Bri

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:56:27 GMT

So Saturday I went to my friend Jim's birthday party, which was at an indoor trampoline bounce-a-rama place. And there was much bouncing, 2/3 of it controlled and 1/3 of it of the "oh gracious, I did not mean to go here, no no I did not mean to go here at all" sort, and after the bouncing was over we had pizza and cake and it was a good celebration, hooray.

On Sunday I woke up and didn't feel bad at all after the previous day's unusual activity. And I felt a bit smug, as this was proof that I was a studly stud of studliness.

Today.....oh. Oh, today. Picture if you will a super-fun-ball placed inside an inflated balloon. Put the balloon in a little bit of motion, and watch as the ball inside makes with the wacky and bounces all over. That's what was happening with my internal organs on Saturday, based on the messages I'm getting from my muscles today. Owwie.

Random Thought

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:57:04 GMT

There's an alternate Earth that's almost identical to this one, except early humans put all their time and energy into domesticating and breeding goats, not dogs.

I hope our scientists figure out a way to make contact with that world in my lifetime, because I have a hunch that the Westminster Goat Show is amazingly entertaining.

Seen today

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:25:25 GMT

Dear Random Anime Boston Teen:

At some point in life...well, I think a sage named Hoots said it best when he told Ernie that sometimes you have to put down the duckie, if you want to play the saxophone.

Or, in your case...you can dye your hair black, have two lip rings, and stand outside the hotel scowling as you smoke your cigarette. Or you can dress in a full-body yellow Pikachu suit with little red circles painted on your cheeks. But when you do both at the same time YOU BREAK MY BRAIN.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:26:32 GMT

I cannot believe that I still have a headache three hours after a dachshund headbutted me.

I swear to god I am not making this up

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:42:19 GMT

On today's events calendar:

Coffee & Doughnuts with the BUPD

Dean Elmore will make a guest appearance at Coffee and Doughnuts with the Boston University Police Department on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 from 12-2 p.m. at the George Sherman Union. Students will have the chance to fend off the dean using Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) tactics, while enjoying complimentary coffee from Starbucks and doughnuts from Dunkin Donuts.

Random babble DISNEY! of a random DISNEY! nature

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:30:52 GMT

Dear LJ,

At this time tomorrow I'll have gone to a far, far better place.

Which isn't hard, as at the moment I'm sitting here at a very messy desk in the dark in underwear and my thick wool coat because it's a) before sunrise and very cold and yet I'm b) too lazy to actually put pants on.

As usual before a big trip my head is spinning with questions, and this isn't just a normal trip but DISNEY WORLD, a place I haven't been to since I was 4 years old. Agh, SO many questions: Have we not planned enough? Did we overplan? Should I be calling their hotline right now and desperately making restaurant reservations? Will it be a ghost town? Will it be too cold? Will it be too hot? What will I do if my name is accidentally on a 'do not fly' list and I'm left at the airport? Does my new haircut make my head look like a particularly blobby pineapple?

....to be fair, I'd be asking that last question anyhow.

Anyhow, what it all boils down to is that we're about to leave for three days of close encounters with giant mice, and I'm ridiculously excited about it.

The interesting thing is that even though, as mentioned, I was 4 at the time my memories of Disney World are oddly vivid. And a lot of them, I hate to say, are of me having toddler meltdowns. Of refusing to go near the Haunted Mansion because it looked too scary. Of refusing to go in the Hall of Energy because there were a lot of people going in but no one coming out, so OBVIOUSLY once you got inside you'd be killed and eaten. Part of me feels like I should seek out those rides and go on them just as an apology to my parents (who were a little younger than I am now and isn't THAT a kick to the gut to realize?).......and also because, let's face it, the Haunted Mansion is awesome.

This is why we can't breed nice things

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:32:51 GMT

This is a true story.

A little background first: my boss's grandson is 3 1/2, and her son and daughter-in-law are artsy folks with Ideas about how to raise young Rowan. One of the Ideas is that while they won't enforce a total ban on pop culture, they'll draw a line in the sand and ONLY let him watch movies and TV shows that came out before 1960. So he, being 3 1/2, has been gorging himself on the Three Stooges and Little Rascals.

