Oooh! Oooh! She posted!

Okay, I didn't expect it to be this long between posts, but there you have it. Facebook is really well suited to my online needs right now; I get to remark on the minutiae of my day and the issues of the day at will, and also keep up with many of my friends' goings on. And the commenting is much more interactive, and more of my friends are on there than ever read here.

That said, this is not an abandoned blog. I do expect to post here from time to time, especially when there are photos, because they're more accessible here than on Facebook. Well, kind of. Facebook is way better at providing access to all the photos, but the blog is available to anyone, even if they're not a Facebook friend.

ANYway.

What I came here to post was, my sister is in town and we discovered Ze Frank's Young Me / Now Me site, and we got Dad to scan some family scrapbooks, and here's ours:

Us in 1978


Us in 2010

Think he'll pick us for the book??

On the lookout for TOTH

Today is rent day and, as such, the only opportunity to give notice on one or both of the apartments until next rent day.

We went to see a house that was available on Thursday, and at the time we weren't very impressed with it. I described it as "adequate", and we let the owner know we were going to keep looking around.

Last night we talked over the options and decided that, while it really isn't The One True House, it would in fact do nicely as a transition from two apartments to all living together, en route to all living together in a more pleasant space and hopefully somewhere that the girls can each have their own rooms.

Except, when I called the owner this morning to see if it was still available, it wasn't.

Fortunately, Bob measured the rooms and some of the furniture this morning and we determined that we can fit everything into one of these two apartments. It'll be tight, but we're ready to both A) All live in the same place and B) Spend a lot less on rent each month.

And that way when we do find something, we won't be paying for three places for the first month.

So, that's the update on that.

And now for something completely different:

This video is seventeen (17) kinds of awesome

Via Mom's Tinfoil Hat

In case you're in need of a time sink to wrap up the weekend

It's been a quiet day in Lake Rafael here, so I'll just direct you over to Awkward Family Photos (dot com), which I had heard of but never visited until it popped up in Lisa and Scott's Facebook feeds.

I'd direct you to my favorites, but there are just too many to choose from.

A "post"

Oh. Well.

I wanted to embed this, but I guess the best I can do is link to it.

We've all seen "quotation marks" used in questionable ways (not least in that accounting software manual I've been reading).

This here is one of the finest collections of such I've ever seen, although you'll be entirely unsurprised to learn that there's an entire "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks as well.

Early to bed

It was pouring rain this morning, which was nice in a stay-snuggled-in-bed sort of way, but did wake me up earlier than usual. Work was quiet because today was a holiday for much of the country, then shopping and cooking and movie-watching and Potter-reading. And then I took the "Which M*A*S*H character are you?" Facebook quiz and got Frank Burns. I think I'ma go to bed and read instead :)

It's educational!

Steve buzzed me this evening to ask Bob and me to help another blogger out by filling out a simple online survey to help her kids' 3/4th grade class can learn about other communities, both in the United States and around the world. I did it, and I know they'd love to hear from any of you as well :)

Also, you know what's cool? Watching kids learn new concepts. I was playing cards with Julia this evening and she was keeping score. She generally adds up the points on the cards by counting the hearts or clubs or whatever on each card. But when it was time to add one hand's score to the running total, she couldn't do that. 29 + 13. She wrote the equation:

29
13
--

She thought about it, and was obviously starting from the left. I don't know if this is how they are learning to do it in school, or whether it's simply her instinct based on reading. So, she came up with "thirty-twelve" - now, she knows that's not actually a number, so she was really surprised when I told her she was right. She thought about it a little longer and determined that "thirty-twelve" is more commonly known as "forty-two."

Later on, she did the same thing again, getting "seventy-leven" for 58+23, and then parsing it to 81.

Today in Absurdly Cute

I, for one, welcome our new Bunny overlrods.

() () o_o (> <)o
	() () o_o (> <)o
		() () o_o (> <)o

(It's all Steve's fault, naturally. Well, okay. I gave mine tails. The tails are my fault.)

Not corrupted

Enjoying a few quality television programs is perfectly acceptable. I am subject to no advertising, nor enslaved to schedules.

As long as I don't get hooked on Lost, all is...you know. Not Lost.

Meta derivative

Crocs with sox
Girls in frox
Bagels with lox
Birds in flox

Plummeting stox
Paint-covered smox
Ears like Spox
Poetry that shox

(It's all Steve's fault. Or maybe Christina's.)

It's getting to be a tradition...

...This not realizing it's towel day until said day is at an end. To paraphrase last year's remarks on the subject:

I didn't know about it in time to celebrate in the traditional fashion, but I have managed to follow the Guide's immortal advice all day. And since today is [one year since*] my last day with Alex and the day before I sign the apartment contract, it's really particularly good advice.

* In fact things were delayed, as things tend to be, and I ended up moving on the 27th, so it won't actually be one year later until Wednesday.

In which I am unduly influenced by the Greater Internet Community

All this talk of bacon and Pi Day has had the inevitable result:


As you can see,before being thrust into its ill-fitting box, this noble creature clearly measured 39.5" round the tum, and approximately 12.573240504259731525752396619975" across.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some measuring implements to cleanse.

