I'm dog-sitting for a friend this week. There are two dogs. One of them is terrified of fireworks - I mean, so terrified that one of the medications I have on hand is a sedative. This is the week before the fourth of july, after all. The RX label says "give one pill two hours before fireworks." So the fireworks will be easier to take, heh.

Books: Hoping to make some progress but not feeling very inspired.

Books: Writing group tonight. I haven't been very prolific these last couple of weeks, so I did a quick edit on the story I started the other night in the middle of my insomnia. For some in the group, they have never really experienced science fiction. One woman said, "At first, it was all so vague and weird, and then as I went further the beginning part started to make more sense." Yeah, that pretty much sums up science fiction short stories. I asked their thoughts about an awkward transition and they said, "Well, it depends on where you're going with this...."

I wish I knew.

I watched Swan Lake tonight on PBS. It's a performance by ABT (American Ballet Theater). Mostly I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They had informative, interesting interviews/comments at intermission and nothing really dragged.

What I disliked is some of the choices they made about camera work and transitions. They would sometimes cut away from a dancer before they finished a particularly difficult combination, or go close on one dancer when there were two performing together.

Also, some of the transitions and scene changes didn't make it clear how they managed the changes on stage - the audience didn't see that crossfade or pan.

These may only be quibbles because I'm interested in the minutia of the performance. I'm guessing people with no dance background wouldn't notice. Overall it's a good performance and a good show. The dancers are technically excellent, the costumes are wonderful and the staging is impressive.

Everything you expect from ABT.

I'm looking forward to the Batman movie. Hope springs eternal, I guess. Maybe this time they'll get it right. I think the intent was there this time - I'm just worried the hype will kill it.

Nothing much else to report today, though it was very busy and productive. Oddly enough, I've decided to try my hand at greeting card writing. Maybe it will finally teach me to be succinct.

I have a new favorite artist: Choindongiin Khurelbaatar

Some information about him.
My so-far-favorite image.

I've decided my hobby must be collecting hobbies. I've got the crochet, the beads, the drawing, the scrapbooking, the sewing, the piano, the home decorating, the electronics - and now I've officially added birdfeeders.

And I've got the pictures to prove it.

My friend Adam and I were discussing keyboards the other day (as it turns out, he does use a dvorak layout keyboard) and he asked me about the "s" key. I lost it some time ago in an airport. The story is very uninteresting. Mostly it's about how dumb I can be sometimes.

So then he asks me how I've been typing s's in the meantime, and I explained that I'd just been pressing the little nubbin underneath where the key used to be. I thought I was being all clever and good with the keyboarding skills.

So then he asks me why I didn't just pop off a lesser-used key, such as the function key, and use that key-cap in place of the missing s key.

Honestly, I hadn't thought of it - in spite of the snarky comments about moving key caps around to spell different things on the keyboard.

This whole incident just illustrates one thing - sometimes, I really am that dumb. (But now I'm typing with an s key that looks like it should type a \ or a |.)

Books: The other night I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning writing another short story. It's one I've tried before and failed at miserably. I didn't finish it. I kind of got to a point where I thought "that was dumb. and forced" and I decided it meant I was too tired to be functional so I went to sleep. I haven't re-read the stuff yet. I'm too scared to let it see the light of day. Many times, when it comes to writing, things tend to look worse in the morning.

The URL of the day is for Das Keyboard. I can't take credit for having found this today - I just have cool friends.

Anyway, it made me think of three things:

1) The show-off geeks at my college used to move the keys around on their keyboards - not the functionality, just the printed letters - so their keyboards would have clever phrases in the middle of them. Who me? I never did that... naaahh. Not me....
Especially not at the computer lab I worked in. (most keys pop off quite easily with a butter knife - then snap right back on)

2) I had one professor in college who made the switch over to a dvorak keyboard. He was a philosophy professor and was convinced it was the way of the future. He and I had debates about how much the manual typewriter tradition would carry over - so far, I'm winning (do _you_ have a dvorak keyboard? do you even know what I'm talking about?) but I think the bet goes out another 40 years or so.

3) I'm still missing the s key on my laptop. It doesn't bother me much anymore.

Books: So far the majority of readers of my shortstory have said they liked it with no complaints. One admitted to getting bored within the first two pages. Another said they got too chatty near the end. So far the science fiction editor hasn't weighed in.

Lucy is here! Lucy Michelle Despain, that is. She's my niece and she's just as adorable as a newborn baby can be. You must go see the pictures at her dad's blog.