random

random update: Currently in North Carolina. The sun JUST CAME OUT for the first time. Hurray! My wrist is a bit better. It fluctuates. Still trying to use it as little as possible.

random rant: I hate when people talk loudly about something they hate—when you are three feet away doing it. For instance. I’m always one of the people standing up as soon as the plane lands because I hate being trapped in small spaces so when you’re a row behind me being snarky about how stupid and useless it is to get right to your feet when the plane lands I find it really annoying. Or if you’re loudly talking about how stupid tattoos and people with tattoos are when you are standing right behind a dude with a sleeve.  That’s just rude, man. People do this  a lot with smokers, which, okay, yeah it’s smoking and it actually can have an effect on YOU, but maybe say “hey could you stop blowing smoke in my face please” rather than just loudly and passive-aggressivley bitching to your friend.

end rant

end random

Aaand there goes the sun. Why, NC, why?

what

Possibly the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Ukraine obviously has more talent than we do.

(thanks to the baby brother for this)

time for a rambling sunday night post

Shockingly, having someone jab a needle into your spine repeatedly kinda hurts. (I got someone different when I called the tattoo place back, and he magically found an opening today at noon that the other woman had not been able to see somehow. So maybe that phone disaster wasn’t all me.) So now I’m sore and trying not to lean my back against things. Hard, since I’m currently lounging in bed.

Today involved a lot of Star Trek: TNG and The Avengers. Wesley Crusher is so annoying. Why does he have to be in this show? He is the main reason it’s taken me so long to get into Star Trek, all the ST episodes I saw for the longest time were Wesley-centric (like, totally coincidentally all of them—and I’ve seen that Game one like 3 times) and that just turned me off the whole series. And those episodes were after he hit puberty. I’m starting TNG from the beginning and wow he was even more annoying before his voice cracked. How did this show make it big with him in it? Okay Grace stop being mean to the boy prodigy.

Anyway, so yeah, I’m lame. First sunny weekend Boston’s seen in like eons and I spend half of it watching nerdy tv shows and making smoothies (which involved bits of the blender flying around the kitchen). In my defense, yesterday I did properly summery thing, including mini-golfing and a beach. Much fun.

Um so yeah that’s what I’ve been up to recently. Fascinating, as usual.

You will notice how I’m not give you all a writing update. Yeah, about that…

leave me alone

I have decided the airlines need a new seating policy. When you buy your ticket, you get to choose a section. Not smoking or non-smoking, no nothing like that.

Sections like “Chatty” and “Non-Chatty.” “Sick” and “Healthy.” “Baby” or “No Baby.” “Has a dog who will poop halfway through flight” and “Dogless.”

Mostly Chatty vs. Non-Chatty. Because I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t care who you are, I don’t want to talk to you. This is why I brought my book. And even if my flight is delayed 2 1/2 hours, and I have to spend most of that sitting on the tarmac waiting for liftoff approval, and even if I share a few friendly words with you before turning to my book, this does NOT mean that you can interrupt my reading every ten minutes. Seriously, you give these chatty people an in and they just won’t shut up.

Yes, I am a curmudgeon. What of it?

algorithm march

Found this on one of the blogs I’m cleaning up. I forgot how fabulous this is.

I love Japan.

blog update stuffs

So, this is not my first blog. I’m sure everyone who has stuck with me as I’ve skipped around the blogosphere hopes it is my last so they don’t have to bookmark something else. I think it will be the last. I like things to be shiny and new, but I’m getting around that by just changing the theme and rearranging the widgets every couple of months. It’s almost like having a new blog.

I’m getting really good at tricking myself into things. 

Anyway so now I’m going through my life cleaning up a bit, and that’s going to include deleting a lot of old stuff from the interwebs. But there are things I’ve posted at these now-defunct blogs that I kinda like, think are kinda clever, or just want to have around for some reason. So I’m going to repost some of these, maybe rewrite them to reflect my current thinking. I’ll tag them with something clever. Probably most of you wouldn’t notice, but I just thought I’d let y’all know what I’m doing in case a) you happen to be one of my most loyal readers and get a weird sense of déjà vu or b) you wonder why I am suddenly posting like 5 things/day. I suppose the sensible thing would be to save them for times when I’m not feeling prolific. Sensible? Who’s that?

Anyway.

Also, if it’s not obvious already I’m spending the majority of my weekend lolling around and playing on the internets. 4th post of the day woo! Wow yeah I’m lame.

lazy saturday

I’m basically lounging around and doing nothing today. So is my baby. 

"what? leave me alone this sunshine needs my attention."

Did I ever tell you guys what I decided to name her? I don’t think so. Her name is Wednesday (as in Addams). It fits her, tho she’s slightly less destructive than her namesake. 

P.S. I promise this blog will not turn into constant cat pictures. I promise. But God she’s cute. No really I promise. Those blogs annoy me. 

why I am a bookworm

This is why Grace doesn’t play video games: 

That would be my left knee, with a bruise that really isn’t very impressive except that I got it playing a video game. A video game. Jesus, Grace, could you be any clumsier?

Buskin’ Donuts

I highly disapprove of the new Dunkin’ Donuts advertising campaign.

For the past two days on my way to work, I have passed men playing guitars, their cases open in front of them. (Different men, presumably different guitars.) As I approached the first day, I noticed that the upper half of the case was filled with a white sign—guitar-shaped, with printed lettering, obviously professionally done and way out of the price range of anyone who would be playing on the street for money.*

Then I saw the Dunkin’ Donuts logo, and I was like, “oh, they’re ads or something.”

Then I read the lettering. Because I have a mind like a sieve, I cannot reproduce the words verbatim** but the gist of it was: “Don’t give me your change! You can get breakfast for only 99 cents at Dunkin’ Donuts!”

You know who else could get breakfast for 99 cents at Dunkin’ Donuts? A person who really is playing on the street for money. You know, the person Dunks is encouraging you not to give your change to. 

(I do not remember what the sign I saw today said, but it was similar, though less negative.)

I mean, I get the concept. For the same amount of change that you’re just chucking on the street, you can buy our product! But giving money to buskers is not the same as chucking it on the street, and the fact that Dunks is advertising that you should buy their food instead of giving to the musicians really just annoys me. Really, Dunks? You couldn’t have come up with a better way to make the comparison that doesn’t involve you seemingly trying to steal business from street musicians?

I’m probably overreacting, and it’s not like I buy stuff at Dunkin’ Donuts anyway (yes I do live in Boston and yes I probably am about to get drummed out of the city), but it really did rub me the wrong way. And that’s the sort of thing I have a blog for.

~

*ie, “busking.” A word I love, but which I don’t think is very common?
**A word I learned from this man. I can say about few words that I know exactly where I learned them, and this is one.

I’m a Doctor, not a Physicist

Wow, loooooong week.

I just slept for 18 hours, if that gives you some idea of how my week’s been.

Our work conference ate my life and my time and my sleep but I still managed to see the new Star Trek at midnight on Thursday. (Full review coming later, but seriously Simon Pegg is worth the price of admission.) So I’m resting this weekend by watching the X-Men trilogy (“I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”) and eating massive amounts of ice cream.

A More fascinating blog post will be coming soon. At some point.