Tuesday, August 17, 2004
new Angry Alien/30-second bunnies movie!
It's Jaws in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. A MUST SEE!
It's Jaws in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. A MUST SEE!
i get it....
like evhead (evan williams), I am also addicted to the "next blog" feature of the new blogger navbar. That was pretty sneaky...
like evhead (evan williams), I am also addicted to the "next blog" feature of the new blogger navbar. That was pretty sneaky...
i am so bored
I am (at this very moment) formatting my lessons for my Sessions.edu class. It's mostly pulling together all sorts of things I've written before, tweaking it a bit, and modifying some images. These were all due yesterday. I suck beyond belief at deadlines...especially those I set myself. This one even had an "early completion" bonus attached to it, but I lost a whole weekend of work time, because I was housesitting again. When I set the deadline, I didn't know I'd be doing that, and I can't sit and work for 18-20 hours at my friends' house like I can in my own (it just doesn't have the right furniture). Couldn't do things earlier, because we're busy at work. In fact, we're still busy, I'll have to do a lot of work today, and I'll probably only turn in two of the six lessons today....at this very moment I am working on number 2, and it's 3:40am. These are probably going to drag out another two or three days, which is unfortunate becuase I have eight chapters to edit and submit on Thursday.
I do love my coffee.
I am (at this very moment) formatting my lessons for my Sessions.edu class. It's mostly pulling together all sorts of things I've written before, tweaking it a bit, and modifying some images. These were all due yesterday. I suck beyond belief at deadlines...especially those I set myself. This one even had an "early completion" bonus attached to it, but I lost a whole weekend of work time, because I was housesitting again. When I set the deadline, I didn't know I'd be doing that, and I can't sit and work for 18-20 hours at my friends' house like I can in my own (it just doesn't have the right furniture). Couldn't do things earlier, because we're busy at work. In fact, we're still busy, I'll have to do a lot of work today, and I'll probably only turn in two of the six lessons today....at this very moment I am working on number 2, and it's 3:40am. These are probably going to drag out another two or three days, which is unfortunate becuase I have eight chapters to edit and submit on Thursday.
I do love my coffee.
Monday, August 16, 2004
i was too embarrassed to post this earlier
I had no problem indicating I was a 7th-level'er in Jimbo's or Rana's blog, but I didn't want people to see the details. Truly, I am not violent (gluttonous, yeah). I just answered the "do you like violent movies or video games" question with "yes" because I'm all for fake gory schlock, and first-person shooter games in the Star Wars vein are a great way to kill time. Really, though, I'm not a terrible person. I could always blame this on Catholic school...somehow.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test
I had no problem indicating I was a 7th-level'er in Jimbo's or Rana's blog, but I didn't want people to see the details. Truly, I am not violent (gluttonous, yeah). I just answered the "do you like violent movies or video games" question with "yes" because I'm all for fake gory schlock, and first-person shooter games in the Star Wars vein are a great way to kill time. Really, though, I'm not a terrible person. I could always blame this on Catholic school...somehow.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Moderate |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | High |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Very High |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Moderate |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | High |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Very High |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | High |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Moderate |
Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test
swimming IS a major sport
Sorry pjm...Google thinks that swimming is a logo-worthy event:
Although Phelps won't win 8 golds (or even 7 golds), he can still win a buttload of medals. I know it's not very patriotic, but I've been an Ian Thorpe fan since the last Olympics, and I'm glad he's won his individual events so far, including the head-to-head vs Phelps. Kudos to NoCal's Natalie Coughlin, who won gold in the 100m Backstroke. Also, in the "someone really should highlight these things" category, 53kg women's weightlifter Udomporn Polsak won a gold medal—the first Thai woman ever to win a gold medal in anything. Good for her.
Sorry pjm...Google thinks that swimming is a logo-worthy event:
Although Phelps won't win 8 golds (or even 7 golds), he can still win a buttload of medals. I know it's not very patriotic, but I've been an Ian Thorpe fan since the last Olympics, and I'm glad he's won his individual events so far, including the head-to-head vs Phelps. Kudos to NoCal's Natalie Coughlin, who won gold in the 100m Backstroke. Also, in the "someone really should highlight these things" category, 53kg women's weightlifter Udomporn Polsak won a gold medal—the first Thai woman ever to win a gold medal in anything. Good for her.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
oh, thank god
Once again, I have triumphed over genetics!
I AM 11% WHITE TRASH!
I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box. [This is all true, actually.] Take the WHITE TRASH test at Fuali.com
[via if you don't have cable and your library card has expired]
Once again, I have triumphed over genetics!
I AM 11% WHITE TRASH!
I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box. [This is all true, actually.] Take the WHITE TRASH test at Fuali.com
[via if you don't have cable and your library card has expired]
preparing for all sorts of school
My second summer class is over; I turned in my final exam on Friday. No more "Fundamentals of Human Resource Management" for me, thank god. Actually, it was a fine class. The prof was a hoot, and if you're going to sit through four hours of HR lectures twice a week, the prof being a hoot is definitely a plus. The next two weeks are school-free, as classes start on the 25th. Crap, that's not really two weeks, is it? More like ten days. Oh well.
Here's something for all you professor types: as soon as you know the books you're going to use in your classes, post them on your faculty web page. Please, I beg of you, on behalf of all my fellow students. With a head-start, and armed with all the ISBNs for the books I need for the fall, I managed to cut my textbook bill by a significant amount ($165 compared to $325). The half.com textbook market is awesome. While most of my books were the actual editions, I also got a few of the international editions of textbooks -- exactly the same, just not printed in the US. The knock on int'l editions is that obviously you can't resell them at your school's bookstore, but you sure can resell them on half.com. But I did manage to turn a profit on my summer book: bought the real, hardback edition on half.com for $50 (compared to $90 used/$125 new at the bookstore), then sold it back to the bookstore for $60. I also got a Norton English Lit anthology (v2) for less than $20, because it was grimy around the edges. I don't mind a little grime. Anyway, the point is that textbook prices are insane, so if you can help your students out by giving them a head start, that's a good thing. Here's the fall lineup:
- Organizational Change and Design: a required class for the management concentration, this is part two of a course I took last semester. I picked the one taught by the same prof as part one, because I really liked him. I like interesting profs who expect a lot out of their students, and reward them fairly for their efforts. There's also more writing in this fellow's class than in most of the other biz classes I've taken, and I appreciate that. I am so terrible at objective tests, I need the essay questions and case analyses in order to show that I'm not a complete dumbass. However, in this class there's a group paper. I hate group projects, period, and a group paper is even worse. I am not against the concept, I'm against the fact that the majority of people can't write, don't do their work and generally do things to bring down the group's grade. I do know that this prof engages in 360-degree evaluations with regards to group members, and takes things like "this person didn't do jack" into consideration. Depending on how I do in this class, this prof might be one of the guys I go to for a rec letter; even though it will be for the English Dept, he's able to judge my ability to synthesize info and write coherently about it.
- International & Comparative Management: a required class for the management concentration, and I know nothing about this prof, except what I read on ratemyprofessors.com, which is "he's really boring and kinda hard, but a nice guy". Of course, I take these ratings with a grain of salt, so this class will probably just be another in a long list of incredibly mind-numbing biz classes. There's a written assignment for each class, probably something in the case analysis vein, so that's a plus in my book. It's probably what garners the "hard" rating from other students, though.
- Management Issues in High Technology Companies: a management elective. I'm not taking it because I have some great interest, instead I'm taking it because we need three electives and I only had one to date and can't count on any electives at "good" times next semester (my last), so best to get one while I can. I know the prof is well thought of by other profs, and that's good. There's a group paper in this class, too (ugh)...but I have a slightly better feeling about this one, because this is a seniors-only class. We'll see.
- Business Systems and Policy: a required class; this is where I get to learn all about Microsoft Access and how it's so wonderful for business integration (sarcasm intended). Give me a freaking break. I'm trying very hard not to have a bad attitude about having to take this class. I work with real database systems every day. I've written books about them. Don't tell me that Access rocks. Grr. Now watch me flunk it and have to take it twice. :)
- Philosophy of Science: I took this class in Spring '03 but had to withdraw at midterm because we were tremendously busy at work. I was getting an A, too, goshdarnit. I'm taking the online/tv lecture version of the class this time, and since I've done the hard part (reading and understanding the texts), I can focus on the writing. I'm doing this to replace the "W" on my transcript with an actual grade, and also to help get my brain prepared for work in the humanities.
- The Victorian Age: if I get through this class, I'll do an English MA. I am now supremely confident in my ability to do so (but not cocky-confident, that would just be stupid), even if I haven't yet finished Middlemarch. I did buy my own copy, though, and that's saying something. :)
Then there's the course I'm developing and then teaching at sessions.edu, "Databases and Dynamic Web Design". In fact, I should really go finish writing/formatting the lessons, since they're all due tomorrow....
My second summer class is over; I turned in my final exam on Friday. No more "Fundamentals of Human Resource Management" for me, thank god. Actually, it was a fine class. The prof was a hoot, and if you're going to sit through four hours of HR lectures twice a week, the prof being a hoot is definitely a plus. The next two weeks are school-free, as classes start on the 25th. Crap, that's not really two weeks, is it? More like ten days. Oh well.
Here's something for all you professor types: as soon as you know the books you're going to use in your classes, post them on your faculty web page. Please, I beg of you, on behalf of all my fellow students. With a head-start, and armed with all the ISBNs for the books I need for the fall, I managed to cut my textbook bill by a significant amount ($165 compared to $325). The half.com textbook market is awesome. While most of my books were the actual editions, I also got a few of the international editions of textbooks -- exactly the same, just not printed in the US. The knock on int'l editions is that obviously you can't resell them at your school's bookstore, but you sure can resell them on half.com. But I did manage to turn a profit on my summer book: bought the real, hardback edition on half.com for $50 (compared to $90 used/$125 new at the bookstore), then sold it back to the bookstore for $60. I also got a Norton English Lit anthology (v2) for less than $20, because it was grimy around the edges. I don't mind a little grime. Anyway, the point is that textbook prices are insane, so if you can help your students out by giving them a head start, that's a good thing. Here's the fall lineup:
- Organizational Change and Design: a required class for the management concentration, this is part two of a course I took last semester. I picked the one taught by the same prof as part one, because I really liked him. I like interesting profs who expect a lot out of their students, and reward them fairly for their efforts. There's also more writing in this fellow's class than in most of the other biz classes I've taken, and I appreciate that. I am so terrible at objective tests, I need the essay questions and case analyses in order to show that I'm not a complete dumbass. However, in this class there's a group paper. I hate group projects, period, and a group paper is even worse. I am not against the concept, I'm against the fact that the majority of people can't write, don't do their work and generally do things to bring down the group's grade. I do know that this prof engages in 360-degree evaluations with regards to group members, and takes things like "this person didn't do jack" into consideration. Depending on how I do in this class, this prof might be one of the guys I go to for a rec letter; even though it will be for the English Dept, he's able to judge my ability to synthesize info and write coherently about it.
- International & Comparative Management: a required class for the management concentration, and I know nothing about this prof, except what I read on ratemyprofessors.com, which is "he's really boring and kinda hard, but a nice guy". Of course, I take these ratings with a grain of salt, so this class will probably just be another in a long list of incredibly mind-numbing biz classes. There's a written assignment for each class, probably something in the case analysis vein, so that's a plus in my book. It's probably what garners the "hard" rating from other students, though.
- Management Issues in High Technology Companies: a management elective. I'm not taking it because I have some great interest, instead I'm taking it because we need three electives and I only had one to date and can't count on any electives at "good" times next semester (my last), so best to get one while I can. I know the prof is well thought of by other profs, and that's good. There's a group paper in this class, too (ugh)...but I have a slightly better feeling about this one, because this is a seniors-only class. We'll see.
- Business Systems and Policy: a required class; this is where I get to learn all about Microsoft Access and how it's so wonderful for business integration (sarcasm intended). Give me a freaking break. I'm trying very hard not to have a bad attitude about having to take this class. I work with real database systems every day. I've written books about them. Don't tell me that Access rocks. Grr. Now watch me flunk it and have to take it twice. :)
- Philosophy of Science: I took this class in Spring '03 but had to withdraw at midterm because we were tremendously busy at work. I was getting an A, too, goshdarnit. I'm taking the online/tv lecture version of the class this time, and since I've done the hard part (reading and understanding the texts), I can focus on the writing. I'm doing this to replace the "W" on my transcript with an actual grade, and also to help get my brain prepared for work in the humanities.
- The Victorian Age: if I get through this class, I'll do an English MA. I am now supremely confident in my ability to do so (but not cocky-confident, that would just be stupid), even if I haven't yet finished Middlemarch. I did buy my own copy, though, and that's saying something. :)
Then there's the course I'm developing and then teaching at sessions.edu, "Databases and Dynamic Web Design". In fact, I should really go finish writing/formatting the lessons, since they're all due tomorrow....
Saturday, August 14, 2004
i did not win the lottery
But I did win $100 on a $3 scratcher. Yay, free money! Winning the lottery is not unheard of in my family -- my parents won the PA Cash 5 once. I got my love for gambling from my grandparents (the Italian ones), who taught me how to play cards (for money) at a very young age. Also, instead of cash, my (now insane) grandmother would give us scratchers, and we got to keep anything we won. The most I ever won was $25, but that was a lot of money to a kid (back then). A few years ago, I won $200 on a scratcher, but this hundred bucks was the most since then. What a nice feeling.
But I did win $100 on a $3 scratcher. Yay, free money! Winning the lottery is not unheard of in my family -- my parents won the PA Cash 5 once. I got my love for gambling from my grandparents (the Italian ones), who taught me how to play cards (for money) at a very young age. Also, instead of cash, my (now insane) grandmother would give us scratchers, and we got to keep anything we won. The most I ever won was $25, but that was a lot of money to a kid (back then). A few years ago, I won $200 on a scratcher, but this hundred bucks was the most since then. What a nice feeling.
more olympics
I don't dig it that we have to wait until primetime or whenever, to see that Michael Phelps has already won his first gold medal. I do appreciate that we can find live coverage on NBC-related channels (CNBC, Bravo, etc), and I will take advantage of it as much as possible. In fact, I had the US v New Zealand women's basketball game on in the middle of the night. But what I really like is the schedule/results page at the Athens '04 site. It's a big table of days and events; blue boxes indicate if the event is happening on the given day, an "F" in the box tells you if anything will be a final on that day. Click the box and you get all the news releases, individual results, box scores, etc. Very, very handy.
We always hear about the winners, and the ones who were supposed to win but who did not. There are plenty other stores, and certainly not just from the US camp. For example, Iraq won their opening round soccer match, beating Portugal 4-2. The Iraqis train in Baghdad, on a field they share with a herd of sheep. After their athletes endured years of torture and abuse by Uday Hussein, Iraq's Olympic federation only had their eligibility restored a few months ago. To march in the opening ceremonies was a huge victory. To win a soccer match is nothing short of amazing. Good on them.
I don't dig it that we have to wait until primetime or whenever, to see that Michael Phelps has already won his first gold medal. I do appreciate that we can find live coverage on NBC-related channels (CNBC, Bravo, etc), and I will take advantage of it as much as possible. In fact, I had the US v New Zealand women's basketball game on in the middle of the night. But what I really like is the schedule/results page at the Athens '04 site. It's a big table of days and events; blue boxes indicate if the event is happening on the given day, an "F" in the box tells you if anything will be a final on that day. Click the box and you get all the news releases, individual results, box scores, etc. Very, very handy.
We always hear about the winners, and the ones who were supposed to win but who did not. There are plenty other stores, and certainly not just from the US camp. For example, Iraq won their opening round soccer match, beating Portugal 4-2. The Iraqis train in Baghdad, on a field they share with a herd of sheep. After their athletes endured years of torture and abuse by Uday Hussein, Iraq's Olympic federation only had their eligibility restored a few months ago. To march in the opening ceremonies was a huge victory. To win a soccer match is nothing short of amazing. Good on them.
so now I know how to get to Mavericks
Not that I surf, but it's pretty sad to live so close to Mavericks and not really know where it is. Yesterday, Kate had to go to Half Moon Bay to pick up a donated truck, so I provided the transportation to get her there. As a reward, we stopped at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for food. What a find! Well, not that it's a secret or anything -- it was full, there was music, apparently it's quite a popular place. We soon found out why: damn good food. My beer was good, too. Kate's sucked, but that's because she chose poorly.
We had oysters, always a bonus. I love oysters. When I was hanging out with the Person Who Can't Be Named but had a lot of money and really good taste, oysters at dinner were plentiful. But since then, I haven't had anyone to eat oysters with. [Ok, it bears mentioning now that I re-read this: I really am talking about eating oysters, and I'm not being euphemistic in the least.] We also had these amazing beer-battered artichoke hearts. Man oh man, they were good. It was good batter (they're a brewery, after all) and the artichoke hearts really were the hearts, not some crappy chewy leafy artichoke part. We figured since it is California after all, and it was $8, our appetizer would be like 4 little breaded guys or something. Oh no....it was a whole freaking plate full. Well worth it. Beyond worth it. For the main course, Kate had a good shrimp+spinach salad thing, and I had a tuna/apple/cheese melt. After all that, being very full with good food, we figured it was an $80 dinner. Rarely, in California, does one look at the check and go "is that all?" and check that the server got all the items on there, but she did and it was only $60 with tip! It's not often we get to go out and spend less than $40/each, around here. That was cool.
Oh yeah, Mavericks. At some point during dinner I pulled out the "map to Mavericks" that I grabbed on the way in. Turns out that if we had driven half a mile more up the road, we would have been there. Then I felt really stupid, but now I know! I really, really love the ocean. If I had the money, or if I eventually get money and I can afford to move, knowing that I can't really leave the area, I'd definitely try to live over on Highway 1 somewhere. Anywhere from Pacifica to Santa Cruz would be fine with me. The thing about the ocean, it's like nature's air conditioner. When it's 100 degrees on my side of the mountain, it's still only 75 or 80, with a breeze, over the hill. Wonderful...but out of my price range.
Not that I surf, but it's pretty sad to live so close to Mavericks and not really know where it is. Yesterday, Kate had to go to Half Moon Bay to pick up a donated truck, so I provided the transportation to get her there. As a reward, we stopped at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for food. What a find! Well, not that it's a secret or anything -- it was full, there was music, apparently it's quite a popular place. We soon found out why: damn good food. My beer was good, too. Kate's sucked, but that's because she chose poorly.