(Yeah, I know. I KNOW.)

So last week they had a holiday party and one of their neighbors, a sweet elderly woman, was approached by Rowan. Rowan with his golden curls and big sweet smile. Rowan said, "Ask me what the number after one is!" So she bent down, her face level with his, and asked "Rowan, what's the number after one?"

And Rowan gave the answer...which, as Stooges fans will remember, is "pTOO!" as he spit in her face.

This morning was a smash!

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:52:48 GMT

Dear Neighbors: Everything's cool, we're not actually fighting. Or having a Greek wedding, for that matter.

Dear Birds: We meant nothing but the best for you, honest. Please do not fear us and our clumsy, clumsy ways.

Dear Plate Which So Recently Held Bits of Bread: You served us long and faithfully. Please believe us when we say it wasn't on purpose. It's not you, it's us. (Well, maybe if you'd been a little less slippery...no, no, that's blaming the victim.)

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:58:08 GMT

I decided to try something a little different with my pumpkin this year. Fish-o-lantern turned out pretty well for a first try...

Totoro, though, looks more like a Pikachu when his ears are visible, and more like an owl when they're not. Hrrmph.

I do think they look good together, though.

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:58:23 GMT

Happy Talk Like a Primate Day, everyone!

Ook! Ook! Oo......wait, what?

Hurricane Irene: Dispatch from the Aquacalypse

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:18:00 GMT

I'm not going to say it's a fair trade, but one thing I notice about Tropical Storm Irene is that the air smells really, really good. I've been going outside during the calmer moments and inhaling deep lungfuls of it. Is this what air from the Bahamas smells like? I should've gone there a long time ago.

We've gotten off lucky compared to a lot of folks--so far the biggest damage we've seen is that our neighbor's tomato plant has tipped over. The direction of the wind means that there's a corner of the house that actually provides a nice little windbreak; as I type this, I'm looking out the window at five sparrows and a robin who are taking advantage of it, hunkering down and eating the seeds I've tossed out.

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:44:06 GMT

I've spent the morning dwelling on the story of the Alabama sports fan so insanely upset at the team from Auburn that he went to the Auburn campus and poisoned their beloved 130-year old oak trees.

Partly, yes, because it was a totally insane thing to do.

Partly, yes, because it turns out this idiot is a retired Texas state trooper.

But partly...no, largely, because this man, Harvey Almorn Updyke, is apparently such a rabid Alabama fan that he actually named one of his children Crimson Tyde Updyke.

Crimson Tyde Updyke.

I...I just....wow.

Yay, New York!

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:35:23 GMT

I've been bouncing back and forth between different news sites, looking at pictures of the weddings going on today. I've, um, been getting some dust in my eyes.

http://gawker.com/5824219/sweet-scenes-from-todays-same+sex-weddings-in-ny/gallery/1

http://www.slate.com/slideshow/news-politics/new-york-says-i-do/#slide_1

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/07/24/nyregion/20110725-MARRIAGE.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/24/gay-marriage-begins-in-ne_n_908120.html#s314807&title=Gay_Marriage

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 02:26:22 GMT

So it was checkup time last Friday, and I discovered that the health clinic where I go has begun using something called MyChart, that lets me do things like get my lab results myself.

Which, as it turns out, is oddly stressful. I log in to where all the tests are named, one by one, and I have to click on each one, one at a time, and see what the result of each individual test is. (Followed by some quick googling to understand what I just read.) No clue as to whether the test is good news or bad news, no smiley face or little thumbs up/thumbs down icon, so each time I click the link to a new test I find myself holding my breath like I'm at a blackjack table watching the dealer flip the last card over.

It's not fair for me to say that I miss the old days--I'm a bit phone-phobic, and that skyrocketed each time it was the hospital or my doctor calling me. Like, "Oops, I dropped the phone in the river. AGAIN." I guess how I'd like to get my medical results is through some sort of immediate and clear sign. Like a delivery of flowers, or a puppy holding a card that says "Your health is PAWsome!" And if there's some bad news, pretty much the same delivery method, but the news can be like the prize inside a cereal box, only bad. And by "cereal box" I mean bottle of rum. It can say something like "Now that you've drunk this far, let's talk about your colon..."

