The front

The front
Originally uploaded by mrs. tiggy-winkle

This is the bookmark that I made for my friend... The pattern is from Just CrossStitch Feb 2008 edition but is altered to fit the size of the piece that I had of 14 count cloth. And the colours are changed from the pastels and pinks. Original design by Beth Paterini.

Uncultured.com

I cannot believe this. I want to do this myself, to go and give people the things that we need.

the you tube post

thoughts for my youtube post

I have been watching and reading a lot of end of world fiction lately. There seem to be a lot of movies out now, on the big screen and on video about disaster and the end of western culture as we know it.
-doomsday
-28 days and weeks later
-the happening

I guess it all started with Mad Max, but it seems as if there is more and more of it every day. If Hollywood is showing us what we want to see does that mean we want to see the end of the world?

Do we just know that it can't possibly go on like this forever. Eventually we are going to do something to tip the scales.

Does this make it more or less likely that we will change our ways. If we start to accept that the path we are on leads only to death and destruction does that mean that we will only start preparing for the worst without thinking of changing course? Have we as a culture given up hope for the future?

It strikes me that this is very much like art from the dark ages. Its hard to see because there is so much spectacle and ornamentation in everything we do. But really its all the same. Its just a constant stream of despair and resignation.

have you noticed also that most of these movies seem to revolve around the survival of the individual? that there is very little concern for the continuation of the species or the community. No brotherhood of man for us.

My friend who is into new world order conspiracies would probably say its all a big plot to get us prepped for the flying spaghetti monster or what ever it is that is "really" controlling things. I can't really get behind that. it seems like more escapism. if there really is a shadowy cabal of men running the planet they are probably directing the new world order conspiracy sites as well. It might be better to focus on the enemy that we can see (Bush co. only has until november right?) Then to spend our time and energy worrying about the man behind the curtain (if there even is a curtain, the best place to hide is in plain sight)

I believe that popular art and fiction are strong indicators of a societies (cultures... civilizations...) temperature if you will. I am not sure how to go about changing it. The dark age just ended, not suddenly or overnight.... although from our point of view the change is dramatic. It must have come from somewhere, began somehow.

Dr. Bertman told me to tend my own garden. To speak to the multitude and even if only 5 or 6 people in the room are listening and are affected by it at least those people are enhanced. And you have to hope that it will be enough.

mr. t heals coma kid

I'm in love with Mr. T right now. I need to find a picture of him so that I can make a cross stitch pattern.

copyright!

no one steal my idea!

The Great Migration

It all began a long time ago in a land far far away... A young woman opened a Hotmail account, she heard about hotmail from a friend. It was a great way to get email without having to sign up for an account your mom could check. She needed an user name though, and she had just finished reading a cheesy fantasy novel. She chooses the title of the book to be her email address. She grows up and moves away to university, keeping her hotmail account and thus staying in touch with friends old and new.
Then the woman moved far away from home, but her trusty hotmail account stayed with her.

Now enters the evil villain. Suddenly Hotmail isn't hotmail any more its MSN hotmail. The woman is not concerned her trusty p.c. loves MSN messenger, now it will be easier to check her hotmail account and chat with friends.

Until one day the woman has an epiphany. "Good lord Macs are easier to use and hardly ever crash... and they are purty."

Our heroine goes over to the white side, but never fear there is a messenger for macs as well. Granted you can't video chat, but who needs it anyway?

Then one day Window's live arrives. Suddenly she is cut off from all access to her trusty web mail account!

why has this terrible catastrophe happened to her?

Apparently Bill Gates hates Steve Jobs and our hapless heroine is caught in the middle. Since the only website on the internet she can't access is hotmail!

So our heroine moves all her contacts to Yahoo mail thinking herself safe from the dread wizard Gates.

But what news!
MSN is trying to buy yahoo! Who will stop this dastardly plan? Is nothing sacred?

So anyway. I have opened a Shaw email account, and am attempting to move all of my contacts again from Yahoo to the shaw account... Just in case.
I am also thinking of boycotting both Messengers, since no one is ever on Yahoo anyway and I might as well ignore the MSN one if it is choosing to ignore me. Google needs a chat program that I can use to video conference with my Windows user friends and family (with sound) and then all my problems will be solved!

I thought I was being clever by putting my phone on vibrate. That way I could tell if the phone was ringing without actually having a ring.

Instead I fell asleep and the phone fell off the dryer onto the floor and scared the bejesus out of me.

hence the ban on battery operated toys

Maybe I have read too much Frank Herbert in my life but I don't like toys that talk on their own. I prefer the kind of toy that Chloe can explore and interact with on her own terms and will grow and change with her.

For christmas this year we got a lot of toys that require batteries. Some of them are musical, some are educational and some are just plain annoying.

I do not think that I will ever understand the need for a puzzle that makes animal noises.

It has little photo receptors in it, when you put the piece in the hole the animal noise plays. Sadly the photo receptors don't require that the piece actually cover the hole. They respond to lack of light. Hence turning off the lights will cause the puzzle to make an animal sound. This can be especially annoying when one is trying to get a fussy two year old to go to sleep.

This at least can be explained by physics.

Last night the leap frog table, which emits a wide variety of music like sounds depending on which of the buttons is pushed, slid or twisted, started randomly playing the trombone sound. this sound requires the sliding of a do-hickey along the track. Since Chloe and I were the only ones in the house and we were both in the rocking chair about 8 feet away from the infernal thing I have no choice but to assume that my house is haunted. Or the toy is possessed.