We had oysters, always a bonus. I love oysters. When I was hanging out with the Person Who Can't Be Named but had a lot of money and really good taste, oysters at dinner were plentiful. But since then, I haven't had anyone to eat oysters with. [Ok, it bears mentioning now that I re-read this: I really am talking about eating oysters, and I'm not being euphemistic in the least.] We also had these amazing beer-battered artichoke hearts. Man oh man, they were good. It was good batter (they're a brewery, after all) and the artichoke hearts really were the hearts, not some crappy chewy leafy artichoke part. We figured since it is California after all, and it was $8, our appetizer would be like 4 little breaded guys or something. Oh no....it was a whole freaking plate full. Well worth it. Beyond worth it. For the main course, Kate had a good shrimp+spinach salad thing, and I had a tuna/apple/cheese melt. After all that, being very full with good food, we figured it was an $80 dinner. Rarely, in California, does one look at the check and go "is that all?" and check that the server got all the items on there, but she did and it was only $60 with tip! It's not often we get to go out and spend less than $40/each, around here. That was cool.
Oh yeah, Mavericks. At some point during dinner I pulled out the "map to Mavericks" that I grabbed on the way in. Turns out that if we had driven half a mile more up the road, we would have been there. Then I felt really stupid, but now I know! I really, really love the ocean. If I had the money, or if I eventually get money and I can afford to move, knowing that I can't really leave the area, I'd definitely try to live over on Highway 1 somewhere. Anywhere from Pacifica to Santa Cruz would be fine with me. The thing about the ocean, it's like nature's air conditioner. When it's 100 degrees on my side of the mountain, it's still only 75 or 80, with a breeze, over the hill. Wonderful...but out of my price range.
Friday, August 13, 2004
feature creature smackdown
Courtesy of pjm's comments: "There Can Be Only One" [Defective Yeti] ... As a great fan of office pools, I took advantage of the office pool-sized chart, printed it out, and Kate and I sat here and debated the matchups. I am sure there will be many disagreements, just as there are many missing badasses on this chart. But what the hell, it's Friday.
Round 1 (16 matchups)
Round 2 (8 matchups)
Round 3 (4 matchups)
Round 4 (2 matchups)
Finals
Courtesy of pjm's comments: "There Can Be Only One" [Defective Yeti] ... As a great fan of office pools, I took advantage of the office pool-sized chart, printed it out, and Kate and I sat here and debated the matchups. I am sure there will be many disagreements, just as there are many missing badasses on this chart. But what the hell, it's Friday.
Round 1 (16 matchups)
- Jason v Freddy: Jason (this one was already filled in; I didn't see the movie)
- Alien v Predator: haven't yet seen the (probably a very, very bad) movie, but we went with Alien
- Harry Lime v The Terminator: uh, The Terminator. Sorry, Harry.
- Sauron v Ferris Bueller's principal: Sauron! No explanation necessary.
- Se7en psycho v Khan Noonien Singh: Khan...he has more weapons
- Dracula v Master Control Program: Master Control Program; Dracula wins by sucking your blood or breaking your neck, and I doubt, at his age, he would keep up with the various ways to kill a program
- Deliverance hillbillies v Wicked Witch of the West: those hillbillies are some scary mofos. While the witch has the whole "being a witch" thing going for her, we had utter faith that the hillbillies could drop a house on her.
- The Godfather v Jurassic Park dinosaurs: Dinosaurs. Come on, they're dinosaurs
- Jaws v a shitload of Nazis: the shitload of Nazi, unfortunately, because while Jaws killed a heck of a lot of people, there's a limit to how many it could kill at once.
- The Joker v Nurse Ratched: Nurse Ratched, because nurses can be way scarier and evil than the Joker -- they have needles and thermometers and things.
- Hannibal Lecter v Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man: Stay-Puft; Lecter's predilection was toward cannibalism, not marshmallowism
- Darth Vader v Norman Bates: Vader
- Crazy chick in Misery vs Crazy chick in Fatal Attraction: Crazy chick in Misery...mallet to the ankles vs a silly little boiled rabbit? come on.
- Goldfinger v Cruella de Vil: Goldfinger; Cruella was evil, but also just kind of pathetic
- Agent Smith v Titanic iceberg: Agent Smith; binary not often affected by iceberg, and he could just load an iceberg-smashing program and jump on it.
- Verbal Kint v Hal 9000: wash; they're both cold, heartless and manipulative, and both would lose in the next round anyway. :)
Round 2 (8 matchups)
- Alien v Jason: Alien; I don't care how many times Jason comes back, Alien will keep kicking his ass
- The Terminator v Sauron: Sauron. He could transform into some master terminator and kick butt, or smelt the sucker.
- Khan v Master Control Program: Khan; he would be much better equipped to kill a program at his point in time.
- Deliverance hillbillies v Jurassic Park dinosaurs: Dinosaurs. Again, they're dinosaurs
- shitload of Nazis v Nurse Ratched: as much as we would like to say "Nurse Ratched", we have to go with the gang of racists on this one.
- Darth Vader v Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man: Vader. A wave of the hand and Stay-Puft would be goo.
- Crazy chick in Misery v Goldfinger: Crazy chick in Misery. She was really, really crazy.
- Agent Smith v either Verbal Kint or Hal 9000: Agent Smith. Better binary than Hal, and I don't think Verbal Kint was gifted enough to elude an agent.
Round 3 (4 matchups)
- Sauron v Alien: Sauron had much power; a single Alien is still just one flesh/bone creature
- Khan v Jurassic Park dinosaurs: Khan; much firepower available to eradicate dinosaurs
- shitload of Nazis v Darth Vader: Vader, again with the hand-waving
- Crazy chick in Misery v Agent Smith: sorry Kathy, Agent Smith wins this one.
Round 4 (2 matchups)
- Sauron v Khan: Sauron, again. Khan's just mortal, after all, and he'd have to go find that ring and then destroy it...too much work.
- Darth Vader v Agent Smith: Vader; he'd have no time for binary and would find a way to dispatch him promptly
Finals
- Sauron v Darth Vader: if the silly little Emperor Palpatine could kill him, I'm pretty sure Sauron could easily dispatch of Vader as well.
it's olympics time!
As evidenced by the opening-day Google logo:
I'm sure I'll have more to say as the days go on, as I am a huge sports fan and I really love the Olympics. For those of you wondering, Dawn Staley will be carrying the US flag tonight. She has two gold medals from previous Olympics, is the point guard for the Charlotte Sting, the head coach of the Temple women's basketball team (go owls!), and is undoubtedly free of steroids/performance enhancing drugs.
As evidenced by the opening-day Google logo:
I'm sure I'll have more to say as the days go on, as I am a huge sports fan and I really love the Olympics. For those of you wondering, Dawn Staley will be carrying the US flag tonight. She has two gold medals from previous Olympics, is the point guard for the Charlotte Sting, the head coach of the Temple women's basketball team (go owls!), and is undoubtedly free of steroids/performance enhancing drugs.
alien vs predator
I freely admit it: I will see this movie. I totally dig all the movies in the Alien family, and the Predator ones were just fine (but they ain't no Alien). Truthfully, this movie will probably suck. "Sucked" is a word I can use to describe all of Paul W.S. Anderson's films, except Soldier which I really liked and everyone else thought it sucked.
In this Yahoo! News article, I read the funniest comment: "'Why would you put a Predator in an Alien movie? Are you [blanking] retarded?,' one offended Netizen asked on the rec.arts.movies.current-films newsgroup. 'That's like putting Ghoulies in a Gremlins movie.'"
I completely agree, yet I will still see this movie. In fact, I'd probably see Gremlins v Ghoulies, too. :)
I freely admit it: I will see this movie. I totally dig all the movies in the Alien family, and the Predator ones were just fine (but they ain't no Alien). Truthfully, this movie will probably suck. "Sucked" is a word I can use to describe all of Paul W.S. Anderson's films, except Soldier which I really liked and everyone else thought it sucked.
In this Yahoo! News article, I read the funniest comment: "'Why would you put a Predator in an Alien movie? Are you [blanking] retarded?,' one offended Netizen asked on the rec.arts.movies.current-films newsgroup. 'That's like putting Ghoulies in a Gremlins movie.'"
I completely agree, yet I will still see this movie. In fact, I'd probably see Gremlins v Ghoulies, too. :)
Thursday, August 12, 2004
more on reading
I am on page 89 of Middlemarch (out of a whole lot more than 89). I've made minimal progress in the last week, but it's not the fault of the novel—we were really busy at work, and then I had eight chapters to review and submit for PMA AiO 2ed. At this point in the book, I am less bored and I don't despise it. Not saying I'm enjoying it, I just don't have the same desire to shove an icepick in my eyes lest I have to keep reading. This bodes well for the upcoming class.
I now have a healthy stack of books to read—I, Robot, Middlesex and Howards End were in yesterday's library haul. Middlesex has been on my "should get around to reading this" list for many months, and apparantly everyone else in San Jose had the same idea, because when I got around to putting my name on the reserve list at the library, I was number fifteen. Yesterday, it was finally my turn. I picked up I, Robot because, after seeing the movie, I wanted to see the differences between the two. The good news is that I can read the darn thing in an evening, so I'll be able to cross that off the list fairly soon. Then, Howards End, which I picked up purely because Mel said "I'm finding it horribly bitter and dyspeptic." I don't know if she meant the reading, or the fact that it's on the reading list, but either way, I read it a long time ago and didn't remember feelings of dyspepsia so I obviously missed something. :)
PS the new bag had its first outing yesterday, and it did quite well. It held my laptop, the three new library books mentioned above, my power adapter and network cable, several file folders, various pens/pencils, checkbook, calendar, wallet, calculator, wireless PCMCIA card, etc. There was still room to spare, and everything was adequately padded. Good for it!
I am on page 89 of Middlemarch (out of a whole lot more than 89). I've made minimal progress in the last week, but it's not the fault of the novel—we were really busy at work, and then I had eight chapters to review and submit for PMA AiO 2ed. At this point in the book, I am less bored and I don't despise it. Not saying I'm enjoying it, I just don't have the same desire to shove an icepick in my eyes lest I have to keep reading. This bodes well for the upcoming class.
I now have a healthy stack of books to read—I, Robot, Middlesex and Howards End were in yesterday's library haul. Middlesex has been on my "should get around to reading this" list for many months, and apparantly everyone else in San Jose had the same idea, because when I got around to putting my name on the reserve list at the library, I was number fifteen. Yesterday, it was finally my turn. I picked up I, Robot because, after seeing the movie, I wanted to see the differences between the two. The good news is that I can read the darn thing in an evening, so I'll be able to cross that off the list fairly soon. Then, Howards End, which I picked up purely because Mel said "I'm finding it horribly bitter and dyspeptic." I don't know if she meant the reading, or the fact that it's on the reading list, but either way, I read it a long time ago and didn't remember feelings of dyspepsia so I obviously missed something. :)
PS the new bag had its first outing yesterday, and it did quite well. It held my laptop, the three new library books mentioned above, my power adapter and network cable, several file folders, various pens/pencils, checkbook, calendar, wallet, calculator, wireless PCMCIA card, etc. There was still room to spare, and everything was adequately padded. Good for it!
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
sub-$2 gas!
In December of '98, I left the craziness of California and went back to Virginia. I settled down in Richmond, which is about an hour and a half from where I had attended college. I went back to the little college town for a visit, and snapped this photo. I moved back to California 18 months later, but I kept the photo to remind me of some of the good things that I left behind—like cheap gas. Reading Jimbo's daily indicators, one of which is the gas price where he lives (~$1.69), made me think of this photo and the days when gas was less than a buck.
Today, the Arco station on the corner has sub-TWO dollar gas for the first time in ages—it's $1.95/gallon. Then again, the Shell, Exxon and Chevron stations on the other corners all have $2.09 gas, so I think it's more of a deal than a trend. Too bad.
In December of '98, I left the craziness of California and went back to Virginia. I settled down in Richmond, which is about an hour and a half from where I had attended college. I went back to the little college town for a visit, and snapped this photo. I moved back to California 18 months later, but I kept the photo to remind me of some of the good things that I left behind—like cheap gas. Reading Jimbo's daily indicators, one of which is the gas price where he lives (~$1.69), made me think of this photo and the days when gas was less than a buck.
Today, the Arco station on the corner has sub-TWO dollar gas for the first time in ages—it's $1.95/gallon. Then again, the Shell, Exxon and Chevron stations on the other corners all have $2.09 gas, so I think it's more of a deal than a trend. Too bad.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
imagining the way, way past
Caleb wrote an interesting piece, "Silence of the Past", in which he said:
In order to track a family through the census and other historical records, I must be able to construct a homestead, town, county in my head. For the work I do, there needn't be the dimension, texture and color that Caleb talks about, but I always manage to invent some. It certainly makes reading pages upon pages of documents much more interesting...and some families are far more interesting than others. My own family is not very interesting -- generations upon generations of farmers, basically. But then I come across something like mkd's family, and all sorts of vivid imagery fills my little pea brain.
Take a main player in Caleb's dissertation -- William Lloyd Garrison. I only know the basics about him, what one learns in history classes and so forth. I learned a little more as Caleb briefly explained his diss. Looking at the census records I have handy, I see how the Garrison family transformed itself a fair amount, in terms of size, wealth and neighborly associates, between 1850, 1860, 1870. When I look at images like these, one page out of a census book, a snapshot of the words of whomever answered the door when the census-taker knocked, I visualize the street and the people, the sounds and even the smells (I grew up in a rural area, which helps with that!). I think I do better research because of it, but I could just have an overactive imagination.
Caleb wrote an interesting piece, "Silence of the Past", in which he said:
I find it difficult to imagine the past, to give it dimension, texture, and color in my mind. This surprises me in some ways; as an aspiring historian I spend more time than most people trying to imagine the past, and surely practice helps. Yet as much as I read historical texts and historical narratives, my mental images of times gone by often play like silent movies, or appear to me like scattered collages of sepia photos, or in the best case present themselves to my mind like a disjointed dream.I'm not an academic historian, and I don't play one on TV, but I do a lot of family history research and spend significant time reconstructing the lives of families. For instance, today I had to break the news to Kate that not only was her grandfather dirt poor, his family were dirt poor farm laborers for at least fifty years before that. In fact, they were typical mid-to-late 19th C. sharecroppers, moving from county to county, (growing) family in tow, for three generations.
In order to track a family through the census and other historical records, I must be able to construct a homestead, town, county in my head. For the work I do, there needn't be the dimension, texture and color that Caleb talks about, but I always manage to invent some. It certainly makes reading pages upon pages of documents much more interesting...and some families are far more interesting than others. My own family is not very interesting -- generations upon generations of farmers, basically. But then I come across something like mkd's family, and all sorts of vivid imagery fills my little pea brain.
Take a main player in Caleb's dissertation -- William Lloyd Garrison. I only know the basics about him, what one learns in history classes and so forth. I learned a little more as Caleb briefly explained his diss. Looking at the census records I have handy, I see how the Garrison family transformed itself a fair amount, in terms of size, wealth and neighborly associates, between 1850, 1860, 1870. When I look at images like these, one page out of a census book, a snapshot of the words of whomever answered the door when the census-taker knocked, I visualize the street and the people, the sounds and even the smells (I grew up in a rural area, which helps with that!). I think I do better research because of it, but I could just have an overactive imagination.
mama's got a brand new bag
I was on a quest to find a schoolbag that would comfortably hold my 17" laptop, had ample padding all around, also had room for notebooks and schoolbooks, and (finally) looked cool and not all business-like. I headed over to eBags, where I got my previous bag (it wasn't designed to hold a laptop, and it finally died), and found the Crumpler "Very Busy Man" Lap Top Messenger. I'm a very busy woman, not a man, but I got over the bag's name because the reviews were so good.
But....$100 for a bag? Typically, I don't buy things for myself unless it's something like a car or a computer, and only when it's necessary. Maybe a few times a year I'll get a few new shirts, but that's it. So, $100 for a bag is quite an investment for me. Luckily, there's Froogle, and I found this very same bag for $74 at J&R Music/Computer World (who knew?) and it arrived today.
I am stoked!
I was on a quest to find a schoolbag that would comfortably hold my 17" laptop, had ample padding all around, also had room for notebooks and schoolbooks, and (finally) looked cool and not all business-like. I headed over to eBags, where I got my previous bag (it wasn't designed to hold a laptop, and it finally died), and found the Crumpler "Very Busy Man" Lap Top Messenger. I'm a very busy woman, not a man, but I got over the bag's name because the reviews were so good.
But....$100 for a bag? Typically, I don't buy things for myself unless it's something like a car or a computer, and only when it's necessary. Maybe a few times a year I'll get a few new shirts, but that's it. So, $100 for a bag is quite an investment for me. Luckily, there's Froogle, and I found this very same bag for $74 at J&R Music/Computer World (who knew?) and it arrived today.
I am stoked!
winxp sp2
Looks like I'm not the only one a little leery about installing the WinXP Service Pack 2 upgrade:
- CIOs: No hurry to install SP2 upgrade
- IBM goes slow on XP update
If I hadn't purchased a new Gateway laptop six months ago, I'd still be using Win98. It worked for me. With two layers of Norton Anti-Virus and Internet Security software, plus using non-Outlook email clients, I never had issues with viruses or other nasties. Crashing, freezing, I learned to deal with that. Now, I am pleased with the performance of WinXP (I use the home edition) -- I've yet to experience a crash/freeze that rendered my machine inoperable. I still have my layers of Norton security, and I still won't use a Microsoft browser or e-mail client, so again -- no viruses or other nasties.
The bottom line is that I don't want to mess with a good thing. "Good" in this case means "works fine for me," not "I love Microsoft" [shudder]. I'm not big on messing with things that work. Case in point (starts to knock on wood now), my two Web/DB/mail/DNS servers have rolled over their uptime at least twice now, meaning they haven't rebooted in over 1000 days. I could give them more RAM or put in some more fans, or...you get the idea...but I don't. They're just fine. Just like my WinXP-based laptop is fine, and I don't want to risk making it not so. Is that such a bad idea?
Looks like I'm not the only one a little leery about installing the WinXP Service Pack 2 upgrade:
- CIOs: No hurry to install SP2 upgrade
- IBM goes slow on XP update
If I hadn't purchased a new Gateway laptop six months ago, I'd still be using Win98. It worked for me. With two layers of Norton Anti-Virus and Internet Security software, plus using non-Outlook email clients, I never had issues with viruses or other nasties. Crashing, freezing, I learned to deal with that. Now, I am pleased with the performance of WinXP (I use the home edition) -- I've yet to experience a crash/freeze that rendered my machine inoperable. I still have my layers of Norton security, and I still won't use a Microsoft browser or e-mail client, so again -- no viruses or other nasties.
