"With all the attention that copyright law gets, we forget that there was a time when it just didn’t matter that much to the way ordinary people accessed and used culture. I don’t mean that it did not matter to authors and publishers. Of course it did. I mean that it did not matter to most people as they went about their life using, enjoying, building upon, and critiquing culture. ..."

"We are about to make every access to our culture a legally regulated event, rich in its demand for lawyers and licenses, certain to burden even relatively popular work. Or again: we are about to make a catastrophic cultural mistake."
-Lawrence Lessig, For The Love Of Culture [@ The New Republic]

OH CRAP!

So it's my first day off in over a week, and I had a Coke for breakfast, and then I was 100% going to play some WOW, thus rendering myself even more l33t. But I forgot that Tuesdays, especially Tuesdays I don't have to work, are Server Maintenance (Tues)Days. So here I am, blogging like a chump. How long has it been, Internet? Two weeks? Which is 5 Internet Years. I'm surprised you're still here.

I am really enjoying the VLog brothers' YouTube channel, in particular this video in which the actual John Green, who is on YouTube Paternity Leave, is replaced by fellow YA author Maureen Johnson. (On a side-note, I am currently reading Let It Snow, a sort of novella collection by those two authors with the addition of Lauren Myracle. Even though it is not really Christmastime anymore, or actually, not Christmastime AT ALL, I'm still enjoying it.)

ALSO! I am going to attempt Thing a Day again this year, and this year I have no plans to buy any houses or be any bridesmaids (?) or anything. So I may actually have time and energy to, you know, make some Things. That will begin next week, in approximately 3 Internet Months. (Don't ask, 'cause it's an algorithm I don't expect you'll be able to understand without your degrees in Advanced Made-up Maths.)

Isn't it cute how British people say Maths? I know!

a few links:

1. Craftster best of 2009. I think I link to this every year, but that's because it is frakkin amazing, every year.

2. Mission Amy K. R. Amy Krouse Rosenthal is a writer and she comes up with these amazing interactive projects. For example: what if ATM stood for Always Trust Magic? Yeah. Exactly. Awesome.

3. Search Harper's Index. Stats from the archive of Harper's magazine with a particular keyword. Just try it, it's more fun than I can explain.

and no more posts about number of followers. too meta.

I am really, really enjoying the twitterfeed of the personal ads in the London Review of Books:

LRB Personals (LRBpersonals) on Twitter via kwout

This is what twitter should be used for. Only this.

helpful marital support and true love (tm)

Jocelyn: can I order a giant silk tapestry of Karl Marx to hang up in our house?
James: Hmm... how much is it?

A little boy in my library, his voice full of wonderment, to his mom:

"Chapter books are looooooong."

The sources of my satisfaction:

A sort of disturbingly enthusiastic exaltation of domesticity.

My first roasted chicken + gravy
>Stock from scratch
>>Soup, jambalaya, + a couple containers for the freezer
>>>Cheese biscuits

A good book (Farm City) finished
>And two more promising ones from the stacks

A really, really excellently large messenger bag, now adorned with girl scout patches

A big [work] website project finished
>And a clean desk
>>And a price of living raise
>>>And the amount of my student loan payments increased

A programmable thermostat
>And a heated dog bed purchased out of guilt at how our dog constantly searches for the warmest spot in the house

Heirloom vegetable seeds ordered
>And some herbs planted with seeds from the farmer's market, to grow in green pots in my kitchen

A doomed-seeming pug declined
>My first "dungeon deserter" debuff
>>Means I am not a pushover or a masochist.

Pug aside: skip at will.
[i had spent several hours the day before running the same dungeon--Halls of Reflection-- on the same difficulty setting-- Heroic; not to boast, but this is the hardest 5-person content in the game. And our really, really good group wiped over and over. So I was a bit reticent to commit to it again, let alone with a group of strangers. And in this random group our tank had made some pretty poor gear choices, which was strike 2. This was strike 3:]
Jocelyn: i was really hoping it wouldn't be this one :)
Group leader: suck it up
Group leader: let's go
Group leader: kill mages first
Jocelyn: wow, thanks... friendly
Group leader: u r welcome
Jocelyn: /quits group

I felt guilty for 10 seconds, then... exuberant.

If I had a cat

I would name it Bobcat.

Especially if my name was Bob.

at least, i hope so

James just bought an xBox and Halo: OCD (or whatever it's called), so as I write this I can hear the cast of Firefly shouting about aliens in the basement. Surreal.

I'm really enjoying Novella Carpenter's book Farm City, but it's got me longingly dreaming of the summer. She writes about farming on an abandoned lot in Oakland, CA, which obviously has its challenges-- but 7 or so months of winter is not one of them. To cheer myself up a bit, I'm deciding which varieties of vegetables to plant this summer and I have some order forms printed out and ready to send, cheques signed. (Cheques! It's so cute! The people who own heirloom seed companies apparently don't really do PayPal.) I have ambitions to start my own seeds indoors this spring and give away the extra plants come May. To that end, I also bought a digital timer today which can be used to time the additional lights I'll need for my flats of plants. In the meantime, James has it hooked up to our oil pan heater in the car. Sigh, winter. I wish I could quit you.

ALSO! Today we delivered some cookies to our neighbours, put in a programmable thermostat, and roasted a farmer's market chicken. It was almost too wholesome to stand. I had never cooked a whole chicken before, but it turned out delicious, and there is something satisfying about pulling apart the meat and dividing it up into containers for lunches and soup. This was also my first foray into making gravy, and it was even delicious-er. It turns out that making gravy is EASY; our mothers have been lying to us all these years, trying to make themselves appear indispensable. Tomorrow I will make stock. I have been muttering the word mirepoix to myself all day in anticipation.

2010 is the year I stop doing frivolous things, like getting married and buying houses, and focus on more important things like reading books and growing Black Hungarian peppers and cooking soups. I have also hatched a plan to paint my basement an insouciant turquoise colour.

I think it's going to be good.