"But I was so hungry, I had to eat it."

Russian cannibal who ate his mother given lighter sentence by judge who says 'he was starving, he needed to eat'
 
A cannibal who killed and ate parts of his mother had his sentence reduced by a judge who said 'he needed to eat'.

Sergey Gavrilov secured reduced time in jail after confessing: 'I did not like the meat very much. It was too fatty. But I was so hungry, I had to eat it.'

The 27-year-old was given a lenient prison sentence because the judge said he was starving and needed to eat after spending all his money on vodka and gambling machines.

Saturn's Day

I can't believe it - it's raining outside! Woo hoo! It seems like it's been months since we had rain here in the rain belt. I woke up quite early and thought I heard rain, but I've been fooled more than once with the sound of dirt softly blowing across the concrete being interpreted by my desperate brain as rainfall. I'd have gotten up at 5 AM (which is when I first awoke today) and stayed up if I'd known my precious rain had returned; instead, I crawled under the blankies and returned to the arms of Morpheus. It looks like rain again tomorrow morning - I'm very excited about that!

So yesterday, in the middle of blogging, Egon (MSG, to y'all) called me and asked for my help in choosing a birthday present for a mutual friend - her birthday celebration is today, and we are both attending. This worked well for me, as I was facing a long trek into Madison Valley today to fetch her gift, but instead, Egon kindly drove me down there - in icky Friday afternoon traffick, no less - so that I'd be spared the task today. I'm pleased that I was able to get my task completed. After our chores we went for dinner - more sushi. No sake for me last night, though. I'm looking forward to trying something tasty on the single malt menu at the place we're going tonight, so I thought I'd give Mr Liver a day off. Egon, however, had his first taste of Wakatake Onikoroshi and agreed that it was delightful and refreshing. We had the pleasure of running into a couple of friends of mine at the sushi bar, and thus had some delightful conversation to accompany the tasty fish.

My Freya day began under much more mundane auspices, though - I trotted up to Whole Foods for some dairy products (milk, yogurt, eggs - eggs count as dairy, yes? No?) and some fresh veggies. They also have these lovely bouquets of locally-grown organically-grown flowers, and the colors and textures were so gorgeous that I had to spend $10 of grocery funds on a bunch. My photo doesn't begin to do them justice (damned sun wouldn't get out of the way), but here goes:

As I said, the photos sort of sucks. But I've got them placed next to me here where I sit and type, so that I can enjoy them when I actually look away from the screen and around the room.

I lost a few hours on Thursday and Friday to the Comics Curmudgeon. Excepting Dilbert, Boondocks, and the occasional Non Sequitur, I have considered daily newspaper comics a form of soporific at best, a form of torture at worst. However, Mr Curmudgeon has shown me that, in the right hands, daily comics can be a source of great amusement. I read about three months of entries before the site went from being hysterically funny to mildly amusing. I recommend visiting Jeff Curmudgeon when things at work get so painful (or painfully boring) that you desperately need a good, snarky laugh to improve the mood. And now that I'm no longer at MDC, folks, I know that the snark level has definitely decreased. (In some regions of the building, the backstabbing level has gone up - I don't think CC could help with that unless you can disarm your disgruntled coworkers with naughty remarks about Mary Worth's private life.)

I do want to say that I was seriously saddened by the suicide of writer David Foster Wallace; a man of great insight (I won't waste verbiage on shallow speculations that perhaps he had too much insight), he was full of wise quotes such as this:

"...learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. "

We've few enough thinkers around these days, and I always mourn the loss of one of their number.

I came across another interesting passage in the course of researching one of my many novels. I'm reading a book of letters written during the British expedition up the Scheldt River in 1809 (who says life isn't exciting when one is unemployed - look what I'm doing? I'm reading about obscure, failed military expeditions of the early 19th century!). The author is an excellent writer, his prose clear, and his world view is very liberal (as we would say now - I've no idea what adjective would have been proper back in the day). Anyway, I came across the following passage, and was impressed - and saddened that such arguments have been made for two centuries now and still fall upon deaf ears ultimately.

Congreve is very busy with his rockets. I need not inform you that we are not very much prejudiced in favour of this new invention. I really think that they are scarcely fair weapons; and the principle, that of the introduction of more destructive instruments into the practice of war, should not be encouraged. They must necessarily become common; both parties are men on a level, and humanity only will be the sufferer. War, already destructive, becomes more cruel. Such is our military opinion of Colonel Congreve's rockets.

Plus ça change, plus c'est le meme-chose.

The Heartbreak of Large Hadron Colliders

Or, It Ain't Me, Babe...

Well, dear readers, I have to confess to a shameful fact – I’ve been dumped. Yes, the mad scientist has decided to move on to greener pastures. And I have to admit to being rather down about it; I was enjoying our dates. I thought he was too, but apparently the LHC has more appeal than I do with my paltry beaker mug and broken Geiger counter. Yes, he told me that he cared for me, but that his first love would always be the Higgs boson. And let's face it, no matter how good I look in a low-cut sweater, my brand of magnetism pales in comparison to 1,232 dipole magnets and 392 quadrupole magnets.

What’s next, you say? Well, I wasn’t looking for a relationship of any kind when the mad scientist asked me out, so I suspect I’ll go back to not looking for a relationship. That’s what I get for letting myself be distracted from my whaling novel. I am glad I went with the steam-powered submarine suggested by one of my readers. Nuclear is nice – but my Geiger counter doesn ’t work, and nuclear will simply remind me of my failures in the dating scene. My erstwhile beau was interested in nuclear power, not steam engines.

Of course, perhaps my three loyal readers can help me compose a nerd-friendly write-up for some dating sites....Yes, I said nerds. I don't want to date men who are a too much of a challenge. When I want a serious challenge, I'll study Cantonese.

