Cat Fight

I know just about everyone has seen this before, but I saw it again on Cute Overload and just had to put it up here.

Cat Fight

Email Meme Thing

1. What time did you get up this morning? ~7:30am. I've got an early schedule at school now, so I wake up early every day :( I did get my 8 hours though :)

2. Diamonds or pearls? Um... Neither, really.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Oh, jeeze... I'd have to look at my sidebar, I guess, but it's screwed up right now...

4. What is your favorite TV show? Not my fave, but I'm a sucker for any VH-1 "I love..." show. Can't believe that the Hoola Hoop won the best toy ever. Feh! Legos beaten by Barbie? Give me a break.

5. What did you have for breakfast? Special K crunchy bar thing - Peaches and Cream (only 90 calories! aren't I becoming pathetic?)

6. What is your favorite cuisine? I love good Chinese food

7. What foods do you dislike? I'll keep Jayfish's answer here: "meat on the bone, offal, giblets"

8. Your favorite Potato chip? Plain tortilla chips with tons of salsa

9. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Um, CDs? How very last decade. I listen to Yahoo Unlimited mostly now. Last one I bought was Alone in IZ World by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Trust me - it's cool!

10. What kind of car do you drive? No car. My bike is a Bridgestone XO-3 (mine's a better color though) though :)

11. Favorite sandwich? Turkey and Bacon with heaps of veggies

12. What characteristics do you despise? despise is pretty hash, isn't it? Let's turn it around - I value honesty very highly.

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? There's no one place that I really feel I have to go to, but I would like to see Turkey

14. What color is your bathroom? grungy white

15. Favorite brand of clothing? In my quest for blandness and convenience, I've started getting some stuff at Land's End - embarrassing, I know.

16. Where would you want to retire to? Retire? No chance!

17. Favorite time of day? I'll stick with Jayfish's answer here too, "the golden hour"

18. Where were you born? A hospital

19. Favorite sport to watch? a toss-up football or basketball. I've been watching soccer too, but there's no time anymore :(

20. What laundry detergent do you use? I have no idea. It's in a blue bottle

21. Coke or Pepsi? I couldn't tell you why, but I've always been a Coke guy

22. Are you a morning person or night owl? I'm not really big on eating mice, so I guess I'd have to say morning person.

23. What size shoe do you wear? 7-7.5 Yes, yes, I have little girlie feet.

24. Do you have pets? Not right now

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? c'mon, I've got a blog! All the new news is already up there! :)

26. Favorite Candy Bar? I've always liked Twix, but a nice plain dark chocolate bar is also a winner in my book.

27. What is your best childhood memory? just one?

28. What are the different jobs you have had in your life? Actor, secretary, electrical techie, soldier, door-watcher, teacher, etc, etc...

29. What color underwear are you wearing? grey, I think...

30. Nicknames? 'Hey you'

31. Piercing? nope

32. Ever been to Africa? not yet - I'd love to go though

33. Ever been toilet papering? once, a long long time ago

34. Love someone so much it made you cry? Oh yeah.

35. Been in a car accident? yuppers

36. Fruit or Vegetables? I need both!

37. Croutons or bacon bits? If I had to choose, I'd go with croutons

38. Favorite day of the week? I've always been a fan of Thursday - no idea why

39. Favorite restaurant? umm... One I can afford?

40. Favorite ice cream? Cherry Garcia!

41. Disney or Warner Brothers? Pixar (no Disney about it!)

42. Favorite fast food restaurant? Taco Bell (sad, but true...)

43. What color is your bedroom carpet? white-ish?

44. How many times did you fail your driver's test? Honestly, I can't remember. I think I got it the first time...

45. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Any computer-geeky kind of store

46. What do you do most often when you are bored? sometimes video games, but mostly read

47. Bedtime? I try to get to sleep before 11, but I don't have a set time

48. Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire? everyone!

