beancounters

It's a twister!

This part of California doesn't get tornadoes all that often. I think Nature is usually satisfied by punishing us with 110 degree temps every August for the State Fair; she basically leaves us alone the rest of the year. But in February 2005 we had some unusually foul weather, accompanied by several tornado sightings. Photographer Matt Adams went out to the fields in the Natomas area, near the downtown, and managed to capture these awesome shots. Check 'em out.

The big fish eat the little ones

So, did you do as I suggested last Saturday, and take clever pictures of your books? Yeah, me neither. Hello! What was I thinking?! I must have been delirious to even suggest it.

Here, let's try and find a better task today - one that doesn't presume we'll get out of our seats.

This is diverting: Fish, by Technophobe. The object: get 150 points. The way you get 150 points: eat small fish until you're big enough to eat medium-sized fish ... and then large fish ... all without getting eaten. Very tough.

Later: Um, I don't think it's actually possible to win this game. What are your thoughts?

Omnium bloggerum

All these pieces, strung together, might make one blog post of decent length. Let's find out.

* Regarding Twitter, I've been told I haven't really begun to explore all its functions. The person here at Dream Job who is in charge of pushing/pulling all internet-phobic employees into the 21st century says I need to develop a friend's list. Twitter will e-mail me to tell me when the friends are ... um, tweeting (sorry). So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

* Would you consider buying artisanal, small-batch, organic, environmentally-friendly, fair-trade chocolate from Grenada? Me, too, though the price is rather prohibitive right now. Tough luck!

* Since I took this job downtown, I've been walking a great deal again. It's .80 miles either way to my car, plus I usually walk 1 to 1 1/2 miles per day at lunch. I can really feel my muscle tone improve, but I haven't lost a single bit of weight yet, and I don't know why. (And no, it's not because I eat too much exploitative, environmentally-unfriendly Hershey's chocolate.)

* No news from music camp is good news. On Monday, Bunny called me from the nurse's office, distressed over feeling dizzy and having no appetite at all. The nurse came on the line and we discussed a lot of reasons for the sudden symptoms. On Tuesday, another call - Bunny was still dizzy, and claiming she had been exactly this dizzy "for the last month, Mom - but I didn't want you to worry". This time the nurse came on and said she'd try administering Dramamine. Yesterday - which was Wednesday - no phone call. So I assume it was a case of altitude sickness and that she's feeling better now. Either that or they've banned her from the phone altogether, and she is burning with resentment.

* Hell's bells, the last place a nice, healthy 10-year old should want to be is at our house, AKA The Land of 10,000 Symptoms. I've had a brutal head cold which made me an all-around beeyotch, while BB has been spending quality time with his doctors over twin diagnoses of high blood pressure and diabetes. Stay where you are, kid! Save yourself!

Oh noes, zombie fruit!!1!

And now, for something completely different ... the disturbing lives of fruits and vegetables.

You're it - AGAIN

Thief Asks For 'Time Out' In Police Chase

Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a "time out." [...] The robber asked for a "time out" using hand signals.

You can do that?! Oh, man! I can totally commit crimes now! The thing that always held me back was the fact that I can't outrun anybody for shit. Not even my kid, in the days when we used to play Tag.

After he regained his composure, police seized the two stolen phones and brought him to a station for questioning.

Oh, well. Wouldn't you know. The same thing happens with my kid - I signal time out, and she swoops in and tags me anyway on some technicality.

In vain

See, why can't they dump Blondie or Garfield, and put Frog Applause on the comics page instead? That's all I want. I don't ask for much ...

Our kidless week

Yesterday we took Bunny to music camp up in the foothills. This was not easy on ... me. (I really wanted to say it wasn't easy on Bunny. At the last second, I've decided to be honest and also to leave the spontaneous punctuation.) I acted like a scary Mommy Dearest, obsessively "helping" her pack on Saturday. By Sunday, I (hope I) was calmer and happier, as we made the trip to camp.

There are kids of all levels in attendance. The musicians in the intermediate orchestra she's in will have two lessons and one big rehearsal per day, in prep for a concert that takes place next Sunday. All this means she'll either come home as a grade-school music geek in the grand tradition of her father and me, or it'll put her off of the violin forever. Mwheh-heh.

Hey, now that it's done, all this nest-pushing has made me thirsty. One more cuppa, and then I'm off to work. Tonight, BB and I are enjoying a rootless existence by trying out a local vegan Vietnamese restaurant.

For Mom

Even Geoffrey Chaucer is getting into the LOLCAT craze! [via Nag]

Nowadays, we'd call them title mashups

It's Saturday, and it won't take you long to browse Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project. (Click on each photo to view a full assortment.) How did I miss this before? It seems that people go through library and bookstore shelves, finding phrases that could be strung together into a sentence or a story. The result is some fairly creative work. Reminds me of poetry refrigerator magnets, but on a larger scale.

