My kind of town

So we never actually saw the ground until the wheels touched it. I
think I prefer those types of landings. I get a little wonky when the
ground is coming up quickly. Anyway, we let the woman who shared the
misery of her trip thus far and the drama of the continued flight
delays which only added to her, ahem, joy with the five rows around
her go ahead of us when deplaning. It was a small gesture which
probably was not the difference between her making her connection or
not but 'tis the season and I hope she made it. We also met a
gentleman from the Buffalo Bills' practice squad. Mr. Copeland Bryan
was gracious while I was a babbling idiot. I wish him well in his
football career. We then found a beverage spigot and are now huddled
at the gate with our fellow travelers. So far the departure time has
been delayed by 43 minutes. I've never been in a de-iced plane before.
Wish me luck.

Not moving

While sitting at the gate, a gent taped up a sign that informed
travelers that a new state law requires airlines to make accomodations
for food in and food out if the plane is stuck on the tarmac for three
hours or more. It seems now to have been prescient because we are now
sitting on the runway without our main engine running. We can't fly
into Chicago due to traffic at their end so we get to sit here for 40
more minutes. The folks in front of me have partially unpacked their
puppy (how do you tell an animal to yawn and pop their eardrums?) and
the woman behind me is sharing her misery with whoever answered their
phone at the other end as well as rows 15-20.

Hmm, I wonder if FrenchieFoo got out of Chi-town ok ...

Stay tuned. I'm not going anywhere for a while.

Sent from my iPhone

And so it begins

This (below) is what we like to see: pavement! No worries for the
first flight and I hope the runway in Chicago is just as clear. We had
a good time but I'm ready to be in my own bed, fighting the grrllzz
for space.

Mother Nature comes through at last

Finally, a bit of fluffy white hit the ground. Of course, I hope there
is none of this on the runway in a few hours but I'll enjoy it in the
meantime.

Last day of world's best cuisine

Tomorrow we head back to the great northwet and leave this snowy
wonderland behind. Apparently Mother Nature forgot we were coming and
failed to order up the snow. Absolutely no frozen water to be seen. Oh
well.

The trip has been a culinary delight. It began with a fish fry that
cannot be beat anywhere else in the continental U.S. If the beer-
battered fish isn't hanging over the edges of the platter-sized plate,
take your $8.95 elsewhere. I've lived in two regions of the country
that are not here and have reputations and industries based on seafood
and they cannot hold a candle to the fish dinners found in this Rust
Belt city. That meal alone made wrestling with TSA worthwhile.

I'm drooling again so perhaps it would be best to set the electronics
aside now.

Sent from my iPhone

From the tarmac

Made it all the way to my spawning grounds and can't get off the plane
because there are no worker bees here to meet the plane. The pilot
just executed a "circle around the parking lot one more time." Still
no drones around and parts of the terminal are dark. This is bizarre.

Sent from my iPhone

A Xmas Xocktail in the nation's Capitol

11:02 am

I still have questions about this interfaith service. It's Christmas
day. Are the christians peeved about the interfaithness of the
service? Is such a service held everyday? If the service is being held
because today is Christmas, why bother with the interfaithness?

Sent from my iPhone

Airport chaplain??

Wow. The disembodied voice just announced the airport chaplain will
hold an 11 am interfaith service in the meditation room of the main
terminal. See previous post re: my not knowing the new air travel
script and kick up my confusion factor by an additional 1/2. I'm
picturing Father Mulkahey from M.A.S.H. Now I'm also picturing
Corporal Klinger. So far it is a surreal holiday.

Sent from my iPhone

At the aeroport

We are at the airport 3 hours before departure. We have plenty of
time. There is no security line worth commenting on. So why is my
stomach in knots? What is it about being in an airport that makes me
crazy? I've decided today's unease is because I do not know the new
airport script well enough to be comfortable. The check in kiosks keep
changing style and arrangement. I've never before printed out my
boarding passes the night before. I didn't know how to check in and
get my bag checked. And then the very friendly United employee tapped
through the video screens too quickly for me to see the gate info. I
was adrift and, in my head, I identified myself as one of those newbie
travelers who piss off the more practiced folks. And all this happened
before my iPhone set off the metal detector.

Sent from my iPhone

Moments of Holiday Joy

We exited the $4 hotel room to the sounds of Dad yelling at child to
stop doing whatever it was it was doing a moment before. We hold back
so we can avoid getting in the elevator with the not-so-happy family.
However since the shafts are right next to each other, we overheard
the ringing of the fire alarm bell, the rapid cessation of same and
the immediate bawling of child. It was not yet 9 am.

Sent from my iPhone

The $4 Hotel Room

Merry Xmas from a $4 hotel room in the Emerald City. As the sun comes
up this fine morning, I can hear the melodic sounds of huge jets
launching and heading towards other places--including cities with
snow. The T and I will be joining the throngs of travelers, once we
drag ourselves out of this huge king size bed that engulfs almost
every inch of floor space in the room. We decided to spend the night
here in EC rather than wake up before Santa finished his run to hit
the roads. There was also the possibility that we would be denied the,
uh, right to pay $130 to leave the Blue Laser in the airport parking
lot. Oy! That's a lot of change. So our vacation began last night with
an eve feast at Denny's (seasoned fries!--a new holiday tradition). I
chose this particular hotel for two very important reasons: it was
first to pop up on the google list and it offered a room and park
package for only four-bucks more than the parking garage. So here's to
the holiday. More later.

Sent from my iPhone

A tax on punctuation?!?

In the words of that master songsmith, Tom Lehrer: "It's always seemed to me, after all, that Christmas, with its spirit of giving, offers us all a wonderful opportunity each year to reflect on what we all most sincerely and deeply believe in - I refer, of course, to money."

There may be too many commas in that quote but money is what came to mind while doing some shopping. The purchased items in question are feminine hygiene products versus birth control, popcorn, and juice.

Let's start with the last one, since I know you're curious as all get out about the first one. I'll let the suspense build. The other morning at the local bagel shop, I was considering adding a juice to my regular order of coffee and a bagel. The price for juices was "Market price." Say wha?!? This is juice, not lobster or a bottle of fermented grapes. What is going on? It strikes me as a scam rather than a savvy pricing technique. If the month's receipts look like they're going to be a little light, just charge more for juice. Milk was listed the same way. I know milk and gasoline are both used as measures of inflation and that both have increased at somewhat similar rates over time and that people react more to changes in gas prices—mainly because of the bright neon signs advertising said price on every corner—than they do to milk prices but charging market prices for milk seems so smarmy. Is the milk market so volatile that the price must be kept blank? Are cows in revolt?

