Sunday, February 28, 2010

a beginning...

the daughter-in-law has written a book! and it is good -- very very good! she asked me to read through it and see if there were inconsistencies or problems, so i'm doing that now. but i keep forgetting to proof because i keep getting drawn back into the story.

if she's got more of this stuff in her, she could really go somewhere with it!

what's the buzz, tell me what's a-happenin' ....

do you do facebook? do you do twitter? well, here comes buzz.

i have a facebook page, although i rarely spend time with it. and i have a twitter account although i've never ever used it.

i don't know if i want to bother with buzz. i'm curious about it, but don't have time to deal with what i currently have, let alone take on something new. but this article made me wonder about it. the biggest problem i see is that it would keep grabbing your attention, especially if everyone starting chipping in. and that takes time.

let me know if you have tried it and what you think.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

did you hear the one .....

"hey, have you ever dated a robot before? I used to date a vacuum cleaner. it sucked!"

if that makes you curious, go here to read about robotic bartenders. sadly, the one i thought was most interesting-looking didn't even get talked about. maybe it was only the waitress.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

one-stop shopping

i didn't know about this website! either there are too many things to know in this world, or i am sadly out of the loop. probably too many things .....

anyhow, there's a dearth of navy shoes out there. they're just not readily available. but with this newly-discovered website, i can search by color and voila! there are 494 pages (12 per page) of blue shoes!!! admittedly, a lot of them are astonishingly horrible ... i mean ... godawful ugly, uh ... i mean, uh ... mmmm ... interestingly fashionable, so it's really a kick just to look through them. but by the 65th page i had seen two pair that i wanted to look at closer.

and, let's be real, i pass over the ones for $595 (as well as the ones for $20) but it's helpful to see them all.

i''m going to put this on my favorites!!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

ppphhthttttt ..... phmmmbm

YES!!!!

remember those tubes, well, no -- i suppose most of you are waaaaaay too young to have ever seen those pneumatic tubes in action, but they used to have them in banks and department stores and government offices.

they were so cool! you'd put something inside and zip!!! off they went to be quickly deposited on someone's desk. and there have been a number of times in the last x-months when i and my colleagues have mentioned we wish we still had a system like that at work.

well! look at this! there are people out there who know the value of this system! it just makes an old heart glad *tear on cheek*. yay, retro!

a split-second difference

i think the death of the young luge athlete is sad. here you are, doing this sport that your dad and uncle have done and taught you about, that you have prepared for, and because of one miscalculation, or a poorly engineered run, or those low walls, while in sight of the finish line, your life is suddenly cut short.

i watched the video. i don't consider myself one of those people who has to slow down and look at a gruesome accident, but i am one of those people who needs to know what happened. and how it happened. and what caused it. so i watched the video. and would have watched it in slow motion but the capability wasn't there. it wasn't bloody. it was curious. he was too high, then was tossed to the other side, then swooped off the edge and his trajectory led him to connect with a steel support beam. something flew off to the right, and his faceplate bounced back onto and down the track. he hit that beam really hard. it looked like he probably connected from his neck to his tailbone, probably shattering those bones, and his internal organs, at that speed, probably ruptured. i don't know medical stuff. but it helps me, having a mental image of what happened.

don't ask me why; i've always needed to know.

youtube has apparently pulled their videos of it. i'm not sure i agree with that philosophy. the video isn't grisly, bloody, scary, dirty, or any negative. it's just real and it's sad. the video on nbc's olympics site is still there. and the new york times had a good presentation of what happened.

this isn't hollywood or tv or made-up. life is fragile...use it wisely.

Monday, February 08, 2010

geography

well .... that was interesting. i got a score of 88 in 405 seconds with an average error of 22 miles.

here -- try it! thanks, max!!

