I Have Gone Round The Bend Far Enough That I've Started Talking To TV Shows

Oh, Heroes, how very glad I am that I stuck with you. Who knew you were going to get this good?

And I was right, you are totally making Lost look bad, in terms of the, y'know, actual plot progression and the general sense of the writers having a clue where they're going. Not to mention your ability to establish more characterization with one set of flashbacks than Lost has done with entire seasons' worth.

You are now totally my favorite current American TV show. Just don't go screwing it up, now, 'kay?

Hi-Ho, Random Linkage!

Random Kitten Generator: Because some days, you just need a random kitten.

A public service announcement from George Takei: Takei takes on homophobia in his own, utterly inimitable way. Hee!

Trailers for the Simpsons movie: Man, I may have to break my "no more going to theaters until asshole movie-goers become extinct" rule for this one.

Geek Test: I am so astonished by the fact that I pretty much instantly got this question right that I immediately became convinced I must be wrong. I wasn't though. I find this slightly frightening... That's pretty damned geeky even for me.

Mythbusters quotes: Because I've been on a huge Mythbusters kick for months now. Sadly, many of these are not nearly as amusing if you can't hear their delivery.

Rob Paravonian's Pachelbel Rant: I found this extremely funny, largely because Pachelbel's canon in D is one of the few classical pieces I really love, and because I have noticed that it seems to be everywhere. Actual musicians are likely to find it even funnier.

Next Week: Complete Lyrics To "You All Everybody" Revealed!

Speaking of TV shows that don't deliver answers as promised by their marketing, I think this the ads and previews for the most recent Lost should have said, "This week, we spend an entire hour answering one question nobody actually gives a rat's ass about."

Honestly, is a little truth in advertising too much to ask?

OK, Possibly I'm A Little Sick.

Note to self: "I feel much better today" should really not be followed immediately by "therefore I will go and do lots of housework," or you are likely to feel the sudden need to lie down halfway through the vacuuming.

Sigh. Possibly I really just need food, considering that I haven't eaten anything yet today.

Who Needs Sleep? Me, Apparently.

I feel much better today. Still kind of stuffy, but far less craptastic. I think it's having had a full night's sleep that makes the entire difference. Which made me think, man, this must be another sign that I'm getting older, this inability to deal with not getting enough rest. But then I remembered that, honestly, I've never functioned well on too little sleep. Which is kind of a comforting thought, oddly.

Waaaah.

Ugh. Woke up this morning -- well, not technically "morning" as the sun wasn't even up yet -- after about three hours of sleep, with a head full of snot. Took a decongestant, which dried me out not quite enough to get back to sleep, but just enough for my bad eye to once again do that thing where my cornea tries to stick to my eyelid.

The eye doesn't hurt so much now, and I can mostly breathe OK, but I still feel like warmed-over crap. And I just had such a nice, happy three-day weekend, too.

I may just give up and call in sick this afternoon. Certainly at the moment I am kind of... minimally functional. Sigh.

My Heroes

So, the ads for next week's Heroes promise that we'll finally get answers to some of the show's mysteries. Rather surprisingly, given that pretty much every time any show's promised me that it's turned out to be a big, honkin' lie[*], I find I totally believe them. Unlike, say, Lost, which I'm still enjoying, but which tends to pile mystery on top of mystery without ever making anything any clearer, Heroes is doing a very nice job of feeding us genuinely relevant information as we go along, and slowly bringing things together in a way that feels like it's building to an actual, sensible conclusion, however far down the line that may be.

I doubt, however, that they will in fact give us the answer to the one, burning question that I have, namely: how is it possible that Hiro Nakamura gets even cuter with every passing episode? Forget stopping time, that's got to break the laws of physics somehow.


[*] Not that I'm still bitter about the final episode of Quantum Leap or anything. Much.

I Don't Have A Problem With The Result, But That Picture Kind Of Disturbs Me.

Aww, I Wanted to Be Hiro. But At Least I'm Still Cute.

Micah Sanders You scored 66 Idealism, 25 Nonconformity, 54 Nerdiness

Can we play Scrabble tonight? Congratulations, you're Micah Sanders! You're good-natured, intelligent, perceptive, and naturally inclined toward technology. You're also quite innocent and loving. You've got a fondness for computers and Scrabble. Your best quality: You're extremely perceptive Your worst quality: You can be a little demanding at times

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

(I've decided to start removing the "how you compared to other people your age and gender" thingies from this OKCupid tests, by the way. They seem to be broken anyway, or else nobody my age and gender ever takes them, because they always say 99% for everything.)

That's It. Nobody Is Allowed To Make Any More Movies, Film Any More TV Shows, Or Write Any More Books Until I'm Caught Up.

It appears that I now have so many DVDs on my Netflix queue that it will no longer allow me to add any more.

Sigh.

Just In Case There Was Any Confusion

Dear world,

I wish it to be known that I am not wearing a red sweater in honor of Valentine's Day. I am wearing it because I want to get through enough bright-colored clothes to make up a full load of laundry.

Non-mushily yours,
Me

Song Inside My Head

I've been watching Heroes and enjoying it a lot, but there's one thing about it that is driving me absolutely crazy. Every time Christopher Eccleston's character comes on the screen, or even any time I think about him, I get Freddie Mercury singing in my head:

I'm the invisible man
I'm the invisible man
Incredible how you can
See right through me!

Stupid Queen's Greatest Hits album.

And while watching the most recent episode of Battlestar Galactica, which features a character called Dr. Roberts, I kept finding it nearly impossible to pay attention because of the immensely distracting Beatles performance inside my brain:

You're a new and better man,
He helps you to understand,
He does everything he can: Dr. Robert(s)

I really, really wish I knew how to get that sort of thing to shut off.


(Note: I still haven't seen Monday's episode of Heroes, by the way, so no spoilers, please!)

Also, A Haiku

Haiku2 for maximumverbosit
matter entirely still i'll be interested to see what he was
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

I'm sure that's actually very profound and philosophical, somehow.

Gods? We Don't Need No Stinking Gods!

The Freethinker Way
Take Which Pantheon is Best for you? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

Phaa! You need no stinking gods! You are an Atheist, a Freethinker, a Disbeliever, an Agnostic you have tossed out all the old ghosts & boogiemen and are set to march boldly into the future. Unless of course you are a stone fundamentalist Debunker and are spending most of your time bashing those not on THE way, but hey, to each their own.

