Did I Say I Should Avoid Discussing Politics? Oh, Well. Stupid Internet Quizzes Are Pretty Harmless...

What's Your Political Philosophy? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Old School Democrat Old school Democrats emphasize economic justice and opportunity. The Democratic ideal is best summarized by the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Old School Democrat 65% Libertarian 65% New Democrat 65% Green 50% Foreign Policy Hawk 45% Pro Business Republican 35% Socially Conservative Republican 5%

The fact that I score equally on those first three choices probably says something about how idiosyncratic (or, if you prefer, how muddled) my political views actually are... But, y'know, that does sound like a nice summarized ideal to me.

Me: 2, Ants: 0? Or Am I Counting My Chickens, Er, Ants?

Hmm. Yesterday, there were ants crawling about quite actively on the bathroom floor, and there seemed to be a fair number of them going into the little plastic Ant Take-Out Restaurants of Death I put out the other day, although I couldn't really tell if they were taking any of the poisoned bait out with them or not. Since sometime last night, though, I have seen a grand total of one ant, and there has been no more dirt-piling activity around their little hole in the baseboard. I think... maybe I got them? Huh. It seems almost anti-climactic.

(Yes, yes, I know. ANTi-climactic. I'm sorry. It wasn't even really intentional. Mostly.)

[Update: No, I've seen a couple more tonight. Still no more building activity, though. Either they're dying off, or they're done renovating.]

Currently: The Neurosis and Rock'n'Roll Edition

Current clothes: Black sweat pants. A white t-shirt from a Rush concert (the 2002 Vapor Trails tour), which admittedly has seen better days. White socks. Black sneakers.

Current mood: It wasn't too bad, except then I started thinking about all my current annoyances and worries in preparation for doing this meme, and I started feeling stressed again. Thanks, meme.

Current music: Most recently, Warren Zevon's Transverse City, which I've had in fairly heavy rotation lately. I bought this album a little while ago after seeing it mentioned in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the Warren Zevon biography I got for Christmas, which I know I've mentioned here before. It was one of the Zevon albums I didn't have, and the description in the book made it sound really cool. Which it is. In fact, it's more than cool; I'd go so far as to call it wonderful. Apparently it sold like crap when it came out, though. The general consensus seems to be that it was "ahead of its time." And I can see that. The title track is possibly the only product of late 80's cyberpunk influence that feels more relevant in 2008, rather than being dated. (Note to my sis: If you're still interested in checking out some of this guy's stuff, this seems to me like a really good album to start with. I suspect it's more to your taste, musically, than some of his other work.)

Current annoyance: Higher-than-expected veterinary bills. Ants. The fact that my sleep schedule is still messed up. The fact that my back still hurts, and every time I think maybe it's getting a bit better, I have to bend down and pick something up and it starts complaining at me again. It's getting to the point where it's starting to curtail my activities, especially walking, which starts to hurt after about ten minutes. Gaah. Oh, and US politics. US politics annoys the crap out of me. I should try to keep to my general policy of not discussing politics. It usually just gets me all wound up to no good purpose.

Current thing: Randomly stressing about stupid stuff. See "current annoyance" above and "current worry" below.

Current desktop picture: This picture of Mars and the constellation Orion, as seen from Monument Valley.

Current book: Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein's Brain by Carolyn Abraham. So far, it's not remotely as interesting as it sounds like it ought to be.

Current song in head: It's something from one of the Sopranos soundtracks, but I'm not sure exactly what it is, because it's in Italian, and I'm far too lazy to look it up.

Current DVD in player: Most recently, this week's episode of Torchwood, which was OK. Before that, I was watching Jekyll, which I figured I'd mention, because, well, it's worth mentioning. Steven Moffat's writing talents plus some really excellent acting equals six episodes of damned good television.

Current refreshment: Nothing. But there must be food soon. I'm hungry.

Current worry: Lately? Everything and anything. I started out this week in a really annoying state of just being randomly stressy about all kinds of stupid things. I'm talking things that I know aren't worth worrying about: random work crap, social interactions, when I was going to have time to do the grocery shopping, you name it. I was hoping to take my days off to relax and get over that, and it has sort of helped, but now I've got more stuff that I don't know whether I actually need to worry about or not. Are ants eating my house? Might my cat have a thyroid problem after all? I don't know! I hate not even knowing whether something is worth stressing over. I start stressing over whether I should stress. Man, I need a vacation. A non-stressful vacation, where I lie on the beach for a week and don't talk to anybody.

Current thought: OK. Deep, cleansing breath. Ah, that's better. Really, my problems are not dire. My problems are so far from dire that it's an insult to people with actual dire problems to take them too seriously. And, y'know, it's a nice day, I don't have to go in to work, I've got lots of interesting stuff to watch on DVD, the cats are all dozing adorably in the sun, and I think there might be some rocky road ice cream in the freezer. There. Life is pretty good. I'm smiling now. Huzzah!

Since There's A Bit Of A Veterinary Diagnostic Issue Going On, I'm Tempted To Call This Post "Animal House."

Why is everything always so complicated with these cats? I took Happiness in today for a dental cleaning, and when they checked out her heart to make sure she was healthy enough for the anesthetic, there was apparently an anomaly on her ECG indicating that the left side of her heart was enlarged. Which can be a sign of hyperthyroidism, which would fit in with her weight loss. So they did x-rays, which showed a very slight enlargement, and a thyroid test, which came back fine. The vet thinks it's probably nothing serious, but apparently the thyroid test doesn't necessarily always show problems, because levels of thyroid hormone can vary with the time of day and god knows what else. So he figures it's worth keeping an eye on. Meanwhile, it turned out she had an abscess, which could also explain why she's lost weight, if it's been hurting her to eat. Poor kitty. They ended up having to take out two teeth. I feel bad, because I really should have made her the dental appointment at least six months ago, but who knew? She wasn't acting like she was in pain.

And now the poor thing is supposed to stay in her carrier with no food or water overnight while the anesthetic works its way out of her system. She's really just not a happy kitty today.

Me, I'm wondering what constitutes "overnight," since I'm starting night shifts the day after tomorrow and desperately need to try to stay up as late as possible and sleep as late as possible. Although that may be difficult, since I woke up at 7 AM today.

Aargh. Why is it a struggle trying to keep the cats healthy, but the ants continue to thrive despite the fact that I'm actively trying to kill them? Stupid animal kingdom.

Rats!

Having finally finished my latest marathon of Stargate SG-1 viewing -- six seasons down, four to go! -- I've turned my DVD player's attention briefly back to movies, with last night's main feature being Ratatouille. And, y'know, I usually really enjoy stuff from Pixar, but this one just didn't do much for me. Possibly this was partly due to bad timing; I'm not feeling remotely well-disposed towards wall-infesting vermin of any sort right now.

But, I don't know... Bits of it were cute, but most of what were obviously intended to be the cutest or funniest parts just failed to raise much of a smile. And, bizarrely, given the fact that I was willing to accept the intelligent rats from the outset, I kept running into plausibility issues that bugged the crap out of me. (That didn't happen to me with Cars! And Cars made no logical sense whatsoever. Hmm. Maybe that's why. This one was set more or less in the "real world" not some crazy Land of Talking Automobiles where you're invited to really not think too hard about, say, where the gasoline comes from, given that it's kind of hard to imagine a bunch of cars toiling away on an off-shore oil rig.) Oh, and also I couldn't stop myself from constantly thinking that the whole thing would be infinitely more entertaining with the addition of Gordon Ramsey. I blame my foodie friends for that one. If they hadn't made me watch the cooking channel, I wouldn't even know who Gordon Ramsey is.

It's The Kingdom Of The Spiders, It's The Empire Of The Ants

So, maybe a week ago, I happened to notice an ant or two crawling around in my bathtub. I didn't think too much of it at the time, as goddamned bugs of one sort or another are always finding their way into the house from somewhere. A few days later, I saw at least a dozen of 'em at once, crawling around on the bathroom floor. That was a little odd; I've seen them come in in good-sized numbers under the kitchen door, but the bathroom is in the middle of the house, about as far away from an outside door as it's possible to get. I still didn't concern myself with it too much, figuring that they must've gotten in through a crack in the floor, and that there'd probably been something spilled on the floor that had attracted them. I didn't find anything like that, but I assumed they'd probably already carted whatever it was off, and when I went back in later they were gone.