Beeting and Plumming

My friend, her cat Drusilla, and yours truly enjoying morning coffee & email

Yes, more canning work accomplished this week. Two bloody days of scrubbing, boiling and peeling beets for canning. My friend wanted to do 25 pounds worth - we both agreed, never again. Our maximum is 15 pounds, folks. At least we've established a limit, which is good, and we've enough beets canned to keep the rebel alliance alive through the winter.

The plum jam - three batches, but I must say, it's really beautiful, lovely, gorgeous jam. Some lucky few might get a taste of it. The rest of you will be living lives of deprivation, not knowing what you're missing except for my effusive descriptions of jam and toast.

Right now I'm trying to convince my friend that I've earned breakfast; after all, I baked a batch of chocolate chips early today (around 7:30 AM), and feel that I've earned a fried egg and some toast with just a smidgen of homemade plum jam.

I must apologize for being gone so long; two days last week were spent with the mater, trying to find a refrigerator that would make her as happy as the one she got in 1964 - if you think tilting at windmills is a waste of time, I assure you, the hunt for the refrigerator like the one the mater had in 1964 is equally as futile and uses much more gasoline.

Sunday was spent helping Egon, my mad scientist friend, construct a small space for his next series of experiments. The actual lab work probably won't commence until sweater season starts. After all, one must wear the proper clothing for the task at hand. I did explain to him Washington Administrative Code for the use of PPE the other day; he stayed awake through the entire lecture, telling me that he truly is a nerd. However, since I have so much to say about PPE, SOPs, NIST-traceable weights and calibration records, it's just as well I'm spending time with someone who finds that information useful. Monday was spent delivering beets. 25 pounds of beets. I think it will be a couple of days before I want to have anything to do with beets again.

I've also been reading up quite a bit for my novels. Titles include: The Steam Engine, It's History & Mechanism, Crimes & Punishments, Reminiscences of My Military Life, and The Girls Own Book. One must be thoroughly grounded in the political, economic, technological and social activities of the era one writes about, otherwise one will sound like a complete wantwit. I'm enjoying my forays into previous centuries, and it's entirely possible that I won't even bother returning to the present.

I have to admit that I was excited last week when I saw the headlines, "Palin is McCain's Choice for VP" until I realized it was not Michael Palin. For some few brief seconds I was looking forward to a Vice President who would jump up and down and yell, "Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!" No such luck, sad to say.

That's okay - Ralph Wiggum may yet end up being my choice for president in the end. After all, he's been a good boy!

While Working in the Laboratory Late One Night

I received a comment on my photo of Dolores Fuller, who represents my idea of the successful lab assistant-type from such fine films as "Bride of the Monster"; the commenter said that they didn't think I could pull off a facial expression as dumb as Dolores, and suggested Bebe Daniels as a role model instead.

Now, don't get me wrong, I adore Bebe, she was in "42nd Street", a great musical. However, she never played a lab assistant. In my searches, though, I recalled a late, great actress with tons of horror movie cred who played a lab assistant - Fay Wray.

Fay was the woman for whom King Kong braved bullets and planes to try and keep her love (NB how that affair ended - that's why, much as I love Gojira, I would never try to date him; size does matter at a certain point, folks).

Fay also starred in a B movie entitled "The Vampire Bat", which also starred Melvyn Douglas as his urbane, witty, sexy self, and Lionel Atwill as his suave, charming, wicked self.

Fay, of course, is sweet and trusting, but no idiot, even in roles such as this. Lionel Atwill is a mad scientist of the less-than-nice variety, coercing a subordinate into killing villagers for their blood. Melvyn Douglas is the law enforcement official, as much as a village like that is going to have, and is in love with Fay Wray, who is Lionel's lab assistant. Here are a few screen captures from the film:


Left to right: Atwill, Wray, Douglas, all chatting it up like the best of friends. Notice she is wearing PPE in the form of a lab coat.


Here is Atwill menacing poor Fay after she finds out what a crazed loser he is.


Here's a nice composed shot - notice the shadow on the far left, the weird apparatus, and then Fay on the right hand side, elements that draw one's eye somewhere besides the center of the frame...oops, I sound like a film school student. My apologies.

The only problem I see with Fay is that she's a lot less, er, buxom than yours truly, whereas Dolores Fuller is not. So I think I will simply have to strive to bring a Fay Wray sensibility to my Dolores Fuller costume. That will require some work. Also, I'll have to find a Melvyn Douglas character to rescue me from the mad scientist, I guess. Although that might not be the worst thing in the world; after all, the women who stay with the mad scientist often end up dead, or a disembodied head in a baking pan, at the end of the film.

So if any of you know of any Melvyn Douglas-types out there, I'll be taking applications. Hey, a girl's gotta be prepared, just like a boy scout, you know.

Paris Hilton

Today's jammie cam features me back at Chez Wilde, eating my beloved yogurt, checking email, doing a little yoga, and preparing for a day of making apricot jam. Yep, more canning, just in case the apocalypse comes sooner rather than later.

Checking my email includes quickly scanning my spam folder, and I see that Paris has been very busy this week. Below is the list of activities attributed to Ms Hilton:

Engaging in oral sex with the New England Patriots (I assume it's the football team, although I suspect poor Paul Revere would rather it were the original patriots);

Losing her vagina because of Dr Phil (I have no idea how that could happen; I expect some pathology journal will be having a huge write-up on this, because it must be a true rarity in the annals of medicine. I'm also curious as to how a second-rate psychologist could make it happen; I would think that major surgery would be involved);

Coming close to bankruptcy (the cost of vagina-removing surgery, perhaps? She should have asked the Patriots to help out with some cash);

Being asked to operate the LHC (the big ol' particle accelerator that potentially could produce micro black holes...who better to be involved, eh?);

I'll skip the one about her swallowing - it's probably related to the New England Patriots social event;

Oh, apparently the Patriots were not the only lovers she took this week, as she hooked up with some space aliens and is apparently having their love child;

And finally, she got caught not wearing any knickers (consider her sexual activities for the week, I'd be more surprised to find out she had any on).

