So, Survivor

It's "Heroes" vs "Villains" this time out. Which is to say, previous players beatified by the editing staff vs. previous players vilified by the editing staff. Some of the "Villains" seem to be genuinely unpleasant people, but then, so do some of the "Heroes."

The editing staff tends to beatify overt leaders, while they tend to vilify backstabby strategerizing types. So the "Heroes" all have their egos tied up in being team captain, while the "Villains" have their egos tied up in plotting how they will backstab the guy who's taken the team captain role. Result: "Villains" 2, "Heroes" 0.


Today's earrings: owls, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Freeze My Margarita, Lauren Henderson

Another eventful day

I spent most of the day on a project that rightfully belongs to a coworker. See, he was out sick, and there was a deadline, so my boss started work on it. She soon found that the way he'd been keeping it was, shall we say, not up to her standards. So yesterday evening she roped me in. Today I got our local IT dude to pull reports for me,* then spent the afternoon blissed-out playing with Excel. Also, avoiding coworker (who I was hoping would be out again today, but no, he came in) because I don't know exactly what our boss told him. I'll be done messing with his stuff on Monday. I hope he forgives me...


*Tip to programmers: when you're creating a database, build in some kind of report function accessible to the end-user types. Everyone will be much happier.


Today's earrings: bees, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Swan for the Money, Donna Andrews

Happy Summer

Today's earrings: sapphires, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Grand Jubilee, Suzette Haden Elgin

Dinner in the Berkeley hills

Dinner was quite nice, lovely wine. I told them about my dream apartment, and they did what I should have expected they'd do, which is apply their considerable expertise to an analysis of the proposed purchase. I wasn't prepared for the examination (I ought to have been; I have met them before, after all), and I didn't do a very good job with some of their questions. Like, why I want to move, and why I want to move there. The location seems self-evidently desirable to me, so I didn't have a good counter for their low opinion of the neighborhood, that sort of thing.

It was nice evening. I just wish I'd prepped more.


Today's earrings: owls, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Longitude, Dava Sobel

Tomorrow's to-do list

- Call landlord about the dead bird outside my window
- Clean house
- Collect dry cleaning
- Do half a day's work
- Chip at the weekend a little and see if an agenda emerges, like a lion from marble
- Watch Survivor; hopehopehope that The Bad Man gets voted out; discuss with b2

I feel like I'm forgetting something.


Today's earrings: owls, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

Happy Presidents' Day

- - Patrick Moberg

Today's earrings: rockets, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman

Release the minions!

It wasn't all that dramatic, but I did get my big project done in good time today. Hooray!

Went out after with b2 & her school friend L. We had wine at the usual spot and then dinner on Grant Street. After dinner, being as we were on Grant Street and all, I bought some shoes and L got some Alcatraz-themed tchotchkes to decorate the worst cube in her office back home. The big score was an Alcatraz mousepad.

When we got to Sutter I ran for the bus and didn't get a chance to say: Bye, L! It was really fun and I hope to see you again soon!


Today's earrings: diamonds, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: "Bright Coins in a Never-Ending Stream," R.A. Lafferty

Poor Weird Beard

I don't think he was most at fault... but I'm still relieved Carla & Gene didn't have to pay for their sins.


Today's earrings: flowers, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Too Many Blondes, Lauren Henderson

[/Prop8]

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
- - Stephen Stills

We met in front of the Asian Art Museum. Lots of people wandering about with signs and a few in costume. M had brought sign-making materials and bagels. I applied sunscreen. We crossed the street into the plaza and found a tree under which to sit. We couldn't really hear the speakers, but clapped along when the crowd up in front cheered. Someone stopped by to tell us that Cinemark Theaters had given money to the Yes on 8 campaign, and would we join in not supporting them? Sure, no problem. There were people with kids, people with dogs, people just going to and fro: very family picnic. Except for the people in wedding dresses and rainbow hoopskirts - that was more like Pride.

After a while we realized that the people going to and fro were performing a promenade around the victory garden in the center of the plaza. We essayed a circumperambulation and discovered a whole lot more people with signs, a pretzel vendor, and a little dance party in one corner (the Jackson Five, being played from bike-mounted speakers). I got flapped in the face by a rainbow flag; it was almost as transcendent as being Touched by His Noodly Appendage. We also found that we could hear the people on stage better the closer we got to the Civic. I attribute that to Bill Graham's influence.

