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Gray or Brown?
Take a good, hard look at the subject of this photo. What color would you say it is?
This is a closeup of the fabric I used in making a book bag years ago. I carry this bag with me to work and when I’m traveling in the car. I say the bag is brown. When I ask one of the children to fetch my brown bag, they say, “Oh, you mean the gray one.” No, I mean the brown one. They say gray. (Hubby just said, “It’s gray,” right over my shoulder as I’m writing this.) Brown, gray, brown, gray. They tease me unmercifully about this.
I call it brown because the predominant color my eyes see is brown. When I look at the fibers closely, I see that there are black threads, brown threads, and cream threads. My eyes must be picking up the brown and cream, whereas the eyes of my family members are mixing the black and cream.
This sense of difference in eyesight between one person and another is not unusual, except that we don’t think about these differences until we talk about color. Hubby’s father is red/green color blind. He sees reds and greens as blacks and browns. I forget this when I give him instructions like, “Click on the red button.” He didn’t realize he was color blind until he was in high school and his girlfriend (eventually wife) sat him down with a pile of bath towels and asked him, “What color is this one? What color is this one?”
A week ago, Young Son and I were discussing the color of his jacket. I called it sage-y green, but he thinks it’s gray, and then teased me unmercifully once again about my color perception. I told him that I had done very well in my college color theory class, thank you very much, and said that I could mix up a color to match his jacket. He shot back with, “You don’t have to know what a color is in order to match it.” He had a point. Although I maintained that I would start with a dab of green, mix in a whole bunch of white, and then add a tish of black to achieve his jacket color. For me, green was the deciding factor in identifying the color. Eldest Son said that if we were going by amounts of pigment, why wouldn’t we call the color white, because that would be the most abundant color. True, but for me, color boils down to the primary and secondary colors first and neutrals second. A true neutral is such an even mix of pigments that one can’t tell what the base colors are.
So then, what’s your assessment? Is the bag brown or gray? And if you think it’s gray, is it gray or grey?
I stole a new app from Martha at Advocate’s Studio. I’ve been using it all evening, getting a laugh while attempting to eject various viruses from Hubby’s computer. (I’ve actually been on the computer since about 11 this morning, but only started messing around with the internet this afternoon.) The app is called Generatus and what it does is assist in the task of writing Twitter posts or status updates for Facebook. I’ve already posted a few on my Twitter profile, but I keep finding interesting ones, so I’ll post a bunch here.
Mary is the girl who put the laughter in manslaughter.
Mary is thinking inside the box because too many people are thinking outside the box. (Hubby has said this very thing before.)
Mary isn’t worried about the environment. It’ll go away.
Mary loves being a writer. What she can’t stand is the paperwork.
Mary is the lesser of 2 evils.
Mary always wears a seatbelt. It makes it harder for aliens to suck her out of her car.
Mary is a melomaniac. (Meaning: a craze for music)
Mary is all that. (And I’m adding: “and a bag of chips.”)
Mary likes cats too, let’s exchange recipes.
Mary is made of meat; her whole family is made of meat.
Mary is so ugly that when she was born the doctor didn’t know which end to slap. (Okay, I’m going to disagree with this one and write my own. Mary was born so fast that her head was pointy. It’s why she’s so sharp today.)
Mary thinks the last place she’d like to be beamed is “Up Scotty”.
Mary is wondering: if scientists are so clever, what is the speed of dark?
Mary realizes that whatever kind of look she was going for, she missed. (Mary is completely anal retentive about editing. She just corrected what Generatus generated. Realizes was spelled “realises”.)
Mary is going to take a bath. Please alert the media.
Mary is not perfect, but parts of her are incredible.
(I think that’s a good place to end, don’t you?)
Because I know I’m completely all powerful and I can affect things even from a distance, I decided I wasn’t going to mention the Nine Inch Nails (NIN) concert ahead of time. After all, the last time I was waiting for it to arrive, I got so excited that I kept talking (and blogging) about it and then Trent Reznor got sick and the concert was postponed from its August date until November. Of course, that was all my fault because I jinxed it by wanting to go too much. Sorry, Minnesota NIN fans, for my unintentional jinxing.