The bottom line is that I don't want to mess with a good thing. "Good" in this case means "works fine for me," not "I love Microsoft" [shudder]. I'm not big on messing with things that work. Case in point (starts to knock on wood now), my two Web/DB/mail/DNS servers have rolled over their uptime at least twice now, meaning they haven't rebooted in over 1000 days. I could give them more RAM or put in some more fans, or...you get the idea...but I don't. They're just fine. Just like my WinXP-based laptop is fine, and I don't want to risk making it not so. Is that such a bad idea?
i feel old
I vividly remember the days when virtual hosting was a Shiny New Toy...imagine, running multiple web sites, with multiple IPs, from the same box, with just one httpd server installed? Gadzooks, we'll have to get more disk space! Ah yes, 1994. I recall a meeting regarding the cost-benefit analysis of buying a bigger drive: "Well, you know, disk space only costs 10 cents per MB." Megabyte. Not gigabyte, megabyte. 1024 MB = 1GB.
So yesterday I see an ad for a Western Digital 120GB HD for $39.99 after rebate [link via kevin rose]. That's 122880 MB. In 1994 prices, that would have been a $12K drive (if they made them). So, now drive space costs what, 33 cents per GB, or 0.0003 cents per MB. Dang.
I vividly remember the days when virtual hosting was a Shiny New Toy...imagine, running multiple web sites, with multiple IPs, from the same box, with just one httpd server installed? Gadzooks, we'll have to get more disk space! Ah yes, 1994. I recall a meeting regarding the cost-benefit analysis of buying a bigger drive: "Well, you know, disk space only costs 10 cents per MB." Megabyte. Not gigabyte, megabyte. 1024 MB = 1GB.
So yesterday I see an ad for a Western Digital 120GB HD for $39.99 after rebate [link via kevin rose]. That's 122880 MB. In 1994 prices, that would have been a $12K drive (if they made them). So, now drive space costs what, 33 cents per GB, or 0.0003 cents per MB. Dang.
using firefox
I finally made the full switch from NS7.1 to Firefox; I wasn't anti-Firefox, just too lazy to change my shortcuts and remember some username/password combos. So, I use Firefox and Thunderbird, but not the whole Mozilla suite. I'd just have limited the installation to Firefox and Thunderbird anyway, so what's the point? If I'm missing out on something, I'm sure someone will let me know.
The cool think about the timing of the switch is that I'm currently editing my SAMS Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All-in-One book for a 2nd edition due out in December, and I'm re-shooting all the screenshots of script results, etc -- all of which are browser-based and all of which are now showing Firefox. If sales are the same as the first edition, there's 30K more people who will have Firefox staring at them when told "and you should see something like figure x.x". Unfortunately, I can't include the phrase "including the browser...if you don't see a browser exactly like this one, then you must go get it" because that's not really true. "Must" is such a strong word. Perhaps I could use "it would be in your best browsing interest" or something like that. :)
I finally made the full switch from NS7.1 to Firefox; I wasn't anti-Firefox, just too lazy to change my shortcuts and remember some username/password combos. So, I use Firefox and Thunderbird, but not the whole Mozilla suite. I'd just have limited the installation to Firefox and Thunderbird anyway, so what's the point? If I'm missing out on something, I'm sure someone will let me know.
The cool think about the timing of the switch is that I'm currently editing my SAMS Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All-in-One book for a 2nd edition due out in December, and I'm re-shooting all the screenshots of script results, etc -- all of which are browser-based and all of which are now showing Firefox. If sales are the same as the first edition, there's 30K more people who will have Firefox staring at them when told "and you should see something like figure x.x". Unfortunately, I can't include the phrase "including the browser...if you don't see a browser exactly like this one, then you must go get it" because that's not really true. "Must" is such a strong word. Perhaps I could use "it would be in your best browsing interest" or something like that. :)
Monday, August 09, 2004
my knee update
It's fine. As of today, it's back to "normal", where "normal" is "not really right, but it's never going to be right and I'm ok with that." Tomorrow, I will try it out on the elliptical at the gym (aka "gerbil machine"). I think what happened is that I definitely stretched something in an inappropriate way, things swelled, and the swelling made things slide around. I took a lot of anti-inflammatory meds, and stretched a lot/moved it a lot, and everything's fine. No doctor visit necessary. Yay!
It's fine. As of today, it's back to "normal", where "normal" is "not really right, but it's never going to be right and I'm ok with that." Tomorrow, I will try it out on the elliptical at the gym (aka "gerbil machine"). I think what happened is that I definitely stretched something in an inappropriate way, things swelled, and the swelling made things slide around. I took a lot of anti-inflammatory meds, and stretched a lot/moved it a lot, and everything's fine. No doctor visit necessary. Yay!
Sunday, August 08, 2004
geeky quizzes!
Sort of like CSS positioning, if molly says it's ok, it's ok.
I'll bet you didn't know that I am Slackware Linux. I am! See? I was so concerned I'd be Windows. Slackware Linux is cool. It was the first distro I ever used.
Which OS are You?
On a much more somber note, my "Nigerian Spammer" rating is:
Which Nigerian spammer are You?
Tee hee.
Sort of like CSS positioning, if molly says it's ok, it's ok.
I'll bet you didn't know that I am Slackware Linux. I am! See? I was so concerned I'd be Windows. Slackware Linux is cool. It was the first distro I ever used.
Which OS are You?
On a much more somber note, my "Nigerian Spammer" rating is:
Which Nigerian spammer are You?
Tee hee.
blogroll order
Entries in the blogroll are now alphabetical. Since I have a good-sized chunk of blogs I read regularly, it's become more troublesome to remember the strange filtering/sorting mechanism I used in my head, so I gave it up. Good friends, don't feel slighted if you're now halfway down the list instead of at the top—it isn't personal.
Entries in the blogroll are now alphabetical. Since I have a good-sized chunk of blogs I read regularly, it's become more troublesome to remember the strange filtering/sorting mechanism I used in my head, so I gave it up. Good friends, don't feel slighted if you're now halfway down the list instead of at the top—it isn't personal.
I went to a movie all by myself
I saw I, Robot last night, which I previously said I was concerned about doing, thinking I wasn't going to "get" it. First, did anyone else cry like a baby and identify more with Sonny and the robots than anyone/thing else? Was it just me? Second, the filmmakers would have lost me early on, had the cat been smashed to bits with the rest of the house. Then again, if that happened, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to show that when faced with life and death situations, humans=good at it, robots=bad at it.
I haven't read a shred of Asimov (they're going to revoke my geek card, aren't they?), so when Slate (and others) mention how the movie is unlike what Asimov wrote, I have nothing to say about it. I will put this particular book on the reading list, though. If I, Robot (the book) is an argument against man's fear of machines, but the robots and humans win out in the end, while I, Robot (the movie) is about man's fear of machines and only man wins out in the end, then I want to know why that should be the case. Although, there sure is a built-in sequel to the movie version, wherein the robots discover their ability to evolve and Sonny leads them to nirvana, but I don't imagine any smash-em-ups in that sort of movie...
Oh, and how many visual/auditory Star Wars references did you all count? I mean really, there's giving a shout out, then there's just lifting the template of the Trade Federation Multi-Troop Transport and coloring it differently.
I saw I, Robot last night, which I previously said I was concerned about doing, thinking I wasn't going to "get" it. First, did anyone else cry like a baby and identify more with Sonny and the robots than anyone/thing else? Was it just me? Second, the filmmakers would have lost me early on, had the cat been smashed to bits with the rest of the house. Then again, if that happened, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to show that when faced with life and death situations, humans=good at it, robots=bad at it.
I haven't read a shred of Asimov (they're going to revoke my geek card, aren't they?), so when Slate (and others) mention how the movie is unlike what Asimov wrote, I have nothing to say about it. I will put this particular book on the reading list, though. If I, Robot (the book) is an argument against man's fear of machines, but the robots and humans win out in the end, while I, Robot (the movie) is about man's fear of machines and only man wins out in the end, then I want to know why that should be the case. Although, there sure is a built-in sequel to the movie version, wherein the robots discover their ability to evolve and Sonny leads them to nirvana, but I don't imagine any smash-em-ups in that sort of movie...
Oh, and how many visual/auditory Star Wars references did you all count? I mean really, there's giving a shout out, then there's just lifting the template of the Trade Federation Multi-Troop Transport and coloring it differently.
Saturday, August 07, 2004
hmmm.....pain
I seem to have royalled fucked up my knee. This particular knee has been through a lot. Thirteen or so years ago, I blew it out...tore the ACL and surrounding goodies on one side of my knee. At one point, like a year later, I cracked the top of the kneecap. Lived with the once-cracked, thrashed knee for ten years. Met someone who convinced me that fixing it would be a good thing, because it already had accumulated its fair share of arthritis, and wouldn't I like to go running with her? (No. Never. Not even with a fixed knee. I hate to run. Elliptical trainer, bikes, not a problem. No running.) This particular person had a certain way of making me do whatever she wanted, so I said what the hell, insurance paid for it. So, a doctor replaced my ACL with some random dead person's tendon, and pinned it all in to place. The subsequent week was filled with extreme suckiness, since no pain medication works on me, and I was in a lot of pain. Got over it, been arthritis-free ever since, except that after about a year I think the new ACL got all stretched out and wasn't really working in the stability department. Fine, strong hamstrings and quads will compensate, and I'm not a runner anyway, so whatever.
A few days ago I started to have this really odd feeling in that knee. You know when you stretch out and all your joints pop/crack/whatever? My kneecap got stuck halfway through the stretch. I could either unstretch, or keep going. As I'm looking at the anatomy of the knee in my head, trying to remember where the pin went, I'm thinking that the unstretching would be the way to go. Eventually it all worked out, but I was sore for a little bit. Tonight, I can barely walk. I believe I have subluxed something important, involving the patella. I am not pleased, as it keeps moving up and down. I hate going to the doctor, but if it doesn't calm down in a few days, I'm going to get an MRI. Like I don't have enough crap to worry about. Argh.
I seem to have royalled fucked up my knee. This particular knee has been through a lot. Thirteen or so years ago, I blew it out...tore the ACL and surrounding goodies on one side of my knee. At one point, like a year later, I cracked the top of the kneecap. Lived with the once-cracked, thrashed knee for ten years. Met someone who convinced me that fixing it would be a good thing, because it already had accumulated its fair share of arthritis, and wouldn't I like to go running with her? (No. Never. Not even with a fixed knee. I hate to run. Elliptical trainer, bikes, not a problem. No running.) This particular person had a certain way of making me do whatever she wanted, so I said what the hell, insurance paid for it. So, a doctor replaced my ACL with some random dead person's tendon, and pinned it all in to place. The subsequent week was filled with extreme suckiness, since no pain medication works on me, and I was in a lot of pain. Got over it, been arthritis-free ever since, except that after about a year I think the new ACL got all stretched out and wasn't really working in the stability department. Fine, strong hamstrings and quads will compensate, and I'm not a runner anyway, so whatever.
A few days ago I started to have this really odd feeling in that knee. You know when you stretch out and all your joints pop/crack/whatever? My kneecap got stuck halfway through the stretch. I could either unstretch, or keep going. As I'm looking at the anatomy of the knee in my head, trying to remember where the pin went, I'm thinking that the unstretching would be the way to go. Eventually it all worked out, but I was sore for a little bit. Tonight, I can barely walk. I believe I have subluxed something important, involving the patella. I am not pleased, as it keeps moving up and down. I hate going to the doctor, but if it doesn't calm down in a few days, I'm going to get an MRI. Like I don't have enough crap to worry about. Argh.
work is so time consuming
One of the best things about being one-fourth of a small business is that we can work whenever we want, as long as we get our work done. Those with a kid can take off and do kid-related-school/summer camp things, those of us who go to school can be gone for chunks of the day, Kate can go rescue a puppy in need, etc. One of the worst things about being one-fourth of a small business is that we tend to work our asses off, because every little 15-minute-billable-chunk is important. Every single one of them.
We have this time-tracking thing I built almost 5 years ago, and it's served us well. My favorite report is the utilization (non-vacation/sick/lunch/holiday hours worked divided by hours in the pay period) and billing report (billable hours worked divided by hours in the pay period), because I get to see where I stack up with my co-workers. Of course, when mkd has 115% utilization for the pay period and I only have 75%, I feel like crap. But over the course of a year (or quarter), it all works out and it ends up that we utilize and bill about the same.
This week has been one of those times when the three of us who bill are already at like 70% utilization, with half of the pay period left to go. By the end of the weekend we'll probably all stand at 85%. I'm very goal-oriented; I don't mind working this much when I know there's an extra reward at the end. There's some scuttlebutt that we may take a day off and go to a doubleheader. Or, at least Barkarby would because they're her tickets. :) I was lobbying for cuban food last night, but everyone was too tired. I'll keep lobbying, because I love me some mojito!
If you're wondering why the other person in our gang doesn't have large numbers like the rest of us, it's because Kate is the resource manager and none of her 8 hours are directly billable to anyone. That's ok, because she writes the checks. When she's not check-writing or bill-collecting, she writes blog entries about the importance of having a sanitary napkin and a cigarette in your first aid kit, the trials and tribulations of being a girl and selling a car and how to (or not) keep a Portuguese Water Dog out of your koi pond. Really, she's a font of information.
One of the best things about being one-fourth of a small business is that we can work whenever we want, as long as we get our work done. Those with a kid can take off and do kid-related-school/summer camp things, those of us who go to school can be gone for chunks of the day, Kate can go rescue a puppy in need, etc. One of the worst things about being one-fourth of a small business is that we tend to work our asses off, because every little 15-minute-billable-chunk is important. Every single one of them.
We have this time-tracking thing I built almost 5 years ago, and it's served us well. My favorite report is the utilization (non-vacation/sick/lunch/holiday hours worked divided by hours in the pay period) and billing report (billable hours worked divided by hours in the pay period), because I get to see where I stack up with my co-workers. Of course, when mkd has 115% utilization for the pay period and I only have 75%, I feel like crap. But over the course of a year (or quarter), it all works out and it ends up that we utilize and bill about the same.
This week has been one of those times when the three of us who bill are already at like 70% utilization, with half of the pay period left to go. By the end of the weekend we'll probably all stand at 85%. I'm very goal-oriented; I don't mind working this much when I know there's an extra reward at the end. There's some scuttlebutt that we may take a day off and go to a doubleheader. Or, at least Barkarby would because they're her tickets. :) I was lobbying for cuban food last night, but everyone was too tired. I'll keep lobbying, because I love me some mojito!
If you're wondering why the other person in our gang doesn't have large numbers like the rest of us, it's because Kate is the resource manager and none of her 8 hours are directly billable to anyone. That's ok, because she writes the checks. When she's not check-writing or bill-collecting, she writes blog entries about the importance of having a sanitary napkin and a cigarette in your first aid kit, the trials and tribulations of being a girl and selling a car and how to (or not) keep a Portuguese Water Dog out of your koi pond. Really, she's a font of information.
skin
Mel read about something cool, then had the nerve (the nerve!) to share it with us, when she knows darn well that it would be a call-to-action for me. Like I don't have enough to think about!
Skin is a story written by Shelley Jackson, the text for which will be presented—one word at a time—via tattoo on the skin of 2095 participants (subsequently referred to as "words"). She calls it a mortal work of art. I think it's fascinating, and of course (no surprise to Mel) I wrote and asked to be considered for word-hood. Being late to the game (the original call for participants was almost a year ago, and she already had 85% of the words doled out a month ago), I doubt I'll make it in. But I tried.
I have twelve tattoos, all of which are meaningful (some more than others) and some are also words. I have a wristband with the Chinese character for "water" in it. I also have one that is a rune sequence of isa-laguz-jera, which is essentially (my interpretation) "chill out, let things happen, everything's gonna work itself out". But in a story of 2095 words, you're going to have a lot of articles. Would I want to be an article? Not especially, but I'd do it. I don't think I particularly exude "the"-ness, though.
According to the rules of the project, you can refuse the word assigned to you, but you don't get another one. I would refuse any of the FCC's original "filthy words" (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits...oh boy, I'll get the search hits now!) and probably some non-banned but not-for-polite-company words, which I'd figure out on a case-by-case basis. Not that I don't use these words in real life, because I sure do (except for the c-word. I never use the c-word unless the person really, really is one)...I just wouldn't want to be that word. Also, a word with punctuation, such as "pen?" would be fine by me.
Heck, I even have the place picked out, regardless of the word (should I get one, which I probably won't). I have an unbalanced set of tattoos on my calves. The back of each calf has symmetrical tribal thingies (I refer to them as "racing stripes" although I am terribly slow), but I have a horizontal tat on the outside of my left calf, almost near my knee, while the other leg is blank in that area. I tend to balance my tattoos, not at the same time but eventually. I have two wristbands, two forearm tattoos, etc. I attribute the asshole behavior of my early 20s to my lack of balanced tattoos. My dear friend Barkarby would probably jump in immediately and say "and what about your asshole behavior now?" but this is one of those times when I'm glad she rarely posts comments. :)
Mel read about something cool, then had the nerve (the nerve!) to share it with us, when she knows darn well that it would be a call-to-action for me. Like I don't have enough to think about!
Skin is a story written by Shelley Jackson, the text for which will be presented—one word at a time—via tattoo on the skin of 2095 participants (subsequently referred to as "words"). She calls it a mortal work of art. I think it's fascinating, and of course (no surprise to Mel) I wrote and asked to be considered for word-hood. Being late to the game (the original call for participants was almost a year ago, and she already had 85% of the words doled out a month ago), I doubt I'll make it in. But I tried.
I have twelve tattoos, all of which are meaningful (some more than others) and some are also words. I have a wristband with the Chinese character for "water" in it. I also have one that is a rune sequence of isa-laguz-jera, which is essentially (my interpretation) "chill out, let things happen, everything's gonna work itself out". But in a story of 2095 words, you're going to have a lot of articles. Would I want to be an article? Not especially, but I'd do it. I don't think I particularly exude "the"-ness, though.
According to the rules of the project, you can refuse the word assigned to you, but you don't get another one. I would refuse any of the FCC's original "filthy words" (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits...oh boy, I'll get the search hits now!) and probably some non-banned but not-for-polite-company words, which I'd figure out on a case-by-case basis. Not that I don't use these words in real life, because I sure do (except for the c-word. I never use the c-word unless the person really, really is one)...I just wouldn't want to be that word. Also, a word with punctuation, such as "pen?" would be fine by me.
