Spam:
TV Too Small? Turn yours into a 150 INCH Big Screen TV
At first I actually thought “TV” was yet another euphemism for “wang.” I know, 150 inches seems like quite a claim to make, but these guys don’t really have any hyperbolic limits.
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I got about seven hours of sleep last night, and today I feel AMAZING. For the first time in weeks I didn’t fall asleep on the bus in to work, and I have no urge to hide under my desk and nap now. I even want to actually do work more than usual. I honestly can’t remember what it was like to regularly get more than four hours, even on weekends; was it always this good? Man, I must have been spoiled.
I joke about it a lot, but the fact is I’m pretty thoroughly and seriously sleep-deprived, and I’m starting to actually believe it affects my functionality. The problem is that, with travel time added in, I spend almost twelve hours a day preparing for or actually at work. I have one hour in there, during my lunch break, to do anything that doesn’t involve staring at a screen–and of course, when I get home, I do even more of that. I want to do other things, running and drawing and working out and cooking, and I only get from 1800 hrs to whenever I go to bed (ideally, 2200 hrs; realistically, 0200 hrs) for them.
Genuine insomniac Maria will probably blame herself for keeping me up, but it really has little to do with her. It’s been this way all summer, and in fact during most of senior year. Actually, the whole thing probably started junior year; sophomore year was the last time I remember regularly getting eight hours.
Man, this post kind of got away from me. All I meant to do was note that I felt really good after a good night’s sleep. I really am looking forward to school starting, because for the first time in my academic career, I’ll have no classes that start before 1100 hrs.
Okay! So! Babies!
Actually just one baby. Talking about Zoe reminded me that I still have my Chicago pictures and I’ve been meaning to post them forever; I was saving them for a rainy no-idea day, but lately the only time I’m not posting is when I’m working on stuff I’m going to post. So pictures! (Which open in a separate window.)
- The one that inspired this whole post: There was this baby, and his name was Big Man, and he was the sweetest little bowling ball-sized human I’ve ever met. Naturally, I tried to eat his brains.
- In all my time as a Crummy fan, it never occurred to me what a great band name The Cautious Mad Scientists would be.
- Did you know they make lawnmowers you have to plug in? I didn’t, which is maybe why I find this team effort so funny.
- Me and Eric, in the only extant picture of me playing frisbee.
- Briefly, during one of the big group shots on the beach, I got to make mine a metacamera.
- Something about me takes a deep joy in the vision of a sign that a) acknowledges the existence of and b) simultaneously tries to prevent peddlin’.
- I was taking a perfectly nice close-range picture of my thumb until Kat got in the way.
- Witness my first, second and third complete failures to get a picture of the shot-shy EmilyR. Who then posed quite nicely for all the obligatory group shots.
- Oh, and lastly, having played basketball against stiff competition in inner-city Chicago, I believe I’m allowed to ask it: Who wants some?
It occurs to me that it’s only a matter of time until there’s a movie adaptation of The Bean Trees starring Ashley Judd as Taylor, and yea, my heart is like unto a cold sad rock in my chest. I liked that book. (I like Ashley Judd, too, just not when she’s acting.)
How many two-year-olds have their own weblogs? (Not enough!) If you don’t already read The Daily Zoe, you should, as it will consistently and significantly improve your outlook on life. It’s hard to feel bad about your day when you see the sheer amounts of attention and love surrounding that kid. Bonus: life-threatening cuteness!
Oh, and remind me to post something else about babies when I get home.
[Transportation Cabinet] Computers Seized in Ky. Child Porn Probe
Thank you, Kentucky. Thank you.
I got a new toaster oven this weekend, and I’m a little afraid of it. I am a huge fan of toaster ovens, which are both cuter and more wieldy than your typical harvest-gold Kenmore stove. Also, they actually allow you to SEE if your toast is getting overdone, which is plus ten points. (Why don’t they make toasters with glass sides? [Because the constant fluctuation in temperature would cause them to explode, showering you with glass.] Well still!)
