beancounters

Which sci-fi author are you?

I am: Ursula K. LeGuin Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

Which science fiction writer are you?

[via Maya]

Whups. Guess I'd better read her now, eh?

On second thought, no, dammit, I won't read her. It doesn't pay to know too much about yourself.

Thesis class

Last night's thesis class, as I predicted, was not disrupted by the threat of picketing. It seems that strike was a one-day thing only. Not that I would have honored a picket line in this case, not with my tuition already paid for and everything. Sorry.

During the first half of class, we were uncharacteristically quiet. Nobody made a sound while the prof was speaking. He unravelled the arcana of the thesis process while we sat still, eyes glued to him. We knew practically everything he was telling us already, but the pressure of wanting to get this paper done before the end of the semester in May made us listen carefully to all the details. And it's a good thing. Because really, allowing for the bureaucracy and the last edits, a student ought to turn in the final draft in late April, not May. Gulp.

OTOH, the drop-dead date for being considered graduated in Spring 2007 is actually in August. Each of us narrowed our eyes and carefully filed this fact away. August. Gotcha.

On fumes

I read someplace that most women will fill up their tanks when they get down to a quarter tank, while most men will wait until they are down to the fumes. I doubt if you can really split us up by gender when it comes to this preference. I myself am a 'down to the fumes' woman.

I hate stopping at the gas station. It's depressing. You're outside, it's cold, you're standing around like a dork, spending money on a product that gets pumped right into your tank and that you literally don't lay eyes on. You know what I mean. So when the warning light comes on, I just take it as a suggestion that it's time to mentally gear up to visit the gas station again soon.

Maybe if I stall long enough, the Rapture will come. And then I can swipe somebody else's car with a full tank. ::rimshot::

Strike?

Yikes.

Students are returning to Sacramento State Monday for the first day of the spring semester. Many of their professors will be picketing.

Members of the California Faculty Association are mad that they still don’t have a contract. Sac State government professor Jeff Lustig will be among the union members taking part in Monday's informational picket.

"How close are we to striking? None of us want to strike but if it comes to that to protect our own roles in the institution we’ll have to do that."

I can't see any of my profs suffering the indignity of walking around and waving big signs, but what if they do opt to strike? Sorry; can't cross a picket line. Maybe I'll do my thesis next year!

Grammar got run over by a reindeer

Sorry, I can't start school yet - I'm reading the very funny Eats, Shoots & Leaves (finally), and am busy laughing about being a stickler for grammar.

I'm not much of a stickler at all. Oh, I know my grammar rules, though you might not be able to tell from the grammar displayed on this blog. But only a few punctuation mistakes really get to me anymore. There was a time I would rant to anybody who would listen, "Look! The grocery store is selling tuna for point-fifty-nine-cents a can! Maybe they meant to write $.59, but who knows? They could be having an amazing sale. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to walk in there with a penny, and take a can of tuna to the register, and say, 'I believe this will cover it!' And then I will ask for my change."

After a while I got tired of all the stares, so I shut it down. Mostly. Except for a lot of eye-rolling. But after this book is read, who knows? Maybe now, no grocery store will be safe from my camera.

Mini road trip

It's Saturday, so we're all traveling down Highway 99 this morning to hang out with my mom before the semester starts.

Yes, all of us. Come on along! Be here about 9:30-ish, bring your own thermos and a few of your favorite CDs. No leeks, though, because my feelings are still hurt.

Before we go, we'll swing by Starbucks and take pictures of evil Illuminati signs. (Remember, even if you don't believe, they do! And that's just as bad! Or worse! Believe me! Or don't. It doesn't matter, because they believe. You better believe they believe.)

And while we're gone, I'm going to have BB build this home theatre system in the living room. Oh, yeah.

List'ning for the ringtone which will never come

I wish I could swing a leek around and around in the grocery store, and sing a catchy Polish nonsense song, and people around me would shriek and clap and immediately get what I was doing, instead of, you know, calling for security and everything. But it's lonely being the only internet addict on the block.

Long day. Don't ask.

Is this a hint?

Your dog isn't the baddest fido in the park without one of these pet coats from Hairy Grandkids. And you haven't read nuthin' until you've read my mom's review.