Speaking of cows, perhaps I've backed into the reason for market price milk: ethanol, a derivative of corn—which leads us to the next sticker shock story. The price of popping corn has tripled in the past month. The ultimate comfort food cost me $1 per pound the other day. My previous restocking cost only $.35 per pound. This is not the truffle version of popping corn, folks. It is plain old generic yellow, non-organic, throw-me-in-oil-and-shake-the-pot seed. Can the same forces be at work here as they are with the milk? Me thinks so. Everybody is jumping on the ethanol bandwagon and corn is the new farmer's gold. Those of us who don't want our bones snapping when we're 80 or just want a healthy snack are going to pay through the nose 'til the dinosaur juice is truly gone and we all have solar powered amphibious vehicles to tool around on over the surface of the hot drowned planet.

And now to the one you've been waiting for: the cost of feminine protection versus that of birth control. Ready for arithmetic? btw: all prices came from goggle searches and a local medicine cabinet. Tampons cost $0.11 to $0.15 each. Let's say the heroine of our story, Ms. Regular, always has her friend in town for seven days and six of these days require tampons. In one 24-hour window, Ms. Regular goes through six to eight tampons for a grand total of 36 to 48 tampons during the Fun Week. Let's not forget what I like to call the goalie but is better known as the panty liner. These cost $0.14 to $0.16 each. Using six to eight per day, the grand total is 42 to 56 over the course of the week.

Don't worry, I'll do the math for you. Using the lowest prices and the fewest totals, the cheaper end of the scale is $9.84 per cycle, without tax. At the other end of the scale, the grand total is $16.16 per cycle. This is an annual expense of $118 to $194. Meanwhile, over in this corner, we have The Pill which costs $.11 per day ($3 per month, $36 annually), including the placebo week. If refilled earlier to skip the placebo, the cost jumps to a whole $.14 per day, or $51 per year. Now I ask you, since a prescription for the pill is so inexpensive, and it is now considered acceptable and safe to just stay hormonized and skip the whole cycle anyhow, why isn't the whole female world taking the pill!?! You can't tell me chicks haven't been already been getting the refill sooner and skipping the placebo week before it got pharmaceutically trendy.

Count me in for $150 per year in my pocket rather than in my ... oh never mind. I'm shocked. I'm also waiting for the backlash from the economist whackos who similarly argued against high-mileage vehicles: if everyone drove one, the state would have less fuel tax to spend on bridges and what-not. Well, I for one would much rather deny the state the period tax and spend the money on popcorn, thankyouverymuch.

Discuss. Let me know what you come up with.

In lieu of work

Damn you, Kulturfluff, for meme-ing me!! Since this isn't the first time you've done this to me, can we call it a re-meme? Is this rememenation? In the voice of Gov. Ahnold: I'm a memenator. Your blogs, give them to me. When any of those, uh, words show up in the OED, give me a call.

Considering that blogging is looking better than anything else I've got on my plate this weekend, I'll participate in the spirit in which this was meant. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Done. See above.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself. Done. See below.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Not possible. See further below.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Still not possible. See below.

7 random or weird things about myself.
This may be possible but it is not easy, due to the fluid definition of the words "normal" and "weird." One blogger's norm is another's not-so-norm. But I will give it a try. I have no idea if I'll be able to reach the requested 7 and I've been thinking about this since I got notice of the memeification.

1. I am a scaredy-cat. Since I saw the Hush episode of Buffy TVS, I cannot even listen to the episode soundtrack. Totally freaks me out. When the music starts, all I see are large-headed floating men in robes (hmm, perhaps I'm having flashbacks to my horrific Catholic upbringing; more pondering required). I cannot watch horror movies in the dark. I have to watch them very early on a Saturday morning when there is plenty of daylight ahead so I can begin the process of forgetting the movie before dusk ever falls. When I am tired, my fear of the dark manifests itself as a hesitancy to go into a dark part of the house because I know I will feel goo on the wall where the light switch should be and/or the ghoulie will grab me right before the lights come on or I will find the corpses of the watch-cats in puddles of blood and vittles. None of these events has happened ... yet.
   


2. One of my cats is named Square Root of Nine, or Three, for short. When she's behaving, she's known as Positive Three. When she's not behaving or she's thinking outside the box, she's called Negative Three. Her tabby markings give her a nice 9 on her side. She was named before she was adopted from the pound so the marking is a coincidence. It was obvious that more than two cats were going to live with me and coming up with names was an ordeal so I thought streamlining the process much like the Borg did would be a good move. When 7 of 9 came to my lips, it immediately morphed into Square Root of Nine due to my math background. This naming process lasted for one cat only. Chaos came into the house soon after Three and Barque Simpson came after that. The pet naming book given by a friend in an attempt to prevent psychological damage to my pets due to their odd names apparently had no effect on the outcomes.
   


3. I hate juniper bushes because they smell like fresh cat urine. Do none of you people who have made this ugly shrub a mainstay in your landscaping realize this? I can pick 'em out at 20 paces. Before I see them, I can smell them and will often cross the street. It's horrid.


4. I can ride a unicycle. I learned when I was 12 and, like a bicycle, you never forget. It is quite the workout for anyone looking to get shapely thighs in thirty days. Keep in mind that you can't coast.


5. I am obsessed about keeping my finger nails cut so short they look like I bite them. I have worn out nail clippers. Think about that for a sec. When is the last time you had to replace one for being dull rather than for being lost? I don't like seeing the part of my nail that does not have any skin under it. The color change is odd and must be removed immediately. I'm not comfortable when I can feel the edge. Just talking about this has gotten the clipper out of my computer desk drawer (which is not to be confused with the clipper in the desk drawer right behind me or the one in the dresser drawer or the one in the bedside table or the one on my keychain) and some nail honing will commence as I think about #6.


6. I once used an episode of My Three Sons to cure a physical ailment. I had just adopted Mao, the senior cat in the household, and it was obvious I had a cat allergy, complete with sneezing and watery eyes. She was the first cat to own me and I had no idea I might even be allergic. I let her live with me because she would have been sent to the pound otherwise and adult cats are not often adopted. So to prevent euthanasia, I brought her home and the sneezing began. Anyway, do you remember the Sons episode when the youngest son—was his name Bobby? (weren't all youngest tv sons Bobby or Beaver?)—developed an allergy to his mongrel dog Tiger? One suggestion given on the show was for the boy to bury his face in the side of the dog and breathe deep. The theory, according to this incarnation of Marcus Welby, was that the huge influx of particles causing the allergy would overwhelm the immune system and not kill the victim but somehow snap the system out reacting that way. In short: poof! the allergy would be no more. Well, I grabbed Mao, breathed deep while my nose was buried in her pelt and went through an entire box of tissues mopping up snot and tears—and then never sneezed again. It's crazy but it's true. YMMV. There are now four cats in the house and we all get along just fine.
   


