I'm an apparently intelligent, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, relatively well adjusted human being!(Via, among others, Psychobabble, Region Broad, Snidget.)
What are you?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Not this normal, though
Okay, I'm not going to be the last person on the Internet who takes this:
Hey, I feel normal!
If you ever thought you had no life and wasted too much time playing video games, this guy's got you beat: a man in Manchester, England has been playing Galaxia for two hours a night for twenty-four years. Yes, count 'em, twenty-four. (He just got the highest score ever, 399,290 points, but says he won't be satisfied till he gets a million points.) Somewhat unexpectedly, he's married:
His understanding wife of 24 years, Trish, said she had not considered divorcing him."We'll see"? Perhaps not as indicative of not wanting a divorce as it could be. But heck, she gets points for putting up with it at all—perhaps even a million points.
"It's not like I didn't know what I was getting into," she said.
"He has always been really interested in video games.
"At least I know where he is and what he's up to. It's our silver wedding next years so I'll wait till then and then we'll see."
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Not a creature was stirring, except in the mouse
Remember the USB optical liquid mouse with a floating duck or fish from ThinkGeek that I mentioned back in August? For a limited time, you can also get one with a floating Santa Claus. (No, ThinkGeek isn't paying me to pimp these; I just think they're cool in a, well, geeky way; and silly things on your desk are always good for a stress-relieving pick-me-up. Back when I had the time and inclination to wear nail polish, I had a rainbow of pastel and metallic colors, on the theory that it's impossible to be really depressed if your nails are lavender, or lime green, or gold-flecked yellow, or iridescent blue. [I should actually try that again. My nails are short, even though I stopped biting them, and polish takes a long time to apply and then to dry, and it seems to wear off so fast; but heck, I've got a week-long holiday coming up, I can spend a few hours watching a totally girly movie and wearing frog-print pajamas and painting my nails turquoise.])
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
More painkillers that kill you
Oh, don't take my naproxen away! Not only is there news that Aleve may increase the risk of heart attack or stroke, the NIH is suspending a study involving Aleve and Celebrex because, presumably, it's too dangerous to continue. Phoo, phoo, phoo. Naproxen is the only thing that works on my Menstrual Cramps from Hell; I've been taking it since 1996, when it was prescription-only, and damn was I glad when it went over-the-counter. I guess I'm under the "don't take for more than 10 days" advisory, because Cramps from Hell only seize me for three or four days—which is three or four days more than I'd like, but at least I've never had a ten-day period. (Knock on wood.)
Another possible bright spot: the study was conducted on "2,500 patients aged 70 or older and who had a family history of Alzheimer's," who I suspect are already at a much higher risk of stroke and heart attack than I am; no word on the effects of any of the in-the-news drugs on generally-healthy people under 30. And I'm not going to stop taking it until somebody invents morphine that's not addictive or codeine that doesn't knock you out. (Alcohol actually works fairly well—it dulls the senses and relaxes muscles—but I suspect I'm not going to get a prescription for it.)
Another possible bright spot: the study was conducted on "2,500 patients aged 70 or older and who had a family history of Alzheimer's," who I suspect are already at a much higher risk of stroke and heart attack than I am; no word on the effects of any of the in-the-news drugs on generally-healthy people under 30. And I'm not going to stop taking it until somebody invents morphine that's not addictive or codeine that doesn't knock you out. (Alcohol actually works fairly well—it dulls the senses and relaxes muscles—but I suspect I'm not going to get a prescription for it.)
Monday, December 20, 2004
Holiday memes
No, I couldn't resist these...
Via Cheeky Prof:
Via reflections:
Via Cheeky Prof:
| You Are Socks! |
 Cozy and warm... but easily lost. You make a good puppet. |
Via reflections:
| You Were Mostly Nice This Year! |
 Sure, you had your naughty moments... but guess what? Santa was probably sleeping when you were living it up. As far as he's concerned, you've been on your best behavior. So cross your fingers, and you might score good presents. |
Boring mid-month pre-holiday update
Well, I've gotten most of my shopping done; I've ordered the things I wanted to online, and now I just have to wait for them to show up. We haven't done cards yet—I did get two nice ones for my parents and grandparents and mailed them today, but the cousins and second cousins and friends of friends aren't done at all. I know we've got to do them, I know we do, but oh, man, is it hard to get motivated for it. Maybe it would help if we had our lights and our little artificial tree up; maybe I'll try to get some of that done tonight. I kind of want to do a popcorn-and-cranberry garland this year, too, so the bird can perch on it and peck at it and play with it and eat it. (Yes, I know, I'm totally bird-whipped. But you try to resist the little fluffball.)
The news is full of "we're at the mall interviewing last-minute shoppers" stories; oh, c'mon, five days before Christmas is so not last-minute. Last-minute is December 22nd at the earliest, and really not till December 23rd or Christmas Eve. And it's not always a bad thing; two years ago I went shopping so late on the 24th that I was able to buy things at the post-Christmas markdown prices. I'll take last-minute stress witha 60% discount versus done-in-time security at full price any day.
The news is full of "we're at the mall interviewing last-minute shoppers" stories; oh, c'mon, five days before Christmas is so not last-minute. Last-minute is December 22nd at the earliest, and really not till December 23rd or Christmas Eve. And it's not always a bad thing; two years ago I went shopping so late on the 24th that I was able to buy things at the post-Christmas markdown prices. I'll take last-minute stress witha 60% discount versus done-in-time security at full price any day.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Nudge nudge, wink wink, tee-hee
Okay, I know, this means I am very, very, very immature, but still: I ran one of my pet Perl programs to list the abbreviations in a Bible dictionary I'm working on, and as I'm skimming over the "T" section my mind stops and does a full boggle:
(I've had enough trouble not snickering at one of our own project names: the Theological Workbook of the Old Testament, or TWOT. The acronym doesn't look bad, but if you say it out loud it sure sounds like "twat." We very carefully refer to it as "Tee-double you-oh-tee" without anyone coming right out and saying "I guess we don't want to say anything that sounds like 'twat' to the Christian publishing clients, do we?")
While I'm at it, I may as well add that I still think it's amusing that the book of Titus is abbreviated "Tit," and Hosea is "Ho" or "Hos," and Judges is sometimes "Jgs," which looks an awful lot like "Jugs." And I love the fact that there's a Biblical town called "Shittim," and everyone who publishes a Bible or a biblical dictionary or concordance or commentary has to print it. And I think it's high time I took my dirty mind home now.
TPINTC appeared 1 timesWait a minute, did I just see what I think I saw?
TS appeared 1 times
TT appeared 1 times
TWAT appeared 1 times
TWAT appeared 1 timesHoly shit, I did. Of course, I've got to look it up in the abbreviation table now:
"See TDOT"? You bet I'll see it:
TPINTC Trinity Press International New Testament Commentaries TS Theological Studies TT Theology Today TWAT See TDOT
Ah, the perils of multi-lingual and cross-cultural acronyms..."Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament" looks perfectly innocent, doesn't it? And the acronym is probably as unobjectionable in German as TDOT is in English. But TWAT in English...now, that's funny. At least for an American copyeditor on a Friday afternoon at the end of a long week. Yes, I know, I'm five years old.
TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, eds. G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren, 8 vols. (Grand Rapids, 1978–96), ET of Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart, 1970–)
(I've had enough trouble not snickering at one of our own project names: the Theological Workbook of the Old Testament, or TWOT. The acronym doesn't look bad, but if you say it out loud it sure sounds like "twat." We very carefully refer to it as "Tee-double you-oh-tee" without anyone coming right out and saying "I guess we don't want to say anything that sounds like 'twat' to the Christian publishing clients, do we?")
While I'm at it, I may as well add that I still think it's amusing that the book of Titus is abbreviated "Tit," and Hosea is "Ho" or "Hos," and Judges is sometimes "Jgs," which looks an awful lot like "Jugs." And I love the fact that there's a Biblical town called "Shittim," and everyone who publishes a Bible or a biblical dictionary or concordance or commentary has to print it. And I think it's high time I took my dirty mind home now.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Q is also for Quizzes
Via In Favor of Thinking:
You will sink in a mire. You like to think you're
normal, but deep down you really just want to
strip off your clothes and roll around in
chicken fat.
What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla
Do I need to mention that I loooooooove Edward Gorey? I've got "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" and "The Chinese Obelisk" memorized, and I can quote a lot of his other books at length; I've got all three Amphigoreys and some of the smaller uncollected books; and if you've ever read "The Unstrung Harp," you know exactly what I'm like, because I am Mr. Earbrass, at least when it comes to my novel-writing (except that he gets published and I don't...well, I'll work on that part).
You will sink in a mire. You like to think you're
normal, but deep down you really just want to
strip off your clothes and roll around in
chicken fat.
What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla
Do I need to mention that I loooooooove Edward Gorey? I've got "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" and "The Chinese Obelisk" memorized, and I can quote a lot of his other books at length; I've got all three Amphigoreys and some of the smaller uncollected books; and if you've ever read "The Unstrung Harp," you know exactly what I'm like, because I am Mr. Earbrass, at least when it comes to my novel-writing (except that he gets published and I don't...well, I'll work on that part).
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Britney goes to the dogs, and vice-versa
So Britney Spears has gone and spent $1600 to buy a chihuahua puppy, and untold thousands since on designer clothes and accessories and super-prime-choice steak for it. Now, chihuahuas are annoying, weird-looking, yappy little beasts, and I harbor no fondness towards them; still, seeing one clutched in the unsanitary arms of Britney Spears, wearing a hella-ugly coat that probably cost more than most of my clothing, stirs sympathy as well as scorn within me.
Me: That poor dog. It doesn't know it's going to be the highest-class member of that family.(Whereupon we both laughed so loud we scared the bird, and J. seemed genuinely surprised at his own cattiness. [Can you describe a guy as "catty," or is it limited to women?])
J.: Yes, it's going to be the only one licking its own genitals.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Note to self
Eating nothing all day but olives and chocolate-covered espresso beans does not make my stomach very happy. (It wasn't very happy yesterday, and sent back the soy-noodle instant soup I tried to convince it to digest; yecch. I'm having chicken noodle soup and saltines from the boring but reliable Wawa convenience store across the street for lunch today, despite all the just-add-water Thai noodle bowls in my desk drawer.)
I've been tired and semi-sickish for the past few days; not enough to stay home (or, um, convince myself to go to bed earlier), but generally run-down, faintly nauseous, too cold or too hot all the time. (Hm. That sounds a bit like the flu; but wouldn't those symptoms all be worse if it were? And I don't have any of the usual winter-ailment congestion/coughing/sneezing symptoms [so far—knock on wood].) Sleeping more would probably help most; I've got an initial appointment at the Jefferson University Hospital Sleep Disorders Center on Thursday, which I'm mildly dreading; I don't like going to new doctors, and I really don't like the idea of anybody staring at me while I sleep. Ick. But I've got to do something, and it's only an initial evaluation, so I don't have to dread the sleeping-in-front-of-strangers part quite yet. (Ick.) Who knows, maybe they'll even figure out something useful. Doctors occasionally do, I'm told.
I've been tired and semi-sickish for the past few days; not enough to stay home (or, um, convince myself to go to bed earlier), but generally run-down, faintly nauseous, too cold or too hot all the time. (Hm. That sounds a bit like the flu; but wouldn't those symptoms all be worse if it were? And I don't have any of the usual winter-ailment congestion/coughing/sneezing symptoms [so far—knock on wood].) Sleeping more would probably help most; I've got an initial appointment at the Jefferson University Hospital Sleep Disorders Center on Thursday, which I'm mildly dreading; I don't like going to new doctors, and I really don't like the idea of anybody staring at me while I sleep. Ick. But I've got to do something, and it's only an initial evaluation, so I don't have to dread the sleeping-in-front-of-strangers part quite yet. (Ick.) Who knows, maybe they'll even figure out something useful. Doctors occasionally do, I'm told.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Am I blue?
Okay, we get it: there are some conservatives who just don't want anyone to ever hear The F-Word, or ever see The Naughty Bits of a Lady, and all those other things that get the FCC petitioned and TV stations fined and department stores sued. (The most recent examples: the FCC has been badgered into investigating the broadcast of the Olympic opening ceremonies, and Wal-Mart is being sued for selling a CD with the word "fuck" on it.) I was idly turning this over in my mind while mostly paying attention to something else, until my train of thought arrived here: "No nudity, no implied nudity, no profanity—do they just want to reinstate all the blue laws?"* And then I wondered, with the current political associations of the color blue, would we have to start calling them red laws? After all, I bet the people who are proud to be red-staters wouldn't want the word "blue" anywhere near their holier-than-thou legal actions. (Also appropriately, it's a very short conceptual step from red laws to scarlet letter laws; although it was the extremely puritanical legislation of morality in colonial New England, memorialized in "The Scarlet Letter," that got the name "blue laws" in the first place.)
(Yeah, it's just my brain playing with words again, I'm not saying it actually means anything... but it was just one of those "changing times, changing meanings" moments that stuck out in my mind and stuck to it like a burr. [I had to come to the office today; my brain needs something to do when I'm working on a Saturday.])
