I'm sure you probably have something like this... there's an album, or a band, or a song or even a whole musical with which you cannot, even under threat of death, prevent yourself from singing along. Regardless of where you are, with whom you find yourself or what you're actually doing, you find yourself humming or singling along quietly. Or, for the worse afflictions, you must sing full-voice, loudly too, along with your favorites.

This, dear Reader, is why I only allow myself to listen to The Complete Symphonic Recording of Les Miserables, featuring an all-star cast singing the entire operetta, within the confines of my home office or alone in my car.

Les Miserables is the first Broadway show I ever saw and I completely fell in love with it. Shortly after I saw it, this recording was released. I splurged the $30 for three cassette set instead of buying the $10 soundtrack that only included a handful of songs. In college, I wrote papers with Les Mis as my soundtrack - almost 3 hours of epic drama is definitely useful to keep my brain going. At my first couple of jobs, I would listen it to it in my cube on my little walkman tape player thing.

I sang along quietly at first.
By my second job I was getting looks from people over the cube walls.
That's when I started limiting where I could listen to these tapes: home, car, or otherwise alone.
At some point, I misplaced the tapes with my other cassettes then sent them to be sold in a yard sale.

The time of cassettes has passed, and I never did get a converter to digitize my tapes anyway, so earlier this year I found and re-purchased the same recording from iTunes. Guess what? It's cheaper now than it was 17 years ago! But it's just as wonderful as I remember it. And this recording is still excellent when I need to get things done. Like today, or any other time things are particularly crazy. The intensity of the music keeps me from getting too distracted - I can either pay attention to what I'm working on or the music. There is little else.

And after singing to it all again this afternoon? I still think Marius and Cosette are spoiled children who need to get a clue and my love for Fantine's and Javert's songs persists.

Oh, and I'm totally pretending no one can hear me when I sing in my home office.

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

( Mouse Guard cuteness - You have been saved by the cut!!! )
That's right... I have fierce Mouse Guard action figures! They are so cute! Er... FIERCE! My darlingest Fop brought them to me before he went off to fencing practice so I have fierce MOUSE GUARD mice to protect me while he's off doing swooshy-pokey things with the Tadcasters.

I have some of the most adorable creatures on the planet to comfort me until David Petersen publishes the next issue of Mouse Guard.

I saw my latest chiropractor this morning. My lower back is behaving nicely and required only cursory poking. My neck is much improved but my knee is being stubborn. As an added bonus, Dr. "I'm going to poke all your nerves really really hard" decided to work the muscles in my left shoulder to release some of the grick and stress in the interest of my neck's continued improvement. I'm actually surprised I didn't hit him. I wanted to. I threatened to. He giggled. Yep, giggled. I like him. And the shoulder felt good, for about 8 hours... now it's really sore yet somehow still feels better than it did. I continue to chug down water.

Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam (the Mouse Guard trio) are currently keeping my desk very safe. Time to go to sleep!


Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

If you're feeling brave, take a look at the photo at its original size. I love how this one came out. (Yes, I'm a little bit vain sometimes.)

The weekend was fun and productive. I got a lot done though not as much as I'd hoped. It looks like tomorrow I'll be doing math during the Fop's birthday/movie night. And by math I mean "figuring out how big the pleats in the Fop Pants need to be in order to fit the waistband correctly." It's not difficult math. It's just pesky. I hate pleats. They are evil.

Work today seemed to drag on forever, hence the subject line. It really feels like it should be later in the week by now. I also got a lot done at work today but not as much as I'd hoped. This seems to be a recurring theme in my life. Tomorrow I shall drink More Coffee in order to combat the plodding of the day. You have been warned. [insert evil laugh here!]

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

Apparently it's random photo week here at Casa di Monster Cat. Here is a long-promised dead jellyfish photo. There were many, many, many dead cannonball jellyfish on the beach when we were in Hilton Head in April. They were really quite remarkable.

I'm not a graphic designer, nor would I play one on TV. Luckily, if I try really hard, I can color using Photoshop and a Wacom Bamboo tablet. Annoying and niggly work, but (hot damn) did it work. I think I need to do more coloring as practice. In my copious spare time.

I'm taking tomorrow off from work but will probably log in to see if any progress can be made on the current fire drill. I really am a sucker for getting things done.

Now, I should post Monster Cat and go to sleep. Really.

