OH MY GOD, THAT'S NOT A CHIHUAHUA!

No

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:09:17 GMT

http://www.totalfilm.com/news/shia-labeouf-confirms-indy-v-is-gearing-up?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=news

Oh hell no. Oh hell damn ass no.

Does Spielberg seriously not have the ability to distinguish between a good movie and a bad movie anymore?

The problem...

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 01:06:53 GMT

... with going to a big convention and staying in one of the convention hotels is that your social group becomes a dominant social group, which is almost never the case in real life. And a society dominated by chemists and chemical engineers is actually a little creepy. All the people in a suit dating to the era of their thesis defenses (chemists and chemical engineers mostly don't have to wear suits every day, and do not see much reason to waste money on something they won't get much use out of) with intense, low voices, not making eye contact when they're trying to think (if you ever want to play "spot the scientist", this is a dead giveaway), and folding our arms and sticking out our chins when we're pissed off.

Interestingly, I'm starting to realize that I can predict with fair accuracy what I might look like in thirty years. I'd be able to be more accurate if I were a guy: there's still a definite XY-chromosomes bias in postgraduate research, and thus my sample size is a bit low. But there is a definite "50-60 year old female engineer" style which I will slowly enter into.

I'm at the ACS national meeting in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake is quite nice, although the downtown area needs to have more residential development to be a truly vibrant community. I hadn't been here before and I hadn't realized how close the mountains are... I will have to come back some summer and get some hiking in.

The reason I haven't posted in a while is twofold: I am hell of busy, for starters. I want to try and graduate this year, and I just got a journal article back with what I think was a disrespectful review saying it needs *major revision* but not actually quarrelling with any of my data or conclusions. This... is rude. And if you want someone to rewrite a paper you put in a *lot* of specific suggestions... or just say "reject" outright. So after some insane rage and tears in the ladies room on friday I'm stepping away for the weekend and focusing on the talk I'm giving on Monday. The other reviewer, btw, said "Minor revisions" and gave specific suggestions. This is fine. I wasn't thinking they'd say "OH WOW ABBIE YOU ROCK WE'LL TAKE YOUR ARTICLE UNEDITED" but it is a GOOD article and does not deserve this sort of treatment.

It's like fanfiction writing and the whole "concrit" debate. I wonder if there's a science_wank community somewhere on here.

Tell you what, though, if someone messes with me in the Q&A section of my talk I may just challenge them to a ritual duel to the death. This is allowed in our mirror-world engineer society. I'd win, too. I've been v. good with the exercise thing. I'm now in the "fit" body fat percentage thing and I can bench press... well, 75 pounds for three sets. Which isn't good but it's a lot better than I was when I started. I love doing lat pulls and watching my biceps pop.

And then there's the facebook thing. It turns out I *don't* need to have thoughtful creative expression! I only need to write two sentences every other day or so and the blogging urge is suppressed. It's fun, but LJ seems deeper. I still prefer reading it, but have not been much inclined to write.

So, I'm always listening. And any of you who just miss hearing me talk about my cats (like here, where I made them wear a humorous headdress) can always sign up to my facebook.... email me and I'll hook you up with my real last name.

Also

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:44:27 GMT

The area of my house with hardwood floors is 408 sqft. I measured tonight b/c I want to have them refinished. They are oak, but I intend to ask if I can't get a darker, glossier look. I betcha we can save up enough to pay for it in cash by being wise spenders for... three months.

The thing about being married: I didn't want to go out tonight (Friday night blues). I turned down an invitation to go out tonight. And yet somehow I feel like I should have instead of editing an article, dyeing some clothes, windowshopping online, and measuring my hardwood floors. If I were single I would have gone out tonight because otherwise I'd have dark thoughts of dying alone and friendless. Which I don't have, but I feel like I should. Does that make sense?

Maple sugar candy

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:26:35 GMT

Love it. It melts in the mouth and comes in beautiful little shapes.

Unfortunately, it's mostly only available in stores around Christmas. For a junkie like me, this is not enough. Primarily for this reason, I am an devotee of the Vermont Country Store.

The Vermont Country Store caters to the elderly and back-to-nature hipsters who want to buy old-fashioned products. I am personally very fond of the Double Comb, which is a very convenient way to put my fine hair up and always impresses women who see me operate it. I also have sheet clips which help my fitted sheets stay in place and "blueing" to make my whites whiter. They have a lot of tasty foods for sale, and I kind of want a chenille bedspread now.

