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Mmm...
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Jan. 25th, 2008 @ 04:33 pm
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What does it mean if I read the words "blood sugar"
and my brain translates that as "maple syrup"?
.Song of the Day: "Sweet Toffee" -- Moodorama |
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An Accepted Incursion
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Nov. 28th, 2007 @ 02:34 pm
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I had to wait in line at the Post Office today. After ten minutes, I was finally at the front of the line and about to get my turn. A man then walked into the lobby. He carried a package yet seemed very much out of place. It might have been his brown uniform. He proceeded to bypass the line, walked up to the front counter, and exchanged the package for a signature on his electronic tablet. I'm not entirely sure what I witnessed, but something was definitely not right.
.Song of the Day: "Games without Frontiers" -- Peter Gabriel |
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Potassium
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Oct. 16th, 2007 @ 10:11 am
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"I am Chiquita Banana
and I'm here to say
how to get rid of your teacher
the EASY way.
First, you peel a banana
And you throw it on the floor,
And then you watch teacher
go flying out the door."
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Concerning
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Sep. 11th, 2007 @ 10:17 am
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I just had a co-worker attempt to correct my usage in a document. Ashamedly, I had typed "in regards to". Yick! However, her correction was not the offending plural. She wanted it to read "with regards to". Wow. Step in the wrong direction there, but at least it let me catch the actual mistake. "With regard to" is tolerable and has a subtle difference, but "in regard to" is generally better (as it was in this case). Better still is a simple "about" or "concerning", when fitting. (Here, it was not.)
On a different subject, I need to figure out how to turn off Firefox's automatic double spacing between paragraphs. I can appreciate paragraph style templates for word processing and all, but then I need to be able to see the "control characters" so I can at least understand what it is doing. For those of us who have been typing for 20 years (!!!OLD!!!), the double carriage return is automatic. Plus, as opposed to true paragraph spacing, it seems to just be adding an extra new line. I can do that myself, thanks.
And now: getting work done!
.Song of the Day: "Psycho Killer" (live: Stop Making Sense) -- Talking Heads |
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Webster isn't pure either, but
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Aug. 31st, 2007 @ 03:54 pm
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The OED is a lexical whore.
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| » Hearing Voices |
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Ok, that was really freaky. I was just reading yet another exciting technical document. I absentmindedly took my cell phone out of my shirt pocket and rolled it through my fingers. Then I leaned it against my chin. I slowly, just barely pushed the two halves of the phone apart with my lower teeth when I suddenly heard a woman's voice and jumped. I opened the phone assuming I had somehow dialed voicemail. The voice paused as I looked at the display, but it had some 866 number displayed. Then, "Jessica?". I momentarily freaked and shut the phone.
I've had the fun of picking up the phone before it rang before, but this was significantly more startling since I was deep in thought and only barely aware that I was even holding a phone. I'm pretty sure this number has called for Jessica before. I have only had this number for about 5 months, so Jessica must have had this number before me. I have no message whatsoever on my voicemail, so they just keep trying although only about once a month. Had I a moment to think, I would have told them they had the wrong number, but childhood instincts told me to make the scary voice go away now.
Than again, had I not opened the phone and it rang, I would have seen that it wasn't a number I recognized and ignored it. After all, that's what voicemail is for.
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Aug. 24th, 2007 @ 03:59 pm
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| » That's Numberwang! |
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This is especially for ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) qdot.
Jul. 26th, 2007 @ 06:00 pm
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| » I Heart Hux-L-ey |
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Happy Birthday, Aldous! Had cruel fate not swept you away from us, you'd be a be a youthful 113 years old.
In my Senior year of high school, Brave New World shocked and challenged me, quickly becoming my one of my favorite books of all-time. Still, I read no more of his works for about a decade. It was only by the prompting of the imaginary sweetheart (now imaginary wife) of an imaginary character written by the imaginary boyfriend of my imaginative friend that I decided to see what else he had written. She had been imaginarily reading Ape and Essense. I read both that and The Genius and the Goddess. The former was odd, but interesting; the latter became a fast favorite. Later, I read Island, and was struck by the "brave, old world" it presented and how much it needs to be preserved.
