at the moment is purely that I have to use the desktop in the study to do that, and it's a temperamental beastie at the best of times.If you plug in a USB before switching it on, then it crashes and Doc C has to physically take it to bits and re-build it. This sort of thing makes me wary of using it.

Anyway, I had read about memory cards that had built in wi-fi and would just automatically upload all your photos when in range of your home network (or any of the 32 other networks you can give it permission to use). So I bought one, and it's all set up and raring to go. So far I've just taken some test shots of an empty cake stand, but once I've got something better than that I'll post them here.

Book Box.

Have I mentioned that I bloody love my Kindle? I've been curled up with it for pretty much the whole of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and, since it arrived a week ago, I've read three novels on it. Well, a novel and two vintage murder mysteries, if you're being pedantic about genre differences - but I'm not too much of an intellectual snob to say that I far preferred the company of Tommy and Tuppence, or Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin to the miserable Anthony and Gloria of F. Scott's "The Beautiful and the Damned".

I've sort of given up on Goodreads, since the book swap feature has been closed, but I've set up the Kindle to prompt me to tweet a star rating when I've finished a book.

Oh, I've also re-named my Kindle from the out-of-the-box "Jennifer's Kindle" to "Jennifer's Box of Delights", after the John Masefield book. It is somewhat ironic that after I did this I discovered that "The Box of Delights" itself is one of the only titles I've looked for that doesn't have a Kindle version available.

Internet : The Return.

The Internet is back at the Alien Spouse house! Yeah Baby!

Doc C tells me there was actually something wrong with the cables, so it wasn't the modem as we had been told the last couple of times this happened. So despite our modem being black-listed, apparently, it still hasn't been replaced which is a bit weird, but ok as long as it keeps on working. So fingers crossed, eh?

Whilst the engineers from Charter were here Edith stayed curled up on the ottoman, but Doc had a nasty few minutes when he couldn't find Nancy and he thought she might have scampered away. It turns out that Nancy didn't actually make a break for freedom, but rather that she was hiding under the futon in the study. Poor little scaredy cat! She's fine now, and has spent a fair few minutes this evening happily chewing on the straps that fasten Doc's courier bag. Because that is Nancy's idea of a rockin' good time.

Sneaky Office Blogging - Shhhhhh!

Doc C has called Charter and made an appointment for a house call tomorrow morning - So I am hoping against hope that we will have blissfully uncomplicated internet access this weekend.

Apart from that it's been a fairly quiet day in the office, hence the quick blog break, but I am really looking forward to going home because we've got last night's "Top Chef: Just Desserts" Willa Wonka reunion special to watch. Squee!

Also, red lipstick. I don't want to wear it everyday, but, when I do feel like it, I find it makes me quietly confident and happy. Useful to note.

Frenemy Status Update.

Today I noticed that Facebook had changed it's privacy filters, again, to make it easier to fine tune individual posts privacy. It is kind of cool to be able to just post photos to a few individuals wall, but I hate how every time there is a change of this type it ignores my previous settings.

I went in and set everything up the way I'd had it before, and posted a status to suggest other people do the same.

Is it ironic that the first person to comment on that status was precisely the woman that my privacy settings were supposed to prevent seeing anything? And did it strike her as odd that the very first wall post of mine she can comment on is a warning that the privacy settings seemed to be in a bit of a pickle? Is this really all too daft for a woman in her mid thirties to be giving a sod about? I suspect the answers to these questions are no, no and yes.

Hankering for Autumn.

  

This is an approximation of the outfit I am particularly looking forward to wearing as soon as the weather cools down enough. I put this together from the options available to me on Polyvore, and when I totted up the total worth this particular version costs $2292.

Gulp.

Fortunately my Mum gave me a pair of gorgeous red leather gloves a couple of years ago so I don't need to spend $345 to get those. Then my new herringbone jacket is from L.L. Bean rather than D&G, so it cost $50 in the sale rather than $635, and my jeans were $10 not $80. The major saving though is in the boots mine are Doc Martens that were under $200, and the boots in the picture here are Rupert Sanderson riding boots which retail for $1145. Good grief! Who wants riding boots that cost over a grand? That is ludicrous!

The real-life ensemble would therefore be under $300 (if we're including make-up and socks etc), which is roughly $2000 cheaper then the fictional version. I suddenly feel very thrifty indeed.

I don't have a red leather flower brooch though, but at $6 I think I could splurge. 

Book Pile-Up.

