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On Thursday's Daily Show, which I watched last night, Anita Hill observed that the Clarence Thomas hearings were 20 years ago, so an entire generation has grown up since then. I did the math and twitched; university and the early 1990s don't seem all that long ago.
Then, today, in an email inviting me to a musical performance, the sender notes, "We are writing to you because the Concert Choir program from April 1994 indicates that it was just 20 years ago that you sang in a performance of that work in the same venue."
Who comes up with the phrasing "it was just 20 years ago that you" anything? (Given the specificity of the scenario, it doesn't even appear to be a form letter gone awry.)
As odd as Anita Hill's statement made me feel, it's a natural feeling: Time flies. This email just makes me boggle.
For your musical accompaniment to this post, please enjoy Pink Floyd's "Time"
And yes, the title is a hat-tip to "Superstar" by the Carpenters, because I'm ooooooold. (lol)
Then, today, in an email inviting me to a musical performance, the sender notes, "We are writing to you because the Concert Choir program from April 1994 indicates that it was just 20 years ago that you sang in a performance of that work in the same venue."
Who comes up with the phrasing "it was just 20 years ago that you" anything? (Given the specificity of the scenario, it doesn't even appear to be a form letter gone awry.)
As odd as Anita Hill's statement made me feel, it's a natural feeling: Time flies. This email just makes me boggle.
For your musical accompaniment to this post, please enjoy Pink Floyd's "Time"
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rainfollowed by The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
It was twenty years ago today
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They've been going in and out of style ...
And yes, the title is a hat-tip to "Superstar" by the Carpenters, because I'm ooooooold. (lol)
Getting lost, and losing a show
8 January 2014 11:50 pmBefore yesterday, I probably would have been vaguely amused by something like a phone app to find your car in a parking lot. Sure, it'd be useful for some people, but I don't tend to go many unfamiliar places. And it's not like I would manage to lose my car in the garage I've been parking in several times a week for FIFTEEN OF THE LAST SEVENTEEN YEARS or anything. Especially not in 10-degree (F) weather.
Sigh.
(The problem was that I was listening to a conference call as I parked that morning, and the confusion of disconnecting my phone from the car's hands-free system and getting into the building, all while following the technical conversation, meant that I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to where I'd parked. And apparently my key fob's "unlock" works just fine, but the "emergency horn" either doesn't work or has a trick to it.)
In random other news, I've dropped "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." I'd only seen three episodes and my DVR space was getting critical, so B and agreed that was the show on the block. I decided to check it out a little more alone, on the off chance it might have improved, but I couldn't get past the 15-minute mark of episode four. ( Squee-harshing within. )
The news coverage of the New Jersey bridge closure scandal is frankly far more entertaining, anyway ....
(* I admit that giving the van the code name "short bus", in relation to their transport plane being "the bus", was pretty amusing, though.)
Apparently I wrote 14,336 words (possibly including some amount of notes/outlining) in 2013, 4700 of them in December. That's ... not nothing, at least.
Sigh.
(The problem was that I was listening to a conference call as I parked that morning, and the confusion of disconnecting my phone from the car's hands-free system and getting into the building, all while following the technical conversation, meant that I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to where I'd parked. And apparently my key fob's "unlock" works just fine, but the "emergency horn" either doesn't work or has a trick to it.)
In random other news, I've dropped "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." I'd only seen three episodes and my DVR space was getting critical, so B and agreed that was the show on the block. I decided to check it out a little more alone, on the off chance it might have improved, but I couldn't get past the 15-minute mark of episode four. ( Squee-harshing within. )
The news coverage of the New Jersey bridge closure scandal is frankly far more entertaining, anyway ....
(* I admit that giving the van the code name "short bus", in relation to their transport plane being "the bus", was pretty amusing, though.)
Apparently I wrote 14,336 words (possibly including some amount of notes/outlining) in 2013, 4700 of them in December. That's ... not nothing, at least.
Sophie went home yesterday.
I don't know how much of this I've ever mentioned around here, if any of it, so a quick summary: In about November 2011,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
violetcheetah and I started volunteering at a private, no-kill cat shelter. (Late in the summer, we were brought onto the Board of Directors as well.) We have too many cats, but folks do come in seeking cats, and on good weekends we send one or two cats to a new home.
