links http://domesticat.net/taxonomy/term/187/atom/feed 2007-08-01T04:41:40+00:00 Madison County ballot for 2009 election year http://domesticat.net/2008/10/madison-county-ballot-2009-election-year 2008-10-27T19:06:55+00:00 2008-10-27T19:07:06+00:00 domesticat For those of my friends living in Madison County, Alabama, the Madison County Circuit Clerk's office has made the 2009 sample ballot available in PDF format.  Get it, study it, do your research on the minor races and cast an informed vote.

For those friends NOT living in Alabama, I'd encourage you to take a look at the amendments proposed on the ballot to understand why we rage about the sheer unbridled awfulness of Alabama's state constitution.  It is, in a word, embarrassing.  Wikipedia:

]]> For those of my friends living in Madison County, Alabama, the Madison County Circuit Clerk's office has made the 2009 sample ballot available in PDF format.  Get it, study it, do your research on the minor races and cast an informed vote.

For those friends NOT living in Alabama, I'd encourage you to take a look at the amendments proposed on the ballot to understand why we rage about the sheer unbridled awfulness of Alabama's state constitution.  It is, in a word, embarrassing.  Wikipedia:

About 70 percent of those amendments cover only a single county or city, and some deal with salaries of specific officials...

and

The inordinate length is both because of and the cause of heavy centralization of government power in the state capital, Montgomery, leaving very little authority to local units. Counties cannot even legislate on local issues, requiring the state legislature, and ipso facto uninvolved parts of the state, to pass local laws.

The constitution addresses many issues that are dealt with by statute in most other states. The most notable issue is taxation. Unlike most other states, a large portion of Alabama's tax code is written into the constitution. Besides prohibiting local governments from passing any ordinances on tax issues, this necessitates its amendment over minor taxation issues. This, along with the requirement that an amendment must be unanimously approved by the legislature or face a statewide vote, has resulted in local county or municipality related amendments being overwhelmingly approved, but ultimately rejected statewide.

Maddening. Just maddening.

]]> zomg right-on lolcat http://domesticat.net/2007/12/zomg-right-lolcat 2007-12-21T21:50:13+00:00 2007-12-21T21:57:18+00:00 domesticat Starlady nails it in one. They're on to me. Blast!

(photo is SFW)

]]> Starlady nails it in one. They're on to me. Blast!

(photo is SFW)

]]> Dear reader... http://domesticat.net/2007/07/dear-reader 2007-07-26T19:07:13+00:00 2007-12-23T02:00:31+00:00 domesticat In lieu of the entry I'm actually taking time to write and edit and revise and actually think about, I present linkfood.

'In Teh Beginning' (lolcats meets inexplicable meets ... uh, you'll see)

From Colter: 'How To Get Your Love On' on relationships:

]]> In lieu of the entry I'm actually taking time to write and edit and revise and actually think about, I present linkfood.

'In Teh Beginning' (lolcats meets inexplicable meets ... uh, you'll see)

From Colter: 'How To Get Your Love On' on relationships:

"See, at a certain point, all the variants become so astounding, so dizzying, so universal, that you finally realize (yes, for the 1,000th time) there is no rule. There is no pattern. The exceptions are the rule. There is no approach that, overall, seems to work for most people most of the time. There's not even a hint of a possibility of a whisper of a rule and anyone who deigns to tell you differently, be it a church or a parent or a relationship guru, is, to put it gently, astoundingly full of crap."

....and:

'Library director resigns to head to New Orleans'

Speaking of inexplicable, if anyone can explain to me why so many coffee drinkers persist in continually drinking a beverage they don't even like, I'd love to hear a good explanation. Yes, yes, I know their excuse is the need for caffeine, but why not get your morning kick from a beverage you actually like?

P.S. - Send half-and-half. I'm out.

Love,

Amy
(who is debating whether she should give this entry a title or just use that odd conglomeration of free tags as the title)

]]> teh linkyfood, it wubs me http://domesticat.net/2007/02/teh-linkyfood-it-wubs-me 2007-02-01T02:13:30+00:00 2007-07-15T15:54:44+00:00 domesticat In the guise of aliveness, I present two things:THING THE FIRST: should you wish to continue the harmless cycle of attention-whoreness that Valentine's Day perpetuates, consider doing Valentines online. If for no other reason that if I see my friends doing this online, I'll feel less guilty about not sitting down and actually designing/printing/mailing actual creative/funny/amusing/thoughtful/touching/smarmy Vallies on my own.

]]> In the guise of aliveness, I present two things:THING THE FIRST: should you wish to continue the harmless cycle of attention-whoreness that Valentine's Day perpetuates, consider doing Valentines online. If for no other reason that if I see my friends doing this online, I'll feel less guilty about not sitting down and actually designing/printing/mailing actual creative/funny/amusing/thoughtful/touching/smarmy Vallies on my own. I have the best of intentions, except on Tuesdays when I know I always have the worst of intentions, but unless I can get around to asexually budding off a clone in the next twenty minutes, I don't think the clone will have developed enough fine motor skills to properly address envelopes by 14 February, leaving me out of luck and you guys with no love-mails from me.

My Valentinr - domesticat
Get your own valentinr (Thanks simultaneously to Angel, aka offensive mango, and Russ, aka arkhamrefugee on LJ, for the link.)

THING THE SECOND: a link to the custom-made shirt I created and ordered on customink.com. I've accepted that I'll never beat the 'lipstick librarian' rap while at my current job, so I might as well embrace it.