Right Here, Right Now

Yeah, I'm several days later with this regular meme-thing than I usually am. I told you that time was getting away from me lately. But here we go:

Current clothes: Blue pajama bottoms with little pictures of sheep on 'em. Extra-large black pocket t-shirt. Dinosaur slippers. I'll get dressed for real later.

Current mood: Good. This last week has been pretty stressful, for a number of really stupid reasons, so yesterday was my designated day to catch up with all the stuff I was behind on, and then just quietly unwind. It worked very well: I now have clean clothes and groceries, and I feel much more relaxed.

Current music: Most recently, yet more randomly-generated playlists. I think the iPod was leaning heavily towards Gordon Lightfoot and Rush, which I suppose is an interesting combination. Last album played was Carbon Leaf's Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat, or at least part of it.

Current annoyance: I don't know whether it's just my allergies, or whether I actually have a cold, but either way, there is snot, especially when I wake up in the morning. I do not like it.

Current thing: Getting all stressed out about random stupid stuff. Although hopefully yesterday hit the reset button on that one.

Current desktop picture: A Cyberman smashing through my monitor again.

Current song in head: Leonard Cohen's "Democracy."

Current book: Camera Obscura by Lloyd Rose. This is the last of the Eighth Doctor books before I start hitting gaps in what I can find. Unless amazon.co.uk actually comes through with Time Zero for me, that is, but I'm not holding my breath. I don't suppose anybody reading this knows where I can find a reasonably-priced copy of that anywhere? I don't even care what kind of shape it's in, as long as it has all the pages. I just want to read the damned thing.

Current DVD in player: Nothing at the moment: I've opted for catching up on the backlog of stuff on the TiVo instead lately. Most recent disk in the player was season one of Coupling, a British comedy series that was recommended to me by a couple of people. It's pretty funny, I guess, but it has much, much more of an American sitcom sensibility than a British one, which I found kind of disappointing. I don't much like American-style sitcoms, in general, and the exceptions are usually the more intellectual ones, with strong, quirky characters. Think, say, Frasier. And Coupling... is really not Frasier. It's pretty much nothing but a series of sex jokes, and six episodes in, I still know absolutely nothing about these characters that doesn't directly involve their sex lives. It's well-done if you like that sort of thing, and I'm not sorry I gave it a try, but I probably won't bother with future seasons. Next up on DVD is season two of Stargate SG-1, a series which, based on what I've seen so far, is way more entertaining than it has any legitimate right to be.

Current refreshment: My morning coffee. Hey, I work late. It's still morning to me. *slurps coffee* Damn it, it's getting cold. *wanders off to kitchen briefly in search of more, warmer coffee*

Current worry: I had tons of them last week, but I've forgotten most of them now. Told ya I had a successful Saturday!

Current thought: Mmmmm, coffee.... *slurp*

The Random Links Strike Back

Burning a Candle at Both Ends: What happens when you burn a candle at both ends? Visual proof that physics is really cool.

Handmade Star Wars: The Death Star battle, re-enacted by, uh, hands.

The Face Transformer: Upload a picture of your (or someone else's) face, and see it rendered into a variety of styles.

KOMPSAT-2 image of VLA telescope: Terrific picture of the VLA taken from space.

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: A 50-minute interview with Richard Feynman, filmed, I think, in 1981. Illustrates beautifully just why this guy is one of my personal all-time heroes.

My First Computer Had 64K Of RAM And Stored Its Data On A Tape Recorder.

So, today I bought a 1 GB USB flash drive for $14.49. One gigabyte of data, in my pocket, for less than fifteen bucks.

Damn, but living in the 21st century is cool.

The Time Warp Again

How the hell is it the fifth of February already? Where is the time going lately, and how do I get there so I can take some of it back?

Not Updating For Four Days Was My Fault. The Fifth Day Wasn't.

OK, that last entry was actually meant to be posted ages and ages ago, but I made the mistake, when I went to update the blog, of checking to see whether perhaps Blogger actually meant it this time when they said they were ready for me to switch over to the new version. Surprisingly enough, they said they were, so I figured, hey, cool, I've got a little while before work, I can get that set up, make my post, play around with it a bit, see how it is.

So I told 'em to go ahead and was informed that it would probably take a few minutes, maybe a little longer if I had a large blog. A few minutes later I was told to be patient, it was still going, it'd be just a little while longer. Nearly six hours later, long after I'd already left for work, I got the notice that it was finally finished. Way to start me off on the right foot, Blogger. Sigh.

Anyway, everything looks slightly different now, which is throwing me off a bit, but I think the improvements noticeable so far may actually be improvements. Posting does seem to be a bit more convenient, at least, and they've adopted something very much like gmail's spellchecker interface, which I was practically begging them to do a year or so ago. So, yay for that, at least!

And I can tag posts with labels now, as you may notice at the bottom of this entry and the last one. That might be useful, somehow. (But, no, I'm not going to go back and retroactively tag the 2,000+ earlier posts. I'm not that obsessive.)

Do let me know if anything suddenly looks broken or weird. (In bad new ways, that is, as opposed to my usual weirdness.) I may do some experimenting with the layout, etc. at some point in the future, but that's certainly not happening tonight. Not after I had to wait six hours to get my stupid blog back.

But The Fate Of The Universe May Be At Stake!

I'm trying to convince myself that the fact that I'm having trouble finding some of the BBC Eighth Doctor books, now that I'm within a dozen or so books of finishing the series, does not, in fact, actually constitute an emergency. I'm having a little trouble doing it, though.

Sometimes I worry a little bit about my sense of priorities.

And Keep Those Damned Kids Off My Lawn!

It's official. I am well into the process of turning into a crotchety old woman. Today, I sent a snarky e-mail to the company that makes my usual brand of shampoo complaining about the really annoying caps they've just switched to on their bottles.

I feel like Grampa Simpson.

It's 12:24 AM, And I'm About Ready For Some Dinner.

At work, we're currently in the process of combining what were previously two separate departments into one, and I've been doing a lot of cross-training over the past few weeks. While that's going on, we've pretty much abandoned the regular shift rotation, and I've mostly been coming in and working in the evenings. It's my favorite shift, when I'm in one of my periods of having no social life (which, frankly, I usually am), as it requires me neither to get up at the crack of dawn nor to stay up until the crack of dawn.

The problem, though, is that it allows me to give in to my natural inclination to drift my hours later and later... and later. For a while there, I was working until midnight, going to bed around 2:00-ish, and sleeping until 10:00 or 10:30, and that was fine. Plenty of time to get stuff done before work, and a nice couple of hours to relax afterward. By this point, though, I'm lucky if I'm asleep by 3:30 and am opening my well-rested eyes sometime around noon... Which is just late enough that I start to feel rushed instead of relaxed before work.

