As of... oh, right... now I will be switching from Blogger to Wordpress, which means...(drum roll)... I've registered my own domain. All my old posts and everyone's old comments have been transfered to http://littlestpenguin.com. I hope you will change your links and join me over there. :)
Peace.
Good Monsters, by Jars of Clay
All the good monsters open their eyes
To see the wasteland where the home fires rise
And the people shouting, "Why, why, why"
Do you know what you are?
Do you know what you are?
All the giants wake from their sleep
And roll outside of safety's keep
And the pain makes them feel so alive
Do you know what you are; do you know what you are?
We are bored of all the things we know
Do you know what you are; do you know what you are?
Not all monsters are bad
But the ones who are good
Never do what they could, never do what they could
All the good monsters rattle their chains
And dance around the open flames
They make a lot of empty noise
While all of the bright eyes turn away
As if there wasn't anything to say
About the justice and the mystery
Do you know what you are?
Do you know what you are?
We are bored of all the things that we know
And we are forms of everything we love, we love..
If good won't show its ugly face,
Evil won't you take your place?
Nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes by itself
We are bored of all the things that we know
Do you know what you are?
Because we are so in love with ourselves
We are forms of all the things we love.
Klara laughed for no reason. Maybe she laughed for no reason and maybe because she'd noticed her husband had a limp. The others thought she was laughing with relief, laughing in the spirit of a swirling day, and it made them all smile benignly. They thought she was laughing in the aftermath of checking on planes that were late and hearing complaints from the caterer and finding the right receptacles for all the goddamn flowers. And finally just unwinding on a walk, they thought. Laughing in ragged relief. They thought they knew the mystery of living in her skin.Don DeLillo, Underworld, p.498
I went to visit Kevin over the weekend. It was great timing; I really needed a vacation. He was preaching on Sunday so I went over to listen and made a weekend of it. Good times and (as it typically the case with visiting or being visited by Kevin) good food.
We went to a little place in Durham called Loco Pop. They make home-made Popsicles with real fruit and other not-artificial ingredients. Mine was mango melon, Kevin got a mojito-flavored one. Yummy and awesome. Now I want one... dangit. We also went to the Macaroni Grill with Christine on Saturday where there was very good food and a great bottle of wine. (And I typically don't care for reds.)
Kevin preached on Hosea chapter 1 on Sunday. It was his last Sunday as their ministry intern. His sermon got mixed reviews, but a number of folks seemed to like it and hopefully got a spark of inspiration from it. The congregation is a smallish, somewhat wealthy congregation out in the suburbs.
My intent was to head home after church, but really, I should have known it wouldn't happen. We had a late-running lunch with the other ministry intern and his in-laws (that was interesting) and then we took a long nap before having Christine and Lindsay over for chicken satay. I left early Monday morning and drove straight from Durham to work. Hey, it worked, even though I was dead tired. And I think sleeping on the air mattress all weekend resulted in a pretty substantial headache for me today. But it's gone now and life is good again.
Now to book a flight to Chicago for next month...
It looks better than any ruddy brown, no? :)
Technically I should be blogging about my weekend, but I'm beat. I wasn't back in town til 1:00. And for those of you not in the know, that puts be back spot-on in time for my afternoon shift at the library. Whee!
. . . Nothing to report. No, really. That was the easiest OS installation I've ever had to do. I think it took less than half an hour, including removing the Windows partition from the drive, and I wasn't in the room most of that time.
First impressions of Ubuntu? It's a return to double-clicking (in Debian you only had to click once), though that might be alterable. I love the user interface for finding and downloading new applications. I appreciate not having to do an apt-cache search for every little app and driver. I'm still going to have to finagle Flash into working on a Linux platform, but Java seems to be fine. (I had neither in Debian, which made Firefox crash all the time.)
So far, I like it. But Slacker was right... the default theme is terribly brown. Anyone have a good wallpaper/themes site they'd like to share?
Most people probably won't have an epic saga on their hands when they go to install Ubuntu, but nothing with my computer is ever as easy as it ought to be. (Alineen is named after a contentious gnomish sorceress I once played, and has lived up to her name since Day 1.) So I present to you, gentle reader, my Ubuntu Installation Log, entry 1.