*I know there are still some blue laws on the books, mostly regarding commerce on Sundays; by "reinstate all the blue laws" I don't mean to imply that I think all of them have been uninstated, but that the whackjobs might want all of the ones that have been uninstated to be reinstated, right down to "no spitting on the sidewalk."
(Yeah, it's just my brain playing with words again, I'm not saying it actually means anything... but it was just one of those "changing times, changing meanings" moments that stuck out in my mind and stuck to it like a burr. [I had to come to the office today; my brain needs something to do when I'm working on a Saturday.])
*I know there are still some blue laws on the books, mostly regarding commerce on Sundays; by "reinstate all the blue laws" I don't mean to imply that I think all of them have been uninstated, but that the whackjobs might want all of the ones that have been uninstated to be reinstated, right down to "no spitting on the sidewalk."
Friday, December 10, 2004
Yes, it's Computer Annoyance Day
Okay, I finally installed frippin' SP2; I couldn't avoid it anymore, and I wanted that stupid Windows Update icon to get out of my system tray. So I clicked it and let it do its thing; and, five reboots, four hours, three Blue Screens of Death, two error reports, and one Symantec LiveUpdate later, my computer's working about as well as it did before. I think. (I'm still having trouble with my Yahoo! e-mail account, but I don't think that's related.)
Well, at least the time I spent waiting (and waiting and waiting) for SP2 to install gave me a chance to rearrange the office supply cabinet (I was tired of not being able to reach anything on the top shelf), clean my desk (sort of; I got some of the finished projects off it, anyway), and pay my bills. I also passed some time with my Tiny Universal Waite Tarot deck, which lives in an Altoids tin in my purse; the first three cards I drew, just as the SP2 installation was initializing, were the Fool, the Devil, and the Magician. Hm...Microsoft is foolish, evil, and tricky? Hey, the cards said it, I didn't. (That is, of course, not an actual reading of the cards; they're much more subtle than their titles suggest. But those three titles really were amusingly apropos.)
Well, at least the time I spent waiting (and waiting and waiting) for SP2 to install gave me a chance to rearrange the office supply cabinet (I was tired of not being able to reach anything on the top shelf), clean my desk (sort of; I got some of the finished projects off it, anyway), and pay my bills. I also passed some time with my Tiny Universal Waite Tarot deck, which lives in an Altoids tin in my purse; the first three cards I drew, just as the SP2 installation was initializing, were the Fool, the Devil, and the Magician. Hm...Microsoft is foolish, evil, and tricky? Hey, the cards said it, I didn't. (That is, of course, not an actual reading of the cards; they're much more subtle than their titles suggest. But those three titles really were amusingly apropos.)
Desktop cleanup
An open letter:
I love ya, Google, really I do; and as soon as I heard about Google Desktop I downloaded it, installed it, and let it index my computer all night. And I put up with the crashes it induced and the overall computer slowness I'm pretty sure it contributed to, because, even though it doesn't work with Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird, I thought the ability to search within files on my hard drive would be useful, especially since Windows's own search function is soooooo slooooowwww. And you sure did do those file searches fast. But not any more effectively than the Windows search and the "Find in files" search in my beloved TextPad editing program; plus, in TextPad, I can use regular expressions. And you made my computer so slow, those fast searches weren't saving me nearly as much time as you were costing me.
Look, you're supposed to be good for four things: searching e-mail, Web history, instant messages, and files. And since you don't do the first two, and I never use IM, three of those four are out the window; and the last one, well, I've got other programs that'll do almost the same thing, and they take up a lot less room on my hard drive. I'd've stuck with you if you had definite plans to add Firefox/Thunderbird compatibility; but, when I went to your FAQ today, and clicked on one of your top five questions, I can't find webpages I viewed with Mozilla Firefox [which is a statement, not a question, but never mind], you told me:
Sincerely,
Zhaba
I love ya, Google, really I do; and as soon as I heard about Google Desktop I downloaded it, installed it, and let it index my computer all night. And I put up with the crashes it induced and the overall computer slowness I'm pretty sure it contributed to, because, even though it doesn't work with Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird, I thought the ability to search within files on my hard drive would be useful, especially since Windows's own search function is soooooo slooooowwww. And you sure did do those file searches fast. But not any more effectively than the Windows search and the "Find in files" search in my beloved TextPad editing program; plus, in TextPad, I can use regular expressions. And you made my computer so slow, those fast searches weren't saving me nearly as much time as you were costing me.
Look, you're supposed to be good for four things: searching e-mail, Web history, instant messages, and files. And since you don't do the first two, and I never use IM, three of those four are out the window; and the last one, well, I've got other programs that'll do almost the same thing, and they take up a lot less room on my hard drive. I'd've stuck with you if you had definite plans to add Firefox/Thunderbird compatibility; but, when I went to your FAQ today, and clicked on one of your top five questions, I can't find webpages I viewed with Mozilla Firefox [which is a statement, not a question, but never mind], you told me:
Google Desktop Search is only partially compatible with Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox. Desktop Search does not currently support Thunderbird.You may consider? Okay, fine. I may consider re-installing you if you do that. (Nice touch, by the way, that when I uninstalled you, you directed me to a Web page where I could tell you why. So I told you, and you can add me to the "many users" who you "realize" use Mozilla programs primarily or exclusively.) No, really, I do think it's nice; I get the feeling that you care about me and/or my opinion more than Microsoft does. I want to like you. I want to use you. And if you ever become useful, I will.
How Desktop Search works with Mozilla and/or Mozilla Firefox:
If you install Desktop Search and open a Mozilla or Firefox browser window, you'll see a 'Desktop' link appear on the Google homepage. You can click this link to go to the Desktop Search homepage whenever you want to search with Desktop Search.
Webpages that you view in Mozilla and/or Firefox aren't added to your Desktop Search index, however, so you won't be able to find them with Desktop Search.
[Ed. note: That's what you mean by "working with" and "compatible"? Dude, you're "compatible with" Mozilla in the same way a lamprey is "compatible with" a sturgeon.]
We realize that many of our users use Mozilla or Firefox as their primary browser and Thunderbird as their email program. We may consider adding increased Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, and Thunderbird support in a future version of Desktop Search.
Sincerely,
Zhaba
Thursday, December 9, 2004
Lesspresso
I was very excited to find chocolate-covered espresso beans at Chef's Market yesterday, and bought a half-pound container to keep in my desk as a pick-me-up. After snarfing down five of them about half an hour ago, I decided to look up the caffeine content to see how many I could eat without getting overly jittery—five, ten, fifteen?—and made the depressing discovery that they don't have nearly as much caffeine as I expected: only 3-5 mg per bean. (Via the Caffeine FAQ at coffeefaq.com.) You'd have to eat 30 to 50 of them to get the same amount of caffeine you'd get from drinking a 7-oz. cup of coffee. Humph, some waker-upper these are turning out to be. (Tasty, though. And without the risks of hot liquids that can burn you or stain your clothing or the inconvenience of pills you have to take with water.)
(Who|what|where) is love
I have no idea what this thing really is, or what it's for, but I've seen it around (most recently at Tenth Muse), and damn, it is psychic, isn't it?
Yeah, I love me my mixed drinks. And J. discovered and perfected the recipe for my all-time favorite, the Metropolis,* which is like a Cosmopolitan but better. So the guy I love mixed the drink I love; I'm not sure that "...is love" tag could be more apropos.
*Metropolis: 2 parts cranberry juice, 1 part each Triple Sec, mandarin orange vodka, and Rose's lime juice. A batch of six fits perfectly in a 32-oz. glass Ocean Spray cranberry juice bottle.
N.B. The Metropolis is not to be confused with the Metropolitan, another Cosmopolitan variation, which uses blackcurrant vodka instead of citrus (Cosmo) or mandarin (Metropolis).
| mixed drinks are love | |||||
| brought to you by the isLove Generator | |||||
Yeah, I love me my mixed drinks. And J. discovered and perfected the recipe for my all-time favorite, the Metropolis,* which is like a Cosmopolitan but better. So the guy I love mixed the drink I love; I'm not sure that "...is love" tag could be more apropos.
*Metropolis: 2 parts cranberry juice, 1 part each Triple Sec, mandarin orange vodka, and Rose's lime juice. A batch of six fits perfectly in a 32-oz. glass Ocean Spray cranberry juice bottle.
N.B. The Metropolis is not to be confused with the Metropolitan, another Cosmopolitan variation, which uses blackcurrant vodka instead of citrus (Cosmo) or mandarin (Metropolis).
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
The ongoing Daily Show media watch
The complete list of Grammy nominations showed up as one of my New York Times e-mail news alerts for the Daily Show. On the 8th of the 14 HTML pages the list took up, I found their nomination:
As I clicked through the pages, I was wondering, in these exact words, "How the fuck-hell many Grammy categories are there?" After finding the Daily Show's nomination, I skipped ahead to page 14 to get the final number: 107. Jesu Cristo, that's a lot. My favorite "who'da thunk?" category—even more than "Traditional Tropical Latin Album" (there's no category for non-traditional tropical Latin albums) and "Small Ensemble Performance (with or without Conductor)" (yeah, conductors, you heard me, we don't need you!)—is "Album Notes." Yes, really. It's nice to know they're recognizing the contribution of album-note writers, I guess; if the producers and the arrangers and the composers and the lyricists and the conductors and the singers and the instrumentalists and the spoken-word speakers and even the box-set designers are getting awards, the person who writes down all their names and makes the album make sense deserves something too.
77. Comedy Album: "Come Poop With Me," Triumph The Insult Comic Dog; "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents ... America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction," Jon Stewart and The Cast of the Daily Show; "The Funny Thing Is ... ," Ellen DeGeneres; "Live at Carnegie Hall," David Sedaris; "The O'Franken Factor Factor -- The Very Best of the O'Franken Factor," Al Franken.(Can I just say how incredibly amused I am that the New York Times had to print the words "Come Poop With Me"? It's almost as good as the year "Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk" was nominated for a lot of Tonys, and all these grand dames and highfalutin' artistes of the the-a-tuh had to go onstage and say it when they were presenting the awards.)
As I clicked through the pages, I was wondering, in these exact words, "How the fuck-hell many Grammy categories are there?" After finding the Daily Show's nomination, I skipped ahead to page 14 to get the final number: 107. Jesu Cristo, that's a lot. My favorite "who'da thunk?" category—even more than "Traditional Tropical Latin Album" (there's no category for non-traditional tropical Latin albums) and "Small Ensemble Performance (with or without Conductor)" (yeah, conductors, you heard me, we don't need you!)—is "Album Notes." Yes, really. It's nice to know they're recognizing the contribution of album-note writers, I guess; if the producers and the arrangers and the composers and the lyricists and the conductors and the singers and the instrumentalists and the spoken-word speakers and even the box-set designers are getting awards, the person who writes down all their names and makes the album make sense deserves something too.
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
How long do you macerate a Shmoo?
Cartoon character skeletons. Two words: Frea. Ky.
This has apparently been all over the Web in the past few days; I later came across it at BoingBoing and J-Walk, but my first encounter was via No Fancy Name:
This has apparently been all over the Web in the past few days; I later came across it at BoingBoing and J-Walk, but my first encounter was via No Fancy Name:
Skeletal SystemsThe Powerpuff Girls—Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup—fare the worst, in my view; those giant, perfectly-smooth and perfectly-hemispherical eye sockets make them look like predatory insects. On the other hand, the small birds—Tweety and Eggbert—actually look a lot like real bird skeletons: big skulls and tiny bodies are normal proportions for most avian anatomy. My favorite thing is the Shmoo's vestigial arms; there's a whole evolutionary process implied there. The mind boggles.
A character study of 22 present and past cartoon characters.
Animation was the format of choice for children's television in the 1960s, a decade in which children's programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.
I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.
Brrrrrrrrrr
Crosspost from my journal, because Blogger wasn't loading this morning and I wanted to get the post up somewhere. Apologies to those of you on LJ who have both my journal and my blog RSS feed on your friends pages.
Okay, our office is f!cking cold—and I don't usually complain about any temperature under 80°. (Which is what the temperature in here was most of the summer.) The thermostat says it's 65° and it's already on "Emergency Heat," but my manager reports it's only gone up one degree since he got here at 8 a.m. I'd hate to find out what non-emergency heat is like.
About ten minutes ago:
(We've had people come in and poke at the temperature-control system, trying to make it cooler in summer and warmer in winter; I wondered aloud if they'd mixed them up: "maybe we're getting the air conditioning now." Manager: "No, with the air conditioning it was warmer.")
Breaking news (11:41): It's up to 66°! That's an increase of half a degree every fifty minutes; at this rate, we'll be up to 70° by 6:30 p.m....just in time to go home. (Well, at least I can move my fingers without creaking now.)
Update (12:21): After turning off the emergency heat, the temperature went from 66 to 71 in 40 minutes. So the emergency heat not only doesn't work, it prevents the regular heat from working. (Maybe I'll turn on the emergency heat next summer when the air conditioning won't go below 79°.)
Okay, our office is f!cking cold—and I don't usually complain about any temperature under 80°. (Which is what the temperature in here was most of the summer.) The thermostat says it's 65° and it's already on "Emergency Heat," but my manager reports it's only gone up one degree since he got here at 8 a.m. I'd hate to find out what non-emergency heat is like.
