Coraline

When I got to see Neil Gaiman in Philly, started to get excited about the movie Coraline. Gaiman talked about it, we got to see the trailer, and I was with such a large population of rabid fans that it was impossible not to get excited. So, the Coraline movie website is up, and it's pretty impressive. I've read the book, of course, then listened a couple of times to the audiobook, which Gaiman reads.

FAS & Musicophilia

"Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is a speech disorder that causes a sudden change to speech so that a native speaker is perceived to speak with a foreign accent."

Wha...?! I've never heard of this. It's rather interesting to read about. It makes me think of Oliver Sacks' book, Musicophilia. Lo and behold, there's a website for Musicophilia. There are videos of Sacks talking about some of the cases he discusses in the book. (Sacks is a neurologist; the movie Awakenings was based on his book of the same title, and his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is very much worth reading.) He talks about amusia, the inability to recognize music as music -- instead, music just sounds like noise. And synesthesia, and music therapy.... Lots of interesting things which are much more interesting coming from him.

Some podcast recommendations

Quick and Dirty Tips has several podcasts; the one I've enjoyed is Grammar Girl -- check her page for some grammar tips and links to the podcast. You can also sign up for her e-mail list, which is also fun. Other Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts are listed, from Mighty Mommy to The Digital Marketer. I've not listened to anything but Grammar Girl, but thought I'd let you know there's other stuff there in case you think I'm weird for enjoying grammar.

Another fun word-oriented podcast is Podictionary, "the podcast for word lovers." Each podcast looks at the etymology of one word. The podcast is pretty short but guaranteed to make you say, "I didn't know that!"

Not so interested in this stuff? Give Agatha Christie Radio Mysteries a shot. Search for it in iTunes if you'd like -- that's where I usually get it. Now it appears that this website is the same thing, but I can't swear to it. It's a really cool production some of Christie's mysteries, with great actors involved, not just some dude/chick reading from a book. Although, for a dude who does a great job with that, check out The Classic Tales podcast and extra stuff available on that site.

As long as I'm listing podcasts I listen to regularly....

Anything Ghost -- Lex Wahl reads paranormal stories sent in by listeners. There's some fun creepy stuff, and Lex's voice is really easy for me to listen to.

Dean Koontz -- Unlike his books, his podcast is pretty free of creepy stuff. I enjoy the stories he tells about the publishing world, and he is a big dog lover, so his dog stories are always fun to hear.

Coraline & Knitting

Hmm. Appears there was a contest for knitting patterns related to Neil Gaiman's Coraline? Curious, curious. The gal who did the pattern says she saw Mr. G at a signing where he was reading from The Graveyard Book and there's a photo of it as well. Now, I saw him in Philly on Day 2 of that tour and he had a broken finger on his right hand and couldn't sign. So. Why's he signing in this pic? Curious, curious.

By the way, the aforementioned knitting site also includes free patterns. Now, I can always count on Gaiman's blog/journal to have lots of good links and info, but this is the first time it has led me to cool knitting stuff.

Post-Halloween Halloweeny Shtuff

This made me laugh out loud: The Onion News Network doing a news-program-esque discussion, "Has America Lost Sight of the True Spirit of Halloween?" One of the people says she asked her nephew if he knows why he wears a costume for Halloween. She and the others are appalled that he said he does it for fun and for candy. She says, "He didn't even know that it was to protect his virgin spirit from the wretched dead that roam the earth one night a year to steal souls."

And, uh... since I posted the link for Neil Gaiman's website, you've been checking it daily, right? Riiiight? Well... you could check it now for some fun with a spooky song. And I know I haven't yet done the proper hooting and hollering for having been able to see him (yes, him -- Neil, the Neil Gaiman) in Philly. But I saw him on day 2 of the tour for The Graveyard Book (think of The Jungle Book only... not a jungle), which means he read Chapter Two. At the reading, Neil (can I call you Neil?) had us all say hello to posterity -- his reading of the chapter was filmed and is up for free, there with his readings of the rest of the book. I know day one was in NYC. Folks... these are long videos. But Gaiman always does a great job reading his own stuff.