7. My most fervent fantasy is for humans to evolve a, uh, feature that would control the ever-increasing population of the species. Since we can't seem to exercise any control on our own, I'm hoping mother nature steps in and does it for us. Sure, I'll take the telekinesis gene development while Gaia is tinkering with our DNA but something to slow down our viral growth would be nice. I'm not talking Children of Men extremism where the entire species goes inexplicably sterile at once but applying the reproductive brakes could go a long way to solving a lot of society's ills. And don't even give me the economic doomsday argument against this fantasy of mine. First give me an example of a economic theory that doesn't involve constant insane growth then we'll talk.

Tags of seven people whose blogs I read. Well, I don't read seven other blogs (should this lack of blog reading have been included as a weird thing on the list above?) I read Kfluff's constantly and Amelia's occasionally. That's about it. All my other internet stops are gadget sites or design sites or game sites or comic sites. Nothing too insightful or interactive. So I'm going to change this rule a bit and encourage Frenchie to start a blog. The same goes for DrStudentAffairs/StudentLife (you know who you are) and Rainbow Hemp. Jump in, folks, and add to the conversation.

I would love to hear from other folks who are reading this and let me know how you landed here. The clustermap you see somewhere in the left margin shows hits from the middle of America and across the pond in England and Europe and Australia and others. How did you manage to find this blog among all the blogs on all the computers on all the planets with sentient life? Leave a comment and introduce yourself.

A Soggy Rube Goldberg

Another life lesson was learned this past week. I'm not exactly sure what the lesson is yet but it involves a garage, gutters, and rain barrels.

The T and I live in a house totally dwarfed by its detached garage. The garage is by far the largest structure in the neighborhood.


Yes, that is three stories of garage you see there. When explaining to folks, friend or stranger, where we live, at some point their faces light up and they exclaim, "Oh, the Taj Garage!" or "The Garage Mahal!" and they know exactly where our house is based on the gravitational pull of this structure. The building has its own fan club. I've taken to calling it the Monolith, ala 2001: A Space Odyssey. And, no, I'm not calling it the monolith just so I can work this cartoon into my post, although I'm happy to do so.

Recently, because we had manual laborers staying with us on their vacation, we decided to get some gutters up on the Monolith. I took this idea one step further and installed some rain barrels to save the water for my summertime ritual of growing my own compost material. This is where the, ahem, plan went awry.

Here's the math portion of the post, sung to the tune of woodchucks chucking wood: how much water could a garage accumulate if a garage could accumulate water? To rephrase the question in our own words so as to help us set up the equation: how much water hits the roof of the Monolith rather than the ground and how many barrels do we need to contain this water? The dimensions of the roof are 30 acres x 30 acres ... no, wait, I'm exaggerating. It's only 30 x 30 feet. So how much water hits this 900 square foot expanse during a drizzle? Well, a 1 inch rainfall results in 129,600 cubic inches of water. For those of you getting thirsty just reading about water, grab a big glass because that's 561 gallons of water! In only one inch of rain!! Do you recall I live in the pacific northwest and not in the atlantic southeast? I'm not praying for rain. I'm cursing the gods for the squish my lawn has 6 months of the year.

But back to our exercise. How many barrels do we need to contain the water? To be as precise as most of my students are when working their exercises: a truckload—and let's go with the big truck. We were feeling all happy with ourselves when we took advantage of the last two days of sunshine to get the gutters up and the barrels in position. We were whacking ourselves on the foreheads when, after a one day drizzle, the barrels were full and the overflow was once again threatening to float the Monolith down the block. We got two more barrels and didn't exactly think through how we were going to connect them to the first pair and so applied some Rube Goldberg logic and went to bed, thinking we'd have some time to trouble-shoot before the barrels were full.

Are we dolts?!? The next morning, thanks to some thick rain, aka: snow, this second set of barrels was full and the overflow was splashing down between us and our cars. Now we have to wade through Lake Overflow to get to the back alley. So let's once again divert the water until we can come up with something. Here's the current solution:


Barrel #1 in the foreground is full and the drainpipe now runs directly to Barrel #2 which is also full. Yes, that is an electrical circuit box you see on the side of the Monolith. Let's not think about Water + Electricity right now. Anyway, the clear tubing runs from the overflow spigot to the extra piece of drainpipe propped up on the barrel which diverts the water off to the property line and allows us to get to the alley and our cars without strapping on life preservers first. Please don't trip over the gutter pipe on your way out of the yard.

I hope the neighbors are enjoying the entertainment we provide.

Say WA!?!

From the Things I Can't Make Up File

The state of Washington was trying on a new motto a while ago. After spending over $200,000 doing, uh, research, a committee of clearly over-caffeinated, sun-deprived folks settled on Metronatural to replace Say WA! which had promptly fell flat on its face right out of the gate. I preferred a distant runner-up Come see the orcas while you still can!

The motto fiasco bubbled to the surface of my consciousness the other day thanks to a student's scribbling at the bottom of his paper. After diligently working numerous steps and showing all work, he proudly wrote "... and Wa-La! We have the answer!"

Wa-La?!? Talk about disassociation. I refuse to admit to how long it took me to figure out that he was referring to the term voila, which you may recall is French for the ancient Greek word eureka.

As painful as that un-word is to say, it is not at the top of my personal list for language debacles. My all time fave comes from a high school student who proudly wrote Sike! on the board, complete with circles and stars for a stronger rubbing-it-in effect. No amount of discussion could convince him that the word derived from psyche, itself an offspring of the ancient Greek word whacko.

And again I ask you, Say WA?

Two days later, I find this

Just thought I would post a blog before I go back to skipping across my shiny hardwood floors and suddenly springy carpets. And looky what I found in my rss feeder:


This is not the vacuum I bought but now I'm thinking I need one for other flat surfaces in the house. Please note the length of the cord. Even in miniature, there's enough there to cross the street. Is that kitty litter being sucked up?

One Day It Happens

For my birthday a few weeks back, I received a card that said:
One day it happens: You think to yourself, "You know, that music is kind of loud," and you reach over and turn it down. And you are 40.

I will not beat the dead horse discussion regarding how the number the volume dial is set to is inversely related to one's age until hearing aids are needed. Today I will add to the list of age determining tools. The measuring stick I speak of is the importance of household appliances and the effect of their performance on your well-being. More specifically, I am speaking of vacuums.

There are many levels at which appliances can be used to measure your age. The first is the fact that household appliance are even on your radar as a topic of contemplation. The second is that you went out and purchased a new vacuum rather than just using the one that was left behind by the previous renters or by the roommate who never used it even though it was his/hers. The third is that you did research into which vacuum is best on hairballs, both human and feline, pet hair, human hair, and hair of unknown origin. The fourth is that, even though it is Saturday and there is not a category 5 hurricane or a blizzard or a herd of wilderbeast outside your window, you chose to vacuum your entire house because you were so excited to have a new vacuum and you could not wait to see how it performed. For gaia's sake, you even got an extra hour of party time tonight because daylight saving time is over and you spent it vacuuming!

