Trivial Pursuits

"Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel."

I can't believe I'm working on Boxing Day. So not cool.

cryptically posted by Martin Marks at 5:38 at night // comment? by:

 

Merry Christmas, blogmass.

vertiginously posted by Martin Marks at 8:27 in the evening // two comments by:

• the old feller
• Martin

 

BLOG PIRATES STAY AWAY

So my sister, of whom we are all so irrationally fond, has a new blog, because she sort of kind of forgot what email she used to set up the first one the first was kidnapped by blog pirates. She promises to actually post to this one occasionally, too! She likes it when people she doesn't know comment on her blog, so feel free to do so.

quintessentially posted by Martin Marks at 4:00 in the afternoon // three comments by:

• patrick
• Martin
• LuluZEPANDA

 

♥ Zingiber officinale ♥

I made gingerbread the other day, and I have to say, I'm somewhat disappointed in the recipe. I doubled the amount of ginger called for and it still wasn't anywhere near enough. Also, it desperately calls out for fresh ginger in addition to the ground. Plus the recipe originally called out a teaspoon of ground mustard, which would have completely overwhelmed the ginger. Well, next time I'll know better, I guess.

venturesomely posted by Martin Marks at 5:43 in the afternoon // four comments by:

• Tanya
• Tori
• Martin
• the old feller

 

They just kept offering me nagilas!

So I went down to the Local tonight. (Dad—Joe says "merry Christmas.") I was hoping that maybe it would help me break the writer's block I've been stuck in since the end of October if I tried writing in longhand (which I never do) in a different yet comfortable setting. I think it might have worked; I ended up rewriting much of the opening scene. I also solved a problem that had me scared that the whole damn thing was fundamentally broken—namely, the fact that I didn't really know what Baltimore rowhouses converted into apartments looked like. When I first wrote it I inexplicably envisioned the house being split left-right as opposed to front-back, which in retrospect is completely insane, and I should really have known better given that I grew up in a house that was about 15' wide by 80' long. Given the sheer number of times I've tried drawing up the floor plan for the apartment, I really should have come to terms long ago with the fact that a 7'-6" by 80' apartment is not particularly workable, but it would have necessitated such major changes to the novel that I think I just wasn't prepared to contemplate it and mentally blocked the problem out entirely. But now I think I've got it sorted so that the building actually makes sense without it affecting things too badly.

Anyway, the whole reason I mention this is because the session band that was playing randomly broke into "Hava Nagila", and they actually knew all the words, and I was impressed. That's all, really.

clandestinely posted by Martin Marks at 11:23 at night // one comment by:

• the old feller

 

Well then.

Speaking of which: SFA definitely belongs on some kind of list for this little ditty, but I am not at all sure what to say about it.

quintessentially posted by Martin Marks at 8:02 in the evening // comment? by:

 

A review in brief:

Funnest to sing (sober): "Angels We Have Heard on High"
Funnest to sing (drunk): "Good King Wenceslas"
Funnest to make up words to: "Adeste Fideles"
Capitalistest: "The Twelve Days of Christmas"
Fascistest: "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"
Forebodingest: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"
Amusingly namedest: "Quelle est cette odeur agréable?"
Secretly metallest: "Here We Come A-Wassailing"
Secretly speed-metallest: "Carol of the Bells"
Overtly punkest: "Fairytale of New York"
Evillest (faux-contemporary): "Feliz Navidad"
Evillest (faux-traditional): "Little Drummer Boy"
Evillest (gag-inducingly Victorian): "Away in a Manger"

inconsequentially posted by Martin Marks at 6:51 in the evening // sixteen comments by:

• 1. Martin
• 2. Fafner
• 3. Libby
• 4. Martin
• 5. Fafner
• 6. Fafner
• 7. Tanya
• . . .
• 10. Martin
• 11. Liz
• 12. Julia
• 13. Liz
• 14. Katherine
• 15. Fafner
• 16. Moss

 

Possible solution: get a bigger sink.

I'm trying desperately to get together the mental wherewithal to do something about the sink full of dishes. How do I manage to get so many dishes dirty? I simply cannot understand this. Well, maybe blogging about it will get me to do it somehow. That makes sense, right?

earnestly posted by Martin Marks at 11:21 in the morning // four comments by:

• Julia
• Martin
• Julia
• Martin

 

"I'm begging, darling, please, here we are now, entertain us."

Yesterday's Qwantz spoke to me on many and various levels.

surreptitiously posted by Martin Marks at 10:41 in the morning // seven comments by:

• Martin
• Julia
• Martin
• Mike
• Martin
• Mike
• Moss

 

We... we turned it off first.

Why do I love my job so much? Let me put it to you this way: when we have an office Christmas party, we end up dancing on the tablesaws.

(Pictorial proof might be forthcoming.)

bashfully posted by Martin Marks at 6:01 in the evening // comment? by:

 

My travel time to work is great, incidentally.

Yeah! Choke on that, Charlotte!

mechanically posted by Martin Marks at 5:26 in the afternoon // one comment by:

• Liz