49. Last person you went to dinner with? a group of folks from the department

50. What are you listening to right now? Starbucks vague and inoffensive piped tunes

51. What is your favorite color? green

52. Lake, Ocean or river? hmmm... I've never lived next to a river, but I like the idea of it

53. How many tattoos do you have? 0

54. Who sent this to you and what is something you didn't know about him/her? Jayfish. Arby's? I had no idea he where he was born :)

55. Time you finished this email? Just check the timestamp! :)

Yeesh

Bibleman is now oogling the coeds.

Hep Cats in Faith

Yelling out that you found verses in Duteronomy that prove there is no such thing as gluttony, and that you'll be happy to prove that skinny chick wrong isn't a great way to impress the Starbuck's crowd. One of the hep cats does have a really cool bible though.

NO!

STOP.

I'm not going running tonight.
I'm not going to even check my school email.
I'm not going to revise or reedit.
The last panicked 'I tanked the last paper and I have to get an A in this class or else I'll never get into med school and I'll end up eating cat food in a garbage can in New Jersey so tell me how to write a paper' student has left.
I held extra office hours.
I will read their emails tomorrow, but today I'm closing up shop.
I'm locking the door.
I'm getting on my bike.
I'm going by a restaurant to get 'not allowed on my diet' food and I'm going home.

I will sleep eight hours tonight, come hell or high water.

The really pathetic thing is that I can't even hold a funk well. I was just thinking about how to blog the most excellent information that almost everyone in the department is going to the massive conference and it looks like it's going to be heaps of fun. I'm really excited! But for the sake of the topic of this blog entry I'll try to look stern and much-put-upon.

Another Fine Mess I've Gotten Me Into

What am I doing at the office at 8:20pm on a Thursday? Blogging! Err... Well, I'm also putting together a response paper that I kinda forgot about. Yeah, it's due tomorrow. Yeah, I suck.

I also have two sections to run tomorrow. Have I planned them yet? Why, no! Thank you for asking!

Luckily the papers that were due today were all postponed to next Tuesday, so I won't be in grading hell this weekend, but it's all coming to a head in a perfect storm of crapitude. Blech.

Oh, and Nutrax - that cool calorie counting website I've been using seems to have gone kaput. I'm not surprised really. I couldn't see how they could make money, but still, it's sad-inducing.

When is spring break again?

Cable What Network?

I'm here to help.

I don't watch nearly as much TV as I used to, but seeing CNN for the past couple of days, I realize that they need my help. It seems that they're forgotten about the whole 'news' part of their name, so I figured that they may be unclear about what is 'news' and what isn't. The biggest problem I realize is to fill all 24 of those hours every day, but the answer is not to batter a non-news (but cheap) story for hours or days beyond it's expiration date.

• First off, the easiest way to find out if something is or isn't news is to watch Larry King Live (I don't actually recommend that anyone actually watch Larry King Live, it's just as good to check his guest list). The key is that if something or someone is a topic on Larry King Live, then it is not news. This would clean up a huge swath of CNN programming.
  
• CNN is not a local newscast and should not try to be one. So this means that a car chase in LA is not news. On the other hand, an Amber Alert in Virginia is news, because it could impact many people, and broad dissemination is helpful in finding the people. See how that works, CNN?
  
• On a related note, Nancy Grace needs to be shuttled off to Court TV. CNN does not need to deal with every salacious court case in the US. If the case has national implications, sure, cover it briefly and give updates, but for crying out loud can we ditch the angry adversarial lawyers yelling at each other about whether or not the public defender should have worn the red tie instead of the blue?
  
• Celebrity news: Axe it. We do not need to know if Jennifer is all broken up about her ex's new love. That's the job of E! television. Oscars, or other more meaningful entertainment news - sure cover it briefly and move on.
• McDonald's new coffee? c'mon now.

They just announced a special investigative report on bedbugs. I kid you not.

8.27km - 39'19"

Batting .500

The letters come rolling in. One small envelope and one large. So that's 6 responses and three acceptances, but really only two good options - you'll see why in a paragraph or two.

The small envelope was from NotAChanceInHell University, which didn't really surprise me. I mean with a name like that, would you even want to get in?

