Stuff

But first... I'm so unexcited by the new Star Wars movie. My coworkers tell me that I should be, but... hey, I loved the heck out of the original three. We were kids. We collected the figures (they were in music bands. Long story). We accidentally melted a jawa. We were into it. The next three? Heard they were crap. Didn't go, because I enjoyed my childhood impressions.

This one? Can't make myself care. Guess I'm old.

----------

Ok, on to actual topic. I have too much stuff. I live in a one room apartment and I still manage to have too much stuff. Not hoarder level, mind, but after twenty years here there's just plain too much stuff.

I should say, by the way, that the stuff piled on the chair in today's pointless photo is just because I have the bed folded out. It's mostly ok stuff.

We get so concentrated on stuff in this society. I don't need half of the stuff I have. And I know that.

So?

So I've been giving it away. Not for religious regions (Whomever no), not for hipster reasons; just because I have too much stuff.

Think about it, really. Do you use your stuff? Do you need it? Could someone else use it?

I'm not on a crusade or anything here. I'm just a person who has too much stuff. Which the phone is now predicting, so that can't be good. I guess what I'm saying is just look at your stuff. Do you need it?

Story of our world, really. Look at your stuff. Do you need it? Then get rid of it. Simple, right?

Except apparently it isn't. We're geared to get stuff. We enjoy stuff. For a while, at least. It can be really hard to say ok, no more stuff.

I'm not there. Not by a long shot. I am at the place, though, where I can honestly look at my stuff and say ok, that needs to go. It makes me happy, because I don't ever want to be in the position of drowning in my stuff. Stuff is just stuff in the end, and that's how it should stay.





Want any of my stuff, then? I'll negotiate.

Forgot to title. Again.

So that's my ugly purple jacket (ugly purple on purpose. It helps the kids find me at work) and some things I might feel like wearing next week.

Oddly to some of you, I put some thoughts into the  rocks I wear. Oddly to some other of you, it has nothing to do with their "meanings". I just go with what I like and the colours that I feel like on the day.

Some of you may think that I'm naive. Some of you may think that I'm
 blasphemous. Some of you don't care,
 and some of you remember that I'm blogging from a phone. Me? I really don't care. I like rocks, and I wear ugly coats for work. The end.

This was a lot of typing for the end.

Summary of my week, pointless photo style

Otherwise known as: I Guess I Talk About Some Weird Things on the Blog.

So here it is, then. Silver rolling ring, pewter and brass Aquitaine sundial ring, brass candle extinguisher (yeah, I found a couple more brass things around the apartment after that post. Not too many, though. I'm not exactly brasstactic), and Kinder Surprise Spiderman because he was there and adds a bit of colour to the composition.

I have no idea why he has ears.

Note that I said candle extinguisher, not snuffer. I read enough 18th century literature to be bugged by the way that North Americans tend to say snuffer when they mean extinguisher, actually. That thing in the photo is an extinguisher, for putting out candles. A snuffer is more like scissors with a little box attached to one blade to catch debris (picture!). They were used to trim the wicks of (usually) tallow candles to keep the flame from getting too large and melting the tallow into a puddle. If you were bad at snuffing candles you could accidentally snuff the flame out... which is where the extinguisher/snuffer mix-up comes in for our non-candle-dependent society today.

And there's your olf information moment of the week. Aren't you lucky.

Anyway, it's late, and since Google's weirdness killed my attempt to blog earlier in the day this is all you're getting (it wasn't just Gmail that was affected, folks). I'll give it a better go tomorrow. I've got some purposely blue photos I can talk about, after all. What's that, Dee? Oh, you'll find out one way or another.





And for anyone who actually wondered, yes, I'm still having fun with the rolling ring. It's there on my finger begging to be played with even as I type this. I think I'll go do that now.

I hate it when...

... I had an idea for a blather, but somewhere in between work, lunch, and a bit more work it went away.

So, a brass mouse.

This particular brass mouse is also supposed to be a desk note holder, which is the reason that its tail is so lethal.

I kind of like brass. Not so much for the look -- the eighties sort of ruined that for all of us -- but the neat things that can be made out of brass. Trinket-type things, I mean, although plenty of things with actual importance can also be made out of brass.

I like pewter for the same reason, by the way. Search around the little independent shops on the internet, and you'll find all manner of interesting pewter things.

