I have blog comments. I HAVE BLOG COMMENTS!
That is all. More later.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Traffic and the unexpected
I ride my bike to and from work, for a sum total of 13-25 minutes every day, which gives me lots of time to think about how not to get hit by cars.
Our neighborhood subscribes to some sort of newfangled school of traffic flow design. It seems that rather than the relatively predictable "you are on a side street, you must stop at a stop sign at every cross street" design, they chose a design that minimized how many times you had to stop on each street. So if you are driving up Treat from 6th to Speedway, you stop at 5th, but not at 4th, then again at 3rd, then again at 1st. So you only have to stop at every other cross street.
This is great when you are driving around the neighborhood in your car. Having to stop at every cross street is annoying and maddeningly slow. But here's the problem: people are creatures of habit. The either want to stop at every cross street or at none of them.
So yesterday I make my usual turn down Treat, and the people on fourth have a stop sign and I don't, so I proceed to ride my bike through the intersection. But for some reason the person making a rolling stop at the 4th St. stop sign doesn't seem to think they need to actually stop. I'm not sure what they were assuming - that it was a 4 way stop, that bikes don't actually have the same status on the road as cars, that they just aren't subject to traffic laws - but what was certain was NOT that they were thinking "Hey, that's a stop sign, that means I come to a full stop and look before proceeding". Similar things happened twice on the way in this morning too.
Stuff like this happens all the time. The rather hysterical converse happens as well - I'll be stopped in my car at the Treat stop sign, and the person on 5th with NO STOP SIGN will yield to me. WTF?
I don't have a solution, other than to say that humans are creatures of habit, and maybe we should try to make things predictable for them rather than more efficient. Efficiency doesn't seem to be working that well, and I personally am of the opinion that getting hit by a car would be pretty inefficient.
Our neighborhood subscribes to some sort of newfangled school of traffic flow design. It seems that rather than the relatively predictable "you are on a side street, you must stop at a stop sign at every cross street" design, they chose a design that minimized how many times you had to stop on each street. So if you are driving up Treat from 6th to Speedway, you stop at 5th, but not at 4th, then again at 3rd, then again at 1st. So you only have to stop at every other cross street.
This is great when you are driving around the neighborhood in your car. Having to stop at every cross street is annoying and maddeningly slow. But here's the problem: people are creatures of habit. The either want to stop at every cross street or at none of them.
So yesterday I make my usual turn down Treat, and the people on fourth have a stop sign and I don't, so I proceed to ride my bike through the intersection. But for some reason the person making a rolling stop at the 4th St. stop sign doesn't seem to think they need to actually stop. I'm not sure what they were assuming - that it was a 4 way stop, that bikes don't actually have the same status on the road as cars, that they just aren't subject to traffic laws - but what was certain was NOT that they were thinking "Hey, that's a stop sign, that means I come to a full stop and look before proceeding". Similar things happened twice on the way in this morning too.
Stuff like this happens all the time. The rather hysterical converse happens as well - I'll be stopped in my car at the Treat stop sign, and the person on 5th with NO STOP SIGN will yield to me. WTF?
I don't have a solution, other than to say that humans are creatures of habit, and maybe we should try to make things predictable for them rather than more efficient. Efficiency doesn't seem to be working that well, and I personally am of the opinion that getting hit by a car would be pretty inefficient.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Exahustion
I'm writing this post at the end of my work day, 6:30 here, meaning I worked for 9.5 hours. I realize plenty of people work long hours, but I'm simply not used to putting in extra hours at my job. There was stuff that needed to be done, Will was here almost all night last night due to a server explosion. At least when I'm busy I'm not clock watching.
I'm listening to Sarah McLachlan's Christmas album. My dad burned me copies of some CDs and mailed them to me, and I've been trying to listen to them when I'm alone and uninterrupted at work. Christmas music in January, especially since I've been so resolute about not celebrating Christmas and probably heard more kwanzza music this year than Christmas music, is a little weird. But at the same time, with my first true "I don't celebrate Christmas" year behind me, it's nice to reflect a bit on why the season is so meaningful for my family and pretty much the rest of the Christian and quasi-Christian world. I'd reflect publicly, but my thoughts are pretty nascent and difficult to articulate at this point.
