2084 Brace

Thursday, October 23, 2008

I am now wearing the back brace. It has a hard trapezoidal panel in the back, heavy elastic that wraps around and closes with Velcro over the lower tummy, and then two "pull it tighter" elastic straps on each side.

It creates an extreme "muffin top" midway up my ribs.

I hope I don't need it tomorrow or the weekend, but I guess I'd best assume I will. That limits my choices in clothing for the trip. Muumuus? Caftans? Shifts? Blah. Not exactly sexy. He likes long skirts, but there's a limit. Good thing I have several kurtas. Looks like it's going to be kurtas and slacks for the weekend.

Mother is not happy.

Later - If you go to the "kurta" link above, notice the hands on the manikin. Seems like a poor design. It might make it hard to get tight sleeves or lacy knits on it. Last time I saw hands like that on something you have to dress was when Daughter was one year old and objected to wearing clothing.
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2083 Ouchy Back

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I took those six loads of laundry to the laundromat yesterday. Piper is always surprised that I have a washer and dryer, but use the laundromat. It's because I can do all loads concurrently instead of consecutively, which saves time, and secondly because my hard water has messed up the washer valves, so you have to keep an eye on it constantly, or it will overfill and flood the laundry room and kitchen.

Anyway, taking one of the heavy bags out of the car last night, I got a sharp stab at the top of my left hip, so sharp I yelped. It lasted only an instant, but it was a warning.

I can walk for miles, and I can stand for hours, but I can't stand with my arms held out in front of me. It unbalances me, and, added to the boobage weight, stresses my lower back. So last night I spent a long time standing at washers, dryers, and a folding table, with my arms in front of me, and then followed that by unloading the car at home, then reloading it with recycle containers.

This morning I had to dump the (6) containers into the recycle bin, the opening of which is over my head.

Today my lower back is yelling at me, and I'm yelping back. It's causing powerful abdominal/intestinal cramps. I'm running on aspirin today. I'm still working my way through the to-do list, but I think I'll skip the movie tonight.

It's got to feel better soon. I'll never last on an airplane with it like this, even is it is only a 90 minute flight. That'll wipe me out completely.
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2082 Busy

Tuesday, October 22, 2008

I've actually been doing my to-do list! Between yesterday and today, I've:
- sniped five eBay auctions, won all
- paid two months worth of bills
- cleared two feet of paper off the ironing board in the kitchen (flat surfaces collect paper)
- cleaned two litter boxes
- hit the big grocery store down the road
- got the Hairless Hunk to straighten my mailbox (again), which had been hit (again) and twisted 90 degrees to the road (again)
- watched three TV shows on TV, and two news programs on the computer
- did six loads of laundry, folded, ironed, put away
- my favorite clothing store sent me a nice gift coupon for my birthday, and their online store was having a 25% off everything sale, so I hit their "outlet" clearance section and bought a blouse (reg $75) and a skirt (reg. $120) for a total of $9
- looked up the weekend's flight to check where we were sitting - we got exit row! Both ways!
- discussed with The Man what we might do over the weekend, I was very surprised to learn that he wants to visit a botanical garden, I'd never have guessed. He hates walking, and outdoors
- packed up two month's worth of metal, plastic, and glass for recycle, and loaded it all into the car.

Early to bed tonight. I need to get to the recycle center by 9 am tomorrow, in order to be home to snipe another eBay auction at 10:30, then meet Piper for lunch. Afternoon - wash hair, do nails, visit bank, get mail held, decide what to pack for weekend. Evening - go to Rosendale to see movie "W". That last one's a maybe. Depends on what I get done and how I feel.

This is more than I've accomplished in a whole average week lately. Maybe even two or three weeks. I've been very lazy. It feels good to check things off the list.
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2081 Eyeball

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

This is a game where you test your skill at geometric estimation. I got a score of 4.03, which is about average. I'm best at convergence, parallelograms, and right angles, and worst at locating the center of a triangle, circle, or line segment.

I didn't notice it at first, but your scores on the three passes are kept on the right, so you can see how well you're doing. I got better on each pass, so I guess with practice, I would improve.
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2080 SNL is unprofessional

Monday, October 20, 2008

I watched Saturday Night Live last weekend, for the first time in ages, and rediscovered why I don't watch it.

Nobody bothers to learn their lines.

Soap opera people are on every day - they've got seven shows worth of script to learn every week, week after week, and they do it. The SNL folks can't be bothered to learn lines for a 3-minute skit. They read the words off cue cards or a teleprompter. More than half the time it looks like they've never seen those lines before, they're reading it for the first time, and aren't sure where it's going.

