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Friday, May 8th, 2009
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10:00 pm - Fallen Tower
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Or rather, gently helped down while the re-construction commenced...
( Read more... )
Alas, it is a bit fuzzy because this is a crop of the more usual size off of my mobile phone.
This entry was originally posted at http://crazysoph.dreamwidth.org/1753.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Monday, May 4th, 2009
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10:11 pm
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It's a Friday morning, and I'm wandering around Brussels Central train station. I'm trying to hook up with some classmates for a course-related outing, but the next train from their direction isn't due for another 15 minutes. So I go wandering.
It's a large station - I won't say "huge", just large. And full of little bits and pieces, some of which have been getting refurbished, improving the general livability of the place.
Then, I found a corridor behind a pillar next to the stairs going down to the last track. I gave a quick look at the clock, then decided I had time for a short exploratory mission - most helpfully, just as I entered the corridor, another pair of pedestrians walked past, one of them explaining to the other, "Oh, yeah, this gallery, it's been refurbished and opened after 30 years of being closed."
When I walked the length of that one hall, and turned the corner, I arrived in this space:( Read more... )
Nice, eh? It's the Horta Gallery, near Central Station in Brussels. And for that moment, it felt all mine.
This entry was originally posted at http://crazysoph.dreamwidth.org/1440.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
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9:08 am - Ready to Go
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A local bus depot, with the destination board reading, "Tank full." Handy for the drivers to know, eh?
( Read more... )
PS as long as we're here... I have set this to mirror over at Live Journal, and want to get some feedback on a question: as I'm intending to focus mainly on photos, do people still reading me on their friends' lists want the photos behind a cut? I'm going to try to keep them standard 350 X 500 pixels, so hopefully not too onerous, but if even that is disruptive, and people let me know, I can just remember to shove these things behind a cut... thanks for listening (and viewing!).
This entry was originally posted at http://crazysoph.dreamwidth.org/1220.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
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12:38 pm - "Liar" Channel
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Graffiti is sometimes taking away rather than adding - we're familiar, I think, with the company Clear Channel. Well, in these parts they rent advert space in poster form at the train stations - I snapped this one on a morning as I was zooming past:
( Read more... )
Graffiti is often seen as vandalism, but it's also a form of free speech, and particularly ironic when aimed at this lot.
This entry was originally posted at http://crazysoph.dreamwidth.org/946.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
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9:17 pm - Open announcement to a (semi)-lost contact
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Twisted Sister mine:
I have been unable to get an e-mail to you since the time you sent me "the whole story" of your current situation. Everything I have sent has bounced.
I'm so sorry, particularly after your revelations. Please know this: I am still your friend, and support your decisions in the matters you've explained.
I'm fearsomely busy at the moment with classes, but hope to get a snail-mail off to you at the most recent address I have for you. Here's hoping that reaches you.
Alternatively: if you're reading this now, I've screened comments, and can pick up messages from you that way... particularly if you have a phone number to add to my contact info for you!
Very sorry for the drop-out, and here's hoping I can make it better with a really long snail-mail letter.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
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10:22 pm - Stepping apart from Six Apart on 06/06/06
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I won't be deleting my account. (Long tedious list of personal reasons.) Changed my mind. I'll take the chance Six Apart does something funny, but will delete the account for the duration of the strike. I'll reinstate it, but...
But I won't be using it, either, starting at least from 1300 on 05 June 2006. The earliest I will be back, if I'm back, will be after 1300 07 June 2006.
The attitudes of The Power That Be here at Live Journal have encouraged some pretty wretched posting and commenting - I see one of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) yonmei's posts on the Default icon breastfeeding controversy has attracted some pretty manky attention. (It was really pretty awful - I don't recommend you go looking.)
Not that it's fair to judge Live Journal by the behavior displayed there in the comments. But their attitude, I believe, provides encouragement to such poisonous people.
