International Talk Like Terry-Thomas Day

On Sunday we went to St Gabriel's, where Fr Cal was away so we had Fr Charlie again. He always seems to hurry through the liturgy as fast as he can. Perhaps he equals mass times acceleration. Anyway, Deacon DJ gave an interesting sermon on three different widows in the Bible (Ruth, Naomi, and the unnamed woman who gave a donation at the temple). Later we went to have lunch with floatyfish and onib at Los Aztecas (which is a much better place than that vaguely racist review suggests: it seems to be the only page about the place online, or I would find another).

We went to the Philly art museum after lunch. I was struck for the first time by how fresh and new an idea collage was at the beginning of the twentieth century. I'd always looked at it with modern eyes, as the thing primary school teachers give you to do when they run out of ideas. And I stared for a long while at Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, and I think afterwards to my surprise I finally "got" it. I'd always seen it as being as abstract as Picasso's Man with Violin or something, but it's actually a time-lapse thing, like an overexposed photograph.

I did have a big vertigo attack climbing the great staircase and had to crouch down quite small and take it a step at a time. Amy and Fin came either side of me and took my arms, which was helpful. Once we had reached the top I found that I couldn't even look towards the staircase without flinching away from it. I don't know why it suddenly came on like that.

After the museum closed, we went to Infinite, and A+J got their ears pierced. Then we went to the Shoe, which had about six people and three dogs already in there (and it's a rather cramped space to begin with), so that was happy. I'm always glad to meet new people and new dogs. riordon found two books she really wanted to read and settled down in a corner. We found her a magazine by and for kids her age called New Moon.

Today I have been working quite hard on fixing stuff. Happy free software news I learned today, other than the whole Java now being Free thing, is that there's now a public RT installation called Hiveminder, so you can make your to-do lists as complicated as you like and share them with your friends. And it's all very funky and I've been using it a lot today. (dyddgu will appreciate the decor.)

A question that came up today:
Poll #867121 The other human figure
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33

Often in a child's Noah's Ark toy, there are two human figures, one male and one female. Obviously the male one is Noah. What do you call the female one?

Joule users should be reading marnanel_joule, because we just released a nifty new feature.

Finally, I am sick of pirates, and have unilaterally declared that today is International Talk Like Terry-Thomas Day. Woof, woof. Good show. Ding dong. You're an absolute shower. Et cetera.