Category: Environment

heard you say

Friday, 22 February, 2008 at 11:39 pm

I feel like writing here. I’m not really saying anything, but this is stuff I have on my mind. (A brain dump, I suppose.)

The Fanlistings.org has a listing for “Tommy February6 / Tommy Heavenly6 (Kawase, Tomoko)” but when I go to that site the website says it’s a fanlisting for Tommy February6 only. (Okay it doesn’t use the word ‘only,’ but seriously there’s no mention of Tommy Heavenly6 on the site.) I don’t know who to be more annoyed with, the site owner for not including Tommy Heavenly6, or TFL.org for including her! (…That phrasing is awkward, seeing as it’s the same person….)

To be honest, I don’t really care as much as it seems. I don’t pay much heed to the list itself. (As evidenced by all the buttons on my joined page that don’t have a fanlisting. XD) I just feel really really … weird … when I think of joining the fanlisting that TFL.org says is for Tommy Heavenly6 and using a button with Tommy Heavenly6 on it to link to a site that mentions only Tommy February6. Maybe I should just stick up a button and not link to any site. XD That works for me. Now I just need to get unlazy and do it…

(Note to self: don’t ever write a post about Tommy Heavenly6 and Tommy February6 both. I’m tired of typing Tommy Heavenly6 and Tommy February6. Which makes me wonder why I keep typing Tommy Heavenly6 and Tommy February6. It’s not for SEO, honest.)

Oh, a point I forgot to include and am feeling entirely too lazy to try and work in now: The ridiculousness of TFL.org expecting, because it’s the same physical person, that everyone will be a fan of both her personas/recording personalities. I mean, from the fanlisting itself, “Tommy February6 is all about 80’s style cutesy pop music; so sugary sweet that you’ll grow cavities!” And Tommy Heavenly6 has a rockier edge. I like the rock and am willing to pay the price for imported CDs, but the ’80s pop … not so much.

On to the next topic! Hopefully it will be as short as it was in my mind, unlike the previous portion of this entry. Okay, so I’d been thinking of writing this post about paper or plastic bags and which to get at the store, which to line trash cans with, but I may have built it up too much in my mind to essay proportions, and you should know how much I can’t stand writing. Basically, I heard recently that paper bags are getting banned in certain cities and that only 1% of plastic shopping bags get recycled and about 17% of paper bags are recycled. (These numbers are off the top of my head from my somewhat faulty memory, so don’t go citing me as a source or anything.) (Also someone in GPC said plastic films can’t be recycled, period. Ziploc bags, shopping bags, all those little baggies they use to package children’s toys and then warn that plastic bags and kids Do Not Mix Well, they all can’t be recycled. boo.)

So that just made me feel worse about using plastic bags to bag my trash. But I still can’t bring myself to use paper bags for trash. Why? Paper always gets recycled with me, no matter what. It’s been instilled in me since grade school. (I was reminiscing earlier that my city used to not recycle colored paper. And now they’ve moved up to recycled shredded paper! *sniff* They grow up so fast…)

I looked up biodegradeable trash bags, but I can’t find any. At least not any in stores around here. I am really not interested in going online to search for trash bags. Seriously? Have something shipped to me that I’m just going to toss out? Besides, another person in GPC said biodegradable plastics don’t degrade in landfills, because of lack of sun or too much pressure from other waste or something, I don’t know. Basically, biodegradable potato starch=not for landfills.

Yeah. That was a little longer than I’d hoped. Am cutting it short here, no more thoughts on that, except to say that I am still stuck in this moral conundrum.

Third and final topic, this blog needs a new layout. x.x I was planning one I think it was last September, but uhh stupid research paper (that I don’t think I talked about on here … I like to keep my blog clean and PG-rated) got in the way. But it’s sort of ugly anyway. I like the idea, but I don’t know how to carry it off in a pleasant way. Hey! Much the same way I designed my tea box project for Advanced Digital Typography! I love my idea (mommy and baby gorilla, awwww), but … I don’t like designing packaging. Do I make it look similar to other products out there so it’s recognizable as that type of product, or do I go waay out to left field and make something eye-catching that people might pass by because they don’t know what it is?

