19th century men in hats beating each other senseless, nonlethally

I think Boing Boing quotes the absolute best part of the article here:

How to kick someone's ass with an umbrella.

The second half of the actual article, which follows in a similar vein, can be found here.

A note to the Brandeis karate club: Although we will be working with sticks in club tomorrow, "traditional attire" as seen in the diagrams will not be required, as the amount of ass kicked will likely be slight. We are all just beginners, remember! :)

Shades of Wellington

Not only did I get a rebound of my severe coughing illness these last two weeks, but it's been mighty cold here as well. After an increase in asthma medication dosage, I am back to only coughing due to chest congestion. That does nothing for the weather however. So Glen decided we ought to get an electric blanket. I used to be very skeptical of electrically heated bedclothes. But my experience in New Zealand turned me around. The B&B at which I stayed in Wellington had a huge bed, loaded with sheets, blankets, and quilts of all types, but best of all, it had what the innkeeper called an electric blanket. This was something she would turn on half an hour before I climbed into bed. She'd put it on "3" (high), and when I got into bed, the whole thing would be toasty, like I'd just hopped out for a moment. I'd then turn it down to "1" or even off, and I'd be warm all night. The best part was, it was heating from the bottom, but the blanket lying on it would get warm too. This past week, Glen and I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and found an electric blanket. There was a television playing a sixty second ad next to the electric blankets, and it advertised not only the blankets, but heated mattress pads! So we got one of those instead, and now I can recreate my B&B experience any night I want! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to turn on my bed!

Calvin and Hobbes

We've been having a rather Calvin and Hobbes week. First, there was no heat in our apartment. I recalled the C&H strip where Calvin asks his mother where his father is. "Starting a fire in the living room," she says. Calvin, very excited, rushes into the living room where he finds his father crouched on the hearth. "Oh," says Calvin, "In the fireplace." Then, on Saturday night, it was snowing. In our apartment. (I think with the high winds and our old skylights and ex-utilities holes and stuff, it was just the right angle to come in.) That, too, just seemed like a C&H moment. Then today, I found this. Do you remember this strip? I always thought it hilarious. :)

New toys

Just got a new MP3 player, a Creative Zen Touch. I LOVE it. Granted, I've only had it overnight, but it's great. I'm so glad I've decided to stop hating the iRiver and do something about it.

Related to that is another thing I've learned: how much faster USB 2.0 is than USB 1.1!! Files from my computer (USB 2.0) transfer at more than 50 Mbits/sec. Files from the external harddrive (USB 1.1) transfer at just slightly over 7 Mbits/sec. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my files are on the external harddrive. At this rate, it's going to take years. Okay. Maybe not years. Days, certainly.

P.S. If you decide to invest in a Creative player (or anything else for that matter - even iPod), forget the Creative software, and just go for Redchair's Notmad (or the equivalent program for your player) instead.

Now you can scold your dog, all the way from your office

Check this out - it's a Cell Phone for Your Pet. I wonder if this would have allowed us to call Altie back more efficiently when he got loose. Or if it would have inspired him to just keep on running. Ha. Or, more likely, run around in circles trying to locate the cheese that voice near his head kept promising!

Attack of the arctic

Boy oh boy did I pick the wrong day to stop wearing long underwear and double socks. It is SO COLD. I actually got my Starbucks beverage "extra hot" and it was just "normal hot" by the time I got back to my office. Further, I decree that the Starbucks drink size formerly known as "venti" shall now be known as "two hand warmer". (Grande is only good enough for one hand.)

Inspirational

A few years ago, I inspired Steve to get contact lenses. Today, Michael told me that I'd inspired him to buy an electric toothbrush. I'm glad I inspire people, but I inspire people to do the strangest things!

Celergasmic

On the train coming home, there was this guy sitting in a single seat with several bags of groceries. He was eating a full head(?) of celery right out of the bag, leaves, stalks, and everything. He would take a huge bite, crunching loudly, and then rest his head against the window, eyes closed, with the hugest smile of contentment as he chewed. It was as if he were receiving orgasmic bliss with each mouthful. Everyone, of course, was edging as far away from him as possible in a ridiculously crowded train, but no one could stop sneaking glances.

The weirder part is that I saw a different guy doing the same thing with iceberg lettuce a few months ago. Must be a trend.

