I too have friends who have never seen star wars. Thus I'm throwing a star wars party. I'd hate to have to disown them, espcially since one of them spells Trek with a c. She's moved far down my friends list.
i wish i had never seen 'star wars'. those movies were total crap.
except for the death star...an artificial planet is actually pretty prescient. it's also inspired me to totally disregard the green/environmental/sustainability fad as a total waste of effort...we should just start building our own death star and bail on earth.
I agree about Star Wars as well... Episode IV was special because nothing like that had really been done on the big screen before, and the viewers were literally being introduced to an entirely new world, and The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi followed in that vein. The Ewoks were pretty stupid, IMO, but that didn't stop those movies from being one of the best trilogies of all time.
The three prequels just sort of sucked the life out of the franchise... The first rule of show business is to leave your audience wanting more, and by the time Lucas started remaking the originals and then giving us the prequels, people were saying "enough already". I'll give Lucas props for his incredibly vivid imagination, but he should have quit while he was ahead instead of trying to milk the franchise for all it was worth.
I always preferred Star Trek because it's set within our own universe and timeline, and as a result, seems easier to relate to. That franchise had also been sucked dry by a series of mediocre movies and TV episodes, but the new J.J. Abrams movie will hopefully be successful in giving it a much-needed re-boot.
Who knows... Maybe in another decade or two some talented director other than George Lucas will manage to re-boot the Star Wars franchise in a similar manner.... Or better yet, maybe Hollywood will decide to do something original for a change.
What about the original trilogy was ruined by their re-mastering? And yes, I completely agree about Episodes I-III being pretty crappy. EXCEPT the finale lightsaber duel at the end of episode one with Darth Maul, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon Jinn. SO EPIC!
I usually make a point not to discuss my church activities here on Archinect, but I need to vent a little. This doesn't really have anything to do with theology or religion per se, but about how you treat the volunteers who make an organization function on a day-to-day basis.
Around this time last year about half our volunteers walked out the door when the church decided to institute criminal background checks for all staff and volunteers serving at the cathedral. Given the recent issues with sexual abuse in some churches, I can appreciate the reasoning behind requiring background checks, but I can also appreciate somebody being resentful about being treated like a potential criminal after they've spent 20+ years of their lives putting their blood, sweat, and tears into the cathedral. Other volunteers were concerned about privacy issues, and didn't appreciate being asked to hand over their Social Security numbers and other personal information to the church secretary, who would then hand it over to some shady company hired to conduct the checks. I was on the fence myself, but ultimately decided to sign the consent form and continue in my work at the church. Several close friends of mine ended up leaving the cathedral altogether, though.
With far less people on hand, the remaining volunteers are being asked to do much more. I've stepped up to the plate and taken on a leadership role with the Acolyte Guild, and I've served in the liturgy for both the 11 AM and 4 PM services almost every Sunday since before Labor Day of last year.
As you might imagine, that's a huge time commitment, and it's finally starting to catch up to me in a big way. Facing severe burnout, and with me putting in longer hours at the office in hopes of avoiding the next round of layoffs, and with me finally getting serious about doing my thesis and other coursework to finish my degree, I've decided to significantly cut back my involvement at the church to only one service per weekend, which is still far more than most other acolytes put in.
The clergy have been very supportive and understanding, but I think I might come to blows with the head of the Acolyte Guild (also a volunteer) before too long. He has a very "my way or the highway" approach to leadership, and on a couple of occasions has implied that I haven't been pulling my share of the load at the cathedral. This is from a guy who is retired and who spends half the year in London, forcing me and the other acolytes to pick up the slack in his absence.
Today I got an email from him basically telling me that I needed to be at the cathedral at 9 AM on Saturday to help clean some of the equipment. (Not asking me if I could make it, mind you, but simply telling me to show up.) This is despite the fact that we've already cleaned this equipment to the best of our ability, and that any further cleaning will require enlisting the help of a professional service. I've already told him that I won't be able to make it, and he responded with a very curt "the cleaning session will proceed as scheduled."
Lately I've been giving some thought to resigning from the Acolyte Guild altogether, but I know that would leave them even more short-handed. I probably need to have a chat with one of the clergy... I want to continue helping the cathedral as much as I'm able, but if I continue to feel like my efforts are being taken for granted, they'll find themselves short one more volunteer.
The original being remastered tried too hard to take the cheesey effects out of the movie. Imagine if Jason and the Argonauts was remastered; it just wouldnt be the same. Part of the fun of Starwars, at least for me since I'm only 25 was the hokey-ness. Yes, its obvious that the effects arent real, but CGI is just as obvious, no matter how hard it tries. Think of fiberglass wood shutters and shakes.
my problem with the re-mastered SW is both the difference in visual styles between in-camera/optical effects and CG, along with the attempt to fill in all the gaps. so to have a scene in tattoeen town that suddenly has giant dinosaurs and way too many space ships destroys the mood and doesn't leave anything to our imagination. If lucas went the way of ridley scott's with the blade runner director cut and took out the cheese/everything gets narrated, it would could have been better film. we don't need to know everything - nor should we. the best films leave plenty to the imagination.