My personal experience, very recently, is that I was ready to throw out all the rugs, both throw and wall-to-wall, into the trash because they were filthy and only getting worse even though my Roomba was trying its hardest to keep up between my miserable bouts with the other so-called vacuum. You know it's bad when walking across the rug sends up little clouds of dust much like softball players do when when trotting across the infield. It was bad. So out came the Consumer Reports and off to Costmo we went. Upon arriving home, we couldn't wait to get the super sucker out of the confines of the packaging and plugged in. (Side note: the cord on this thing is so long, we can vacuum the neighbors' houses without changing sockets. Is this a symptom of McMansionitis?)

Much joy!! Our rugs are blue! Not gray—blue! The one in the hallway is green! Not gray—green! The one in the breakfast nook is tan! Not tan—tan! OK, that last rug didn't change color so much as it did texture. Just as joyous.

So, one day it happens. You think to yourself, "You know, I really need a new vacuum," and you go out and buy one and use it and love it. And you are 40.

Catching my breath

Oh, I hardly know where to begin. Mainly it's because I haven't blogged in so long that I have no idea where I left off.

Item: The latest instrument of torture to evolve in the realm known as The Meeting almost wiped out the math department here at humble little community college on the hill. I am speaking, of course, of the webinar. It used to be the case that the dungeon master had to be in the same room as the jailbirds. Now the disher of the punishment can be thousands of miles away and oblivious to the fact that his or her droning voice is causing your brain to leak out of your ears. I am not kidding when I tell you that fifteen minutes into the long-distance powerpoint presentation, I was asleep. Proximity is not a variable in the function that calculates the pervasive potential of powerpoint to pulverize perspicacious perceptions. When I came to, I heard the woman answer her cell phone—for the second time—and not miss a beat as she inserted the phrase "I'll have to call you back" into the description of how the counter on the screen will increase as more students sign in. And as we know five is greater than three so we know two more students have signed in.

Dante could not have imagined this horror. We thought Grizelda (not her real name) could hear our comments via speaker phone. The first clue that this was not the case was when I and a colleague were on our feet, bent over the table and screaming into the phone, "Grizelda! Can you hear us?!?" Her shpeel, which was appropriate only for elementary school-aged children, continued unabated. It was so odd because she did pause moments earlier and was responding to a question she must have heard. Well, given evidence that she couldn't hear us, L started packing up his bag while R and I started to laugh about Grizelda's obliviousness and mind-numbing voice. She was still droning on and on and on and on when suddenly L knocked the receiver off the hook and—we hope—disconnected Grizelda. When I could stop laughing long enough to open my eyes, I couldn't see R until I looked under the table. He had fallen out of his chair and was on all fours, pounding the floor and laughing so hard he couldn't breathe.

It's a good thing the windows to the conference room are frosted. Let's just keep this little incident between us, shall we?

(No) Parking Zone

Once again I find myself wandering The 'Pot like a CO2 molecule in a
bottle of pop that's been shook up. I believe there must be a branch
of science dedicated to determining what objects are most closely
related--like all used to complete a particular task--and the furthest
distance apart they can be placed.

Sent from my iPhone

Access Forbidden

Another story I can't make up.

I acquired new software. Cool. It's a calculator emulator for the computer. It works just like the actual handheld but the keystrokes stay visible on the screen. I figure this could eliminate about 250 questions per quarter. Questions along the line of "How did you type that in?" or "What are your window settings?" Anyway, our adventure begins when I try to install it on the computer in the classroom. I tried to log in as an administrator. No luck. The domain is not available. I don't know a lot but I know that is a problem like when an individual Borg is cut away from the collective. No individual thought is possible since all the applications are sitting on a server somewhere ... somewhere over there, wherever there is. Considering the PC I am trying to log into is a 10 year old PC, the analogy is not far off. This beige box is one glitch away from being a doorstop.

I place a call for help. It goes something like this:

Me: D, I can't log in as an administrator. Can you fix that?
D: Sure. I'm on it.

time passes

D: I logged in as you.
Me: How did you log in as me when I couldn't log in as me? Never mind. Before you answer, when I logged in successfully as a student, I couldn't reach the internet.
D: You ... couldn't ... reach ... the ... internet ... [D isn't thick or slow; he was just thinking out loud.]
Me: The last time this happened, J said he had to 'hit the switch in the closet.' Something I couldn't do.
D: Oh, is this in G10?

From the sound of his voice, I know D has clearly figured out what the problem is from my little comment. Are you ready for this?

D: When the janitor for that building pushes his bucket too far into the closet, it disconnects the internet connection.

I was severed from the most massive human creation in history by a bucket. Let the jokes begin.

Do you think stuff like this ever happens at NASA or in the Pentagon?

And this was a good day

Life with The T is nothing but joy. I never know what is going to happen next that is going to make me laugh out loud. I offer as evidence, one morning last week.

The T gets up, gets showered, gets fed and gets out the door. This is a day when she has to get to the bus stop for a 1+ hour ride thataway. I close the back door behind her and jump in the shower. The shower is centrally located between the front and back doors of the house. This makes a shower acoustically exciting. On occasion, you hear sounds but cannot discern from which direction they came. I think that has something to do with having your head under water and the sound waves breaking oddly. Whatever. My head was lathered up when I heard quite the ruckus at what I thought was the back door. I discerned it was the back door because the watchcats all ran in the opposite direction from the noise. Considering it was as loud as it was, I knew I was not reliving Psycho nor was I in danger from a burglar, watchcats' behavior notwithstanding.

The ruckus stopped so I figured The T finally got herself in the back door, grabbed whatever it was she forgot and got back out. But then I heard another ruckus. I believe it came from the front door this time because the pitter-patter gallop of retreating feet was moving in the opposite direction as they were before. I then heard steps through the house and then a door slamming and then nothing.

I rinsed, repeated, toweled off and had no idea what I just experienced—or failed to experience due to my being safely ensconced in the bathroom.

I get to my office when my chest rang—er, the cell phone in my chest pocket rang. It's The T telling me she drove for an hour to her job rather than take the bus. "Why?" I asked innocently. Well, it all began with a bag of used cat food, aka: poop. Ruckus #1 was The T unable to re-enter the house through the back door because the bag of poop which was hanging from the 1920s deadbolt for which we do not have a key, spun the deadbolt and locked her out. We've been hanging the day's deposit on that knob for two years now and this is the first instance of the bolt turning. Anyway, Ruckus #2 was The T coming in through the front door, grabbing what she forgot and then leaving. Hmm, as I'm writing this, I have no idea if she left through the front or the back door. I'll have to ask.