Yesterday, I happened to notice that this tiny gap where the baseboard (or whatever that wall-trim stuff is called) on one wall of my bathroom doesn't quite meet up with the trim around my tub seemed to be oozing some sort of crumbly dirt. I cleaned it off. A few hours later, it came back. I cleaned it off again. It came back again. And I noticed more recurring crumbly stuff on the little tile-covered ledge halfway up the wall from my bathtub, where apparently some of the grout had worn away a little and left another gap.

I suspect I know what is happening here. These ants didn't just randomly wander into the house. These ants have moved in. Aargh! Stupid ants! I do not want housemates, and most especially not ones with six legs!

A day spent googling in random moments of downtime at work leads me to conclude that these are probably either annoying but relatively harmless pavement ants, or potentially destructive and difficult-to-eradicate carpenter ants. I know which one I'm voting for.

The challenge now, I believe, is to figure out how to poison ants inside the house without also poisoning my cats. But if that fails... Does anybody happen to know a decent exterminator in the Socorro area?

Yet Another Reason Why I Hate Sports And Everything Associated With Them.

I do not have an episode of House on my TiVo. I have half an episode of House preceded by thirty minutes of idiots yakking on about the Super Bowl.

Damn it. I want my TV to show me smart guys who can't run!

Tag! I'm It!

I know I've done this meme before, possibly more than once, but I've been tagged to do it again. So:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

And the results are:

Somebody who has to remember all the time what feelings are isn't going to be any good at hiding them. Tamsin looked at me for a long time without saying anything, while I was apologizing and apologizing for mentioning the Other One at all. Finally she smiled, and it was all right, like that, the same way it had been absolutely, horribly wrong a minute before.

That's from Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle. I don't know what it's actually talking about, though, as I'm only on page 24.

And I tag no one. Exercise your free will (or your convenient illusion thereof, depending on your philosophical viewpoint).

Yeah, That's An OK Hour To Be Waking Up.

You are late-sleepy relaxation, the half-awake moment when you realize it's morning, but you don't have to get up, because there's no place you have to be. You are that cozy spot under the covers where everything feels temporarily perfect, even if you know you'll eventually have to wiggle out and start the day. Maybe you're the artistic type, who doesn't function well on a normal schedule. Sleep's important to you, and you like the freedom of sleeping as late as you want (especially since that is closely related to the freedom to stay up as late as you want). You like to roll out of bed, put on some comfy clothes, and get a laid back start to the day. If not everything on your list gets accomplished, no worries. Your only priority is having no priorities – you just want to take things at a slow, mellow pace.

OK, I don't know how accurate all of that is, but "you like to roll out of bed, put on some comfy clothes, and get a laid back start to the day" is very possibly the single truest thing any one of these stupid internet quizzes has ever said to me. If I don't get to sit around in my comfy jammies for at least an hour and a half, sipping coffee and surfing the net and waking up slowly, my whole day suffers. (Yes, it's Reason Why I Hate Morning Shifts #3!)

Very Funny, Universe.

Yes, yes, I'm sure the fact that my back is currently killing me is some sort of cosmic justice for my having badmouthed chiropractors earlier.

*sighs heavily*

*winces in pain*

(Don't worry, it's not actually that bad. It's just a pulled muscle. But it is annoying the hell out of me.)

Perverse Animals

Just got back from the vet, where all three cats had their annual checkup and shots. Vir, who's been on diet cat food for a couple of months now, has lost less than an ounce. Happiness, who was skinny to begin with, has lost an entire pound.

Right. Starting tomorrow, Vir gets strictly-measured rations, Happiness gets canned food every day (since I know she'll eat that), Nova gets to eat only when I'm watching him to make sure Vir isn't sneaking snacks, and my life gets just that much more complicated.

More Pointless Internet Quizzes. Woo.

Which Battlestar Galactica Character Are You?

Created by BuddyTV

Yay, Adama! Adama rocks.

Which Heroes Character Are You?

Created by BuddyTV

I think that's what the last Heroes quiz I took said, too. Hey, could be worse. Could be a lot worse.

Although, wait... I'm I'm Adama, and I'm also Micah, does that mean Adama is Micah? Because that's just weird.

I Wish To File A Complaint.

Dear Nature,

The mornings that come in the middle of my day are supposed to be pleasant and dewy, caressed by gentle morning breezes and warmed by golden morning sunlight, so that I may fully appreciate this whole "daybreak" phenomenon while I am properly awake for it. They are not supposed to be blustery, cold, ice-laden, and generally unpleasant. Please see to this immediately, before my sleep schedule changes again.

Thank you,

Me

From the Uncharted Territories To Your Computer

A cool bit of news:

The Jim Henson Company Launches on iTunes

Sci-Fi Cult Hit FARSCAPE and Classic Puppet Series FRAGGLE ROCK Go Digital

NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES -January 28, 2008- The Jim Henson Company today announced that favorites from the Company’s TV programming and feature film library will be available for purchase and download on the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) beginning today, January 28th, 2008. The launch will begin with episodes from the first seasons of the critically acclaimed award-winning sci-fi series FARSCAPE and the endearing favorite FRAGGLE ROCK.

The Jim Henson Company has partnered with New Video, a leading digital aggregator of independent video content, to bring these highly sought after programs to the iTunes Store, the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store. Television shows are $1.99 (US) per episode, and music videos and short films are $1.99 (US) each. Through this new partnership between New Video and the Jim Henson Company, both the FRAGGLE ROCK and the FARSCAPE series will be available in their entirety in the coming months.

"We continue to be honored and thrilled by our fans’ ongoing desire to support their favorite shows and view them using all formats of media," said Nicole Goldman, Vice President of Marketing and Publicity of The Jim Henson Company. "We know our fans have been asking for these titles on iTunes and through our partnership with New Video, we hope to serve our loyal supporters and also introduce these beloved shows to new audiences."

I know a number of people who've been interested in seeing Farscape again, or for the first time, or more completely, and who have been having difficulty finding it on disc, so hopefully this will be useful to some of those folks. Needless to say, I recommend the heck out of that show, if you haven't seen it yet. And Fraggle Rock is fun, too, from what I remember.

My Spine's Aligned, But My Nose Is Out Of Joint.

I've ended up getting into a discussion about chiropractors on someone else's blog. I really don't want to continue the discussion there, and I don't particularly want to get drawn into any long debates about the subject here, either, but in the interest of wider public service, I thought I'd also post here with a link to the article I cited there: "Chiropractic: Flagship of the Alternative Medicine Fleet," part 1, part 2. It's a good examination of the reasons why you shouldn't automatically assume (as most people understandably do) that whatever a chiropractor is going to do for you is medically legitimate.

The Plus Side To Keeping Really Freaky Hours

Wow, mornings are so much nicer when they come in the middle of my day.

OK, I Haven't Seen This. Should I Be Pleased Or Worried?

Who is Your Ideal TV Boyfriend?

Created by BuddyTV

I'm Making A Mental Note Not To Go On Any Expeditions With Anyone Who Scores Higher.

28%

It's Blogging For Lazy People!: More Random Links

Teeny Little Bigfoot on Mars: Aww, teeny Martian Bigfoot is kind of cute.

Tiptoeing Through the Minefield of Movie Spoilers: Your guide to calculating how long you have to wait until whatever you want to say about that movie you're talking about no longer counts as a spoiler.

The Jim Henson Company's official Farscape page: Newly revamped and very nice looking. Contains character bios, an episode guide, images, and other cool stuff.

Hot Library Smut: Porn for bibliophiles! Completely work-safe, though, honest.

Dolphin Play Bubble Rings: Video of dolphins blowing bubble rings. Beautiful.

Doctor Who: Revolutionary Or Tool Of The Man?: The Doctor's government-toppling proclivities, charted over time and compared to the real-world political landscape. It probably means something profound.

Test Your Tiredness: A reaction time test that's supposed to gauge how tired you are. It told me I "seem pretty awake," even though I really didn't feel like it at the time.

Who has the time?: A replica of the fob watch from Doctor Who's "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood," now for sale. Want, want, want!

Corporations Say The Darndest Things

So, I got this letter from my mortgage company trying to sell me insurance that'll cover my mortgage payments if I get hit by a bus. Which I'm not accepting, because, screw it, let my next of kin sell the damned house. But there's this one sentence, in bold, that I can't stop staring at:

Don't wish for accidental death protection when it's too late -- Send in your enrollment form today!