Oh, my on again/off again project is now on hold again. gives me time to catch up on architect!
Yea, LiG - if I were in your shoes I'd have a mind to ditch the old humbug and invest my time volunteering in more meaningful ways than cleaning equipment for the umpteenth time!
LiG, your story reminds me of my sister's first kid's baptism. My sis and I were raised Lutheran, her husband is Catholic, they agreed to baptize in the Catholic church. But my sister forgot to enroll them in the required pre-Baptism class for couples with only one Catholic, so the Friday before the baptism was scheduled they received a very short, curt, firm message on their home phone machine saying "Because you neglected to enroll in the class, there. will. be. NO baptism this Sunday."
Well my sister and her friends were having a happy hour at home when they checked the messages, and found it hilariously funny. Now whenever someone in the family wants another drink, the response is often "Ask nicely, or there. will. be. NO margarita!" etc etc.
Anyway, as to your conundrum: good luck. It is, after all, a volunteer activity; you can only give what you can afford to give.
Yeah... A normal parish church would have a sacristan on staff whose sole responsibility is to clean and maintain the liturgical equipment, but we're not a normal parish church. Problem is, a lot of that stuff is precious metalwork that's been donated to the cathedral over the past hundred years, and would be impossible to replace if it got damaged.
For example, look at the large processional cross I'm carrying in this photo (between the two torches):
That cross was donated to the cathedral by J.P. Morgan personally. It's plated with sterling silver, and contains a supposed relic of the True Cross in the center. (The True Cross is the actual wooden cross upon which Jesus was crucified.) You can't put a price tag on something like that, and I don't feel comfortable having a bunch of untrained volunteers taking their best guess as to how it should be cleaned and polished. The cathedral really needs to pony up and have this stuff done by a professional.
Not too too long ago I checked out the series The Power Of Myth that was a television program on a little known network called PBS. Now I actually checked out the audio compact discs .Anyway for those of you unfamiliar with the program, a journalist by the name of Bill Moyers interviewed this fellow by the name of Joseph Campbell about mythology and its power and relevance today (ie the early 80's when the show was done) In the program Campbell and Moyers talked a hell of a lot about the first Star Wars film and about it being a classic hero's journey tale etc etc. But the whole time I was listening I was thinking "Joe if you'd have lived to see those disaster sequels and prequels you made have made a hero's journey to the editing room and redone some of your interviews."
Speaking of a hero's journey wtf...I was at the tire store today because one of my chariots wheels disingrated while on one of my heroic drives to nowhere and so I'm waiting for them to put on a new tire and there isn't one freaking car magazine to look at. There were all these Redbooks and Oprah magazines and instead of sports or tractor pulls on the big screen, its Montel doin' a show about Transgender teens. I mean really WTF?
Also, Star Wars 1-3 pretty much sucked, except for some of the epic lightsaber, Jedi fights... I personally loved all three but only the original versions. Agreed to much filler and CGI were added.
And as Kevin Smith once said, "a death scene is to good for Jar Jar. I would just let it happen offscreen"
LiG- I feel for you, not many cute rail fans. Grad school can be quite a pick-up joint. Just don't date within your own program (just in case things get messy...) we need a thread about which school has the hottest students!
Our biggest problem area is cleaning the thuribles, which are the incense-filled pots we use to cense the altar and congregation:
They haven't been properly cleaned in years, and there's a thick layer of hard resin built up on the underside of the lids. When coals are placed into the thurible and it heats up, this resin becomes like a thick syrup and starts to drip, causing the chains to gum up and creating an unpleasant stench. Some sacristy rats from other parishes have suggested soaking the thuribles in acetone or paint thinner overnight, which will supposedly help break up the resin. I may have to give that idea a shot.
LIG - Really dumb question but would you really NOT want to polish semi-precious metals all the time? I mean, aren't you in essence stripping of a very minute layer off the metal? Ergo if you do it long enough it'll get too thin? And I agree... it's a voluntary position for pity sake.
LB - that's just sad when it comes to the baptism, I'd almost be tempted to find a completely new church, as in not Catholic. But that's just me.
Yeah, that's pretty much my concern, ****melt. We usually polish the tat about twice a year (before Advent and before Easter), which I think is a pretty reasonable schedule. Any more than that, and I worry that we risk stripping the metal finish or otherwise damaging the item.
It actually functions pretty similar to a hookah, and has its origins in the same part of the world. You light some coals and place incense (rather than shisha) on top of them. Instead of inhaling the smoke through a hose, though, you swing it around on the chains and allow it to fill the room.
