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Friday, June 29, 2007

 
12:14 AM: patience advocate [#] [0]

i've been there since january, but i finally got my nametag so it's official!


right on time, i saw our first protesters of the season, who were really remarkably mild: a group of about 8 holding a large picture of mary and who prayed noticeably louder whenever someone was in their vicinity. i'm not happy about anyone shaming patients, most of whom aren't even there to have an abortion, but they were gone by noon.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

 
1:31 AM: mandoline killed the video stars [#] [1]

my first youtube post! trust me, it's no skateboarding dog:

oh, wrong trousers, how i love thee! i wish you had cds for me to buy for me & all my friends!

(via alex)

Monday, June 25, 2007

 
9:49 PM: robots in disguise [#] [0]

now that i've read the wired articleand seen a commercial for it, i can't go see transformers. i LOVED the transformers when i was a kid: why does the movie have to be a mashup of a chevy car commercial & military propaganda?

 
1:12 PM: viva leeann! [#] [0]

leeann came for a visit this weekend, despite a phone call from the iphone team while she was at the airport asking her to stay.

so i picked her up at the airport friday night and after she insisted on a quick itunes upgrade, we whisked her away to the buffy singalong at cinema 21 at midnight. afterwards we took her to voodoo doughtnuts, where they were already out of the jelly-filled voodoo doll doughtnut and the maple-bacon bar, so we each got what turned out to be terrific apple fritters. (and when we returned to trixie i realized with horror i had left her ON with the keys in the ignition! i'm so glad she was still there!)


[grrr. argh.]

the next day sven stayed home to work on the movie so i took leeann to sushiville. delicious! then we swung by and fed the cats on my catsitting route. (leeann has now met every cat that matters in portland: nina, arwen, noodle, lester & ariel.) we stopped by to pick up michaelmas and walked through washington park & the japanese gardens. after we dropped michaelmas back home, i took leeann to the roller derby, where we had fun despite a ticket snafu (and we had a tuba in our section!). both teams i liked won (the heartless heathers and the break neck betties). finally we to a late dinner at pho van, where i finally tried the pho instead of my favorite, the lemongrass beef noodle bowl. but the pho -is- awfully good.


[freeze frame]

on sunday, i made peach cobbler & raspberry trifle for breakfast before we all headed out to the radix art show, where i performed my birthday poetry series. i was thrilled to see so many people there! thanks especially to michaelmas, kristen & todd and jennifer, among others! kim, alas, was sick. :( after the show i tried to take leeann to the alberta poetry fest, but we didn't see anything except a small cluster of people huddled around a table so we decided to skip it. instead, i took leeann to the tin shed for dinner, but then it was too late to go to collage. as we were heading out, though, i noticed a labyrinth walk at grace memorial church. leeann then wanted to take some pix of the chapel. last stop: a swing around the golden joan of arc roundabout and then off to the airport to end a very full but fun weekend!


[poetry reading]

Thursday, June 21, 2007

 
10:30 AM: merry solstice! [#] [0]

as opposed to the scary solstice, which will occur in december. :) i always feel a little cheated at the summer solstice, though: now that we've just gotten used to the light, it will begin to get dark again.

Monday, June 18, 2007

 
10:40 AM: portlandia welcomes you [#] [0]

today is my portlandiversary! i've now been in portland for 4 years. hooray!

Friday, June 15, 2007

 
1:37 AM: game on [#] [0]

it turns out i know a superhero! congratulations, matt! it almost makes me want to get cable. ;)

Thursday, June 14, 2007

 
11:36 AM: illegal immigration [#] [0]

wish jason luck as he sneaks across the lake into egypt.

[update: apparently we didn't wish hard enough: jason was arrested & detained. they don't take kindly to you if you're british w/ a ton of satellite & computer equipment sneaking around a militarized zone at night.]

 
12:19 AM: lollygag [#] [0]

ooo, just when you think locats can't get any better, you find a lolcat generator which uses the titles from your blog posts and your twitter feeds to create lolcats. i'm especially charmed w/ some of the ones from my lolcat feed, especially "what's going on," "here there be dragons," "gone phishin," "temporal antipode," "the graceless ninja strikes again" (look at the license plate on that scooter!), "in the way" and "raindrops keeps falling on my head."