I'd like to thank the friends who suggested such lovely taglines as…

"feel free to check my bindings"

"lipstick librarians prefer to be leather bound"

"librarians do it in the shelves"

"they sure are stacked"

I will continue to pretend that I am vaguely traumatized (the 'but she was wearing a short skirt' defense fails when I'm forced to admit that I made up a few of my own that were just as bad) and you will all continue to pretend to believe me.

I will now huddle up in my house and wait, bemusedly, to see if the mythical HALF INCH OF SLEET actually falls on Huntsville, paralyzing the traffic system, causing the soccer moms to crash their SUVs into whatever soccer moms crash their SUVs into while calling their friends and saying "OMG THERE'S HALF AN INCH OF MELTY SLEET HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DRIVE IN THIS?" and maybe … just maybe … giving me the opportunity to sleep in tomorrow.

Whatever.

I'll strap the pantyhose on and see you at the library bright and bloody early tomorrow. I've got enough Splenda, creamer, and tea to last until the apocalypse, which, according to my to-do list, I am scheduled to finish beta-testing prior to lunch. Right after fixing the Chinese-language sign that was my nemesis today…

So! How many of you read this and said, 'Hey, that sounds like the humor of someone who just worked a ten-hour day!'? Those of you who did are all winners and can come over to my house and claim the unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough and eat it out of the bag. Just, uh, wash the spoon you licked before you stick it back in the bag, mmmkay?

]]> Autumn winds always drift me into yarn shops http://domesticat.net/2005/07/autumn-winds-always-drift-me-yarn-shops 2005-07-07T23:50:46+00:00 2007-10-29T00:25:07+00:00 domesticat list of interesting free-ish kid stuff to do in Atlanta appeals mightily. There's plenty-o-nifty in that there town. ]]> list of interesting free-ish kid stuff to do in Atlanta appeals mightily. There's plenty-o-nifty in that there town. The rest all have to do with charting knitting patterns. I'm just now getting around to learning how to read charts, and I've been thinking about re-tackling a devilishly difficult, long-delayed project containing a point d'esprit lace pattern. Sam's right - the reason the pattern looks so hard to me is because it's written out, not charted up. Some things that take forever to explain in words are very easily conveyed via symbol (can I get a "skip one, knit one, pass slipped stitch over" hallelujah from the 1.3 knitters in the audience?). After looking around I discovered the Japanese knitting community got it right - they do not have written patterns. They only use charts. (How sane of them.) Thus this English-language information about Japanese knitting. Under 'Japanese Knitting' choose 'Japanese Basics' and they have an incredibly useful chart - a guide to the sizing of British, American, and Japanese knitting needles. (Side note: the site has a page with a couple of Japanese poems regarding knitting. The translation of "秋風に 吹き寄せられて 毛糸店" (akikaze ni fukiyose rarete keito zen) provoked a smile—see the title of this entry. Apparently I'm not the only susceptible one. Here's hoping the translation's accurate and I'm not perpetuating a hanzi smatter.) But all of this was a side jaunt; I was really looking for fonts I could use to chart my own patterns. Yes, to conquer that lace pattern once and for all, I'd need to chart it, and that sort of thing gets difficult without a font. I've only found two available: one by Carol Taylor of Aire River Design and one by David Xenakis. I haven't tried either of them out yet, because I need to look through their symbol lists to see if either of them have the funky stitch symbol I need for that blasted third row of the lace pattern. No kidding. This lace pattern is from hell. There's a reason I abandoned this project for two years. I'm going to boost my confidence by starting work on the baby blanket and then see if I can't ride that high into conquering this little beastie. I just went into the reading room, found the fetal scarf, and took a photo of it: Fetal point d'esprit scarf I told you it was from hell, and you didn't listen. Yes, that's a self-edging pattern, with variable numbers of stitches per row. (See the pointy edges? Yeah.) Yes, the yarn is really that fine. Yes, it makes me want to shoot myself when I work on it. Yes, there are mistakes in it, and I can show you where they are. Yes, I'll wear it incessantly once it's done, despite the damned errors. I can't give the pattern out; I bought it, and it's copyrighted, and when I checked last night, it didn't appear to be on sale any more. However, once I get it charted, I might be convinced to loan out my chart to a friend or two. ;) Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, here's a photo of a certain since-finished Ravenclaw scarf cozied up to an old bottle of Scotch. It's since been fringed and mailed to Jody, who promises to send me photos of him wearing his scarves. He'd better! Right then. I need food. I won't get food until I stop writing. I guess I should shut up, shouldn't I? (ETA to photos of child-sized Slytherin scarf: 36 hours.)
Update, a few minutes later: always good to know that your sorta-newly-British friends from college are okay after people do dumb things like plant bombs in public transit. Glad you're ok, Angel - I thought of you first thing when I saw the news this morning. Good photo, too; nice to see the BBC is using it.
]]> Jeff's baked beans http://domesticat.net/2002/10/jeffs-baked-beans 2002-10-24T19:00:46+00:00 2007-08-01T04:41:40+00:00 domesticat Normally, I post recipes here. But, in this case, Jeff's already done the work for me. If you check out this page on his site, you'll find his recipe for baked beans, which as far as the locals around here are concerned, is crack.

I'm not going to steal his thunder and reprint his recipe here, but I did want to add it to the slowly-growing recipe repository.

]]> Normally, I post recipes here. But, in this case, Jeff's already done the work for me. If you check out this page on his site, you'll find his recipe for baked beans, which as far as the locals around here are concerned, is crack.

I'm not going to steal his thunder and reprint his recipe here, but I did want to add it to the slowly-growing recipe repository.

I hear tellings that we're having this on Sunday as part of the Mass Geek Feeding[tm] that's taking place to mark Heather's visit. Hmmm. Perhaps a double batch…

]]>