I think something down in my brainstem has finally caught on to the fact that things have changed and is sitting there going, "Hey, wait. Aren't we supposed to be on the night shift by now? I'm sure we're supposed to be on the night shift. Here, let's go ahead and prepare for that, OK? It's gotta happen soon..."

I Feel Bad. But Also Amused.

In case you've ever happened to wonder how to go about getting the most pitiful possible mewing sound out of a cat, I have just discovered the answer: accidentally step on his tail, then, when you go to pet him in apology, zap him with a big ol' static-electric shock.

Poor critter's still looking at me with this interesting expression of wary confusion.

Grand Cavalcade of Random Links

I got a bunch of 'em this time. With comments!

The Butcher Block: A podcast for fans of Jim Butcher's books. I haven't had the chance to listen to it yet, but it looks like the most recent edition has some commentary on the Dresden Files TV series and its differences from the books, as well as a cut from a forthcoming audiobook version of one of the Dresden novels.

Fly Your Name to Mars: The Planetary Society is putting together a DVD that will fly on the Phoenix Mars probe, featuring a collection of Mars-themed literature and art, as well as the names of all its members and anyone else who cares to submit one. Just give them your name by February first, then sit back and wait for the future Mars colonists to find the disc and read it.

Mr. Deity: Short, humorous videos featuring Mr. Deity, the all-powerful, sort-of-all-knowing creator of the universe. Likely to offend some and amuse others. Or possibly both at once.

The Pulling Report: A 1990 report thoroughly debunking the idea -- then taken with disturbing seriousness by the US justice system -- that a plague of satan-worshipping Dungeons & Dragons players was sweeping the nation, causing teen suicides and other mayhem. Not exactly current events, but as a gamer, I found it interesting reading. Best quote: "If games were anything more than a form of entertainment, everyone who ever won a game of Monopoly would magically become a Donald Trump and good Risk players would have taken over the world."

Star Trek: The Next Generation Recaps: Wil Wheaton recaps old TNG episodes with a near-perfect balance of affection, insight, snark, and humor. He provides a few insider tidbits, which are interesting, but mostly he comes across much like any other fan... albeit more articulate than most. Definitely a Trekkie must-read.

Livermore's Centennial Light: There's a light bulb in a fire station in California which has been burning continuously for 106 years. I saw this thing on Mythbusters, and somehow found myself bizarrely fascinated with it. Fortunately, there's a 24-hour webcam!

What I Did Over Christmas Vacation: What they did was to re-create the movie version of the Battle of Helm's Deep. Out of candy. Man, it's nice to know there are people out there even nerdier than I am.

It Isn't Ironic, I Don't Think

I'm currently reading George Carlin's Brain Droppings (or, more accurately, an omnibus collection of his books, including that one). Carlin's a pretty funny guy even when I don't agree with him, but, man, he's just earned my undying love and loyalty for this succinct, well-formulated explication of the correct definition of "irony." I am quoting it here in its entirety because I think it is extremely important for every English speaker to understand this, in order to stop annoying me. (Yes, Alanis, I am looking at you.)

Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance:

If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony.

If a Kurd, after surviving a bloody battle with Saddam Hussein's army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large.

Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed after a brutal hit by Jack Tatum. Now Darryl Stingley's son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic. It will be coincidental. If Darryl Stingley's son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic. If he paralyzes Jack Tatum's son, that will be precisely ironic.

Photo-Blogging, Continued

OK, for anybody who wanted to see where I work, this is the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Array Operations Center, in Socorro:



And here's the inside of our (newly and rather spiffily re-designed) control room. This is the correlator side, where I traditionally do my thing:



And here's the array side, where I am currently learning how to babysit actual antennas, rather than just discs of previously-recorded data:



The best thing about this arrangement is that there is no longer a big divider between me and the windows. Actual natural sunlight, hooray!

Elf, Vulcan... It's All In The Pointy Ears.

What type of Fae are you?

I Watch TV! And Then Post About It! How Exciting Is That?

I did, by the way, also get around to watching the -- What are we calling it, mid-season premiere? That sounds pretty dumb -- of Battlestar Galactica. But, y'know, while I'm definitely still interested in that show enough to keep watching it, I'm nowhere near interested enough to get all excited and want to blog about it. I have to admit, at this point my main thought about that show is that I want to see more of Cavil. Partly because he's an interestingly-written character. Partly because, dude, Dean Stockwell. And partly because he has good taste in hats. In fact, I was actually rather glad when [spoiler for last night's episode removed], because it let me stop staring covetously at Cavil's hat, which was really rather distracting.

Also, I think Cavil should have scenes with Doc Cottle. Yeah, other people may watch that show for the hot guys'n'chicks, but I would totally tune in for the Battlestar Galactica: Snarky Old Guys spinoff.

A Brief Observation On Looking Out The Window For The First Time This Morning

Wow, we're getting a lot of snow this year.

And What Is It With Magicians Named "Harry," Anyway?

I've been very much enjoying Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series of books (despite the fact that a cat tried to maim me with a collection of them once). So far, I've made it up through book 7, which I read about a month ago. I've thought pretty much from the beginning that they'd translate very well into movies, and when I heard they were actually going to be turned into a TV series, I figured, hey, that'll work, too; the premise -- basically a "wizard detective" sort of thing -- has plenty of scope to sustain a weekly format. So I was fairly optimistic about what they might do with it, and rather curious to see how it would come out.

Well, I've just finished watching the series premiere, and I'm not sure I can form a coherent opinion, because almost all I could think about, the entire way through, was how incredibly weird it is to see something so familiar done so... so... so same-but-different. The concept is exactly the same. The main character looks and acts pretty close to the one from the books, and appears to have very nearly the same backstory. The whole feel of the show seems about right. As such things go, I'd say it's actually a pretty faithful adaptation, but that fact just serves to make the differences stand out in an almost surreal kind of way. I found it disturbingly hard to concentrate on the story, because I kept going: "Wait, who is this chick?" and "OMG, is that Bob?! He's totally different! But cool! But different!" and "Wait, Harry doesn't drive a Jeep!" and "No, no, no, Murphy's supposed to be blonde!" They're not bad changes, necessarily -- except maybe for the Jeep thing, which I can't help thinking the "real" Harry Dresden would object to -- but they do have this odd double-vision effect on me. I really hope that'll go away after another episode or two, because I think I could like this show if my hindbrain will just shut up about the books...

More Piccies!

OK, here we go... For those who wanted to see a picture of my house, here it is:



And, since a couple of people seemed interested in a more general view of what kind of place I live in, well, here's a couple of (highly uninspired) views down Socorro's main street:




And a better view of the mountain than the one I posted yesterday:



My sister wanted to see my infamous (and hideously misnamed) To-Read Pile... This was actually impossible to get in one shot, so here are two non-overlapping pictures. Be afraid!




And, lastly, here's what I had for lunch: a tuna sandwich, half a dill pickle, baby carrots, some reduced-fat potato chips, and a mug of tea. Which I ate at about 3 PM, because I am pretty much a time zone unto myself.



Exciting stuff, huh? And there will be more to come, eventually...

Welcome To My World...

OK, I've gotten a few picture requests already, both in the blog comments and elsewhere, so here's some pictures to start with. Photos of anything outside will have to wait until daylight, though, and the person who wanted to see where I work will have to wait until I go back in on Monday (or, more realistically, until I get around to downloading and posting the picture on Tuesday).

Actually, I did take this one out my front door earlier today, for those who are interested in general pictures of where I live. I was trying to get a nice shot of the snow-dusted mountain, but I didn't think it came out very well. Still, here:



And here's a shot of my computer desk. (I resisted the urge to tidy it up before taking the picture.):



Here's my first attempt to use the self-timer to create a self-portrait. It's not a very good attempt... I think I somehow managed to decrease the resolution by accident, and I have no idea why my face looks that red. But here ya go, dad:



And, for the freak who asked, possibly just to see if I'd do it, my toothbrush:



(And, d'oh, my internet's being a little flaky, and when I try to upload these to Blogger, it keeps timing out. Let's see if I can ftp 'em to my own webspace and link to 'em from there... Yay! I can!)

I Won't Guarantee They'll Be Worth A Thousand Words, Though.

OK, I still haven't had the chance to play around with the new digital camera very much, so I figured I'd call on you, my faithful readers, to help me out. I vaguely recall this going around as a meme a while back, but of course I wasn't exactly equipped to do it then. So:

Tell me one thing that you'd like me to take a picture of, and I'll see about doing so and posting the result. Note that I reserve the right to veto anything too personal or too inconvenient, and also to arbitrarily decide that I've gotten bored and will stop taking requests. Leave a comment here with your suggestion, or send me an e-mail, or contact me any other way you might happen to know of to contact me, as long as it doesn't involve knocking on my door or making my phone ring before about noon.

Even The Devil Can Quote Scripture.

You know the Bible 77%!

 

Wow! You are truly a student of the Bible! Some of the questions were difficult, but they didn't slow you down! You know the books, the characters, the events . . . Very impressive!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

I Growed Him Up Good!

I just took Vir into the vet's for his annual checkup and his shots. You may be interested to know that his current officially recorded weight is upwards of 16 pounds. That's more than 12 pounds heavier than when I last took him in, a year ago, and a very far cry from the days when I used to weigh him on a postage scale. It's actually pretty uncomfortable to pick him up inside the pet carrier now!

Anyway, he's all vaccinated and checks out OK. I did mention to the vet the one small concern I've had, which is that his breathing sometimes seems surprisingly loud, almost like someone with a stuffed-up nose, although he never has any snot. That's sort of always been the case, but lately I've been noticing it more, and also the very occasional wheezy or buzzy sound from him. I haven't been too worried about it, as he never seems ill or short of breath, and certainly doesn't display any diminished activity or energy levels. Which response, according the vet, is pretty much right on. He might have a touch of asthma, or allergies (which I think would be a sort of poetic justice), or scarring on his lungs from his fragile orphan-kitten days, but it's not anything that's currently a big deal. If it's asthma, there are treatments for it, but those tend to come with side effects, and if he's not actually suffering any problems, hey, why cause any? So, unless it gets worse, there's nothing to really worry about. Again, that's pretty much what I figured, but it's nice to hear it from the professional.

Now I have to make an appointment for the other two cats... Apparently they're overdue for their shots, but for some reason Vir was the only one I got a reminder about. Sigh. No rest for the cat lady...

Obligatory Random Links Post

The top ten astronomy images of 2006: One astronomer's choices for the top space pics of the year. Very cool images, with informative commentary.

Battlestar Galactica season 3 gag reel: Some extremely funny stuff on here, though I think my favorite moment was Adama telling Baltar to "eat shit and die." Because, man, you know he wants to.

Pictaps: Draw characters. Then watch them dance. It's weirdly, insanely fascinating.

This Mind Is Not Yet Rated.

Your Mind is PG-13 Rated

Your mind is definitely a little dirty. You're naughty, but not trashy. You don't shy away from a dirty joke, and you're clearly not a prude.

Do You Have a Dirty Mind?

Yeah, I'll accept that analysis. Mostly because it makes me sound good from both ends. (Of course, now that sentence looks weirdly dirty to me...)

I Want To Go And Live In My TV Set.

Current DVD-watching is season 7 of The West Wing. I've talked about that show here a bit before as I've made my way through it on DVD, and, given that I'm not a big fan of politics, it may have seemed a little odd that I've gotten so into a series that appears to be pretty far from my usual sort of fare. The truth is, though, that TWW is exactly the sort of thing you might expect me to watch, because it's absolutely, 100%, pure, undistilled, alternate-universe fantasy. And wish-fulfillment fantasy, at that. Man, I so want to live in a world where I'd have trouble deciding which presidential candidate to vote for because I think they're both good choices, instead of the same damned lesser-of-two-evils crap over and over.

Most especially, though, I want to live in a world where politicians have a clue about science and some remote shred of respect for the concept of "separation of church and state."

Gratuitous Cat Pictures

Hey, you knew they were coming!

Here's a picture of Vir, hefty adult cat that he now is:


And here's Nova, sitting on a cat tree and being very fluffy:


And Happiness, curled up into a sleeping kitty-ball:



Ah, they all look so sweet and innocent. You'd never know what little hellions they actually are.

Current Meme

Current clothes: Dark gray sweats. A white t-shirt that says "I had Great Four-Play in Las Vegas" in big letters, and "At Cinema Ride In the Forum Shops At Caesars, Las Vegas" below that in smaller ones. (They gave out free shirts if you bought a ticket for four of the 3D motion rides.) White socks. The dinosaur slippers pictured in the previous post.

Current mood: Not bad. Better once I finish doing this meme, because once it occurred to me that it was about time to do it again, the thought kept hanging around in the back of my brain bugging me until I finally sat down to type it up.

Current music: I was just watching the recent Doctor Who charity concert, which someone a work gave me a copy of on disc.

Current annoyance: I actually cooked some chicken for lunch a little while ago, and I made lima beans with it... But I forgot to turn the water down from "boil" to "simmer," and they came out tasting kind of funny, so I mostly didn't eat them. So much for trying to get some vegetables into my system.

Current thing: Learning to operate a digital camera. Also radio telescopes.

Current desktop picture: It's a picture of the Babylon 5 space station. I'd link to it, but I don't remember where I got it; I just found it on my hard drive while I was looking for something to replace the TARDIS-with-a-wreath-on-it picture I had up briefly over Christmas. I'm feeling a bit enthused on the subject of Babylon 5 at the moment, having just finished Peter David's Legions of Fire trilogy, which does an excellent job of filling in some of the gaps left by what we saw on our TV screens. (I was lucky to be able to read all of that, by the way. For some unfathomably stupid reason, the first two books in the trilogy are still in print, but the third volume is extremely rare and currently sells for about seventy bucks on ebay. Fortunately, I found a friend with a copy he was willing to lend me, after a different friend very generously bought me the first two in return for some favor I did her.)

Current song in head: The radio in my brain has been switching around rapidly between various songs I've listened to recently. Right now, it seems to be "The Noah Plan" by Peter Schilling. Fifteen minutes ago, it was "Song for Ten," from Doctor Who. Before that, it kept alternating between "Leaving to Stay" by Jonny Lang, "The Future" by Leonard Cohen, and "The Man Who Sold the World" by David Bowie. Hey, at least it's playing good music.

Current book: Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson.

Current DVD in player: The disc with the aforementioned Doctor Who concert.

Current refreshment: Lemon-ginger green tea.

Current worry: I'm trying not to worry too much about anything.

Current thought: I think it's time to add the fabric softener to the wash...

Dinosaur Safari!

The new camera is now up and running, although I haven't exactly figured out any of its nuances yet. After my last post, someone suggested I should put up a picture of the dinosaur slippers. Well, your request is my command! Here they are:


I don't know how clear it is from the picture -- hey, I'm a novice with this machine -- but these slippers are startlingly realistic. Well, no, they're not realistic triceratops, or they wouldn't fit into my house, but they have this pattern and texture to them that looks remarkably like real reptile skin. It's actually a bit disconcerting to walk into a room when I've left them lying on the floor... My hindbrain tends to spend a moment shouting at me that there are strange animals in my house! The cats were kind of freaked out by them at first, too.

Anyway, there you have it! The beginning of my new digital-camera age! Be afraid...

Post-Holiday Shopping Fun

My digital camera arrived. Hooray! Haven't had the chance to play around with it yet, though.

Also, I now have a pair of slippers shaped like triceratops. Triceratopses? Anyway, I have slippers shaped like dinosaurs. This makes me quite unreasonably happy.

An Archetype I Am, Yes! Make Fun Of My Talking, You Should Not.

What Fantasy Archetype Are you?
The Weird Guy In The Hut In The Swamp You are The Weird guy In the Hut In the Swamp. In addition to talking funny, you're like Tom Bombadil (LoTR), The Lady of the Lake (Arthurian Legend), Yoda (Star Wars), The Beavers (Narnia), Old Bailey (Neverwhere), Hagrid (Harry Potter) and Adie (Wizard's First Rule). you are weird and strange. You isolated yourself from the world among your own private powers/library/artifacts. You usually have something important to teach or give the Unlikely Hero that will enable him to defeat the Totally Wicked Villain. When he comes, remember that young people are impatient and will never see the connection between their goals and crotchety old people.
Take The Quiz Now!	Quizzes by myYearbook.com

I Have A Memory Like A... What's That Thing?

Success! My old, woefully inadequate computer is now an old, slightly-less-woefully-inadequate computer! And it only took me about twelve tries to get the damned memory in there. (It's easy all the instructions say. You just line it up and push until it clicks. Well, I did that, damn it! Twelve times! It did not click! Gah.)

It's not as much of an upgrade as I'd expected, though, as I somehow had it in my brain that what was already in there was one 256MB DIMM, and instead there were two 128MB ones... Which, given that I've only got two slots, meant that one of those 128s had to come out before I could install the new 256. Meaning my memory is still pitiful (and, erm, so is my computer's). But at least it's better than it was. It seems to take somewhat less time to boot up now, and it hasn't frozen up on me yet in the 20 minutes or so I've had it running, which, sadly enough, is probably an improvement. At some point I need to replace the other 128 with a 256, and then I'll at least have as much RAM as your average laptop comes standard with these days. But it's going to have to wait until the blister I got from constantly inserting and re-inserting the damned thing heals up.

First Stupid Online Quiz of the New Year

Which Firefly Line Are You?

"The Bible is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps." (Book, War Stories)
Take this quiz!





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Man, I totally love that line.

And, hmm... I suppose I probably ought to go and get dressed now. I can't spend all of 2007 in my bathrobe. Sadly.

So Many Books, So Few Days In A Year

OK, after much coffee and a hot shower, I'm feeling a little more awake, though I suspect this may be a temporary illusion. While it lasts, though, I will take the opportunity to present, as I usually do on January first, a list of all the books I read in the past year.

If I've counted right, 2006's total is 131 books, which seems pretty respectable to me. It's higher than 2005's count of 125, and considerably higher than the four or five years before that, when it typically fell below a hundred. I have been trying to resist the lure of the shiny, shiny internet enough to get a bit more reading done, and it seems to be working. Also, thanks to my self-imposed book-buying quota, I seem to have ended the year with 31 fewer books than I started it with, which is encouraging, even if at this rate it's going to take me something like 15 years to get the infamous To-Read Pile down to zero. (And, yes, if you do the math, that does imply that I bought or otherwise acquired an even 100 books this year. It's an addiction, I tell ya!)

I'm not sure what else to say about this list... There's a lot of Doctor Who novels on it, which probably won't surprise anybody. And the fiction-to-nonfiction ratio continues to shrink, a trend I've noticed increasingly in the last few years, and one which I don't predict is going to reverse itself any time soon.

Anyway, enough analysis. Here's the list:

2006 Books

Everybody Comes to the Nightside by Simon R. Green
Farscape Forever! edited by Glenn Yeffeth
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
The Dancer from Atlantis by Poul Anderson
Walking with Dinosaurs by Tim Haines
Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear by Terrance Dicks
The Wreck of the River of Stars by Michael Flynn
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Year of Intelligent Tigers by Kate Orman
The Stainless Steel Rat for President by Harry Harrison
Resonance by Chris Dolley
Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
Forever Knight: These Our Revels by Anne Hathaway-Nayne
This Is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow
The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos by Terrance Dicks
The Borderlands of Science by Michael Shermer
The Other Extreme by T.J. MacGregor
So Many Books by Gabriel Zaid
Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Darwin Awards II by Wendy Northcutt
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
Justice Hall by Laurie R. King
Holy Tango of Literature by Francis Heaney
Accelerando by Charles Stross
The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte
The Slow Empire by David Stone
Finding Serenity edited by Jane Espenson
The Little Country by Charles deLint
The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde
Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars by Terrance Dicks
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
The Day of Creation by J.G. Ballard
Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
The Whole Man by John Brunner
Black Seas of Infinity by H.P. Lovecraft
What If...? by Marshall Brain
Dark Progeny by Steve Emmerson
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney
The Deathworld Trilogy by Harry Harrison
The Hoboken Chicken Emergency by Daniel Pinkwater
The Odyssey by Homer (trans. by Robert Fagles)
Doctor Who - K-9 and Company by Terrance Dudley
John Glenn: A Memoir by John Glenn & Nick Taylor
Mammoth by John Varley
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
New Rules by Bill Maher
To Dream in the City of Sorrows by Kathryn M. Drennan
Bad Trip by Joel Miller
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
The City of the Dead by Lloyd Rose
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (trans. by James E. Falen)
Raising Hell in the Nightside by Simon R. Green
102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer & Kevin Flynn
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGeuin
Grimm Reality by Simon Bucher-Jones & Kelly Hale
Bound by Law? by Keith Aok, James Boyle & Jennifer Jenkins
Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
The Ig Nobel Prizes by Marc Abrahams
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
Monkeyluv by Robert M. Sapolsky
Mortal Engines by Stanislaw Lem
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street by Lawrence Miles
The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ascher
Coyote by Allen Steele
Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons by Terrance Dicks
Wizard by Trade by Jim Butcher
Abducted by Susan A. Clancy
Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Paul Magrs
The Difference Engine by Doron Swade
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold & Larry Niven
In the Theater of Consciousness by Bernard J. Baars
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman
Hope by Mark Clapham
Rumspringa by Tom Shachtman
Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Lieutenant Hornblower by C.S. Forester
Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade
Strange New Worlds III edited by Dean Wesley Smith
Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams
Mathematics and Humor by John Allen Paulos
Black Hole by Charles Burns
Four Frontiers by Robert A. Heinlein
Small Things Considered by Henry Petroski
Anachrophobia by Jonathan Morris
Metallic Love by Tanith Lee
Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins
Song in the Dark by P.N. Elrod
Dave Barry's Money Secrets by Dave Barry
Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor by Terrance Dicks
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Us and Them by David Berreby
Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
Little Gods by Timm Pratt
Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent
Trading Futures by Lance Parkin
Fear: A Cultural History by Joanna Bourke
Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy by Barbara Paul
The End by Lemony Snicket
Mina: The Dracula Story Continues by Marie Kiraly
The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig
Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow
Red Lightning by John Varley
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett
The Book of the Still by Paul Ebbs
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
Doctor Who - Vengeance on Varos by Philip Martin
The Book of Jhereg by Steven Brust
The Family That Couldn't Sleep by D.T. Max
Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick
In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman
Snow White and the Seven Samurai by Tom Holt
Adverbs by Daniel Handler
The Stories of English by David Crystal
The Crooked World by Steve Lyons
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
Wizard at Large by Jim Butcher
Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman
Ingathering by Zenna Henderson

First Post of New Year. (Am Too Groggy To Think Of Cleverer Title, Sorry.)

Had a good New Year's Eve. Lots of fun. Am now feeling extremely bleary, partly because of a resurgence the cold I thought I was fighting off, mostly because I was up far too late and awake far too early. (Note to my dear friends, whom I love, honestly: I am delighted if you want to call me and wish me a happy New Year, but I am not awake at 9:30 normally, let alone when I've been out until 4:00.)

Will post my traditional year-end book list when I'm more awake. For now, must have more coffee.

Happy 2007 to all!

Deep-Sixing '06

Happy New Year, everybody! Or happy End of the Old Year, depending on exactly where you live. There's still another six or seven hours left of 2006 where I am, and I'm intending to spend the rest of it slacking off; having already made a very poor showing of doing anything genuinely productive today, the only sensible thing seems to be to give up on it completely. So I'm going to go and hang out with some friends, watch some movies, and maybe even have a drink or three... Which, honestly, really does count as a wild party time for me.

Have fun, all, and be safe! I'll see ya in 2007!

Cat Scratch Fever!

Wow, I can tell I'm out of allergy pills. Every time I get cuddled by a cat, my skin feels like it's on fire.

Note to self: go to the pharmacy tomorrow, if it's open.

Set a Course for El Paso, Warp Factor 5!

A friend of mine -- hello and thanks, Captain Chlorophyll! -- sent me an old clipping from an El Paso newspaper (which I was also able to find an online copy of, if you're curious). It's from 2002, when the city was about to host its first Star Trek convention, for which occasion they were commissioning a plaque to mark the site of Gene Roddenberry's birthplace. "We can become a big Trekkie town," said an El Paso city representative. And, honestly, I'm bothering to share this mainly just because that quote, for some reason, cracks me up completely.

I have to say, I haven't exactly heard of El Paso having become "a big Trekkie town" in the last four years, but I admit to having been a bit out of the Trekkish loop lately. And, hey, if it works for Riverside, Iowa...

Sniffle and Blah

I have a cold. Waaaaah!

OK, OK, it's not actually all that bad. Even the wimpy decongestants the government is willing to trust me with seem to be enough to knock out most of the stuffiness. But I still feel like I want to crawl back under a blanket and spend the entire day watching Mythbusters and drinking herbal tea.

But, instead, I will go in to work, like the diligent, self-sacrificing person I am. Probably.

Maximum Verbosity Does Home Electronics

In other news, I did finally buy myself a digital camera. (Or at least I ordered it; it should be here in the early days of the new year.) Many thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and advice! I eventually ended up settling on the Canon Powershot A410, which was recommended to me by someone who said they owned one and were happy with it. The various reviews and customer feedback I looked at gave the strong impression of Canon as a reliable brand, and this particular camera as a good machine that's easy to use for the digital-camera novice and well-featured for the price. So I'm feeling pretty good about it!

It's only 3.2MP, though. My mother tried hard to convince me that anything less than 5MP was undesirable, but everything else I've read and everyone else I've consulted suggests that for normal-size photos 3.2 should be just fine. Hey, it's not the first time I've failed to listen to my mother...

I've also ordered some more memory for my PC, which is currently limping along like a small child trying to carry a Saint Bernard. Here's hoping fumble-fingered me can actually manage to open 'er up and install the thing without any hardware-related catastrophes. But if I suddenly drop off the face of the internet in a week or so, you can probably make a good guess as to why.

Baby, It's Slightly Chilly Outside.

I suppose it says something about the weather here that I only just today realized that I never unpacked any of my winter sweaters...

Christmas Joy for the Incorrigible Introvert

A very merry Christmas to all who celebrate, in whatever capacity!

I went out yesterday for a big turkey meal and some socializing (well, OK, gaming) with friends, and that was fun, but I'm opting for a nice, quiet, relaxing day today. I've got presents to open as soon as I've finished up my coffee, I've got apple pie and spiced chai for later, and I've got the Mythbusters holiday special on my TiVo. (Hey, that's my kind of seasonal programming!) And I'll doubtless talk to all my scattered family members on the phone.

Yeah, that sounds just about perfect to me...

I Think It's Past Time For Some Random Links!

Scary Mary: A trailer for Mary Poppins, remixed to make it look like a horror film. I think this one's been linked to by half the net already, but in case you haven't seen it, here it is.

Build a Dalek to Scare Drinkers: A news item about some guy who built a Dalek and uses it to scare drunken students. Hey, I can think of worse hobbies.

Verizon Math: Listen and weep as some poor bastard tries repeatedly to explain to the brain-dead Verizon employees who are providing his internet access that .002 cents and .002 dollars are, in fact, different amounts of money. Or if you can't make it through that because you've rendered yourself insensible from beating your head against a wall in sympathy, you can read the transcript on the VerizonMath blog. Apparently he's running a t-shirt design contest over there, too.

Attack of the Sprouts: Smash the evil brussel sprouts before they force you to eat them! It's a fun game for all right-minded evil-green-vegetable-hating people.

How to Wrap a Christmas Present: Santa teaches you how to wrap your gifts up all purty. Except that, man, he's doing pretty much exactly what I do, and mine always come out looking like they've been wrapped by a half-trained chimp.

Tis Still The Season

OK, I'm ready for it to be Christmas now.

For what seems like weeks, I've constantly found myself deciding that whatever it is I'm thinking about doing ought to be put off until "after the holidays." There's something I want to buy for myself? Better put it off until after the holidays, lest someone else has decided to pluck it off my wishlist and buy it for me. There are things I know nobody's going to get for me which I really need to buy? Better put it off until after the holidays, so I don't have to fight the last-minute Christmas shoppers. I ought to make an appointment for the dentist/the doctor/a haircut/the vet? Eh, better put it off until after the holidays, when things'll be less hectic and it'll be easier to schedule.

Geez, isn't it "after the holidays" yet? Besides, I've got presents to open, and they've been sitting there forever.

A Half-Awake Weather-Related Post

Oooh. Snow.

Gosh, What a Surprise

I would say more about this, but I have to go re-arrange my Deep Space 9 action figures. One of the cats has been tussling with Garak again...

In Which I Solicit Consumer Advice

I've got some Christmas money coming, apparently, that's sort of been earmarked towards buying a digital camera, since I've been saying for months that I really need to get one, the better to post pictures of my cats on the internet like any decent, normal person. I know very little about cameras, though, digital or otherwise, so if anybody has any suggestions for good brands or for places to shop, I'll be glad to hear them. I'm not looking for anything remotely professional-quality, just something inexpensive and easy to use. I'm really hoping not to have to spend more than a couple hundred bucks, at the most.

Also, I have at last come to the conclusion that I really, really need to get a laptop. Or at least, I really, really want to get a laptop, which is close enough to "need" for my purposes. So any helpful thoughts/suggestions/comments on what to look for and what to avoid in the laptop department are also extremely welcome.

Mob Opera

There's no particular reason why I haven't updated for a few days. I've just been lazy. Lazy and boring.

But, what the heck, we'll call it time for another installment of What Betty's Watching, I've just finished the latest DVD release of The Sopranos. It's kind of surprising just how much I like this show, because, basically? It's a soap opera. I always used to think I hated soap operas, but I've come to realize that most of the traditional elements of soaps are in fact things that appeal to me. Complex, ongoing storylines in which we get to follow all the intimate details of various characters' lives.... Bring it on! What I actually hate is the kind of people that soap operas -- at least, US soap operas -- always seem to be about. Beautiful, glamorous people who are obsessed with their love lives and get hugely melodramatic about everything bore me. Hell, they actively repulse me. But give me something structured like a soap and make it about gangsters, and I'm totally there. Gangsters are interesting, and, while they're also kind of repulsive, they're repulsive in ways that are entertaining rather than painfully annoying to watch. (Possibly this is because I have had negative experiences with beautiful, shallow, melodramatic people going at least back to junior high school, but, despite living in Cherry Hill, New Jersey for years, I have never had any traumatic personal experiences with the mafia.)

Which isn't to say there aren't any painfully annoying characters on The Sopranos, but the cool thing about that show is that the characters you keep wishing would die horribly often do. Ah, if only that were the case on certain other programs.

Honestly, the only thing that could possibly be better than a soap opera with gangsters would be a soap opera with gangsters in space. Because I firmly believe that everything is better if it's set in space. (Note: if any network executives happen to be reading this and are interested in this idea, I am easily reachable via e-mail.)

Or Possibly I'm Just a Butterfly Dreaming All of This.

I woke up this morning -- too damned early -- to the sound of someone using a jackhammer practically right outside my window. Somehow, despite the noise, I managed to get back to sleep... and proceeded to have a dream about being woken up too damned early by someone using a jackhammer outside my window.

I know dreams tend to incorporate bits of reality, but this kind of turnaround time is ridiculous! (Though, yes, I know, it was undoubtedly the sound that did it. It's hard to interpret a jackhammer as sounding like anything else, even if you are asleep.)

I Totally Knew the Traveling Wilburys Question.

Rock Star You scored 98%!

You damn rock star. You know all the basics, and if you got any wrong, I bet it was that stupid Traveling Wilburys question. Your friends are probably intimidated by your knowledge of classic rock and envy your impressive collection. When a classic rock song comes on the radio, you can probably identify it before the vocals kick in most of the time. You probably get good scores on the "maiden name of Clapton's mom" tests, too.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on notes

Link: The BASIC classic rock Test written by allmydays on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Still The Same Old Blog

So, apparently when it says "Your new version of Blogger is ready!" in large, enthusiastic letters on my Blogger dashboard, it lies. Because I finally conquered my fear of change and clicked the link asking it to switch me over, and it promptly told me it couldn't, because my blog is too big. (Well, yeah, guys, it's not called "Maximum Verbosity" for nothing.) I am feeling oddly disappointed.

Also, the page telling me why I couldn't switch over seems to indicate that the new version still is considered to be in the beta stage, which isn't exactly what "ready" indicates to me, either. Well, never mind. I'll just sit here with my huge-ass blog and wait for the technology to catch up with me...

I Can't Help It If I Fear Change.

By the way, Blogger is now informing me that their new version is out of beta and ready for use and that I should switch to it, but I can't help but feel a little nervous, especially as I recall people who were using it while it was still in beta complaining about it rather loudly.

Is anybody out there currently using the new version of Blogger? How different is it?

I'm a Loser, Baby...

Loser- INTP 20% Extraversion, 66% Intuition, 53% Thinking, 46% Judging

Talked to another human being lately? I'm serious. You value knowledge above ALL else. You love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. The fact that nobody else cares still hasn't become apparent to you... Nerd's a great word to describe you, and I seriously couldn't care less about the different definitions of the word and why you're actually more of a geek than a nerd. Don't pretend you weren't thinking that. You want every single miniscule fact and theory to be presented correctly. Critical? Sarcastic? Cynical? Pessimistic? Just a few words to describe you when you're at your very best...*cough* Sorry, I mean worst. Picking up the dudes or dudettes isn't something you find easy, but don't worry too much about it. You can blame it on your personality type now. On top of all this, you're shy. Nice one, wench. No wonder you're on OKCupid! Now, quickly go and delete everything about "theoretical questions" from your profile page. As long as nobody tries to start a conversation with you, just MAYBE you'll now have a chance of picking up a date. But don't get your hopes up. I am interested though. If a tree fell over in a forest, would it really make a sound? ***************** If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this. ***************** The other personality types are as follows... Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving Freak - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Extraversion You scored higher than 99% on Intuition You scored higher than 99% on Thinking You scored higher than 99% on Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Heh. I have to admit, they got me dead to rights. I was thinking about the shades of definition between "nerd" and "geek." Although, really, I'm not at all pessimistic and cynical! Except when I am...

A Meme For All Months

Current clothes: Gray sweatpants. A black t-shirt I just bought at White Sands, with a lovely picture of sunset over the sands. White crew socks. Black sneakers.

Current mood: Pretty good. Kind of hungry.

Current music: The family road trip was pretty much a cavalcade of classic rock, featuring The Who, The Moody Blues, The Grateful Dead, and Jethro Tull. Since then, I've been catching up on my podcasts instead of listening to music, though.

Current annoyance: My computer keeps freezing up at random moments. I think it really needs some more memory. I hope that's all it really needs.

Current thing: Not going to work. Although I'm back there tomorrow, alas. It should be interesting, as they were supposed to be reorganizing everything while I was gone.

Current desktop picture: This picture of lightning at Kitt Peak Observatory.

Current song in head: "Dude Looks Like a Lady." Because I just got a calendar in the mail, but they sent me one with women on it when I ordered men. Don't look at me like that. It's very tasteful and intellectual. Really.

Current book: Adverbs by Daniel Handler.

Current DVD in player: Last weekend's episode of Torchwood.

Current refreshment: Water.

Current worry: That I'm going to end up with diabetes, given that there's a history of it on both sides of my family. Spending time with my dad really reminded me of it -- he and his wife both have it -- but it's something I've been mildly worried about for a while. I'll sometimes find myself feeling really thirsty and thinking, "uh-oh, is this a symptom?" and then having to remind myself that, no, you idiot, you just ate a bag of potato chips.

Current thought: Mmm... potato chips...

A Meme For December

Write the first sentence from the first entry of every month.

OK, here we go. The Year in Maximum Verbosity:

January: Since it's sort of become traditional for some insane reason, I hereby present the complete list of all the books I read in 2005.

February: A friend of mine, on having located the relevant anthology and discovered that I had, in fact, correctly identified the author of a science fiction story he'd mentioned in passing to me months ago: "You're a scary, scary nerd."

March: I finished the Doctor Who commentaries today, while I was sitting around being mostly brain-dead from lack of sleep.

April: I wasn't feeling very well for much of the weekend.

May: I dropped a full cup of coffee onto the carpet in my hallway practically first thing this morning.

June: Well, that seems kind of pointless and silly.

July: Oh, god damn it.

August: So, last night -- well, this afternoon, technically -- I dreamed I was part of a group that was unearthing this ancient artifact from a cave.

September: There is very little in this world more intrinsically funny than a cat who's got his head stuck in a box of kleenex.

October: Thanks to the acquisition of the TiVo, my DVD-watching rate has dropped off enough I can practically hear the folks at Netflix breathing a sigh of relief.

November: I suppose it's nice to know that, after spending pretty much my entire adult life in New Mexico, I still haven't lost the old South Jersey accent.

December: Well, the relatives have been safely dispatched to the airport!


Yeah, I think that probably tells you most of what you need to know about me and my year...

Whoo-hoo! I Even Beat Firefly!

3 Episodes ( 61 Costs, 27 Reception, and 20 Cult Appeal )

Everything seemed to go wrong with you. You had high hopes and high expectations, and you poured the money into making sure it happened. But something along the way went wrong. People just didn't tune in. And because you tried to go for the bigger mainstream audience, you didn't inject enough innovative material to make the experts take notice. An failure in every sense of the word, FOX lets you go after a meager three episodes.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Costs You scored higher than 99% on Reception You scored higher than 99% on Cult Appeal

Link: The When Will FOX Cancel You? Test written by hashtable on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Didja Miss Me?

Well, the relatives have been safely dispatched to the airport! It was a pleasant visit, but they did kind of tire me out. I think I did more driving in this past week than in the past year combined. By New Mexico standards, at least, I guess we didn't actually cover all that much ground: back and forth to the Albuquerque airport twice, down to Alamogordo and White Sands, and then out to the VLA site. But I think that's a reasonably respectable number of miles added to the odometer.

We, um, also did a Doctor Who marathon at one point. Because it seems that it is utterly impossible for me to have any sort of social interaction without that happening, somehow.

In any case, I'm back at the ol' blog now... Although my predictions were correct, and I didn't get much done online while they were here, so I'm pretty far behind on e-mail and such and it may take me a while to get caught up. (Hey, even, I have to step away from the computer sometime! Apparently.)