incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

Dear fellow drivers in winter weather:

Despite what you may have been told, driving in winter weather is not actually that complicated. Keep these two simple rules in mind and you will be fine:

1. You must change speed over a much longer distance than usual.
2. You must change direction much more slowly than usual.

(The observant will note that these themselves are simply applications of the fundamental rule, "You will have much less traction than usual.")

Everything else follows from these rules. HTH. HAND.

ETA: here's a corollary that I really thought would go without saying: do not brush snow off your car in the middle of a residential street immediately after pulling out of your driveway.

On one hand, it's almost reassuring to try on maternity jeans that are so long that I could use them as footie pajamas, because at least it's clear that they are meant to be altered, rather than the manufacturers having peculiar ideas about the length of women's legs.

On the other hand, I should not have to have jeans altered just because I'm pregnant! Especially not when it's Saturday and I'm going out of town Tuesday morning.

And now, having wasted most of my afternoon on this, I'm going off to do some work. Whee.

(To make up for whining: have some new Emmy pictures, in the last half or so of this set.)

Dear manufacturers of keyboards,

It's called muscle memory. Don't screw with it.

In particular: Do not group function keys in non-standard sets; F3, F4, and F5 have very different effects. Especially do not mess with the placement of the Delete key.

Very truly yours,

P.S.: I admit, the slight curve is a surprisingly effect compromise between a flat keyboard and a split one. Not as good for my hands, but fits better on my lap.

You know, the ObInterview with the losers is bad enough when it's adult professional athletes. But when you're interviewing a kid who's just washed out of the spelling bee, who's obviously been crying, and asking how it feels to know that a lot of people were rooting for him? Come on, that would be cruel & unusual punishment if the government were doing it. And the information content of these is predictably zero.

[ETA: on a happier spelling bee note: live-blogging!]

(Perhaps if I post anything to LJ, I will be able to resist the urge to post "why I haven't been commenting on the cultural appropriation debates," because really, how much more self-centered could I be?)

[ETA: resistance is futile.]

The preliminary program is up, and I'm making notes to myself to figure out my schedule for the weekend.

But first, I whine: my throat feels like some evil persistent imp has taken a Brillo pad to it, my lungs ache profoundly, the skin around my nose is bright red and stings when I move any muscle on my face, my stomach has gone on strike to protest the steady diet of cough drops, all the synapses in my brain have edged away from their neighbors thanks to the decongestants (which have mostly stopped working), my ears are blocked up and I just did something nasty to my jaw when yawning to try and clear them, and I am vastly lacking in sleep. In short, I have a cold, and I want it to stop.

There. Aren't you sorry the program came out today so I had an excuse to post?

( notes towards a preliminary Boskone schedule )

I am bringing my spiffy new Palm with wireless keyboard, so I will be typing notes at panels; if anyone would particularly like detailed notes for anything on this list, please say so in comments. I refuse to feel obligated by requests, but I am more likely to distort my wrists on the little keyboard if I know someone actually wants to read the things.

I've been really slacking on these. The first week, I can understand why: I'd visited my parents and Mom's friend B. from Scotland that weekend, and then stayed up late watching the Patriots just beat the Bills in Tedy Bruschi's return. I didn't have a particularly good reason the second week, though, just general blah-ness. But that's why I'm starting this earlier than usual, so it does get done today.

Sickness:

• Aggressively medicating the early stage of my seasonal cold with decongestants did successfully prevent the late stage from manifesting. Since the late stage is a nasty, full-body gagging cough, this is a good thing; I just wish that decongestants didn't do such bad things to my brain, and that the whole experience didn't leave me so tired.
• The dog was back at the vet's again for an ear infection (yeast); the ear wash stuff reeks, but it and the subsequent medication are working.
• After the end of Daylight Savings time, I've been driving home in the dark and getting really carsick from other cars' headlights. This is deeply annoying. It seems to be helped by moving my side mirror so that it doesn't shine the headlights of cars behind me directly into my eyes, though this naturally has its own risks.

