A Wandering WeyrCat...

I have learned some really weird stuff today. It's exactly what you think. And way more common in history than you think. First I heard about a company that may or may not make high-end leather goods out of human leather, that "cater(s) to a small but highly discerning clientele". I don't know about you but I read that in Christian Bale's voice (a la American Psycho ). If you have 500 Euros you can get a bracelet!  http://www.humanleather.co.uk/ Evil Dead's Necronomicon Ex-Mortis . Not human leather. Not really taking the site seriously I decided to put myself on a few "crazy lady on the Internet lists" by seeing if and what human leather was/is used for. I learned about Anthropodermic Bibliopegy , or human-skin bookbinding. [ Here's the wiki] . Some of these books look like regular leather bound books (see below) but some look almost like they're really carved from burled maple. This is apparently because if you simply quick-tan it ...

Summer is over and school starts tomorrow. Here's what coon in my world today! Kentucky lawmakers shocked to find evolution in biology tests. - ArsTechnica . After dictating that schools in the state include tests based on national standards, the state lawmakers were shocked to find that evolution made a prominent appearance on the science tests. The legislators apparently asked ACT whether it could create a Kentucky-specific version of the test; one that, presumably, would be a sort of formal recognition of the state's distaste for mainstream science. They were told, however, that doing so would be prohibitively expensive. "I would hope that creationism is presented as a theory in the classroom, in a science classroom, alongside evolution," the Lexington Herald-Leader quotes Senator David Givens as saying. Givens is apparently unaware that creationism is not a theory, and that the Supreme Court has ruled that teaching it is a violation of the establishment c...

Every time I watch an episode of Bones I remember the first time I got to go to a Museum. I went with my class, and was something like 8 or 9. We went to see an Egyptian exhibit. Of all the things a child remembers, this day is burned in my head and crammed with wild images. I'd been excited to go; my mom had shown me a picture she snapped with a disposable of the bust of Nefertiti, on viewing in a museum in Berlin. The picture was dark and slightly fuzzy, but the picture was beautiful. That was around the time I also read "The Egypt Game" in school. A bunch of kids create a club in an abandoned shop, and they all dress up like ancient Egyptians. I LOVED Egypt. I remember cases of gold, odd bits of trinkets and bones, a ten-foot statue of Bast that I just stared at open-mouthed (wonder if She's why I love all things 'cat' so much...). I even bought a keyring in the shop, a miniature of that statue. I still have it in my 'box of precious things'. At t...

The Duchess (Based on a true story)? The 18thC not being my specialty I will leave off my opinions of what's period or not for the flick. Overall seems well done. I do think it pretty in its opulence. So funny to see the Duke moaning over the birth of a girl, now with modern science telling it's HIS fault (raspberry). However, her movie-self wishing to breast feed her daughter herself was JUST not done for a lady of her rank, so, I wonder if there is basis for that. That would make her quite rebellious indeed, almost scandelous. They would have called her unfit for her standing: having risen too high over her worth. ah yes, and there is why in the SCA we play at chivalry. Lawful rape All in all very good flick :)

Done in play by play. Summary: Could have been good if it wasn't for the soft-soft-core, and Hayden Christiansen needing acting lessons. Dude, the badguy (DelRatta) in Virgin Territory is the SAME bad guy from The Musketeer! Dude get's around I guess. Ahh another late 14c flick with a modern-inspired soundtrack. And I could tell, right around the spot where the hot young (and clean shaven) nuns jump into the bath with the stranger to bang him... thaaaat this wasn't going to be very good. Oh yea.. awful. Almost soft-core porn. Long rifle? Freaking did NOT exist yet. Best Europe had in the late 14thC were large cannon type weapon that lay on a table. I think I'm going on about the weaponry because it helps me detract from YET ANOTHER make-out-almost-softcore scene. OMG is that Hayden Christianson (or who the hell ever) played Young Vader? I think it is. No wonder this movie is bad. God he's an awful actor. Right.. the slave trader has a stripper pole? Seriou...