*cough* Uh, anyway. Yeah. After that idea in September (I did draw what I had in my head out on Illustrator, but I didn’t move beyond that ’cause I don’t know how to lay it out), I have no other ideas really. blegh. I’ve had ideas for images to use, but then the layout would just be a variation of the current one. And I thought, if it’s just basically this layout, then what’s the point of doing all that work? I’ve had plenty of schoolwork to occupy time outside class, thanks. Also, the green fits in with my posting a lot lately about environmental stuff. (Hah, that’s the only thing I can make myself care about enough outside of classes to write something.)

But then, I’m getting really really really tired of the huuuuge margins/padding around all my text. (Margins: typography; padding: code.) And my Twitter box is stuck all the way down there, hidden and inconspicuous. (I want more conspicuous! More!)

I just don’t know what to do. Even my Livejournal has been sitting all blah and boring and grey for probably over a year. (Yes, grey. I have nothing against grey, but seriously, that’s how drab the layout is. Nothing but shades of grey.)

I think I’m tired of the basic layout. Header, text below like a magazine or book or anything, and links somewhere. I was considering a horizontal layout but I either can’t be arsed or am tired of that as well. (My touchpad doesn’t scroll horizontally like my brothers’ do … oooold laptop.) Right now I like Noelle’s layout she made for me a long while ago. (Layout 14 under Flimsy Silence at [Shadows they fall (link to stf)] if anyone wants to see. Man, I need to restructure my layout archive. I can’t even reference layouts. Maybe that was part of the reason I stuck to frames so long for that site. No one link to anything on that site! Not even me! XO ) But I dunno what to do with it. I wonder if div auto overflows are out…

This is a very long post, when I meant to write only a handful of paragraphs…

thanks, All

Saturday, 19 January, 2008 at 5:42 pm

I’d just like to thank All for thinking of the environment. In relation their product, at least. (3x more concentrated! Requires less plastic for smaller bottles! And less cardboard for shipping! And fewer trucks for transportation!)

They did not think of the environment, however, when they built their website. All-laundry.com, thank you for bringing my browser (Firefox) to its knees and making it unresponsive or really very slow with your pointless use of humongous Flash animation. A few extra minutes required to power my computer to load your website, to get the information (very slowly) in the intro, which I could not skip because of aforementioned speed, more power required to transfer that whole big Flash animation to my computer from your servers, more energy required to run the servers your site is hosted on.

Thank you so very much.

decomposition rates

Wednesday, 2 January, 2008 at 9:23 pm

This is from my old “binder reminder” (1995–1996), just wanted to save the info:

Length of time for items to decompose
hall pass: 2–4 weeks
cotton rag: 1–5 months
gym sock: 1 year
tin can: 100 years
aluminum can: 200–500 years
glass bottle: undetermined

audio and heat (not necessarily together)

Thursday, 30 August, 2007 at 11:59 pm

Follow-up on previous post: went to car stereo store, got a Panasonic CQ-C3405U (that’s what the guy said to put in there) and managed to get my CDs back, all for $170 and some change. woot. It took only 45 minutes too. Take that, Carmax service shop!

Of course, the cons: no cassette player (used only to listen to mp3 player though), only one CD slot player, no bass/midrange/treble control on the panel, doesn’t switch from FM to AM and back (goes through FM1 band, FM2, FM3, then AM band), and it’s not part of the manufactured car. Pro(s?): auxilary jack! XD The system is made for iPod, which I will never own as long as Creative is in business (and offers a fairly good product), but I guess I’ll get over it.

I don’t really like not being able to switch from CD player to radio, and have the CD player pause while I’m listening to the radio (getting traffic reports from 980 and 1070). (Or, I’m not quite sure, maybe the new CD player does pause, I wasn’t really paying attention…) Mostly by CD player I mean my music. With my old system I had to go to my mp3 player (i.e., reach down and fumble around for the pause button) then switch to the radio, and I accepted that and didn’t listen to my mp3 player often (didn’t hurt that it’s only a 1 gig Zen Nano *grin*). But now, since I’ve got only one slot for CDs, I decided I should (finally) move over to mp3 player.

It’s sort of a trade-off. I’ve got two different modes of driving/music-listening: driving to work during the summer, about an hour-long trip (no need for more than one CD), with frequent switching over to radio; and then there’s driving to school (from L.A.), just straight four CDs in a row three hours of non-stop music. Driving to school isn’t too much of a change, I just have to set up my mp3 playlist before leaving, instead of gathering CDs and loading them in the car. But driving to work … gah, I hate the instances where I have to fiddle around with things just to not miss the traffic report or a bit of the music I’m listening to.