I resent having my body, by extension with that of a nursing mother, being plastered with the label "inappropriate". They can say all the pretty things they like about being considerate of woman, or supporting breastfeeding and recognizing how good a beginning it gives a child, but actions speak louder than words: in this instance, the action of banning imagery of breastfeeding women for default icons simply flags the more essential attitude of "eeeuw! icky!!" (the "qualifier" of it being okay without aerola or nipple? puh-leaze!)
I've read pages of commentary and argument, by now, and only once have I come across the rather simple and elegant idea: if there's a problem with default images because of their use in other ways than strictly inside a journal or accompanying someone's comment, like appearing during searches (for instance) in front of a child or at a restrictive work environment, then stop using those images in that extraneous way. There's just no need for it.
At the end of the day, Live Journal and Six Apart are caving in to the hobgoblins of their own fears, about what offense someone might take. A good friend pointed out to me that this action was aimed at the wrong target; however, while this might be a symptom of the Culture Wars, I still think that I could have hoped for better from Six Apart than for them to cave as they have.
Maybe they might find some backbone.
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| Friday, June 2nd, 2006
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4:39 pm - AKICILJ - iMac, animated LJ icon production
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I'm currently working on two 100x100 pixel images.
I don't know how to smash them together into a single animated icon.
I'm either looking for a quick pointer to something I might have already on my iMac (but haven't yet discovered), or for some kind soul to be available for when I'm finished producing the images, to put them together into an icon that shows first the one, then the other. Nothing fancy, just "Image one (two beats), Image two (two beats), da capo", that's all.
Thanks in advance,...
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 1st, 2006
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8:00 am - Lost Day
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| Tuesday, May 30th, 2006
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10:08 pm - Goodbyes and Aikido...
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... but not having much to do with one another, just being neighbors in my schedule.
Jake has returned to Dublin. We really enjoyed his company here, and his sense of discovering our new home town.
I made a guilty plea to not go with to the airport to see him off; I wanted to go to aikido, a doubly good thing after all the fancy eating we've been doing these last few days. dear_hubby went with him, and all was good.
Aikido was good but in a sort of challenging, "Frack! I thought I knew this! But I don't!!! *whaaa!*" sort of way. And I think I'm going to take a 4th kyu exam in June? Ri-i-i-i-i-ight. *sigh*
And it was pouring cats and dogs while I biked to and from the training. At least, when dear_hubby got the bike, we also sprung for a most excellent set of rain-clothing - a jacket with hood, trousers and two "boots". Except for a few splatters on my regular trousers, I'm a dry little crazysoph, yay.
The only other thing to report was some idiot on a scooter while I was arriving home: he tail gated me along the "home stretch" and then yelled something at me (which, neener! neener! I can't hear because of your stupidly loud engine...) as he passed/cut me off (almost). Of course, he's riding without any kind of license plate - if he'd had one, the first thing I'd have done on arriving home would be to phone the police. (I'd have memorized a license plate. No. Problem.)
Instead, I get to practice letting-go - of the evening's aikido frustrations, the stupid scooter-driver, the bad weather, and return to normal stuff - getting my gi and other bits into the washer, putting away some bits, hanging out the rain gear to dry...
Thanks for stoppin'.
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(comment on this)
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7:39 am - Mini-road trip
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Yesterday we took advantage of Jake's fondness for driving, and went out of Our New Hometown in a car. Well, we took a little while to get going - a long sit that was effectively breakfast at our local, first, so we were really underway by lunch. dear_hubby then made a quick trip into the local tourist office, emerging with a map of the local region that had marked out a nice little auto route, the thin pamphlet clutched awkwardly between index and middle fingers - he's still not able to make a pincer move with his thumb, not at least without a lot of pain.
But first, liberating the car from the parking garage. Which didn't take the credit card Jake could offer. And we'd spent all our small change on the breakfast (and tipping our very helpful and hospitable waiter, who's seen a lot of us lately, thanks to dear_hubby continuing-but-at-least-mending handicap). I had my local-cash-debit card, which the machine did take, so then Jake was promising to pay it back as soon as possible, while being simultaneously pleased at the relative good-deal the amount represented. (I caution him, he's not really comparing Ireland/Belgium, but rather, or maybe "also" he's comparing Big City vs more moderately sized town...)
