Guess what! It's going to be in the 90's all next week!
posted by L at 12:49 PM link/comments
I'm so sorry to hear about Fan Wars, Jen. I have scientifically tested both the Air Circulation and the Proximity methods of fan cooling in a top-floor apartment, and I am firmly convinced that they're equally ineffective. I knew it was time for drastic measures when, for two days running, I came home and immediately felt compelled to spend half an hour under a cold shower. One of my cats was panting, one tried to open the shower door to crawl in with me (this is a cat, mind you), and the third planted herself under the bed and refused to move for about 40 straight hours. The air conditioner is lovely, despite the fact that it only cools half the apartment. The living room and kitchen are perfectly temperate, and then there's this weird line of demarcation once you pass the refrigerator. Suddenly the temperature shoots up about 15 degrees, which means that the bathroom and bedroom are still mostly uninhabitable. No complaints, though. I can cook dinner without combusting, and I can sleep on my flip-futon on the living room floor. The cats are much happier and have resumed their daily knocking-stuff-over, heaving-up-hairballs, hey-don't-eat-that-it's-metal routine. All is well. And as for you, Mother ... Dammit. I was going to make some nasty comment about your central-air-gloating, but then I remembered that you're awfully nice to me, so I really can't say anything at all. Carry on.
posted by Kate at 10:44 AM link/comments
Thursday, June 27, 2002
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! Central air! So spoiled am I! Love it.
posted by L at 4:47 PM link/comments
Wow -- air conditioner installation. Impressive, and I mean that. Yesterday, faced with the hottest day so far this year (which is balmy compared to the heat plus humidity of Cleveland) I purchased two more fans for our apartment, which is on the top floor and has only south and west windows, thus catching all the baking rays of sun full force. Anyway, now that we have four fans, Paul and I are occupying ourselves by debating over the best placement of these fans. Paul is of the "air circulation" school of thought, meaning the fans are placed strategically in the windows blowing the hot air out, and beware the person who attempts to move these fans for any reason at all. Me, I am the sit-in-front-of-the-fan type. Paul -- wind tunnel through apartment at all hours. Jen -- fan two feet away at all times. Negotiations continue.
posted by Jen at 2:08 PM link/comments
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
JenKing and I spent yesterday evening installing a much-needed window air conditioning unit in my 7th-Circle-of-Cleveland apartment. Having completed this perilous task, I finally understand why my father has spent the majority of his adult life swearing at inanimate objects.
posted by Kate at 9:34 AM link/comments
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
The best talking socks were Sifl and Olly on MTV three, four years ago. Good stuff. "Crescent fresh," to quote the stoner sock with his hemp necklaces.
posted by Jen at 2:48 PM link/comments
I was sitting in my apartment late Saturday night, drinking cold water and trying to concentrate on anything besides the fact that my non-air-conditioned living room's climate was mimicking that of San Juan, and watching Dennis Leary's "No Cure for Cancer" routine on Comedy Central. He has this bit where he talks about how Big Bird and Kermit sang at Jim Henson's funeral. He says he never wants to die and be memorialized by a talking sock. I like Dennis Leary, but I really beg to differ. I would love to be eulogized by a talking sock. One last absurdity-induced giggle. Right on.
posted by Kate at 1:11 PM link/comments
Monday, June 24, 2002
yeah! The Rocket Man cover is the best thing ever. I've listened to it so much, Paul hates it.
I always thought it clever that a muppet frog was named Robin, like a bird, but he's a frog, but he's only the cloth likeness of a frog, projected through the voice and imagination of a human...That Jim Henson was a cool guy.
posted by Jen at 6:54 PM link/comments
Thursday, June 20, 2002
Robin. Kermit's nephew was named Robin. I don't know that Kermit's sister (or brother) would have necessarily have to be married. Maybe Robin was a bastard. Or maybe Robin's mom ran with a rough crowd, and Robin was born a crack-tadpole. Infinite possibilities. As for Me First and the Gimmee Gimmees, my favorite is their Elton John "Rocket Man" cover.
posted by Kate at 4:00 PM link/comments
I honestly can't think of any muppet-related questions. I do, however, have a certain fondness for the classic muppet song "The Rainbow Connection." Not the yearning Kermit version, but the pseudo-punk version put forth by my favorite cross-dressing cover band, Me First and the Gimmee Gimmees. Wait! I do have a muppet question! What was that little frog's name -- was he Kermit's nephew? Does that mean Kermit had a sibling who got married? Was there an extended family out there, jealous of Kermit's stage success? Wow, one muppet question spawns many.