OK, never mind the dubious grammar with the dash and all. Does anybody but me see a really weird logical error there?

I Aten't Dead

Yes, yes, I do remember that I have a blog... What can I say? It's been a very uninteresting week, or something.

I did figure I would at least pop in to say to my loyal readers that if you're at all interested in space science, you should go here to see cool pictures of Mercury from the MESSENGER mission.

Also, if you're at all debating whether you want to bother watching Torchwood this season, I definitely recommend checking out the first episode, because it's surprisingly good. I'm really hoping it's a sign of where the show is going from here rather than a fluke, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic. I've always said I thought there was a good show in there struggling to get out! (I believe the episode is on BBC America next weekend, by the way, for the law-abiding Americans in the audience.)

Have Some Random Links.

Cursor 10: A really nifty little puzzle game. You get ten cursor guys who start out on the bottom floor of a building, and your goal is to get one of them all the way to the top. The twist is that each of your game lives takes place simultaneously, so every time you start a new one, all the previous yous are still running around doing stuff. Trust me, it's easier to play than it is to explain, and a lot more entertaining. It took me three tries to figure it out, but the learning process was a lot of fun.

The GOP Primary Field in Buffy Villains: It's kind of frightening how well some of these match up. Some of the comments are pretty funny, too.

The Purple Nurple Optical Illusion: I had loads of fun flicking my eyes back and forth over this. I played around with it for ages. It was immensely cool. Then I stopped looking at it and immediately felt sick. You have been warned.

Lost recap in 8 minutes, 15 seconds: It leaves out everybody's Daddy Issues and reflects the show's unfortunate obsession with who's kissing whom a little too well, but it's actually not bad as a capsule summary of the incredibly convoluted story thus far. Also, it really brings home just how incredibly bizarre that show actually is. (Needless to say, it's massively spoilery.)

It's Currently Time For...

Current clothes: White t-shirt with a picture of Brak from Space Ghost. (All hail Brak!) Blue long-sleeve shirt over that, unbuttoned. Blue jeans. White socks. White belt. Black sneakers.

Current mood: OK. A little rushed. I have to go to work soon.

Current music: It was more random-shuffle stuff last night. I remember some more REO Speedwagon. Also some Tenacious D.

Current annoyance: I had yet another dentist appointment last week to get yet another filling replaced, and once the hours-long numbness wore off, I started noticing a little sensitivity in the tooth they'd just worked on. Nothing too horrible, but if I drank a cold beverage and held it around the tooth, or sucked cold air past it, I could feel some very mild discomfort. For days, I tried hoping that if I ignored it, it would go away, but it didn't. So, of course, this afternoon when I'd pretty much made up my mind to call the dentist and get an appointment to have it looked at, it suddenly seems to have stopped. Now I don't know what to do. Stupid teeth. I swear, they're my least favorite body part.

Current thing: Lately, I've been feeling a strong desire just to hole up somewhere with a supply of hot cocoa and a stack of books as long as my arm and not come out for a week, minimum. That's really all I want to do right now: sip hot beverages and read and let the world go by without me.

Current desktop picture: A picture of a snow-dusted TARDIS with a wreath on the door that I got from the BBC's Doctor Who site a couple of Christmases ago. It's doubtless time to change it, though. After all, I've taken down the other Christmas decorations. All two of them.

Current book: Mainspring by Jay Lake. I've only just started it, but it's pretty cool so far.

Current song in head: It seems to be Warren Zevon's "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," because I was just thinking that I want to read the Zevon biography of the same title that my sister got me for Christmas sometime soon.

Current DVD in player: Most recently, Man of the Year. Which was watchable, but not great. It didn't seem at all sure whether it wanted to be a comedy or a drama or a romance, or what, and it was trying more than a little too hard to go for the feel-good vibes by the end. So, basically, a Robin Williams movie. Oh, and in the other player: the second disc of Lost in Time: The Troughton Years, a collection that features the surviving episodes of Doctor Who stories that were partially burned by the BBC. Man, when I get my time machine, my second stop after the Library of Alexandria is going to be the BBC video vaults.

Current refreshment: Lemon-ginger green tea.

Current worry: Will I finish this and get it posted before I have to go dashing off to work?

Current thought: I kind of have to pee.

Although This Clearly Should Be "Which Pertwee-Era Doctor Who Character Are You?"

Which Doctor Who Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Sgt. Benton You are Sgt. Benton! Calm, fixed, resolute: for being such a nice person you have a bit of cynicism that you keep hidden. It helps you sort out the good from the bad when you deal with people. Not easily fooled by mere charm or facade, you are, all the same, a simple soul. You long for love but don't quite comprehend romance. you recognize that a stable home, longterm friendships, and trust and respect are the foundations of a happy life. Sgt. Benton 50% Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart 43% Jo Grant 43% The Master 32% Captain Mike Yates 29% Doctor Who (Third Doctor) 11%

Hey, I'm happy with that result! I adore Sgt. Benton, honestly. In my eyes, he is the great unsung hero of Doctor Who.

Pointless Memeage From The Old Year

Having earlier done that meme where you post the first line of the first post of each month of the year, it's time (for lack of anything more interesting to do) to do the reverse version and post the last line of the last post of each month. Which gives us:

I feel like Grampa Simpson. Just don't go screwing it up, now, 'kay? Which is itself mildly annoying, but at least it covers up the sound that's deliberately calculated to be annoying and impossible to ignore. Wow, but I think it's been a while since a TV show seriously did that to me. Damn it. And this despite the fact that I've actually remembered to wear sunblock a few days this week. I'm not entirely sure what that means. Or go and comment on "Human Nature" some more. Following Lynyrd's example, I will post this and quickly depart. Thank you. I've only got a few episodes left, but now I'm sort of afraid of them. My fingers want to type sentences.

Well, now I know what to do if I ever want to simulate the ramblings of a schizophrenic.

Happy New Year! Also: Books.

Happy New Year to all! 2008 seems pretty good so far. It's nice and sunny here (if still uncomfortably cold), and I'm enjoying a relaxing day of doing essentially nothing at all. Last night, I went and hung out with friends and played card games, although, sadly, I had to make kind of an early night of it. Even if I don't have to work today, I've still gotta be a morning person for the rest of the week. Bah!

It's traditional at this point for me to post a list of all the books I read in the preceding year, but this time I have a much easier way of doing that than typing out the entire list. So, here: Books I Read in 2007. They're even pre-sorted by the order I read them in! (Well, mostly. When I finished two books on the same day, they don't necessarily show up in order, but even I don't really care about that very much.) Man, I love LibraryThing.

Grand total is 138 books, which isn't bad at all. (You'll note, if you follow the link, that there are only 137 books listed. There is one missing, because the only books that show up there are ones that I own, and I had to borrow Out of the Darkness (the final book in the Babylon 5 trilogy I read in January) from a friend.)

And I'm looking forward to lots more great reading this year, especially considering all the books I got for Christmas!

Tappa-Tappa-Tappa

75 words

Touch Typing for free

I actually found it surprisingly hard to type that string of disconnected words, though. My fingers want to type sentences.

Prezzies!

Have opened prezzies! And a most excellent good year for them it was, too! I'd like to call people up and let them listen to me jumping up and down with happiness, but it is kind of the middle of the night, so I'll just express my pleasure here and call them in the morning.

Things I got for Christmas this year:

• Not one, but two sonic screwdrivers! My friends, who are the best friends ever, got me the full-sized one, with the pen (featuring regular and invisible ink cartridges) and a UV light (for reading the invisible ink). It is an utterly awesome toy; it's very detailed and makes an authentic-sounding "bzzzz!" noise. I've been carrying it around in my pocket for the last two days, randomly pointing it at things. It has made me deeply, geektastically happy. And then my mother got me the little one with the LED flashlight! Which is less cool as a toy, being smaller and lacking the "bzzzz!", but is cooler as an actual tool, which I will carry around in my bag and use at every possible light-requiring opportunity. Dude! Two sonic screwdrivers! Best. Christmas. Ever!


• A wire cat pin, or clip-on thing, which is really cute.


• A small toy space shuttle, which makes me way happier than it has any right to. Here I am, 36 years old, and getting all excited about playing with my Christmas toys. Heh. I think I freaked the cats out with this one, because it was tied up with ribbon, which they all wanted to gather around and play with, but they ran off in a panic when I whipped it out and started making blast-off noises.


