Due to complaints from various family members (with no sense of humor), the message on my cell phone is no longer the smurf song, as sung by me.

Even looking at the NYT fashion pages failed to cheer me up (they’re almost always good for a laugh) so here’s some other random stuff.

From the BBC, a bear bicycle bandit:

A bold amphibious escape bid by a bear at Berlin zoo has been foiled in a dramatic shoot-out.

What made the story for me, is that it was Juan the Andean spectacled bear, which caused me to imagine a large black bear with wire rimmed glasses, bustin’ out.
(Story includes picture of bear attempting to steal bicycle)

From the BBC yesterday, frustrated chimp takes up smoking:

A chimpanzee has taken up smoking and spitting, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.

You really have to read the article, especially as it tells you why they think the chimp has started smoking.

And an interesting article from the NY Times on women’s shoes:

Round-toed shoes with five- or even six-inch heels, fashionable this season, are hardly better; likewise the popular thong sandals, which completely expose the feet.

“Flip-flops are close to horrible for the feet,” Dr. Smith said. “They are totally flat, soft and squishy, and offer no support and no protection,” not to mention their penchant for causing accidents by catching on things or inviting being stepped on.

As someone who hates heels, and refuses to wear them, I can tell you that it is quite difficult to find nice dress shoes that don’t have a heel. I cannot understand what would make a woman torture herself so, although I was amused by the closing quote:

Simon Doonan, the creative director of Barneys New York, had a simpler explanation for women’s ability to wear the shoes they love.

“Women have a higher pain threshold,” he said. “Men would not do this.”

For once, men are smarter.

Oh happiness what an elusive thing you are
But thank God you were born beneath its star
Drop another coin in the slot and I will tell you more.
–Masters of Reality

Talked to my Dad this morning (and got e-mail from my aunt last night). Cousin Pat goes in for surgery tomorrow. It looks like the lymph cancer has spread; this in addition to their recent discovery of colon cancer.

Please send your good thoughts towards Baltimore tomorrow.

(more…)

Five signs on the door.

Five.

And people STILL walk in.

“Oh. You’re closed? I didn’t know.”

THAT’S WHY THE DOORS ARE CLOSED AND HAVE SIGNS PLASTERED ALL OVER YOUR MORON! GET OUT!

(deep breath)

Okay. I’m better now. Really.

Aides to (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) say he will sign legislation approved on Thursday that could allow up to 75,000 hybrid drivers, mainly those behind the wheel of a gas-sipping Prius, to use car pool lanes even when taking to the road alone. The governor hopes the perk will encourage more people to buy the cleaner-burning cars, but by doing so, he will give the Japanese-made Prius vaunted status in a state where nearly 30 million registered vehicles compete for every inch of open asphalt.

…

“What Bill Ford ought to be doing is spending his time figuring out how to out-compete the Japanese,” Mr. Angelides said. “The bill has objective standards, and any car company, including Ford, could produce a clean-burning, fuel-efficient hybrid that meets the standards.”

The Honda Insight and Civic Hybrid also meet the fuel effeciency standards.

So American car makers have fought tooth and nail to keep cafe standards from raising, and now they’re fighting to stop a rewards program for those who purchase fuel efficient vehicles.

As for Ford whining that the Escape hybrid doesn’t quality… at 31 mpg, my standard Corolla gets better gas mileage than that–we’re gotten 41 mpg on the interstate. So to call the Escape hybrid fuel efficent is a joke.

If people want to buy urban attack vehicles, they most certainly may, but those people can suck it up when gas prices go through the ceiling. I certainly don’t want to listen to their complaints, since their gas guzzling is only exacerbating the problem. So drive what you like, but you don’t get to drive an SUV and complain about gas prices when you knew your monstrosity got low mileage when you bought it,

Must. Stop. Snooding.

I can’t beleive I forgot to mention this earlier!

Erin got an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. This is the second year in a row she’s made honorable mention! Yea Erin!

Of course for the second year in a row they spelled her name wrong, but at least she got mentioned.

And no, I have not yet picked up my copy, but will soon. (Of course I have to admit that I still haven’t finished last year’s collection.) I’m still looking for a copy of, either seven or eight, which had the story On Edge which, for me, was the creepiest story I have ever read. It still give me shivers, nine years later. (I loaned my copy to someone and never got it back. Which isn’t as horrible as it could be, since I have the loanees copy of Sean Russell’s The Initiate Brother (1991) and Gatherer of Clouds (1992))

Guess what that means?
(more…)

A recent post at The Main Point, has got me thinking about quality of life.

