And the shadows they left as they found us…

Thinking about ordering the Sims 3 so it arrives at my house on the release date…. Amazon is so cool, and so scary.

Well then.

Life is less than stellar right now.

Missing homework…

I’ve been working with the people in charge over at kzsc.org and recently I’ve been taking a good, long look at some of their traffic data. It’s pretty interesting to see what’s been a hit and what hasn’t, what gets traffic on its own and what gets traffic when they promote it heavily. It reminds me a lot of my Phonology I and II homework – “Here’s some data. Look at it. Find the patterns. Figure out why it does what it does.” Things like that make me miss linguistics, but I still feel pretty comfortable with my decision not to go to grad school soon. I just like solving puzzles, I guess.

The Ninja Fox Diaries (a Gmail Themes-Tea House post)

7:50a – ninja fox is doing tai chi on the porch with two of his bunny friends.
8:28 – ninja fox is trimming the plants.
11:26 – the fox is giving the bird a bath with a hose.
12:36p – the fox is sweeping out the pagoda, having moved the table into the corner, one of the birds is drinking from the bird bath, and another is chilling on the porch. the outdoor table is set with snacks
2:13 – everything has disappeared! there are only trees… where did my ninja fox go?
2:13 – he’s back! oh that was frightening. he is now working on a little zen bamboo on the outdoor table, and with the sweeping done the table is back in its place inside the pagoda. the birds are both perched on the birdbath and having a drink when it suits their fancy.
4:22 – the sun is now high in the sky but heading down. ninja fox and his friend monkey are taking tea in the tower of the pagoda. one of the birds is chilling on the stool at the outdoor table, but the other is not to be found. could he be plotting revenge against the ninja fox who does not invite him to tea?
5:54 – ninja fox and monkey are still taking tea.
6:31 – twilight. ninja fox is serenading a small flock of ducks with his flute at the outdoor table.
8:11 – ninja fox is having what looks like a veggie noodle bowl for dinner inside the pagoda, while all three birds are enjoying bird seed on the porch. the sun has now gone down, and the stars are out.
10:48 – ninja fox is on a ladder lighting the lantern that hangs from the corner of the pagoda. There’s a crazy lantern sitting on the outdoor table that looks like a fish. The birds are gone, but there are fireflies above the birdbath.
12:20a – ninja fox is working on his calligraphy at the indoor table.
2:41 – OMG! ninja fox has put away the table and is asleep in the pagoda (his slippers are outside the door), but there are three ghost foxes playing a game on the outdoor table! crazy!

On Nancy Drew

I just found a rather amusing discussion of the “two greatest mysteries in Nancy Drew” that I’d like to share with everyone.

First, who was the “real Carolyn Keene”? Like so many well-known juvenile mysteries (see The Hardy Boys) the Nancy Drew series was conceived and (in the beginning) outlined by Edward Stratemeyer. His daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, later took over the book business and for a time claimed to be the author of all the Nancy Drews written from 1930 to 1982. As it turns out, this was not the case. Nancy, like Stratemeyer’s other series, was ghosted by a number of anonymous professional writers, most notably Mildred Wirt Benson, until Harriet Adams did indeed begin writing new volumes and revising old ones, in the 1950′s.

What is truly unique about the Nancy Drew/Carolyn Keene mystery, however, is the care that was taken to obliterate any and all traces of the “real authors. Karen Plunkett-Powell, in her excellent book, The Nancy Drew Scrapbook: 60 Years of America’s Favorite Teenage Sleuth, documents Byzantine plots and conspiracies involving changed copyright records, disappearing Library of Congress files, and nonexistent government employees.

But, fascinating as this question is, it pales beside the other mystery: What did this chick do, anyway? At age 16 (18 in the revised and later editions), Nancy has graduated from high school. She’s not in college, though she does take the occasional class in art or scuba diving, as required by a particular plot. She has plenty of time to shop and tea with her chums Bess Marvin (the fat one) and George Fayne (the tomboy), not to mention visiting steady flame Ned Nickerson at Emerson College. Nancy only works when she’s detecting undercover (and at that, only in the new and putrid Nancy Drew Case Files), and faithful housekeeper Hannah Gruen takes care of the hearth, yet Nancy always seems to have the latest roadster (convertible in the revised and later editions). (Then again, her loving father Carson is a successful attorney.) When the series started in 1930, Nancy may have been every parent’s dream, but in 1998 she reads more like a nightmare–the Daughter Who Won’t Leave.

Read the rest and more.

Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday!

Of course, it’s never too early to start thinking about the next election…