Now that I got the sidebar widgets working, I’ve been playing with some of the different widgets available.

I really like the new tag cloud. It’s kinda fun.

Go vote for Shawn! I mean it! He’s beating Westley Crusher!

I come in and one of the first things I discover is that one of the two computers in my office I use for tutoring sessions is totally hosed.

And I have a tutoring session this morning.

Classes start today.

This means that traffic is going to be unbearable all week. I may skip our mid-week trip to the grocery store on Wednesday/Thursday if things are still bad by then.

I’m going to spend most of the week sitting and the front desk, not only because we have two brand-new GAs, and not only because none of the GAs have worked during a fall semester start, but because we’re probably going to be extremely busy, and the faster we can help people and get them logged in, the better.

The weekend was pleasant. My aunt, uncle, and cousins came by Saturday afternoon to visit with my grandmother. That’s always fun, if a little crazy.

Oh, I printed the stills I took from the Flip. I printed two stills on a single sheet 4×6 photo paper, and they looked fantastic. I don’t think I could have printed them much larger, but they looked surprisingly good. (I have one copy to my grandmother, and mailed another copy to my cousin’s grandfather.)

Which reminds me, I love my new printer. I printed out some flower pictures to send to Michael’s grandmother, and I couldn’t tell them came from a printer. (Usually you can look at a picture and tell it was printed; these are really good pictures.)

Otherwise, don’t expect much this week. I’m writing several posts early (right now is actually Sunday night, but this will be posted Tuesday morning). But I expect to be busy.

Which means I’ll spend a long time at the front desk surfing the web, probably.

So, I had $50 in Amazon Reward Certificates, so I decided to order a Flip.

I’m shocked at how easy it is to used, and pleased with the quality I’ve gotten–just on the first day of playing with it.

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I didn’t get 18k steps today because I was running all over creation at work.

Nope, today I got the upper body workout, as I took the break before classes start to organize and rearrange our stock room. (My boss has been promising to do this for three weeks, but hasn’t had the time. I decided to take a GA and get it done before break is over.)

We moved cases of paper (around 20) from one room to another and stacked them about six high against the wall, moved about 20 boxes of toner (much lighter!) from one room to another, moved metal cabinets around, piled (insanely heavy and awkward to move) keyboard trays atop an empty cabinet, and hauled about 15 computers and monitors from one room to another.

If nothing else, my job has plenty of variety to keep my healthy. (Tomorrow’s goal? Sitting at my desk with my feet up.)

Anyone around here write ‘em?

I added ‘em to my sidebar, but I have things in my sidebar that are not fodder for widgets, and need to change this.

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 47%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 53%

Site Male-Female Ratio
google.com 0.98
facebook.com 0.83
cnn.com 1.35
imdb.com 1.06
merriam-webster.com 0.89
usaa.com 1.08

Okay, it really thinks I’m a hermaphrodite.

I don’t think that’s better.

Using your browser URL history to estimate gender

I want to note it does not check frequency of visits or duration of visits, because my most frequently visited site is http://www.wunderground.com/US/WV/Morgantown.html

Here are the stats for my home laptop:
Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 60%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 40%

Site Male-Female Ratio
amazon.com 0.9
imdb.com 1.06
flickr.com 1.15
nytimes.com 1.13
gmail.com 0.9
gardeners.com 0.6

Apparently men don’t shop at Gardener’s. Too bad I had to order more compost bags and filters–they ruined my stats!

But if I delete Garderner’s from my history:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 47%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 53%

Site Male-Female Ratio
amazon.com 0.9
imdb.com 1.06
flickr.com 1.15
nytimes.com 1.13
gmail.com 0.9

I get the exact same ratio I had on my work computer.

Why that would be ME!

I just got to tell some woman her baby (NOT crying) was too loud and disturbing people.

(sigh)

By the way, if you’ve missed a poll, you can go to the Polls Archive and take older polls there.

You can also comment on polls there, and the comment will appear in the comment list.

Also, I’m willing to take suggestions for polls–I’m sure I’ll eventually run low on subjects. So if there is something out there you really want to know, suggest it either here or in e-mail–but it’s gotta be PG-13. (No tentacles Tania.)

