Why Can't I Come Up With Good Titles Lately?

Olivia, shamefully, has really not felt much like blogging lately. In fact, she was going to skip Geeky Friday this week. But then she felt guilty, and decided to at least throw something at you.

Also, she today discovered iTunes U, which is really kind of cool. There are tons of free lectures!

I Have Sat Here For Several Minutes Pondering Titles. So Here's One.

A. My. It's Friday and I haven't posted since Tuesday, when I left you with promises of many posts to come?

But knowing me, that's really not surprising.

B. Blogger. Is. Driving. Me. Insane. I try to respond to your comments, and it eats me! So. This is what I tried to write in response to the comments on my last post.

Mercy--It's a masterpiece! That's what!
Specifically, a scrap of fabric folded in half and sewn in straight lines over and over and over.
Thomas--Thing. Only thing.
What is it called, anyway? I guess I'd know if I actually looked at the thing.
There I go again. Thing. Thing, thing, thing, thing.

Of course, I couldn't leave you wondering what I'd say in response, because everything I write is so profound.

Like thing. Bask in awe of the poeticness.

C. I had a lovely afternoon admiring the underbelly of a tree. I picnicked in the woods in my backyard and did a bit of schoolwork. (The many wonderful things about homeschooling!)  Littlest Horsie nibbled on my blanket. Squirrels chattered at me. Fire ants found their way up my pants.

From the outside, luckily.

D. The first time I wrote this paragraph, I made such a horrible error I fear I shall never forgive myself. I don't trust myself grammatically to go on at this hour. But it's Friday, and I have a duty to provide geekiness to my readers... although most won't see it earlier than Saturday.

E. I'm stalling.

F. The longer I keep you waiting, the more time I have to find something for Geeky Friday. 'Cause I forgot to plan ahead this week.

G. Why is it that I forget the many other things I have to do when I am idle, and suddenly they come back to me when I'm in the middle of something?

H. When I pause, I have to sing through the alphabet again to remember what letter comes next.

I. I've always found it amusing that the alphabet spells "Hi!".

J. Perhaps I should actually go look for something to post now.

K. Aha!

L. Khan Academy is awesome.

M. I could easily spend all day watching his videos.

N. In fact, I might spend the rest of the night doing that.

O. It's Friday night, after all.

P. The night of nerdiness.

Q. Now I feel obligated to finished the alphabet, even though I really have nothing left to say.

R. Waking to Bach is a lovely thing. I've set my alarm to play his organ music at seven-thirty each morning. (I'd set it earlier if I managed to get to bed at a human hour.) If ever you need a boost in the mornings, I prescribe Bach. 

S. I have no idea what movie my father is watching right now, but it looks... really rather horrible.

T. I'm rather tired tonight, so it will be amusing tomorrow to see what typos I didn't catch before posting.

Translation: Please don't burn me at the stake if you find an error, because I'll do it myself.

U. It's a strange letter.

V. I need to read. Eh. You know something's wrong when I'm not looking forward to reading.

W. This information is all quite useless and nothing you were really interested in knowing, save for K.

X. Xylophones.

Y. Yaks.

Z. Zebras!

Next time won't you sing with me?

Our *Dear* Mr. Blogger is Videoist

Mother Dearest sent this to me for this week's Geeky Friday.

Only, you will never know what this is because Blogger doesn't let me insert non-YouTube videos that aren't on my computer. How rude, and exclusive, and discriminating, and inconvenient!

Blogger has been bothering me lately for lots of reasons. Like--ahem--NOT BEING ABLE TO COMMENT ON MY OWN BLOG. First, whenever I tried to comment with my Google Account it told me I was not authorized to access the page (...eh?), so I've had to post for a while now with a name and URL. But this morning it wouldn't even let me do that. And poor, dear Birdi's comments get all eaten up too, and possibly other commenters' that I don't know about because they can't comment!

Blogger's probably mad at me because I mentioned considering switching to Wordpress. But I considered switching to Wordpress because Blogger is possessed. So Blogger started it.

Anyway, back to Geeky Friday.

I am afraid I can only provide a link, thanks to Blogger's... videoism.

Linkage provided.

It's about asteroids, for the curious.

Of Puppies and Geeks





This is the puppy my dad found on the side of the road.

Isn't that sheer adorableness?

He saw the vet today, and she said she didn't see any signs of trauma, and he tested negative for parvo*.

Still, something isn't right with him. He's lethargic to the extreme and just lies there. That isn't normal for a puppy in a strange place surrounded by strange people--or any dog, save maybe a senile, geriatric one.

Outside he perks up, though he still isn't as lively as it seems a puppy should be. Hopefully we'll get a call from his owners soon, if he has any.

Also, I hereby declare every Friday shall be Geeky Friday**. (Because, after all, we nerds having nothing better to do with ourselves on Friday nights than be nerdy!) I've wanted to declare it for several weeks now, but each Friday I'm too tired to write a post nerdy enough. And I'm still too tired, so I'm going to leave you with Fibonacci.

