Burgandy Skies

Posts made in 5 minutes or less or your money back...if you paid money...which you don't...

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

But you'll never take my freedom!

Ah! Finally mentally free of horrible, horrible ethics class. Perhaps I can finally think of something to post about. Hopefully my bitter class survey will not have terrible reprecussions, but the professor was just offensive and I felt I had to speak up. Especially when someone says normal people don't go to therapy - sheesh! Not that I really consider myself normal, but what the heck is normal anyways? At least it puts me in a good mindframe for the Philosophy class we're in now.

On other notes - hubby talked me into/tricked me into finally having lunch with an old friend of mine from high school. I've been avoiding her for years because of the horribly rivalry in high school (she was the Betty to my Veronica, and, yes, I will at least admit I was the Veronica here) and the mere thought of meeting up with her is already causing the old competitive animal to start crawling around in my sub-concious and I find myself worrying about such stupid things as what will I wear, how bad are my roots, can I possibly lose 20 lbs before the lunch, and other such nonsense.

Anways, as the Perrero readers know, hubby has been waiting for an hour for me to go to freakin bed already. So off to dreamland and horrible nightmares of high school....er...I mean sweet dreams...I hope...

Friday, May 27, 2005

Stewing...

Ok, so really I should be getting to bed because we're supposed to wake up early tomorrow and finish making beef stew for the homeless shelter we volunteering at once a month, doing the cooking for the Saturday dinner. But instead, I'm messing around with my blog. I finally figured out how to get some pictures posted on here, as you can see over on the right there. As it so happens Anime Burgandy was designed and drawn by Omi of Counter Culture to be a banner ad, so it works well here, I think.

If you care, it's actually a cute story how I wound up with it. Read on if you're feeling mushy.

David didn't have a whole lot to spend on my anniversary present last year but wanted to get me something really special. So he sent a bunch of pictures of me over to Omi because he reads her comic and thinks she's a good artist and knows I like anime. He then commissioned her artistic abilities to make this very cute banner and ran it on her site as an ad that said "Happy Anniversary" on it. So, the when I went to read Counter Culture a couple of days before our anniversary, there it was. I thought it was really, really sweet, and probably the most creative present I have ever gotten. He even paid to keep it up there through my birthday (though the message changed, of course) since it was the following month.

Anyways, it has ever since been the picture I use when asked to use an avatar or post a pic, so thought I would share.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Half-Empty Cans of Diet Coke

Are littering my desk, acting as reminders of my inability to finish anything this week.

Avoiding doing homework. muddling through paying work, actually making fairly substantial progress on editing what should be the first book of David's epic series, and getting to read the installments of the sequel to said book.

I've been finding the editing process both rewarding and frustrating, since David is constantly striving to make the books internally consistant, which means maintaining a generally awareness of what's happening in all the books, all at once. (Thus avoiding "pulling a Lucas", as we've started to call internal inconsistancies.) Anyways, sometime far from now we'll see if we pulled it off or not.

Meanwhile, back to working and junk.

Friday, May 20, 2005

I am a slacker...

or at least David makes me look like one.

Saw ROTS at midnight on Wed/Thurs. (However you want to count it). It was awesome. It was more a prequal to the original Star Wars and less a sequal to the last movie, if that makes any sense. The first half hour, especially, is a loads of fun. David did a much better review of it than I ever could, probably because he's seen it twice now (Lucky!). So go read his - we were generally in agreement on the deconstruction of the movie. Though the soundtrack didn't seem as good to me, but that may be because we were sitting all the way in the front because certain someone's insisted we not leave until 11pm to make a midnight showing. Anyways, going to see it again tomorrow so I can't complain too much.

Visited LYT today. It took forever to get out of the house. Mainly, I think, because I had no idea we were supposed to be leaving at noon and was busy running errands and doing work stuff instead of getting ready to leave. And having a slow moving altercation with the big yellow pole at the drive thru ATM. See David's blog for the whole story on our crazy day. I'm too tired to get into it. Anyways, LYT is a cool guy and his apartment made me feel bad for making David get rid of most of his action figure collection. Oh yeah, and he has an awesome movie poster collection, which made me miss my old poster covered walls. Ah, the price we pay to not pay rent, or for babysitting, or daycare, or to not have to work 9-5 jobs - Oh wait...I guess it's worth it. But still...as Napoleon would say - Lucky!