The reason she drove to her job, rather than jumping on the metro, was not because she missed the bus. No, she still had plenty of time this morning to get to the stop on time. She did not miss the bus. She missed the bus stop. She was wool gathering—just what you want to know about other drivers—and when she came to, she was too far past the stop so she just kept driving. For another 60+ miles.

I can hardly wait to see what is going to happen this week.

From numbers to words

Whereas the last post was all about numbers, this one is all about words—specifically, artistic ways of dealing with too many words on a page.

I brought home A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel, by Tom Phillips this weekend. I picked it off the shelf of graphic novels because it was a new title amongst the other ones that don't seem to turn over too quickly. I then walked out of the store with it because it is very, very cool. If you ever get a chance to flip through the book, I suggest you do so. Words are artistically eliminated from the page and those that are left visible tell their own story. The art added to the page also lends itself to the message conveyed by the now highlighted text. The title itself is an example of the technique. W. H. Mallock titled his book A Human Document. Creative obscurity turned it into A Humument. All in all, not bad for a 19th-century novel plucked off a used book shelf for three pence.

This reminds me of Stephen Wright's line about not using a highlighter on important passages in texts. He instead uses a black Sharpie marker to block out the unimportant verbiage. Bravo!

Anyhow, I immediately strolled over to the 50-cent or trash cart in front of the store and brought home my own sacrificial text. While my artistic skills are not worth talking about, I thought perhaps I could find words on the page to describe my mood that day or an event or even use it like a hard-copy blog. It's not easy reading a page and remaining detached from the words enough to not get caught up in the author's original intent while cataloging the words enough to see which ones to save.

I'll let you know how my dismemberment of this tome progresses.

Is there a collective noun for "numbers"?

I'm pondering if there is a collective noun for numbers, other than the word numbers, course. That would be silly. Digits show up in all different kinds of places and are used in different ways. Is there a term to describe them when they show up on one blog entry?

0: number of times I'd eaten eggs benedict in the last 40 years

1: number of weeks in the fall quarter completed to date
also: number of times a student has asked me this quarter: Exactly what are you drinking?

2: difference between number of students who showed up on day one and the number of chairs in the room that faced the front

3: number of times I've eaten eggs benedict for breakfast in the last two weeks

4: number of minutes it takes me to cross campus from my brand spankin' new office to the room my 8 o'clock class is held in; does not include coffee pick-up

48: number of hours it took to render a digital copy of 5+ hours of Pride & Prejudice, starring His Dimpleness Colin Firth, and move it to my iPhone. Time well spent. Mr. Wickham looks smarmy no matter the screen dimensions.

4663: the simple, elegant and completely wrong answer



And just because it's cool: Zipskinny. Enter your zip code and get some cool census data, like the education level attainment, demographics, income levels and how it compares to neighboring zip codes. Not a bad use for numbers. Whereas "dictionary diving" is a term that refers to the act of getting lost in a dictionary even though you only went in with the intention of finding one word, "digit diving" refers to getting lost in a page a numbers like those on Zipskinny. I'm going to go type in the zips of all the places I've ever lived. Ta for now.

Brand new year! Let's rock!!

New books, sharpened, pencils, spiffy calculator, a backpack with 23 compartments that open and close. New clothes, a parking hang-tag, new shoes.












Excitement, anticipation, enthusiasm, eagerness, impatience, ambition, gusto, zest, piquancy.







When is the first break?








Agnes, by Tom Cochran
All images copyright 2007 Creators Syndicate Inc.

Commute time of 0 minutes

This big-town/small city I live in is tucked away in the Pacific Northwest, an area of the country where the denizens are construed as being more concerned about the bovine contribution to global warming than whether said bovine are goooood eatin'! This perception should not imply that we don't like good barbecue. In the words of one Mr. Cambpell: Mm-mm-good.

A few years ago, alittle shack popped up on the side of the main road through town. I thought that the structure was going to become YAES, or Yet Another Espresso Shack. You can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting an espresso shack. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about yet were alive when the Kodak Instamatic was in use, think Fotomat booth on edge of parking lot. That form of the shack has evolved from its humble roots as a spot to drop off film to have it returned in little pieces of 3 x 5 beauty into a place to acquire a legal drug. Anyway, this newest shack was soon sporting the best aroma in town, that of burning charcoal and scorched meat.

Without showing evident concern about cleanliness issues—or the clean air act, for that matter—the locals have turned the Meat Shack into a success. In fact, the Shack has grown into an actual building with tables and place settings. Granted the food is served on paper plates and the utensils are plastic, but at least there is an alternative to take-out or eating in your car. Since Meat Shack is a name that conveys the humble beginnings of this local success story, I think I'm going to stick with it for the duration.

Well, driving past the Shack yesterday, getting caught up in the mouth-watering scent that is barbecue while trying to stay on the road, I noticed that the owners are not resting on their laurels. Since they moved across the road from the original shack to the newer eat-in structure, there has been constant upgrading of the building and rearranging of charcoal grills and fuel and what-all it takes to get the poultry, bovine, or swine heated to an appropriate temperature. The latest edition of progress has been to put a fenced-in yard right next to the restaurant with—you guessed it—future meals grazing on the insta-lawn!

This looks like the barbecue version of the seafood restaurant lobster tank. I wonder if the customers also have the option of offing their entree as well. "Well it's been a few years since I attended rabbinical school and I need to practice my schetica skills. Let's go get some barbecue, kids!"

I'll let you know what the turnover is in the pen. Maybe the beasts are just there as a draw. Maybe not.

Ow ow ow

I'm a little sore right now. I went on a hike yesterday, 12 miles
round trip, 6 miles in and up, then turn around and reverse. The turn
around point was a Alpine lake at 4400 feet, fed by those snowy
patches on the mountainside right over there. The presence of the snow
didn't keep me and my hiking partner from going for a swim. OK, I lie
a little. When I stripped off my socks and plunged my feet into the
lake, I had second thoughts, but after sitting there for 40 minutes I
realized my feet were no longer numb. So how bad could a jump in be, I
said to myself.

Well, my hiking partner has a history of this sort of thing, the
swimming right by snow in December sort of thing. So she wasn't really
waiting for me to take the first leap (I don't think). Since I could
see the bottom and also see that there suddenly was no bottom, and
since I had never swam anywhere except in a man-made space or a space
roped off by man, I wanted to see how we were supposed to get in.

So she did this shallow dive maneuver that got her away from shore and
past the bottom we could see. When she surfaced and turned to face me,
she looked exactly like Gollum--her eyes were HUGE and she was making
thus sound that I can't describe but which I interpreted as "all my
skin has tightened so much due to the cold that this is the only sound
I can make."

So I followed Gollum, taking a few tiny steps to the edge if the
seeable bottom then launching myself ... and when I broke the surface,
I couldn't breathe because every muscle in my body had clenched
tightly. This, of course, means that I also began to sink like a
stone. I made some noise that I hope Gollum interpreted as,
"forgiveness will be hard to come by" and got back to shore.