So for those of you who think I'm having too much fun, my time since being off the job hasn't remotely compared to this, even whilst hanging out in the Bat Cave (I was watching Star Trek, after all). In fact, I've not gotten a single invite to the Large Hadron Collider events, something I'm mightily peeved about. Maybe I need to move up to a better class of Mad Scientist; although I think Egon has the potential to create a huge rift in the fabric of space and time, I'm not getting any younger. I want to achieve my goal of being a B-movie lab assistant - complete with angora sweater - before I end up needing a walker. I don't want my screams of terror to be mistaken for an attack of gout.

Below: Dolores Fuller from "Bride of the Monster" - I think I could get away with a similar look, don't you?

Unemployed Slacker

Firstly, apologies to my readers for being so neglectful of their needs. I have indeed been rather busy this week. I'm still spending a fair amount of time at the Bat Cave - they liked my strawberry nut bread enough to let me continue stealing high-speed internet access from their super important processes. And I have indeed been doing that. There are still a few Star Trek episodes I want to see ;-)

Also on Tuesday I spent the day canning - pickled beets and pickled red cabbage. These are things, I realize, that are likely to only appeal to southerners, so it's okay with the author if you read this while making faces and going, "Eeeeew! Gross!" That will just leave more for the rest of us.


I also had writing group last night - the toughest editor in the group says my whaling novel is coming along swimmingly. Ha! Such a witty group. Later in the evening I was discussing the writing group with my Mad Scientist friend and explaining the other pieces reviewed. I said one of them was a memoir (about the writer's experiences as an alien abductee aboard a Vulcan space ship that got sucked into some time distortion and ended up in the mid-20th century), and explained the difference between a memoir and an autobiography. My friend suggested that I should write a memoir about my sister - something that, I must admit, had never occurred to me before.

However, it would be a fitting thing; after all, my love of letters, literature and writing have very much to do with her introducing me to books that held my interest and left me wanting more. The difficulty, of course, is writing about something so close to the heart - finding words to describe the decades of non-verbal communication that passed between us, for example, or even the simple task of trying to fully grasp the imprint one's sibling has left on one's life. A daunting task, a challenge to be sure, but I think I will take this one up.

Now, what would make such an endeavor perfect is if I can set it on an island populated by dinosaurs from a prehistoric theme park gone wrong....

To The Bat Cave, Boy Wonder!

I reported yesterday that my Mad Scientist friend would be traveling about, conducting his deranged works wherever needed; however, before he departed he performed a deed of great kindness, arranging for me to hide out in the Bat Cave, since temperatures are in excess of 30 degrees C (don't know what that means in Fahrenheit? Shame on you!) today, and it's expected to be the same tomorrow.

I must say, the Bat Cave is much, um, differently appointed than one is led to believe from all the films and comix. First of all, it's located off a grotto - it ain't just some hole-in-the-ground:


Very nice indeed! But the actual work area is, well, unique in the annals of office decor, if you ask me:

I suppose it is what should be expected of a man who runs around in a rubber and vinyl suit and beats people up after dark - I'm surprised I haven't run into him on Capitol Hill on a weekend evening - but I'm being treated very well, plenty of food, no one is bothering me, and it's delightfully cool in here. Sooooooo nice and cool.

I hope all my readers (all four of you!) are staying out of the heat this weekend - ciao!

Down the Drain

If I remember correctly, I previously referred to some plumbing issues I was having at home - my kitchen sink drain had slowed to a pre-global warming glacial pace, making the washing of dishes extremely challenging. Well, yesterday the landlord came over with some high level chemical warfare to use on the pipes, along with an exorcist to cast out any demons who might have taken up residence in or near the clog. It took eight hours for the chemicals to work, and eight hours for the exorcist to complete his ritual. Mind you, this is in a studio apartment the size of two MegaDyneCorp Technologies cubicles. I don't know if you've ever spent 8 hours trapped with a ritual-crazed priest under such conditions, but let me tell you, an iPod is an essential piece of technology at such times.


In the end, though, after all the incense cleared and hot water was run through the pipes, I was able to wash my dishes in the normal fashion.

And so that my former coworkers know that someone in my life is still giving me a difficult time, I told one of my friends that my plumbing horrors had been eliminated, and she asked if I'd been washing my dishes while I showered. I replied no, and she then suggested that I could have washed them while bathing. Ah yes, that would have been nice, taking a lovely soak with a good book, only to notice waterlogged chunks of pasta and tomato floating past...

My week has not been all that exciting - much catching up around the house after the very busy week I had last week. Egon the Mad Scientist will be gone for the next week or two - I'm not clear exactly what he'll be doing while he's gone. After all, just because I assisted with his manifesto doesn't mean I'm privy to all his secrets. Perhaps he's meeting with a foreign government to aid them in increasing their power in the global economy. Or he could be assisting some other deranged researcher with their own secret projects. Maybe he's scored a stint as a technical adviser with some show on the SciFi channel. Then again, maybe he's going to be a contestant on "The Wheel of Fortune." If the Fates were to smile upon me, he'd be going somewhere to invent a self-cleaning kitchen drain, but that seems unlikely.

So today I'm hiding in the library, cooling off (they really could crank the a/c just a bit more - I think the books are sweating). Soon I'll be moving to the fourth floor, my favorite hideout. Time to get back into the serious writing groove - 19th century whaling novels set on steam powered submarines just don't write themselves, after all.

Another Monday

Here 'tis, Monday again. My weekend was jam-packedwith activities. The wedding on Friday was quite lovely - by far the most thoughtfully worded ceremony I've ever attended. It was a great event, and if anyone mistook me for a failed scientific experiment, I was unaware of it. So yes, I spent Friday afternoon brushing up on raccoon chatter for no good reason.

