Football, Hooters, and BBQ weekend

Started the weekend off with some loafing around. Then, Saturday was move-in day for Chad. Got up early to do the box thing with my sister. Took a nap. Got up to open the door. Loafed some more while the boys moved heavy things. Waited until they left to get ready for another nap. Went on a book run, which ended up being a wild goose chase. Resorted to getting a gift card for Mindless instead. Missed out on Bracken's Baltimore extravaganza so I could go volunteer for Event Solutions on Sunday.

Ok, so a convention planned by event planners for event planners. You'd think they would have had everything running smoothly, everyone knows where they need to be and when to be there... Admittedly, I haven't been to that many conventions. Mostly engineering ones, actually. But even so, I have never seen so many clueless people gathered in one place before. From the attendees who couldn't figure out which speaker they wanted to see or where they were supposed to be, even though they had a listing of all the lectures and room numbers, to the planners who were excessively inefficient with the number of people they thought they needed and the number of people they had available, to the volunteers who weren't given sufficient directions or supplies... I know it's not my job and I'm sure it's harder than it looks. But you'd think for people who do this for a living and have planned this for other people who do this for a living, they would be better at it. And, possibly, they would even have lectures addressing issues that weren't so basic any person who has attended a 12-year-old's birthday party, either as a guest, parent, or clown, would already know it. Maybe that's just me. In any case, not nearly as fun as a lot of the other events I've helped out with, nor were the volunteers treated as well. No lunch or anything. No one even offered me a cookie the entire day. Now that's a poorly planned event if ever I saw one.

Ate at Hooters for the first time ever. Not all that exciting. They did have a cool system for putting their orders in though. They had cables running at a height of about 6 feet and then had clips hanging off of them. Clip the order in, give it a push, and off it slides to the bar where they make the orders and then yell really loudly when the food is done.

After that, adventures on the metro. I tricked people into thinking I was nice. Heh heh heh... Suckers.

Wandered around after I got off the metro looking for Mindless's party. Called a few people and caught up on gossip as I wandered about. Arrived for a lively evening of vegetarian cuisine, political banter, and the inevitable segregated group of TJ people hanging out together. ;) Not surprising, of course. Anyway, it was cool. Met a bunch of people and hung out for a few hours before heading home.

That's about it. Spent today evening doing laundry and miscellaneous chores I put off this weekend. Still have a list of things to do, places to be, and people to see, but tomorrow is Gilmore Girls Guesday. Need to find out when the season starts up again though. I'm off! :) -J.

QOTD: "you have like barbie hair"

LOTD: Word Count

Google-stalkers

Wow... Beware of google stalkers. My last 20 search referrals each included one of two certain American, male, Olympic swimmers combined with searches of girlfriend, pictures, or married. Ok, girls? (I assume girls.) Don't be creepy. Try dating someone you know. Or possibly going out and meeting someone new. Don't stalk someone just because he's been televised internationally with most of his clothes off. Your odds are so much better of finding someone less famous and completely committed to other things in his life. There are plenty of hot guys available who don't have girls from various countries throwing themselves at them. Go find one of those. -J.

CH strikes again

See? You shouldn't call pregnant people fat either:

New York: Hi! Love your column! I am about five months pregnant (first time). I have now had two people say to me, "Wow you're really big!" or "You look really pregnant!" And then act astonished that the baby isn't due for four more months. I find this incredibly annoying. I have gained about five pounds more than I should (according to the books), but I am trying really hard to eat well and exercise. Any suggestions on how to handle this. Right now I just want to sock them, which I think is probably a bad way to handle it.

Thanks!

Carolyn Hax: You'd make your point, though.

Still, I'm not sure you'd be right. Yes being told you're really big is somewhat insensitive, considering what society currently thinks of women and largeness, but: you're PREGNANT. Big is in your belly. Big is good. Big is a compliment. Unless they ask whether you're carrying a twin in your butt, in which case it's not a compliment.

Columbia, Md.: Ok, after reading the response from the "really big" pregnant woman, I wonder if I have been horribly rude all these years. When a woman I know is pregnant, and excited about it, typically when I see her around 4-5+ months (especially if I found out the news via phone) I say (excitedly) "Wow! You really look pregnant/are really showing!" or something like that. To me, it's like admiring shoes she bought and is really psyched about, but am I wrong? I'm a woman, and only do this with people I consider good friends if it matters.

Carolyn Hax: Idunno, said by the right person in the right way, just about anything is okay, and said by the wrong person the wrong way, just about anything is offensive. I don't want to say, "Yeah, that's bad," and end up making you bite your tongue on genuine expressions of admiration.

Suggestions for the stumped: For your good friends, you can't lose with, "Wow, you look beautiful"-- and if they don't look beautiful or arent' good friends, "Wow, you look so happy."

Anywhere: Hi Carolyn,

So here's a problem I never thought I'd have. An unintentional side effect of a medical issue is that I have lost a lot of weight in the last year. I am eating three square meals a day, taking medicine, and working with my doctor to get back to a healthy weight. In the meantime, co-workers will come up to me and remark, "Gee, you sure are skinny" or something like that. This is really awkward for me because I really don't know how to respond. I don't know some of these people well and I don't feel that I should have to disclose my medical history on demand. Plus, I'm never sure if the remark is intended as a misguided compliment or as an implication that I am purposefully hurting myself. What's a good response to this? "Mind your own business" seems kind of harsh, but on the other hand, I would never go up to someone and say "Gee, you look pudgy today."

Thoughts?

Thanks.

Carolyn Hax: I imagine some mean it as a compliment and some are expressing concern. To all I'd try just saying, "Thanks." Then neither of you will know what you're thanking them for, and you can use that confusion to change the subject.