My reading habits have slacked of late, but if anyone has suggestions other Huxley stuff to read (or avoid), please post them.
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Jul. 26th, 2007 @ 10:03 am
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| » Hyphen-Use versus No Hyphen Use versus Germancompoundwordconstruction |
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Let's have fun with technical writing!
If it makes up an adjective-like descriptor (point in case), I use hyphens. Thus, a 10-cm lizard has a length of 10 cm. However, I find I prefer the germanfreighttrain for small, two-word combinations that are often used, such as "lowpass filter". However, I have no idea what a "fishwife" is.
Also, "issue" is not synonymous with "problem".
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Jul. 23rd, 2007 @ 11:02 am
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| » Jackpot Day! |
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I declare tomorrow to be JACKPOT DAY!
If only I were closer to Vegas. Ah well. At least it's an excuse to throw a party. Anyone want to come? Bring chips: potato, corn, or poker.
Jul. 6th, 2007 @ 05:11 pm
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| » Ill and Ration-ill |
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Do you know what is the worst day to have a head cold in the U.S. of A.? The Fourth of Frikkin' July. Last night, all I wanted was for the Nyquil to take effect and put me under. Karis wanted to come down and take care of me, but I didn't want to get her ill and only really needed to get to bed. Instead, I heard wave after wave of pops, bangs, and fizzles. Unable to sleep, I watched a Batman cartoon and played a little Katamari. Finally, a bit before midnight, I dragged my futon mattress to the corner of the apartment furthest from any windows and tried again to sleep. I swear, as soon as I lay down, the fireworks stopped. Or at least they did long enough for me to escape to unconsciousness.
This morning, I woke feeling quite a lot better. I'm still sick, but not nearly so much. I came into work at 10. While getting ready to do so, I had a rather sobering thought. As miserable as last night was, at least I was safe. Those were not mortars or grenades going off around me, only fireworks. I had the luxury of being in a comfortable, climate-controlled apartment with clothes, food, medicine, and even a video game to distract me. I may despise much about our federal government, the abuse of patriotism, or our idiotic adherence to obsolete units of measure. However, I am very thankful for my undeservedly good life in this bountiful land. It is too easy to take such things lightly.
Heck, I even enjoyed watching a few of those fireworks with the spinny white fizzles.
Jul. 5th, 2007 @ 10:23 am
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| » Dumb Rants of Dumbness |
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I had Last Comic Standing on for background noise last night while playing a game. One of the guys said something about how marketing tries to change the names of things to sound better. The example that stuck with me is that they now always call used cars "pre-owned". (I actually did laugh a few times while listening to the show, although that was not one of them.)
On the ride into work this morning, I heard a car commercial, and, sure enough, it referred to "pre-owned" cars. Then my brain clicked. A used car is not pre-owned, it is post-owned. A new car is pre-owned. I may not like English, but it's the only language I've got. Don't dick with my prefixes.
This reminds me of what may well be the most meaningless sign I've seen. The local K-Mart was going out of business. As they were ramping up their final clearance, they put out a bunch of small signs along the road. These read, "Save up to 50% or more!"
The K is for Krackhead.
Although, I did manage to put my intellectual morals aside to score a decent drawing tablet for cheap. That reminds me: I need to download the latest version of Inkscape. (Yeah, like intellectual morals have any chance against the prospect of incredible savings.)
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Jun. 21st, 2007 @ 09:46 am
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| » Water Music |
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I just got back from getting some water from the office cooler. The first several drops hitting the bottom of the plastic cup made a very familiar sound: the descending chromatic xylophone of the Filmation logo. I recognized it in time to added the mental *ding* at the end and haven't stopped smiling since. The He-Man intro continues to play in my head.