• Little snowman ornament with my name on it.


• Battlestar Galactica: Razor on DVD.


• Two books: Ursula Le Guin's Tales from Earthsea and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon.


• $25 in Australian money, to take on my trip in April.


• A belt-mounted carrying case for my digital camera, which will also be handy for the trip.


• A $25 gift certificate to Amazon, and another to Borders.


• A whole host of edible goodies, including cookies, chocolate, candy, tea, and some Russian cookie/pretzely things that I have no idea what they are, but they're good.

I should still have a Secret Santa book coming in the mail, too, but it hasn't got here yet. I am dying with curiosity to know what it might be, but am attempting to cultivate patience.

So, anyway, yes. Awesome Christmas haul. Made me feel like a little kid again. Also made me gain several pounds, but I'm not complaining! Hugs to all you lovely, generous people, most especially the ones who really, really did not have to get me anything, but did anyway. One day, I will think of a really cool way to repay you in kind.

I'd mention the stuff I bought for other people here, too, but most of them probably haven't opened it yet. So I'll just say that, even for me, it was a really geeky Christmas, on the giving as well as the receiving end. And that I hope the results are pleasing.

Happy Holidays!

Fa La La And All That

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, in whatever capacity. And season's greetings and warm fuzzy feelings to all, without exception!

As I write this, it's about 15 minutes from actually being Christmas, and as soon as it is, I am going to open my prezzies. I can justify this with the fact that my sleeping patterns are so bizarre this week that it's hard for me to tell whether I should consider this day or night, today or tomorrow. (I'm trying to switch from a night shift schedule to a day shift one by rotating forward. With any luck, I'll make it to late Christmas afternoon before succumbing to sleep again.)

I am actually in a surprising amount of holiday spirit this year. I went to a solstice party on Friday, in which we celebrated the season New Mexico style, by eating green chile stew and setting fire to tumbleweeds. Saturday, I hung out with friends, and there were presents and goodies and camaraderie. Today I made myself a holiday meal of a Cornish game hen and indulged in my personal Christmas tradition of watching Blackadder's Christmas Carol (my favorite holiday movie ever). There may even be more socializing on Christmas Day, although the whole going to sleep in the afternoon thing makes that a bit problematical.

I'm even wearing a sweatshirt with reindeer and a Christmas tree on it. That's how non-humbuggy I'm being! Ho, ho, ho!

The Moon Is Kissing Mars.

Being willing to look upward once in a while really pays off. I still remember standing in the parking lot of a Las Vegas casino many years ago watching a lunar eclipse, while all around me streams of people passed by without a single one of them taking any notice, leaving me wondering whether I ought to feel more privileged or sad.

Tonight, I happened to look up at the full moon, noticed that there was a bright object very nearly touching it, where no star should possibly be visible, and realized with a sudden jolt that it was Mars. I'm not sure why, but there is something incredibly, unbelievably cool about being able to look in a straight line past the moon and see Mars right behind it, 55 million miles farther away. It gives me a strong sense, I guess, that these things in the sky are real objects, actual bodies in physical space, rather than simply abstract lights, and that the place where I'm standing is a body hanging in space, too.

Awesome. Absolutely awesome. And made all the more awesome by the fact that right now Mars is as close to us as it ever gets, and thus as bright as it ever gets in our sky.

If the moon is up where you are, go outside and look!

I Come Bearing The Gift Of Random Links!

Astronomy Pictures of the Year for 2007: More of this year's most gorgeous astronomical images, this time from the ever-enthralling Astronomy Picture of the Day site.

Geeks are Everywhere: I think I may be included in several places on this chart.

"The Hopes and Fears of All the Years": A Christmas-themed Doctor Who short story, written by Paul Cornell, who, among other things, penned last season's two-parter "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood."

2007 Holiday Christmas Guide for Slackers Cultural Warriors: Haven't yet done your bit to keep the spirit of Christmas alive via rampant commercialism? Never fear! Matt Baldwin's last minute gift guide is here!

Snowball is a Rockin' to the Back Street Boys Cockatoo!: All right, I don't usually post links to YouTube videos of animals being amusing, especially not ones of animals being amusing to the tune of the Backstreet Boys. But this bird just completely cracks me up. Also, the person who posted it is trying to attract attention for a bird rescue operation, so it's, like, a socially responsible goofy animal video.

So Say We All: Battlestar Galactica Propaganda Posters: Nifty WWII-style propaganda posters for sale. Remember, anyone can be a Cylon!

The Civil War in Four Minutes: The course of the American Civil War, condensed into four minutes on an animated map. Weirdly compelling to watch.

Here Comes The Sun

Happy Solstice, all! Even if it technically isn't until tomorrow, my time. (Also, to my fellow Blake's 7 fans: Happy Gauda Prime Day! Even if it was technically yesterday where most B7 fans are.)

While I am traditionally something of a humbug, I am attempting to get into the holiday spirit. I baked cookies! I haven't baked cookies in years! I feel ridiculously proud of myself. Even if I did burn some of them a bit.

And never mind Christmas, I'm perfectly happy to celebrate the idea of the sun coming back. Night person I may be, but I'm getting tired of dark and cold already. Which is kind of sad, considering how short the winters are here.

Mmm! Sounds Like Sci-Fi!

	I received 71 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds hereCanon powershot

It told me I was a major sci-fi geek and asked me if I speak Klingon. All I have to say to that is: tlhIngan Hol vljatlhIaHbe'.

No Place In Time For You.

The desertification of the vast wasteland that is American television continues... Now it looks like The 4400 isn't going to be back. I know I've been a bit guilty of damning that show with faint praise in the past, but I was still watching it, and by the end of last season, I was starting to get really interested again and curious about where the story arc was going. I guess now I'll never know.

With that off the schedule, the only show on USA I'm still watching is Psych. And that's my light-weight, watch-when-my-brain-is-tired-and-I-want-a-laugh show, which isn't exactly something that's all that hard to come by.

Also getting the axe from USA is The Dead Zone, which I haven't been watching, but which I know at least one of my six loyal readers liked. My sympathies.

I Am Such A Hack.

I stumbled on this even more entertaining variation of the Wikipedia music meme and could not possibly resist:

Instructions:
Go to Wikipedia and hit the Random Article link. This is the title of your book. Now, hit random again, until you get three names. The first is the pen name you published your book under; the second is the name of your protagonist, and the third is the name of the villain.

Hit Random again ten times to get chapter titles (you can go for more if you want, but ten is at least a good minimum). If you'd like, hit it once or twice more to get previous books your protagonist has appeared in. Or a newspaper to list your favorable reviews. :D

Then, write the synopsis/blurb of your book, using the character names and the chapter titles for inspiration.

Coming soon to a bookstore near you:

Jean-Andoche Junot by Madison Dearborn
an epic adventure featuring KK and Ivars

Chapter 1: A Blues for Shindig
Chapter 2: Savage Land Mutates
Chapter 3: Willoughby Spit
Chapter 4: Patriots' Day
Chapter 5: Unit Oketz
Chapter 6: Veterans of the First World War who died in 1999
Chapter 7: Leslie Glass
Chapter 8: Entering the Arena
Chapter 9: Continental Divide (film)
Chapter 10: Vraneštica
Chapter 11: Gladiator (Melvin Potter)
Chapter 12: Gendarmerie Nationale

Cover blurb:

For four years, the near-future super-soldier known only as KK has traveled the Earth, waging a never-ending battle to bring order to a world torn by the bloodiest and most savage wars that mankind has ever known. For four years, KK has followed hints and rumors of a shadowy figure manipulating history from behind the scenes, a man possessed of unimaginable, almost supernatural power. A man whose very name has haunted him: Ivars. Now, in this explosive new adventure, KK comes face-to-face with Ivars at last, but when the ultimate conquerer and the ultimate defender clash, the consequences aren't merely global... they're personal.

(Previous volumes in this series include: Laetiporus, Harur and Sikasso.)


Well, somehow I just couldn't look at those results and not see a testosterone-soaked military adventure story of the "visit exotic places, meet interesting people, and kill them" type. Except I am largely unfamiliar with that particular genre, so I had to make it at least sort of SF-ish. I'm pretty sure I'd need a complete brain transplant to actually write that thing, under any name, but doing the blurb was ridiculously fun.