In my Gerontology class last year, one student said that if he got so old they took away he’s driver’s license, he’s just kill himself, because he couldn’t take that big a limitation. My first thought was to wonder how someone in Gerontology could even think that such a small limitation as loss of driving privledges would be worth dying for.

My second (less charitable) thought, was that: the shape he was in, he was looking at Type II Diabetes and a bunch of other health problems, onsetting at a young age, so his life expectancy might not be very long at all, especially if he thought that losing his driver’s license was a major limitation.

Remembering that incident reminded me that what seems, from the perspective of a young and healthy youth, an unbearable burden, might not seem like that big a deal when you live it on a daily basis.

This is not to say that I believe that disease and illness are a blessing, or a message from God for the individual, either positive or negative. If anything, they are a spur from God to work to advance or medical research to treat debilitating illnesses and conditions so that everyone can live a healthy life.

My initial grounds for considering health, wellness and well-being stem from knowing my grandmother, and what a remarkable woman she is. She has had rhumatoid arthritis since she was in her 30s, yet at the age of 87 still keeps her own house. She’s had two knee replacement surgeries, yet still needs to use a cane when she leaves the house. She hasn’t driven for years, and has great difficulty getting up and down stairs, and up from chairs.

Desite all this, she’s one of the most positive people I know. She may worry, and she may complain a little about aches and pains, or her allergies, but those things don’t dominate her life.

What came to my mind from all of this musing upon death, health, and life, is a reminder that we are not defined by our limitations, but are defined by what what we achieve and we do.

In regard to this post…

Preston woman recovers after I-68 accident

A Bruceton Mills woman involved in a rollover accident along Interstate 68 earlier this week is recovering in Ruby Hospital Memorial, a Ruby spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Linda Louise Adams, 57, was transported to Ruby by medical helicopter Tuesday evening after she lost control of her four-door Nissan Sentra.

Family members requested that Adams’ medical condition not be released to the public.

Adams’ family members said Wednesday that Adams was traveling east toward Bruceton Mills when the accident occurred.

Deputy Craig Ruscello said witnesses told him that after Adams crossed the eastbound lanes, her car flipped several times and landed roof up in the median facing the eastbound lanes.

Ruscello said he does not believe Adams was speeding.

“There doesn’t appear to be any type of negligence at this point,” Ruscello said Wednesday. “I’m waiting to talk to her until I make any (definite) conclusions.”

An article in today’s NY Times discussing short stories struck me, mostly because it was a sharp reminder of how my reading habits differ from the habits of “the general public”, and how the genre I love best (fantasy) seems strangely separated from the rest of the world.

Almost no one makes a living from writing short stories anymore. The story has to a large extent been severed from its traditional roots - from popular, large-circulation magazines, that is - and it has been transplanted into the greenhouses of the academy.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love short stories. There’s just something about the form that fascinates me. They’re quick to read, and you have to get to all the important stuff in just a few words. Everything is there, in just a few pages.

Not that I dislike novels mind you. There are times when you just want to read more about a character, and only a long novel or (I read lots of fantasy) a nice trilogy will do.

But as far as publishing short stories, if you look through the science fiction and fantasy section at the book store, you’ll find several quality anthologies, including the “Year’s Best in Fantasy and Horror” which is a huge book, collecting some of the best stories and poems from the previous year. And you can also find various collection on different subject, or collections by specific authors. (I love all of Charles de Lint’s short story collections, probably more than I love his novels.)

So if Science Fiction and Fantasy can produce so many quality short stories, then why not elsewhere?

Yup. I was right. The bright and cheery colors are gone from my main page. The graphic will change when I get access to my pictures, but it’ll do for now.

I may also look for a different image for the weblog, but maybe not.

I think I’m finally starting to understand Cascading Style Sheets.

A Regular Soda a Day Boosts Weight Gain

Data collected from 51,603 women over an average of four years found that the women who gained the most weight were those who increased their consumption of non-diet drinks from one or fewer per week to one or more per day, the researchers found. Such women gained an average of 10.3 pounds, compared with an average of slightly less than three pounds for those who consumed one drink or less per week.