Sunday, February 07, 2010

danger, will robinson ....

okay. so we need to drive less because we emit harmful gasses. so ... we do drive less, or we get cars which get better mileage, and what happens? the powers that be find out they are getting less gas-tax money and need to come up with another plan.

now they're thinking about charging us for how many miles we drive. good grief. that might not be a problem for delaware or rhode island, where you can just about walk from one side of the state to the other in an afternoon. but, hello ..... texas? montana? oregon?

i don't know, but it just doesn't sit right. you can read more about it here.

giger counter culture

and here, for your prurient leanings, is an interesting selection of pictures; don't miss number 7. the older people may not recognize this guy's stuff, unless they are a fan of Alien. the younger people will have seen it before. i simply cannot imagine what it's like to be this guy and have these things in my head. i wonder if the scientific explanation is that he is channeling bits of an alien civilization (term used loosely) which, hopefully, lies far far away from ours. i say 'hopefully' because, really, there seems to be such a feeling of evil which touches, slimes, and imbues so much of his work. still .... it's a lot like a car accident. you just HAVE to look.

bah humbug

here it is, 6:30 on a weekend morning and i, a night person, have gotten up early specifically so i can go out and see the space station as it zooms by overhead. however ....

it is raining.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

life!

in spite of the fact that i never seem to have any free time anymore, i chanced upon several very neat videos recently.

i wonder what this cat is thinking.
i love this although i suppose everyone has seen it already except for me.
do not watch this if you are a prude. i thought it was very clever, but some people ....
pure joy!!
i think i already posted this one, but i don't remember and it's too cool to not add.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

take a left ....

just a quick note -- it was a couple of decades ago that mapmakers decided to not include everything on their maps anymore. little streets, small country roads, they left off things like that. pissed me off.

i just discovered a new wiki site which is trying to map the world and to make the result free to anyone. these maps will probably include everything. since it seems to still be in the beginning stages (staggered stages, though) i'm sure there are places which .... well, wait. i just looked at different places (africa, new zealand, scotland, siberia, china) and there's already quite a bit there. except for siberia and china.

i suppose a person would want to compare one of these new maps with google if you were going to use it -- human error and all that, but for the most part, the new map should turn out to be very informative and accurate. unless a bad guy has been making entries bent on mischief.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

hotel service

i saw this article the other day about having people warm up your sheets. with themselves. come on, holiday inn, how much are you paying the person who thought this up?

yeah, yeah, i know. the person is supposed to be clean and all covered up, but all i can think is, GROSS. if i want a person to warm my sheets, i'll find him myself.

just make them all and let me choose

apparently, according to something i saw, this spring's colors are supposed to be strong-yellow, turquoise-green, tomato-red, chalky-violet, and medium-blue. plus some other blah colors.

that's just depressing.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

things to do

the grandson is just about a month old now. we need to run down and visit. i'm sure he's keeping his eyes open more, especially with big sister around to make noise and laugh. i don't think we're going to make it down there this weekend, and next weekend i'm heading north to a bagpipe fund raiser. i went to it last year and very much enjoyed myself. lots of people, haggis, music, traditional dancing -- it's an evening of total immersion. and very fun!

it was fun

what a lovely visit we had with MYS and his special friend. we've hadn't met her before, although we've read about her on his blog and seen pictures. she's prettier than her pix and sooooo slender. very smart, easy-going, a quick laugh, totally unpretentious, good-natured -- lots of positive things to say about her. we very much enjoyed having both of them around!

i want to go there

we saw avatar last night. in 3-d.

i really liked it, the husband thought it was so-so. v, the young woman who went with us, liked it even more than i did.

would you like it? only if you're an intelligent, imaginative, forward-thinking, visual, other-than-republican, nature-loving, free spirit. it had BEAUTIFUL graphics, more realistic than anything i've ever seen. i mean, you were THERE! and you were ONE OF THEM!

the creatures were scary, but the philosophy of the whole place was lovely. the plants, flowers, little bugs were totally neat. i wanted to be there and touch things and see everything and go for a ride. except that i'm afraid of heights.

but, ohmygod, it was so cool. i wonder if i can have a room done like that place. or the whole house. *sigh*

Friday, December 25, 2009

12 daze

this one is pretty good, too. very very silly, but somehow pretty funny.

christmas can-can

i get tired of hearing all the christmas music, but i thought this was pretty good. enjoy!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

can't keep up

i am waaaaay past everyone else in getting to see avatar but i know i'm going to love the visuals; my understanding is that the dialogue is terrible though. i loved myst, even though i never made it all the way through, so i'm sure i'm going to love avatar. visuals are a strong thing for me.

as i was looking around for information on how the movie was doing, i ran across this:
http://www.geekologie.com/2009/12/spoiler_alert_avatar_the_movie.php. ahahahahaha!