3258 Despair

Saturday, February 12, 2011

T-shirt: “If I’m mean it’s because you’re stupid.”

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I am very discouraged. if anyone should be aware of the power of words and the importance of using the correct word, it's journalists. I can be forgiven errors. Journalists cannot.

I read the following statement in a "U.S. News & World Reports" article credited to Rick Newman, about Mubarak's wealth:

Other Mubarak funds are reportedly sitting in British banks, and Mubarak was no doubt wily enough to squire away some cash in unlikely places.

I read that and my brain froze. The mental picture didn't work. "Squire"? Did he really escort the money to the unlikely places? Perhaps he also gave it a corsage? Or maybe he carried the money's shield? Perhaps the word should be "squirrel"? He squirreled the money away? (Mental picture is now one of a squirrel burying nuts. Yeah. That works.)

I guess Mr. Newman has heard the expression, misheard the word, and used what he thought the expression was without wondering where it came from or what it meant.

I've almost given up reading comments on articles. The average "U.S. News & World Reports" reader isn't exactly in the same league as "Wall Street Journal" readers, but should be at least a few notches above tabloid readers. But the comments on this article had me searching the pantry for peanut butter cups.
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3257 Things I found out today

Friday, February 11, 2011

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer --

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The only things my warranty/service contract on Hal doesn't cover is windshield wipers and tires. Today I found out what a BMW tire for Hal costs. $407. That's for ONE tire. Plus more for labor.

Driving back from the old house on Monday night I hit a deep New Jersey pothole. You can't see the fool things at night. Wednesday, Hal started complaining that his passenger side tire was low. Thursday I took him to the BMW dealership. Today they told me the bad news. The tire had developed an irreparable "blister", whatever that is. I needed a new tire.

$407 dollars worth of tire.

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Remember the mouse that had taken up residence in Hal? I asked the service guys to check and see what other damage the mouse may have done, and to please explain how he got in in the first place. The bits of chewed up paper in the trunk, the passenger cabin, and the glove compartment! meant he'd had access to the entire car.

They found that he'd chewed through the microfilter, which gave him access to the ventilation system. I needed a new filter.

I wonder if my insurance would consider a mouse a vandal?

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You know all those dead birds turning up all over the country? Turns out the USDA, and others licensed by the USDA, are killing them. They kill millions of birds every year, and have been doing so since the early '60s, to protect grain put out for cattle feed.

Search "dead birds USDA", and you'll get lots of hits, most of which contradict each other. Like, the USDA says they are responsible for only one killoff in the mid-west, but in another article they also take credit for a mass kill near my old house. And they have no idea how many kills are from those licensed folks, or from farmers just doing it themselves. Nobody's counting those dead birds.

The attitudes of the farmers and of the USDA are rather cavalier. Farmers: "They're just birds." USDA: "They're starlings. European starlings are a pest, and they're not native, they're invasive."

Um, they're also killing red-winged blackbirds by the millions, too, and they are definitely native. Whether the birds are native or not has nothing to do with it. They're poisoning any birds that feed in flocks, which are often varieties of blackbirds (red-wings, crackles, cowbirds, starlings).

How has this been going on for 50+ years, but we knew nothing of it? Can't farmers do something else to protect the grain they put out for dairy cows, like, oh, cats or dogs? Or covered feeding? Do those birds really have no other value? They do eat bugs, too, you know. How many carnivores have been starved out by these killoffs?

Next time you get bitten by a mosquito, or lose your tomatoes to Japanese beetles or your kitten to a hawk, blame the USDA.

General info: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0120/Bye-Bye-Blackbird-USDA-acknowledges-a-hand-in-one-mass-bird-death

The kill near my old house: http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2011/02/10/news/doc4d54707f4a02d656011346.txt?viewmode=fullstory

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On his 74th birthday, a man got a gift certificate from his wife. The certificate paid for a visit to a medicine man living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction.

After being persuaded, he drove to the reservation, handed his ticket to the medicine man. The medicine man slowly, methodically, produced a potion, handed it to him, and with a grip on his shoulder, warned, 'This is powerful medicine. It must be respected. You take only teaspoonful, and then say '1-2-3.' When you do that, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life, and you can perform as long as you want."

The old man was encouraged. As he walked away, he turned and asked, "How do I stop the medicine from working?"

"Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,'" he responded, "but when she does, the medicine will not work again until next full moon."

The old man was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1-2-3!"

Immediately, he was the manliest of men.

His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes, and then she asked, "What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.
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3256 Its time

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A ship is safe in port, but that’s not what ships are made for.
-- Admiral Grace Hopper --

______________________________________

I get annoyed when people say things like, "Jazz was the top music of its time", referring to The Jazz Era.

Duh. Anything is the top whatsis of its time. Otherwise it wouldn't have been its time, right?

(I am the most famous femme fatale of my time. My time just hasn't arrived yet.)
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3255 Tests - Medical and Turing

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

"When you are a minority voice, you begin to doubt your own competencies."
-- Catherine Orenstein, on the fact that only 13% of Wikipedia's contributors are female --

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I got a call from the doctor's office. The blood and urine results are back.

• I do have a UTI, and they'll phone a prescription to my local CVS.
• Glucose was 100 mg/dL, but since I was not fasting, that's ok, I guess.
• Vitamin D was low, so I'm to add a D supplement, twice a day.
• Total cholesterol was a bit high, so I'm to add flax seed oil. (but the ratio is low - in the very good range. The medical community differs on what that means, but it's been like that with me for ages, so I figure it must be ok. Besides, I don't know how I can possibly cut any more fats from my diet.) I was taking flax seed oil for a while, back when, but it makes me burp. Oh, well. I'll try again.
  
• Triglyceride is 99.
• And the real shocker - thyroid stimulating hormone is normal. Huh?

Sigh.

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I was reading an essay on the Turing test (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/mind-vs-machine/8386/3/). That's the dealy where a tester converses with a human and/or with a computer, and attempts to determine whether what he's conversing with is human or machine. The author participated in a test, and began to wonder what makes someone recognizably human.

An interesting observation was in the area of arguments. Humans, when arguing, tend to devolve into verbal abuse, and to begin simply reacting to the last statement, without regard to the full context of the argument, ignoring previous statements.

That kicked off thoughts. I hate arguing with people, precisely because with most people, that happens. They want to turn it into a sniping match, and I just won't do that. For that reason - that I keep going back to the initial disagreement, and ignore and won't react to sniping - they seem to feel that I don't argue fairly. I don't get it.

Think about the last argument you've had. Did you get off track, and just snipe?

To quote from the essay:

...argument is stateless—that is, unanchored from all context, a kind of Markov chain of riposte, meta-riposte, meta-meta-riposte. Each remark after the first is only about the previous remark. If a program can induce us to sink to this level, of course it can pass the Turing Test.

Once again, the question of what types of human behavior computers can imitate shines light on how we conduct our own, human lives. Verbal abuse is simply less complex than other forms of conversation. In fact, since reading the papers on MGonz, and transcripts of its conversations, I find myself much more able to constructively manage heated conversations. Aware of the stateless, knee-jerk character of the terse remark I want to blurt out, I recognize that that remark has far more to do with a reflex reaction to the very last sentence of the conversation than with either the issue at hand or the person I’m talking to. All of a sudden, the absurdity and ridiculousness of this kind of escalation become quantitatively clear, and, contemptuously unwilling to act like a bot, I steer myself toward a more “stateful” response: better living through science.

A slimmed-down version of the "most human" computer winner of 2010 is online, and you can chat with "him" at http://www.cleverbot.com/. I've had a few conversations, and very often felt like I was talking to a human. Warning - Cleverbot can get a bit naughty.

From the Cleverbot site:

A special version of the Cleverbot application has won the BCS Machine Intelligence Competition 2010, after taking part in a quick-fire Turing Test.

Cleverbot was running with notably more power behind it than is possible for the online version, with 24 separate instances conferring on their answer.

10 volunteers talked for 2 minutes each using a plain text interface, and the whole of the event audience voted on 'how human' each conversation appeared to be.

Cleverbot achieved an average rating of 42.1% human!

I believe that means 42.1% of the testers thought Cleverbot was human (as opposed to the real human competing against Cleverbot), and that means it actually passed the Turing test.
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3254 Short trip north

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

We kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong.

