but she's a girl

On Friday night, Lyanne and I went to see the musical, Wicked. Loved the show, and it was great to finally get a chance to hang out with Lyanne. We've been penpals ever since I met her when she was in one of our children's concert audiences; she was only twelve years old at the time. Now she's working on a Master's degree!



Above photo: a chocolatey gift from Lyanne. It's, er, mostly gone now.

*polite burp*



I recently discovered a new culinary delight ... marmite and crunchy peanut butter on nutty bread! The combo may sound strange, but I find that the peanut butter helps cut the bitterness of the marmite, and the resulting taste sensation is quite addictive. To me, anyway. Jeff is massively revolted by the idea.

I found out about this from BSAG. I thanked her as well as asking if she had a name for this particular taste sensation. Her reply was as follows:

"Yay! A convert! Actually, it's quite an achievement acquiring a taste for Marmite if you haven't grown up with it. I usually think that you need to be imprinted on it from a tender age (like ducklings on the mother duck) or it just seems revolting. I don't remember why I tried it the first time. I think I felt that peanut butter on its own is a little bit sweet, and I wanted some savoury, umami taste to tone the sweetness down. For the same reason, I've never understood why peanut butter and jelly (or jam, if you speak English English) is so popular, because they are two very sweet things. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of it, indeed, a quick google found a posting on the official Marmite forum about the combination. I also don't have a name for it, and just prosaically call it 'peanut butter and Marmite'. I'd call it 'black and tan' if that wasn't already a name for a mixture of stout and porter, and a rather nasty British paramilitary unit that did some pretty horrible things in Ireland in the 1920s."

But She's A Girl is one of my favorite blogs these days. I love the author's writing style, she writes about interesting things, and I was especially intrigued by her About page; we seem to be quite similar in some ways. I found out about this blog from Jeff, who is also a fan of BSAG.

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Blog reading habits

I got 9 hours sleep last night, and it felt GREAT (I went to bed before 10 pm). I've been having some problems sleeping lately plus it's been a more than hectic week. I generally need about eight hours a night or I start losing it at some point during the day: harder to concentrate, etc. I envy the types out there who can survive regularly on six hours or less.

If I lived alone and never needed to hang out with people, I suspect my sleeping hours would probably end up being from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Maybe even 9 pm, waking at 5 a.m. What about the rest of you? I think everyone has a natural sleep cycle, but most of us have to adjust it for other people.

According to this article, if you routinely fall asleep within 5 minutes of lying down, you probably have severe sleep deprivation. That sure describes me, but I've heard conflicting opinions on this subject. This topic has come up before, and I'm determined to do some research and find out the truth. More on this in a future Blathering!

More tea!

My brother-in-law told me about a new tea shop near Yonge and Eglinton, so I went to check it out yesterday. Say Tea has a nice selection of teas and tea-related gifts, and I picked up some Ginger Rooibos and Darjeeling Margaret's Hope when I visited.

I've gotten more curious about Rooibos (pronounced "roy-boss") recently, and not just because of the odd name. "Rooibos" is Afrikaans for "red bush," and has become more popular in Western countries because of its lack of caffeine and high level of antioxidants.

Blog-reading survey results

A while back I posted a blog-reading survey on Wufoo. Next time I do this, I'll ask about RSS. 65 people responded, many of whom don't normally post in LJ.



I already gave the raw numbers but here are a few interesting facts and comments:

Several of you (mainly on Livejournal) say that blog-reading is the easiest and most convenient way of keeping up with friends.

Most of you scan rather than read because you have too many blogs to keep up with on a regular basis, only reading the entries that interest you.

Many of you have separate groups of blogs, such as friends' blogs vs blogs of interesting people you don't know personally, and work-related blogs.

A few excerpts from comments people posted about blogs:

"I don't think blogs are a fad. I think, as we move into an ever-increasing world of digital media, we will see more and more of this dissemination of our world online (YouTube, Google services, syndicated newsfeeds, accessible media space for Joe Shmoe next door) . In ten years, most TVs will have Internet access, and most computers will be TV capable. We will be able to seamlessly integrate our desktop world with our media world. TVs will be the wireless widescreen monitors for our laptops (some already are). I don't think we will have the same attachment to paper media as we do now. Internet magazine subscriptions anyone? To-Do lists you can keep posted and update from anywhere, that can follow you from desktop to Cellphone or Treo, automatically updating on your fridge, blog..."


"I tend to read blogs of people who are interesting - which is why I haven't friended everyone who friends me. I understand that a lot of people are too busy to read everyone's blogs, and people should be under no obligation to read something if they don't want to."

"I'm not a very social person, and LJ is pretty much the only thing that makes me feel like I have friends. I rely very very heavily on it to keep me updated on what is going on in the lives of people I care about, and to get input and validation from those same people when I'm having trouble and need help and support. I also enjoy reading other blogs - news and writing blogs, blogs by crafters, just for information and fun."