Heck, I even have the place picked out, regardless of the word (should I get one, which I probably won't). I have an unbalanced set of tattoos on my calves. The back of each calf has symmetrical tribal thingies (I refer to them as "racing stripes" although I am terribly slow), but I have a horizontal tat on the outside of my left calf, almost near my knee, while the other leg is blank in that area. I tend to balance my tattoos, not at the same time but eventually. I have two wristbands, two forearm tattoos, etc. I attribute the asshole behavior of my early 20s to my lack of balanced tattoos. My dear friend Barkarby would probably jump in immediately and say "and what about your asshole behavior now?" but this is one of those times when I'm glad she rarely posts comments. :)
Friday, August 06, 2004
miss kitty fantastico
This is another one of those posts for Buffy aficionados; the rest of you can just shake your heads and think we're weird. It's ok. Anyway, miss kitty fantastico is a great little game. Sure, it's just a little cat (but not just any cat: miss kitty fantastico!) bouncing around trying not to get impaled or otherwise killed by vampire bears, scary ghosts and a whole host of other nasties. MKF must collect items such as extra flamey candles, spell books, balls of string and jelly donuts as she makes her way home to Willow & Tara. The best part of the game is reading the names on the tombstones and mausoleums, to try to remember which episode they came from. I suck at that, so luckily that's not part of the scoring.
This is another one of those posts for Buffy aficionados; the rest of you can just shake your heads and think we're weird. It's ok. Anyway, miss kitty fantastico is a great little game. Sure, it's just a little cat (but not just any cat: miss kitty fantastico!) bouncing around trying not to get impaled or otherwise killed by vampire bears, scary ghosts and a whole host of other nasties. MKF must collect items such as extra flamey candles, spell books, balls of string and jelly donuts as she makes her way home to Willow & Tara. The best part of the game is reading the names on the tombstones and mausoleums, to try to remember which episode they came from. I suck at that, so luckily that's not part of the scoring.
plone book AR is done! done! done!
The book that I managed to drag out forever, it's finally done. This week, I did the author review portion on the remaining chapters, and just a few moments ago sent them back to my prject editor. If anyone is remotely interested, the table of contents is updated and accurate. Yay, something to cross off the list!
The book that I managed to drag out forever, it's finally done. This week, I did the author review portion on the remaining chapters, and just a few moments ago sent them back to my prject editor. If anyone is remotely interested, the table of contents is updated and accurate. Yay, something to cross off the list!
hecklers, schmecklers
From the Kerry/Edwards campaign trail, Edwards says (of Bush supporters who showed up at a rally) "When they were booing 'hope' and optimism,' I knew it was an interesting crowd." [read the blurb] Had this happened at a Bush rally, I'm sure the hecklers would have been removed, or they never would have made it past the entrance in the first place.
From the Kerry/Edwards campaign trail, Edwards says (of Bush supporters who showed up at a rally) "When they were booing 'hope' and optimism,' I knew it was an interesting crowd." [read the blurb] Had this happened at a Bush rally, I'm sure the hecklers would have been removed, or they never would have made it past the entrance in the first place.
scutmonkey now available in print!
It's such a funny, funny comic, that scutmonkey, expecially if you're in the medical profession or have spent a lot of time in hospitals. Come to think of it, I don't fit in either category but I've watched enough "ER" over the years that I feel I can laugh in all the right places. Anyway, support a med student -- issue #1 is now available in print! I dutifully sent my $5, and it's more than $5 of chuckleness.
It's such a funny, funny comic, that scutmonkey, expecially if you're in the medical profession or have spent a lot of time in hospitals. Come to think of it, I don't fit in either category but I've watched enough "ER" over the years that I feel I can laugh in all the right places. Anyway, support a med student -- issue #1 is now available in print! I dutifully sent my $5, and it's more than $5 of chuckleness.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
this is a little ridiculous...
yet academically relevant! Well, not really. My college mascot was the Fighting Squirrel...and my squirrel name is "Commander Smallnuts". This would be unfortunate if I were a boy. Thankfully, I am not. I am simply a squirrel commander. Thanks, Rana, I really needed a 5-minute bit of happy today!
yet academically relevant! Well, not really. My college mascot was the Fighting Squirrel...and my squirrel name is "Commander Smallnuts". This would be unfortunate if I were a boy. Thankfully, I am not. I am simply a squirrel commander. Thanks, Rana, I really needed a 5-minute bit of happy today!
more Middlemarch
I read two more chapters (that's what, a whole 10 pages?) this morning, when I was really, really tired. Thus, I read it really, really slowly. That may be the trick.
I read two more chapters (that's what, a whole 10 pages?) this morning, when I was really, really tired. Thus, I read it really, really slowly. That may be the trick.
sheesh
Between Caleb's I, Corporation post, and Mel's I Robot U Robot post, I have come to the conclusion that I am not intellectually prepared to see I, Robot. I just wanted some popcorn and to see some sci-fi, Big Willie Style! Now I feel like I have to take a seminar before seeing it. :)
Between Caleb's I, Corporation post, and Mel's I Robot U Robot post, I have come to the conclusion that I am not intellectually prepared to see I, Robot. I just wanted some popcorn and to see some sci-fi, Big Willie Style! Now I feel like I have to take a seminar before seeing it. :)
hello, freud? this is W.
"[we will] never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people."
when's the election, again? Is there a countdown clock somewhere?
"[we will] never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people."
when's the election, again? Is there a countdown clock somewhere?
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
my ulterior motive, or why I'm trying to read Middlemarch (again)
I realize "ulterior motive" sounds sinister, but my reason for reading Middlemarch is not all evil and dark. In fact, it has no bearing on the world whatsoever, just on me. My plan was, if I get through Middlemarch and can reasonably answer the question "what did I learn from this experience", then I would take advantage of a free evening in my fall schedule, and take a Victorian Lit class. See? Not sinister. Masochistic, perhaps, but that's my own thing.
I say "was" because I've already changed my plan. I'm going to take the class anyway; Middlemarch is one of the books being taught (the others being Bleak House, Picture of Dorian Gray and Tess of D'Urbervilles, each of which I've read and enjoyed...the latter two being much more enjoyable than the former) so even if I can't deal with it in the next few weeks, I'll have the opportunity once more in a classroom setting. The new carrot is this: if I make it through the class, I'll do an MA in English. Again, no relevance to the rest of the world.
Since I quit grad school (in 1992), I've carried around the guilt of doing so. My father paid a significant amount of money for my undergrad education; he took out no loans, and I went to a private school four years before I should have, so he was really unprepared. But, he didn't want me to have any loans when I got out, and I didn't. So, obviously I felt like I let them down and wasted their money. Then, there were the profs in my department. I went to a really small school, less than 1000 students. We had about 20 English majors, and very few went on to grad school. In fact, in my graduating class, I think only two of us even applied. So, it was sort of a big deal that any of us went on to another level. I lasted six weeks in grad school, at my #7 choice of school (out of 7). Around midterm time, I realized that studying literature at the graduate level just wasn't for me. This realization happened in the middle of a Victorian seminar in which a discussion had been raging for a good hour or so, regarding the importance of the color of the shirt worn by a particular character in Middlemarch. I didn't get it then, and I still don't get it. So, I withdrew, and while I can't say I regretted the decision, I've thought about it a lot over the years.
I went off and made my own career, having nothing to do with literature or higher education. A few years ago, I decided to go back to school and do a second BA (in Business Administration with a Management concentration), and I'll be done with that after Spring '05. I did this to bring some "academic" business knowledge into our company, and also to give myself something to do with my free time (and it's also a tax deduction). I also took a linguistics class, and decided that after I finished my management degree, I'd do a linguistics MA with a concentration in computational linguistics (being the geeky programmer that I am). I was all set to do that, and then saw that none of the classes in linguistics were offered at the end of the day/in the evening. That wasn't going to work, so I gave up my plans to be a linguist and figured I'd just do an MBA.
Then the little nagging voice started up again. "Why don't you read a book?" it said. "I'm not a good reader," I replied. "Oh, just get over yourself and try," it said. So I did. I read a few contemporary novels, then one day grabbed my dusty old Collected Works of Oscar Wilde and flipped through it. I didn't hate it. I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd take a few years to do an MA in English before I went and did an MBA. I looked at the upcoming semester's schedule, and spoke to the grad coordinator about the most important criteria to me: when were the classes held? In the English dept, like the Business dept, all the grad classes are held at the end of the day and evening -- just what I needed. I thought maybe, just maybe, I had a plan.
But still, Middlemarch loomed. I never could get through it, and I never knew what I was to get out of it. Everyone else seemed to "get" it, but I didn't. A few days later, my friend Mel blogged that she had settled on Middlemarch as her favorite book to teach. That sealed the deal for me -- I had to at least try again. See, Mel's known me since my undergrad days, knew me through the grad school experience (short though it was), knows me now...and I've known her all that time, as she was off at a seriously good grad school being exceptionally smart. In other words, her opinion matters a lot. So that's why I started to read Middlemarch again.
Today, she blogged about what it is that she tries to do in her classes. I read her list, and realized that I only ever had two professors try to do the same things, and they weren't in my department. It's no wonder I was unprepared and had zero confidence in my abilities, the first go 'round. As an adult, I know I can do better -- and that is the sole reason I'm going to try.
I realize "ulterior motive" sounds sinister, but my reason for reading Middlemarch is not all evil and dark. In fact, it has no bearing on the world whatsoever, just on me. My plan was, if I get through Middlemarch and can reasonably answer the question "what did I learn from this experience", then I would take advantage of a free evening in my fall schedule, and take a Victorian Lit class. See? Not sinister. Masochistic, perhaps, but that's my own thing.
I say "was" because I've already changed my plan. I'm going to take the class anyway; Middlemarch is one of the books being taught (the others being Bleak House, Picture of Dorian Gray and Tess of D'Urbervilles, each of which I've read and enjoyed...the latter two being much more enjoyable than the former) so even if I can't deal with it in the next few weeks, I'll have the opportunity once more in a classroom setting. The new carrot is this: if I make it through the class, I'll do an MA in English. Again, no relevance to the rest of the world.
Since I quit grad school (in 1992), I've carried around the guilt of doing so. My father paid a significant amount of money for my undergrad education; he took out no loans, and I went to a private school four years before I should have, so he was really unprepared. But, he didn't want me to have any loans when I got out, and I didn't. So, obviously I felt like I let them down and wasted their money. Then, there were the profs in my department. I went to a really small school, less than 1000 students. We had about 20 English majors, and very few went on to grad school. In fact, in my graduating class, I think only two of us even applied. So, it was sort of a big deal that any of us went on to another level. I lasted six weeks in grad school, at my #7 choice of school (out of 7). Around midterm time, I realized that studying literature at the graduate level just wasn't for me. This realization happened in the middle of a Victorian seminar in which a discussion had been raging for a good hour or so, regarding the importance of the color of the shirt worn by a particular character in Middlemarch. I didn't get it then, and I still don't get it. So, I withdrew, and while I can't say I regretted the decision, I've thought about it a lot over the years.
I went off and made my own career, having nothing to do with literature or higher education. A few years ago, I decided to go back to school and do a second BA (in Business Administration with a Management concentration), and I'll be done with that after Spring '05. I did this to bring some "academic" business knowledge into our company, and also to give myself something to do with my free time (and it's also a tax deduction). I also took a linguistics class, and decided that after I finished my management degree, I'd do a linguistics MA with a concentration in computational linguistics (being the geeky programmer that I am). I was all set to do that, and then saw that none of the classes in linguistics were offered at the end of the day/in the evening. That wasn't going to work, so I gave up my plans to be a linguist and figured I'd just do an MBA.
Then the little nagging voice started up again. "Why don't you read a book?" it said. "I'm not a good reader," I replied. "Oh, just get over yourself and try," it said. So I did. I read a few contemporary novels, then one day grabbed my dusty old Collected Works of Oscar Wilde and flipped through it. I didn't hate it. I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd take a few years to do an MA in English before I went and did an MBA. I looked at the upcoming semester's schedule, and spoke to the grad coordinator about the most important criteria to me: when were the classes held? In the English dept, like the Business dept, all the grad classes are held at the end of the day and evening -- just what I needed. I thought maybe, just maybe, I had a plan.
But still, Middlemarch loomed. I never could get through it, and I never knew what I was to get out of it. Everyone else seemed to "get" it, but I didn't. A few days later, my friend Mel blogged that she had settled on Middlemarch as her favorite book to teach. That sealed the deal for me -- I had to at least try again. See, Mel's known me since my undergrad days, knew me through the grad school experience (short though it was), knows me now...and I've known her all that time, as she was off at a seriously good grad school being exceptionally smart. In other words, her opinion matters a lot. So that's why I started to read Middlemarch again.
Today, she blogged about what it is that she tries to do in her classes. I read her list, and realized that I only ever had two professors try to do the same things, and they weren't in my department. It's no wonder I was unprepared and had zero confidence in my abilities, the first go 'round. As an adult, I know I can do better -- and that is the sole reason I'm going to try.
google is NOT the spawn of the devil
I've actually come across that statement, in various blogs, about how Google is some sort of terrible, devilish entity. I don't understand that, at all. Google is a search engine (that, as a company, provides tools intended to "make the world's information universally accessible and useful" using said search engine.) A really big, good one. The problem with that is...what now?
Along comes a CNet story yesterday: "Google queries provide stolen credit cards". This is one of those types of stories that people love to get all riled up about, when they have no clue what they're talking about. First, I repeat, Google is a search engine. It archives public content, which you can then search. Google does not steal your personal financial data. Unscrupulous people and/or webmasters who are very, very bad at their jobs, post data on public web sites. Those sites are indexed by Google (and a ton more search engines), and the text on the page is searchable by you, the consumer.
What sets Google apart from the other search engines is the ability to find more information because 1) they have more of it and 2) you can employ hacks to make your searches even better (here's a book about google hacks). Hacks are not bad things. Hacks are "quick jobs that produce what is needed". Those who hack are hackers. Neither "hack" nor "hacker" == "malicious meddler"; that would be a cracker.
But you see, we're not talking about cracking. We're talking about search results that include data that dumbasses (and/or crackers) placed on public web sites. Public records like police reports and tax records, which contain social security numbers, have been inadvertently placed online by city governments. Databases of purchase records which include card numbers, either stolen and placed online, or initially stored in a public place for all to see -- those are examples of information you can find online, AND you can find them with any search engine.
Google just makes the process easier, with number span searching. Kevin Rose provides an example of Google search query using number span searching: visa 4356000000000000..4356999999999999
Although number span searching isn't employed in Yahoo! or MSN Search, the pages that turn up as Google search results also will turn up in Yahoo! and MSN Search results, if you search on something specific. Try it: Yahoo! query w/ CC number, MSN Search query w/ CC number.
Moral of the story: don't publish information you don't want others to see, because people will find it, because search engines are doing their jobs. It isn't Google's (or Yahoo!'s, or MSN's) fault that poor security on the fault of administrators (and the ability of humans to fall for social engineering tricks) makes certain areas of the Internet a playground for crackers. In fact, security experts also use Google hacks for good, not evil, to find vulnerable servers in order to fix them, or alert their owners to do so.
I've actually come across that statement, in various blogs, about how Google is some sort of terrible, devilish entity. I don't understand that, at all. Google is a search engine (that, as a company, provides tools intended to "make the world's information universally accessible and useful" using said search engine.) A really big, good one. The problem with that is...what now?
Along comes a CNet story yesterday: "Google queries provide stolen credit cards". This is one of those types of stories that people love to get all riled up about, when they have no clue what they're talking about. First, I repeat, Google is a search engine. It archives public content, which you can then search. Google does not steal your personal financial data. Unscrupulous people and/or webmasters who are very, very bad at their jobs, post data on public web sites. Those sites are indexed by Google (and a ton more search engines), and the text on the page is searchable by you, the consumer.
What sets Google apart from the other search engines is the ability to find more information because 1) they have more of it and 2) you can employ hacks to make your searches even better (here's a book about google hacks). Hacks are not bad things. Hacks are "quick jobs that produce what is needed". Those who hack are hackers. Neither "hack" nor "hacker" == "malicious meddler"; that would be a cracker.
But you see, we're not talking about cracking. We're talking about search results that include data that dumbasses (and/or crackers) placed on public web sites. Public records like police reports and tax records, which contain social security numbers, have been inadvertently placed online by city governments. Databases of purchase records which include card numbers, either stolen and placed online, or initially stored in a public place for all to see -- those are examples of information you can find online, AND you can find them with any search engine.
Google just makes the process easier, with number span searching. Kevin Rose provides an example of Google search query using number span searching: visa 4356000000000000..4356999999999999
Although number span searching isn't employed in Yahoo! or MSN Search, the pages that turn up as Google search results also will turn up in Yahoo! and MSN Search results, if you search on something specific. Try it: Yahoo! query w/ CC number, MSN Search query w/ CC number.
Moral of the story: don't publish information you don't want others to see, because people will find it, because search engines are doing their jobs. It isn't Google's (or Yahoo!'s, or MSN's) fault that poor security on the fault of administrators (and the ability of humans to fall for social engineering tricks) makes certain areas of the Internet a playground for crackers. In fact, security experts also use Google hacks for good, not evil, to find vulnerable servers in order to fix them, or alert their owners to do so.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
satire is good for the soul
Or, at least the laughing that comes from good satire, that's good for the soul. Get some: "Senator Kerry Accused of Flip-Flops".
Go on wit' yo' bad self, Caleb!
Or, at least the laughing that comes from good satire, that's good for the soul. Get some: "Senator Kerry Accused of Flip-Flops".
Go on wit' yo' bad self, Caleb!
"who's running for president?"
I was just at the grocery store -- Whole Foods, actually. The cashier was going on about how the freemasons are running the country because Bush was part of Skull and Bones at Yale, and how it really doesn't matter who you vote for because so was Kerry (you just don't get this kind of jabber at the Safeway, do you?) Jabbering continued, and the bagger is nodding along and then says "who's running for president, anyway?"
The guy didn't look like he's been living under a rock, and I know our state is spared the onslaught of advertising that is reserved for battleground states, but still... At this stage in the game, one should know who's running.
I was just at the grocery store -- Whole Foods, actually. The cashier was going on about how the freemasons are running the country because Bush was part of Skull and Bones at Yale, and how it really doesn't matter who you vote for because so was Kerry (you just don't get this kind of jabber at the Safeway, do you?) Jabbering continued, and the bagger is nodding along and then says "who's running for president, anyway?"
The guy didn't look like he's been living under a rock, and I know our state is spared the onslaught of advertising that is reserved for battleground states, but still... At this stage in the game, one should know who's running.
Monday, August 02, 2004
i finished a book...
I finished two, actually. First was Eats, Shoots & Leaves, but that wasn't really like reading, it was more like laughing a lot and turning pages at the same time. Fuuunny. I think if I didn't know about punctuation, I wouldn't have found it as funny. But I do (really, I do) and it was funny. So there.