Wow. Her chat was really good this week. Stop pointing at people and laughing. Well, unless they're being angry. Then laugh away! :) -J.

and then... and then...

Just a rambling to-do list today. Nothing interesting.

Didn't do the errands thing yesterday. Got lunch with the roomie, took a nap, hung out some more. Intended to make cookies, but ended up eating cookies instead. Need to be productive today. Put my shelf doober together. Spied on the neighbors. This week: fire trucks. Went to bed at 5. Got up at 10 to put together packages to mail. Took a nap while waiting for the new roomie to move in. Maybe watching the VT-USC game tonight. Need to track down Jackee about house stuff. Need to do the birthday present shopping thing. Holding onto my sanity with my last ounce of strength. Planning yet another weekend when I can hole up and hide from the world, but somehow it just never seems to work out. Maybe mid-September. Need to mark calendar. Bank, groceries, library, bookstore, need more cookies... Tomorrow should be fun. Hope I can stay awake. :) -J.

QOTD: Real Men of Genius. Today we salute you, Mr. Compulsive Away Message Checker. While most people are out actually having a fun life, you are at home reading about it on your computer screen. Right mouse click, Get Buddy Info, or the little Info box at the bottom of the Buddy List. You have people on that list you haven't talked to in years, but you still loyally read their away messages every day to see what they're up to. So, crack open an ice cold Bud Light, Marauder of the Mousepad, and don't wander too far from your computer because you never know when someone's away message may change.

LOTD: Template generator that I used to make over my blog to make it look like it used to, but different.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Mindless!
Happy birthday, Bracken! (I'm not sure what day exactly his birthday is on. But that's ok, because he doesn't read my blog.)

Ok, so roommates:

If, for instance, your roommate has not been seen in 4 days and you do not know where said roommate is, that might be a good time to knock on their door to check and see if they're alive/in there/ok.

If you have reason to suspect that your roommate might be ill, you should find out if they're ok and offer to bring them water/soup/drugs.

If you are acquainted with the roommates of a missing friend, it would not be inappropriate to ask them if the missing person is ok. If they refuse to check, ask if you may visit to check on the missing person.

I find it disconcerting that people would not be concerned when someone they know is acting out of the ordinary. Have a smile. Be a friend. Spy on your neighbors and bring me gossip. :) -J.

LOTD: Things my girlfriend and I have argued about

QOTD: seen on a t-shirt-- "got for my girlfriend (awesome trade)"

Ooh...

Ooh look at the pretty make-over. Off to bed I go. :) -J.

LOTD: Blender-phone

QOTD stolen from Tom (the other other Tom): A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo, and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole is maintained or even improved by the regular culling of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can operate only as fast as the slowest brain cells through which the electrical signals pass. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that while excessive intake of alcohol kills off brain cells, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. Thus, regular consumption of beer helps eliminate the weaker cells, constantly making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. The result of this in-depth study verifies and validates the causal link between all-weekend parties and job related performance. It also explains why, after a few short years of leaving a university and getting married, most professionals cannot keep up with the performance of the new graduates. Only those few that stick to the strict regimen of voracious alcoholic consumption can maintain the intellectual levels that they achieve during their college years. So, this is a call to arms. As our country is losing its technological edge, we must not shudder in our homes. Get back into the bars. Quaff that pint. Share that handle. Your company and country need you to be at your peak, and you shouldn't deny yourself the career that you could have. Take life by the bottle and be all that you can be. Forward this to all of your friends, acquaintances and co-workers that may be in danger of losing their edge.

Stupid is as stupid does

I find it inappropriate for someone in a professional setting to tell another person that they are stupid. Sure there are stupid people. There are stupid people everywhere. Just because you paid a lot of money to get a fancy piece of paper does not make you smarter than someone without a piece of paper or someone with a less shiny piece of paper. Anyway. Regardless, whatever your qualifications or level of intelligence, work is work. It's a professional setting and you have to be polite, no matter what. You have to be nice to people. You have to act like other people's opinions matter. You have to act like it's your job. Be nice.

In other news... I dunno. Writer's block. Or maybe just private. Started writing again. We'll see where that takes me. Evenings and weekends are jam-packed. Need to do so many things and run errands and whatnot. We'll see what I can accomplish. Later. :) -J.

QOTD: "nothing says friendship like getting kicked in the shins"

LOTD: Yay for WINC FM for collecting stuff for care packages! :)

ing direct

Ok, so I'm being all responsible and taking care of my finances and whatnot (with the help of my savvy sister)... and I just want to give ING Direct a plug. They help me make so much monies just for letting my money sit around. Let me know if you want to open an account with them, so I can send you a referral. That way, you get $25 and I get $10. It's all very exciting. :) -J.

la la la

I do believe I just assisted with the fastest move-in ever. It took me over a day to move 10 feet across the hall. Tommy moved all his stuff in just around 15 minutes. Car full of stuff. And all done. Going to go be lazy now. And contemplate what of my life I want to throw away so I can move too. :) -J.

QOTD: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -President George W. Bush

LOTD: Centrifugal birth

Olympic Torch Relay

Heard this weekend that Hitler was behind the idea of having a torch relay to open the Olympic games. Checked... and it's still possible, but a couple of sources I checked out said it was Carl Diem:

Dr. Carl Diem (born June 24, 1882 in Würzburg - died December 17, 1962 in Cologne) was the originator of the modern tradition of the Olympic torch relay.

The Olympic torch is not a tradition dating to ancient Greece. The relay was invented by Carl Diem, a German who had been planning the 1916 Olympic Games at Berlin when they were canceled because of World War I.

