Earthquake!

A 3.6 in livermore. Felt it here at home. (for those of you not from earthquake country, that’s big enough to be felt, but not really big enough to do damage.)

When I was a kid, I used to really like earthquakes. they were fun. One even shattered a window ni the living room of our first apartment, and I thought that was kind of neat.

Ever since the Loma Prieta though, I haven’t been as fond of earthquakes. It started slow, then got stronger and stronger, and it seemed to go on for ages. Now when I feel them I feel a wave of anxiety and wonder if it’s going to get stronger.

But this one just subsided. Based on the data from USGS, I think livermore is having a small cluster.

Last night I had my first Alton Brown experience. Oh, I’ve heard of him before, Rita and Ici and Shorn were talking about him quite a lot for a while there. I believe that Ici even has his cookbook, because I think I was there when Rita borrowed it. But I’d never seen his show, or read his cookbook, or any other such thing. I’d heard he was pointedly opinionated, and seemed to know a lot about various cooking techniques. What no one ever mentioned to me before was that he was essentially the Greg Proops of the cooking world. He even looks vaguely like the man. I think I need to watch more of him.

Oh, and where I saw him? On the Food Network’s new episodes of Iron Chef American. American chefs vs. the Japanese Iron chefs. Alton Brown is the commentator. It was a good experience. They aren’t identical to the Japanese version, and their lack of experience and American leanings both show through slightly, but thank god, it’s not William Shatner.

Oh, and apparently my mother doesn’t sleep in her bed anymore, just spends the night in her recliner. I have to admit it doesn’t make watching TV have all the appeal it used to. When I suggested she go to bed she said something about being fine, then started snoring. On the one hand, as long as she’s comfortable.

On the other hand, I have to admit that I feel a slight guilt about the things I like to watch; Japanese TV and Shepard’s Chapel both come to mind. The first because not everyone enjoys watching TV in a language they don’t understand. The latter because while he used to be really over the top (I got turned on to this guy when I surfed past one night and paused long enough to hear him refer to the virgin Mary as “The Little Woman”) he seems to have calmed down some these days, and seems to promote more tolerance and doesn’t have cute pet names for the mother of God anymore. So when mom wakes up and looks at the TV, it’s a lot easier to explain Pulp Fiction or Iron Chef America than it is a Christian babble show, especially when he’s not being offensive to the point of amusement. (West Virginian ex-Marine. I’m telling you, it’s hard to go wrong. His explanation of creationism was a giggle too.)

Either way: not sleeping in your bed keeps it made. I wondered why it always seemed to be made when I came home… now I know.

Oh, and if you have a spare $300 lying around, you can make all your presidential fantasies come true… From making him speak coherently, to actually choking to death on the pretzel, to roasting him over an open fire. Great Lakes Science and Novelty, we salute you. They also have some wonderful votives.

Nebbiolo sent me a link to a chick tract that I’d heard of (back when I was into Chick Tracts) but was never able to see. Apparently they reprinted it (and probably changed it… many of the late 60s/70s/early 80s tracts got a rewrite before being re-released. Like the one targetting the African-American population in prison. Seriously. But I digress.).

Er… where was I?

Oh, right, the Chick tract. okay. lets start at the beginning. For those of you who don’t know what a tract is, it’s a little pamphlet or page long handout, that gives political or religious information. You don’t see the political usage all that much these days, which is sort of apt, as the word tract can also refer to scripture. So, typically, it’s a little pamphlet that talks about why you should repent and join the ranks of the christian community. They tend to be a standard page overfilled with little tiny text, and occasional bits of scripture. I generally find them dull.

Now, Chick. Jack Chick is a wannabe cartoonist who came up with the idea of drawing little cartoons with Christian messages. So chick tracts refer to the little comic book tracts he makes that are designed to convert you to Jesus.

His website‘s motto is “Chick Tracts get read.” Which is true. He has a cult following of non-christians who like his tracts because they’re so over the top and insane. This is not because they’re christian. This is because he draws these things without doing any apparent research, combined with the fact that he’s a bible literalist. I’m not sure if his sanity has changed over the years; in some respects he’s become a much more stringent bible literalist over the years, yet many of his tracts have been toned down over the decades. I attribute the latter occurance to the enlargement of his tract operation. Read: Some where along the way, he got handlers who veto some of the truly inappropriate stuff.