I'm listening to Sarah McLachlan's Christmas album. My dad burned me copies of some CDs and mailed them to me, and I've been trying to listen to them when I'm alone and uninterrupted at work. Christmas music in January, especially since I've been so resolute about not celebrating Christmas and probably heard more kwanzza music this year than Christmas music, is a little weird. But at the same time, with my first true "I don't celebrate Christmas" year behind me, it's nice to reflect a bit on why the season is so meaningful for my family and pretty much the rest of the Christian and quasi-Christian world. I'd reflect publicly, but my thoughts are pretty nascent and difficult to articulate at this point.
Friday, January 12, 2007
/geek
Isn't the desire to customize every system in your life to make it perfect for you part of the geek ethos? I'm surprised that places like thinkgeek and jinx can ever sell t-shirts, because while some of them are funny, none of them are quite right enough for me. I'm not a level 12 paladin, I'm a level 60 mage. And even though I love to /dance, my main is a gnome. And it seems to me that whenever they make a shirt in women's sizes, the emphasis is on "hey, girl geeks are sexy, check me out". What if I'm a girl geek who's just a geek?
Enter Zazzle.com. You can design your own t-shirts. They come out costing a bit more than the premade ones, but you can make them yourself. I'm definitely making one with a picture of my toon when I'm around level 63 (60 is too round a number for a shirt) to copy the "I am not a geek!" shirt. I actually did this at lvl 46 too but never actually ordered it. And I also really want to make one that says "Real women roll gnomes". I'm not really sure what that even means, but I think it sounds good on a t-shirt.
The only problem I have with them is that I'm really sort of devoted to American Apparel's women's tees, and it appears that's not what Zazzle offers. So if someone can point me to a similar service on AA, that'd be teh awesomezorz.
Enter Zazzle.com. You can design your own t-shirts. They come out costing a bit more than the premade ones, but you can make them yourself. I'm definitely making one with a picture of my toon when I'm around level 63 (60 is too round a number for a shirt) to copy the "I am not a geek!" shirt. I actually did this at lvl 46 too but never actually ordered it. And I also really want to make one that says "Real women roll gnomes". I'm not really sure what that even means, but I think it sounds good on a t-shirt.
The only problem I have with them is that I'm really sort of devoted to American Apparel's women's tees, and it appears that's not what Zazzle offers. So if someone can point me to a similar service on AA, that'd be teh awesomezorz.
/yawn
I was at work at 7am this morning. Miracle of miracles! Getting into the office early is actually good for my productivity, once I get over the fact that I'm still waking up. The problem is convincing myself the night before that I really want to be in bed early enough to get to the office early. Our office coffee maker has made the proposition slightly more likely, although I'm still working on making coffee that doesn't kill the people who drink it.
I am making a good faith effort to keep this blog up to date, which makes me realize just how mundane my life really is.
I am making a good faith effort to keep this blog up to date, which makes me realize just how mundane my life really is.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Some random thoughts from this morning
1. If I want inspiration, I'll buy a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. If I want leave-in conditioner, I'll buy leave in conditioner.
Apparently the fine folks at Herbal Essences just can't get enough of their own cleverness. These are the literal instructions for my conditioner:
use me: massage a quarter size into wet or dry hair. yield to my powers. take on the world.
Uh, yeah, sure. Or I could just use it to smooth out my split ends. By the way, a shout out to Bearolyn for pointing out to me that people with long hair need conditioner. Sometimes the obvious just escapes me.
2. If you want a sure fire way to ruin my day, pee on my clothes.
Thanks, Megatron. Megatron (aka TinyCat) is our new foster-to-adopt kitten. She's five months old, and seemed to be doing fine with the litter box, until this morning when I discovered she had peed on a pile of my clean clothes. I'm still inspecting this shirt, not entirely convinced she hasn't peed on everything I own. And god knows where else in the apartment.
3. I am just not excited about doing my taxes this year.
Maybe it's because it's the first year I have to deal with self-employment income, or because I strongly suspect we will owe money, or because we're no longer poor enough for the awesome retirement savings credits or free file, or perhaps I have recently begun to resemble a "normal person" who doesn't like doing their taxes. Last year I was so damn proud of myself for finding a bug in TaxCut online (if you chose one education credit over another, it incorrectly calculated the credit - if you follow that through to its logical conclusion, yes, I was using software to do my taxes but actually checked all the rules/math/etc.), the year before I was psyched about maneuvering to get us a giant rebate instead of owing several hundred dollars. This year there is nothing exciting. Seriously, being middle class is totally boring, tax-wise.
