Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Darwin Award winning App

For the Darwin details.
And its Free!  Wow. For only nothing you can, on your android, iphone, and blackberry (get them while they last), an app to put you in the running for the Darwin Awards: or how to die in the stupidest manner possible.  Especially, apparently for lawyers (I was giving the Lawyers Weekly the once over when I found this):  Text'n Drive. Yup.  Once more for those who really want to apply now: Text'n Drive.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Anticipation

 In the late winter, hummm, about February, there was a CBC interview on Q with P.D. James.  Delightful.  I love Unsuitable Job for a Woman.  I also love Pride and Prejudice.  And oh, amazing, P.D. James had written Death Comes to Pemberly. Oh, goodie.  Finally a sequel worthy of Jane.  I had great imaginings.  I order the book from the library and settled back to enjoy the anticipation of the coming read.  I got to enjoy it for months.  Who would die?  What new characters would I meet.  Had Elizabeth brought Darcy to the point of being able to laugh at himself yet?  How would they solve the murder?  It was great.  I must have imagined the book a dozen times.  And then it came.

What a disaster.  Same characters.  Elizabeth had become uptight rather than Darcy more relaxed.  Much time was spent reminding me of what happened in P&P, as though I had never read it for myself, or watched endless tv productions.  You really must try the 1940 one with Greer GarsonDeath Comes to Pemberly is, in short, deadly dull.  I couldn't even finish it.

All that anticipation for not you are thinking?  Au contraire (that's French for 'on the contrary', if I may quote Jasper Friendly Bear).  The anticipation was delightful.  I enjoyed that book for months.  Instead of a quick partial read of a disappointing book, I got months of enjoyment.  Wait for it.

Friday, May 18, 2012

educating repair

Or, what I learned today while repairing a book.  And trust me it is a lot easier to repair a book than figure out why your CSS is not rending properly on the website you are designing for your mother. But I digress.  Today I am repairing torn pages on Remedies in International Human Rights Law.  The 2005 version.  I open to the torn spot, my flimoplast* to the ready and discover that should I loose my ability to 'flip the bird', I can claim over five thousand dollars.  Mind you, that finger your grade school teacher used to point at you, the one your mother told you never to use... that one will net you seven thousand on a trade in you would rather not make.

* ® P  (an extremely delicate translucent repair tape for tears.  It is used by those of us who have not mastered the art of gluing the edges of a tear together with just the right amount of the right kind of glue to make the tear disappear for ever.  Poof.)

Monday, May 14, 2012

Where the Wild Things Are

Some of them ain't here anymore.  Sigh.  I just got the news.  In that library there, yes, that one on the left there, I went as a small child and asked the librarian in that magical place in the basement for 'that book', the one about the monsters.  And she knew excactly what I was talking about.  And just last week I discovered the document archive site documentcloud.  Just cruising around in it I found a letterhead that Sendak made for the Cedar Rapids Public Library.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

today's count

A perfect Saskatchewan summer day.  Sunshine, warm, dry, windy.  Shorts, barefoot in the grass, straw hat.  Two gophers, one in a hole a few feet from where I sat who began to get used to the idea I was there.  A big orange bumblebee.  A dragonfly.  The daycare kids in bright colours like flowers.  Blades of grass showing lime green in the sunlight. The leaves budding out, turning the trees a hazy green. The smell of them, still sticky and sweet.

Monday, May 7, 2012

backup plan

I had intended to put the original spine back onto this book, but the leather's age and creak, even with a new backing, was not going to take that curve. Soooo, I scanned it, tried to get the colour to come right, but I apparently need practice with that, and created a new spine.  I glued it down onto a piece of spine cloth to strengthen it, folded over the ends and then proceeded to pry the already mended book covers away from the spine.  I spread glue in between the cover and the spine cloth previous attached for the mending of the spine and slid in the edge of the new spine.  Wrapping round, I did the same to the other side and voila, we have the new, if a bit green, spine.

For the sake of historical accuracy I am, of course, building a small pocket inside the back of the book for the original spine.

Friday, May 4, 2012

out of luck

For many years now the Universe has communicated with me via pennies. Yup, those small round coins, different from all our other coins, and apparently so expensive to make. Sigh.  Pennies have popularily been considered lucky, and in times of trouble in my life pennies have turned up in the oddest of places.  I'm not talking just the odd penny on the ground where you would expect them to be, but odd places.  Three sitting on the floor outside my room at college during a romantic break up. One in the mail slot during the same time.  One outside the place I now live each time I came to see it while deciding to live here.  I have a pile at home that is well past the twoonie point and each has had some meaning attached to its presence.  And today the last penny was stuck by the Mint.  Sigh.  What will the Universe do now?

Use nickles, like the rest of us.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

today's count

The first thing I noticed was that the leaves are budding out on the crabapple trees, right out around last year's fruit.  The second thing I noticed was evidence of dog walking without benefit of baggie.  But then I realized there was just too much around and that it was actually evidence that Templeton may live in hope of another egg. There was a plane, two dogs with two owners, a group of big rocks on one of  which I sat to eat my orange. I think they must be for some new installation in the statue garden.  Note to self, if taking up stone engraving make sure what you write is legible. On the way back: a big fat robin, a baby gopher, and a large family of Hutterites out for a picnic.  And still bits of blue sky left over from the glorious visit from the sun this morning.