Syd of the Funny Hat profile picture

Syd of the Funny Hat

...fate is not just whose cooking smells good, but which way the wind blows... - Ani DiFranco, Slide

About Me

Freelance proofreader/copyeditor with a little bodywork (people bodies, not auto bodies) thrown in for good measure... ..

My Interests

Reading...mostly fiction, but I have wide-ranging tastes and recently finished "Blue Highways," "Just a Geek," "Dumbth," "Dancing Barefoot," "Chocolat," "Gertrude and Claudius," "A Widow for One Year," "Stolen Figs," "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," and "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess"; writing, although I don't do nearly as much of it as I'd like; cooking--I make a stellar cheesecake, for example; live theater (so much more entertaining than dead theater, don't you agree?); bodywork, including Thai massage and craniosacral therapy; good conversation; and I think that's enough for a start! Oh, and traveling for music by my kick-ass musician friends!

I'd like to meet:

If you don't have a profile picture, or your MySpace page is going to show up with one of those banners that says "ADULT CONTENT-DOWNLOAD MS PLAYER HERE"...don't waste your time and mine by sending a Friend Request.On the other hand, smart, funny people who know how to carry on a conversation are always on the list!

adopt your own virtual pet!

Music:

This covers a LOT of territory...David Peters, Timothy Daniel, Amber Rubarth, Michael Shelton, Seth Horan, Joel Ackerson, Rodney Branigan, the Animators, Ari Hest, Joseph John, Daniel Lee, Jenn Grinels, Larry Marciano, Ryan Fitzsimmons, Peter Mulvey, Martin Sexton, Jay Nash, Tim Fagan, Chris Pierce, Kerry Getz (they all have MySpace music pages--check them out!), City By Sea, Maia Sharp, Portable, Granian, Gavin Degraw; the Eagles, Frank Sinatra (before he retired the first time), Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Los Lonely Boys, Wendy Bucklew, Fleetwood Mac, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shelby Lynne (her early work), Marc Broussard, Howie Day, and in general, rock, swing, most classical composers ("A Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughn Williams is glorious), the occasional opera ("Carmen," "La Boheme," "La Traviata," "Les Contes de Hoffman")...

Movies:

Again, I'm all over the map on this one. In fact, I'm so all over the map, I'm not sure what to list. Let me think about it and get back to you...Okay...in no particular order, and by no means intended to be an exhaustive list:The Princess Bride, Somewhere in Time, Casablanca, Star Trek: First Contact, Stagecoach, The Usual Suspects, Amelie, Chocolat (although I was unhappy with the fact they changed the antagonist from priest to mayor), The Ten Commandments (I'm sorry, but I do...despite Heston's egregiously phony white wig and beard), The Wizard of Oz, Kiss Me Kate (in 3-D), It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (1951 version with Alastair Sim as Scrooge, and the 1984 tv movie with George C. Scott...and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, too!), Miracle on 34th Street, Indiscreet, Notorious, North by Northwest, Roadhouse (yeah, it's totally cheesy, but Patrick Swayze was hot!), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (I have a copy signed by Ricardo Montalban!), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, To Catch a Thief, The Philadelphia Story, High Society, Holiday, The Incredibles, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Matrix, To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, Dark Passage, How to Marry a Millionaire, The Women (1939), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), A Star is Born (1937 and 1954 versions only!), The Godfather, The Godfather II, Operation Petticoat, Mr. Roberts, Citizen Kane, The Third Man, The Shawshank Redemption, Sex & Mrs. X, The Shining (both the Kubrick film and the 1997 tv movie), Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Exorcist (though there are scenes where I still cover my eyes), Poltergeist, Poltergeist II, The Haunting (1963 only, please), The Uninvited, The Miracle Worker (1962 film, tv movie w/ Patty Duke and Melissa Gilbert), the first three Star Wars films (now known as Episodes 4, 5, & 6), Diabolique (1955), The Ninth Gate, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Batman, Batman II (sorry, Kilmer and Clooney just don't cut it), Batman Begins (because Christian Bale DOES!), Back to the Future, Free Enterprise, Romancing the Stone, Children of a Lesser God, The Big Chill, Alien, The Lion in Winter, Excalibur, The Fifth Element...

Television:

There's nothing on the tube at the moment that I make a point of catching, although "Lost" is looking pretty intriguing. Things that tend to catch my attention while I'm surfing include archeology, astronomy, cooking (Alton Brown, Giada De Laurentiis, Ina Garten, Tyler Florence and Bobby Flay rule!), travel, mystery (fictional or historical), almost anything Star Trek (sorry, "Enterprise" lost me in the first season), Looney Tunes, "Samurai Jack," "Law & Order," the occasional episode of "Inside the Actor's Studio," "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the British version of "What Not to Wear," "The Avengers," "The Prisoner" (thank you, BBC America!)...and if nothing catches my eye, I turn the silly thing off and read!

My Blog

Whaddaya know?

Somewhere along the line, my measly little blog has accumulated 10,020 views. Thank you. Now I feel guilty for not blogging more often.  ...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Mon, 21 May 2007 03:25:00 PST

The Post Office wants to do WHAT?

I'm sure you all know postage rates are going up in a week or so...but did you know that the USPS is planning to adopt a rate schedule for magazines and/or media mail that was submitted by Time Warner...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Mon, 23 Apr 2007 01:39:00 PST

The State of Civilization

Or, Why I REALLY Have to Wonder What Constitutes "Civilization" to Some People... So, I was at the mall today...no, I don't hang out at the mall, but I had to check out a restaurant within the mall as...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 04:40:00 PST

In honor of Ether

...as in, the world's worst Easter knock-knock joke, to be found in my blog of...April 16, 2006, or somewhere in there. And if the Ether Bunny isn't your shtick, then go here to check out the fas...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:30:00 PST

Punkin

It was about this time of year, fifteen years ago.  Mom called me at work and said she'd found a kitten.  Now, at the time, we had had to put down our then-eldest cat, Trina, a few week...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:50:00 PST

The MySpace Top 8 Survey

Don't change your myspace top 8-fill the people in below-answer the questions truthfullyNumber 1: David PetersNumber 2: Larry MarcianoNumber 3: Seth HoranNumber 4: Joel AckersonNumber 5: Timothy Danie...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Thu, 02 Nov 2006 04:00:00 PST

Discarding some baggage

It's the middle of the night, and all you have for company is some number of four-footed beings.  Meanwhile, your thoughts are chasing themselves around in your head like a lion pacing in a cage ...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Sat, 28 Oct 2006 08:12:00 PST

So far, so good!

Took Punkin in this morning for a recheck after five days of his antibiotic/anti-inflammatories treatment...and the vet said the abdominal mass is about 20 percent smaller, and that before it had felt...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Tue, 24 Oct 2006 10:52:00 PST

Keeping my fingers crossed

A couple of weeks ago, Bastet was sneezing.  A lot.  And since everybody needed their vaccines anyway, I took them all to the vet.  But because Bastet was actively sick, and Q wasn't fa...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:16:00 PST

Generalized Fluff

Thanks to Neil Gaiman for (a) his new short-story collection Fragile Things, which is pretty cool, and contains a funny story about his childhood career as a player of the double bass, and (b) for hav...
Posted by Syd of the Funny Hat on Wed, 18 Oct 2006 01:00:00 PST