Likely occurrences

Minor annoyance of the day, from the Ann Arbor News: "Century City works because it does not delve into science fiction, but rather uses science to project likely occurrences." Yes, indeed, that is so unlike science fiction. *sigh* I may write them a letter.

Minor annoyance #2: I plan to order my new iMac tomorrow (17" screen, 1.25GHz G4, 160GB HD, 1GB RAM, SuperDrive, yadda yadda), and would have ordered it on Wednesday if a check had cleared. And tonight I learn that new G5 iMacs are rumored to appear in late June. *sigh* I won't wait, I suppose, but just once I'd like to buy a computer at the right time.

After failing to accomplish much yesterday, I was struck by a late-night fit of cleaning. I moved my naughty books to a shelf in my closet, vacuumed out the space beneath my TV where they had been living, and sorted through my old cassette tapes before moving them into the newly vacated slot. (I also moved my bottles of powdered nickel, magnesium, fluorescent yellow pigment, and VISCOSITY into the hall closet, and sorted through the Pile of Papers that had been taking up floor space.) In the course of this process I found my very green Gumby! cassette, which features ten delicious Gumby-themed songs by Dweezil and Moon Unit Zappa, Flo and Eddie, and others. I expect I am one of only a handful of people left on earth with this tape in their possession.

I faced tonight's Scottish class with some trepidation, because our fiddler was not going to be there, which left us a cellist, a hesitant keyboardist, and me. We disposed ourselves adequately, I think; it was rougher than it usually is, but everything we played was danceable, and I was in tune after the first dance. (Oops.) Really, if you have a loud guitar keeping the rhythm, you can dance. And I can be loud when I want to, now that I have the solid-top Martin. Mwa ha ha. (I should not want to when I am out of tune, however. Needs must change strings.)

Also, I had an actual personal Chat with our cellist, and gave her a backrub. I am very pleased when people become comfortable with me, particularly younger women, and not only for the obvious reason; I have long-standing issues with being perceived as a Sketchy Guy, and when someone new asks me for a backrub I realize, albeit temporarily, that my fears are exaggerated. It was socially quite pleasant all around, actually; there was a brief cross-generational and cross-religion Narnia discussion in the lobby, sitting around the interior street light, and I felt socially present in a way I generally don't here in Ann Arbor.

I'm currently chatting with many SWILfolk in IRC, hoping the OracleBot will be fixed soon. Rather fun, though the waiting leaves something to be desired. Dum de dum.

Lee

I was looking through Brian Froud's Faeries and noticed, for the first time, that it is not Brian Froud's Faeries; it is Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee. Alan Lee is the excellent and learned Tolkien illustrator who worked so closely with Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings movies, and who is responsible, to a great degree, for the visual faithfulness of the films.

It is interesting to learn that I have been a fan of Alan Lee's work almost as long as I've been a fan of anything; at the age of six I was captivated by Faeries when a babysitter revealed it to me, along with the first edition Monster Manual. I remember playing "find the artist's signature" in the gloriously crowded paintings. Those images, the selkie and the killmoulis and the red-cap, shaped a lot of my creative development. They're still very vivid in my mind.

(Froud, of course, made his own mark on the movies; he worked closely with Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.)

Upgrading geek to 1.9.6...please wait.

I made minor tweaks to my virtual life today. I finally uploaded a proper picture of myself here, which means I spent an hour this afternoon bouncing around my apartment in various wacky positions, mugging for the camera I held at arm's length. Among the candidates were "Nostril Man," "Good Lord, what's that on the ceiling?" and "Too! Much! Hair!", but I eventually settled on my impression of E.T. hiding from Elliot's mom. Yes, they all have names.

I downloaded AIM, on the assumption that if there's a spot for an AIM ID on my LiveJournal info page...well, I can't very well leave it blank, now can I? It's a rather dense namespace; this is the first time I've been unable to use jere7my, and j7y and jere7myt were already taken as well. Thus, I am jere7mytt. (This will lead to ultimately unsatisfying speculation about my middle name.) Anyway, I believe a few of my friends use AIM, so we will see how much use it gets.

The biggest news: I ordered my tricked-out 17" iMac today. This is exciting, of course, but stressful, what with having to be home (and awake) to accept delivery on some mystery day, and worrying whether my bank will have issues with $2000 appearing on my bank card all of a sudden, and so on. Also, I apparently need to pay tax on this purchase, which I didn't expect to have to do; had I known, I would have bought it at the UMich computer store and not had to wait for shipping. Alas. This wreaks some small budgetary havoc. But I should have a computer winging its way to me from Cupertino in a few days, which is rather the point. *dance of joy*

Kendra and I watched a couple of Sopranos episodes after dinner, and now that she sleeps I'm watching Prophecy—not The Prophecy, starring Christopher Walken, which I quite like, but Prophecy, starring Robert Foxworth, the least convincing Indians ever, and a half-melted mutant bear. So far, the best scene has been the mutant bear whomping a sleeping camper into a tree in such a way as to make her sleeping bag explode in a blizzard of feathers. Hee hee.

Oh, and the snow is very nearly gone. This is probably temporary, since temperatures are supposed to dip into the teens again next week, but for now I'm warily content.