Arte y pico award

A ways back, Capitán Langstrump of the excellent Pildoras Crumelus stopped by to graciously bestow the Arte y pico award, from the blog of the same name, on Blue Tea. My silence on the point up to now was not an indication of refusal, but more like arriving a little late to the acceptance ceremony. So start the music, here I am (huff, puff).





The award is passed from blogger to blogger and honors blogs for "dedication, creativity, community, joy, and above all, art". With those criteria in mind, here are my choices for the next five honorees:

Florizelle for Le Divan Fumoir Bohémien

John Coulthart for { feuilleton }

Tellurian for hanuman

Xenmate for a near life experience

Marion for Mapping the Marvellous

For those who wish to accept the award, here are the rules:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award itself.
4. The Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte Y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. To show these conditions.

My thanks to Capitán Langstrump for the honor. I hope you'll find something of interest among my choices for the next round -- which is the point of the whole thing, after all.

Seven things

I've been tagged by Katkmeanders for the Seven Things meme, with the following rules:

1) Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself.
3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I'm incredibly late, but let's see what I can do. It shouldn't be that hard to find seven new things to tell you, since I'm not exactly chatty about my life...

1. My blood type is B-. If it were B+, not only would I have a larger potential donor pool, but it would make a great personal motto, too.

2. All my computers are named after deities. I have three: the old laptop is "Muse", the retired tv computer is "Osiris", and the current desktop is "Ishtar".

3. My wireless networks are named after divine abodes. At the old apartment it was "Parnassus", and at the new one it's "Asgard".

4. What's that fear called where you're afraid peanut butter will stick to the roof of your mouth? I have that.

5. It's so hard to find good, quality, art calendars (if you know this blog you know what I like) that I've found myself starting reruns from past years. Last year my calendars were the Spirit of Japan calendar (a well-chosen gift from poshevanescence...I miss the calendar already), and the Edward Gorey Mystery calendar, which was my second Gorey calendar in a row. This year I opted for the Among Trees calendar, which is the same one I had four or five years ago -- reruns! There are new photos, but some are the same, like January. Pomegranate consistently has lovely stuff, but I'm quickly exhausting their catalog of themes; Calendars.com has nothing and infuriates me with its refusal to honor unsubscribe requests (beware!). Where am I going to continue to get new, fresh, beautiful calendars year after year?

6. I got fuzzy pink bunny slippers for Christmas. Though they're a bit ludicrous for my tastes, I've always secretly wanted a pair. (I'm wearing them right now.)

7. One of these facts is a lie.

There. That was silly, but I can't refuse a meme.

I'm afraid I will have to refuse to tag this time, though. I'm not even sure I could find seven people who do memes at all, especially if I give a break to my usual few whom I usually bug whenever I get a meme. So this is one of those end-of-the-line "take it who will" tags. So take it who will!

Thank you for the tag, KatK! Now to something more substantial...

La rentrée

[CURRICULUM]

Since it's time for back-to-school, even though I'm not going at the moment, I devised this imaginary curriculum for myself. It's a list of courses of the most practical sort -- not the usual esoteric, liberal-arts stuff I might take for the fun of it, but a kick-ass program in real-life skills I've decided I'm sorely lacking.

Just for kicks, let's make this a meme, with rules and tagging and all that. (My first!)

Rules: Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It's more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you'd also like to take. Tag five.

So, here's my schedule:

Logic for Life
Thorough groundwork in formal logic, critical thinking, decision-making, and debate. Emphasizes everyday applications.

Dance 001: Posture, Poise, Personality
Body posture, behavior, and movement techniques for health, comfort, and grace. Reduce stress and fatigue by building core strength and learn how to carry yourself to project confidence and be at ease in the world.

Dance 102: Social Dance for Non-Dancers
A primer in basic moves for a number of popular and iconic dance styles. You will also work towards developing your own personal, portable freestyle. Comfortably own the dance floor at any social venue. Prerequisite: Posture, Poise, Personality.

Everyday Spanish for Comprehension and Communication
With a focus on reading comprehension and verbal communication, this course enables English speakers to easily interact with a Hispanic environment.

Intensive Arabic for Highly-Paid, In-Demand Government Translation Work
Take advantage of the national need for skilled Arabic speakers and translators, and quickly master the language in this intensive course.

