Mike Pirnat

I’ve discovered that Claire responds really, really well to “The Ballad of Serenity” as a lullaby. (That’s the theme song from Firefly in case you didn’t recognize the title.) I’ll sing it softly to her at bedtime or naptime as I hold her and then transfer her to the crib, repeating it as necessary until she drifts off. After three weeks of this, she’s learned to konk out within a few minutes with hardly a complaint.

I feel like I need to mail a check to Joss Whedon or something.

claire, firefly, sci-fi

My recent vacation photos hiatus is in part due to spending last weekend being all responsible and grown-up and stuff–Laura, one of my nieces, came to visit us for the weekend. Note the use of the word “my,” a big step for me, as for most of the past seven years, the girls have been “Liz’s nieces.” Maybe they’re just growing up to the point at which I can relate to them, but they’re really, finally feeling like family.

So! Laura braved the increased airport security, water bottle fascism and all, and arrived last Friday. Liz picked her up, and after getting settled in at the house, took us all out to lunch at Phnom Penh; to my amazement, Laura loved her loath chha! That evening we hit our local Winking Lizard and then went out to Will Farrell NASCAR movie (hilarious, recommended), got ice cream on the way home, and stayed up far too late playing Munchkin. Saturday we caught up on “Monk” and “Psych”, then went out to friends’ for their Wild Game BBQ, where there was much delicious food, frosty beverage, and wacky croquet fun, then zipped down to Blossom to chill out under the stars and experience the Cleveland Orchestra playing the scores to Bugs Bunny cartoons (and incidentally seeing a lot of folks that we don’t always bump into). Sunday we had brunch downtown, spent a few hours at the science center (note to self: don’t try the “virtual hang-glider” right after eating…), tried to get Laura hooked on “Firefly”, and played a lot more Munchkin and Apples to Apples.

Laura was up and out the door early on Monday to get to her flight on time; by all accounts she made it back home safely. I’m still trying to wrap my head around her pronouncement that I’m “an awesome uncle,” but for the most part I guess that’s pretty cool. The entire experience has left me a lot more optimistic about the idea of being a parent, a mental paradigm shift that is simultaneously comforting and scary as hell.

cartoons, cleveland, concerts, culture, family, firefly, food, games, liz, movies, music, tv, weather, weekends

I’ve been totally stressed out by work lately, which means that, at some point, my head exploded and I found myself with a desperate need to play with Photoshop for a while. Thus: a crapload of new LJ icons!

Art of Noise x3
Mike Oldfield x5
Firefly/Serenity x9
Princess Bride x17

Art of Noise
(because I had no music-related icons)

Mike Oldfield
(because I had no music-related icons)

Firefly/Serenity
(because I just can’t get enough)

The Princess Bride
(in honor of Valentine’s Day)

Typical LJ netiquette applies–please credit me in your userpic keywords or comments if you snag any. Enjoy!

art, firefly, geekery, livejournal, movies, music, photoshop, science-fiction, serenity

Now that I’ve gotten caught up on my huge backlog of email, it’s time to close some tabs and share some links, because it’s more fun than doing anything productive. Submitted for your approval:

Chunk Norris Facts will teach you all sorts of interesting things about Chuck Norris; for example, “the chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.” Not to be missed.

Learn all about sushi with the Sushi Eating HOWTO. (Kind of self-explanatory.)

Can’t get enough “Firefly?” I certainly can’t. Check out Escape Key’s “Mal’s Song”, an expanded version of the “Firefly” theme. It’s a bit filkier than my tastes usually run, but I’ve gotten it stuck in my head anyway. Plus, if you didn’t fill your belly with sushi (see above), you probably have room for a tasty Fruity Oaty Bar!

When you’re done watching the Fruity Oaty Bar video (and putting the MP3 on a loop for a few hours; don’t be embarrassed, it’s perfectly normal), some of you might be amused by IBM’s Linux cartoons. While I was entertained, my inner shareholder wonders how much they paid for those.

Transformer di Roboter present “Stranger in Moscow”, a musical gem that uses the Macintosh startup chord as its bassline. No, seriously!

Retrievr lets you search Flickr by sketching. It’s wickedly mind-blowing!

I hooked up my new keyboard (a Christmas present) today to see how effective I’d be at typing without any labels on any of the keys. It turns out, with the exception of well-formed (aka tricky) passwords, I’m quite good with it. I also really like how different regions of the keyboard have different resistance to touch, so your hands get a good feel for what keys are what as they are being struck. The only thing that kind of pisses me off is that the Scroll Lock and Caps Lock lights don’t seem to light at all (the Caps Lock would probably be helpful, don’t you think?), and the Num Lock light seems to be flaking out–typing causes this LED to flash and sometimes go completely dark. I guess I wouldn’t particularly miss these if they went away, but they are kind of annoying and really detract from the overall quality of the keyboard. Alas, I think my search for a new “perfect keyboard” must press any key to continue… (Time to find someone who makes a USB equivalent of the old Apple Saratoga keyboard.)