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I used to watch Antiques Roadshow a lot. Now I catch it occasionally, accidentally. I think the British version is more interesting. I noticed a telling difference between the "tone" of the American and the British versions: the American appraisers tell the people what they could get for the item if they sold it; the British appraisers tell the people what they'd have to pay to buy a replacement, therefore what they should insure it for.

Actually, that's a cultural difference. It's a subtle difference in the way we define value.

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The only prescription I take is Synthroid, 50 MCG. Under my prescription plan, I have to get them through the mail. I get a three-month prescription with three refills. When I get down to the last 10 pills, I go online and tell MedCo to send the next three-month batch.

Early last month, I went to the website to order more, and discovered there were no more refills. I need a new prescription.

I don't have a doctor here yet.

So I called my old doctor and asked if they could please send me one month's prescription, and that would give me time to find a doctor here.

No go.

She said I hadn't had a physical exam in two years, and I'd have to come in. Period.

I was a little confused, because I remember a LOT of blood drawn last year about this time, lots of visits, but she said yes, but that didn't include a physical. The next appointment I could get was February 7th. That meant no Synthroid for at least three to four weeks. My other choice would be to attempt to find a doctor here who is not only taking new patients, but would accept a new Medicare patient, and then I'd still have to get a physical and wait for the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) blood level results, blah blah.

So, yesterday I drove the 2.5 hours north for a physical.

My appointment was at 1 PM. I got to the village at 12:25, so I stopped in to see Piper and his daughter. I figured I'd get to the doctor's office at 12:50, since I wouldn't have to fill out any papers or anything.

Surprise. Sometime in the past several months, my doctor's group merged with another group, and they have a new computer system. I had to fill out the 10 pages of "past surgeries, dates, all vitamins and supplements you take, insurance numbers, emergency family members, family medical history" - all that crap detail that I don't carry around in my head and hadn't brought with me.

Hey, folks. All that stuff is in your old database, AND in that paper folder you keep looking in. Couldn't you find some nerd to write a simple program to transfer data from the old to the new database? Couldn't youse guys input from the paper folder when you knew I was coming? At the very least, will you let me look at the paper folder, and just copy the crap onto this new form, instead of wracking my brain trying to remember?

No, no, and no.

I've got strong pulses in my hands and feet, good reflexes, nothing weird about my skin (except that it doesn't fit very well any more), no chest noise, no lumpiness anywhere, etc., got a PAP, and paper to take somewhere (where?) for a bone density scan and a mammogram. Blood was taken for I don't know what besides the TSH level, and they gave me a prescription for another year's Synthroid. I mentioned that my morning urine has been smelling very bad, so they're going to culture it. Pending the blood, urine, PAP, bone density, and mammogram results, I was declared in marvelous condition for such a decrepit old bat.

Then I went to the old house. I had the little BMW, not the van, because freezing rain was predicted for overnight, so I couldn't bring much back, but I picked up a few things I had been missing, like more dishes, my moisturizer which I haven't been able to find around here, measuring cups, some books, etc. I turned the well pump off, just in case. And I set some mouse traps. That may have been a mistake. If I don't get back there soon, everything might smell of dead mouse. Well, that's not an odor I haven't dealt with before.

Then I went back to Piper's office to finish the earlier conversations. They had a meeting at 4:30, so I left at 4:15, and that's when I realized that if I headed south then, I'd be getting to The Oranges at about 5:45 - a very bad time, traffic-wise. So I decided to go to the diner for something to eat.

I hadn't ordered yet when my phone rang. It was The Hairless Hunk. He said he'd seen a little black convertible go by, and figured it had to be me. "Who else but you would drive a beautiful little car like that on this sloppy salty road?" The phone conversation was getting long, and I was uncomfortable talking in the diner, so I invited him to the diner for coffee.

As usual, we talked. And talked. I don't know if he's starved for conversation, or if he's always like that. It's amazing how much time we can talk, and never seem to run out of topics. We were still at the table three and a half hours later. Yeah, I kind of miss him. I don't want anything beyond a mild flirtation, but I really do like talking with him. Plus, he's pretty. Plus it's a boost to my ego to know that he finds me .... interesting. My daughter finds me boring.

It did rain on the drive back south, but it didn't freeze.

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When I was standing at the window in the doctor's office, a woman was talking to the other receptionist, and was annoyed to discover that her 1 o'clock appointment was at the other office, not this office. The two offices are about 5 miles apart. The receptionist said, "Well, if you just go there, you'll be only 5 minutes late. They won't mind." The woman snapped, "Oh, I don't care about their time. It's MY gas!"

I'm sorry, but I couldn't help saying to my receptionist, "I just drove 2 and a half hours for this appointment, and all I want is a refill of my prescription."

I'm unsympathetic.

Mainly because I don't believe their insistence on my coming in was for my health. I suspect they held my prescription hostage for their bottom line.
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3253 A political observation

Sunday, February 6, 2011

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."
-- Albert Camus --

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From Asecular.com, on March 22, 2010. I find it interestingly prophetic.

Another striking thing about this Obamacare story is what it says about the difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to the wielding of power. This is an oversimplification I know, but the basic difference is that Democrats believe in the value of government and campaign so that they can win elections and then do things to improve government and run it competently. Republicans, on the other hand, don't believe government has any value and so campaign so that they can win elections so they can do the things necessary to win more elections and consolidate their power. This was summed up nicely in Gingerich's remarks about health care just before it passed in the House, "[If Democrats pass health reform,] they will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years [by pushing civil rights legislation]." Not only was he saying that Democrats had just done a foolish thing by passing a bill that hadn't been polling well, but he was also implying that their passing the Civil Rights Act had been foolish because it hadn't been in the service of holding onto power. These guys are all completely Machiavellian, and it's great that we have days such as today when their masks are ripped off and we are shown, to be frank, how evil they are.

This was brought to mind yesterday by all the Regan-worship going on now. His record has been whitewashed. I was there. I remember. And Field remembers, too. Read http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2011/02/glossing-over-history-for-gipper.html

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Some things kinda neat, but not covered in the news reports from Egypt:

You know how praying Muslims form lines and blocks? We see them praying in the square in Cairo in news reports and photos. What we haven't seen is that during prayer times, Christians, non-Muslims, and others have been forming shoulder to shoulder protective rings facing outward around the ones praying.

Also, shoulder to shoulder protective lines are circling the museums.

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When I saw "The King's Speech", it didn't occur to me then, but later I realized, "Hey, the wife was the Queen Mother! Wow!" I was once about five feet from her. The real Queen Mother, I mean. Not the actress.
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3252 Repeating an old post

Sunday, February 5, 2011

A relationship is about give and take. Love is all about giving.

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This post is originally from Sunday, August 7, 2005

#320 Musings on the Paranormal

All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.

James Randi is out to debunk all claims of paranormal abilities. The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a one million dollar prize to anyone who can prove that they have such abilities, and can demonstrate them in a two tier test designed and administered by the foundation. They claim that "To date, no one has ever passed the preliminary tests." Details at http://www.randi.org/research/index.html.

Some of my friends are gloating that the most recent candidate (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=cfaca0798a4edde39e260ba54d327aa0&threadid=46657) failed miserably, having performed at even less than what random probabilities would predict (which is not an accurate statement, because given the design of the test, there could be no prediction, but anyway....) Results are at http://www.randi.org/documents/AchauNguyenTest.html. I'm not surprised either, but not because such abilities cannot possibly exist. I'm not surprised because of the conditions of the test, and because, well, the test subject may have been a bit deluded.

In my opinion, there are four classes when it comes to paranormal phenomena:
1.) Disbelievers of the "I have an open mind, I'll believe it when I see it" persuasion.
2.) Disbelievers who reject even the possibility, and who wouldn't believe it even if they did see it.
3.) Believers who are whacked out weirdoes who will believe anything they want to believe.
4.) Believers who are so because they have experienced it for themselves.

At the risk of ridicule, I will state that I am frankly and firmly in the fourth group. That doesn't mean I will believe any claim that comes down the pike. But I do believe there is more out there than we know right now. Call it another dimension if you like. Fairies. Whatever.

I have experienced very detailed precognitive repeating dreams that scared me. It happened. I experienced it, and yes, I did tell people about the dreams, and when they then came true, right down to the details, the precognitive aspect was independently verified.