It's ugly, because they don't look at the person they're talking to. Not even close.

At the very least, you'd think they could put the cheat sheet close to, over the shoulder of, the other character, so they'd at least be looking in the other character's direction when they're supposed to be talking to them. There's no reason why camera angles couldn't be planned to accommodate that.

Nah. It's like 30 degrees or more off, so they're not even facing them.

I think this shows a huge lack of consideration for the audience, and a lack of pride in the product.
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2079 Bloglines is fixed.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Well, I'm going to take credit for the fix to Bloglines. Within hours of my email to them, the backlog of missing posts from a small herd of blogs started pouring in. The timing is interesting.

I had mentioned to them that the problem first started right after they had moved a data base. I'll bet someone at Bloglines read my email, smacked themselves in the head, and said "Oops! Forgot to update the whatchamadoodle pointer!"
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2078 Clutter on YouTube!

There are now over 80, almost 90, mostly identical clips of the Colin Powell interview on YouTube. It has grown from zero in only 14 hours. I'm sure there will be more, uploaded by people who think no one has seen it yet.

Clutter! They're going to kill YouTube with overload!

Is it really so difficult to check to see if there's already a copy of something before storing another? Is it an ego thing, to see one's own id on one's own copy?

(Um, one's "own" copy of copyrighted material. Oops.)
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2077 Powell's Endorsement

Sunday, October 19, 2008

If you missed Meet the Press today, you must watch this clip.



[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_NMZv6Vfh8]

A comment from "gojohnnygo5" on the video:

I love this quote my Deacon told me once:
"We do not have permanent friends nor permanent enemies. We only have permanent principles."

Crossing party lines should not be such a big deal if a person had a set of values because if this person ever felt that his party is no longer representing his principles, it would be the only viable decision for anyone of strong character.

2076 Bits

Sunday, October 19, 2009

Daughter is 34 today. Next week, I will be 65. I have no grandchildren. I'm getting anxious.

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I registered on Classmates.com a long time ago, hoping to find old classmates. I've been contacted by two college classmates, one high school classmate, and one old coworker (all male), so it hasn't been a complete bust. I have also been left contact info for another 150+ people, also all male. A few of them went to the same school I listed, but several years before or after me, so I never knew them. The vast majority are complete strangers. I don't know why they've signed my guestbook. A few of them return over and over.

Is it possible they think it's an online dating site?

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More and more blogs from my Bloglines list are missing feed alerts, even some big ones like the Dilbert blog. Bloglines' trouble reports didn't list the problem. Either it's unique to me, or no one else has noticed. Yesterday I finally sent an email to Bloglines, telling them what I'm seeing, or more accurately not seeing. Today suddenly some, but not all, of the posts are showing up again. It looks like they've fixed something.

Very strange. Am I the only person who pointed it out to them? I can't believe that.

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I like to read real estate magazines (those local listings you pick up at the grocery store) and online listings, especially those with interior photos or virtual tours. I'm seeing a lot of kitchens with the stove kind of stuck awkwardly in the middle of an open wall, all alone, away from any counters. It's not like the new stove was too big - there's no space in the rest of the kitchen where an old stove would have been.

That confuses me. It looks like when the kitchen was designed, they forgot there'd be a stove.

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I have a gray sweatshirt with the smooth on the inside and the fuzz on the outside. It's meant to look inside-out. You can tell by the seams and the care label. It even applies to the writing on the chest - it's crossed hockey sticks with "Hockey" above, and "EST. 1898" on either side of the sticks - a faint impression in the fuzz, exactly as it would be if the real printing were on the other side (but there's nothing on the other side, the inside - it's a fake).

I don't wear it often beyond my house and the village, but the few times I've worn it, a few people have laughed and asked why I'm wearing it inside-out, tee hee.

The part that blows my mind is that in every case, it was a Mensan who felt moved to point out my error. (Like I needed to be told.)

And in every one of those cases, it blew my mind further that those Mensans didn't notice until I pointed it out that the writing on the chest is not mirror-image! Which it would be if it were the "inside", or backward, image.

Sigh.

Oh, while we're on Mensa, Roman did exactly what I was afraid he'd do, and dropped out of the running for the governing board as soon as he found out that there were five other candidates. So, no election again. The five remaining candidates are declared elected. I'm pissed. Especially because one of the other candidates is an idiot (an idiot who wants to be the treasurer).
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2075 Thud - Monroe is in Michigan, you fool!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

This week's PostSecrets is headed by an envelope with the PostSecrets address, sent from somewhere in south Florida. The address is given as "Germantown, Marilyn".
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