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

 
11:27 PM: talkies [#] [0]

two recent movie reviews:

300: less appalling than sin city, but not as pretty.

daywatch: hooray! a sequel that doesn't suck! (oh, except the jamaican shower scene. wtf?)

 
1:30 PM: kindercare [#] [2]

i am SO glad to read this article at feministe: why i hate "i hate children". i see a lot of sven's positions on youth liberation in it, but more importantly, the "i hate children" crowd frightens me. anyone who hates another group of people sees them as expendable and has the potential for violence.

i'm NOT saying that you have to luuurrrvvvvv children. oversentimentalizing children is also dangerous. but there are parallels to draw between the prejudices against children, the disabled & the elderly. i'd like a culture that's more tolerant of people in general, and i think that begins w/ children.

i probably won't ever have children myself, and i know i come off as a little standoffish when i meet children because i don't immediately throw myself at them. but i appreciate them and i want them to grow up well loved and with a love of others. that can't happen if it's okay to say "i hate children."

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

 
12:22 PM: what's going on [#] [0]

another go game yesterday, this one w/ mixed success. we were asked to meet almost an hour ahead of the game, which meant that after we were handed our assignments, we had about 45 minutes to kill before we could conceivably see the first teams. but the game must have started late, because i didn't see a team until 2 hours into the game. we ran over by almost an hour, which meant i was actively walking downtown for over 3 hours.

i was initially slated to be the "bride" like i was at the skamania game. it's a pretty fun role in a closed environment, but in the middle of downtown portland it would have been a little awkward. but more importantly, i don't fit into the dress they have at all; i can't zip up the back.

so instead i became "deadweight," a role which walks around looking for teams and then tries to misdirect, distract, and generally slow them down as they try to complete tasks. it's only for about 5 minutes, and if teams include me and are nice despite my flaws, i give them a clue to get bonus points at the end of the game.

out of 7 teams, only 2 were nice enough to give the clue. i was willing to give a clue to anyone who was even remotely willing to play along: i mean, it's only for 5 minutes, and i'm really about as harmless as "lose a turn" or "go back two spaces" on a game board. the teams are warned about me at the beginning: i was wearing sven's tiger-print hat and when teams would see me they'd often cry, "it's the tiger hat lady!" and i could see the panic in their eyes (and sometimes they'd make as if to run, though the go game doesn't want people to run in case they fall and sue).

i thought people would groan when they realized who i was, but not that they'd be actively hostile. deadweight has a lot of leeway for annoying techniques and filibustering, but i played the "killing them with kindness" card: i was ruthlessly cheerful and asked lots of questions and wanted to be very actively involved in everything they were doing. (heh: now that i think of it, i was probably channeling toby.) so i was surprised when, for example, one team i actually -helped- complete a task thanked me by leaving the amber necklace i loaned them right in the middle of pioneer courthouse square because they couldn't be bothered to give it back to me. most teams just tried to ignore me or shut me out or rules monger or control the situation by asking me questions as an actor rather than my character.

even teams that ultimately turned out nice enough to give a clue started off adversarily, but one team actually did answer all my questions kindly and took a picture of us together as a team, and one team went along with my "fear of heights" panic in the glass elevator and tried to take care of me.

by the way, in case it turns out useful later, i'm from the capital of connecticut. :)

Sunday, June 03, 2007

 
1:02 AM: here there be dragons [#] [0]

today i biked almost to the eastern edge of the map, which i just ordered from metro. gmap-pedometer says i biked almost 13 miles total! (1828 calories)

i've determined i should be carrying some cash & a trimet ticket in addition to my license & quarters for phones. alas, my headlamp broke. i have no idea how, but the manufacturer doesn't make them in dark translucent blue anymore, so i am unlikely to get a replacement. fortunately we have a backup from burning man, but i loved those lamps. meh.

a funny & sad story: way out near the baseball field in gresham, a man asked me how close we were to the max & a freddy's. i said i had no idea, that this was my first trip out this far and i wasn't even sure i knew how far out i was. but the max, at least, should be to the right. he thanked me for my "help," (my airquotes, not his), and it was only a few minutes later when i realized i had A MAP and we could have just looked it UP! doh!

Friday, June 01, 2007

 
11:31 PM: you saw me standing alone... [#] [0]

jason's got a really amazing post up about his recent nightly journeying. it makes me wish i was there -- if i didn't have to be biking in the middle of the desert, anyway.