We stopped first at the local DIY - it started with Jake admiring the night-light I had set up in his room, and it went on from there... oh boy. As in "boys, toys" in the hardware store. To be fair, dear_hubby also managed to find Mackintosh-themed stencils, for use "sometime", and I made a point of buying three meters of clear tubing with an 8mm bore - the better to siphon the next batch of proto-wine with! *g* And, some ready-made glass shelves turned out to be pretty much what we needed, and hey! here's a car we can put the stuff in the back of. *blush* Jake's shopping took advantage of small items that he's not been able to find for love nor money in Dublin - wall racks for holding brooms and mops (which he'll adapt for holding his sword collection), patterned plastic foil for application to his windows (when I'd done something similar back in Dublin, I'd bought a shower curtain and cut that up to use...)
( We finally did get on the road, honest! )
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, May 29th, 2006
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8:44 am - Kameron Hurley Finds the BEST Quotes!
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8:00 am - More in the life of me...
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...and my companions, dear_hubby and our visitor from Dublin.
After the suppressed litany of disasters that was our Friday afternoon, we settled to a local restaurant and had a wonderful meal, very restorative, very compensatory (for some values of compensation...) Jake ordered a local dish, containing little blood-sausages of slightly different sizes (proof of being hand-made, those variances in the process), a slice of apple covered with a red currant sauce. The first taste of the sausage transported him back 40 years, and he reminisced with great heart about how his family would make a similar sausage at home, when his dad still had a farm.
dear_hubby's hands weren't quite up to the job of handling cutlery for anything except getting small pieces of food to his mouth, so he chose a carpaccio of tuna served with salad and couscous, and declared himself satisfied with the taste. He drafted me to cut into bite-sized pieces his apple pie, nearly a struedel in its richness. I "broke down" and had a crown of lamb (what is it about depression and red meat? the sensation of eating it then slots in so much like a key in a lock, I have to wonder if there's a brain chemistry thing involved... now, now girlie, no rationalizing, eh?), which was simply gorgeous, tender, tasty, cooked to perfection, served with baked asperagus (slightly cheesed for a nice crust) and mustard potatoes. A seemingly grown-up dish for the inner child.
( And on Saturday and Sunday )
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, May 28th, 2006
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5:46 pm - Found some blogged kitchen delights
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| Saturday, May 27th, 2006
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10:40 pm - A thought on Dr Who
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5:55 pm - One of Us, One of Us, One of Us!!!
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| Friday, May 26th, 2006
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8:08 am - More on hands
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dear_hubby's pain level has not improved, ack! Well, only a little, he says, but he's still effectively handicapped, without the use of the hands. Except, at least, for sipping coffee and... as he so proudly put it, wiping his own backside. (sound FX: deep sigh of relief from me)
I'm very glad I'd taken him to the emergency room yesterday - I'm hanging on to the reassurances given us by the doctor who examined him. Especially after an attempt at 3 a.m. this morning, to put some of that analgesic cream on the hands - I got them coated with the prescribed dose, but even the very lightest pressure got dear_hubby writhing with pain. I don't know how many times I said "I'm sorry" after, but it was all I could say, for inflicting that pain.
Jake is still asleep, which is nice because of the time to myself I get now. Without a whole dear_hubby, all of the minor household jobs generated by making sure Jake is well supplied with cups of milk-and-honeyed tea will devolve onto yours truely. I could try and do them when he goes for a walk, but dammit, I was looking forward to walking with him.
One thing at a time, and I'll try to remember to take my own advice, to breathe...
Thanks for stopping.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, May 25th, 2006
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11:52 pm - A Day In The Life
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11:08 am - Fond thoughts of future milestones...
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This is, well, girl-stuff. Getting older girl-stuff. You are hence warned, especially if you're a tender petal of a boy (make that "bo-o-o-o-o-oy") who's default attitude is that we have grossness for bodies.( Read more... )
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 24th, 2006
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10:43 pm - Playlist silliness
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9:14 am
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