Ghetto-fabulous girl #1: Oh my god! I love this floor. It is so nice. And the people. They are so beautiful, every one of them!
Ghetto-fabulous girl #2: Mmm-hmm! And they dress so good--all professional.
Ghetto-fabulous girl #1: Damn! I bet they've got health insurance and shit!
--41st St & Madison
This has to be the most unhealthiest winter I’ve ever known. If producing mucus were a cottage industry Jo, Evie, and myself would be up for a trade award. Evie, bless her, is drowning in the stuff. Jo is communicating more by subtle inflections in her barking coughs than using speech. And me - me, I went birding…
Well, what’s a man supposed to do. More importantly, what’s a birder supposed to do when the sun shines and the frost lies deep and crisp and even? Especially when with the temperature hovering around freezing and heavy snowfall in eastern England over the last week, chances were good that a Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus - a species that typically moves to find unfrozen ground to dig invertebrates out of - or two might make it out to the comparatively balmy west and Great Chalfield.
The most open area on the entire Great Chalfield estate is a large field known as Great Sleight. Last summer the field was deep in wheat, but at this time of year Great Sleight (especially with a light sprinkling of snow on it) looks more like a rolling moorland curving away into the distance. Perfect in other words for birds that typically feed in short grass habitats
So, to cut a longish story short (and excuse me a second while I clean the drips off my keyboard), I headed up to behind the Manor House to Great Sleight about midday. I found perfect light and - almost on cue - 50+ (perhaps as many as 70!) Lapwings in a loose feeding flock, my first sighting of the species here and apparently the first records for some thirty years.
Fortunately (being lazy and hobbled by man-flu) I’d driven the 800m to the field and was able to use the car as a hide. I say fortunately because even winding the window down to line up the camera caused a wave of anxiety to ripple through the flock, so had I walked up i don;t suppose I’d have got anywhere near them at all. As it was I spent the first fifteen minutes or so counting Lapwings and trying to get a few decent flight shots…
Northern Lapwings
If I’d been on something approaching form (let alone top-form) it probably wouldn’t have taken me so long to notice that tucked away behind the lapwings were another plover species! Northern Lapwings and European (Greater) Golden Plovers Pluvialis apricaria often move away from hard weather together, and finally I realised that the distant, brownish lapwings without crests were indeed Golden Plovers (I’m a better birder than this normally I assure you).
I counted eleven, but after about 40 minutes of re-counts a small group appeared from beyond the dip and joined the others: a total of 18 in all, and as far as Robert is aware the first records here at all (not that seeing a species at Great Chalfield makes it nationally-important, but as I’m re-discovering the joys of patch-watching I’m very pleased).
Two Northern Lapwings, one Skylark (what do you mean you can’t see the Skylark?),
and a Golden Plover
European (Greater) Golden Plover
Golden Plovers and Lapwings often travel together, but the Lapwings took every opportunity
to dive at their smaller relatives for reasons I couldn’t quite understand.
As expected there wasn’t too much else hiding out on a bare field in the freezing cold. There were two (possibly more) Skylarks, several Rooks (resident here and very expected), a female Common Kestrel, and about twenty Black-headed Gulls. A few Fieldfares chattered overhead while I waited for the Plovers to come close (they didn’t), but as at least a few North American birders reading this could be quite excited about Black-headed Gulls, I’ll end this post with a few more photos of what is in actual fact quite a striking species in flight…
1st winter Black-headed Gulls
Copyright 2009 - For more of the same, visit 10,000 Birds
Lady screaming at boyfriend: No! You don't understand I already tried my card that way? It's not working!
Guy walking by to girlfriend: Wow, that sounds like us!
--63rd St
I don't know if children with talents are killed or taken away to be "educated", but the two of them have the sense to not want any of that. Some of the people with talents are used in wars... I think there's one kid used to burn people up?
At some point in the past there were dragons, now believed to be all extinct. The kids get to some guy's castle (he wears gloves all the time) where they find out that "every child born in this castle has a talent". He has one son. This leads us to think the talents are genetic in origin, but the big reveal is that he has a dragon living in his castle and their scales do something to the water that mutates babies. The local governments are implied to have known this, and the extermination of the dragons is thought - by the few who know enough to realize this - to have really been a cover for ultimately eliminating the birth of children with talents, and the everlasting wars are a cover to keep talented children occupied (and hopefully killed) in battles so they can't do anything crazy like take over.
