Randomly Wednesday

After tomorrow, my life becomes less stressful for five or six weeks. Until then, though, I’ll stick with the short attention span stuff:

  • So it’s an A in at least one of my two classes this semester. If you’re interested in reading any of my terribly exciting papers, let me know and I’ll hook you up.
  • Lately, I’ve been learning a lot more about the bowels of Mac OSX than I ever really wanted. I’m not sure why I’m having so many problems with odd file corruption issues. Tonight, it was an iCal calendar file (or three). Last week it was my email database. There was, fortunately, no data loss in either instance. I’m wondering of the problem is that so many Mac core applications are database-driven now. Or maybe that my hard drive really is dying.
  • All in all, though, it’s probably still easier to fix things like this on a Mac than on a Windows machine, which would probably require reinstalling every operating system since Windows 3.1.1, in sequence, and then hand-typing some DLL file before rebooting three times while chanting “There’s no place like Redmond.” And then doing it again.
  • All these really old Tonight Show episodes running during the writers’ strike are making me (a) feel old and (b) realize I didn’t watch much late night TV in 1993 and 1994. Which isn’t a surprise, actually.
  • Via digitizationblog: wow, who knew there was a PDF blog?
  • You know you’re really married when you have start having trouble sleeping because someone isn’t in bed with you rather than because someone is.

I’m Back

Some thoughts after a little road trip surrounded by lots of Christmas music on the radio:

First, I could listed to the hippopotamus song all day long. Really.

Second, if I ever again have to sit through the goddamned song about the kid who wants to buy his dying mama some new shoes “in case she meets Jesus tonight”, OR the monologue where Santa breaks down and cries upon finding himself in some soldier’s depressing, dingy apartment, I will probably end up ripping my ears from my head while simultaneously vomiting all over everything in sight. Which probably won’t be pleasant for me nor for anyone else in the vicinity.

That said, this one’s still the best.

More about the actual road trip soon, but the picture above is where I had dinner Wednesday night. Any guesses where I was?

The Meaning of Christmas

More on the new trend toward “socially-conscious” and otherwise whiny and dreary Christmas songs:

I think the reason they irritate me so much is because the implication is that if you actually have the audacity to enjoy Christmas — rather than, say, spending the entire day being depressed because of the war, or all the dying, poor people in the world, or “overcommercialization”, or the baby whales, or whatever — then you’re some sort of sub-human wretch who doesn’t understand the “true” meaning of Christmas, which is, of course, complete and utter misery for all (and for all a good cry).

If I’m going to spend my holidays being miserable, I want it to be from overeating.

Cops

How’s this for creepy? I was awakened this morning by a police officer repeatedly banging on the door and ringing the doorbell. When I finally got my wits about me and opened the door, she told me there had been a 911 call from my number. I told her I’d been asleep, and confirmed the phone number (it was definitely mine) and then she left, saying that it wasn’t an entirely uncommon occurence.

All the same, I’d prefer no repeats.

Christmas 1977

Me. Christmas morning. Thirty years ago. I’m not sure which item would be more valuable now: the stereo with 8-track player/recorder, the groovy alarm clock, the Trans Am model, or the Cheryl Ladd poster. In case you’re wondering, I’m wearing Miami Dolphins pajamas. I have no idea why.

By the way, I’m still using that dresser in the top left corner.

Christmas Shopping

I made my annual trek to the mall today. Better the Friday before Christmas than the Saturday before Christmas, I figured. I hate malls. They’re full overpriced crap that I don’t want to own, and overdressed people I don’t want to know. But there is the occasional item that is best purchased there, and those items are usually the kinds of things one purchases at Christmas. So today, I drove the five minutes to the mall that’s a quarter mile from my house, but is still almost impossible to walk to.

And then I got the hell out as quickly as I could.

So is this the most disturbing Chritsmas doodad you’ve ever seen? The picture’s not great, but it’s two rednecks in a pickup truck with a reindeer strapped to the hood. If I were a kid, I’d probably burst out bawling if I saw something like that.

This, on the other hand, was way cool, and for six bucks, I had to have it. It’s an auto bajo de Santa Claus con sistema hidrĂ¡ulico y luces debajo, and it plays “Low Rider”. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to make the sistema hidrĂ¡ulico work.

In two days, I will be reunited with my husband after almost a month. I can’t think of a better Christmas present than that, even if I do have to fly to San Francisco to claim it.