About ten minutes ago:
Manager: Okay, whoever can find a barrel, I'll start the fire. [General laughter, less "amused" than "don't we know it, I wish we could."] I've got plenty of old [Client From Hell] stuff that we can burn. [More-enthusiastic laughter, "yeah"s.]Mine too. If only it weren't a violation of the fire code...
Another employee: That would warm my heart.
(We've had people come in and poke at the temperature-control system, trying to make it cooler in summer and warmer in winter; I wondered aloud if they'd mixed them up: "maybe we're getting the air conditioning now." Manager: "No, with the air conditioning it was warmer.")
Breaking news (11:41): It's up to 66°! That's an increase of half a degree every fifty minutes; at this rate, we'll be up to 70° by 6:30 p.m....just in time to go home. (Well, at least I can move my fingers without creaking now.)
Update (12:21): After turning off the emergency heat, the temperature went from 66 to 71 in 40 minutes. So the emergency heat not only doesn't work, it prevents the regular heat from working. (Maybe I'll turn on the emergency heat next summer when the air conditioning won't go below 79°.)
Friday, December 3, 2004
Sleep, glorious sleep
So, why didn't someone tell me about this "sleep" thing sooner? Dang, does it make me feel better. I should do it more often.
Yes, after being strung-out dead-dog-tired yesterday, I decided it was finally time to actually go to bed early, instead of saying I would and then staying up till 2 a.m. anyway. So as soon as I'd had sufficient dinner, I began the pre-bedtime tooth maintenance—both to ensure that I wouldn't let myself get sidetracked by eating or drinking anything else, and as a Pavlovian "this is what I do before sleeping, so it must be time to sleep" cue. I got distracted by Spider Solitaire for a while, but dragged myself away after a few fruitless rounds of a four-suit game. Took my meds at about 9—one of them has a soporific side effect, so about half an hour after I take it I'm just about knocked out. I sat on the living room couch next to the birdcage long enough to do a crossword puzzle and let the bird get her fill of jumping all over me and sitting on my head and chirping at my ring; at 9:20 I was almost keeling over, and at 9:23 I was upstairs, in bed, lights out literally, and after some tossing and turning, it was lights out figuratively too.
I drifted semi-awake at about 5:30, looked at the clock, went back to sleep; J. gave me a shake and turned on our full-spectrum sun lamp at 7:15; by 7:45 I was upright and downstairs, and feeling astonishingly, luxuriously well-rested. It's almost a pleasure to be awake; my brain's working, I feel like I've at least got the potential for having energy, and I swear my clothes even feel better. (J.'s comment: "Imagine if you felt that way every morning? Just a thought." Yeah, but...but then I wouldn't appreciate it as much, would I? Right? Right? [Someone back me up here!])
No, really, I do need to try it more often; not tonight, maybe—12:23 as I type this—but except for last night, I don't think I've gotten to bed before 1:30 a.m. any day in the last six weeks, so hell, I'm still on track to make an early evening of it. (Night. Morning. Whatever.) Rules: "Tonight Show," okay; "Late Night," monologue, maybe first guest; "Last Call," sorry, Carson, gotta skip you. (I was skewing the "18-to-24-year-old male living at home with no girlfriend playing video games all night" Nielsen-demographic market share anyway.)
12:31, "Tonight Show" musical guest—the mouse-feeding, tooth-brushing cue. In bed before 1 a.m.? I'll give it a shot. Anything's possible, right? I can do it, really I can.
12:38; "Late Night" monologue starting. Okay. Post entry. Log off. Do not even think about Spider Solitaire. Or FreeCell. Or TriPeaks. I mean it. One, two, three...now.
Yes, after being strung-out dead-dog-tired yesterday, I decided it was finally time to actually go to bed early, instead of saying I would and then staying up till 2 a.m. anyway. So as soon as I'd had sufficient dinner, I began the pre-bedtime tooth maintenance—both to ensure that I wouldn't let myself get sidetracked by eating or drinking anything else, and as a Pavlovian "this is what I do before sleeping, so it must be time to sleep" cue. I got distracted by Spider Solitaire for a while, but dragged myself away after a few fruitless rounds of a four-suit game. Took my meds at about 9—one of them has a soporific side effect, so about half an hour after I take it I'm just about knocked out. I sat on the living room couch next to the birdcage long enough to do a crossword puzzle and let the bird get her fill of jumping all over me and sitting on my head and chirping at my ring; at 9:20 I was almost keeling over, and at 9:23 I was upstairs, in bed, lights out literally, and after some tossing and turning, it was lights out figuratively too.
I drifted semi-awake at about 5:30, looked at the clock, went back to sleep; J. gave me a shake and turned on our full-spectrum sun lamp at 7:15; by 7:45 I was upright and downstairs, and feeling astonishingly, luxuriously well-rested. It's almost a pleasure to be awake; my brain's working, I feel like I've at least got the potential for having energy, and I swear my clothes even feel better. (J.'s comment: "Imagine if you felt that way every morning? Just a thought." Yeah, but...but then I wouldn't appreciate it as much, would I? Right? Right? [Someone back me up here!])
No, really, I do need to try it more often; not tonight, maybe—12:23 as I type this—but except for last night, I don't think I've gotten to bed before 1:30 a.m. any day in the last six weeks, so hell, I'm still on track to make an early evening of it. (Night. Morning. Whatever.) Rules: "Tonight Show," okay; "Late Night," monologue, maybe first guest; "Last Call," sorry, Carson, gotta skip you. (I was skewing the "18-to-24-year-old male living at home with no girlfriend playing video games all night" Nielsen-demographic market share anyway.)
12:31, "Tonight Show" musical guest—the mouse-feeding, tooth-brushing cue. In bed before 1 a.m.? I'll give it a shot. Anything's possible, right? I can do it, really I can.
12:38; "Late Night" monologue starting. Okay. Post entry. Log off. Do not even think about Spider Solitaire. Or FreeCell. Or TriPeaks. I mean it. One, two, three...now.
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
In which I am very dull
Oh, I'm so useless these days. It must be the continuing lack of sleep; despite my stated goal of going to bed before 2 a.m. last night, and even though I was exhausted from having woken up at 6:30 yesterday morning and dragging myself and my overnight bag all the hell over the city, I still didn't get to bed until 2:45 last night. Bad girl. No biscuit. My morning allotment of two cups of strong coffee and 20mg of Ritalin gets me up and about, and I don't feel particularly tired after about 8:45 a.m., but the way I just stare blankly at my computer screen so often during the workday, and can't think of anything to write about, and can't get much work done, probably means my brain isn't functioning very well behind my over-dilated eyes. It's probably directing all its attention to things like "don't walk out into traffic" and "don't spill hot coffee on yourself" instead of "write a regular expression to find the remaining transliterated Hebrew words in this Bible commentary" and "do a blog post about that interesting article in the New York Times this morning." I'm awake, even somewhat alert, but I don't have any energy. Feh, feh, feh. (Oh well. If I don't have any energy, I'm not manic. [Yet.])
Yes, this is a pretty lousy entry, but I know if I don't post something every weekday, I'll get out of the habit, and, for whatever it's worth, I don't want to do that. If I write about something every day, even if it's boring or stupid, I'll have the momentum behind me to write about something interesting or intelligent when it actually happens. So here it is: a boring, and perhaps stupid, entry, but an entry all the same. And I've been staring at the screen trying to think of a way to end it for about five minutes, so I'm just going to say "the end." The end.
Yes, this is a pretty lousy entry, but I know if I don't post something every weekday, I'll get out of the habit, and, for whatever it's worth, I don't want to do that. If I write about something every day, even if it's boring or stupid, I'll have the momentum behind me to write about something interesting or intelligent when it actually happens. So here it is: a boring, and perhaps stupid, entry, but an entry all the same. And I've been staring at the screen trying to think of a way to end it for about five minutes, so I'm just going to say "the end." The end.
Mid-week memery
"Getting to know you" meme, via Bonnie at what kind of sick weirdo are you? Like her, I'm going to do it as a blog post instead of an e-mail.
2. Diamonds or pearls? Sapphires. (My engagement ring stone is a padparadscha sapphire—pinkish-orange, like a sunrise. [Sapphires and rubies are both corundum; red corundum is a ruby, any other color—blue, yellow, pink, green, purple, white—is a sapphire.])
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? "Fahrenheit 911" on June 29th (J.'s birthday present); we don't go out to movies much. (The last movie I saw in a theater before that was back in December '03, or maybe '02. I'm pathetic.)
4. What is your favourite TV show? Daily Show Daily Show Daily Show! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Jon Stewart. (Down, girl.)
5. What did you have for breakfast? My mom's homemade coffee cake at 6:45, before leaving Delaware, and a bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel sandwich after I got to work. (I always get hungry the same number of hours after breakfast, no matter when I eat it; on days when I get up early and eat breakfast before 7, I'm hungry for lunch at 10 a.m.)
6. What is your middle name? Used to be Cathleen; I did the marriage name-change and made my maiden name my new middle name. (It starts with M, but I'm not saying what it is.)
7. What is your favourite cuisine? To eat, Japanese; to cook, Italian.
8. What foods do you dislike? Plants with enzymes that try to digest me while I'm eating them: kiwi, eggplant, fresh pineapple. (Cooking pineapple breaks down the enzyme; cooking kiwi might, too, but I don't know why you'd bother, since they just taste like rancid strawberries anyway.)
9. What is your favourite crisp flavour? Tart apple.
10. What is your favourite CD at the moment? I hardly ever listen to them; I've got some "soothing ocean sound" ones at work for white noise when there's too much going on in the office.
11. What kind of car do you drive? No car; I rely on public transit, family members with cars, or walking.
12. Favourite sandwich? Falafel, hummus, and tzatziki on a whole-wheat pita. (Now I'm hungry again.)
13. What characteristic do you despise? CYA-itis—cover-your-ass syndrome. If you screw up, say so; or at least don't say it's someone else's fault instead. (I was thinking about our not-very-partner-like partner company when I wrote that, but I just realized it's the same thing that cheesed me off about Ashlee Simpson's SNL lip sync debacle.)
14. Favourite item of clothing? The cashmere robe J. gave me last Christmas. It is unutterably soft and wonderful; if I never had to leave the house, I'd never wear anything else.
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Rome, by way of Tuscany. The food, the wine, the art, the architecture, the 2500 years of accumulated culture...and the wine, did I mention the wine? The wine.
16. What colour is your bathroom? White tile (except for the mildew), light blue paint, blue and green leaf-print shower curtain.
17. Favourite brand of clothing? I don't much care about labels, but I'll go to the ends of the earth for Dansko shoes (and, when I'm wearing them, it feels like I can walk to the ends of the earth; they're insanely comfortable and actually attractive. I wish they didn't cost so much, but I'm willing to pay for quality.)
18. Where would you retire to? Ack, you want me to think that far ahead? Somewhere semi-rural but not more than 45 minutes away from a major city. And not Florida. It's hot and there are giant bugs down there.
19. Favourite time of the day? Early evening—5 to 7 p.m.—I'm a sucker for sunsets, and on weekdays, it's when I get to leave the office.
20. What was your most memorable birthday? 20th, in a hotel in Kharkiv, when the Yale Russian Chorus was touring in Ukraine; I was the only woman in the chorus (yes, I'm a tenor), so it was me, twenty guys, lots of vodka, and loud renditions of every dirty Russian, Ukrainian, or Georgian song we knew. Na zdorovja!
21. Where were you born? Wilmington, Delaware.
22. Favourite sport to watch? Figure skating or bull-riding—no, there's not much of a viewership overlap there, but I like 'em both.
23. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Not e-mailing it, so N/A.
24. Person you expect to send it back first? N/A.
25. What fabric detergent do you use? Anything that doesn't frippin' stink—no perfumes, no dyes, no nothing. I just want my clothes to be clean; I don't want to reek of Outdoor Fresh Scent all day.
26. Coke or Pepsi? Root beer.
27. Day time or night time? Night, the later the better.
28. What is your shoe size? 10 with socks, 9 1/2 without (yeah, I have huge feet).
29. Do you have any pets? Peri the parakeet (she runs the house, we just live there), nine spiny mice.
30. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with your family and friends? Now that J.'s doctor has prescribed him testosterone, we're having sex again! (I probably shouldn't share that with my family, though. "Hey, Mom, guess what...?")
31. What did you want to be when you were little? A horseback-riding novel-writing falcon-training Egyptologist. (It could happen!) (Well, actually, it probably couldn't.)
32. What are you meant to be doing today? Working, buying food for the critters, picking up prescriptions from CVS, going home, maybe grocery shopping, watching the Daily Show, going to bed before 2 a.m.
Welcome to the Autumn 2004 edition of getting to know your friends. What you are supposed to do is copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you’ll send. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to a whole bunch of people including the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends, if you did not know them already.1. What time did you get up this morning? 6-frickin'-30. Yuck. (Usually, J. shakes me at 7:45 and I stagger downstairs around 8, but I was in Delaware last night, so I had to catch the 7:19 train to Philly in order to get to work on time. Those of you who regularly wake up at 6:30 or earlier, feel free to snort with derision, but for me it's ungodly-early.)
