The upgrade has gone really smoothly, which was kind of a revelation to me, since that never happens.  I was using Time Machine on the old MacBook Pro to an external hard drive.  While I formatted and put a fresh install of Mac OSX on the new laptop, I ran a final backup on the old one.  I connected the backup drive to my new computer and ran a Time Machine import and….everything *just worked*.  I have had one problem with Aperture, which includes the volume name in the pathing of its files, but a quick Google search put me to rights again.  (Select all of your photos, then go to File –> Locate Referenced Files.  Select one file and then locate it manually on your hard drive.  Click “Reconnect All” and wait.)

My programs are all configured as they were, my shortcuts are in place.  Quicken, despite its usage of resource forks, works.  Unfortunately, the messy assortment of my data is also over in its chaotic glory, so there’s a project to be done today.  Still, I am very impressed.  Apple hardware is kind of scandalously expensive, but you’re paying for some really quality software in that price.

So really, if you’re not using Time Machine yet, do.  I’m impressed.

I’ve been putting some thought into replacing my cell lately, since after two years the Home button isn’t as responsive as it used to be and the whole device has become frustratingly sluggish and I’m due for an upgrade.  I installed the latest iPhone update this morning and it does seem to have picked up the pace again, so perhaps it was just a question of cruft buildup.  Still, I’ve been looking into some of the other phones on the market as a potential.  My phone must be a smartphone with MP3 support and have GPS functionality built in.  I really like the App store and its potential, so that’s another consideration.  I’m certainly interested in Android, like a good geek.  Anyone have recent phone experiences that can help me make up my mind?

I prefer to think I left it someplace - the alternative would be awful, even if there were a lot of strangers in the office that day. Either way, it’s my fault for not being more careful. As I have now just appeased Murphy by canceling my bank cards, I hope that I shall find it shortly in some totally hare-brained place like the freezer. (Which I have already checked. Three times.)

It’s amazing the amount of stress and anxiety that this has caused - though I find that a big part of me is just sad that I lost the actual wallet, because I’d finally found an organizational system that really worked for me. Now I have to go hunting for a new wallet (well, as soon as I can access my bank accounts again and, y’know, buy something), which will inevitably mean buying several that don’t quite work. If you need a new hand-me-down wallet, the time to befriend me is now.

On the other hand, it’s a great excuse to be late with my father’s day present. You don’t mind, do you, Dad?

Horseshoe crabs, that is.

We spent the day on a boat puttering around Jones Inlet, which was developed in the 20s to be one of the more famous bits of Long Island shoreline. There’s an ampitheater and miniature golf and all variety of entertainments that make a day at the beach where you’re stuck with your family a little more entertaining.

It is one of my more favorite places in the world. It is also where they do a huge Memorial Day show with lots of fighter planes. Unfortunately, getting good photography of fighter jets while on a bobbing boat is more or less impossible, as both move at a rather rapid pace. (There was Ginger Ale. Oh yes, there was. Puking was avoided.)

Still, there is something about being underneath a fighter jet. They move so much faster than the speed of sound that I kept getting confused and looking in the wrong place. We weren’t close enough to really appreciate their acrobatics the way that people on the beach undoubtedly did, but it was still pretty awesome.

After a while, we ran the boat over to a little island that’s mostly underwater at high tide and jumped off for a little wander. I took my camera, which is when we met these two fellas. The beach was covered in horseshoe crabs (two of which we interrupted in coitus, oops), many of who had landed the wrong side up. As seagulls rather enjoy the delicacy of horseshoe crab gills (perhaps it is the seagull version of goose paté?), we helped a few of them out by returning them to the sea.

This weekend I went to the Hallockville Fiber Festival, which is an excuse for knitters and spinners and other fiber nuts to get together and swap stories and goods. It was held at the Hallockville Museum Farm, which is an old farm with dedicated buildings to weaving and spinning. I watched a demonstration on weaving, which I’m afraid I have a terrible interest in, and a demonstration on fiber punching, which is something I don’t. But it was still pretty interesting to watch bits of fiber turn into actual sculpture.

There’s a whole lot that can be done with the fleece of a sheep.

There were a gazillion spinning wheels, which was terribly tempting, because I rather badly want to get into spinning. I just can’t pick up another hobby right now, but I think that I will get one this winter, once the kayaks are put away. There’s just something so peaceful about the motion. I imagine I could find it equally as compulsive as I find knitting.

But the day was gorgeous and being out in the country, while still on the same island I live on, was really quite wonderful. Even if it did mean adding to my yarn collection, which was not even remotely necessary.

On Saturday, I took the train into Manhattan to take a professional test.  Having passed that and acquired some new letters after my professional signature, I went over to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.  I made it there five minutes before noon, so snuck in through the gates for free, which was nice.  It was a beautiful day and I snapped a lot of photos.  My best one was of a bee landed on an ornamental onion, but now that I’ve looked at it on a computer, I can see some areas for improving.  So I’m thinking about whether or not to go back this weekend and try again with a little more knowledge.

Sunday I took my new kayak out for her maiden voyage, which was a great deal of fun until the wind picked up.  It was at this point where being on an inflatable boat wasn’t such a great thing.  I paddled myself over to a beach and was resting (and waiting for the wind to die down) when another kayaker decided I needed rescuing.  It was a little silly, since I could have easily deflated my kayak and walked back to the car from where I was (perhaps 300 feet away from where I’d parked), but I hitched a ride back and had some fun kayak conversation.  I have blisters now, because I stupidly forgot my gloves,  but the freedom of moving around on the water was just amazing.  I think I’m addicted, which is unfortunate, because I’m meant to be training for a bike ride, not a paddling event.