After a certain amount of unintentional walking around and standing in line for change, we were on the Muni platform on the outbound side, waiting for the N train.
An announcement: Fare jumper! Coming down the staircase!

[I turned to look at the staircase.]

Wearing a jean jacket!

[I spotted the guy in the jean jacket as he cussed and started back up the staircase.]

Now he’s come back up the staircase!

[“Ooh! Public shaming!” said M. “If he comes back down, we can all point at him!” I replied.]

Finally the N train turned up and we headed out toward the park. Around Church Street, the woman in the wheelchair got off, and a one-toothed man got the seat set back down and sat on it, right next to Cricket. He chatted with her as he pulled out tobacco and paper and rolled his own. One-Toothed Man had some serious rolling skills – he put together a very tidy cigarette on his lap, in a moving vehicle. We got off at 9th street and walked down to Bistro 9. I had the hummus. Mmmm, hummus. It went well with the peppers off of M’s salad.

We headed off to the DeYoung and saw the Maya Lin exhibit. The sculpted atlases were very cool, and I’d kind of like to have a pin river on one of my walls. We visited the Hearth of Doom, and also dragged Cricket and Lemming to look at the huge painting of the “Polynesian” scene with all the Ancient Greek details. As antidote, we took in the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective. I want the beige Mondrian dress. We ascended the tower for a good gawk at the city. It was a beautiful day for a gawk, too. The Marin Headlands were clear as a bell; the strait was a lovely dark shade of blue you usually only see in movies. Out front we miraculously caught a cab, who whisked us (as only cabbies can) to Montgomery Station, where we parted.


Today's earrings: owls, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Busman’s Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers

wanna know what I didn't do today?

Talk like a pirate.


Today's earrings: monkeys, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

I think they're playing quarters

Or something very like it, anyway. Every so often a group shriek wafts across the airshaft, as though someone had just scored a difficult shot.

Ah, youth and drunken merriment.
I wish they'd hurry up and get old and dour and go to bed early.


Today's earrings: bears, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Appleby File, Michael Innes

Darn

I wanted Lisa to win. But Stephanie's ok with me, too.


Today's earrings: drums, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey

tis Friday

rejoice in your weekend, my friends. I'm taking Monday off, too. :)


Today's earrings: spiders, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

Truth

Truth, poor girl, was nobody's daughter
She took off her clothes and jumped in the water.

Why would she do that? I've never known, or even had a theory.


Today's earrings: eyes, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Webs to weave

Slow system at work today. While waiting for pages to reload,* I amused myself checking Wikipedia's info on my own areas of professional competence. They're a little... off. I'm sorely tempted to re-write them...


Today's earrings: spiders, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Caught in the Web of Words, K.M. Elisabeth Murray


*Note to programmers: please don't write data entry portals in html. Rate of entry should be limited by the typist's speed, not by how much pretty graphical crap needs to be refreshed every time the typist hits enter.

Wise women

You don't have to be pretty
Yes, you are


Today's earrings: owls, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Ultimate Blogs, Sarah Boxer, ed.

This is wrong.

avuncular (adj.)
means “typical of or suitable to an uncle”; it also has figurative senses meaning “kind, indulgent, undemanding, sexless”: His treatment of her was more avuncular than amorous. It’s perhaps a cliché in its most frequent company, avuncular advice. A curiosity: English has no similar adjective to deal with matters or qualities typical of an aunt: auntish and auntlike are about as close as we can come.
- - http://www.bartleby.com/68/54/654.html

[emphasis mine]

Something must be done to redress this intolerably inequitable situation. "Amita" is Latin for aunt. How does "amitous" sound to everyone? "Amitular"?


Today's earrings: owls, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Rethinking Thin, Gina Kolata

The Laws of Habit

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this time!" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.

- - William James


Today's earrings: spiders, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

Particulates

When I left the house this morning, I was a little bemused that there was fog in the east instead of in the west. It wasn't until this evening until I realized that wasn't fog but a cloud of smoke.

Hope everyone's breathing easily.


Today's earrings: swords, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

Maple by mail

Got a thank you note from D today, with a maple sugar leaf enclosed. My, that child is precocious. And mannerly. I feel very fortunate in my nephew.
:)


Today's earrings: spiders, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: American Gods, Neil Gaiman