(Funny thing happened on the way home today. I turned on the radio and plugged in my mp3 player but didn’t turn it on because it turns off after a minute or so anyway…. So ten minutes into my drive, while on the 101 going 65–70ish I turn on my music, and a couple minutes later I realize that I wasn’t really paying attention to traffic around me; I didn’t recognize any of the cars around me, just the van [far ahead] in front of me, and I couldn’t recall driving past all the offramps to near the point where I have to start moving over. hahaha!)

One last thing I’m not particularly happy with: the new system seems to up the treble more than I like. :( As I said before, there’s no bass/midrange/treble control on the panel like there was with the Dodge system, and it really really spoiled me I see. Now I can only adjust the bass and the treble. Ouch. I’ve got the bass and treble lowered, but while listening to my Anastasia soundtrack (CD) I could hear the highs, which hurt my ears. Then today, listening to Aly & AJ’s Insomniatic on my mp3 player the same thing happened, only moreso (hadn’t noticed while listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Gorillaz, or The Used, hah). I turned down the treble from −6db to −12db where it was comfortable-ish to my ears, but the music sounded flat and besides there were still some semi-highs hurting my ears, so I changed it back. (Later at a long red light I went into the mp3 player’s settings and lowered the highest frequency.)

Now if I had a midrange control, I could simply increase that and be perfectly happy. But no! N says audio companies must think we’re idiots or something, because a lot of stereo systems don’t come with equalizers. Mum’s system has an equalizer, but the ones N look at have only a control for the bass and treble (like my car!). *twitch* That’s like … the one thing that makes buying audio bearable for me. Buy something I find decent, then adjust the hell out of the equalizer. Grar.

(Ack, why do I always end up typing way more than I plan?)

The very last, very minor annoyance I have: the knob. It’s shorter, making it harder for my long-nailed fingers to get a grip on it XD and it’s made out of metal which honestly I would never think would be a drawback, but in the valley where it gets to 110° … say hi to little burns on my fingers.

Today my car read the temperature at 113°, at 3:30 in the afternoon. That wasn’t really so bad. The bad thing was being in an office where for some reason the air-conditioning wasn’t going below 85°. (Yeah, it’s taking 115° air from outdoors and lowering it 30°, and I’m complaining because it won’t go down another 10°.) I never thought 85° was sweltering, but apparently it is. I found it really hard to concentrate on my work (updating my boss’ website, woo) and sat there thinking about the old “Japan Dresses Down” article, wondering how they could possible work in an environment that warm. Like, do accountants make a number of mistakes? Because I found myself making mistakes today … forgetting an " for one. o.O

Later in the car I heard on the radio that power companies were asking people to turn off their thermostats and conserve electricity. I know a lot of places were only in the 80s today (this house, for example, and us with no air conditioning, oh me oh my how do we survive in such primitive circumstances?), but still, sitting in a hot car in 110° … that bit of advice drove me a tad crazy. I’ve always thought people should keep their A/Cs at 78 at the lowest … but sitting in an office where the thermostat was set to 72 and I was sweating just sitting at a computer, I don’t know, I guess I have to rethink that.

Also, I felt more guilty than usual running my A/C in the car today. haha. It’s one of the hottest days this week and I’m trying to keep from getting dehydrated, and I turn my A/C down to the lowest setting (on max A/C though) which I never do because the lowest setting is pretty weak. Heck I even opened my window at Santa Monica Blvd. just to see if I could withstand the 85° heat. (The answer was no.)

Then again, I could have lessened my use of gasoline by not gunning the engine driving around slow cars. But gahhh, semis going up the pass at 50 mph … *dies*

this or that environment edition

Wednesday, 13 December, 2006 at 2:07 am

I decided to not buy scantrons in the package anymore. Hidek was asking me whether he should buy the single scantrons or the ones in a package (why can’t he think about that for himself? O_o), and I was saying you save money with the ones in a package. But then I thought, you have to think about the pollution and whatnot that goes into making the plastic packaging. And probably all that plastic just gets tossed out in the trash to fill up landfills. So! It’s single scantrons for me. >) I’ll pay more to save the planet, yes I will!