beancounters

That ringing sensation

Oh ho! I thought I was the only one this happened to. At least now I know this disorder has a name ...

It is a familiar and unnerving sensation: the false belief that you can hear your mobile phone ringing or vibrating.

Now the phenomenon is so widespread it has an official name: "ringxiety".

People have grown emotionally dependent on their mobiles for feelings of self-worth, claim psychologists.

So when we "hear" an imaginary ring, or think vibrations on a bus are a call, it is the subconscious calculating how popular we are.

If "ringxiety" doesn't catch on, I have another idea for a name: hypovibria. You know? Like hypochondria? Bueller?

A warning to corn

a warning to corn
Originally uploaded by beancounter.

Outside a barbecue spareribs 'n' fixins booth, convicted vegetables are ruthlessly hung on a fence, as a warning. I shot this sobering photo at the county fair last Saturday.

Love them blue mutants

The plotline of X-Men 3 looks exactly like the one in the first and second X-Men movies - "Waah, waah, humans hate us mutants - should we fight 'em, or should we wallow in angst?"

(Which, to be fair, was also the main plotline of the comic for many years, in between the X-Men kicking the butts of evil mutants and interdimensional space aliens. Even so. It gets old in movie form.)

But here's the reason I'll probably break down and see the third installment in the theatre: Kelsey Grammar as my favorite mutant, Beast. Very cool!

Later: Well, this settles it: The Innocent Bystander thought X-Men 3 was better than the first two.

Snails and paper trails

I am greatly enjoying this graduate program, but one aspect that continues to frustrate me is how limited they insist on remaining, technologically. The department has many means to communicate and operate in the digital medium, yet they insist on sticking with paper. It's quaint, really, but slow!

For instance, the day one of the take-home final exams was issued, came the inevitable question, "Can we e-mail our test to you?" No, he replied, saying if he received 20 papers, the cost of printing them all out would be prohibitive. We were all thinking to ourselves, why the need to print them out at all? He writes his remarks separately on Word and includes a 1-2 page printout with our returned papers - what's keeping him from e-mailing his remarks and grade to each student? Or handing us the printout in class? All the profs are familiar enough with e-mail, even if they don't like using it.

But we can't yell at them too loudly. These profs come by their distrust honestly. When it comes to web-based technology, the whole college hamstrings itself that way. Try and look up your grades or financial aid info online, 24/7 - whups! Sorry! The automated system is closed, except during banker's hours. I don't know why. Maybe so that, in case of technical trouble, we can spend the rest of the day on the phone, attempting to get through to disinterested student assistants. Which, in turn, will keep them all gainfully employed.

Hmm. Actually, that makes a sort of diabolical sense. I may have stumbled onto a conspiracy.

Anyway, when I turned in my finals, I included a manilla envelope - self-addressed & stamped - with each. The profs looked at me strangely. Hey, if we're going to stay in the paper age, let's go all the way and support the snail mail industry as well.

The case of the disappearing teaspoons

Analysts at a research institute in Australia conducted a longitudinal cohort study of a mystery that plagues office kitchens all over the world. Go and read the whole thing. Brilliant! And it has charts!

Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom.

Design Longitudinal cohort study.

Setting Research institute employing about 140 people.

Subjects 70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute and observed weekly over five months.

Main outcome measures Incidence of teaspoon loss per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life.

Results 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons' value. The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years. At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.

Conclusions The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.

[hat-tip to 'mouse, by way of the new Scrine Wiki]

Escher's successor?

It's Saturday, so you have time to peruse this gallery of amazing Seamless pictures.

What X-Men character are you?

Courtesy of the Sacramento Bee: What X-Men character are you?

I took what I thought was the path of true peace and harmony ... only to find that, down in the depths of my blackened soul, I am secretly Magneto.

How like life itself!

Wake me up, Mr. Hershey

Two studies caught my eye today.

1. NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study hints that eating milk chocolate may boost brain function.

"Chocolate contains many substances that act as stimulants ... These substances by themselves have previously been found to increase alertness and attention and what we have found is that by consuming chocolate you can get the stimulating effects, which then lead to increased mental performance."

2. NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Women who fail to get enough shut-eye each night risk gaining weight, a researcher reports.

In a long-term study of middle-aged women, those who slept 5 hours or less each night were 32 percent more likely to gain a significant amount of weight (adding 33 pounds or more) and 15 percent more likely to become obese during 16 years of follow-up than women who slept 7 hours each night.

So, could it be that women who don't get enough sleep at night turn to chocolate as a brain stimulant, which causes them to gain lots of weight?  I can't speak for all wimmern everwhar, but around here, this would make a lot of sense!

Same office, different cubicle

See this great new flat-screen monitor? We Jr. Analysts finally got outfitted with new computers! W00t!

My desk looks particularly bereft because today we moved to another part of the building. Sitting in my new cubicle, it occurs to me that desk corners like this are built large enough to hold very bulky monitors. But look! There's an acre of space behind my monitor now. What should I bring to the office to fill the space?

Do you have any ideas?

Mwheh-heh.

Darn it

Now I want to play Humongous Tetris too!

Don't lean on me man 'cause you can't afford the ticket

There is currently a David Bowie CD is in the car. During today's drive to school, my 9-year old punched buttons on the player until she reached "Suffragette City".

Bunny: [semi-complainingly] I heard this song in my head all day yesterday.

Me: Yeah, it really grows on you.

Bunny: Considering I can't understand a word!

We listened in silence. I was already running answers in my head against the question that would invariably come next. "What is this song about?"