Yet this toaster oven has me awed and a little frightened. My past experience with toaster ovens has been with old, comfy appliances, the kind that can dial all the way up to REDUCE TO CARBON and only achieve a kind of mild browning. My new toaster oven (suggestions on a name, anyone?), though, is a mite more enthusiastic. It’s the young, brash Loose Cannon from the buddy cop movie. It hits dark brown before the dial is even on medium, and I’m too scared to try the darkest setting on anything edible. I bet it could burst into flames.
| Maria: | ACK! Brendan, your toast has burst into flames! |
| Brendan: | Oh no! Crap, get the extinguisher! |
| Maria: | There’s no time! You’re going to have to throw it out the window! |
| Brendan: | Aww MAN! (grabs oven mitts, shoulders aside balcony door and tosses toaster oven off with a smoky plume) |
| Maria: | Where’d it go? |
| Brendan: | I think it– |
| Maria: | BRENDAN! You hit and killed that elderly philanthropist! |
| Toaster Oven: | HA HA HA HU-MANS |
Seriously, I do like it. It makes nachos and pot pies well, and those essential functions will serve it admirably. I was also going to buy this neat little eight-dollar Target waffle-maker; I abandoned the idea since the oven maxed out my toaster budget, but then Maria bought it anyway. This nearly doubles my breakfast-cooking options. If I learn to bake granola, I’ll be a breakfast bandit!
| Maria: | No, toaster oven, don’t! It’s too dangerous! |
| Toaster Oven: | IT IS OVER FOR YOU, BREAKFAST BAN-DIT |
| Brendan: | You’ll never take me alive, buddy coppers! |
| (hail of gunfire, and the smell of burned fingers) |
Maria and I saw a church marquee the other day that read
GOD IS BIGGER
We figured it was the ontological argument for God’s existence at its highest possible compression.
For the record, I know that xorph.com is experiencing outages (well, besides the failure of its cartoonist). Deep Fried, my webhost, is getting really flaky because the colo facility from which it resells is also getting really flaky, which explains the problems I’ve had with PHP, ftp and email accounts. I’ll probably be moving to PHPWebhosting soon, as it comes highly recommended and seems to have everything I need. (Stephen, we may have to talk about this–where are you, anyway?)
There is nothing outside the GUI
Thing you notice when working in a sixteen-floor office building: on the way to lunch, people habitually double-click the elevator buttons.
It’s the Talk To a Terrifyingly Quick Standup Comic in California on the Phone Game!
- Premise: You have been contacted by email and phone, so as to double the super top secretness of a responsibility with which you have been entrusted. After such secretness is secured, your contact will call you back later and you’ll end up talking for like an hour.
- Imagine the conversation as a cooperative race, in which the object is not to reach a finish line, but rather to match pace with the other conversant.
- For the purposes of this scenario, you have an old bicycle, the one from when you lived in Georgetown. It has pink flowers on it, and one squeaky training wheel that likes to make you turn right.
- Meanwhile, Sumana has a street-illegal Ferrari.
- Sumana is a kindly driver, and will cruise along comfortably halfway up the gear train, in eighth. You will attempt to pedal along at speeds matching her train (er, car) of thought; if you were on a real bicycle and not a metaphorical one, this would cause your tires to sublimate.
- Now–and this is important–try to make it look easy.
- Seriously, I did get to talk to one of my role bloggers on the cellular telephone last night. Layla cut us off a couple of times (I think she was cranky, and maybe jealous), but it was still pretty great, and my face hurt from smiling afterwards.
- I think I’m going to have to make a California road trip next summer after all, and hit San Francisco and LA and of course San Diego. Sumana recommended Amtrak, which could totally be a week’s worth of party. Stephen, Maria, you guys still up for Comic Con?
- Oh, right, the topic and such.
Thanks for playing the Talk To a Terrifyingly Quick Standup Comic in California on the Phone Game!