Lots of the products are definitely for older folk. Cane clips to attach your cane to the table so it's always near at hand. Toilet safety support seats. And thus I was startled today to find out that this old folk catalogue carries a remarkably wide variety of sexual aids. Including pubic hair dye, which I have never actually seen before, and I just went to the smut store a week ago for a bachelorette party. The page has an older couple smiling merrily, as well they should be, since they have likely just bought a Jackrabbit Pearl "Massager".

I am really glad that we can expect to get our freak on when we're in the boobs down to the ankles era.

Free books aplenty

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:49:45 GMT

If anybody would like some of these, comment or message me. First come first served. If you aren't local let me know what you want, I'll get weights and you can pay book rate shipping. Anything left over after a few weeks is going to the bookmobile.

Fiction Paperbacks
"Lasher"- Anne Rice
"Taltos"- Anne Rice
"The Master Butcher's Singing Club" - Louise Erdich
~~"The Witches of Eastwick" - John Updike~~
"Daughter of Hounds" - Caitlin R. Kiernan
~~"Midnight Never Come" - Marie Brennan~~
"The Traveler" - John Twelve Hawks
"The Golden Ass" - Apuleius
~~"My Enemy the Queen" - Victoria Holt~~
"2010: Odyssey Two" - Arthur C. Clarke
"The Husband" - Dean Koontz
"The Reluctant Suitor" - Kathleen E Woodiwiss

Fiction Hardcover
"The Name of the Wind" - Patrick Rothfuss
"Chasing Harry Winston" - Lauren Weisberger
"Labyrinth" - Kate Mosse
~~"On the Night of the Seventh Moon" - Victoria Holt~~
"A Tale out of Luck" - Willie Nelson

Nonfiction Paperbacks
"Running with Scissors"- Augusten Burroughs.
~~"Genes, Peoples, and Languages" - Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza~~
"When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" - George Carlin
"Good House Magic: Back-to-Basics Housekeeping in a Flash" - Natalia Marshall
"Hostess With The Mostess: A Galaxy of Retro Recipes" - Caroline Barty (not bad recipes but written for Canadians so a US reader needs to be good at their unit conversions)

I also found a NIST ballcap in the bottom of my "To get rid of books" box, so anybody who wants this can have it as a special bonus prize.

Facebook

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:59:47 GMT

I think I may be a really bad, self-involved person.

Well, duh, I mean, I've had a livejournal since 1999, of course I am.

I recently signed up for Facebook and I actually am very much enjoying it, though the twitterish style of updating displeases longwinded ol' me.

It's just that of late several people from high school have been friending me and my most common reaction is not "OHMIGOD that's so cool to hear from her again!" or "HOW DARE THAT BITCH TRY AND CONTACT ME?" but "Who the fuck is that?"

This weekend I dug out my old yearbooks to try and develop my memory of these folks and apparently we were quite close at one point but I can barely recall most of them. Though someone just friended me last week whose sole comment back in 1997 was "I don't know you as well as I would have liked but you seem really cool" (two lies in one sentence right there) so I think we can assume he's just a Facebook slut.

I never took that many drugs or binge-drank that badly, and high school was not a miserable time that I've tried to repress. So why has my social life of that era vanished into the void?

Driving adults to drink

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:56:33 GMT

A child of my acquaintance is turning two next weekend and thus I went to Target to purchase my $10 sacrifice to lay upon the altar of baby.

(On that note... did people my age have birthday parties when we turned two? I have no recollection of that time but it doesn't seem so... I don't think we started having parties until we were around 4-5 and could shriek and rampage without full-time adult supervision. These occasions seem mostly to be for the adults, anyway. Even us childless types get invited, and there are usually tasty beverages, though drunkenness is frowned upon.)

The toy aisle for the under-fives is awful. Boychild and Girlchild are older and their toys now are awesome and I would totally steal them if that weren't evil. Have you ever seen a Webkinz? Those things are adorable! We got Girlchild a Webkinz platypus for Christmas and I just wanted to cuddle it. This is not so with younger children. I went through the under-fives aisle and found a total of two toys in my price range that didn't make any noise.

God knows if you have a two year old, what you need is noisy toys to counteract the eerie silence. They're just too quiet on their own.