Beaten to it

Ever since I started taking Advair, I thought someone should put a whistle or a light or something on it so you'd know you were taking it correctly. Apparently, someone now has, with the advent of the Funhaler. This is all well and good, but something about it (particularly the "exploded" diagram) makes me think that it will soon have interchangeable parts and be much like Habitrails, a few of which can be seen here.

Rather an interesting day

When Glen came home, the first thing I asked him was whether he was in an "Eric mood" or a "Jen mood". I had found out VIA received a $25K grant we'd applied for. Eric had found out he'd not been accepted by a school he'd applied to. Glen said he hadn't had a great day, but nothing from which he couldn't recover. And five minutes later, realized he'd left his textbook under his desk at school. I was just starting dinner preparations, but stopped to take him back to the building, where, luckily, he recovered the book.

Dinner, delayed, came out very well. I was attempting the Black Bean Soup, and I made the Corn Scones again. The scones came out better than before (slightly more milk is the key), and the soup came out great, dubbed by Eric "best of the cookbook". That makes two nights in a row things have been called "best". Last night, it was the Sweet Potato Salad. Eric, however, has noted that it seems his participation in the preparation of a dish seems to be counter to his thinking it the best. I told him this was not an excuse for not helping with dinner from now on!

And now you're even older

Just found out that a girl I used to babysit for is getting married. Yeah. She was in kindergarten when I was in sixth grade. We used to sit on a bus seat together on the way home and her feet didn't touch the floor. And the girl's getting married!! Now I'm officially old.

Flashbacks

Was randomly browsing blogs when I read something about Alison Bradley. I did a double take. For those of you who didn't grow up with me, this is the name of someone I fell in and out of friendship with in grade school. She was the tallest kid in my kindergarten class and the first day we kindergarteners lined up for lunch, one of the lunch ladies yelled at her that she shouldn't be in line with us and to "go back to class", thinking she was easily a second or third grader. Very traumatic for us kindergarteners who were thereafter convinced we were about to evicted from a line we were supposed to be in! Anyway, Alison grew up (as in got older!) and eventually the rest of the caught up to her height-wise. She went off to McGill, and I believe she just got married. So I was quite surprised to randomly come across her in a blog I was perusing. But, it turns out it's not her. Phew.

EDIT: Just checked, and am relieved to find I do not have a doppleganger. My fullname dot com doesn't exist.

Moosewood

Food here has been good, of late. I borrowed a Moosewood cookbook from Glen's mother last weekend, and have actually tried out a bunch of recipes from it. Tonight, we made Pasta with Endive and Beans. It came out well, although the recipe makes a rather disproportionate amount of sauce for the amount of pasta.

On Tuesday night, I made Cajun Skillet Beans, and then Corn Scones (really cornmeal scones, but they came out tasting just like "real" scones, with currants and all - great for breakfast, nuked for ten seconds, and then spread with strawberry jam). Wednesday, I made Winter Vegetable Stew, which we had with pumperknickle bread and strong cheese, as recommended by the cookbook. I thought it was good, but the stew seems to be the least liked dish I've made recently by the guys. On Thursday, I made Noodles with Mirin, which was supposed to be a soup, but really came out more like noodles with a mirin sauce. Glen and I made Scallion Biscuits to go with it, and, due to my misestimation of how many scallions we needed, we had to make two batches. Still, they seem to be disappearing at a good clip! Friday was leftovers (since we had things still from Tues, Wed, and Thurs), but I made Moosewood Brownies for dessert. This morning, I made Cornmeal Pancakes, which were really good. By later, we were definitely in need of groceries, so I marked another half dozen recipes and got supplies to support them.

However, one of my "sous chefs" (ha), Eric, has been pushing to go to Bugaboo Steakhouse recently, though, so I imagine at least one night (tomorrow?), we'll give the cookbook a break!

Freedom of...?

I love it when libraries ban books. It seems so oxymoronical. You're a library. You're supposed to collect books.

Mississippi libraries ban 'Daily Show' book

Biosphere 2 bites the dust

I remember being in fifth or sixth grade and getting "Scholastic Weekly", this few page (we're talking four pages here) newspaper with supposed "news" directed at kids. (And written for kindergarteners.) Anyway, one of the best articles in it (meaning I remembered it a smidge longer than the rest of the drek) was about the Biosphere 2 in AZ. I daydreamed for a good long time about how cool it would be to live and work there. But, no longer...