Then I finished Trumpet, a novel by Jackie Kay. See amazon.com for extended info, but here's an excerpt from the Publishers Weekly review:
I didn't read the review before I checked the book out of the library; I learned of it by reading comments in a "what should I read next" type of post by scribblingwoman. See what you can learn by reading comments? New books to read. Anyway, had I read the review, I would have said "oh yeah, Billy Tipton," the inspiration for a band from 10 or 12 years ago, The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, which is now The Tiptons. I had a CD. I completely forgot about them (and Billy Tipton) until (literally) about an hour ago when I said "d'oh" and smacked myself on the head. Not so quick on the uptake, here.
I finished two, actually. First was Eats, Shoots & Leaves, but that wasn't really like reading, it was more like laughing a lot and turning pages at the same time. Fuuunny. I think if I didn't know about punctuation, I wouldn't have found it as funny. But I do (really, I do) and it was funny. So there.
Then I finished Trumpet, a novel by Jackie Kay. See amazon.com for extended info, but here's an excerpt from the Publishers Weekly review:
"A Scottish poet with a fresh and resonant voice makes her fiction debut with a novel about the life of a famous jazz musician, born female, who masquerades as a man. Like the real-life Billy Tipton, Scottish trumpet player Joss Moody has a wife, Millie, and a domestic life. No one except Millie knows the truth about his sex, which is revealed by the medical examiner only after his death."
I didn't read the review before I checked the book out of the library; I learned of it by reading comments in a "what should I read next" type of post by scribblingwoman. See what you can learn by reading comments? New books to read. Anyway, had I read the review, I would have said "oh yeah, Billy Tipton," the inspiration for a band from 10 or 12 years ago, The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, which is now The Tiptons. I had a CD. I completely forgot about them (and Billy Tipton) until (literally) about an hour ago when I said "d'oh" and smacked myself on the head. Not so quick on the uptake, here.
sometimes, i just don't "get" things
This is one of those times. I'm sitting in the classroom, before by thrilling "Fundamentals of HR Management" class. There are plenty of people here, early, which is odd. When the prof gets here, we'll be turning in our take-home, multiple-choice mid-term exam. And so the lightbulb goes on in my slow little brain. People are sitting here, asking for the answers. Discussing answers. Borrowing my pencil to erase and re-bubble answers. Shit, if I knew it was going to be an exam-fest in the moments before class, I wouldn't have gone to the library on Saturday morning, and sat quietly in a cubby to take my midterm. I'm kidding, of course...I wouldn't swap answers. If I do poorly on this exam, it'll be my own doing. How very odd. Do people do this a lot? This isn't the first time I've written about cheaters and how I just don't get it; you'd think I'd get it by now.
UPDATE I scored 29/30, so I'll be sticking to my library method. Silly cheaters.
This is one of those times. I'm sitting in the classroom, before by thrilling "Fundamentals of HR Management" class. There are plenty of people here, early, which is odd. When the prof gets here, we'll be turning in our take-home, multiple-choice mid-term exam. And so the lightbulb goes on in my slow little brain. People are sitting here, asking for the answers. Discussing answers. Borrowing my pencil to erase and re-bubble answers. Shit, if I knew it was going to be an exam-fest in the moments before class, I wouldn't have gone to the library on Saturday morning, and sat quietly in a cubby to take my midterm. I'm kidding, of course...I wouldn't swap answers. If I do poorly on this exam, it'll be my own doing. How very odd. Do people do this a lot? This isn't the first time I've written about cheaters and how I just don't get it; you'd think I'd get it by now.
UPDATE I scored 29/30, so I'll be sticking to my library method. Silly cheaters.
i am currently reading three books - - a sure sign of the apocalypse
I have not been a reader, really, for many years. Until last Christmas, I would have said "I'm not a reader", but since I've been reading in the last 7 months, I've had to change it. Really though, the only things I would read were ESPN The Magazine and Reader's Digest (which I have loved since I was a kid and my dad gives me a subscription every year, so don't make fun!).
At this very moment, I have bookmarks in these books:
- Trumpet, by Jackie Kay
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss
- Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Yes, Middlemarch, the bane of my existence, the embodiment of why I left grad school oh so many years ago. So, why on earth did I check it out of the library, especially when I have 1800+ pages of Neal Stephenson books sitting on my coffeetable, unread? Well, my friend Mel settled on it as her favorite book to teach. I figured after 12 years, I'd give it another go. I have an ulterior motive for trying to get through it, though. More on that, later.
I have not been a reader, really, for many years. Until last Christmas, I would have said "I'm not a reader", but since I've been reading in the last 7 months, I've had to change it. Really though, the only things I would read were ESPN The Magazine and Reader's Digest (which I have loved since I was a kid and my dad gives me a subscription every year, so don't make fun!).
At this very moment, I have bookmarks in these books:
- Trumpet, by Jackie Kay
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss
- Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Yes, Middlemarch, the bane of my existence, the embodiment of why I left grad school oh so many years ago. So, why on earth did I check it out of the library, especially when I have 1800+ pages of Neal Stephenson books sitting on my coffeetable, unread? Well, my friend Mel settled on it as her favorite book to teach. I figured after 12 years, I'd give it another go. I have an ulterior motive for trying to get through it, though. More on that, later.
starting the day with a few silly quizzes
Actually, my day started a few hours ago. Does it count if the previous day "ends" when you just fall asleep for a few hours while watching Roseanne reruns on Nick at Nite, then get up and start all over again?
Anyway...according to the state quiz, I am Rhode Island: "You are a contradiction in terms and most people like making jokes about this. If people heard that your inspiration was historically Greek, they simply wouldn't believe you. You are extremely tiny and indeed, your whole world view is simply small. You're a tremendous fan of Stephen King novels, yet still somehow maintain faith in a higher power. You're still working hard to convince everyone that your schools have nothing against the Board of Education." Ha. That's funny. I don't live there, and I've only been there once. I liked it, though.
According to the country quiz, I'm Ireland: "Mystical and rain-soaked, you remain mysterious to many people, and this makes you intriguing. You also like a good night at the pub, though many are just as worried that you will blow up the pub as drink your beverage of choice. You're good with words, remarkably lucky, and know and enjoy at least fifteen ways of eating a potato. You really don't like snakes." This is pretty much spot-on, but I'm Italian. There's not one shred of Irish in me, and I know my roots! Although, my last name and an Irish last name are homophones.
I do hate snakes. [quiz links via stag]
Actually, my day started a few hours ago. Does it count if the previous day "ends" when you just fall asleep for a few hours while watching Roseanne reruns on Nick at Nite, then get up and start all over again?
Anyway...according to the state quiz, I am Rhode Island: "You are a contradiction in terms and most people like making jokes about this. If people heard that your inspiration was historically Greek, they simply wouldn't believe you. You are extremely tiny and indeed, your whole world view is simply small. You're a tremendous fan of Stephen King novels, yet still somehow maintain faith in a higher power. You're still working hard to convince everyone that your schools have nothing against the Board of Education." Ha. That's funny. I don't live there, and I've only been there once. I liked it, though.
According to the country quiz, I'm Ireland: "Mystical and rain-soaked, you remain mysterious to many people, and this makes you intriguing. You also like a good night at the pub, though many are just as worried that you will blow up the pub as drink your beverage of choice. You're good with words, remarkably lucky, and know and enjoy at least fifteen ways of eating a potato. You really don't like snakes." This is pretty much spot-on, but I'm Italian. There's not one shred of Irish in me, and I know my roots! Although, my last name and an Irish last name are homophones.
I do hate snakes. [quiz links via stag]
Sunday, August 01, 2004
there's a new blog on the block
I'd like to take a moment to point out an interesting new blog: snoblog—one man's quest to spread the gospel of snobbery. It will appeal to some, not to others, but the writing is very good.
I'd like to take a moment to point out an interesting new blog: snoblog—one man's quest to spread the gospel of snobbery. It will appeal to some, not to others, but the writing is very good.
i don't get it
Can someone explain to me why it was such a big deal that Kerry wore a "bunny suit" during a tour at NASA, when so did Bush and in fact so does anyone who steps into a shuttle? You know what? Thousands of people across America wear these same sorts of suits in their daily work (not me, of course, that would be silly). Was it a big deal because he looked like a dweeb? Find me someone in a bunny suit who doesn't look like a dweeb, and then we'll talk. But seriously....this was news?
Can someone explain to me why it was such a big deal that Kerry wore a "bunny suit" during a tour at NASA, when so did Bush and in fact so does anyone who steps into a shuttle? You know what? Thousands of people across America wear these same sorts of suits in their daily work (not me, of course, that would be silly). Was it a big deal because he looked like a dweeb? Find me someone in a bunny suit who doesn't look like a dweeb, and then we'll talk. But seriously....this was news?
Saturday, July 31, 2004
a letter from a soldier
Today, I got a letter from a soldier. I wrote to him (and some others) because their buddies/commanding officers/family members indicated they didn't get any mail/needed moral support, via booksforsoldiers.com. This particular soldier's name is Alejandro, and he's from Miami. He's been in the Army for 6 years and wants to be a career soldier. Right now, he's in Baghdad, and has been there for a good long while. You know what he asked for? Kool-Aid, lemonade and double-A batteries. Congress approved how much money for Bush's war games, and our soldiers can't get some fricking powdered drink mix and batteries for their flashlights? Alejandro's getting a box of powdered drink mix and batteries from me. "Thanks for defending our country, here's some stuff from Wal-Mart that the government couldn't provide for you." Seems kind of sad.
Today, I got a letter from a soldier. I wrote to him (and some others) because their buddies/commanding officers/family members indicated they didn't get any mail/needed moral support, via booksforsoldiers.com. This particular soldier's name is Alejandro, and he's from Miami. He's been in the Army for 6 years and wants to be a career soldier. Right now, he's in Baghdad, and has been there for a good long while. You know what he asked for? Kool-Aid, lemonade and double-A batteries. Congress approved how much money for Bush's war games, and our soldiers can't get some fricking powdered drink mix and batteries for their flashlights? Alejandro's getting a box of powdered drink mix and batteries from me. "Thanks for defending our country, here's some stuff from Wal-Mart that the government couldn't provide for you." Seems kind of sad.
so, the cool news from the other day is...
I get to be a teacher! I was asked by the good folks at Sessions.edu Online School of Design to develop and teach a course called "Databases and Dynamic Web Design". Yeah, I think I can handle that. If you know me personally (or maybe I've blathered on about it, somewhere in my blog), then you know that all I've ever really wanted to do is teach. There are things about me that make it not such a wonderful thing to stand up in front of a room full of people, so obviously I don't do it. But I always wanted to, and I even had the mindset of "screw it, whatever" and was going to do a Linguistics MA so I'd be qualified to teach comp classes in the community colleges here, but the stupid classes are taught in the fricking middle of the damn day so that's out the window...and another story for another time. Anyway, I get to be a teacher.
(Those of you who are real academics, please don't laugh. In no way do I equate teaching and online class with a "special topic" license from the New York State Board of Education, with the subjects you teach and methodologies used to teach them. Teacher "you" != Teacher "me", and I certainly recognize that!)
Anyway, Sessions.edu is an online school that offers single classes as well as three levels (standard, advanced, master) of certificate programs in graphic design, Web design, multimedia, digital arts, and business marketing design. My class would be a required course for a few different tracks within the various levels of the Web design certification; there are currently about 500 students in the Web track. Since students take classes at their own pace, they can start it whenever they want, and work through the lessons as they feel comfortable. The underlying software application is actually pretty good -- and I'm the first one to disparage poorly-designed software. Each lesson has a lecture followed by a quiz and exercise (more like a project, in this case) that they turn in to me. I give them feedback, or have them do it again, and the cycle goes on. I was told it would be reasonable to expect an average of 10-15 new students per month, which is just fine with me. Of course, I'd welcome more than that, because I get paid per student, in addition to a chunk for developing the course.
I know this isn't spectacular news of relevance to everyone, certainly not worthy of the teaser the previous post turned out to be (I didn't mean to do that!). In fact, when I told my bestest bud, the conversation went something along the lines of "but you hate dealing with dumbasses" (which is true). I tried to explain that it's different when you get paid to do it (it is to me, at least) but she didn't buy that. She reminded me that we have clients who are dumbasses, I hate dealing with them, and they pay us. I have my own definition of dumbass, and students who are learning something for the first time, who are paying a chunk of change to take a class and thus will (likely) put forth a fair amount of effort, do not fit the definition. They may eventually, but that's their problem. Dumbasses are people who don't try, and expect you to do their work for them. Or, they're people who buy a $20 book and think that gives them the right to call you at your workplace instead of looking for help on that pesky Internet thing. Dumbasses are clients who don't remember certain things about design or process, which you've gone over every month (for years) with them, and then screw up your workflow and their schedule because they're idiots who don't "get" things. You get the picture. Students are not dumbasses until their throw away their opportunities and start taking up space. I may get some of those, sure, but the structure of the school, the certification programs, the lessons, and oh yeah, the cost, sort of filters all those out.
So, I'm stoked.
I get to be a teacher! I was asked by the good folks at Sessions.edu Online School of Design to develop and teach a course called "Databases and Dynamic Web Design". Yeah, I think I can handle that. If you know me personally (or maybe I've blathered on about it, somewhere in my blog), then you know that all I've ever really wanted to do is teach. There are things about me that make it not such a wonderful thing to stand up in front of a room full of people, so obviously I don't do it. But I always wanted to, and I even had the mindset of "screw it, whatever" and was going to do a Linguistics MA so I'd be qualified to teach comp classes in the community colleges here, but the stupid classes are taught in the fricking middle of the damn day so that's out the window...and another story for another time. Anyway, I get to be a teacher.
(Those of you who are real academics, please don't laugh. In no way do I equate teaching and online class with a "special topic" license from the New York State Board of Education, with the subjects you teach and methodologies used to teach them. Teacher "you" != Teacher "me", and I certainly recognize that!)
Anyway, Sessions.edu is an online school that offers single classes as well as three levels (standard, advanced, master) of certificate programs in graphic design, Web design, multimedia, digital arts, and business marketing design. My class would be a required course for a few different tracks within the various levels of the Web design certification; there are currently about 500 students in the Web track. Since students take classes at their own pace, they can start it whenever they want, and work through the lessons as they feel comfortable. The underlying software application is actually pretty good -- and I'm the first one to disparage poorly-designed software. Each lesson has a lecture followed by a quiz and exercise (more like a project, in this case) that they turn in to me. I give them feedback, or have them do it again, and the cycle goes on. I was told it would be reasonable to expect an average of 10-15 new students per month, which is just fine with me. Of course, I'd welcome more than that, because I get paid per student, in addition to a chunk for developing the course.
I know this isn't spectacular news of relevance to everyone, certainly not worthy of the teaser the previous post turned out to be (I didn't mean to do that!). In fact, when I told my bestest bud, the conversation went something along the lines of "but you hate dealing with dumbasses" (which is true). I tried to explain that it's different when you get paid to do it (it is to me, at least) but she didn't buy that. She reminded me that we have clients who are dumbasses, I hate dealing with them, and they pay us. I have my own definition of dumbass, and students who are learning something for the first time, who are paying a chunk of change to take a class and thus will (likely) put forth a fair amount of effort, do not fit the definition. They may eventually, but that's their problem. Dumbasses are people who don't try, and expect you to do their work for them. Or, they're people who buy a $20 book and think that gives them the right to call you at your workplace instead of looking for help on that pesky Internet thing. Dumbasses are clients who don't remember certain things about design or process, which you've gone over every month (for years) with them, and then screw up your workflow and their schedule because they're idiots who don't "get" things. You get the picture. Students are not dumbasses until their throw away their opportunities and start taking up space. I may get some of those, sure, but the structure of the school, the certification programs, the lessons, and oh yeah, the cost, sort of filters all those out.
So, I'm stoked.
Friday, July 30, 2004
bucks v. brains spark
Today's spark: If you had the opportunity to become either the richest or smartest person in the world, which would you chose?
I know sparks are supposed to help you write long passages about meaningful things, but this is going to be short. I would want to be the smartest person in the world. Really smart people will find a way to make money (if that's the motivation). But being a dumb, rich person, while much more fun, wouldn't be very fulfilling. I feel guilty enough, getting money for some of the things I do, and I can't imagine just having money without earning it. On any given day, I might want that, on the surface, but not because money defines my life, just that money pays the bills. The less stress I have about paying the bills, the more things I can do!
Today's spark: If you had the opportunity to become either the richest or smartest person in the world, which would you chose?
I know sparks are supposed to help you write long passages about meaningful things, but this is going to be short. I would want to be the smartest person in the world. Really smart people will find a way to make money (if that's the motivation). But being a dumb, rich person, while much more fun, wouldn't be very fulfilling. I feel guilty enough, getting money for some of the things I do, and I can't imagine just having money without earning it. On any given day, I might want that, on the surface, but not because money defines my life, just that money pays the bills. The less stress I have about paying the bills, the more things I can do!
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
voter apathy and the young folks
On last night's local news, young folks (18-24) were weighing in on the upcoming election. "Weighing in" isn't really the case...it was more like "I'm not going to vote. Why should I?" One young lady -- a recent high school graduate with a young kid, going to community college and working two jobs -- said "No politician knows what I go through on a daily basis. Why should I support one of them." I don't disagree with her that the presidential nominees have no idea of the trials and the tribulations of the lower economic classes working very hard to better themselves. But, and call me crazy, it seems to me that the way to correct this problem would be to become politically active. "Politically active" can mean so many different things, ranging from "I'm going to quit my job and go be Howard Dean's press secretary" (college friend of mine did that) to "Yes, I will cast a vote" (period). But simply doing nothing, in my opinion, is disgraceful. Don't we have a responsibility, as Americans, to exercise the right for which so many have died? What, exactly, is accomplished by simply not voting?
I have a friend who exemplifies "duty, honor, country", for whom "not voting" is just not an option. On election days, voting is the number one priority. You know that little "I voted!" sticker you get after voting? She wears it like the Medal of Honor, it's that important. It makes sense, though...I kid her that she's "American Royalty", being a direct descendent not only of several First Families, but Peregrine White himself, the first white child born in New England (1620, on the Mayflower as it was docked in the harbor), is her 8th-great-grandfather. When beginning to document her family history, it became easier for me to count the number of ancestors who didn't fight in the Revolutionary War, than those who did. The Civil War? Same thing, and this time it included the Irish side of her family, which had just landed in America a few years before (pesky Potato Famine). Flash forward to the World Wars -- whereas my ancestors joined up in order to gain their citizenship, the men in her family fought in every war that called them, because they were citizens. Her GG-grandfather was the US Minister to China in 1880, and in 1887, he was the US Minister to Turkey. Her G-grandfather was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books such as The Foundations of American Constitutionalism and Steps in the Development of American Democracy. Like I said, "not voting" is not an option in her family.