I was almost tricked into buying a cute little stuffed mother and baby tiger where, when you pressed the mother tiger's paw, she made a nice low purring noise. Fortunately I pressed it again before purchasing and it burst into a tinny and surprisingly lengthy tune about the affection within their tiger family unit. I could barely stand it once and even I know that toddlers like to do repetitive play, so, since I actually like the parents, I didn't buy.

What sort of sadist would? I suspect grandparents, getting revenge. I recall being five and listening to an Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas album on repeat for *hours* on long car trips.

Once again, therefore, I found myself buying little anthropomorphic plastic toy cars. I swear that the next kid I party with is getting a check.

That kind of face

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:04:11 GMT

So I went over to Target to pick up a couple of things after lunch today. Because I am an absolute sucker for cheap jewelry, I had to stop in the jewelry area.

There was a very cute faux pearl choker with a filigree ornament on that caught my eye and I picked it up to have a closer look. A middle aged woman browsing in the same area comes up to me and says, "Oh, I was going to get that." Restraining my bitchy "Well, you could have put it in your basket then" instinct, I said, "Oh, sorry about that" and handed it out to her. Cute necklace, but, you know, whatever.

She says "Oh, no, I put it down, I've got plenty of jewelry and we've got to pinch the pennies this year!" At this point I figure I have her pegged as "chatty lady", roll my eyes sympathetically and say "tell me about it."

Cause, you know, bad economy. Recession. Got to cut some corners.

If I EVER say "tell me about it" without meaning it again I should be SMACKED because apparently I cannot learn. This woman went on a diatribe for, quite literally, ten minutes (which is a *long* time talking to a complete stranger in the middle of Target). I heard ALL about her adorable little granddaughter, she's four now and SO smart, already able to read quite a bit, and her no-good son who is finally starting to settle down and has a very sweet girlfriend, Thai, she is, well her family is, she's American, and her oophorectomy/hysterectomy which she didn't really have to have, everything was working okay, but apparently she carries the BRCA gene and her mother and one aunt died of breast cancer, and she was done having children anyway but she felt very hollow after the fact but it was really a relief, you know, she still had to get mammograms every year but at least it wasn't hanging over her head anymore.

Meanwhile I nodded and said "Mm-hm" and didn't really say anything else. Eventually I out and out lied and looked at my watch, gasped "Ohmigod I am SO late, I have to run! Nice meeting you!" and sprinted for the hills.

This sort of thing happens to me every few months and as always I'm a bit depressed now. She really did seem quite nice. Just lonely. I myself will often say a few words to a friendly looking stranger if I'm bored and don't know anyone, and it worries me that this is the ultimate outcome of such a lifestyle choice, haranguing innocent passersby in the middle of Target.

Sigh.

Some of our photos of our trip to mexico are up on flickr here. There are shots of me on a zipline plus a giant spider.

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:28:47 GMT

I was sick as a dog last week. Hacking up my lungs. A big bag of snot and hatred. Mediocre way to spend Christmas.

But two things about being sick are *awesome*. The first one is the first healthy day after being sick.

Going to the grocery store! Making a salad! Reading "Les Miserables" online! Figuring out where to return or sell or donate unwanted gifts! So fun and exciting!

The other one is that I have this sweet deep raspy voice and I'm going around pretending to be Rachel Ray or Kathleen Turner. (Rachel Ray while doing salads and Kathleen Turner while reading "Les Miserables"). I never had a good smoky blues voice until now, and I've been singing gospel all day... though still interrupted by the occasional hack. This rules.

Marital strife

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:48:35 GMT

Mr. S thinks that I am a freak because I put spoon sized Shredded Wheat biscuits into my soup.

To hell with him. This is a delicious way to eat soup.

Corn ethanol and naughty media

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:15:30 GMT

I'm, careerwise, dedicated to the green energy concept. It's pretty unavoidable at my school, which is heavily energy-industry oriented. On a personal level I enjoy having a warm house and being able to move rapidly in an automobile and would like to continue to do so for quite some time.

I am simultaneously unconvinced by the current bioethanol boost by both parties and the less-thoughtful environmental types. Corn is a water-and-fertilizer pig of a crop which causes a lot of environmental damage and which we are already heavily subsidizing, and the cost in energy to produce corn ethanol is... fairly equivalent to gasoline on a watt/watt basis, if I'm being nice about it. Now, if we do ever start making most of our gas from oil shale or tar sands, the corn ethanol will abruptly become a lot more attractive. Those fuel sources depress me much more than corn.

