Art, Heroes, and Fast Food Enemies Terrorize Boston

A new take on those "Wash Me" notes found on the windshields of cars
I'd like a nice Monet, please.

If you're concerned about possible velociraptor incursions into your neighborhood, you should bookmark this site. I've printed it out and posted copies all around the house, one can never be too prepared. I found the illustration to be particularly helpful.

I downloaded all the aired episodes of Heroes onto my iPod - bought the season pass so I can watch all of them as they come on. (Yes, I could watch them on the NBC website or use my TiVo, I just wanted to put them on the iPod and be in control of what I watch and when I watch it. I haven't been allowed to touch the TV remote in years. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration)

The tiny screen isn't as bad as I thought it would be and I'm listening through speakers so the sound is ok, too. This is a really well done show. A bit gory in parts - I won't spoil anything, but if you have trouble with shows like CSI, well, this can be every bit as bad.

There has been a lot of chatter about the "suspicious devices" in Boston that turned out to be promos for a Adult Swim cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force. My favorite quote of the day about it all was in the CNN article "In addition, the Pentagon said U.S. Northern Command was monitoring the situation from its headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but said none of its units were sent to assist." Seeing that the "threat" was an ultra sophisticated, (ages 4 and up) Lite-Brite type display, it's no wonder NORAD didn't go on high alert.

Perhaps the Doomsday Clock should also be moved a minute closer to midnight as well - Lord knows, Hasbro has seen to it that there's quite a proliferation of the infernal devices out there.

Better yet, is there a Dimwit Clock out there that measures how closer to complete idiocy the city leaders in Boston and representatives of Homeland Security have gotten with their responses?

And to top it off...by tomorrow will there be anyone left who doesn't know who Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad are?

Menageries of the Mind

There are many productive things one could do with one's free time. Wash the dishes, pay the bills, get the taxes done, write/paint/crochet/whittle something.

There are also those busywork things one could do, such as organize the CD collection (alphabetically by artist or title?), re-arrange the furniture, clean out the junk drawer. I could spend half a day just cleaning out and arranging all the makeup and toiletries I have collected and then stashed away in drawers and in boxes under the sink.

Then there are the silly things. For example, this person has created an interesting menagerie - from stockings and other things one can find around the home (apparently this person was into sports - I'm still trying to figure out what I'd use for elephant ears since I don't have any tennis racquet covers around here). Best I ever did along those lines was put cellophane tape over my nose and make it look snoutish.

Ever draw two eyes on the side of your hand just above your thumb (and maybe some lips) and create a little hand puppet right on your hand? Some of you are probably old enough to remember Senor Wences...anyway someone has taken this to a new height and created some lovely "Hand Painting Art" I love the giraffe and the painstaking detail on the alligator!

Well, that's what I've been doing this evening - web surfing and sniffling (yeah, the cold is still with me but I'm getting better. Just really lethargic.) I leave you with The Daily Kitten

Smile!

My Wastebin Overfloweth

Before you read on - read this post by my favorite fisherman

There's a box and a half of Kleenex (anti-viral version) in the wastebin next to my desk. I really hate having a drippy nose. And I'm a vision of lovelyness sitting here at the computer with a Kleenex stuffed up one nostril. Hey, whatever works, right? I don't want to get the keyboard slimey.

I still can only breathe through my nose sporadically and usually only one nostril at a time is clear. Why is that? What is it about the nose that only one nostril clears up and the other one stays clogged? And I won't go into detail about the condition of the skin around my nostrils, I know there's only so much TMI people can stand. Suffice it to say there's no makeup out there that will make it look normal.

Absolutely nothing I've taken for this cold has worked, either. Although, an ounce or two of Irish Mist is just, generally, a good thing whether one has a cold or not. Even with the help of Irish Mist I couldn't sleep through the night last night. I was up at the computer at 1 a.m. and tossed and turned the rest of the time. If I didn't have an 8 a.m. meeting to attend (thankfully it was a conference call) I would have stayed in bed all morning.

After that meeting I ended up taking off most of the day and finally did get some sleep. A nice long hot shower helped a bit.

The cats loved that I was staying in bed so long, except when I sneezed. They'd be all curled up beside (or on) me and then I'd let loose with a sneeze trailing a sonic boom behind it. Suddenly I was all alone on the bed, bleeding from the gashes one gets when one's limbs are used for cat sprinting starting blocks. Then they'd cautiously wander back in. One of them, the long hair we call Pudding, likes to climb right up to my chin and poke his nose at me to get some quality scratching time. If I make the mistake of acutally succumbing and petting him he does it over and over everytime my hands get tired and I stop. Sneezing on him will get him to stop, temporarily. He has a very short memory. I'll sneeze, he'll run away, I'll doze off and be awakened by a cold nose. I may close the door on them tonight - it looks like I have half a chance at a decent nights sleep (i.e., one nostril is unplugged right now and I hope it stays that way long enough).

Of course, being the loving and generous wife that I am, I have freely given the cold to the hubby. He started to feel it coming on this evening. Tomorrow should be miserable for him if it follows the same course mine did.