2. Diamonds or pearls? Sapphires. (My engagement ring stone is a padparadscha sapphire—pinkish-orange, like a sunrise. [Sapphires and rubies are both corundum; red corundum is a ruby, any other color—blue, yellow, pink, green, purple, white—is a sapphire.])
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? "Fahrenheit 911" on June 29th (J.'s birthday present); we don't go out to movies much. (The last movie I saw in a theater before that was back in December '03, or maybe '02. I'm pathetic.)
4. What is your favourite TV show? Daily Show Daily Show Daily Show! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Jon Stewart. (Down, girl.)
5. What did you have for breakfast? My mom's homemade coffee cake at 6:45, before leaving Delaware, and a bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel sandwich after I got to work. (I always get hungry the same number of hours after breakfast, no matter when I eat it; on days when I get up early and eat breakfast before 7, I'm hungry for lunch at 10 a.m.)
6. What is your middle name? Used to be Cathleen; I did the marriage name-change and made my maiden name my new middle name. (It starts with M, but I'm not saying what it is.)
7. What is your favourite cuisine? To eat, Japanese; to cook, Italian.
8. What foods do you dislike? Plants with enzymes that try to digest me while I'm eating them: kiwi, eggplant, fresh pineapple. (Cooking pineapple breaks down the enzyme; cooking kiwi might, too, but I don't know why you'd bother, since they just taste like rancid strawberries anyway.)
9. What is your favourite crisp flavour? Tart apple.
10. What is your favourite CD at the moment? I hardly ever listen to them; I've got some "soothing ocean sound" ones at work for white noise when there's too much going on in the office.
11. What kind of car do you drive? No car; I rely on public transit, family members with cars, or walking.
12. Favourite sandwich? Falafel, hummus, and tzatziki on a whole-wheat pita. (Now I'm hungry again.)
13. What characteristic do you despise? CYA-itis—cover-your-ass syndrome. If you screw up, say so; or at least don't say it's someone else's fault instead. (I was thinking about our not-very-partner-like partner company when I wrote that, but I just realized it's the same thing that cheesed me off about Ashlee Simpson's SNL lip sync debacle.)
14. Favourite item of clothing? The cashmere robe J. gave me last Christmas. It is unutterably soft and wonderful; if I never had to leave the house, I'd never wear anything else.
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Rome, by way of Tuscany. The food, the wine, the art, the architecture, the 2500 years of accumulated culture...and the wine, did I mention the wine? The wine.
16. What colour is your bathroom? White tile (except for the mildew), light blue paint, blue and green leaf-print shower curtain.
17. Favourite brand of clothing? I don't much care about labels, but I'll go to the ends of the earth for Dansko shoes (and, when I'm wearing them, it feels like I can walk to the ends of the earth; they're insanely comfortable and actually attractive. I wish they didn't cost so much, but I'm willing to pay for quality.)
18. Where would you retire to? Ack, you want me to think that far ahead? Somewhere semi-rural but not more than 45 minutes away from a major city. And not Florida. It's hot and there are giant bugs down there.
19. Favourite time of the day? Early evening—5 to 7 p.m.—I'm a sucker for sunsets, and on weekdays, it's when I get to leave the office.
20. What was your most memorable birthday? 20th, in a hotel in Kharkiv, when the Yale Russian Chorus was touring in Ukraine; I was the only woman in the chorus (yes, I'm a tenor), so it was me, twenty guys, lots of vodka, and loud renditions of every dirty Russian, Ukrainian, or Georgian song we knew. Na zdorovja!
21. Where were you born? Wilmington, Delaware.
22. Favourite sport to watch? Figure skating or bull-riding—no, there's not much of a viewership overlap there, but I like 'em both.
23. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Not e-mailing it, so N/A.
24. Person you expect to send it back first? N/A.
25. What fabric detergent do you use? Anything that doesn't frippin' stink—no perfumes, no dyes, no nothing. I just want my clothes to be clean; I don't want to reek of Outdoor Fresh Scent all day.
26. Coke or Pepsi? Root beer.
27. Day time or night time? Night, the later the better.
28. What is your shoe size? 10 with socks, 9 1/2 without (yeah, I have huge feet).
29. Do you have any pets? Peri the parakeet (she runs the house, we just live there), nine spiny mice.
30. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with your family and friends? Now that J.'s doctor has prescribed him testosterone, we're having sex again! (I probably shouldn't share that with my family, though. "Hey, Mom, guess what...?")
31. What did you want to be when you were little? A horseback-riding novel-writing falcon-training Egyptologist. (It could happen!) (Well, actually, it probably couldn't.)
32. What are you meant to be doing today? Working, buying food for the critters, picking up prescriptions from CVS, going home, maybe grocery shopping, watching the Daily Show, going to bed before 2 a.m.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Boola-boola
This requires a resounding Nelson Muntz "Ha-ha!": a truly kick-ass "Harvard Sucks" prank from this year's Yale-Harvard football game. (Follow the link for a video of the event unfolding and a picture of the outcome, also available as a full-size poster.)
("The Game," capitalized, is only and always the Yale-Harvard football game. There are many games, but there is only one Game.)
On November 20, 2004 at the 121st Yale-Harvard game, 20 Elis donned custom made "Harvard Pep Squad" t-shirts, applied enemy-red war paint on their faces, and set out to pull a prank on 1800 Harvard alumni. Like clockwork, these brave Elis proceeded to exude more Harvard spirit than any Cantab ever... tossing t-shirts to the lucky and unsuspecting few, and passing out 1800 sheets of red & white construction paper in perfect order to the cheering Harvard crowd. With 4:47 minutes left in the second quarter of the game, each member of the crowd raised their sheet of paper expecting to spell out "Go Harvard" as they were told by the cheering "Harvard Pep Squad." Instead, the truth was revealed to a laughing crowd of YALE alumni and students who saw the Harvard crowd spell out in clear red letters "WE SUCK."That is the best Game prank ever. We've pranked the marching band, we've pranked the students, but getting hundreds of alumni to fall for something that makes that good a picture is a real coup. Almost makes up for losing Yale losing The Game 35-3...almost.
("The Game," capitalized, is only and always the Yale-Harvard football game. There are many games, but there is only one Game.)
Monday, November 29, 2004
Post-holiday "still here" post
I thought about posting over the weekend, but I was feeling too darned lazy; and anyway, there wasn't much happening. Thanksgiving: Dinner was good, relatives were bearable. Rest of the weekend: Read a lot, slept a lot, stayed up way, way, way too late on Friday and Saturday; watched some of the VH1 "Awesomely Bad" marathons; played computer card games; interacted with the bird (she's starting to molt again). Didn't leave the house after getting back from Delaware on Friday morning; didn't watch the news; didn't go online. I wasn't a total slug—I did five or six loads of laundry—but overall, it was a holiday, and I took it.
I caught up on my e-mail this morning, Fark.com and my LiveJournal friends list at lunchtime, and I'll tackle my RSS blog feeds over the course of the afternoon, maybe into the evening. (You people write so darned much!) And maybe I'll even think of something interesting to post about. (Or at least something to post about; "interesting" might be pushing it in my post-long-weekend mental lethargy.)
I caught up on my e-mail this morning, Fark.com and my LiveJournal friends list at lunchtime, and I'll tackle my RSS blog feeds over the course of the afternoon, maybe into the evening. (You people write so darned much!) And maybe I'll even think of something interesting to post about. (Or at least something to post about; "interesting" might be pushing it in my post-long-weekend mental lethargy.)
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Not quite over the river and through the woods
My brother, who's a Philly cop (hereinafter "B.", which is his actual initial, not just standing for "brother"), was planning to drive us to Delaware today; he works the night shift—the proverbial third watch—so he said "I'll be there at 9, unless something comes up." This morning, about 7:45, the phone downstairs rings while I'm still working on waking up, and I overhear J. talking to B. (a lot of "Oh, okay" and "Uh-huh" and "Wow"); a little later he comes upstairs to give me the report:
I eventually discovered a train that would leave Philly at 11:34 and get to the station about fifteen minutes from my parents' house at 12:09; at about 10:45 I called B. and said we could take the train if he wasn't going to get out of there anytime soon. He said he was just about done, though—just some paperwork to fill out, so I guess the guy, whoever he was, didn't die—and he can pick us up at 11:30. And knowing the way he drives, we should get to my parents' house at, oh, noon. (While he was in the police academy, he drove very carefully, because speeding tickets can get you sent back to the next class or even kicked out. Now that he's got the badge, though, he basically never has to obey a speed limit again. He drives fast, but very well; I'd say "confident," not "assertive" or "aggressive." It's fun driving with him; it's like being in a video game.)
Okay, 11:11 now; I'd better wrap this up, do the plant-watering and bird-feeding, round up the food we're taking to DE, and get ready to go. Between two cups of coffee and a whole Ritalin tablet, I'm rarin' to go. So another Happy Thanksgiving; I'll see you on the other side of dinner.
J.: Well, that was B., he says he got caught up in something, he probably won't be here until 10 or 11, "unless the guy dies," then he'll be there all day.I called my mom and told her about the change in plans, and said we could take a train if we had to. I didn't have a current schedule, so I went to the SEPTA Web site to look up train times; they recently revamped the site, and now it's so frickin' up-to-date it's unusable—the schedules, which used to just be HTML, are in PDF now—only PDF—and only for Acrobat 6.0, which I don't have on my home computer. So of course I had to download it, which over my dial-up connection took over half an hour, while I grumbled and muttered imprecations against them. I mean, c'mon, you can't have HTML or text versions for the visually impaired or people with really old computers? Or at least have versions for Adobe 5.0, which more people are likely to have? Grrr snarl snap humph.
Me: Oh. Yikes.
J.: I'm glad B.'s a cop, or else that sentence would be extremely alarming.
I eventually discovered a train that would leave Philly at 11:34 and get to the station about fifteen minutes from my parents' house at 12:09; at about 10:45 I called B. and said we could take the train if he wasn't going to get out of there anytime soon. He said he was just about done, though—just some paperwork to fill out, so I guess the guy, whoever he was, didn't die—and he can pick us up at 11:30. And knowing the way he drives, we should get to my parents' house at, oh, noon. (While he was in the police academy, he drove very carefully, because speeding tickets can get you sent back to the next class or even kicked out. Now that he's got the badge, though, he basically never has to obey a speed limit again. He drives fast, but very well; I'd say "confident," not "assertive" or "aggressive." It's fun driving with him; it's like being in a video game.)
Okay, 11:11 now; I'd better wrap this up, do the plant-watering and bird-feeding, round up the food we're taking to DE, and get ready to go. Between two cups of coffee and a whole Ritalin tablet, I'm rarin' to go. So another Happy Thanksgiving; I'll see you on the other side of dinner.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
I'm the pie crust queen
Lots of pre-Thanksgiving baking tonight; we're going to my parents' house in Delaware for the big dinner thing tomorrow, and we've got our assignments. Me: apple pie, pumpkin pie; J.: icebox-roll dough, which we'll take to DE and bake when we get there. So after we both got home—I actually left the office by 5:15, although I did basically get shooed out the door by my manager after everyone else had left—we cleared enough of the sink and the counter to work on and got started. I made the double crust for the apple pie, J. cut up the apples, I mixed the spices, rolled out the crust, put together the pie, and put it in the oven; while it was baking, J. started the bread dough; when the dough was resting, I made the single crust for the pumpkin pie; there was a scramble to prepare a heat-resistant resting place to put the apple pie when it came out of the oven, and then I finished putting the pumpkin pie together, put it in the oven, collapsed on the couch, and realized that it was after 11 p.m. and I hadn't had dinner. (Well, I'll have plenty of dinner tomorrow.)
While the pumpkin pie was baking, we did an abbreviated kitchen clean-up and started getting ready for bed; I was rounding up clothes and meds to take to Delaware, and mentioned, more belatedly than I should have, "We're staying over at my parents' house tomorrow night."
Hey, how'd it get to be 1 a.m.? My brother's picking us up at 9 a.m. tomor...um, today, and I've got to pack and put a two-day supply of food and water in all the mouse cages and maybe sleep a bit. Okay, then. Good night, and everyone in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving. (Everyone not in the U.S., Happy Thursday, and be glad you don't have to wake up at dawn to roast a turkey.)
While the pumpkin pie was baking, we did an abbreviated kitchen clean-up and started getting ready for bed; I was rounding up clothes and meds to take to Delaware, and mentioned, more belatedly than I should have, "We're staying over at my parents' house tomorrow night."
J.: We are?(He kids, sort of. I'm dreading it a bit too, but we haven't had any really horrible Thanksgivings with my family. It's been over a decade since the last time my dad flooded the kitchen while thawing the turkey.)
Me: Yeah.
J.: First I've heard of it.
Me: Oh. Sorry.
J.: It's okay. I'll just dread accordingly.
Hey, how'd it get to be 1 a.m.? My brother's picking us up at 9 a.m. tomor...um, today, and I've got to pack and put a two-day supply of food and water in all the mouse cages and maybe sleep a bit. Okay, then. Good night, and everyone in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving. (Everyone not in the U.S., Happy Thursday, and be glad you don't have to wake up at dawn to roast a turkey.)