My mother (who collected a fair number of different things) had quite a collection of brass back in the day. Brass bells (cross collecting there. The bell collection in all its brass, porcelain, and whatever else glory is huge. We've never figured out what to do with it), brass vases, brass figurines, little brass working models... if it could be found in brass, my mom probably had it. I try my best to suppress my collecting gene these days because I already have enough stuff, but I have a few brass things that I've had for years. Let's see... the mouse, obviously. An abacus, which is cool. A music stand, which I used for performances when I still had the youth choir. A tiny elephant that was bought to commemorate a group paper in university. A potpourri holder.

You know, I think that's about it for brass. Shall I go on to pewter? Yeah, I'm laughing at myself but I still haven't remembered what I really wanted to blog about. Pewter's shorter anyway. A bit of jewellery, another potpourri holder, and a picture frame. The last two, I believe, came from Seagull Pewter, which is fun stuff as long as you stay away from the more cutesy items.

I don't do well with cutesy.

Anyway, since I'm obviously not going to remember the topic du jour (it might end up being demain's topic if I can figure out what it was supposed to be) and I really should get back to work, let's call it a post.

A very metallic post.





Maybe tomorrow's post should be silver versus silvertone, since I accidentally ended up on Avon's website yesterday and nearly died laughing at the things that get high customer ratings in that world...

headdesk

Not quite one o'clock and I'm fading fast, boys and girls. It's been an interesting couple of days. My neck's been out so I've been working at home, which would be ok except for the part that my apartment's been literally (proper use of literally, not internet I-don't-know-what-literally-means version) running at 30C for over a week now. So, discomfort and bad sleep. Fun times.

The planter dog looks like he understands, though.

I'm going to have to get the silly thing a proper bedding plant for a friend next year. This is two years in a row that he hasn't done well being seeded. I think that he's a bit depressed about the whole thing.

Or maybe just about being a scrap metal dog with a pot for a body, I dunno.

I did warn you about the tired part, right?

Well, maybe we'll keep this short for today and just take a moment to acknowledge the very nice rooibos chai that's been accompanying me through the fog (although, given the fog, my mate chai might have been a better choice). It came special delivery via my sister-in-law, and is NOT from Teavana.

It's from here. I've had a browse through the catalogue, and it's tempting. I'd have to go to Edmonton for a physical store, I guess, but I see that there's free shipping on internet orders over $50. Doesn't take much to get over $50 in specialty teas...



Definitely tempting. I'll keep you posted.





Because I just know you're all anxious about my source of teas.

tiiired...

Probably nothing

The rose has nothing to do with anything, as usual.

To be honest, I'm having one of those got nothing days. It probably doesn't help that I'm tired, although I'm not going to claim sleeplessness today (for a change). My apartment was awfully damned hot last night, though, so I can't help but think that the sleep I did get was probably of the restless sort.

Ah, my stupid hot apartment. I haven't complained about you recently, have I? The complaint is short, really, so maybe that'll work as a blather on a day when I'm just not feeling it.

My apartment. Bachelor suite. Ugly gold 70s carpet that they'll probably replace within seconds of my moving out (I look longingly at the from-this-century carpets I see through the occasionally open doors of the actually renovated suites). South-facing, which is fantastic for my plants but hell for me. There's not really any season when it's cool, you see. In the summer it gets the general summer heat, and in the winter when the sun's lower the whole thing acts like a greenhouse. A greenhouse that you have no option of cooling down, because opening the window in the winter can freeze the heating pipes (which bang and thump all winter long, I might add). My view? The loading dock of a hotel. They start deliveries early, so even when I do sleep I don't need an alarm clock.

My apartment, which was running at about 30C last night when I went to bed. It had gone down to 26C by the time I left for work, however. That counts as livable, right?

So why do I stay in this place that at one time had a crack den in the apartment directly below mine? This place where one of my neighbours killed herself because the police were after her, and another jumped off his balcony (only third floor, thank goodness) one night because the voices told him to. Why in Whomever's name would I be choosing to live so long in a place like that?



It's cheap.

Yep, that's about it.

Oh, and it's a lot nicer than it was now that the crack den's been cleaned out.

And my plants like it.

And inertia.

And it's cheap.



Going back to work now.

The problem with my week

The problem with spending the better part of a week sitting in a small room with three other people (and one other by WebEx) is that it doesn't really give you anything to blather about unless you feel the need to blather about software set-up.

