braingeyser

good pain; new addiction?

Sun, 18 May 2008 06:36:52 GMT

My hands are scraped raw. My fingertips feel like I've been hitting them with hammers, and several of my fingernails feel like they're going to fall off. My wrists and elbows are scratched and bruised. My knees have flaps of skin hanging off them. Every muscle between my fingertips and my toes is complaining, except for my finger muscles, which are <i>screaming</i>. Opening a bottle of soda just made me yell, and lifting a gallon jug of milk almost made me cry. And really, I can't remember the last time I had this much fun.

I just spent five hours rock climbing with the Harvard Mountaineering Club. Not just wall climbing or bouldering or scrambling or even slab climbing, but technical climbing. (No, not lead climbing, just top rope -- c'mon, it was my first time!) I can't even explain how much fun it was. I'm short, inflexible, and since I stopped going to the gym in November, I can't do ten pull-ups before both my lats and my fingers are begging for mercy, so I fully expected to learn the technical basics but fail miserably at the actual climbing. I did learn the basics (thanks, Michelle, you're a <i>fantastic</i> instructor!), but I actually climbed, too. Even hauled my ass up some stuff rated 5.6-5.7, though I don't yet know what that means. It was some face climbing and some crack climbing, even some dyno shit (only one tough one, though). I was edging, smearing, crimping, matching, side pulling, and bumping* like a pro! Well, more like a beginner. An advanced beginner; I did get a number of complements and people seemed impressed at some of the stuff I ascended and how natural it seemed. (At least they sounded sincere. It's a very supportive group, so maybe it's all part of their happy positive-feedback tendencies, even though I admit I was sloppy -- I used my knees on one climb, and at one point I was gripping the rock with my ass.) While I'm in it to challenge myself, not impress people, it did make me feel like either I'm in better shape than I thought, or maybe I have a little natural talent for this. Or I've seen too many movies with rock climbing scenes. Regardless, I'm exceeding what I thought were my limits, and I definitely have a long way to go, and both of those things make this incredibly exciting. Now I just have to get over being a horrible cheapskate and buy some gear.

*I don't know what any of this stuff is, I was just doing whatever I had to do to ascend. Someone would say something like, "you were doing some excellent smearing up there" and I'd reply "Thanks! .....what?" There's a special term for nearly every kind of action, object, or concept at all related to the sport. To self-quote: "I knew I'd have to buy some equipment if I wanted to keep on climbing, but I didn't think that would include a dictionary."

One order of Democracy to go, please. And, NPZR politics.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:35:10 GMT

I voted today. I was good, though, and I only voted once. Our old neighbors are still on the list, and to my dismay, they didn't ask for any ID. I honestly believe I could have changed my clothes and gotten three or four more votes in. Not planning to do so -- there are far more entertaining ways to get to prison -- just surprised that nobody really seemed to be paying attention.

On the subject of dressing up, I considered going as a pirate, but I didn't have time, and I was afraid they wouldn't let me in. I also later realized that chances are great that pirates would actually be Republicans. Pirates and Repubs both seem to share the same "steal from everyone and keep it all for myself" sentiment, and tend not to go in for things like taxes. But I couldn't figure out specifically who they'd vote for. I mean, robots would obviously vote for McCain -- he's a military man, and more military means more jobs for robots. I think the zombies would naturally vote for Romney*, as he seems to want to outlaw abortion and force everyone into heterosexual unions, which the zombies would see as a great way to ensure a steady food supply. Cowboys would vote for Obama, who wants to clean up this one-horse town. I think the ninjas would go for Clinton; they would appreciate her unwavering, nearly vicious, sense of purpose.
*Of course, they could go for Huckabee for the same reasons. I had forgotten he was still in the race and people were actually voting for him.

On the way out of the voting hall:

"Democracy! It's what's for dinner!"
"It's what's on the menu. But when you order it, all they bring you is a Republic."

NFL slumming it?

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:23:36 GMT

So, I wasn't watching from the beginning or consistently, so I admit there's a good chance I'm just overreacting to the bits I saw. That being said: did the NFL sponsors run out of money or something? Did the writer's strike hit the ad agencies as well? So far, the Super Bowl ads have been a disappointment. Tweeters claim there were a couple of winners, but all I saw were rerun ads for Dunkies, fx-heavy-but-boring Daytona 500 ads, allergy med PSAs, and some cute but kinda pointless dancing lizards. Yawn. These ads used to be the best of the best, the flashiest and most entertaining of the year. Don't they realize this is the one time of the year the public might, just might, be willing to give the TiVo a rest and actually watch the ads? [Exception: diggin' the CareerBuilder ads.]

I guess if the advertisers were all broke, that would at least explain the sad halftime show. Tom Petty? Couldn't they find someone who is currently working? The last significant thing he did that I know of is a bit on the Simpsons. I'd be surprised if he could even buy a ticket to the Super Bowl.

