Ich Bin Ein Auslander
Today I snuck into a gated community1 to pet the horses and walk the path on the other side of the river. It always kind of rankled me that I was only able to walk my side of the river, which was nice and all, but the other side had a playground and horses. So today I combed my hair to the side and put on a big smile and drove right past the guard shack with a wave. The opposite bank of the river was deeper, a little boring, and covered in horse poo. There's a lesson there, I think4.
[1] It's "Aquia", pronounced "uh-kwy-uh"2, but my coworker Mike thinks it's "IKEA"3.
[2] Not IPA.
[3] So you know how IKEA stocks its display shelves with books? And usually they appear to have been purchased in lots, and most of them, at least at the stores I've been too, are Swedish. Well, for the longest time the IKEA near me had, in addition to all of those, about twenty copies of the first edition hardback of The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty, one of my favorite books. It's the sort of book that I'd love to have a dozen copies of in order to give them away as gifts. I went all around the store and pulled every copy off of the shelves that I could find once, but at checkout they wouldn't ring them up -- they weren't in the system and had no price tags. I called Customer Service and asked them to sell them to me. I offered to replace them with an equal number of other books. They refused. So unfortunate. I go back and visit them periodically.
[4] "The poo is always more voluminous on the other side." Or maybe, "There's a reason that the grass is greener on the other side, and you really don't want to experience it for yourself."
The National Book Festival is this weekend. Don't forget your owl feathers in your hats and/or black orchids in your button holes.
I haven't managed to procure either, and probably won't have time to before then5. I'll be the quiet one with the impish grin and the press pass. I'll also have a backpack or a messenger's bag with me and a box6.
Recall that there will be a generous fan giving copies of ODD AND THE FROST GIANTS to the first 20 or so people that she sees sporting a black orchid or owl feather.
The weather report is calling for rain Saturday, so you might also want to bring an umbrella or rain slicker.
[5] If someone has an extra or so, I'll bring some cool Mr. G schwag to trade.
[6] For "the surprise"7. I did some work on Mr. G's surprise today; it's almost done.8
[7] Note to Secret Service: It's not the bad, ticking kind of surprise. Please don't confiscate it and give it to the little robot that carries things far away and then makes them go kablooey.
[8] Afterwards, I'll post pictures of the surprise, and video of its delivery to Mr. G.
I'm wondering if I should be doing this on Blogger instead. I like threaded replies, and already had the webgoblin account, but I hear that there's a limit on the total number of tags and I hate it when the replies collapse and I have to click a million places just to read them all. And I like the way that Blogger handles drafts better.
Theoretically, I suppose, someone with a paid LJ account could just create a syndicated LJ account from the feed. And I could disallow commenting on the blogger version to keep all of the comments in one place.
...
I dunno. Seems a bit complicated.
Faux tags: [if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence] [what's black and white and has touch sensors all over?] [a million little pieces] [my grin is my passport, verify me?]
[1] It's "Aquia", pronounced "uh-kwy-uh"2, but my coworker Mike thinks it's "IKEA"3.
[2] Not IPA.
[3] So you know how IKEA stocks its display shelves with books? And usually they appear to have been purchased in lots, and most of them, at least at the stores I've been too, are Swedish. Well, for the longest time the IKEA near me had, in addition to all of those, about twenty copies of the first edition hardback of The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty, one of my favorite books. It's the sort of book that I'd love to have a dozen copies of in order to give them away as gifts. I went all around the store and pulled every copy off of the shelves that I could find once, but at checkout they wouldn't ring them up -- they weren't in the system and had no price tags. I called Customer Service and asked them to sell them to me. I offered to replace them with an equal number of other books. They refused. So unfortunate. I go back and visit them periodically.
[4] "The poo is always more voluminous on the other side." Or maybe, "There's a reason that the grass is greener on the other side, and you really don't want to experience it for yourself."
The National Book Festival is this weekend. Don't forget your owl feathers in your hats and/or black orchids in your button holes.
I haven't managed to procure either, and probably won't have time to before then5. I'll be the quiet one with the impish grin and the press pass. I'll also have a backpack or a messenger's bag with me and a box6.
Recall that there will be a generous fan giving copies of ODD AND THE FROST GIANTS to the first 20 or so people that she sees sporting a black orchid or owl feather.
The weather report is calling for rain Saturday, so you might also want to bring an umbrella or rain slicker.
[5] If someone has an extra or so, I'll bring some cool Mr. G schwag to trade.
[6] For "the surprise"7. I did some work on Mr. G's surprise today; it's almost done.8
[7] Note to Secret Service: It's not the bad, ticking kind of surprise. Please don't confiscate it and give it to the little robot that carries things far away and then makes them go kablooey.
[8] Afterwards, I'll post pictures of the surprise, and video of its delivery to Mr. G.
I'm wondering if I should be doing this on Blogger instead. I like threaded replies, and already had the webgoblin account, but I hear that there's a limit on the total number of tags and I hate it when the replies collapse and I have to click a million places just to read them all. And I like the way that Blogger handles drafts better.
Theoretically, I suppose, someone with a paid LJ account could just create a syndicated LJ account from the feed. And I could disallow commenting on the blogger version to keep all of the comments in one place.
...
I dunno. Seems a bit complicated.
Faux tags: [if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence] [what's black and white and has touch sensors all over?] [a million little pieces] [my grin is my passport, verify me?]