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We're sitting on the couch and hear a noise from the other room. Chad goes to investigate, and I hear:


So needless to say, I did. She popped up all wack-a-mole style a few times for the camera but then she had enough. Apparently she can also get out of the vase on her own. This may be the funniest thing that's ever happened in our house.
Posted by Rachel at 10:09 PM No comments: Wow. This was an amazing movie. It's based on an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, who grew up during the Iranian revolution. In addition to being a powerful illustration of how difficult it is to simply live under the control of an oppresive regime, it was also a brilliant commentary about growing up as a woman in general. There were parts where I laughed out loud and parts where I was near tears. It was also just beautifully drawn. Seriously. You should go find the nearest slightly arsty theater and see this movie. The thing about Iran's repressiveness towards women that blows my mind is that it wasn't always this way. The fact that a country could decide to change TO a culture where women can't be in public without a male escort and the police enforce extreme religious laws is amazing to me. And really really scary.

I am so lucky to live in a time and place where I just can't understand such fanaticism. We are free and well fed so I can say "what is WRONG with these people?" about the religious fanatics (in Iran, or otherwise) but then when I get tired of thinking about it go pet my cat and chat with my husband. So in order to avoid sinking this post into a depressed rant about the state of the world, I will just reiterate how happy I am to have the life I have been given. And also I will not take lightly take my responsibility to pay attention and vote.

So anyway, this movie is worth seeing.
Posted by Rachel at 7:09 PM 1 comment: 

First Buds

Disclaimer to Sarah and Al: Sorry. I'm really not just trying to rub in the fact that you live in the arctic. At least you have beer and cheese there. But seriously - take a look at our tree! These buds that have been on the tree since we moved in (last June) are finally starting to open. I think we have a magnolia on our hands. Who knew we were moving to the south? It's a little hard to see in the picture but there actually a whole bunch of pink petals peeking out from all over the tree. I will award myself 1 alliteration point for "pink petals peeking."
Posted by Rachel at 2:57 PM 1 comment: 

Free at last

So I guess Max didn't like her collar. As you can see, she pretty much destroyed it. I insisted the cats get collars after we thought Entropy got out at Thanksgiving. But neither of them have ever gotten out, and as you can see I don't think someone would be able to get our phone number off of that collar anyway.

Fine Max. You win this one. But I'm still going to come upstairs and say hi to Chad when I get home even if it means I wake you up. Blink in disgust all you want, kitty.

On an unrelated note, "The Producers" is the weirdest musical ever. Especially the TV version. Especially the pigeons. 


The good tired that comes from 3 matches (11 games) of volleyball in one evening. Yay thursdays. The world is as it should be, and now it's time for bed.

Not for our nocturnal feline friends, by the way, who are racing each other around the living room.

Yay bed :)
Posted by Rachel at 12:08 AM No comments: Labels: Cats, Random


Look how fun this is! Just playing with the photo booth application on my new macbook. THAT'S RIGHT! My new macbook. Which is happily on my lap as we speak. Earlier this evening (during our regular Daily Show viewing) our neighbor from 119 S. Spring Garden rang the doorbell. Apparently they delivered the package there, and his "friend" signed for it. No, I don't know why she signed my name. No, I'm not entirely comfortable with the situation. But the nice man from # 119 led us over to his house and I picked up my package, which was unopened. So I guess in the end, little harm was done. But really. Why would you receive a package and forge someone's signature when you have no idea who they were??? Now to figure out how to use the damn thing. :) Yay!
Posted by Rachel at 9:14 PM 1 comment: Even though I am grouchy about my laptop (or specifically, the lack thereof) my heart is melted by our cats. What good sisters they are! I leave you with the arial view of our catpile. Yay cats. Boo F**Ex.
Posted by Rachel at 1:10 PM No comments: 

Dear FedEx: This is not my signature. I don't know to whom you gave my new macbook (for which I have been waiting patiently since July to get my bonus so I would have the disposable cash to buy). I can assure you they were not part of my household, they were not signing on my behalf, and honestly, I doubt they even know who I am.

I am assuming my macbook (which my mother instructed me to buy, in no uncertain terms) is in use by now, altering the MySpace page of some crappy person who signed for my package.

Sigh. F**Ex.

Posted by Rachel at 11:20 AM No comments: 

Master of His Domain

Thoughtbot has recently bought the largest monitor EVER. No, that's not a trick of the camera angle. You really can't see him behind it. It's 30". Yes, far larger than our last TV. Twice as large, in fact, as the old TV we have in the basement. In all serious, it's actually pretty cool. The huge screen gives you all the advantages of having two monitors (i.e. you can work in a lot of windows at once) without the ergonomic disadvantages. For someone who's very busy and at the computer all day, I guess it makes sense.

Any why, my friends, is it possible to make GIANT monitors cheaply enough that small companies can afford them? MATERIALS SCIENCE! Ok, and a bunch of engineering. But those displays take some serious chemistry to make feasible. How do you make something that's reasonably lightweight and not reflective and enhances the color of the display and stays cool and has reasonable scratch/dirt/dust resistance and won't heat or shrink as the monitor heats up and cools down and won't change color/opacity/size with age etc. etc. etc. Oh and those fancy transistors inside the monitor are made out of something as well.

Today's materials science rant has been brought to you by the letter G. For GIANT. :)
Posted by Rachel at 5:58 PM No comments: 

St. Patrick's Day, 2008 Pay no attention to the lack of blog posts over the past 3 months. Thank you very much.

This past Sunday we went into the city for the St. Patrick's day parade. What a fun, bizarre day. First of all, the city of Philadelphia totally overlooks the open container law for the day. In the picture above, Chad and I are drinking beers (bought at a bar across the street, they gave us plastic cups for the occasion) with city hall in the background.

Because there are apparently a TON of Irish in the Philadelphia area, there were tons of troupes of step dancing girls. This I expected. I did not expect for many of them to be dressed up as clergy. I mean really. A dancing bishop? In every other troupe? All I could think as these girls danced by is "honey, you realize you can't actually have that job, right?"

There were also plenty of catholic-themed floats. Featured below, a lovely float including clergy (who apparently all have Santa Claus -style beards), nuns, nurses, firemen and some catholic schoolboys at their desks. The theme of the day seemed to be: Yay catholicism! Yay beer! Sounds good to me. There were lots and lots of happy people. We ended the day walking all the way across town for a free pint,
and then the train back to Ambler. Yay god! Yay beer!
Posted by Rachel at 8:41 PM 2 comments: Labels: Friends, Random