posted by Jen at 1:46 PM link/comments
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
It took a bit of searching, but I finally found an image. More proof that there's a little bit of everything on the web. Ladies and gentlemen, Don Music ... With thanks.
posted by Kate at 12:56 PM link/comments
Just testing something ...
posted by Kate at 10:44 AM link/comments
Remember that piano-playing muppet on Sesame Street who repeatedly freaked out and banged his head on the keyboard ("I'll never get it right! Never! Never!")? That's about how work is going for me today. P.S. I've just learned that muppet's name was Don Music, thanks to this. If you have muppet-related questions, go take a look. It's jawdropping in scope.
posted by Kate at 10:37 AM link/comments
Funny thing is, we actually do get daily readers around here. I'll be damned if I know who most of them are. Hey! If you read this blog on a regular basis, write me at 'kate-at-sixlayerkate-dot-com' and say hello.
posted by Kate at 10:33 AM link/comments
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Kate -- how come we're the only ones posting to the blog these days? Is it simple self-indulgence, or do we actually have some readers who check in daily? Just wondering.
posted by Jen at 6:19 PM link/comments
So from my third-floor palatial two-bedroom apartment in Idaho, I have an excellent view of the campus, as well as the athletic fields. This week, there is some sort of high school football camp taking place on those athletic fields. Apparently, these 300 or so kids suit up, every morning, in full high school football gear, and spend the day moving in military-like formations around the fields, doing drills and sit-ups and the like. So today, a big old thunderstorm rolls in from Washington. With the first crack of thunder and sudden drenching downpour, the 300 players all howl and hoot in response, pumping their fists at the weather, because, you know, it's very manly to be hurling footballs in a thunderstorm; you're thwarting the weather, you're surviving, you're cold and wet and dammit, victorious! Second crack of thunder, plus lightning, and their coaches send the kids sprinting for shelter. But the storm blows over before all the players can make it off the field, so the coaches cease the retreat and everyone jogs back out to their stations. I watched all this and was completely fascinated.
posted by Jen at 6:15 PM link/comments
Sixlayerkate Workplace Tip of the Day: Learn When To Be "Helpful" If you are working with a webmaster who asks you to give you text for a site, and if that text is to contain hyperlinks, you should give the webmaster the links' URLs and the text she asked for in as simple a format as possible. RTF and text-only are fine. Most of the time, so is Word. What you should not do is try to be "helpful" by getting your student assistant (who "knows a little HTML") to hand-code everything (including the 65 or so links that are to be housed within the text) as a separate HTML document, then turn it over to your webmaster, and act hurt and shocked when she explains that your student's first-generation HTML job was entirely unnecessary and created massive hassle for her. People around here seem to think that because they "once played with" Corel Draw, Microsoft Publisher, or FrontPage, they're instantly authorities on print design, graphics, and web development. I've used a hammer and screwdriver quite a few times, but I don't go around telling people I'm a carpenter.
posted by Kate at 1:35 PM link/comments
Monday, June 17, 2002
The local obnoxious morning radio show people were hosting a "Lamest Father's Day Gift You Received" contest this morning. Area dads were calling in lamenting their misfortune for a chance at 5th-row Tom Petty concert seats. Everything was pretty standard ("a bad tie"; "motor oil"; "fingernail clippers") until this guy: Host: Hey, sir! What'd you get for Father's Day?
Guy: I got a separation.
Host: I'm sorry, what?
Guy: A separation.
Host (realizing the subject matter at hand could be a vast departure from 'zany morning show' format): You mean your wife and you are separating?
Guy (bitterly): Yep.
Host (nervously): Uh. And you had to tell the kids on Father's Day?
Guy: Well, they're still little, so they don't understand yet.
Host: Oh ... man ... Listen, dude. Are you sure you want to be doing this?
Guy: Yes, I'm sure. (voice gaining anger now) And you know what else?
Host (weakly): What?
Guy (venom dripping from every word): Found out the wife was seeing someone else yesterday, too.
Host: Uh ... wow. Uh. Thanks for the call.