And what was with the dancing Cylon?

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:42:40 GMT

The last bit of yesterday's post sounded a bit more emo than I intended. I meant it was confusing that during games, which are inherently competitive on the surface, I am zen and happy regardless of my status in the game; but during a collaboration, my happiness was linked to my performance. This was not as I expected.

It made perfect sense once I took a sec to think about it. I don't play games to win, I play to hang out and entertain and be entertained. Even though the win conditions of a competition are usually discrete and one-sided, my personal win conditions aren't tied to those of the game. Same goes for most of the people I play with, so there's no pressure. Sure, it's hippyesque, but it makes me happy.

I failed to bring that perspective to the Hunt. I got there halfway through, and even as I was taking time to get acquainted with the systems and processes, let alone the puzzles, I felt like I was falling behind. I wanted to provide value to the group, but the only way I could see to do that at the time was to directly provide solutions to puzzles, and these weren't "sit down and bang one out" puzzles, so I felt like I was failing.

It all worked out. Things settled, more puzzles came out, I contributed some bits, and when I couldn't I just hung out with the rest of the team, who were largely very chill. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 05:23:27 GMT

I'm neck-deep in the MIT Mystery Hunt, and I suddenly realize something that hurts my brain. I like games for camaraderie; regardless of whether I win or lose, I enjoy playing. Puzzles, on the other hand, I enjoy for the challenge and the achievement; I am finding that puzzling with other people is no fun. I'm not competitive during the competitions, yet I am competitive with my own team while i should be collaborating. I am so confused, and I feel so broken.

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:30:45 GMT

I figure the Scrabble-lovers I know might get a kick out of this:
liveblogging scrabble

proximity philanthropy

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:18:21 GMT

'Tis the season! No, apparently not for good tidings and peace on earth and goodwill towards men and all that shit. 'Tis the season of sucking ass. And for my happily perverted friends out there, no, I don't mean that in any conceivably good way.

Grocery shopping today with prettydaisies was the most harrowing thing I have experienced this entire year. I've left a job with no future plans, had my face cut up, started some form of kitchen fire three times, turned on my heat (yes, it was traumatic; I have oil heat!), rode a bike with no brakes on Mass Ave, attended two weddings, and Jello-wrestled Ed Begley Jr. to the death*, but nothing has left me as frazzled and emotionally exhausted as today.

I don't think I've ever encountered this many aggressive, oblivious, or bitchalicious people in a single day before. All the Masshole driving elements were multiplied tenfold -- the cutting off, the stopping short, the drifting, the swerving, the speeding to stop lights, the left turns from the right lane, the barging into a rotary without looking, the throwing open a driver's door without looking while parallel parked on a narrow street. It all had attitude, too. One person stuck half her car in the road in the middle of oncoming traffic, blocking more than half the lane, while we were driving at road speeds not three car lengths away. We had to brake not to hit her, and when we delivered the as-should-be-expected "be aware you just put our lives in danger, and stop moving because you're making it worse" honk, she has the eggs to honk and wave her arms and yell. And this carried over into the parking lots as well; people honking because the cars in front of them haven't moved in 90 seconds, when they're obviously waiting for the three cars in front of them to get out of the way. And why do things back up like that? Because of things like the rabid person behind us in another lot, who, when we had made the slightest move out of our parking spot, tried to shoot in -- thereby boxing us in so that we couldn't finish getting out of the damn space. Again, she yelled at us. And don't think we were just driving terribly and I'm just blaming everyone else. I am the first to blame myself, so I was trying my best to do right. When I left the grocery store and pd wasn't out yet, I went over to the car waiting for our spot to say I had to wait a minute or two for someone else, but I'd try to help her find a spot in the meantime. She melodramatically rolled her eyes and and groaned and tore away, almost taking my toes with her. It continued inside, as well. Only this time, instead of poor drivers, it was the two different people that ankle-bit me with their shopping carts, the people who left their carts smack in the middle of an aisle instead of pulling over while they read some package, the gaggle of children whose mother didn't bother to tell them to move over when people were trying to get by, the other gaggle of children who were told to move but didn't listen, the people having a delightful conversation while their carts took up the entire aisle. This wasn't just a case of a higher volume of people leading to a proportionally higher number of idiots out there. There was a higher concentration of idiots. I don't care if it was holiday stress, fear of the upcoming snowstorm, or free Stupid Pill day at Dunkin Donuts, this crap was unacceptable.