In retrospect, it was very cool and I will probably do it again. Of
course, I say this now, having just arisen from the waterbed, 12 hours
removed from the hike out and the long wait for a pizza and the
incoherent babbling due to exhaustion and hunger. Hey, I only got one
tiny little blister from the experience. All in all, it was worth it.

Brave New (Handheld) World

Here I sit on this lovely bench set out for the sole purpose of
providing a resting spot for those whose companions are lost in the
aisles of bolts of material. And on this, Day 15 A.i., it is the
launch point of my first mobile blog post. While The T peruses
patterns that may make it into a quilt made of my favorite t-shirts (a
project going on at least two years now), I am happily tapping away.

We threw a NAP (Not A Party) yesterday and the iPhone was the center
of attention for a bit. It's a tough call which feature was most awed-
my awed-ly received: a) the instant google mapping of any address tapped
on in the contact list or b) the two-fingered unpinching that enlarges the
screen image.

OK The T has emerged. I'm going to try and post this. More later...

Brave New World

I have ascended, fair readers, to the ranks of the truly Apple-ized. Yes, I acquired an iPhone exactly 13 days ago (hang on to that, it's an important factoid). I have since been transmogrified into a very hard person with which to live. "Hey! Check this out! Watch this! Isn't this cool?!?" To spare you all the intense proselytizing of the believer all in one posting, I will try to space out my reactions, stories, and ohmygawdisn'tthisamazing comments over several days. Let's start with one now, shall we?

One a-ha! moment in particular happened on Day 2 A.i. (A.i. = After iPhone) when I was cooking dinner. While boiling water to soften the noodles of the day, I was listening to tunes and checking email. In the middle of that multitasking, The T called. The music faded into silence, the iPhone did a little vibrate-thing and the screen identified the incoming caller. I pinched the cord in that fat spot where the mic lives and answered the call. Following the exchange of whatever earth shattering information the call contained, I pinched the fat spot again and the music returned to whence it was. Just two screen taps or so with my stylus finger (formerly known as the index finger) and I was back in the email I was reading. It was truly cool.

Maybe the cool factor was more extreme for me because my computer—and, therefore, my only access to email and the web—is on the second floor of the house. For me to check in on the virtual world, I have to leave the floor of the house where the action happens. Since our 1925 house only has four electrical sockets (one for the waterbed, my computer, The T's computer and a lamp/Mr Coffee/toaster combo), there is no way my computer can move downstairs. But with the iPhone, I was able to check email in the kitchen! Granted, the email I get is along the lines of "check out this skateboarding beaver video" but to me it is important.

There are a number of other How Did I Live Before stories which I'll post as I can get the words in order, but for now let's return to the fact that this is Day 13 A.i. Yesterday, Prophet Jobs, donning the denim and t-neck denoting his high rank, faced his congregation and said, "iPhone price, I slash thee!" Thus, the moaning and wailing began. This is so not how Apple has operated in the past. Usually, the price of an iThing drops right before it falls out of production. I totally didn't see this one coming.

[On the other hand, The T has a history of making me wait before I buy a gadget. The last time she slapped on the Handcuffs of Patience, the price of my desired Palm dropped $100. She was making me wait this time as well but since I wanted to get the gadget before classes started so I could devote every waking moment to playing with it without my classes suffering, I jumped. Yes, I'm hearing about it.]

Well, Apple has a 14-day return policy. Well, I didn't want to return my new favorite iGadget, I just wanted a $200 refund. So I called the Apple Shrine I bought the iPhone at and explained to them, "Timewise, I am within the 14 day window for returns. Physically, I am so far removed from you that only a transporter beam could get me to your store in time to show you my receipt and claim a refund for the price difference." Well, let me tell you, this was the easiest transaction I have experienced in quite a while. All it took was a few rather cryptic numbers from the receipt read over the phone and the next thing I know, I have a new credit card bill emailed to me showing a credit of 200-iBucks.

I didn't think it was possible, but now I like the iPhone even more.

Finally! Time to type

Finally, my travels are over! Let the panic about the upcoming quarter commence. But before we get to that, let me get you caught up on a few things.

1) My travels to a point east of here for a calculator training workshop. Being a math dork, I feel we should define our variables. If home base is called Pt. A, let's call my travel destination Pt. B, shall we? Now that we know what we're talking about, let's make it very clear that the next time the state senators from Pt. B and the surrounding counties come up with a resolution for secession from the state, they should be allowed to leave! They've already done it once. I say if this behavior becomes a habit, we take advantage of it and cut them loose. Oy, what a hole. Upon my return, I was asked if I saw the waterfront near the river. I can honestly say I saw no evidence of greenery or water in my stay in Pt. B. Ugh. I felt like I was in a version of Sin City. The calculator is quite cool, by the way. I need more time with it alone but I think we're going to get along just fine.
Anyhow, while trying to figure out how to navigate my way out of a part of town I should not have been in, number 2 occurred.

2) The T calls while I am cruising Pt. B looking for my workshop site and verifying that the car doors are locked and she reads to me from a lovely document sent from my former state of residence. Seems they want to garnish my taxes or something because I wasn't a good little doobie and return the state plates and registration tags when my vehicle was registered in my new state of residence. Since I didn't do so, they stuffed my file in a drawer for 2 years and then sent it to the state collection agency that tacked on an additional 17% to bring the grand total to over $1600. Need I mention that is more than the bluebook value of the car? So now I have to prove that the car was registered in the state of Pt. A. This supposed solution to the question what do you want from me besides $1600? was not easy to figure out. Every time I called the state to ask more information, I was told by the friendly automated voice, "There are 5 (or 2) callers ahead of you. Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. Your call will be answered in approximately 2 (or 3) minutes." Well, I don't know what system of time that bureaucracy is running on but I lost 5 hours of my life, one hour at a time, on hold. The T was also calling and while she was on hold on her cell phone, she called from the landline. The message on the landline descended from there are 6 callers ahead of you, to 5 to 4, etc., until there was only 1 ahead of her. Since she was still on hold on the cell phone, shouldn't that have been the 1 person ahead of her on the landline?!?

Here's an added twist to the drama: I sold the car to a friend of mine who I met in the state in question. She later followed the trail I had blazed to Pt. A and is now returning to the state with the mind-numbing bureaucracy and stringent car registration and insurance laws. So she is going to try and register the vehicle in that state once again. I don't think she'll have a problem though, really. How can I say such a thing? Because that state had the wrong vehicle identification number (VIN) on record for the 7 years I lived there and I didn't find out until I could not register the car in this state! That's how I know! The title I held on the car was in no way related to the car in my driveway because some dweeb typed it in wrong. My proof of auto insurance and my car title had two different VIN and guess which one was wrong. Yup, the state. I'm not complaining, though, considering that this is the same group of folks who changed The T's sex on her license from the fairer sex to the less-fair sex when all she did was renew her license. Thank gaia the motor vehicle drones in Pt. A didn't notice that one, eh? "You would like to register your vehicle today and come out of the closet as a transsexual?"