It's hard, sometimes, because it's easy to get attached. I've only adopted one cat from the shelter (so far; I will be strong!), but I've had several favorites leave, and I miss them quite a lot. It's the right move, and they're almost certainly happier in a home with a family, and I'm happy for them ... but.
( Cut for length and a medical digression ... )
I don't know how much of this I've ever mentioned around here, if any of it, so a quick summary: In about November 2011,
violetcheetah and I started volunteering at a private, no-kill cat shelter. (Late in the summer, we were brought onto the Board of Directors as well.) We have too many cats, but folks do come in seeking cats, and on good weekends we send one or two cats to a new home.It's hard, sometimes, because it's easy to get attached. I've only adopted one cat from the shelter (so far; I will be strong!), but I've had several favorites leave, and I miss them quite a lot. It's the right move, and they're almost certainly happier in a home with a family, and I'm happy for them ... but.
( Cut for length and a medical digression ... )
I would dearly like for people to stop driving into my new car, kthx.
(In a parking lot, again. At a business off Route 123, again. On a bright afternoon, again. Striking the front half of the driver's side, again. Fortunately, no one injured, again. More damage, but to one panel — pretty much the entire door — rather than crossing two.)
Nnnnnnnngh. The body shop hokey-pokey is not my idea of a good time.
(In a parking lot, again. At a business off Route 123, again. On a bright afternoon, again. Striking the front half of the driver's side, again. Fortunately, no one injured, again. More damage, but to one panel — pretty much the entire door — rather than crossing two.)
Nnnnnnnngh. The body shop hokey-pokey is not my idea of a good time.
(Well, in my case, an extra week of vacation annually.)
( A look back at my work history. ) There are frustrations, but that's the nature of work, and the balance is overwhelmingly in my favor. I know I'm profoundly lucky to have a good, stable job, and I'm delighted to have it.
Here's to ... not-quite-thirty more years of the same.
( A look back at my work history. ) There are frustrations, but that's the nature of work, and the balance is overwhelmingly in my favor. I know I'm profoundly lucky to have a good, stable job, and I'm delighted to have it.
Here's to ... not-quite-thirty more years of the same.
Well, that was quick
24 October 2011 02:33 pmNot even 11 days, and my new car's been hit.
In a parking lot, other driver identified (though if she hadn't been lurking around looking sketchy enough for me to get suspicious, I bet she totally would have let me drive away without a word), nobody hurt (except her feelings when the cop went to talk to her, because she has upcoming surgery; her apparent drug haze was undented), minor damage in the grand scheme of things (but deep scraping to two separate panels and I hope her insurance soaks her for it).
Just ... damn it.
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.
In a parking lot, other driver identified (though if she hadn't been lurking around looking sketchy enough for me to get suspicious, I bet she totally would have let me drive away without a word), nobody hurt (except her feelings when the cop went to talk to her, because she has upcoming surgery; her apparent drug haze was undented), minor damage in the grand scheme of things (but deep scraping to two separate panels and I hope her insurance soaks her for it).
Just ... damn it.
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.
Well, curses
23 September 2011 08:47 pmSo Attleboro's Old Barn is closing.
It's such a shame. The owner is a really stand-up guy who has done a lot for pet rescue, and the Barn has been where I buy my surprisingly large quantities of birdseed in bulk. I only just started buying a cat food by Pro Pac from them — it first seemed a cheap way to feed the local strays and donate to the shelter, but it's done wonders for Daisy's digestion as well. And the Barn has been one of the few ways in which I've actually been able to buy local.
Feh. I'll miss the shop and the people.
It's such a shame. The owner is a really stand-up guy who has done a lot for pet rescue, and the Barn has been where I buy my surprisingly large quantities of birdseed in bulk. I only just started buying a cat food by Pro Pac from them — it first seemed a cheap way to feed the local strays and donate to the shelter, but it's done wonders for Daisy's digestion as well. And the Barn has been one of the few ways in which I've actually been able to buy local.
Feh. I'll miss the shop and the people.