Onion slices
I'm lovin' me this Onion article title: White House Thanksgiving Turkey Detained Without Counsel. (The article's mildly amusing, but the title's priceless.)
Other good Onion titles of recent weeks:
Other good Onion titles of recent weeks:
- "Ashcroft Loses Job To Mexican"—Nov. 17 issue, front page; one of those headline-only sidebar blurbs, so there's no story to link to.
- Bush Promises To Unite Nation For Real This Time—Nov. 10, first News in Brief item.
- Nader Supporters Blame Electoral Defeat On Bush, Kerry—Nov. 3, first News in Brief item.
(On the day after the 2000 election, the Philadelphia Weekly, which had prepared "Bush Wins" and "Gore Wins" covers, had to scrap them both and published a cover with nothing but a big picture of Nader emblazoned with "Nader Loses"—my favorite post-election headline ever, and possibly the most accurate one ever, too.)
I can't not call this post "get stuffed"
Oh, heck, a Thanksgiving meme, via Jen at reflections - jmo (who I always seem to have the same quiz results as):
You Are the Stuffing |
 You're complicated and complex, yet all your pieces fit together. People miss you if you're gone - but they're not sure why. |
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Do they know it's not Christmas?
No one ever accused South Philadelphians of under-decorating for holidays (if you don't see an animatronic figure for any given holiday in at least one South Philly window, it doesn't exist), but isn't it still a bit early for the full-on entire-neighborhood Christmas lights? Yesterday I encountered their prematurely-blazing glory on South 13th St., and took some pictures to prove it; my camera's too old and low-res to produce a good image after dark, but this gives you an idea of how the neighborhoods do cooperative light-bedecking down the entire block:
click to enlarge
;)
click to enlarge
Monday, November 22, 2004
Don't bug me
Wee-hawkin': there's finally a Firefox 1.0 version of the super-popular, super-useful BugMeNot extension. Those of you who are more up on these things than I am probably knew that already, but in case anybody didn't, here's the extension info, from the trusty Firefox Extensions RSS feed:
http://extensions.roachfiend.com/bugmenot.xpi
BugMeNot v0.6.1: Avoid website registrations
(Extension homepage)
For Firefox (v0.8), Mozilla
date: 20041115
size: 24KB
uri: http://extensions.roachfiend.com/bugmenot.xpi
ver: 0.6.1
BugMeNot allows you to access bugmenot.com's database of user-submitted usernames and passwords to bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times) via the context menu.
Friday, November 19, 2004
You're nobody till somebody satirizes you
The title's a bit satirical itself, but you do know you've arrived when people start making jokes about and/or fun of you.* And BBspot has taken on Mozilla for this week's "Top 11" list: Top 11 Firefox Extensions. My favorite is #11, "GetOffYourLazyButtAndWalkToTheFrontDoorForPetesSake 0.01 - Snail mail notifier." I also like #6, "ExtendItNow! 2.1 - Pings update.mozilla.org every 15 seconds so you'll know when it's back up. Never have outdated extensions again!" and #4, "PopUpEncourager - For those popup lovers, for every popup window on a webpage, FireFox will display 2." So, how long do you think it'll be before someone actually makes some of these?
(I didn't find this link in my own supposed-to-be-working Web-surfing time—my manager actually sent it to me, on his Web-surfing time. I've converted most of the office to Firefox, and I'm working on the rest of them.)
*In my brief summer of moderate media exposure I knew I'd reached a new level of quasi-celebrity when Salon.com accused me of being a fraud. Hey, if they're paying enough attention to attack me, I must being doing something right! (The whole summer of 1999 is a loooong story; maybe I'll tell it sometime. It involves undiagnosed mania and the "Blair Witch Project" online fan base phenomenon.)
(I didn't find this link in my own supposed-to-be-working Web-surfing time—my manager actually sent it to me, on his Web-surfing time. I've converted most of the office to Firefox, and I'm working on the rest of them.)
*In my brief summer of moderate media exposure I knew I'd reached a new level of quasi-celebrity when Salon.com accused me of being a fraud. Hey, if they're paying enough attention to attack me, I must being doing something right! (The whole summer of 1999 is a loooong story; maybe I'll tell it sometime. It involves undiagnosed mania and the "Blair Witch Project" online fan base phenomenon.)
Thursday, November 18, 2004
The occasional benefits of late lunches
I did go to South Street; I did go to Chef's Market; and although usually when I get there after 2:30 I'm left with the pathetic remnants of the buffet table, today I arrived just as they were putting out the new trays—I got the very first crack at the macaroni and cheese straight from the oven. (I'm all about the crusty edge pieces; mmmmm, crispy brown cheese...) And Julie of No Fancy Name supplied me with an online tea-purveyor with the elusive Earl Grey green tea I've been searching high and low for. And there's only an hour left in the workday (well, in the official workday; I'll probably be here till 6 anyway.) All in all, the past hour has beaten the pants off the rest of the day and all of yesterday. Wa-hoo.
(By the way, since I mention Chef's Market all the time as if I expect people to know what it is, here's a link to their Web site. It's a pretty darn boring Web site, but I did learn that they do in-flight meals. [Humph. Not on any airline I've ever been on.])
(By the way, since I mention Chef's Market all the time as if I expect people to know what it is, here's a link to their Web site. It's a pretty darn boring Web site, but I did learn that they do in-flight meals. [Humph. Not on any airline I've ever been on.])
Busy
Warning: Extreme mundanity below.
Not much posting or blog/journal reading this week; I've hardly even kept up on Fark.com and this week's Onion. You know how I keep saying I hate it when I have to work at work? For the past few days I've been frantically catching up on all the work I should have been doing...one of those "By the way, this project is due at the end of the week" things. (Most of my projects don't have solid deadlines, so it's easy to get sidetracked.) I barely got home in time for the Daily Show rerun at 7 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday (it's the only reason I leave the office before 7 sometimes). Yesterday the client actually called at 6 p.m. and told me to go home—"just send me the files and we can run the compiler here, don't stay there all night just so you can compile them." (I haven't heard anything about the files today, so I guess they were okay, and the project actually did get done by the end of the week. I'm fast when I'm actually working.)
J.'s been having one of his quasi-migraines since Tuesday morning—nausea, dizziness, but not an actual headache. He doesn't want to take too many sick days for non-headache migraines, so he's been dragging himself to work this week; I feel really bad for him, but there isn't much I can do when we're not together. (At home, we've been spending lots of time sitting very still on the couch together, reading quietly and communing with the bird; he says he feels okay as long as he's not moving.)
The bird is being even sweeter than usual; on Tuesday she actually fell asleep perched on my finger—I guess that's one of the major indications that an animal really trusts you. Her eyelids are incredibly delicate, almost translucent, with microscopically-tiny eyelash feathers. She's also been pretty good about going upstairs in her carrying cage and perching on my wrist or running around the keyboard while I'm at the computer. (Fortunately she doesn't weigh enough to press the keys down.) After about half an hour she gets antsy and wants to go back downstairs, but she's getting used to the idea that the rest of the house is safe and the carrying cage isn't a portal to a scary alternate universe.
As for me, I'm bored, hungry, vaguely discontent...I've been walking up to South St. on my lunch break every day, but I usually wind up wandering around a store not finding anything I want. I've been on an unsuccessful quest for Earl Grey green tea; I found one box, once, at Chef's Market, and haven't seen it since, there or anywhere else. I bet Twining's has a Web site that I could purchase it from, though. Someone must have a tea-selling Web site, anyway. Yesterday I went to the Headhouse Square Eckerd's and got liquid hand soap for the office bathroom, because we only had dishwashing soap, and my hands were painfully dry by the end of the day. (We kept asking my boss to get real hand soap, and he kept saying he'd get around to it, but what was our problem, the dishwashing soap said it was good for your hands; sure, if you just use it to wash the dishes once a day, but not if it's the only soap you can ever use.) Anyway, for the low, low price of $1.99, I bought actual hand soap and got the fervent thanks of everyone else in the office. (See, that wasn't hard.) I think I'm turning into the office den mother, or something; I'm the female employee who's been here the longest, which apparently makes me the go-to person for organizing goodbye parties, rounding up takeout-lunch orders, and providing any office supplies or domestic items my boss doesn't get around to buying. I guess I don't mind, but it's kind of odd to be considered responsible.
Eck; it's after 2 p.m. and I haven't had lunch. Must eat. Must get up from desk. Must get out of office, if I want to take any advantage of the non-freezing, non-rainy weather. I'll probably go to South St. and not see anything I want and get my default salad at Chef's Market. (Okay, it's been almost half an hour since I started this paragraph and I'm really, really hungry. Must eat. Must go. Really...)
Not much posting or blog/journal reading this week; I've hardly even kept up on Fark.com and this week's Onion. You know how I keep saying I hate it when I have to work at work? For the past few days I've been frantically catching up on all the work I should have been doing...one of those "By the way, this project is due at the end of the week" things. (Most of my projects don't have solid deadlines, so it's easy to get sidetracked.) I barely got home in time for the Daily Show rerun at 7 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday (it's the only reason I leave the office before 7 sometimes). Yesterday the client actually called at 6 p.m. and told me to go home—"just send me the files and we can run the compiler here, don't stay there all night just so you can compile them." (I haven't heard anything about the files today, so I guess they were okay, and the project actually did get done by the end of the week. I'm fast when I'm actually working.)
J.'s been having one of his quasi-migraines since Tuesday morning—nausea, dizziness, but not an actual headache. He doesn't want to take too many sick days for non-headache migraines, so he's been dragging himself to work this week; I feel really bad for him, but there isn't much I can do when we're not together. (At home, we've been spending lots of time sitting very still on the couch together, reading quietly and communing with the bird; he says he feels okay as long as he's not moving.)
The bird is being even sweeter than usual; on Tuesday she actually fell asleep perched on my finger—I guess that's one of the major indications that an animal really trusts you. Her eyelids are incredibly delicate, almost translucent, with microscopically-tiny eyelash feathers. She's also been pretty good about going upstairs in her carrying cage and perching on my wrist or running around the keyboard while I'm at the computer. (Fortunately she doesn't weigh enough to press the keys down.) After about half an hour she gets antsy and wants to go back downstairs, but she's getting used to the idea that the rest of the house is safe and the carrying cage isn't a portal to a scary alternate universe.
As for me, I'm bored, hungry, vaguely discontent...I've been walking up to South St. on my lunch break every day, but I usually wind up wandering around a store not finding anything I want. I've been on an unsuccessful quest for Earl Grey green tea; I found one box, once, at Chef's Market, and haven't seen it since, there or anywhere else. I bet Twining's has a Web site that I could purchase it from, though. Someone must have a tea-selling Web site, anyway. Yesterday I went to the Headhouse Square Eckerd's and got liquid hand soap for the office bathroom, because we only had dishwashing soap, and my hands were painfully dry by the end of the day. (We kept asking my boss to get real hand soap, and he kept saying he'd get around to it, but what was our problem, the dishwashing soap said it was good for your hands; sure, if you just use it to wash the dishes once a day, but not if it's the only soap you can ever use.) Anyway, for the low, low price of $1.99, I bought actual hand soap and got the fervent thanks of everyone else in the office. (See, that wasn't hard.) I think I'm turning into the office den mother, or something; I'm the female employee who's been here the longest, which apparently makes me the go-to person for organizing goodbye parties, rounding up takeout-lunch orders, and providing any office supplies or domestic items my boss doesn't get around to buying. I guess I don't mind, but it's kind of odd to be considered responsible.
Eck; it's after 2 p.m. and I haven't had lunch. Must eat. Must get up from desk. Must get out of office, if I want to take any advantage of the non-freezing, non-rainy weather. I'll probably go to South St. and not see anything I want and get my default salad at Chef's Market. (Okay, it's been almost half an hour since I started this paragraph and I'm really, really hungry. Must eat. Must go. Really...)
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Random book meme
Via Psychobabble:
Grab the nearest book.The Zondervan NIV Study Bible and O'Reilly's "Writing Word Macros" were equidistant from me on the left and right, so I'm going to do the meme for both of them. Anyone want to guess which quote is from which?
Open the book to page 23.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal......along with these instructions.
Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.
Incidentally, the default font for the module window is Courier, which has a rather thin-looking appearance and maybe be somewhat difficult to read.(If you ever wondered what I do all day, read those two sentences over and over again until your eyes hurt, and you'll get a pretty good idea.)
Monday, November 15, 2004
Stop me before I deal again!
Just discovered this Firefox extension, via the RSS feed from Firefox Help: Extensions:
http://downloads.mozdev.org/cardgames/cards.xpiAck! You know I'm never, ever going to get off the computer at night now, don't you? I can barely drag myself away from Spider Solitaire and FreeCell as it is. (If I were a better person, I would have resisted the temptation to install it. But I'm not, and I didn't. Now, where the heck is that other red ten?)