We have three thuribles of varying designs. For some reason they've been given names: Boomo, J.J., and Siegfried. This video (taken at the same service as the photo above) shows Boomo in action. Unfortunately, Boomo is also the filthiest of the three.
In the same vein as Melts comment, seems the years of built up resin could be nice, like a patina. If people complain of the smell (I dont know how smelly it is or isnt) you could tell them its 200 year old hash...or something like that.
Well, the incense is supposed to smell good, and having a bunch of foul-smelling resin in the mix sort of defeats the purpose. Also, the resin gunks up the chains (preventing the lid from opening and closing properly) and can drip on the altar linen and people's vestments, so it's best to keep the thurible clean. With our limited manpower, though, we've been suffering through a period of deferred maintenance on this stuff.
DO NOT USE BARTENDER'S FRIEND ON ANTIQUES. IT WILL EAT HOLES IN SILVER AND GOLD LEAF.
What you actually do want to use is rose polish-- you can find it cheaply at more upscale grocery stores under the name "Wright's Silver Creme" or you can ask a jeweler where you can buy some.
In fact, you can use any water-based polish over 24,000 grit if you know of any auto-detailing supply shops.
Now for the incense... what you actually want to do is use a Bic lighter. Simply heat up the resin to around a 150 to 170 degrees and it will easily scrape off if you use a thin steel screwdriver, scrimped wire or another but spring metal with a sharp stiff and flat head.
Do not use carbon steel, hardened steel or any other fancy invention.
If you've even scraped a pot pipe or a bong... you should know how to remove built up resin on the inside.
DO NOT USE A HEAVY CHEMICAL SOLVENT. A mixture of salt, cream of tartar and mouthwash will gently remove any resin.
Always wear cotton gloves.
The use of any chemical cleaner is dangerous at best. Thinly stripping off damaged oxidation is preferable over a chemical action that does a similar thing. Polishes tend to be chemically inert and only affect the area that has force being applied to it.
A solvent, chemical polish or tarnish remover can have disastrous affects because it can not only travel... but it will remove tarnish from areas you may not exactly want tarnish to be removed from.
If you use a chemical polish to polish brass, be sure to sure cream of tartar mixed with lemon juice and buff with varying grades of paper towels to stiff paper. DO NOT USE TARNEX. ALWAYS POLISH ALL BRASS.
If the finish is damaged far too much, simply use a mixture of a solid wax polish mixed with the finish or use RUB'N'BUFF.
One last final note, USE an ACRYLIC wax. Out of all the waxes and polishes, a nice clear shiny acrylic wax is your best best for sealing and protecting surfaces that tarnish... what's even better is that it can be removed by both physical force and vinegar. Museum supply stores a more improved variety but I have found that Future floor wax works just as well. Be warned... anything that can be damaged by water will be damaged by an acrylic wax.
Thanks for the info, h&r. I hadn't considered the parallels between maintaining a thurible and maintaining a bong, but you make a valid point. I should be asking my stoner friends how to deal with this stuff. (Too bad I'm not back in Philly, as my stoner friends and my church friends were one and the same.)
I love Star Trek II, and I still have a hard time deciding whether I think that one or the new one is the best movie of the franchise so far. It's the movie that Star Trek: The Motion Picture should have been, and Spock's death scene was heartbreaking. I consider it one of the most poignant death scenes of any movie I've seen. Overall, the movie deals with a lot of themes that you typically don't find in the sci-fi genre, and the battle scenes were modeled after submarine warfare long before The Hunt for Red October made submarines cool. In the Star Wars universe, battle scenes are modeled after aerial dogfights, but out in the vacuum of space, the submarine analogy is much more apt.
i'm thinking that being eaten alive by another animal has got to be one of the most painful & unpleasant ways to die.
just imagine looking down and seeing a lion or a shark or something with its mouth around your leg...
...pain screaming through your nervous system as the sharp teeth rip flesh & crack bones...
...blood everywhere...
...knowing that your foot is already gone...like GONE...even if you somehoow survive this...
...except, of course, even though you're too busy screaming & fighting, you somehow have a moment to think that you're fucked and there's just no way you're getting out of this one...and you just can believe it's happening like this...
...and then the pain is too much so you just give in & pass out.
damn, that must be miserable. would anybody even know what happened to you under those circumstances? although i'd probbaly panic too, i'd like to think i would keep my wits long enough to send a final post (via blackberry, iphone, etc) to thread central explaining situation & saying bye...just because, you know, if i were eaten alive by a lion, i think that's something most you guys would want to know, right?
wow I go away for a few hours and the conversation focuses on Star Wars and the Acolytes - now that would be a movie I'd watch.
I'm really quite tired today... and tomorrow I get up at dawn and drive to the other end of the island (roughy 250km) - the sucky part is that it would be cool to have company but I have to leave so early I doubt anyone is willing to leave the comfort of their bed. Goodness knows I wouldn't want to
My favorite part is how you collaged your sketches on and off your moleskine sketchbook. Such a cool technique - you've given me lots of inspiration for my own portfolio!
awww Sarah that would be awesome... damn those responsibilities!
