I love my Thanksgiving weekend with family, but I wish I had a TARDIS so that I could attend Chicago TARDIS this weekend, as well. Thankfully, neadods is liveblogging; please keep posting!

One Very Cool Thing™ in CSS is CSS Sprites.

CSS Sprites give us an opportunity to do several Very Useful Things™.

1. They allow us to pre-load graphics into the memory cache for multiple pages up front, so load times are Way Faster™.

2. They allow us to alternate images to create Thrilling Animation™.

3. They give us Amazing Super Powers™.

Okay, that last one might be a Bit of an Exagerration™, but take a look at what you can do with CSS Sprites.

Learn about CSS Sprites here...

CSS Sprite Generator

DW are filming at the National Museum, not far from where I work. Walking by, my head felt like someone was stepping on it; the feeling lingers.

ETA: Pain is easing, though I'm thinking it's going to be a long night. Pulling an all-nighter tomorrow (again) in order to get anything done; I've been so shattered this week that there's no way I'll make another 1000 words on the MPhil. I'm also slightly concerned that I was hallucinating earlier, but I'm pretty sure that was just my crap eyesight and lack of paying attention.

(Note: I'm posting, but not doing a lot of reading. If there's anything I need to know, please drop a note in the comments.)

After joining a group of local friends and their family to have, in the words of Arlo Guthrie, a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, the first event of ChicagoTARDIS was held - the Thursday night pizza party with the guests. (Read: with the Big Finish crew; Paul McGann isn't here yet and I haven't seen Naoko Mori yet.)

Guest-wise, I got to talk to Nick Briggs for a little bit. He told me that they'd straightened out the confusion over the rights with Sherlock Holmes, and now the CDs are for sale in America after all. (After all that, persiflage_1!)

So spread the word far and wide - THE BIG FINISH HOLMES STORIES ARE AVAILABLE IN AMERICA!

Nick told me that they considered themselves experts in SF but were just getting into mysteries, and could use a good Holmes expert for advice. As much as I'd like to swank and say that was me, it wouldn't be - but I could promise to pass the word on to an expert I do know... and as serendipity would have it, the expert's husband wandered up right at that moment to say hello.

I talked with Rob Shearman for quite a while - he's so interesting to talk to! Info from him:

- There will be a partial audio book of Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical produced by Big Finish. They are also talking about partially adapting Tiny Deaths as well.

- The handwritten story in the expensive edition of Love Songs really was handwritten individually for each edition. That edition has almost sold out, but Rob said "If I were you, I wouldn't buy it, it's too expensive!"

- He didn't want to cheat the purchasers of other editions, so that story is hidden in all of the editions of Love Songs. Really hidden; in one of them you need an magnifying glass to find it.

- Stephen Moffat has said that he wants his Doctor Who "to be the show kids dare each other to watch because it's so scary." But he also wants the general tone of the Whoniverse to be optimistic. (Rob hinted that Moffat has some ideas regarding fitting Children of Earth into the tone of the Whoniverse he's building.)

- He thinks British people keep being cast as villains in America because their accents sound "cold" next to ours. I'm still pondering that one, because I don't agree with it.

I also chatted for a while with renn, brewsternorth, prof_pangaea, calapine (the two latter not recognizing me at first because I haven't cut my hair in a year!), and borrowed a sharpie from taraljc to write my screenname on my badge.

On the way back to the room, I also ran into jigglykat, nnwest and dark_aegis; hopefully we'll find time to chat today.


This morning, I ran into Tony Lee in the lobby, complaining that he'd heard about Black Friday and wanted to see helicopters and ambulances and insanity. "Instead, I came down at 6 in the morning and all I see is Rob [Shearman] - and he's not even on sale!" However, when he discovered that he could buy new waistcoats at JC Penny... and that he could get there by walking across the parking lot to the building with JC Penny written on the side of it - he went off happy as a clam.

(I checked out the sales myself; although I find the mall more than a little disappointing, I am now the possessor of a 60% off pocket watch with a nice blank metal case... that won't be blank forever...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/27/christopher-eccleston-john-lennon-bbc4

(I can totally see this, btw, but...my brain...!)

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody who celebrates!

I spent mine with my Boy, miss_arel, and narsilion, piro2247 and the rest of the family. It was very nice, and there was lots of good food and conversation. Added on top of a night out with tavern_wench1 last night for food and drinks and lots of laughing hysterically about the absurdities of our current writing projects (and also surreptitious giggling about the two mid-life-crisis junkies at the table next to us and the MySpace addict 21-ers at the bar on the other side), and I'm feeling full of the thankfulness. Grateful for Boy, grateful for awesome friends, grateful for fantastic family, grateful for kitties, grateful for job... all in all very happy. ♥

...And now I really need to go try to catch up on my writing. ;)

I have to giggle. My aunt's girlfriend never has a problem with my daughter's name, but 9 out of 10 times, she has to think before she says mine!

I'm old enough to remember the tail end of what I'll call "1980s futurism." I'm sure it has a better name -- labeling it "1980s" doesn't quite fit, as the earth-tone Future of wall-mounted computers, automated home grooming devices, lunar vacations, and commuting via monorail dates back at least to the 1950s. But I grew up with it in the 1980s, and that seems evocative enough for many people.

And while it's probably just childhood nostalgia, I miss that aesthetic. Living in our own dystopian tomorrow of Apple stores and Juicy Couture, I can't help but feel it would be 10,000 times more amazing to live in one of these than in the grandest of McMansions. There's something comforting, on a generational level, in the thought of a sunken living room with rubberized orange walls and a giant picture window looking out over Mare Tranquillitatis. That's the sort of future I demand, not this consumerist worldline in which opiatic entertainment technologies dominated the last twenty years of development.

Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of the technologies we've gotten out of the entertainment boom. I find my iPod indispensable, and the internet consumes more of my time than I'd rather admit to. But come on, who would take an iPod over these totally sweet outfits?

I wish I were an artist or an animator or a movie producer with access to the best set design and CGI money could buy. If I can't live in such a future, I would like to be able to crank out the imagery. There's an entire subgenre of sci-fi for those in love with the alternative futures described by Verne and Wells. There's been a quiet resurgence of Buck Rogers and Edgar Rice Burroughs as well. But the only revivals of the 1970s/1980s futurist aesthetic that I've seen have been in album covers or satirical internet videos. The Venture Bros. features the look, but only in the context of the remains of the bombastic futurists' failure. I guess one could argue that the Star Wars prequels represent a more polished version of the aesthetic, but the charm isn't quite there. The charm is in the lack of polish, the pointless blinking lights and knobs, the decadent fabric of the lunar love den.

Present:

Mom
Dad
Me :)
Roo
queenmidalah
Dem
gotbunns
Tom
Mom-Mom
Mark
Elena
April
Butch
Bryan
Jeff
Alex
Michelle
Ro
Mary
Brittney

Dinner!

Shrimp
Deviled eggs
Chips
Turkey
Ham
Broccoli raab
Vegetable medley
Corn
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Stuffed mushrooms
Baked ziti
Biscuits

I know I'm missing food items from this.


Dessert:
Too many! I think there were 10 or 11 desserts, plus the fruit and nuts that went out in between courses!

Thanksgiving lunch went well. Grandmother gave me the remnant of my great-aunt's embroidery materials, consisting of a medium-sized hoop, a cigar box full of floss (hiding one needle), an iron-on pattern of three birds in a tree and some pillow cases with a cross-stitch design already ironed on them. I thanked my grandmother repeatedly for what I truly felt like was a gift and she was just happy to be rid of them. I showed her my work but never expected any praise from her and wasn't let down.

The meal was excellent, enhanced by the fresh sage my sister brought from Maryland and the dry brining efforts my mother and I attempted to enact, though I feel like the end product was kind of mixed due to my father deciding on his own to throw the bird into the oven without consulting anyone. Late yesterday evening the turkey oven bag swelled and sprung leaks, dripping too-salty fat into the oven and causing a lot of smoke. My parents managed to get fat poured off and partially reserved but my father repeatedly said it was too salty to use. Had the turkey been wiped clean of its brining per directions and placed in a clean oven bag properly prepared as my mother and I talked about, this might not have happened. As it was the dark meat was extremely moist and the delicate flavor of the brining spices came through. My mother ended up using chicken broth where she would have used turkey drippings in other dishes. Nothing was too salty.

We cleaned up and sat around for a little while before getting into a couple of hands of Skip-Bo. I won the first match pretty handily, and my sister won the second after being stalled in her progress for most of the game. Despite winning she didn't seem to recover from this, first telling me that I was difficult to play with (but not explaining what she meant by that) and then complaining vigorously that there wasn't enough to do around the house despite the fact that we just got done putting on a feast and entertaining our grandparents. I had changed clothes, thinking I could relax once my grandparents were gone. She left with my brother for a supposed bike ride (all manner of discussions about what to do next floated around, from seeing a movie to connecting with her best friend) and I talked to my mother about this. It seems like we are boring to my sister and there's nothing we can do about it. My father and I are unemployed and money is very tight. My father seldom feels like going anywhere and my mother is either not interested or bound to do whatever my father does. My brother only wants to do what he wants to do, when he want to do it. I told my mother that I didn't think anything would change until I was working again and my mother replied that it wasn't all about me before leaving. I feel badly now, because I guess it sounded like I was being totally myopic. The fact is that I can't wait or expect my father to get a job first. I have to take control and do everything I can to be useful to my family, which includes being a good companion to my sister when she is here.

No sooner had I sorted the contents of the cigar box by color, tossing out the too-short odds and ends and spare wrappers (WHY YES I AM BORING), that my siblings returned saying that the bikes my brother hasn't been using needed adjusting an couldn't be ridden. Suddenly she was ok with us throwing together a platterful of leftovers and watching 90% of the second season of The IT Crowd (::joins la_bien_rose in the Richard Ayoade fanclub::). My sister passed out and slept through part of the fifth episode so we didn't finish the season. My brother switched to Modern Warfare 2 before calling it a night as he has an early shift tomorrow at work.

I came up to my room and made a quick-feeling $3.50 on KGB. The $60 mark is easily in sight, but November earnings aren't disbursed until 12/17, three days before my brother's birthday, eight before Christmas Day, and eleven before my last student loan check of the year is due. I need to make up a holiday greetings flyer for the paper route and I need to keep applying for jobs, and I need to think up questions to ask the MPR woman Sensei put me in touch with months ago but only now is getting back to me, but I have to force myself, because it all feels so hopeless. Nothing I do matters. Last year I was so pumped for Christmas. Now I only feel dread and shame.

Now to cleanse with music before bed.

• 11:22 Well, happy thanksgiving everyone! *lemming* #
• 19:35 I'm going to participate in black Friday tonight! Will not be getting to bed early as so many stores I watch are West coast! #
• 19:35 ONLINE! Black Friday - online! #

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This ends at midnight on Friday! Everything in my XStreetSL store is 50% off!

https://xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&MerchantID=54246

At midnight, it goes poof!