Friday roundup: Nobody loves a whiner

Geez. Re: last post: could things get more maudlin?  I got zero comments yesterday. Bloggers clicked away in terror. It was scary.

Let's clear the air with roof sex. [via Keith] (SFW but turn down the speakers a bit)

How to check out of your hotel room like a pretty princess.

Did we think one old coot starring in the next Indiana Jones movie was enough? Well, it wasn't!

"He's frumpy. Plain. Not in good physical shape. It's not a pretty sight.' This begs the question: would the residents of Saratoga, CA be less offended by a nude jogger who looked like, say, this perpetually half-dressed star?

Four Five things I haven't mentioned

1. The semester starts Tuesday, but the insomnia has already begun. And part of me wants to sit down and write a comprehensive schedule for the next four months (gad, only four months to write my thesis). But then my brain shouts gad, only four months to write my thesis, and something in my brain breaks off that train of thought before I begin sweating and hyperventilating. Then I go and play this game for about an hour until the panic goes away.

I'd say this cartoon sums it up perfectly. It's a relief to remember I'm not the only one!

2. Speaking of the game, I haven't won Flash Element TD yet, though not for lack of trying. The game goes up to level 39, but I usually run out of lives somewhere between level 34 and 37. I have tried all sorts of strategies involving tower combinations, rate of fire, etc. but to no use. Once I did make it all the way to 39, but it turns out the last army of creeps were small boys. It seemed like there were hundreds! And they just kept coming! The fire towers were swamped. I only have a few more days to succeed; I'm determined to stay off of all my game sites until June.

3. Sometime this spring this blog may go on hiatus, or at least on half-time status. Again, it's a matter of time and discipline. Specifically, I only have so much time, and historically very little discipline to make the most of that time. But part of my problem is definitely too much 'net usage. So guess what has to go.

4. I did apply for Dream Job about two weeks ago. I called early this week to follow up and to ask how to send proof of my exam eligibility to be added to my app packet. They hadn't gotten around to even reading the apps yet. Knowing state service, they could go on like this for months. On top of that, I don't actually know if this job would be right for me, but at least I took the first step.

5. My photograph of Thomas Jefferson's ghost seems to be missing from my photo baskets. I wanted to share a picture of TJ's grave at Monticello, which I took back in 1996, but I can't find it now. And who doesn't want the internet to have proof of life after death? Blame the Con!

Great sign

[via Neatorama by way of Daisy]

It's all about the Björnjamins, baby

We can't resist the name generators, can we? Especially when they offer free and 100% accurate personality assessments to boot.

Your Viking Name is ...

Otkatla Wargoat

Your Viking Personality: You're a fearsome Viking, but you aren't completely uncivilized. The other Vikings make fun of you for that. You are strong and tireless, frequently shouldering burdens that would tire lesser women.

Yuh damn skippy.

As a Viking, you're one of the "berserkers", and rush into battle with no clothes on. If the sight of you naked isn't enough to disable the enemy, your sword certainly will be.

Um .... No comment.

You might grumble a bit at the lack of amenities on board a Viking longboat, but you can handle it. Other Vikings tolerate your presence, though they're not quite sure if they can trust you to fight dirty.

Just like in my office.

People who've known you for a while don't always trust your word. You sometimes come off as a bit of a snob. Vikings are not snobbish people -- they either like you, or they kill you.

Just like in my family. Uncanny!

Blood loss

Buoyant enthusiasm for one's job is an admirable quality - except in a pick-wielding dental hygienist. Ow.

RSS S-t-r-e-s-s

A timely link from Infospigot: five ways to reduce RSS stress. Some sane and practical advice there. My favorite is the last one:

You just returned from vacation and the newsreader is overflowing with content that needs your attention. Here's a simple trick to handle this load - go to the root folder and select "Mark All Items as Read". [...]

I say, the rest of the advice is irrelevant. Heh. 

Shake it!

Roxanne's sure-fire cure for the State of the Union blues: Dancing Matt. I love this video, especially when it gets to that one part. (You'll know which part.) As Rox advises, bookmark Matt and replay him whenever the revolting rhetoric of the SOTU wears you down.