I love books, but I especially love second-hand books. When I discovered Goodreads I was immediately smitten by the swap feature, which allows users to list books they no longer want and then other readers can pay the shipping and get the book.

It does still cost $3 or $4 in postage fees, so I try to limit how many books I request, but occasionally a glut of titles that I want happen to be listed in close proximity. This is how I ended up receiving Donna Tartt's "The Secret History", Sarah Waters' "The Little Stranger" and Tim Gunn's "A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style" in the post this morning, whilst I'm still only about half-way through "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.

Books! FOR ME!

cough *Charter* cough

Please allow me to vent for a moment about the deplorable lack of internet this holiday weekend. Essentially our wifi router is the same one we've had since we moved to North Carolina in 2007 - so it's at least four years old, and it's been fine for pretty much all of that time.

Right up until Friday evening actually, when our internet access started to become erratic and it just got worse through out Saturday. According to the tech that Doc spoke to on Sunday our wifi router model was black-listed, which meant that it couldn't cope with the higher speed internet that was now available.

My question is this; clearly something actually happened on Friday to speed things up. Why do that on the Friday before a long weekend? And, if there is a really really good reason to do it on that particular day, might it not be polite to contact those cutomers who might be effected by this so they can make alternative arrangements in advance? Hmmm?

Model Molecular Starburst Clock.

Our new clock arrived! It looks like a cross between a vintage starburst clock and one of those cool molecular models made from huge beads and dowling rods.

Doc C collected out new clock from the post office this morning and brought it to me at work because he knew I would be super-excited. The packaging was a corrugated cardboard box big enough for me to hide in. Doc had to put both seats down in the car to fit it in!

We both thought, based on the packaging, that the clock was an awful lot bigger than we had expected. Had we mis-read the dimensions and ordered Clock-Zilla by mistake?

Well, no. Inside the huge box was another one which had the dimensions of a large pizza box, and the clock was inside that. It's Clock-Zuki, a much less intimidating time piece all together.

I immediately unpacked it and hung it on my office wall, firstly because it is such a great clock I wanted to bask in it's starbursty goodness. Secondly because the pizza-sized box had been in the me-sized box without any sort of packing materials, and you just know that it must have been tossed around a fair amount on it's way; so frankly I wanted to be sure the clock worked before we took it home and had to move furniture to hang it up.

Long story short, the clock works perfectly and we put it up above the TV as soon as we got home.

It looks great!

 

(We ordered the clock from Modcloth.com by the way, and they have more in stock. Not to mention all the other things I want to buy from them.)

One Two, One Two, This is Just A Test.

This morning I was testing out a new microphone in the office, and I had just started recording when a group of students walked past. Much like the Brian De Palma film "Blow Out" (1981) I inadvertently recorded a conversation. Unlike "Blow Out" it wasn't evidence of a murder, but a more mundane student discussion about their intention to skip class tomorrow.

The microphone worked just as it should and I got a crystal clear recording, which I think would make a particularly excellent ring tone for disillusioned academics.

The Eleventh Doctor.

We are about to start watching the first of new "Dr Who" on Netflix, which we haven't seen since Matt Smith took over.

This may be a mistake because I was vaguely intending to sleep at some point, and once we start watching we may not be able to stop.

Terribly Comfortable.

Today was super exciting because I had been waiting all weekend for the post office to open and release the delivery of make-up that I'd ordered from Sephora. Doc C went to get the post mid-morning and brought it to my office, where I tore open the box in a frenzy and many exclamations of glee.  It is no exaggeration to say I immediately ran to the ladies' loos to put on my new red lipstick.

This might not have been the best of moves, after all I have worn neutral or rosy pink lip-stick for several years now, so it has been quite sometime since I put on a really red lippy. Plus I'd ordered this particular lipstick on-line, without seeing the colour in the real world before hand. Plus it is actually more of a lip stain, that promises to stay put for a long time, and I was going to be at work for another 6 hours, and I don't care how understanding your boss is, having a lipstick emergency is never going to be a good enough reason to leave work early.  Even if you do look like an unfortunate clown lady. These things can happen.

So, all things considered, it was very fortunate that this particular lipstick turned out to be exactly the shade of red that I wanted. I took a photo and posted it as my Facebook profile picture, where it garnered several encouraging and complimentary comments from kind friends and family.

What was really funny was that no-body mentioned the tiara that I was also wearing, because, OF COURSE, I'm wearing a tiara around the office on a Tuesday morning. What is more normal than that?

