| roswell the artist plus some lj advisory stuff |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|08:01 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | voltaire: Worf's Revenge | ] |
1) Had a meeting with LJ yesterday I'll type up my notes over the weekend for a progress report.
2) Since we got an enclosed back porch Roswell and Safetypin have taken up some sort of self-imposed guard duty that involves caterwauling to be let out every morning to they can check on the status of a) the bird invasion and b) whether or not that fiendish grey stray is walking through the yard (he's a rebel, I think they're secretly in love with him.) Well, since the snow fell this has been replace by c) complaining that we've opened the wrong door, they want the one without the snow please.
Finally yesterday Safetypin mustered up the nerve and went out for about 60 seconds, decided she didn't like the snow and came back in. Half an hour later Roswell worked up the nerve and walked out. The snow -- so fascinating! It must be examined!
After some time she did what any sentient, self-aware being would do and decided to use this medium for art -- to construct a cat of snow that would explain her view of the world, her emotions, her turmoil, her essence. After she constructed her art piece, she came back in -- satisfied, but a bit aloof after her triumph. We're having showings at 5:00 and 7:00 every night until it melts, with wine and cheese and cat treats.
Here is Roswell's snow sculpture:
I think it's beautiful. I'm going to get her a beret for Xmas. |
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| Evan throws an altruism boomerang |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|08:15 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | birds chirping | ] |
So yesterday, I got this email entitled "The world needs more Evans" and it was one of those chain letters, you know the sort, you see it on snopes.com all the time -- some kid wants to collect ten thousand post cards before he dies, a soldier requests prayers for a fallen comrade, but this one -- i knew this one was true because I'd helped start it -- someone had forwarded me a letter from Evan's mother -- you remember Evan, the kid who gave his life savings, $47.65 to City Kitties, the stray cat rescue group (Copy of Evans original heartwarming letter here.) This person was asking if I might help spread Evans altruism this holiday season by forwarding this letter to some people. How awesome that Evan's boomerang would pass by me again.
You know that person in the office who's always sending you the emails about missing people, places you should boycott, similarities between Washington D.C. and Sodom -- why not send them a copy of this -- you might see yourself on snopes.com in a week:
Subject: The World Needs More Evans
I can barely explain this, and I can't help but brag about it. Evan saved up his allowance for months and donated $46.75 to City Kitties, the cat rescue from which we got our adorable (if mischievous) Macha. He wrote them a sweet note. They posted it on their Facebook page, and it went viral. Kyle Cassidy matched Evan?s donation to City Kitties and suggested that others do the same. At last count, it had been “retweeted” (I vaguely understand that) 147 times. Bloggers are linking back to other blogs. Within hours, City Kitties received more than $400 in donations, and they are still coming. Other people have donated to rescues in Arizona, Tennessee, California, Toronto, and locations unnamed, in Evan?s honor. A woman in Austin, Texas made a video requesting donations for her local animal shelter, and credited Evan with inspiring her to take the time to do so. Sample comment from the blogs: “the world needs more Evans.” We agree. J
You can see his note here (and elsewhere!):
http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/570781.html
http://katemckinnon.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/the-world-needs-more-evans/
http://kemidra.livejournal.com/581514.html
Forgive our bragging! We are just astounded!
Happy holidays, everyone.
Lisa, Brett, and Evan
(in other news, we have heat -- perhaps it's a reward from above or perhaps it's just competent furnace repair people.)
go be awesome.
Add me as a friend on LiveJournal, Add me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter. |
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| oh god |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|10:22 pm] |
The week between Christmas and New Year's is traditionally the lowest-traffic week of the year for my site, and I'm gonna be out of town anyway, so I thought I might try something a little different this year. Here's a teaser for my idea:
I've already got the basic idea for the story and will hopefully start working on it before we drive down to Maryland (one advantage of driving down is I can actually bring my big Cintiq with me) for the holiday. Of course, going over my outline and idea list, this might end up being MORE work than the usual QC strips >.<
So uh I no promises yet I guess, but hopefully I won't puss out and will actually get this done. |
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| When you come in from the snow, everything seems warm. |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|08:30 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the rock star hotel | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | all the faucets dripping | ] |
More playing in the snow with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) trillian_stars.
Supposedly the furnace guys are coming today to drag the old heater out through nine feet of snow and bring in the new one. They hope to have everything connected by Wednesday. But until then it's ... coooold in Casa del Milla but what's having no heat if not the opportunity for adventure? We got trillian_stars' 1930 Electrola and some holiday 78 rpm records and ensconced ourselves downstairs in the Rock Star Hotel and pretended we were on vacation in a cabin in the woods. Looking out the windows all you can see is snow where it's drifted five feet up against the side of the house.
trillian_stars made gingerbread, I made chili, the cats acted like they've never been downstairs, we had hot chocolate, I worked on final edits for the kids book, which I now think should be called "A Bunny Named Swine" rather than "A Rabbit Named Swine". We piled a lot of blankets together, it was fabulous. The furnace guys are going to end our pioneer adventure, but I'm glad we had the experience.