"I tend to scan the LJ friends-page and light on entries that are particularly well-written or that interest me due to the subject matter or the person writing. I also visit a few additional personal blogs (friends) and a few devoted to particular interests (theology, writing, comics, regional, etc.). I try to keep my blog varied and interesting in subject matter -- yup, it's mostly for me, but I'm cognizant of the fact that there's an audience. So I'll follow, say, a political rant or religious ruminations with, say, a post about cheese, or about whatever oddball typo I came across in my copy-editing of the day. (My favorite recently: a MARITAL arts demonstration. Heehee.) I tend to enjoy blogs that do likewise (can't stand the all-angst-all-the-time blogs), unless I'm particularly looking for a narrowly focused blog."



"I find it a relaxing and interesting way to decompress and a good way to keep in touch with people I've met and whose company I've enjoyed. Yet like most "relaxing and interesting ways to decompress," it can get awfully addictive and take more time than it should; I tend to give myself time limits, particularly if I have duties I need to get to."

Some non-LJ blogs that people mention

http://randomreality.blogware.com/

http://realefun.blogspot.com/

http://justzipit.blogspot.com/ (not updated regularly.)

http://www.malville.com/ (wonderful writing and illustration, but no longer updated regularly. I think you should look over the archives here; I think you'd like this one.)

http://dishitupbaby.typepad.com/ (Again, wonderful writing but no longer updated regularly.)

Specific blogs that are everyday reads include Making Light (Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden), Firedoglake, Hullabaloo, BoingBoing, Growabrain, and Metafilter; frequent (no less than every three days) checks include Orcinus, Whatever (John Scalzi), Riba Rambles (Lis Riba), Pharyngula (PZ Myers), The Sideshow (Avedon Carol), Slashdot, and Waxy (mostly for the links; his actual entries are infrequent).

http://lleo.aha.ru/dnevnik (Leonid Kaganov's blog, completely in Russian).

Daring Fireball and Signal vs Noise

Boardgamegeek follow-up

Boardgamegeek.com photo with Jeff in it! Boardgame News editor Rick Thornquist is explaining how to play the game, Imperial.



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Andybirthday, my new mouse, Interfilk cookbook, heulschniefschluchz

Happy birthday to my friend Andy!



I took the above photo in Robarts Library many years ago when we were both at the University of Toronto. The drawing to the right is one of my first attempts at doing a portrait with Corel Painter. I strongly believe that Andy could have been a brilliant movie reviewer in another lifetime. Even when he and I disagree completely on a movie (which is often), I always enjoy reading his reviews. Too bad he's not a blogging type; he'd be raking in the Google Adbucks. I wrote a song about Andy many years ago, but I am opting NOT to post it publicly because I know he would hunt me down and break my fingers. It would almost be worth it, but I have too much writing I want to do right now.

Andy posts as "aiabx" in my comments section, by the way. I loved his most recent post in response to my Blog Comments Etiquette blathering:

"What nonsense. 'Nobody likes a know-it-all'. Everyone loves it when I post. They cheer when I write and weep when I don't. How do I know? Because I know it all, of course."

47 people have responded so far to the blog reading survey I posted yesterday. Only one had trouble with the Wufoo format, and he was using custom text sizes. I'm going to try figuring out a way to pump up the text size myself in CSS so he won't need to. I'd like to give the survey another day or two before shutting down the survey and posting the results; if you haven't already, please do answer the very short survey at the bottom of yesterday's Blathering.



Hey, I have a new mouse! It's a Kensington Expert Mouse Optical USB Trackball 64325. Trackballs aren't for everyone, but I find that using a trackball has been a huge boon in terms of tendinitis recovery, and allows me to continue typing for longer stretches at a time than I would be able to normally.



I use the trackball with my left hand (I'm right-handed, if you're curious, but the tendons in my right arm were the most affected). I click the buttons with the heels of both hands, just below the thumb, and rotate the wheel with my thumbs. I situate the mouse between my elbow cushion at the edge of the desk and my keyboard.

Sounds awkward, I know, but it works for me. :-)



And finally, check out the cookbook to the right, which I recently picked up at a flea market: Rustic Italian Cooking by Kathleen Sloan. Those in the filk community will recognize Kathleen's name, except the identical name is just a coincidence. I thought it would be fun to turn this into an Interfilk item, however. Kathleen (the catalog queen Kathleen) has kindly agreed to autograph the book, and I'll also be adding some cartoons. I'm taking the book to OVFF to hopefully collect some additional fun doodles from filk artists, and will also be soliciting mini-pseudo-reviews of various recipes from OVFF attendees throughout the weekend, to be written directly on the page with the recipe.

