Japan now has an iTunes Music Store. At this rate, the only places that don’t have one are going to be Australia, Outer Mongolia, and the International Space Station.
Author: Kris
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No touching!
Just trying to decide if the expense of having this shirt shipped all the way to Australia will be worth the looks of recognition from the, like, seven Arrested Development fans in Sydney… (Link courtesy of Brigita.)
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Shipping
(Attention Sis: Minor HP Spoiler here, but not a biggie…)The San Francisco Chronicle takes a look at “shipping” in Harry Potter fandom. (Shipping refers to “relationshipping,” the championing of certain romantic pairings over others.) Apparently the Harry/Hermione shippers are majorly up in arms over the end of Half-Blood Prince. I just don’t get it. I mean, it’s been obvious from both the books and the movies that Ron and Hermione are going to get together, and it’s been especially overt since Goblet of Fire. (The article way overstates the status of their relationship, though. They didn’t “fall” into each other’s arms at all.) Harry and Ginny wasn’t as obvious, but it’s still not like it was a complete shock…
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Mighty Mouse
ars technica reviews Apple’s new Mighty Mouse. Can I just say that I’m blown away that they’re using that name? (Is Mighty Mouse out of copyright? Have they bought the rights?) Oh, and once the Bluetooth version is out, this thing is definitely going on my Christmas list…
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Rent Single
The first single from the upcoming Rent movie soundtrack is now on iTunes. Of course, it’s “Seasons of Love” which isn’t necessarily one of my favorites, so… meh. (Link courtesy of Manda.)
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Jelly Belly Wine Bar
This is GENIUS: The Jelly Belly Wine Bar. A wine magazine has put together recipes using Jelly Bellies that allow you to sample classic wine varietals and styles. And ha! Some of them use Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans to add a touch of “dirt” and “grass.” Just be sure to avoid the f**kin’ merlot. (Link courtesy of the Sydney Food Diary.)
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Running Meme
Oh god. I was worried this would happen. I’ve been tagged!
Q: What are you training for now?
A: Nothing in particular. To help my WW progress, I guess. Running is hard so I feel like I’m getting more benefits than other kinds of exercise.Q: If you are raising money for a cause, what is it and why is that cause important to you?
A: I wish I could say I was, but I’m not. It’s the purely superficial “Get Kris into a size 14 bikini by summer” cause.Q: What is the furthest distance you’ve run in your training and what is the furthest distance you will run before your event?
A: In the past two weeks? My furthest is four big laps around Victoria Park. Not much, I know, but I can already feel an improvement. Each time I feel like I can go a little further before walking. I’d like to get back up to doing 5K non-stop.Q: What is your favorite flavor of gu? (or other sports gel)
A: Huh? That’s a little futuristic for me. My half hour shuffles around the park don’t require astronaut food… yet.Q: How many days a week do you run?
A: My current goal is twice a week, which I’m meeting. It’s hard though, since it’s chilly in the mornings and dark by the time I get home from work. I can’t wait for Daylight Savings so I can run in the evenings.Q: Are you injured in any way right now? If so, what are you doing about it?
A: Other than the cold (which kept me home sick today), I’m actually in pretty good shape, I think. I’m trying to prevent the tendonitis and back pain that marred my previous running attempts so I’m continuing my weekly yoga class. My route around the park includes a section on the grass, and I plan to travel further afield once my fitness levels improve.Q: What is one item of running clothing/gear (shoes don’t count) you can’t run without?
A: Lately it seems to be a handkerchief!Q: Do you have a talisman you are planning on taking to your event? If so, tell us!
A: The Snook is my talisman.
Q: Share one thing about yourself we don’t know.
A: I actually did run track in middle school. I sucked at it, but our competitions were so small that I still managed to score a couple ribbons. Long jump was my favorite. (Who doesn’t like playing in the sand?)Hmm, who should do this next? Probably Eileen, though she doesn’t have a blog. (Write your answers in the comments, RT!)
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Goblet of Fire Pics
Kevin just pointed me to a ton of pictures from the upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie. Man, Mad-Eye Moody is givin’ me the serious creeps. He reminds me of that scary witch in The Dark Crystal. The rest of the pictures are linked on The Leaky Cauldron. Unfortunately I think everybody in the world’s trying to look at them at once, because it’s taking ages to get the others to load…
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It’s been a bad day.
It’s been a bad day.
The cat woke us up scratching on the bed at 3:20 a.m. (We shut her in the bathroom.) I’d set my alarm early to get up and go for a run, which means that I woke up every ten minutes thereafter in anticipation. When I finally did get up, I felt sluggish and my throat was sore. The arm on my sunglasses broke. I couldn’t find my iPod headphones. Nevertheless, I headed out for half an hour of shuffling around the park. My nose ran constantly. (How do you runner-types deal with this? Whenever I’m out on a chilly morning, my nose runs. That made me feel like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. By the end of my first lap, I was seriously considering blowing my nose on my sleeve. (I didn’t.)) Once I got to work, I discovered that we were short-staffed AGAIN today due to sickness (which made everybody who did come in that much grumpier). And then the Excel spreadsheet I’d spent three days working on got corrupted and broken and I couldn’t open it at all. And suddenly I noticed that I’ve got a full-on head cold forming here. Everything sucks.But then my wonderful clever husband managed to retrieve the data from my file and provided the one ray of sunlight in a terrible, no-good, very bad day…
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Bad mothers
It seems to me like this scientific study linking mothers who smoke during pregnancy to offspring with anti-social behavior seems to dance around one very big elephant in the room: Women who don’t care enough to practice good prenatal care probably won’t care enough to raise their kids well, either. Occam’s Razor, folks. Crappy parenting is a far more likely explanation than some sort of inherited “bad behavior gene”.