I have also sat through dozens of presentations on switchgrass or corn *stover* ethanol, which are more appealing though much more technologically challenging. And I also think we're disregarding *methanol*, whose chemistry is much easier to get a handle on and has, in my opinion, been unjustly suppressed by the EPA. All of these things still get burned in an engine, putting CO2 plus other nasties into the air and causing problems.

Personally I think whoever develops a high-density lightweight battery or a solar cell that costs, say, half the cost of present solar cells? Will be the next Henry Ford, both in terms of money and influence. My opinion only, but we'll see what'll happen.

That said, let's quit reporting that we're starving people in the developing world because of our use of ethanol. We aren't. Yes, the price of corn has skyrocketed, and yes, corn is what people use for bioethanol. You can plot the one vs. the other on a graph and see a nice straight line.

BUT the price of wheat (which is marginally used for biofuels) and rice (which is barely used for biofuels at all) underwent very similar price spikes. Why is this? Well, remember nine months ago, when gas cost *three times* what we are paying now? That's the puppy. Fuel costs drive commodity crop costs. Now that gas has tanked (heh, pun) I bet we'll see a drop in bulk grain prices.

It won't make any difference to me... the cost of my grains, like most Americans, is almost all in processing anyway, and price spikes tend to be leveled out. But the starving masses will thank us. And we can still have the pointless 10% ethanol fuel in our cars.

So, um

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:00:45 GMT

2.5 months after returning from Japan, I've finished posting up my annotated pics. You can see them here if you're curious. I'm probably not going to go on about it anymore since they are fairly heavily annotated. Japan is lovely, should you ever feel the need to drop $1800 on a plane ticket I would certainly encourage you to check it out for yourself.

I wish I were a bit more organized as far as photos go. This is actually a big step for me to get them all up in an orderly fashion: most of my photos are in the envelopes they came in in a collection of shoeboxes. And my lovely scrapbook which I bought to make a wedding album lies empty and collecting dust.

First snow!

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:51:06 GMT

The Denver metro area held off on snow until this morning, and even now I'd say we have <1" of accumulation, as it hasn't been really cold yet. It's still all nice and clean with that weird post-snowfall brightness in the air.

I always like first snowfalls. They make me think about Christmas and happy childhood memories of various kick-ass sled hills and snowball fights. I'm going to go buy my ski pass (buy one get one free since I'm a student AND opened a new Wells Fargo Checking account, woot) tomorrow and bake a fruitcake.

Now snowfalls 2-125 mostly make me think FUUCK when will this winter be over I HATE CHISELING THIS DAMN ICE OFF OF MY CAR. But for now I'm quite pleased with the day.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:02:58 GMT

This is my third presidential election as a voter, and the first one where I'm pleased about the results.

Yes we did.

Bad things about science

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:32:32 GMT

Writing the introduction.

PhD research involves a lot of writing. I am mostly cool with writing (less cool, however, with the sort of writing I'm presently avoiding with its OMG I'M IMPOSING A BRUTAL DEADLINE ON YOU, LOWLY SUBCONTRACTOR, TO COVER FOR THE FACT I HAVEN'T PAID ANY ATTENTION TO THIS PROJECT IN SIX MONTHS).

However, the introduction is lame. You have to come up with new ways to write the same thing over and over again. At different lengths and with different styles, because apparently nowadays the big journals will apparently do word searches to find out if you are self-plagiarizing. And you know, all the while, that the people who are actually interested in what you have to say will skim over it and go directly to your graphs.

Le sigh.

Mostly workout thoughts

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:42:26 GMT

My gym has this deal right now where you pay $10 more than normal for five personal training sessions and get three months with this gizmo called a Bodybugg. This is a little Ipod-sized gadget that straps onto your upper right arm and by measuring your temperature, heat loss, and sweat rate, determines how many calories you are burning.

There's not many surprises when I work out. The measurements square reasonably well with what I'd thought anyway. But I love it because you wear it any time you aren't showering or other immersion activities and it constantly keeps up with your rate of calorie burn. So you can have fun logging your day.

Drinking really hot tea? Drinking really cold beer? Having an annoying phone call where you can feel your blood pressure rise and your face turn red? Sex (Not NEARLY as many as you'd think)?

Dataaaaa.

When I have some time I'm going to see if there's any hacks online so I can get the data simply exported into a .dat or other type of file. The statistical and graphing utilities on the program are completely inadequate.