I have no doubt that my friend will (continue to) raise her son with the sense of duty, honor, country that runs through her family. I just wish she could go beat some sense into the young folks who say "why should I vote?" (and who mean it).
On last night's local news, young folks (18-24) were weighing in on the upcoming election. "Weighing in" isn't really the case...it was more like "I'm not going to vote. Why should I?" One young lady -- a recent high school graduate with a young kid, going to community college and working two jobs -- said "No politician knows what I go through on a daily basis. Why should I support one of them." I don't disagree with her that the presidential nominees have no idea of the trials and the tribulations of the lower economic classes working very hard to better themselves. But, and call me crazy, it seems to me that the way to correct this problem would be to become politically active. "Politically active" can mean so many different things, ranging from "I'm going to quit my job and go be Howard Dean's press secretary" (college friend of mine did that) to "Yes, I will cast a vote" (period). But simply doing nothing, in my opinion, is disgraceful. Don't we have a responsibility, as Americans, to exercise the right for which so many have died? What, exactly, is accomplished by simply not voting?
I have a friend who exemplifies "duty, honor, country", for whom "not voting" is just not an option. On election days, voting is the number one priority. You know that little "I voted!" sticker you get after voting? She wears it like the Medal of Honor, it's that important. It makes sense, though...I kid her that she's "American Royalty", being a direct descendent not only of several First Families, but Peregrine White himself, the first white child born in New England (1620, on the Mayflower as it was docked in the harbor), is her 8th-great-grandfather. When beginning to document her family history, it became easier for me to count the number of ancestors who didn't fight in the Revolutionary War, than those who did. The Civil War? Same thing, and this time it included the Irish side of her family, which had just landed in America a few years before (pesky Potato Famine). Flash forward to the World Wars -- whereas my ancestors joined up in order to gain their citizenship, the men in her family fought in every war that called them, because they were citizens. Her GG-grandfather was the US Minister to China in 1880, and in 1887, he was the US Minister to Turkey. Her G-grandfather was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books such as The Foundations of American Constitutionalism and Steps in the Development of American Democracy. Like I said, "not voting" is not an option in her family.
I have no doubt that my friend will (continue to) raise her son with the sense of duty, honor, country that runs through her family. I just wish she could go beat some sense into the young folks who say "why should I vote?" (and who mean it).
wow, this really is craptastic!
Even my mother is smarter than this (sorry, mom)...read on: "Lemme in! I gotta use the innanet!"
Even my mother is smarter than this (sorry, mom)...read on: "Lemme in! I gotta use the innanet!"
i would move to illinois...
just to vote for Barack Obama for the US Senate. Of course, I won't, but that's ok, because unless he does something terribly, terribly wrong, he'll be a presidential candidate soon enough. At least, based on his speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, I sure hope he will be. Son of a Kenyan and a Kansan? That's the melting pot I heard about from Schoolhouse Rock.
Some speech highlights:
You can read the entire transcript at the WaPo, without even registering! If you come across a video of the speech, watch it, because it's even better than the transcript. I think CNN has video without needing to be registered for anything.
Anyway, I sure hope he doesn't turn out to be some lunatic, because that would really suck.
just to vote for Barack Obama for the US Senate. Of course, I won't, but that's ok, because unless he does something terribly, terribly wrong, he'll be a presidential candidate soon enough. At least, based on his speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, I sure hope he will be. Son of a Kenyan and a Kansan? That's the melting pot I heard about from Schoolhouse Rock.
Some speech highlights:
"...A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief-I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper-that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one..."
"...There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States...."
"...In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here-the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!
In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. America!"
You can read the entire transcript at the WaPo, without even registering! If you come across a video of the speech, watch it, because it's even better than the transcript. I think CNN has video without needing to be registered for anything.
Anyway, I sure hope he doesn't turn out to be some lunatic, because that would really suck.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
would have been a good name for a blog...
"one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind". some of you will get it, some of you will not. it's ok. someone probably has a blog named that, or "big day, big day, need a brain". and that's how my day started, in an IM conversation between my boss and myself, at 7:04 AM. i said something like "what's up?" (which is code for "good morning, how are you, and can't I please keep working on my own stuff and not start on pesky work for paying clients?") and I get references like this. my responses were limited to things like "huh? what? too early for wit."
"one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind". some of you will get it, some of you will not. it's ok. someone probably has a blog named that, or "big day, big day, need a brain". and that's how my day started, in an IM conversation between my boss and myself, at 7:04 AM. i said something like "what's up?" (which is code for "good morning, how are you, and can't I please keep working on my own stuff and not start on pesky work for paying clients?") and I get references like this. my responses were limited to things like "huh? what? too early for wit."
i voted!
for my favorite tv/movie scientist(s). There's quite a diverse group of contenders: Spock, Doctor Frankenstein, Frank 'N' Furter, Beaker & Honeydew, Doctor Strangelove, Q, The Doctor, Dana Scully, Doctor Evil and Doctor Emmett Brown. I, of course, voted for...can you guess? Can you? That's right: the crack team of Beaker & Honeydew! Meep meep meep. [link via greengrl]
for my favorite tv/movie scientist(s). There's quite a diverse group of contenders: Spock, Doctor Frankenstein, Frank 'N' Furter, Beaker & Honeydew, Doctor Strangelove, Q, The Doctor, Dana Scully, Doctor Evil and Doctor Emmett Brown. I, of course, voted for...can you guess? Can you? That's right: the crack team of Beaker & Honeydew! Meep meep meep. [link via greengrl]
Monday, July 26, 2004
bored. to. tears.
I am very glad that summer sessions are short, because the class I am currently taking ("Fundamentals of Human Resource Management") is draining the life right out of me. The information is fine (mostly legal aspects of HR) and the instructor is actually entertaining (he's not an ass, he has a sense of humor, his lectures are very informative) but the class is FOUR HOURS LONG. Twice a week, 6:30 to 10:45pm, for 5 weeks. Luckily, we usually don't go the full four hours, but still, three hours of sitting on my butt, after a long hard day of sitting on my butt, well, it takes a toll on my butt. The business building is completely wired (ethernet and power supply at every seat), and I am grateful for that -- I can't imagine taking a business class without my laptop. I do use it to take notes (my handwriting is atrocious), but being able to check the news/sports/blogs keeps me awake.
Believe it or not, this class is an elective. We have to take three electives along with the core classes for our concentration (mine is management), but with all the cutbacks in the budget results in cutbacks in classes. So, not only are the electives the first to go, the ones that remain are at odd times. With only two more semesters to go (fall and spring), I didn't want to take the chance that I'd be one elective short, so I grabbed this one during the summer session. Next semester's elective is a bit more relevant to me, "Management Issues in High Tech Firms". Yeah, they tend to have issues.
I am very glad that summer sessions are short, because the class I am currently taking ("Fundamentals of Human Resource Management") is draining the life right out of me. The information is fine (mostly legal aspects of HR) and the instructor is actually entertaining (he's not an ass, he has a sense of humor, his lectures are very informative) but the class is FOUR HOURS LONG. Twice a week, 6:30 to 10:45pm, for 5 weeks. Luckily, we usually don't go the full four hours, but still, three hours of sitting on my butt, after a long hard day of sitting on my butt, well, it takes a toll on my butt. The business building is completely wired (ethernet and power supply at every seat), and I am grateful for that -- I can't imagine taking a business class without my laptop. I do use it to take notes (my handwriting is atrocious), but being able to check the news/sports/blogs keeps me awake.
Believe it or not, this class is an elective. We have to take three electives along with the core classes for our concentration (mine is management), but with all the cutbacks in the budget results in cutbacks in classes. So, not only are the electives the first to go, the ones that remain are at odd times. With only two more semesters to go (fall and spring), I didn't want to take the chance that I'd be one elective short, so I grabbed this one during the summer session. Next semester's elective is a bit more relevant to me, "Management Issues in High Tech Firms". Yeah, they tend to have issues.
did you ever...
have a really cool thing just drop in your lap, and you just want to tell everyone about it, but then you don't because you haven't signed anything yet and it would be just your luck that it would all get blown to hell before that happened? Yeah, me too. RIGHT NOW. But I have to wait. Very, very frustrating.
Oh, in other news...remember that really cute puppy? She was adopted into a nice family over the weekend. Yay!
have a really cool thing just drop in your lap, and you just want to tell everyone about it, but then you don't because you haven't signed anything yet and it would be just your luck that it would all get blown to hell before that happened? Yeah, me too. RIGHT NOW. But I have to wait. Very, very frustrating.
Oh, in other news...remember that really cute puppy? She was adopted into a nice family over the weekend. Yay!
Saturday, July 24, 2004
decaf is NOT a good thing
I thought I'd be a good little girl and switch to decaf while dieting. That lasted exactly 11 hours. My daily liquid intake is one pot of coffee throughout the morning (Those "10 cup" coffeemakers? Who the hell measured the cups? 1 mug = 2 cups. They should definitely measure in mugs.) and then water, water, water throughout the rest of the day. So, post-gym I went to SBUX (there's actually one right across the parking lot, and I did not drive to it, as several other gym-goers did after their workouts. What the hell? You just worked out, now you're going to drive 100 yards?) and got my venti drip...decaf. Two hours later I was zonked out on the couch with a raging headache, and stayed that way all afternoon. I just made a pot of coffee, and headache is magically gone. Screw decaf.
I thought I'd be a good little girl and switch to decaf while dieting. That lasted exactly 11 hours. My daily liquid intake is one pot of coffee throughout the morning (Those "10 cup" coffeemakers? Who the hell measured the cups? 1 mug = 2 cups. They should definitely measure in mugs.) and then water, water, water throughout the rest of the day. So, post-gym I went to SBUX (there's actually one right across the parking lot, and I did not drive to it, as several other gym-goers did after their workouts. What the hell? You just worked out, now you're going to drive 100 yards?) and got my venti drip...decaf. Two hours later I was zonked out on the couch with a raging headache, and stayed that way all afternoon. I just made a pot of coffee, and headache is magically gone. Screw decaf.
back at the ol' homestead
My friends are back from Kauai (at least, I assume they are) so I spent last night at my own home, with my own furry friends. I'm not sure they even knew I was gone, just that their food bowl was empty. Everything quickly settled back to normal: Toby took a long nap in the laundry basket, the baby curled up with me on the couch and watched Law & Order, and Max hung out on the top of the couch-back cushions. Whoop de do, what a terribly exciting life we lead.
Today I went to the gym for the first time in awhile, not because I was housesitting but because I was working so much lately that following my early-morning gym routine wasn't possible. It's unfortunate, because I could feel myself just getting fatter and fatter. I had actually signed up to do a year-long diet study at Stanford, in which I would be randomized to one of four popular diets (Atkins, traditional, Ornish, Zone), receive 8 weeks of classes on how to do the diet properly, then would "do my best" to stay with the diet for a year, with various measurement checkpoints along the way. Stanford is doing this study "to scientifically test the health claims being made by their proponents. Findings will fill important gaps in our knowledge, and have an impact on both consumer and health professionals who remain confused about the benefits and risks of these diets." It's actually a really cool thing, but I had to take my name off the list because of conflicts between the meeting times in the fall, and classes.
But, today I started the Zone diet, on my own. Atkins doesn't work for me -- I actually gained a lot of weight during the induction phase, and I just can't survive without some sort of carbs. I walked around for a few weeks like a drooling zombie, without any carbs. It was pretty pathetic, and not conducive to work. I am eating my Zone breakfast right now, which is two pieces of rye bread, topped with swiss cheese and wheat germ, broiled in the toaster oven. It's really good, actually. I pick my meals through eDiets, and since I'm lazy, I tend to eat the same breakfast, lunch and snacks for a whole week. It makes grocery shopping much easier.
My friends are back from Kauai (at least, I assume they are) so I spent last night at my own home, with my own furry friends. I'm not sure they even knew I was gone, just that their food bowl was empty. Everything quickly settled back to normal: Toby took a long nap in the laundry basket, the baby curled up with me on the couch and watched Law & Order, and Max hung out on the top of the couch-back cushions. Whoop de do, what a terribly exciting life we lead.
Today I went to the gym for the first time in awhile, not because I was housesitting but because I was working so much lately that following my early-morning gym routine wasn't possible. It's unfortunate, because I could feel myself just getting fatter and fatter. I had actually signed up to do a year-long diet study at Stanford, in which I would be randomized to one of four popular diets (Atkins, traditional, Ornish, Zone), receive 8 weeks of classes on how to do the diet properly, then would "do my best" to stay with the diet for a year, with various measurement checkpoints along the way. Stanford is doing this study "to scientifically test the health claims being made by their proponents. Findings will fill important gaps in our knowledge, and have an impact on both consumer and health professionals who remain confused about the benefits and risks of these diets." It's actually a really cool thing, but I had to take my name off the list because of conflicts between the meeting times in the fall, and classes.
But, today I started the Zone diet, on my own. Atkins doesn't work for me -- I actually gained a lot of weight during the induction phase, and I just can't survive without some sort of carbs. I walked around for a few weeks like a drooling zombie, without any carbs. It was pretty pathetic, and not conducive to work. I am eating my Zone breakfast right now, which is two pieces of rye bread, topped with swiss cheese and wheat germ, broiled in the toaster oven. It's really good, actually. I pick my meals through eDiets, and since I'm lazy, I tend to eat the same breakfast, lunch and snacks for a whole week. It makes grocery shopping much easier.
Friday, July 23, 2004
amy richards, and being pro-choice
I've had this story nagging at me for the last week or so, because it raised all sorts of issues that, to be honest, I never have to deal with....but I couldn't get it out of my head. I barely go out into the world, let alone engage in debate about the fundamental rights of all people, and what not; I have my set of opinions, and they're on the liberal side of the fence. But I don't particularly hate/think are evil/want to exile to an island those on the other side of the fence. "Hate" and "evil" are really, really strong words. Sure, I use them all the time, as in "I hate this client" or "That particular marketing manager is evil and needs to die", but that's work-related, not real world. Anyway, the point is that I'll listen to and consider any well-reasoned, "this is my opinion and I'm not trying to force it on you", respect-laden argument. That being said, it doesn't matter if it's a liberal spouting off or a conservative -- I'm not going to waste my time listening to or participating in a "discussion" consisting of personal attacks and judgments, with poorly-formed arguments at its core.
[NOTE: read the story if you want any of the rest of this to make sense; summarizing the story doesn't work]
But it's the former type of discussion (well-reasoned, respectful) and not the latter (vitriol) that one finds (for the most part) in the comments going on in Hugo Schwyzer's blog, namely these posts:
- Crying with rage at Amy Richards
- More on Amy Richards
- One more on Amy Richards, and "Choice for Men"
Some of the well-done posts with good discussion, from the pro-choice side, are (note, these are just the ones I've read and I'm sure there are plenty more):
- When Is An Abortion Okay, and Who Gets To Decide? (from Trish Wilson's blog)
- Regarding Amy Richards & Abortion (from alas, a blog)
- Freedom of Choice -- But Only On Certain Terms (from alas, a blog)
The question Hugo originally posed was "Anyone on the pro-choice side want to make a case that what this woman did was morally defensible?" Hugo is pro-life, as are most of his readers, but the ensuing discussion was a heart-felt one from both sides. I didn't jump into the commenting fray, primarily because I didn't have a good argument. I am pro-choice, and believe Amy Richards has the right to choose. But, given what was related in the story -- and possibly because of how the story was told -- I couldn't defend her on moral grounds. Or maybe I could, but I didn't want to. Sure, I could legally defend her, as in "she can legally choose, and she did", but I found the story distasteful.
Not "wrong", not "evil", not "immoral," but distasteful. Selective reduction happens frequently, such as when the health of the fetuses is an issue, or the health of the mother. I'm sure it happens (more frequently than the Amy Richards example) when the parent(s) just "can't", for whatever their reasons, deal with multiple births. What made this story distasteful to me were the proper nouns thrown into the story -- Staten Island, Costco, Boston Pops, Symphony Hall. As in "I'm going to have to move to Staten Island" and "I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise" and "I had just finished watching a Boston Pops concert at Symphony Hall," the is irrelevant to the tale of selective reduction except to highlight one more material thing valued by Amy Richards, that I personally read as "and I'll have to give up my symphony tickets, too."
I don't know what Amy Richards was trying to accomplish by telling her story (and that's what it was, as the byline reads "By Amy Richards as told to Amy Barrett", although I'm not sure what would have been different had it been a written essay, except perhaps longer). If it was to simply say "I'm a woman, I can choose", well, that's just dandy. You can, and you should be able to. If it was to make people think, well that's certainly happened although I fear it may have polarized the camps more than anything, because the story seemed so...callous.
I've had this story nagging at me for the last week or so, because it raised all sorts of issues that, to be honest, I never have to deal with....but I couldn't get it out of my head. I barely go out into the world, let alone engage in debate about the fundamental rights of all people, and what not; I have my set of opinions, and they're on the liberal side of the fence. But I don't particularly hate/think are evil/want to exile to an island those on the other side of the fence. "Hate" and "evil" are really, really strong words. Sure, I use them all the time, as in "I hate this client" or "That particular marketing manager is evil and needs to die", but that's work-related, not real world. Anyway, the point is that I'll listen to and consider any well-reasoned, "this is my opinion and I'm not trying to force it on you", respect-laden argument. That being said, it doesn't matter if it's a liberal spouting off or a conservative -- I'm not going to waste my time listening to or participating in a "discussion" consisting of personal attacks and judgments, with poorly-formed arguments at its core.
[NOTE: read the story if you want any of the rest of this to make sense; summarizing the story doesn't work]
But it's the former type of discussion (well-reasoned, respectful) and not the latter (vitriol) that one finds (for the most part) in the comments going on in Hugo Schwyzer's blog, namely these posts:
- Crying with rage at Amy Richards
- More on Amy Richards
- One more on Amy Richards, and "Choice for Men"
Some of the well-done posts with good discussion, from the pro-choice side, are (note, these are just the ones I've read and I'm sure there are plenty more):
- When Is An Abortion Okay, and Who Gets To Decide? (from Trish Wilson's blog)
- Regarding Amy Richards & Abortion (from alas, a blog)
- Freedom of Choice -- But Only On Certain Terms (from alas, a blog)
The question Hugo originally posed was "Anyone on the pro-choice side want to make a case that what this woman did was morally defensible?" Hugo is pro-life, as are most of his readers, but the ensuing discussion was a heart-felt one from both sides. I didn't jump into the commenting fray, primarily because I didn't have a good argument. I am pro-choice, and believe Amy Richards has the right to choose. But, given what was related in the story -- and possibly because of how the story was told -- I couldn't defend her on moral grounds. Or maybe I could, but I didn't want to. Sure, I could legally defend her, as in "she can legally choose, and she did", but I found the story distasteful.