Photos for days

The photo project continues apace, on evenings when I want to settle in and watch TV. As of tonight we are deep into Basket #2 of 3, with no end in sight. One hour of 'Roseanne' barely made a dent in the August 2003 pile. The problem is, half the photos are mismarked as 1999. They have to be written on with the correct date, each individual photo. Because GOD FORBID we have Posterity looking at yet another picture of some kid in a raft, thinking it was 1999 when it was really 2003.

"What th'?" Posterity will mutter, setting aside his jeweler's loupe and his genealogy notebook, "surely these photographs are of Great-Uncle James at age eleven, yet how can that be? The date is off by four years. This changes my entire life's research!"

It makes a big difference. We must set the record straight! For posterity!

But my work is not without its little rewards. Remember last month, when I said we own a photo of Bunnylou, traumatized for life when she met Santa for the first time? Fouuund it ...

The dark side of blog-capture

So, I don't know. I went to Bloglines and tried to catch up on all my trivia blogs after being away last week. You know, the interesting shizzit sites like 3quarksdaily and Neatorama. I'm sorry, these are groovy sites, but there were easily 1000 posts waiting; Neatorama alone had 200 posts, which I think is Blogline's max. In my guilt over already spending too much time online, I became very intimidated and defensive, to the point where, in my despair, I finally deleted every single one of the saved posts in Bloglines and just resolved to start fresh.

Now, if I missed reading some fascinating article about how in 1902 the Dalai Lama once owned a fork which he spontaneously bent into the shape of Uri Geller, I guess I'll have to remain ignorant.

Greetings from HI

HI from above
Originally uploaded by beancounter.

Well, the field trip was a great success. The kids spent three days here at the Headlands Institute in Sausalito, where they did things like search through pond muck for tiny creatures to view under a microscope, and learn about adaptation and ecosystems and land stewardship.

And hike. Boy, did we hike. This was more exercise than I've had consecutively in a very long time! In our small group, the other chaperon and I always knew where our bottles of Advil were.

All us women-folk slept in the girls' barracks. I was afraid I wouldn't get any rest, what with 50 girls (from two different schools) babbling and running around, but it turns out all the girls were so dead-tired at the end of the days' activities, it was lights out at 9:15 and silent by 10:00. Or so I was told. I myself was fast asleep by 9:16. Both nights.

But during the days, I did pull my own weight as chaperon, especially on hikes, keeping our next generation from falling into the ponds or off of cliffs, and stopping them from touching dead possums they found on the trail ...

Living on deli time

Open letter to Scupper and Maya: Saturday for fresh orange delivery, I promise! Hopefully you and your cats will be safe from scurvy until then.

Clazy-clazy, the amount that two people can attempt to take with them on a mere two-night trip. We packed, unpacked, and repacked smarter, yet there still seems like too much.

But we don't want to pack too little, and then have it rain all over our one outfit or something. It's a toss-up.

Bunny's foot is officially healed, she's off crutches and out of the boot. But she says the foot is a still a little tender; it's anybody's guess if she'll try for the five-mile hike they've got advertised.

Somebody's mother called me tonight to tell me, confidentially, that her child has never been away from home in her life, not even for sleepovers. Eek! Compound this by, like, forty students, please. Yet they forbid us to bring alcohol. I ask you.

Funny: I was dead tired tonight, so we swung by Raley's grocery store for something very quick for dinner. Standing at the deli, my jaded eyes gradually focused on the glory of this revelation: complete chicken parmesan dinner for four, $13.95.

And the clouds parted, and a heavenly choir of angels sounded. Amen! I bought.

So, later, we're home, and eating like we've been starving. It's like, we cannot get this food into our stomachs fast enough. I couldn't understand why, until somebody remarked that everything tasted exactly like home-cooked. Ah-ha! That's because it was exactly like home-cooked. It made with all-Raley's foodstuff that we buy all the time, right down to the store-brand marinara sauce.

I was all, damn, the only difference between their meal and ours was the location of the kitchen!
Oh, plus the fact I had to pay retail for the dinner. Still, it's tempting to revamp our whole budget and let the grocery store deli cook all our dinners from now on. We don't need gas money, right?

Oh where is my haircut

It goes to show you cannot tell anything about a hair stylist by her digs. A couple of people referred me to a salon a few blocks from my house. At first, I couldn't figure out why. The place smells like squid, and has a football game blasting on the TV, and the woman approaches her job like she's Edward Scissorhands. But her haircut was one of the best I've had.