Stupid tricks with keys:

• I wasted an hour when I forgot the keys to my parents' place when I left here and had to go back and get them. And then, of course, I didn't need them once.
• I managed to lock myself out of my car, in the parking lot before work, when my car keys slipped out of my coat pocket without my noticing. I will never hit the power locks without my keys in my hand again. (I called AAA after I got back from court that morning, and the locksmith they sent had it open within seconds.)

Food:

• Mom's friend B. smuggled haggis and white pudding, wrapped up in literally yards of cling wrap, in from Scotland, and we had some at our early Thanksgiving dinner. The white pudding (oatmeal and onion stuffing) wasn't really to my taste; the haggis basically tasted like the filling in meat pie. Mom and B. also made a cloutie dumpling, except substituting shortening for the shredded suet (since every American's reaction to "suet" was, "the stuff you put out for the birds?!"). It was tasty but very dense ("dumpling" is a misleading term) and a little drier than it should've been because of the substitution.
• Made tourtiére with about 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes substituted for 1/4 pound of meat in this recipe. I'd never made mashed potatoes before, and as potatoes, they were not successful, but lumpiness is good for meat pie since when you mix it all together, the non-lumps basically vanish immediately anyway. The starch might help it act more like a pie as leftovers, but otherwise it tastes the same, so unless I make a bunch of pies, I probably won't bother in the future.

  (I also added a little more allspice, and cooked it at a slightly lower simmer, at about medium heat, so that I had liquid to ladle into the pie. I also used 1/4 pound of beef with 1 pound of ground pork.)

• This Wednesday, I got in and sent an e-mail around the office, saying that it seemed like people were having bad days and I'd just re-stocked my vase of Ghirardelli chocolate squares. I think we went through about a bag and a half that day.

(I managed to make it through emergency week duty with just one minor thing, but other aspects of work were busy enough that I was very relieved to take Veterans' Day completely off for absolute frivolity.)

In household news, we arranged for repairs on the leaky roof. We also suddenly, and without any action on our part, starting getting double or triple our previous download speeds (or, in other words, something like the advertised rates). Hey, I'll take it.

In entertainment news, other than what's already been logged, this Monday we went to a performance of Japanese drumming by the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble at Union. This was very cool, even though the biggest drum resonated in my skull in a slightly unpleasant way. I liked the "Tatsumaki" (tr. "Whirlwind" or "Tornado") best; it was highly dynamic and also fun to watch, as the drummers raised their arms high before striking, jumped to switch between sides of their drums, and so forth. Unfortunately it wasn't on any of the CDs they had for sale, because apparently it is to be watched rather than just listened to.

I also was in the same room for some Hellsing episodes, including the flashback episode with Sir Integra and Alucard and the ending. Great music, visually stylish, interesting relationship between those two, but not particularly interested in watching more (which is handy since Chad's returning the DVDs to the student who lent them). (The opening credits are briefly disorienting, because when we see the back of the white glove with symbols on it, I except to see the gloved hand snap and fire appear.)

And while I was writing, the Pats appear to have squeaked out a win over the Dolphins (I watched most of their loss to the Colts, but this game wasn't on TV here). And the Giants tied it very late but couldn't stop the Vikings from getting a field goal, so they lost.

Link dump:

• Really cute puppy from puppybreak; Emmy might've looked something like this when she was a baby.
• FAQ on Naval History from the U.S. Naval Historical Center (via Sideout)
• The Pablo Picasso Alzheimer's Therapy from the N.Y. Times (reg. may be required)

The introductory section of a book or other written work is a "foreword": the words that come before the main words of the work.

It is not a "forward." That is a direction, the opposite of "backward."

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Internet.

You know, I knew The Matrix Revolutions was going to suck. On Wednesday, I collected particularly apropos quotes from reviews:

And those were just the snappy ones. There was a lot more indicating that it, in a word, sucked.

And yet I went to see it anyway. I even paid for it. What was I thinking?

As a public service, I offer—

There, now you can save your money.