There may have been a romance between the guy in the castle and the girl, and they have to flee the castle by the end of the book. I think there may have been supposed to be a sequel, but I don't know if there ever was. I certainly never read it. The little brother chooses to be left behind in the castle, but his sister (who has been persuaded to take care of him his whole life) isn't too concerned, realizing that he's got the one talent that can keep him safe and alive no matter what.
Fairly quiet neighborhood. Nice back yard, big living room, good sized kitchen with newer appliances, 2 bedrooms, 1.75 baths, and an office.
Also, a slightly crazy house, which is by no means negative
.
That planter there in the foreground is actually in the middle of the driveway, creating a little front "patio".
Here's the little dining room, on the other side of those windows at the front of the house.
Nice kitchen. Note the window.
Built-in window seat in one bedroom, with french doors out to the little deck in the backyard.
The office between the bedrooms. This is on the main floor. Again, note the window.
The master bedroom, with a freaking LOFT. (This is killing me.) Also a walk-in closet with California Closet-style built-ins, and the second bathroom, pictured below.
Again, the window.
The...sliding glass door AND WINDOW in the master bedroom. The former driveway/"patio" is on the other side of that sliding glass door...which faces the street, remember.
Back deck.
So, we both loved this place. But then I started looking at all the windows, and almost none of them had locks. The slider in the master bedroom had the basic lock on the handle that we all know is mostly useless. The window in the master bath didn't seem to have a lock, but it didn't seem to open, either. That window in the office is at ground level, so it's practically a door to the backyard...which is only partially fenced and is open to the street at both sides of the house. That window on the kitchen side is almost completely hidden from view of the street and the neighbor on that side, by a tall hedge.
There was no room in this house that didn't have insanely easy access from the outside. We found some broken glass outside under the window in the guest bedroom, as if to prove the point.
I was mulling this over and opened the kitchen window -- and the handle came off in my hand. The screws holding it on were stripped and it was being held on by...wait for it...silicone caulk.
Jon looked at me and said, "you would never, ever feel safe in this house, would you?" And I am afraid he is right, I wouldn't. Much less feel secure about leaving the place if we were to take a trip anywhere.
I was also concerned that the owners put in the showy improvements like the built-ins, but couldn't be arsed to get some wood putty and fix the kitchen window properly. I wondered what else would fall apart once we moved in.
(Also, I think we'd have to use a lot of that space on the ground floor of the master for storage, and that just felt like putting all of our possessions in a freakin' store window.)
It's so perfect...except for not providing one of the basic things a home should: a sense of security. Arrrrrrrrrgh.
Woman to stylish man walking past: You look like a designer!
Man: Thanks.
Woman: Are you a designer?
Man, about five feet past: Kind of.
--Houston & Ludlow
Spoiler alert.
This one reminds me a whole lot of Neal Asher's runcible books, Tony Daniel's Grist books, John C. Wright's Golden Age books, Walter Jon Williams's Aristoi universe. Far future, people (and aliens) are all over the universe; some have modified themselves to be pretty alien. Technology is available to carry a unit (one character has a necklace) that will record you, such that if you die, you can be re-made from the recording. A married pair of the characters are in a war on a planet; one dies, one is saved and tries to find his partner's unit but can't. You spend time with those roles reversed (you thought the other one was going to die). Someone, possibly him, is sent on an assassination mission. Another (captured?) personality is loaded up into his brain, to keep him from sabotaging the attempt. The personality ends up sabotaging the attempt himself. Another character in a completely different part of the universe finds out the attempt, is destroyed in doing so, is re-created from the unit and tries to warn people, only to find out that it is one complete galactic rotation later, and his unit has been floating in space and only just now recovered by the same place he was on before.
- Mood:
hopeful
Despite great gains in so many ways, every now and then, we run into the fear, the… taboo of even including factual representations of drugs or drug policy. Recently, there were two prime examples.
1. Chased.
Chase conducted an online contest to award millions of dollars to the top hundred vote-getting charities. As part of the effort, non-profit groups worked hard to get individuals to vote for them, which included becoming online “fans” of Chase bank.
It appears certain that three of the top 100 vote-getting organizations were denied the chance to win. Two of these were Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and Marijuana Policy Project.
More info at the Boycott Chase site.
