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| Bats Day Holiday sale has been extended until 1/1/10.
Use code "holiday2009" @ www.batsdaystore.com All orders over $40 will receive 20% off entire order. Tell your friends. :)
We hope you all had a great holiday. Here at Bats Day in the Fun Park we have decided to extend our sale until the end of the year. This is a great way to get some after holiday stuff.
From now until 1/1/2010, you can save 20% on all orders over $40* by using the coupon code: HOLIDAY2009, when you checkout. What a great way to save some money on
holiday presents. Take advantage of this sale now before its too late.
*Terms and Conditions:Coupon Code: HOLIDAY2009 is good for 20% on all orders over $40. This code is only valid on items at the Bats Day Scream Store. (www.batsdaystore.com) This offer is not valid for Bats Day in the Fun Park event tickets or payments towards vendor spots at the Bats Day Black Market. Coupon Code expiration date is 1/1/2010. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| Enjoyed the Company Christmas lunch and the Secret Santa-age. I received that most Christmas-sy of winter movies, The Shining, on Blu-Ray. Christmas Eve was spent with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jason_brez, who prepared a magnificent choucroute, aided and abetted by gourmet porkulous products courtesy of kyrialyse.
Christmas morning we opened our presents. Plenty of thoughtful and/or tasty gifts from family and friends and Dr. Pookie got me a new iPod shuffle that's the size of a large afterdinner mint. Then a little cookie baking, for which I contributed some stirring and mixing. In the afternoon, we travelled out to Brea for dinner with mom & stepdad & a few more presents to open. A fine dinner & visit, and we got to play with their kitties some. Came home with a ziggurat of tupperwares of leftovers, so we won't starve over the cruel winter hours.
A few hours of book-reading with our toes warmed by the festive whoosh of the gas heater. A fine day, all in all.
For this evening, off to the Magic Castle! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I am currently working on a character based on the German toy manufacturer Baron Christoph Von Claus. “Chris” Van Claus was a normal human male, born in Brandenburg, Germany in the year 1825. His family was well off, but in the 1840s Christoph built an industrialized factory for the manufacturing of toys. He became independently wealthy with his blockbuster toy 'The wheel and the stick.'
On one of his numerous trips to America he dropped in to see his old friend Charles Dellschau [1830 Prussia-1923 Texas], who was living in Sonora, California. He and fellow members of the Sonora Aero Club gleefully ruled the skies of Gold Rush California, piloting fantastical airships of their own invention. Here he meet and fell in love with the aerial adventuress Adellheid Sundblom. They were married and returned to Germany but kept an eye on the hostilities brewing in the U.S.
In 1863 as a gesture of good will and good business, he crossed the Union Blockade in a hot air balloon and brought toys to both the South and the North
Seeking a faster means of toy delivery, he helped finance the building of a rigid airship based on a design by His friend Dellschau and Croatian engineer David Schwarz. On It’s maiden voyage to the United States he took a short cut over the North Pole and serendipitously discovered an entrance to the earth’s interior
[The Blazing World?]. Not long after that he relocated his manufacturing center to the North Pole. In return for his guarding the entrance to Agartha the beings there gave him access to certain arcane lore.
Having to live through the German Wars of Unification [1848-1871] he has an aversion to war. Like Robur and Nemo before him, Baron Von Claus hates man’s constant bickering. His great grandfather Gebhard [1699-1798] may have been a great military man, loyal to King Fredrick II, but Christoph seeks peace on earth and has only good feelings towards others.
 | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Didnt really get anything for the holidays this year. a $25 check from my mom, a DVD about the haunted history from liz, some movie tickets from Alan and Susie a cool 4x5" art cart from msserrialkiller of a cute cartoony ornament. Had a nice dinner with Mel at Disneyland tonight. And you know what, I dont need anything. I have Mel with me and that is what matters.
:) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Less than a month after a somewhat vague question about something that happened 35 years ago is posed, I find the fucking answer in a Christmas present (Thank you, Dr. Pookie!).
(Parenthetically, I note that if the questioner had taken my original advice of asking at randi.org (rather than pooh-poohing the old bearded fart) he/she might have gotten an answer much more rapidly.) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This hasn't been a great holiday season for me. Thanksgiving started out fine, but one of our guests unknowingly brought a flu bug with her. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, not long after dinner, I suddenly came down with it. About an hour later, my husband did, too.
Ironically, at almost the exact moment I took sick, my best friend from high school passed away. I didn't learn about the latter fact until a few days ago, because while I was still in touch with my friend, it took her family a while to track me down. (That's the down side of having your address book password protected, I guess.) Her family has (wisely, I think) decided to wait until after the holidays to have a memorial service for her, back in Connecticut, but her mother has decided to go full Catholic mass with it, despite the fact that Laurie Anne hasn't practiced Catholicism since she was last forced to sit through mass at St. Bernard High. I very much want to fly back to attend, but it will make my skin crawl to enter a church where I've been explicitly told I'm not welcome because of who I am, especially considering just how much the travel is going to cost me.
