tychoish, now without a net

It’s funny. I write TealArt enters with a very strange intended audience, and it’s an audience that’s pretty darn old. I joined a listserv a little while ago, and everyone on the list is having fun setting up their ‘blogs’ (blogspot affairs), and I feel like a seasoned pro, because not only have I been blogging for a really long time (I think there has some form of CA/TA blog this or blog that for, 5-6 years, maybe more.) This is an exceptionally long time, when you think about the history of the blog. The end result is that I’m writing for a very strange audience: It’s a bit detached and I attempt to establish some sort of authority/legitimacy. I also don’t expect that there are many real people out there, which I know can’t quite be the case, but no matter.

In the past few weeks I’ve spent a very little amount of time/energy/thought, rethinking the way I use my computer. Mostly this has consisted of a lot of observation of usage habits, software usage, and nagging desires for new features/possiblities. While I was in St. Louis I listed off all the applications that I use regularly in a TealArt entry. I’ve subsquently changed everything I said in that entry, because writing that entry started a minor observation project that I’ve been working on to see what I need/want most and what I need to do to get this done.

My biggest change has been a move back to Voodoo-Pad from OmniOutliner, because I feel like I wasn’t getting the most out of the program (I never did get how to use columns, and I always felt like the formating, an aesthetic concern I’ll grant you, would never behave,) this I think is mostly a problem with my brain and how it works in combination with the kind of tasks that I seem to be focusing on. I learned from 43Folders that there’s going to be some sort of Omni kGTD program (a productivity methodology/application) on the heels of being released. Sweet.

I like VoodooPad because it behaves a little better with the formating, and the new version (which I completely missed) has both multiple window and tabbed editing/browsing of your notes which is great. As is the new file format which allows for bigger file sizes and integration of PDF files (so you can have PDF articles that you get from JStor into VoodoWiks. It’s all great. There’s also a feature in the Pro version that allows you to set up an integrated wiki server through voodoo-pad, which isn’t a feature I’m going to need for years, so I am without.

I’ve also decided to give up the ghost on Microsoft applications for Mac, which doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. I’m using my weblog editor (more on that in a moment) and VoodooPad for all of my text drafting, and though I might turn on Office every now and then to create knitting patterns, between these apps and google there isn’t a lot that I could want from Microsoft, and I hate the drain on resources to keep such programs open. Despite the ugly icon, I really want to use Mellel, because it looks really cool, and works pretty good in the demo. The only think I need such a program for is for Manuscript editing (and maybe some basic desktop publishing-type things, how long has it been since someone said “desktop publishing?”). So there’s that.

Zoe, my computer, is about a year and a half now, and I’ve just ordered the RAM upgrade that I promised myself that I’d get a year ago (never buy RAM from Apple because it’s cheaper to buy the same stuff cheaper on your own, but then of course I never do because I’m lazy.) So that’s on it’s way, and I think it’ll make the whole operation run a lot more smoothly. For instance, the computer I had for a couple years in high school and my old iBook both had less ram than this one does right now, for no real good reason. But I don’t think that this entry is really about hardware much, so we’ll save that for another day.

And I think this has taken way too much time at this point, so I’ll go now, and I’ll try and write again very soon

Cheers, sam

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tagged: technology

I don’t want to harp on this overlymuch, as I’ve communicated this little anecdote/personality insight to several of my most prominent readers, but I just wanted to say a few things about my tea drinking habit.

First of all, I have a really nifty stainless steel mug, with a peeling turquoise/robin’s egg colored enamel. I got it after a series of plastic mugs cups broke unceremoniously. It’s once shiny interior has stained wonderful deep brown color that is really amazing. I’ve discovered that this style of mug is called a Malibu Tumbler, and really I couldn’t be happier. I’ve decided that I need to start looking for a replacement because it’s showing some serious ware. Actually it makes a bubbling noise on the bottom sometimes when I poor new water into it. Having said that there aren’t any real leaks, so Its a bit disconcerting. Anyway. Moving on.

My cup is, at this point, a character object. A professor that I have in a lot of class this year, made reference to it in her lecture, (an example concerning color perception). I even cary it around sometimes when it’s empty, because I feel naked without it. So I kind of need to find the perfect replacement, so I’m on the look out. If you have something that you think might be good run it by me. That would be awesome.

Thus far we have only discussed the cup. There is the considerable topic of the consumption of the tea. You see I’ve come to think that my consumption of tea functions like an addiction. Not compleatly, and I’ll argue against this in a moment, so you’re not left with the idea that I’m a raving loon, but hear me out. I have a particular kind of tea that I drink, almost to the exclusion of all others. I orchestrate my daily running about, to classes, meetings and errands around making sure my tea cup is as close to full as it can be. I know where all of the convenient hot water taps are. I have a tea kettle on my desk, and by the chairs that I most frequently sit in. The ritual of having tea and being able to thoughtfully sip it every now and then is calming, and the feeling of discovering an empty tea cup at the bottom of the second hour (or earlier) of a two hour class is soul crushing. I’m happier and function better when I have tea; though this, is likely due to a Ritilin like effect, and is perhaps the main reason for all this madness, because I don’t really need it to get going in the morning.)

So tea is wonderful, basically. The reassurance that I’m not a loon: I tend to (intentionally or not) wean myself from tea when I’m not in school, because the ritual is gone, and I don’t suffer that greatly. Though I am less productive, I think the ritual, not the chemistry has something to do with that. I don’t really need it to wake up, as I mentioned above. As a side effect of the last point, because I don’t need the tea to wake up, I tend to consume more tea later in the day, which means, I can mostly avoid headaches, because even if I get a late start at 1 or 2 with my first cup, I’m usually only 16-18 hours from my last cup.

Is this much thought on the subject itself a sign of trouble. Ah well. At least it tastes good.

Cheers, sam

ps. more content coming soon I promise. I even have a plan!

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tagged: academia

Kiss Me, Charlene

“Yarn: Regia Blahblahblahblah (I lost the ball band). It’s part wool and part polyamory or something like that.”

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tagged: interwebs

Backwards Socks

So here’s this really cool sock pattern. A lot of people have been working on this sock which for the initiated uses a traditional sock heel worked backwards. This backwards sock, uses a normal heel flap owkred in the opposite direction, and really there’s no reason to think that this wouldn’t work, and I think is incredibly clever. I think I know what my next sock is going to be.

Ha!

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tagged: knitting

In the first class meeting of my first class today, I was charged with the task of introducing myself (name/class/major(s)) and the answer to the following question: “If you could be any animal, what would it be and why.”

I was fretting my turn, because I wanted to say something weird, but I was feeling incredibly uninspired at 9:00 am. It came my turn and I just said “cat.”

But there was an expectation of an explanation. Oh crap.

“Because they’re cranky.” I said, followed by a short but awkward pause. Everyone laughed nervously.

“I mean they’re fuzzy and cute, but they have edge. Lots of edge, I like edge. Cute’s good too,” I amended. There was a bit of a chuckle around and by now my turn was over and I moved on.

I love having cats. Minaloush is incredibly cute, but also edgy as hell. She likes to sleep with me, but she also is very particular about how this occurs and where next to me she sleeps. It’s crucial that one sleeps under substantial blankets when sleeping with the ‘loushis because if she decides that you’ve wronged her by rolling over, your leg could become forfeit.

The other thing is there’s this place in the middle of her back that if you scratch a lot, she does this “chin lift” and her eyes close and she smiles, and it’s potentially the most adorable thing in the history of the world.

That is all. More ‘loushisness in the future.

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tagged: academia