Did I tell you guys I had a dream, actually 2 dreams in concurrent nights where I was in a store buying a imac? Apparently Steve Jobs has found a way to infiltrate our subconscious and he's testing it on Jamaicans. Bastards!
Well, graduation weekend was largely a success, except for the part where WonderMan and WonderMom just kind of ... ignored each other's presence. I expected as much from my mother but not from my boyfriend. So I'm a little distraught and frankly I was glad to put him on the plane yesterday, which is not a feeling I've ever felt before. I'm trying to figure out where to mentally go with this. It's hard since, as we all know by now, I didn't grow up witnessing many successful relationships so I have to figure out things on my own. If anyone wants to play Couple's Counselor, please let me know.
I did talk to him this evening, and he did say that he immediately felt my mother's negativity and felt that he had no chance so he just didn't try. But he also apparently blamed me for my "complicity" by imploring her to come to my graduation party, at which he acted like a true asshat (my roommate informed me she wanted to punch him in the face). Also, instead of apologizing, he then went on to tell me that I might want to seek therapy lest I end up like her. At which point I thanked him for continuing to insult me several days in a row, after I had tried to resolve the situation like an adult, and then ended the conversation.
Looks like the Hawaii part of my plan might be back in the "tentative" column. Le sigh.
uh, yeah, sorry dubK, but a definite asshat. it sounds like he's got issues. perhaps there's some underlying mother issues he has yet to deal with, and this is his defense mechanism. we all have parents that piss us off - case in point, mine, they'll be here tomorrow and my father is coming; Captain Bud, even after I told my mother she was welcome, but he was not - but we deal and move the conversation/moment/situation along; knowing that those moments are insignificant compared to our lifetime of experiences.
DubK, have you had any previous mom/serious boyfriend altercations that you can use for comparison? Is your mom like this with all your bfs? Is your bf like this with any other, um, let's use the term "authority figures" since that may be how he was perceiving your mom, like in his mind this was an interview he had to pass?
Telling you YOU need therapy, not in a supportive way but an accusatory one, is a huge red flag. Sounds to me like HE has an issue and doesn't want to face it, so he's blaming you.
DubK, I tend to make excuses for people, always coming up with a reason they might have behaved a certain way. Unfortunately, I cant come up with one for the therapy comment. Maybe IF Id heard him say it, and or witnessed the fateful meeting, then I could come up with something.
Not knowing your mother, or beta's parents, I can never see what the big deal is with parents. I mean, my mom gets on my nerves, but I just let it go, and my roomate's mother in college was a sight, but again, I just let it all go, and tried to help my roomate to do the same.
WK, I think you should give him another chance, and give yourself some time to recover. Its possible that in dealling with your mom, you were on edge and not your typical self, which could've thrown WonderMan off. So take a day, take a breath, and then try again. Don't let ONE incedent kill a relationship that most of the time makes you happy. Relationships, as I see them, are not about being happy all the time - no one can fulfill that role. So stick it out, and see what happens.
LB, Brad Pitt is on Today this morning. I'm not usually a fan, but he looks rather Dapper. He's wearing a cream jacket with a white shirt and a sage grey scarf/ascot, aviators with chrome outlines, and has his goatee cut close. I do like his goatee, and I dont usually like goatess.
OMFG DubK!!!! I CANNOT believe he said that. What a completely asshat. I'll be emailing you shortly as I don't think anyone here wants to hear me rant.
And once again, I agree with LB. Huge red flag and HUGELY inappropriate.
beta - how long are the 'rents in town? I hope you have a good time, despite the difficultes.
Thread Central
I too have friends who have never seen star wars. Thus I'm throwing a star wars party. I'd hate to have to disown them, espcially since one of them spells Trek with a c. She's moved far down my friends list.
i wish i had never seen 'star wars'. those movies were total crap.
except for the death star...an artificial planet is actually pretty prescient. it's also inspired me to totally disregard the green/environmental/sustainability fad as a total waste of effort...we should just start building our own death star and bail on earth.
I agree about Star Wars as well... Episode IV was special because nothing like that had really been done on the big screen before, and the viewers were literally being introduced to an entirely new world, and The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi followed in that vein. The Ewoks were pretty stupid, IMO, but that didn't stop those movies from being one of the best trilogies of all time.
The three prequels just sort of sucked the life out of the franchise... The first rule of show business is to leave your audience wanting more, and by the time Lucas started remaking the originals and then giving us the prequels, people were saying "enough already". I'll give Lucas props for his incredibly vivid imagination, but he should have quit while he was ahead instead of trying to milk the franchise for all it was worth.
