mythical birds
I spent some of yesterday and today researching mythical birds. I have this scene in mind where they do an Alfred Hitchcockian sort of attack on *name redacted*. I have this picture in one book of the perfect birds. But even though it’s in a book of magical critters and such, there’s no actual reference to them. Yes, I can make something up, but I like going with real creatures (well, you know, real fake creatures). Plus these are so perfect!!! Anyhow, I did run across some very cool possibilities. One is bird hieroglyphs that come to life and chomp the heck out of people. I like that one.
I couldn’t access the Aberdeen Bestiary for whatever reason. It is a very cool bestiary with lovely illuminated images and so I’m going to try again later tonight or tomorrow. Doing this research is totally fun. This is a case where serendipity is my friend. I page through the books or dig through bestiaries and so on, and I encounter all sorts of rich tales. They spark ideas and one thing leads to another . . .
I did up my department’s website. I have to use a program called Genesis, which is like a hacked down version of a decade’s old Front Page. It was weird after using more modern methods. And wow, it added tons of extra weird code stuff. Luckily I could play with the code and get rid of a lot of it. I was going to do a lot more updating, but there’s a chance of switching over to another system that’s more flexible (not sure what it is, but it might be WordPress) and so I’m waiting. No point in doing it twice. I’m the only one in our department who likes to mess with website stuff.
Oh, and speaking of which, do you know how outdated this Genesis program is? I can only use it on a PC with Explorer. No Firefox, no Chrome, no Mac at all. It simply won’t let me log in. How funny is that?
The girl’s birthday is tomorrow. Her party is on Saturday. I’m not entirely prepared. She also got her new glasses today, which are not pink believe it or not, and she can actually see again. She’s very excited. I just hope kids come. I haven’t had RSVPs yet. I’m a little worried.