(Oh, for the record, all the tests came back fine. Even the ones about my cholesterol intake, which were a bit of a surprise. )

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:48:41 GMT

So I'm taking an Anthro class! And it's very cool. And my teacher is feisty and hates cellphones and has sworn to a)confiscate for the first offense and b) ANSWER them and humiliate the student for any further offenses. No problem, right? Simple policy, what could go wrong, right?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Excuse me while I go build a time machine.

To myself 5:58pm:

1) Remind D that the class goes to 9:30, not 9

2) Skip the middle 20 pages of the reading assignment, it'll never come up

3) JUST BECAUSE THE SCREEN GOES BLACK, THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE PHONE IS OFF. IT IS NOT OFF. IT IS NOT OFF AT ALL.

....I've never had a teacher yell "Nooo! You're going to hell for ruining my story!" at me before.

Sigh

Mon, 23 May 2011 14:44:58 GMT

Dear Workplace,

There are slogans for morale-boosting events, and then there's "MANDATORY FUN". Call me a stick in the mud but I really, really, really don't think that those two words go together.

Sun, 01 May 2011 21:29:08 GMT

triplemare asked her readers who grew up in the 80s for outdoor games they played when they were kids, and my comment turned into enough of a trip down memory lane that I thought I should re-post it here:

***
My sister and I lived in RURAL rural Maine* on property that had two little apple trees that produced sour green apples about the size of a plum...pretty useless as fruit, but as projectiles they were brilliant. We'd play 'chase tag' where a thrown apple counted as being tagged.

*So rural that another game we played was imitating Radar on M*A*S*H by seeing which of us could hear a car coming down our road first. Whoever did would yell "CAR!!!", which was our cue to run behind the house as it it was a monster coming, and hide until it went past and there was no danger of it seeing us. You got bonus cred for how far away you could distinguish the sound and know whether it was a logging truck, a dump truck** or a car.

**There were a lot*** of dump trucks on our road because the biggest industry in our town was the gravel plant.**** Yes. Our local industry was making gravel. We used to love playing in the gravel pits, some of which would collect rainwater in the spring and become homes to hundreds of tadpoles, others of which would stay dry and look like the sort of desolate craters where you'd expect to see Captain Kirk fighting a lizard man.

***Relatively.

****Once the sawdust plant closed down, anyhow.

When Hell's Pitcher's Mound Has No More Room.....

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:03:22 GMT

Dear Boston Globe,

When you begin an article with the line "Using a computer-controlled cadaver to simulate a pitcher on the mound, Boston researchers are..." do not expect me to read any more, because I am FREAKING OUT. WhatWHAT now??

The whole article is here: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/04/12/researchers_tag_likely_culprit_as_cause_of_shoulder_injuries/ . At no point are the phrases "undead cyborg", "using technology last seen in Marvel Comics's 'Deathlok'", or "they called them mad, MAAAD!" used, sadly.

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:00:10 GMT

True story, folks, while I was watching the DVD extras of Moulin Rouge with a high fever on Friday night (AS ONE DOES), the choreographer was being interviewed and he said one of the most awesome things I've ever heard in my life.

He said that when he was creating the Can Can sequence, he didn't want it to seem 'nice' and 'pretty'. He went for treating the dancers like two rival gangs, who'd rush at each other and have a dance-off.

Yes. This man, this unsung genius, created the Can Can Battle.

There's a parallel world out there where the dancers in the movie took this too much to heart and started *really* trying to settle disputes by can canning each other in the alleys behind the studio. And this spread and spread, so now there are unemployed dancers can can dueling (cee-squaring, they call it) each other all over Los Angeles and New York. And I want to go to there.

Last night's class, a summary

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:38:09 GMT

1. Teacher lists on the board Socrates's reasons for staying in Athens. We go through them in order.

2. We hit Soc's explanation that the city laws are like parents and therefore we have to obey them unquestioningly no matter how wrong they might be, just like we do our parents.