The purpose of all that griping was to illustrate this point: the one thing making the day bearable and keeping me from reflecting all this hostility was the occasional, random, precious act of courtesy. A driver who didn't close the gap in front of us and let us pull out of a parking lot. A neighbor who ran his snowblower over to help me clear out the last few feet of driveway. A shopper in the store who, after our momentary conversation with him regarding any acceptable substitutes for the confectioner's sugar for which we were both looking, came back and found us several minutes later -- because when he went to ask if they had any in the back, he didn't just get one for himself, he also got one for us. All these things that cost these people almost no time or energy were enough to help balance out the bad. So please, don't miss it when it's your turn. Let someone into your lane, shovel a little extra snow, give up a parking spot, dole out warm smiles. It may cost you at most a few minutes, but it may salvage someone else's whole day. I'm not sure I buy into the idea that the holidays are when people are naturally kinder; but I think this is when people need that little morsel of unexpected kindness the most.

_____
*Well, maybe not, but I had to end the list on some higher note than "weddings."

Plusses and minuses

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:36:26 GMT

Plus: I didn't seem to die during my septo-rhino-whatevertheheck surgery.
Minus: I may kill myself from the residual nausea.

Minus: A day's worth of inexplicable and excruciating eye irritation. I think I got fragments of the nose splint/molding in my eye.
Plus: I think I rinsed out the fragments.
Minus: I then got onion juice/fumes in my eye instead. Winnah!

Plus: I seem to be breathing better through both sides of my nose.
Minus: That's in the intermittent moments when my nostrils are not filled with bloody mucous.
Plus: I have a strappy contraption designed to catch this mucous so it doesn't dribble all over my face and clothes.
Minus: Elastics on said contraption are cutting into my ears so much that *they* are almost bleeding.
Minus: Contraption blocks my nose such that I have to mouth-breathe, drying and chapping my lips.
Plus: I got to take it off for a few hours today without making a mess.

Plus-ish: I don't yet know whether or not my face has been mutilated, but it looks pretty good so far.

Plus: It doesn't really hurt...
Minus: ...but it is uncomfortable enough to make it hard to concentrate, and to make me extremely cranky.

Plus: I have yummy snackies!
Minus: I can't work out for a few weeks, so I'm going to get supersized.
Minus: My gym membership is going to run out while I'm recovering.
Plus: I don't care, I love me my snackies. I'll deal with the gym/alternate arrangements later.

Plus, plus, plus: I finally had this dang surgery to let me breathe through my nose!!!

Plus: prettydaisies is once again my caretaking saint & savior, despite the fact that I stink at being "looked after."

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:35:14 GMT

@pantsie: we should caffeinate you more often. next time we tape it.

What I do when I have nothing to do.

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:28:17 GMT

The new season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and IASIP in general, makes me insanely happy. I really love the way they carefully scope out the exact threshold of acceptable, tasteful sitcom subject material, then trample hell out of that line before they even roll out the opening credits. That way, people have time to scoop their jaws off the floor and resolve any potential "is it okay for me to laugh at that?" internal conflicts before the real show starts.

I had heard the title 30 Rock tossed about before, but I had never seen it, didn't even know what it was about. I caught a piece of a marathon yesterday, and I'm hooked. Normally I don't go for the "sane protagonist besieged by dysfunctional family/coworkers" shows, but this one is special. Special enough that I can even overlook that one of its seconary objectives seems to simply be an SNL-BJ-fest, even though I hate SNL. Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, and Jack McBrayer are priceless. Even Tracey Morgan is tolerable. The few episodes I saw left me hungry for more. Fortunately, as prettydaisies was sweet enough to wake me with this morning (er, maybe afternoon, who's counting?), they have their episodes available online with only about a minute and a half of commercials. Hey, when you don't have TiVo, that ain't bad.

Side TV note, Reaper looks like it may be cute. It's Brimstone without the angst and in full color, and with a slightly cornier Satan. Aside from the slacker-buddy-story, though, I have yet to see the Kevin Smith-iness of it. I'll wait and see.

Recent TV indulgence has alerted me to the upcoming movie, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. The Dark is Rising was one of my favorite books as a young'un. I think. I didn't really remember anything about it, except that I liked it enough to steal it from my lower school library (don't tell my librarian wife!), and had fond enough memories of it that I have kept the stolen copy to the present day. So I re-read it. Somehow, for some reason, it's magic was a bit lost on me. As in, bored me to sleep. I guess I'm no longer moved by the story of an 11-year-old boy coming of age in merry old Britannia. Especially when he doesn't actually have to do any work to fight the forces of darkness, he just has to sit there gaping like a tool while adults or inanimate objects do the work for him. I now think I just liked it because the cover art was the darkest, most gothic thing I had ever seen (me being 8 or 9 and this being the early 80's). No foreshadowing there, really.

Not having reliable access to a decent computer for a while let me catch up on some beefier reading, too. Thanks to JimP for recommending Anne Bishop's The Black Jewels Trilogy (and thanks, therefore, to killer_mango for recommending it to him, I think). A well-crafted fantasy world with an interesting premise, all three books did a great job of developing the characters into players I really felt for/hated, as appropriate. Unfortunately, I didn't really get into the conflict-and-resolution aspect of the tale; it's hard to feel dramatic tension when the protagonists are pretty much omnipotent. Past book one, the only conflicts that ever arise are due to bouts of poor communication or errors in judgement that seem contrived enough to pierce even my quite formidable ability to suspend disbelief. Read it for the colorful characters, not for epic adventure.