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

So, while I was home in Maine my little brother grinned with glee, took my camera and scampered (yes, scampered) to the attic of Dad's garage with the comment, "Oh you've got to have a picture of this!" And this is how I ended up with the Shag King on my camera. The Shag King is, naturally, a vacuum attachment for the 30+ year old Kirby vacuum cleaner in my parents' house. Presumably, if it were attached to said Kirby and pointed at some shag carpet, the Shag King would indeed voraciously devour all dirt in its shaggy path.

I have redrafted the pattern for Fop Pants and cut out a pair. I have more fabric in the dryer. Apparently I'm still procrastinating my Viking apron dresses. I've got plenty of pre-Pennsic projects to do it with too.

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

This photo is from my mother's garden taken on my road trip last week.

Good news! I got my desktop Mac back Sunday! (It took them 13 days to repair it. *sigh* The process for finding parts for older Macs is not a great one. Next time I'll probably go through Small Dog instead to avoid the Apple corporate policy on repairs that extended the repair so significantly.)

Bad news! I'm falling apart and my weekend was somewhat consumed by a general malaise.

I still did get out to bbqs and such over the holiday. There were incredible fireworks Friday night at the Fop's aunt's house courtesy of her husband. (And I have to say his aunt puts on quite the bbq... she's amazing!) I have never sat so close to such an awesome show. Rich choreographed his show to music, of course, and went through 4 or 5 songs. Let's just say it was quite a display for a backyard professional. Unfortunately it started to rain so I have no good photos. Next year...

Saturday was a long, enjoyable afternoon and evening at Thomas and Marion's with many people of LJ and Tadcaster fame about as well as other random folks.

Sunday... well, Sunday I picked up my computer, did necessary grocery shopping then basically passed out for the rest of the day. (What can I say? My chair-and-a-half is incredibly comfortable, especially when paired with a bear for a footstool!)

Work today was rough, quite honestly - more of the usual amplified by being away for a week. I set up my desktop Mac again after work and it's nice to have it back up and running.

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

So given the price of gas, taking a road trip is not the smartest things I could have done this summer. However, there were things in Maine that were easier to pick up in a car rather than ship and I really enjoy driving. A lot. I love my car. (Observe the "car shopper's guilt" going on? Yes, I thought you might have noticed.) As an exercise in foolishness, I took notes along the way and kept my gas receipts. The short answer? It would have been cheaper to fly via Southwest, but the shipping costs would have made the trip more expensive. (And I wouldn't have been able to see lisaf or to bring slyppi houseplants.)

Exciting observations about the trip? Traffic was light - the volume of cars seemed slightly lower. I didn't get hung up in miles and miles or hours and hours of traffic in the usual spots between Philadelphia and Maine. Also, there were many fewer speed demons on the road. Usually I seem to see a lot of idiots doing 80-90 mph on any given highway. This trip I was often the fastest thing on the road at 65-75 mph. I was not driving for ideal gas mileage. It's hard to talk myself into saving a few cents when I have a long drive ahead of me. Note the 7.5 hour trip from Maine to Philadelphia on the way home - sure, I didn't hit any significant traffic snags but I also didn't dawdle at rest stops or putter along at 55 mph on the highway.

The road trip math came out something like this:

1067 total miles driven
42.302 gallons of gas purchased
25 miles per gallon in the 1998 all-wheel-drive Subaru Imprezza
$171.02 spent on gas
~$25 spent on tolls (approximate because EZ Pass is my friend)

Gas prices were best in New Jersey at $3.989 on the Garden State Parkway coming home. I paid $3.999 per gallon in Brattleboro, Vermont on Friday. Prices in Windham, Maine were okay at $4.099. And the price at home at the cheapest station went from $4.079 when I left up to $4.159 when I got home. (Holiday week increase perhaps?)

I brought my own water and road food (most of which was very healthy!) so that reduced my number of stops as well as the amount of money I spent on food at rest stops. I think the only food I bought was lunch on the way home yesterday - $8 on pizza at Sbarro's at the north end of the Garden State Parkway.

All in all, I would estimate this trip cost me about $30 more than it did in December 2007. Gas has gone up, some tolls have gone up, food prices in the rest stops have gone up. However, with all the hype about gas prices, I was expecting the increase to be much larger. I fell into that media trap, I guess! I love to drive but I'm still very lucky that I just don't have to drive much.