So, a weird thing happened. Yes, I'm playing Farmville, I tried, I really did. Anyway, I'm not all into the huge home building etc (unless I find some of those castles..) so I carved myself out a tiny camp in the middle. I surrounded it with the French vined walls (available yesterday), cornered the little farmer in with the well, churn, barrel, and rest tent they start you out with. I had purchased Quilts from the European thing (I like quilts) and today they re-released Southwestern stuff, and I scooped up Hanging Garlic (on a neat crescent moon pole) and a dutch oven over a firepit. Then it hit me.. I had somehow managed to make my little farm-home look like CAMP. (For you mundanes, Camp is the generic SCA term for "that place you chucked all your gear when you put up your quasi-period-probably-a-canvas-car-cover tent". O_O Well, at least I seem to have built myself Camp Kitchen :D YUM!

Huzzah! I have made it the 39.1 miles to the Shire of Isenfir! The next stop on my way to Pennsic is 86.4 miles away: Shire of Sylvan Glen, in the Kingdom Aethelmearc! As of today I have 253.3 miles left until I reach Pennsic; this means I've traveled 245.7 miles! I halfway there! (Too bad there's only two weeks left to get there at 17.5 miles per day... Should have been using Bonus Miles.) Even though I won't make my goal I've walked, run, stairclimbed, and biked almost 250 miles for this goal! I am pretty proud of myself. I see how the almost two months of not tracking my pedometer really hurt the cause. It's hard to recover when you fall behind! The distance I DID complete makes this a Non-Failure. I didn't make it in time, but my husband says my legs look better than when we met! I call that a Win!

/From the tattered pages of a hand-bound ledger/ Lost as I was those two mad months, I made no progress towards Pennsic. I feel I have trekked in maddening circles! That's what you get for following a "coastline" that turns out to be a lake. This is why I'm not the navigator. No matter. I've Finally made it the 61 miles to the Barony of Black Diamond. 318 miles to Pennsic! I'll rest only a day... the bugs are as big as gulls here in Atlantia. Onward north.. 37 miles to the Shire of Isenfir!

School, PT, Period Dinner, Husband told me if I passed my Math test with a 93% (what it takes to get an A at this ridiculous school) that he'd take me to DQ :D I've studied, felt confident, and missed 3. Unfortunately the test was 25 questions and that makes it 88% :( At least it's a B at this cruddy school. I can't even see which ones I got wrong until midnight. I know it's going to be some trick question on the Levels of Measurement (Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio.) Sigh. Kind of agitated that I only got an 85 on the first math project too... I seriously copy-pasted all the answers from her syllabus from the project, yet somehow missed 15pts. That's only a C at FTCC btw. :( SO... Let's do some Math on Math... Test 88pts Weighted at 25% of my grade. Project 85pts Weighted at 10% of my grade. HW1 100pts Weighted at 15% of my grade. 88*0.25 = 22 85*0.10 = 8.5 100*0.15= 15 22+8.5+22=45.5/.5 =91%. A 91... which is a BEE at FTCC. /grumble. 00:60:00 5.0mi E...

I decided one day on a whim to see if I could turn a duck I'd bought (also on a whim) into a period dinner. I found a great resource at GodeCookery.com and have been having a blast :D I've so far made seven of the recipes (but only count 6 as one of them was way too silly and easy to count :P To catch up, I've made: Chickenes Endoryed (Gilded Chicken) PERIOD: England, 14th century. Dauce Egre (Sweet & Sour Fish) PERIOD: England, 14th century. (If you're on SparkPeople , you can add this recipe to your Meal Planner ! New Peas for a Fish Day PERIOD: France, 14th century. Sallet for Fish daie (Shrimp topped Salad) PERIOD: England, 16th century. Saracen Brodo (Roasted Game Hens in Fruit Sauce) PERIOD: Italy, 14th century (If you're on SparkPeople , you can add this recipe to your Meal Planner ! Seethed Fresh Salmon (Poached Salmon) PERIOD: England, 16th century You can get the recipes, my tweeks, and more at my SCA-Food page: http://www.weyrcat.com/sca/sca_fo...