I danced until I had blisters on my feet (that would be something like three or four dances, I believe). Egon the Mad Scientist is quite the terpsichorean and dances one mean quadrille. Louis Quinze has nothing on him, I tells ya!

The wedding was also an opportunity to chat with another geoduck who actually attended Geoduck U the same time I did; we fairly trashed a couple of faculty in the course of a 20 minute conversation, always a bonding experience for alumni.

Saturday I had a bbq to attend, so I assisted in the creation of a blueberry cheesecake (bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! no tasty cheesecake for you, dear readers, bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!). It was indeed a tasty cheesecake, with a magnificent, decadent crust. Mmm...cheesecake. I found a kindred spirit who also loved the tv series "UFO" as well as the Simpsons' parody of George Lucas's Phantom Menace (or Phantom Script, as I call it - sorry, Star Wars fans, I'm too old and cranky to be able to love any ol' thing with the Star Wars name attached).

My Sunday was co-opted by the Mad Scientist - he actually wanted my assistance in writing his first Manifesto! I was more than thrilled; I have a soft spot for manifesti of all types, and was interested to see his specific ideas for achieving world dominance, and what he would do with it once the goal was attained. No, no, don't ask me for details - I've been sworn to secrecy. I will say I was disappointed to notice a lack of plans for killer robots or the creation of a Godzilla-like creature, but I will work on trying to get those included. Stay tuned for updates.

We relaxed to some lovely episodes of Red Dwarf Season Six - Gunman of the Apocalypse is probably one of the finest episodes of the series, and always a great one to share with a friend.

Earlier in the week I attended my (former) department's picnic event. It was also a chance to say good-bye to some of the folks from the group that was sold off to Globex Corporation. We losers, er, former coworkers were given photo ops with the headlines in the paper that very day announcing that MegaDyneCorp Technologies was laying off a whole bunch of people.



It was nice to be there, hanging with the crowd, and watching the few brave and competitive spirits vying for prizes. I also negotiated alimony with my faux hubby - my alimony will be in the form of sausage. Yes, one day I'm expecting home-made chorizo for my dining pleasure.

Thursday, hmmm, I hung out with my bff and her son, a young man of 25, a youth with whom I spent many hours playing nintendo, exposing him to punk rock, and encouraging him to...alright, alright, I totally helped warp this kid's mind. I admit it. He still managed to get into the Air Force in spite of my corrupting influence - I'm sure he simply omitted mention of the fact that he knows me. It was fun chatting and I received a couple of cans of Japanese coffee to bring home; it's not bad iced, I must say. Japan and their vending machines.

Well, I apologize for this not being a better conceived post, but I mostly wanted to catch up my vast legions of admirers on my recent activities. I'm sure I'll return to a verbose and redundant state in short order.

Pedicure

I had my first spa-pedi today...and possibly my last, of course, as I am unemployed. I must say, it was a lovely, bone-melting experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone in need of pampering and relaxation. And now I have lovely vermilion toe nails.

All this is being done in honor of my friend's weeding this evening. I'm pretty much fine looking like an unemployed hippie bum these days, but not for an event that's cocktail attire. The Mad Scientist, attending a second wedding within one month, said he thought appropriate wedding attire should be au naturel. Frankly, I like the idea; not that I'm dying for the world to see me sans clothing, but if you show up to a wedding like that in a bath towel you're overdressed. Things don't get any simpler than nekkid.

I hope that doesn't make me sound churlish about dressing up for a very special event (and one that I'm very, very pleased to see taking place). Mostly I'm paranoid about looking like crap. I did at least seek the Nordstrom salesperson's assistance - and I have her card, so if I get laughed at, I'll be coming after her. She assured me of the following: I did not look fat in the dress, it was not too tight, there was not too much of me showing, yes my black lace bra straps would look fine underneath the sheer part of the dress, yes I really should skip hose and go with my bare legs, yes even with the bruises on them, yes my legs look fine in the dress, no I don't need a jacket or cape to cover up everything that people can actually see, yes she was sure I looked fine. Soooooo, we'll see. If there aren't any photographs of me, you'll know the photographer didn't think I was worth wasting film on.

If I were going solo I'd be a little less concerned, but I am going in the company of my Mad Scientist friend and I don't want to look like one of his failed experiments. No one wants to be the subject of this conversation:

"Hey, Egon, is this that half human/half racoon experiment you were talking about? I must say, even if it is a bit unsightly, it does have nice manners."

I must be too relaxed from the spa-pedi because I'm finding my own blog too funny...

So in 45 minutes or so I take my serious shower, wash my hair and make a feeble attempt to style it (when you actually plan for your attempt to be feeble it generally is), start working on the make-up, and rubbing nice lotion on all the parts the salesperson told me not to cover up. I'm so tempted to just wear an abayah. I did at least pick up a pashmina, so I can cover quite a bit if needed. I can just wrap myself up in it and hide in a corner like some sort of ninja-mummy...OMG, I think I just invented a new film genre! No wait, the mummy film that just came out has Jet Li. Damn! Oh, of course everything I'm wearing is black. That's why I'd look like a ninja mummy as opposed to a regular mummy.

I've been very busy this week - and I think I'm going to busy this weekend, but I'll do my best to catch everyone up as soon as I can.

For now, I've got to brush up on my racoon chatter, just in case I really am the subject of that conversation.

Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays

But not me, dear readers! No, I had a lovely weekend. Oh yes, I caught everyone up through yesterday morning...no housework yesterday, nor yoga. Instead, I received a call from my Mad Scientist friend sometime after the noon hour proposing a few hours helping him with some experiment he was conducting and then a lovely dinner afterward. What can I say, I've spent too many years in an R&D environment to pass up the opportunity to play lab assistant, like in some 1950's B-grade horror film. It was too warm for me to wear a tight sweater, though, which is sad. Female lab assistants always look better in a sweater, particularly one that shows off their, er, charms. For my labors I was rewarded with sushi at my favorite sushi eatery, Hana on Capitol Hill. Yoshi did his usual excellent job in making me a very happy woman in the sushi department. {And no, you naughty people out there, the experimentation did not include any behaviour inappropriate to a Victorian drawing room, except for the occasional double entendre.}

Oh, I accidentally trashed my new hat, acquired Saturday, by mistaking it for my old hat in the frantic search for my PPE yesterday. That's what I get for my hubristic photographic display. Now the new hat has become the old hat, and the old hat is no longer with me. It's a good thing that I'm comfortable with my own studipity.

I did tell Mad Sci Guy that I scored a faux-spouse for the wake on Saturday - full disclosure, blah blah blah. He was impressed that I managed to acquire one for a few hours, and even more impressed that fake-hubby was wearing a kilt. In fact, my friend is threatening to get a utilikilt of his own; Ms Feral will let you know if that does indeed come to pass. More kilts, more happy girls and guys in the world.

This is going to be a brief post - I've got a noon appointment, and I'm still unshowered - but I have to clarify something. Rabbit in Red accused me of being a McCain supporter because I was critical of Obama; I'd rather be stabbed with a handful of forks than have John McCain as president (sorry, Republicans, that be the truth of the matter). I hope that doesn't mean I have to be completely uncritical of Obama. He can tie - or attempt to tie - drilling to whatever alternative energies he likes, but history indicates what happens when one begins to go down these slippery slopes, no matter how good the intentions. I've had enough disasters in my life, personal and societal, to know that 99.99999999999% of the time, you still end up on your ass at the bottom of your slippery slope, covered in muck, hopefully mostly mud but sometimes less appealing substances instead. My stance on hoping for change remains unaltered. Quarters, please, for the laundry machines.

Eeeew! Spiders!

This morning when I opened my front door an icky spider had constructed his home completely across my doorway. The nerve! Never fear - I dug into my arsenal of nano-nuclear weaponry to find one of my anti-spider missiles and handily dispatched him to spider Valhalla (and I really don't want to know what goes on in spider Valhalla, thank you).

I've been away from the tubes of the interwebz for a few days (for those not in the know, esteemed Alaska Senator Ted Stevens conceives of the internet as a series of tubes; the only thing appealing about that image is a recurring fantasy of Robert DeNiro a la "Brazil" busting into my apartment to repair my internet connection as well as my ducts...). I'll start with Wednesday evening.

I finally presented something for my reading group to peruse. They said I was redundant and verbose. Me? Redundant and verbose? Redundant and verbose? Me? Really? Redundant? Verbose? Hmm. Redundant and verbose. Maybe a little verbose. Redundant? Never. I'm not the least bit redundant. They did have a couple of nice things to say about my writing voice, and catching a nice 18th tone in my narrative. But redundant? I'm not the least bit redundant. Not at all. Maybe a little verbose.

However, as with any good spanking, inspiration was nonetheless derived, making me want to spend the next month in the stacks at Suzzallo, researching steam-powered submarines and whaling with a vengeance...but I've still got other things to attend to. Housework. Bills. Finding out when I can start collecting unemployment.

Thursday, on the way to the mater's house I stopped in at work. It was rather like a high school reunion - it was great to see everyone, and it took me forever to get in and out. I told them my tales of woe on being unemployed - sleeping in until 7:30, lying in bed for an hour or so to contemplate my day's activities, thinking about my blog entry, looking out the window and contemplating the universe...they didn't have much sympathy for my plight.

Thursday and Friday were mostly spent in pursuit of maternal errands and quests - life just doesn't get more enthralling than standing in line at Costco, I tells ya. I did get a copy of "Dr Strangelove" for my troubles, and expect to amuse myself with it sometime today. Woo hoo!

Yesterday was the memorial service for a recently deceased coworker. A very nice and proper memorial service was held in his honor yesterday afternoon...however, said service didn't really represent the entertainingly subversive coworker we all knew well. I mean, where was the vermin? So after the service and meet-and-greet reception that followed, the less reputable of us retired to the Rogue brewery in Issaquah to drink a toast to our departed friend with a pint (or several) of Dead Guy Ale . DG, our departed friend, was an award-winning home brewer, and Dead Guy was one of his favorite beverages.


I downed half a pint (I like the stuff, but beer is too many calories for too little bang), and then moved on to Maker's Mark, a move DG would have thoroughly approved of. My kilt-wearing friend JB was my escort and fake husband for the event (his wife was out of town, camping with their kids, so I was the wife-for-a-day and he was my fake husband); we were everything prim and proper, except for the conversation around the Kobe Beef Bleu Balls they served there...and no, I'm not going to enlighten those who were not in attendance. Some things can only be fully appreciated in their immediate context. I reported to JB that a woman in the restaurant sporting a Dead Kennedys hoodie (she probably wasn't even born the first time I saw them live) was definitely checking out my faux-hubby in his kilt; I did tell my readership that he looks really cute in it. It's all in the attitude, lads, just in case you're wondering how he gets away with it.

Ah, y'all are wondering what my Mad Scientist friend might have to say on the subject of me acquiring a faux spouse for a few hours? Well, I was unmarried when we chatted yesterday at about 4:30 PM, and I was single again about 5 hours later, so I don't know that there's much he can make of it. Maybe it will inspire him to consider donning a kilt, though. There's definitely a lack of kilt-wearing men in this town, and I'd love to see more of them.

My day today? Hmmmm, yogurt (I've only had coffee today), shower, put laundry away, put groceries away, vacuum, yoga, maybe Dr Strangelove. Never a dull moment at Chez Wilde.

All caught up on my exciting life now, so let me leave my readers better informed about their world than when they started reading this post.