Between August 2nd and the rescheduled November 25th day, I was determined to keep my mouth shut, thus avoiding a potential repeat of said incident. Apparently it worked because the NIN concert Hubby and I just attended at the Target Center in Minneapolis went off without a hitch and was absolutely flawless. (And, thus, totally eff-ing AWESOME!) The will-call line was efficient. The fans were well-behaved and polite (no continual screaming through the songs, like happened at the last concert we attended at the Target Center). We had fabulous seats. We had decent earplugs, which cut down on distortion and kept our ears from ringing. The opening act (Boris) was interesting and on time. (The drummer of Boris was so charismatic that he needs to be front and center and the girl needs to be allowed to sing more in order to show off her beautiful voice). And NIN gave a technically perfect and engaging performance.
Pictures will help tell this story, and, boy, did I take pictures. As I said, we had good seats. Here was our view:
NIN Stage at Target Center, Minneapolis, Nov. 25, 2008
We could see down into the area where the technical crew was working and some of the musicians came to or left the stage from this area. Check out all the rigging. I remarked to Hubby that roadies cannot be afraid of heights, which means that I could never be a roadie.
Light rigging, NIN Concert, Minneapolis, Nov. 25, 2008
I thought the light rigging was particularly attractive in the hazy red light. Hubby asked where the smoke was coming from because we have a smoking ban in Minnesota. We spotted a smoke machine on the stage, quietly puffing away.
Giant Red Trent, NIN Concert, Minneapolis, Nov. 25, 2008
The current NIN tour is called Lights in the Sky Over North America and the NIN show was filled with lights. The photo above shows one of three massive screens that stretched across the stage and that could be lifted and moved into various positions during the show. The screen in the photo was the one at the back of the stage. The view is a tight camera shot of Trent while he is singing on stage. The screens were more than simply video screens; they were also interactive. At one point, the drummer used one of the screens to start a drum machine.
NIN in concert, Minneapolis, Nov. 25, 2008
Here’s the band at the front of the stage. The screen behind them was moved into place from above. This photo is fairly clear, unlike many of the shots I took. The trouble with taking concert photos with an amateur digital camera is that a shot can be lined up and look great, but by the time the shutter goes, the performers have moved or the lights have changed or gone out. I have several views of blackness that weren’t blackness when I tripped the shutter. I’ll refrain from boring you with those.
Trent Reznor on xylophone, Minneapolis, Nov. 25, 2008
At one point in the show, the band was cocooned between two of the screens and performed some of the songs from the Ghosts albums. Note that Trent is playing a xylophone. This was the second xylophone performance I saw in two days, the first being at a local band concert during the percussionists’ finale. In both cases the xylophone was used to good effect, thus making band geeks rockin’ out on xylophones a cool thing.
The beauty of where we were sitting, even though we didn’t have a straight-on view of the stage, is that we got to see “behind the scenes” sorts of things, like Trent hitching up his pants (I guess the show did have a couple of hitches) and Trent slamming bottles of water. He can down two faster than a lightning strike.
The NIN show contained a nice mix of new and old songs, not done in any particular order, each song flowing into the next in rapid succession. It wasn’t until the end of the show that I realized that Trent and the other band members had not engaged in any chit-chat with the audience. Not a word. They performed efficiently and with great gusto. Robin Finck, the guitar player, did this quirky herky-jerky Rumplestiltskin dance while he played and Trent was jumping around all over the place. The movements of both men made me wonder if bands have workers comp insurance. (Oh, the knees & back!)
At the very end of the concert, Trent thanked the crowd and introduced the band members. He also apologized to those in attendence for the hassle caused by postponing the show. He said that he had been sick and followed up with a comment along the lines of, “What was I supposed to do?” Apparently, he didn’t realize the postponement was all my fault (the jinxing, remember?), not his, and he did exactly what he was supposed to do when sick. He’s supposed to rest, get better, and then give a kick-ass performance later. Which he did.
All is good in the world and NIN has restored my faith in the arena concert experience.
One last picture, the only one Hubby got to take:
Trent Reznor, final bow, Minneapolis, Nov. 25, 2008
Isn’t it ironic that turkeys say, “Gobble, gobble,” and then we gobble them up?
Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your turkey, or turkey substitute.