Not "wrong", not "evil", not "immoral," but distasteful. Selective reduction happens frequently, such as when the health of the fetuses is an issue, or the health of the mother. I'm sure it happens (more frequently than the Amy Richards example) when the parent(s) just "can't", for whatever their reasons, deal with multiple births. What made this story distasteful to me were the proper nouns thrown into the story -- Staten Island, Costco, Boston Pops, Symphony Hall. As in "I'm going to have to move to Staten Island" and "I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise" and "I had just finished watching a Boston Pops concert at Symphony Hall," the is irrelevant to the tale of selective reduction except to highlight one more material thing valued by Amy Richards, that I personally read as "and I'll have to give up my symphony tickets, too."
I don't know what Amy Richards was trying to accomplish by telling her story (and that's what it was, as the byline reads "By Amy Richards as told to Amy Barrett", although I'm not sure what would have been different had it been a written essay, except perhaps longer). If it was to simply say "I'm a woman, I can choose", well, that's just dandy. You can, and you should be able to. If it was to make people think, well that's certainly happened although I fear it may have polarized the camps more than anything, because the story seemed so...callous.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
name-calling schmuck
It's a good thing Mac doesn't live in California, because I don't think she could bear living in Schwarzenegger's state. Heck, she lives 3000 miles away, and she calls him out regularly. Then again, it's not too difficult, given all that he's done while in office. Some highlights from "On Girlie Men and Our Manly Governor" (LA Times link, see bugmenot for creds), in which Steve Lopez does an index-like take on what we've been through. Some highlights:
And so on. Sigh.
It's a good thing Mac doesn't live in California, because I don't think she could bear living in Schwarzenegger's state. Heck, she lives 3000 miles away, and she calls him out regularly. Then again, it's not too difficult, given all that he's done while in office. Some highlights from "On Girlie Men and Our Manly Governor" (LA Times link, see bugmenot for creds), in which Steve Lopez does an index-like take on what we've been through. Some highlights:
Total dollar amount of the 2003-04 budget signed by ex-Gov. Gray Davis: $99.1 billion.
Total amount of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first budget after promising to shrink government: $103 billion.
Number of employees on Gov. Schwarzenegger's staff who make $100,000 or more: 14.
Number of employees on Gov. Davis' staff who made $100,000 or more: 8.
Pay concessions Gov. Schwarzenegger vowed to extract by playing hardball with the California prison guards union: $300 million.
Amount of pay concessions actually negotiated by Schwarzenegger with the prison union: $108 million.
And so on. Sigh.
i'm not a dog person, but...
Today, I played with the CUTEST PUPPY EVER. Kate is the president of a rescue, and as such, she rescues dogs from bad situations. This particular situation was a "food aggressive" puppy. Humane society workers shove a plastic arm in a dog's face while it's being fed, and if it tries to bite it, they think it's food aggressive. There's a scale of 1 to 10 for aggressiveness, and if you're a 10, you pretty much get euthanized. I'll grant you, there are plenty of dogs who actually are food aggressive, and it's a bad thing. But, if you're a stray or a puppy who doesn't know any better, and/or you've had to fight for your food if you had any at all, well, I'd probably bite the strange plastic thing being shoved in my face, too. So Kate goes and rescues this particular "10", and within like half an hour the puppy isn't food aggressive anymore. She's nippy and licky, sure, but she's a puppy. She is also very smart, and playful and just...a great little puppy. Kate, of course, has no idea what kind of dog she is...the description on the CARE puppy page said "Beagle/Border Collie/Corgi?" -- a little vague. Unfortunately, "undeniably cute" isn't a recognized breed. It took several tries to get this picture (and that's my arm in the background), but come on...that's a cute puppy. She didn't have a name until this afternoon; Kate was going to name her "Bo", because Bo Derek was also a 10, but "Bo" sounds an awful lot like "No", which the puppy's been hearing a lot of, lately. So, her name is Dez. Dez is Portuguese for "ten".
Today, I played with the CUTEST PUPPY EVER. Kate is the president of a rescue, and as such, she rescues dogs from bad situations. This particular situation was a "food aggressive" puppy. Humane society workers shove a plastic arm in a dog's face while it's being fed, and if it tries to bite it, they think it's food aggressive. There's a scale of 1 to 10 for aggressiveness, and if you're a 10, you pretty much get euthanized. I'll grant you, there are plenty of dogs who actually are food aggressive, and it's a bad thing. But, if you're a stray or a puppy who doesn't know any better, and/or you've had to fight for your food if you had any at all, well, I'd probably bite the strange plastic thing being shoved in my face, too. So Kate goes and rescues this particular "10", and within like half an hour the puppy isn't food aggressive anymore. She's nippy and licky, sure, but she's a puppy. She is also very smart, and playful and just...a great little puppy. Kate, of course, has no idea what kind of dog she is...the description on the CARE puppy page said "Beagle/Border Collie/Corgi?" -- a little vague. Unfortunately, "undeniably cute" isn't a recognized breed. It took several tries to get this picture (and that's my arm in the background), but come on...that's a cute puppy. She didn't have a name until this afternoon; Kate was going to name her "Bo", because Bo Derek was also a 10, but "Bo" sounds an awful lot like "No", which the puppy's been hearing a lot of, lately. So, her name is Dez. Dez is Portuguese for "ten".
a wee bit o' hope for the future
Student's film winning awards, changing minds -- high school senior Zach Landman, "a white rich kid from the suburbs who's probably never come in contact with that situation at all", makes an award-winning, 12-minute movie, "A Nation Divided". Via greengrl, who says "Yet another reminder that there are a lot of amazing kids out there, who will eventually make their mark in our society."
Can he hurry up and do that, please?
Student's film winning awards, changing minds -- high school senior Zach Landman, "a white rich kid from the suburbs who's probably never come in contact with that situation at all", makes an award-winning, 12-minute movie, "A Nation Divided". Via greengrl, who says "Yet another reminder that there are a lot of amazing kids out there, who will eventually make their mark in our society."
Can he hurry up and do that, please?
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
another silly quiz, but this time from IKEA
Via Rana (who is a RISKA hall mirror), comes the IKEA Family Personality Test...from IKEA itself! I am an OBSERVATÖR TV stand. Ok....
There you have it!
Via Rana (who is a RISKA hall mirror), comes the IKEA Family Personality Test...from IKEA itself! I am an OBSERVATÖR TV stand. Ok....
OBSERVATÖR TV stands are usually described by their friends as being good listeners, quick-witted and with a keen eye for observation. Enemies, on the hand, see them as watchful, suspicious, trouble-making control-freaks. Such criticisms do not worry TV stands too much, since you know exactly who your friends and enemies are. More importantly, you know who you are. Other important qualities of the OBSERVATÖR TV stand include self-knowledge and the ability to see things in perspective, as well as individualism and a sense of humour. In troubled times, TV stands may be prone to attacks of melancholy, followed by feelings of cynicism. At such times, the OBSERVATÖR TV stand should take care not to be superior in his/her dealings with friends. There is nothing more risky than taking your friends for granted.
TV stands may not admit it, but the fact is that they enjoy a good gossip, hence the well-known phrase: "TV stands know about it before it even happens". If you want to be in the know, talk to an OBSERVATÖR TV stand.
There you have it!
mmmm, donut...
with a straw, even! These aren't for the Atkins crowd...nor should they be for me, either! But I'll be trying one, that's for sure. [via BoingBoing]
with a straw, even! These aren't for the Atkins crowd...nor should they be for me, either! But I'll be trying one, that's for sure. [via BoingBoing]
oh, those boys...
'Eye' spiffs up Bayside man [from NY Newsday]. Yes, it's amazing what switching from instant coffee will do for ya!
'Eye' spiffs up Bayside man [from NY Newsday]. Yes, it's amazing what switching from instant coffee will do for ya!
book writin'
Despite the trials and tribulations during the writing of my Plone book, my publisher hasn't dropped me. In fact, they want me to update my "immensely popular" (their words, not mine) book, Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All-in-One, in anticipation of winter holiday shopping sprees. It's only been on the shelves since the previous winter holiday shopping spree, and it's already sold over 22K copies, so that's cool.
I'm such a hypocrite, though -- I complain about how much I hate writing books, then I go write/update another one. I wrote my first book, back in the olden days of 1999, because I wanted to publish something, and there were only two or three books out on the (then) new-fangled thing I picked to write about. I wrote a second book on the same topic, but geared toward a different audience and in a different style (step by step and with lots of pictures), and that one was well-received. Over the next two years, I wrote articles for Wired's Webmonkey, and for CNet and other things like that, and had tutorials and extras at my website, and I dutifully answered emails when people had questions, etc. Then things started to suck. The new-fangled stuff got really, really popular, and books started springing up all over the place...as a result, friends/fans of other authors would write unfounded crappy reviews of all the books not authored by their friends, would fill my mailbox (and presumably those of other authors) with "you suck" messages, garbage like that. I could deal with those, because I knew it was just a bunch of stupid people trying to cause trouble.
But then a whole other gaggle of people started to surface -- the "I can't get my thumb out of my own ass, you have to help me" bunch. Now, I intentionally write books for beginners, so I know my audience is not the most technically-oriented audience in the world (when they start out to learn these things). I also know it's entirely possibly and in fact quite likely that things I write aren't crystal clear to all readers. I have no problem with clarifications along those lines...that's mostly what I do when making changes for new editions. My problem is with the people who do not pay attention to the book they're reading, then complain that it's my fault that they missed something clearly printed in bold text under a heading of its own. For example, "How do I start xyz thing? You suck. You should have told me how to start xyz thing instead of going from installing xyz thing to running a test with xyz thing. I can't believe you get paid to write books. You're a terrible writer. I can't get past chapter 1 because I can't start xyz thing, and it's your fault." After a few years of dutifully answering emails like this with something along the lines of "Please see the step-by-step instructions on page 6, under the heading 'How to Start XYZ Thing'", I stopped. I offer errata and downloadable code at my site now, and that's it. No contact info (although it's not all that difficult to find me, if one tries, and they do), nothing. It's my job to correct things I may have screwed up, but it's not my responsibility to hand-hold you through reading a page in its entirety. Argh. But then, there are people who buy my books and then call my office. I mean really, who in their right mind thinks that by buying my book, for which I get about a buck, gives them some special dispensation to call my workplace and ask for help/clarification/whatever? Do these people call Dr. Phil's office for clarification on something in the Ultimate Weight Loss Solution? Not that I'm anywhere near as popular as Dr. Phil, of course, but you get the point. Come to think of it, they probably do call him.
Despite the fallout from writing two successful books, I wrote a few more. I never know how many books to say I've written. Technically, I have nine (and soon to be ten) ISBN numbers under my belt, but those are comprised of books that have multiple editions...although work definitely goes into new editions, it's not like I re-wrote the darn thing. In other words, the numbers make it look like I've written way more than I have. Truth be told, I'll probably keep writing books as long as Sams/Pearson wants to pay me to do it. They're very good folk, there, and a lot of their books are quite good.
My profs in the B-school use a lot of Pearson Ed. books in class, and if I were a shit, I'd try to weasel free copies out of them. But then I think about people I know in academia, who write books and get squat for them. These sorts of books, the labors of love that can make or break a career, which are often the culmination of a life's work, etc. etc....those folks get like ten cents a copy for a book that doesn't sell nearly as many copies as mine. That sort of inequity really ticks me off, so I'll be the last person to ask for a free book, although any authors who want to send me one, from their comp stash, I'm fine with that. This last sentence was going to be a shout out to one of those academic types who edited an edition of something from the olden, olden days, but doing so would screw with the whole anonymity of the blogosphere thing. I'll just send along a dollar, to make up for sale that would have been. :)
Despite the trials and tribulations during the writing of my Plone book, my publisher hasn't dropped me. In fact, they want me to update my "immensely popular" (their words, not mine) book, Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All-in-One, in anticipation of winter holiday shopping sprees. It's only been on the shelves since the previous winter holiday shopping spree, and it's already sold over 22K copies, so that's cool.
I'm such a hypocrite, though -- I complain about how much I hate writing books, then I go write/update another one. I wrote my first book, back in the olden days of 1999, because I wanted to publish something, and there were only two or three books out on the (then) new-fangled thing I picked to write about. I wrote a second book on the same topic, but geared toward a different audience and in a different style (step by step and with lots of pictures), and that one was well-received. Over the next two years, I wrote articles for Wired's Webmonkey, and for CNet and other things like that, and had tutorials and extras at my website, and I dutifully answered emails when people had questions, etc. Then things started to suck. The new-fangled stuff got really, really popular, and books started springing up all over the place...as a result, friends/fans of other authors would write unfounded crappy reviews of all the books not authored by their friends, would fill my mailbox (and presumably those of other authors) with "you suck" messages, garbage like that. I could deal with those, because I knew it was just a bunch of stupid people trying to cause trouble.
But then a whole other gaggle of people started to surface -- the "I can't get my thumb out of my own ass, you have to help me" bunch. Now, I intentionally write books for beginners, so I know my audience is not the most technically-oriented audience in the world (when they start out to learn these things). I also know it's entirely possibly and in fact quite likely that things I write aren't crystal clear to all readers. I have no problem with clarifications along those lines...that's mostly what I do when making changes for new editions. My problem is with the people who do not pay attention to the book they're reading, then complain that it's my fault that they missed something clearly printed in bold text under a heading of its own. For example, "How do I start xyz thing? You suck. You should have told me how to start xyz thing instead of going from installing xyz thing to running a test with xyz thing. I can't believe you get paid to write books. You're a terrible writer. I can't get past chapter 1 because I can't start xyz thing, and it's your fault." After a few years of dutifully answering emails like this with something along the lines of "Please see the step-by-step instructions on page 6, under the heading 'How to Start XYZ Thing'", I stopped. I offer errata and downloadable code at my site now, and that's it. No contact info (although it's not all that difficult to find me, if one tries, and they do), nothing. It's my job to correct things I may have screwed up, but it's not my responsibility to hand-hold you through reading a page in its entirety. Argh. But then, there are people who buy my books and then call my office. I mean really, who in their right mind thinks that by buying my book, for which I get about a buck, gives them some special dispensation to call my workplace and ask for help/clarification/whatever? Do these people call Dr. Phil's office for clarification on something in the Ultimate Weight Loss Solution? Not that I'm anywhere near as popular as Dr. Phil, of course, but you get the point. Come to think of it, they probably do call him.
Despite the fallout from writing two successful books, I wrote a few more. I never know how many books to say I've written. Technically, I have nine (and soon to be ten) ISBN numbers under my belt, but those are comprised of books that have multiple editions...although work definitely goes into new editions, it's not like I re-wrote the darn thing. In other words, the numbers make it look like I've written way more than I have. Truth be told, I'll probably keep writing books as long as Sams/Pearson wants to pay me to do it. They're very good folk, there, and a lot of their books are quite good.
My profs in the B-school use a lot of Pearson Ed. books in class, and if I were a shit, I'd try to weasel free copies out of them. But then I think about people I know in academia, who write books and get squat for them. These sorts of books, the labors of love that can make or break a career, which are often the culmination of a life's work, etc. etc....those folks get like ten cents a copy for a book that doesn't sell nearly as many copies as mine. That sort of inequity really ticks me off, so I'll be the last person to ask for a free book, although any authors who want to send me one, from their comp stash, I'm fine with that. This last sentence was going to be a shout out to one of those academic types who edited an edition of something from the olden, olden days, but doing so would screw with the whole anonymity of the blogosphere thing. I'll just send along a dollar, to make up for sale that would have been. :)
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
oh. my. god.
Michael Jackson to Be Father of Quadruplets
No words. I have no words.
UPDATE: now he says it isn't true. That's good. I wish he would just go away, though. [shudder]
Michael Jackson to Be Father of Quadruplets
No words. I have no words.
UPDATE: now he says it isn't true. That's good. I wish he would just go away, though. [shudder]
"it was dark and stormy night..."
The results of the 2004 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced! What's that, you say? Why, it's probably the only thing for which the English Dept. at my school is known -- an annual parody contest in honor of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who began his novel, Paul Clifford, with "It was a dark and stormy night..." Hie thee hither to read the latest "winners" in numerous categories. My favorite at this very moment (there are plenty of good ones, though) is the runner-up:
The results of the 2004 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced! What's that, you say? Why, it's probably the only thing for which the English Dept. at my school is known -- an annual parody contest in honor of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who began his novel, Paul Clifford, with "It was a dark and stormy night..." Hie thee hither to read the latest "winners" in numerous categories. My favorite at this very moment (there are plenty of good ones, though) is the runner-up:
"The notion that they would no longer be a couple dashed Helen's hopes and scrambled her thoughts not unlike the time her sleeve caught the edge of the open egg carton and the contents hit the floor like fragile things hitting cold tiles, more pitiable because they were the expensive organic brown eggs from free-range chickens, and one of them clearly had double yolks entwined in one sac just the way Helen and Richard used to be." --Pamela Patchet Hamilton, Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada
birthday spark
Today's spark: The most memorable birthday I had was...
When I turned [something like 10, I'm not sure], I had chickenpox. That alone would suck, having chickenpox on your birthday. But at the time, my brother was sick and in the hospital (pesky leukemia) and obviously it would be a very, very bad thing indeed had he caught the pox. So, I was staying with my grandmother (yeah, the one who has a problem with diversity), I had the chickenpox, my brother was in the hospital and my parents were with him (understandable). The sad thing is, there are pictures -- me, pox-ridden, with a cake and my grandmother. That was it.
The most memorable birthday I had which was a positive experience, was my most recent one. My bestest bud asked what I wanted to do, and I said that I wanted to go to a Warriors game. Good seats at an NBA game are not cheap, and we had good seats. I had never been to an NBA game before, although I am a huge sports fan. The best part was that it was just us, which, despite the fact she's my bestest bud, rarely happens. I can count on one hand the times we've hung out just the two of us (going to meetings, as she's also my boss, doesn't count), in the ten years we've known each other. It's just the way things work out, with families and what not (it should be noted that she has a kick ass partner, who is tied with Mel for smartest person I've ever known.)
My birthday falls at a crappy birthday time -- 5 days after Christmas -- so anytime I get/do something specifically for my birthday, it's memorable...and, save for the chickenpox year, not usually bad!
Today's spark: The most memorable birthday I had was...
