her own eyes

Harry, however, had never been less interested in Quidditch; he was rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy. Still checking the Marauder's Map whenever he got a chance, he sometimes made detours to wherever Malfoy happened to be.

Posted by almeda at 2:02 PM | Comments (10)

July 15, 2005

i remember your eyes that unique shade of brown

Someone in Saudi Arabia searched for "sexy america" and found my site. I know it's so because StatCounter would never lie.

And just look at what other keywords people have used!

slutty kate [#5 on google]
cinnamon vomit
subversive badge lanyards
80s band legwarmers u-penn
happy bunny underwear,hipsters
pee in eyes

I love the Internet.

I also love how on The Libertines' song "France," you can hear Barât breathing in between the vocals. It's fab.

Posted by almeda at 4:28 PM | Comments (5)

July 14, 2005

blogging geek!

How exciting is Movable Type 3.2 beta? Very!

I also love that even though my trial period of Fetch [FTP client for Mac] ran out, I "purchased" a free license because I'm a college student. Gangsta!

And of course, that's how I uploaded MT 3.2.

Fan girl's delight tomorrow night! <3

PS: I finally caved in and called the College Board for my AP scores. For $8, I learned that I don't have to take the Freshman Essay Evaluation [even though I already registered because I was too lazy to call for my scores last week, before the registration deadline] because I scored a 5 on the English Literature and Composition AP test! And I have 18 units of general elective credit now because I also got a 5 on US History. Cha-ching! Not surprisingly, I got a 3 on BC Calc, but a subscore of 4. I don't really know wtf a subscore is, but 4 is the cutoff score for calculus credit, so perhaps there's something there? Most likely not, but fingers crossed.

PPS: I entered the HASS-D lottery this afternoon.

Top six choices:
21H.104 Riots, Strikes, and Conspiracies in American History
21F.064 Introduction to Japanese Culture
SP.401 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
21L.015 Introduction to Media Studies
3.986 The Human Past: Introduction to Archaeology
24.900 Introduction to Linguistics

The best part? No quizzes, mid-terms, or finals for the first four. HOLY FUCK. I just realised I meant to have Introduction to Anthropology, not Archaeology, as my fifth choice. Hopefully it won't matter, but why am I too stupid for MIT?

WAIT! Because I didn't leave it until the last moment, I can go back and resubmit my preferences. Phew. Okay, So replace 3.986 with 21A.100 Introduction to Anthropology. All is right with the world again.

Posted by almeda at 4:11 PM | Comments (2)

July 13, 2005

Follow-up

The fabulous Lin Gyi came through with a detailed account of Sunday as well as an assortment of pictures, with some cute ones as well as the obligatory embarrassing ones of me.

You can also check out my awesome tablet drawing skillz by looking at this picture, which is nearly exactly the same as the one I drew yesterday. Mostly.

Also, we were looking at this book at the museum and I pretty much love everything in it. Why am I not a Japanese youth?

Posted by almeda at 2:27 PM | Comments (4)

July 12, 2005

who does yr / who does yr hair?

This Sunday I woke at approximately 8 o'clock. Or: I woke up at 8 o'clock on Sunday. Or: even though it was the weekend and I'm a godless heathen and I could have bally well slept until noon [and beyond!], I got up at eight bloody o'clock.

The reason was to shower, dress, & eat breakfast before the 8:53 train that I was catching to go to the Philadelphia museum of art with my friends. Even though the art museum is open until five on Sundays. Even though the art museum doesn't even open until ten on Sundays!

So, with my wet hair in a lovely kind of Victorian bun on top of my head, I arrived at the Roslyn train station about five to ten minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive. This kid was there in Gryffindor colours, even though he claims to have never gone anywhere near the books. And of course my darling little friend, who claimed she would have pictures up by now, but still hasn't, was there. Plus the organizational genius & teh U-twins. & my ally M.Cass was soon to arrive.

So we're loitering at the train station, when some literate person in our group reads some of the literature SEPTA posts to give you something to do while you wait for a train. There are shuttle buses between Glenside and Wayne Junction, due to construction, and the next train isn't coming until 9:30. I.e., forty minutes from that point in time. Cha-ching!

Cue waiting for a gajillion years, made slightly better by jiving to Lin's iPod [except I have a short attention span, so I would listen to five seconds of a song, then go onto the next].