Cool site of the day (via Stumble)

Stumble!-ed On These Today

StumbleUpon is another way to w/a/s/t/e/ t/i/m/e/...uh, websurf. I added the Stumble! button to my browser tool bar, indicated some preferences at the StumbleUpon site and off I went into the internet. You can also tag sites, vote for favorites, share links, and acumulate Stumble friends. I just use it to wander aimlessly around the web. These are some of the sites I discovered in today's wandering and thought were worth sharing:

A game for word origins trivia fans I did pretty well - missed two out of the 10 or 11 questions.
An audio-visual tour of the three realms of the afterlife per Dante
a geo-politcal 404 error
MP3s of classical literature and philosophy (I'd like to be able to download some of these to my iPod so I can listen to them away from my computer...)
How to keep an idiot busy (yeah, I'm an idiot)
Mousepad Couch (I'm left wondering if they purchased all of those mousepads - there must be hundreds - maybe a thousand?)
and a blast from the past: Mr. Picassohead
I once created an AV using that site:


Also, visited the other day and I'm still reading, via Making Light's Particles (wherein James D Macdonald is thanked for the link), Supernatural Law

What Do You Get After Spending Three Days in Meetings?

A horrible cold.

I've switched jobs at work and am now in a new organization. That's the good news - I'm really looking forward to the new challenges. My first couple of days in the new org were also the days that org had scheduled its global meeting. I got to meet many of my new colleageues from around the world. And someone in that crowd brought a nice little rhinovirus from somewhere that found a perfect host(ess) in me. Friday afternoon I was fine. Friday night I couldn't stop sneezing, sniffling and felt completely icky. I went to bed very early and slept most of Saturday.

So what went on in Dawno's life in January? My daughter was here through the 19th. I rode back down to her place with her that weekend and flew home that Sunday night. Even though we didn't do much (although we had some great shopping days) when she was here, it is just so nice to have her around.

We bought some games and played "Fact or Crap" one night. My hubby and I met online almost 16 years ago because of our mutual love of trivia- there were nightly trivia games run by the members of Q-Link (the predecessor of AOL) that we both played, so I thought it would be a fun game for all of us. We did have a good time - but the thing about the Trivial Pursuit games is that you learn the correct answer. With Fact or Crap you only learn that it's Crap and not a Fact - but the game leaves you wondering what the real facts are and that's a little bit frustrating for trivia buffs.

Is it actually possible to sneeze one's brains out? I think I just might be the one to prove it.

In other news, I finally went to the Social Security office and started the ball rolling on my name change. I was going to do it sooner but I couldn't find my passport, which I needed because I don't have an official birth certificate. The process was easy, everything I needed to know and the forms I needed to bring were all available online. The wait at the Social Security office wasn't bad, either, and I didn't have an appointment, just walked in.

The only thing that gripes me is that the computers at Social Security will not allow any punctuation in names. I have an apostrophe and a hyphen in my new last name. This will not be shown on my Social Security card. The part of my last name that's pre-hyphen will continue to be mistaken for a middle name and some systems even have been known to think it's part of my first name. You'd think there were enough names out there with apostrophes and hyphens that they'd fix that glitch. Yeah, I know, it has to do with programming language. pfft. Fix it. On behalf of the millions of Americans of Irish descent - fix it!

I did feel very sorry for one fellow there. Apparently Immigration had messed up his name in their records. Let's call him Kumar. Kumar is his first name. His last name - oh let's just say Jones. From what I could overhear in front of me (the local Social Security office is small - although it's less than a block from my home, so it was very convenient), Immigration put "Kumarjones" as his last name and "Kumar" again, as his first.

So here he is at Social Security trying to get some Social Security document in the name of Kumar Jones. The clerk at Social Security is telling him "No, your name has to be entered as Kumar Kumarjones - see that's what it says right here on your Immigration documents. I can't issue you a Social Security document saying you're Kumar Jones, I have to issue it just as these documents have it recorded - you have to go back to Immigration if you want your name fixed."

This exchange was repeated several times with lots of pointing at things on papers and on the computer in front of the clerk. The clerk acknowledged repeatedly that he understood that Kumarjones was not Kumar's real last name, but the clerk could only use what Immigration had put down. I guess Kumar finally understood, because he left. I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be for him to get Immigration to fix his documents. I know just getting an appointment with Immigration is hard enough. Poor Kumar.

Next visit is at the DMV. I got an appointment for that one. The local DMV is always a zoo.

Hi Philip!

That's it. Feel free to comment.

It's 2007 - Welcome Llamas!

Llamas were in this year's Rose Parade. They've been trying to get in for 15 years. The horses don't like them, so they've been excluded. This was newsworthy enough to be carried in the Washington Post. I first heard about it from my friend Unique who sent me the information in an email a week or so ago. Larry Brennan on Making Light was the only one who seemed to feel this was as important an observation as I did. He even brought it up again in a different thread, later. I think Larry and I may be kindred souls.

Well, I'm down to my last vacation day. Sadly the last 3 days I've had a nasty cold. There's just something completely cosmically unfair about getting sick during a vacation. My cold has also lead to snoring so stentorious that the hubby is forced to sleep on the sofa-bed.

I hope your 2007 is getting off to a good start.