The long-distance torch relay became tradition with the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Twenty years later, Diem returned, organizing the 1936 summer games under Hitler. Seeking to glamorize the games with an ancient aura, Diem staged the first lighting of the Olympic flame. When the torches were lit at Berlin, ostensibly to signify unity among nations, they carried the logo of the manufacturer, Krupp, the huge munitions company that armed Germany for two world wars. It remains unclear whether Diem had Nazi sympathies.

My life, as a circus

From friends to family to home, my life is indeed a 3-ring circus. I don't even know where work gets factored into all that. In any case, spent time with a few 3-lettered men this weekend. It was fun just hanging out again.

Roommates-- I moved into Sonny's room, leaving the two other rooms with bed, lamp, and alarm clock. So much stuff. New roomie moving in tomorrow. Interviewed potential new roomie. To do: Arrange for new roomie and potential new roomie to meet. More moving next weekend.

My mommy got attacked by hornets while mowing the lawn and ended up going into anaphylactic shock. Spent a couple hours at the hospital napping and came home good as new.

Weekend -- not enough naps. Not enough reading. Not enough booze. Probably will spend another day arranging/organizing before my room will be in livable order.

Plans -- next weekend: Boozin' it up with Roy, maybe more moving, reading, working an event at the Convention Center, and birthday bash. We'll see how much of that actually happens. Sleep. -J.

LOTD: Scrabble Championship

QOTD: "what are you..? Some kind of geek moose with coordinate antlers?"

Pictures

Sonny just posted some new pictures up if anyone wants to see. Pictures around the base in Afghanistan on Thursday. The latest: his chess set and his rock pillow. Go on. Click it. You know you want to see. :) -J.

My bro's chess board in Afghanistan:

Aww

Ok, so I'm not too big on following the Olympics, but this is so cool:

From the Washington Post:
"Friday night, Maryland's Michael Phelps, 19, in one of the most breathtaking races of the Games, edged teammate Ian Crocker, 21, for the gold medal, and then stunned the swimming world by giving up his medley slot to Crocker."

Yay team and stuff. :) -J.

cd ladder

Wow, so I was going to write a thing about mutual funds vs. CD ladders as a comparison to relationships. And I was discussing with my sis and she had a lot of insight into this. But I sat down to write and I just got an IM from a friend from college. Last I talked to him, he was engaged to be married and I got together with him and his fiance for lunch. Well... They never got married, so tack another breakup to my tally yesterday.

In other news, the cops were hanging around my street last night. The bad neighbors across the street were causing trouble and I think one of them got taken away. I didn't have a particularly good view from inside the house since it was dark outside and there was a tree in my line of vision. But I very conveniently "forgot" some cookies in my car, so I had to go back outside to retrieve them. There was a van and a squad car and there were people standing out in the yard and stuff. Very exciting. My neighborhood is so ghetto. I really need to get myself a cane to shake at the neighborhood children when they're bothering me. Or misbehaving. or outside, where I can see them. Or just outside. Kids these days! *shakes fist menacingly*

Hung out with Ted tonight. Chatted with BFF for a bit. Watched Josie and the Pussycats. It was cute. Yay for commercializing everything. Anyway, moving day tomorrow. If I finish early, I get to booze it up the rest of the day. Woo. I'm off. :) -J.

QOTD:
"It's not always rainbows and butterflies
It's compromise that moves us along
My heart is full and my door's always open
You can come anytime you want" -Maroon 5, She Will Be Loved

LOTD: Lemmings

Anti-adoption??

Rant by request:

Why do people find it appropriate to call other people skinny?

Joking about someone being thin: is this supposed to be funny? Do you really think someone is going to be blown over by a strong gust of wind? That's not funny. Gee, you look sickly. Huh... you look like you haven't eaten in days. Do you think someone wants to look like or be referred to as a beanpole? That's not nice. It's rude and insensitive.

Calling someone skinny just to let them know is not helpful. Unless you're a doctor, a nutritionist, or somehow qualified to make judgment, there is no reason to tell people they are skinny. If they didn't already know, there are probably other issues that need addressing like eating disorders or mis-sized clothes. People who are underweight already know. For some people, it's because they do have a problem that needs addressing. Other people, it may be that no matter how much they eat, they can't seem to significantly gain weight. And yet others who eat healthily and exercise regularly and just want to have that look. The only situations where this might be appropriate is when weight is being addressed as a health issue. But general, in-passing conversation: not appropriate.

Ok, so if you're still reading, you might have noticed I just recycled yesterday's rant. It's getting late and i'm getting sleepy. I said I'd rant about making fun of skinny people (what with my being an EOR [equal opportunity ranter]), so there you go. Ranting.

In other shenanigans, it turns out my father is anti-adoption. No, not anti-abortion. That would be much too controversial for this blog. He is against people who have been adopted. Again, not the people who put kids up for adoption. But the actual people who are adopted.

Background: went by my parents' house tonight for dinner. Got bored, started riling things up. They're very angry people, I just have to pick the right buttons to push on a given night. Tonight: adoption. It all started pretty benignly. My father telling me to get married and start making babies and I asked why it had to be in that order. Is an unmarried person unfit to raise a child? My mother jumps in ranting about morals and how she can't impose her morals on others, but I am her child and she raised me with her morals, etc.

(Side rant: Did she really raise me to believe what she believes? Or did she raise me to think for myself and choose my own beliefs? I guess whatever her intentions, the latter was the outcome. I seem to have extremely different views from the majority of my family and, although that does not hinder us from being around each other, we do have strong opposition on a number of issues. Maybe this stemmed from my little game of devil's advocate and being disagreeable whenever the opportunity arose. And that somehow led me to a different thought-path so far from where my parents intended. In any case, raise me however you want. This is how I turned out. I believe what I believe for whatever reasons I have. Somehow, being raised with her morals left me in disagreement with many of hers. Nature/nurture? I blame genetics.)