I don't feel the need to blather about software set-up.

Besides, after a week in a small room I'd like to go outside for a bit and take some photos, or at least as many photos as today's winds will allow. So. Let's see, I guess, what photos I have on me (literally on me. I'm wearing my nerdstick on a lanyard at the moment) that I might be able to fake a blather with.

Ok, this'll do. It's weird, but it's talkable.

What you're seeing here is a photo I took from the bed of the underside of my Ikea chair. If the bed part sounds weird, just remember that I have a fold-out bed (one room apartment, if you'll recall) and when the bed's unfolded it comes nearly out to the chair.

If what's under the chair seems weird, just remember that when the bed's unfolded the stuff under the chair is an easy grab if I'm working on something. In other words, the underside of the chair tends to function like a desk drawer. That is, unless I'm having people over. Then the stuff under the chair gets shoved into the closet. I do have at least a little pride in appearance.

Anyway.

What you're seeing? Well, from bottom right, gesso, masking fluid, and glue. Exciting so far, I imagine. Behind? a bag containing assorted stuff that I use in my mixed media journal. The brown, gesso-edged paper sheets that you might be able to make out are actually the journal itself. It's a mess. It's a mess on purpose. I tend to get caught up in making things look "right", especially when I'm doing things for work, so when I find myself getting too much of a stick up my butt, artistically-speaking (artistic butt-sticks? That's a bit odd. And no doubt some performance artist somewhere has already done a version of it), I get out my journal and make a pointless mess.

I tell myself that I'm trying out techniques, and I suppose that sometimes I am. Really, though, it's more like my version of finger painting. Sometimes literally done with my fingers.

Top left? Um, Terra Stix. I'm a bit of a sucker for the taro, to be honest. Probably as much because of the little purple flecks as the taste. Behind the snack food is a Jenga Xtreme set. I suck at Jenga. That's why I only play myself.

Shall we mention the elephant in the room now? How many of you saw the Portable Atheist (which I'm rereading, by the way) and immediately formed a judgment? How many of you decided that I'm godless and will a) pray for me, or b) shun me? How many of you saw Atheist and have decided that I'm somehow a kindred spirit who's willing to rail against religion?

How many of you stopped having knee-jerk reactions long enough to realise that it's just a book?

I like books. I read lots of books. I need to be better at keeping the bookshelf you see on the sidebar up to date, because I've done a fair amount of reading these past few months that I haven't bothered to list here. I read a lot, and I read a lot of different viewpoints. Do the viewpoints in the above book agree with mine?

Sorry, not saying.

I have beliefs, obviously. Everybody does. But the moment I tell you my beliefs this blog has an agenda, whether I want it to or not. Everything I blathered would be coloured in a way that I wouldn't have meant it to be. That's so not what I want this place for.

The word pointless is in the title, after all. This blog is supposed to be light, pointless, and largely a waste of time.

Generally it succeeds in that, I think you'll agree.

So, for anyone looking for religion or politics, you've come to exactly the wrong place. For anyone looking for weird pictures, pseudophilosophy, pointless whinging, or occasional flights into the completely silly... well, here you are, aren't you?





Come over to my place. We'll sit on the bed, eat taro chips, suck at Jenga, and finger paint with gesso.

And not talk about atheists.

Sorry, no socks today

I mean, I'm wearing socks, obviously (or maybe not obviously. But since it's winter in Alberta, you should probably assume that I'm wearing socks), but I'm not going to borrow the work camera again to take a pointless photo of them. You'd like them, though. They're red and white stripey, like the Cat in the Hat's socks.

Oh, no, not his socks. Does he even wear socks? I meant his hat.

Anyway, no socks today, so instead it's back to Weird Things in my Apartment.

echo echo echo...

These, obviously, are SD cards. Familiar to everyone, and not especially weird. The one on the left came with my old camera (yes, boys and girls, they used to supply memory cards with cameras. Tiny, tiny memory cards). The one on the right is one I bought at Wally World as an upgrade when they had a good sale (sorry, roll back). A whole 64 meg, and I think I paid about $30 for it.

No, not in the stone age. And you kids get off of my lawn.

So what's weird in this installment of weird things?

I've kept these cards.



The one on  the left wouldn't even hold one picture from a modern camera on the largest setting, but I've held on to it. I'm not a hoarder by any standard, but I've kept these cards.