At last the train arrived, I praised Jesus a few times, and we boarded. Took over the end of one car, purchased tickets, and rode the train to Glenside, where I saw my brother & my father preparing for Boy Scout Camping Trip Extravaganza. I banged on the window of the train, but I guess it wasn't loud enough. They didn't notice.

At Glenside, we were forced to get off the train and board a bus. Which made me want to stab myself in the face. EXCEPT! The bus ride redeemed itself because it was a double bus with that accordion bit in the middle so it can go round turns, you know? So we sat in the seats in the accordion bit, that slide around when the bus makes turns and it was nearly as fun as an amusement park ride. We threw our hands into the air when we turned. Good times, good times.

After the bus had shuttled us to our destination, which wasn't really our destination, because we had to get back on a train, we got back on a train. And sat there not moving, due to some malfunction. And they had to fucking call a mechanic or something and we sat on the train for EVAR & AFINITY. But praise Jesus, I had my cell phone, so I played a little mini!golf with M.Cass. And Lin shared her iPod with everyone. And Lin&Matt tried to sing the Elephant Love Medley, except I knew the words better than her even though I didn't have the earphones in. Because I am a Moulin Rouge! guru. \m/

And praise Jesus, at last the train started to inch forward. And at last we arrived in Suburban. [After M.Cass & I threatened to get off at Market to eat in Chinatown because I was absolutely starved, having ate breakfast a gajillion hours ago.] So we walked to the art museum from there, which wasn't too bad. And I cursed Sylvester Stallone as we scaled the zillions of steps to get up to the top.

The art museum was one of the more pleasant parts of the day, being air conditioned. I was guilted into paying three dollars for admission, even though it was technically "pay what you wish," and I would have wished less because I'm a stingy bastard who hates the arts.

So we explored the Indian temple and the Japanese tea house and looked at weapons and lots of pictures of Jesus dying [the monotony broken up by random saints with large cleavers embedded in their heads], breaked for overpriced lunch [which was def. not 'pay what you wish'], then looked at Quack Quack Quack; some art that wasn't medieval, but wasn't quite contemporary; Fashion Favorites [which was a small room in a corner with about five dresses in it, a couple pairs of shoes, a few corsets, and some accessories, including sleeve puffs]; then contemporary art, including a random film by Yasumasa Morimura.

And M.Cass asked me why our female peers among the museum guests gave me dirty looks when they passed me, as if I had slept with their collective boyfriend. Which I think she might have imagined, because I didn't notice. But if her keen eyes saw true, it was probably because I was looking superfoxy in my modded t-shirt.

I was feeling particularly inspired Saturday morning, so I took one of those huge t-shirts you get for free but never wear except maybe to sleep in because they're unattractive and not form-fitting, cut out the collar so that it falls sluttily off the shoulders, then turned it inside out and sewed down each side & sleeve, about an inch in, so when you turn it back outside out/inside in, it's not so loose. I = DIY punk rock sewing goddess. Talking of DIY, I also cut my own hair recently— well, trimmed— and kind of made parts shorter than other parts, so it's a little bit layered. \m/

Note my fabulous ruffled skirt that Hannah adores so [although I'm tempted to never wear it again because Lin said she saw a similar one in, of all places, Banana Republic], my ballerina-style faux-Converse [not so much made for walking; multiple blisters will result by the end of the day], my slutty black bra, my slutty pink cami, my slutty hoop earrings, and my spectacular chunky white choker. And loose belt for the pirate look. Why do I love fashion too much?

And the tee, for those of you who must know, is a peer mediation shirt & says PROJECT PEACE and has the Abington logo [and all the Abington schools listed on the back], as well as assorted other random text, like WE CAN WORK IT OUT! MEDIATION SHOWCASE. But you mostly can't read it when I wear it, anyway, because my boobs distort & hide the logos/writing.

And no, that's not supposed to be a Victorian bun; I change my hair a lot when I'm bored/nervous/self-conscious. So that's a low ponytail with pieces of hair falling out in front because they're too short. Gangsta.

