Member: dk_phoenix

Hi - I've finally got round to reading Patrick Carman's Skeleton Creek and enjoyed it. It's probably not like his fantasy books so I still have to discover those but does a cool interactive feature involving watching videoclips on the web which was fun.

posted by avatiakh at 7:06 pm (EST) on Aug 26, 2009

Faith-

Thanks for stopping by my thread. I definitely recommend Queen Noor's biography. I am going to Jordan (Amman, Petra, and the Dead Sea) in a few weeks, so I would love to hear how your trip was. Also, I see you are live in Ontario. I'm originally from Buffalo, and we had a summer cottage at Crystal Beach in Fort Erie. I love finding people from that area.

Take care,
Bridget

posted by Bridget770 at 10:01 am (EST) on Aug 21, 2009

I have now watched Om Shanti Om twice. What a fun movie! The party scene after the Filmfare is probably hysterically funny when you know who all the people are that are doing cameos. It was great fun to watch not even knowing anyone in the scene. I've got to find the soundtrack. I actually thought I had already bought it after they used Dhoom Taana on So You Think You Can Dance last season. But, no. The people who recommended Om Shanti Om to me just recommended a few other films - Lagaan, Veer-Zaara,Chalte-Chalte, Devdas and Rock On!. Now I just need to find a place to rent Bollywood DVDs. Cheers, Kelly

posted by VioletBramble at 3:19 pm (EST) on Aug 13, 2009

Read your review of The Crying Tree and, while I know I will never, ever read this book, I'm now curious about what exactly is the big plot twist in it. Hope you'll reveal it (you can make the reply private if you're concerned about a spoiler).

Noticed your undergrad. I have an AB from Bryn Mawr in Classical & Near Eastern Archaeology. Started a master's program in Egyptian Language at U of Toronto but decided I didn't want to be that poor for the rest of my life ...

Cheers -
stringcat3

posted by stringcat3 at 12:18 am (EST) on Jul 14, 2009

As promised, here is the Harry Potter link: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...

It'll actually bring up a google image result, but you can use the page normally of course.

posted by biblioholic29 at 4:52 pm (EST) on Jul 7, 2009

I used the basic version of PCStitch. You can actually download a free trial at www.pcstitch.com, though of course you can't actually save anything on it until you purchase the full version. Still, it gives you a chance to play around and figure out how it all works. If you decide you want to buy, you can do so online and they send you a code to "activate" your copy. You can also pay a couple extra dollars to have a back up disc shipped to you. If I remember correctly, the basic version was around $40, which isn't too bad. You can draw in back stitching, change stitches to quarter, half or three-quarter, right out instructions for the pattern, etc. You can also set the pattern to the type of cloth you're using and choose which type of thread you have. The only real problem I've found with it is the color chart. When you go to export it to print, for some reason, it doesn't recognize the end of a page and you end up missing colors. I'm working on something new and this time I exported the list into a "rich text" format for the actual list of colors, so I'd have everything pulled and then printed the pattern's chart so I'd have the symbols. Occasionally I have to stop and look up a symbol that was printed off the chart, but at least this time I know I'll have it in my project box and won't have to go hunting for it, or make a trip to the store to buy the floss.

I have the link I used to get the color drawings bookmarked on my home PC, so I'll try to remember to send you the link to that tonight. It's a marvelous site I found where you can get all the drawings from all 7 books plus the covers (I'm working on the Sorcerer's Stone cover for myself at the moment) in color and can easily save them to your computer and move them to the software program.

posted by biblioholic29 at 9:12 am (EST) on Jul 7, 2009

I confess that I only follow in the footsteps of others. ILL is the only way to access so many dissertations and theses, though more are becoming available online. After I received one of the two I am currently reading, a friend directed me to a university website that sells it in electronic format for $42.

I saw that you have a degree related to my recreational field of inquiry. I find it amusing/sad that textile technology did not become academically respectable until women entered academia in sufficient numbers and started studying cultural elements dominated by women. Funny that. And how much material evidence has been lost or become too degraded to study because of that oversight over the decades?