In case you haven't been paying attention, Obama says he will support limited off-shore drilling to ease gas prices. Yep, that will solve all our energy problems; we should concentrate on that instead of long-term solutions to energy production, consumption, and just living more sustainably. The only change I dare hope for is quarters for the laundry machines in my apartment building, sad to say.

More importantly, and much closer to my heart, is a new ISO standard for the proper cooking of pasta - woo hoo! For those who cannot wait, however, here is a submission from the Annals of Improbable Research for the proper cooking of pasta:

2008-07-10 Piero's Preliminary Pasta Procedure

Hunger for the standard, and hunger in itself, demand at least one recipe. Here, from Italy, is a pert, 46-word specification from Italian chemist and rock star and LFHCfS 2002/3 Man of the Year Piero Paraidino:

"To 3 L of already boiling water containing 2 tablespoons of NaCl add 250 g of raw Italian pasta. Boil the mixture for 9 minutes, then recover the solid by filtration. Add 20 cl of extravirgin olive oil and a previously warmed dressing of your choice."

The Annals of Improbable Research is one of those sites on which it is very easy for me to lose hours of my life; I hope to lose a couple of hours there next time I'm on campus stealing wifi from my Alma Mater.

That's it for today; hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday will find me inspired to new heights of verbosity and redundancy!

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Victory is Mine!

One of my readers requested a new jammie cam photo of me; well, I've been up several hours so it will be housecleaning-attire cam today.

So, for a brief update of my doings:

Saturday, I did indeed spend a few hours at the evil genius/mad scientist symposium; fascinating stuff, what these men and women are doing. I won't give specifics, I'll just say that plans for world domination are proceeding apace. Several women from the community were participating in the evening's prenuptial celebrations, so we ventured from the abandoned missile silo in North Dakota to Jazz Alley and enjoyed a wonderful performance from the ever-delightful Eartha Kitt. 81 years old, and she still belts them out like there's no tomorrow, and still really does enjoy her audience.

Sunday - more cleaning of the kitchen, and then an informal dinner at the mad scientist's place. I'm sure some of my readers think that this has settled into some semi-permanent relationship, but that would be a mistaken impression. We're still discussing methods and SOPs, and it has yet to be determined whether conditions are right for the experiment to be conducted. {I think I spent too many years in ISO documentation.} So I'm not holding out on my readership; we had dinner, we talked, we watched some 'Futurama' (totally my fault), we talked more, we separated for the evening. Yes, I enjoyed myself immensely.

Yesterday - more cleaning, only to discover that the drain in my kitchen sink slowed to nothing. I had suspected yesterday was going to be a bit crappy when, early on, I had the Great Toothpick Disaster of July 2008. See, the Japanese make really cool toothpicks. I'm sure some forests are devastated so that these toothpicks might be made, but since I only buy toothpicks every few years, I don't feel as if I'm a major contributor to the problem (these were purchased in 2003). However, the little flimsy soft plastic holder they come in fell off the cabinet shelf yesterday, and the toothpicks took the opportunity to escape their imprisonment in hopes of achieving freedom. Fortunately, my counter was newly cleaned, so they simply got swept into a plastic cup.

The kitchen sink problem was the next disaster on the schedule. I plunged and plunged and plunged; I resorted to my emergency chemical supply; I plunged and plunged and plunged. All to no avail. So I thought I'd better take the trap off. I've never done that, and although it looked simple, I thought I'd better call someone whom I knew would be able to provide salient information. Yes, I called my mad scientist friend. He offered to come over and wrestle with the problem. I was reluctant - plumbing help is an ugly thing to ask of someone - but agreed. The trap was clean. Next it was snake time. After a fair amount of time wrestling with the snake, plunging was again resorted to. No progress was made, though - time to admit defeat, despite the valiant effort.

We repaired to Malabar, a very good Indian restaurant in my neighborhood (very good for Seattle, at any rate), to recover from our defeat, and the tasty curries did indeed improve our moods. Having commandeered a large part of his evening, I sent him on his way. Since the repair people hired by the apartment management are like bulls in a china shop, I'm waiting until next week to seek their assistance on the pipes. I can make do until then.

At this point, I'm sure you're wondering to what victory I refer? Mamluk Sultan Baibar's at the Battle of Antioch, perhaps? No, no. We're talking yogurt. Oh yeah, baby, yogurt. The shelf was fully stocked this morning; the 4 for $3 special was still in effect. I took home every carton of vanilla on the shelf, all twelve of them. Twelve cartons of my beloved vanilla. MINE! ALL MINE!!! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday

Clever title, eh? Ms Wilde is never at a loss for clever titles, pithy remarks, or astute observations. (What's even better is that I didn't spell it correctly the first time I posted it - duuuuuh.)

In providing my link to the Wikipedia definition of 'steampunk' the other day, I rediscovered a world I hadn't visited in three years or so (in 2005 I wrote a little steampunk vampire adventure for a friend of mine's entertainment). I found so many wonderful things. One of the coolest is SteamPunk magazine's "A SteamPunk's Guide to the Apocalypse", a wonderful book on how to live after we run out of oil and civilisation collapses. Certainly not something that most of my readers will appreciate, but I have spent my morning reading it. After all, I'm unemployed; I may yet end up living out of a 40' shipping container, probably sharing the yard with the amorous goats. And those goats better not get any ideas about me - I stick to my own species, or alien species that can easily pass for human (I had to add that; I swear, some of the men who've asked me out were indeed from other planets).

Speaking of men I've dated, I haven't really sussed out the mad scientist's attitude toward steampunk; I suspect that if I can successfully blend it with Star Trek, I just might have a chance. He still hasn't passed the Geiger counter test yet...I suspect I've been quite lazy about capitalizing the word Geiger. Yeah, well, whaddaya gonna do, as Homer Simpson would say.