This has been running through my head for weeks now:

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Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

Here it is way past my bedtime, and I’m still awake and on the computer. I had a long day today, and have an even longer day tomorrow, so I really do need to get to sleep. I mean, tomorrow I get to do a presentation before some of the Pharmacy faculty, and then teach any of that group who show up in the afternoon, how to use the software I’m presenting.

Really should be asleep.

Yup. I’m tired and worn out.

Not sleeping yet.

(sigh)

I hate computers.

That is all, please carry on with the rest of your day.

Keyboard commands for shutting down Vista.

Windows key, Right arrow, Right arrow, Right arrow, Enter key.

HA!

And since I modified the first button, on my computer I should be able to use Windows Key, Right arrow, Enter.

HA! HA!

Yes, it’s time for some hot bee on flower action!
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I installed a polling plugin on the sidebar.

Polls will change randomly and without notice, as I placed the thing there solely for my entertainment.

Kinda like this website.

This US gas “temperature” map shows you gas prices around the country by color.

Sorry Alaska and Hawaii, apparently you’re not US states.

Really? Where?

I think we’ve been on the go for the past three weeks, and this week doesn’t look any better. I’d hoped to spend today relaxing, but ended up taking my grandmother shopping.

This is always an exercise in patience for me, because I like to get in and get out, and when I walk through most stores (excluding Jungle Jim’s of course) I tend to go at warp speed, grabbing what I need, finding the shortest line, and getting the hell out.

That doesn’t happen with my grandmother. She doesn’t move quickly, she has to look for what she wants, and she doesn’t move quickly. This is by far the hardest thing for me to deal with. I hate clothes shopping, and my feet hurt if I stand still for long. (I can walk forever, but as soon as I have to stand still, my feet start to ache.)

Of all the things I thought would be most difficult when my grandmother moved in, this is not what I expected.

On other fronts, I bought myself a photo printer for my birthday, and have had the chance to print one (1) picture since it arrived. I’ve also managed to read one eighth of a book in the past several weeks, which is a shocking lapse for me. I’ve got stacks of photo paper for different projects sitting here, but no idea when I’m going to try them out.

And this week, at least at work, looks to be just as insanely busy, as I’m scheduled to teach every single day this week. On the off chance I simply come home and collapse after work, I’ve got a couple scheduled posts set already. But if things get quiet, you know where I am.

Hiding under my bed with a flashlight and a book.

I think I woke up this morning with a chocolate hangover. However the molten lava chocolate cakes were AWESOME and totally worth the sugar crash.

I sent out the address book. If you ‘d like to add more information to your entry (like birthday or something) e-mail me that information I’ll send out the address book again later this week or early next week.

And my birthday gift to myself? A color photo printer. I can’t wait to start playing with it! Think about all the awesome flower pr0n I can now share with non-geek friends!

As previously noted, our Saturday was busy, and two unexpected events ended up making it even more so.

Susan is here for a weekend visit, because she came in for the retirement party for one of her professors. She was gone to the party most of the day, so I was thinking I’d get some things done during the day.

No, not really.

On the way to the grocery story, I asked Michael if he wanted to stop by Best Buy and look around.

We ended up buying Michael’s (early) birthday gift.

It was clearance time for laptops. And for the model Michael liked best he was available to grab the floor model for an even bigger discount. I tried to tell him that we’d have to put the laptop away for a month until it was really his birthday, but as you can see he was having none of that.

By the time we finally got home from shopping, Grandmom was starting to wonder what had happened to us, since we said we were going to take her to the pharmacy to get her prescriptions.

Just as we’re getting ready to leave, there’s a knock at the door, and it’s my brother!

So he visited for the afternoon and evening (Michael kept running out of the room to check the updates on his new computer.)

Pretty awesome Saturday, ‘eh?

What is the coolest starship?

OK, so, I’ve actually had this discussion with myself. Let us say no more about that.

My biggest problem is that they are missing all kinds of ships. No Moya from Farscape. No Star Furies from Babylon 5. And most importantly, no Defiant from DS9. How are we supposed to determine the coolest starship when they have all these gaping holes in their poll?

Jeesh!

Oh, my ranking for coolest ships?