3) While this adventure rolls along, The T and I went off to a conference/retreat focused on ... hmmm ... let's call it Johnny Can Add But We Haven't Figured Out How to Assess It Yet. Let's be very clear on one thing, folks: the kids can do the math. It is not a question of some can and some can't and that's OK because we can't all do everything. That's bullhockey. People can do math. No matter their age. It's the systems we have to work in as teachers and students and administrators that beats the drum and beats the beauty out of the field and beats the curiosity out of the individual and makes mathphobia an accepted social ailment.

The T was at this retreat in her guise as a educator wonk designing/working on a grant to address mathematics and science in middle and high schools. I was there in the role as a tertiary ed math prof who has agreed to be a partner on said grant. That was kind of fun, being able to work with The T in a professional way. If nothing else, I now understand what it is that she does for a living. And I have a better grasp of education initiatives out there that are trying to help folks who want to help those who are trying to learn the math. I say again, let's be clear on one thing: the kids can do the math. The folks teaching them need resources and support and need to know they are valued as part of the solution to solving issues in improving mathematics achievement. Those that contribute to perpetuating mathphobia because they themselves suffer from it (whether or not they know it) need resources and support so their teaching can improve.

OK, I'm getting down from the soapbox (how did I get up there anyway?). The retreat was great and—coming on the heels of my visit to Pt. B and my being bureaucratized by the man—it was just what I needed to feel good about being in the field of education.

More later, gang. I have to go mail off some paperwork to the wonks.

How far we've come

I don't understand why DOS needed to be emulated via JAVA but it was fun to play with.

While I'm away....

I'm off to a 3-day workshop that's going to get another gadget in my hands. bwa-ha-ha I am so excited. I will do (almost) anything to acquire a new toy. Currently in my drawer I have four Palm PDAs, three iPods, a GPS unit, a Mac iBook and G3 lappie, as well as a G3 and G5 desktop computer. I also have three graphing calculators, an old school mechanical calculator, an abacus, and four slide rules. Don't argue with me that a slide rule is not a gadget. Any item that comes with a manual that consists of bound pages rather that just stapled sheets has got to be a gadget.

Anyway, the goody I will acquire this week is a new TI-Nspire. How can you not drool when you see this thing? It can do so much that it comes with two keyboards! This bi-faceplate issue is the driving force behind the workshop. Me thinks this gadget has a big brain and if I tried to figure it out on my own I would only scrape the surface—and probably not very much of it. I can't wait to see what tricks this thing can do.


While I'm away, I thought I would leave you with an online game to help fill up your time. I will introduce it to you the same way it was introduced to me: with no directions on how to play. Please give it a whirl and see how many attempts you need to figure it out. The link I have is for a site that reviews games so the writer does give some clues about how to play as he explains what he likes about the game. If you want to try it with no foreknowledge, click the link and play Gimme Friction Baby before you read the whole review. The game designer said he thought adding directions would take away from the simplicity of the game and they are not really needed anyhow. It is a casual game, so no time limits or pressure to kill or be killed. I've lost hours of my life to this game and my high score is only 29 while my average is in the very low single digits. Have a good time.

In the background while I type this is a podcast of A Way With Words. Yes, we digit-heads love words too and this public radio show is a hoot. The focus is words and language and etymology and puns and grammar. I mention it now for two reasons. The first is that I do not think a lot of affiliates have picked it up yet and, besides the four podcasters that listen, everyone who calls in is from San Diego or Wisconsin. I'm trying to expand the listenership. The second reason I mention it is that as I'm trying to concentrate on typing, a few phrases made it through to my gray matter:
Books never crash. And you can use them in the tub.
I was wondering if they were metrosexual, but didn't know if I was allowed to say that on the radio.
The Macaroni Club—completely metrosexual. With lots of product in their hair.

OK, so it may sound like they drifted from the topic there but they were on task. The lyrics to Yankee Doodle were under analysis. I'll leave the rest for you to think about. I was actually a caller on this show once and if you want to know why "a whole nother" sounds more legitimate than it looks, post a question.

Look what I found

For more info, click the links.

Item 1: What are you doing on August 28th at about 3 A.M. PST? If you're calendar is free, you might want to go outside and watch the moon turn red. No, the rapture hasn't been scheduled. There's going to be a cool eclipse event that turns the moon red instead of rendering it invisible. It will be visible across north America. You east coasters might miss the end because the sun will rise before the event is over but it's still worth getting out of bed for, eh? Don't call me. I'll be outside.



Item 2: Who said math wasn't useful?
Things I have learned from surfing this morning:
1. a handy conversion: 60,000 pieces of card stock = a fractal creation
2. Obsessions come in degrees. My colleagues laughed at me when I finished an online course in record time just to get the free graphing calculator, but I don't think my 4-1/2 day obsession compares to what this woman has done.
3. There is an Institute for Figuring. What a great name. Those of you who took enough math may recall that iff is math shorthand for if and only if. And now IFF stands for this institute as well. Cool. Those of you who know any grammar are twitching right now because the phrase if and only if a preposition ends with. Those of you who have ever traveled to Tatooine know only Yoda can get away with that type of verbage.

Item 3: Is the heat getting to you?
A nice trim might cool you off. And what else are you keeping under that outfit?



Item 4: Stop playing with your food!
What do you get when a number of obsessions collide, one of which is art and another is chocolate? You get edible shoes, that's what. The drool on my keyboard is not because of the heels, I'll tell you that much.

Item 5: I wished I'd known that sooner
Yes, the housing market is cooling—if for no other reason than mortgage companies have created a population of homeless, bankrupt individuals who played the lottery via an adjustable rate mortgage and lost when they couldn't make ends meet (oh, if they'd only paid attention in math class)—yet here are some helpful tips if you're looking to buy.

I love this one: When house hunting don't be too wary of the Harley parked in front of the house across the street, it might turn out to be owned by really friendly lesbians!

Item 6: I need one of these
Nothing like letting your inner geek shine through with a tattoo. Nerd Be Proud.

How do you know when it's done?

Far be it for me to argue

---
Why are you looking down here? That caption wasn't enough for you?

Stuck on the Dark Side

When the Jedi Steve teamed up with the Dark Side to get a revolutionary new light saber, phone, iPod, email and web surfing device to the minions, I thought those who think different could rejoice. I thought maybe those consumed by evil could be convinced to close the Windows and come around to the side of good. Apparently I rejoiced too quickly. Here's a shot from inside a Death Star franchise:


Found at Gizmodo

Hey Rae! You've Jumped the Shark

Every time I see her face, I go off my vittles for a week. It's a fantastic diet. Slimming with because of Rachael! She's so perky it makes me pukey.