Anything else? Amélie is just about the cutest & sweetest movie I've ever seen in my life, Reign of Fire has the nicest dragons I've ever seen in a movie (Xian Bale and Matt Mocon aren't too hard on the eyes, either, but...eating ash? weird). I also started to dig into some ancient games I have but never got around to playing. X-Com: Apocalypse gets boring fast. I have higher hopes for Diablo II. And I'm drawing, and I found a bike in the trash, which I cleaned up and I'll test tomorrow. Add in some geocaching excursions, walkabouts, xkcd meetups, computer shopping, seeing a few people now and then, my former company imploding, gaining and then breaking a Twizzlers addiction, and me becoming completely nocturnal, and that's about the sum of things.

Hrm. I sat down here just to say the bits about 30 Rock and The Dark is Rising. I have no idea how this turned into a third grade "What I did for my summer vacation" report. I also have no idea why I included all those links; I think anyone who might give a damn already knows what Diablo is. Oh well, there it is.

livin' la vida luddite

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:28:19 GMT

Well, Neo-luddite, or just "antiquated." Off computers except for some quaint VGA games from the 90's and computer shopping*.

I finally tore myself away from books/the gym/the TV/drawing/computer shopping long enough to resurrect the computer that doesn't take twelve minutes to boot and three minutes to load a text-only web page. Which also means I finally have semi-reliable (fingers crossed) access to things like LJ and my email again. Now I can resume my regular schedule of reading my email and people's blogs every 1-2 weeks, and posting every 1-2 months. It's good to be back.

[rant]
*WTF is it with the current crop of laptops? They're *all* widescreen. I value my vertical screen real estate, thanks very much. The 17" widescreens are about as high as the 14" non-widescreen. What friggin' good is that during that 99.44% of the time I'm using a computer for something other than watching a movie?
[/rant]

07/07/07

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 05:38:55 GMT

07/07/07: a holy trinity of holy numbers. What better way to celebrate than an unholy movie night? Just got done watching Constantine and The Omen. Good times. Next time I'll order hot wings and make a party of it; mark your July 2107 calendars!

Does sci-fi make me bad at yoga?

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:49:39 GMT

Yesterday's kickboxing class served to really highlight how tight and inflexible I had become since I last had a regular schedule. So afterwards, I hit a yoga class. I thought I was heading off to Viniyoga, but I had misread the new schedule, and it was actually Kundalini. It wouldn't have made a difference, I guess, as I had absolutely no idea what either of those mean, and the descriptions are a bit generic. It seems Kundalini, or at least yesterday's class, involved lots of breathing, but almost no poses or postures.

What it did involve, to my surprise, was some chanting. Or...singing, or something. We inhaled and held out breath while our instructor would chant, "Healthy am I. Happy am I. Holy am I," three times, then on the fourth we would exhale by chanting this mantra along with her. Then we would inhale and do it again. The first time, I was focused on my breath. I could concentrate more on the chant the second time, and more on the third. But by the sixth, my lungs were a bit tired, and holding my breath became more difficult. Fine. But by the eighth time, I was flat-out bored. I kept cracking open an eye open to see if she had left the room and just left a CD playing this mantra on repeat.

It was about the twelfth time that I started to get downright irate. Fortunately, that didn't last too long, because the fourteenth time, I had gotten it into my head that she was stuck in an infinite loop. I didn't know whether I had stumbled into a holodeck or she was an android, but it was clear the only way to solve the situation was for me to stand up, walk over there, and give her a good smack to the back of the turban. Upon gleefully picturing this, I was lost in stifled fits of snorting and giggling, as I gave up on holding my breath and tried desperately not to burst out laughing. For the rest of the class, I dropped the self-affirmation mantra and reveled in the joy of imagining myself smacking this woman out of her meditative monotony. Yeah, I know there is some expectation of monotony in meditation, and that part of the point is to move past it. But come on! It went on for ELEVEN MINUTES. You'd have smacked her, too.

Fri, 04 May 2007 21:43:13 GMT

Dear Blog,

Hi. It has been a while. A long while. I know I have been distant and uncommunicative, only stopping by once every few weeks to add an icon or change an interest. No serious posts. No quality time.

It's not that I haven't wanted to. It's just...well, when even greeting cards give me writer's block, crafting a blog post can be overwhelming. Don't be upset; it's not you, it's me. There have been plenty of things I wanted to blog about, but they came and went, and by the time I had something half written, they were long past. I could finish them and backdate them, but the details fade, as does the passion, and eventually it makes no sense to post it at all.