They do have kayak races in my neighborhood, though…so it might be worth thinking about for next year.  With a hard shell kayak!

Actors, is there a name for this old style of acting? The conventions are hilarious.

Of course, the films that I’m watching are the ones that have survived through the years and have made it to DVD. I never studied film in school, other than one art history class that was a survey of Korean film. (A class in which I learned that Attack the Gas Station! is actually a remake.) I know very little about cinematography or film history. But still, I find I’m enjoying the look back at, what is to me, a very foreign time and place. It’s similar to when I watch foreign movies, where I only understand the cultural references because I’ve studied the time and place. And yet, I’ve been picking these movies because I want to understand the references of my own culture. Grace Kelly, Clark Gable, Sidney Poitier, Gloria Swanson, Ava Gardner — all names I’ve known for years without faces. And now I’ve got the reference.

It was awesome.  I wish I hadn’t been too exhausted from actually biking 42 miles to take pictures.  Riding through the neighborhoods of New York was like walking through the memories of my six years here.  And,  being me, I naturally had to careen through the 42 miles at a speed that was far too fast to maintain, so I ran out of steam around mile 30, but forced myself though the last 12 miles anyway.  By mile 42, I never wanted to see a bike again and somehow managed to fall asleep on the Staten Island ferry while holding my bike upright.  Today I’m looking at joining a cycling club.

Still, my favorite New York moment on the ride came when someone cut me off and clipped my front wheel.  I managed not to go head over handlebars, but I did slide off my pedals onto the ground, so I stopped in the middle of a crowd of bikes.  Somewhere behind me, someone shouted out, “Hey!  You’re supposed to stop on the *side* of the road!”

Boy, do I love this town.

Last Thursday night, I sat down with my little family and watched Ninja Assassin, which was precisely as good as you’d imagine it to be.  (A coworker wonders why they cast a Korean pop star as the awesomest ninja of all; I wonder why we cast American actors as South Africans.  But neither here nor there.)

But this movie drew on so many How Not to Make a Feminist Film tropes that I just couldn’t stop laughing.  So, young women, if you want to know what it’s really like to be a professional (ninja or otherwise), let’s watch this movie for some lessons.

Lesson One: You might have good ideas, but your boss will only listen to them if he’s attracted to you.  He’ll even tell you so, at which point you will blush and lower your head, while prettily thinking about how much you’d like to stick a knife in his guts for belittling you, if only you didn’t need to pay your mortgage.  Except in real life, your boss probably won’t look like a movie star.  Sorry.

Lesson Two: Even if you are kidnapped as a child and raised in the super secret ninja assassin school, you will be the one person not hardened by years of psychological abuse.  Girls are made of sugar and spice.

Lesson Three: Even though you’re an okay ninja (for a girl), having been raised to be one from birth and all, you’re going to be the one who just can’t hack it.  So you’ll run away, get caught and be murdered.  This is absolutely critical so that you can be avenged by our hero, who we know is worth cheering for because he didn’t just like, forget you existed after watching you get murdered, because he’s a super special dude.  You’ve served your purposes…and with about six lines of dialogue!

Lesson Four: If you’re an extra and you have boobs, you’re also going to be murdered.  Because only real big jerks murder women, children or kittens.  So it helps prove that the baddie is a real baddie with an absolute minimum of creativity.  Next time, bring kittens.

Lesson Five: Women are inherently good.  Of the two, count ‘em, two women in Ninja Assassin that actually get to speak, both are recognized for being “different” and “special”.  That’s what happens when you can only hire two women for the fifty roles in your movie.  Being average is something that can only be achieved by people in greater numbers.

On one hand, Ninja Assassin was awesome in fulfilling the ketchup blood spewing quotient– so don’t accuse me of having a dislike for the genre.  I like watching the human body being pushed to extremes and doing it gracefully and beautifully.  Martial arts films tend to be pretty awesome that way.  But for the love of all that’s badass and ninja, give me a little original plot, would you? ]]> http://www.ordinarycanary.com/?feed=rss2&p=301 http://www.ordinarycanary.com/?p=297 http://www.ordinarycanary.com/?p=297#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:15:42 +0000 Charlotte Oliver http://www.ordinarycanary.com/?p=297 Last night I dreamed of knitting as a type of personal hell; the stitch was stockinette, which references a project I’ve been working on that makes me dislike knitting.  Stockinette, stockinette, rows and rows of endless, never changing stockinette.

But stockinette is the perfect stitch for dreams.  In dreams, your brain often goes over the same thing repeatedly to help you process and solve problems.  Most dreams are actually quite boring, which is part of why you don’t remember having them — just like stockinette!

I’ve picked up another knitting project to keep me sane that is lace knitting, which is the polar opposite of stockinette.  It makes me like knitting a lot more.  I’m a challenge knitter, which is to say that if the project isn’t frustratingly difficult, I really can’t be bothered.  Some people like rows and rows of stockinette, but it’s purgatory to me.  It makes me feel like I’m running and running and getting nowhere, which is kind of what dreams are about.  Except that it actually does get you somewhere, because you wake up with the answers to things you were thinking about the night before.

Isn’t the human brain neat?

At least for a while.

But see, now it’s April, which means we’re nearly through the school year.  I’m planting my garden.  I’m working like a dog.  I’m nurturing all over the place, which means this journal too.  I never have more creative output than in April.  It’s the weather - the promise of something good coming, but still too erratic to actually plan anything.

April is a time of promises.  And so, I promise you, dear reader (if there’s any of you left after such neglect), that I am going to try and put up at least a post a week.  Because that really shouldn’t be so much to ask, should it?