Earthy Tumblr theme

Published: 2 December 2009

I released this some time ago but on a separate Downloads page which is no longer available. Seems more reasonable to put it up as an individual blog post, anyway. So, uh, here you are! …Again!

Download

This theme was based on the Want to hike color scheme at Colour Lovers. It is fully customizable through custom colors and custom CSS. It has thick borders, large sans-serif text, and very loose date stamps (e.g. “1 hour ago” and not the full date).

Rules

I would appreciate a link back, but it’s not required. I release all themes under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Installation Instructions

Copy the code into the textarea in your Tumblr Dashboard under Customize > Theme > Use Custom HTML.

In case you’re interested, my Tumblelog is at moneypenny.tumblr.com.

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a Strange Land of cedar

Published: 2 December 2009

I’ve been reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein for the past couple of days, ever since I brought it back from my parents’ house over Thanksgiving break. I’ve tried to read the book before but never made it very far because 1) I’m fickle when it comes to books (my Wii Fit would argue that I’m fickle in other areas, too…) and 2) it was dry to me. However, this time around I have real hope for finishing it (we shall see) because I actually stayed up till 1 a.m. last night/this morning reading it, and I’ve had a few laugh-out-loud moments. Some of Jill’s reactions to Michael are hilarious.

I had a similar reaction to Calvin and Hobbes when I was a kid. My dad loves that strip and we always had the compilation books around the house. I tried reading them when I was younger (I don’t remember how young) but didn’t get the humor so I didn’t read much. I picked them up a few years later and loved them. All the strips seem relevant and down-to-earth and, as I was telling Jon the other day, some people may be able to quote relevant lines of the Bible in a given situation, and that’s all well and good, but I quote relevant Calvin and Hobbes strips. They’re just so applicable! Quiz me with topics about human nature, animals, the public school system, holiday consumerism, procrastination, slimy girls, politics, or camping, and I can probably find at least one relevant C&H strip.

I smell all woodsy fresh right now because I tried out my Indigo Wild cedar soap finally. I, er, don’t know if I particularly want to smell all chopped-firewood clean, but it certainly is a refreshing smell when you’re just sniffing the bar of soap. I bought a bar in my last order from them (I play right into their trap of offer-’em-free-shit-and-they-will-buy-more) on a whim because, dude, I didn’t believe they could make soap smell like cedar. It actually really does, at least to me, but when Jon and some folks at work smelled it, they were dubious as to its cedarosity. Is my nose overly sensitive to tree-like odors? Whatevs. I can’t say that I smell exactly like the soap, after having washed with it. I noticed while in the shower that I smelled like some indecipherable carnival food, which is decidedly odd and all I can say is that I must have some kind of whacked-up natural scent to begin with if, when combined with cedar, I then smell like carny food. Sitting here sniffing my arm now, I smell like chopped firewood again. Maybe my shower is the funk…

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huffy Facebooker

Published: 1 December 2009

People online sometimes need to take a chill pill and not assume everyone they deal with is like an angry Fark commenter or 4chan poster. A friend of mine on Facebook said “Luna Nueva” in a wall post, and some other friend of hers responded about how the adjective comes afterward in Spanish. I responded with “Actually, for some common adjectives, including ‘nueva’, the adjective can be placed before the noun. See http://www.dur.ac.uk/m.p.thompson/adjectives.htm”. My intention was only to say, in a friendly way, that there are exceptions to the general rule of adjective placement. Well, the guy got all butthurt over someone poking a hole in his blanket statement and responded with the following:

Sarah- I studied Spanish for 4 years but thanks for the ‘link’ I’m sure that will inform me more than any multitude of text books ever could. Actually it comes as a result of common placing which dictates its use, in the sense Jennzah was using it the adjective still comes after so ‘actually’ don’t patronise me, it’s still a general rule with exceptions.

I had to respond because, damn, way to get your dander up for no reason. I wrote back “Wow Harry, way to take my simple suggestion and blow up over it. No offense was intended, and I wasn’t trying to patronize you. Sometimes information can be offered simply with the intention of informing others about alternatives, not starting a flamewar.” Sheesh.

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end of the semester rush

Published: 24 November 2009

I don’t know how, but I got a B on my last algorithms homework. I rushed through half of it because I ran out of time. For one I straight-up put “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get this from that” and he still gave me half credit on that problem. We have one homework left in there and I’m sure it’ll be painful, for one because all our homework has been painful (do you know how many elements there are in Z sub p to the e star? because I sure didn’t in that last homework) and also because this homework will be longer since he didn’t cover all the material in time for our last homework, so one of the problems that should’ve been on that will be in this homework. Ugggh, after Thanksgiving break, I’m going to have to work my ass off. I have to write a paper “on the order of” ten pages for programming languages, do that algorithms homework, and also read + review nine papers for software engineering. Tonight, my goal is to finish my software engineering project paper. I am now off to play some Sims and relax for a while before I get cracking on that.

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Sims 3 World Adventures arrived

Published: 17 November 2009

Whoo, The Sims 3: World Adventures arrived today! I had preordered it on EA’s site but was dubious about it 1) arriving the day it was released (i.e. today) and 2) actually being left on my doorstep/mailbox versus being stashed in some package center for me to go and pick up with my little paper slip in hand. EA and UPS teamed up to make me happy, though, and I found the package left by my door this afternoon. Yay, no driving across town to pick it up myself from UPS or FedEx!

I got it installed with no trouble, though it took a while (maybe 10-15 minutes). There was a little silliness when I went to run it, surprisingly. I thought “do I run the usual Sims 3, or should I run the specific Sims 3 World Adventures program?”. Well, so I tried running the World Adventures launcher, and it prompted me to update with a game patch. Already? Fine fine, go ahead. So I got that installed and it shut down my launcher. Whatevs, I figured I’d try opening the regular Sims 3 launcher this time. So I did, and it prompted me for an update… Wait, didn’t it just do this? Seems like the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. I was concerned that it would somehow be undoing whatever the World Adventures update had just done. When it finished installing, I opened the World Adventures launcher to have it bing! at me and say it couldn’t do anything with the Sims 3 because some other Sims 3 thing was already open. Er… So I closed that and opened… Well, I can’t remember which one I opened next, but I opened one of the two launchers and started playing the game. *shrug*

Though I’ve been playing with one family for some time, all its members are old and near death (and actually they live with three ghosts currently; how’s that for foreshadowing?) and it just doesn’t seem right to drag them out to a desert or to learn martial arts when really they should be relaxing at home growing Death Flower Bushes, just in case. So I made a new family and got to try out some of the new traits. I have a girl that’s Adventurous, Snobby, a Natural Cook, and she just happens to be dressed in the Sims’ version of Parisian attire. I made a husband for her that’s some kind of Asian, and he’s Disciplined and Brave, and I plan to martial arts it up with him. Sooo, now I’m building a house for them with a nice basement for storing Nectar (way to skirt that higher ESRB rating, Maxis!). I’m tickled with the fact that basements are finally an easy thing to make in the Sims, since always before you had to manually dig in the ground to a certain depth and it was always a bit wonky. I’ll be sure to post some screenshots once I have my Sims doing craaaazy foreign and adventurous things. I was pleased to note that the guide for World Adventures noted highly skilled martial artists will be able to teleport, as in The Sims 2 Bon Voyage.

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