"But I never tried the recipe!" you may protest. "How can I add a comment?" So what? Kathleen didn't write the book, either! :-) Be as creative as you'd like! The book will be donated to the Interfilk auction at GAfilk in January (Atlanta, GA - Urban Tapestry is the Guest of Honor, woohoo!). As a bonus, the recipes in this book sound quite good. Italian food, yum.

German word of the day:

(courtesy Aryana; I learned this in her LJ message board)

*heulschniefschluchz*

is actually a combination of three words:

"heul" - cry, wail, wallow
"schnief" - sniff
"schluchz" - sob

I feel compelled to start brushing up on my German vocab because Sibylle Machat is coming to visit with me next March around FilKONtario time, yay!

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Blog reading survey

Is it just me, or is anyone else finding an increasing amount of spam that masquerades as bounced e-mail? Highly irritating.



To all you Firefly fans out there: If you haven't heard Michelle Dockrey's wonderful "Mal's Song," do check out this fan video which uses her song as background music. Be warned that there are spoilers from the movie and tv show in the video. I believe that Tony Fabris is playing guitar in this version. For more info, see Michelle's LJ post on the subject. Michelle and Tony, by the way, are Guests of Honour at FilKONtario in 2008 (not next year, but the year after).

For those who didn't see an earlier entry, I've decided to move most of my writing-related posts into Inkygirl, which I'm updating more regularly. Blatherings is more of a catch-all in terms of subject matter.

Blogging seems to have only increased in popularity over the past year or two, despite predictions it was a passing fad. I'm sure the fad aspect is partly true, but right now it doesn't seem to show any signs of slowing down. But that led me to thinking: it seems like everyone and their dog has a blog these days...but are they being read?

I generally read three types of blogs:

(1) Friends' blogs: I catch up on my LJ Friends list infrequently, choosing instead to pick a particular person every so often and catch up with multiple posts at once. I count on my real friends NOT being offended if I'm not caught up with their blogs. I do the same in return. It drives me crazy when people say (in a hurt tone): "What do you mean, you didn't know XXX? I posted it in my blog!"

(2) Publishing news blogs: I browse publishing news blogs fairly regularly for Market Watch and Inkygirl research.

(3) Blogs I read for the writing: These might fit into the above categories, or not. These are blogs I read regularly because the posts are well-written and interesting; the writer could be posting about what she ate for breakfast and I'd still be avidly reading.


I've put together a survey using Wufoo, a survey manager that Jeff told me about. If you read ANY blogs, I would greatly HUGELY appreciate you taking the time to fill out this survey. I'll post results in an upcoming Blathering.

This is also a test of Wufoo, to see how accessible it is. If you have trouble accessing the form below, please do post in LJ instead. Thanks!



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Inkygirl revamped

Thanks for all the good wishes, everyone. I'm feeling almost normal today.

Last night, Jeff and I played Magic again. We've been playing a couple of times a week, and I'm enjoying it more than I expected. I have a red-green deck, and Jeff is white and blue. I spend way too much time admiring the artwork.



I've revamped Inkygirl, by the way. The cluttered look was driving me batty. It was somewhat of a challenge, rebuilding the template with CSS; I had orginally stripped out all the CSS when I started Inkygirl in Movabletype years ago, just as I did with Blatherings. I've realized I don't yet know enough about CSS to start from scratch yet, so I took the default MT template and heavily modified that instead. Once I'm more comfortable with CSS, I'm going to design a template from scratch.

Anyway, feel free to take a look. Look Ma, no tables! My previous Inkygirl design relied heavily on tables, as does Blatherings; I plan to revamp Blatherings sometime in the future as well. I'm not happy with the colour scheme, so will also be fiddling with that...though with CSS, it means I can more easily change the colour scheme and look when I feel like it...one of the reasons I switched to CSS. Thanks to Ray for the ColorBlender and Color Consultant Pro links; I'm going to check out both.



I still have a lot to do in terms of layout and colours and fonts, but I'm already much happier with the look than before. As I've mentioned in my most recent Inkygirl post, I will also be narrowing the focus of Inkygirl somewhat; I'm no longer going to be maintaining the telecommuting jobs listings part of the site. I already get enough work that I no longer need to comb the job boards every morning.

I'll still be posting shorter entries highlighting useful resources and blogs for writers, but I'm also going to start posting longer articles about the business and craft of writing as well, plus expanding on some of the publishing news I post in Market Watch. And of course I'll keep posting my writing cartoons. :-)

I know the revamped Inkygirl isn't perfect, but I admit I feel stupidly proud of the fact that I've learned enough CSS on my own to do this much in just one day. Hey, and once I'm a CSS expert -- look out, world!

Link O' The Day: I suspect many of you have already seen this, but I hadn't. Thanks to Luisa for pointing me to this Nerdy and White video (Weird Al Yankovich) which made me laugh way too much (and with which I identified way too much :-D). Ray pointed me to the original video, which I also hadn't seen.



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