My local JCC sponsors a photography contest every year; last year's honorees went on display around the same time that I started working out there, and I must admit that I was envious of all the exhibitors. I also like to think that I've taken a few decent pictures over the last two years (the period of eligibility for the competition) -- in fact, ( Read more... )

I'm out the door for the huge freaking trip through the Baltic sea and up the Norwegian coast. My connectivity will be spotty for the next five weeks (!) though if I can find WiFi broadband in the middle of the Libyan desert, Talinn ought to have no secrets from me. Still, I expect that there might soon be a few posts that contain (the one true ( Read more... )

Speaking of spurious assumptions about sexual dichotomization, I find it interesting that at my gym, the windowless, ochre, musty free-weight room gets one of the local Classic Rock stations pumped into it, heavy '70s music. Generally everyone in there is male, and both younger and buffer than I am, which makes me embarrassed to go in there and ( Read more... )

Symantec would like me to give them money -- my subscription to Norton AntiVirus is about to expire and my 2002 version is no longer supported, supposedly; I would like to tell them to blow it out their ass. Has anyone experience of ClamWin or another free AV program?

There are only four copies of Verdi Without Words at public libraries on the CLEVNET system; however, two of those copies are owned by the Shaker Heights Public Library, so that solves that.

I'm now impressed by and fascinated with the rhyme of "opera star" and "repertoire."

Anyone out there got an orchestral, vocal-free version of La donna è mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto? You Send It to dherblay *at* LiveJournal.com, please, please, please!

Persuasion or Mansfield Park?

Let's say, hypothetically, that I were to spend about seven days, six nights in New Zealand in late October. Where should I go? I've been around the Auckland/Rotorua area already but have never been on the South Island.

I meant, but forgot, to pack my Buffy/Angel fanvid cd-rom for the Chicago meet, so I'm burning another one tonight. Unfortunately, a couple of my favorites are no longer online, so I'm issuing here a plea that if anyone out there has a copy of either JSlayerUK's "Theme From Shaft" or JainieG's "Her Platinum Baby" lying around, I'd be forever ( Read more... )

I have a pair of questions, probably most answerable by atpotchFirst, from Sunday's Everyman: "Metal grille in neat pub (4,3)." B_L_ B_R. I want to say "bald bar," but can't find any evidence that this is an actual phrase. This is the final light! Help me rage, rage against its dying! (Hmmm . . . now I'm onto "bull bar," which makes no obvious sense on ( Read more... )