homefries.org

The University of Nottingham has videos about the elements:

James Ford tagged me with this little meme:

1. write the title to your own memoir using six words.
2. post it on your blog.
3. link to the person that tagged you.
4. tag five more blogs.

My title: Following the current: eddies and floods

And my tags:

• Doc Smartypants (who desperately needs to blog instead of writing for about.com)
• Blaugustine (that would be my Blaugustine, not the other one)
• Suttonhoo (because I don’t know her at all, but admire her photography and of course covet her online handle)
• Claire Bear’s mom (just because!)
• Otenth Paderborn (ha! that gives me five more tags, all virtual worlders)

On the livejournal steampunk fashion group, along came this little beauty:

Rolleiflex MiniDigi AF5.0

First developed in Germany in the 1920’s, the Rollei 6×6cm Twin Lens Reflex Camera has always been a preferred tool for serious photography, especially portraits. There cannot be, for example, a single Hollywood celebrity who has not been photographed with a Rollei. Now, many of the outstanding convenience features and nostalgic design can be yours in a fashionable up-to-date digital with auto focus feature to shoot between 4 inches (10cm) to infinity on 5 mega pixel image.

I have a favorite bath soap. It’s Pre de Provence sage soap. (And I only just discovered that I can buy it from Amazon! I have to go a bit out of my way to buy it.) I also like the verbena.

This week I was near a store in Cambridge that has small bars, and I went in to buy a few. (A few is all I can justify buying at a time; these babies are expensive!) As I perused the display, there were pink bars I didn’t remember seeing before. “Peony” they said. I love peonies. So I picked one up for a sniff, and it reminded me of
my Grandma Tracey. I love memories of my Grandma Tracey, so I bought one.

Big mistake. I used it yesterday morning for my shower, and it was fine. Nice moisturizing feel, but no icky film. Pleasant fragrance.

Until—until I came home, that is, and now my small apartment has unmistakable whiffs of eau de parfum du bordel. (It smells like a French whorehouse, as the saying goes.)

On Sunday, May 28, 1665, Samuel Pepys records in his diary “a fine rarity.”

Thence home and to see my Lady Pen, where my wife and I were shown a fine rarity: of fishes kept in a glass of water, that will live so for ever; and finely marked they are, being foreign.

Goldfish had only recently been introduced to England.

I’d never heard of Pecha Kucha before a couple days ago, but it apparently boils down to

20 slides, 20 seconds each. That’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds per presentation.

Originally invented for creatives, it’s being picked up by other communities. I found some great tips that apply to any public speaking. I’ll certainly be keeping it in mind as I prepare for the panel on “new media” I’m organizing for the UUA General Assembly in June.

I’m broadcasting on behalf of Radio Riel today, for our “Magnatune Mondays.” Today’s connecting thread is “strings.” Plucked, strummed, bowed, or beaten. Have a listen at http://music.radioriel.org.

Andrew Brown is both a jazz musician and a Unitarian and radical Christian minister. He has written No Image - No Passion or how practising rock and roll moves in the mirror taught me the value of imitation:

. . . merely desiring the fruits of a liberal religion without at the same time seriously seeking to follow a religious exemplar means you will never get a real grip on what you need to be doing in the life of the spirit. Everything will remain terribly unfocussed and unfulfilling. There will be no attainment and progression.

There’s a little graphic and such, but here’s the central, weird finding of a Pew study reported in The Climate Change Attitude Mystery | Wired Science from Wired.com

The confounding part: among college-educated poll respondents, 19 percent of Republicans believe that human activities are causing global warming, compared to 75 percent of Democrats. But take that college education away and Republican believers rise to 31 percent while Democrats drop to 52 percent.

The Old Bailey Online has not only “The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913,” but also extensive background materials.

A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London’s central criminal court.

There are essays on “Community histories”:

• Black Communities
• Gypsies and Travellers
• Homosexuality
• Irish London
• Jewish Communities
• Huguenot and French London
• Chinese Communities

“London and its hinterlands”:

• 1674-1715
• 1715-1760
• 1760-1815
• 1800-1913
• A Population History
• Material London
• London’s Rural Hinterlands
• Currency, Coinage, Cost of Living
• Transport

As well as “Gender in the proceedings,” “Crime, Justice, and Punishment,” and “The Old Bailey Courthouse.”

(via The Cat’s Meat Shop.)