The fact is, I don't have a friggin clue. After all these years of listening to the song, all the opportunities to look up the lyrics ... Still not one clue. Why didn't I ever take the time to look it up? After all, I've had many questions of my own, over the years; this song has always irritated me on a subliminal level. I mean, I know what a suffragette is, but why sing about a city full of them? Where is Suffragette City? Does it exist on a map, or are we meant to think of it as more of a figurative social construct, signifying Women's Lib and a commensurate sexual freedom? If the guy figuratively (or even literally) traveled to Suffragette City, why is he back, and what did he get out of the experience? It sounds as if he brought a woman back with him; what is her story? And why exactly can't I "afford the ticket" if I happen to lean on the singer? What kind of threat is that? How much is the ticket in the first place? Maybe I can afford it, did he ever think of that? Particularly in light of the possibility that I may qualify as a suffragette myself.

Why, why did I not anticipate that one day, I might be looked up to as The Authority On All Things Seventies? Why did I not do my homework on the lyrics to incomprehensible songs like "Suffragette City"? Now, in a matter of moments, my authority would be put to the test ...

Bunny: What the heck is this song about?

Me: Um. [trying to sound philosophical] Many people have wondered ...

After a while ...

Bunny: I think it's about a girl.

Glory halleleujah!

These are wonderful

Utopian Endings for Reality Shows

The Apprentice

Fired intern says, "Great, I wanted to leave anyway. Your capitalist mindset is a futile path to happiness," then slips into a Che Guevara T-shirt. The other contestants mumble that it sounds good to them, and leave the boardroom en masse. Tired of the tyranny of their possessions, they abandon their wheelie suitcases, take the stairs to the lobby, run past the taxis, and go into the streets, where they use sales tactics to organize an anti-greed protest march. This culminates in thousands of people encircling Trump Tower, which is then turned into a free university.

Confer and confuse

A funny bit from today's meeting:

Specialist: The supervisors will have access to both real-time and historical statistical reporting.

Rep: If I'm reading this chart correctly, the Absences statistics only show up in the hysterical report ... whups, I mean ...

[Everybody laughs.]

Rep: Yes, you know! When you're a supervisor, you can get very hysterical about absences, and then you'll want to capture that hysteria in a special report!

Specialist: Not to worry. Supervisors can add their own hysteria to every report. 

Gadfrey! Bring me that little stripedy flag!

You Are 70% "Average American"

You are average because you don't think people should be jailed for using marijuana. You are not average since you have (at least) a college degree.

How "Average American" Are You?

The first question was slightly eerie. I realized that as far back as I can remember, I have never lived more than three miles from a McDonald's.

Tired and uninspired

I'm dearly wishing to write a parody of the Da Vinci Code, as solved in its entirety between 02:30 and 02:55 by the cast of '24'. It can be done! Unfortunately, I've only ever seen two episodes of '24', and don't really know the characters that well. And Wikipedia isn't much of a help - you can pick up some salient facts, but can't really capture the nuance of the show's five seasons from their one webpage. Wikipedia is like the Cliffs Notes of its generation that way.

Oh, well. Other than that, I got nuffin', blog-wise. Sorry. On Sunday, I suddenly became terribly tired; I haven't shaken it off yet. Have selected the least-intellectual piece of my latest project to complete at work today.

22:17 - Okay, so I watched the two-hour season finale of '24'. It was strictly for the sake of research. Seriously. Not because I am starting to get into the show or anything. We parodists have to study fresh material, you know, for the sake of the craft, just like every other devoted comedian.

Lady of leisure

It's 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, and for a lady of leisure, I've done a lot.

7:00 - Checked on N. Bill's two dogs, who are lonely while N. Bill is away on a fishing trip.

7:30 - Watched a movie with Bunnylou. "High Spirits" - not my favorite by a long shot, but it was nice to sit still all the way through a movie.

9:30 - Recorded some of N. Bill's CDs for our own collection. Received my Evil Music Mix. (It has that NIN/Johnny Cash song on it. Score!) Put both my blogs on the BlogHer list; secured a room (thanks to Debra!), finally got around to reading the itinerary for the two days.

11:00 - Called Grace. Got the skinny on even more super-secret itinerary madness.

12:00 - Ate lunch

12:30 - Spoke to Anthony, who has been in the hospital for the last few weeks but is home now. Procrastinated some more ... until ...

Bag that

We've all been good, responsible adults, have we not? We've endured our know-it-all children, our studies, our cats, our jobs, our finicky gadgets, our ever-capricious med levels ...

Let's ignore them all for now, and spend a few minutes here at the computer, coffee mug in hand, lusting after sporty bags on this completely ridiculous website. [via Maya's buddy, in a roundabout way]

::: cooooooool :::

Look, I'm sorry. I'm having a moment of capitalist weakness here. Blogher is just around the corner - I can't be the only kid at camp who doesn't have bling for her laptop, can I? All the cool kids will laff at me! Picture me instead sporting a computer bag named The Considerable Embarrassment. Heh.

Ciao bella!

DONE! I'll drive the political environment paper to school this morning, and that, as they say, will be that - at least for the summer.

And just in time. I arrived at the cliffside Italian restaurant in time to find all my blog friends stinking. drunk. and hitting on the waiters. Talk about awkward. What kind of tip do you leave after that? I don't even know the conversion rate. Finally, I wound up throwing down enough for a round of drinks, and I got those people outta there. I mean, I couldn't just leave them. Felt sort of responsible for them, as it was my imagination and all. Maybe they will reimburse me at Blogher in July? But not in lira, hopefully.

Friday cat-blogging

with Unremitting Failure.

Couldn't be worse

... than our current presidential administration. It's Teenage Girl President!

These are excellent! Read all of 'em here.