3. Brief pause as the class takes to this concept like fish take to maple syrup.

4. Explanation from teacher that this is something philosophers like to point to as a Flawed Argument. Sometimes they use a technical term, "full of crap".

5. Sigh of relief from the class.

6. Vanessa raises her hand and begins talking.

7. I draw a horse in my notebook.

8. I tune back in. Vanessa's complaining about the government saying it's illegal to smoke in her own car.

9. I draw a beard and top hat on my horse.

10. And now Michelle Obama's telling Vanessa her children need to eat healthy food, and...

11. I write 'Neighbraham Lincoln' underneath the picture of my horse.

12. So, Vanessa concludes, what about when the laws are attacking parents?

13. Class ends.

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 05:32:30 GMT

I don't know if Chinese New Year is my favorite holiday, but any holiday that causes my wife to call me from the grocery store to say she was having trouble finding the ingredient I wanted because explosions were going off and a dragon was chasing her and she'd had to "hide behind the chicken" is pretty darn awesome.

For my friends in warmer climates

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 15:33:34 GMT

Here are some pictures of what life's like in my neighborhood this week:

Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaape

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:13:06 GMT

Here's something I never really realized before this winter, and the
scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape
four snowfalls we've had in a little over a month: winter can be hell on
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some people with OCD.

The reason I've discovered this is that as far as I can tell, my
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next door neighbor has it.

Or maybe he just really, really, REALLY hates snow.

All I know is that
scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape
he's out with his shovel before the snow stops falling. And this is FINE.

And he's
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out there five or six more times over the next couple of days, because he doesn't just
want his sidewalk shoveled, he wants it BARE, he wants it BEREFT OF SNOW and you know, if that's his thing it's FINE, it's FINE.

But
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HE'S BEEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET FOR THREE HOURS SCRAPING! THE! SNOW! OFF! THE! PAVEMENT!

He'll
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grind his shovel blade against the 99% bare street four or five times until he's built up enough snow to fill his shovel, and then he'll walk it twenty feet to the big mound of snow he's made on the corner so there'll be two or three minutes of blessed peace, almost long enough that I start to relax and then
scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape

Oh, internet...

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:40:10 GMT

Hey locals, do any of you know anything about an online comic book retailer based out of Arlington named Heavy Ink? Or a guy named Travis Corcoran, the company president?

Here's the reason I ask:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/01/10/heavy-ink-arizona-shooting-corcoran/

Laura Hudson puts it better than I could, but I just have to wonder at the mind who thought that posting this was a good idea. Did he just wake up and decide it was time to stop slacking and really push hard for his lifelong goal of being the internet's #1 douchebag? If THAT'S the case then well played, sir. Well played.

Two mild traumas, both inspired by TV shows

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 14:40:22 GMT

1) For something to do over the holiday break, I took out Season One of 'Gilmour Girls' from the library. I watched an episode yesterday. I also read two stories from Stephen King's newest book.

Can you guess which one gave me nightmares? Go on, guess.

I don't know what it is. Well, I might--Deb has a thing about social anxiety, and while she'll watch part of an episode with me there are times where she'll flee the room like a terrier running from a thunderstorm, and it's rubbed off a bit. And the episode I watched yesterday was particularly bad that way, with a couple breaking up messily and another main character having a high school scandal blow up around her will probably get someone else (the one who was just broken up with) fired for misconduct...even I fled the room at that point. And last night my dreams took over where the show left off, only with highwaymen robbing people in parking lots with club-sized candy canes as a side bonus.

2) We've also been watching 'Hoarders'. Which is scary in a totally different way--I can't get through an episode without looking around the room desperately figuring out what I'm going to get rid of first, because it's suddenly obvious things need to go. NOW. EVERYTHING.

So, related to this I now have three shopping bags full of comic books that wound up in the 'donate' stack after I did my sorting and organizing. I'd really like to donate them--they're not BAD or I wouldn't have bought them, just not good enough to keep--but I'm not sure where to start. Comics geeks on my f'list, do any of you have any experience with this? Librarians and teachers, do you have any ideas?