February 2012
2 posts
January 2012
6 posts
Dear ladies in science,
Should you decide to get pregnant, please do not feel obligated to come to
work to attend a seminar on the day you are scheduled to deliver the baby.
Really. It makes everyone all kinds of nervous. Love, all of the coworkers
everywhere
PSA re: PubMed
Because I am not nearly as observant as I should be, I just want to point
out that when you do a search in PubMed, you can create an RSS feed for
that search instead of having a digest email sent to you. It is *right
there*, to the *LEFT* of the Save Search option that requires several
clicks and registration. It even has an orange syndication icon, yet I
have never fricking noticed it. ...
there's probably some sort of lesson here, I guess
When I declared I would dress as Dum Dum Dugan for a work related costume
thing, it was not an empty threat. Paul found a truly magnificent mustache
for me to wear, much to the bemusement of my coworkers. At least five
times, I was told as an immediate reaction “Wow, that mustache really suits
you!” followed by a short pause in the which the speaker realized that the
mustache...
gmail tried to force the new look on me today
I wonder if anyone reads the feedback for the ‘tell us why you want to keep
the old look’ form, and if writing ‘residual spite over the reader thing’
negates the perfectly valid UI criticisms made.
December 2011
5 posts
Had I the wherewithal, the budget and the...
Considering liveblogging a whisky tasting, but as flavors are already dancing and tingling on my tongue, I’m not sure how informative it would be. GlenDronach Revival 15 of the previous post has a lovely depth of sweet flavors, all coffee and treacle and yumminess. More of this will be drunk as the evening progresses.
I can see grabbing a larger bottle of anCnoc 12 for when I feel like...
The main celebratory whisky of the night, warm and... →
Tonight's celebratory whisky includes anCnoc 12,... →
In which it begins to snow
me: *whimper
Paul: Does it feel more like Christmas now?
me: No.
Paul: ?
me: Snow is not part of my Christmas!
Things have been fairly interesting around here between the lab Christmas lunch at a Mexican restaurant (complete with stick on mustaches, for unknown reasons), bagpipes being played on the atrium bridge (god, the noise, it pierces), and dodging spite for the work trip to Guadeloupe, I’ve got interesting things to post.
But.
Right now Paul is away for work and right now all I want to do...
November 2011
5 posts
bleh.
Out of pure habit I keep going to reader, and I have a d’oh moment of
disappointment every time. Yes, I am still whining about this, yes, the
whining will continue, and yes it completely broke my heart when I tried to
use the note in reader bookmarklet without thinking.
October 2011
4 posts
guys
I need a bowler hat, a fake mustache, and suspenders. This year’s theme for
the lab retreat is film, and by god, I am dressing like Dum Dum Dugan. Do
they make toy shotguns? I need one of those, too.
:(
Despite what I had promised myself, the ‘maudlin’ component of rhapsodizing
about, worrying about, and dread about Google Reader and its impending doom
has not come to a close just yet. In fact, I think the flailing and the
despair has gotten just a bit worse. It’s not the acute sadness of loss,
but the underriding unhappiness over what is to come and my inability to...
September 2011
5 posts
part of having a real home
We will have our very first house guest this week! Hooray! A friend of Paul’s from college will be visiting, and it will be awesome to catch up with him and cook crazy damn things like kangaroo steaks. Perhaps stories shall follow.
Signing up for Google+ to try it out is the worst thing I’ve ever done with my Google account. I was hesitant to try it. I shouldn’t have. Oh well!
Google reviewed my name! It doesn’t meet Community Standards! So, either I cough up my name or I can make another google account with a completely fictitious name that conforms to naming norms in order to use Reader! Fun fact, kids, it’s easier to be a fictional person with a boring name on Google than it is to be a real person with privacy concerns!
Sorry guys, Google is still being wholly unresponsive about reviewing my profile. Profile still suspended—I even tried deleting it and re-enabling it. Still cannot share or comment in Reader as a result, though I can still see your posts. I would like to participate in the Google Reader Party, but I seem to have been banished to the soundproof and locked kitchen cupboard with a monitor to...