The Night Sky

Currently, I live in a house. This means that taking my dog for a walk is not an absolute necessity -- all dogly activities can be done in the backyard. Until recently, I lived in a 3rd floor apartment. There was no getting around the need to take the pup out, at the very least once a day (if one or both of us happened to be terribly ill) or twice a day (if it was a strangely busy day). Usually, though, we were outside walking at least 3 times a day.

Eight years of these dog walks, along with my general interest in the night sky, has led to me having some basic sketchy knowledge of the night sky. I get excited in October, because Orion starts showing up at night. Orion's where I started... following his shoulders upward toward Taurus; following his belt downward toward Sirius....

I know I've checked HubbleSite before. But, obviously, it's been quite a long time since I have. The site's incredible now! Lots of gorgeous photos, lots of info. There's a video series called Tonight's Sky that'll show you special things to look for each month. November's not up yet, but October is. (Okay, the narrator's voice is... excessive. But it's still fun.) Oops. I lied. November is there.

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and it's high time I mentioned it. The goal, should you choose to go for it, is to write a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November. Writing daily, that's 1666 words a day.

I discovered NaNoWriMo two years ago, on about November 5th. I made some effort at fiction, but it didn't last long. It was uncomfortable and certainly absolutely horrible writing. So... I decided to just write. No fiction, no plot, no story. Just me and my thoughts. I had fun with it. It seemed like I did a heck of a lot of writing, but I think it was about 25,000 words, which is rather short of the 'official' NaNoWriMo goal.

The fellow who founded the thing, Chris Baty, has a book (and more than that) entitled "No Plot? No Problem!" Check out the NaNoWriMo site if you're at all interested in writing anything. Maybe sign up. Maybe give it a shot. There's lots of encouragement available, and lots of fun.

Expert Village

I had thought of offering a link to Expert Village because I can get lost on that site, and it seems they have lessons on virtually anything you're interested in. So, I fired up ye ol' browser and headed that way. 15 minutes later, I realize I've gotten lost on there again, this time watching a guy give lessons on playing the didgeridoo.

I've made some attempts at improving my knitting in that I had only really used straight knitting (no purling, no increases or decreases)... which meant I could only make square or rectangular items. Not very impressive and not very exciting. "Continental knitting," where you hold the yarn around your left hand fingers while knitting was what I figured I ought to do as a leftie. But I was seriously trying to complicate it. Looked up knitting on Expert Village, and the way this woman does continental knitting makes it simpler than I had thought.

Zoo trip

I went to the zoo today with family folk. As we got to the panda area, I found myself telling the story of the YouTube video of the sneezing baby panda. Obviously, a story about it can't do it justice. The vid becomes all the more fun when you watch actresses in nun habits reenact the panda sneeze. AND, as one funny video leads to another... here's a monkey with a mirror. And the final video I was trying to describe whilst we were at the zoo is an elephant playing soccer.

Two fun music videos

I can't explain why I enjoy this so much; it's from a guy who does a video blog on YouTube and there's something about this song that has me going back to it now and then. Guy's name is Tommy Wallach, song is Elodie.

This other one - Jason Webley's Eleven Saints - had been posted by Neil Gaiman on his blog/journal. On my first listen, I thought, "Alright, this is cool." The second listen, however, started this addiction process.... Free MP3 of the song is there too.

Wow. My last post was 5 years ago! I'm surprised blogger didn't decide to boot me for lack of use.

I've been doing a lot with Facebook of late, but thought I'd try to get back to some blogging since you don't have to sign up to read this (you do have to sign up and make an account to see all the Facebook stuff). So. Here's hoping I do some more posting than in the last 5 years :)

If you don't do Facebook, you might have missed the addition of a new nephew! So here's a pic of Eli for you.