Now that I have unpacked my computer and found the cable for my camera…

I often wonder why I have cats. Here is one reason.
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From the BBC:

Elephants can recognise their own reflection, showing self-awareness

I, of course, have known all along that elephants are smart animals.

Otherwise, how would the birthday elephant have found our house when we moved?

11 Days till my Grandmother moves in!

I hate daylight savings times.

There’s no call for me to be waking up at 5:30 in the morning. 6:10 is bad enough.

I am now, officially, freaking the hell out.

We just got the official date that Grandmom will be here, and I am completely worried that we won’t be done in time.

Plus, I’m tired of living in a house that’s completely torn up.

But mostly I’m just completely tired. Maybe I should just go to bed. As they say, the morning is always wiser than the evening.

Thing I really don’t like: Cutting drywall with a utility knife. If I never have to do this again it will be too soon.

Too bad we still have two more sheets to put up.

Cutting drywall with a jig saw? Much easier.

Thing that I really love: Leather gardening gloves. These are the single most useful object I’ve used throughout this project. The leather is thin enough that I can hold screws when wiring sockets and switches, but thick enough to provide protection from general cuts and scrapes and blisters.

I won’t fuss at all when I have to buy a new pair in the spring because these were definitely money well spent.

Six word stories written for Wired.

I am particularly fond of these:

“I couldn’t believe she’d shoot me.”
- Howard Chaykin

Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
- Neil Gaiman

(via Smart Bitches who Love Trashy Books)

This whole project is making me crazy(er).

I keep going back and forth between, “We’re doing great! We should be done in no time!” and “What on earth was I thinking? We’ll never get this finished in time! Wah!”

But we are making progress. And I have to say I’ve learned a lot more than I ever expected about building stuff.

But I’m still staying away from most of the power tools. Circular saws, miter boxes, jig saws–they all say one thing to me: “Come here! Lose an appendage!”

I’ll just leave those to Michael, and stick with running in to things and smacking myself with a hammer.

We had SNOW!

It was just flurries, and it only lasted for a little bit, but STILL! SNOW! YAY!

About two years ago, after I had a so-so bone density test, Michael and I started to use the weight machines at the rec center. We don’t use a lot of the machines, but we try to hit the large muscle groups for the upper body (since my legs already get a fair amount of use with all the walking I do.)

As I said, we did this because I’d like to stave off osteoporosis and getting any shorter than I already am. (We met me cousin’s fiancee yesterday. Like Eric, she’s tall tall tall. I can see that unless Liz stops growing, I will remain the shortest person in the family, save only Stacie.) I didn’t realize there would be other benefits as well.

Yesterday, we put up walls, with all the requisite cutting and carrying and lifting and hammering. For a break, we emptied a mini-van of Grandmom’s belongings, and filled it with the things that Eric is taking for his apartment (queen size bed, book cases, kitchen table). Then we went back to wall building. (Today should involve setting up electrical boxes, putting up drywall, and starting on the built-in bookcases.)

Last night I took an aspirin, figuring that with all the different kinds of work we did, I’d be ridiculously sore today. However, I woke up, and have to say that I feel surprisingly good. I’m a little tired, but I’m chalking that up to the fact that I couldn’t get to sleep last night, after all the caffeine I had yesterday.

All the aches and pains I was expecting? Not here.

So next time I think that I look stupid working with the weight machines, and that it’s not doing anything, since I remain a huge wimp, I’ll consider the fact that my entire body didn’t ache today, and happily continue.

I’m sitting here thinking that the last time my house was this much of a mess, we were moving in.

Then I realize that it’s about to get worse. In addition to the work we’re doing, my cousin is coming today to bring some of Grandmom’s furniture, and take away some of my furniture that will now be his.

I *think* that the volume of furniture leaving is greater than the volumn of furniture arriving, although this will not be so until the queen size mattress and box springs migrate over to my parent’s house. So that’s something. But still, I’m in the “holy cow what on earth were we thinking we’re never going to get all this done before the middle of November” phase of the project. This is actually a long phase that I am hoping will disappear somewhat after this weekend.

Hoping.

But still, I really don’t understand how we have to much stuff that takes up so much space. I mean, how have I ended up with eight feather pillows? I only have one head. (And the feather pillows are all mine–Michael has non-feather pillows.) What made me think that I would need back issues of Scientific American back to 1997?

And of course every time we move a piece of furniture, we find a dozen or so (toy) mice. I am now certain that we have a greater volume of toy mice than we do cats. Thing is, after Kat / Mr Furry / Mr Pissy has dashed out an open door for the umpteenth time in a single day, I can’t decide which would be better to keep.

Remember the hi-bounce ball ad?

Sony made a new commercial. It’s shorter than the hi-bounce ball commercial, but just as gorgeous.