And the *right* thing to do is get married and then make babies. The only way you could even possibly have a baby before marriage is through adoption. Excellent... just what I was waiting for. So adoption is ok? A person could conceivably (haha get it? conceivably?) adopt a child before getting married. That would be ok? Now there's the loophole and from there you can make all kinds of absurd presumptions. Tonight, however, I didn't even get a chance to do that. My father trumped me before I even got a chance.

Pro- or anti-adoption? Definitely anti-adoption. How can a person be anti-adoption? He doesn't like people who are adopted because he feels sorry for them and that forces him to be nice to people and he doesn't like being nice to people. That seems like a somewhat convoluted thought path. But actually, now that I've typed that out, I realize that even despite the fact that I couldn't possibly be adopted, given my father's stance on adoption, I am definitely his daughter. He dislikes people for making him be nice to them. I just don't like people. But yes. I am just like my father. Good thing this entry is so long and no one is still reading. Heh heh heh... Then we discussed how he knows if someone is adopted. Can he tell? Do they have a look to them? And then my mother chimes in with: "When have you been nice to an adopted person? I've never seen you be nice to anyone?"

Alright. I'm off! :) -J.

LOTD: WTD... Kids throw rocks at bees. Not bees, kids... boys. boys.

QOTD: "Any change that would result in a node becoming its own descendant will rip a hole in the time-space continuum (or cause an error)." -Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell

Classifieds

Apparently, this is the place to ask:

any strong C programmers need a job?

Let me know. I know someone who knows someone at a place with stuff and doobers. He requested that his identity and employer remain hushhush. So, if anyone is interested, I'll hook you up. :) -J.

This is it! This is it!

Prepare for Armageddon... I was just making the observation today that all the couples I know of are breaking up like it's going out of style. Not like hip-hugger bell-bottoms which might come back in twenty years, but bee-hives and dual-layered, bi-colored puffy socks. In the past month, I know of 5 break-ups... which leaves me with what I, at first, thought was no friends in relationships. But then I realized how wrong I was. Two people who have been single for more time than I have been in relationships over the last 5 years: dating. (That would be around 4 years, btw. You know me... the serial monogamist. Haha. Cereal monogamist. *cough* err... Never mind.) People who have upheld their seemingly unachievably high standards over the years are successfully pursuing their latest prospects. And the rest of us, single.

What is happening to the world, you ask? Well... apparently my singularity is *gone*. The world around me is turning inside out. I gained weight, my pants don't fit, I ran out of cookies, and I'm more sane than you've ever been in my life. Anyway, back to my previously drafted rant:

Why do people find it appropriate to call other people fat? In my experience when people said it to me, some cases they were joking and in others, they were not. I will address both scenarios.

Joking about someone being fat: is this supposed to be funny? Would you go up to someone who was overweight or obese, pointing and laughing at them, telling them they were fat? That's not funny. That's not nice. It's rude and insensitive. Saying it to someone who isn't fat, I guess is supposed to be funny-ironic. And yet, it's just not. It's like going up to an albino person and telling him he's black. That's not funny. It doesn't even make sense.

Up until like three days ago, I laughed along and thought it was funny. And honestly, it was a dumb funny... That person is too dumb to know fat from not, so haha -- they think I'm fat. And then... I realized I had been called fat by 6 different people over the span of two weeks. Surprisingly, I developed a complex. I know, for the most part, people can't tell when I've gained weight because I don't dress in a way that would allow them to know. But I know. And I also know that these people are joking, but I started thinking about why they think it is funny... and it lost all humor value to me.

Calling someone fat just to let them know is not helpful. Unless you're a doctor, a nutritionist, or somehow qualified to make judgment, there is no reason to tell people they are fat. If they didn't already know, there are probably other issues that need addressing like bad eye-sight or delusions of grandeur. People who are overweight already know. The only situations where this might be appropriate is when weight is being addressed as a health issue. But general, in-passing conversation: not appropriate.

Now, for all you people out there who think you'll leave a clever comment telling me I'm fat because that would be hilarious: HAHHAAH. That was me laughing in advance in case you're so funny I forget to laugh. Ok. Done.

*off to be anorexic* -J.

QOTD: "You can't go to law school! You're too old; you need to start making babies!"

LOTD: Fortune Cookie:Your heart is impure, your mind clouded, and your soul evil.

Weekend adventures etc.

Went up to a wedding this weekend with the family. Two weekends in a row going up to NY and spending the whole weekend with the family. I think this is the closest I have ever been to being legally insane. Including the time I stayed awake for 54 hours. Anyway, the wedding was nice. The actual ceremony was mostly in chinese (all except for the part where they mentioned "New Jersey Governor McGreevey"), so that was really stretching the limits of my vocabulary. After that, there was a small reception to tide people over until the dinner reception a few blocks away. Went with the sibs and RS wandering the streets to look for postcards. Unfortunately, we found none. It was very disappointing. I even had stamps and everything. Oh well.

The reception was... entertaining, I suppose. There was plenty of food. Lots of seafood, so not particularly my favorites, but I think it was good food. Anyway, worked with the family on the family tree. Wandered around and gossiped with people. Collected data and lots of pictures. Met a bunch of second cousins I don't remember meeting before, though I'm told I have met all or most of them at some point before. Got back after that and caught some of the Olympics highlights. Followed up with Charley, but apparently I missed everything.