Cards v0.15: A collection of patience card games
(Extension homepage)
For Firefox (v0.9 - v1.0), Mozilla
date: 20041109
lang: en-US
size: 112KB
uri: http://downloads.mozdev.org/cardgames/cards.xpi
ver: 0.15
A collection of patience (solitaire) card games. Included are: Aces Up, Black Widow, Canfield, Double Solitaire, Grounds for Divorce, Fan, FreeCell, Golf, Gypsy, Klondike, Maze, Mod 3, Montana, Pyramid, Regiment, Russian Solitaire, Sanibel, SeaHaven Towers, Simple Simon, Spider Solitaire, TriPeaks, Wasp, Whitehead, and Yukon.
Features autoplay, hints, unlimited undo, scoring, animation, and "intelligent" moving of cards when you right click on them.
After installing you should be able to play the games by choosing "Cards" from the Tools menu (in Firefox) or the Windows menu (in Mozilla 1.x).
Dude, where's my weekend?
I think this weekend was even shorter than the one I lamented about last Monday; are they lopping off some of the hours when we're not looking as part of a fiendish Weekday Savings Time plot? ("It feels like 10 a.m. Sunday, but it's really 6 a.m. Monday WST. So get to work.") It would probably help if I stopped staying up till 2:30 a.m. on Friday night (till the end of the late-late shows, at which point they start running the nighttime talk show loop from 11:30 p.m. again) and 1 a.m. on Saturdays (through "Saturday Night Live" and into "Showtime at the Apollo"—and by the way, isn't "American Idol" just "Showtime at the Apollo" with cell phones instead of an applause-o-meter?). After I turn off the TV, it takes another fifteen or twenty minutes to get to bed; and then I don't wake up until noon or later; and that probably contributes to the weekend feeling short. But still: I'm quite sure the twelve hours between noon and midnight yesterday didn't last nearly as long as they should have. Whereas today has lasted at least twelve hours since I got to work at 9:05. Hey, can we hurry up and have Thanksgiving? I need a four-day weekend. (Maybe it'll even feel as long as a three-day one!)
Friday, November 12, 2004
M is for meme
Alphabet meme, via Shut Up Dude:
Some of the blog titles don't start with the letter of the alphabet they're next to, but their domain names do; in which case I've added the domain name after the title.
Press each letter in the address bar of your browser and list what the auto-complete function jumps to first.Not all of these are blogs, or even blog-related; if the top result wasn't a blog, I'd go down the list to get a blog if there was one, but sometimes there weren't any.
Some of the blog titles don't start with the letter of the alphabet they're next to, but their domain names do; in which case I've added the domain name after the title.
- A is for Alcohol Was a Factor
- B is for Bloglines
- C is for Mixilator (cocktaildb.com/mixilator)
- D is for Declare Yourself
- E is for Electoral Vote Predictor - they should change it to "Electoral Vote Results" post-election, shouldn't they?
- F is for Fark.com
- G is for what kind of sick weirdo are you? (greengrl.org)
- H is for Solipsist (hayllar.com)
- I is for In Favor of Thinking
- J is for reflections - Just My Opinion (j-mo.com)
- K is for KookyChow - a gallery of "curiously" bad food that I was meaning to post anyway
- L is for LiveJournal
- M is for Tyme2BReal (mwah.com)
- N is for No Fancy Name
- O is for Overheard in New York
- P is for The Presurfer
- Q is for Quidnunc
- R is for Reecie
- S is for Disturbing Search Requests (searchrequests.weblogger.com)
- T is for The Onion - the top one was really TotalFark.com, but a) I already used Fark.com, and b) if you don't pay for Total Fark you can't get to the page anyway
- U is for Merriam-Webster Unabridged (unabridged.merriam-webster.com)
- V is for W3C Validator (validator.w3.org)
- W is for Weblogs.com
- X isn't for anything
- Y is for York County, VA election information - I have absolutely no idea why, but it's the only "Y" I've got. (Ack, the "why...Y" thing wasn't intentional.)
- Z is for Zhaba Zhournal - if I got anything else for "Z" I wouldn't put my own site here, but I didn't.
Don't believe everything you don't read
Skimming fast down a page of headlines; there was one about Bush and Blair's news conference on the Middle East above one about Arafat's funeral, and my eye sent them to my brain as the combined headline "Bush Pledges to Bury Peace in the Middle East."
(I immediately realized that that couldn't be the headline, but it was one of those times when what you think you see is truer than what you actually do...)
(I immediately realized that that couldn't be the headline, but it was one of those times when what you think you see is truer than what you actually do...)
No relation to Jebediah Obadiah Zachariah Jedediah Springfield
Office discussion of the Bushes; wondering how Jeb Bush got his nickname—we were pretty sure it wasn't short for Jebediah. (Me: "That sounds too Old Testament for the Bushes.")
It turns out that Jeb's full name is John Ellis Bush—hence, J.E.B.; it's an acronym, not an abbreviation. (It's a good thing they didn't try the acronym thing with Dubya—how would you pronounce GWB, "goob"?)
Side note: In the course of deciding on and writing the title, I discovered that I'm incapable of saying/thinking/typing "Zachariah" without wanting to follow it with "Malachi"—because the book of Malachi is right after the book of Zechariah in the Bible. Yeah, I've been working on these things too long.
It turns out that Jeb's full name is John Ellis Bush—hence, J.E.B.; it's an acronym, not an abbreviation. (It's a good thing they didn't try the acronym thing with Dubya—how would you pronounce GWB, "goob"?)
Side note: In the course of deciding on and writing the title, I discovered that I'm incapable of saying/thinking/typing "Zachariah" without wanting to follow it with "Malachi"—because the book of Malachi is right after the book of Zechariah in the Bible. Yeah, I've been working on these things too long.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Last person out, turn off the lights
Earlier this week it was Juror No. 7, and now the foreman of the Scott Peterson jury has been dismissed. That's the same as the number of Bush cabinet officials who resigned this week. So what do you think is going to happen first?—the Scott Peterson trial will lose all 18 jurors,* or the Bush administration will lose all 16 cabinet members?†
*Jury: 12 original, 6 alternate, only 3 of whom are left (in fact, the just-dismissed foreman was originally an alternate who replaced a juror who was dismissed in June).
†Cabinet: 15 executive department heads, plus the Vice President.
*Jury: 12 original, 6 alternate, only 3 of whom are left (in fact, the just-dismissed foreman was originally an alternate who replaced a juror who was dismissed in June).
†Cabinet: 15 executive department heads, plus the Vice President.
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead
Call Schrödinger, Monty Python, and the Munchkins: the cat's out of the box, the parrot's not just resting, and ding-dong, Yasir Arafat is really most sincerely dead. (That's a link to the New York Times "this is what happened last night" story; if you're really ambitious, here's the New York Times obituary, which is eight HTML pages long, and has probably been written and re-written over the course of the past thirty years. Registration required, of course, but that's what Bug Me Not is for.)
The first coherent thing I said today, after "Good morning" and "Coffee": "So last night they said that Arafat was really, truly dead. Is that still what they're saying this morning?"
J. reported that yes, yes they were; then added, in a stentorian news-announcer voice, "Arafat's condition has been upgraded to dead." (Whereupon I snarfed my coffee.)
Keith at Alcohol Was a Factor posted a list of conflicting Arafat headlines on Tuesday, 21 of 'em, from sources ranging from Canada.com (Arafat in coma, hours to live as officials arrive for hospital) to Reuters UK (Palestinian minister says Arafat still alive) to the Skagit Valley Herald (Arafat in a Coma, Condition Getting Worse). (The last link is dead already, but I couldn't resist the name Skagit Valley Herald.) I'm going to try to collect all the Fark.com Arafat headlines from the past few days and post a list of them—my favorite, from Tuesday, is "French medical services insist Arafat is still alive and playing Halo 2."
The first coherent thing I said today, after "Good morning" and "Coffee": "So last night they said that Arafat was really, truly dead. Is that still what they're saying this morning?"
J. reported that yes, yes they were; then added, in a stentorian news-announcer voice, "Arafat's condition has been upgraded to dead." (Whereupon I snarfed my coffee.)
Keith at Alcohol Was a Factor posted a list of conflicting Arafat headlines on Tuesday, 21 of 'em, from sources ranging from Canada.com (Arafat in coma, hours to live as officials arrive for hospital) to Reuters UK (Palestinian minister says Arafat still alive) to the Skagit Valley Herald (Arafat in a Coma, Condition Getting Worse). (The last link is dead already, but I couldn't resist the name Skagit Valley Herald.) I'm going to try to collect all the Fark.com Arafat headlines from the past few days and post a list of them—my favorite, from Tuesday, is "French medical services insist Arafat is still alive and playing Halo 2."
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Polly wanna Web site?
The bird and I had a big breakthrough tonight: after a week of getting her used to being moved around the house in her carrying cage, I was able to take her up to the office and have her spend about half an hour contentedly at my desk, perched on my wrist or shoulder while I typed. She started getting antsy after that, and I took her back downstairs to her regular cage, but it's an embarrassingly big deal that I know I can spend time in the office without feeling guilty for abandoning her. (We leave her alone when we're at work all day, so I want to spend as much time as possible together when I'm home; parakeets are very social, and J. and I are her entire flock.) One of the main reasons I don't blog on the weekends, or more often on weeknights, is that I spend my non-working waking hours in the living room with her. (There are plenty of things to do there—it probably contains more bookcases than any other 14' x 40' rowhouse in South Philly, plus the TV and DVD player—so I'm not just sitting there staring at the bird all night; I'm not quite that bird-whipped.)
Anyway. The horizons of the house have suddenly opened: I can be in the office and with the bird! I can blog and keep her entertained! (She was curious about keyboarding; I think she'll turn into a real terror if she figures out she can move the keys herself.) And if I want to spend all day Saturday reading in bed, I could bring her into the bedroom, too. Ooohhhh, the possibilities are mindless. I mean endless.*
We really need a sign on the front door saying "This house is operated solely for the convenience of the bird"—she rules the roost, and I think she knows it. I can't walk past a novelty shop or toy store without getting her something: today it was a miniature Fisher-Price xylophone keychain. She's also got her own shatterproof cactus-stem margarita glass, to keep her out of my wineglass, and her own espresso cup and saucer, to keep her out of my coffee mug, and every little bouncing ball I ever got out of a supermarket vending machine is in, around, or under her cage. Election, shmelection; our house is governed by a blue-and-yellow fluffball who weighs less than eleven pennies. (I for one welcome our new psittacine overlords!)
*That's a frequent J.-ism; I said it to myself in my head as I was typing, thought "no, don't type that!", then re-thought "oh, c'mon, it's stream-of-consciousness," so I'm sticking with it.
Anyway. The horizons of the house have suddenly opened: I can be in the office and with the bird! I can blog and keep her entertained! (She was curious about keyboarding; I think she'll turn into a real terror if she figures out she can move the keys herself.) And if I want to spend all day Saturday reading in bed, I could bring her into the bedroom, too. Ooohhhh, the possibilities are mindless. I mean endless.*
We really need a sign on the front door saying "This house is operated solely for the convenience of the bird"—she rules the roost, and I think she knows it. I can't walk past a novelty shop or toy store without getting her something: today it was a miniature Fisher-Price xylophone keychain. She's also got her own shatterproof cactus-stem margarita glass, to keep her out of my wineglass, and her own espresso cup and saucer, to keep her out of my coffee mug, and every little bouncing ball I ever got out of a supermarket vending machine is in, around, or under her cage. Election, shmelection; our house is governed by a blue-and-yellow fluffball who weighs less than eleven pennies. (I for one welcome our new psittacine overlords!)
*That's a frequent J.-ism; I said it to myself in my head as I was typing, thought "no, don't type that!", then re-thought "oh, c'mon, it's stream-of-consciousness," so I'm sticking with it.
Tuesday, November 9, 2004
Pop goes the culture
I got a TV Guide and a Star and a Marie Claire (Salma Hayek on the cover—mmmmmm). I stopped at the Headhouse Square Eckerd's first, which, like the supermarket, still had last week's TV Guide; I checked to make sure it wasn't a two-week issue (which they never have anyway) and that I was in agreement with the nearby newspapers as to the date (it's definitely no longer the week of Oct. 31–Nov. 6); then I went to the CVS at the other end of the square, wondering if there was a TV Guide embargo in South Philly or a delivery truck drivers' strike or something. The CVS really did have this week's issue, though—only two copies left; you better believe I snagged one fast. Yeah, I really should resubscribe; buying them at newsstands hasn't been too much of a hassle before, but I feel like I've been hunting the Snark this week.
Checking in
Blart. I'm kind of depressed. Don't want to write much. Also my office is cold; which I like better than it being hot, but it's so cold the nerves in my hands are dull and my fingers are stiff, which doesn't help my manual dexterity and keyboarding ability.
Just won the first eBay auction I've bid on since last winter (when I got some swan feathers for J.'s calligraphy; it's hard to find those anywhere but eBay). Must. Not. Get. Addicted. But, um, I really wanted it! And it has nothing to do with being depressed, really...well, okay, maybe. But that's better than if it was because I was manic. (When I'm depressed, I don't keep buying things; during my one full-fledged adulthood mania, I got myself $10,000 in debt in three months. Ack.)