(Oh, they also didn't mention the black bar because that wasn't there. My super secret blogging identity must be maintained, blah, blah, blah, you know the drill.

An added bonus to the black bar is being able to quote "The Princess Bride" in my post title:

Fezzik: Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid, or something like that?

Man in Black: Oh no, it's just that they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.)

A Small Fault.

When I was growing up it simply never occurred to me that I might one day marry a man who would not notice that the computer monitor was set on completely the wrong resolution, meaning it stretched out the image and drove me crazy. Yet that is exactly what has happened, and this misfortune has caused me to spend a good half hour trying to work out how to resolve this issue before I could edit my photos. How could he not notice this? He works on this thing every day! And everything was all stretched out! It was making me feel queasy!

On the other hand I am married to someone who cooked me a totally delicious yet very low calorie dinner, and who laughs at my jokes. Which are both excellent points in his favour, I'm sure you will agree.

Glamour Puss.

Edith was displeased that I was taking photos of something other than her, that cat loves the camera.

After I'd got some suitably glamorous shots of Miss Cavell-Cat I went into the study to edit them in Picnik, Edith followed me and lolled around on my lap until I'd finished cropping the image; adjusting the exposure and colours; before finally giving her the merest soupcon of soft focus.

Once content with her cheesecake shots Edith retired back to the futon in the study to get some more beauty sleep. She is very careful to get at least 16 hours a day.

The Red Metal Cabinet.

Monday. Ugh.

Fortunately we don't have to dwell on the horror that is the first day of summer school classes, we have much more pleasant things to consider; such as our new TV cabinet.

I love being able to close the doors and shut away all of the wires, gadgets and accessories, it makes the whole room look tidier straight away. On top of that it's actually got a slimmer footprint than the hideous tables, so it takes up less floor space giving us about a foot more space in the living room.

Right now the only minor problems are the cats, who are both, naturally, fascinated by the new piece of furniture, all the more so because it usually has closed doors. Closed doors are an anathema to cats, and so whenever the cabinet is open both girls are drawn to it like a magnet. They didn't give a toss about the PS3 or the cable box before, this is purely because of the doors.

(By the way the images on the TV are from a game called "Red Dead Redemption", it's set in the wild west and I believe Doc C is currently hunting bad guys for the bounty on their heads)

Slightly Chilled.

Today's weather was mostly notable for a twenty degree drop in temperature, which meant it felt really quite cold, and, even though I thought I had dressed for the conditions (a long sleeve dress, tights and tall boots), by the end of the working day I felt physically tired from just being a bit chilly all day. Naturally this called for Gentlemen's Relish on toast with a nice hot cup of tea and the second part of a time-travel adventure that I am enjoying very much.

After that I spent some time this evening decorating my Sack Person's Pod in "Little Big Planet" in a loosely steam-punk motif. If the Play Station Network was up I could take a screen shot and post it for you, but as it is you'll just have to take me at my word when I say it was half an hour very well spent; and that was before I even started playing the game itself.

My feet still haven't fully defrosted, but I have slippers on, with a fleecy blanket over the top and Edith sitting on top of that, so I hope to be less zombie-like by the time I go to bed.

Mid-Week Update.

The laptop is still dead, and Doc C has some work to do so I'm pecking at the virtual keys of my iPod. This is fine, except the typepad app doesn't insert breaks between paragraphs (the breaks appear on the draft, but not on the published posts. I can go in and add HTML code to get the formatting I want, but that is a bit fiddly to do and if I'm posting from the iPod it's usually for the convenience so I don't really want to be messing around with coding) and I can't upload pictures from my camera. Also I'm getting back into working out after I get home from work, so I really should have had a shower by now. Instead, I'm watching police procedurals with Edith curled up on my feet.

Normal Service Resumed.

Hello from our desk top computer in the study, that I never use and can't quite get used to!

So essentially what happened was that Doc C had been using our laptop at his conference, so on Friday afternoon I got back to our room and saw the laptop I pounced on it. I plugged it in, checked my e-mail, looked at some websites and wrote a post. I noticed that the battery icon in the bottom left-hand corner was running down, but it would occasionally change to the power cord icon so I thought there was something odd going on with the socket I was using.

By the time Doc got back the laptop's battery had died, and I had realised that in my rush to connect with the web I had plugged in the power adaptor for the speakers which is a slightly higher voltage than the laptop requires... And this seems to have fried the laptop... Oops.

