Ramblings and webcomics from LeEMS
So…I am establishing a stronger connection (I joined instagram) with my phone and I realized that I have a whole heap of photos from multiple trips over the past year that I have neglected to share with you. So, I will be sharing these in short gallery releases. Stay tuned!
BTW, I got to go to the Kraemer Copyright Conference this year. It is in Colorado Springs, just across the valley from the Garden of the Gods. The campus has an awesome, if distant view that I got to peak at during the day while I planned my walking trip.
I went up to Ohio for a family reunion, and, though all my family komme aus Ohio for three or so generations now, I was surprised by differences in local customs I had never considered.
| Ohioans | Floridians |
| put french fries in their salads
have ice damaged roadways have too many geese have an ice cream shop on every corner |
put fish on our salads
have road gators (e.g. truck tire tread) have too many bugs have a coffee shop on every corner |
previous travels: Photomap of Dallas trip for ALA
A historical art exhibit, rendered in colored drawing, capturing the perspective of a famous writer. What more could you want? Source: What Jane Saw
I saw on the DVR that the next recorded episode of Stephen Fry in America was going to include Florida and I thought, ‘heh, I wonder what awfulness he’s going to find there.’ Not long ago I was actively looking for opportunities outside of Florida, and I have never been a fan of the traditional Florida fare of sunshine, beaches, mice, and water sports (citrus, I like). Maybe because I have since settled down in my birth state, or maybe because it is my birth state, I was a little disgruntled when Mr. Fry’s primary visit was Miami, and his primary reaction was understandably scathing. How, you might ask, can I be disgruntled when I understand his reaction? Well, he visited Miami. Except for The Golden Girls, there is and has never been anything tied to Miami that could entice me to visit there. It’s like having someone come visit your house and they only see the inside of your garage, dented, stained holiday decoration boxes and all.
–by the by, I am in entertainment consumer love with Stephen Fry; as in, I love to consume and am terribly entertained by all his writing, speaking and acting.
So, partially as an exercise in state love, which I am still new to, I started wracking my brains for the bits of Florida that I’d rather have been seen by Stephen Fry. What I realized, is that the bits of Florida that I think make it great are withering away. Fewer and fewer of the quaint and wholesome tourist attractions of a hopeful postwar (WWII) U.S. can still be found in our tropical peninsula. They are slowly making room for the attractions of today’s tourist.
Case in point: Cypress Gardens. I remember Cypress Gardens as a bright, hot, floral and fragrant fairy land of leisurely enjoyment. As a typical American little girl, I was in awe of the pretty ladies who twirled their gigantic ball gowns into perfect circles of fabric as they perched on the green green lawns of the gardens. At the time of my visit, Cypress Gardens was still doing well, but was most definitely the day trip that grandparents took their grandchildren on. It was of their generation. And, while they tried to pass it on to a new generation, most grandchildren, me included, didn’t spare it a second thought until it was too late. Now that I’ve come around to my grandmother’s way of thinking, Cypress gardens has been swallowed up by LegoLand.Continue reading For the love of Florida
Mapping Emotions in Victorian London is a crowdsourcing project designed to expand possibilities for research in the humanities. The project has invited anonymous participants to annotate whether passages drawn from novels, published mainly in the Victorian era, represented London places in a fearful, happy, or unemotional manner.
I have decided that Australia is the best place on the planet to find inventive utensils. It all began with a Kick Starter campaign for the ButterUp. For those of you who keep actual butter in their fridge and not spreadable margarine, you are familiar with the bread destroying inflexibility of the chilled substance. Many of you may have moved on to French butter keepers. If you are a Floridian, you may have tried French butter keepers and found our humid, fertile environment too mold rich for this method. You face a dilemma.
After the ButterUp, what flatware collection is complete without a spork? I tend to make a lot of chili and stew in Fall which are both too meaty and chunky for spoons and too liquidy for non spoons. A spork seemed like the best solution, but my initial searching found only camping utensils and collapsible picnic ware. I wanted a table top edition, something that could fit in with the rest of my flatware. I found Splayd Utensils.
Some people say that the spork was invented by General MacArthur while he was in the pacific (“Spork’s Weird History” on Salon), others trace the roots of the spork to icecream forks and runcible spoons. Whatever the true past of the spork, the splayd was invented in 1940 by Bill MacArthur (explanation for the General MacArthur myth?), who apparently wanted to save ladies and their tea dresses from balancing plates, forks, and knives at outdoor barbeques. Splayd Utensils are a beautiful step in the evolution of the spork. The straight edges aid in cutting without being sharp or dangerous when using the utensil like a spoon. The bowl is a little shallow for good liquid retention, but it does the job. I found a used set that, like the picture, has a very angular design. New Splayd Utensils are a bit curvier and can be ordered from Australia.
Last, but not least, and, I suppose, not really a utensil is the Memobottle. This is another Kick Starter that I found answered a very specific question: how to properly organize a bag that carries your files, your laptop, paper, tablet, etc., things that are all flat and rectangular, with a water bottle as well? The answer is to make the bottle flat and rectangular. I know there are many of you who never encounter this problem, who do not attend academic conferences or corporate business retreats. You may not need this, but everyone else, all you paper pushers, should seriously check it out when Memobottle is finally made available for purchase online.
So hey, I went once again to the International ILLiad Conference in Virginia Beach. I think I have at least two pictures of the giant Neptune statue from every year that I’ve gone. That equals a lot of pictures. This is one of the best though.
I am getting into the frame to finally give my time travelers, Clement and Rosalie Skitt, their own comic. And then I saw, in my RSS feed, a picture from the amazingly inventive and fantastic Miguel Marquez’s Outside.
What could I do but scour the internet for more evidence of time traveling. My first stop, was my favorite convenience store, the Echo Park Travel Mart. After which I spent some time reading up on all the Evidence that Time Travel Is Happening All Around You (on i09). Which led me to The Mystery of John Titor-the realest time traveler the web has known yet. Go and read, ’cause it’s fascinating!