I wanted to tell you about the gym, and how much of a staple it has become in my life. In rambling, I'd have explored why I find it so addictive, and questioned whether or not it is really healthy, given that I often want to go even in lieu of much-needed sleep or socialization, and how I obsess about it when I haven't been in a while.

I wanted to tell you about my vasectomy (the big snip! the nut cut!). How the procedure was fast and easy, how I must have had the cool room because people came running through five or six times to get stuff (like South Station, but with my nuts cut open), how the office was crazy that day and I got left in the room to clean myself up, how the real trauma of the recovery was not being able to work out (see above re: gym obsession), and how great prettydaisies was at taking care of me, even though I really, really despise being "looked after."

I could have posted about my revived interest in music, and how I'm getting into industrial, and how I can't wait for my limited edition Angelspit CD set to get here from Germany. Or how I really dig the Dresden Dolls, and I'm kind of pissed that the only time I remember seeing Amanda Palmer at Wes was seeing her and some other folks walking to or from Eclectic, and wondering if they were neutral Eclectics or evil Eclectics. (At that point, good Eclectics were as elusive as Bigfoot.)

I wanted to post something when I first found out about those sealers/fishermen who were trapped in the ice, though mostly to point and laugh and bask in the irony. And also to say something along the lines of, "Club: $2.14. Fishing boat: $68,000. Open-market price tag on a seal's life: $0.75. Seal-clubbing fishermen trapped in the ice, starving to death, while the seals roam safely: priceless."

I wanted to post about my boss who left my company after being on maternity leave for many, many moons. I was sad to see her go, as she was a great manager (though the manager I have now is also terrific), but the real thing that struck me was how stupid and inequitable I found parental leave. Nothing against the people who take advantage it, but the system is broken for even offering it. Did I get free money and six months of vacation for my vasectomy? Of course not, even though that's the more socially and environmentally responsible choice. They were both conscious decisions that could have been avoided. But some politicians decided sometime that they could score some extra votes from the churchgoers and breeders who think that everybody should pay for their families (that's not *all* the churchies and breedies I'm condemning, just the freeloaders), and no politician would risk being labeled "anti-family" by trying to fix it now. A while back I realized smokers have less stressful workdays because they have a built-in out for stepping away from their desks frequently during the day; well I got in on that racket by taking "nonsmoking breaks." How can I get in on this parental leave thing the same way? prettydaisies was right; all companies should offer sabbaticals for people to use as they want. You go have a baby; I'll spend that time hiking the Appalachian Trail or taking a semester at college or something.

Even tonight, I'd want to mention how much fun Prom was last night. Not regular prom, mind you: Jerkus Circus' Prom Night. I didn't think I'd make it, as I only slept an hour and a half the night before, was falling asleep all day at work, worked out after work anyway (obsession!), then set out to sit in a dark room for several hours. But the Steamy Bohemians were there to amuse and delight, and so they kept me entertained and awake; I'll be going back to see them again (target: June 1). The Black Cat Burlesque was not only sexy, but also a very entertaining skit. Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys seemed interesting but way too loud. (Oh, and the Toys gal irritated me a bit because she was smearing her fake blood all over the pretty signs the Steamies made, and at least one person had expressed interest in keeping theirs. I know, maybe it was okay, but I feel you should only slime your own props and audience volunteers.) The comedians all had strong and weak points but were overall quite entertaining. The other dancer...well, I just had to avert my eyes. I don't mean to judge; I know it takes all kinds, and you will find someone who is into whatever you throw out there, and people's acceptance shouldn't dictate your actions anyway; but every article of clothing she removed was an escalation of the violence against my sense of aesthetics. Mind you, this didn't stop one of the comedians from obsessing about her tassels for half of his set.

To me, though, Miss Adventure stole the show. Partly because she's really funny, and partly because she works the crowd really well, and partly because she hitched her skirt way up to do some of her stunts (I couldn't see through the heads of the people in front of me, but I appreciate the dedication), partly because I dig a woman going out of her way to include feats of strength in her performances (no holding back, either; she tried to lift Walter Sickert, and that guy must weigh...oh, I'm really bad at this game...maybe 240? Big guy. She almost got him. And she totally got away with his wallet), etc. etc. etc.... but really, most of all, because she was able to juggle shit in such a small room. Seriously, she's like 5'9" or so, and the room is probably 6' high, with track lighting. Then she even hopped on a board rolling on a pipe on top of a crate and juggled more...which would be amazing on its own, but this meant she had to crouch way down to get sufficient air to even juggle with small, fast throws. Did I mention she was also wearing heels while she did this? Teh ballz.