Sunday was the journey home. Lots of controversial "discussion" in the car. I'll leave that for another entry. Got home, loafed around for a little and then journeyed to Ikea with Roy. He needed a table. I needed some sanity. Well, one of us came out ahead at the end of the night. ;) Other than that, headed home early because I'm getting old. Then stayed up much later than I meant to moving rooms. Which leads to my next update...

So returns the youth hostel. Sonny's friend will be moving in soon for his final semester at GMU. I have requests from two others looking for temporary housing. I also have big brother and his friend staying over here this week while the friend is visiting from out of town.

In other news, I'm looking into going back to school. I need more variety in life. Or maybe my attention span just isn't long enough to stay occupied with only one main task in life. Still haven't decided what I want to do yet, but I'm setting next fall as my goal, so I have another year to decide.

In other people's news: remarriage, movie audition, breakup, alleged illegitimate child, [bad] spies, giggling boys, sisterhood of women, anorexia, witness protection program, stealth dates, single "doctors," laughing at dead people, and new job. Pick the people, match the event, and you win! Maybe we'll resurrect j-points. Maybe I'm not going to elaborate on these stories and just leave you confident in the knowledge that I have a lot of gossip stored up inside me and some day I'm going to crack and all of it will spill out of my little head, like ants spilling out of a shattered ant farm, pouring my sanity out with each tidbit of information leaving a hollow shell of the quiet, composed, stealthy, little asian girl I once was. Er. Am. I once am. Me no crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in the sewers. Sewers? Did you say sewers? They've got rats down there. Rats? Did you say rats? Rats drive me craaazy. Crazy? I was crazy once.

And on that note: 'nite! :) -J.

QOTD:
"i think people give me too much credit for having emotions"
"see, i thought they did, until you showed me your emotions. which are groovy, btw"

LOTD: Bored? Try stumbling upon a new website!

C is for cookie...

Yeah, I got nothin' for you today. Leave a cookie; I'm bored.

LOTD: World Beard Championships

QOTD: "As long as someone had to die, it's good that it was a fake person." -Jon Carroll on the topic of the fictional blog of Kaycee
Whoa, and the blogosphere comes full circle. About a year ago, I came across the blog of this dude who was in Hong Kong and referred to himself as "big white guy." This guy ended up hosting the blog of some person who claimed to be dying of cancer, but turned out was a woman pretending to have a daughter dying of cancer. My mind is sufficiently boggled. (Old news, I know. It happened a few years ago, but I only read the details a few weeks ago.)

"The human head weighs 8 pounds"

Went over to my parents' house tonight for quantity family time. Somehow over the course of the evening I remembered a trivial pursuit question asking what percentage of a baby's weight its head makes up. At the time, someone thought of the line from Jerry Maguire where the little kid says that the human head weighs 8 pounds. And since heads don't grow terribly much from when they were babies, it'd be a pretty high percentage. That seemed really disproportional to me. Considering, a baby weighs 8 pounds when it is born. In any case, that caused my mother to ask how they weigh human heads. "They decapitate people first." Ok, so that would be a really messy way to go about things. After some discussion, I finally convinced her that all she had to do was lie with her head on a scale and as long as she wasn't holding her head up or pushing down with her neck, it should give you a reasonably good estimate as to the weight of your head.

By the end of the night, we had my parents weighing in at 10 pounds each and my sister and I both at 12 pounds each. So, here's the game. Go find a scale, put your head on it, and report back. I'm interested in finding out the average head weight for my readership. Or anyone, for that matter. If you want to convince your friends to weigh their heads too, go for it. Have fun. Report back. Need more data points. :) -J.

QOTD: "Don't have sex with mean people. If someone is mean, don't have sex with them."

LOTD: Thoughts...

Current books: Dr. Zhivago, The Count of Monte Cristo

Last book: Digital Fortress -- It was a quick, fun read. Thanks to my cousins and aunt for allowing me to swipe the book for this week before they were done reading it. I think I'm done with this author though. I've read two of his books and both books have been filled with characters he touts as geniuses -- the cream of the crop in their field -- yet their actions are anything but. I understand that he is merely using their lack of intelligence as a literary device to draw his puzzles out and ensure the reader understands the solution (or make them feel smart for having figured it out before these über-intelligent characters). But in order to not portray his characters as slow and inept, he either needs to think up harder puzzles or give the reader a little credit by not spending upwards of 40 pages trying to solve one puzzle. I ended up skipping 4 chapters at the end of the book because I got so frustrated with the characters. In retrospect, I wish I had skipped some of the introductory chapters as well because they were so repetitive. Ok, I get it: Cryptography = hard; Characters = smart; Unbreakable code = impossible. Impossible? Impossible. Impossible. Oh wait, sorry. I've just given away the first half of the book. Anyway, his stories are interesting, I just can't stand his characters. -J.

Meh again

Seems no matter what I do, my page doesn't render right with IE. I don't know how to fix it. I redid the code so it wouldn't do the thing where it would only load as far as the menu on the right (which it only did some of the time, and if you hit stop before it finished loading, it would have the whole page. That makes no sense to me.). So, that's fixed and now the links are all really wide, but I don't know why. I went through and compared it to the old code and those parts of the template are the same. It used to do it with the original template, but I don't remember changing/fixing anything to fix that problem. It looks almost like it just fixed itself, which also makes no sense at all. Works fine in Firefox, so it doesn't bother me all that much on a regular basis. I just don't want my webpage to be broken. -j.

QOTD: "Hey, Jesus, want an Altoid?"

LOTD: Hamsters for Kerry:
Have you seen Fahrenheit 9/11?
Yes, we have. We liked it, but we would have liked it better if there had been more screen time for Michael Moore. We like his hats. I know that doesn't make sense, but we do. They make us happy.