Guy: You're welcome. (phone slams down)
posted by Kate at 10:57 AM link/comments
Yesterday, through a series of ridiculous accidents, I managed to crack my head against assorted walls no less than three times. I also tripped and stumbled onto a coffee can that was on its side (don't ask), which caused me to do a cartoonish "barrel roll" sort of dance, followed by a flying leap that was cut short by a nearby wall. I then slid down said wall (again in cartoonish 'splat' fashion) and landed in a pile of cassette tape cases and random computer innards. Master of slapstick, that's me.
posted by Kate at 10:36 AM link/comments
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Ed Needham apparently doesn't read. I can list a handful of books that qualify as "adventures" just for their sheer postmodernity, their blatant (and successful) attempts to turn the written word inside out. Take "House of Leaves." It has upside down text, backwards text, hidden messages, color codes, and at the core of it two great story lines, one entirely in footnotes. Or look at anything Dave Eggers and McSweeney's churns out. A recent McSweeney's journal comes with a CD (as did House of Leaves) and Eggers' "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" broke boundaries for memoirs. This week I'm reading Rick Moody's "The Black Veil," which further fucks with what it means to write "nonfiction." I could go on. So what does Ed mean -- that if people read more there would have been more textual innovations? Because people do read and clearly there are plenty of weird things happening between the covers. On the other hand, I can attest to just how hard is it to get my students to read their assignments. What I think Needham means is that not so many people are interested in reading. That's all he was saying and that's kind of weird for a magazine editor to say.
posted by Jen at 2:49 PM link/comments
Under the category of "Stuff That's Wrong On Many, Many Levels" ... "All the great media adventures of the 20th century have been visual. Television, movies, the Internet, they're all visual mediums and I don't think people have time to sit down and read."
1. And what, pray tell, is a book? Is it not a "visual medium"? Last time I checked, it was fairly difficult to read standard text if you weren't able to see.
-- Ed Needham, the new managing editor of Rolling Stone magazine.
2. If you have 2 hours a night to watch television, it would stand to reason that you could use those same 2 sedentary hours to read a book.
3. Bah. Grumble. Dammitall.
posted by Kate at 11:16 AM link/comments
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
Yeah, the entire faculty/staff/student/admin sects at any university are really strange. Everybody takes themselves very seriously. I've seen certain English faculty get so snippy with the staff in the office, it freaks me out...then we've got admin casually cutting half of everything (while tasting caviar, and even if you cut half your caviar order, you're still eating caviar while I'm getting excited about the twenty-eight cent mac and cheese at the store) and students (especially grad students) being edgy and angsty about every little thing. Yeah.
Was at an open mic thingy last night, and I'm happy to report that pink-floyd-indigo-girls sing-a-longs are alive and well in this part of the world. As are melancholy guitar-wielding boys in baseball caps (playing Pearl Jam, can you believe that?) and a host of love-lorn college women who sound like Sarah MacLachlan even when they're trying to sound like Ani DiFranco. It was a good time, actually, and I was talking to the MC when one guy strummed up "Wish You Were Here" and the MC was like "Fuck! I forgot to tell them the No Pink Floyd rule!" But I couldn't agree because impromptu versions of that song are my guilty pleasure, even if it's being played at every Monday night open mic at every little bar in every little college town across the nation.
posted by Jen at 1:17 PM link/comments
Monday, June 10, 2002
I'm right with the faculty on the whole "financial rape executed by just about everyong making six-figures" thing. It's profoundly frustrating to be told that there isn't enough money in the budget for any request one might make, then to see university trustees (all of whom are sickeningly wealthy) happily munching on caviar at a reception. Being staff at a university is being caught between a rock and a hard place. Staff have a lot in common with faculty, from a "getting screwed by administration" standpoint. Problem is, many faculty don't recognize it. Some (certainly not all) faculty look at staff and see us as nothing more than miniature extensions of the administration. Therefore, we're resented. What they don't understand is that we're just as frustrated with administration as they are; we just have less recourse to do anything about it. If we act strangely or become difficult to deal with, we can lose our jobs. One of the faculty I work for recently told me that (at this university anyway) a professor's attitude is not permitted to be used as a factor in tenure review because it's subjective. Meanwhile, staff can be booted for "insubordination" ... the ultimate in subjective. Basically what it boils down to is that beyond students, universities essentially comprise two pissed-off sects (faculty and staff) who really ought to be working together against the remaining Evil Administration sect. It's the Unholy Trinity of Higher Education. The oppressed masses (who don't make enough effort to understand one another) vs. the oppressor ... it's world politics on a microcosmic scale. It's all entirely too convoluted. Whew. That'll be enough of that sort of rant for awhile.