In addition, those who had one or more drinks containing sugar or corn syrup per day were 83 percent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than those who drank less than one such drink per month. Diabetes, a chronic blood sugar disorder that puts victims at risk for a variety of serious complications, is becoming increasingly common in the United States.

One can hope that this will help the drive to get soda machines out of schools. As we all have heard time and again, obesity is a growing problem in the US, but it seems as if the simple steps Americans could be taken, such as avoiding the empty calories of sodas and snack foods, are completely ignored.

I’ve always wondered why junk food and soda are allowed purchases under the food stamp program. Disallowing such purchases–candy, soda, chips–might be a significant help in reducing obesity and educating the American population about good nutrition.

I’d also like to see a “sin tax” placed on junk foods the same as we have for cigarettes and alcohol. You should still have the right to buy these items–after all, even I buy soda when we’re going on long car trips and I crave caffeine–but money from such a sin tax could go towards funding obesity education, or even helping to fund ailing hospitals areas in poverty stricken areas. And such a tax just might reduce comsumption and stave off a coming obesity epidemic.

Will such ideas fly? Of course not. The sugar industry and corn farmers (remember that most of these products are made with corn syrup) will never allow it to happen.

All the same it would be really nice if we could consider the health and well-being of Americans before the well-being of corporate interests.

ADDENDUM the First:
In response to the troll…

Friday my calorie intake was: oatmeal, yogurt, orange juice, light pollock, scalloped potatoes, chocolate milk, roll with butter, granola bar, mudslide, and half a small pan pizza from Uno’s.

My calorie burning activities: walked 45 minutes on the track, took the PRT to work, walked about the building for 20 minutes doing tasks, walked 30 minutes at lunch with a friend, walked around the building for 20 more minutes doing tasks, walked to meet my husband after work, strolled around several stores.

Was my calorie intake more or less than the amount of calories I burned? Come on! You said that calorie intake must be lower than calories burned to lose weight, implying that it’s a simple thing that anyone should be able to do. So tell me, did I do it right? Should I have eaten less? Could I have eaten more?

I’m pretty knowledgable about health and nutrition, and I couldn’t tell you the answer to any of those questions, and I’m pretty careful about what I eat. Do you believe that most people know how to read food labels and how to figure out whether their calories in are less than their calories out? (If you believe that, you’re more of a fool than I think you are.)

Crikey!

I like to watch people. I also like to listen to public conversations (we call this conversation paratrooping). Both together often give me little bits of strangers lives—I sometimes wonder how the people I’m watching got where they did, and wonder how they are going to end up. I think it’s related to my love of short stories—I get a peek into someone’s life, never to see or hear about them again. I find it absolutely fascinating.

Sometimes, however, I come across a slice of life, and wish I could know how things turned out. This evening was like that.

We were walking through Sears when I saw her. Her hair a little too dark, and a little too long, an odd contrast to her long denim skirt and button-up shirt. I half expected to see a kerchief. Second I noticed her face. It wasn’t precisely a look of panic, but she definitely looked frantic, desperately scanning the aisles, looking for someone. She was walking very quickly, that walk/run that you do when you’re in a hurry in public, and then she did that soft yell at a pre-teen boy wandering in the men’s department. She called to him to find his sister, and when he went over to her, they spoke quickly and quietly together. She called out to him as he dashed off, to find his sister, and not to say anything at all to his grandmother.

My first thought was that they’d lost his baby sister—the mother looked like she might have a pre-teen son as well as a toddler, but then the boy found his sister, who couldn’t have been much more than a year or two younger than he was. She was in the direction we were walking, and I continued to watch was we walked towards the exit. I overheard bits of what he was saying to his sister, “…terrible accident…they life-flighted her…whatever you do, don’t tell Grandma.” And then they were off, dashing towards the exit after their mother.

And I’ll probably never know what happened, or how things turn out. They were just random strangers, whose lives may have been turned inside out in one quick moment at the mall.

All I can do is finish their story for myself, giving it a happy ending, and hoping that their story turns out to be the same story I wrote in my head.

ADDENDUM the First: This may be part of that story.

Microsoft is still evil. Ran into a new problem today: when trying to do a mail merge of class grades, even though in Excel the data is rounded to two decimal points, it appears in Word out to 8 places.

This is stupid. And we never found a solution.

Finally got around to read Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot. Thanks Tom!