Whether or not your home is filled with heat this year end season, I hope it's filled with love (and kittens).
Add me as a friend on LiveJournal, Add me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter. |
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| lj Advisory Update inre Best Buy flash ads |
[Dec. 20th, 2009|02:38 pm] |
A couple people wrote to ask about a new intrusive ad for Best Buy that has started running on Livejournal. I haven't seen it but apparently it takes up the whole screen and when it first started it auto-played audio (which is right up there with shooting someone's dog on my list of "thing's that it's uncool to do"). I asked LJ about it and heard back that it is indeed an official ad (some people were wondering if it was a virus or adware). They've removed the auto-play audio and added a button that is supposed to let you close it right away (rather than waiting for the animation to finish). There are no plans to stop running it as it's a big money maker. It should also not appear more than once every 24 hours.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to motivate people on the fence to upgrade to paid accounts, but I worry that people who are just starting out may be driven away because of it.
If you have questions or comments about this post them here and I'll forward them up the food chain. You may comment anonymously if you'd like.
Please repost as you see fit.
Thanks a bunch.
Your LJ user rep. |
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| Fart-chan Mark II |
[Dec. 18th, 2009|12:43 am] |
Tubgirl staggered and finally collapsed. "You...you have defeated me," she gasped.
"No," Fart-chan replied. "It was you who defeated yourself." |
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| LJ Advisory Update inre GENDER |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|10:09 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
Hey folks,
Yesterday I got an email from a user saying there was a rumor that LJ was intending to make specifying gender on one's profile mandatory. Obviously there are various reasons why people either might not want that information known, or don't fit into one of the two categories commonly seen in such questions.
I wrote to LJ immediately asking about the rumor and advising that this wasn't a good idea without user input.
This morning I heard back with the Official Word and I'd be happy if you'd repost this or link to it to spread the news:
1) There are NO plans to make users specify gender in their profiles. The current options are "male/female/unspecified", this will remain.
2) The rumor started because on the current LJ BETA version (being tested now by some users) a programming error made the field mandatory, the same programming also broke profile editing. Users reported the bug to LJ and they are fixing the code along with other bugs people are discovering.
3) There will be a note with more details from the Customer Care team in the future.
4) That's all.
Thanks to everyone who emailed to let me know about this. If there are other questions or comments, please feel free to add them here and I'll pass everything along. I'm still working with LJ on the big status report but they're busy with the final software rollout for 2009, we'll have a meeting after that.
Your LJ user rep,
Kyle |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|09:51 pm] |
We're decorating the tree and lookie what I just found. 
Roswell knows what this is. She is very afraid. Posted from mah iPhone. Posted via LiveJournal.app. |
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| sweet barking cheese!!! |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|10:07 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | roswell snoring | ] |
This week we'll be going over the entries in the write a story, win an autographed copy of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker novel contest. There are many awesome entries. I ought to put together a .pdf of all of them that people can download, print out, and read on the subway.
While no winner has yet been chosen, I wanted to point out the FREAKING AWESOME ILLUSTRATION OF STEAMPUNKROSWELL that mcmatz did:
sweet barking cheese. Friend this woman. Seriously. How could this awesome have escaped me for so long? I think there will have to be a special prize for this, it was so unexpectedly awesome.
(and if anybody else wants to do steampunk roswell illustrations, I will indeed put together a .pdf of all the stories for people to download and read on the train, and I'll give out other special prizes which will likely consist of a photographic print of something.)
rock on with your bad selves
Add me as a friend on LiveJournal, Add me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter. |
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| Truth. |
[Dec. 13th, 2009|04:33 am] |
Why do girls love male vampires?
They're the only ones willing to perform oral sex during a period.
That was worth breaking my 3+ year hiatus. |
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| busy time.... |
[Dec. 12th, 2009|04:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | black sabbath: hole in the sky | ] |
Yesterday I went to see Guo-Qiang's Fallen Blossoms at the Philadelphia Museum of art -- he'd set up an elaborate drawing made out of gunpowder and set alight the front of the building (more or less). There was smoke, there was fire.
then trillian_stars and I went to XIX, high atop the Bellvue Stratford and celebrated being alive in a world where people set fire to the front of buildings and it's called art.
Then I took this photo of her with my iPhone
so that the moment couldn't entirely bleed away.
This morning I got up early and started working on book layouts -- there are two at the moment, one's my ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) 2xcreative project which will be lovely but keeps getting knocked back by the bigger one which I hope to have done very soon.
This afternoon I skipped out on the book layouts and we went to a party at the Sketch Club where I have a piece hanging in the show (along with Rockwell Kent and N.C. Wyeth and Thoms Ekans -- fo shizzle. Right on the wall next to them) which comes down tomorrow. We had wonderful conversations with WWII vets and artists.
Tonight we're going to see Wagner's Ring (orchestral excerpts) at the Symphony which is wonderful because we get to dress up and act fabulous which we haven't done in a while. |
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