This is a draft. This is ONLY a draft. I've discovered people are often most creative when they are given something to alter and polish -- blank canvases are intimidating to those who have been clobbered by certain educational or parenting practices. So, come along and put your oar in the water. Please.
Posted by
Maggie Jochild
at
9:36 PM
Labels: invitation
March 13, 2008
The eighteenth century pirate John Gow wasn’t much of a cutthroat. He and six comrades decided to kill their captain and officers so they could go a-pirating. They did such a bad job of throat-cutting that all the officers survived. At least they did until Gow had them shot and thrown overboard. Just as effective, but not as cinematic.
The generic term for the sort of reproduction done by a Xerox machine is “xerography,” from the Greek words for “dry” and “writing.” So-called because it uses dry toner instead of liquid ink. Xerography was developed by one Chester Carlson, native of Seattle.
Lord Sandwich, inventor of the comestible bearing his name, was infamous in 18th century Britain for his decadence. Along with endless gambling and orgiastic sex, he liked playing the drums in accompaniment to a men’s chorus singing Handel’s oratorios. Hal-le-ju-lah, and pass the BLT.
January 9, 2008
The calendar we use today is a modification of the Julian Calendar, instituted by Julius Caesar on January 1, 45 BCE. Most of the actual work was done by one Sosigenes, an astronomer and mathematician of Alexandria in Egypt. Should it be called the Sosigenean Calendar, then? No, any egghead can figure out a new calendar. The hard part is getting it universally accepted. For that you need Julius Caesar.
Dimitri Mendeleev, the Russian scientist who invented the periodic table of the elements, usually had his hair and beard cut once a year.
In rural Minnesota, near the towns of Corcoran and Medina, the Hamel Volunteer Fire Department is the proud possessor of a chainsaw sculpture of a fireman in full regalia. See it at http://www.hamelfire.org
19 comments:
nelleellen is Deena...
hi maggie! thanks for doing this!
I am totally excited! This is great!
Can we post pictures on this thing? Because I SO would like to do that.
Maggie, remember our "April is the cruelest month conversation? Afterwards, I kept thinking of other "bad" things: the Titanic, Lincoln, Hitler's birthday...I have to stop. I am creating a new list--called (wait for it)...
April Is The Greatest Month!
Because:
April Fools Day
Easter (with chunklit bunnies)
Passover (with choclate Passover
Pops)
8 family bithdays, including mine!
Maggie's godson's birthday
new TV episodes (finally)
baby calves and lambs at the roadside
This Blog has started! Long Live Maoist Orange Cake!!!
What I don't know about how this puppy functions would fill a warehouse. I "understand" we can post photos but I can't tell you how to do it -- go read up and become the expert, okay? Just like I don't understand how we can get our own designer colors for our individual posts, although it says we can. We can also do links, and it would be nice to link to AnnaP's cakeblog so folks can have the recipe. We need some geeky help.
Shado's 52nd birthday will be on April 29, ya'll. She's just over three months older than me.
Deena, I'd like to have a Voldemort/Cheney 2008 sticker for my van, even with Cheney's name there, just to watch the evangelicals' heads whirl when they spotted it. But Jana, your explanation -- that Cheney was Satan's nickname -- was even better.
This is nice! I like the polka dots (or mega-pixels?) Thanks, Maggie!
Here's pamish, despite my heavily disguised alias, you may recognise me as Pam I.
Thanks for the blog tho I'd rather be back where we started. Not least cos I am pledged not to spend two hours every morning checking in to all my e-lists.
I'm doing my own visual "blog" by trying to post at least one new photo a week to my website - right now it's full of florals as that's what hits me in the eye. I love April, after this it gets too hot for me.
www.pamisherwood.co.uk/latest
funny, you don't look pamish!!!
loved the bunny pic...
Okay, whilst in search of an answer to Jana's problem with Mac-ness, I discovered how to post a photo (I used a Flickr account -- but Pamish clearly knows how, too, and may have used another method), how to make my photo appear beside my name (creating a profile does that), and here's a question: How many posts do you want available on the main page? The default set was at 7, but I changed it to 25 -- I don't know how far we can go with it, or how many we want to load for people with slower browsers. Any suggestions?
Right now, it's set where anybody randomly cruising the internet could find it, but it's not been released yet by Blogger as one of their new blogs. Not until we have it the way we want it, I figger.