3.14159265358979323846, y'all.

I knew it would get better

Considering a new look for the place.

Thoughts?

(This post only partially influenced by the nasty smell of the reheating lunch of a coworker who is observing lent. There needs to be a rule about microwaving fish in an office.)

Hee!

Too late to do any good for this year, though.

Emboldened by their success in declaring Pluto not a planet, the International Astronomical Union determined this week by a close vote that February is too short to be considered a true month. It has, however, been granted the newly created status of "dwarf month." It shares this dubious distinction with several other calendar time spans, including Labor Day Weekend, Christmas Vacation, and the Time Between When You Were Supposed to Get Your Oil Changed and When You Actually Did.

"It only seems fair," said IAU President Ron Eckers. "February reaches a peak size of 29 days, averaging only 28 days for 75 percent of the time. Recent research has shown that other periods, such as the Time Between When You Were Supposed to Get Your Oil Changed and When You Actually Did, often exceed this meager time frame. In fact, this erratic behavior only strengthens our case that February does not belong in the same classification as the eleven 'true' months."

Eckers also warned that the crop of 30-day "so-called" months should be careful to maintain their number of days. "They’re already cutting it pretty close in my book."

Written by one Michael Haber, seen here, via Petulant at Shakesville.

The best pathetikitty ever

more animals

The 100 book thingy

Oh, cool.

I was casting about for something to post this evening, and I wanted to do the book thing that's been floating around, but I thought I'd already done it.

But, it turns out that the one I did was about the list of the top 100 banned books, which this is not. Ergo, this is not a rerun, so don't bother complaining to the management.

Someone somewhere says this is a list of 100...what? Great books? Greatest books? Anyway, 100 books that most of us have heard of. And someone also said that the BBC thinks most people have only read six of them. Now, I rather doubt the BBC ever said that (I was probably exposed to six of these by the age of six), but it's fun and makes you feel all edumacated and stuff, so let's go.

• Bold those you have read
• * Star the ones you loved
• Italicize those you plan on reading
• Adding my own twist - # symbol on those I've read more than once
  

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (High school)
   
4. * # Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Well, I'm on book 5, and on 2 with the girls)
   
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (High school)
   
6. The Bible
   
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (High school)
   
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. * # Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (High school)
    
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Yeah, right - But, a few of them. In high school.)
    
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. * # The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (High school)
    
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (High school)
    
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. * # The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (High school)
    
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (Started it with the kids, but they were too young)
    
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. * Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. * The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. * Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
    
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Thanks, Erin!)
    
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. * # A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. * Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Started it, but it didn't grab me)
    
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I think I may have read this one in Spanish - do I get extra credit?)
    
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
    
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. * The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Possibly? Or maybe just some children's version?)
    
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. * # Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. # The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. * # Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (High school)
    
99. * # Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Hmmm. I didn't italicize anything. I guess I'm not an ambitious reader? If I were to pick one of the above that I haven't read, it would probably be The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, because I think Lisa read it and told me something about it - and if so, that probably means she liked it, and if so, I probably would too.

I guess I'm more of an opportunistic reader at this point, what with no English libraries at hand, and no good access to the English used book stores.

Because it's only a meme if we all do it

Via Bob, later picked up by Steve, originally by way of Dr. Monkey von Monkerstein, etc.

It's an Obamanation...


I'm ready for the future now, Mr. Obama...

Unwitting participant

So, I'm not sure it even counts because I'm not avoiding anything particular in Thanksgivingless Costa Rica, but I am pleased to report that I am, accidentally, in full compliance with the tenets of Buy Nothing Day.

Next year, tell me ahead of time and I'll do it on purpose.

The name game

Hey, how bout a meme? Liberties have been taken in the name of fun, expediency, necessity, and for the sheer hell of it. Tag yourself if you're so inclined.

1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: Joyce Woolworth
   (Mother’s & father’s middle names)
2. NASCAR NAME: Jennings Earl
   (First name of mother’s dad, father’s dad)
   
3. STAR WARS NAME: TuJen
   (First 2 letters of last name, first 4 letters of first name)
4. DETECTIVE NAME: The Purple Gecko
   (Favorite color, favorite animal)
   
5. SOAP OPERA NAME: Lynne St. Rafael
   (Middle name, city where you live)
6. SUPERHERO NAME: The Yellow Rock
   (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink)
7. FLY NAME: Jeer (Fly? Wha...?)
   (First 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
   
8. GANGSTA NAME: Mocha Toll House
   (Favorite ice cream, favorite cookie)
   
9. ROCK STAR NAME: Tuga
   (Current pet’s name, current street name)
   
10. PORN NAME: Tippy Bayside
    (1st pet, street you grew up on)
    

Updated

Oh. I guess some people want credit. This post was brought to you by the letter M, the number 7, and Bob, who tagged me.

Updated Again

Filed under Could Have Been Worse: The Yellow Ice, Tippy Grassy Hill.