I think we have quite a few interests in common. I'm currently employed as an editor, and I used to be a gamer (and many of my friends are still avid gamers). I also have a fascination with languages--most particularly Mozarabic (or whatever the going term is these days). I studied belly dance once upon a time, but it is a skill never mastered and moldering in the closet along with many others I've tried. Not for lack of interest, just not enough time to work at everything interesting.

posted by justchris at 12:08 am (EST) on May 26, 2009

That is 8 week old Maxine. She is now 1 1/2 and still gorgeous. This is my second trip to Book Expo- this year my sister and I will be spending the weekend in NY and we have tickets to the author breakfast and author luncheon on Saturday. I can't wait.
I went to a luncheon on Tuesday at the Harvard Club in NY hosted by Hachette Book Group. There were 5 publishers at the luncheon, representing 5 publishing groups under Hachette. I thought I would share some of the titles the publishers were very excited about. From Little Brown: "Into the Beautiful North" by Luis Alberto Urrea, "Castaways" by Elin Hilderbrand, "The Way Home" by George Pelicanos and "This Wicked World" by Richard Lange. From Grand Central: "The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos" by Margaret Mascarenhas, "Santa Olivia" by Jacqueline Carey, "April and Oliver" by Tess Callahan, and "Roses" by Leila Meacham. There were a few others, but these sounded really good.

posted by suballa at 9:00 am (EST) on May 14, 2009

Okay -- so it's not me. (errors) Nice to know! Thx for the info.

I wouldn't have guessed it was his area of expertise myself, if I hadn't read it :) I enjoyed the theological bits in AoB a bunch. I studied the break between RC and Orthodox some a few years back, and I found Turtledove's tidbits interesting ... wouldn't mind reference work/footnotes myself! :)

posted by suslyn at 8:37 pm (EST) on May 11, 2009

okay -- it worked, at least on a profile. Short answer: No sources. Apparently, from the preface, Turtledove is a historian and Byzantine history his field... It would probably be hard to include sources in that case. He mentions that w/o sf he'd probably not been drawn to history and cites De Camp's Lest Darkness Fall about a modern archaeologist transported to 5th century Italy as the genesis of his interest. Thought of you when I read that. Might have to find it for myself :) Would you see if you see messages on my thread? I just see one: fatal error...oops.

posted by suslyn at 7:38 pm (EST) on May 11, 2009

Having trouble posting! Keep getting a fatal error...

posted by suslyn at 7:35 pm (EST) on May 11, 2009

ty -- means a lot.

posted by suslyn at 3:32 am (EST) on Apr 25, 2009

TY!!

posted by suslyn at 9:37 am (EST) on Apr 4, 2009

PTL!

posted by suslyn at 5:17 pm (EST) on Mar 29, 2009

Praying for your Dad today.

posted by suslyn at 6:56 am (EST) on Mar 27, 2009

Oh, love the look of your library - and we share many of the same hobbies it seems...(er, although no belly dancing for me heh).

posted by Severn at 5:51 am (EST) on Mar 27, 2009

And at the risk of overstaying my welcome--let me add that the leaves changing colors and dropping from the trees--that process--the leaf shedding--is just a minor variation on what I've already described for winter preparation. In fact, one of the most awe-inspiring things about Nature is just how conservative She is. Not only is She the Great Recycler, but as far as we can tell, there are maybe only a half-dozen basic principles that She employs to manage all of life!!

That's really all you need to know in chemistry, actually--about a half dozen basic or First Principles, and you can understand just about all of it. I'm going to guess that physics is the same.

Joyce

posted by Joycepa at 9:48 am (EST) on Mar 16, 2009

Believe me, i KNOW about too much to ever learn in one lifetime! That's why I have a hard time understanding people who are bored!!

I'm truly happy that you were able to make some sense out of a very much shortened explanation--I was really worried that I had done a bad job.

I still have in mind to look for a book such as you said you'd like to read.

Joyce

posted by Joycepa at 9:30 am (EST) on Mar 16, 2009

Oh and I forgot to mention--in the spring, when the temperatures warm up, the tree reverses that process--those big starch molecules break down, there's not enough water in the tree--and the amazing cycle starts all over again!

I can never stop marveling at this sort of thing.

Joyce

posted by Joycepa at 9:22 am (EST) on Mar 12, 2009

Ye gods, I haven't thought about a book like that in all too long! I really don' keep up much with science these days, jsut enjoy what I know of first principles.

Let me dig around and see what I can come up with. They do wonderful stuff with YA these days, and taht might be an area to look into. Plus Scientific American used to come out with books--short ones--on particular topics that were quite readable by anyone. some of their articles were classics. But I haven't read teh publication in nearly 10 years!

I'll check it out.

And I'm delighted to see that someone thinks that the chemical world is magic!