For Kingdom... for Canton... for fun. I take up my sword, my bow, my coin and my shoes and walk into the springtime northward. I seek the greatest war of our land: Pennsic. It is 499 miles, and I have 6 months to get there... A lady in my SCA Sparkers Team on Sparkpeople.com came up with the Walk to Pennsic thing as a way to get herself going. Never one to turn my nose up at a great idea I decided to do the same. I used Google Maps to determine the "walking" route from my Canton to Pennsic War in Pennsylvania. It's is 499 miles, 1,317,360 steps by pedometer. These miles can be made up by running, more walking, elliptical, or cardio bike. Along the path to Pennsic are all the Baronies, Shires, Cantons in between. For each one I pass through I will award myself a small digital device for the group I trek through. Later: I meant to keep short blogs about my progress, since it was really all about PT. At some point, only 100 miles from the end, I gave up. I kept the ...

(Reposted from my SparkPeople.com blog) So on the 17th at work I logged 6820 Steps (around a barricade) for 2.55. Grain of salt included. I did this by calculating how many steps it took me to get around said barricade (28avg {28, 27, 39}) and then counted how many times I walked around it. I gifted myself 1 rotation each time I had to process a car (I walk around the car, like its a barricade.) I did not get extra steps for big vehicles, but I didn't take away for smaller vehicles either. It was a neat mind numbing way to focus on walking. I didn't know I'd gone that far (I was hoping to make 2640 steps for my Mile!) until I calced it on a break I had. I have a good pedometer on the way (I lost the cheapy lil one I had last year.) > I also worked out the points system for my Pilgrimage to Pennsic :D I'm WAY behind already. Hubby's new schedule is kind of causing us to be terrible night owls (been up til 4am these last two nights) which is TERRIBLE for wanti...

Yar, I end up spitting some thoughts into Facebook that are bigger than the Status bar wants to chew :D Watching Tudors, and wondering at what point in History Anne Boleyn would have dressed as a Maid of Dionysus, with SO much skin showing, and danced such a risque dance! Course, I only just discovered Natalie Dormer (who plays Anne on The Tudors) as Victoria in Casanova. It was apparently her Debut, and I didn't recognize her in Tudors with the DARK hair. Though now after watching it, I'm not sure how I could have missed that crooked grin. Lovely garb... Thsi still I stole, but its definitely her "Do it or I'll bite your face" look.

it went so fast! Pear- light kinda drt but sparkine Touch of zen- w/meat! Apricot vanilla- kinda dry. Strong bacl tongue bite muscadine- ooh ick. Does taste of musc flesh though. Touchmenot nonsparkling- god the cardemom is good. Pineapple 16%!vs 12%- mmm almost apertif. No bite. Toned down pineapple. recipe to home mead which is demurely delicious: I have recipe! And wayyyy teipsy. Bottom lip/teeth jaw bottleshock john clese: wine vid all thos in 30m... Feelin good! Julianna Wylkyns of Sundragon, Atenveldt, in Canton of Attilium, Barony of Windmaster's Hill, Atlantia.

YouTube - Abridged Classics: The Tudors I am so addicted to this video right now. I haven't seen the show yet (gonna finish reading "Lady Elizabeth" by Weir first) but the song is awesome, and the flashing STRAIGHT is just farking hilarious! I'm actually playing it AGAIN, while I type this!! yes, Ima double post this into the bulletin too. EVERYONE HAS TO WATCH THIS. The neighbors must hate me right now :D I know Hubby would if he were here! Eric Bana appears as Henry VIII in the film with Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn. Ms. Powell says she was concerned with historical detail, but only up to a point. “You always have to use artistic license,” she says. “ You can never be strictly authentic, and besides, no one knows what authentic is, anyway. ” Photo: Alex Bailey/Columbia Pictures Ok, I saw this and had to add a little to my bitching. "No one knows what authentic is, anyway." Are you kidding? If I can point out a TON of sweaty, hockeypad-clad, beer-making, ...