The title, by the way, is the name of a French army officer who served under Napoleon. I figure super-solider KK has doubtless made a study of his career, some aspect of which serves as a running motif illustrating the novel's main theme. Er, such as it is. I'm figuring it probably has something to do with the head wound he suffered in Italy, which Wikipedia tells me may have "reduced the quality of his judgment and made him rash and temperamental." Possibly our hero can relate.

States of Confusion

In 3m 25s

Click here to Play

Yay, me! I would have finished faster, though, if I could only remember how the hell to spell "Massachusetts."

I also did the state capitals quiz, but, alas, I only got 31 of them. There was a very brief period a very long time ago when I could name all the state capitals, so I know that information is in my neurons somewhere. I think I made such a poor showing of it this time for three reasons:

1) I managed to completely blank on the capital of Pennsylvania, despite having been born in Pennsylvania. This fact dismayed and distressed me so much that it was hard to concentrate on anything else. Stupid brain.

2) I was certain I knew how to spell the capital of North Dakota, but I was wrong. And no matter how many times I tried to spell it that way, I was still wrong.

3) I appear to have somehow forgotten the entire existence of Alaska and Hawaii. I'm blaming the Pennsylvania thing.

Random Links Do Literature, Politics And Science. Also Star Wars.

Thog-o-Matic Random Selector: A random selection of entertainingly clunky or just plain bizarre prose, as featured in the science fiction newsletter Ansible.

10 Strange Star Wars Magazine Covers: I'm pretty sure I actually had a copy of that issue of Dynamite.

How clean is the electricity I use?: If you live in the USA, enter your zip code, and the EPA will tell you where your electricity comes from and what kind of emissions it's producing.

Sciencedebate 2008: A grassroots initiative calling for a presidential debate on the subject of science and technology. That's one debate I would definitely watch.

Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007: Pretty, pretty space pictures, brought to you courtesy of the Bad Astronomer.

Meow.

Your Score: The Cat

You scored 58% domestic, 15% gregarious, 21% trickster, and 85% intellect!

Domestic, Solitary, Serious, Intelectual: you are the Cat!

Cat represents a balance of strength in both physical and spiritual, psychic and sensual powers, merging these two worlds into one. Curious, intelligent, and physically adept, cat people tend to live in a world all their own.

This test categorized you based on four different axes of personality, which were then associated with a different animal. The four axes, as well as all possible results are explained below.

Wild/Domestic: This first axis categorizes you based on how much you are drawn to the outdoors, versus how much you are drawn to civilized situations. Domesticity has many shapes and forms, and varies from the joy of dolphins leaping next to a ship to the steadfast loyalty of a family dog.

Gregarious/Solitary: This axis measures how solitary you are. If you scored high, it means that you enjoy the company of other people, while a low score indicates that you prefer a more solitary lifestyle.

Trickster/Serious: This axis measures how well you line up with conventional trickster archetypes. People who fall into this archetype have a sense of humor and an excitable, highly chaotic streak. Scoring low doesn't mean that you don't have a sense of humor; it just means that you probably don't think dynamite is very funny.

Intellectual/Emotional: This last axis determines whether you are more emotional -- acting based on feelings and instinct, or rational and intelectual -- acting more on thought than on your gut feelings.

Link: The Animal Archetype Test written by crumpetsfortea on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Go, T-Cells!

Man, that was really weird. During the day on Wednesday, I felt absolutely fine. Wednesday night, I started feeling really tired, much earlier than I would have expected to, but I just chalked it up to an uncharacteristic reluctance on my body's part to switch to a night shift pattern... right up until I went to get out of my chair and suddenly realized I was experiencing that wonderful achy OMG-don't-make-me-stand-up! feeling. By the time I went to bed, I had full-fledged hot-and-cold chills, which were still with me when I woke up a few hours later. I managed to get back to sleep, and when I woke up again at about 1:30 in the afternoon, the feverish feeling was gone, and I just felt really tired and vaguely unwell. So I spent the day lying on the couch watching DVDs.[*] And today, despite a minor and intermittent sore throat, I feel more or less OK. I feel, in fact, rather like someone who's just spent a day resting and drinking orange juice[**] and getting plenty of sleep. And the reason that's odd is because I think every other time I've had that "feeling good; OK, feeling really tired; BAM! HAVE A FEVER!" pattern, it's been the harbinger of an industrial strength case of flu or strep or something, and has flattened me for a week. Generally, the stuff my immune system manages to fight off within a day or two never reaches the "BAM! HAVE A FEVER!" stage.

Well, hey. I do complain about the overzealousness of said immune system -- it would be great if you could stop attacking the pollen and cat dander now, buddy, really -- but I think I've got to give it kudos for this one.

Am still going to take it easy today, although I do have to go to the post office to mail some Christmas gifts, and I think I might walk up there, since I feel like I could really use the fresh air. But I think I should be fine to work my scheduled hours this weekend, anyway. Um... yay?

[*] I'd advise against watching Spider-Man 3 when you're feeling sick. It's not very distracting, and it seems to drag on forever. Although maybe it's like that normally. I dunno.

[**] I did get some. It was comfortingly juicylicious.

Bah.

Am sick. Send orange juice.

A Bit Belated, But Still Current

Yeah, here's that meme thing again.

Current clothes: Gray t-shirt with a big circular VLBA logo thingy in the middle, surrounded by the flags of all the states where our antennas are located. Long-sleeve blue denim shirt over that, unbuttoned. Blue jeans. Black belt. White socks. Black sneakers.

Current mood: A lot better after having finally had a full day off work yesterday. Ye gods, but I needed that.

Current music: Random playlists on the iPod again, most recently. I don't remember what all it was playing... I recall some Creedence Clearwater and some Bob Marley, and probably some Rush. Actually, I think the last song was something by Coldplay.

Current annoyance: I just got back from the dentist (again), having had a couple of fillings replaced. It wasn't all that bad, actually. When they started drilling, I felt a little bit of pain, so I complained, and they gave me more novocaine. After that, I felt nothing. It was probably the most discomfort-free dental procedure I've ever had, not counting the times I had the nitrous oxide and was actively blissing out. I think I ought to complain more often. The downside, though, is that now the side of my mouth is completely numb. I'm hungry, dammit, and I'm afraid to eat, lest I accidentally chew my own cheek off without noticing.

Current thing: Feline dieting techniques. I've added a daily workout regimen, in the form of a vigorous ten-minute game of Chase the Toy on the String, to Vir's weight loss program.

Current desktop picture: The Elephant's Trunk Nebula.

Current book: William Sleator's House of Stairs. This book disturbed and frightened the crap out of my when I was a kid. A few years ago, I picked up a set of three Sleater books, but while I read the other two, I was so afraid of this one that I kept putting off reading it. Although I'm not sure, honestly, whether I was more afraid that it would frighten me again or disappoint me by not frightening me again. Anyway, I've finally gotten around to facing it. It hasn't disturbed my equilibrium yet, but I'm still only about 30 pages in.

Current song in head: For some reason, I kept hearing bits of "The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkel inside my head when I was in the dentist's chair. It was strangely soothing. Now it appears to have been replaced by "The Dance" by Fleetwood Mac.

Current DVD in player: Disc 2 of season 3 of Samurai Jack.

Current refreshment: Nothing. And I'm hungry!

Current worry: I've got a bunch of Christmas stuff I'm still waiting on. I've had everything sent to my house instead of direct to the recipients, figuring I could wrap it, consolidate it, and re-mail it. I'm beginning to worry, however, that for some of it I did not leave nearly enough time for this. Oops. There's also still one thing I haven't even ordered yet, because the person I need to see about it wasn't around last week.

Current thought: I'm hungry, my face feels funny, and I think perhaps I'm starting to get the tiniest of headaches. But I still feel better than I did last weekend at work.

Somehow, I Don't Think This Album Is Going To Be Topping Any Charts Anywhere.

My brain is tired, and I have never been in more desperate need of an actual weekend (as opposed to a weekend in which I spend 24 hours out of 48 at work, which is what I'm getting). In lieu of anything remotely creative or coherent from my exhausted neurons, I offer up another silly meme.

Go to the Wikipedia home page and click random article. That is your band's name.
Click random article again; that is your album name.
Click random article repeatedly to name each track on your album.