At that point I decided to just take a weekend break from the internet, and that's exactly what I did.

Irritation Vs. Style.

My office phone spontaneously changed it's own ring tone from a fairly innocuous trill to a sirenesque cacophony which just grated on my nerves. It also turned up the volume, so it made me jump out of my skin every time it rang. This is apparently irreversible, based on my trying to fix it myself through experimentation; working my way through the instruction manual; researching on-line; and, finally, calling the help desk of the manufacturers (who could not grasp the issue I was having with the phone, give me any useful suggestions or understand what my name was). 

The irritation factor was really quite something.

Fortunately I was wearing a mini shift dress that I brought back from my trip home, accessorised with the fabulous silk scarf that Liberty released for Comic Relief this year, a pair of lovely Pilgrim earrings that my cousin Ella gave me for my birthday ages ago and my new pewter ballet pumps from M&S.

Being dressed as though I was a calm and collected grown-up lady very much helped me to resist the urge to throw the damn phone through the window.

Boring Spreadsheet Code Aide Memoir.

This will no doubt sound like a ridiculously simple problem to anyone who understands how to write Visual Basic codes for Excel, but I don't know how to do that. I know just enough about Excel to be dangerous, in that I'm aware it can do some pretty useful stuff that should theoretically save me bunches of time but it will take me hours to find out how. Naturally I tried searching on-line, but usually what I want to do is clearly remedial level Excel and there are no internet Excel guides written in crayon unfortunately.

Today I really wanted Excel to compare two sets of data and simply tell me where there were any discrepancies. It took me freaking forever to work out how to get it to do that, and my solution is as simple as it could possibly be, so I'm prepared to bet that what I ended up with could be much more sophisticated, but it will do.

The code that I eventually got (with the aid of the Excel function wizard) was:

=IF(A1=B1,"Woot!","Boo!")

It's 25 characters, more or less, and I'm making a note of it here so I don't have to spend hours trying to find it again. What it does is look at cell A1 and compares it to cell B1; if they are equal it writes Woot! in cell C1; if they are not equal it writes Boo! (that's what this one does, my one at work checks for room numbers and course titles, etc, so it might say "Room?" instead of "Boo!")

Really quite satisfying, and all the more so because Doc C looked at it too and couldn't get it to work. It almost makes him beating my Little Big Planet high scores, as I am writing this, not sting quite so much.

Neck Ache and New Games.

My neck is cricked, so I woke up feeling achey and horrible today.  Fortunately I'd already put together breakfast before I want to bed last night, so it just needed to go in the oven for half an hour before Doc and I could enjoy baked french toast.  It was delicious, even though we didn't have any pecans, and I will definitely be making that again.

After that I took some pain killers and went to have a long nap in the loft, which Edith joined me for.  That definitely helped but meant that Doc was super bored by the time I woke up.  I'd suggested a while ago that we take our large stack of PS2 games to Gamestop to trade in and exchange for some PS3 games, so that's what we did.  Different games are worth different amounts when you trade them in, based on how likely they are to be re-sold; this meant we got just over a dollar for the PS2 EyeToy and the four games that went with it, whilst Doc's copy of Dark Alliance fetched $19.  We exchanged them for Zumba and Red Dead Redemption (which Doc C is playing right now!), as well as a second Move Controller.  Having two controllers means we'll be able to play table tennis against each other, or I'll be able to have a shield in one hand and a sword in the other when I'm in the gladiator arena.  Hurrah!

A New Toy.

Damn it! As a "back-to-school" present to me (and let's be honest, to himself as well), Doc snuck out this morning and bought the PS3 Move bundle.  It's got a camera, a controller and the Sports Champions game.

We've been playing Bocce fairly competitively for about two hours now, and it turns out I'm just as wildly inaccurate when hurling a virtual frisbee as I am when it's the real thing.  Also the gladiator game is good, really good, but both of us would love it even more if there was a light saber and some Force involved.

I will, of course, be buying the work out game that goes with the system with my next pay check.  Unlike Kinetic, it's not affiliated to Nike; instead of a totally fictional trainer this time I shall be bossed around by an avatar of Mel B.  It's going to be like I'm on "Dance Your Ass Off", but with more leaping around in my own living room and a lot fewer sequins.

 

 

Countdown to Halloween: Thirteen Days

One-eyed clown cat head on a stick!  Wooo!

In other news I am getting really sick of PCs in general and this laptop in particular.  

Next time we are buying a MAC and that is freaking final.