EDIT: Never mind. Woo! I rule. Keep me posted if anything else around here looks funny.

Meh

QOTD: Anonymous--
"I say this having been on both sides of it. I know how scary it is to have to divulge something that may not place you in the best of lights. However, so long as we hold on [to] the illusion of a life I think we are doomed to live shallow unfulfilled lives. I personally believe that is why there are so many break-ups/ divorces etc. All of us are conditioned to want an image of a relationship based on who we are, our families, our cultures etc. Maybe to varying degrees, we are not so capable of freeing ourselves of those illusions."

LOTD: Mmm... Hivemind-- Their little project

Mmm... anorexia

I'm been thinking about trying out anorexia. Not like as a long term thing, but, you know, just to try it out. See how I like it. I've been doing all these hiatuses over the last year or so and it all gets very complicated keeping track of what I can't eat when and for how long. So why not just quit for a while? That would simplify things a lot as well as saving me a lot of time. Now, I eat about 6 times a day and after about third breakfast, people start looking at me weird. And all the time spent shopping for groceries so I will have enough snacks to last me throughout the day... I think it would just be more conducive to my lifestyle. Also, I thought I wouldn't be able to make it a month without desserts and I made it. And I've only fallen off the chocolate bandwagon once. And TV I didn't think I'd last either, but I'm still going strong. So, why not try something even more challenging? Hehe. Anyway, that's all. Time for bed. :) -J.

LOTD: Great time waster

QOTD:
"I think this is the fastest these elevators have ever shown up for me."
"I must attract the elevators... the only thing I do attract these days..."

P.S. Sonny emailed to say that he's fine, but been pretty busy these days and that's why he hasn't had time to update. -J.

Gangsta math team

I went to this gang awareness meeting last night and they told us all about the gangs in the area, what to look for in your neighborhood, and signs that your child might be involved in a gang. One of the gangs they mentioned (I won't site by name because I don't want them coming after me) goes by the code name 174. Why, you ask? Well, the acronym of their gang name corresponds with those numbered letters of the alphabet. Gang, you say? Hoodlum math team, I say. Why would a gang use a cipher to disguise their gang? To keep it away from the police and school administration and whatnot... And because they're a bunch of asian nerds!

The police officer running the meeting last night kept emphasizing how you can't get rid of crime. You can only displace it. If you lower crime in one area, they're just going to move on to the next unsuspecting area and strike there. So, in one case, where a woman moved because she found her children were in a gang, that just spread the gangs because they were already so heavily involved. And where did she move them? From Annandale to Centreville. Good move, lady. You've moved them just far enough that they can meet up still if they steal a car, but not far enough that it's not worth it for them to do that every weekend. As the officer said, you can take a child out of a gang, but you can't take the gang out of the child. Well, you can call yourself a gangsta, but you still can't take the nerd out of asian. -J.

LOTD: origin of "Don't mess with Texas" -- They too are not tuff. They just keep trashing their own state. Good work.

QOTD:
Most apathetic fight ever --
*answering phone*Hello?
Hey... Uh, are we still fighting?
*pause* Nah. What's up?
I wanted to tell you something that happened day.
Cool! What happened?

Just like in elementary school...

Once, when I was in first grade, I left class about 10 minutes earlier than my classmates for lunch/recess. I had just finished up an in-class reading/writing assignment and left it on my desk because it was due after lunch. When I got back after lunch, my assignment was no longer there. I didn't think much of it. I figured the teacher had collected it early, before lunch instead of after, since no one was going to work on it during the break anyway. However, once everyone got back and settled into their seats, the teacher went around collecting the assignment. When she got to me, I had to tell her I didn't have the assignment; I must have lost it or something. She had seen me working on it just that morning, so she was somewhat skeptical. In any case, she gave me until the end of the day to redo the assignment.

While we were doing other activities that afternoon, she began looking over the class's work and grading papers. She came to one paper that looked like my handwriting, but had someone else's name on it. She brought it over to ask me if I had written that work. I told her that I had and asked where she found it. Another student had stolen it off of my desk and tried to pass it off as his own. He didn't do a very good job of it, as he only erased my name and wrote his name over it. You could still visibly see my name under his. He got in trouble.

Stealing someone's homework is cheating and against the rules. I thought everyone learned that in elementary school. Passing someone else's work off as your own is also against the rules and sometimes that's called plagiarism. These are the things people should have taken with them when they left grade school. These are things people should have learned by the time they went to college. These are the things people shouldn't try to pull off in the workplace. I'm not stupid. If you thought I was stupid, you shouldn't try to copy my work. So why are you acting like I'm stupid? -J.

QOTD: You know your industry is full of old fogies when this is the latest action item: "A copy of the mission statement is attached, together with Barry's letter asking the Sections to help with obituaries, which Barry notes is the most pressing need." It's not just important: it's urgent.

LOTD: Fake Beauty Pageant

Irregardless!??

Ok, I've had this rant in progress for a while now, but since eepie wrote about words not being in the dictionary, I had to post this up. Relevant toward the end, but I don't feel like rearranging now.

I wrote a while ago about the grammar nazis who were correcting other people on petty things, but I felt a need to yell at the other people too. (I'm an equal-opportunity angry person.) My peeve isn't so much in the people who don't know how to spell, but the people who don't care to learn, or the ones who know the grammar rules and don't bother to use them. Ok, sure... if there are large words you don't use often, you might misspell them. But if I'm talking on IM with someone who continually misspells small 3-letter words and won't correct themselves, I have a lot of difficulty deciphering what is being said. I have blocked people because of this. I can't stand it. No, actually... I won't stand for it. I know I'm anal about stuff. I check dictionary.com every once in a while before I'll finish writing a thought out on IM. Usually because it's a word that I don't use often, so I'm not sure of its spelling. Other times because I've heard the word in context only and it sounds like it would fit where I want it, but I want to make sure that the meaning is what I intend for it to be in that context.