A simple but useful description of how trees prepare for winter is to say that it is the reverse of the process of getting sap--liquid--to the top of the tree. In that process, the tree creates an environment in which there are lots of moles of particles--molecules of different things, like sugars, proteins-- dissolved in water--the result is sap. What that does is cause water to go INTO the tree, because now, in proportion to what's outside the tree, there's less water per pint of sap, let's say inside the tree, and the water always tries to even things out--have the same ratio inside as outside. so, water comes in and the resulting pressure forces the sap to the top of the tree. That's because there are so many other things dissolved in the sap. Lots of moles of sugar, proteins, salts--all the things necessary for cell life.

When temperatures start lowering, the tree has to do something to prevent all that water in the sap from freezing and breaking the cells. so--it reverses the process. A lot of those molecules of sugars react to form big molecules of something like a starch--let's say a thousand of the small ones form one big starch molecule. Now there's too much water in the tree per pint of sap compared to the outside environment and the water goes out of the tree. The tree has formed a sort of protective barrier as well, and therefore its cells don't freeze and break.

It all can be described in terms of that weird but amazingly useful concept of the mole. And Nature is unbelievably creative in using that one concept--actually, it's just the way we humans describe the process--in many ways to regulate life's processes.

I hope this description is understandable!! LOL

Joyce

posted by Joycepa at 9:19 am (EST) on Mar 12, 2009

yes you can see our library by clicking the link on my LT profile :)

posted by suslyn at 9:43 am (EST) on Mar 2, 2009

Are you guys on IMdB (www.IMdB.com -- internet movie database?)

posted by suslyn at 3:58 am (EST) on Feb 28, 2009

What kind of dance do you do?

posted by suslyn at 7:49 pm (EST) on Feb 7, 2009

Well I didn't find wedding pics on your blog (but did see some tasty reviews! nicely done site!)... flickr? :)

You can see mine on my multiply site. Hubby, then fiance, said he couldn't wait to see me coming down the aisle like a fairy princess. I thought, 'fairy princes? no can do. fairy blimp? maybe.' Then flying to CA by way of Amarillo, my sis dragged me to a consignment shop. There was one dress there in my size (a miracle in and of itself). And lo and behold -- it was the orignal fairy princess dress and for $400! done!

Then back in France I'm trying to rent a hoop for the thing. Quelle epoch? they ask (which period) as they're bringing out these itsy bitsy hoops. Finally I said Cinderella... yup, the big one! Only one thing went wrong. For some reason I felt I needed to wear a bra for the ceremony. we were so late I didn't check the mirror. wish I had. The bra was completely unnecessary and all it did was crease my fat on my back where it had been just a smooth, lineless, fit :( Oh well -- you can't have everything -- and I just about did!

Cheers

posted by suslyn at 9:40 am (EST) on Jan 24, 2009

So nice to find someone else about who loves Zettel as much as I do! :)

I see you have her Arthurian series too...which I also loved - a surprise given how I usually don't Arthurian fantasy one bit. I hope she can get the fourth one printed - apparently her original publisher had issues and cancelled the publication of it. :(

posted by Severn at 10:56 am (EST) on Jan 22, 2009

Hi Faith
Nice to hear from you. The book was sent today.
Take care,
Linda

posted by Whisper1 at 11:25 pm (EST) on Jan 20, 2009

Hi.
I'm happy to send the book The Madonnas of Leningrad to you. There is no need to reimburse for postage. If you have posted your full address on my main page, then I can go ahead and get this out to you today.

It is a delightful book and I hope you enjoy it.

posted by Whisper1 at 11:27 am (EST) on Jan 20, 2009

Thank you for the books! I can't wait to read them.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanks,

Maddie (books_ofa_feather)

posted by books_ofa_feather at 10:00 am (EST) on Dec 24, 2008

Hope you enjoy Alcatraz! :-D

posted by PhoenixTerran at 5:18 pm (EST) on Dec 12, 2008

Welcome to the 2009 challenge. Thanks for joining in!

posted by drneutron at 10:10 am (EST) on Dec 5, 2008

Hi, I read your comment about Brida, agreed!
Even though in the beginning I was not sure why Brida did not choose the teacher, cause in the book, it seems did not make it so clear that her boyfriend is her soul mate, seems it is only guessing. feel a bit regretting to know the result, but I guess this is quite similar to the one The Valkyries.

posted by Yan.Liang at 4:25 pm (EST) on Nov 14, 2008