On many occasions, I have experienced the disembodied voice in my head that told me something I could not have known otherwise, and I did in fact mention it to others, and it was verified. One example of what I mean: We had adopted a beautiful pregnant little Russian Blue. I was holding her on my lap one day, and I said to Ex#2, "I wonder how many kittens she's going to have?" and the phrase "Three and two" popped into my head, in a voice different from my normal "thinking voice".
I repeated it aloud: "Three and two."
Ex#2 looked up and said, "What?"
Me: "Three and two. It just popped into my head."
He: "What does that mean?"
Me: "I don't know. I think it has to do with Suzy's kittens." A few weeks later, Suzy gave birth to three female and two male kittens. Ex#2 was a little bit afraid of me because of stuff like that.

I scared Jay's father one time by slowing down before a curve on a hill one night, and creeping around the curve. When I slowed down, he asked "Why are you stopping?", and as we crept around the curve, a herd of about 20 deer came down the hill and crossed the road. It was not a deer crossing zone. He looked at me in shock and said "How did you know?" I always know when there are deer in my path. I also always know when there is a patrol car hidden nearby, long before I see it. (Ex#1 found that very useful. He was too stupid to be afraid of it.)

I've had a three-year-old tell me detailed stories of a prior life in another culture, in a very much older voice, using terms that were not a part of her vocabulary. All the descriptions, the terrain, the animals, the clothing, the food, the family relationships, the homes, the customs, all, all fitted together. She described daily items like a clay beehive oven, far removed from her three-year-old experience. She referred to her "Before-Mommy". ("Before mommy?" "Yeah. My mommy before you.") She described her previous death from pneumonia at age 12. All this from a child at an age where what exists in the now is and was and shall ever be as it is.

Lots more.

So yeah, put me firmly in group four. Although I have no command of it. And as I get older, it happens less and less. I think life has closed my mind more and more. It's harder to be open.

I'm not surprised that the candidate failed the test, even if I assume he's not in group three, because Randi's Foundation is frankly negative. They make it clear from the start that the test will be adversarial. The observers/judges start out negative. Even if the ability exists, and even if it can be done on command, I suspect negative energy interferes, and the foundation is relentlessly negative. So I don't think the foundation is proving anything (even though it is impossible to prove a negative anyway) because it's not a fair test. Everything about it conspires to ensure failure.

As an example, I can debunk your claim that you can start a fire with kindling, flint, and steel. You just have to play by my rules. The test will be conducted out of doors, with no cover, in a driving windy rainstorm, using the wet kindling at hand. That's pretty much what the foundation does to their candidates. They rain negativity.

(Plus that I suspect most of the candidates are nuts, but that's beside the point.)

There are those who will believe only what they see, and those who will see only what they believe. The potential for reward is far greater if we are neither.

~~Silk

3251 Free clothes, unfettered police, and a semi-HOTW

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
-- George Bernard Shaw --

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A few weeks ago I mentioned how I had used a sale, a preferred customer discount, and earned coupons to get a jacket, sweater, jeans, and slacks, over $200 retail, from my favorite online boutique for just $9, the shipping cost.

Today I got an envelope in the mail. They have promoted me to "Elite customer". I still get the purchase points toward coupons and all the other goodies, but now I also get an automatic additional 5% off all purchases (no minimum, applies to the outlet, too, and can be used with other discounts and coupons), and free shipping on all purchases.

That last "purchase" would have been not only free, but they'd have owed me money!

Really, people. I buy only from the outlet and never pay more than 20% of their original retail price. I have a Visa card through them, and I get points toward coupons no matter what I use that card for. Pretty soon, they'll be just sending me free clothes.

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This is weird. At least three states, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Oregon, have passed eavesdropping laws that make it a crime to audio-record a conversation without the consent of all parties involved. You can go to jail for doing it.

As a contrast, in New York and a few other states, for example, only one party to the recording has to be aware, which means you can record an interaction you are having with someone, but you cannot tape/film/record something happening between other unaware people. The big difference, however, is that although the "illegal" recording cannot be used in court, you won't go to jail for doing it.

Here's what it means (from the Switched story at the link): "In Chicago, the law is drawing significant attention because, there, recording interactions with law enforcement officials constitutes a class one felony that can carry a sentence of up to 15 years in jail, even if the conversation happens in public. The New York Times has reported on two cases that are due to go before a judge this spring, and could result in serious jail time." (Recording someone other than law enforcement officials is a lesser felony and can get you no more than five years. They're serious about protecting police, prosecutors, and so on.)

The ACLU has brought federal suits challenging the law, but the suits have been dismissed by Illinois judges.

From the NY Times article, "Mark Donahue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his organization “absolutely supports” the eavesdropping act as is and was relieved that the challenge had failed. Mr. Donahue added that allowing the audio recording of police officers while performing their duty “can affect how an officer does his job on the street.”"

No shit. Is he really saying that the police would be hindered by allowing people to see/hear what they do/say in their interactions with the public? I could spend 15 years in jail for recording an officer attempting to coerce sexual favors from me during a traffic stop, even if the recording proves his guilt? Am I the only person frightened by the suppressive effects of that law, and by Mr. Donahue's implication?

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DeSean Jackson sure is pretty. I'd feel like a child molester if I made him Honey of the Week, but I do like looking at him. Such pretty eyes, cheekbones, smile, arms. And he's not big and bulky like most of his teammates. He's smooth and tight. If he were twenty years older, he'd definitely be a HOTW. Click on the link for the pix.
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3250 Power Play

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Some people are like a Slinky, not really good for anything,
but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

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Becs mentioned yesterday that someone in a meeting raised her arms several times. I was reminded of meetings with the lawyers at corporate headquarters, back when I did that sort of stuff. The attorneys, even when they're working for the same company, seem to always be in competition with each other. Scoring points.

I had noticed that when meetings were tense, and when one seemed to feel that he had just made an important point, or when someone else had made a contentious point, he would "assume the position". He'd lean back, link his fingers behind his head and swing his head and elbows back, and gaze thoughtfully at the top of the opposite wall, or tilt his head sideways to look at others at the table as they speak.

Try it. It's actually very relaxing. Loosens any tension in the upper back and neck.

There's actually several things going on: 1) It's relaxing when the tension has built up and can help you to think. 2) It's a power position. It demonstrates, "I'm not worried. I am relaxed and in control and I'm carefully considering what the rest of you peons have to say, but you can't affect me. My position is secure." 3) It reveals that you were tense, which sort of negates the second effect.

But I doubt that others at the table analyze it that deeply. Mostly it just comes across as an unconscious power position. You look at him, you are tense, he is obviously relaxed, therefore he's one up on you.

One day I was in a meeting at The Company headquarters in White Plains. There were five attorneys at the table - and little peon non-attorney me. At one point, I brought up something worrisome that none of them had considered before, and that no one had an answer for. No one spoke in response, but all five of them assumed the position. I looked around the table, five men in identical position, leaning back with elbows in the air, staring off into space, then I slowly leaned back, linked my fingers behind my head, flexed my elbows back, and stared at the wall --- and the whole table cracked up.

They treated me more like an equal after that. At least, for the duration of that meeting.
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3249 I've been reading.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

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Pardon my wandering away this week. Yesterday I accompanied Daughter for a three-hour glucose tolerance test, and then drove a hour and forty-five minutes north to join the old Mensa group for dinner at Gasho.

In between other stuff, I've been reading a lot and listening to the radio, all about Egypt.

If you want the REAL skinny, follow The Sandmonkey.

An excerpt:

... In the meantime, State-owned and affiliated TV channels were showing coverage of Peaceful Mubarak Protests all over Egypt and showing recorded footage of Tahrir Square protest from the night before and claiming it's the situation there at the moment. Hundreds of calls by public figures and actors started calling the channels saying that they are with Mubarak, and that he is our Father and we should support him on the road to democracy. A veiled girl with a blurred face went on Mehwer TV claiming to have received funding by Americans to go to the US and took courses on how to bring down the Egyptian government through protests which were taught by Jews. She claimed that AlJazeera is lying, and that the only people in Tahrir square now were Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. State TV started issuing statements on how the people arrested Israelis all over Cairo engaged in creating mayhem and causing chaos. For those of you who are counting this is an American-Israeli-Qatari-Muslim Brotherhood-Iranian-Hamas conspiracy. Imagine that. And MANY PEOPLE BOUGHT IT. I recall telling a friend of mine that the only good thing about what happened today was that it made clear to us who were the idiots amongst our friends. Now we know.