GAH! Look at that. I didn't even get to the Big-Brotheriness of Facebook, the perils of low-rise pants, begging for help buying a new computer, or how close I am to being fired, and I've already got enough to fill an issue of the Metro. I get a little tired or hyper or both, and then I start to babble, and that's what happens. Nobody wants to read all that. That's just vandalizing the blogosphere. But I'll post it anyway, because if I don't just punt it out there, I'll start to edit it, then I won't finish at that sitting, so I'll set it aside, and get distracted with other things, and never finish, and never post, and then we're thrust back into our uncomfortable silence. That's no good for anyone. So I'll post this and shut up for now. And I'll try not to neglect you in the future.

Love,
braingeyser

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 20:54:06 GMT

When our mild faux-winter suddenly gave way to harsh arctic weather, I was struck with an irrational fear that the numerous birds still hanging about wouldn't be able to adjust to our pollution-induced meteorological mood swings. (I know: overactive imagination, bleeding heart, disrespecting birds by underestimating their survival instincts, etc.) So I started carrying around bird seed and tossing it about as I walked to work, the gym, home, and wherever the wind took me in between. (Oh, tangent: must remember to post the pics of the bunny king.) It has been immensely entertaining, even though I'm sure I'm feeding as many rats as birds. (S'ok; I like rats, too.) But today at Kendall Square brought it to a new level.

I know birds like to hang out by the hot food trucks to eat the stuff people drop, but that's mostly rice or crusts of bread -- bird junk food -- so while I'm sure they weren't starving, I figured some actual seed would do them good. Scanning the trees while I waited for gee_tar, I saw maybe half a dozen birds. I know my eyes aren't great, so I figured there could be 8-10 within sight. But when I tossed the first little pinch of seeds out, about 15-20 birds showed up. Within a few minutes, there were 30-40 sparrows and pigeons. They'd swarm over the ground and each other like cute, feathery locusts and wipe out every little seed. Even in the thrashing wind (well, thrashing if you're a sparrow -- the fat-assed pigeons had no trouble), they were grabbing some of these things out of midair. Then they'd all look up at me waiting for more. I meant to feed a couple of sparrows, and ended up King of the Birds. It would have been entertaining, except I could tell three of the pigeons were conspiring to revolt and take the rest of the seeds by force.

I'm going to make such an entertaining vagrant someday.

"Mysterious heart attack during sex" is okay, but...

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:57:42 GMT

You'll die in a Drunken Shark Brawl.

You are an angry drunk, and careless, too; you should know better than to talk smack about cartilage being "inferior to bone" when you left your speargun in your other pants.

'How will you die?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Yeah, I may have fudged the results just a tad. Meme mutation makes memes worthwhile.

Fire

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 22:11:44 GMT

Did anyone else feel like the air was full of Fire yesterday? And I don't just mean this. I mean I felt ire, angst, tension, frustration, even rage, in just about everyone. It wasn't the heat -- in fact, outside in the cool breeze was the only place I saw the flames flicker. Was the Summer Solstice pimp-slapping people's emotions about, or was it all in my head?

(The icon is a lie; I was actually more Water-y than usual yesterday. Weird day.)

mysteeeeerious lunch: a true story

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:41:28 GMT

2006-06-19:12.45.39, Amelia's Trattoria
<<Transcribed from field notes>>

A mysterious appointment in my calendar: Lunch. Amelia's. 12:30pm today. Made in December. Made by me. Nobody else invited. No explanation given.

So, here I am at Amelia's. And I have no idea why.

Any clues as to the reasoning behind it have been wiped from my memory by time and/or malevolent forces. All that remains is relentlessly nagging curiosity. It could be a courtesy lunch with a recruiter, a clandestine rendezvous with a mistress, or a meeting with an industrial espionage agent that I was blackmailed into accepting. But now it is fifteen minutes after the set time. A recruiter wouldn't have left me hanging for so long. I have no mistress. And all an industrial espionage agent would have to do to make me sabotage my company would be to email me the link to yet another online game. So, that leaves only one possibility: I'm awaiting activation.

Yes, the only logical explanation is that I am a secret agent waiting here to be activated and sent on some potentially lethal mission. It's tough to believe, but since I've already eliminated the other possibilities, this must be true. I'm obviously a sleeper, because the whole gig is news to me, despite the obvious clues -- the suspiciously mild-mannered exterior, the late nights working, the missing time, my uncanny athletic prowess, and my occasional, inexplicable British accent. The whole eye hemorrhage incident was obviously cover for the upgrade of some of my cybernetic hardware. I don't even know what agency I'm with or what country I work for. The group probably doesn't even have a name, just an insignia; perhaps a lederhosen-clad ferret wrestling a platypus in a hazmat suit atop an alien insignia that looks like an amoeba giving itself the Heimlich maneuver. As soon as the waiter brings me my check and I see the words "turquoise salmonella sausage," [click], and I'll be off in some microscopic country with a hyphenated name fighting an army of Amish militants, luddites turned into cyborgs in a hideous government experiment, who, driven mad with self-loathing, seek to rain their misery upon the world by unleashing a plague of nanobots that will invade people's heads and cluster around their optic nerves, transmitting pop-up ads directly into people's brains, resulting in a global epidemic of self-mutilation as people stab their own eyes out with pretzel sticks, trying desperately to click the ads away. Have no fear, folks; one well-placed EMP bomb and I'll be back in time for jury duty on Thursday.