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

An Allowance?

Just thought I would clarify. Yes, my three year old gets an allowance, but not in the give her money to put in the piggy bank kind of way. She gets a piece of the family budget for the week that she can then spend on "Boo things", i.e. lightsabers, Yoda stuffed toys, and the current champion - the Darth Vader mask. This actually has resulted in us spending less on her, since it gives both us and her a budget, and she has a remarkable grasp on the situation for a three year old. She has been pleasently content with waiting until her next "payday" to get something and has shown a good grasp of budgeting already, such as trading the overpriced large Darth Vader stuffed toy for three of the smaller Star Wars stuffed toys. It's been a good experience so far, I think.

Plus, whenever my mum-in-law complains about her increasing stock of "boys toys" we can at least honestly say "Boo bought them".

The Boo

The Boo is aware of a disturbance in the Force. My daughter loves Star Wars...loves it. For the last month she has spent her allowance on nothing but Star Wars stuff (with the brief exception of our impromptu trip to Disneyland last week, wherein this obsession was switched to Buzz Lightyear toys). In fact, speaking of Disneyland, to illustrate my point, for quite a few days after a trip, if you asked her about Disneyland, the first thing she would tell you is that the man at the Star Wars ride said she was too little to ride it. So, she is getting more and more suspicious about the fact that even though she knows the new movie is coming out Wed. (How could she miss it?) she doesn't get to go first. (Actually, my hubbie is trying to negotiate a compromise wherein we will take her after we see it on Wed. at Midnight (Boo Freakin' Ya!), sometime this weekend, if she promises not to hold it against us if we go "ohh! Scary part!" and cover her eyes or something. )

Anyways, I have no idea why anyone would care about all that, but I'm putting off looking up Jack in the Box stuff for class, and realized I hadn't posted in awhile.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Defining Oneself

So I'll toss out a question instead. Been pondering the Stay-At-Home Mom label. I think of myself as a stay-at-home mom because I'm a mom and, well, I stay at home. But my husband has pointed out that this label is generally misleading because I am also the main Escrow Officer for his mom's mortgage brokerage and work 20 hours or so a week at that, as well as going to college full-time (in a Professional Studies program so it's only a once a week thing, but full-time nonetheless), and I also spend about 2-3 hours a day doing Author's Assistant work for my not-published-yet-but-working-on-it writer of a husband. And, I split the household stuff with my mother-in-law, who in turn watches the Boo when I have to do document signings or whatnot. So my question is...am I a Stay-At-Home Mom still? Is there a Work-from-Home Mom catergory yet?

I actually dislike labels, but they are a heck of alot easier than spending 10 minutes trying to explain my home/work situation every time someone asks (which happens frequently when you start a new college class every 5 weeks).

Discourse!

Not a single non-hubby comment today. Even for all the trouble I caused today over on Cathy's blog. Not even to point out the irony of my cry for tolerance below and my (mildly) overboard rant against the feminist hordes over on Cathy's comments section. I guess I'll give up being controversial...for now...

Thank You Jonah Goldberg!

For sticking up for us wacky Christians. Apparently Law & Order saw fit to take on the Scarey Christian Right...anyways, Jonah wrote a better article than I could, so go read it.

Two things about this article: to supplement what Jonah had to say, there actually is an example of someone coming to Christ and then feeling compelled to actually take responsibility for his actions - Chuck Colson (Funny enough I was just reading his story yesterday for an Ethics class). Not to mention there were rumors of that sort of thing happening after The Passion came out, but I'm too tired/lazy to look them up so you'll just have to Google them yourself.

Anyways, this just illustrated what I've come to love about being on the right side of the fence: I find that far more people are willing to actually be honestly tolerant of other people's faith. Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Atheist, Agnostic - you just don't see very much religious name calling. Which I think is cool. I think we could all set aside our defensiveness for a bit and have some honest discourse around here we'd all be much happier, if not better informed about the world at large.

