Posted by barb on Oct 27, 2004 in
Science Musings There is going to be a total lunar eclipse tonight. It will be visible in North and South America, Western Europe and Africa, weather permitting. If you’re in the DC metro area, there are several places holding observing parties tonight, including the University of Maryland’s Astronomy Department (there’s a list on that site of other DC clubs doing public observationst tonight). I’ll be out on our deck, assuming the clouds ever lift.
Space.com has more information on lunar eclipses in general, and this eclipse in particular.
The last time there was a total lunar eclipse visible in DC, Andrew and I were at the Alexandria Symphony, where, oddly enough, they were performing Holst’s The Planets.
Posted by barb on Oct 27, 2004 in
Random Thoughts Rarely does Apple really annoy me, but iDVD is one instance. I’ve been putting together a slideshow for my parents to play at our second wedding reception in Minnesota in a couple weeks. Between iPhoto and iDVD, this is a very easy task on a Mac, unless you’re trying to use an external DVD writer.
I’d been playing around in iDVD with several slideshows of the wedding imported from iPhoto, and had the DVD exactly how I wanted it. I inserted a blank DVD into my external Lacie drive (which I’ve been very happy with, by the way), and tried to click on the “burn” icon in iDVD. … Nothing … Hmmm … maybe I needed to click burn before inserting the disk. … Nope … that didn’t work either.
I googled “iDVD Lacie” and found several discussions, the upshot of which was that iDVD doesn’t work with external drives (Apple itself does not produce any external DVD drives), and that it’s Apple’s fault, not the external drive. That’s a pisser.
I whined to Andrew, who found a hack within a few minutes. There were several reports of problems with the hack, but more reports of the hack working well, so I decided to try it. Fortunately it worked, and I haven’t found any ill side-effects just yet. I’m still miffed at Apple. Come on people, some of us don’t realize that we need a DVD writer until after we’ve been using our new systems for a while — it’s just natural to get an external drive at that point. Do you really want to alienate us??
One other irritation with iDVD — each slideshow is limited to 100 photos. I had a great wedding ceremony and reception one put together, and it truncated it just after we arrived at the reception. I had to break it up into three different slideshows, plus, since there is a 6 slideshow limit, I had to eliminate the slideshows from our honeymoon and of the girls and I getting ready on the wedding day. Oh well…at least I have my DVD ready for my parents.
Posted by barb on Oct 26, 2004 in
Pictures 
Yay! Thanks Crash and Mushi! They’re going to be even more beautiful tomorrow when a few of the blooms open up.
Posted by barb on Oct 25, 2004 in
Memes, Etc. For years, the only other October 25 birthday I knew about was Picasso…not terribly exciting. But today I checked out the Yahoo Birthday page, and found that I share my birthday with Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson‘s voice) and Ed Robertson (of Barenaked Ladies).
Though, according to the Yahoo birthday page, October 25 might not be the best day for happy history…
- In 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died
- In 1918, the Canadian steamship Princess Sophia sunk, killing nearly 400 people
- In 2002 Senator Paul Wellstone (MN, my home-state) died in a plane crash
- In 1999 Golfer Payne Stewart and five others were killed in a plane crash
Let’s have some happy news!
Posted by barb on Oct 23, 2004 in
Movies 3.5/5 stars
Without too much reflection, this was a good, suspenseful movie, well-suited to the big screen (I suspect that it would lose a lot on a TV screen). The build-up worked well, and if the promos hadn’t given away one of the best moments, it would have made the entire audience jump. The conclusion, however, was unsatisfying. Neither my husband nor myself could exactly say what happened or why. And, upon further review of the plot over dinner later, we discovered that much of it just didn’t make sense. Of course, that’s okay, as long as we weren’t thinking it during the movie…
Posted by barb on Oct 22, 2004 in
Movies 3.5/5 stars
This is one of those classics where everyone knows the story, whether or not they’ve seen the movie — a man and his wife and child move into a secluded hotel as caretakers for the winter. The isolation starts to get to the man (that, and the “ghosts” in the hotel), and he starts to go insane.
It was hard to forget The Simpsons take on this while watching, so I had some ideas what was coming. Having said that, this was one of those great suspense-building movies that would have been sooo much better on a big screen (and without my husband asking if I wanted some pudding just as we got to one of the most suspenseful scenes…)
Posted by barb on Oct 21, 2004 in
Random Thoughts Yeah, I know.
But it’s just been blah around here lately, and there hasn’t been much worth blogging. I’m not having any brilliant thoughts — I’m just getting stuck in traffic jams (a 2hr 20min ride home last week, and a 1.5 hr drive in this morning), playing with pictures from the photographers for the wedding, going to a craft sale to get Christmas presents (and a few things for myself), stressing about my job, working on my thesis, and just generally lazing about. I’ll try to do or think something interesting soon…
Posted by barb on Oct 18, 2004 in Uncategorized
Last night as I was getting ready for bed, my vision started getting fuzzy. Migraine sign! I kicked Andrew into the other bedroom, popped three Excedrin, placed a folded-up pillow case over my eyes (even the dim light flitering in through our blinds from the street lights was too bright), and fell into a deep sleep.
Usually I get migraines either first thing in the morning or in the afternoon (if I skip lunch). When that happens, I sleep for a few hours and scare off the worst part of the headache. In the evening, though, I’m completely useless — my head aches (but not as bad as a full migraine, if I get to bed early enough), the room spins every time I move, and my brain is in a general fog (Maggie and I call these symptoms, taken together, the “stupids”). Fortunately, though, by the next morning I’m fine.
You might think, then, that a night migraine would be the best, leaving the stupids to be slept off. Wrong. In the case of a night migraine, I have the stupids for the entire day, the headache is generally worse, and I get nauseous from being dizzy all day. That’s where I am now. Ugh.
Posted by barb on Oct 17, 2004 in
Movies ??/5 stars
I’m not sure what to say about this one. Overall I didn’t really like it — much of what happened was incomprehensible, the story jumped from point to point, completely losing it’s focus throughout much of the film, and it was quite dark. On the other hand, it was great to see Meg Ryan in something other than a romantic comedy (yes, I know she’s done a few others, but I haven’t seen them). This was a gritty, lusty, and dark film that we don’t usually see the likes of Meg Ryan in.
Posted by barb on Oct 15, 2004 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This is certainly better than the crap we saw last weekend. At it’s most basic, this is a Cinderella story. However, it’s wrapped in a fun cloak where Cinderella..er.. Ella is given the “gift” of obedience at birth by a fairy. This means that Ella will honor any direct request made of her.
It was entertaining to watch Cary Elwes playing the evil regent running the kingdom until his nephew, Char, could be coronated — he obviously had a lot of fun with the role.