Countdown to Halloween: Fourteen Days

Pumpkins have been carved.

And I have, retroactively, added my skull photo into today's post finally.  All is right with October.

This is the vinyl patch I sewed onto Doc C's courier bag after he bought it on our first trip to Boston together, so it's been there for 6 years.  I love the way it's aged through day-to-day use.

 

 

Halloween Technical Issues

There is clearly some sort of conspiracy to prevent me from posting photos this weekend, because I just cannot persuade the computer to upload the skully photo I have all ready to go.

Fine.

Hopefully I'll be able to, after we get back home from Asheville tomorrow evening.

 

Countdown to Halloween: Twenty Seven Days

I had another look at these shiny skulls when we went food shopping yesterday, and sadly they just look tacky without the benefit of being able to fiddle with the exposure and colour levels.  

Isn't it a pity that you can't use Picnik in real life?  These are so fabulous with just a soupcon of tweaking, which I will illustrate through the magic of a classic before-and-after shot.

Walking Cats.

I've been worried that Edith seems to have been more mischievous recently, which, coupled with her habit of flopping dramatically on the floor, made me think she might be bored.  This is unknown territory for me I think because I'm used to having outdoor cats, (even the one and only pedigree cat that we had when I was growing up, the one that was supposed to be a pampered indoor cat too stupid to cope with cat flaps, ended up going outside more than happily) who make their own entertainment.  Usually by killing something.

Anyway...

I have been playing with the cats in the morning for a few minutes before I go to work and for longer in the evenings, but I did some googling to see if there was anything else I could try.  The consensus of the internet was that cats like paper bags and boxes, which I knew of course, but hadn't given the cats to play with in a while.

The internet also suggested putting a harness on the cats and taking them for a walk.  We had tried this before and it hadn't gone well, but we still have the harness and lead so I thought I might as well give it another go.  As ever Edith reacts as though the halter is made of lead and slinks around very low to the ground when she's wearing it, but she did seem to enjoy having a look around outside.  On the other hand Nancy knows that she can get out of the harness by pulling herself out backwards, but she behaved herself very nicely this evening and got to enjoy a roll on a nice sunny patch of deck for her reward.

I still feel a bloody idiot walking a cat, but if it makes my sweethearts happy I suppose I can swallow my pride.

Links - Two Set of Three.

It's a rainy Tuesday; Doc C is playing video games; Edith is asleep on my feet; Nancy is asleep on the stairs and I don't have a lot else to say about today really.

So here are some links!  Yay!

First food links - Because I haven't had dinner yet and I'm getting peckish.

1. Artisan tonic water - Q Tonic.
2. The Observer Food Monthly's Top Ten cookbooks of all time.  We don't have any of these!
3. Pictures and Pancakes. Gorgeously styled and photographed food from a couple, who happen to be a food stylist and a photographer. And to your left you will see Chocolate Guiness Cake.

 

Now onto the Dragon Con links - because I'm getting quite excited now.

1. One of these t-shirts from Think Geek, or both?
   
2. The Skeptrak schedule of panels sounds particularly interesting.
3. This is the guest list for 2010 - So much squeeee in one place!
   
   
   

Home Internet Access. Yay!

Oh Internet.

You have returned to me, and we have so much to catch up on.

For one thing I'm almost a week behind on Chateau Thombeau, I am starting to suffer from a Vitamin Glamour deficiency.

One More Day Without TV and Internet.

Damn it!  I forgot that I had to write my post at lunch time, and instead I slept for an hour.  I cannot wait until Charter connects our TV and wifi access at home tomorrow.

There had better not be any further delay, or I will be seriously displeased.

Moving Saga.

When we got home from work yesterday we had a cup of tea and a choccy biccy before settling down to our allotted tasks.  Doc C had a lecture to write, so he got on with that whilst I continued unpacking.  Mostly I wanted to get the study clear, so that the Charter engineer could hook up the wi-fi with not too much hassle when he came this morning, remember this salient point.  First I had to interrupt Doc to get him to help me drag the futon mattress up to the loft.  It fitted perfectly!  It is so comfy up there now, all I need is a lamp and a steady supply of snacks, and it will be bliss.

After that it was fairly easy to arrange the study, it just took ages.  My own personal favourite furniture ninja move was putting the wire shelves (the ones that Doc had bought them for his plants, so they were in front of the living room windows in the old house) under the stairs.  This doesn't sound particularly brilliant, but I positioned them so that we can use the shelves from the kitchen AND Doc can still easily fit his bike under the stairs.  It was extremely satisfying to see that work in real life almost as well as it had in my head when I thought of it at 2 in the morning.