I think I'll go to South St. on my lunch break and try to find a purveyor of magazines that isn't out of TV Guides (tried to buy one Saturday at the supermarket, but they didn't have this week's issue; and yesterday the convenience store across the street was sold out of them). And maybe a trashy gossipy magazine, like the Star, which Whitters of Polyester Bride recently wrote a sort of combined paean to/pan of, The not-so-noble printed word. Yeah, actually, I think I need that. Celebrity breakups and diets and fashion and bad plastic surgery, with lots of colorful pictures, and very short paragraphs: intravenous pop culture, please.
Just won the first eBay auction I've bid on since last winter (when I got some swan feathers for J.'s calligraphy; it's hard to find those anywhere but eBay). Must. Not. Get. Addicted. But, um, I really wanted it! And it has nothing to do with being depressed, really...well, okay, maybe. But that's better than if it was because I was manic. (When I'm depressed, I don't keep buying things; during my one full-fledged adulthood mania, I got myself $10,000 in debt in three months. Ack.)
I think I'll go to South St. on my lunch break and try to find a purveyor of magazines that isn't out of TV Guides (tried to buy one Saturday at the supermarket, but they didn't have this week's issue; and yesterday the convenience store across the street was sold out of them). And maybe a trashy gossipy magazine, like the Star, which Whitters of Polyester Bride recently wrote a sort of combined paean to/pan of, The not-so-noble printed word. Yeah, actually, I think I need that. Celebrity breakups and diets and fashion and bad plastic surgery, with lots of colorful pictures, and very short paragraphs: intravenous pop culture, please.
Monday, November 8, 2004
Hello, my name is...wait, it's around here somewhere
Yeah, it's a Monday. Viz.: I had to fill out a health insurance waiver form for my boss (I'm getting coverage through J.'s employer; for some reason no one can pinpoint, the university library where he works falls under the auspices of the university hospital's healthcare-workers union, and they get good stuff). Anyway, it had a one-letter-per-box thing for your name—last, first, M.I.—which I immediately started filling out with my first name first. Realized I'd screwed up, asked if I could have another form; my boss said "Just write your last name over it." So I did—with my maiden name, which I haven't used on official paperwork for over two years. Me: "Oh, crap, I forgot my name. Now can I have another form?" My boss: Big sigh, gives me the last form in the office. I filled it in right this time, then handed it back and said "Take this away before I can screw it up again."
Yeah. Monday. I don't think my weekend lasted as long as advertised; can I exchange it for another one or get my Saturday refunded? And can I start using the new one right now?
Yeah. Monday. I don't think my weekend lasted as long as advertised; can I exchange it for another one or get my Saturday refunded? And can I start using the new one right now?
Friday, November 5, 2004
Deep in the heart of Texas
Multiple choice: In Dallas County, Texas—the red state to end all red states, the cornerstone and centerpiece of Bush Country—the voters elected a sheriff who is:
Update: I was so excited I forgot the link. It's from PlanetOut.com, where the writers were apparently also so excited they couldn't figure out what to do with the headline: they probably didn't know which "first" to use, so they just wound up with Lesbian becomes first Dallas sheriff (which implies that there weren't any sheriffs in Dallas County before, but even the copyeditor in me will give them a bit of leeway because the story's so cool).
- a Democrat
- female
- Hispanic
- openly gay
- all of the above
Update: I was so excited I forgot the link. It's from PlanetOut.com, where the writers were apparently also so excited they couldn't figure out what to do with the headline: they probably didn't know which "first" to use, so they just wound up with Lesbian becomes first Dallas sheriff (which implies that there weren't any sheriffs in Dallas County before, but even the copyeditor in me will give them a bit of leeway because the story's so cool).
Labels
At the Chef's Market lunch buffet: a tray labeled "COLLARED GREENS." I can hear the police chief's press conference now: "Yep, those greens thought they were gettin' away from us, but we nabbed 'em and brought 'em down to the lockup."
(They're collard greens, of course, that down-South down-home favorite; and no, it's not a huge misspelling, but it provides more entertainment than other one-letter add/drop/changes would: colard, kollard, collerd—what's the fun in those?)
(They're collard greens, of course, that down-South down-home favorite; and no, it's not a huge misspelling, but it provides more entertainment than other one-letter add/drop/changes would: colard, kollard, collerd—what's the fun in those?)
Due deliberation
News item: Still no verdict in the Scott Peterson trial, as the jury begins their third day of deliberations.
J.: The jury is deadlocked between "guilty" and "guilty as hell."
J.: The jury is deadlocked between "guilty" and "guilty as hell."
Thursday, November 4, 2004
So anyway...
Now that it's safe to watch TV again, I was channel-surfing (because, while there's no campaign crap on TV anymore, there's nothing else on, either) and came across a hunting show on OLN (which is one of my programmed "favorite channels" because they sometimes have bull riding, which I'm embarrassingly addicted to). There was a map of Africa with a little animated plane flying over it, and the guide/host was talking about how he'd always wanted to hunt in Tanzania, and then you saw him riding across the savannah in a Jeep with herds of antelope in the distance and a giraffe in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro and Masai herdsmen driving their cattle to the waterhole, and he stopped and got out his guns and set up his blinds, and got ready to shoot...really small birds. Sand grouse, about the same size, shape, and color as your basic mourning dove—tiny little birds. I think this may be the first recorded example of under-kill.
(I mean, if you're going all the way to Africa with a TV crew, you may as well shoot something big. Or at least something that looks different than a bird you could accidentally hit with your bicycle without crossing state lines.)
(I mean, if you're going all the way to Africa with a TV crew, you may as well shoot something big. Or at least something that looks different than a bird you could accidentally hit with your bicycle without crossing state lines.)
Perspective
- I haven't been happy with the result of any presidential election since Clinton in 1992 (when I wasn't old enough to vote), and I became permanently disenchanted with him after "don't ask, don't tell" in July 1993.
- I've never voted for a presidential candidate who won: Dole in 1996, Nader in 2000 (long story), Kerry in 2004.
- It takes up to a year to become a Canadian citizen, and another three years to become a full citizen, and by then it'll be time for the next U.S. presidential election anyway. (Information via that CNN story everyone's linking to, "No Canada safe haven for Democrats.")
- Also Canada is cold.
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
It ain't over till it's...oh, wait, it's over. Okay.
Okay, I've got another good thing: One day after Election Day, and it's actually over. (Well, except for some Congressional run-offs in December.) I didn't think it would be. (Did anyone? Really, deep down, in your heart of hearts, did you think there'd be an electoral and popular vote winner without a recount or a court order, let alone within twelve hours of the polls closing?)
Also, since Bush doesn't have to run for reelection again, he should, theoretically, not have to spend any of the next four years campaigning. Which may result in the government accomplishing more things. Which may or may not turn out to be good, but, um, it'll be something different.
This morning J. and I both considered calling in disaffected, but we both sucked it up and dragged ourselves to work. (My office, mostly Democrat with a few Republicans who were too nice to gloat, was very quiet. A little...too quiet. J.'s office, entirely Democrat and mostly urban-dwelling, middle- to low-income minorities, had an awful lot to say, and said it.) Midway through the morning, I realized I'd forgotten to take my morning medication; by noon, I had a splitting headache and was feeling dizzy and twitchy, and decided the best thing to do was go home, take my meds, and crash for the rest of the day. (If I really, really wanted to, I could have gone home and come back, but the mid-day buses only run every 25 minutes, and I'd have to take four of them for a round trip, so to hell with it.)
So: home, meds, quality time with the bird (she was elated to see me back so early, and it was nice to be in the presence of something elated), then I went upstairs to lie down and wound up actually falling asleep till J. came home after 6. I never, ever take naps successfully, or sleep during the day if it's not a continuation of having slept during the night; I guess my month of up-past-2-a.m.-nights finally caught up with me. I think I might even get to bed before midnight tonight; what the hell, no all-night news to stay up for, and Spider Solitaire's not going anywhere. And if I'm well-rested tomorrow, I bet I'll be in a better mood; and who knows what amazing feats I could do at work?—like, concentrate for more than half an hour without double-doses of Ritalin. Yeah, "sleep is overrated" is overrated. Good night...
Also, since Bush doesn't have to run for reelection again, he should, theoretically, not have to spend any of the next four years campaigning. Which may result in the government accomplishing more things. Which may or may not turn out to be good, but, um, it'll be something different.
This morning J. and I both considered calling in disaffected, but we both sucked it up and dragged ourselves to work. (My office, mostly Democrat with a few Republicans who were too nice to gloat, was very quiet. A little...too quiet. J.'s office, entirely Democrat and mostly urban-dwelling, middle- to low-income minorities, had an awful lot to say, and said it.) Midway through the morning, I realized I'd forgotten to take my morning medication; by noon, I had a splitting headache and was feeling dizzy and twitchy, and decided the best thing to do was go home, take my meds, and crash for the rest of the day. (If I really, really wanted to, I could have gone home and come back, but the mid-day buses only run every 25 minutes, and I'd have to take four of them for a round trip, so to hell with it.)
So: home, meds, quality time with the bird (she was elated to see me back so early, and it was nice to be in the presence of something elated), then I went upstairs to lie down and wound up actually falling asleep till J. came home after 6. I never, ever take naps successfully, or sleep during the day if it's not a continuation of having slept during the night; I guess my month of up-past-2-a.m.-nights finally caught up with me. I think I might even get to bed before midnight tonight; what the hell, no all-night news to stay up for, and Spider Solitaire's not going anywhere. And if I'm well-rested tomorrow, I bet I'll be in a better mood; and who knows what amazing feats I could do at work?—like, concentrate for more than half an hour without double-doses of Ritalin. Yeah, "sleep is overrated" is overrated. Good night...
Today is another day
Good things. I'm concentrating on good things. Here we go:
1462 days till the next presidential election
That's November 4, 2008. Redesign your t-shirts accordingly. Woo-ee! Can't hardly wait. My money's on Kodos.
- Barack Obama beat Alan Keyes by what I think counts as a landslide; I'm surprised anybody voted for Alan Keyes. (Were their tinfoil hats over their eyes?) And it's refreshing to have had a major election where nobody could vote against (or for) The Black Guy because they were both black guys. Yes, it was necessary to make a choice not based on race. Welcome to the post-Reconstruction era.
- In more local news, Melissa "Queen of Sleaze" Brown (that's the Philadelphia Daily News's description, not just mine) was unable to defeat her Democratic rival, Alison Schwartz, even with the ads that said, basically, "My opponent is in favor of rape and hates America." (See, Schwartz was endorsed by Move On, which opposed military action in Afghanistan, where the Taliban sanctioned rape and sponsored anti-American terrorism, so a vote for her was, according to the Brown campaign, a vote for Pure Evil. In my opinion, that fucking ad was an example of pure evil.)
- Yeah, so, um, constitutional bans of same-sex marriage were overwhelmingly passed. But those were state constitutions. So maybe the bigots and zealots will decide it's safe not to amend the U.S. Constitution after all. Maybe they'll decide it really should be left up to the states if they think the states are doing what they want them to do.
- Everyone I personally know voted. Even those who said they didn't think they could or weren't going to. That's the main thing I'm going to remain positive about. Thanks, guys; whoever you voted for, Bush or Kerry or Badnarik or Nader or the man in the moon, you voted for democracy. And, as I said last night, maybe we'll get to do this again in four years!
- No more campaign ads. Back to junk food and beer and car and reality show and insurance and male-enhancement pill and chain-store commercials. I'm not actually glad they're back, but, after the viral skin infection clears up, the pimples don't look nearly as bad. (After the shark lets go of your leg, the mosquito bites are easier to stand. After the rain of frogs and eyeballs stops, the hailstones roll right off your back. I got a million of 'em.)
That's November 4, 2008. Redesign your t-shirts accordingly. Woo-ee! Can't hardly wait. My money's on Kodos.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Can I breathe now?
Just about 11:45 p.m. EST as I start writing this; the polls closed in Hawaii forty-five minutes ago, and if anyone anywhere in the country is still voting, it's because they've been waiting for hours and they can't legally be turned away if they were physically in line when the polls closed. I've been trying very hard to avoid any news, but I couldn't miss this when I went online: my swing state of residence, Pennsylvania, has apparently gone blue. It got its very own New York Times news alert e-mail and a "Top News" blurb on the AOL welcome screen. (Red letters and all: Top News: Kerry Wins Pennsylvania.) Gosh, I feel so symbolically relevant.
Overall, however, J. and I set about attaining an absolute minimum of political blather awareness: we avoided every part of the 6 o'clock network news except the local weather forecast, and J. bought some pure-entertainment DVDs on the way home. We wound up watching "Hellboy"—my comment: "Oh, good, something that has nothing at all to do with presidential politics." Pause. "I hope." (Not that I'm saying either candidate is the spawn of the devil...hey, look, a squirrel! [runs]) We watched that till 10 p.m., then switched to the Daily Show election day special ("Prelude to a Recount"); in the process, I consumed an entire bottle of red wine and a Lean Cuisine pepperoni pizza; J. made roast lamb, which took a few hours to cook, and which I'm happy to let him eat all of. We watched the Daily Show, then I dashed up to the office to avoid TV news (I think I hear pundits downstairs). I don't want to know, I don't want to know...not till it's a) certain or b) tomorrow morning, whichever comes first.