Now, here's what you will do with the rest of the time you normally allot to my It's Saturday posts:

Create, and take a picture of, a new sorted book story, using your own books and magazines. Or even your DVDs! Hey, that might be a neat twist. (Cmdr Sue, with your impressive collection of movies, I'm talking to you.) Bonus points if you can create a haiku.

Twitter

OK, I just signed up for Twitter. And so far, I don't get it. People log on and say what they're doing at any given point in time. And half of them write in Japanese. And nobody is conversing with anyone else. It's enough to make one miss the formality of a chat room. Does that about cover it?

A web-what?

Well, the rumor was true. The director here at Dream Job has gotten very fired up over this phenomenon the kids are calling "Web Two-Oh". So she invited all of us employees to a seminar explaining all the new social networking tools that are out there, and giving us the opportunity to try them first-hand. She wants us to learn for learning's sake! This solicitous attitude is something I am unfamiliar with in public service. 

But then she went on to say we might be able to use some of these tools to connect with the public. Here, she lost us. See, this agency is not mandated to serve the public; our mission is to supply information and services to state workers and other agencies. How are we supposed to initiate contact with the public, concerning services they can't even use?

But hey, let's not let that nagging fact interfere. Particularly since we're allowed to learn some of these new-fangled Web 2.0 tools on the clock.

Hate me yet? No?

What if I tell you my first task will be to set up a brand-new "web log"? Followed by accounts with Flickr, del.icio.us, and Twitter? Aaaaah, there we go.

Er, they caught me on a calm week

Ah, who am I kidding? Even when I'm pissed, my blog language rarely elevates above PG. Call me frickin' Pollyanna.

[Yo, Potty-mouth, check your own blog rating here.  Thanks, Hoffmania]

What's all this about diet soda?

What are they trying to do - make  me switch back to martinis at lunch?

Although Diet Coke has a strong association with sport and health, it is actually a worrying mixture of neurotoxic and potentially carcinogenic high intensity sweeteners (aspartame and acesulfame K), tooth and bone destroying acids (phosphoric acid) and DNA damaging colourings (sulphite ammonia caramel), as well as psychoaddictive caffeine and other undisclosed ‘flavourings’.

It also contains sodium benzoate, which can be broken down into the listed carcinogen benzene in the presence of strong acids, such as the citric acid found in this product.

Soda manufacturers have been aware of this synergistic possibility since the 1990s, but without pressure from regulatory authorities to change their formula to prevent the formation of benzene, have continued to mix benzoates and acids.

Slow down, Turbo. I am having trouble finding anything that unequivocally backs up the homemade benzene claim. The FDA says they don't know much, but that they have surveyed a lot of soft drinks and found either no benzene, or benzene at levels below 5 parts per billion, which is the federal drinking water standard.

(Wait, what? Benzene levels are okay in your water? Isn't that reassuring. Around here, we're still dealing with carcinogens in our local aquafer, and now this.)

Anyway, I can't find anything that shows that diet soda ingredients create these huge amounts of benzene.

I'll look into this some more, but first I need some more of that psychoaddictive caffeine.

Hubba hubba

If only long skirts, loose-fitting sandals and an Ace bandage around the ankle were considered sexy. My social life would improve by leaps and bounds.

Make 'em laugh

Not bad! I scored 14 out of 16 on the Mental Floss musical aptitude quiz. The ones I mixed up were 'Carousel' and 'Kiss Me Kate' - my folks owned most of the soundtracks for the others, and I grew up singing the all these songs. [Thanks, Karen!]

Hey composer, your inventions blow

I'm particularly fond of antique clipart humor, so I'm glad to have found Married To The Sea, the alter-ego comic to Toothpaste For Dinner. Since it's Saturday, you have time to peruse the archives at leisure.

It's a miracle

Look, up in the sky - it's a Flying Spaghetti Monster cloud! Yes, even the USAF has been touched by His Noodly Appendage.

Mary? Merry? Marry?

Here's another American accent quiz, with which you may compare with others you've taken.

I sat here for the longest time, saying to myself, 'Mary was merry after she agreed to marry.' Once I decided that I actually pronounce those three words exactly alike, the rest of the quiz was a piece of cake. And the results were ... no surprise ...

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Midland ("Midland" is not necessarily the same thing as "Midwest") The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it's a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn't mean you're from the Midland.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Since I was born in this shaded area, and lived there until I was 14, it's a cinch this would be the home of my accent. At the same time, I think I pronounce words the same as all the Californians I know. That must mean Californians are all displaced Midlanders. Ah ha - this explains so much!

Pencil art

Dude, it's so meta, to create art with art supplies! Two Japanese artists have created some fantastic carvings out of pencils - see the gallery here. [via incognito Daisy]

The underworld of electronics retailing

It's a long read, but I highly recommend this article for the inside story on the shady crap they pull in electronic retail stores. Some of them have happened to you, and some you already know how to guard against ... but cumulatively? They'll still make you sick.

I remember sales guys used most of these at The Good Guys too, where I was a cashier for about three years. I was always particularly fond of #11, 21, and 23. And oh yes, #12 could have been written about me! Ah, good times, good times.