Came across this grammar rant:
Caring about proper usage doesn't make me "pathetic." Nor does it mean that I need to "get a life," or that I think I'm "better than" people who don't know the rules of usage. Caring means that, as a writer and an editor, and as a reader for that matter, I care how the language is used. I care about the way it looks. I care about split infinitives -- not much, but a little. I care about the Oxford comma; I care about the serial semi-colon. I care about how to punctuate an ellipsis. The language is the way we communicate. It's important to know how it works, and it's not pathetic to care about that; it's pathetic that Americans brick grammar and spelling ten times more often than people whose first language isn't even English. It's pathetic that nobody understands why bad grammar is appalling. And it's not necessarily because a person with bad grammar is stupid or uneducated; it's because most people don't care anymore… The English language is a snarly, thorny, crabby creature, hard to tame, and I've worked my whole life to get it to come up on the porch and eat scraps without taking my leg off, and I know that other people feel the same way about medicine or the law or selling bonds or whatever and they don't have as much invested in whether "whether" gets used correctly (and not that you, or anyone else, gives a fiddler's fart, but you don't need "or not," because "whether" implies "or not" on its own, so now you know and can continue to use it wrong just like you always have because why should you give a crap), and it bugs the hell out of me that so many people care so little about something they rely on so heavily, and…oh, fine, FINE.

Go ahead. Contribute to the murder of the language. Suit yourselfs. See? I don't care anymore.

She listed most of the little peeves I have when I come across personal websites and whatnot. The only one she left out was further/farther. Anyway, there were definitely a bunch of others that I hadn’'t bothered to be annoyed with before and a couple that I hadn’'t even heard before. This one took me completely by surprise:
Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term.

You read that right: "a blizzard of condemnation..." Irregardless isn't actually a word. I grew up with my father using this word a lot. I just ignored it because I didn't know what it meant for the longest time and it just sounded like a filler word anyway. Years later, I found out it meant the same as regardless. That was the lie I have lived with for the past decade and a half. Today I found out the truth. It was added to the dictionary as slang. It's not even real. Sigh... I'm so disillusioned.

After that, I had to see what dictionary.com had to say about other things. Their usage notes are hilarious:
The use of impact as a verb meaning "to have an effect" often has a big impact on readers. Eighty-four percent of the Usage Panel disapproves of the construction to impact on, as in the phrase social pathologies, common to the inner city, that impact heavily on such a community; fully 95 percent disapproves of the use of impact as a transitive verb in the sentence Companies have used disposable techniques that have a potential for impacting our health. It is unclear why this usage provokes such a strong response...

A Usage Panel! Can you imagine? I wonder how you get on such a panel. You wonder too, you say? Well, I happen to have done a little research into that. Surprised, are you? Ha HA! Ok. I'm almost done. While I was not able to find registration or membership information, I did find that actor Tony Randall is on this panel. Isaac Asimov was also on the panel (before he died, of course). Carl Sagan, Antonin Scalia (Supreme Court Justice), among others. Most of the people on the panel looked like they had linguistic-related occupations: professors, novelists, journalists, etc. Whether that has to do with panel requirements or just the only people who are interested in being on such a panel, I'm not sure.

Ok. I'm done. Have a grammarful day! :) -J.

LOTD: Grammar Spork
QOTD:

Roy: What's a boathome?
Me: Uh, I don't know. You mean, like a dock? Or a houseboat?
Roy: I don't know. JL2 said he needed to get his boathome. What is that?

*Next day on the phone*
JL2: I didn't say I needed to get my boathome. I said I needed to get my boat home. Get my boat and bring it home.

Urination Update

Went to my neighborhood watch meeting today. Sounds like fun... spying on the neighbors, calling the cops, uh... yeah, that's about it. Anyway, after the meeting, gossiped a bit with the neighbors before leaving. Turns out the peeing kid is likely to be one of the kids who lives across the street whose mother is never around and whose uncle has been going around threatening the neighbors. Great role models. But yeah. Kids need supervision.

Tomorrow night: kickboxing or gang violence? Decisions, decisions... -j.

LOTD: Fairfax Crime Watch: BUTTER CHURN DR., 1300 block. Dirt was stolen from a county park.

QOTD (from last week): "How do you think [your kids'] politics ended up so different from yours?"
"They're stupid?"
3rd from the end: In Ohio Capital, Political Conversions Aren't Easy around 2mins 8sec

Cantankerous Old Women

While talking to BFF a couple weeks ago, she decided that her sister and I should start a club because her sister "hates kids too." To be fair, I don't really hate kids. I hate people. But kids are mostly limited to unruly, undisciplined kids. Anyway, this was brought on one weekend when her family had guests over and her sister was getting frustrated with the disobedient children running around the house, while the parents did nothing to stop them. That same weekend, there was a kid (probably around 8-10 years old) peeing in the middle of the street in my neighborhood. Not like, near the street. But in the middle of the asphalt and ran behind a car when we drove around the corner. It wasn't as though he didn't know any better. He obviously knew he wasn't supposed to get caught peeing in the street.

