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Been feeling horrible the last few days, so haven’t done much of interest. Last weekend we built a little recording booth in the bedroom, on this funky little built-in shelf. I never record in the bedroom because of the server noise, but I put padding all around the walls of the little shelf thing and use my 10-band eq to get rid of the low-frequency server rumble, and it sounds really good. When I feel better I’ll be able to get lots of recording done.

Today finally felt well enough to DO something, so I took H to the aerospace museum and we had a great time. Exhausting but worth it, to look at planes and space stuff with Henry. I really love that museum.

Watched House tonight — Wilson on speed was MOST entertaining.

I recorded two more of the horrid Letters of Two Brides today – Louise’s letters 21 and 22. I hate her so. She’s a repulsive twit. I seriously considered begging some LibriVox Balzac fan to take over Louise’s letters for me, even if it meant discarding all my recordings… but then I counted up the remaining letters and, since I did the last few already (hoping Louise would come to a bad end and she did!) there are only 14 more that I’ll have to read. I guess I can put up with Louise 14 more times.

After I was done with Horrid Louise, I rewarded myself with Chapter 9 of A Room with a View :)

There’s a nice beef stew on the stove with a rosemary ciabatta to go with it, and grapes and cheese for after — smoked jack and a double-cream gouda I found at Trader Joe’s today. Dan and I are both very tired so we’re going to watch Bad TV tonight and laze around. We’ve got last night’s Survivor, and maybe a new Office in the tivo, and two more episodes of The Tudors to go through. We started The Tudors last night and, well, frankly, it’s pretty bad. Tacky. Dan says it’s exactly what you’d expect of Showtime. But, y’know, once you get hooked in a soap opera miniseries you might as well keep going… There are a lot of cringeworthy historical inaccuracies, but then some fun and relatively accurate bits, like the dancing. They must have hired a good dancing coach — looks like proper early English Renaissance dancing to my eye. And Tomas Tallis is in it. Not sure why they gave him a rats-nest hair-don’t (maybe to make him look like a musician??) and of course he conducts by waving his hands around vaguely and making soulful faces, but at least some of the time they use actual period music for the soundtrack and show the musicians playing on proper period instruments. I nearly turned the show off when the Renn Faire groupies appeared, but I gritted my teeth and got over it.

It’s nice to see Henry and his court and family portrayed as real humans. The Henry actor (can’t think of the name, but he played the soccer coach in Bend it like Beckham) is pretty good, though once in a while he reminds us of Ben Stiller (How dare you make me bleed my own blood!). Catharine of Aragon is quite good, as is Anne Boleyn.

There are far too many obnoxious sex scenes. Don’t let your kids watch. Bleah.

Bill Moyers and Jon Stewart have a fascinating chat:
Part 1
Part 2

Thanks, Hugh!

Found this on Wired via Boingboing. Hilarious.

Two pairs of socks and an almost done Tubey!

Henry’s bamboo socks:

Yarn: Regia 45% bamboo, 40% wool, 15% nylon
Needles: 2.0mm brittany birch
Worked on 56 st in k4,p4 ribbing
Toe-up, starting with Judy’s Cast-on
Henry LOVES his bamboo socks. They’re light and comfy, and he can tell everyone that his socks are made of bamboo. I would choose this yarn again in an instant if anyone around here carried it!

My Marra socks:

Marra 70% merino 30% baby alpaca — very felty, wash by hand only!
Needles: 2.75mm brittany birch
Worked on 36 stitches (really — I have very thin feet and I hate baggy socks)
Toe-up, starting with Judy’s Cast-on. Near the top of the leg I increased 4 stitches evenly around one round. I like this method of leg increasing (rather than doing increases up the back of the leg over several rounds). Also used a nice jogless join up the back of the leg.

Tubey progress:

Nearly done! Just need to decide on sleeve length and stripes (or not).

I just wrote an email to James Lileks. I’m reading Something from the Oven, by Laura Shapiro, and it seems like a book he’d enjoy — so I wrote and recommended it to him! It feels like I wrote to, um, Jimmy Stewart or someone equally famous and unreachable. Well, Jimmy Stewart is dead, so maybe that’s not a good comparison… Anway, if Lileks writes back I will print out his email and frame it :)

I don’t think I ever mentioned my Lileks dream. One night I dreamed that Lileks and I were watching our kids play in the park and discussing housework. How fascinating is that? Well, at least if he reads this he’ll know I’m not the stalker type. Heheh.

Yesterday I recorded chapter 26 of Etiquette AND chapter 3 of More William. Today I edited/proofed/uploaded those chapters and also did some cataloging. We can now offer you free audio books of Gulliver’s Travels and Stalky & Co. :) Enjoy!

Also fixed Daneesha’s 8th grade graduation dress in the morning, taught two piano students, finished my green and orange socks (photos soon) and made scalloped potatoes for dinner, plus burgers for the guys. Men Like Meat.

I slept well last night! Had enough energy to bake banana bread and vacuum and mop the upstairs part of the house. And I did a little cataloging job for Cori (The Philosophy of Style by Herbert Spencer) Also played WoW with Henry, also made chicken parm for dinner — a Dan and Henry favorite. Dan brought me a wireless mouse which is very convenient for gaming on my macbook.