I always preferred Star Trek because it's set within our own universe and timeline, and as a result, seems easier to relate to. That franchise had also been sucked dry by a series of mediocre movies and TV episodes, but the new J.J. Abrams movie will hopefully be successful in giving it a much-needed re-boot.
Who knows... Maybe in another decade or two some talented director other than George Lucas will manage to re-boot the Star Wars franchise in a similar manner.... Or better yet, maybe Hollywood will decide to do something original for a change.
(cross-posted with puddles... I was agreeing with SH and LB.)
yeay! the pieces are falling into place to get to atlanta to present at GRHC! (I'm at 3:45 on Thursday in track 2).
re: starwars - only watch the original three in their original versions. Lucas ruined them with the CG stuff inserted recently.
What about the original trilogy was ruined by their re-mastering? And yes, I completely agree about Episodes I-III being pretty crappy. EXCEPT the finale lightsaber duel at the end of episode one with Darth Maul, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon Jinn. SO EPIC!
*sigh*
I usually make a point not to discuss my church activities here on Archinect, but I need to vent a little. This doesn't really have anything to do with theology or religion per se, but about how you treat the volunteers who make an organization function on a day-to-day basis.
Around this time last year about half our volunteers walked out the door when the church decided to institute criminal background checks for all staff and volunteers serving at the cathedral. Given the recent issues with sexual abuse in some churches, I can appreciate the reasoning behind requiring background checks, but I can also appreciate somebody being resentful about being treated like a potential criminal after they've spent 20+ years of their lives putting their blood, sweat, and tears into the cathedral. Other volunteers were concerned about privacy issues, and didn't appreciate being asked to hand over their Social Security numbers and other personal information to the church secretary, who would then hand it over to some shady company hired to conduct the checks. I was on the fence myself, but ultimately decided to sign the consent form and continue in my work at the church. Several close friends of mine ended up leaving the cathedral altogether, though.
With far less people on hand, the remaining volunteers are being asked to do much more. I've stepped up to the plate and taken on a leadership role with the Acolyte Guild, and I've served in the liturgy for both the 11 AM and 4 PM services almost every Sunday since before Labor Day of last year.
As you might imagine, that's a huge time commitment, and it's finally starting to catch up to me in a big way. Facing severe burnout, and with me putting in longer hours at the office in hopes of avoiding the next round of layoffs, and with me finally getting serious about doing my thesis and other coursework to finish my degree, I've decided to significantly cut back my involvement at the church to only one service per weekend, which is still far more than most other acolytes put in.
The clergy have been very supportive and understanding, but I think I might come to blows with the head of the Acolyte Guild (also a volunteer) before too long. He has a very "my way or the highway" approach to leadership, and on a couple of occasions has implied that I haven't been pulling my share of the load at the cathedral. This is from a guy who is retired and who spends half the year in London, forcing me and the other acolytes to pick up the slack in his absence.
Today I got an email from him basically telling me that I needed to be at the cathedral at 9 AM on Saturday to help clean some of the equipment. (Not asking me if I could make it, mind you, but simply telling me to show up.) This is despite the fact that we've already cleaned this equipment to the best of our ability, and that any further cleaning will require enlisting the help of a professional service. I've already told him that I won't be able to make it, and he responded with a very curt "the cleaning session will proceed as scheduled."
Lately I've been giving some thought to resigning from the Acolyte Guild altogether, but I know that would leave them even more short-handed. I probably need to have a chat with one of the clergy... I want to continue helping the cathedral as much as I'm able, but if I continue to feel like my efforts are being taken for granted, they'll find themselves short one more volunteer.
The original being remastered tried too hard to take the cheesey effects out of the movie. Imagine if Jason and the Argonauts was remastered; it just wouldnt be the same. Part of the fun of Starwars, at least for me since I'm only 25 was the hokey-ness. Yes, its obvious that the effects arent real, but CGI is just as obvious, no matter how hard it tries. Think of fiberglass wood shutters and shakes.
my problem with the re-mastered SW is both the difference in visual styles between in-camera/optical effects and CG, along with the attempt to fill in all the gaps. so to have a scene in tattoeen town that suddenly has giant dinosaurs and way too many space ships destroys the mood and doesn't leave anything to our imagination. If lucas went the way of ridley scott's with the blade runner director cut and took out the cheese/everything gets narrated, it would could have been better film. we don't need to know everything - nor should we. the best films leave plenty to the imagination.
Oh, my on again/off again project is now on hold again. gives me time to catch up on architect!
Well, I just put my foot down and responded to my fellow acolyte with a respectful yet moderately sternly-worded email.
Now waiting for the shit to hit the fan....
Yea, LiG - if I were in your shoes I'd have a mind to ditch the old humbug and invest my time volunteering in more meaningful ways than cleaning equipment for the umpteenth time!