It’s the literalist bible routine that gets to me most I think. It’s alternately baffling and absurd. An example from his latest publication (in which Ms. Henn the substitute teacher attempts to teach the children evolution): “God tells us in the Bible what happened… and He should know… He was there! Was Ms. Henn?” -Apes, Lies and Ms. Henn Though he’s willing to interpret for us too: in his version of the bible “God said He made the first dinosaur and the first man on the same day!” If it weren’t such a scary idea, I think it would be fun to re-create the bible based on Chick’s interpretation. I suspect it’d be rather different than the original…

Oddly enough, this tract actually answered a question that has long plagued me about the whole evolution/creationism debate: Why is the idea of presenting evolution so inherently evil? Chick in particular is a vocal opponent of any opinion other than his own in his tracts, which just seems so brain dead to me. But he actually gives a rational explanation for a change! “The saddest part is… if people are told that we come from apes… and believe it… Then they won’t pay any attention to what God says.” In other words, people capable of thinking for themselves won’t choose to listen to what the bible says?

Er…

Anyway, back to the whole point of this post (yes, I did forget about the point for an hour or so. But the research was a lot of fun.). Nebbiolo sent me a link to a Chick tract I’d always wanted to get my hands on: the one that explains why D&D is evil For all my gaming buddies:

Dark Dungeons

And, of course, while doing all my research, I found a parody of Dark Dungeons explaining why being Goth just blows, so for all my lapsed Goth friends:

Darque Dungeon

I also found a tract for the rest of us:

Why settle for the lesser evil? Cthulhu Chick!

Amazing Discovery of the day: Quail in Monacita’s backyard.

A pair, male and female. Last I saw, they’d flitted into the area behind the pool with the bushes, then wandered in, deep underneath. I watched for a while, and heard what sounded like them walking around down there, but saw nothing else.

Neat.

I also saw the resident mourning dove pair, a huge blue jay (the kind without the crest, one of the biggest ones I’ve seen), the little black bird that lives on the fence and something fairly large that appears to be some sort of song bird (as opposed to bird of prey), but I don’t know what it is. (I haven’t seen it up close.) Note to self, bring my binoculars, camera and bird book over here.

Neat!

Oh, and Rita says that Alegria means Joy in Spanish. Perfect

(to “The Caissons Go Rolling Along”)

Scratch the disks, dump the core,

Roll the tapes across the floor,

And the system is going to crash.

Teletypes smashed to bits.

Give the scopes some nasty hits

And the system is going to crash.

And we’ve also found

When you turn the power down,

You turn the disk readers into trash.

Oh, it’s so much fun,

Now the CPU won’t run

And the system is going to crash.

Shut it down, pull the plug

Give the core an extra tug

And the system is going to crash.

Mem’ry cards, one and all,

Toss out halfway down the hall

And the system is going to crash.

Just flip one switch

And the lights will cease to twitch

And the tape drives will crumble in a flash.

When the CPU

Can print nothing out but “foo,”

The system is going to crash.

Well, I was going to blog about the joys of internet access at my girlfriend’s house, but it went away. I hope it comes back tomorrow. I’ll be disappointed if this turns out to be a one night freak occurrence.

And let me just state – I think I worship my new laptop… Not only is it interpreting my handwriting, it’s spell checking what I write as I enter it. My only complaint is that it seems to have trouble interpreting capital I’s. Other than that it’s working great. And this is writing to a text file which doesn’t have spell check!

I remember having a conversation with someone once who was afraid that with the advent of computers, hand writing would be a lost art. I remember pointing out that those kid’s would probably type far better than we ever would. I remember thinking about that conversation again in computer science one summer…our teacher told as about his 8 year old son who used voice recognition software to write all his papers. He thought typing just took too long. a middle-aged woman sitting next to me was concerned because she also thought it represented the death of hand writing. And in this case, the kid couldn’t even type! (I also had this conversation with Rita at some point, so, no Rita, I haven’t forgotten, I’ve just had it a few times.

Anyway… I remember pointing out to the woman that the kid was gaining one skill that was invaluble, to use that software, the kid had to learn to talk like he wrote. He had to learn to think about what he said, how he phrased it, and he had to say it without using “uhm,” “like”, or “hella”. I’m not sure I don’t still use any of those phrases!