The personal trainer is also pretty fun, and not too expensive. He's a cute Latino (always a weakness of mine) ex-realtor and I find that having a hottie PT is pretty good motivation to get fit. I'm seeing pretty good results already.

That's all background. Apart from the strength training (which is mostly what I work on with hottie PT) I've been doing more cardio as well. I try to mix it up... spin class, hip-hop dance, bike rides, etc. But at the end of the day sometimes the most convenient thing to do is climb on the elliptical or treadmill for half and hour and get your heart going.

Because of this, I've read a lot more bullshit women's magazines than I have since... oh, college, when I realized that they take the same stuff every month and put a new coat of paint on it and that the content of them makes women look STUPID. I don't like earbuds so I can't really listen to music and the closed captioning on the gym TVs is really bizarre. And for whatever reason most cardio machines don't have a convenient way to read anything as thick as a book.

I've not been so hard up as to have to read "Cosmopolitan", though. It's not as though "Marie Claire" and "Glamour" are brilliant literature but at least they aren't 95% repetitive and/or stupid sex tips. Plus Marie Claire always has that one monthly "Foreign women suffering horribly" article so you can feel like you're actually learning a bit.

Interestingly, I've learned that not only do they write the same stuff from month to month, they also do it from magazine to magazine. I can see how two magazines might write similar stories the same month on the new trend towards lace in clothes and shoes. Fashion is the same everywhere. But I read *three* interviews with Eva Mendez, in all of which she mentions that she drinks three liters of water a day and thus doesn't need lipgloss. Now either she's way repetitive or all three articles were written at the same interview. There's a lot of little details like that.

Which is why I'm going to subscribe to more cooking magazines. Except at Christmastime you're guaranteed more variety,

Neuroses pay off

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:41:58 GMT

When I am excited or stressed about something, I have early waking insomnia. My wedding day, the day of my proposal defense, before taking neat trips; at 3 AM my brain goes all comicstrip Cathy and starts screaming "GAAAH GET UP."

Which is why I got into work today at 5 AM. This worked out really well since there were no parking issues, and I got quite a bit of work done before going over at 6 AM to queue for Barack Obama. We were fairly near the front of the line, and thus, we got absolutely primo seats. I was directly to the podium's right, about 20 feet away.

We were warmed up by an array of local Democrat luminaries: Governor Bill Ritter, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, former Denver Mayor Frederico Pena (very friendly and shook my hand), and Golden Mayor Jacob Smith. The crowd was very keen... one lady burst into the Star Spangled Banner... and she had a *killer* voice. We had a singalong!

Obama himself was about half an hour late. He's quite a bit taller than he looks on TV... I'd say at least six feet. His speech mostly dealt with the economy, presumably due to all the nonsense that went on over the weekend with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And you know, a lot of people have criticized him in the past for being too pie-in-the-sky and not having cogent plans etc, but this was a GOOD economy speech despite its dry content. And he went really in depth in the ~40 minutes he talked. He wants to improve oversight, reregulate some aspects of the banking and financial services industry, and update regulations so that (for example) mortgage brokers and companies are subject to the same restrictions that commercial banks are. In fact a lot of the speakers dealt with the need to update obsolete financial regulations to deal with 21st century financial transactions rather than simply toss out existing regulations.

He made some very decent points. You can check it out here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amandascott/gG5XWF

There were some really good zingers against McCain and trickledown economics. I find it hard to express how much I really, really, want him to win this fall.

Democrat poem

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:42:01 GMT

Obama,
my llama,
hasta manana.

That right there is a much better example of poetry than the stuff I get from the local student democrats. But it is 4 realz, d00dz, for some reason Barack Obama is coming to my (small) school in my (small) town in my (9 electoral votes) state and giving a talk tomorrow morning, and yours truly won one of the student tickets in the raffle.

I'm pretty psyched but a bit worried about how this'll work... the doors open at 7 ack emma for a 9:30 program. Meaning (based on previous experience trying to attend presidential rallies) that I should get here by six if I want any kind of decent seat and thus must leave the house by 5:30. Sigh.

Still, though, this has been a week of nice surprises. We also won free Broncos tix on Sunday (a nailbiter of a game, AND the B2 bomber flew overhead, which was neat).

Democrats

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:40:14 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, school started. And in pursuit of a free feed, I went to the big "fair" that they put on every year to welcome new people to our school. There are many booths, with all the usual suspects: Society for Creative Anachronism, CCC, Young Republicans, etc

Foolishly, I signed up for the "(School) Democrats".

I had forgotten how stupid young Democrats were. (And yes, I speak from the lofty position of 28 years old, shut up).

I mean, I am a committed liberal. I am not too fond of either John McCain or Sarah Palin, and though I was a Clinton booster, when the time comes my vote is firmly in the Obama camp. Unless, I guess, he starts stomping kittens. Stranger things have happened.

But I have gotten more freaking obnoxious email from this organization than I would have believed. That old gag about "In tribute to 9/11 drive with your lights on in the day if you support candidate X, drive with your lights off in the night if you support candidate Y" HAR HAR HAR. Poetry. DEMOCRAT POETRY. Every stupid left-wing email forward (without even the basic fact-check provided by snopes.com).

All of the democrats I ever associate with are very nice, intelligent, comprehensible people. But I'm beginning to see why the bulk of Americans view us as douchebags if this is the caliber of things that they put out.

I am a happy, colorful, fluttering... MURDERFLY

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:40:33 GMT

I like to think I'm fairly even-tempered. But one thing will drive me into a frothing rage every time, and that is stupid bureaucracy.

Say you go to great effort to fill out a complicated form for an important purpose. It takes several hours. You are careful to read the directions and follow them. A full week later, your form is returned, with corrections you need to make. Upon examining the corrections you need to make:

Correction one is insulting and based on the assumption that you are trying to commit really, REALLY petty fraud. Now, the foreign language thing makes this more difficult, I realize, but frankly receipts look alike every place you go and actually READING THE EXTENSIVE DOCUMENTATION COMPILED would help them to realize.

Correction two would not have been necessary if FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET BABY JESUS THEY READ THE GODDAMN FORMS

Correction three involves the fact that part of the successful completion of this transaction requires you to write them a large ($500ish) check.

Like hell I'm writing a check that big if they don't agree that that is ALL I owe them. I'm not letting these people screw me around.

So pissed off.

Urgh

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:08:47 GMT

Today's Bad:

I realized that I made a huge world-class fuckup in grading papers. I wrote to the prof in question and volunteered to regrade and took responsibility, so I'm at least morally okay, but now I suspect I have pissed off the entire entering class of grad students and I feel like an asshole.

Today's Good:

The department head encouraged me to apply for a *very* prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at one of the local national labs. I personally feel underqualified and not especially interested in this gig, but I'm all aflutter that he thought I'd be a good candidate.

The last week has been a psycho mix of ups and downs like this and what I mostly want to do is go home and go to bed until the leaves start falling and I feel more normal.

Living in opposite land

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:21:58 GMT

Okay. Lots of people of all political affiliations have children who get a little wild at some point and have to face the consequences. Pregnancy is only one example. And though I don't know if I'd encourage *my* hypothetical seventeen-year-old daughter to mother her child and marry its father, I can see how a lot of people might, and even that depending on the situation it might be the best possible scenario.

Likewise, many political figures get investigated at some point for shady dealings in their professional conduct. I don't like it, but the story's not all the way in on that one and we should give Republicans the same chances we give Democrats.

But you know what? Wanting your state to secede from the United States? Frigging disqualifies you to be vice-president of those United States.

Gah.

Oops

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:35:28 GMT

Oh, hey, on the way back from Japan, I accidentally took a six inch knife in my carry-on. I cleared two security checkpoints and US customs with it.

I mean, it'd be tough to hurt someone with this thing... it's a little mini samurai sword in a plastic "lacquer" sheath, but if I were sufficiently motivated, I could totally have gotten stabbity. Obviously I am not currently being interrogated by the TSA, so I got away with it. It wasn't clever, or anything: I didn't know Mr. S had bought it when I was packing our carry-on luggage.

OTOH, at San Fran security, I had to take out my (mostly plastic) hairclips before the x-ray would stop beeping at me.

All of this makes me think that there'd be a spot in the market for airplanes on which there is no security screening. You get on the plane and you takes your chances. And if you are stabbed with a cheap mini samurai sword, your hair will at least be in order.

Well!

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:56:06 GMT

My knee is feeling much better which was not my experience with previous ACL injuries, so I think I'm pretty set. And I won a 30,000 yen prize for my poster (well, my colleague's poster, but I presented it, and my presentation was pretty win, though I say so myself). I'm totally squandering my share on a fancy teppanyaki dinner tonight.

Yesterday was another full work day, although the "Young Researcher Get Together" was in the evening, and was quite decent. We got abysmally lost near Waseda and used Mr.S's Japanese skills + the fact that I actually knew the name of where we were trying to go to ask for directions. Today was a half day, and I bought souvenirs, and we went to the tomb of the Forty-Seven Ronin, which was pretty awesome, although I can still smell the reek of incense in my hair. Then we returned to Roppongi, because someone, and I name no names, Mr. S., craved a "Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo" shirt.

When it's teatime in America

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:43:39 GMT

Its Wednesday over here.

Today I completely jobbed up my right knee in a stupid and avoidable stumble and fall action caused by moving too fast in too tall of shoes. It twinges in a way that makes me think ACL... fine on the flat bits, excruciating on the stairs. We'll see how it heals up over the next several days. Meantime it is huge and purple and awesome.

And now,

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a full work day for me, so I didn't get up to much. Mr. S went to two museums and the tomb of the first Tokugawa shogun. We dined in our own neighborhood at a place called "Jonathans", which is a chain sort of similar in feeling to Dennys... meaning that you are expected to linger for a long time over coffee. Ate "hambuerger steak in vinegar sauce" which is salisbury steak with capers. V. tasty but we regretted it afterwards since it was kind of a gut bomb.

Today was my talk, which was fine, but I am glad to have it over with. I had a very fancy lunch at the "good" convention hotel (the Rihya Royal... very beautiful). The waitresses wore kimono, and the lunch consisted of tempura, sashimi, miso, watermelon cubes with some sort of clear jelly and a HUGE grape (at least 2" in diameter), and rice with what looked like dried tadpole topping. I am dead serious about the last... they even had little black eyes. It wasn't bad but I couldn't overcome my visceral prejudices.

I went back to the hotel and met up with Mr. S, who had finally made it to the imperial palace gardens, and we went to the Meiji Jingu shrine (dedicated to the Meiji emperor) and Harajuku. The Meiji shrine is lovely, in a big park (Yoyogi) and is mostly a tourist trap. We bought so many souvenirs you would not believe. Incidentally, I've got to give the Japanese credit. Most large cities in America and Europe have a very well-developed system for separating tourists from their money: the Japanese demonstrate a lot more restraint. Which is all v. classy of them and everything but if you are in the mood to be separated from your money it is kind of a hassle.

Then, Harajuku. I had been planning to blog about how the Tokyoanites (Tokyidians? Dunno) are very similar in their dress styles to ordinary Americans. When you go to London or Rome, you often see people in $1000 suits or designer gowns strutting around the place. Not so here in Japan. Working men wear button down shirts and slacks with belts and cell phone holsters, teens wear jeans and t-shirts, old ladies wear practical shoes and shell blouses. This is a nation who knows what it is to shop at the Gap. But when you get to Harajuku, that goes all out the window. This is the trendy young part of town, and I actually saw some Elegant Gothic Lolitas... a phenomenon I had sort of thought was a weebo thing, but there they were, in their Alice dresses and poofy hairbows and lacy openwork stockings. I snapped a covert pic but we'll see how it turns out.

We dined at a little cafe. I ate duck and scallions, Mr. S ate what was labeled a club sandwich but had a fried fish filet instead of the normal "club" things. Both were delicious.

Thoughts:
-The food here has been universally excellent. It is also not *nearly* as expensive as I had feared. If you dine at hotels and remain in your comfort zone, than yes, it's extremely high, but our meal last night cost us $46 and we had two drinks apiece, which I think is quite reasonable.
-However, the thing with not dining in hotels and tourist spots is that, despite the fact that people will tell you that the Japanese all speak some english? That is a total total lie. They speak english like I speak japanese: hello goodbye thank you please. So you have to seek out places that have english menus (not all that unusual), or the poor people will work their ass off to try and explain why they can't take care of you. However, pointing and smiling and plentiful "Arigato gozaimaz(u)" will get you far. I don't mind being a stupid American, it's being a mean one that I'd object to.
-You do occasionally see people on the street in kimono. They are all ladies above sixty. I saw a bunch of younger people wearing kimono at the Meiji shrine but that's because you can rent them there to walk around for $130
-I did see actual shrine maidens, though. V. cute, but I suspect that their devotions, which seemed to occur suspiciously frequently, were somewhat for the benefit of the tourists.
-I've finally (2 years in) started to figure out how to work my camera. A

m spaz.