Alright, this is gonna end up a footnote when I do 300 a lil later this week. (I've seen it before, and know to skip the Queen rape scene.) This movie, isn't really a movie, it's the spoof on 300, with a bunch of other random crap thrown in there. now, I usually like the flicks mocking other flicks, but this one is just really freaking terrible. Ugh. Kevin Sorbo is still freaking gorgeous. And in the end, the Xerxes messenger (big balck dude) was the only one who could sing!

Movie based on the book *unread* about Henry the VIII's "one-time mistress Mary Boleyn and her sister Anne, who (a bit of a spoiler for me) became the monarch's ill-fated second wife. How little I realized that being invited/summoned to the court pretty much landed Anne "where the King can always find [her]", and in my modern, cynical view of things, interprets that as putting her at the Kings Bed and Call. Oops, Freudian, BECK and call. And for the Queen, with a new Lady in Waiting, a gift from her Husband, with no special talent. How would it feel to know your husband summoned to your circle, a girl he plans to put in his bed? The life of a Queen, I do not desire. I'll keep my Captaincy, where I can just kill a man if I need to. What is WITH the Tudor style men's coats though, the King's particularly, huge gorilla shaped, ugh. What do you do, a girl in the 1600s, newly married, when adultery is a sin, and the King wants you in his bed, and you can...

True, a little too late for SCA period, but still... From IMDB: In 1658, playwright/actor Molière, having been given a theater in the capital by the King, is back in Paris after touring the kingdom of France with his company of players. One day, a young lady asks him to follow her to the deathbed of her mother... Thirteen years earlier, Molière already runs a troupe but goes broke and is thrown to prison. Fortunately (?) his debt is covered by Monsieur Jourdain, a rich man who wants him to help him rehearse a one-act play he has written with a view to seducing a beautiful bright young widow, Célimène. As Jourdain is married to Elmire, and is the "respectable" father of two daughters his design must remain secret so Molière is introduced into the house as Tartuffe, an austere priest... Beware, those of you who don't like subtitles, this movie IS in French. They aren't perfect, I heard the word "Espanol" though it didn't read Spanish, eh. GODS his writing ...

What the heck, I did the crappy 07 Beowulf, and while digging found this Gerard butler (droool) Beowulf telling, So, here we go. While the Wiki calls this "loosely based" on Beowulf, it sports a name claiming it IS the Beowulf tale, at least, the first two-thirds of it. They do not go on to the dragon tale. The movie starts with a prologue: A hatred Born, where in 500 AD the Danes (lead by who turns out to be Hrothgar) hunt down and kill a giant of a man (a troll): Grendel's father. The child Grendel takes up a sword and hacks his father's head off to take it with him. This, is a revenge tale. Whence Grendel is Dead, they go on to the "Hag", Grendel's Mother, a relatively short battle in the scheme of things. Her finds her, tussels and cuts her head off. She's built rather as the trolls are (Grendel and his father), so may really be just a female troll.. but living in a cave? Eh, with a 2500 year old story, one theory is as good as the next (unless y...

Read Beowulf While the tale of Beowulf isn't exactly mangled, the details of just about everything are changed. The story is definitely identifyable, even not that bad to watch, but terribly not awesome either. I did find the digital look ditracting, and wonder if it could really be cheaper than the sets required to film. Eh. Not going on The Shelf, but eh, wasn't a waste of time either. Follows, the songs Queen Wealthow sings, not-period (pity) but I found them wonderful. She plays them to a harp. lips ripe as he berries in june red the rose, red the rose skin pale as the light of the moon gently as she goes. eyes blue as the see and the sky water flows x2 heart burning like fire in the night gently as she goes la la la.... gently as she goes ------ Out of the mist of history he'll come again Sailing on ships across the sea to a wounded nation Signs of a savior and fire on the water It's what we prayed for, one of our own Just wait though wide he may roam Always a hero...