Mad Sci Guy and I did not meet up for the symposium last night, but we're scheduled to rendezvous at noon to spend the afternoon there. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm up to matching wits and skills with the evil genius/mad scientist set, although I did promise a friend that if he ever got an advanced degree in biochemistry, I'd get one in bioengineering or some such thing so that we could create our own Gojira (Godzilla, to you unbelievers)...but neither one of us ever acquired those degrees. So I might be full of bright, if mad, ideas and brilliant observations, but I'm not at all sure I'm up to actually participating. I'm a huge coward, if you must know. Some days I wonder how I ever make it to the mailbox. Oh, I hear lots of laughter out there - not caring is not the same as being brave, my dears. Regardless, you'll be regaled with tales of my humiliations on the morrow, to be sure.

And this evening a few of us girls are going out to celebrate a friend's upcoming nuptials; we're going to start the evening by catching an Eartha Kitt performance. Man, I don't know how she does it, all the touring - she must just love performing!

Bibliophile

I spent yesterday afternoon hanging out in Suzzallo Library on the UW campus. Being a lifetime member of the Alumni Association, I have access to the UW Net setup so I can go to campus and steal wifi internet access. Free wifi is one of my great pleasures in life; being unemployed, I can't exactly afford $100 plus a month for phone, cable, wifi, robotic monkeys, etc. The nice thing about the U district is plenty of wifi. I do miss being able to steal it from the comfort of my own apartment, but still, I don't have to travel very far to enjoy it.

Most of my time there was passed in the stacks where the oldest, mustiest, weirdest books are. It's like a tomb there, and I get all squishy inside every time I walk past them. I do love old books, I really, really do. And this section is chock full of them. Just the spines feed my imagination, whether I feel as if I'm visiting some learned scholar's library circa 1890 and looking for the latest tomes on dirigibles, or looking for a book on forbidden magic and alchemy so I can free my brother from the horrible family curse...anywho, as they say, I wandered the stacks in search of books on whaling, particularly the use of nuclear submarines for whaling. There were submarines in the 19th century; I'm writing a (nuclear) steampunk whaling novel. Get over it.

I was pleased to discover that my friend the mad scientist haunted the very same stacks in his time at University; perhaps he was having fun in the alchemy section, or looking for the lost papers of Nikola Tesla. He called this afternoon when he realized I visiting his old haunts; he invited me to accompany him to a symposium being conducted this weekend by the evil genius/mad scientist community. Of course, this rests upon the assumption that his experiments go well and are concluded in a timely fashion. Hopefully he won't end up with any citations for practicing physics without a license. I wonder if there is a Physics Officer out there somewhere, handing out citations for physics offenses. {Noisy, you may want to expand your jurisdiction...}

Here's a photo of me enjoying myself in front of Suzzallo's famous stained-glass windows:

Of the boni attendant upon being a member of the Alumni Association, the absolute coolest is the library card. Yes, it's even better than the email address and the free wifi on campus. So I also took the time to renew my alumni library card, and brought home four lovely tomes on 19th nuclear whaling practices.


Today I'm making some soup and cleaning the apartment a bit, as soon as I have a cuppa or two. If my evening at the symposium falls through, I'm running down to Nordstroms to pick up a pair of hose - girls night out tomorrow night!

Oh yes - I have to give many Thanks to George Gordon for providing the means by which I was able to acquire my lovely little shuffle. I understand why people love these things! Thank you again, Lord B.

PS - You may recall from a previous entry that one of my regular readers recently suffered a goat invasion at her home. Amorous goats, no less. Yes, they're rather like rabbits - I've seen goats in action many times at the fair over the years. And they've set up house in her front yard, if you will, entertaining the neighbors with their love play. How sweet!

Another Productive Day - Really. I'm not making it up.

One of my regular readers (I think I have two regulars - woo hoo!) commented yesterday that I seem to be having too much fun while on the rolls of the unemployed. Of course, said reader's home was recently invaded by goats, so I can see where my existence suddenly seems an endless party. I love goats, but I have a healthy respect for their special kind of anarchy. I feel the same way about kittens, too.

Last night's activities consisted of an unplanned dinner with the mad scientist, a much-appreciated attempt to cheer me up after news of a fellow coworker's demise (RIP, Bob). And a successful one, all things considered - good food, delightful conversation, and a brief visit to his home where we exchanged cultural goods...he got to download the sound effects from Star Trek TOS, and I got to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog . Would it surprise you to discover that Dr Horrible is a mad scientist? No? A bit of parody, and a bit of commentary, with entertaining musical numbers thrown in, it's extremely well-done, with the incredibly talented Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role. I found it wonderfully funny - and I hate Captain Hammer. (It should be obvious that I would sympathize with our mad scientist protagonist - c'mon, Captain Hammer is as bad as Zapp Brannigan.) Again, I was returned home well before the pumpkin hour, so I've had no chance as of yet to observe any post-midnight transformations in my mad scientist friend. If there is one, I do hope it's not a Jeckyll and Hyde thing; I'd rather date a Neanderthal from the Geico ads than Mr Hyde. He's just a bully.

You're wondering when I get to the productivity, aren't you? Does it count that I had my teeth cleaned yesterday? No? Well, today my BFF and I went down to the mater's to pick up a pen that's been taking up space in my parent's garage forever. I braved dust, dust bunnies, strange and frightening formations of cat hair, and spider carcasses, among other things, to disassemble this thing. It took three of us in the end - me, my BFF, and a very good friend of the mater's, all wrestling with poles, wire, nuts and bolts, cyclone fencing - and a good time was had by all. We almost cleaned up enough to look presentable at lunch; fortunately, the mater didn't notice us covered in dust, cobwebs, and cat hair. And she doesn't read my blog, so I feel safe in making such a public confession of sartorial disarray.

