Monday, October 31, 2005

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Pictures from the Soapbox Derby.
Jennifer | 2:46 PM
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Sunday, October 30, 2005

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I'm having such a great San Francisco weekend. On Friday, it was the mousetrap. Last night, we went to the Mystery Ball, which was very fun. Great costumes, good food and music, fun crowd. I wore my tiger costume and Brad wore the caveman costume I made.

Then today, Todd and I were walking the dog at her favorite park when we realized it was Soap Box Derby day. The princess and her Barbie car were there, ("Math is Hard") as was a beer keg car, a speedy enclosed contraption, a bouncer that rolled on a back wheel pinned off center and various other contraptions. We saw several near misses and two collisions. As I was leaving, one guy was proclaiming happily about having flipped his machine, and a man dragging his car up behind the flipper overheard and gave him props, "You really flipped!". Then the second guy's friend asked, "didn't you flip, too?" To which the cheerleader cheerily replied "yeah, and I think I broke my thumb!"

Preposterous.
Jennifer | 4:56 PM
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Saturday, October 29, 2005

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We started the Halloween weekend with dinner with our friends David and Simone, and then a trip in the rain to see the Life Size Mousetrap. Its amazing. Brad and I - probably as a result of the good graces in which David and Simone find themselves with every member of the San Francisco alt.culture.scene - got to raise the giant safe up with a hand-cranked crane, and then let loose the bowling ball, the forward motion of which eventually resulted in the safe falling on top of and smashing to bits a giant pumpkin. We also almost rode on a merrygoround powered by bicycles, until the safety clowns noticed that the wheels had literally come of the truck and the swingers were held onto the contraption only by the lynchpin. You heard me, "safety clowns". I love San Francisco. Here, we embrace the preposterous.
Jennifer | 3:57 PM
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Friday, October 28, 2005

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As an aside in a NY Times story about an allegedly haunted house, the reporter mentions that liberals are more likely than conservatives to believe in ghosts. Meanwhile, the National Academy of Sciences has refused to give Kansas permission to use its copyrighted science curriculum because it disapproves of the state policy to teach the hooey of intelligent design. I'm wondering what we ghost-fearing copyright liberals will have to say about that.
Jennifer | 11:50 AM
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Thursday, October 27, 2005

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I am making our Halloween costumes this year. I have been taking some sewing lessons at Muse and so I'm able to improve on previous years' efforts. I am going to be a tiger, but I didn't want to be too, you know, "furry", so the costume has been modified. Brad will be a caveman. It is a costume that will allow him to wield a cudgel, which is the important part.

For those of you interested in the "how to" of tigerdom, here's how I did it. I used commercial patterns but modified them.

This skirt is from a cheerleading skirt pattern for kids, but made a little bigger for me. I also put the zipper in at the side rather than the back, since the tail has to go in the back.

Putting the tail in was hard. I wanted it to be secure and perky, so I couldn't just pin it on. I ended up making half a back seam and sewing it in by hand, then using the zipper foot to machine sew it but get the needle closer to the bulk of the tail.

For the top, I just used an off the shoulder pattern that looked kind of tarzan/jungle:

The more creative part was the tail and the ears. Again, I used a commercial pattern for animal costumes, but just modified it. I made the tail as they suggested, but after much consultation with various tail experts, decided it needed wire. As you can see in the above picture, its just not perky without wire, no matter how securely you attach the base to the skirt.

But with wire, the tail has a life of its own:

The pattern imagined the ears as a hood attached to giant furry overalls. But a hood just doesn't go with the skirt and top I made. So I decided to make the ears as directed, then just cut it down to something cuter.

Here's the pieces. The gold is the lining:


Here's the hood stiched together according to the pattern:


Then I just folded and pinned until it was more of a beanie. Then I cut and sewed, and it came out like this:

Again, I had to use the zipper foot to get the needle anywhere near the base of the ears, which are very thick but still need to be sewn into the seam of the hood.


Then I gave it the ultimate test, and it passed:


Probably the most useful thing to know before starting a project like this is that you absolutely positively must have a walking food when working with fur. The zipper foot lets you get the needle close, but the walking foot does an excellent job of feeding the fur through the machine evenly. Its about $25, can be purchased at Sunset Sewing Center on Irving Street, and looks like this:

I plan to wear it to the Mystery Ball on Saturday night and to the Castro on Halloween itself. I was going to say "on Halloween proper" but there's nothing proper about Halloween in the Castro.
Jennifer | 5:20 PM
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Wednesday, October 26, 2005

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My latest column for Wired News is How Plamegate Hurts the Net.
Jennifer | 8:32 AM
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

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Speaking of the apocalypse, its almost time for California's November 8th Special Election, and that means another Granick Slate Card. Because of my server migration, everyone who wants to be on the list needs to resubscribe. To subscribe to the Granick Slate Card, click here. The Granick Slate Card issues before every California election and is distributed under the same Creative Commons license terms as this site.
Jennifer | 2:59 PM
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Monday, October 24, 2005

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I'm neither religious nor superstitious, but I'm beginning to think that all of this flooding is creepy, if not apocalyptic. Consider:

*the tsunami
*Guatemalan flooding and mudslides
*Central Europe flooding
*Hurricane Katrina
*Hurricane Rita
*Northeast floods
*Massachusetts dam evacuation
*Wilma

Then I googlenews-ed "flood" today and came up with several more:
*Balasore, India floods
*warnings in England
*New Zealand's biggest flood in 17 years

This doesn't even count the Pakistan earthquake, which has killed 80,000 people or man-made horrors like Darfur. It may be time for an ark.
Jennifer | 8:45 PM
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Tuesday, October 18, 2005

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Why can't we ensure that Saddam Hussein is given a fair trial? Assume that we don't care at all about actually being fair and we just want a conviction and execution, can't we get that and also make the process appear fair? Isn't it a certainty that he'll be convicted, regardless? How does it interfere, really if we:

*Delay the trial until the country is more stable and the court has had a chance to try at least one or two other cases, demonstrating its competence and impartiality?
*Suspend the rule that if convicted, Execution must happen within 30 days, no time at all for an appeal.
*Give the lawyers the full set of court rules
*Tell the lawyers the charges against their client
*Give the lawyers access to all the evidence against Hussein
*Give the lawyers the time they need to meet with their client

Failure to follow basic rules of fairness in such an important case shows a criminal disdain for due process and a preference for expediency over principle. But failure to even try to make it look fair shows a fundamental incompetance in pursuing the stated goal of spreading freedom to the Middle East.
Jennifer | 5:57 PM
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Thursday, October 13, 2005

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As regular readers may have noticed, my blog was down for a couple of days. But its back now, hopefully to stay. Its going to take me a little while to get everything moved over, so please bear with me. In the meanwhile, you can read my latest Wired News column, Don't Let Fear Kill Muni Wi-Fi.
Jennifer | 10:57 PM
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

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Les Pyjamas Du Chat on Accidential Moron. The video stars me, costars Mr. Boodles, and was produced by Brad Stone, music direction by Kris Kosach, and directed by Alex Wellen.
Jennifer | 10:14 AM
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