In that post, he mentions delivering medical supplies. This is what happened to him (Mahmoud) and his friends on that mission.

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Here in the US, we know about Wikileaks, but we don't know (or care?) a whole lot about what was leaked. The rest of the world is going crazy with it. In fact, Wikileaks may have had a lot to do with energizing the recent revolts throughout the golden crescent. Read Sandmonkey's Nov. 29 posts.
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3248 Retribution

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

"My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare."
-- Mike Meyers --

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I hear groundhog tastes like chicken.
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3247 Cold pressed

Monday, January 31, 2011

“While you may be very careful about what you pay for with your money, you are probably less careful about what you pay for with your attention. In the long run, how you spend your attention affects your life far more profoundly than how you spend your money.
Attention is energy. Whatever you feed it to will grow.”
-- Alan Cohen (Why Your Life Sucks, Page 70) --

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jasper plays a lot, but I don't get to watch him play unless I happen to be on the other end of the toy. I hear balls rolling, or catnip pillows being "killed", or hanging bells being jingled, but if I look over at him, he stops, leaves the toy, and comes over to me. I hear him chasing something from one end of the house to the other upstairs, but no matter how quietly I sneak to the stairs, when I get to the bottom, he's sitting on the top step looking down at me. I don't know what's going on up there.

He sits on the window sills when I'm not in a room. I see him in the living room window watching me when I'm on the front porch, and I've seen tiny paw prints on almost all the sills. But I've never seen him get up there. I don't know how he gets past/around/under/through the curtains.

The only way I can watch him do anything, including eating, is to cover my face with my hands and peek through my fingers, so he can't see my eyes. Even then I have to turn my face aside and look sideways, or he's not fooled.

I've never seen him drink water.

I don't know why he keeps all these secrets. It's not like he's afraid he's doing something wrong. About the only times he's ever had to be told "No!" is about getting on the kitchen counters or getting too close to an outside door. Otherwise we've never had any arguments.

I've never even seen him use the litter box.

Hmmmm. Jasper and The Man have a lot in common.

--------------------------------

I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm not sensitive to temperature - that's just what it feels like. Evening to evening in this house, as long as it's not windy, the temperature is fairly steady. Most evenings I'm fine. But some evenings, I freeze.

I am freezing this evening. I'm sitting here wrapped in a knit cape topped by a new rust red tan brown crochet shawl with only my fingers and head exposed, and I'm freezing. I'm thinking about going to bed, just to get warm.

And then I realized that every evening that snow or precipitation was predicted overnight, I've gone to bed especially early.

I wonder if I'm actually sensitive to drops in atmospheric pressure, and it registers as feeling cold.

Is that possible?

-------------------------------------

Know how you can't buy wintery stuff in the winter? I had a telescoping snow-pusher-offer thingy. Brand new in December. Last week, after the last snow, Daughter turned the pusher-thingy head without pressing the release button, and it broke. So now I need a new snow-pusher-offer thingy, and it needs to be telescoping because I'm so short and the roof of the minivan is so high and wide.

I went to three stores this evening, and none of them - including a huge auto parts store - had any, and none expect to get any more.

Yeah, I have one at the old house, and also a push broom that works if one doesn't mind marks on the edge of the roof, but Fred the van and I are here, not there. And if I bring them here, that leaves nothing to use there.

Why do they stop stocking winter stuff when there's two more months of winter to go? Do they really think nothing ever breaks or gets lost? Doesn't the fact that what they had sold out quickly, and people are still asking, tell them anything? Is anyone really buying lawn mowers right now?
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3246 Anthem, guns.

Monday, January 31, 2011

" And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A [person] should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning."
-- Isaac Asimov --

-------------------------------------------------------------

Field's topic Saturday involved renditions of the national anthem, and he touched on Marvin Gaye's and Whitney Houston's. He said, "Whitney wasn't bad, but Marvin's version was transcending."

Now, I dearly love me some Marvin, but I'd never heard him sing the anthem. I do remember hearing Whitney in real time, though. I didn't have the faintest idea who she was then, and I don't watch sports, so I caught it by accident, but I was blown away. I cried.

So I had to go listen to both versions. Yeah, Marvin was good. Marvin is always good. Do love me some Marvin. But once again, Whitney's killed me. I cried again.

---------------------------

Someone on TV said recently that people who want to carry guns all the time feel threatened all the time.

I had to think about that for a while. Based on next to no information, no facts, no studies, I think I believe it. It's been my experience, anyway, limited as it is.

I've known a few people who had permits to carry concealed weapons, and they did strike me as people who always felt threatened. Even walking the same streets as I, shopping in the same stores, dealing with the same people, they saw threat everywhere. I didn't. I don't. I certainly didn't feel any safer with them. I wonder whether carrying a gun made them more conscious of the possibilities, or seeing possibilities everywhere made them want to carry the gun. Chicken or egg. I don't know.

Maybe it has to do with past experiences, their own or something that happened to someone they knew. A kind of civilian post-traumatic stress.

I know someone now who sees the threat of violence everywhere, resulting in a constant alertness, vigilance, and if you knew the stories, you'd understand why. In his case a side effect is not a desire to carry a gun, but to an intense hatred of guns and all those who carry them.

Or maybe it's the political climate. We are being taught by the media that we should fear. To fear "the other", anyone not like us, and that should the unthinkable happen, you're on your own. Nothing has happened to make people feel threatened as individuals - not yet anyway - but "it's right around the corner".

I consider this a political thing because one way to control people is to make them afraid, then convince them that only you can be depended on to protect them.

Theories, anyone?
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3245 Tiny Ant

Sunday, January 30, 2011

I was depressed last night so I called Lifeline.
Got a call center in Pakistan, and told them I was suicidal.
They got all excited and asked if I could fly a plane.

--------------------------------------

I said the ants were tiny. This is the tip of my index finger, flattened on the scanner plate. That's a tiny ant flattened on the tip of my finger. The squished end of my finger is 5/8" across. That's a tiny ant!

-------------------------------------

Later: They're Pharaoh ants (sometimes misspelled Farrow ants), and the little ant bait traps you put on the floor seem to be working.
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3244 The pitfalls of ownership

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Everyone we meet in life is meant to show us either who we are or who we are not.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I read somewhere that Mark Zuckerberg is living in a "modest house" he is renting somewhere in California. The author of the article expressed great surprise that a) the house, though large and luxurious, is not a mansion on a walled estate, and b) he's renting. Not purchasing.

In my opinion, he's smart.

(The rent, by the way, is $7,000 a month.)

No one needs more house than he needs, and Mark is smart enough to know that. And renting is sometimes preferable to buying, because if something goes wrong, you don't have to fuss over it yourself, and if fixing it is too big a problem, or you decide to go somewhere else, you can walk away.

So if you aren't thinking in terms of investment, and you have better things to do and to think about than fussing over a building, renting might be the most convenient way to go.

Mark Zuckerberg can certainly afford to opt for convenience.

--------------------------------

The last time I was at the old house, I ran in to get some avocados I had been growing. I had to come straight back, so I didn't spend any time there.

I didn't bring the avocados back.

Last time I'd seen them, they were about a foot tall, growing out of the pits half sunk in soil. This time, there was no sign of green. Nothing whatsoever. Not like they'd wilted and fallen over. Gone. And the pits had been eaten, chewed right down to the top of the soil.

Mice.

It was apparent that the mice were running rampant.

That house, being in woods near fields, always had mice in the fall. They move in looking for a warm place for the winter. In the past, they were confined pretty much to the basement with occasional short forays into the kitchen and laundry room.

With no human and no cat to frighten them, they seem to have pretty much taken over the house.

I am now worried. I'm afraid that they might build nests in the upholstered furniture and mattresses. At the rate things are going, and with the snow not cooperating, I'm afraid it will be well into spring before I get that stuff moved.

Next trip up, I'll have to set traps. Sorry poor mice. I do like and admire you, but most of my furniture has gone 100 to 150 years without musty mouse scent, and I'd like to see it last a little longer.