LiG, your story reminds me of my sister's first kid's baptism. My sis and I were raised Lutheran, her husband is Catholic, they agreed to baptize in the Catholic church. But my sister forgot to enroll them in the required pre-Baptism class for couples with only one Catholic, so the Friday before the baptism was scheduled they received a very short, curt, firm message on their home phone machine saying "Because you neglected to enroll in the class, there. will. be. NO baptism this Sunday."
Well my sister and her friends were having a happy hour at home when they checked the messages, and found it hilariously funny. Now whenever someone in the family wants another drink, the response is often "Ask nicely, or there. will. be. NO margarita!" etc etc.
Anyway, as to your conundrum: good luck. It is, after all, a volunteer activity; you can only give what you can afford to give.
Yeah... A normal parish church would have a sacristan on staff whose sole responsibility is to clean and maintain the liturgical equipment, but we're not a normal parish church. Problem is, a lot of that stuff is precious metalwork that's been donated to the cathedral over the past hundred years, and would be impossible to replace if it got damaged.
For example, look at the large processional cross I'm carrying in this photo (between the two torches):
That cross was donated to the cathedral by J.P. Morgan personally. It's plated with sterling silver, and contains a supposed relic of the True Cross in the center. (The True Cross is the actual wooden cross upon which Jesus was crucified.) You can't put a price tag on something like that, and I don't feel comfortable having a bunch of untrained volunteers taking their best guess as to how it should be cleaned and polished. The cathedral really needs to pony up and have this stuff done by a professional.
LiG- you need to volunteer somewhere with lots of hotties! I doubt the acolyte pool has good pickings.
Not too too long ago I checked out the series The Power Of Myth that was a television program on a little known network called PBS. Now I actually checked out the audio compact discs .Anyway for those of you unfamiliar with the program, a journalist by the name of Bill Moyers interviewed this fellow by the name of Joseph Campbell about mythology and its power and relevance today (ie the early 80's when the show was done) In the program Campbell and Moyers talked a hell of a lot about the first Star Wars film and about it being a classic hero's journey tale etc etc. But the whole time I was listening I was thinking "Joe if you'd have lived to see those disaster sequels and prequels you made have made a hero's journey to the editing room and redone some of your interviews."
Speaking of a hero's journey wtf...I was at the tire store today because one of my chariots wheels disingrated while on one of my heroic drives to nowhere and so I'm waiting for them to put on a new tire and there isn't one freaking car magazine to look at. There were all these Redbooks and Oprah magazines and instead of sports or tractor pulls on the big screen, its Montel doin' a show about Transgender teens. I mean really WTF?
Heh... If you think that's bad, try volunteering at a railroad museum. Fun work, but it's not something you do to meet women.
I wouldn't mind doing some work with Habitat or AFH, but again, there's only so many hours in the week.
I second TK....
Also, Star Wars 1-3 pretty much sucked, except for some of the epic lightsaber, Jedi fights... I personally loved all three but only the original versions. Agreed to much filler and CGI were added.
And as Kevin Smith once said, "a death scene is to good for Jar Jar. I would just let it happen offscreen"
LiG- I feel for you, not many cute rail fans. Grad school can be quite a pick-up joint. Just don't date within your own program (just in case things get messy...) we need a thread about which school has the hottest students!
We use Bartender's friend to clean all the relics down at our local cathedral.
I'll have to look into Bartender's Friend.
Our biggest problem area is cleaning the thuribles, which are the incense-filled pots we use to cense the altar and congregation:
They haven't been properly cleaned in years, and there's a thick layer of hard resin built up on the underside of the lids. When coals are placed into the thurible and it heats up, this resin becomes like a thick syrup and starts to drip, causing the chains to gum up and creating an unpleasant stench. Some sacristy rats from other parishes have suggested soaking the thuribles in acetone or paint thinner overnight, which will supposedly help break up the resin. I may have to give that idea a shot.
LIG - Really dumb question but would you really NOT want to polish semi-precious metals all the time? I mean, aren't you in essence stripping of a very minute layer off the metal? Ergo if you do it long enough it'll get too thin? And I agree... it's a voluntary position for pity sake.
LB - that's just sad when it comes to the baptism, I'd almost be tempted to find a completely new church, as in not Catholic. But that's just me.
Its Barkeeper's Friend...I use it on my pots and pans! Smells terrible, though.
OH, and my university had a 6-1 girl boy ratio while I was there, unfortunatly, I dont think they have a grad program.
Yeah, that's pretty much my concern, ****melt. We usually polish the tat about twice a year (before Advent and before Easter), which I think is a pretty reasonable schedule. Any more than that, and I worry that we risk stripping the metal finish or otherwise damaging the item.
For a brief second I thought that was an image of an old hookah, lol.
I <3 shisha!
It actually functions pretty similar to a hookah, and has its origins in the same part of the world. You light some coals and place incense (rather than shisha) on top of them. Instead of inhaling the smoke through a hose, though, you swing it around on the chains and allow it to fill the room.