2006-06-19:13.43.17, back at the desk at my cover job.

Hmm... I'm back at the office. Something must have gone wrong with the trigger. Maybe they forgot to write the activation code on the check...Wait a second, they gave me the wrong check! Oh, well; I just hope the guy from table 5 remembers to pack an EMP bomb. As for me, I'm going back to Amelia's...I accidentally paid $24 for a chicken sandwich.

^*Almost a true story. I really did have a strange lunch appointment, I really did go just for the hell of it, I really did give them $24 for a chicken sandwich when I didn't notice they had brought me the wrong check, and I really do occasionally, inexplicably speak in a British accent^**.

^**No, not really.

It's really not soft.

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:33:01 GMT

Professor Life gives many lessons. The topic of this weekend's learning experience: softball. The lessons were long and drawn out, and each was painful (physically, psychologically, or both) so I won't subject you to the whole of it. But here are my class notes:

Softball is a sport, and thus, is physically demanding. I didn't get this lesson last week, foolishly attributing my muscle soreness to walking four miles there and back. So this time, the Prof gave me a pulled quad in inning one.
Softball is a sport, and thus, has important rules and strategies. When you're covering a base and the ball comes your way before the runner, but you drop it...kind of embarrassing. But when you're the runner, and you don't realize the guy dropped the ball, so you walk away, then have the guy follow you off the field to tag you out...humiliating. Guess which guy I was. And my prowess at second base? Think "Charlie Chaplain, covered in mud, trying to pick up a greased pig with a mitt," and you're on the right track.
Softball is a sport, and thus, is dangerous. Specifically, the glove is there to protect more than your hand. (I'll just link to the proof of this, rather than stick in another huge lj-cut. Not for the extremely squeamish.)

Edit: Yes, the whole point was to show off the pictures of my eye. And yes, next time I'll just post pics and say, "look at my eye!"

Hi there. I'm back.

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:39:49 GMT

My LJ is unfrozen, so I may come spend a little time here again. I know I babble, but I'll try to keep it to the odd thought that may deserve to see the end of the bar. (As in, "Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar." --Edward R. Murrow.) (Why yes, I did just watch Good Night, and Good Luck. How did you know?)

And in case you love boring details: For the whole time I'd been using LJ in the past, I entertained myself by changing my birthdate to the most date I most recently added an entry. Yes, I'm easily entertained. Then, LJ implemented its whole "you gotta be 13+" policy, and since, as far as they knew, I was only several days old at the time, I was shut down. Having no credit card and not feeling like sending them identity theft fodder meant I couldn't get back in. I wouldn't have minded so much, as I was kind of done with posting for the time being, but it also meant I couldn't comment on anyone else's posts, or even change my profile. It was souring the whole thing. So I did what I usually do when faced with a dilemma: go do something else. And so I did. I put all of LJ behind me for...um...a year and change.

By some combination of whim, frustration, and free time that inexplicably popped up between my increasingly demanding job and my KoL addiction, I sent some junk to the Gods of LJ, and presto! I once again pass for a fine, upstanding member of polite society. Don't worry, I'll make short work of that image once I scrounge up material for a post or two. I'll do my best to keep it gripe-free; I know that's no fun to read. This also means I'll be catching up on other people's insights and ramblings. Just give me about a year or so per person, as I read slowly. (No, really slowly...ask me how well I did in college.)

Check out the size of his T1 line...

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:58:50 GMT

I've been urged to post my Epihpany-ette of the Day to my LJ, and I'm a pushover, so I will. I'd try to be all witty about it, but if I delay it I'll forget it. This dang job, always getting in the way of the really important things in life. Anyhow...

I was talking with a friend at work about something relatively obscure, whose details we couldn't recall. She said, "Who would know that...you know who would know that? The Internet." And sure enough, he did. Yeah, that slip was my epiphany. The Internet is male. I'm pretty sure, anyway. He's full of sex, anger, games, and technical specifications; if you ask him about *anything* the answer is "sex"; he only understands what you tell him outright and he can't read into anything, so you have to phrase everything very carefully; and he's completely gullible, believing anything you tell him, and even presenting it to others as fact. If he weren't so good at remembering birthdays, I'd be sure.

Bastids.

Thu, 28 Oct 2004 19:16:52 GMT

That's it. It's all over. Those damn Red Sox...they took away my ice cream.

I'll have to console myself with another ...

Watched the debate.