Apparently the fine folks at Herbal Essences just can't get enough of their own cleverness. These are the literal instructions for my conditioner:
use me: massage a quarter size into wet or dry hair. yield to my powers. take on the world.
Uh, yeah, sure. Or I could just use it to smooth out my split ends. By the way, a shout out to Bearolyn for pointing out to me that people with long hair need conditioner. Sometimes the obvious just escapes me.
2. If you want a sure fire way to ruin my day, pee on my clothes.
Thanks, Megatron. Megatron (aka TinyCat) is our new foster-to-adopt kitten. She's five months old, and seemed to be doing fine with the litter box, until this morning when I discovered she had peed on a pile of my clean clothes. I'm still inspecting this shirt, not entirely convinced she hasn't peed on everything I own. And god knows where else in the apartment.
3. I am just not excited about doing my taxes this year.
Maybe it's because it's the first year I have to deal with self-employment income, or because I strongly suspect we will owe money, or because we're no longer poor enough for the awesome retirement savings credits or free file, or perhaps I have recently begun to resemble a "normal person" who doesn't like doing their taxes. Last year I was so damn proud of myself for finding a bug in TaxCut online (if you chose one education credit over another, it incorrectly calculated the credit - if you follow that through to its logical conclusion, yes, I was using software to do my taxes but actually checked all the rules/math/etc.), the year before I was psyched about maneuvering to get us a giant rebate instead of owing several hundred dollars. This year there is nothing exciting. Seriously, being middle class is totally boring, tax-wise.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Ouch, and some thoughts on osteopaths
I woke up this morning with my trapezius in total spasms. Not in the usual spot - higher and involving my neck. I've been bad about the stretches and exercises I'm supposed to do, and I have a feeling this is the punishment.
Possibly the best thing that happened when we moved to Tucson is that I found the best osteopath EVER. In addition to the skeleton cracking high-velocity manipulations I was used to from my old osteopath, he uses passive techniques to gently make everything happy and back to how it is supposed to be. He even taught James how to do the passive technique on my constantly spazzing trapezius, and it's probably saved me 10 or so trips to the doctor now.
Anyway, James was already gone this morning - I popped some pills but am still in constant pain. As I rode in to work today, I couldn't help but wonder if some of the marked improvement in my mood when we moved here was due to a reprieve from the pain. Not only did I feel better physically, but some of the functional limitations of chronic back pain can make life pretty crappy - not being able to drive any sort of distance, avoiding bending over the counter to cook and chop things, not being able to turn in any weird direction for fear of making things worse.
Honestly I'm so happy to have a relatively permanent solution for the problem, I'm not even upset that it took me more than three years to find a doctor who could undo my pain. It makes me wonder how many people who have failed to find pain relief from the allopathic medical community just need a really good osteopath.
Possibly the best thing that happened when we moved to Tucson is that I found the best osteopath EVER. In addition to the skeleton cracking high-velocity manipulations I was used to from my old osteopath, he uses passive techniques to gently make everything happy and back to how it is supposed to be. He even taught James how to do the passive technique on my constantly spazzing trapezius, and it's probably saved me 10 or so trips to the doctor now.
Anyway, James was already gone this morning - I popped some pills but am still in constant pain. As I rode in to work today, I couldn't help but wonder if some of the marked improvement in my mood when we moved here was due to a reprieve from the pain. Not only did I feel better physically, but some of the functional limitations of chronic back pain can make life pretty crappy - not being able to drive any sort of distance, avoiding bending over the counter to cook and chop things, not being able to turn in any weird direction for fear of making things worse.
Honestly I'm so happy to have a relatively permanent solution for the problem, I'm not even upset that it took me more than three years to find a doctor who could undo my pain. It makes me wonder how many people who have failed to find pain relief from the allopathic medical community just need a really good osteopath.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
This is how people end up with children
I know, I'm a year late. Last year everyone was blogging about the NY Times article The Cute Factor and cuteoverload.com. I am SO 2006. But in case anyone was doubting that cuteness actually serves an evolutionary purpose, I give you this:
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