Random thing of the day: The bird seems not to have liked the Vote t-shirt at all; I think the strong "V" shape may have triggered her Hawk Panic reflex. (Descended from a long line of domesticated budgerigars she may be, but she still freaks out when she sees anything that conforms to the "above me and spread-wing-like" or "near me and squiggly" paradigm—the hawk panic and snake panic reflexes.) She wouldn't step on my hand, fly to my shoulder, or even look at me straight until I changed into another shirt; then she resumed her usual practice of spending as much time as possible on my head, in my hair, clinging to my clothing, and chirping at my jewelry. (You want the maximum amount of pet for the minimum price and total weight, get a parakeet. Our bird is friendly, intelligent, beautiful, interactive, entertaining, and she cost all of $12.99; she's ten pounds of pet in a thirty-gram bag.)
Between interruptions, browser crashes, and my insanely-slow dial-up connection, it's 12:50 now. Still haven't looked at the electoral vote maps or exit poll predictions. I'll have to eventually, I guess. Well, not if I post this fast and don't let my browser homepage open. (Depending on how able I am to get to sleep, I might sneak back online at 3 a.m. or so and see how things are going.) But, no matter what: It's past midnight, EST; it's past the official poll-closing time, HAST (Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time); we made it. And, um, we'll all respect each other in the morning, right? See you tomorrow. Don't stay up all night. (Unless you're on the night shift, of course.) And if we're lucky, we'll do this again in four years!
Overall, however, J. and I set about attaining an absolute minimum of political blather awareness: we avoided every part of the 6 o'clock network news except the local weather forecast, and J. bought some pure-entertainment DVDs on the way home. We wound up watching "Hellboy"—my comment: "Oh, good, something that has nothing at all to do with presidential politics." Pause. "I hope." (Not that I'm saying either candidate is the spawn of the devil...hey, look, a squirrel! [runs]) We watched that till 10 p.m., then switched to the Daily Show election day special ("Prelude to a Recount"); in the process, I consumed an entire bottle of red wine and a Lean Cuisine pepperoni pizza; J. made roast lamb, which took a few hours to cook, and which I'm happy to let him eat all of. We watched the Daily Show, then I dashed up to the office to avoid TV news (I think I hear pundits downstairs). I don't want to know, I don't want to know...not till it's a) certain or b) tomorrow morning, whichever comes first.
Random thing of the day: The bird seems not to have liked the Vote t-shirt at all; I think the strong "V" shape may have triggered her Hawk Panic reflex. (Descended from a long line of domesticated budgerigars she may be, but she still freaks out when she sees anything that conforms to the "above me and spread-wing-like" or "near me and squiggly" paradigm—the hawk panic and snake panic reflexes.) She wouldn't step on my hand, fly to my shoulder, or even look at me straight until I changed into another shirt; then she resumed her usual practice of spending as much time as possible on my head, in my hair, clinging to my clothing, and chirping at my jewelry. (You want the maximum amount of pet for the minimum price and total weight, get a parakeet. Our bird is friendly, intelligent, beautiful, interactive, entertaining, and she cost all of $12.99; she's ten pounds of pet in a thirty-gram bag.)
Between interruptions, browser crashes, and my insanely-slow dial-up connection, it's 12:50 now. Still haven't looked at the electoral vote maps or exit poll predictions. I'll have to eventually, I guess. Well, not if I post this fast and don't let my browser homepage open. (Depending on how able I am to get to sleep, I might sneak back online at 3 a.m. or so and see how things are going.) But, no matter what: It's past midnight, EST; it's past the official poll-closing time, HAST (Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time); we made it. And, um, we'll all respect each other in the morning, right? See you tomorrow. Don't stay up all night. (Unless you're on the night shift, of course.) And if we're lucky, we'll do this again in four years!
Mix it up
Non-political, interactive, alcohol-related link: what could be better for mid–Election Day distraction? Mixilator will generate a custom cocktail based on your answers to a few questions about flavor, strength, and complexity. Unlike most online cocktail generators, Mixilator produces results that look like they actually might be drinkable; there's a humor quotient in the drink names and the instructions, but the creator's goal is to generate recipes that are realistic rather than funny. (He goes into astonishing detail as to how he accomplished this in the Advanced Notes page. Sample quote: "To have the machine calculate the measures with so many parameters and conditional algorithms, classic cocktail measurement nomenclature had to start out in decimal form and, once the drink was generated, be translated into fractions and common measures, to maintain classic bar guide style.")
I ran it a dozen or so times; this is the concoction I like best:
I ran it a dozen or so times; this is the concoction I like best:
Jamaican Amused Dog CocktailI might actually try it; I don't specifically have all of those ingredients, but I bet Absolut Kurant, orange juice, and Angostura bitters would work about the same. I'm planning on having more than one drink tonight, and I may as well start somewhere...
Chill cocktail glass. Prepare as follows:
In pre-chilled cocktail shaker combineShake your moneymaker with a small iceberg.
- 2½ oz cherry-flavored vodka
- ½ oz orange juice
- ½ oz Cora Bitters
Strain into chilled cocktail glass.
Add soupçon whole cranberry.
Exercising my 19th-amendment rights
Here we are at last: Election Day. Even though I didn't get to bed till almost 2 a.m. last night, I was sitting bolt upright at 7:02 when J. came back from exercising. He did an actual double take and said "Concerned about the state of the republic, are we?" (I usually can't be dragged out of bed till 7:45 or later on weekdays.) We had coffee and breakfast, then went to our polling place—less than half a block away; a benefit of living in a small neighborhood. There wasn't much of a line, and we were in and out in less than fifteen minutes. Back to the house for more coffee, and for J. to take an "I voted!" picture of me. I didn't get a sticker—no one else in my office did, either; what's up with that, Philadelphia?—but I'm offering these pictures as, if not technically proof, an indication that I voted (and hence am permitted to comment on political posts in other peoples' blogs, and have sex with anyone else who voted—that being J. only, of course, who also voted, which works out nicely.)
Here I am in my Vote t-shirt, holding my voter-information postcard (which you can't read in this picture, but I've scanned it below):
click to enlarge
Also I'm wearing a beaded American flag bracelet, which you can see a little better here:
Here's a scan of the voter-info postcard, with the most specific identifying information blocked out, of course, but you get the idea:
click to enlarge
Now I'm going to do my darnedest not to post or talk about the election for the rest of the day, and avoid the news as much as possible, and desperately hope the whole thing's over by tomorrow. Just one last thing...
A vote for anyone is a vote for democracy.
VOTE FOR SOMEBODY!
Here I am in my Vote t-shirt, holding my voter-information postcard (which you can't read in this picture, but I've scanned it below):
;)
click to enlarge
Also I'm wearing a beaded American flag bracelet, which you can see a little better here:
Here's a scan of the voter-info postcard, with the most specific identifying information blocked out, of course, but you get the idea:
;)
click to enlarge
Now I'm going to do my darnedest not to post or talk about the election for the rest of the day, and avoid the news as much as possible, and desperately hope the whole thing's over by tomorrow. Just one last thing...
VOTE FOR SOMEBODY!
Monday, November 1, 2004
Evening observations
Went to the drug store to pick up some prescriptions around 8 p.m. En route: saw somebody being ejected from a Republican campaign center—a loud, beefy guy who looked about fifty was bodily pushing out a less-beefy, but even louder, guy who looked about seventy. (Sample shouts: "...but it's my right to..." "...well, whatever you said was the wrong thing to say to him...") I stayed the hell on the edge of the sidewalk and kept my head down; woo-ee, can't wait till the polls open.
At the drug store: Discovered that it's Christmas. The Halloween displays were mostly down, the remaining costumes and candy were on sale racks at the front of the store, employees were sitting on the floor opening cartons and setting up boxes of...Christmas stuff. Christmas cards, Christmas candy, Christmas decorations. Ack! Who the hell starts decorating for Christmas on the first of frickin' November? Can't we at least have some turkey- and Pilgrim-oriented items to ease us from pumpkins to Santa?
Well, I'm going to attempt to get to bed before midnight, in a further attempt to wake up early enough to vote before work. Less than an hour till the polls open in New Hampshire. Less than twenty-four hours till they close in Hawaii. Oh, man, I can't wait for this to be...dare I say "over"? Well, for the campaign ads to end, anyway. See you on the other side of midnight...
At the drug store: Discovered that it's Christmas. The Halloween displays were mostly down, the remaining costumes and candy were on sale racks at the front of the store, employees were sitting on the floor opening cartons and setting up boxes of...Christmas stuff. Christmas cards, Christmas candy, Christmas decorations. Ack! Who the hell starts decorating for Christmas on the first of frickin' November? Can't we at least have some turkey- and Pilgrim-oriented items to ease us from pumpkins to Santa?
Well, I'm going to attempt to get to bed before midnight, in a further attempt to wake up early enough to vote before work. Less than an hour till the polls open in New Hampshire. Less than twenty-four hours till they close in Hawaii. Oh, man, I can't wait for this to be...dare I say "over"? Well, for the campaign ads to end, anyway. See you on the other side of midnight...
One day more
A little after 1 p.m. on the day before the election, Eastern Standard Time; it's literally the eleventh hour, because in New Hampshire the polls open at midnight. On the other end of the timeline, in Hawaii, which is five time zones behind the East Coast, the polls close at 6 p.m. So polls will be open in the U.S. from 0500 GMT on Nov. 2 to 0400 GMT on Nov. 3, a total of 23 hours; and it's going to be the longest fucking day in American history. Especially since the political commentators are already champing at the bit to start calling the race at 12:01 a.m. when the first resident of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire steps out of the voting booth. (My personal goal is to vote as soon as I can—hopefully in the morning, before going to work—and then not watch any news coverage for the rest of the day. [At least not until the Daily Show's live election special at 8 p.m.] It's not that I don't want to know what happens; I just don't want to know every talking head's prediction of what the last ten minutes' exit polling could be construed as indicated is going to happen. ["With 10 percent of the precincts in Missouri now reporting, Candidate X has a 60 percent chance of winning that state, but if he doesn't he can make it up with Arkansas and Nebraska, where two percent of the vote is in, or else Oklahoma and Idaho, where we're predicting a ten-point lead as long as the barometer remains steady, or he can trade Delaware and Washington, D.C. to Candidate Y in exchange for Kentucky and one free agent to be named later..."] Also I plan to start drinking as soon as I get home from work tomorrow. If not sooner.)
Some of the less-scientific indicators are already in: the Washington Redskins, whose performance in the last home game before Election Day has coincided with the defeat or victory of the incumbent in every presidential election since 1936, lost to Green Bay yesterday; and I can't read horoscopes, but if you can, here's the star chart for Dixville Notch, N.H. at 12 a.m. on Nov. 2. (Actually, I'm not sure those are less scientific than the first twenty or so hours of Election Day media predictions...)
Some of the less-scientific indicators are already in: the Washington Redskins, whose performance in the last home game before Election Day has coincided with the defeat or victory of the incumbent in every presidential election since 1936, lost to Green Bay yesterday; and I can't read horoscopes, but if you can, here's the star chart for Dixville Notch, N.H. at 12 a.m. on Nov. 2. (Actually, I'm not sure those are less scientific than the first twenty or so hours of Election Day media predictions...)
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Does the one on the red horse wear red socks?*
Everyone and their dog has posted about the Red Sox winning the World Series—I have some pen-and-paper notes from last night and this morning, mostly pertaining to J.'s reaction, which I'll type up later. (As I've mentioned, he's originally from Wellesley, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, and he's lived through 45 years of The Curse. Sample quote: "I'd be less surprised if someone had discovered a new continent. One of the fundamental axioms has been overturned.")
In the meantime, I do feel compelled to mention that this has long been considered one of the signs of the Apocalypse—not as much as it would have been if the Cubs and Red Sox had faced each other in the series last year, but certainly one of the things that people used the "...and if that happens, the world will end" joke about. (And there was a lunar eclipse involved, too; the "moon turning to blood" that apocalyptic literature is full of. If anyone shows up on Halloween as an angel with a trumpet or on a pale horse, I'm going to start stocking up on canned goods with a thousand-year shelf life.)
*The second of the Four Horsemen; see Revelation 6, specifically verse 4. (My last post linking to a chapter of Revelation was on September 3, when I noticed that the number of jobs created in August—144,000—was the same as the number of people redeemed in Rev. 14. [Hey, I just report these things.])
In the meantime, I do feel compelled to mention that this has long been considered one of the signs of the Apocalypse—not as much as it would have been if the Cubs and Red Sox had faced each other in the series last year, but certainly one of the things that people used the "...and if that happens, the world will end" joke about. (And there was a lunar eclipse involved, too; the "moon turning to blood" that apocalyptic literature is full of. If anyone shows up on Halloween as an angel with a trumpet or on a pale horse, I'm going to start stocking up on canned goods with a thousand-year shelf life.)
*The second of the Four Horsemen; see Revelation 6, specifically verse 4. (My last post linking to a chapter of Revelation was on September 3, when I noticed that the number of jobs created in August—144,000—was the same as the number of people redeemed in Rev. 14. [Hey, I just report these things.])
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