But back to Sunday. After museum!funfun-a-gogo, some lunatic had the bright idea to walk to Reading Terminal Market [approx 1.5 miles or 2.4 km]. I bought a Power Rangers Dino Thunder popsicle outside of the museum before we started walking [or rather, as they started walking], because I was the only one among them who had a childlike sense of fun and appreciation for delicious frozen treats. Except it was the most ridiculously huge popsicle you'll have ever seen and it made me feel slutty eating it, so I walked behind everyone else, so they wouldn't see me eat it.

Passed a couple fountains on the way, but was forbidden to take shoes off and wade in by fascists in group. Or I was too lazy to ask. They probably would have given in. When we arrived at Reading Terminal Market, we read the door that said OPEN MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY. And died inside. Or perhaps that was only me.

So then Lin was like BURMA! and she led us on a roundabout route through Chinatown to Rangoon, where two ladies she called "Auntie" [whom I suspect were not in fact her aunts!] served us Faluda/Falooda [none of the recipes you'll find googling either of those will quite accurately describe what we had]. Ice cream + syrup + tapioca pearls = bon. Weird gelatin strips = not so much.

Perhaps the gelatin went to their heads, but at this point, certain people decided, in order to have a proper cultural exchange, we would have to take Lin to Pat's for a cheesesteak, because she had never had one. These certain people pretended it was just a little walk to Pat's from MOTHER EFFING CHINATOWN. Foolishly I followed them. And because our fearless leaders were stupid boys, it was me who txted Google for the exact location of Pat's. And it was me who called my mother so she could mapquest it because we had already walked ~20 blocks without finding it. IN PLUS NINETY DEGREE WEATHER.

So with that 1.5 miles under our belts, we decided the extra block to Pat's might as well have been the entire Sahara bloody desert, and settled for trudging into line at Geno's. Having not much room for hunger, as was experiencing overwhelming combination of thirst, irritation, and suicide-might-not-be-so-bad, I bought a mandarin Jarritos at the place next door so I wouldn't feel guilty sitting at one of their tables, since Geno's tables were all full.

Lin had a bite of her cheesesteak, naturally thought it was vile, and exposed the goal of our hike for the pointless sham that it was. My mind numbed from exhaustion, I was then tricked into thinking we might walk up to Broad St. to catch a bus. It was not to be. When we reached Broad St., my evil torturers cried, "Look, it's not so far. William Penn's RIGHT THERE [=1.5 miles away]!" And we walked.

Why I didn't collapse to the ground and refuse to go anywhere until someone called a taxi, only the virgin mother Mary in her infinite wisdom & patience knows. My only consolation was a photograph of pretty boys kissing I'd torn out of PGN, but I didn't want to have pretty boys kissing permanently associated with sore feet, so I used it sparingly.

We took a brief rest at a Banana Republic, so that Lin Gyi could find out that it was closed, and finally made it to Market East, with just enough time to run down the steps and hop on the train that was already in the station and nearly pulled away without us. [Fortunately I had wished on a wishie that we would arrive at the station at just the right time to catch a train.]

After another bus shuttle trip, we arrived in Glenside, and went our separate ways, promising to reconvene at Lin's for swimming and Moulin Rouge!-watching [inspired by our earlier musical interlude & the fact that two of our number had never seen it & that Lin Gyi allegedly hates Baz Luhrmann & that everyone else realises it's pretty much the best movie evar].

I went to M.Cass's cousin's graduation party with her, because that's what good friends do, and then it was swimming! Which was vairy plaisant, but somehow the water was too cold, even though we'd walked far too many miles in the heat [at one point, M&I were actually singing 'I will walk five hundred miles and I will walk five hundred more' under our breaths, but that was before we'd actually walked a significant distance and had our youthful spirits crushed].

And then, at last, we all gathered around the Teevee & Ewan McGregor's earnest voice washed all my bitterness & tiredness & general residue of badmoodyness away.

PLEASE LEAVE YR ADORABLE WIFE & MARRY ME.

Although I suppose I would be willing to settle for someone who is merely a passionate fan and can sing all the words by heart. God, what a fantastic movie. Why is Baz Luhrmann brilliant?

During one of Nicole Kidman's whingy solos, I asked M. why all her songs are so annoying & complainy, and she said because they were the musical equivalent of me. Which was just.

But if you must know, I complain because I care. And because it's a fun creative outlet. So don't take this too seriously. [I'm a generally good-natured person, I swear!]

