You're gonna need a bigger scoop

My apologies to Mr Scheider, Mr Spielberg, and the shark for the preceding title but my reasoning will be obvious by the end of the post.

I recently journeyed to Petco with Gollum for needed animal items like food and dog biscuits in the very particular shape of a postman. So there we are wandering the aisles, both wondering how Cooper the Happy Dawg would fare in such environs when Gollum stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the huge litterbox serving as the endcap on an aisle. If you've visited Petco, you know of what I speak. The bin is about three feet long and four feet wide and who knows how deep and is completely filled with clay cat litter. After bumping into the back of the stopped Gollum, I hear her say in an awed voice, "Wow, that's huge. You would have to have a really big room in your house."

I was forced to inform her that it was a bulk dispenser of litter and she should stick with dogs. Never a dull moment with Gollum, nosiree.

A New Age

I have been completely swimming in news since the election started. I find myself reading news constantly. All. The Time. I am reading feeds on my iPhone before I'm even out of bed. Yes, I have asked myself if this is unhealthy. I mean, how many people need the AP wire or Maureen Dowd before they need coffee? The name Rachel Maddow was also tossed my way as someone to provide a fix. Since I am tv-less and on the edge of radio signals, I think this will be another vid-cast watched in bed.

Anyway, the latest sign of the times is Obama's plan to provide video versions of his weekly address. I first heard this on NPR where the reporter closed the story by saying, "YouTube did not exist when President Bush was elected." Yes, and the fact that it came into being, became a huge piece of the cultural and informational landscape and that he still wasn't including video at the end of his reign of terror is yet another example of how quick he was to adapt to new ideas.

January 20th cannot come soon enough for me.

Go vote!!!

The NPR mobile site has crashed. I can't check election returns. Aaaa!

Sent from my iPhone

The Adult Version

I was hunting for a good book to read when I go to bed after a long day of staring at student papers. As often happens in these situations, I re-read a title I really enjoyed once (or twice) before. This time, I chose to re-read the Hollows series by Kim Harrison. Nothing like a witch bounty hunter who both lives with a vampire who has sworn off blood and has a pixie for a partner. It's a great series.

While waiting for my library copy of the first book in the series, Dead Witch Walking, to come rolling in from the coast on ye olde bookmobile, I acquired a digital copy of the audiobook. I have to tell you, this is the best. I laid on the couch Saturday recovering from Friday's Halloween party and read the first 100-or-so pages. Then I crawled back into Big Swampy 'cuz the house was cold and I wasn't up to faking it anymore. I dropped in the earbuds and picked up in the book where I left off without having to focus my poor eyes. It was awesome. Last night did both! This was like an adult read-along book. While I am not appreciative of the audio artist's rendition of Ivy the vampire*, it was oh so very cool to be lying in bed having someone read to me.

*Question for the audience: why oh why must every vampire have a silky-husky-breathy voice? The premise of the Hollows series is that Inderland creatures who have lived among humans for centuries and have thus learned to mask their differences in order to survive are now living openly. You, like, can't tell me that there isn't, like, at least one vamp in the whole clan that sounds like a valley girl. The vampire character is not filling any of the well known stereotypes or caricatures of the species but the reader's voice sure is.

Technology update

Not only has the iPhone broken barriers in the number of mobile phoning pholks and inappropriate web-surfing behaviors in social settings, it has opened up new vistas of humor. I would like to enter the following exhibits into the official record:





I'm off to work on my halloween costume (can you guess what I'm dressing as? hint: not a hammer) and acquire the Fisher-Price phone sound to use as my ringtone.

This is not the cat you're looking for

Chaos had a vet appointment today. Out came the cat carrier.

This is not Chaos in the cat carrier:


Nor is this Chaos in the cat carrier:


Neither Three nor Barque had a vet appointment today. When they do, I doubt they'll pose like this.

At this time—although transportation to and fro was successful—we have no photos of Chaos in the cat carrier. I believe she is under the bed. Considering it's a waterbed, that's not an easy place to be.

Car 54 where are you?

The local newsrag reported that a local woman was shot through the leg after lighting the fire in her woodstove. A few weeks earlier, she spilled shot from a shotgun shell and apparently some made it into the newspaper that was used as starter fuel. The woman lit the paper, turned and began walking away when the shot exploded out of the stove and punctured her in the leg. She lived to tell the tell the tale.

But what if she hadn't? What if the shot had clipped an artery and she died and took the details of the ammo spill with her? Could Sherlock Holmes have figured out whodunit? I would have liked to hear his deductions that night:

From the trajectory of the shot, the assailant was standing on this side of the room. He is short, pot-bellied and has rather dark skin with a complexion like iron. He has four legs and an interesting gait. He cannot move too quickly. I believe we will also find he has a rather long, skinny neck.

Overheard in Meanwhile Manor

Me: Oh, that's rich! Bush is going to try to calm the nation's fears about the economy by giving a statement at the White House.

The T: Yeah, all he had to do was learn the word 'liquidity'.

Well, whaddyaknow

Thanks to KFluff, I've put off grading and planning for another few moments. More importantly, I've discovered that I'm gorgeous. I mean, check this out:

I'm an Ingrid!!

How can you argue with the results of an internet quiz that combines both advanced logic and magic? What I truly want to know is how you tell the difference between those two ingredients? Processes? Are they nouns or verbs?

Anyway, here's more info about me than you might want to know. I added the first comment, btw.

You abhor color and live in a black and white dimension.

You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me
* Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
* Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
* Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
* Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
* Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting! (I love the exclamation point here.)

What I Like About Being an Ingrid
* my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
* my ability to establish warm connections with people
* admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
* my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
* being unique and being seen as unique by others
* having aesthetic sensibilities
* being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

I don't think this is accurate. I'm often unaware there are even people around me, let alone that they might have feelings. My aesthetics extend only to how many different ways the primary colors can be used in my daily wardrobe.

What's Hard About Being an Ingrid
* experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
* feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
* feeling guilty when I disappoint people
* feeling hurt or attacked when someone misunderstands me
* expecting too much from myself and life
* fearing being abandoned
* obsessing over resentments
* longing for what I don't have

Hmm, if I go through these extremes I am unaware it happens. I attribute any shame or guilt to lingering scars from Catholicism. Rather than feeling attacked when misunderstood I think the other person is a dolt for not seeing the obvious. Owning cats has alleviated any possibility of feeling abandoned. They do a good job of ignoring me to begin with.

Ingrids as Children Often
* have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
* are very sensitive
* feel that they don't fit in
* believe they are missing something that other people have
* attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
* become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
* feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)
Wow. The first five describe me as a pre-teen or teen dead on target. The last two, not so much. This is where neither advanced logic or magic came through in the test.

Ingrids as Parents
* help their children become who they really are
* support their children's creativity and originality
* are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
* are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
* are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Nothing to add here since I am not a breeder. I think children are a parasitic affliction that can be easily avoided.

I'm going to float back to the top of this post and stare at myself a bit longer. I think I'm hot.

You don't say

And the nominees for Line of the Year (thus far) 08-09 are:

• The energy on campus is so different in the summer. I like the fall quarter the best of all of them, though—at least there's still hope. —IT tech

• Don't take this the wrong way but you're not as big of a bitch as people said you were. —statistics student

• You lied. When people ask if they should take statistics with you I'm going to say, "No, Lee lies."—statistics student

Let's recall our other favorite lines from years past:

• I would rather put a gun to my head than take another class with Dr. Lee. —unknown student

• [to another math faculty] Don't take this the wrong way but you teach just like Lee. —precalculus student (for the third time)

Cast your votes in the comments. I'll post new ones as they are uttered.