Biosphere 2 for sale

Low tech wonders of the world

Some people I know have been looking for the next best PDA gadget. Others run to avoid them altogether. This link is of the latter group:

Introducing the Hipster PDA

Once you've read the above, you can move on to the advanced features:

Organizing your Hipster PDA

This is Jack's stress

Apparently, I've been a bit stressed of late. In the last week, I have had four dreams, which, although they weren't nightmares, per se, were certainly disturbing:

In one, I was attempting to infiltrate an enemy base with two friends, but I was captured. To prove to my captors that I was actually on their side, I had to eat beeswax and go to a birthday party for the son of one of them. At the party, I saw my other two friends being held in a cage in the middle of the party location, while exotic animals roamed free. I was bit by one that I thought was a horse, but actually looked like an ostrich. When I called my father to tell him I was kidnapped, the birthday boy overheard me and ratted me out to his parents, and I had to convince them again that I was really on their side. My stomach hurt during the entire dream due to the beeswax.

In a second dream, Glen and I were vacationing somewhere when suddenly bits of the earth started disappearing. We ran into a cabin and were safe there with about fifty other people. Later, to watch the sunset, we took a walk, and ended up crashing a BBQ, which, although we thought it was free, it turned out wasn't. One of the guys coordinating the BBQ was a little annoyed we'd just walked in, and, since Glen had taken a piece of bread and beer, the guy asked Glen if he wanted "help with that" (the beer). Glen said sure, thinking the guy was going to open it for him, but instead, the guy opened it and drank the whole thing.

In the third dream, one of my parents had died, but I couldn't tell which one because only "half" of them had died, and each parent had two bodies anyway. (So, yes, I was left with two of one parent and one of the other.) There was also something to do with a piano and a violin, but I don't remember it very well.

My dream two nights ago was definitely the strangest, though. I dreamt that I was at my parents' house, and my teeth were falling out, in clumps, two or three at a time. I'd be talking and then suddenly they'd be loose in my mouth. I started laying them out on a papertowel on the kitchen table, so I'd know where they were when I went to the dentist. My grandmother was there and trying to convince me it wasn't a big deal, that she had no teeth, and she was doing just fine. She kept trying to give me coupons for free lunches at the hospital cafeteria because the food they served there was soft. Mom and Dad were out walking the dog. When I lost the last of my teeth, I got rather concerned about the whole thing, so I called 911 only to be told that the number had been changed to 321-911, but not to worry, since the guy who answered when I called 911 said it happens all the time and he'd just transfer me. The dispatcher said that I was maybe the sixth person to call within the last half hour with the symptoms I described and that he himself now had a bunch of open wounds. I said the only thing I knew that could cause our symptoms was a mineral deficiency...or radiation. The dispatcher said that solar flares had been reported so probably that was it. I hung up the phone and found my parents had just come back from walking the dog. The dog was inside and they were sitting on the deck. Although it was bright and sunny, there was a light mist happening in a weird way. I called them in from the deck and we sat at the table and watched the dog to see if anything was going to happen to him.

Yeah, I told you. Bizarre and disturbing.

Hoaxed

Yup, you were all right. It's a hoax.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Photo Gallery (Tsunami)

Tsunami

I hadn't actually been following the horrors of the tsunami disaster. I knew it existed, knew it had caused a lot of damage, killed hundreds of thousands and left the wounded in bad shape due to lack of supplies. But I'd seen no pictures. Until this one. And the worst part is that you don't even see the second wave, taller than the buildings, until after you've looked at the picture for a few moments. (This photo, incidentally, is one that was circulating at WHO yesterday. Michael was sent it from a friend there.)

[Note - There has been speculation that this picture was photoshopped or is otherwise false. I have, as I told one of you, not been witness to many tsunami of late, so if what is seen in the photo is impossible via the laws of physics, I have no idea. If I find out the picture is not legit, I will let you know.]

Bit the bullet

I'm gonna be at work rather late tonight. Might as well have easy access to music I want to hear, mixed by mood. I bought MoodLogic. As my grandmother would say, "Use it in good health." Of course, she'd always say it in Yiddish, but I won't embarrass myself by trying to spell it out that way.