I also carried several box loads of stuff up to the mezzanine, which is where I'm going to be keeping my bookcases and craft stuff.  This was made considerably less easy by the cats, who continue to adore lounging on the stairs and being annoyed if made to move.

Once that was all done, we settled down with a glass of Pimm's and "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962).  Doc insisted we had already seen it, but I am equally certain that I hadn't ever watched it before.  It was one of those debates that is impossible to prove any part of your argument in, beyond the simple fact that is is highly unlikely I would forget forget Angela Lansbury being that evil.

Of course the punchline to this story is that we didn't get the phone call we expected from Charter last night, or this morning.  When Doc called them and asked what time to expect them, they said "Today?  No mate, Thursday" (I paraphrase).

sigh.  Two more days without TV or internet access at home.

We Have The Keys!

Doc C picked up the keys to the new house today, and got the ok to start moving our stuff in!  Yay!

He also got the TV and internet sorted out; this was slightly more involved than one would think, because basic cable is provided as part of the rental arrangement of the house.  Great!  Except it confuses the hell out of the cable company when you then try and get the internet hooked up as well, because their records show someone is already registered at the address.  Doc managed to explain things to them eventually, but then called me with the tragic news that we might have TV but probably not the internet until TUESDAY.

TUESDAY!

I think I can cope, but don't be surprised if blog posts are patchy over the weekend.  I may try texting posts from my phone, but I'm not going to promise anything at this point.  We have a lot of boxes to move and I may well just be asleep when I'm not physically carrying stuff from point A to point B.

Ah, moving day...

Mad Men On Demand.

We are moving in four days - But it's really humid, so naturally I'm curled up on the sofa watching TV.

I got sucked into "Mad Men" by Tom and Lorenzo's analysis of the costumes in their Mad Style posts.  So then I caught up by reading my way through all of TLo's episode re-caps, and now I'm watching season three, because I've just discovered cable's On Demand service. 

It's probably a good thing that only the last season is available to watch.  I really should be putting things in boxes.

A Cheaper Chairless.

I was looking at a design website, because moving makes me think for some reason we are going to stumble over a big pile of money and be able to buy some cool new furniture, and I saw a picture of Chairless.  If you click on that link, you'll be taken to the official webpage (and it plays music by the way) where you will find photos of the product itself, the nomadic tribe that inspired the design and the designer himself.  Please look at the designer, he didn't put that much product in his hair not to be looked at. 

One thing I can't find out though, is how much the thing costs.  It's essentially a webbing strap, but in a selection of different colourways, with the designers tag on it and a percentage of the profits going to a non-profit organisation; so with that much hipness attached to it, how much could it possibly cost?  Well they've sold out via the website directly, and don't list the price there, so I googled it. One design blog claims that The Conran Shop is selling them for twenty quid, which is actually cheaper than I would have guessed from the look of the people posing with it on the website.  I can't actually find them on the Conran Shop website though, so I don't know if that price is correct.

Anyway, the cost doesn't really factor into this for me, because the moment I saw the thing I thought "Hmmm, that looks like a yoga strap.  I've already got one of those."  So I went and grabbed the yoga strap from my yoga/pilates shelf and now I'm sitting with it looped around my back and knees.  It's not uncomfortable, but it's not the height of luxury either, which is pretty much what one would expect really.

Good Reads.

I've signed up to Good Reads, which is a website where you can keep track of books that you've read, are reading and want to read.  It's geeky fun!

At the moment I've only got 18 books listed, and the majority of those are Dorothy L. Sayers because she's my current Queen of Crime.  I might add in books retrospectively, but otherwise I'll just add books in as I read them.  One thing I really like is that you can note down the page number of your current book on the iPod app and it syncs that up with the website, it even tells you what percentage of the book you have read so far.  This is oddly satisfying information to have.

You can also use it to swap recommendations with friends, so if any of you are on there already and want to friend me that would be great. I'm dead easy to find, as I've listed myself as Jen Alien-Spouse, and my avatar is the Green Queen.  Naturally.

Delete!

Following on from yesterday's post about my iPod's repeatedly ignoring 825 songs, I am now listening to them all, and occasionally I will award a rating of one star.