--------------------------------

I don't understand my electric bill from the old house. The bill includes a bar graph showing usage for the previous several billing periods, and from the same period of the previous year, for comparison. The bars are marked as to whether it's from an estimated or actual meter reading.

I'm on a budget plan, so I pay the same amount every month regardless of the usage, so I wasn't expecting the actual bill to be lower, but I was expecting to see a lower KWH usage, and eventually to start running a credit and recalculation of the budget amount.

Since the beginning of November, there has been ONE small light on. The water has not been run, so the well pump has not been running. Although the water heater is on, it has only had to maintain the constant temperature - no hot water going out, no cold coming in. The refrigerator and freezer are on, but the doors have not been opened. The oil furnace is on, but the entrance doors have not been opened, so it should be running less than when people are going in and out. I can't think of anything else that would be using electricity. (No, neighbors are too far away to be running an extension cord, and the exterior outlets are off at the box, anyway.)

And yet, the electric bill says I've used the same monthly amount of electricity as when I was living there, and the same as last year, and claims it's from an actual reading.

Bull poopy!

Next time I visit (if we ever have a week without snow!) I intend to read the meter myself!
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3243 Ants!

Saturday, January 29, 20011

Isn’t everybody pre-med? Either you’re a doctor, or you’re not…yet. Right?

-------------------------------------

I have ants! They're the tiniest ants I've ever seen in my entire life!

Jasper likes Hartz "Crunch 'n Clean" kitty treats, and this morning I dropped a few on the carpet in the hall for him. Normally they disappear quickly, but this morning he'd just had breakfast, so he ate only two and left three lying there. I just walked past them, bent to pick them up and drop them into his food dish, and one of the three was covered with ants. Ants so tiny it would take 20 of them end to end to make an inch.

Where are they coming from? Why only one of the treats? What do I do now? Ants have never been a big problem anywhere I've lived. The old house would get a few big black ones in the spring (not carpenter ants, just big black ones), but they were usually just lost and passing through, new spring swarms looking for a good nesting place.

I immediately checked Jasper's food dish - no ants. Checked the kitchen garbage can - no ants. Checked the pantry - no ants.

I'm a little bit freaked.

The old house had clothes moths everywhere, mice coming up from the basement, and yellow jackets and hornets who liked to nest in the cars, but for some reason they didn't bother me as much as tiny ants here.

-------------------------------------

Later: I found out what they are. See http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2011/01/3245-tiny-ant.html
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3242 The Unhonored Others

Saturday, January 29, 2011

"Every true genius is bound to be naive"
-- Friedrich Schiller --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's been a lot of ... reminiscence? ... the past few days on the 25th anniversary of the shuttle explosion. I am a bit annoyed that almost all of it is all about the teacher who was on the shuttle. Boston.com's "Big Picture" did a whole photo essay on her yesterday.

There were six other people on that shuttle! I challenge anyone to name ONE of them without looking it up. They were not less valuable. What happened to them was not less horrific. I hate the way they have been pushed aside.

I guess the strength of my anger comes a lot from 9/11 and Jay's reaction. There were a few thousand people who died in the towers, but we have ignored all the people who died in the ripples. Jay was one of them. He fought his illness hard, until the towers fell. He thought the world would be plunged into war, and he realized he would not be able to protect me, that in fact he would be a burden on me in the hard times to come, so he gave up and died. He gave up that day, stopped fighting. We all could see it.

I wonder how many very ill people in homes and hospitals died in September and October of 2001. You know how "they" say death rates go up after Christmas, people who hang on until after the holidays? People can choose to live or choose to die. I think a lot of people (who might even have eventually recovered) gave up when they thought they might have been a burden to their loved ones. I consider a lot of those people victims of 9/11 as much as the ones in the towers.

They got no honor.

Their families didn't get to share in the millions of dollars handed out to "the victims of 9/11". Their names don't get read on the anniversary. That pisses me off. I consider Jay a victim of 9/11. Yes, I know Jay probably wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway, but that's not the point. The point is that there's more damage than the obvious, more than the famous, and we ignore all the others. Like they don't count.

To refresh your memories, the others killed in the Challenger disaster were Ellison Onizuka, Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Greg Jarvis, Ron McNair and Judith Resnik. Have you ever even heard of them? How do their families feel when everyone acts like the only person on the shuttle was Christa McAuliffe?
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3241 Awesome and Awful

Thursday, January 27, 2011

No man has a prosperity so high or firm, but that two or three words can dishearten it;
and there is no calamity which right words will not begin to redress.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson --

-----------------------------------------------------------

I came across two maps today that are amusing and interesting - identifying what each of the states should be proud of, and what they should be ashamed of. I have not attempted to embed the maps, because you need to see them fullsize to easily read the labels.

Proud:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/tumblr_lfnpakEGBp1qd0p40o1_r1_1280.jpg

Ashamed:
http://pleated-jeans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/The-United-States-of-Shame.png

The article:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/01/the_united_states_of_awesome.html
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3240 That's why.

Monday, January 21, 2011

The Japanese have a term, muda, which refers to activity that doesn't add value.

--------------------------------------------------

After the previous post, I was wondering why any man would have that "wanna get married" urge.

A few minutes ago I was standing on the porch when Hercules returned from work and pulled into the driveway across the street. It's full dark and cold, but the lights were on in the house, it looked warm in there, and I could catch glimpses of Daughter puttering in the kitchen.

I imagined his entering the house and greeting his six-months-pregnant wife ...

... and that's why.
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3239 Happy?

Monday, January 24, 2011

“Red flags when you’re dating don’t disappear after the wedding.”
-- Shelley at thehormonezone.blogspot.com --

----------------------------------------------------

The green quotes up there are random, just the next one in my list, and seldom have anything to do with any post topic. But today, it almost applies.

I've been thinking about an old friend whom I haven't seen in a few years. He was one of my doctors in the '80s, and we became friends. At one point, he decided he wanted to get married, and married the first woman who said yes. Some men do that. They seem to suddenly decide it's time, and they'll fall madly in love with the first woman who'll have them.

They had two kids right away, and then ....

He confided in me that he was unhappy, because she seemed to make no effort anymore to make him happy. Stuff like he was on a strict macrobiotic diet (she and the kids weren't), so when he got home from the office every day, she had cooked dinner for herself and the kids, and had eaten, but had made nothing for him. And she'd make plans with her friends, and if it was something he didn't want to do, or people he didn't like, she'd just go without him.

I listened sympathetically and kept my mouth shut for a long time, until I'd about had it with his whines and complaints that "She doesn't make me happy."

I sat him down one day and told him, "Your happiness is not her responsibility! Not her job. Your happiness is your own job. Either you are happy in yourself, or you're not. Another person can increase your happiness, but they can't create it. So if you're not happy, it's because you're looking for someone to give it to you instead of making it yourself. And no, I can't tell you how to do that. You need to figure that out yourself. What I do know is that people like to share happiness, and to increase happiness that's already there. If you're happy in yourself, maybe she will be more willing to share it with you. You were happy yourself back when you first met, and happy when you were dating, and the two of you had a lot of fun, but then you, like, handed over the happiness generating job to her. It's not a job she signed up for."

He thought about it a long time. He found a few things that made him happy, got more involved with the kids and some external activities, some work on the house that made him proud. He did seem happier and more content. But eventually they divorced anyway. They really weren't suited from the beginning, had been dating less than a year when they married, and any of us watching could have told him that they had too little in common except that he wanted a wife and she wanted a husband, but, when a guy's in the "wanna get married" fever, nothing else matters.

I last saw him about five years ago. At that time he'd been dating a woman for a long time, maybe five or eight years. The ex had taken everything, including the house and a large chunk of support. He was living in the semi-finished basement of his chiropractic office and had the kids every weekend and most of the summer, and he seemed happier and more contented than ever.
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3238 Sunday Thoughts

Sunday, January 23, 2011

"Male circumcision has long been an operation in search of a disease," wrote members of the group Doctors Opposing Circumcision in the May 12th edition of The Lancet.

----------------------------------------------

New Jersey is famous for potholes. The Man has replaced a few tires and rims wrecked in potholes, and Hercules actually totaled a car, breaking an axle.

When I started doing a lot of local driving here, I didn't see that many, but as the winter progresses, they're starting to scare me. Some of them are HUGE and DEEP! I don't want to think about how much rims for Hal cost. Lately I'm driving slow enough and with enough space between me and the car ahead so that I can see them in enough time to veer around them.

