Happy Spring!

Eclipse

The moon turned red the other night - it was eerie and beautiful. I've seen it a couple of times in the past, but this was the first time I'd seen the entire phenomenon without any ambient city lights.

The first time, several years ago when I lived in Starkville, I found out it was going to happen from a story on CNN. The boy and I drove out into the country, trying to get away from the city's glow. We drove and drove, until finally we ended up on a tiny dirt road surrounded by empty fields. It was perfect - it reminded me of home. The boy, however, was uncomfortable - he was afraid something was going to happen to us out there on that deserted country road. I tried to assure him we would be fine and to get him to just watch the eclipse, but he was nervous and antsy. We'd been there about fifteen minutes when a truck drove past us, and that was all it took - he refused to stay one more minute. We headed back to Starkville, with me watching the eclipse through the car window as we drove.

The second time was a few years later - I watched it with some friends from the sidewalk in front of their apartment.

This time, though, we were at my parents' house, so far away from civilization that the darkness presses in on you at night. We watched most of the eclipse through a haze of cloud cover, but at one point the clouds broke for several minutes and everything became clear. The moon was surrounded by dozens of stars, all twinkling and shining more brightly than usual. It reminded me of the perfect night skies created with special effects in movies; I had never seen anything like it in reality.

None of my pictures came close to how it actually looked.

His.

"I reached for his hand, and sighed when his cold fingers found mine. His touch brought with it the strangest sense of relief - as if I'd been in pain and that pain had suddenly ceased."
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"It was very strange, for I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect - not healed, but as if there had been no wound in the first place."
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"And the last seven months meant nothing. And his words in the forest meant nothing. And it did not matter . . . I would never want anything but him, no matter how long I lived."
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-Stephenie Meyer, Twilight series

Shining Armour

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived all alone in a horrible cave, so far from home it made her chest hurt. And every day in that horrible cave, the girl tried to figure out a way to escape. None of her plans ever succeeded, of course, and she'd almost given up hoping, when one day, just like in a fairy tale, a handsome man rode up on a horse and saved her, and took her back to his castle. Now you'd think that was the end, wouldn't you? Dumb old fairy tales and their happily ever afters.

But see, the minute they got back to the castle, the handsome man went away again. And even though she didn't mean to, didn't want to, high up in that castle the girl just built herself another cave. Hoping he would save her again.

But you can't save me this time, can you?"

-Fred, Angel Episode # 49: "Fredless"

Random Links

How to make a Han Solo in Carbonite Chocolate Bar at Instructables. Awesome.

Completely smitten with this Resin Skull necklace from Vivre. At $550, though, it's begging to be DIY'ed.

Jan von Hollenben's fanciful, deceptively simple "Dreams of Flying" series is one of the most creative photography concepts I've seen in a long time.

The casemod to end all casemods - Datamancer.net's amazing "Nagy Magical-Movable-Type Pixello-Dynamotronic Computational Engine™"

The Sad Song Video - beautiful and haunting. (Link goes to auto-loading video and sound)

...

I will go down with this ship...
-Dido

Worth the time

"I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. "

Joss Whedon posted on Whedonesque about the stoning of Du'a Khalil. It takes a few minutes to read. You'll be better for it.

Payback

I guess my G2 heard me the other day. It must have gotten its feelings hurt - I knew I never should have aired our problems in public like that. But it's too late now - it is with great sadness that I announce that over the weekend, the G2 died of natural causes. The specific cause of death was failure of the too-expensive-to-feasibly-replace battery pack. Ah, G2 - we had some good times. I remember snapping you up off eBay in the minutes after you were listed (long live unambitious Buy It Now prices!). I had longed for you for months before finding you. And even though you always had your quirks, I loved you anyway. . .

Um... where was I?

Bored now

My jaw actually dropped when I read the final page of last week's installment of the Buffy comic (Season 8: #3). I never imagined the turn that page would take. Disbelief, horror, and dread, all at once - that twist manipulated my emotions just like the show used to. It amazes me that Whedon is able to evoke the same kind of reaction with ink as he did with video. If you're a Buffy fan and you're not reading season 8, I can't recommend it highly enough. I've seen it in some of the chain bookstores (Books A Million sometimes has it here), but since my local comic book store closed I've been ordering the series online from TFAW and aside from the steep shipping cost, so far I've been happy with them.

Wishin' and hopin'

I haven't been taking nearly as many pictures as normal lately, and photo projects I've had in mind have been put on hold, all because of the Canon EOS 30D. Due to its age, or more probably due to my fairly rough treatment, my trusty old Powershot G2 has been having problems. It still takes nice pictures, but it has gotten to where I have to wait over 30 seconds each time I take a picture before I can take another. It also has this thing where it completely loses focus - the whole screen goes blurry - and I have to turn it off and back on again to clear it. These aren't really the reasons for my slacking, though - really, I am just waiting for my new camera. Of course, the fact that it costs more than living expenses for two months probably means I'll be waiting for a while.

Everything old is new again

This is cool. While browsing at ThinkGeek, I ran across this USB turntable from Numark. It can be used to rip vinyl records to MP3 or WAV. My folks have lost dozens of their vinyl records to age and heat over the years, and I wondered if there was a way to convert the ones remaining to digital. It seems to be getting positive reviews on the sites I've found - I'll post a review once I've tried it out.

On repeat

You'll never know how your face has haunted me
My very soul has to bleed this time
Another hole in the wall of my inner defenses
Leaving me breathless, the reason I know

--Disturbed

Stating the obvious

My all time favorite lyric is a hilarious, contextually inappropriate bit of dialogue that comes right in the middle of an unbearably depressing country song:

She said, "You're not the man you used to be"
And he said, "Neither is this guy"

*Sniffle*

Oh SG-1, how I'm going to miss you.

Keep it simple

I have to be honest - before tonight, I had never heard of Miranda July. But I am completely charmed by the website she created for her new book, No One Belongs Here More Than You. Remarkably clever in its wit and simplicity, in just a few screens it conveys her personality and leaves you with the feeling that she'd be a lot of fun to hang out with. Which is exactly the kind of message you'd want to send if you were designing a site to sell your writing. (link via kottke)