Ultranormal

  • Find Me At SxSW!

    Adapting to Web Standards SXSW Autograph Tour Giveaway

    Christopher came up with a great idea. Since four of us who wrote Adapting to Web Standards will be at SxSW, he’s doing a little giveaway. Get all four of our autographs and you could win a copy of our excellent book (really, it’s good).\
    In other news, we launched our first public web app at work recently, and I’d like to ask a favor. If you know any independent bands, could you please please please ask them to check out uPlaya Artists? I’d love to hear what they (or you) think of the site! A lot of hard work went in to it (even though, as you can see, there are still several “coming soon” banners on features).\
    And if you need to know what I look like… here I am.\
    And lastly… happy International Day of Awesomeness!!!

  • Kevin is always right!

    I shall not question him anymore. Except sometimes.\
    Two hours at the doctor’s office, hundreds of dollars, six medicines… Max has asthma, an ear infection, allergies.\
    All three of my boys have asthma now. Woe.

  • Home is where the family photos hang

    We found a new rental house, yay. We’ll be moving in about 3-4 weeks. I have already started packing and am glad I never fully unpacked in the first place. The second thing I am going to do once we move in is personalize the new place and make it home. At least the family room and the boys’ room. I already know what I want, now I just need to find it. Some of these items could make excellent birthday presents (hint, hint). Be expecting a list soon, Kev!

  • SxSW 2009 Music: Best of the A’s

    Every year, SxSW posts a ton of free mp3’s from the artists that showcase at the music festival. And every year since 2004, I’ve downloaded all of them. This year, though, instead of just letting them take up space in iTunes, I’m going to try something. Between now and whenever I get through them, I’m going to try to listen to a letter a day (the playlist is alphabetical by artist) and do my best to rate every song. Then, I’m going to post my top ten songs from each letter here. Here are the A’s:

    1. Gardenias and Cigarettes by Ana Silvera – 5 stars – I love this song. It’s a classic gin-drenched torch song.
    2. The River by Anathallo – 5 stars – Another great ballad. If Bloc Party were acoustic piano rock, they’d sound like this.
    3. The Thief & The Heartbreaker by Alberta Cross – 4 stars
    4. Si Pero No by Alex Cuba – 4 stars
    5. Amanha eu nao vou trabalhar by Alexandre Grooves – 4 stars
    6. Government Meat by Ali Eskandarian – 4 stars
    7. To All Tiny Creatures by All Tiny Creatures – 4 stars
    8. Leeds United by Amanda Palmer – 4 stars
    9. One More Day by Amy Wadge – 4 stars
    10. Set The Bears Free by Anchorsong – 4 stars
    11. Oh, The Boss Is Coming by Arkells – 4 stars – I have to say, these guys sound a lot like The Constantines, which may be why I dug this song so much.
    12. These Flowers of Ours by The Asteroid #4 – 4 stars – Reminds me a lot of The Dandy Warhols.\
      This is totally unscientific, and I probably missed rating some songs (I do need to work during the day), but here are the A’s. I’m listening to the B’s today. And yes, I know there are more than ten, but they’re alphabetical within the number of stars, so I decided to list all the 4 and 5 star songs.

  • Brian also gets his toes from his dad!

    Brian has asthma. Woe. But just a little bit. “A whiff,” is how the doctor described it. The technical term is “mild and intermittent.” It used to be called “reactive airways disease,” which is a more accurate description according to the doctor. But, disease? DISEASE? Double woe. Anything with the word “disease” is bad.\
    Brian’s been sick for the last two to three weeks. When his cough hadn’t disappeared after 10 days (being sick for nine days is ok- three days coming, three days here, and three days going), I took him to the dr. I figured I was overreacting, though I knew Brian’s occasional cough wasn’t normal. Turns out he had an ear infection, puss up his nose, and asthma! The doctor initially decided not to treat the “whiff of asthma” since it was just acting up because of the congestion. We went back to the dr a week later because the cough hadn’t ceased. Turns out Brian still had a raging ear infection. The doctor was pretty shocked, which was funny. He put Brian on a second-round of antibiotics and added some asthma medicine too.\
    Brian doesn’t act sick, not counting the one day we tried to go out, except for throwing up once a day. He is really bored, but I can’t really send him to school or take him out to play. He is whiny and grumpy, but mostly due to the boredom and lack of Kevin at home. Brian is taking seven medicines right now, and all but one have to be given multiple times a day, waaaaa: two for allergies, two for the asthma, and three for his ear infection and congestion. Poor kid.

  • The First Round of Dailies from Max’s Movie

    Unnamed Max Lawver School Project – Dailies Day One from Kevin Lawver on Vimeo.\
    Max is making a movie for school, so we’ve turned the front room into a jury rigged animation studio. Max is making all the models, backdrops and I’m making him move the models when we film. I take the frames and will help with iMovie when we get there. We’re using iStopMotion, which is going pretty well so far. It even supports my Nikon D80 in PTP mode. We tried that for a couple test shots, but I don’t have a real macro lens and the table is too short to do it right, so we’re sticking with the iSight for now.\
    We’re going to try to film the other two scenes tomorrow and Monday. We’ll post dailies each day and then, of course, the final product.\
    Here’s a shot of the “studio”. You know, where the magic happens:

    a photo of our home animation studio

  • Stop me if you’ve heard this before…

    Who is the target customer for the Valentine’s themed over-sized balloons and stuffed animals? I can’t imagine an adult male buying them and don’t think there are enough teens in the country. I ponder this every time I am faced with ‘that certain aisle’ in practically every store I frequent.

  • Blogging can be embarrassing

    Free ebooks! Harlequin, ha, is giving away ebooks: Click for the cheesy!\
    Personally, I am looking forward to this historical gem myself, Homespun Bride:\
    bq. Montana Territory in 1883 was a dangerous place–especially for a blind woman struggling to make her way through an early winter snowstorm. Undaunted, Noelle Kramer fought to remain independent. But then a runaway horse nearly plunged her into a rushing, ice-choked river, before a stranger’s strong, sure hand saved her from certain death. And yet this was no stranger.

  • Suppose we never fell in love

    “Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

  • My Second Trip to The British Museum

    The lion from the main entrance of The British Musem

    This was my second trip to The British Museum. My first was in October of 2007 with a friend from AOL, but we could only stay for about an hour. That’s not nearly enough time. We only got to see the Rosetta Stone, some mummies and a little bit of the Assyrian collection.\
    My only touristy goal on this trip was to really dive in and see a lot more of the museum. And boy, did I. Ann and Tobey met me, and we spent a great almost four hours wandering through history. I won’t go in to how the museum came to possess its collection, but it is amazing. If you get the chance to go to London, give yourself a good half-day to wander through it. It’s truly unbelievable.\
    I took almost three hundred pictures, so it’s going to take me some time to upload them. They’ll all end up in the set on flickr eventually.\
    I was particularly fascinated by the statues from India and Asia, especially the ones depicting Hindu deities. If anyone has recommendations for a “beginners guide to the history of Hinduism”, I’m all ears.