As Radley Balko says:
It’s Chase’s money, of course. They can do what they want with it. But they got free advertising from these groups who promoted the contest. And I’m also free to call Chase a bunch of cowards for not backing their promotion because some of the winners were too controversial.
2. Smoked
It’s Complicated. No, that’s the name of the movie — the situation involved isn’t complicated at all.
The MPAA has embarrassed itself an untold number of times over the years for its prudish attitude toward sex and its wildly permissive attitude toward violence. But what’s it’s done to Nancy Meyers’ upcoming comedy, “It’s Complicated,” is perhaps the ratings board’s biggest boneheaded move yet.
[...] the MPAA has given Meyers’ fluffy comedy about a middle-aged love triangle an R rating because Meryl Streep and Steve Martin’s (who star in the film along with Alec Baldwin) characters are seen sharing a joint while on a date.
The problem, according to people involved with the board’s hearing on the issue, isn’t that the actors are seen smoking pot — it’s that the scene “features pot-smoking with no bad consequences.” Apparently, everything would’ve been fine if only the characters had been killed in a gory car crash …
I just saw the incredible and wonderful movie “Avatar.” The final sequence has scene after scene of horrific violence, death and destruction. The movie received a PG-13 rating. So did “G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra” and thousands of other violent movies. One joint, however, gets you an R.
What a strange world in which we live.
A group of people are trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean, with no hope of rescue, and little water.
One of the stranded tells them all that he has a way out... he can help them all create a world. He has been searching for this path for years, and has found out how to use it.
He hypnotises them, controlling the creation and becoming a sort of god to this reality. Unfortunately for him, he is also not entirely in their created world; he still feels the effects of the real world, and is slowly going mad with thirst.
Can anyone help me find out what it's called?
so, this dress from Alexander McQueen, Spring 2009 Ready-to-Wear, has been hanging on a rack at the loft at work for two weeks and it's BREATHTAKING. it hypnotizes everyone that walks by, like you can't not look at it. it sparkles like a chandelier made of diamonds that have been shined with the butts of babies wrapped in chamois.
anyway, I had a dream about it.
oh, and it weighs 50lbs. no joke, maybe even more. I can't lift it off the rack with one hand. I need two hands to barely, slowly lift it up. there's no way I could hold it on my own with two hands for more than a few seconds. the intern can't lift it at all. I can't imagine wearing it. the model in that photo is in so much pain. faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaashion!
speaking of, I feel down so I am buying these shoes instead of paying my phone bill or buying a camera or an iphone or droid or a record player or anything else that is more necessary like investing into the business I want to start. or saving it. or rent. fuck rent. or food. I am not hungry. I need moar shoes.
http://www.lorisshoes.com/product.asp?l
I read this probably mid-late 90s. It's an older kids or young YA novel. An American girl and a boy (crown prince) from one of those backwards nations where a monarchy is actually important for more than just looking pretty share thoughts sometimes. They have shared seizures - if one of them has a minor one, they know the other just had a major one and is sharing their body right now. (That sounds a LOT pervier than it is!) They have auras before their seizures. The boy's uncle is scheming good-naturedly to remove him from inheriting the throne for the good reason that he thinks the seizures have made him stupid and a risk. The kids are in touch with each other through the method of writing notes or speaking aloud when they know the other one is seeing through their eyes, and they're thrilled that the boy's family is coming on a diplomatic visit to the US because they plan on actually meeting up in the flesh. They're like 13 - they seem to think of themselves as a cross between penpals and siblings, not as romantic partners or anything like that. They suspect other people may have had this problem in the past, but pride themselves on being smart enough to not be locked up for absolute insanity.
And they DO meet up, and shake hands, but there's a kidnapping plot and they find their little episodes get worse when they're not halfway across the world from each other and... I have no idea what happened next. SO frustrating, it was actually an interesting book.
2. FOUND! Mara, Daughter of the Nile
An Egyptian slave in the time of the Pharoahs, and she finds herself embroiled in intrigue and politics, getting paid on all sides to... something about the Pharoah. She's supposed to spy on this foreign wife of the Pharoah, and manages to convince her to go along with the main plot (the one we're supposed to root for) on the grounds that if she does, when the current Pharoah is deposed she'll be sent home. We see some scenes from the foreigner's point of view, she's very amused by the fact that the slave obviously has a sweetheart and is clearly lying about the sweet nothings he's saying by periodically turning to her and saying "Oh, he just said your customs are interesting and asked after your family" or whatever. (But we know he's not actually saying sweet nothings, he's giving her instructions as to her spying, and threatening her, although I think he never intended to carry anything out because awww they're so much in love ♥.)
