Tag: random

Random

1. Today I can’t seem to stop watching what’s going on in Cairo and Alexandria via Al Jazeera. Apparently, this revolution will be televised. I can’t say I have any great understanding of the political situation in Egypt; here are the things that have interested me.

  • The Internet can be shut down, but with a press still able to give us reports through journalists in the field and broadcasters, the world gets news. And even without access to the Internet, Egyptians still manage to assemble to protest. They’re driving between towns and using their phones to organize, and even when there are no clear leaders, they aren’t turning into mobs.

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  • The cooperation between the military and the protesters has shifted the atmosphere from violence to orderly protest. I hope that continues.  Meanwhile, average citizens have stepped in where the police have failed to try to return normalcy and security to neighborhoods (there is looting of and damage to businesses).

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  • Regular citizens are linking arms to repel intruders who would loot and destroy cultural treasures inside museums. It’s moving to see their determination to honor and protect their country’s heritage.

2. It’s 34 degrees here and I still won’t get any sympathy because it’s so much colder/icier/snowier everywhere else.

3. Does anyone else think Lauren Conrad and Kate Middleton look like each other?


Lauren Conrad, Reality Princess Past – Kate Middleton, Real Princess Future

4. The Google Art Project is great! Today I’ve taken virtual tours of the Tate and National Gallery in London.

Confidential to …

Don’t take the silence personally. We simply disagree so profoundly about big things that discussing them is a waste of our energy. I stopped debating years ago. If I have opinions that can be changed, they won’t be changed by argument, but by my intellect and emotion applied to my own life experiences–which is how those opinions were formed in the first place.

Life is short. Use it well and enjoy it!

Random

My love/hate relationship with Facebook continues.

It got really dark earlier–SUPER dark–and I thought a big storm was rolling in. We got drizzle. That’s a lot of drama for not much payoff. Sort of like Facebook.

If I venture out to take care of some errands, the bad weather payoff may come. I will then bitch about that, too.

I’ve been on the phone almost since I woke up trying to take care of scheduling things and returning calls, and each of these calls has been an exercise in frustration. (In fact, I’m on hold right now.) If businesses want to deal with me on the phone, then why is the person I need to talk to always unavailable or “the system is down” or the person I get on the phone has no idea what I’m talking about? Trust me, none of these contacts is with some call center in India. People just don’t have their shit together. Wait–is tonight the full moon? Or was it last night? Maybe I’m dealing with werewolves.

I swear a rat just fell past my window. Maybe it’s like those birds in Arkansas. Rats falling from the sky, John McCain saying nice things about Barack Obama, and me getting nine uninterrupted hours of sleep last night. What is up with the universe?

A Compound bouquet for you, photographed on sunnier days:

Note

I love getting Christmas cards, and I save most of them in a bin in the garage. I do this knowing that one day, a van will pull up and the driver will say, “Get ready, old woman, we’re putting you in Shady Pines.”

I fantasize that I’ll have a chance to go through the card bins first and say, “Who the hell are these people?” Much like what happens when people send me Friend requests on Facebook now.

Stupid clouds

I tried, but I’m simply not the master of my camera, and clouds worked as hard as they could to thwart me.

Though very blurry, this gives an idea of the color cast on the moon during the eclipse:

And this is pretty much one of the clearest shots I got with slow shutter speed.

Fortunately, there are sensational photos all over the Internet from real photographers.

Button Sunday

This button is advertised as “I Love Christmas.” But when I look at it, all I see is “I Tree Christmas.” I like “I Tree Christmas” even more and think it should become a standard holiday sentiment. Maybe even a new Christmas song that a different celebrity will record each year. What celebrity do you want to hear sing “I Tree Christmas?”

Chances are…

If you gave me an address any time after January, I probably lost it in the Great iMac Horror 2010. If you’d like to make sure I have a good address for you in my database, and you respond on LJ, my comments are screened so no one will see your details except me. If you’re reading this on FB and want to keep your address private (you should!), you can e-mail me your details at becky(at)beckycochrane(dot)com.

Good thing Santa doesn’t rely on computers to know where you are.