the world is your acorn

via Boing Boing (via Happy Palace):
Here’s a gallery of photos processed from old, found cameras with undeveloped film still in tact. The whole idea of it kind of gives me the creeps, but is fascinating at the same time.

Films Found in Old Cameras

There’s an article on wsmv.com about how Andrea Conte, First Lady of TN, has launched an internet safety campaign. As far as I can tell, it means that there is a website, a book, and some “educational materials” to help elementary schools and parents drill a few basic saftey guidelines (like don’t give out your personal info) into kids’ heads.

Some quotations from the article:
“If we begin in school, then work with their families, I think we can begin to make a difference” - state Education Commissioner Lana Seviers

“The beauty of this is that it doesn’t have to be done in a classroom or assembly. It can be done by parents who sign on to the Web site, who will read the book with children and watch the movie at home” - Internet Keep Safe Coalition spokesperson Iris Beckwith

“Parents are the first line of defense” - Internet Keep Safe Coalition founder Jackie Leavitt

What I’m wondering is, besides providing educational materials, how are families involved in this whole deal? According to the article Conte emailed elementary school principals about the campaign, “instructing them to inform parents”. Oh, so schools will either teach it to the kids themselves, or teach parents to teach the kids. Sounds a lot to me like an extra burdened for already overwhelmed schools. Let’s give the schools one more thing to teach, provide some half-assed “materials”, don’t provide training for teachers, emphasize the importance of involving families, then leave the rest up to schools. Meanwhile we get a nice little press release about how we care about the children.

Tennessee first lady launches Internet safety campaign [Channel 4 News, wsmv.com]

I get stomach aches a lot, and no doctor has ever been able (or cared enough) to figure out why. When she is around, The Little Red-Haired Girl is always kind enough to lay her head on my tums and listen for any signs of life within. When she can hear any action, we feel optimistic that change is on its way.

At any rate, my stomach is pretty delicate, and I try to be relatively careful about what goes in there. There are always, of course, trade-offs to consider. For example, I had a gin and tonic (or two) with dinner tonight. Now, as I settle in to get some reading for school done, I am thinking some chocolate milk would hit the spot. Unfortunately, I can’t help but picture the inside of my stomach, and the billowing clouds of chalky brown milk floating around in the pool of gin and tonic. Do I risk whatever chemical meltdown might result from giving in to my craving? Right now I am thinking no, but I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

Most of you probably use Google as your primary search engine, either because it’s the only thing you know, or it gives you the best results, or some other loyalty reason. Well, I’ve recently switched over to Blingo, and you should too. It actually uses the Google search engine, but gives out prizes every so often to its users. It can do this because it generates ad revenue from Google. So, I encourage you all to go to Blingo, register, but do it through the above link (so that I’ll be the one to invite you). Then, invite other people to join. If someone you invite wins, you get the prize too. Not a bad deal, right? Do I sound like spam yet?

Not my family, but The Little Red-Haired Girl’s. Mom, dad, sister, and grandpa all came, Saturday night through Monday afternoon. Most of the weekend was dedicated to finding good eats and shopping. The Little Red-Haired Girl’s family loves to eat. In fact, they were supposed to arrive on Saturday afternoon, so they could se The Museum before it closed for the weekend. In the airport in DC, however, they decided to grab some sushi for lunch, and missed their flight.

Anyway, as soon as they arrived we took them to Monell’s. We had amazing southern food, family style. It’s set up in this old Victorian house, with one or two long tables set up. People just come and fill in the seats, usually sitting with other groups. Then the food comes. The menu is different each night, but we had fried catfish, fried chicken, ribs, beans, corn pudding, biscuits, corn bread, mashed potatoes, cole slaw, and some other sides that I can’t remember. It just keeps coming out of the kitchen, and you pass it around the table and stuff your face. The Little Red-Haired Girl’s sister enjoyed it so much that she spent the rest of the weekend thinking about how to open a place like that in DC.