Finally, Minifesto is a cute tool for making animated icons out of your favorite snippet of text, suitable for generating excellent customized LiveJournal icons.

computers, firefly, food, geekery, humor, links, linux, livejournal, macintosh, music, serenity

I’ve found myself not listening to my iPod as much over the past year or so, even though I love it and it has done more to preserve my sanity at work than any three other gizmos, and I lay the blame on headphones. I disliked the original iPod earbuds (uncomfortable, crappy); my over-the-ear, fold-up replacements sounded great and traveled well, but were painful to wear with glasses (which is to say, they were always uncomfortable), and the wire flaked out last spring; the series of cheap earbuds that followed were both uncomfortable and flaked out quickly. I won’t do the gigantic, over-the-top-of-my-head style headphones because they either don’t fit well, don’t sound good, or are too expensive (*cough*Bose*cough*)–plus I’m more than a bit sensitive about my hair, and I hate things that squish it.

So Liz wins first prize this Christmas for dropping a pair of new headphones in my stocking. I’ve been dubious of in-ear headphones for a while, but I have to admit that these have really surprised me with how much I’m enjoying them. They sound great, and the bass is shockingly full. They seal out the exterior world quite nicely–I find the office’s white noise to be almost deafening when I remove them to head off to a meeting–and I’m able to turn the volume way down and still enjoy listening. They’re comfortable enough that I can wear them for most of a day and not feel any fatigue or discomfort. Plus, Target had them for a price far lower than what’s suggested on Sony’s online store.

As a consequence, I have been listening like a fiend this past week; highlights include:

The Signal, a podcast about “Firefly”/Serenity that I’ve subscribed to but haven’t listened to for several months. If you’re turning into as much of a “Firefly” geek as I am, then you’ll probably enjoy this–news, interviews, music bits, episode reviews, and even lessons on useful Chinese phrases (such as “the explosive diahrrea of an elephant“). And it’s strangely shiny to have my usual mish-mash of NIN and VNV Nation interrupted by an hour of sci-fi geekery.

Seu Jorge – The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions. Seu Jorge, from the cast of The Life Aquatic, covers David Bowie songs, translated into Portuguese, and plays acoustic guitar. Yeah, exactly. This is a transcendantly interesting record, its excellent novelty value far surpassed by how downright good it is.

The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan. Every now and then, I break down and pick up something “popular” and “mainstream,” and this is one of those occasions. I must confess, I hadn’t even heard the White Stripes until their recent “Daily Show” appearance. This album is warm, bluesy, raw, and a damn lot of fun, and I never expected a glockenspiel to rock so hard.

VNV Nation – Pastperfect. Okay, so this hasn’t left my iPod since I originally fell for it, but the live version of “Electronaut” came around on shuffle play on Friday afternoon, and with the deep bass and sealed-in feeling I get from the new headphones, it was mindblowingly awesome at a level only second to being at the live show last summer. This track sounded so good that when I closed my eyes, I was transported to a place of serious ass-kicking goodness, a sort of glorious EBM nirvana. Most excellent!

Okay, enough for now — I have to get up early for jury duty in the morning (whee!).

christmas, firefly, liz, music, science-fiction, serenity, vnv-nation

I have occasionally been bored enough or in need of something completely different from my normal mode of being focused on code and servers and misbehaving software. When it gets really bad, I end up staying up too late playing with Photoshop.

A couple months back, I did a few Nausicaa icons; last night I was overcome with the compulsion to do some Firefly/Serenity icons. For those who haven’t seen Serenity yet, do note that some of them may be borderline spoilers.

Nausicaa

Serenity

Typical LJ netiquette applies–please credit me in your userpic keywords or comments if you snag any. Enjoy.

anime, art, firefly, geekery, livejournal, movies, nausicaa, photoshop, science-fiction, serenity

For ages, I have pooh-poohed Joss Whedon’s “Firefly”, thinking it a silly trifle of network TV, the kind of thing that can’t stand up to “real” sci-fi. “It’s no ‘B5′,” said I, despite how my coworkers tried to change my mind. Then the trailer for the movie arrived, and I started to wonder what I’d been missing all this time. And then I bumped into the Serenity in LEGO, and I thought, Damn, that’s pretty neat. There might be something to this… And then even my mom told me it was outstanding.

So, I figured I ought to watch at least a little of the show before the movie comes out, so that I’m not completely clueless among the throng of browncoats who will surely be in attendance. A coworker has been trying to remember for about three or four weeks to bring in her DVD’s. Finally, the waiting got to be too much, so I broke down and bought the damn thing.

And, I have to say, I was pretty much dead wrong about this show. It rocks! Snappy dialogue, great FX, good stories, a fascinating blend of cultures, top-notch acting… In a way, it’s a lot like Cowboy Bebop, only without the jazz music. And completely, utterly addicting–we’ve watched over half the series since about eight o’clock last night.

So — “Firefly” fans — I admit it! I was wrong! It’s a freaking great show!

firefly, geekery, lego, links, movies, retail-therapy, science-fiction, serenity, tv