And this goes for both sides of the fence - I have been snubbed by way back when pagan friends of mine for becoming a Christian, but I have also been chastised by Christian friends of mine for hanging out with a dominatrix (which I thought was especially annoying because she was a friend of mine's girlfriend). I mean, Jesus and then later Paul, went to the people where they were and they didn't beat them up for their ways, but tried to understand where they were coming from (Well, I guess Jesus already knew, but Paul didn't) and meet people where they were at. We need more of that.

Anyway, off my soapbox and back to work!

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Talk amongst yourselves...

Talking points that are rattling around in my head:

I have a new theory that despite what all the non-conformist movies of the last 3 decades have been trying to tell us - People like legalism. They like rules. They like people to just give them a nice little list of what they can and cannot do and to go on thier merry way. Witness the popularity of Mormonism, Catholicism, etc. vs., say, the Quakers. Even within the Protestant church you have denominations everywhere you turn and what is a denomination but a group that says we believe you have to believe/follow X doctrine to really be a Christian? Even in secular circles you have all these How-To books and self-help books giving 10 rules for doing such and such thing. People like things to be easy. Freespiritedness is not easy. It's complicated and messy. I don't think most people like complicated and messy.

Ah Ha! I'm being controversial! Not intentionally so, but this was just sticking in my head today.

Talking out of my bum...

And no, I'm not British, but I am a terrible, terrible Anglophile...

Anyway, got back last night from our crazy three days at Disneyland. I love the makeover they gave the park for the 50th anniversery and highly recommend that anyone who hasn't been there in awhile give it another shot. The facelifts on the Indiana Jones ride and Splash Mountain were especially cool, but you'll find that pretty much every ride in the park seems to have been given a new lease on life and the new Buzz Lightyear ride is a hoot. I can't really tell you how Star Tours is though, because my husband and mother-in-law are bound and determined to sneak my three-year-old onto that ride (she's only two inches too short) and there is a general agreement that no one will go on until the Boo gets to ride.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Weekend Stuff

Ok, I actually have stuff to post about, but we're getting ready to go to Dland for a couple of days while the construction guys put in new stairs, so not much time.

Finally saw "Bladerunner" for the first time and I was so confused. I mean, the main story seemed to make sense but it felt like something was missing, and there were all these long sequences where there was no dialouge and it make the whole movie seem really slow paced. Then I mentioned it to a friend of mine who asked if I watched the Director's Cut, which apparently does not have the nifty voiceover that explains what the crap is happening. So I have to rewatch it now. Anyways, it was visually interesting, but does not seemed to have aged well. Especially since a large amount of SciFi people seemed to totally miss the mark in the 80's. We are nowhere close to flying cars, but apparently no one saw the minaturization and internet revolution coming at all.

Anyways, I was disappointed to learn that my Dad (who usually has the same taste in movies I do) thought "Napoleon Dynamite" was "stupid". But apparently this is because he was the cocky jock guy when he was in high school and says he didn't get the nerds then, and he doesn't get them now. Which is funny to me because all three of his kids, myself included, are so geeky it's silly. Ah well. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that guy who was a drag racing surfer voted Most Likely to marry Miss America in high school doesn't get "Napoleon Dynamite", but still it made me a little sad to realize the social rift that lies between us. Anyways, he liked "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and continues to be a Star Trek fan, so there must be some geek in him somewhere. (Maybe he's just in denile.)

Ok, off to doc signings, Disneyland, LYTs, and other fun adventures.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Ok..One more thing...

Actually I did see the funniest thing in the Westways that came today - That on the original Main Street, USA at Disneyland they had a store called "The Wizard of Bras", that sold "intimate apparel". (Does Lileks know about this?) The article says they had to close it down by 1956. Gee, really? Can't believe anyone complained about that one. Anyways, I thought it was funny, so thought I would share.

Boring Friday!