June 2011: State of the me
12 June 2011 02:14 pmI haven't been around much; I haven't had time. Most of that is work; I adore my job, but it's exhausting, and nights/weekends really aren't enough for me even to keep up with the day-to-day, much less reading (I haven't read half the SGA Big Bang archive; I haven't read any of last year's Atlantis Big Bang; I have over 400 fics, fic indexes, and other works tagged as "to be read"; the ReverseBang just went live and the GenFicathon is about to), much much less writing. Which is frustrating. I simply need more time than that to switch from programmer-mindset to writing-mindset.
( A brief (for me) whine about the State of the Writing. )
With reading and writing fic, as well as keeping up with my rlist/flist, I spend a lot of time on my computer. My ISP is Comcast, who provides Symantec's Norton Security Suite free to its customers, and I have to wonder what the hell they're thinking. Norton was once the gold standard for computer utilities, if I recall correctly, but it's been worse than a joke for years. Why in the world would Comcast encourage its customers to use a product that makes Comcast's service seem unusably slow? I'm not exaggerating — when my browser takes 48 seconds to process a simple page-down command (yes, I timed it, twice; yes, the response time is unmeasurably quick with Norton uninstalled), I may be savvy enough to blame the add-on software, but not everyone will be, and they'll blame Comcast's speed. Inexplicably stupid marketing/support choice.
Not much else to report beyond that, so I'll close out with a huge batch of …
( TV mini-reviews (and two bonus fic recs) )
And that's that.
( A brief (for me) whine about the State of the Writing. )
With reading and writing fic, as well as keeping up with my rlist/flist, I spend a lot of time on my computer. My ISP is Comcast, who provides Symantec's Norton Security Suite free to its customers, and I have to wonder what the hell they're thinking. Norton was once the gold standard for computer utilities, if I recall correctly, but it's been worse than a joke for years. Why in the world would Comcast encourage its customers to use a product that makes Comcast's service seem unusably slow? I'm not exaggerating — when my browser takes 48 seconds to process a simple page-down command (yes, I timed it, twice; yes, the response time is unmeasurably quick with Norton uninstalled), I may be savvy enough to blame the add-on software, but not everyone will be, and they'll blame Comcast's speed. Inexplicably stupid marketing/support choice.
Not much else to report beyond that, so I'll close out with a huge batch of …
( TV mini-reviews (and two bonus fic recs) )
And that's that.
Sunday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
violetcheetah and I went to a local gardening store, and at their Farmer's Market, she bought a little basket of wee tomatoes. Grape or cherry, I think. They were put in a paper bag, and she ate some at various points throughout the day; I later found the bag in the microwave, where it had been stashed for safekeeping.
(Because I had forgotten, but one of my cats (Gracie, I think) has a strange obsession with tomatoes and played soccer with a couple of full-sized tomatoes I'd left on the counter, months and months ago. The little bite marks were highly entertaining.)
I moved the bag out of the way so I could microwave something and, being me, forgot to put it back in. I forgot until the next morning, when I came into the kitchen and found a wee, muchly perforated tomato on the living room floor, right next to the kitchen. And another by the counter. And another by the table. And the torn bag on the floor near the microwave.
I put the bag, which still had at least a couple of tomatoes within, and the recovered tomatoes in the microwave, to show off later.
Then I found one by the stove. And one somewhere else I've forgotten. I chuckled and put them with the others.
Several hours later, I went to sweep up a patch of dirt that had been tracked into the kitchen, nudged the box the cats play in, and found five more tomatoes nestled between the box and the cabinets.
violetcheetah sorted through all of them, thought I was silly for tossing the damaged ones outside instead of running them through the disposal, and took the bag of remainders home.
I just found yet another tomato ... in the back bedroom.
violetcheetah and I went to a local gardening store, and at their Farmer's Market, she bought a little basket of wee tomatoes. Grape or cherry, I think. They were put in a paper bag, and she ate some at various points throughout the day; I later found the bag in the microwave, where it had been stashed for safekeeping.(Because I had forgotten, but one of my cats (Gracie, I think) has a strange obsession with tomatoes and played soccer with a couple of full-sized tomatoes I'd left on the counter, months and months ago. The little bite marks were highly entertaining.)