I'm betting that Liza will redo the look of it to vast improvement. I personally could live at PSAW, the colors and arrangement there, so I'm looking forward to the results of her eye. And let me just interject here, g*d rain her blessings down on Vermont and Vermonters, for VOTING FOR IMPEACHMENT YESTERDAY! Hurrah, huzzah, and good on ya, mate.
And, speaking of congratulations, self and otherwise -- kudos to pamish for posting a link to her site, I want to see no modesty about that. Tell us what yer doing or love out there on the web or want to promote and give us a hop-see. Silvio, will you repost here the link to yr lovely songs? Or is that too public? (I always mistype that work pubic and have to go back and put in the L.)
Posting pics - I went to New Post at the top of the front (black dotty) page. You get a blank form, with icons along the top. One of them is a pic. Click there, browse yr PC for the image you want, viola! (That's another floral reference slipped under the wire.)
I tried dragging pics into this box but it didnt work, so maybe it has to be a new post - or a link to eg Flickr.
Today's events that have been keeping me so busy:
1) An informal meeting at the local Chai House with fellow members of the 36th District (Washington State) Democrats. The 36th is the most liberal district in Washington. I took the sketches I've done at various political events, which we eventually hope to post on our website. A lot of my Gilbert and Sullivan rehersal sketches are better, I think, but the G&S Society website is not interested in posting them. Sigh.
2) A trip to the Seattle Public Library semi-annual booksale, hardbacks for one dollar, paperbacks for fifty cents. I came in with a little-old-lady-style pushcart, and came out with 57 books. If anyone wants a topic for seriously tangential discussion, I'll tell you what they are (one is by that famous travelling Commie, Anna Louise Strong). I got through the travel section, the U.S. History section, and the World History section before the tottering stack in the cart reached the point where I could balance no more books on top. In the check-out line I met the owner of one of my favorite second-hand bookstores, and we had a nice chat. Tomorrow afternoon the books go to half price. I might go back.
3) A couple of hours at the Tea House Kuan Yin in Wallingford to start reading one of my new books: "Sailing to Freedom" published in 1952, about 16 Estonian refugees who flee Sweden (when threatened with deportation to the USSR) in a 36-foot sailboat with a cranky diesel engine. The group includes two wives, four little girls between the ages of 10 and 3, two elderly female relatives, and at least four men over six feet tall. At this point they have left the Gota Canal but are not yet out of Swedish waters; they don't intend to touch land again until they reach New York, but the engine is crankier than ever.
That should provide fodder for a spin-off discussion or two. Our favorite drawings! Our favorite booksales! Our favorite Estonian refugees! (By the way, the folder where I've kept our e-mails is labelled "D2WO4Refugees".)
Jana C.H.
Seattle
P.S. The polka-dots are nice, but the colors are hideous. Just my opinion.
I notice, on looking over the templates available to us, that a distressing number of them use big fields of pink. I have a visceral dislike of big fields of pink. (1950's girlhood, I guess). So, whoever does the artistic layout, please -- keep pink in all its permutations down to an occasional accent, I beseech you...
I have at last succeeded in registering by using my PC at work. The question now is whether I can log on from my Mac at home.
Fram!
Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith Floss Forbes: If you don't know the tune, sing tenor.
oh dear, Maggie has a visceral dislike of pink.
Maggie, you *do* know what color your viscera are, don't you?
I don't particularly like the polka dots; I just don't dislike them. But if we're going to have polka dots they should be orange, lemon yellow, and lime green.
Better would be a repeating pattern of orange, lime, and lemon trees in pastel colors. I did some image searching on orange trees and came up with some nice pictures for inspiration. Our artists should create something. I'll see what I can come up with; others can do the same if they like.
Long life the Orangist Revolution!
Jana C.H.
Seattle
My viscera are Chinese or Commie red, not pink. Years of dogma...
But my spirit is pure orange.
Thank goodness this does not apply to us:
http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html
Let us take it as a warning.
Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith Floss Forbes: If you don't know the tune, sing tenor
Oops! Try this link:
http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html
JcH
Re: Blog argument warning
"It burns us it burns usssssssss!
Oh my precious!"
Jana,
Were you referring to the April 16 "internet argument" link found in the "parent directory?" The link took me to the parent and I had to wander about a bit to find it, but WOW! It rang kind of familiar to me...especially the part about posting pictures of one's pets after exceeding one's bandwidth!
Post a Comment