I tried to find a hyperlink to the Filmation sound, but no such luck. I still have a Pavlovian response to that sound, knowing that something wonderful is about to begin.
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May. 25th, 2007 @ 10:49 am
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| » Making my Mother Proud |
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I'm sitting at my desk at work right now. I'm going to keep right on sitting. No trips to the water cooler for me. Nope. I wish I could say this was because of my diligence to my work. But if that were the case, would I be on LJ right now? No. However, I will get back to my work shortly and will continue sitting here and working until lunch. I will be getting up at lunch time. And then I will leave. And then I will drive the 25 minutes back home. And then I will change into a pair of pants that I have not worn while moving boxes into my new apartment and, in so doing, have blown out the crotch.
Apr. 9th, 2007 @ 09:47 am
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| » Rocky Launcher |
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At the office...
"Gary, can you get me that paper from the printer?"
obstinate pause
"Please."
"Sure!"
"We need one of those of bank tube systems."
"Yeah, that'd be handy. Of course, I'd be continually sending you squirrels."
Mar. 23rd, 2007 @ 10:57 am
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| » You know you're a True Geek... |
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...when the first thing you put on after your morning shower is your SanDisk lanyard with matching Flash drive pendant.
P.S. Doctoral Dissertation + Throat Infection = Wheeee*hack*cough*ick* Hoo
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Jun. 22nd, 2006 @ 11:48 am
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| » Life |
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Life is considerably better now. Not great, and not how I'd like it to be, but it's good.
( Read more... )
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Jun. 5th, 2006 @ 01:44 pm
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| » Ow |
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Not that I've been writing much here anyway, but Karis broke things off last night. I can't believe that *I* was totally committed and ready to try the long distance thing, and she decides it isn't worth trying. I was scared it wouldn't work, but damned if I was going to just give up this time.
Anyway, I'm just posting this to say what's up. For once, I don't want comments. (I'd get pissed if no one commented, or if this ended up being the only time I get more than one comment, so I'll nix the possibility altogether.) I also don't want any condolences by email or whatever. "Sorry" is my least favorite word right now. I'll get through this.
Four weeks left to finish this thesis. I'll hopefully make it to the other side and finish this shit. (Also, no "you're gonna do it" messages. No offense, but none of you know what I'm doing, so such words border on meaninglessness. I know you all want me to succeed. That is enough.)
(Am I a real LJer now, or do I have to start writing bad poetry about this?)
Jun. 2nd, 2006 @ 10:33 pm
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| » Take Me Back to Buffalo |
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A walked to a small Indian food mart across campus to get lunch today. That was a feat in itself. Last Tuesday, I got the thrill of another momentary, thankfully, knee dislocation at volleyball. Even more thankfully, I was moderately mobile after just a couple days. This was my first mile-long walk (round trip) since all that. It's stiff, but functional, sore, but not in pain. As long as I can walk, I have no right to complain.
After purchasing some samosas, cardamom cookies, and mysterious beverages to feature another day, I reentered the humidity for the trek back. As I started up the sidewalk, a somewhat bedraggled lady walked past in the other direction. From behind me, it sounded as though she had run into a friend. "I told her it wasn't down here, but I figured this was where you'd end up." Or something like that. She had successfully, after difficulty found someone with whom she had been hoping to meet. A spark of curiosity caused me to turn and see who her friend might be. She had stopped at the window of the food mart. Alone. She was not on a cell phone. She didn't seem distressed, so I contented myself to walk away before she saw my confused look.
Apparently deciding she had been going the wrong way, I could hear her muttering to herself as she began to follow me back towards campus. My short lead was quickly diminished due to my currently slow stride. When I got to the intersection, she was right on my heels and cried out, "This school has been hurting me for ten years of my life!" Startled, but eager to cross the street while the walk sign was lit, I limped through the crosswalk. She turned the corner instead of crossing. Still, I wanted to respond. I wanted to let her know she was going to be okay. Sure, she has me beat by four, but I could relate.
May. 30th, 2006 @ 05:47 pm
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