Band name: Ring Latency
Album title: Cormac Breslin

Track listing:

01) John Gill (Theologian)
02) When in Rome DVD
03) Yellow Cake
04) The Very Best of Kiss
05) Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band
06) Milk River (Madge) Airport
07) Old Museum Building, Brisbane
08) Korea@Home
09) Octacross
10) Lehi High School
11) Shaw Centrepoint
12) Haplogroup I1a (Y-DNA)
13) Montevideo District
14) List of Mountains and Hills of Japan by Height
15) Alexandria Troas
16) Carl Friedrich von Ledebour

I Want The Hiro Nakamura Time-Stopping Ability.

Note to self: Never say things like, "Oh, I don't think I'll be too busy this week." It pretty much guarantees that come Friday you'll be blinking like a cartoon owl and asking where the heck all that time just went.

Note to anyone who's asked me to do something recently: It'll happen eventually. Promise. After all, next week doesn't look too bu-- Oh, crap.

Sorted!

Following the last post, it suddenly occurred to me that there is a high shelf up on top of the entertainment center in the living room that only Happiness ever jumps up to. Vir is way too much of a lard-ass to even attempt it. I just put some canned food up there and sat her down next to it, and she is happily chowing down. I don't think it will take her long at all to figure out to look for food there regularly, and I suspect she might prefer eating someplace where the others won't bother her. It's not a spot I've traditionally wanted to encourage her to jump up on -- if nothing else, she uses my video rack as a springboard and frequently knocks a few videos off the shelf -- but I think I can put up with that.

The other two, by the way, stood at the bottom, looked up at her, looked at each other with the most perfect possible WTF? face a feline is capable of, then decided to pretend that they could get up there just fine if they wanted to, but they just really didn't care enough.

I love cats.

My Season One Vir Needs To Be A Season Four Vir.

Also, I got a call from the vet today following up on the latest round of "Let's try to figure out why Vir wheezes like Darth Vader." The current medical opinion, apparently, is that his lungs look OK, and that the biggest contributing factor is probably simply that he's so overweight. (He weighs more than both of the other cats put together.) So, rather than fiddling around with complicated and expensive diagnostic tests to figure out if there's something messed up with his airways, the advice is simply to put him on a diet.

Oy.

The thing is, I've always kept the cats fed largely by the expedience of leaving some dry Cat Chow out for them all the time. A regular feeding time is impossible with my schedule, and the the other two cats have never had a problem with overeating. Indeed, I worry about Happiness undereating. She's such a skinny little thing, and she'll always immediately stop and runs off if either of the other kitties comes into the room while she's eating.

I don't know how the heck I'm going to put Lard-Ass on a diet without starving out the other two, but I don't think it's going to be fun for any of us.

Anybody have any useful advice?

Word To Your Mother

I've been writing up documentation for various things at work. It's all supposed to be posted on the web, only I've created everything as .doc files, so they now have to be converted to HTML. And, man, I knew Word's handling of HTML was bad, but I am now discovering that it is actually easier to save as plaintext and hand-add all the HTML formatting than it is to use Word's HTML converter (even the "filtered" version, which is supposed to be cleaner) and to remove the crap from it. (This also allows me to practice my highly rudimentary HTML skills, which is not remotely a bad thing, or else I'd be grumbling mightily and looking for a more efficient way of doing it.)

What really got me, though, was the realization that it's actually easier to hand-code complicated outlines with letters and numbers in HTML and have it come out looking exactly the way I think it should than it is to do it in Word. Mostly because Word keeps trying to "help" by anticipating what I want to do, much like a three-year-old hopefully thrusting all the wrong tools at you while you're trying to fix the dishwasher.

*shakes head sadly* Ah, Microsoft, how comprehensively thou suckest.

Yes, My Life Is So Difficult.

Things I Don't Want to Do Today:

Go to the dentist.

Go to work.

Things I Have to Do Today:

Go to the dentist.

Go to work.

Sigh.

That Was The Year That Was

A meme: Take the first sentence of the first post of each month of 2007. The result is the summary of your year.

I ignored posts that contained nothing but stupid internet quiz results, and got the following:

Had a good New Year's Eve.

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.

Some while ago, I remember talking to Fred Coppersmith about LibraryThing, which is an online book-cataloging tool that lets you organize your library, compare it with other people's, get recommendations based on it, and all sorts of other stuff.

Oh great, the clocks I had to set ahead by hand weeks ago have now just spontaneously set themselves another hour forward.

I feel like I ought to apologize for the recent utterly content-free nature of this blog, not that I imagine anybody ever comes here looking for Deep Thoughts and Meaningful Insights.

My cactus is blooming!

Independence Day may be just around the corner, but come July 6th, the British will be back!

Here's a deeply silly and pointless, but unaccountably entertaining meme:

My life would probably be much easier right now if I'd just stop stressing about all the things I'm supposed to be doing and started actually, y'know, doing them.

Ow.

Thanks to spending nearly every waking hour last weekend at work (and thus missing what was apparently a really good Halloween party, dammit), I found myself with only sixteen random hours to put in over the subsequent seven days.

Oh, man, it's December now?!

Hmm. That's probably not a bad summary of my year, actually.

Fruit Flies Like A Banana

Oh, man, it's December now?! I really need to finish my Christmas shopping.

You'd Think I'd Have Stopped Being Shocked At These People.

Note to self: When sitting down to watch an episode of The Sopranos, there is always a possibility that there will be some turn of events on the series that disturbs your emotional equilibrium for the rest of the day. And while this may be a hallmark of quality programming, it is also something that should be taken into account when choosing your lunchtime viewing.

I've only got a few episodes left, but now I'm sort of afraid of them.

Stupid Drama-Queen Gasballs. They Only Do It To Piss Me Off.

It's rather awe-inspiring, in a way, to contemplate how the explosion of a star twelve million years ago can lead directly to me having a really, really annoying week at work. It makes one think about both the fundamental interconnectedness and the fundamental annoyingness of all things in the universe. Or something like that.

Fortunately, I think it's finally over for now. Hooray! *does a happy dance on the supernova's cooling stellar corpse*

They're Like Pets. Very Tiny Pets.

2,921,100How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

Hard Labor In The Data Mines

It would be nice if something -- anything -- would actually frigging work tonight. *kicks expensive pieces of technology petulantly*

Congrats To Me! And Also To Roger Smith of Grand Rapids, MI.

I won a prize in Planetary Radio's 5th anniversary trivia contest! I was able to correctly give the escape velocity of Jupiter and the identity of the person for whom Stickney crater on Phobos was named. (I will neither confirm nor deny whether the entity known as Google was involved in this process.)

To be honest, I was hoping for the grand prize -- a speck of Martian meteorite -- or even the autographed Star Trek poster. But I'm sure I will be able to happily waste many otherwise potentially productive hours with my new Space Station Sim game. (Or at least, I will if it'll run on my pokey old computer. Man, I think every day "new computer" is moving a little higher up on my list of things that I want out of life.)

I Think The Sugar Rush Might Kill Me First.

It would take 19 Pina Coladas to kill me

I'm Cold, And There Are Wolves After Me.

Is it just me, or is it really freaking freezing in here?

The Latest Batch Of Random Links

Million Dollar challenge test: Rosemary Hunter: As part of their Million Dollar Psychic Challenge, the James Randi Educational Foundation tests a woman who claims God gave her the power to make people urinate.

John Edward Ambushed: Speaking of people who don't have psychic powers, here's a couple of Australian comedians making fun of John Edward.

Atheists and Anger: Moving from parapsychology to religion, this long blog post, I think, says a few worthwhile things even if, being the wishy-washy "can't we all just get along?" moderate that I am, anger makes me mildly uncomfortable. But if we're being angry, personally I'm angrier about Giordano Bruno than I am about Galileo. Still.

Things We Can Agree On: Similar subject matter, but a very different tone. This guy clearly understands both perspectives well, he's very funny, and he's right. I want to print copies of this and hand them out on street corners.

Dr Who fan shares his house with 225 Daleks: Watch out for this guy, because that's more than enough for a galactic takeover bid.

Robots infiltrate roach society: Speaking of galactic takeovers... Can the Cylons be far behind?

The Nerd Handbook: Practical advice for dealing with your nerdy SO. Really, this only covers a particular subset of nerds, but for that subset, it's pretty accurate.

Whovian Birth and Death

Today happens to be the 44th anniversary of Doctor Who. Unfortunately, it's not a very happy birthday, as the news has just come out that Verity Lambert, the show's first producer, has died. Those of you who've been watching Who this season may remember "John Smith" giving his parents' names as "Sidney and Verity." Well, Ms. Lambert was the "Verity." She was, in a fairly literal sense, the mother of Doctor Who. She was also the BBC's first female TV producer, and went on from that ground-breaking achievement to have a long and highly distinguished career.

