Pheasants rock. Loads of them live in the woods around my parents' house, and they occasionally delight motorists by meandering into the path of moving vehicles. Wild turkeys are worse, though. Pheasants have the sense to get the hell out of the way when a giant object is hurtling towards them; wild turkeys stand in the middle of the road in great packs, either staring at the car with the defiance of a thousand surly teenagers or pecking at the ground, stupid and oblivious. They're also very mean. If there's ever a bill before Congress to allow wild turkeys access to firearms, I'm definitely opposing it.
posted by Kate at 5:14 PM link/comments
That's ridiculous that the Starbucks guy corrected you. Venti. Whatever.
Next to our apartment is a trashy little vacant lot full of weeds. This morning there was a gorgeous male pheasant out there, merrily pecking away. He was huge and iridescent. He had a red head and a red chest and a tail that made me want to be a pheasant. He had a little lady friend pheasant who was not so spectacular.
In other news -- remember Paul's high school friend James? He visited Hiram once or twice and he was our roommate last year in Iowa. For some reason I think me and Paul and you and James all hung around together one weekend at Hiram. Anyway, James got accepted into the writing program at the University of California at Irvine. Which is amazing. It's one of the top writing programs in the country. They get like 400 applicants and select about 10, one of which is, apparently, James. In our cloistered little writing world, writers in such programs hold almost mythic status, so Paul and I are trying to wrap our minds around the fact that James is now one of them. It's a bit weird. It's easier to think about pheasants.
posted by Jen at 3:54 PM link/comments
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Yikes. I didn't know there was a secret world where libraries were concerned. Now every time I go to the library I'm going to wonder where they're hiding the covert book repair team. I wonder if it's one of those things where they pull a book off a shelf and the bookcase spins around -- a la every Scooby Doo episode -- to reveal a secret passageway/room. This morning I ...
1) Overslept by 30 minutes
2) Ran out of my shower to answer the phone, slipped on the kitchen linoleum, and crashed into kitchen counter, somehow managing to bang up my knee and bruise my fingertip.
3) Was nearly side-swiped by a maniacal driver wielding a large municipal garbage truck.
4. Was corrected by a Starbucks employee when I ordered a "large" coffee. "We call it a venti here," he said haughtily.
posted by Kate at 10:42 AM link/comments
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
So I had to go to an interview at the library today, for this parttime job repairing books -- I had to take a little test where I put call numbers in alphabetical order, which was strangely unnerving. I'm always amused at how serious the library takes itself. I got a tour of the secret book repair area and I got to ride in the secret freight elevator, which you need a key to use. See what I mean? The complex world of libraries.
posted by Jen at 3:39 PM link/comments
Friday, March 22, 2002
Still working on this new design thing, but at least the blog's up. Once again, stay tuned.
posted by Kate at 6:41 PM link/comments
Been on spring break...was recalling the ironic "spring breaks" at Hiram where it would snow. But I can't use those stories anymore because, well, there are two feet of snow in the countryside outside of Moscow and I haven't seen the sun in a week. Spring break indeed. But here's a weird story -- yesterday Paul and I went walking at Hell's Gate State Park (is that not the best name for a park?) and we came across this guy and his three dogs. The dogs were unusual so we struck up a conversation as he explained that the dogs were some rare breed from Hungary. Then the guy revealed that he was "geo hunting," which I at first assumed was rock hunting. Wrong. There is, apparently, this huge worldwide treasure hunt going on. People hide treasures in obscure locations, then leave hints on a website, and it's all confirmed through GPS and some secret network of insiders. The guy said there were two treasures in the park and he'd already found one. He said the "treasure" is usually some sort of silly trinket. He was very intent on finding the second one. Maybe he had trained his rare Hungarian dogs to sniff out trinkets.
posted by Jen at 3:29 PM link/comments
Thursday, March 21, 2002
I got a spammed email today with the following subject line: "YOUR FREE CONDOMS ARE INSIDE. I was kind of hoping that I'd open the attachment and rubbers would start flying out of the zip drive or something. Alas. No such luck.