Now that we’re into that fun school schedule, I’m on an exercise binge. Which is good, because I’ve gained about 10 pounds since the last time I was on a scale. I walked about 50 minutes this morning before work (Michael has to be at work at 7. Rather than lie abed, I’m getting up and going to the Rec Center to exercise.) Some with Ali, and some with my really cool new mp3 player.

Why is my mp3 player so cool? Because it’s also a USB KEY! Isn’t that the COOLEST? No? Well I like it anyway.

So this morning I got to listen to Prince and Adam Ant. What more do you need to start your day off right?

So what is the point of having security guards without guns or anything else that would allow them to stop an art theft that occurred in broad daylight?

You can’t even believe how much I hate Microsoft.

I have some data that I want to sort by date, so I copy the data into Excel, run the sort, and then discover that Excel has put the column in alphabetical order.

No good.

So I spent an hour playing with the formatting in Excel and Word, trying different varations of Paste Special. Nothing. Only a handful of dates will format as ‘date’ the rest remain formatted as text. Just as I’m about to (loudly) lose my mind, I realize that all the data that formatted correctly has something in common: all those dates are after 1900.

Apparently Excel doesn’t recognize dates before 1900.

How STUPID is THAT? I mean REALLY? HOW FROGGING STUPID IS THAT?

So I had to put my data back into Word, and run the sort there, because WORD recognizes dates before 1900.

Grrr……

ADDENDUM the First: This is what I was trying to do.

This may be it for the fun reading for awhile.

Which is why, of course, we went to three bookstores this weekend and bought more books. But really! I needed to replace my copy of Steven Brust’s The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.

The Blackie Ryan Mysteries by Andrew M. Greeley

Although I like Andrew M. Greeley’s writing, I don’t necessarily recommend a reading marathon of the Blackie Ryan mysteries, primarily because he has written the books to stand alone, so each book gives you an explanation of the nickname punk, Blackie’s relationship with Mary Kate, and why Mike the Cop is called Mike the Cop. Those things aren’t bad in and of themselves, but they get a little old if you’re read the same line three days in a row. He does, however, get a little better about this as the series continues, which is good, because I was getting a little tired of reading about Sean Cardinal Cronin’s gallowglass laugh.

Read More about the Blackie Ryan Mysteries

I just redid the front page of the site. It is a significant change from the previous page–just so you’re forewarned.

I probably won’t leave it this way for long, but it’s Saturday morning, I’m stuck at work (don’t even ask) and bored out of my mind, so it was something to do. If you have any opinions, please let me know.

ADDENDUM the First:
Oh good, I broke half the hyperlinks. How exciting.

ADDENDUM the Second:
I fixed it. Not an elegant fix, but it works. Now if I only understood why they broke in the first place.
Oh yeah, I also changed the picture at the top of this page.

Scientists in China say they have discovered a highly virulent strain of bird flu virus in pigs.

An official at the China National Avian Flu Reference Laboratory said the H5N1 virus strain had been found in pigs at several farms in the country.

I’ve been morbidly fascinated with this Avian flu since it first appeared in 1997. I’ve always wondered and worried about the pandemic potential of this flu strain.

The discovery of the virus in pigs is important, because typically, the bird flu is not contagious in humans. Pigs, however, can be infected by both avian and human strains of the flu, which means that they can become a mixing ground that would allow an avian flu to become contagious to humans.

Since I first started learning about the flu and the number of deaths it can cause I was amazed that so few people worry about it at all. I was also shocked to discover the devastation of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic–that a disease could be so deadly, and yet so unknown. (An excellent book on the subject is Gina Kolata’s book Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic.)

Will the Asian flu become a deadly worldwide threat? We can hope that the strain doesn’t mutate to spread rapidly in humans. We can also hope that the emergency preparedness that was put into place following September 11th and the Anthrax letters will allow medical personnel to respond quickly to a deadly flu strain, and keep the spread limited.

We can hope.

1) UNIVERSITY OFFICIALS PREDICT ANOTHER RECORD ENROLLMENT, NO PARKING AVAILABLE UNTIL SPRING

Okay, so I made the second part up. But it’s still true.

How to fold a t-shirt
(via Making Light)

The 20-year wait is over. America has its new Mary Lou, and her name is Carly Patterson.

Twenty years? What do you mean twenty years? It can’t have been twenty years! I clearly remember Mary Lou! (Okay, I’m from West (by God) Virginia. We’re required to remember Mary Lou.) How can it be twenty years already? That makes me feel… old!

Bah!