We shared some information we might not recover from

Periodically, I get very into my MP3s. I'm into them. Again.

I have, as many of you know, a 40 gig Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 which is currently functioning as a paperweight due to its sudden schizophrenic demise last spring, but which I don't have the heart to get rid of, as well as a 6-gig-upgraded-to-20-gig Creative Nomad Jukebox 1 which, mostly for reasons of capacity and battery life, I have pseudo-loaned to Glen, and which neither of us use much anymore. So my current specimen of choice is a 40 gig iRiver iHP-140. It's an okay player, but I really liked the NJB3 interface and firmware a whole lot better. Four words: on the fly playlists.

Anyway... To support my habit, years ago I purchased Redchair's Notmad, and then upgraded the universal license to be a cross-product license to work with my iRiver too. This was all well and good except that for some incredibly frustrating reason, the software thinks my iRiver is a different device almost every time I plug it in. (And, for copyright reasons, each software license only works with one device.) So, most of the time, I can't use the stuff. However, tonight I got lucky, and it managed to identify my one and only iRiver as the one it likes. And I got even luckier in that I managed to get iRivium (the iRiver Notmad) to upload a playlist to my player, AND was actually able to access the playlist (this is a first!) later on. (Previous playlists seem to become invisible. Don't know why.) Hooray! So I will probably spend a few hours (after the grant is in, I promise) putting together playlists to upload the next iRivium chooses to like my player.* Meanwhile, I continue to debate whether to actually purchase MoodLogic. I really enjoyed my now expired demo version, but I store most of my MP3s on an external harddrive which mostly stays at work, and whines at a tremendously annoying pitch when it's powered on. I think I'm tending toward the purchase of not only MoodLogic but also an external harddrive that is 1) mine and 2) able to run silently!! If anyone else has had any experiences (good, bad, or otherwise) with MP3 management tools they would like to share, I would not be adverse!

*In defense of Redchair, let me say that I never had major problems with Notmad. It's just this iRivium (and I'm sure it's the player's fault really!) that's driving me nuts.

Hot, sweet procrastination

Oh come on now. Get your minds out of the gutter. I have several gigantic tasks bearing down on me at work, so I'm not at all looking forward to the long hours and late nights which are necessary this week. I'm glad KEXP has archived all their shows. I can listen to the Morning Show 24-7.

Yesterday, at Trader Joe's, procrastinating going home where more work awaited, everything looked good, so I overflowed my basket buying ridiculous quantities of things - three boxes of cereal (I've been spending too much on bagels each morning, damn my bottomless mug which necessitates daily coffee - and hey, why don't I get breakfast while I'm in here...), four bags of frozen fruit (hooray new blender to make smoothies!), and Ghirardelli Chocolate Mocha Hot Chocolate mix. This last item will take the place of sugar in my coffee from now through at least spring! Quick, somebody comment that at least chocolate is healthy for my heart whereas just plain sugar doesn't really give me anything but calories...

Instant death averted

Last week, Glen IMed me, asking "what, more than anything else, signifies instant death to you?". I thought he meant something like 'a train coming and being unable to get out of the way'. However, he meant it much more personally. Maraschino cherries. Being allergic to red food coloring means avoiding some stuff I really had no huge love for in the first place - rainbow sherbet, Jello, Swedish fish - and, one thing which I really used to love - Maraschino cherries. Well, Glen, at Trader Joe's last week, found non-artificial colored, non-preservative laden Maraschino cherries. So I've been eating them approximately ten at a time. YUM!!

Requisite new year post

Happy 2005 to everyone. So far, we've had a good start to ours. Slept late, good shower, chocolate chip pancakes, watching TiVo, and then spent probably two hours playing a PopCap game having to do with setting up fuses and fireworks, in pseudo competition against Eric while Glen played Gameboy on the couch, and we all listened to the streamed KEXP top 90.3 (sorry, 91.7) songs of 2004. (Yeah, yeah, the link gives you albums not songs. But you can stream songs.) Haven't gotten through the whole countdown yet, but it's seeming dangerously close to naptime. And I can always stream the rest later.

This is going to be a good three day weekend. :)