If that isn't weird, I'd like to know what exactly qualifies as weird in your universe. Me 'n my socks have to go get ready for this afternoon's planetariuming now.

Is that the time?

The morning seems to have gotten away on me somehow today. I got started later, I got caught up in some internet stuff without realising it, and I miss the cat (erm... that has nothing to do with the morning, really. I just miss the cat.). Now my stomach is reminding me that it's lunchtime, and I never did bother to come up with a blog-worthy blather subject.

That's right -- not even blog-worthy enough for a pointless blog.

What to do, then? Well, how about another edition of Weird Things in my Apartment?

Today's weird thing isn't so weird in itself. It's just a little weird that it got kept. It's a fairly small pin (remember, all of these weird things are being treated to a background of the fabric from my Ikea footstool. Think of that as not exactly as shown, by the way. Apparently they don't list the cushion I have on the website, and my footstool isn't birch. Anyway, it should give at least a little sense of scale), and as you can see the black paint has been rubbed off in a few places.

It's allowed to look a little worn, though. The thing's pretty near 120 years old now, by my reckoning.

I got it from my grandmother, and it belonged to her mother before her. I'm pretty sure that it's just costume jewellery, given the family attraction to that sort of thing that I've mentioned before. Given the time period there's a slight possibility that it's mourning jewellery, but it's more likely that it was just a black pin that looked good on a high white collar.

It also looked surprisingly good on a schlumpy eighties pastel blazer, which was how I used to wear it occasionally. Back in the eighties, of course. I don't tend to wear that sort of thing now.

Here's my great-grandmother, by the way. She died when I was a toddler, but I do have vague memories of her. Actually, I have vague memories of being dressed in yellow (not a big yellow fan to this day, me), sitting with an old lady, and trying to figure out what the weird inflatable purple rabbit was for.

Um, apparently it was Easter.

Anyway, the pin. I don't keep this particular pin with my other brooches, mostly because of its age and the whole family history thing. I really should take some shots of my other pins, though. They're mostly things that have been passed on to me from other family members since I've never been a big brooch buyer, and some of them are, frankly, hilarious. Hilarious gaudy costume jewellery would keep me from having to take winter photos for a while longer, don't you think?

Sounds enough like a plan that it'll probably end up happening.

As for now, however... lunch. Definitely lunch. I'll try to have a better topic tomorrow.



Or at least something more blathery.

Ahhh.

Found my knife.

Ok, seriously? This is a letter opener. I think I may have picked it up in Hawaii (because where else would you decide to buy a mock-sword letter opener with a cloisonne sheath?). I've had it for quite a while at this point.

Interesting (well, maybe not so interesting) fact about me: I really like cloisonne work. The good stuff can be so beautiful, and even the cheap stuff (like you see here) has its moments. I guess it kind of goes along with my whole thing about real jewellery; why go with goldtone when real silver looks better? can fit right in with why wear fake diamonds when real enamelling can be so pretty?

Um... don't look too closely at the goldtone on the enamelled sheath up there, all right?

Anyway, I need to get back to work. Sorry for the lack of blather, but to be honest I kind of forgot to blog. Later, all.





Oh, and I really did find my knife, in case anyone was worried that I was still walking around unarmed. I feel much better now.

Why, hello, Mr Oreo

Mr Oreo usually lives on my fridge, but he fell off of it at about ten last night and by that means earned himself a guest role on Weird Things in my Apartment.

Seriously. If it would just stop being winter (in January in Alberta. Yeah, that'll happen)  and there were flowers or at least spiders to take photos of, my two fans wouldn't be blessed with Mr Oreo. Be that as it may...

Mr Oreo's been with me long enough now that I really can't remember where he came from. I'm going to assume that it was from a package of Oreos, though. I know I had him in Edmonton, so he's getting up there in years. Especially for a plastic bendy man. He doesn't have the most effective suction cup anymore, which is why he periodically takes a tumble. It usually takes a couple of tries to get him stuck back on. One of these days I just won't even bother -- the garbage can's awfully close to the fridge, after all -- but for now I guess he'll just keep looking happy to be stationed beside the magnet a friend sent me a long time ago. Nine lives and I had to choose this one, it says. It naturally features a picture of a donkey.



Juuust checking to make sure you were paying attention there. It's the same thing I do when I'm teaching kindergarten kids about senses, you know. They think it's hilarious when I say that I use my ears to smell with.