The drop to one income has been a big shock to the system, meaning that we simply couldn't afford to do the holiday gift-giving that we wanted to. I don't much care for receiving presents, as I live in a very small space, have recently consolidated two households into one, and am still going through the painful process of giving cherished possessions to Goodwill because I simply don't have room for them. I therefore don't want any more stuff, and I'm therefore grateful that there was very little under the tree this year. But it pained me to feel like I was being a Grinch with respect to the spirit of giving, especially since we're spending exorbitant amounts of money on the house -- more so that we planned because we've discovered that the illegal addition (which exists despite the seller telling us there was no unpermitted work on the house when we bought it) wasn't built right and will have to be largely rebuilt -- and I feel like I really could be spending more of that money on others and less on myself.
In 1843, Ebenezer Scrooge said, "Bah! Humbug!" whenever someone wished him a Merry Christmas. Today's cultural equivalent would be, "Meh! What a rip-off!" (The etymology I found for the slang "humbug" when I played the role was that a humbug was a popular scam/hoax at the time, in which people were asked to pay money to see a bug that hummed, an effect which was pulled off by gluing an insect on a sound box which then hummed when the insect attempted to fly away. Officially the origin of the term is unknown, though.) It's easy to look at the obligatory expenses that come up around the holiday season that way when things aren't going well. It's also easy to look at your tax bill and feel like the charitable contributions can be let go because, after all, we're paying lots of money into a welfare system which can take care of the poor. ("Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" That was the 19th-century equivalent of our modern welfare system.) And so, like the character I played so many years ago, my charitable contributions dropped to practically nil this year, a fact which I'm very much not happy about.
But rather than writing a tirade about how miserable Christmas is, I instead want to wish everyone much joy and prosperity.
You see, to me the point of celebrating Christmas -- whether you're Christian or not -- is to take time to remember that even though life deals you ups and downs, there is joy and community all around you if you keep the right frame of mind. So, like Scrooge's addled nephew, I'm determined to be merry at Christmas, regardless of how poor I am, or how surly those around me are, or whatever else is going wrong in my life.
So, from one curmudgeon to all of you I say, Happy Christmas to all, and to all, a good life! | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Jesus is the reason for the season, where "Jesus" is defined as "an ancient, pagan celebration of the return of the sun following the winter solstice." | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Instead of calling it the Christmas Season, perhaps we should instead call it the Indoor Pine Allergy Season. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Pics | | Time: | 03:34 am |
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| I've been wondering why I haven't gotten any comments at all on the pictures/comments I've been posting - just found out that most of the text I've been including hasn't been posting. Damned livejournal.
reposting them now ;p | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Oscar Wilde lived here and died here. Hollee and I drank here with new
friends. That's just cool to me.
The view from our hotel balcony. The weather was such that we couldn't
really tolerate being out there for more than a few moments. But, I'd
love to have a picnic there next time.
Taking pictures of art for the sake of doing so is touristy and meh ..
- better copies exist - but I had to take at least one (and I didn't
want to be the damned Mona Lisa). Hollee and I got into a deep
discussion about the value of art and appreciation thereof - glad we
hit Musee d'Orsay, even if just for that.
After purchasing a gift or two for friends at home- yes, we're
apparently those people - we inquired as to the "
Bec" discount - but either this is owned by a different Rebecca or our
bec_bec is stingy with her discounts.
Moulin Rouge. Yes it exists. No, we didn't go in. I tried to go to
L'Alpin Agile - much more interesting to me, but it seemed pretty
dead. We were there pretty late - have to take in a caberet show next
time.
( 5 images ) | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Mix your own hot chocolate in the Galleries Lafayette.
Street vendor (Champs d'Elysse, of course) duck + foie gras Sandwich.
I've never had fg on a sandwich form - it was way too rich for my
tastes on bread. Great duck though.
I love Nutella. There was no way I could justify bringing this home.
Therefore, I am sad. (six versions of this image exist- we couldn't
decide if I should be happy or sad)
Fondue? Check.
Surly waiter? Check.
Wine in baby bottles? Check.
Welcome to L'Refuge Fondue.
Tonic water is Indian tonic - and for valid historical reasons. I
wonder when we decided to rename it in the States.
( 5 images ) | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| The Monmarte funicular saves you quite a few steps. And it's fun to
ride. It's like "Angel's Flight" but operational!
Sally was right. Monmarte had my favorite views of Paris. Plus I
listened to the Amelie soundtrack while walking the streets.
The requiste "Yes, I didn't get these pictures off of flickr - I
actually went" picture. I keep humming the associated song...
I think I'm going to have to go back to Rizwan. There was "riz" everywhere!
I'm in love with this Helmut photograph. I'm not sure why, but
whenever I see his book on display, I leave it open on this page
( 5 images ) | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| Catching up on pictures :
They had flashing brilliant lights running on the quarter hours.
Returning the next day. The sun/clouds were amazing.
The view at night. Poor Hollee + Mom waited on the chilly upper floor
for 45m for the sun to fully set.
The recommended (thanks Anisa!) route towards the tower. It just pops
out of nowhere.
( 4 images ) | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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