But I digress. (I usually do.) My point was, in all the conversations like that I’ve had, it never occurred to me that some day computers might encourage hand writing! And I’m not talking about that Palm/Pocket PC bullshit either, I write like I do on paper, a combination of print and cursive. And it decodes it into text. It really is cool. (The interpreter program behind the input panel is really impressive too. I think it’s learning about how I write. Amazing.)

Anyway, enough of my raving, I should go find bed. Hopefully I will be able to post this tomorrow.

Good Night!

Addendum: I just discovered one of the programs has a layout that is used for writing Japanese Compositions. IE, you can do your Japanese homework on this thing! I bloody love this thing!

Additional Addendum: I’ve decided to name her after my current musical obsession. Unlike my prior Toshibas (Norbert and Norbert JR), this one is female. And her name is Alegria. (pronounced Ah-lay-gree-ah) I have no idea what it means. But Cirque Du Soleil does a beautiful song of the same name.

One of the jobs I applied to just posted the ad on Craig’s list again. So much for the vast emptiness of applying online.

Ouch.

Oh, and the glasses place has to custom make a lens for my left eye because they don’t make pre-made lenses strong enough to accomodate my astigmatism. It should take two or three weeks. And cost as much as $100 more than anticipated.

Ouch.

Intellectially I know the job thing isn’t personal, but it sure doesn’t change the fact that I want to scream “What’s wrong with me?!?!?!?” To the heavens at the top of my lungs.

And the glasses don’t do a damn thing to help the fact that I’ve been having money related stress dreams.

…

On the other hand, I’ve also be having school related stress dreams lately.

…

…

…

I only have specific stress dreams about school and money. All others involve other, uhm, topics. Usually family members. But I digress.

I’m not in school. I’m not yet out of money.

I wanted a year off from school. I got a year off from school.

DVC is offering the chemistry class I want this summer.

…

Ouch

…

…

…

Fuck it. I have to leave or I’ll be late for therapy.

Dear Cantatus,

I’m alive and well. Or something like that.

I’m alive. That counts for something. I’m tired, hormonal and have an ear infection, and I cannot figure out for the life of me WHY I have an ear infection. I haven’t been eating dairy, I haven’t been smoking nearly as much as I used to. (Funny. In the last week or so Monacita and a few others have all hinted that I smoke way too much. The ironic part? I figured that out a few weeks before, and cut way back. Strange.) Must just be a hay fever ear thing. It’s not particularly painful though, so other than the fact that I can’t really hear on my right side too well, I don’t really mind.

I attended a job fair on Monday. It didn’t really have anything for me, but I went and did it, and I suppose that’s what really matters. I’d had an eye appointment right before hand, so my eyes were dilated through the whole thing, which made it interesting. I wonder if any of them thought I was stoned. I think I like sending resumes out into the invisible world of the internet better… You may never hear anything from the companies that you send them to, but that’s better than having someone tell you to your face that there’s no point in you leaving your resume. Internet oblivion is disheartening, but out-right, face-to-face rejection is just depressing.

Yesterday I listened to the latter half of the Shrub’s speech, and the entirety of his question and answer period. Today I read Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi. An excellent read if you ever get the chance. Admittedly though, between the two, I am feeling disheartened about our current state of leadership in this country. The Shrub fully intends to keep us on War-Footing [tm] from now until hell freezes over if he can possibly do so, doesn’t he?

And just when it looked like my mood was going to slip totally into the toilet, a call out of the blue from SF Diva (Philly Diva now really, I suppose) called, and managed to make me feel better about life, the universe and everything. Woot!

So now that I’m totally distracted by looking at grad programs and liscencing internships and other such things, I think I shall run off and do a bit more research…

Oh, and even though I’m not fond of the show, I recommend American Idol this evening. Apparently Quinten Tarintino is on, being a right bastard to the contestants. I’d tell you the time and channel, but I have no idea when it’s on.

Feeling much less Grumpy,

VSC

PS did you know that UCSF (local medical college) did grad work as well? Me neither. I think I’d kill for the chance to get my Ph.D there though… And would probably have to to get in. heheeheh. A girl can dream though.

Recieved email informing me I had 90 days until I no longer owned bigyellowblanket.com.

Considered this fact for a few minutes, then renewed for another two years.

While the updates are few and random, I am not yet done with my domain.

Happy Easter to me.

To Furina: hey hon, sorry I missed your message, I was off folding laundry. Sweet Dreams. Hope you slept well.