We have three thuribles of varying designs. For some reason they've been given names: Boomo, J.J., and Siegfried. This video (taken at the same service as the photo above) shows Boomo in action. Unfortunately, Boomo is also the filthiest of the three.
In the same vein as Melts comment, seems the years of built up resin could be nice, like a patina. If people complain of the smell (I dont know how smelly it is or isnt) you could tell them its 200 year old hash...or something like that.
Well, the incense is supposed to smell good, and having a bunch of foul-smelling resin in the mix sort of defeats the purpose. Also, the resin gunks up the chains (preventing the lid from opening and closing properly) and can drip on the altar linen and people's vestments, so it's best to keep the thurible clean. With our limited manpower, though, we've been suffering through a period of deferred maintenance on this stuff.
DO NOT USE BARTENDER'S FRIEND ON ANTIQUES. IT WILL EAT HOLES IN SILVER AND GOLD LEAF.
What you actually do want to use is rose polish-- you can find it cheaply at more upscale grocery stores under the name "Wright's Silver Creme" or you can ask a jeweler where you can buy some.
In fact, you can use any water-based polish over 24,000 grit if you know of any auto-detailing supply shops.
Now for the incense... what you actually want to do is use a Bic lighter. Simply heat up the resin to around a 150 to 170 degrees and it will easily scrape off if you use a thin steel screwdriver, scrimped wire or another but spring metal with a sharp stiff and flat head.
Do not use carbon steel, hardened steel or any other fancy invention.
If you've even scraped a pot pipe or a bong... you should know how to remove built up resin on the inside.
DO NOT USE A HEAVY CHEMICAL SOLVENT. A mixture of salt, cream of tartar and mouthwash will gently remove any resin.
Always wear cotton gloves.
The use of any chemical cleaner is dangerous at best. Thinly stripping off damaged oxidation is preferable over a chemical action that does a similar thing. Polishes tend to be chemically inert and only affect the area that has force being applied to it.
A solvent, chemical polish or tarnish remover can have disastrous affects because it can not only travel... but it will remove tarnish from areas you may not exactly want tarnish to be removed from.
If you use a chemical polish to polish brass, be sure to sure cream of tartar mixed with lemon juice and buff with varying grades of paper towels to stiff paper. DO NOT USE TARNEX. ALWAYS POLISH ALL BRASS.
If the finish is damaged far too much, simply use a mixture of a solid wax polish mixed with the finish or use RUB'N'BUFF.
One last final note, USE an ACRYLIC wax. Out of all the waxes and polishes, a nice clear shiny acrylic wax is your best best for sealing and protecting surfaces that tarnish... what's even better is that it can be removed by both physical force and vinegar. Museum supply stores a more improved variety but I have found that Future floor wax works just as well. Be warned... anything that can be damaged by water will be damaged by an acrylic wax.
Speaking of star trek, I watched Star Trek II last night and can't figure out why this one is considered the best of the ST movies.
wow, that was certainly educational. LiG, better not use Barkeepr's! Hey, maybe you can get HillandRock to volunteer with you!
Thanks for the info, h&r. I hadn't considered the parallels between maintaining a thurible and maintaining a bong, but you make a valid point. I should be asking my stoner friends how to deal with this stuff. (Too bad I'm not back in Philly, as my stoner friends and my church friends were one and the same.)
I love Star Trek II, and I still have a hard time deciding whether I think that one or the new one is the best movie of the franchise so far. It's the movie that Star Trek: The Motion Picture should have been, and Spock's death scene was heartbreaking. I consider it one of the most poignant death scenes of any movie I've seen. Overall, the movie deals with a lot of themes that you typically don't find in the sci-fi genre, and the battle scenes were modeled after submarine warfare long before The Hunt for Red October made submarines cool. In the Star Wars universe, battle scenes are modeled after aerial dogfights, but out in the vacuum of space, the submarine analogy is much more apt.
i'm thinking that being eaten alive by another animal has got to be one of the most painful & unpleasant ways to die.
just imagine looking down and seeing a lion or a shark or something with its mouth around your leg...
...pain screaming through your nervous system as the sharp teeth rip flesh & crack bones...
...blood everywhere...
...knowing that your foot is already gone...like GONE...even if you somehoow survive this...
...except, of course, even though you're too busy screaming & fighting, you somehow have a moment to think that you're fucked and there's just no way you're getting out of this one...and you just can believe it's happening like this...
...and then the pain is too much so you just give in & pass out.
damn, that must be miserable. would anybody even know what happened to you under those circumstances? although i'd probbaly panic too, i'd like to think i would keep my wits long enough to send a final post (via blackberry, iphone, etc) to thread central explaining situation & saying bye...just because, you know, if i were eaten alive by a lion, i think that's something most you guys would want to know, right?
Better than being slowly digested over a thousand years.