& a ridiculous amount of props for reading it all! [I tried to break up the epic saga with a picture. Worth a thousand words and all that. I think the double bus, pretty boys kissing, and yr adorable wife links all involve pictures too, if yr eyes need a rest. And if Lin ever gets her act together, perhaps I will be able to provide a fotografía or two as well.]

Posted by almeda at 3:23 PM | Comments (2)

July 11, 2005

teh 1337 misadventures of 4d3m14

These misadventures, in truth, won't be particularly l33t; I just thought I'd make Dan Burd happy with the title, since he absolutely adores teh 13375p34k.

Wednesday. Saw Bewitched, which was diverting. Will F. will always be hilarious and Nicole Kidman had the most adorable skirts.

Thursday. Roamed Keswick with Sienna. Got KJ a headband handmade in Nepal. And two old buttons: McGovern/Eagleton and Paint Your Wagon. Also purchased some saucy chunky bead necklaces pour moi. Two whites, one green. And a fuchsia, but the beads aren't quite chunky. And I had delicious raspberry Italian soda and we started to play chess, but got bored, so mostly just talked. Plaisant!

That evening I invited myself over KJ's and she baked her birthday cake, and then we et M.Cass watched Clueless because that's what girls from the 90s do. Plus a little Sex and the City.

Friday. You know how some people are perfectly nice by themselves, but are terribly annoying together? That's me and Miriam. Continuing the tradition of tormenting KJ [perhaps first started when we stole her green ribbon for our Ralph Nader presentation], we wreaked uproarious havoc at her birthday party. Miriam styled me a fabulous pompadour, and we commandeered KJ's digital camera to take saucy pictures before she stole it back from us and deleted them all. And as she opened her gifts, we read aloud the blurbs from the covers of her new Gracelin O'Malley books which made us rather weep turribly. For we love the lilt of Irish laughter and understand the river of tears that runs beneath it!

Saturday. After running into Miriam at the library and reliving the joy of Gracelin O'Malley, as well as learning valuable tips from teen fashion magazines, I took hairstyles of the damned home with me. See, one time, in a bookstore I saw this novel with bright pink hair on the cover and really wanted to read it, except I'm too poor to take chances on random book purchases. So when it was sitting right there on a shelf in the library, my jaw dropped and I clutched it to my heart. And brought it home and pretty much read the entire thing that evening. And pretty much loved it. And wanted to download every song mentioned in it [and there are a lot and they are mostly punk rock] immediately.

I also watched Monsoon Wedding [another library score], which was pretty much wonderful in its own right. Why is India a thousand times more colourful than Amurka? White weddings? Bitch, plz. What are you thinking about?

Sunday. This might be long and full of complaints. In fact, it probably will be. And thus, merits its own entry, so your brain doesn't overload. TO BE CONTINUED.

Posted by almeda at 2:45 PM | Comments (2)

July 9, 2005

Firefox v. Safari

So recently Firefox has been a little heavy on the rainbow spinny-ness. [If you're a Mac user, you know what I'm talking about.] Like, I'll have a BBC news article open about people killing other people, I'll go away from the window to do something else, then I'll come back, and it'll be "busy." And it takes me forever to scroll down.

So, as a result, I've been easing into Safari. Which has its moments.

Ways in which Safari is superior to Firefox:

Ways in which Firefox is superior to Safari:

So, yeah. I'm rather partial to Firefox, which led me to go through every single step here, as well as try a few additional memory leak fixes. And I think it might be working fine again. Fingers crossed.

And talking of applications acting up, Quicksilver has been randomly generating error reports, but after perhaps the fifth time it shut down by itself, I realised I hadn't updated in a while, and downloaded the newest version for Tiger. Which is muy sexy.

Also: You should probably get Gizmo and leave me a voicemail, because calls to other Gizmo users are free. 1.747.605.3990. <man!voice> Do it!

Posted by almeda at 11:15 AM | Comments (1)

July 6, 2005

A proper Web log post.

Because everyone seems to be paralyzed with fear by TypeKey and my comments have dwindled to a trickle, I've given up obsessively checking for new comments and have had to turn elsewhere for validation. I give you:

It's marvelously delightful and has everything you could want to know about who's visiting your site. For example, I now know that, though too aloof to deign to comment, certain people from Halifax, der Universität zu Köln, Glasgow University, and NEPA [or Hazleton, as StatCounter has it] are dropping by, which makes my heart sing a little.