Going a little crazy with the blogging today, but I foresee a busy week ahead that may not allow for much online time. So, then . . . .
Hubby is taking a women’s biology class in college this semester. It has involved some interesting activities, to say the least. One thing students were required to do was track a menstrual cycle. Kinda hard if you are a male, which my husband is, so he had to find a surrogate. Enter, moi!
For the assignment, I had to take my temperature as soon as I woke up in order to find my basal temp. I did this for over a month. I had to keep track of when my period started and ended. I had to gauge the viscosity of my vaginal mucous. And, most interesting of all, I had to take seven tests for the assignment – seven ovulation tests.
I have long tracked certain aspects of my cycle, typically the day my period starts, the length of my cycles, and my moods. As a writer, I am tempted to use a menstrual cycle as the undergirding for a story. This exercise has given me further ideas along those lines, although I’m nowhere near penning anything yet.
My husband had to graph the variables of my cycle on a chart, which shows how my temperature fluctuated based on what was happening with my hormones. I am much warmer than I thought I was – at least as far as my basal temp is concerned. My ovulation tests showed that I was fertile for longer than the test box said was typical. No wonder I got pregnant so easily.
Hubby showed my chart to his prof, who said that it was a textbook menstrual cycle. (I always was a good student. 
) Little did the prof know that this cycle, which was 28 days, is nowhere near typical for me at this point in my life. It used to be – when I was in my twenties and early thirties – but it shifted to being shorter (24-26 days) in my mid-thirties.
Hubby, who is the funniest guy I know, took to calling this assignment The Vagina Chronologues. Cute, huh?
I follow author Clare Dudman’s tweets on Twitter and she follows mine. The day before yesterday, I tweeted that I was going to make meatloaf. Here is our meatloaf exchange: (Clare’s start with her Twitter name, Duddy. My tweets are unlabeled or start with @Duddy.)
Time to make meatloaf.
Duddy @woowooteacup MMmm I like meatloaf – and haven’t made one for ages! You’ve given me a sudden yearning:-)
@Duddy Yes, yes . . . a yearning. That’s what I had. It’s cold here. Meatloaf is good when it’s cold outside.
1 lb. grd. turkey, 1 egg, smashed crackers or bread – enough to give meatloaf substance, 1 sm. chopped onion, spices to taste.
Form into rough ball or loaf shape, put into a coverable pan – I use square Corningware. Top with can of Golden Mushroom soup.
Into the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour. Serve with whatever. Avoiding dishes? Bake potatoes on oven rack at same time.
Duddy @woowooteacup Thanks very much – I’ll take that down!
Duddy @woowooteacup Adding a can of soup is a really great idea!
Duddy @woowooteacup Cold here too – and I happen to have all those things in the fridge. Strange – I’ve been hankering after baked potatoes too.
Duddy @woowooteacup I love the idea of this – a recipe from a twitter friend!
@Duddy The soup makes a great sauce. Can use it on the potatoes. Any sort of creamy condensed soup will do, I should think.
@Duddy Glad you like it. I don’t think Twitter will work for involved recipes, but it’s great for the simple ones.
The conversation continued the next day, after I had made meatloaf Saturday and Clare had made it Sunday.
Duddy Meat loaf in the oven thanks to recipe from @woowooteacup Hub muttering about what else is going to be tweet-inspired…heh
@Duddy Should we think of something else, just to keep Hub wondering?
Duddy @woowooteacup Worked well – everyone liked it. Thank you! And yes, let’s do it again. It’s fun!
I found a fantastical video via the Dangerous Intersection blog. It’s called Muto and it’s by an artist named Blu. The video is 7 minutes, 26 seconds long. In watching it, I was struck by the incredible amount of time it must have taken to put it all together. You can watch the video via the Dangerous Intersection post, or you can go to Blu’s website to see it. (Sorry, I couldn’t get it to embed.) The video is described on Blu’s site as being “an ambiguous animation painted on public walls.” If you watch on Blu’s site, be sure to check out his other links, especially his drawings, but be forewarned, the subject matter is dark and creepy and may make some viewers uncomfortable.