A feat that should have been completed in a matter of an hour or two, Installation Day One sees our heroine thwarted by her computer's absolute refusal to connect to any USB device, thus rendering all attempts at backing up vital data completely futile. After many different devices had been attempted, several reboots had been initiated, and an expedition into the junked electronics box had been launched, an old, crappy 3 gig Windows drive from my college years was accepted. Sadly, three gigs won't get you very far in this day and age and a good deal of music could not be transfered. Thankfully, most of it is stuff I burned to MP3 from my own personal cd collection and can be retrieved either from my iPod or from the shelf behind me.
This victory was swiftly overshadowed by the fact that our heroine has never had much experience with iso images and so burned the wrong file to cd. After some laughter and an equal amount of swearing, Jared took the incorrect disk home and will have a correct disk ready for me about lunchtime tomorrow. Details to follow.
Last weekend mom and dad made a quick visit at the end of their trip to Atlanta. Dad liked the folks he met there and mom liked the area, but I think they're going to stay in Florida a little longer. There are some things there with my grandparents and mom and dad's church that are still kind of up in the air or just now starting to develop into something good. Also, the housing market really stinks and dad is worried they might not be able to sell the house. While they were here, we took a quick ride up to Boone to see my Uncle Ben, who was there for a marathon. On Sunday we took some fried chicken to the park and had a picnic, which was really nice.
After they left I had a really busy week with choir and a Just Coffee meeting and dog sitting. I had some people over last night for games and brownies. That was fun, even though a few people couldn't make it and others didn't respond, even with "no." Also, Joe left early so he could get his copy of Deathly Hollows when midnight rolled around. Sheri wanted to go to the Potter-bration at Barnes and Noble and pick up her reserved copy, but Jared's parents announced a surprise visit. They came last night, too, and we introduced them to Apples to Apples. Last time they were here we introduced them to Kubb. Jared's dad went home and made his own set after that.
So today I get to relax and clean up the kitchen and all that good housekeeping stuff. I also have a pork roast in the fridge marinating in Cuban mojo. Yuuum.
Edit: I also made a quick key lime pie and re-potted yet another of my house plants. Also added some topsoil to the garden. Needless to say, I'm a bit dirty now. Anyone want some pie?
I found a link to Chore Wars on BoingBoing today. Yeah, it turns house cleaning into a competition, and yeah, it's totally geeky. But really... getting xp for doing household chores. Why wasn't this around when I had problems with my roommate not cleaning up after herself?? Begin your epic quest here.
This was a thread in the Silly Message Board Games, but too much fun to not share. You take your entire playlist, shuffle it, and enter the song titles for each of the following categories in order. Here's mine (including commentary):
Opening Credits: Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls (wow... that's fitting 
)
Waking Up: I Fought the Law (*helpless giggling*)
First Day At School: Dirty Day by U2
Making your new best friend: Mysterious Ways U2 song remixed by Massive Attack (Interesting...)
Falling In Love: Not a Pretty Girl by Ani DiFranco (*say wha?!*)
Breaking Up: This Side by Nickel Creek
Prom: Picture of Jesus by Ben Harper
Graduation: Bothered by Over the Rhine
Life's Okay: Liquid by Jars of Clay (um... ok? 
)
Death of a close friend: Little Drummer Boy by Bright Eyes (Um, thought I got all the Christmas stuff out of there. 
)
Mental Breakdown: Girl America by Matt Kearney (Yeah, that'll work.)
Driving: Not the Same by Ben Folds Five
Flashback: When You Say Love by Over the Rhine
Getting Back Together: Double Cure by Vigilantes of Love (hahaha oh, I love it!)
Birth of Child: Robin and Marian by Nickel Creek
Wedding Scene: Nobody Loves by Massive Attack *falls off the chair laughing*
Car Accident: Ashes by Ben Harper
Final Battle: Mamadi by Lucky Diop (apparently my final battle occurs in Africa)
Death Scene: Still Fighting It by Ben Folds Five Yeah, "everybody knows it hurts to grow up."
Funeral Song: Redemption Song by Johnny Cash (I like it...)
End Credits: Holiday by Weezer