I also noticed something else - they plow right down to the blacktop here. The plows are set low. After a snowplow goes by, the road looks like it's been swept. And I think that's what's causing the potholes!

If there's the slightest uneven spot in the road, like a seam (most of the potholes are on seams) or a pothole patch, the edge of the low-set plow blade catches it and rips it. Once started, subsequent plowings, traffic, and freezing and thawing enlarges it.

I wonder how soon into the winter more accidents are caused by perpetual potholes than by occasional snow on the road.

--------------------------------

Out of nowhere - I absolutely hated the way "Carrie Bradshaw" (Sex and the City) dressed. Her clothes were stupid, and I despised the way she ignored her bra - like the back of the bra showing across the back of a backless dress.

Which reminds me of Princess Diana's bridal gown, which of course is all over the place again with the wedding fever in England, and the fact that Diana's wardrobe is currently touring the US. I have never understood all the people who swooned over how beautiful it was.

Huh? With the dense fabric, ruffled neckline, poofy sleeves ending in ruffles, and poor fit, it looked like something Queen Victoria would have worn to bed. A Victorian nightgown. I mean, go to the link above and look at it. Tell me I'm wrong. Snort.

I suspect the stuffiness of it was on purpose, to draw a parallel to queens past and present. But that didn't make it "beautiful", folks. Note that even the swooners didn't copy it.

-------------------------------------

Eh. Maybe I just have rotten taste. I didn't like Jackie Kennedy's dress, either. I thought it looked like it was made from a colonial bedspread.

-------------------------------------

I made an effort to get out and meet some people today.

A Meetup group was "mall walking" at Bridgewater Commons Mall this afternoon. The mall was described as a "large upscale shopping Mecca". It was ok, but having been used to the malls in the Albany area, I was underwhelmed. One difference I did notice - most of the stores, even the big name stores (except for the three anchors) were tiny shops. I don't think I've ever seen such a small Victoria's Secret. That tells me the rents must be much higher than anywhere else.

Another odd thing was that the movie theater advertised "dining in". You get a menu with your movie ticket. I'd love to know how that works.

The group was supposed to meet by 2:30, at the back of the food court, near the restrooms. I found the restrooms at 2:20. Never found the group. Apparently there were two sets of restrooms by the food court, although the mall map showed only one. So I ended up wandering the mall alone.

Yeah. "Upscale." Not necessarily in the quality of goods offered, but definitely in the price tags.

--------------------------------

I'm still amazed at the variety of stores to be found here, after 25+ years in the Mid-Hudson Valley. (I remember the excitement when the first Pizza Hut arrived in the Valley, and then the hysteria surrounding the arrival of Barnes & Noble and Starbucks.) I couldn't help but think of the people (well, actually one particular guy in Mensa) who puts on an air of sophistication by name-dropping. Not famous people, though. Stores. He's always talking about the wonders to be found in stores not available in the Valley, like Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods, for example. Places he, of course, shops all the time. Snork.

You'd think with so much competition, the prices around here would be lower. They're not.
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3237 Belling the Cat

Saturday, January 22, 2011

"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."
-- Robert Orben --

(PC update - nowadays he has to say Native American, of course. Sigh.)

---------------------------------------

Well, not actually belled. I took the bell off.

Jasper is almost four years old now, and he has never permitted a collar. I tried to put one on him many times, and he always fought it. He'd try to push it off, sometimes succeeding, sometimes popping the quick release, and often I'd find him immobilized somewhere, embarrassed, with one hind leg firmly stuck through the collar.

I tried a small dog collar, without the quick release (ok because he never goes outside), but they have buckles, and he learned how to unbuckle them. He'd turn it until the buckle was under his chin, then he'd duck his head down until he could get a tooth under the loop of collar going through the buckle, and he'd work it until he could pull the strap through the buckle, and actually unbuckle the darn thing.

It was funny because every time he got a collar off, he'd put it on my bed. Like, "That was fun, Mommy! Let's do it again!" Maybe. Maybe it was actually, "Here's your stupid collar, Mommy. YOU wear it!"

One odd thing - I wore scrunchies a lot (they didn't damage my hair like barrettes did), and I occasionally put one on him like a collar, and he didn't seem to mind it at all. He'd leave it on for two days or so before removing it and putting it on my bed.

It occurred to me that maybe the scrunchies were permitted because they didn't smell strange.

So a few days ago I bought another regular cat collar, quick release and all, and then I wore it on my wrist for 48 hours. I put it on him yesterday, and it's still there! He hasn't even attempted to take it off.

I may have found the secret.

--------------------------------

The old house had mice. The new house doesn't. Jasper has been bored. So I've been buying him toys. He likes light foam balls, and little leather catnip mice. He carries the mice around by the tails. It's cute.

One of the mice I bought the other day has feathers. (Yeah, a mouse with a mouse face, mouse ears, a long leather tail, and fluffy feather wings and tail. Gotta wonder about the person who came up with that.) Anyway, it seems to be his favorite, and he has invented a play technique I've never seen before, and I've had many cats over the past 50 years.

He'll crouch, and back up until the mouse is under his hind legs, carefully not looking at it. He'll shift until it's perfectly positioned under his rear claws. He'll pretend to ignore it for a minute or so, and then suddenly jump up, kicking his hind legs out behind him. That sends the mouse flying in an unpredictable direction, and he'll spin around and chase it.

It's funny.
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3236 A Few Things

Friday, January 21, 2011

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place
but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
-- Dorothy Nevill --

-----------------------------------------------------------------

A few of the many things I've learned in my 60-plus years:

• Don't store a sewing needle by sticking it into the threads in the spool. That splits and breaks the fibers of the thread, which will cause twists and breaks later when you try to sew with it.
• If you have a dark cat, have light carpeting, and vice-versa. The shed hair might show up more, but so will a sleeping cat.
• The fastest way to drop ten years in appearance is to smile, and make sure the smile lines near your eyes show. Those are the most attractive wrinkles. Show them.
• To drop twenty years, simply never insist on "your way". Stay open to new ways.
• The ugliest furniture will be forgiven anything if it's comfortable and useful. That goes for people, too.
• Soap is for fats, oils, stains, and trapped particles. If none of those are present, you don't need soap for effective washing. In fact, soap can be counterproductive. Hot water and a good scrub will do.
• Insurance of whatever kind is supposed to be there in case something goes wrong. It has been my experience that having insurance seems to prevent anything going wrong. Some kind of weird Fate thing.
• Never ever lie to your child or make promises you don't intend to keep. It may be convenient at the moment, but the child will never again trust or believe you. That's a sure source of tantrums.
  

-------------------------------

From Shoebox.com: "The House of Representatives voted to repeal health care. Wow. Hope none of them gets sick. Because now that they don’t have health care that would be…um, oh. Never mind."
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3235 New Desk

Thursday, January 20, 2011

A bore is someone who keeps talking when I have something to say.

------------------------------------------

I figured out what I'd been doing the past few days.

My daughter gets depressed and sometimes downright mean when she's not getting enough exercise. So when she calls and says "Let's go for a walk", I say yes. It makes life a lot easier.

Also, my new desk arrived Tuesday.

The main desk at the old house is a manager's desk bought at an employee surplus sale many years ago. It's nice, but it was built for show - huge footprint, very little storage. So I decided to get something more suitable for here and I'll sell or donate the old one rather than attempt to move it.

On Tuesday we'd had snow overnight, followed by freezing rain, with plain rain predicted, so the driveway was covered with slush.

I'd learned long ago that if I think, "I ought to...", then I'd better do it, no matter what my second thoughts are, because if I don't the consequences can be severe. So when I looked out the door and saw the slush, I thought, "I probably should shovel that". It was raining, and the neighbors said it would all melt by afternoon, but the driveway has about a 15 degree slope, and I was afraid the men would refuse to bring the desk in if the drive was covered in slush.

The truck arrived within a half hour of our clearing the driveway, so I was right to clear it. Daughter had come over to help me shovel (muttering that it was pointless) and had stayed for tea.

Shipping from California was free on the desk, so I was surprised to find it was "Platinum White Glove Service", which means they not only brought it in, they unpacked it, set it up in place, and took the packing materials away with them.