Addendum 11/24/2008, 9:58 p.m. – An embedded link via Amy:
One of my blogging buddies, LK Winter, posted another application for testing blogs. This one checks reading level. LK was bemoaning the fact that his blog tested at a high school level. He checked his new blog and it tested at a genius level. I had a good laugh when I checked the readability of The Woo Woo Teacup Journal. The result:
You know, I once took a workshop with an established writer and she told me that I could write for kids. I guess that still holds true.
My review of Anne Fadiman’s book as posted on GoodReads:
At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was not familiar with the familiar essay until I read this book. Anne Fadiman provides a concise definition of the familiar essay in comparison to personal and critical essays in her introduction. Personal essays are “more heart than brain.” Critical essays are “more brain than heart.” Familiar essays are “equal measures of both.” (pg. xi)
Fadiman provides such a fine collection of familiar essays that I feel inspired to attempt to write one, but fear that I won’t come close to her beautiful and erudite prose. Her book has tuned my ear to good writing, so much so that the book I’m reading now is falling flat. Fadiman’s prose is a great example for those aspiring to write.
The winners of the Copyblogger Twitter Haiku Contest have been announced. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t one of them. Not that it mattered to me, though. I don’t like writing contests for the contest-y aspects of them – the pitting of writers against each other in competition and the whole prize thing. Rather, I like writing contests because they give me an excuse to write something within a structure and they give me a deadline. Nothing like someone else’s rules and a specific time parameter to get me writing. A good brain workout. Helps keep me mentally nimble. Hopefully, it’ll also prevent me from getting Alzheimer’s.
For being a supposedly simple application, it is taking me some time to figure out the various features of Twitter. The one I’ve had the most difficulty with is the @Reply. The basis of Twitter is to answer the question, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. These are called tweets. When you sign up for Twitter, you get a Profile page that allows you to see all of your tweets. (Here’s my Profile page. You can decorate the background with your own photos, like I’ve done.)
Being as how it’s no fun to tweet at yourself (okay, maybe it is a little fun), Twitter allows you to follow other people’s tweets and it gives you a way to send other people tweets, or to reply to the tweets of others. This is where the @Reply comes in. When you want to send someone a tweet that shows up publicly, you use the @ symbol, followed by the person’s profile name in the Twitter box and then type your message. The @ and profile name count toward your 140 character limit. The @Reply shows up in your Home window, where you can see both your tweets and the tweets of those you are following. It also shows up in the @Reply box of the person you’ve @Replied to.
This last bit of info was something I didn’t catch onto right away, but worked out after following Dave Matthews’ Twitter Profile page. I sent a few @Replies his way, but they didn’t appear on his public Profile page. Instead, I was seeing his @Replies to other Twitterers. I noticed that I had an @Reply link in the sidebar of my Twitter Home page, where I could see my @Replies, plus those others had sent me. After thinking about this for a while, I realized that giving each person an @Reply page and not allowing every @Reply to show up on a person’s Profile page was a wise move. Dave has 8,864 (and counting) followers, which would make for a ton of @Replies on his Profile page, a situation that would rapidly get overwhelming. In case you’re wondering, you can’t see another Twitterer’s @Reply page.
Aside from sending a direct @Reply to another Twitterer, you can also reply directly to a person’s tweet. On the right-hand side of each tweet on a Twitter Home page are two icons that can’t be seen until you hover over them. The top icon is a star, which allows you to save a tweet to your Favorites page. The bottom icon is a curved arrow that looks like it’s peering over its back. Clicking this arrow allows you to reply directly to a particular tweet. It will automatically put @ plus the the respondent’s name in the tweet box. Then you can type your reply.
When I used the curved arrow to reply back to a specific tweet, at first I didn’t know how the respondent would know which tweet I was replying to. I believed some of my replies might be too cryptic to figure out, so I’d be sure to make a reference in my reply that made the original tweet apparent. I finally discovered, thanks once again to Dave Matthews’ Profile page, how to find the original tweet within an @Reply tweet. If you look at the very end of an @Reply tweet, you’ll find the words “in reply to [profile name]“. This is a link and if you click it, you will find yourself on a page that contains the original tweet. Sweet, huh?
Twitter’s FAQ and @Reply help pages don’t discuss any of this, so hopefully this explanation keeps you from having to randomly happen upon these features.