Usually getting a star would be a good thing, but in this instance it's my short-hand for delete.  Why bother with the star?  Why not delete straight away?  Well, this way the songs get an appeal on their sentence, I intend to listen to them again and see if I still think they are bilge or if there is a hidden gem in there actually.  I don't hold out a lot of hope for any of them, but I feel this is much fairer than a sudden death after a single outing.

I have noticed though that the pod must be lying about the play count on some of these songs, I'll accept I haven't heard any Varla-Jean Merman in the mix, I would remember that, but I know for a fact MC Solaar's "Noveau Western" has been played in the past few weeks and there is no way "Take On Me" has never been played.  Come on Pod!  Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

Gym Tuesday

Tuesdays and Thursdays are currently gym days for me, because Doc C was taking a bosu abs and back class on those mornings.  After we move there has been some discussion of going back to our Monday-Wednesday-Friday routine, because I think the Mono is pretty much bested (famous last words) and I have put a few pounds back on that need to be removed.  Anyway, whilst we are going back to the gym on a regular basis I'm still not quite back into my preparing routine; last night I made my breakfast (yogurt, oats and blueberries) in a travel container, filled up three different water bottles (one for Doc), packed my clothes for the office and laid my gym clothes out ready to put on as soon as I crawled out of bed.

However, I forgot to create a specific gym playlist.  My pod had free reign with the music and just kept choosing slightly less upbeat songs. These would be fine for for the cool down at the end of my cardio session, but not for getting me actually running. This effected my work out more than I would have thought, so today I have built two playlists for my next two gym sessions.

Then I noticed all those songs that my pod just ignores, poor things!  I have therefore created a new playlist entitled "Never Been Played" which contains a staggering 825 songs.  That's two days worth of material that my iPod has repeatedly turned it's nose up at!  What is the logarithm algorithm (thanks Moth!) that the iPod uses?  I mean there are some songs it really seems to "like" more than others, is that even possible or is it just where the songs fall in the archive?  So is it artificial intelligence or mathematical?  Actually I prefer to think my pod has developed it's own taste, but does it have to be so pig-headed about it?

Lovin' Blogs.

Follow my blog with bloglovin

I have no idea what the hell this is, but it turned up in my stats which intrigued me.  So I signed up, and apparently there are two people following me on it.

Hello!  How are you two?

Now I've "claimed" my blog by writing this post and including that bit of code up at the top, so this means I can now tailor the description of Alien Spouse that BlogLovin has on it's site.  I can change the name, description and thumbnail; and I can categorise it as well.  I went with "Interests: Odd Stuff", because there didn't seem to be a "General Whittering" category.  I haven't inadvertently tag my blog with something vastly inappropriate that I'm just too naive to realise have I?

An Excellent Question.

I like this flow chart of happiness! 

Via Swiss Miss and then traced back as far as Typcut.

Yellow Owl Workshop Stamps

When we went to Asheville I saw several of the Yellow Owl Workshop stamp sets in Malaprop's, and I had to very deliberately walk away from the shelf or I would have come home with the Tea Party set (if you click on the link you'll then need to scroll over a bit to see the tea party set).

 Isn't it fun?  I love that the set has a teapot (although, as I'm feeling pedantic, that's actually a coffee pot), cups and a textural stamp to make a table cloth with.  I have no clear idea of what I would do with a tea party stamp set, and that's why I didn't buy it because it would be wasted if I had it stuffed in a drawer somewhere.  It needs to be used!  To create infinite tea parties!  

Malaprop's had several of the other sets as well, and I've been picturing a very satisfying mash-up of the Cityscape box set with the NYC and Paris bag sets.  I think that would make a splendid blueprint for the city I want to be living in.  An urban landscape full of sky-scrapers, beautiful architecture, trees, cafes, bicycles and taxis.  Naturally I'd live in the nice town house with the shutters, and all my friends would live next door.

A Teeny Tiny Reason To Be Happy.

I had a nice day at work and now I'm in a great mood, but nothing really note worthy happened to cause this phenomenon; for example, I am super-thrilled to have found a new cleaning technique to try out on the grout on the guest bathroom floor, just in time for Jason's visit no less, but I don't expect anyone else to be.  

Well, maybe Jason and Doc C, and quite likely our landlady too, but apart from them.  

Ooh and my Mum, obviously, and my friends Jen and  Sarah, who both like things to be clean.  And Stu, who is very environmentally conscious.

OK, so that is quite a few people actually.  Maybe I don't feel so silly mentioning it now.

My Portable Garden.