*Canine parvovirus type 2. According to Wikipedia the Omniscient, "It has two distinct presentations, a cardiac and intestinal form. The common signs of the intestinal form are severe vomiting and dysentery. The cardiac form causes respiratory or cardiovascular failure in young puppies."

**I was going to go with Nerdy Friday, but Geeky Friday is like a play on Freaky Friday... which was a movie I saw years and years ago and have almost no memory of... but I might end up changing it to Nerdy Friday... Your thoughts?

Appraised Historical Recordings

I'm out of title creativity today. Now, onto your regularly scheduled post.

Do you know what day it is?

It is the day you have eagerly anticipated all week,

the day you set your alarm for four AM but rose at three-thirty

because you were too excited to sleep and leapt out of bed and
quickly turned on your computer and went to Blogger and then went skulking
back to bed because the post you were waiting for was not yet in existence.

You mean you didn't actually do that?

Oh.

Well, anyway, it's

Musical Monday!

The day on which I give you...

...

....

.....

THIS!

(I haven't actually picked out a video for this week yet. I'll go do that.)

Ahem.

The day on which I give you

THIS!

It's Grieg. Playing Grieg. It was recorded in 1903, apparently.

But wait! There's more!

It's scratchy. It's raspy. But it's Brahms, in 1889. Isn't that just cool?

And because I'm in a random mood, a few bullet points for you.

• Last night I dreamed my aunt got a pet iguana, and it was forty-two years old. She wanted to get a photographer out, because it had some kind of medical condition and had really weird eyes.
• I had the first piano lesson of the new school year today.
• After my piano lesson, we got McDonald's and ate it in the car in the parking lot. Suddenly, water droplets appeared all over the windshield. This was very confusing, because it was bright and sunny out, and blue sky was directly overhead, and surely it couldn't be raining. Then my mother pointed out it came from sprinklers.
• After McDonald's, we went to Target. I got a book. They only had the mass market paperback edition, which I've considered getting before, but I'd decided to hold out and get a trade paperback copy. I don't like mass market, because they're hard to hold and have cheap ink that makes me itchy. But today I ended up getting the mass market one anyway. I liked the cover. There's a horse. (Actually, the trade paperback might have exactly the same cover. I've never actually checked. Oh well. Now I have it.)
• It's after nine o'clock and I haven't eaten dinner yet. Do you suppose I should?
• Actually, I think I will, because then I can eat dessert. My mother unwittingly participated in the Zucchini Revolution yesterday by baking chocolate chip zucchini cake. It's yummilicious!
• Actually, I just got my mother's permission to eat chocolate chip zucchini cake for dinner! I'm eating it with a spoon, because the forks are all dirty.
• As I was writing this, I felt something crawling on my neck. It was a tiny jumping spider. Crawling on my neck. How rude.
• People I actually know in real life* may end up seeing this blog.** That is a slightly terrifying prospect. Maybe I should actually try to write my posts intelligently...
• It has taken approximately ten hours to write this post.

*I know! I was surprised I had one too.

**Well, my parents have seen it too, but they already know I'm a cow admirer and zucchini revolutionist.

Scherzo in Bb Major

Silly Olivia forgot all about it being Monday, and scrambled to write a post. The instant she posted it, of course, she remembered it was Monday, and that Monday is the day to post good music. So, here's today's Schubert, and she supposes she'll delete the other post and reschedule it for tomorrow. Silly, silly Olivia.

By the way, this girl is ten years old. That is quite humbling, Olivia thinks.

What Am I Getting Into?

Dear reader, it is August. It is August. How did that happen?

I created this blog nearly a year ago (though I didn't actually post until September of last year). Since then, my posts have been very sporadic, and I've had several long absences. My third post was titled I'm Back. With each return, after much apologizing and naming of excuses, I've promised to try to post more frequently, and promptly poofed. In a year, I've posted less than fifty times.

Starting now, I am going to post every day.

That's not a promise, because you can see how well that's worked before. I don't know how long it will last, either. But I'm hoping even if it's for a few months, it will get me in the habit of finding things to write about, remembering to write about them... not that I'd ever forget or anything... and scheduling posts. This post is, in fact, scheduled. So it was weird to write, "It is August," at the beginning, because it isn't August. Maybe that's why I was so shocked.

This means a decrease in the quality of posts, I'm sure, (That's possible? you ask), but it also likely entails many late-night last-minute rambles, which may be amusing.

Oh, and it's Musical Monday, isn't it? This is the happifying Bach piece I mentioned in my last post:

That's not me playing, as you can (hopefully) tell by the big hands and skill of the guy, but I am learning it this month. It's hard, but so much fun! I have to try very, very hard to exercise self-control and not over-practice it. But once I start, it's so hard to stop...

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

I could watch that thing all day.

Bach in the Woods

This is the first of an experimental series in which I post a classical piece every Monday. I'm thinking of calling it Musical Mondays. It's kind of cheesy, but it's alliteration! Which makes it cool, right? Right?

A Fugue

Do you like Lady Gaga's music? No? I don't either. Do you like such composers as J.S. Bach? Then you might like this take on Lady Gaga:

Better yet, they provide a PDF with the score.