And why would I want to cook a rock?!?

Yes, you've come to the right place

Been doing a little redecorating. Hope you like it.

Numbs, Numbers, Numbests

Which of these two statements makes you feel like you are throwing money away:

1. Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime?
2. Your airline miles are about to expire.

Follow-up question: when did airline miles become currency?!? And there's more! How do you react to this statement: Expiring Airline Miles Could Cost Consumers $28 Billion. What does that mean? Is this a figure akin to the national debt? Do we all share a portion of this amount? How exactly will future generations feel the impact of a lost $28 billion airline miles?

I thought I was pretty good at kicking around in a virtual landscape, but this has me perplexed. If my mother had misplaced her stack of S&H Green Stamps rather than spend an evening licking and sticking them into little books, would she have felt a loss over their value in merchandise or just regret at missing out on the experience of having the glue pumped from her stomach? (true story; it was quite a stack of stickers) I can function with the S&H function: you earn stickers by buying items A, B, and maybe C and when enough stickers accumulate, they can be redeemed for item D. If you lose the stickers, you can still buy item D and forever wonder if you would appreciate it more if it had cost you only postage and a little indigestion.

I cannot wrap my mind around losing airline miles, let alone get worked up about it. What frosts my chickens, however, is the fact that this virtual currency is taxed! Wow. That is quite a feat. There is nothing we can point to and say, "here is a pile of miles" yet somehow value is attached, calculated, and taxed. I am going to stop rating my dreams on a scale from 1 to 10 lest they be taxed.

Enough of that. I have another virtual number to share. How old are you? No, really. Well, there is more than one answer to that question—and I don't mean your actual age and what anniversary of your 29th birthday you happen to be celebrating. I happen to be 39 if you count only years. If you count other variables like smoking, drinking, stressing, commuting, and laughing, I am only 19 and can look forward to giggling for another 75 trips around the sun. I don't know the formula but I can point you to the Real Age calculator. Have fun and report back, kiddies.

And then they were billed. Last but not least for today, I would like to share with you a blurb regarding the presentation of numbers as brought to you by that bastion of incomprehensibility, the wireless phone industry. Also, mentioning this allows me to bring the iPhone into today's post and isn't that what it's all about anyway? I still do not have my very own but I have been getting enough pleasure vicariously through the stories of those who stood in line. David Pogue (should that be iPogue?) received his first bill and summed it up thusly:

This development illustrates yet another clash between Apple’s typical philosophy of elegance and simplicity—and the unprepared, cluelessness of its cellular partner.

Phun with Photos

So Mao, queen of the this castle's clouder, has recently been diagnosed with old kidneys. They haven't failed completely but they are tired. So Adventures with a Geriatric Cat now begins. The first thing that went through my mind when I found this out was that I have no really good pictures of this furball. I'm sure this will be rectified in the coming weeks and that she will dread seeing me stalking her with the clicking whirring flashing hand-held box. So to stick with the photo theme...

I'm having a hard time determining which is satire: Link - More fish movie posters

Living with The T, an individual who has never said no to trying out a pen and then buying as many of them as possible when it turns out to be perfect, I've grown numb to the plethora of ink-wielding devices in the house (this in no way means I can easily find one when I need one but that is a blog topic for another time). I realized how badly this pen obsession could go when I saw this Mercedes Pens.

Of course, the owner has a blog.

I've long been a fan of Worth1000.com, a site dedicated to keeping those creative juices flowing. A recent contest was entitled If Trekkies Ruled. My favorite photo-creation from the bunch:

Zeus save us! That face is perfect!

Here are a couple of other shots from a site I just found. From what I've seen so far, it seems to be more actual photos with results achieved in the darkroom rather than on the computer.

More fun with office products.

Too many chefs at the keyboard

A few days ago, I was repeating the ritual of restocking the dairy at home and inadvertently grabbed fat-free half-and-half. I think the cartons of this product should be neon in color and include a symbol warning consumers of impending doom. Something along the lines of Mr. Yuck would warn folks quite nicely. What is the point to fat-free half-and-half ?! Doesn't half-and-half exist in the first place so we can get our hands on the good part?

This morning, I was plodding through some newsprint, sipping contaminated coffee—what exactly is in fat-free half-and-half, anyway?—and reading that obesity is a social epidemic. I am paraphrasing here but the idea is that if your sibling is obese, your chance of becoming obese increases 40%. The conclusion was not that you share your sib's genes, rather that obesity spreads much in the same way fashion does. Fashion! Good grief. My morning angst slowly changed from "what poisons am I ingesting by using fat-free half-and-half" to "ohmigawd keeping up with the ever-spreading Joneses is not causality IT'S THE FOOD, STUPID!!" I love this comment:

" ... The study found a person's chances of becoming obese went up 57 percent if a friend did, 40 percent if a sibling did and 37 percent if a spouse did. In the closest friendships, the risk almost tripled. ...

Despite their findings, the researchers said people should not sever their relationships. ... "

Sheesh. I can just hear phone lines buzzing with the following: "I'm really sorry, Sally, I can't go for lunch with you at The Trough today because hanging out with you might make me fat."

To sum it up nicely, I point you to Inkling. She spent some time reading the comments to the story when it ran it the NY Times and describes the experience as the fascination of the abomination: much like a train wreck, you can't turn your eyes away from the gore. Rather than suffer through the comments myself, I find it easier to point you to her summary.

Aside: One of the studies Inkling links to studied multiple social factors on eating behaviors. As the number of people at a meal increases so do the size and duration of the meal. Meals eaten in large groups were over 75% larger than when eaten alone. Wow! My comment about eating at The Trough was done tongue in cheek. Good to know research backs me up.

I escaped the newsprint and went to the internet, coffee in hand. You may be wondering why I'm even using the abomination known as fat-free half-and-half. Well, I can only justify my actions by hating waste more than than taste (should I have written waist instead?). I'll drink the swill rather than just dump it and lose the $3, add the carton to the landfill and the contents to the water treatment plant without trying to learn from my mistake. Anyway, while reading RSS newsfeeds, I came across the following list of stories at The Consumerist, defender of those buy things. This is a non-doctored screenshot of the order in which the stories hit the wire:

I think Meg and Ben need to have a little inter-office convo as they're posting stories. I believe Meg's question about why people are fatter now than ever before, posted at 9:11 AM, was at least partially answered three minutes earlier when Ben posted the video of McD's rolling out a bigger bovine-on-a-bun menu item.
Links: obesity article, McBeef video

Once these words were out, I was gussing them up a bit and pulled down the following menu:
I propose a change to these menu options. How about instead they range from Smallest to OBESE ? Then we can justify the research into a link between typing and gaining weight.

Are you gonna eat that?