(Speaking of perfectly good space monsters ruined by George Lucas's subsequent CG tinkering.)
puddles - I sometimes think it would be fun to live in your brain for a day or two.
And I thought I had random thoughts :o)
Ha ha.
ahhh i was kidding about the barfly's helper. I don't go to church and certainly don't polish anything.
wonder if anyone has twittered while being eaten alive?
wow I go away for a few hours and the conversation focuses on Star Wars and the Acolytes - now that would be a movie I'd watch.
I'm really quite tired today... and tomorrow I get up at dawn and drive to the other end of the island (roughy 250km) - the sucky part is that it would be cool to have company but I have to leave so early I doubt anyone is willing to leave the comfort of their bed. Goodness knows I wouldn't want to
Wow,
I just want to respect hillandrock bringing the knowledge
that is all.
Go nite and go sacramento!!!!
Oooh, AP I just looked at your portfolio!
My favorite part is how you collaged your sketches on and off your moleskine sketchbook. Such a cool technique - you've given me lots of inspiration for my own portfolio!
Techno, if I was still in school/didnt have a family and responsibilities, I'd totally go. I like road trips and adventure.
awww Sarah that would be awesome... damn those responsibilities!
Did I tell you guys I had a dream, actually 2 dreams in concurrent nights where I was in a store buying a imac? Apparently Steve Jobs has found a way to infiltrate our subconscious and he's testing it on Jamaicans. Bastards!
Well, graduation weekend was largely a success, except for the part where WonderMan and WonderMom just kind of ... ignored each other's presence. I expected as much from my mother but not from my boyfriend. So I'm a little distraught and frankly I was glad to put him on the plane yesterday, which is not a feeling I've ever felt before. I'm trying to figure out where to mentally go with this. It's hard since, as we all know by now, I didn't grow up witnessing many successful relationships so I have to figure out things on my own. If anyone wants to play Couple's Counselor, please let me know.
have you asked him? There's always a chance that he felt the cold shoulder from your mom and didn't really know how to react to it.
I did talk to him this evening, and he did say that he immediately felt my mother's negativity and felt that he had no chance so he just didn't try. But he also apparently blamed me for my "complicity" by imploring her to come to my graduation party, at which he acted like a true asshat (my roommate informed me she wanted to punch him in the face). Also, instead of apologizing, he then went on to tell me that I might want to seek therapy lest I end up like her. At which point I thanked him for continuing to insult me several days in a row, after I had tried to resolve the situation like an adult, and then ended the conversation.
Looks like the Hawaii part of my plan might be back in the "tentative" column. Le sigh.
uh, yeah, sorry dubK, but a definite asshat. it sounds like he's got issues. perhaps there's some underlying mother issues he has yet to deal with, and this is his defense mechanism. we all have parents that piss us off - case in point, mine, they'll be here tomorrow and my father is coming; Captain Bud, even after I told my mother she was welcome, but he was not - but we deal and move the conversation/moment/situation along; knowing that those moments are insignificant compared to our lifetime of experiences.
good luck.
DubK, have you had any previous mom/serious boyfriend altercations that you can use for comparison? Is your mom like this with all your bfs? Is your bf like this with any other, um, let's use the term "authority figures" since that may be how he was perceiving your mom, like in his mind this was an interview he had to pass?
Telling you YOU need therapy, not in a supportive way but an accusatory one, is a huge red flag. Sounds to me like HE has an issue and doesn't want to face it, so he's blaming you.
DubK, I tend to make excuses for people, always coming up with a reason they might have behaved a certain way. Unfortunately, I cant come up with one for the therapy comment. Maybe IF Id heard him say it, and or witnessed the fateful meeting, then I could come up with something.
Not knowing your mother, or beta's parents, I can never see what the big deal is with parents. I mean, my mom gets on my nerves, but I just let it go, and my roomate's mother in college was a sight, but again, I just let it all go, and tried to help my roomate to do the same.
WK, I think you should give him another chance, and give yourself some time to recover. Its possible that in dealling with your mom, you were on edge and not your typical self, which could've thrown WonderMan off. So take a day, take a breath, and then try again. Don't let ONE incedent kill a relationship that most of the time makes you happy. Relationships, as I see them, are not about being happy all the time - no one can fulfill that role. So stick it out, and see what happens.
LB, Brad Pitt is on Today this morning. I'm not usually a fan, but he looks rather Dapper. He's wearing a cream jacket with a white shirt and a sage grey scarf/ascot, aviators with chrome outlines, and has his goatee cut close. I do like his goatee, and I dont usually like goatess.
OMFG DubK!!!! I CANNOT believe he said that. What a completely asshat. I'll be emailing you shortly as I don't think anyone here wants to hear me rant.
And once again, I agree with LB. Huge red flag and HUGELY inappropriate.
beta - how long are the 'rents in town? I hope you have a good time, despite the difficultes.
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