The large envelope is a little more vexing. It was from MonsterTheoretical University, which I honestly didn't think I could get in, but they did admit me. Here's the kicker - no funding. Nada. Zilch. They helpfully advised that I could get a part time job on campus. Now this is a huge, extraordinarily strong and important university, and while I realize that things are very difficult in the funding department, to not offer any aid at all seems a bit sad. There is very little chance that I could find a situation in which fronting ~$40k/year would work out. What do newly minted profs earn again?

To be completely honest, I am very flattered that they would consider me (if I were independently wealthy), and I'm very happy that they put the funding decision in the acceptance letter. Otherwise I would have put it high on my 'seriously consider' list. Now I can put it very low on the 'if all else fails' list.

I wonder, though... The two other acceptances I got only mentioned that they were still organizing the funding distribution. Is this just another way of getting students to commit and then tell them later that they don't have funding for them?

On a side note, one of my profs said, "Can they do that? I thought they had to fund everyone!" Hehe... He's one of those god-like creatures who universities fought over as a student and as a prof, so I doubt he had to worry about this particular trouble.

Another prof said, "Don't go anywhere that doesn't fund you fully." I hope that option is available to me.

Sweaty!

9.14km - 40'

treadmill - ugh

did the army situp and pushup thing again. I think I'm going to regret it though. Ouch ouch ouch

On that note - check out the Army APFT standards chart for pushups, situps (measured by how many you can do in 2 minutes) and the two mile run. When I was in, I maxed the pushups once and almost maxed the run once. I never came that close on the situps.

I'm very far from those scores now except maybe the run. I haven't run two miles in a long time. I might be able to get close...

Overread's Rules For Using the Self-Checkout At The Supermarket

1. You must be literate. The computer will ask you questions and you will need to respond. You should not just stand there yelling at the computer until the employee comes and does everything for you.
   
2. Don't bring scads of fruits and veggies unless you know the codes, or at least the name of the item. No one will be pleased if you stop halfway through the checkout several times to run back to find out what kind of kumquat you picked up
   
1. addendum: People will be even more unhappy if you argue with the employee that no, these are not hurricane peaches, because these peaches were on sale for about 3 cents per pound less than the hurricane peaches
3. You must not be dumber than a box of rocks
4. You must understand the concept behind scanning UPC codes
5. Seriously. Just go through the regular lines if you have an entire cart full of crap. Where do you think you're going to put it all? Are you going to scan it and then put it back in your cart? On top of the other stuff you haven't scanned? And then dig through all that stuff to get to the stuff to get to the stuff you still need to scan? Oh crap. Yes, that's exactly what you are going to do...

Note: Girl Scout cookies are today being sold be very surly-looking middle-aged women. No Sale.

Techie-riffic

I know I'm behind on this one, but hey, I'm just fashionably late. Also, these answers may be eerily similar to two other bloggers out there :)

1. Do you remember when you saw your first computer? When did you actually use one? What about having your own? Do you own a laptop? (PC or Mac?) Have you gone wireless at home yet?

The first one I ever saw was a dumb terminal that a neighbor's dad had. He was a prof at a local college. The neighbor kids got something soon after. I remember watching the older neighbor kid play lunar lander. Very impressive. We got out Vic-20 later, and were changed forever. I remember my brother painstakingly building a picture of an uzi, pixel by pixel with a art pad that we had. It was unreal that a computer could display something that detailed.

Later on, we had a C64 and eventually we got a dedicated phone line and I ran a little BBS called the Sewer System (My moniker - Smelly Rat. Well, I think I actually spelled it -= Rat]} I remember I got very excited to get my first upload. I was sure that it was kool warez, as the kids say now, but in fact, it deleted my BBS software. Oh, I was crushed.

Also memory-worthy on the C64 was when my brother and I downloaded an audio file of the first couple seconds of the song Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting." It was stunningly good. I had never even heard the song before, but we sung that first piece of it forever. The file also took about a day or so to download.