Defiant
Moya
Serenity
Millennium Falcon
Nebuchadnezzar

Here are some interesting news items that have come in under the radar in recent weeks.

First, something I have complained repeatedly about, which is “anti-bacterial” products. Research in the UK has found that using anti-bacterial wipes in hospitals does not, in fact kill bacteria, and if a wipe is used on more than one surface, may instead spread those bacteria.

…the wipes tested were unable to kill the bacteria that they removed. As a result, they transferred high numbers of bacteria to other surfaces.

On a more controversial note, a study conducted at the Medical College of Wisconsin found that states that conduct local background checks, as opposed to relying upon only federal, or federal and state data, have lower rates of homicide and suicide. This was a retrospective study, and the article didn’t list the states used in the study, which is information I would like to know before drawing further conclusions from the article. (i.e. did the study account for population density and size?)

An article that was simply fascinating was the the following:

A new report shows that a non-ambulatory (unable to walk or stand) child with a cervical spinal cord injury was able to restore basic walking function after intensive locomotor training. The case study, published in Physical Therapy (May 2008), the scientific journal of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), evaluated the effects of locomotor training in a 4 ½ year-old-boy, who had no ability to walk following a gunshot wound sixteen months earlier.

The articles doesn’t state at what age plasticity stops, although it does limit these ability to children. It would be interesting to know what biological mechanisms affected this child’s miraculous recovery, and whether those conditions can eventually be reproduced in adults.

A study performed at Ohio State University has found that in the workplace instant messaging can actually improve productivity. I’ve noticed this myself. I’d much rather have the GAs IM me easy questions than call me. And it would be much easier to IM my boss questions that require little more than yes or no answers than call him or get up and walk over to his office.

Although it’s probably better for my physically to walk over to his office with my questions.

And last but not least, something that won’t surprise women in the least, heterosexual men’s decision making is more suspect after they’ve seen scantily clad women, or items in which women would be scantily clad.

Authors … found that the desire for immediate rewards increased in men who touched bras, looked at pictures of beautiful women, or watched video clips of young women in bikinis running through a park.

Um… duh? Isn’t that the point of all those horrible TV commercials?

Of course this could also work in the favor of women. Drag one’s guy through Victoria’s secret, and maybe they’ll more readily agree to any purchases immediately after.

…but back at work.

Trying to get caught up with the scheduling.

Except when I’m sitting here at the front desk. Then I’m not so much with the working, since I’m sitting here waiting to be interrupted.

Because I was already in a bad mood, I decided to poke at the css on my splash page for my site.

(It may get technical from here, so if you don’t give a rat’s patootie about web design, just go admire my splash page, look at some of the book pages, and then come back and lie to me and tell me how lovely they are.)

First, I discovered that when I first created the page I made things harder on myself than I needed to. This was fixed, and so the next revamp should be a tad easier, primarily if I make further layout changes involving the menus. (Instead of placing all the menu items in a single box and just moving that, I was moving each item individually, figuring out each time how much each box had to move. This was… annoying.)

Second, I really truly deeply despise Internet Explorer. I’ve known since I first created my css menus that they wouldn’t work with IE. So I just made sure that the main menus would allow people to access a page from which they could visit the other pages. Not a problem, and no one would know what they were missing unless they’d first looked at the page in a real browser.

My book pages are a bit more problematic. If you visit my fantasy page in any browser except IE (or a really old browser like Netscape 4) you get the nice css menus at the top of the page. Now I admit that the font size of the css menus is off in Safari, but they at least they work. When IE7 came out, I thought that some of these problems would be fixed.

No. My css menus still don’t work properly in IE7, and to add insult to injury, on the splash page they work a tiny bit, in that the sub menus appear, but you can’t actually select any choice other than the top.

And then there’s the fact that the links footer, which is simply a box within a box, doesn’t layout properly in IE6. Even though I’m not even doing anything strange with the code there.

All of which is just maddening. I don’t really want to make an IE only version of my front page, but if it’s going to look half-assed, I don’t see as how I have much choice.

So, like I said: I hate IE. And I wish I had the power to make the computers of Bill Gates and every other jackass who maintains IE EXPLODE with just the power of my mind.

I’m sure that would make me feel much better.

Now I think I need to go eat chocolate ice cream or something.