I moved the bag out of the way so I could microwave something and, being me, forgot to put it back in. I forgot until the next morning, when I came into the kitchen and found a wee, muchly perforated tomato on the living room floor, right next to the kitchen. And another by the counter. And another by the table. And the torn bag on the floor near the microwave.
I put the bag, which still had at least a couple of tomatoes within, and the recovered tomatoes in the microwave, to show off later.
Then I found one by the stove. And one somewhere else I've forgotten. I chuckled and put them with the others.
Several hours later, I went to sweep up a patch of dirt that had been tracked into the kitchen, nudged the box the cats play in, and found five more tomatoes nestled between the box and the cabinets.
violetcheetah sorted through all of them, thought I was silly for tossing the damaged ones outside instead of running them through the disposal, and took the bag of remainders home.I just found yet another tomato ... in the back bedroom.
When my mother and I visited Vancouver, we had downtime in our hotel room. She likes having the television on pretty much all the time, while I can't stand that; I want the TV on only when I'm watching something specific. It worked out, though; she wanted to get me into Criminal Minds, which was on all the time, so I got a nice hefty dose of a very good show. In addition, we also ran across a few other shows that didn't drive me insane; one of those was "Holmes on Homes", which I liked so much that — now that I've found it on US cable — I now record all episodes (new and repeats) for those times when I actually do want to watch non-narrative television.
( More about 'Holmes on Homes' (in short: yay!) )
I bring this review forward now because it's become timely for me. A recurring theme on the show (and the spin-off "Holmes Inspection") has been "how not to run electrical wiring". They point out bad junctions, improper runs, inadequate cabling, hazardous placement near water sources, and the like. One tidbit they've mentioned is that side-entry electrical boxes have become the latest preferred standard. I found that interesting, but I didn't really follow the reasons, which they may not have mentioned; regardless, that observation stuck with me.
I now know why they're a good idea.
( Guess what's a bad idea to mix with electricity? )
( More about 'Holmes on Homes' (in short: yay!) )
I bring this review forward now because it's become timely for me. A recurring theme on the show (and the spin-off "Holmes Inspection") has been "how not to run electrical wiring". They point out bad junctions, improper runs, inadequate cabling, hazardous placement near water sources, and the like. One tidbit they've mentioned is that side-entry electrical boxes have become the latest preferred standard. I found that interesting, but I didn't really follow the reasons, which they may not have mentioned; regardless, that observation stuck with me.
I now know why they're a good idea.
( Guess what's a bad idea to mix with electricity? )
Everything I needed to know ...
5 November 2009 12:25 pm... I'm still learning. Today's lessons:
- A recently-used toaster oven is not, repeat not, an optimal hand-warming device.
- Minor burns, like paper cuts, sting all out of proportion.
- A recently-used toaster oven is not, repeat not, an optimal hand-warming device.
- Minor burns, like paper cuts, sting all out of proportion.
Easy money
4 June 2009 02:14 pmI sent a $6 check for the repair/replacement of my headphones. They confirm that they really think they were paid $6, but my bank only charged my account $4.
I was very late to lunch because my meeting was not the time I thought it was, and they were putting all the food away but let me take back a spoon and grab stuff from the open pasta bar that was today's special. I asked whether the sauces had meat stuff in them, and they were very nice with their speculations about maybe chicken stock in this one and possible cross-contamination from the meatballs and such, so when I paid they knew I hadn't taken any of the meat products ... so they only charged me $3 instead of $4.50, even though no price difference had been advertised.
I would think I might have a get-rich-quick scheme to leverage here, but $3.50 over two hours isn't going to make me a millionaire. Still, unexpected money, so yay.
I was very late to lunch because my meeting was not the time I thought it was, and they were putting all the food away but let me take back a spoon and grab stuff from the open pasta bar that was today's special. I asked whether the sauces had meat stuff in them, and they were very nice with their speculations about maybe chicken stock in this one and possible cross-contamination from the meatballs and such, so when I paid they knew I hadn't taken any of the meat products ... so they only charged me $3 instead of $4.50, even though no price difference had been advertised.
I would think I might have a get-rich-quick scheme to leverage here, but $3.50 over two hours isn't going to make me a millionaire. Still, unexpected money, so yay.
