Hairball: Where the Spittin's Getting Good

an entire knitted room!

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:47:57 GMT

K. sent this link to me...he found it on BoingBoing.

puppy bowl

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:06:39 GMT

Last night we were flipping through the channels and noticed that Animal Planet's programming for the entire evening was the Puppy Bowl--hours and hours of puppies playing with each other. If you missed it, you can buy a copy for a mere $9.99. The water bowl-cam was quite thrilling.

on the bright side...

Sat, 05 Feb 2005 21:30:44 GMT

Top reasons why blowing the interview was all right: 5. I can continue my poor sleeping habits--up until late, then sleeping in.
4. I can continue procrastinating on my schoolwork.
3. I don't have to worry about getting dressed up and making my hair look presentable.
2. Work won't eat into valuable knitting time.
And the number one reason that completely screwing the interview pooch can be seen as positive is...
1. No waiting by the phone hoping for a call-back.

interview, intershmoo

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 16:50:16 GMT

Well, I pretty much all-out bombed that interview. I've never been so inarticulate in my life, except perhaps as an infant. The whole experience was incredibly painful. Imagine this: American female interviewer, and British male. Good cop/bad cop. The woman is all like, "I'm just so glad that I found someone who's heard these words before." But the guy is asking me questions along the lines of, "When you have a document, how do you approach the metadata?" Quietly, from behind. Or, did you ever see Mission Impossible, with Tom Cruise? I like to ease my way down from the ceiling with some snappy theme music. Plus, the dog's either barking or begging for attention (if I shut him out, he barks), and then the cat comes up and meows directly into the phone. So much for selling myself to the man. Or woman. Or anyone, for that matter.

hangin' on the telephone

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 17:15:16 GMT

Tomorrow I have an interview with a large pharmaceutical company. Yep, selling myself to the man because they're offering an internship in something I never see internships offered in--ontologies and taxonomies, also knows as "what I want to do when I graduate." This is a conference call interview, and I have no idea what to expect; I've never done a phone interview, for one thing, and I imagine more than one other person will be involved, since we're not using the contact person's desk phone. If I got the position, I'd be working with people in the UK office, so perhaps some Brits will be on the line, as well. And then I won't be able to understand their accents and life will be even worse. Plus I have to keep the dog quiet. He's very vigilant about rogue squirrels, imagined insults, etc. Thing about the phone interview: I won't be able to gauge people's reaction to me. Argh. It's been a long week: working to help get a grant in on deadline, which saps the strength right out of ya, and I just finished writing a paper. Tonight I'll spend reading up on content management systems for the interview tomorrow.

even the square and the yellow, the dinosaurial and the purple

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 01:34:02 GMT

I'm sure half the blogs have a link to this, but I can't resist: Spongebob is loved by the UCC! You may recall the United Church of Christ being in the news a month or so ago for its ad campaign stressing its acceptance of everyone. And they do mean everyone:

For that matter, Thomas explained, the 1.3-million-member church, if given the opportunity, would warmly receive Barney, Big Bird, Tinky-Winky, Clifford the Big Red Dog or, for that matter, any who have experienced the Christian message as a harsh word of judgment rather than Jesus' offering of grace.

(Thanks to Salon.com, from whom I pretty much stole this story, but it was irresistable.)

girlie girls

Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:08:05 GMT

I have a terrible 9:30am class that has a whole basket of girlie girls in it. The class is required for everyone, so you get both LS and IS people--and they are definitely LS. Nothing wrong with that, but they're like a cross between social workers and librarians: we want to make readers feel good! They chat about clothes and things before class until the teacher stares them down because everyone else is silent. I could see that one of them was doing a knitty pattern and I asked her which one, and when she told me I felt terrible that she'd put all that work in using a completely inappropriate yarn that wasn't showing the pattern. She seemed pleased, I guess.

profiles of the racially stupid

Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:00:03 GMT

So yesterday I go up to this guy from the dept. whose name I know is Hailie and say, "Happy name birthday!," and he looks at me like I'm crazy. I explain that it's Hailie Selassie's birthday and that I thought he might be named after H.S., and then I explain that "Hailie Selassie" just sticks in my head whenever I hear it, for some reason--I just like the sound of it. Dude was named after his dad, but he said he'd always meant to ask his grandmother where she got the name. I'm actually pretty embarrassed, like I've been caught racial profiling, but I kind of have. Okay, black guy with lots of dreads named Hailie...see where I'm going with this? Then I compound the problem when I start reading the "Life" section of the paper. "Look, it's Black History Month! But they don't have anything for the 28th except an Oprah quote...It's only 28 days, and they couldn't find 28 notable events? Wait, there are more quotes--even fewer days are filled." We're kind of having a back-and-forth on this, but in my mind I'm thinking, shut up, shut up, what are you thinking? Luckily, he didn't seem offended.

without child, or immaculate contraception

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:18:46 GMT

I was cruising the pregnancy test aisle at Target the other day and noticed that Target has its own brand of stick to pee upon. Forgive me for my snobbery, but of all things that I wouldn't go generic on, I think that's the one. Cough syrup, yup. Eye drops, no problem. But potential parenthood? Give me EPT, even if it does cost $6 more. (Of course, then I had to decide between the LCD text readout or the traditional "line" readout--cost differential $3.) Upshot: peace of mind is worth $9, not $12.

fathers and sons

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:16:45 GMT

I think the folks at 24 need some family counseling. Trouble with your son? Have him tortured, or even killed! Why bother with regular punishment when you know the little wretches will likely defy you again? There's no need to listen to that whining about how he had to kill his girlfriend any more...

apoplexy

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:11:05 GMT

This was in Saturday's N&O and I swear, I almost popped a vein out of incredulity and sheer anger.

I've read a couple of People's Forum letters about how wrong it was to have an inauguration with the tsunami tragedy so close, and how the $40 million could have been so much better spent. It's interesting thought, but with most of the activities planned long before the disaster, I wonder how much could really have been saved. But hey! What about the the $15 million that John Kerry had left over in his war chest after the election? Just lying around gathering dust -- think what a humanitarian he'd be if he donated it! But that won't happen. This country is sending $350 million plus, and if you look at those nasty old taxpayer breakdowns, it's mostly conservative money. Even money says the same is true for private contributions. Luke Steele
Creedmoor

The last paragraph is what gets me. What, conservatives just pay more taxes? BullSHIT! I mean, just because their conservative? Or because they're richer? But the rich re/elected Bush so they'd be taxed less. And study after study has shown (okay, I'm doing something I've told my students time and again never to do, which is refer to a nebulous "study") that the percentage of income a person donates to charity increases in inverse proportion to the amount of money she makes. (Did I say that correctly? The poor donate more than the rich.) If you want to talk campaign funds, why doesn't Bush donate from his personal stash, since he raised so much more money than Kerry, and since he's asking all of us to pony up? Jesus, mary & joseph, the people in NC are truly scary.