posted by Kate at 12:10 PM link/comments
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Attention Ladies and Germs -- Over the next couple of days, you may experience technical difficulties in accessing Six-Layer Kate. This is a mere temporary setback caused by our moving hosts. You see, Kate purchased crap web hosting one year ago (Kate was a novice in such matters at the time and made a bad choice). Her one-year contract with the Crap Company has finally run its course, so she's moving the whole shebang. This will not affect how you access the page ... you'll still be able to reach us by pointing your browsers to dubyadubyadubya-dot-sixlayerkate-dot-com. What you will, notice, however, is the glorious absence of that shitty ad banner at the bottom of the page. You will also notice design changes, more updates, more links, and (hopefully) all-around improvement. Stay tuned.
posted by Kate at 10:59 AM link/comments
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
Thanks Kate -- I know just the tiniest bit about FTP and page design and all that, but on the other hand I also know enough to figure it out rather quickly. I haven't heard back from them (despite my obligatory "follow up" phone call.) I dread the task of applying for jobs, but I also dread a summer minus income. My other job option is repairing broken book bindings at the library. Brian would be thrilled.
posted by Jen at 3:47 PM link/comments
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
Jen - Well, depending on how they manage to slap the articles up on the website, you might want to indicate that you have some knowledge of HTML, or at least of some sort of web editing software ... FrontPage, Dreamweaver ... something like that. Far be it from me to tell you to lie on a job application, but frankly, even if you don't know this stuff, it'll take you about 15 seconds to figure out how to link text to its corresponding scanned document. The only other thing I can think of is to say that you have some knowledge of / experience with FTP. FTP is how you take files from your computer and upload them to the web. If you want me to be more specific, email me and I can explain it all. The World Wrestling Federation is comin' to town tonight, and guess who has tickets. I'm so excited. Make fun of me all you want; I don't care. Nyah.
posted by Kate at 1:28 PM link/comments
Thursday, March 07, 2002
Well happy birthday...I would pay a gazillion dollars for good Greek Food, considering how Idaho has a negative population of Greek restaurants. Kate, I need advice -- I'm trying to get a parttime job at a place that scans journal articles and posts them on a website. Any tips on what I ought to claim I can do (other than the obvious website/scanning knowledge)?
posted by Jen at 12:39 AM link/comments
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
I'm 26 years old today. Birthdays seem less and less exciting every year. When I was a kid, I'd be on an entirely different mental plane every March 5. Now the "It's my birthday" thought is only marginally more exciting than the realization that I have half a pint of Godiva chocolate ice cream in the freezer at home. Not earth-shattering, but pleasant nonetheless The Friends decided that my birthday festivities would include dinner at a restaurant in Akron that I haven't been to in about 3 years. Turns out said restaurant went out of business last summer. Now I'm faced with making the "what-do-I-want-to-do-for-my-birthday" decision. Holly, for some reason, thinks I should want to go bowling. I do not want to go bowling. As for what I want to do, I'm considering eating Greek food. You can't go wrong with flaming cheese ... that's my birthday motto.
posted by Kate at 2:30 PM link/comments
Friday, March 01, 2002
So my students are working on ad analysis papers, and in a moment of goddamn-I-wish-I-was-teaching-creative-writing-not-composition inspiration, I put them into groups and made them write collaborative short stories about their advertisements. What resulted were alcohol-soaked fantasy stories involving women named Nippie, Trixie Trix, and Suzy Q, which the guys found incredibly funny. It all resulted in me making public service announcements about responsible alcohol use and responsible female character naming. (i.e, the women in the class were none too impressed with "Nippie," for obvious reasons.)
posted by Jen at 3:31 PM link/comments
Heh. Yup.
posted by Kate at 1:10 PM link/comments
We got somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 inches of snow on Wednesday. This made me inordinately happy, because we haven't had dick for snow this year. It was great ... white-out conditions, stalled vehicles, horns honking, middle fingers liberally held aloft. I wasn't driving, so all I had to do was sit back, hope we'd make it home, and be moderately entertained by the whole scenario. News in Brief ... 1) Yesterday marked 3 weeks without cigarette-age. My sense of smell has become superhuman. I'm a homosapien bloodhound. The DEA should hire me to sniff packages at the airport. 2) In lieu of a cigarette addiction, I've developed a weird dependence on a generic-brand snackfood called "Shanghai Mix." In Shanghai, apparently, there is great fondness for small sesame crackers blended with dried peas and coated in an unidentifiable orange, somewhat spicy powder. Who knew.
posted by Kate at 9:29 AM link/comments