I have become very fond of a quite ridiculous iPod app, FlowerGarden, which is a virtual garden.  I plant virtual seeds in virtual pots, then I virtually water them and they virtually grow.  Different plants require different amounts of water, which you can see by the coloured bars at the top of the screen, these screengrabs actually depict three of my more demanding plants.

Once they are fully grown you can pick individual flowers to make a bouquet and then e-mail or Facebook to someone with a little card.

It is ridiculously engrossing, sort of like a Tamagotchi but not irritating.  I also actually quite like the sound effects, there is a pleasant background of birdsong, then you have a tinkling noise as you water the plants and a sort of happy zinging noise when you've finished.  When you move from plant to plant you hear the pots scraping on the tiles of the garden, and cutting the flowers is accompanied by a satisfying scissor noise.

Mostly I'm growing flowers that I think my Mum would like, because I really quite enjoy sending her bouquets but she gets annoyed if I spend any actual money on her.  

Virtual flowers it is then, Mother!

5 Links.

Here is an illustrated on-line guide to tying your silk scarf in a variety of jaunty manners.  Natty.

An on-line tartan generator.  Geometric.

Three different blogs that are listed in the order I stumbled upon them.  All of them have orange in the title:

1. Whorange
2. Orangette
3. How About Orange?

The OK Go USB Rocks!

The USB I ordered arrived today.  It's got a recording of the OK Go concert that Doc C and I went to a couple of weeks ago in Charlotte, as well as the new album (which I already had) and three of their videos.  As you can see from the photos, it's bamboo with OK Go printed on one side and domino dots on the other.

Doc picked it up from the post office and brought it to my office this afternoon, and naturally I plugged it straight in and rocked out!  Whilst taking care of some important paperwork!

I also got a t-shirt (grey with a yellow print) and a tank top (brown with pink print) with the flock logo artwork that OK Go used when they were promoting "Oh No".

It's already uploaded to my iPod.

Cupcakes and Wine.

 I don't have to buy every single thing with a cute cupcake logo on it, but a bottle of red wine?

This was a nice fruity Merlot from Cupcake Vineyards, which was on special offer at the supermarket last weekend.

I checked out the vineyard's website, and found that they not only have a nice range of wines available, but a cupcake recipe section which includes recommendations of which wine will pair well with the flavours of the cake.

Oh yeah!  That is my kind of afternoon tea party!

Vintage Radio and Faux-Vintage Posters.

In my quest to find some fun podcasts to listen to I found Strange Tales on Relic Radio, which I really liked.  It's vintage sci-fi American radio dramas from the 40s and 50s, and when I went to the Relic Radio website I found they have ten other programs to subscribe to.  I'm probably going to get hooked on the suspense, thrillers and horror shows, but I am particularly intrigued by the whole archive of Orson Welles' radio performances.

 Also, Meg at Quiddity linked to a rather fabulous vintage-style DC character posters:

After I'd saved Batman to my iPod to use as a wallpaper, I followed a link from that page to the twitter feed of the artist, Michael B. Myers, and from there I went to his website. I really like his series of illustrations of Lost characters as well, but I think I'd probably be more likely to put the DC posters up on my wall at home.

Post Script:  Late breaking squee of joy for this terrific Dexter poster. WANT!

  

Links and Notions.

I've noticed that I tend to post links to interesting things on Facebook, rather than here or on Twitter.  On the one hand this is usually because I wish to draw something to the attention of a specific person, but not always.  In a similar way I'm also tending to jot ideas down on Twitter, rather than here.

Which is, you know fine, except that Facebook and Twitter don't have terribly useful search functions for going back through your own posts and I find my blog really useful for that.  I mean imagine if, for example, I forgot my wonderful idea for a faux vintage t-shirt from Manderlay and I couldn't search for "That great T-shirt idea I had"?  How awful would that be?  

Because I really do want to put that t-shirt together somehow, I can picture it exactly.  It will be a very light blue distressed t-shirt, with a centered print of a black silhouette of a impressive country mansion against an orange-and-yellow sunset, and say "A Present from Manderlay" in sweeping white lettering.  And yes I know that a t-shirt from Manderlay, however distressed it may look, will be terribly anachronistic, but I still think it would be really funny!  And elitist!  And geeky!  And I think I could get away with wearing that to work, don't you?  I mean it's a literary reference for crying out loud!

Yeah, so my not-new-year's resolution is more links and jotting down of notions here on this blog.  it'll be good, trust me.