Consumer Skills 202: Basic Bargaining and Consumer Rights
Become comfortable haggling and striking bargains, learn how to recognize and overcome unfair business practices, maximize your consuming power, and stay in control of any transaction to save stress, time, and money.

World Geography
At the end of the course, students will have a high level of familiarity with every part of the planet.

World History 1000 B.C. to Present
Everything you need to know about everything that ever happened. Dates, places, people, reigns, wars, events, cultures, ideas, movements, and eras.

Small Talk Workshop: Advanced Techniques and Topics for Social Mastery
This practical course focuses primarily on in-class practice sessions guided by the instructor. Learn how to keep a conversation flowing seamlessly, ways to move beyond the weather, dealing with unpleasant people, social conventions, appropriate formulas for a variety of situations (polite refusal, soliciting favors, disengagement, etc.), networking, and more.

That should be a pretty full schedule. Now for my tags: LadySusan, Maktaaq, Lynn, Princess Haiku, and...well, darn, I'm out. I actually don't know too many bloggers of the sort that like to do memes, so I guess my fifth is a lame "anybody who wants to!"

Okay, now hit the books.

Thinking Blogger Award

Loyal reader Princess Haiku has honored Blue Tea with a Thinking Blogger Award, which is passed on by meme and bestowed by recipients on blogs thought to cultivate and inspire thought.





As a purveyor of minigames and pretty pictures, I think I'm more likely to make you go "Ooh" and "Ahh" than "Hmm", but I am flattered all the same, and I can certainly think of five more worthy honorees to pass it along to. So here, then, are the Five Blogs that Make Me Think.

1. Dream Tree. A thoughtful and poetic blog about fantastic, dreamlike art -- my kind of aesthetic -- and other ephemera. Regular features include a Science News roundup, and the exquisite Wunderkammer series of articles showcasing the origins and history of rare and unusual objects and artifacts.

2. Damn Interesting. Mini history lessons and briefings on strange, surprising, little-known events and phenomena from times past. Perfectly titled.

3. The Huge Entity. Essays and meditations on philosophy, consciousness, history, technology, religion, and other "excruciatingly large things". Wide-ranging and far-reaching.

4. Next Nature. A link blog highlighting trends, products, projects, research, discoveries, and arts that challenge and redefine the boundaries between human and nature.

5. Apothecary's Drawer. An eclectic blog exploring diverse topics in arts, science, and culture, with brief, link-riddled posts that manage to be both fascinating and informative.

I don't expect all of the above to participate, but if you recipients do wish to acknowledge the award and nominate others, here are the rules as given by the originator:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award'.

Most of these honorees are culled from the "Science, Tech, Humanities, Culture" group in my blogroll, which is where I keep most of the Heavy Thinkers, and to which I direct you if you would like to discover more delightful blogs in this vein.

Now, back to the pretty pictures.

Five habits

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Blue Tea's very first meme. Yes, I have finally been tagged, by Patrick of Le Web...et le reste.

List five weird habits you have. Tag five.

1. I begin every morning with a fairly regimented breakfast ceremony, with a bowl of cereal, tea with milk, a glass of orange juice (with added calcium), a glass of water, and a multivitamin. I lay out the dishes on the table in the same arrangement every day and prepare and consume everything in the same order: cereal, juice with vitamin, tea, water. I keep three cereals in the cabinet, always Multigrain Cheerios and then two other rotating varieties. My tea I always drink in an unusual mug shaped like a gargoyle, which I really should post a picture of someday. I only use the gargoyle mug in the morning -- when I have tea later in the day I select a different vessel.

2. I take baths, always at night, and only shower when really pressed for time or when no bathtub is available.

3. I have a very strong aversion to spoilers for movies, tv shows, books, etc., and go to great lengths to avoid them. Even if it's not something I particularly care about. I'm really into the artistic integrity of a work.

4. I always finish books once I start them. There was one time in recent memory where I didn't -- a book of short stories, The Dragon Path by Kenneth Morris -- and even then I suffered through far longer than I should have. (If you've read one Kenneth Morris story, you've read them all.)

5. I screen phone calls. Always.

Take it away: LadySusan, Maktaaq, Lynn, Michael, and PoshRockerBoy.