Now I've got a desktop that's packed up because I don't have room to unpack it, and a HP laptop that's serving heavy-duty for me. It's a good 'un, but I always fall to the lure of the upgrade - such a geek.

I have a lot of respect for the Macs, but as far as I'm concerned, they simply don't run all the software I want to run. I wouldn't be able to run all the experimental download stuff that I do on a Mac without an emulator, and on top of that, I do some stuff at school that can't easily be done on a Mac - some of it can't be done at all on a Mac. I would love to have all the buttery-smooth Mac goodness and a little bit of actual design in my computer, but frankly, Macs can't do what I want to do yet. :(

2. When did you first go online and/or use email? Who did you email back then? How did the internet change your life? When did you discover blogging? What about your home internet connection - is it dial-up, DSL, cable?

I honestly don't remember when I first used email, even though I had been using BBS forums forever. I was a huge fan when Prodigy came out, because it was so much more graphical than Compuserve. I discovered blogging early, but didn't really get interested until I saw Profgrrrl's site. I had started a couple dairy-style blogs before then, but after I saw her's, I tried to start one in earnest. Right now the place where I live (I dare not use the word 'home,' that would make it sound like I like it there) is wired for cable. I've never really cared about the cable/DSL wars - either one's fine to me.

3. Do you remember your first VCR? What about a video camera (there were some bulky ones back in the 80s and 90s) and home videos?

VCR - very vaguely. Top loader? Oddly, I love photography, but never been a big fan of video.

4. When did you switch from VCR to DVD? How did it change your video viewing experience? Do you use TiVo or any such "contraption" to tape TV shows? Do you use Netflix or some other internet-based DVD "renting" service?

I'd love to get a TiVo, but I'm not sure I've got the time to watch all the stuff I'd want to watch :( Netflix might be a possibility...

5. What about music? Did you enjoy listening favorite music in Long Plays or did you prefer cassette tapes? When did you buy your fist CD player and switched to CDs? Did you abandon them (and turned to downloaded music) for MP3 players or Ipods or do you still buy CDs? (I'm not going to ask or comment about "illegal" music activities in the internet, even though it was an exciting innovation, lest one of us gets arrested for it :)

Ah, I remember having a very small red white and blue record player. I also had a record... Candy Girl? It was mine all mine, and when my brother wanted to hear it he had to ask me! Bwahahaa.

I'm almost entirely digital now, I've got a box of CDs around here somewhere, but I don't use them anymore. I do kind of miss mix tapes though.

6. Do you own and use a cell phone? Do you think it's useful or just annoying?(Did you always have a telephone in your house growing up? Did you have a phone in your own room?)

I fought the cell phone thing forever, and now I've got one. I think it's a horrible nasty evil, but needed thing.

7. When did you first buy a digital camera? What kind was it (3.2, 4.0, 5.0 mega-pixels or better)? Did you start taking more pictures or were you a photo aficionado before then? What about a digital video camera?

ugh. First digital? Canon D60? I got it so that I could use my SLR lenses. It was wonderful to move off of film. Film was such a hassle. I've got crates of negatives and prints that I still need to digitize. ugh. I usually take many many many pictures - especially on vacation, but lately I haven't been doing my job well.

8. What about televisions? Have you already embraced the new technologies, such as HDTV, plasma, and flat screen? (On the other hand, you wouldn't remember black white TVs, would you?)
TV? I've got one, but it isn't very special. I would love to get a big honkin' monster screen, but alas, not for many years, I'm afraid...


Looking back at that, I think I should have broken this up into many smaller blog posts and given each question more time, but then again, who would read all that?

Best Late Email Ever

Dear Overread,

blah blah blah overslept, blah blah blah, I know you have a very strict attendance policy, blah blah blah, I've done well on the essays and tests, blah blah blah, please don't fail me for blatantly failing to abide by class policy, blah blah blah...

But here's the gold:

Student included a photo of student's alarm clock.

I guess this is to prove that... what? Student did indeed wake up late? Does this help student's case? I'm pretty sure that I was very willing to take the sleeping in as truth without any proof.

Student does have a nice clock though.