Upon returning home I had to shower and change clothes, and I'm still looking at taking a Benadryl in an hour or so. Dust is one of the most reaction-producing allergens in my life; small quantities are relatively safe...okay, okay, looking at my apartment, I should say large quantities are relatively safe, but a thick blanket (literally, blanket) of the stuff exceeds my body's capacity to cope.

After showering, I sauntered up to the grocery store in hopes of exploiting the 4 for $3 special featuring my favorite yogurt, Brown Cow Low Fat Vanilla. Breakfast of Chumps, I call it. Now that I'm unemployed, specials like that are to be treasured. I noticed it was on special when I went shopping Sunday, but there were only four cartons, so I thought I'd go back and get more. Today there was one carton. One carton. Why doesn't anyone buy the strawberry low fat yogurt? There's tons of it. So tomorrow is my last attempt to get my favorite yogurt on sale; if I don't succeed tomorrow, I'll just learn to like the low fat maple yogurt. Ugh.

This afternoon I told one of my caretakers at the coffee house closest to me that I had lost my job; a very sweet woman, she gave me a hug and much more sympathy than I'm sure I deserve. I'm fortunate to know as many kind and sympathetic people as I do; I often wonder why they put up with my cranky self, but I'm still grateful for my good fortune.

Finally, I'm going to seek some advice from my readers (you two regulars out there, listen up!). Dating a mad scientist, I'm not entirely certain what attributes are attractive to a delightfully warped psyche with a passion for physics and math; as kal pointed out recently, I am an outlier. I do not follow the normal distribution. But is that enough? Paris Hilton is an outlier too, after all, and she can barely put three sentences together. So, what do I do to make a good impression? Let's take my Geiger counter as an example. Yes, I have a Geiger counter. I mean, who doesn't want a Geiger counter, right? It's a beauty, too; it's a yellow civil defense model CDV-700 with an actual geiger tube. The day I found it was one of the happiest days I had in 2001. I even have an old book on radiation monitoring - I've got everything I need (if it were still 1961). It seems the perfect thing with which to impress a man, n'est-ce pas? There's just one problem - my yellow baby is broken. I put batteries in it and everything, yet there's no power going to the device. Big frown. I've been content to own it in its dysfunctional beauty; after all, it's more than most people have. For years she sat on the floor in front of my bookcase, a conversation piece and object of envy. But would a mad scientist be impressed? Do I get brownie points for owning a classic scientific instrument, or do I just look like I collect weird, broken junk? If I invite him over to my hovel, do I shove her into the closet, or do I display her proudly? Here's her photo for your consideration:

And a very informative volume to go with it:


He was impressed with my beaker mug, but I fear that I've already presented my best material. Let me know what you think about Mme Geiger up above; I'd like to keep making a good impression, if at all possible.

4 Days of Unemployment

I've been off the job for 4 days. I cannot tell if I've truly fully grasped the fact that my time is my own - however, I had a lovely date Friday evening and spent a few minutes ranting about the fact that, for the first time in years, my time is actually my own. Even though the gentleman in question is a mad scientist, I'm sure he was thinking, "They call me mad?" If that was indeed his reaction, he had a point.

He had asked me what time I needed to be home and I commented that I really didn't have a time I needed to return home. I could return home at 11 PM or 4 AM. I had no obligations the following day that required me to be asleep or awake at a specific time. And more importantly, since I don't have to worry about getting up at 5:30 AM, it doesn't matter if I stay up late and mess up my sleep schedule for a few days. These thoughts inspired me to devote a couple of minutes to proclaiming the fact that my life is temporarily mine. (Temporarily because I cannot foresee being gainfully unemployed indefinitely.)

What time did I get home? Can't remember exactly, but I'm sure it was before the pumpkin hour. Since I was dressed like a hippie slob, I'm sure I wasn't returned home because he feared my clothes would turn into rags; perhaps he feared I'd turn into a rodent. Or perhaps my mad scientist friend is the one with the midnight transformation issues. Should we go out again, we'll have a conversation on this topic. After all, some transformations would be a plus in my book, not a minus.

For instance, the Creature from the Black Lagoon is one sexy rubber-suited monster. As long as I'm not going to end up murdered, I would be pleased to find out that I went out with the Creature. Godzilla would be cool, but the size issues are, well, immense, and I'm pretty sure I'd end up stepped on or burnt to a crisp in no time. Vampires are so overdone, and anemia is not something I ever want to experience again. Werewolves - no problems with the concept, but they're awfully bitey. I don't like excessive biting and scratching in a man. There is also the potential for flea issues. A mummy would be fascinating, as long as human sacrifice wasn't part of our dating future (I should clarify - as long I'm not the sacrifice). Think of the fun historical and archaeological questions you could ask.

However, I did not spend my Saturday ruminating on the charms of one monster over another. I spent quite a bit of it doing laundry and trying to excavate the serious disaster that is currently my apartment. In addition to the stacks of books, baskets of knitting, and chair full of laundry that are regular features, there are boxes and bags of crap from work. I managed to clear some of the pathway from the front door to the rest of the place - a good thing, as one of the boxes actually left a nasty wound on my leg. After creating the path, I then began to rearrange my cds and dvds. That resulted in a small decrease in clutter, but more to the point, it's part of a search for some software I want to load on my new Mac. I was trying to avoid having to migrate it from the old one, but I suspect that I'll end up migrating it because I cannot find the disk.

So today I finish the cd project (when you run a performance space you end up with a huge number of cds), conquer the laundry, and start working on a thorough kitchen cleaning. I haven't gotten any real writing done since Friday morning, excepting this scintillating blog entry, mes amis.

And I'll get started on all that work as soon as I'm finished with season 5 of Red Dwarf...ah, the joys of unemployment!

{Oh ye of dirty minds, it's not what you think! It's from Season 6. See, Kryten has a vacuum hose groinal attachment and was vacuuming the living quarters when Lister put on a pair of shorts that were actually a polymorph...oh, never mind.}