maybe

maura @ 11:54 pm

I am not doing NaBloPoMo this year. I just have too much to do. And there isn’t even time to post this before midnight, anyway.

(Or is there?)

another year…

maura @ 9:31 pm

…another NaBloPoMo come and gone. I missed 3 days this year and posted short or photo entries more than I probably should have, but I’m glad I kicked my butt into some sort of gear, however low.

And now I think I might be getting sick, so off to sleep with me.

now she’s in purple, now she’s a turtle

maura @ 10:16 pm

You may have heard about this newfangled invention the kids are all crazy over: text messaging.

Texting! OMG!

For the longest time we did not have free texting on our phones. Mostly it was stinginess thriftyness: I don’t like talking on the phone at all, but I also couldn’t really fathom that I would text enough to make it worth the money. Plus it bugs the hell out of me that we can have 40 million billion jillion unused phone minutes (see above re: my dislike of telephone communication) BUT the phone company has the gall to charge us, charge us!, for texting. Harrumph! Get me my tin cans and string, you whipper-snapper!

It was sometimes hilarious not to have a texting plan. Occasionally I get wrong-number texts, which are even more annoying when they cost $0.25 a pop *and* when the sender refuses to believe that you are not her/his friend. But now that we have a text plan, I can get into true identity SMS fights with ease!

I guess it was one text too many, but one day I said, “hey, maybe we should get a text plan.” And thus it was to be, and verily, we were texting by nightfall. Mostly I just text Jonathan. Thanks to the fabulous iphone emoji app, we can also send each other tiny pictures of hearts, clouds, food, drink, and smiling poop (scroll down on that page for the poop).

But recently I’ve started to text others more and more. My siblings + parents, esp. over the holiday. Pals, esp. when I am running late. Tonight was a breakthrough — Jonathan texted a new babysitter we’re hoping to engage, and I was texted by one of Gus’s friend’s parents. OMG this texting is amazing! No putting off phone calls forever because I don’t want to make them, no awkward small talk is possible in 160 characters. Texting FTW!

zooming

maura @ 10:31 pm

All weekend I have sort of been avoiding taking a look at the calendar because the next couple of weeks are kind of insane. Gus’s birthday is soon, and Xmas is practically right around the corner. Also, I somehow managed to get myself involved in 4 presentations at conferences and various other events between 12/3 and 12/14. It is all very exciting but also a little scary. So instead I’ve been catching up on my feeds + twitter and playing Carcassonne and listening to music and hanging out with family + friends.

Only a few more minutes of that before I should go to sleep so I can get up and start freaking out getting back to work tomorrow. Later, gators!

i see the bright and hollow sky

maura @ 2:10 pm

OMG my mom made me watch a Tmobile ad the other day with someone singing “The Passenger” and now I am going absolutely nutty wanting to hear it. The Siouxsie & the Banshees version, specifically. I don’t have it on my phone and pandora isn’t cooperating and aiieee!!!

(Okay, found it on youtube, much better now, phew! Also, ripping all of my Siouxsie discs at home, wondering why I hadn’t done so before.)

—

Over the past couple of days we’ve been playing long distance games of Carcassonne w/my brother. The basic game mechanic is that players draw tiles to create a landscape that includes cities, roads, cloisters, and open spaces (which can be farmed). Each player has 7 little dudes (“meeples,” their real name, is just too twee even for me) to use throughout the game to claim the aforementioned locales as their own and earn points. Some points aren’t earned until the game is over, when all tiles are placed.

It’s been interesting to compare gameplay between the iphone and real life. In the real life version of the game it’s easy to see the entire board and ponder your tile placement options. It’s also a bit more random — while in theory it’s possible to know how many of each type of tile is left in the (facedown) draw pile, in practice you would never take the time to count the tiles and look in the rules to determine the likelihood of drawing that perfect tile.

The phone version has the same rules + mechanics, but there are distinct differences to playing on a 2×4.5 inch screen connected to the internets. When you’re all zoomed in on your tile (which you kind of need to be in order to decide where to put your meeple), it’s impossible to see the whole board once the game’s more than a few turns old. I’ve gotten myself into the habit of zooming way out to see everything, but I still wonder whether the closeup view encourages weirdly spaced-out tile placements. It seems like each of us tends to hone in on a couple of areas and ignore the rest, which I don’t remember doing in the real world version.