posted by Kate at 10:35 AM link/comments
Saturday, June 08, 2002
To answer your question a few entries back, Kate -- yes, anyone misguided enough to pursue higher degrees goes through some sort of mindbending shift in social skills that makes them insufferably weird, annoying, clingy, or just downright insane. It has something to do with the low pay, the late hours, asbestos-filled offices, the ancient microwaves in the faculty lounges, the financial rape executed by just about everyone making six-figures at the university, and who knows what else. Ramen noodles and cheap wine. Socks with holes. Threadbare couches. Slow internet connections. Whatever. It makes us higher-degree types have a hard time processing simple things like "she stepped out." In fact, having just spent a night (on a second camping trip) with three other English majors, I can say that we were sufficiently strange and awkward in every form of communication that night. From Paul creating a mammoth fireball with the camp stove to me initiating a serious conversation about what was funnier -- saying "I was a bug for a minute" or "I was a bug for a year." No air guitars were played.
posted by Jen at 7:36 PM link/comments
Thursday, June 06, 2002
I came to the (possibly erroneous) conclusion last night that the fundamental difference between men and women was that women don't play air guitar. I presented my theory to a group of friends, and all women in attendance (2) admitted to indulging in heavy-duty invisible six-string playing from time to time, so long as no one could see them. I was shocked. I'll admit to the "hairbrush-as-microphone" routine and the "woeful lip syncing while pretending to be starring in a music video" routine, but I've never air-guitared. I wonder what that says about me.
posted by Kate at 1:53 PM link/comments
Wednesday, June 05, 2002
A quick verisign query has revealed to me that, much to my dismay, www.jesustapdancingchrist.com is not available. Bugger. On the bright side, however, both www.jesustapdancingchrist.org and www.christinasidecar.com are in fact available for purchase. Yeehaw.
posted by Kate at 3:46 PM link/comments
Tuesday, June 04, 2002
OK, Jen! I have a question, and I'm begging for an honest answer. As our resident Academic-in-Training, the burden of this inquiry falls on your shoulders. I have become convinced that somewhere along the road to a Terminal Degree, some secret sect of Ph.D.-types requires you to take a core "Becoming Insufferably Weird and Annoying the Piss Out of Administration and Staff" seminar. Fess up. Is this true? A bespectacled, ruffled-looking faculty member just sashayed through here looking for the woman (we'll call her Jane) who has the office next to mine. Him: Hi. Is Jane around? Sometimes this place is downright creepy.
Me: Sorry, no. She stepped out for a meeting. She said she'd be back around noon.
Him: So she's not in?
Me: No. She stepped out for a meeting.
Him: I've phoned her a few times now. She didn't answer, so I thought maybe she had taken a sick day.
Me: No. She's in today. She's just at a meeting.
Him: (stares at me; protracted silence ensues)
Me: She'll be back around noon.
Him: (continues silent staring routine)
Me: (stares back)
Crickets: Chirp. Chirp.
Him: (after at least 10 seconds) OK, then.
Exeunt Professor Weirdo
posted by Kate at 11:09 AM link/comments
Monday, June 03, 2002
Well, thank god. Think of what disasters would have ensued if not for the goodwill of old people bearing huge quantities of firewood. I'm having one of those days when I can't seem to get to work. I promised the World's Most Irritating Professor that I'd have a first draft of a site done for him by the end of the day, but so far all I've been doing is moving elements of the homepage around on the screen, thinking, "Eh. Nope. That looks like hell," then surfing around for some sort of inspiration. Now I'm going to mosey up the street and get some lunch. When I come back, it's nose to the grindstone, I tellsya! Crack the whip! Back to the salt mines! Grrr! *sigh*
posted by Kate at 12:29 PM link/comments
Sunday, June 02, 2002
Paul and I have returned from our first Idaho camping experience. All was well. We lassooed our innocent friend Scott into coming with us, and trekked out to Elk River Idaho (population 300 and falling). They have a lake they call a reservoir and we set up shop near there, then drove to a trailhead and did this extraordinary hike to some waterfalls. The whole stunning vistas, raging water, primeval wilderness thing. Back at camp, we got a decent campfire going, but apparently our neighbors at the next camp site, an older couple in a RV, "felt sorry" for us and hauled over (via their quad) a ton of firewood. Which they insisted we use immediately lest we freeze in to the north Idaho wilderness. So we spent much of our night analyzing ourselves, trying to figure out if we looked so obviously inexperienced. I mean, did we roll in and instantly everyone in Elk River was like, "Whoa, there's a trio of grad students who won't make it through the night. Better help them out!"
posted by Jen at 2:19 PM link/comments