Incidentally, is anyone else enjoying the Ikea upholstery background in these photos? I don't exactly have a lot of neutral places to take pictures in my apartment, so ottoman it is. I think it's kind of suitable for this blog, actually.

Geez. A quick search tells me that Mr Oreo is a collectible. Not an expensive collectible, but a collectible all the same.



People collect weird things, is all I can say. Back to work for me, now. Tomorrow maybe I'll take a walk and see if there's anything worthwhile pointing the camera at out there. There won't be, though. It's winter.





Something tells me that the Weird Things series may become a very long one.

Blast from the (pointless?) past

Oh, you're in luck today. Out of an odd mood this morning and a general apathy towards taking pictures of winter even with a new camera, Yours Pointlessly now presents the first installment of:

Weird Things in my Apartment

Read that in the voice that announces Pigs In Spaaace... well, if you like. I did. I'm not sure why.

Yes, boys and girls, it's weird things in my apartment, of which there are a few, and where better to start than with a scorpion brooch? Not so weird, you think? What if I said it was a real, live (well, dead at this point) scorpion dipped in gold? Or gold paint, more likely, because I didn't pay very much for it.

Are we qualifying for weird yet?

This particular scorpion, which is... oh, about four or five centimetres long, to give an idea of scale, actually has a bit of a history. I've had it for a fairly long time, and I got it at a trade show at Klondike Days, which used to be Edmonton's annual summer fair. I say used to be, because a few years ago they changed the name to Capital Ex for no apparent reason. I suppose it made sense to them, but nobody else really liked it so recently they put the name up to a vote. Edmontonians decided on K Days, I understand, which used to be the nickname of Klondike Days but now will be the official title. I wonder what they'll vote for next? They've had X and K. Maybe it's time for Q to have a turn.

Anyway, one of the non-midway selling points of Alphabet Days used to be -- and may be still, but I haven't been in a long time so I wouldn't know -- an international trade fair. Every year they'd invite vendors from a selected country to display and sell their wares. Some countries went for prestige items to show off what the nation was capable of. Stupid move at a fair, where people usually just want cheap souvenirs. The more successful countries were the ones that went for interesting inexpensive stuff that a person wasn't likely to find in Edmonton otherwise.

The scorpion's fair featured one of those countries. Thailand. Lots of neat little trinkets, and I looked at a lot of them until I got to the Infamous Booth of Gold-Dipping. It had gold-dipped just about everything. Flowers, leaves, scorpions...

Scorpions. Ohhh yeah.

I was drawn to them instantly. The lady at the booth, who by then had been working for a few days, looked at me oggling them and said "You must be a scorpio". Why yes, yes I am. How did you know? Unsurprisingly, I guess, it turned out that the only people in Edmonton (at the trade show, anyway) who weren't instantly disgusted by the thought of a small, gold-dipped invertebrate were the ones born between October 23rd and November 21st.

I bought one, of course. And it didn't just sit.

It was a pain to wear it as a pin, so I used the loop you can see under the head and wore it on a chain instead. I didn't get too many stares, oddly enough, because at that time I was working on my degree and in a zoology department  no one really bats an eye at people wearing or collecting various animal parts.

Not as ghoulish as it sounds, honestly. You just need to see it in context.

The scorpion also went to all of my exams with me and sat on my desk. I don't believe in good luck charms so it wouldn't have been a disaster if I'd forgot it or anything. It was just habit. Good company, too. It never knew any answers, though, being dead and all. And gold-dipped. And a scorpion.

Sharp-eyed viewers may notice that the left arm (not the correct technical term, but shut up. I'm a mammalogist, not a scorpionologist) is glued on. The joint got flexible fairly early on, and the whole thing eventually fell off. Yay, superglue. Sharp-eyed viewers may also notice a cameo appearance by one of my hairs, which I didn't notice at the time I took the photo. If this silly series continues, you'll notice loads of guest hair appearances, unfortunately. My hair has a knack for guest photo appearances, kind of like the butt-end of the chihuahua we had growing up.

For those of my two fans who know my brother, see if he remembers all the half-a dog pictures we have...

I so need to get back to work at this point. No computer time for me tomorrow, but I'll see if I can't make a habit of posting a little more regularly next week. Of course, the last time I promised that I disappeared for even longer than usual, so grain of salt and all that. Posting silliness... now.