http://earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com/2012/05/see-me-on-bead-baubles-and-jewels.html

 This week only, the Beads, Baubles, and Jewels website will be airing an episode featuring me making a resin house pendant. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage to see my moment in the spotlight. The whole episode is great! My segment starts at around 14:00

 Our theme this season on Beads, Baubles and Jewels is assembling the elements to create exciting contemporary jewelry.

First, Mark Nelson shows how to set up a workbench and then looks at magnification, lighting, and tool placement. Then, Brenda Schweder demonstrates an amazing design that is a convertible ring or pendant. Next, Melanie Brooks creates an urban house themed pendant from epoxy clay and old, found hardware. Last, Mary Hettmansperger demonstrates a vintage look necklace featuring lock and key Victorian components.

Melanie is an artist, blogger, writer, and ceramic beadmaker at Earthenwood Studio. Her beads and components can be found at her Etsy shop and her jewelry can be found in her Etsy Galleria. To comment on this post, visit the original post at the Earthenwood Studio Chronicles Blog.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/27/graduation-song/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18708

Away from the Internets for most of the day because my niece Cecilia is having her high school graduation ceremony. See you all tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s “The Paper Chase,” one of my favorite graduation-themed songs, from the (now defunct) The Academy Is… (the ellipsis is part of their name).

I wrote about Fast Times at Barrington High, the album this song is on, here.

Have a good Sunday.

Chester and I are watching Burn After Reading. C is in bed with a sore throat and a fever.

(US data, via from here)

I am fairly convinced that the current flurry of anti-woman and anti-homosexual drives by the Republicans (and equivalents elsewhere) are because they have realised that they are _losing_ and this is their last ditch attempt to hold on to the America they know and love. More and more of the people that are against marriage equality are old, more and more of the people that are in favour are young, and the switchover is happening as older people die off, because their culture is just not being passed on*.

So, while the current backlash is frustrating and annoying, it doesn't worry me in the long-term**. Twenty years from now people will look at this last-ditch attempt to stop gay rights the same way as we look at the riots over integration in schools in 1960s USA**.

*The same is true in the UK - church attendance in children and teenagers is down by 90% over the last two decades.
**Which isn't to say that the anger and work that's being done isn't vitally necessary - just that the weight is now on the side of the people doing that work.

So when I called up my brother to wish him Happy Graduation I had completley spaced that it was my mom's birthday so didn't say "Happy Birthday" until she brought it up.

She wasn't bitchy about it but I do feel bad.

I've just had a lot of work on my plate for the past few days and did not know it was May 26th yesterday at all.

Part of me thinks I shouldn't feel that guilty because the only reason I even knew to call my brother for graduation was that my dad sent me an email yesterday asking me to - and I kind of feel like he could have said "by the way, asshole, also wish your mom happy birthday."

So the whack factor ran a little higher yesterday. All to the good. After sleeping quite late (by my standards) and a morning workout, I met up with @howardtayler for a leisurely lunch off-site. We had a terrific conversation about writing, life and the value of kindness. Howard also did nifty caricatures of both our waitress and her manager. It was hilariously fun to watch them react with such delight.

Walking back from lunch, we passed a pretty radical steampunked car.



More photos later when I have the bandwidth to upload them. (That would not be right now, unfortunately.)

Back inside, I hooked up with Ellie Copperbottom of the League of S.T.E.A.M. to host a High Tea. Which was a blast, and very odd at the same time. After that, I recorded a brief podcast interview with them. Then I wound up down in the Vendor Room signing books, where we all but sold out of my stock at the table of Off the Beaten Path Books. Gail Carriger and I crossed paths there again.

Dinner consisted of me and a very helpful concom rep making a White Castle run. Sixty dollars later, the League and I were pigging out hard. From there, things devolved into an evening of music, hot tubbing (well, warm tubbing), drinking, and electroshock therapy. I managed to enjoy an electric kiss with a lovely young woman, as well as try out the new sport of electric motorboating. Plus people were doing shots off Boba Fett's icy head, but I eschewed that particular pursuit.

Today I have an author panel and a reading and a day of hanging out.

So, yeah. A lot of fun here. A lot of fun.

Your Sunday moment of zen.



San Francisco houses, 2006. © 2006, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

The current photo series is from my 'favorites' file, hence the dates jumping about



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Easter Island statues had bodies — Did no one ever think to look?

CSR project aims to create a high-speed, carbon-neutral steam-powered locomotive — Oh, cool. (Thanks to David E. Vincent.)

Egos and Immorality — Paul Krugman on the Wall Street fairy tale.

Scientist: Evolution debate will soon be history — This is stupid. The evolution debate has been history for a long time. What you have today is a combination of religious willful ignorance and conservative political opportunism. It's not a "debate" in any meaningful sense of the word, as the anti-evolution side has no evidence, logic or credibility.

Conservatives used to care about community. What happened? — They lost their fucking minds.

?otd: Ever been electric motorboated?

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/3229.html

• Sat, 23:23: A Slightly Different Version Of STAR WARS http://t.co/kPuKayYf