When the guys set the desk up, they plugged a fat cord into the wall. I didn't know what it went with. At the top of one of the drawers was some kind of black panel with buttons. It took Daughter a minute to figure out that it's a power bar. You feed cords from printer, scanner, whatever is on the desk through some holes, and plug them into the back of the black thing, and then you turn stuff on and off using the buttons on the front. Swoopy!

In the past three months I'd built up quite a bit of paper to be filed (a lot of end-of-year and tax stuff, besides regular bills for two houses), so I went to the store and got hanging folders, and yesterday and part of today I sorted and filed all that.

I also shopped and found some acceptable lacy curtains for the living room, installed rods, and hung them.

Desk, oak, matches kitchen cabinets and a trio of bookcases I'll be bringing from the old house:
No, that's not a photograph between the laptop and printer. It's a TV/CD/DVD player. The black box on top is an antenna for the TV - gets me 40-some channels.

Here the drawer is open so you can see the power bar:
That's Clyde, the Pleo (robot baby dinosaur), on top.

-------------------------------------

Later: I didn't realize until I was looking at the above photos, but this is very reminiscent of my first desk/sewing table - a hollow door on top of two file cabinets, with wall-mounted shelves above. I loved that arrangement!
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3234 Hair rebellion report

Thursday, January 20, 2011

If you want useful answers, ask good questions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is now nine days since I last used shampoo/conditioner on my hair. At first I had to do the hot water rinse every other day. Today is the third day since the last rinse, and it doesn't seem to need it today, but I probably will anyway.

The body and curl has gotten stronger. The individual hairs feel stronger, springier. If I push down, it springs right back up. When I woke up this morning, I looked like Rod Stewart. Ptoing!

Yes, a few days ago I went through an itchy scalp period, a little itchier than usual, but that seems to be settling down. (My scalp and forehead has always itched a little anyway. It might be a thyroid thing. A nice daily scalp massage seems to help a lot.)

--------------------------------

I've been very busy lately, but I don't have the faintest idea what I've been doing. It's like that meme that's been going around for the past few years - where the person is watering the garden and notices that the car needs washing, and there's a cascade of jobs started and none finished, and at the end of the day, the person is tired, but has no idea why. (If you've never got that one in your inbox, either you're too young to appreciate it, or too old to remember it. Either way, you can read it here: http://www.gardenclub.net/senior.htm.)
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3233 Life on hold

Monday, January 17, 2011

"I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations,
nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine."
-- Fritz Perls --

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Not much happening. Daughter drove me to the old house yesterday, where we dug the van out of the snow and I drove him south. So now both Fred the van and Hal the convertible are at the new house.

Hal has a mouse, who moved in while he was parked at the old house in November. The first clue was the chewed up roll of paper towels in the trunk, and the chewed hat. The second clue was the motion-detector alarms going off when no one was anywhere near Hal. I thought eventually the mouse would move out, but last week somebody chewed into a bag of peanuts on the front seat, and two nights ago I found a hole chewed in a bag of garbage in the garage. I give up. I'm going to have to evict him before he chews something important.

I bought some traps today, baited one (no mouse can resist peanut butter), and was taking it out to the garage. Just inside the garage, near the door to the house, is a tall plastic kitchen waste bin that I use to put out recycle stuff, and as I walked past it, I saw a motion.

The mouse is in the bin. The sides are too high and slick for him to get out.

He's the cutest little thing - bright eyes, tiny pink paws, short round body, no neck. I wish I had a cage. I'd try to keep him. But since he's caught, I'll give him a little water and walnuts tonight to feed him up a bit, and dump him outside tomorrow. Far from the house, far from Hal!

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Peeved again. This was written by a professional journalist: "... declined invites from the organization ...."

Sheesh, people! At least be consistent. "... declined invitations from the organization ...." or "... declined invites from the organize ...."

Now is it apparent why I hate "invite" as a noun?
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3232 This one's for Becs

Saturday, January 15, 2011

“Immature love is wanting the other person to be happy with you. Mature love is wanting the other person to be happy. Period.”

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Becs will understand this.

Almost alike. Same style, same fabric, different color, different print. I always shorten the sleeves to 3/4 length.
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3231 Gutters

Friday, January 14, 2011

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
-- HL Mencken --

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I have a serious problem with the gutters on the new house. I guess they're full of leaves or something, because they aren't draining. They've got an ice buildup, and as the snow is melting on the roof (absolutely bad insulation! Not just wind blowing the snow off. You can actually see ridges of snow over the rafters) the melt water is dripping over the edges of the gutters, and has built up icicles on the backside of the gutters, which is bad for the eaves and roof.

The more immediate problem is that the water dripping off the icicles has covered the driveway and porch stoop with a very thick layer of ice. Salt is ineffective, because the driveway slopes and within minutes the salt is washed away by the dripping water, down over the ice all the way down the driveway. And the stoop is cement, so I can't use salt there anyway. I tried kitty litter, but you just slide on the litter sliding on the ice. No traction.

I am worried that
a) the car will slide when I leave the garage, taking out the neighbor's car parked across the street, and
b) someone will slip on the stoop and sue me.

I guess maybe I need some gravel or sand, although I wonder how long it would take for that to become ineffectively buried in new ice. What I really need is the gutters cleaned, but can "they" (whoever "they" is, and that's another problem) do that when everything is all ice?

I have to figure it out, or locate some sand, or something, by Tuesday morning, because I'm having some very heavy furniture delivered then, and ice will make it very difficult and dangerous.

Sigh.

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An interesting detail, the temperature here is now 25 degrees F. The current temperature at the old house is 1.
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3230 An experiment in rebellion

Thursday, January 13, 2010

"No matter how fast the light travels, it always finds
darkness has got there first and is waiting for it."

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Offered for consideration:

1. In the 1950s, we washed our hair once a week or so. For once a month conditioning, we used (real) mayonnaise, eggs, or beer. Our hair was not oily. In fact, it tended to be dry, flyaway, and generally unmanageable for a few days after washing. We brushed it every day - the famous 100 strokes. For school photos, we were cautioned not to wash our hair for at least two days before the photo session. Split ends were not a common problem. They mostly happened to people who spent a lot of time in the sun, or who bleached their hair.

Sometime in the late '50s, Tame, the first commercial conditioner, became available. It was used mainly by mothers on children's hair, to make the comb out after washing less painful.

2. There was some super expensive "hairdresser to the stars", complete with unidentifiable accent, on TV a few weeks ago. He said that the way we treat our hair today is silly. We wash all the natural oils out of our hair, and then replace it with "product". He said that we really need only rinse our hair thoroughly with hot water - at first maybe on the same schedule as we have been washing it, then as our scalps get used to not being stripped, gradually less. We might go through a rough adjustment period, but after a few weeks we will have consistently smooth shiny hair with no breakage and no static or fly away.

3. It's a fact that your scalp is self-regulating. Unless you have a medical condition, your scalp produces exactly as much oil as your hair requires. Brushing is necessary to distribute the oil to the ends. When you wash your hair every day, the scalp produces more oil to replace what has been washed out, which means that when you miss a day, there's an overabundance of oil produced. (Any woman who has ever breastfed is familiar with the phenomenon of the body producing what it thinks and has been taught is necessary, no more and no less. The scalp works the same way.)

4. There was a discussion this morning on TV about self-diagnosing and self-treating based on information from online medical sources. The expert says you have to do more research than just looking up your symptoms. You should be very suspicious of any website that wants to sell you something based on what you read on their site.

5. Now, who told us we have to wash our hair every day? Who told us we must then replace the oils (repair our hair!) with conditioners and other products? Answer: The very people who want to SELL us the shampoo and conditioners. And the more they can convince us we need to use, the better - for them.**

So, I am going to try an experiment. I have been washing my hair with a mild shampoo every three to four days and using a conditioner.

I am going to stop using shampoo and conditioner, and start just rinsing with hot water.

I used just hot water this morning, and my hair looks fine. (BTW- I went back in last Tuesday and got it cut much shorter. It's a pixie now.)

I'll let y'all know how the experiment goes.

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**The most profitable thing in the world of shampoo marketing was the discovery of the word "repeat". That one word alone nearly doubled sales of shampoo. I don't remember exactly when it began appearing on shampoo bottles, sometime in the '70s, I think, but I do remember that women remarked on it, and then, like sheep, followed instructions.