"What will the neighbors think?" Ever have your parents ask you that? I'll tell you what this neighbor thinks: Kids these days! They shouldn't be left outside to play unsupervised. I don't care if it's a "safe" neighborhood, which this isn't, by the way. I don't care if there are other kids playing in the neighborhood too. That means there are just that many more unsupervised children playing outside! They're not playing together. This was one solitary child "playing" outside with by himself. No one to see if he got hurt. No one to see if he got kidnapped. No one to see if he's out shooting small animals with a beebee gun. If a child isn't old enough to be left alone in the house by himself, he isn't old enough to be outside playing by himself. Groups with a chaperone. At the very least, a parent inside a house with a screen door, so they can leave the front door open and still be near enough in case anything happens. Why are there kids running rampant in my neighborhood with drug dealers on every corner? Ok, maybe not every corner. But at least 4 corners that I know of.

-J.
Member, Cantankerous Old Women (COW)


QOTD (another one stolen from inpassing.org): "A four year old is a very robust system... children rarely blue-screen." --A man in Soda Hall
---
Ah, when computer scientists become parents.


LOTD: Schrodinger's Genetically Mutated Half-Chick Half-Mushroom Creature, which states that when placed in a box and moved in circles at incredible speeds, the GMHCHMC is both alive and covered in vomit from motion sickness, and alive and not covered in vomit from motion sickness. In other, less-stupid words, keep your eye on the correct box in this Flash version of the Shell Game.

!math == !date

Went to a thing after work today with some coworkers. Stayed long enough to remind myself how much I don't like smoke-filled bars and people-filled places. Anyway, question of the day: is it wrong of me to turn down a guy for a date simply because he doesn't enjoy math? I mean, ok, so that's not the only reason. But, that's really what it comes down to. It has to do with common interests and the fact that my sense of humor necessitates a love of math/science. I don't enjoy dating around, so when I go on a date with someone, it's with the hope that it will lead to a relationship, or, at the very least, something of substance. And the thought that I would be going out with someone who would never find my jokes funny is a complete turn-off to me. And even more than that, it means that this person would never bring me a really good joke either. Sure, not everything has to do with sense of humor. But it has to do with appreciating things in life and having similarities in your life views.

I read a Dear Abby a while back where this woman, who divorced her husband because he wasn't that smart, ended up getting back together with him because he really was the nicest, sweetest man she could find. And she just found her intellectual fulfillment elsewhere, with coworkers, friends, book clubs, or wherever. If I were that guy, I would have left and never looked back. Too dumb to be her husband, but then when she couldn't find anything better she came crawling back? Lame.

Anyway, along that same vein, I don't want to find fulfillment elsewhere. She may have settled for finding other people to stand in for those places in her life. But for me, it seems incomplete to have to find other people to laugh with. I look at my parents... and, granted, they're completely anti-social (hehe... yeah, I don't mean it in a bad way, but you know it's true), but they're each other's best friends. They don't really have other friends that they interact with regularly. So, it's one of those things, where if I were to choose one person to spend the rest of my life with on some island away from civilization, who would I choose? Hopefully, it would be my significant other. That seems like one of those things that you're supposed to be able to answer unconditionally. But to say, well... if I wanted to get off the island, I would choose this person... But if there were no escape, I would choose this other person because they would make for better company. Or this other person because at the very least we wouldn't drive each other nuts. Not what I want. Anyway, I did what I did. And I'd do it again. Input welcome though. :) -J.

QOTD: "I will never watch "The O'Reilly Factor" because O'Reilly discriminates against fermions. Afterall, he constantly points out that his show is a no spin zone."

LOTD: Dollar messages

Care package

Info on Charlie Company. Things listed for sending generic care packages:

Baby wipes
Eye drops
Q-Tips
Foot powder
Pocket-sized tissue
Disposable razors
Toothpaste
Hand Soap
Deodorant
ChapStick
Writing material
Clipboards
Pens
Hand lotion
Crystal Light Drink mix
AA Batteries
Detergent
Clothespins


Extras:
Horseshoe set
Volleyball set
Football
Playing cards
Nuts, beef jerky, sunflower seeds

Weekend

I've slept about 34 hours so far this weekend. And that's not counting my day off on Friday. Starting midnight Friday night/Saturday morning until now. I've taken something like 5 naps. What a nice weekend. ;) So, for most of my waking hours today, I started reading Dr. Zhivago. BFF, I don't know what you were talking about because I don't find it boring at all. Though, if I remember correctly, you didn't like A Tale of Two Cities either, which, at least stylistically, this reminds me of. Simply from the sheer number of characters. There are so many different things going on and the characters are all involved with different things, but somehow relate back to a previously named character. I've had to start a list, like we were supposed to in school for To2C. Anyway, that's about it. Going to read until I feel like going to sleep again. :) -J.

PP: P2

Ok... so on the topic of unreliable friends... I mentioned this to my sis before and she said other people were having the same problem too. So, I got to thinking: If I were arrested, who would be my one phone call? Things to consider:
-Proximity of person
-Reliability of person
-Promptness of response/arrival time
-Does the person have a cell phone?
-Does that person answer their cell phone? or check their messages regularly?
-Would the person have been involved with whatever activity caused me to be in jail?
-Would that person have been wily enough to get away before me? In which case, why didn't they save me too?
-Would the person be willing/able to post bail for me?

Anyway, those are the main questions. Maybe I'll think of more later. Automatically bumped from the list are family members, because well... sorry mom and dad, but I'm not telling you if I get sent to jail. Well, maybe I would. Depends what it's for. I can't think of anything off-hand that I would get arrested for, but it doesn't seem like it would be something I'd want being spread around. Whatever it is. Er... was... or might be. Hypothetically, of course. :) -J.

LOTD from BFF: Atherosclerosis
QOTD:
enjanerd: like i would waste a fake id on watching harold and kumar go to white castle
enjanerd: if i went to the trouble of acquiring a fake with my picture on it, you can be sure i'd be out drinkin' it up and being a skank
SPJ: mmm skank