Seven Quick Takes, Vol 3

~1~

I started this blog as my own writing outlet, to keep my brain working. With the introduction of these Seven Quick Takes (h/t Jen), the accountability and friendliness of doing this with Liz and Sana has really begun to change the way I look at blogging. (Also, writing a post like this that's about my life takes less time and--more importantly--less mental energy than a complicated post about liturgical minutiae. Don't worry, I'm sure those will come back eventually. I start lots of such posts in my head...)

All that being said, thanks to you strange people who do bother to read! ("Strange" is quite an affectionate term, by me.) I'll do my best to act like a real blogger and actually reply to your comments and stuff. :)

~2~

This week, I discovered a website called DailyLit. You go through their catalog of books, and decide which ones you want to read (there are a lot of classics - yay for public domain! - and also a lot of P.G. Wodehouse), and they deliver you a small portion of the book each day. You can choose either email or RSS. The only downside I've found thus far is that I can't just click to go to the website and keep reading for hours on end...

~3~

Speaking of DailyLit, I've been using it to read Arabian Nights. Ya' know, one of those books you've heard about for years and years but don't know anyone who actually read it. Well, now I'm reading it, and it's pretty good. I may want to buy a physical copy eventually to use parts (not all!) for bedtime stories.

...and I've been waking up with that song stuck in my head for most of the week. Or occasionally Arabian Nights instead. I must have been exposed to more Middle Eastern culture than this as a child, right? Right?

~4~

You may have seen this someecard making the facebook rounds, and/or similar sentiments expressed in status updates:

Well. The ever-brilliant minds at Lifehacker posted a brilliant link today: How to Block Annoying Political Posts on Facebook. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is all of them.

The extension basically allows you to filter out statuses and links (though not pictures, unfortunately) based on a simple keyword search. Lest you get too excited, it didn't work perfectly, but it definitely seems to have done something...

Not quite that bad, but surprisingly close.

I have found that going beyond complaining to use self-discipline and avoid reading even the headlines of anything political whatsoever has had the surprisingly calming affect of detoxing my experience of facebook. I do recommend it (the self-discipline for sure, the extension for maybe).

Bonus: Social Fixer allows you to permanently block certain elements of facebook, like the ads and the other sidebar things that try to get you to like random pages or friend people with whom you have one friend in common. Useful!

~5~

Whoever thought to make tiny O-shaped pasta in a generous proportion to tomato soup was brilliant. Seriously. Spaghetti-O's = delicious comfort food.

Lunch!

~6~

Randall Munroe is seriously a genius. The man makes a living drawing stick-figure comic strips three times a week. He once stated that he sometimes spends as little as ten minutes on each strip.

Anyway, this strip hit home because, though I've never heard that simile, I've been using that method for years. 90 seconds for a minute and a half (what, saves a keystroke and uses an infrequently used button!)... Yes, I am weird. :)

~7~

In honor of the higher-than-usual proportion of dreams I've been having this week, I leave you with a brief poem by Bill Watterson, from The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes (unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the image online, so you'll have to click through to the Google Book for it).

At night my mind does not much care

If what it thinks is here or there.

It tells me stories it invents

And makes up things that don't make sense.

I don't know why it does this stuff.

The real world seems quite weird enough.

And that's a wrap! Time to eat my Spaghetti-O's. :D