But seriously - if you're planning to drive to Pennsic, gas prices are about $1 higher this summer than they were last summer. If I were going in my car, the Pennsic trip would only cost me about $14 more each way from Drexel Hill to Butler, PA. That definitely sucks but it's a lot less scary than the media makes it out to be.

Your Mileage May Vary.

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

If you haven't seen Dr. Horrible yet, you should go check it out. Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris and a web mini-series of epic proportions of silly. It starts July 15th. Hurray for NPH!

Opening August 22nd: there's a (sort-of) remake of Death Race 2000 coming called Death Race. There's a trailer up here. And yes, that's Jason Statham, saint of driving and eternal hotness. It looks like they're spending a good chunk of money on this remake/sequel and the trailer actually shows promise. I won't be getting my hopes up too high though - it's unlikely that Death Race will jump from "Death by Double-Feature" to "international blockbuster". It does look like it's going to be fun and explosive.

Jason Statham really does do a lot of driving movies, doesn't he? Transporter 3 is in post-production according to IMDB, as is Crank 2: High Voltage. (Okay, I admit to having contributed to the box office success of the terrible movie that was Crank, but it mostly because it involved Jason Statham. I probably won't spring for Crank 2 in the theater.) And finally, The Brazillian Job, the third movie in The Italian Job series, was announced a few weeks ago. (The Bank Job, out earlier this year, didn't actually involve much driving but it was a hoot.)


Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

I left Maine at 7:30 a.m.

I arrived in Drexel Hill, PA at 3:00 p.m.

I love my car.

My car is mostly unpacked, my office air conditioner is on, and the next order of business is to switch from sneakers to sandals.

There will be a fuller accounting later.

Monster Cat: Interview #1



(It's after midnight, that's like Monday...)

It may be time for breasts to start pulling their own weight.

This week a very interesting topic came up in the Technology section of Slate: Breast Power! No, nothing like that... get your minds out of the gutters. We're talking about green energy - harnessing the kinetic energy of the common breast! (Well, uncommon breast since you would probably need larger-than-average breast to make efficient use of the hypothetical system.) "Victoria's Circuit: Harnessing the untapped power of breast motion" is both an amusing and technical article. Our future will probably come from this type of daydreaming about better ways than plugging into the grid to get energy. And if that future includes turning my breasts into a power plant, well, finally they'll be making up for the high cost of quality bras.

“Per sotto, per farli combaciare,” meaning: “For the hair down there...to make it match.”

So here's something I never thought of doing: coloring the "hair down there" (as the Betty Beauty website cutely calls it) pink or blue or any other color. The blue is specifically marketed to brides for their "something blue." Personally, I imagine it would be a hoot to surprise one's spouse on the wedding night with neon blue... and the options for embellishing are extensive. Betty Beauty also sells "CharmCils" for shaping the "hair down there". I think it would hilarious to see the look on some guy's face when suddenly a bright pink peace sign is unveiled where there was nothing but natural before.

It's probably telling that I look at color for the "hair down there" as a means to mess with a significant other rather than a means to achieve sexy hotness. No, I will not be doing a product review.

[All links in this post are safe for work... assuming you don't mind getting caught surfing frivolous hair color sites and Slate at work.]

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...

An entertaining accident of Google Ads "working as intended": a John McCain campaign ad appears on the page for a YouTube video criticizing crude commentary McCain made about his wife (and the media's complete lack of coverage of that comment). My assumption is McCain's ad campaign with Google Ads is targeting pages that mention John McCain, which would make sense except that every once in a while ads will end up on pages that mention John McCain in a negative light.

I noticed the ad last week when dreda linked the video. I went back today and somewhat unsurprisingly... it's still there. Google Ads is useful and pervasive, but there's a reason a lot of big advertisers don't want to take the chance of advertising on pages containing "user-generated content"...

So kudos to the McCain campaign for trying to reach out to the small donors one might find randomly on the Internet... but a bonk in the head for not doing it quite right. It did make me giggle a lot, so thanks guys. Oh, and when I was done giggling, I marveled at how some people stay employed.

YouTube Video pictured above - it is not safe for work and contains offensive language: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euu_DMhsXQo

As a random coda to this story, this morning I received a junk IM from a known spam source that simply said, "John McCain is aware of the Internet!"

Cross posted from digital-tree.com ...