I've also learned that random people have me on their blogroll, that an unexplained screenshot of one of my older posts comprises the bulk of a post on a random site, and that a random livejournal community has an entry direct linking an image on my server. Okay, so maybe the last one's not entirely random; the name of the community is prettyboys_kiss and the image is of Dom & Viggo, but still. Who would have thought?

And while we're on the subject of random, I was introduced to StatCounter by this post on a blog I don't even read, but on which I found an adjacent post while googling some group of hair-related keywords that I don't even remember.

Talking of randomly finding blogs via google, I found a link to the above on this blog, which I in turn found via this post, which I happened upon whilst googling "think different think sexy," as research for my ipod engraving. [I think I'm going to get this:]

I had originally wanted lyrics or something tolly punk rock, but I couldn't think of anything worthy enough, so after reading this [shut up!], and seeing that someone had "sexy." engraved on his, I was inspired.

And thus ends my linking spree. Except! Jamie of thinkdifferent.typepad [i.e., the "this blog" link] also had gama-go linked, and I pretty much think this tee is awesome. And I might even be able to ease off my pink addiction, 'cause the gold one's pretty sexy. And then of course there is also the awesome unicorn tote.

Ahh, capitalism. [PS: Dalai Lama's birthday today. Free Tibet!]

[And yes, I'm posting at 10 in the morning because I'm off from work today as reward for my ridiculous overtime hours! Cha-ching!]

Posted by almeda at 10:36 AM | Comments (9)

July 4, 2005

ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPUCCINO!

In preparation for my career as fabulous interior designer, I rearranged my room Saturday morning. Inching my monster bed across the room was a wonderful outlet for stress.

Before:

Et voilà!

Then I went and did hike-y stuff with my daddy & sibs. Waded in the Wissahickon. Played pooh sticks.

Afterward we ate at the Farmer's Market in Chestnut Hill. Had some yummy sushi w. sugarless Japanese green tea in a little green can [no sugar = p.m. tasteless]. & absolutely delicious pistachio gelato. So. good!

Watched some of Live8, then Queer Eye for the Straight Guy [<333333], and started to watch Clueless, before M.Cass dragged me from my couch & made me go out. Had some yummy caramel frappuccino at B&N, even though felt v. bourgeois ordering a "tall caramel frappuccino." And was also upset that I didn't notice the green tea frappuccino until after I'd placed my order. Drat them!

But the caramel was v. nice, nonetheless, and we giggled over the first volume of Gravitation. Oho, teh ghey. <333

And yesterday spent a gazillion hours working to get client's user logins configured, except Outlook is p. m. evil. And basically my Indepence Day holiday weekend is crap, but at least I'm getting paid overtime.

Little KJ came home from Iowa last night, so spent some time with her.

Free Rufus concert tonight, but I will probably be too busy grappling with Outlook to go. Damn the man.

Posted by almeda at 2:59 PM | Comments (1)

July 1, 2005

i was born to be a dancer

Celebrated my daddy's birthday last night on the Avenue of the Arts. And was tricked into memorializing the event with my camera phone to taunt out-of-state family members who couldn't be there.

We kind of annexed the two tables next to the one we claimed. And had an impromptu birthday cake made of various Cosi desserts and a pint of Häagen-Dazs. There's City Hall in the background!

And the mayor stopped by to wish my dad a happy birthday. When you live in a small town, everyone knows everyone.

About a gazillion points to whoever can figure out the connexion between the title of this post and my dad's shirt. I'll give you a hint, since it's pretty much impossible otherwise: He's wearing a sports jersey he obtained while in South Africa.

And I'm supposed to blog more, since KT is isolated in Iowa and I am her only link to the real, non-Iowa world. But I really don't have anything much to say. The high today is supposed to be 87. [Do you know how I found that out? My DASHBOARD! Muah.]

Pee-ess: I like how every other post on this page has two comments. It's as though it's implying that you all have lesbian mothers. "Yeah, well yrmoms = 2!"

Pee-pee-ess: I officially don't have tuberculosis. So no tragic Victorian death of consumption for me [à la Satine!].

P^3S: Sandra Day! What are you thinking about?

Posted by almeda at 3:42 PM | Comments (3)