So today was the Friday that didn't happen. No doc signing for me, no docs for that matter (people with a need for instant gradification and a steady income should never, never go into the real estate field). Anyways, the only things that got accomplished today were David putting in yet another palm tree for his mom and making it to Target before the pharmacy closed. Not exactly productive. Though the tropical plants continue to be an adventure in thier own way. The previous owners of our house apparently had no interest in thier plants, so our backyard has more clay than a kindergarden classroom, and is a pain the fanny to plant stuff in, especially large tropical plants. I must admit our pool is taking on a Jungle Cruise quality that is kind of cool though, and my mom-in-law has a veritible fruit and veggie garden going on in the sideyard, so I can't really complain. Anyways, at least I got to have Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream (only one scoop) and Mountain Dew LiveWire in the same day! (Dieting has made me a strange, strange person...)

Off to bed. Maybe tomorrow will be more interesting.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Emperor's Club

Okay, now that I've watched the movie I'll try to tackle Number One's question. Still not quite sure what was meant by "subtext"...but two subtle things that came through were the idea of parental influence vs. educational influence and (as my more well-read hubbie pointed out) classicism vs. materialism. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and whole-heartedly agree that our current culture of the ends justifying the means has lost quite a bit of its classical foundation. Of course, David and I are in the middle of an elective Western Civ course that focuses on Greco-Roman influence, so I'm biased. As to the first Vs. I think that in many ways the movie showed that no matter how influencial a teacher may try to be, parental heritage has a way of winning out, for good or for bad. This movie touched me in a personal way, because it seems like Sedgwick Bell had an eriee similarity to pretty much every important male in my life, especially my brother (who I don't think ever learned the importance of character) and my husband (who, luckily, has, but most likely only because of the grace of God). And I found I related much to him as well, so there but for the grace of God go I (literally).

Anyways, the whole thing dovetailed nicely with much of the research David and I have been doing for his fiction series, which has consisted of very throughly studying the life and times of Julius Caesar. So we had a tremendous amount of fun trying to answer the test questions ourselves and I think I did fairly well, given my still limited knowledge. (Thank you Colleen McCullough for making studying Caeser fun! And thank you Hugh Hewitt for mentioning her books in "In, but Not Of"!)

Ok, I really, really need sleep, but felt a need to post since I actually had something of substance to say.

Passing Time...

So, Boo is writing a story on the computer just like daddy. I think it's cute. It frightens one of our programmer friends that she knows how to work MS Word though. She says she's writing a story about horses, particularly the horse she met when we went to Northern Cali last year. I really want to go back there again. It's sooooooooo pretty up there. Especially Sonoma County. If you are going up there, they have the best ribs ever at the Sonoma Cheese Factory. I highly recommend it. They have awesome Chili Cheddar, too.

Ok, off to class soon.

Thursdays

Ok...it's 11:45 and I don't have my homework done, no one called on the new ad, and David is doing some arcane stuff to his blog that is causing the sidebar to disappear...bleh.
Oh well, at least we are supposed to be watching "The Emperor's Club" in class tonight, so that should at least be entertaining. Kevin Kline has been hit or miss in my opinion, so no guaranteed good movie there, (and based on IMDB, it seems like a blatent ripoff of "Dead Poets Society", which I love), so we'll see. Maybe I'll do a review tomarrow or something. David says I've become the cinema snob queen since watching "Requiem for a Dream" though, so maybe I shouldn't...

Anyways, back to Thursday...

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

But Blonde...

As of last week, the golden streaks have infected the rest of my head, so the pic isn't entirely accurate, but I like it and I have no recent photos...so...be happy!

Actually, having achieved my blonde ambition, I just might post a pic or two next week. If the digital camera is working...which is rare.

Anime Me! As drawn by Omi of Counter Culture (http://counterculture.infinite-comics.com/) Posted by Hello

Ha!

Ok, I'm just not going to let my hubbie over at Pererro have all the fun. So here's my own blog. I am a much slower typer than David and, in theory, am supposed to be editing the first of his twenty book series right now, so my posts will be short but hopefully cool. (That probably sounds more impressive than it is, since I already edited one, which he then ripped into two books, one of which is the one I'm editing now, so really it's already half-edited, and now he's blogging instead of finishing the pre-writing for the next book, so I'm gonna show I can waste time, too!) Uh...I mean meaningfully engage my fellow geeks...I mean important people...in intelligent discourse...or something...