let it snow

[ellenkushner]

 A lovely dinner at friends' last night, at which I was uncharacteristially grouchy & quiet.  Came home early, tried to finish reading I Shall Wear Midnight (since I couldn't take hc on the plane to Florida next day with only 35 pages left!) and fell asleep after 15 pages.... slept for 10 hours, got up to discover all flights cancelled due to storm.  Waited on hold while eating breakfast (and calling parents on cell phone) and finally got free rebooking for 3 days from now (and returning 3 days later than originally planned - so nice not to have day job where anyone cares!).  Had light lunch, finished book & went back to sleep (listening to BBC2 special on London's Palladium [100 years old today!] on best present for self ever, the Logitech Squeezebox Radio!!! [thank you, Matt Kressel, for making the damn' thing work!].  There are ghosts in the theatre.  And Andrew Lloyd Weber is putting in new ladies' toilet stalls for The Wizard of Oz next year).

I have taken some gentle nourishment & am now about ready to go back to bed.  Delia is working on her FREEDOM MAZE revisions, but I'm hoping to convince her it's time to watch a frivolous movie.  Maybe The Wizard of Oz.  

So all in all, it's a good thing we're snowbound.  I love a nice snowstorm in NYC (though can't say I'm impressed with this one so far - it looks just like, well, winter).  And clearly I've got some kind of bug, since I am never, ever, this tired unless I have.  Universe, I can't tell you how awful it would have been to pack today for our trip to Sanibel Island & get to the airport feeling like this . . . I was already dreading hideous flight delays at JFK, so thanks for terrorizing everyone with severe blizzard prognostications.  My sympathies for those to whom this is an unmixed non-blessing.  If you have the wherewithal, try downloading a nice Terry Pratchett; the new one's really good - though if you haven't read the Tiffany Aching ones yet, start at the beginning.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

We love our Squeezebox. There are some great French jazz stations, but mainly we have it locked on BR-Klassik.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I like it so much I'm considering getting the whole system for the house (Squeezebox Touch) - do you have that?

My only annoyances are that it has tons of bells & whistles, none of them explained in the accompanying instructions, and a bit elusive online, unless I'm just not looking in the right place (must confess haven't tried very hard....) - and that there are only 6 pre-sets.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

We don't have the whole-house system but our friends (at whose house we first saw this in action) do, and they love it. It appears to be possible to draw too much bandwidth, though, and get a lot of dropouts, although you do not have teenagers with duelling musical tastes playing WoW at the same time as the adults are trying to listen to light jazz while preparing dinner: so for your (and our) purposes, it's quite likely that the system will be more than adequate.

What drives us nuts is that simply turning ours on does not (as far as we have found, in our 1.5 years older-than-yours version) turn it on. It's necessary to press the "go" button about three times. Unclear on the concept.

The instructions are terrible, it's not you. We just poked at it until we got what we wanted out of it, which was BR-Klassik.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

So glad to hear all of this - esp. the fact that it won't start up automatically for you, either!

I know you can control the whole thing from your computer - Matt showed me - and I am looking forward to crawling out of my Pit of Sloth and creating a Favorites list there, since the machine itself won't seem to let me....

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Running it off a computer is the obvious best way to go, especially if you have a desktop that's pretty much never asleep.

We don't run iTunes through it much---occasionally we have something on iTunes that we don't have on CD yet, but a desire to support the arts means that we're still buying physical CDs, especially at concerts, and we use our five-disc CD changer a lot more than iTunes. Also, the range really is better off a disk, as opposed to an mp3. (NB we also sometimes notice annoying flattening/truncating on the Squeezebox. It seems particular likely with opera and big symphonic works.) I know there are lossless downloads available, but it's just as easy to use a disc for now.

[hagsrus.livejournal.com]

A favorite author reading another favorite author - I wonder if it's reciprocal!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Ooooo - I hope so! That would be fantastic.

Extra days in NY, eh?

[paddymeboy.livejournal.com]

Hello, Ellen, I have just returned from a trip to the Guggenheim and lunch with Dan, followed by a long trek home in weather that looked pretty blizzardly to me. "Chaos and Classicism," indeed.

If you and Delia are stuck in New York for three days, however that's defined, you might take a look and see if seats are available for The Spanish Tragedy at Red Bull this Tuesday night: myself, Dan, my Park Slope friends Noah and Carolyn, and possibly my NYU friends Jacques and Susanne too. Blood, love, and rhetoric!

Re: Extra days in NY, eh?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

And indeed, what was I just doing but wondering whether we should get tix for something on Tuesday night, now that we'll actually be here? But alas!!!! Red Bull's tix are sold out for this reading already. Waily, waily and all that - because we would so love to have seen it - especially with such select company. All I can ask is that if 2 people in your group are suddenly stricken with beri-beri (or remorse), you let us know so we can take their places!

Have a great time. See you Jan. 5th!

Re: Extra days in NY, eh?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

And, yes, it is finally snowing pretty dramatically now. About damn' time, after all the fuss they've been making.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

I couldn't take hc on the plane to Florida next day with only 35 pages left!

This made me laugh - I can't tell you how often that kind of thinking has made me late to work (can't get on the tram with only 30 pages left in my book, have to finish it before I leave the house!)...

[fatfred.livejournal.com]

I'm here in Florida, not too far from Sanibel. The front is just passing through with high winds and, (for Florida) cold weather. You won't be missing too much.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Yes - to be honest, I decided not to fight for a Tuesday flight, as the weather doesn't get good til Weds anyway. Thanks for the encouragement!

[fatfred.livejournal.com]

Even better!
Have a great time and if you get the chance, see the Ringling Museum!

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

My best friend bought me Pratchett's "Midnight" on Audiobook for Christmas. I have just downloaded it.

Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall decant the thing into my iPod and listen to it while doing dishes. I loved the other three. Two I read and one I listened to.

I am very sorry to hear you are sick or getting there. Perhaps the bug will manifest only as a general malaise, and the good rest itself will cure you. Or you could ask the Wizard.

In the meantime, keep safe and snug as the Snow Queen holds New York in her icy fastness.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Your blessings have power through the magic of your words.

Yours from the Snow Queen's fastness,
e

[natesmomclaire.livejournal.com]

So, this Squeezebox thing--would you recommend it as a sound system for a dance party for the middle-aged? Would it need better speakers?

So glad you didn't head out for your trip. Nothing worse than trying to travel through bad weather when you're feeling sick. Hope you feel better soon.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Squeezebox is essentially a clock radio that gets stations (through WiFi!) from all over the world.

If you want a sound system that will project nice noise that you stick an iPod with dance mixes into, there are a bazillion of those out there -Holly Black gave me a cute little JBL Speaker Doc that's just dandy. I think it also connects directly to my laptop... Hope this helps!

[natesmomclaire.livejournal.com]

Yes, thanks, feeling marginally less clueless now.