When I turned [something like 10, I'm not sure], I had chickenpox. That alone would suck, having chickenpox on your birthday. But at the time, my brother was sick and in the hospital (pesky leukemia) and obviously it would be a very, very bad thing indeed had he caught the pox. So, I was staying with my grandmother (yeah, the one who has a problem with diversity), I had the chickenpox, my brother was in the hospital and my parents were with him (understandable). The sad thing is, there are pictures -- me, pox-ridden, with a cake and my grandmother. That was it.
The most memorable birthday I had which was a positive experience, was my most recent one. My bestest bud asked what I wanted to do, and I said that I wanted to go to a Warriors game. Good seats at an NBA game are not cheap, and we had good seats. I had never been to an NBA game before, although I am a huge sports fan. The best part was that it was just us, which, despite the fact she's my bestest bud, rarely happens. I can count on one hand the times we've hung out just the two of us (going to meetings, as she's also my boss, doesn't count), in the ten years we've known each other. It's just the way things work out, with families and what not (it should be noted that she has a kick ass partner, who is tied with Mel for smartest person I've ever known.)
My birthday falls at a crappy birthday time -- 5 days after Christmas -- so anytime I get/do something specifically for my birthday, it's memorable...and, save for the chickenpox year, not usually bad!
the pixies
This is from the "random recollections" file, prompted by Curtis' post The Art of the Jukebox. Best use of a 20th century song in a performance of a 17th century play: "Wave of Mutilation" by the Pixies, as performed by a member of Shenandoah Shakespeare Express during their performances of Macbeth in the 1992 season.
This is from the "random recollections" file, prompted by Curtis' post The Art of the Jukebox. Best use of a 20th century song in a performance of a 17th century play: "Wave of Mutilation" by the Pixies, as performed by a member of Shenandoah Shakespeare Express during their performances of Macbeth in the 1992 season.
the obligatory pet-related post
For the longest time (10 years, in fact), it was just me and the boys -- Max (black cat in background) and Toby (orange tabby). The one in the foreground, that's Deuce (post-spaying, which accounts for the shaved belly), and I'll get to her in a moment. I lived with my boys in Durham NC, then we moved to San Jose CA (I drove, they flew), then we moved to Richmond VA (we all drove), then to Alexandria VA (more driving), then back to San Jose CA (and even more driving). When I picked them up at the airport, after that first trip westward, Max was one pissed-off cat, and I could hear his yowling from the parking lot. Toby was curled up under the blankie that went with him in his carrier, shaking like a leaf. He stayed like that for a good two days. From that point, I vowed we'd be driving together, if we ever moved again (and we did).
I've had Max and Toby since they were each about 2 months old. They're not from the same litter, but they're only about a month apart in age. Max and his littermates were left on the side of the road, near a vet hospital. A vet tech took them into the office and there they stayed, waiting for adoption. I happened to go to that vet hospital with my quasi-gf, as she had three cats to take in for checkups and I had nothing else to do that day. I ended up playing with a particularly gregarious little fella, and was sad when it was time to leave. The quasi-gf had to make a return trip with one of her cats, about a week later. I went along, and Max (as he would later be named, after Mad Max) was the only one of his litter still at the vet hospital. He came home with me a few days later. We lived in a crappy little duplex, and then I realized after about a month that we needed a roommate to help with the rent. It happened to be the summertime in a college town, which means there were plenty of people who needed a place to crash for a month or two, to participate in various camps or academic endeavors. We got a ballerina. This ballerina managed to step on my poor little Max, around midnight on July 4th. I freaked out, but miraculously enough, the emergency vet hospital not only was open at midnight on a holiday, but the vet was actually there. I plunked down my hundred bucks, determined his leg wasn't broken, and went home. It was a frosty few weeks until the ballerina left.
During the frosty time, the owner of the gelato/coffee place where I worked called me up and said "I have a cat for you". I had no intention of getting another cat. Max was only a few months old. But it seemed reasonable that Max should have a buddy, so I said "go on..." She told me that her next door neighbor had found a few-months-old orange tabby hanging out alone at the gas station. They scooped him up and had him in their shed, and would I come over and get him? I said of course, after work. Well, one of the neighbors didn't get the message, and took him to the pound. I immediately followed and said "No! I was going to take him." But he was already in the system, so I plunked down the sixty bucks to "reserve" him, and visited him every day for a week, in kitty quarantine. Then, Toby came home. After three whole seconds of hissing, Max and Toby became the best of buds.
Flash forward to 2001, and the three of us are living in San Jose. My boys are all grown up (18lbs each) and well-traveled. One day, I realized that Toby was throwing up an awful lot...like every day. He would eat his normal amount, act his normal lazy self, but couldn't keep his food down. I took him to the vet, and she determined that he had a "nervous stomach", which was plausible because he's always been a wee bit...off. It may have had something to do with how another roommate's big ol' chow would wander around the duplex looking for Toby to chew on. Anyway, Toby didn't get better. Toby lost six pounds. Went back to the vet and finally found something -- a mass in his gut. They opened him up for a biopsy, and lo and behold: gastrointestinal lymphoma. It has a very low survival rate, but if you start the chemotherapy, you'll know within six weeks if it's going to "take". If it does, it's a two-year process before "you're cured!" is proclaimed.
Toby started the chemo. Thankfully, there is a veterinary oncologist in my town. We went every week for six weeks, and he responded well. He stopped throwing up, and he started to gain weight. So we kept on with the treatment. After a few months, the visits were monthly...every month for the next 18 months. Toby was the only one who made it, from the various cats and dogs who started treatment at the same time. We always went on the same day of the week, so we got to know the "Thursday crowd". It was very sad, when I realized that the "Thursday crowd" was a whole new set of animals, as none of the originals made it (except the Tobester). Toby is a happy, healthy, 18 pound cat again....$6000 later. He prefers chinese food takeout boxes to those fancy carpet-covered things that cats are supposed to like.
During the last few months of his chemo, there was a wee kitten also at the vet hospital. I hadn't seen it, but I heard its story: a weeks-old kitten, covered in some sort of caustic goo and thrown into the sewer. Vet tech heard her cries, rescued her, brought her into the vet hospital. Her little paws and face had the hair burned off them, from the caustic substance. She had pneumonia. She was very young, and understandably terrified of everything. She had been in the hospital for a month when Toby's favorite vet tech said something to the effect of "you should take her, you grow big cats" (It's true, I do). So, I disrupted my happy household and brought the baby home. When my friend Kate saw her, she said she was the absolute spitting image of her cat, Dexter. Dexter lived to be like 18 years old, and had died the year or so before. Since we couldn't really call a girl kitten "Dexter", she became "Deuce". But she's referred to now as "the baby", even though she's 2 years old, 13 pounds and, as you can see, queen of the world (or at least the aquarium)
Those are my kids. They are all quite unique and I love each of them dearly...and boy, do they have personalities! Max thinks he's a dog, and likes strawberry-banana smoothies. Toby would climb over burning coals for a french cut green bean. The baby? She wanders around carrying on a conversation with herself, and likes to be combed, a lot. Miss priss, that one.
For the longest time (10 years, in fact), it was just me and the boys -- Max (black cat in background) and Toby (orange tabby). The one in the foreground, that's Deuce (post-spaying, which accounts for the shaved belly), and I'll get to her in a moment. I lived with my boys in Durham NC, then we moved to San Jose CA (I drove, they flew), then we moved to Richmond VA (we all drove), then to Alexandria VA (more driving), then back to San Jose CA (and even more driving). When I picked them up at the airport, after that first trip westward, Max was one pissed-off cat, and I could hear his yowling from the parking lot. Toby was curled up under the blankie that went with him in his carrier, shaking like a leaf. He stayed like that for a good two days. From that point, I vowed we'd be driving together, if we ever moved again (and we did).
I've had Max and Toby since they were each about 2 months old. They're not from the same litter, but they're only about a month apart in age. Max and his littermates were left on the side of the road, near a vet hospital. A vet tech took them into the office and there they stayed, waiting for adoption. I happened to go to that vet hospital with my quasi-gf, as she had three cats to take in for checkups and I had nothing else to do that day. I ended up playing with a particularly gregarious little fella, and was sad when it was time to leave. The quasi-gf had to make a return trip with one of her cats, about a week later. I went along, and Max (as he would later be named, after Mad Max) was the only one of his litter still at the vet hospital. He came home with me a few days later. We lived in a crappy little duplex, and then I realized after about a month that we needed a roommate to help with the rent. It happened to be the summertime in a college town, which means there were plenty of people who needed a place to crash for a month or two, to participate in various camps or academic endeavors. We got a ballerina. This ballerina managed to step on my poor little Max, around midnight on July 4th. I freaked out, but miraculously enough, the emergency vet hospital not only was open at midnight on a holiday, but the vet was actually there. I plunked down my hundred bucks, determined his leg wasn't broken, and went home. It was a frosty few weeks until the ballerina left.
During the frosty time, the owner of the gelato/coffee place where I worked called me up and said "I have a cat for you". I had no intention of getting another cat. Max was only a few months old. But it seemed reasonable that Max should have a buddy, so I said "go on..." She told me that her next door neighbor had found a few-months-old orange tabby hanging out alone at the gas station. They scooped him up and had him in their shed, and would I come over and get him? I said of course, after work. Well, one of the neighbors didn't get the message, and took him to the pound. I immediately followed and said "No! I was going to take him." But he was already in the system, so I plunked down the sixty bucks to "reserve" him, and visited him every day for a week, in kitty quarantine. Then, Toby came home. After three whole seconds of hissing, Max and Toby became the best of buds.
Flash forward to 2001, and the three of us are living in San Jose. My boys are all grown up (18lbs each) and well-traveled. One day, I realized that Toby was throwing up an awful lot...like every day. He would eat his normal amount, act his normal lazy self, but couldn't keep his food down. I took him to the vet, and she determined that he had a "nervous stomach", which was plausible because he's always been a wee bit...off. It may have had something to do with how another roommate's big ol' chow would wander around the duplex looking for Toby to chew on. Anyway, Toby didn't get better. Toby lost six pounds. Went back to the vet and finally found something -- a mass in his gut. They opened him up for a biopsy, and lo and behold: gastrointestinal lymphoma. It has a very low survival rate, but if you start the chemotherapy, you'll know within six weeks if it's going to "take". If it does, it's a two-year process before "you're cured!" is proclaimed.
Toby started the chemo. Thankfully, there is a veterinary oncologist in my town. We went every week for six weeks, and he responded well. He stopped throwing up, and he started to gain weight. So we kept on with the treatment. After a few months, the visits were monthly...every month for the next 18 months. Toby was the only one who made it, from the various cats and dogs who started treatment at the same time. We always went on the same day of the week, so we got to know the "Thursday crowd". It was very sad, when I realized that the "Thursday crowd" was a whole new set of animals, as none of the originals made it (except the Tobester). Toby is a happy, healthy, 18 pound cat again....$6000 later. He prefers chinese food takeout boxes to those fancy carpet-covered things that cats are supposed to like.
During the last few months of his chemo, there was a wee kitten also at the vet hospital. I hadn't seen it, but I heard its story: a weeks-old kitten, covered in some sort of caustic goo and thrown into the sewer. Vet tech heard her cries, rescued her, brought her into the vet hospital. Her little paws and face had the hair burned off them, from the caustic substance. She had pneumonia. She was very young, and understandably terrified of everything. She had been in the hospital for a month when Toby's favorite vet tech said something to the effect of "you should take her, you grow big cats" (It's true, I do). So, I disrupted my happy household and brought the baby home. When my friend Kate saw her, she said she was the absolute spitting image of her cat, Dexter. Dexter lived to be like 18 years old, and had died the year or so before. Since we couldn't really call a girl kitten "Dexter", she became "Deuce". But she's referred to now as "the baby", even though she's 2 years old, 13 pounds and, as you can see, queen of the world (or at least the aquarium)
Those are my kids. They are all quite unique and I love each of them dearly...and boy, do they have personalities! Max thinks he's a dog, and likes strawberry-banana smoothies. Toby would climb over burning coals for a french cut green bean. The baby? She wanders around carrying on a conversation with herself, and likes to be combed, a lot. Miss priss, that one.
Monday, July 19, 2004
well, this is embarrassing
Just when you think no one reads your blog, along comes a whole host of smart people who do, AND who call you on the carpet when you randomly (and incorrectly) muse in public.
Mark at Language Log has appropriately corrected my statement regarding the spelling of "D'oh". He points out that "Doh" is "preferred by the OED" and that it pre-dates the Simpsons. Ah yes, the Simpsons, for that was the usage to which I was referring:
If I had taken any time to expand on my thought, it would have gone something like this:
The emails I receive daily, from clients who are trying to express the work they need completed, often contain one or more misused apostrophes and/or grammar-related issues which grate on my last nerve. But without fail, every single one of these people can correctly spell Homer Simpson's "D'oh," where "correctly" means "as I've always seen it written by Matt Groening, and he should know".
Or something like that, in which case I wasn't really "wrong"...but thanks for pointing out that I pretty much was. :) It was really meant to be a random thought on how poorly our clients express themselves, and in the future I'm just going to say that...
Just when you think no one reads your blog, along comes a whole host of smart people who do, AND who call you on the carpet when you randomly (and incorrectly) muse in public.
Mark at Language Log has appropriately corrected my statement regarding the spelling of "D'oh". He points out that "Doh" is "preferred by the OED" and that it pre-dates the Simpsons. Ah yes, the Simpsons, for that was the usage to which I was referring:
d'oh [interjection] said when annoyed or disappointed; popularized by the character Homer Simpson in the animated television series The Simpsons, performed by Dan Castellaneta; written in the scripts as "annoyed grunt" -- Source: Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English
If I had taken any time to expand on my thought, it would have gone something like this:
The emails I receive daily, from clients who are trying to express the work they need completed, often contain one or more misused apostrophes and/or grammar-related issues which grate on my last nerve. But without fail, every single one of these people can correctly spell Homer Simpson's "D'oh," where "correctly" means "as I've always seen it written by Matt Groening, and he should know".
Or something like that, in which case I wasn't really "wrong"...but thanks for pointing out that I pretty much was. :) It was really meant to be a random thought on how poorly our clients express themselves, and in the future I'm just going to say that...
another silly quiz
I thought this quiz would be interesting [via kmsqrd] since I only went to high school for a year. The quiz is: What High School Stereotype Are You? and I am/was/whatever:
Oh, there's a big surprise. I thought, though, since I answered all the clothing-related questions with some variant of "black", I'd get categorized as Goth, but I was not.
I thought this quiz would be interesting [via kmsqrd] since I only went to high school for a year. The quiz is: What High School Stereotype Are You? and I am/was/whatever:
Oh, there's a big surprise. I thought, though, since I answered all the clothing-related questions with some variant of "black", I'd get categorized as Goth, but I was not.
whoo hoo, an A!
I actually got an "A" in a science class, in this case my BIO 101, "Origins of Life" summer class. Now, what would a 2nd BA student in the Business department be doing in a science class in the summer, you may ask? Cal State Univ. Advanced General Education requirement...in this case, in the "Earth and the Environment" category. It was a very cool class, the best science class I ever took (ok, so I've only ever taken three others). There was a quiz or essay every day (it was only 16 days, 3 hours each day), and we watched the entire Evolution series from PBS. Good stuff. The instructor required uploading of all essays to turnitin.com, due to the immense amount of plagiarism in science classes at my school. Not only did I get an A, all my uploads were blue (blue = good, green = warning sign, red = very bad), which means I was completely original. I knew that, but it's nice to have the validation!
I am currently taking the second of two summer classes, BUS 150 - "Fundamentals of Human Resource Management". I'll write about that, soon...I know you all just can't wait to hear about it...
I actually got an "A" in a science class, in this case my BIO 101, "Origins of Life" summer class. Now, what would a 2nd BA student in the Business department be doing in a science class in the summer, you may ask? Cal State Univ. Advanced General Education requirement...in this case, in the "Earth and the Environment" category. It was a very cool class, the best science class I ever took (ok, so I've only ever taken three others). There was a quiz or essay every day (it was only 16 days, 3 hours each day), and we watched the entire Evolution series from PBS. Good stuff. The instructor required uploading of all essays to turnitin.com, due to the immense amount of plagiarism in science classes at my school. Not only did I get an A, all my uploads were blue (blue = good, green = warning sign, red = very bad), which means I was completely original. I knew that, but it's nice to have the validation!
I am currently taking the second of two summer classes, BUS 150 - "Fundamentals of Human Resource Management". I'll write about that, soon...I know you all just can't wait to hear about it...
that owen goodyear, at it again
He writes, in "The Victorian Breakfast", about sausages:
Ok see, this (and the rest of his article) will be amusing to you if you either:
a) quit graduate school precisely because of this sort of thing (which was supposed to be your concentration)...not that I did that or anything...ahem. Oh yeah, I did.
or
b) stayed in graduate school and became a highfalutin (I mean that as a compliment) Victorianist with a sense of humor, at least one of whom reads my blog
All the rest of you, just move along...
He writes, in "The Victorian Breakfast", about sausages:
One may not assume, as might "those below stairs", sufficient strength of character of the simple beasts whose fate it is to constitute one's breakfast sausage. Letters of recommendation will be required by all those of loftier station in life than that of oik. Once sausages of commendable moral rectitude have been obtained, it is common practice to "cook" them - by which, naturally, one means that task performed in the normal course of events by one's most corpulent servant.
Ok see, this (and the rest of his article) will be amusing to you if you either:
a) quit graduate school precisely because of this sort of thing (which was supposed to be your concentration)...not that I did that or anything...ahem. Oh yeah, I did.
or
b) stayed in graduate school and became a highfalutin (I mean that as a compliment) Victorianist with a sense of humor, at least one of whom reads my blog
All the rest of you, just move along...
Sunday, July 18, 2004
i'm torn
I could participate in a discussion at Hugo's blog, about a woman who was having triplets and aborted two of them "just because", or I could think of something witty to say about my friend Mel and her edginess (she's very edgy, and it's discussion-worthy).
I think I'll just take a short nap and then write about my cats.
I could participate in a discussion at Hugo's blog, about a woman who was having triplets and aborted two of them "just because", or I could think of something witty to say about my friend Mel and her edginess (she's very edgy, and it's discussion-worthy).
I think I'll just take a short nap and then write about my cats.
random thought
One of my biggest pet peeves is the misuse of "you're" vs "your", "it's" vs "its", "they're" vs "their" and so forth. But you know what? EVERYONE knows how to properly spell "d'oh". Hm.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the misuse of "you're" vs "your", "it's" vs "its", "they're" vs "their" and so forth. But you know what? EVERYONE knows how to properly spell "d'oh". Hm.
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