I'll observe a moment of silence for her... And a moment of gratitude for helping to bring the world such a great and iconic TV series. I very nearly included Doctor Who in yesterday's list of things I appreciate in life.

Albuquerque Turkey And Things I Appreciate

A very happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! (And a happy random Thursday to the rest of you!) I just got back from turkey and conversation with friends in Albuquerque, for which I am appropriately grateful. *waves to said friends*

I've never been too sure about the word "thanksgiving" -- it comes with connotations of belief in a capital-P Providence that I don't personally subscribe to -- but I think it's an excellent thing for people of all worldviews to take a moment now and then to appreciate all of the good things in life, and perhaps to nurture a little humility at the thought that none of those things are automatically guaranteed to us.

I'm wearing a sweatshirt right now that says, "Books. Cats. Life is sweet." The usual stuff about health and friends and family aside, I think that pretty much covers my own top Things To Be Appreciative Of.

Other random things I'm feeling highly appreciative of at the moment:

Gorgeous fall weather, even if it looks like that may mostly be past now.

The invention of the mp3 player, which, among other things, makes longish car trips alone so much more bearable.

Having a job, and the attendant having of money. There are a number of very expensive things that I'm trying to figure out exactly how to budget at the moment, but the very act of doing that makes me realize how much better off I am than so many other people. I'm (mildly) worried about whether I'm going to be able to go to Australia, get my house painted, pay veterinarians to figure out why Vir the cat makes Darth Vader noises, and maybe buy a new computer, all in the next year or so. That is so much better than worrying about how you're going to buy food and clothing that it's not even a quantitative difference, but a qualitative one.

The fact that the universe makes so much sense that human beings can sit here on Earth and actually figure out things about the nature of distant galaxies and the conditions at the beginning of the universe. Even if it is hard to do. That is so freaking cool that I don't even have words for it. (See, the cats may not be interested in reading about cosmology, but I am.)

I Want My TV.

God damn it, Heroes is finally just starting to get really, really good again, and now there's only two more episodes. Just give the damned writers some money, already! Cheapasses.

And apparently things are getting ugly enough that we might not ever get to see the end of Battlestar Galactica, either. It's enough to make a fangirl cry.

Walk On!

Apropos of the discussion of walking in the last post, I've just stumbled on a site that computes a location's "walk score", meaning how many of the places you might need on an average day are available within walking distance. My house gets 65 out of 100, apparently, which is definitely on the good end. Although some of the locations they mention as fulfilling my walk-to needs are not exactly very good examples of the things they're purported to be.

I notice that they only seem to include things less than a mile away as "walking distance." Pansies.

My Mother Always Told Me I Was The Weird One In The Family.

It seems I have been tagged to do this "seven weird things about me" meme. I thought that maybe I already had done that here at some point, but I guess not. Anyway, here goes:

1. I talk to myself. A lot. I try not to do it too conspicuously in public, but when I'm on my own, I can deliver entire 20-minute lectures to myself, complete with hand gestures. I also sometimes talk to the cats, especially when I'm planning out my day. "OK, kitties, I'm going to take a shower now, and then I'm going to go out to the post office..." Like it's more psychologically acceptable to talk to animals who can't understand me than it is to talk to myself, at least if the subject matter concerns said animals the way my comings and goings (and thus my availability for cat dish-filling duties) does. Also, once in a while I'll read out loud to the cats. I was reading bits of Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos to Vir Catto yesterday, but he seemed sadly uninterested in Hawking's ideas about black holes.

2. I use my car maybe once a month, usually when I have to buy cat litter or drive up to Albuquerque for some reason. Otherwise, I walk everywhere. I live in a small town -- few places I want to get to are more than 15 minutes away -- so this is eminently doable. Walking is the ultimate win-win situation for me. It's good for the world at large, what with not burning up pesky fossil fuels and all. It's good for my body, being the only real exercise I get. And it's good for my mind, as I find it helps to clear my head, lift my mood, and concentrate my thoughts. I do all my best creative thinking when I'm walking. And, if it's light out and I don't have any particular creative thinking I need to do, I can read while I walk. For some reason, people seem to find this strange. I suspect this is mainly because they haven't tried it; it's easier than it looks, honestly. But anyway, yeah, in conclusion, I love to walk. Sometimes -- OK, kind of often -- I'll walk a two-mile round trip at 2 AM to drop a letter in the mailbox at the post office that I could easily have mailed from home, just to give myself an excuse to get out and walk.

3. I don't eat invertebrates. Shellfish are basically just giant underwater bugs -- ick! And mollusks are squishy, slimy things. Also, while I'm ruling out whole classes of lifeforms, I'll add in an entire kingdom and say the same thing about fungus, with the added point that that stuff grows in shit. You may keep your lobsters, scallops and mushrooms for yourself. Thank you.

4. I cannot think properly with the TV or the radio on. The sound moves into the part of my brain that I use to think with and interferes with the words I use to think in, and I do not have the ability to tune it out. The effect is lessened if it's soft instrumental music that's not to my taste but also not actively annoying, or if it's something really dull and quiet playing on the TV, like a golf tournament. It's heightened if it's something I find interesting (even if only in the train-wreck sort of way that you get with a lot of TV programs) or something with strong lyrics. But if I really need to concentrate on something, especially something that involves writing, I really need either silence or white noise. Music is for occupying my brain while I do mindless physical tasks, and I only watch stuff on TV that I actually care about enough to devote my full attention to.

5. I have a book-buying addiction. I had to impose a quota limiting the number of books I buy to less than the number I read, otherwise I would have found myself buried under an avalanche of books. Not that that might not still happen.

6. My idea of getting dressed up is wearing khakis instead of jeans, a sweater vest over my t-shirt, and boots instead of sneakers. If an event requires getting dressier than that, you're going to have a hard time talking me into going.

7. I spend eight hours a day at work in front of a computer. Sometimes twelve. So, what's the very first thing I do when I get home? Sit down in front of the computer. Hey, important e-mail might have come in during that 15 minutes it took me to walk home!

Um, wow. That all makes me sound more eccentric than I thought I was.

I Believe In Being Open-Minded, But Not Enough So That Your Brain Falls Out.

You Are 48% Open Minded

You aren't exactly open minded, but you have been known to occasionally change your mind. You're tolerant enough to get along with others who are very different... But you may be quietly judgmental of things or people you think are wrong. You take your own values pretty seriously, and it would take a lot to change them.

How Open Minded Are You?

They May Be On Strike, But Their Sense Of Humor Is Still Working.

If you're missing your regular dose of The Daily Show and Colbert due to the writers' strike, take heart! The Daily Show writers have produced a very funny video about, well, the writers' strike:



You know, I'm not sure there's anything more to be said on the subject after that, really. But the Colbert Report writers have produced this, er, rebuttal:



Good luck fightin' The Man, guys!

And Yet People Have Been Known To Mock Me For Using Big Words.

So There, TiVo! Who Cares What You Think!

It looks like the program I wanted to see is going to be available on Nova's website on Friday, anyway.

Man, I do love the internet.

Algorithms Are Judging Me.

So, apparently there was an episode of Nova on tonight about the Dover Intelligent-Design-in-the-schools court case, which I was somewhat interested in seeing, except that I didn't realize it was going to be on until after I'd already left for the day. "No problem," I told myself. "I bet the TiVo gets it for me, anyway." Well, it didn't. I'm not really bothered about missing the show, but I find that I do feel rather hurt by the fact that my TiVo doesn't think I'm the sort of person who watches Nova.

I Also Woke Up With A Headache, But I Don't Think That's Related.

I woke up this morning -- well, OK, this afternoon, but it was morning for me -- and was going to get out of bed, but there was a cat lying on top of me. So I fell back to sleep and dreamed about waking up but not getting out of bed because there was a cat lying on top of me. Fortunately, the recursion did not continue past that point, or I might still be asleep.

Homeowner's Blues #173

Great. Now the Mythbusters have made me totally paranoid about my water heater.

In Case That Last Link Wasn't Random Enough

The 10 Best Animated Movies for (Traumatizing) Kids: What childhood is complete without a healthy dose of trauma?

20,000 pounds of sodium being dumped into a lake: It makes a very satisfying boom.