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 04:48:56 GMT

While it would have been satisfying to grab some chips and use tonight's presidential debate as a hecklefest, the stakes are high in this election, so I felt like trying to figure out what effects the debate might have on an undecided voter. I did my best to watch and interpret as would someone with no firm opinions about either of the candidates.

I was pleased. Senator Kerry came off as intelligent, passionate, flexible, quick-thinking, patient, gracious, and -- sorry, Dub -- completely steadfast. He answered the questions. He didn't waver. He didn't flounder when they got tough. He stated his case and his positions (as much as possible in the thirty seconds to two minutes he was allotted). Governor Bush came off as arrogant, slow-witted, repetitive, derisive, pushy, and completely unintelligent. Shaking his head, sighing, sneering, interrupting...making all of the mistakes Gore made last time, then adding a little "because I'm the daddy, that's why" attitude on top. The most fun were the silences. Huge gaps where you could see his little monkey brain churning and burning behind his little monkey mask, as he tried to construct a complete thought or conjure up a real word -- and he failed miserably on each count several times. I swear I think he was about to cry at a few points. And he kept writing. When Kerry wrote something down, you knew he was coming back with a rebuttal to a certain point. Bush didn't seem to be formulating strategies; I think he was just writing "i hayt saynutor kery" over and over.

It seemed like the reason he was having such a hard time was because he was trying his hardest to get out of this debate without actually debating. I really think the only prep work he did was practicing responding to any question or accusation with one of his four or five pre-packaged phrases: "America will be stronger and safer with a free Iraq" and "What kind of message does 'this is the wrong war...' send to our troops?" and such. But Kerry was great at denying him the chance to read off his index cards, and in response, Bush would completely stall out. Then it dawned on me. Not only did Bush strike me as a complete idiot, but if I had been IMing with him, me asking the questions and him answering as he did, I would have been convinced I was IMing with a poorly-programmed robot. The unnatural speech patterns, the sidestepping of direct questions, the repetition of inappropriate phrases, the long pauses while he searched his database for related topics...Governor Bush would have completely failed my Turing Test.

(I know. My first post in months and it's politics? How dull! Gimme a break, will you? I'm still fighting the migraines from having my wisdom teeth out; this is as lucid and witty as I can get right now. And I was amused by the thought that I could probably get more appropriate and creative responses out of Alice than Bush gave. [On that note, anyone know AIML? I'd love to see an interactive talking chimp that spews out Bushisms when you talk to it.] Also, setting up a new apartment is pretty dull. Oh, except the downstairs neighbors are insane trolls, but I don't have enough energy to gripe right now.)

"full time"

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:31:14 GMT

Funny thing about having a full-time job: it's full-time. Who knew? All day, going hard, not a minute to spare. No built-in 40-hour-week limitations, like when I was temping. Yeah, I know you people do this all the time, and not just pissy little 50-hour weeks like mine, and I'm just being a whiny bitch. What can I say? I'm a whiny bitch.

Anyway, I have been exceptionally slack about reading people's journals lately (including for months before this poor, unsuspecting place opened its doors to me). And while at the end of the day I rarely want to come home and spend more time before the screen, I am going to make a concerted effort to catch back up on people's journals. (And, as you see, perhaps post something of my own from time to time.)

This follows largely from the annoying realization that I have no freakin' clue if half of my friends are alive or dead -- and the fear that someday I may go to check on someone, and find out it's the latter. Also, half of my friends must have no idea whether *I* am alive or dead -- and again, I'd hate for them or me to come back and discover it's the latter.

So, um...yeah. Fair warning: I'll be watching you...

re: my last two posts

Fri, 21 Nov 2003 06:23:53 GMT

Wow. Responses. Okay, first, let me say 'thanks' to the people who replied, even if I'm not quite witty and wise enough to think of clever, endearing things to say to every one of you: Thanks. Warm fuzzies abound, truly.

Next, let me share some of the lessons I've learned from this (naturally, all imperative statements are directed at myself only; you do as you please):

-Don't LJUI (posting under the influence) unless either you are a functional drunk (which I am not) or you don't mind venting incoherently about things you can't talk about. If you choose to do it anyway, whatever happens, you asked for it. But especially don't post while drunk about how you shouldn't post while drunk.

-Given that my last two posts sound, upon sober rereading, like cries for help, it is really cool that people replied. See above about the abundance of warm fuzzies, and no I don't just mean the ferrets. Although they are both so warm and fuzzy, and for some reason, Lucy is as soft as a kit this season. (Er, I just tangented off my tangent...can I do that?)

-Check your responses more often. People were sending love and support as you wandered away and got distracted by something shiny. That's a bit rude.

-The icon for "crazy" in the mood icons I have selected looks more like "kooky" than "questioning my sanity." Find a new mood to choose the next time you are questioning your sanity.

-People are out here. People are listening. Don't ever feel alone.

-People are out here. People are listening. Watch what you say.