Older black man: How's you mother?
20-something white man: She died in January.
Older black man: I'm very sorry to hear that.
20-something white man: Thanks. She left me her rent-controlled apartment!
--Montague Street, Brooklyn Heights
 | VoicePost  274K 1:26 | “The broken bird had drink ___ and those who said who's not believe in paradise of blood and jewel lie so ___ pearl blood socks casking(?) ruby Jasmine Jasper Onyx golden green rich wood scroll your thoughts and pity with the mood one down we. The woven gold spun gilded(?) blinking god eye spear the soul direct. We're have dance tonight then shadow and pool and shared the joy once again and you better be safe at home I said lie if you are, hope it's is ___ on this wet there is a light. It's the world of the pent crater hardly hear I understood. I understood the one I let sleeping” Auto-Transcribed Voice Post - spoken through SpinVox |
Girl: So I don't steal from privately owned places and shit, I steal from like CVS.
Guy: The funniest thing I ever stole was a five-dollar finger vibrator.
Girl, excited: Did it work?
Guy: Yeah, it was the shit! You can borrow it anytime.
--NYU Dorm
Overheard by: Mika
-The story I remember better is about a drug that increases a person's intelligence. The society gave the drug on a small group of people first as a test, and then to everyone. For some reason the main characters in the story are immune to the drug. Their parents are in some type of support group, at least a magazine or something is mentioned. The kids want to prove they are just as good as a the smart people so they create a plan to disrupt some government, Madagascar's I think.
( Cut for length )
Found! "Was It A Dream?" by Guy de Maupassant
-It wasn't very long and in a supernatural/ghost anthology
-The plot is that a man is going to see his fiancee's grave. For some reason the skeletons come out of their graves and start writing on them. One man writes that instead of being a good husband, he was a horrible one. The man's fiancee writes that she got pneumonia (?) when she was walking to see another man and that is why she died. I think the guy faints in the end.
A Children Fantasy Story
-The premise is that the "real" world reflects a magical world. The main character is a girl and a boy from the other world talks to her through a mirror. The boy mentions he could see her through the bathroom mirror, but didn't watch when she was taking a shower or something (I remember this creeping me out). He takes her to the magical world.
( Cut for length )
Found! "The Obnoxious Jerks" by Stephen Manes
-The characters go to a really strict school. Part of the dress code is that guys must wear pants and girls have to wear pants or knee-length skirts.
-A group of guys make some kind of club. One of the things they do is wear skirts to school to protest. I remember that they had trouble finding skirts to wear. They got them from a used clothing store and there were only ugly skirts. One of the skirts had palm trees on it.
( Cut for length )
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
littlewashu- Sop Hockles
- geniusscientist.com
Page Summary
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif)
overheardnyc : Social Commentary, OINY Style [+0] - 10000birds : Birding Great Sleight [+0]
- overheardnyc : ...In Happier Times. [+0]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
whatwasthatbook :: conuly : I have another one! [+0] - xkcd_rss : Gravity Wells [+57]
- superdaintykate : Oh, rental house, why must you break my heart? [+0]
- overheardnyc : On My Mom's Side [+0]
- whatwasthatbook :: gitana : far future sci fi [+0]
- drugwarrant : Why are they so afraid? [+0]
- whatwasthatbook :: terrycat : Short story with boat and thirst [+0]
- 007donuts : (no subject) [+2]
- phila_will_do : 6 in a row! [+0]
- rss_gaf : Aw, come on Superboy, they're just going to spend it all on drugs. [+0]
- whatwasthatbook :: conuly : BOTH FOUND! [+5]
- overheardnyc : In a Totally Unrelated Question, What Gets Out Blood? [+1]
- ravenface : Voice Post [+0]
- overheardnyc : ...Once I Get It Back from What's-Her-Name on the Fourth Floor. [+0]
- whatwasthatbook :: humanalias : (no subject) [+4]
- whatwasthatbook :: daisers : Mother/daughter bed & breakfast - book characters come to life [+2]
- phila_will_do : Games like this please me greatly. [+0]