Outtake from the Doctor Who episode "Human Nature": If you've seen the episode, you'll remember that the Doctor leaves a video with a list of instructions for Martha. We only get to see the beginning and the end of it on the show, because Martha fast-forwards through the middle. But David Tennant had to keep talking so that she'd have something to fast-forward through. The resulting video clip proves that David Tennant is a) adorably amusing when he's babbling and b) really quite a heck of an actor.

The Writers Strike: Why We Fight: A video presentation explaining the reasons behind the current Hollywood writers' strike. I'm not exactly happy about the strike -- my shows! my precious shows! -- but the stuff they're asking for sounds extremely reasonable to me, and I happen to be a big fan of the people who actually put in the creative talent being the ones to get the money, so I wish them much luck. And not just because I'm going to be annoyed if I only get half a season of Lost next year.

Genesis, the computer program: Amusing, and as believable as any other creation story.

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: I think I may have linked to this at some point in the past, but they're currently pushing to hit 30,000 weekly listeners by the end of the year, so I figured I'd give 'em a plug. This is a podcast which examines a wide array of topics from a standpoint of scientific skepticism, featuring some very entertaining and intelligent people. I listen to it regularly.

From The "Where Are They Now?" Files

It has just been pointed out to me that a guy I went to high school with has apparently become a musical robot with a giant flame-shooting penis. To repeat my immediate response: I don't think I have ever been so surprised and so utterly unsurprised by anything at the same time in my life. Because I totally would have voted for him for "most likely to become an android with a flame-shooting penis," if such a category had ever remotely occurred to me.

Currently, I Am Possibly Even More Of A Sci-Fi Geek Than Usual. Amazingly Enough.

Current clothes: A sort of peach-colored t-shirt with a picture of a teddy bear on it and the words "Oklahoma Bear Hug" underneath, which my mother bought me, for some reason, when she was, for some reason, in Oklahoma. The bear appears to be hugging some letters, possibly an O and a U. My guess would be that they stand for "Oklahoma University." I don't know; I'm only wearing it because I wanted to dirty something bright-colored so I'd be closer to a full laundry load. Over that, a short-sleeved light-blue denim shirt, unbuttoned. Jeans. A black belt. White crew socks. Black sneakers.

Current mood: Eh, not bad.

Current music: I think it's mostly been random playlists again lately, nothing terribly memorable. Mostly today I was listening to Escape Pod, which delivers cool science fiction stories directly into my ears.

Current annoyance: Since I updated Firefox, it's started doing this thing where when I spell-check a word, the spell-check suggestions do not disappear from the right-click menu, but hang around forever, piling up on one another, presenting me with a huge and useless menu of pointless words and rendering it difficult to find whatever menu item (or, indeed, spelling suggestion) I'm actually looking for. This is now annoying me beyond all reason or sanity. And apparently it's only happening on my computer. Firefox on the work machines seems fine, even though it's had exactly the same upgrade. Why have you done this to me, Mozilla? Why?

Current thing: Last week, it was sleeping ridiculous hours and not working at all. That was nice. I haven't figured out what it is this week, though.

Current desktop picture: Still the same First Doctor wallpaper as last month.

Current book: Just finished The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman. Next up: Timeless by Stephen Cole. Yes, it's yet another Doctor Who novel. I've been going through these Eighth Doctor novels at a rate of about one a month, and apparently the point where I start thinking "Hmm, it's about time to read another of those Who novels" is about the same as the point where I start thinking "Hmm, it's about time to do that currently meme."

Current song in head: "Old Country Doctor (The Ballad of Bones)" by Warp Eleven. Which has been flitting into my head every time I've picked up the aforementioned John Hodgman book. Because, you see, it's a song about Dr. McCoy, and it's got this great line: "I have been asked to do many a thing outside the area of my expertise." Because, see, Bones is always complaining that he's a doctor, not a bricklayer or a moonshuttle conductor or something, and, yes, the inside of my brain is an interesting place, why do you ask?

Current DVD in player: Disc one of Stargate SG-1 season 5. By the way, for those who were worried -- as I'm sure you all were, desperately -- I did manage to get hold of the episodes on disc two that Netflix couldn't get to me. So we can all rest easily knowing the latest science fiction-related crisis in my life has been averted. By the way, while I'm talking about Stargate... I have decided, at this point in my viewing, that what I really want to see is a Stargate: Cool Old Guys spinoff, featuring Jacob Carter/Selmak, Master Bra'tac, and General Hammond.

Current refreshment: I just had some frozen lasagna for lunch (well, not while it was frozen, obviously) and am now enjoying a mug of tea and some salad.

Current worry: Eh, there are things I could worry about, but why bother?

Current thought: Dammit, Jim!

It Is Hard To Predict, Especially The Future.

I've started noticing myself developing a real problem with books written more than a decade or so ago, which is that any time the plot depends on the characters being out of phone contact with each other or on characters not being able to find out some piece of information that I could google up in less than three seconds, I feel weirdly annoyed. Which I know is ridiculous for a book that's set in, say, the 1980s, but is probably a legitimate suspension-of-disbelief problem for books written in the 1980s but set in the 21st century.

Of course, the rapid march of technology doesn't just mean that science fiction novels might be dating themselves more quickly than ever. It seems pretty clear to me that it presents some challenges to modern storytellers, too. I think that cell phone reception suddenly going out for no good reason is already something of a movie cliche, and disrupting cell phone signals now appears to be a common ability (or intrinsic talent) for supernatural entities.

I Would Rather Spend Daylight Than Save It.

So, I spent a couple of hours last night reading by flashlight. It was a horror novel, sort of, so I guess that made for an appropriate atmosphere.

And now we're off of Daylight Savings Time, finally. This is also something that sucks for us poor night-shift people. Where everybody else gets to sleep an extra hour in order to keep themselves on the same clock schedule, I have to stay up an extra hour. And then the sun's coming up while I'm trying to get to sleep, and by the time I'm finished my morning coffee, it's set and left me in the dark. I've been known to rant and rail against the whole concept of Daylight Savings, but, really, the truth is that I don't understand why we don't simply go onto it and stay there.

(And, of course, by Murphy's Law, I always do seem to be on night shifts when we switch off DST and mornings when we switch back.)

Powerless Owls

Annoying thing about being a night person #607: When the electric company needs to shut the power down for several hours to replace a transformer, they will do it when they expect most people to be asleep, leaving you with a good long while to spend wide awake in pitch darkness. With no computer.

*waves goodbye to the internet for the night*

An Extremely Useful Thing I Just Learned How To Do

How to tell Firefox to forget that misspelled word you just accidentally told it to add to its dictionary.

Shedding

Thanks to spending nearly every waking hour last weekend at work (and thus missing what was apparently a really good Halloween party, dammit), I found myself with only sixteen random hours to put in over the subsequent seven days. Whereupon I decided that I'd rather have my time off add up to a nice round figure, sacrificed a couple of easily spareable vacation days, and scored myself an entire week to spend not working, which is far and away my favorite thing to spend a week doing.

But I have not been idle! Well, OK, not entirely idle. Thanks to the time freed up by my hookey-playing ways, I now have accomplished the seemingly impossible: I have cleaned and organized my shed! Yeah, yeah, that may not sound like much to you, but that's only because you've never seen the inside of my shed. It formerly consisted almost entirely of a random, precarious jumble of cardboard boxes left over from when I moved in. More than that, it provided an excellent illustration of the "nature is trying to eat my house" principle. It's extremely easy to see how that structure could end up completely filled with dirt after a few decades because, man, it was already well on its way.

I'm pleased to report, by the way, that I didn't get bit by any poisonous spiders (as far as I've noticed), and that I only cut myself while slicing up boxes once. This should, I believe, bring my injury-per-household project ratio down a tad. Go, me!

What Do You Mean, "Very Long Wait?"

Will whoever has disc 2 of Stargate SG-1 season 5 out from Netflix please just return the damned thing now? Thank you.

Is It Cold In Here, Or Is It Me?

Your results:
You are Mr. Freeze

Mr. Freeze 33% Dr. Doom 28% The Joker 24% Mystique 24% Green Goblin 24% Apocalypse 23% Dark Phoenix 20% Magneto 20% Two-Face 20% Juggernaut 16% Poison Ivy 16% Riddler 15% Venom 15% Lex Luthor 14% Catwoman 12% Kingpin 9%

You are cold and you think everyone else should be also, literally.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz