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October 26, 2006

I say 'tomato', you say '蕃茄'

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it gives me this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when I envision one of these things in the hands of the stereotypical American tourist. If you don't think these people exist, you're either one of them or you've never been outside the US. I see them getting into crazed shouting matches with the terrified Balinese hotel clerk over some jargon filled request that, in Balinese, translated to "bite the wax tadpole". I know, it's not the same thing, but it is how I envision it.

On the other hand, it sounds amazingly cool, and extremely convenient for all of those who dream of going to far off exotic places where, strangely enough, the locals have the gall not to speak English. Also, when coupled with this recent breakthrough, it brings us two steps closer to making the world of Star Trek a reality. Trekkies all over the world, Celebrate!

In other news, it's good to hear that the Russian Mafia is still alive and thriving. Apparently, selling frozen Mammoth ovaries is quite the lucrative business.

My commute


Courtesy of denverpost.com traffic

Usually takes me 30 minutes, today took me one hour and 15 minutes. The above picture is of the road I drove on for nearly an hour at 15-25 miles an hour. At least it's supposed to stop around noon and will probably be completely melted and the sky will be beautiful and sunny by the time I head home. Colorado weather, such variety!

October 24, 2006

Flight of the Conchords - Business Time

Here's a pick-me-up to counter act that last entry.



Thanks Jess for pointing me towards these guys, they're hilarious!

You people make no sense!

So I'd like to complain, and where better than on my very own blog?

I was hoping to head to Virginia for the week between Christmas and New Years. I mentioned this desire to my boss today and she said that it was unlikely and that she would have to check with her boss to find out for sure. Her reason was that there would be few people in the office and that meant that I would have to stay. This makes no sense whatsoever. If I communicated directly with customers then yes, I would understand. But my job is strictly support for the sales folks, in house and out in the field, and I doubt that any of them will need me at all that week at least not as much as any other week out of the year, since they are the ones that are taking off in the first place. It's not the end of a fiscal quarter or anything. Other people do not do my job nor do I know how to do anyone else's job, so it's not like I could cover for the people who do get that week off. I really don't understand why other people in the office not being around should affect whether or not I can leave. If anything, it should make more sense for me to take off while others take off as there would be fewer people around for me to support in the first place. Argh!

Side note: It makes me laugh that the word 'Blog' is not in the Blogger spellcheck program.

October 19, 2006

That's a negative

Gentlemen, this is why it takes women so long to buy clothes. Negative sizes, good grief! But the big problem is every time we want to buy a new pair of pants we have to bring at least two pairs of every style we're looking at into the changing room with us. I was just as excited as anyone else would be when I could fit into a '2' after the marathon, but I would have no problem converting to a 14 if I could cut down on my changing room time by half. Today in women's fashion, sizes mean absolutely nothing. I find it incredibly frustrating that any man can go into a store and find exactly the size of pants that he wants, buy it, and walk out, while women have to spend an hour trying 2-3 sizes of each of 5 different styles. Please, stop the insanity!

October 18, 2006

Malarky and bunkum

These predictions about human species divergence are just plain ridiculous. I mean does anyone actually believe this stuff?

John Hawks passes on this quote by Asimov:
The Relativity of Wrong (Doubleday, 1988): "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

And writes a rather strong entry about Dr. Oliver Curry's predictions of humanity's future. Though I don't necessarily think that mankind has managed to fully evade those things that make natural selection work, I do think that many of his points are right on. I mean, I enjoyed The Time Machine by H.G. Wells as much as any other sci/fi novel loving nerd, but to think that something like that would actually happen is a bit silly. The Time Machine should be read as a commentary on 19th century culture and society not as a prediction of 31st century reality.

October 17, 2006

Missing: 1 Season

It's snowing outside! Ok, so it's not accumulating, but seriously, what happened to the Fall?

Fall is my favorite season and Colorado has managed to completely skip over it this year. I heard all sorts of gushing over the beautiful yellow-gold that the Aspens turn every year in the mountains. But an early snow in September managed to strip them all of their leaves only about a week after they'd turned. So when I was up in the mountains this weekend, there was not a yellow tree in sight.

In case you're curious about Aspens, whole communities of them are apparently technically the same organism, they are all genetically the same and share a common root system. Possibly the largest and oldest organism on earth, Pando, is one such colony of Aspens in Utah.

October 16, 2006

It's all in the gear

I bought new skis! Here's a picture of the model, Atomic Metron 8 (doesn't that sound like a character from Transformers?):

Aren't they pretty? Unfortunately, I now have to wait until the middle of November to try them out. But I believe I got a great deal on them and according to the guy that sold them to me, they are very much like the K2 Burnin Luv's I demoed and fell in love with last year. Watch out Mary Jane, here I come!

October 13, 2006

I Vant to Suck Your Blood

So some random things:

I went to a friend's wedding last weekend and had a great time, lots of drinking, lots of dancing, an ingenious idea to play in the hotel pool at 1:00 am which was foiled by our growling stomachs, followed by the longest trip to a 7-Eleven ever, the worst pre-wrapped tuna sandwich and subsequent passing out on an incredibly comfortable hotel mattress. A thoroughly enjoyable wedding.

I'm incredibly excited about Wii. And have spent most of my morning watching videos of people trying out the new controllers. I know I know I'm a huge nerd but what else would you expect from someone who was recently told she was the only girl he'd ever seen reading a Star Wars novel by random-software-guy-on-the-plane.

Here is one of the weirder and more disturbing things I've read about recently. Sometimes life is indeed stranger than fiction.

I seem to constantly be in training at work, in the last month I've had roughly 2.5 weeks of training. It's nice to know this stuff I guess but it would have been nicer had I gotten it 6 months earlier.

Also, yet another blood donation story. I went to donate blood at the same place, this time they had a lovely old Australian movie playing with Tom Selleck and that chick from Just Shoot Me aka Kit Deluca, called "Quigley Down Under". As I sat waiting to get my finger pricked, I listened to the woman, responsible for the shark frenzy containing movie of the last blood drive, excitedly tell one of the blood drawers that the next movie on the schedule was the original Dracula. I couldn't help myself, I laughed and asked the two if perhaps that particular movie was in poor taste for a blood drive. The woman looked at me like I'd just asked her why anyone in their right mind would want to put ketchup on french fries. Then she laughed and said "Well, we do sometimes call the folks that take the blood, vampires." She then nodded like that statement had fully resolved the issue. I laughed and went off to the other room to get my blood sucked by a very nice 21 year-old vampire, fervently wishing that I would still be there when Dracula came on so I could watch the people's faces as they walked in to give blood.

Unfortunately, my Vampire seemed to have less experience than the one I had the last time. She chose to forgo the absorbent shield, which had seemed to unnecessary before, and this time my bursting blood vessels would not be held back. As I looked away and felt the needle go in, the Vampire let out a gasping cry. I looked back and there was blood everywhere! Well not really, but there was a large line of it on my arm and a couple drops on my pants. The Vampire seemed very embarrassed by the whole thing so I joked and told her that I needed to get the pants dry cleaned anyway, which I did. That seemed to make her feel a little better and she glanced at my rapidly filling bag and told me that by the time she was done cleaning up I'd already have the thing filled. The rest of the process went smoothly and you'll all be happy to hear that the dry cleaners were able to completely remove the stains, though I think in the future I'll be sure to ask for a splatter shield.

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