August 2011
6 posts
in exile
Dear Google Reader Party,
Am still in profile-less exile. Glad to see from the Reader shares and comments that everyone appears to be ok, and the cats unfazed, despite current weather of note. Still can’t comment or share things myself due to profile asshattery.
Prize winning awkward moment of the week
So, there’s a university listserv for selling things and sending out ads, and I got lucky and someone was selling a set of three Le Creuset saucepans with lids and a frying pan for the equivalent of less than the cost of any one of those pans new. They were a bit older, with wooden handles, but they were in good shape and everyone knows that cast iron holds up exactly forever. To top...
Managed to drop my phone *directly* into my cup of coffee last night. *sigh
Goodbye, G+, it was . . . ok
My profile appears to be in violation of the Google Names policy, because my real initials apparently don’t count as a valid name. Rather than cave to pressure to have a more easily searchable name, I’m just ditching G+. I tried to use a social network, I really did, but I don’t like being pushed to put more information than I really want to. I don’t want to be easily...
Very nearly perfect night. Ham, the way mom cooks it. Macaroni and cheese with real cheese, several kinds. *Joe vs. the Volcano*. Scotch. Red velvet cake currently in the oven.
July 2011
8 posts
I belong to a local library again and this makes me so happy it is ridiculous.
the answer will be a variety of snarls, growls,...
ASK ME ABOUT TRYING TO OPEN A BANK ACCOUNT IN THE U.K. GO ON. ASK.
sausage update
As I believe I noted to my mother previously, but she did not believe, it is not easy to send meat products to the UK. On trying to print the shipping label for the sausages, the warning was raised that “the restrictions from the UK prohibit meats of any kind, smoked, cooked or otherwise and specifically prohibit sausage”.
So, yes, the experiment is dead in the water, and the new...
The great sausage experiment
Unbidden, Mom has decided that it is now time to test Virtual Cajun’s capabilities to ship Rabideaux’s Sausage to Scotland. Dry ice is involved, along with a not unhealthy dose of trepidation on my part. Whether it works or not, she reports that they have been very helpful and kind. www.virtualcajun.com
weather, hyhomnb
One of the most common weather forecasts I’ve seen here so far is ‘sunny intervals’, and it’s my very favorite way of describing the weather here ever.
June 2011
8 posts
Eeee!
So, at long last, we have found and moved into a place. It has a yard! Two bedrooms! A double grill oven and gas stove! There’s an excellent view! All of the windows do this cool thing where they tilt open at the top OR open like a door!
Because it’s a furnished place, the dishes and stuff are a sort of hodge podge the likes of which you’d expect from a former roommate. We...
Things I have learned today about words with...
1—I am rather bad at it. 2—When your opponent can and does play the word ‘boner’, it will ALWAYS be right where you were planning to play that 7 letter word across two columns that you FINALLY got the last letter to complete. Mutter.
Does not apply today, but...
The very paragon of poor planning—move to Scotland, don’t pack umbrella. >.
Dear diary, everything is awesome. xoxo
Repeating myself in a recursive twit-loop, don't...
1—Visa! In my hands! No one can take it away from meeeeeeeeee!
2—Tickets! Bought! Flying Houston to JFK to Dublin to Aberdeen starting Thursday night!
3—Yay!
As an offshoot of the previous post, I’m giving shoprunner a try. It’s like Amazon Prime (right down to the price and the one month free trial, minus the video on demand perks) but for several websites, including newegg. It has a few nice features like a good online interface, 2 day shipping on stuff and the ability to share it with 4 household members, but it looks like it all ships...
Ladies! (Also, knockers)
Dear reader party ladies,
We have had some conversations about bra sourcing in the past. I have a new link to throw on the pile, bare necessities.
There is a backstory that could go here, but suffice it to say a search was made, and online only wasn’t going to cut it. The very nice and efficient lady at Donna’s (should you ever need to buy a bra in Lake Charles, LA, in an actual...
May 2011
4 posts
Anxiety
So, you know how when you’re installing software, and you watch that status bar move, hang at the same spot for aaaaages, jump forward to tease your hopes for swift completion and then crawl forward again? That’s what my life is like right now, only instead of minutes to hours we are talking weeks to months.
Visa application appointment next Tuesday. Will see what the estimated...