Also in the phone version it’s possible to pull up a list of remaining available tiles at any point in the game. This strikes me as sidling up to cheating, though I definitely indulge, especially when it’s close to the end of the game. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this feature has proved extremely helpful to my endgame strategy.

It’s been pretty fun, definitely one of those situations in which you realize the magic of the internets. There’s a great built in chat function, so we can even trash talk when someone draws too many cloisters.

mer du japon

maura @ 8:17 pm

A few weeks ago I promised to tell you more about the new art near work. On Wednesday I finally had a chance to take some pictures. Here’s an art tour just for you!

This is the first piece of sculpture I encounter on my walk through the plaza on the way to work. According to the sign, this is a collage of objects that represent the top results of a Google search for the word sculpture. Funky!

I don’t know what the story is with these. They’re inflatable, and I could swear that one of the middle platforms had a cow on it a few weeks ago. Maybe it popped.

This is very cool: a photo of rushing water on a board strapped to most of the trees (the same photo on every tree). I should go back and get a closeup. It’s a neat effect.

These are the Louise Bourgeois-esque cubes — there are actually 3, but only 2 would fit in the photo. During the day you can’t tell that there’s anything in them because they are slightly reflective, as you can see.

Bat chair!

Here’s what one of the cubes looks like at night — internal lights illuminate everything within, which includes shoes, plants, bottles of cold medicine, and liquor. Good times in a box!

Yay for art! If I remember correctly these pieces will all be up through the spring, so come on out to Downtown Brooklyn if you’d like to take a peek.

can’t blog, gaming

maura @ 10:32 pm

Jonathan and I are playing Carcassonne on our phones. O, this modern world!

Happy Thanksgiving, dudes.

i am not cooking

maura @ 10:25 pm

…but I am still tired. And I need to get a good night’s sleep so I can eat lots tomorrow. So in lieu of a real post, here’s a phone photo for you.

This is from our first trip to Governor’s Island, when Gus and I went with friends 2 summers ago. The Brooklyn ferries hadn’t started running yet so we had to leave from Manhattan, and there was that crazy David Byrne play the piano and play the building exhibit next door to the ferry building. I thought Gus would love it, but instead he was kind of cranky and bratty. But it was cool anyway.

The building housing the exhibit had lots of neat spaces, including this one. I’ve always liked this photo — it’s been on my phone still for all this time. I could easily see it worked into some kind of narrative or videogame. And the colors are nifty.

is this thing on?

maura @ 8:32 pm

Well hello internets! Yes, I crapped out on 2 days of blagging. Once you fall off that wagon, it’s so easy to do it again. I meant to blag, really I did, but we’ve been busy and also spent the past 2 nights watching Shutter Island. Which was decent, but not amazing. And really *really* long. Boy howdy, whose idea was it to make a 2.5 hr long movie? So not necessary. I don’t know, Leonardo DiCaprio kind of bugs me lately. Though I did love Inception. On the other hand, Michelle Williams was awesome. So crazy!

Boy, I gots nothing tonight, either. Still haven’t taken any photos of the new art near work. Maybe I will do that tomorrow. The bathroom renovation is completely finished and the associated mess cleaned up. I continue to be stressed out by Xmas music/decorations before it’s even Thanksgiving. Thanks to the giving it’s a meeting-light week at work so I’ve been possessed by the completely unrealistic notion that tomorrow I will finish a whole slew of tasks that have been hanging out on my to do list for way too long. Maybe I’ll even bring the rest of my stuff over from the old cubicle to the new office. Big Wednesday plans, indeed.

i am okay to go

maura @ 10:52 pm

Gus wanted to have movie night tonight, and really wanted to watch something sci-fi. Scrolling through Netflix watch instantly we came across Contact, and that’s what he chose. I think it’s PG? Maybe PG-13 — there’s a bit of language (“Mom, why did he say ‘son of a b…”), but nothing he doesn’t hear on the schoolbus every damn day, and a smidge of kissing (“Ewww!”), but otherwise it’s harmless.

Except that it’s kind of a grownup movie. We haven’t seen it in a while, and I’d forgotten about the religious discussions and the father dying and the bombing. And lots of talk talk talking. It’s kind of intense, and Gus was a bit confused sometimes.

But it’s also such a great movie and he really does seem to be into it. Who can resist Arecibo and the Very Large Array? And Jodie Foster is just so fabulous, always. The whole package makes me want to be an astronomer. Yay SETI!