After that we went to a show at the Grand Ole Opry, which was a riot. So many sequins all gathered on one stage! Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel, then the curator at The Museum came to let us in and hang out a little bit. She is fabulous, chatted up the fam, and even had lunch with us at the little Caribbean restaurant nearby afterwards. That was really great for the fam to get to see where The Little Red-Haired Girl works, and I love to watch her in her element because she knows so much and she’s so happy when she can share it.

I think that it was a good visit, and everyone had a good time. The weekend went by pretty fast though, and I didn’t get any homework done, which means I’ve gotta buckle down today. Wish me luck!

There’s two guys in our hallway right now puzzling over the thermostat. That’s because it’s broken, and our heat has been on full blast since yesterday. Luckily we were out of the house for most of the day today, and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Meanwhile, we are considering frozen daquiris and bathing suits for the remainder of the afternoon. Anyone in?

So, here’s an email that I got from my mother this morning, subject line “drug usage”:

From Larry king show, I found out Bob Shapiro’s son died on 10/10 due
to drug useage. I wonder whether you have experimenting drug or not.
Would you pls make sure not to touch that poison. Drug and life do
not mix. … Please let me know how you are doing?

No joke. That was the whole thing. She didn’t even cc it to my brother, which means there is something that makes her think that this is an issue that she has to address with me specifically. wtf?

And don’t let that last line make you think that I’m a terrible daughter who does not stay in touch, because I just spoke on the phone with her this past week.

Ok, I finally got my shit together and uploaded photos from our digital camera from this past summer. Yes, I know, I am a little behind (”Who’s behind?” … “mine”). There’s stuff from bbqs this summer, Fierce n’ Fiery’s wedding, The Club, Thong Boy’s birthday, and some Nashville stuff. Some of it is posted as private, so you’ll have to sign in and make me a friend to see it (that includes all 66 pictures from the wedding, so DO IT!).

friedApplePie’s Flickr Photos

I got a bill from Comcast yesterday for $371.70. And a little note asking if I have forgotten my payment, because they have not recieved it yet. Which is funny, since WE CANCELLED OUR SERVICE FOR SOMERVILLE AUGUST 6!!!

Sorry for the yelling. We’ve even called before to ask about it. Anyway, I called this morning again, and the lady said she would take care of it, and they owe us money for when we cancelled. Maybe it will actually happen this time.

In other news, we got overcharged for our Comcast bill for Nashville last week. There is a “partial month” charge on the statement which is larger than any monthly sum that we pay, which makes me suspicious. It may take a math major to catch such a subtlety, but they messed with the wrong girls! I’m going to make The Little Red-Haired Girl call about it though; I’m tired of talking to them.

I just booked a flight home - I’ll have over a week to split between Boston and New Haven in November. I’m really excited to see everyone and eat sashimi and all kinds of other seafood and ride the T and go to The Club and stuff. Yay!

It’s actually been a pretty good week. Last Friday The Little Red-Haired Girl and I had yum Indian food with The Couples, Saturday was a rugby day, then the next two days were frantic homework days. Then last night we went to a wine class where we tasted five different sparkling wines at Sunset Grill (not to be confused with Sunset Grill and Tap). We are so going back for more wine classes; they are $10 each and good wines and fun people and you learn plenty. After that we continued our search for a sushi place, and decided to try Hayashi on 21st. We decided to stick with rolls (to soak up some of that wine), and had a delicious and cheap meal at the sushi bar. In addition to which The Little Red-Haired Girl made friends with the guys behind the counter, and they made us a a couple pieces of something delicious for free. Oh to be feminine, pretty, and flirtatious. The one bummer was that they don’t serve Asahi beer. fyi. Sushi was followed by meeting up with school folk at trivia, where we snagged third place (no thanks to me not knowing anything about Chinese history).

Now I’m basically at the beginning of fall break. I still have class this evening and class tomorrow morning, but I don’t really have anything due (not even reading) for a while, which is a nice respite from the craziness of the last few days. I think I may even clean a little today! Needless to say, I’m feeling much better about being here lately, which is a relief.