Oh, forgot to say – yesterday I recorded/edited/proofed all the rest of chapter 27 of Etiquette, which was so long we divided it into 5 sections. Go team kayray!

Reading Book Two of The Fellowship to Henry for bedtime, so he’ll have both halves in mp3. I read the entire book to him on tape several years ago, and then, when the tapes started to go bad, read the first half again into my computer, but then we went on to other things and never finished the second round.

Today, Friday, I have big plans to get lots and lots of recording done. Mom’s not home, Henry’s going to Legoland with friends, Dan’s at work.

So this morning, first thing, a woodchipper started up down the street. GAH. But it’s 11 now and they’re stopped for a while, so I think they might be done for the day. Henry’s friends just came to pick him up. I moved the birds outside. Unplugged the turtle tank filter. Turned off my ringer. Waited for the recycling truck to pass. The garbage truck hasn’t come yet, so I’ll just have to pause for a few minutes when it arrives in our neighborhood.

Ok, time for Etiquette, chapter 27, part 2!

Henry made a blog post, YAY!
http://spaceman3000.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-fable.html

On Christine’s recommendation, we watched Wordplay, a documentary about the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. It was wonderful. Will Shortz, editor of the NY Times Crossword and originator of the Tournament, was featured quite a lot, which was a treat for me — I know his name and voice very well, having been a GAMES magazine subscriber while he was editor and being an NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle fan. I knew Trip Payne’s name too — he’s contributed many a puzzle to the GAMES “Pencilwise” section. I wished the nice pessimistic grey-haired man, Al, had won the tournament.

Watching this movie got us all interested in crosswords. Dan and I worked one in my current issue of GAMES the other night and had the best time together. Today I had to go to the Escondido Barnes and Noble for a new Moleskine for Dan, and browsed through the crossword section, looking for a good book. I wanted NY Times puzzles, of course! Dan’s new at crosswords and I could use a refresher so I didn’t want to start with the Sunday puzzles, but a whole book of Mondays would probably get dull. I found the perfect book:

The New York Times Little Black (and White) Book of Crosswords, edited by Will Shortz

It’s a smallish (7″x6″) spiral-bound hardcover with puzzles ranging from Monday to Saturday, and rated 1-6 “top hats” so it’s easy to pick the proper difficulty. The paper is not the usual puzzle book newsprint, but high-quality, smooth and white. Dan and I worked the first Monday puzzle together tonight and had a ball :) It was hard to stop at just one!

If there’s a piece of music more perfect than the third movement of J.S. Bach’s Italian Concerto, I’d like to know what it is.

Horribly tired. Going to bed with Busman’s Honeymoon. Finished Gaudy Night a couple of days ago. It is impossible to read Gaudy Night without immediately reading Busman’s Honeymoon.

cool thing:
http://twittervision.com/
What will happen as twitter becomes more and more popular? Better be able to read fast.

Jon Udell recently interviewed our own Hugh McGuire for the IT Conversations podcast. We’ve been interviewed quite a lot, but this I believe that this is one of the best interviews ever. I certainly enjoyed listening. Hugh and Jon discuss many interesting aspects of LibriVox that are not apparent to the average volunteer or listener. The interview is here:

Jon Udell Interviews Hugh McGuire

You listen now! (If it wants you to register, tell it “later”)

This is pretty cool:
http://whoissick.org/sickness/
I thought Henry and I were both coming down with something last night (both felt extra-tired and droopy), but we woke up just fine. Yay!

I’m a sucker for Internet Quizzes. Thanks, Ken C.

TV or radio or… audiobooks? :)

Do you Twitter? Let me know, maybe we can be friends.

If you’re an OS X user, try Twitterrific. Very handy.

From the LA Times:

First karate, then bookstore, then home, then lunch, then out to Bayshore for Henry’s classes (theater, mythology, stagecraft). While he was in class I went home, finished his first Bamboo sock, did some proofing/editing of my Etiquette chapter, planned dinner, did housework, taught a piano student, and practiced the piano. Drove back out to get Henry. When we got home he helped me make dinner — stuffed cabbage rolls with his home-grown cabbage! A very tasty dinner.

Still working on improving the kitchen. Scrubbed the cupboard doors today, and moved the baking supplies from the high cupboard to the tall cupboard, where they’re much easier to reach.

I recorded my chapter of Emily Post’s “Etiquette” (The Country House and Its Hospitality). Now I know how we should have behaved in Canada! Heheh. Mostly, though, I learned what Christine and Hugh, as the Hostess and Host, should have done. She should have had her housemaid unpack my things (quietly providing anything I’d forgotten) and draw my bath every morning and bring me a breakfast tray (all the china MUST MATCH!) and provide me with a tin of Pyro for my curling iron. LOL. And Hugh’s valet should have unpacked Dan’s things and taken his hat and stick and drawn his bath (hot, warm, or cold — aided by a thermometer). Gentlemen, of course, rarely care to breakfast in their rooms, so Christine’s cook and waitress should have provided an ongoing breakfast downstairs, ready at whatever moment Dan chose to eat. Boy. Those were Other Times, indeed. :)