Somewhere in the '90s, women discovered that they didn't really have to repeat to get the same effect (especially since young women were by then convinced that they had to wash their hair every day), so the shampoo companies tweaked the formulas. I have no "hardcopy evidence" of that tweaking, but have you noticed that the stuff won't lather with the first application? You don't get any lather until the second application - the "repeat" is now required.
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3229 Snow. Again.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

“It isn’t what we don’t know that causes the trouble;
it’s what we think we know that just ain’t so.”
-- Will Rogers --

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Eight inches of snow overnight. I was all ready to try my new electric snow thrower this morning, but one of the neighbors cleared 80% of my driveway before I got out there. My new toy handled the edges that were left just fine, though.

I cleared two other neighbors' cars and Daughter's car. I like brushing snow off cars. Weird, but there's something satisfying about it.

I heard today that of the "lower 48", Florida is the only state that has not had snow already this winter.
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3228 Sad Souls

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the
principles on which it was founded."
- C. L. De Montesquieu; The Spirit of the Laws, VIII ---

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The following was a post to the Mensa online group from our local scientist, Andi. I don't know how much is is her words, and how much is from an article she's quoting, but since I make no money on this blog, I don't think anyone will object either way.

The article is interesting. I think we all are already fully aware of the social effects of economic inequality, but this is a higher view.

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Op-Ed Columnist
Equality, a True Soul Food
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 1, 2011, "New York Times"

John Steinbeck observed that “a sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”
Damon Winter/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof
On the Ground

That insight, now confirmed by epidemiological studies, is worth bearing in mind at a time of such polarizing inequality that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possess a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.

There’s growing evidence that the toll of our stunning inequality is not just economic but also is a melancholy of the soul. The upshot appears to be high rates of violent crime, high narcotics use, high teenage birthrates and even high rates of heart disease.

That’s the argument of an important book by two distinguished British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. They argue that gross inequality tears at the human psyche, creating anxiety, distrust and an array of mental and physical ailments — and they cite mountains of data to support their argument.

“If you fail to avoid high inequality, you will need more prisons and more police,” they assert. “You will have to deal with higher rates of mental illness, drug abuse and every other kind of problem.” They explore these issues in their book, “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.”

The heart of their argument is that humans are social animals and that in highly unequal societies those at the bottom suffer from a range of pathologies. For example, a long-term study of British civil servants found that messengers, doormen and others with low status were much more likely to die of heart disease, suicide and some cancers and had substantially worse overall health.

There’s similar evidence from other primates. For example, macaque monkeys are also highly social animals, and scientists put them in cages and taught them how to push a lever so that they could get cocaine. Those at the bottom of the monkey hierarchy took much more cocaine than high-status monkeys.

Other experiments found that low-status monkeys suffered physical problems, including atherosclerosis in their arteries and an increase in abdominal fat. And as with monkeys, so with humans. Researchers have found that when people become unemployed or suffer economic setbacks, they gain weight. One 12-year study of American men found that when their income slipped, they gained an average of 5.5 pounds.

The correlation is strong around the world between countries with greater inequality and greater drug use. Paradoxically, countries with more relaxed narcotics laws, like the Netherlands, have relatively low domestic drug use — perhaps because they are more egalitarian.

Professors Wilkinson and Pickett crunch the numbers and show that the same relationship holds true for a range of social problems. Among rich countries, those that are more unequal appear to have more mental illness, infant mortality, obesity, high school dropouts, teenage births, homicides, and so on.

They find the same thing is true among the 50 American states. More unequal states, like Mississippi and Louisiana, do poorly by these social measures. More equal states, like New Hampshire and Minnesota, do far better.

So why is inequality so harmful? “The Spirit Level” suggests that inequality undermines social trust and community life, corroding societies as a whole. It also suggests that humans, as social beings, become stressed when they find themselves at the bottom of a hierarchy.

That stress leads to biological changes, such as the release of the hormone cortisol, and to the accumulation of abdominal fat (perhaps an evolutionary adaptation in preparation for starvation ahead?). The result is physical ailments like heart disease, and social ailments like violent crime, mutual distrust, self-destructive behaviors and persistent poverty. Another result is the establishment of alternative systems in which one can win respect and acquire self-esteem, such as gangs.

Granted, humans are not all equal in ability: There will always be some who are more wealthy — and others who constitute the bottom. But inequality does not have to be as harsh, oppressive and polarized as it is in America today. Germany and Japan have attained modern, efficient economies with far less inequality than we have — and far fewer social problems. Likewise, the gap between rich and poor fell during the Clinton administration, according to data cited in “The Spirit Level,” even though that was a period of economic vigor.

“Inequality is divisive, and even small differences seem to make an important difference,” Professors Wilkinson and Pickett note. They suggest that it is not just the poor who benefit from the social cohesion that comes with equality, but the entire society.

So as we debate national policy in 2011 — from the estate tax to unemployment insurance to early childhood education — let’s push to reduce the stunning levels of inequality in America today. These inequities seem profoundly unhealthy, for us and for our nation’s soul.

3227 Naughty Pets

Sunday, January 9, 2011

"I laid my bed, now I've got to sit on it."
-- A-Rod --

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Roomba:

The kitchen island, the snow thrower, and many other items have arrived packed in that semi-solid foam stuff. Lots of flat sheets of it. It sheds tiny balls of static-charged plastic foam that stick to everything. After putting the island together, my kitchen floor and Jasper's tail were covered with bits of it, and it quickly spread throughout the first floor.

I got the big vacuum cleaner out to clean it up, and coming around the corner I bumped the Roomba. He took that as a signal to start cleaning, so I let him go. He actually did a pretty good job, so I let him take care of it.

I goofed.

I had stacked the sheets of plastic foam against a wall in the dining room until I decided what to do with it. I was sitting at the computer with my back to the dining room, when I saw balls of plastic foam floating past my shoulders.

Roomba had found the foam, and was stuck in the middle of it, and was chewing it industriously. His exhaust (and the fact that his belly was full with what he'd already eaten) was blowing the chewed bits. The freaking stuff is now stuck to walls, ceilings, curtains ....

Bad Roomba!

Jasper:

Almost all my adult life I'd had lots of houseplants. The old house had high ceilings and glass across much of the west-facing walls. Before Jay died, I had several 8' and 10' plants in the livingroom and bedroom. One schefflera had an 8" diameter trunk. The last year of Jay's illness most of the plants died because I wasn't able to care for them, and the rest died during the long darkness after. I hadn't bought any more plants.

So, since he's been living with me, Jasper has had no experience with houseplants.

The new house doesn't have the light of the old, but what it has is sufficient, plus the Home Depot is selling plants that appear to be in excellent condition, CHEAP, and if I travel Daughter can water them --- so I bought some.

Jasper has been chewing on them. (Yes, I know which are poison, not to worry.)

Either he doesn't know they'll make him throw up, or he does know and that's why he chews them. Actually, that's ok.

He apparently does NOT know that kitty cats must NOT throw up on Mommy's prized hand-knotted, natural-dyed, pure silk, pastel, imported oriental carpet. That's definitely not ok. Especially since 90% of the floor space is bare.

Bad Jasper!
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3226 Truth in charity, sort of....

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Love is when you want for someone whatever makes them happy,
even if it doesn't happen to include you.
-- Silk --

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There's a shoe store out there, TOMS Shoes, that advertises: "With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a new pair of shoes to a child in need."

Sounds good. You buy a pair of shoes (canvas, loosely shaped, rubber soled) and TOMS delivers another child sized pair to one of a network of various aid societies, who distributes them to a needy child somewhere in the world.

TOMS can take credit for the idea and the mechanism, but in my opinion, they shouldn't take credit for the shoes. I'm pretty sure they aren't losing any money on the deal. They are not exactly a charity.

Take a look at the prices on the shoes, at the link above. They are grossly overpriced for the materials and quality. YOU are actually paying for the second pair of smaller shoes, and probably distribution costs. TOMS is providing the paperwork.

Yes, it's a good idea, but credit should be given where deserved. If you buy a pair of TOMS shoes, pat yourself on the back - not TOMS.

(And of course I, being the cynic I am, have to wonder how much of a tax break TOMS is taking for that second pair, that , actually, you paid for.)
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