Click around–they have some photographs as well.

And trust me, it’s worth the wait.

“Without that stabilizer panel, this landing’s gonna get real interesting.”
“Define interesting.”
“Oh God, oh God we’re all gonna die?”

Dear Spammers,

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!

Thank goodness for spam filters.

Make your own snowflake. Quite neat.

A search for Michelle and Morgantown should bring up the one I made.

Do you have what it takes to become a citizen?

You answered 100% of questions correctly. Here’s your rating:

0-20%: Maybe you’re still thinking too much about the Old Country — and that’s where you should probably be.

25-40%: Mmmm. Do you really want to be a citizen? This kind of performance isn’t going to impress those nice immigration folks.

45-60%: Not too bad, but you really need to break out the civics books again — word is, the INS is looking for an 80 percent score.

65-80%: Hey, you may make a good citizen yet! Look at your wrong answers and a little revision should do the trick.

85-100%: Welcome to the United States! (And, truth be told, you know more about this great land than most Americans.)

The one that almost threw me off asked which Amendment did NOT deal with voting rights. I got that one on a lucky guess.

(via erin)

Where did all this STUFF come from? Does junk have a spawning season or something? Because I don’t know where some of this crap came from.

My basement is an unmitigated disaster area. We’ve torn down a closet, and moved stuff to empty part of the basement, and that meant piling up stuff elsewhere, to the point that the rest of the basement is nearly impassable.

Despite the bags of stuff that are going in the trash or to Christian Help or to anyone that will take it off my hands, I AM going to more thoroughly go through the basement at some point in the NEAR future, and cull even more junk.

Because this is just ridiculous.

I’m sure that if I had the patience to sell things on e-bay I’d make some money off it, but I just don’t care that much. I want space, and I want it NOW.

I HATE COMPUTERS!

That is all.

Don’t forget!

Voter Registration in West Virginia ENDS Tuesday, October 17th. So if you are not registered to vote, make sure to get yourself to the courthouse and do so!

Additionally, early voting starts on the 18th of October and runs through November 4th. So starting the 18th, you can go to the County Courthouse and vote early.

So there is no excuse not to vote!

Okay, in context this makes sense, but I find it highly amusing out of context.
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2006 Ig Nobel prizes were awarded!

The Peace prize was awarded to:

Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant — a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.
REFERENCE: http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk

Dad: Do you remember when we lived on Clark Street…
Michelle: Yes.
Michelle: Was there more I was supposed to remember?

Having OCD is a funny thing sometimes. And I mean that both as funny strange and funny ha ha. After all, if I couldn’t laugh at myself, then things could be much worse than they are. As it is, sometimes I even find it useful. I mean, I can organize the heck out of anything when I set my mind to it.

Most of the time I don’t even really notice that there’s anything different.

Of course, I’m not sure I’d know what it would feel like if I wasn’t different.

For me, it’s mostly little things. I don’t have obsessive hand washing, however, I do know how my hands feel dirty when I touch something my mind believes to be unclean.

But the things that really drive me nuts are 3-way light switches. Not all of them mind you, but the ones with multiple switches. I cannot stand it when the switches go in different directions. It bugs the crap out of me. I will walk across a darkened room or up an unlit stairwell so that the switches will be in the same direction. (That’s a fun one. I usually run up the stairs, because I imagine things in the dark corners of the basement. Things that come out when the lights are out. [This is why I don't watch horror movies. My imagination doesn't need the help.])

Meanwhile, the whole thing kinda defeats the purpose of having 3-way switches in the first place.

I wonder, sometimes, what is it like to go through a day and not be worried about things like that? Not to be bothered by mismatched light switches or floor tiles that are different colors. (That’s a fun one too. Because there is something “wrong” with the mismatched tiles, I can’t step on two different colored tiles at the same time.)

What is the point of this mutation I have? Why did it develop? What has allowed it to survive? What is it’s evolutionary significance? It must have some adaptive use. I mean, how else has is survived? Because I know for damned sure that just as living with OCD can at times be hard, I’m sure that living with me must often be harder still.

Don’t get me wrong though. Most days I don’t even think about the things I do. They don’t bother me, they just are. And when I do think about it, I usually laugh it off. Because there is something hilariously stupid about acting against my own self-interest.

But sometimes I do wonder, “why me?” And today was one of those days.

Why? Because Michael just repaired the 3-way switch in the kitchen. So that’s one more for me to worry about.

On the bright side, think of all the extra exercise I’ll get, walking back and forth across yet another room, to put the switches in the correct direction!

Any Discworld readers may enjoy this Discworld cake.

Almost forgot, there is an electronics recycling place in Morgantown now, PC Renewal.

Micahel took our old broken TV there, and some other miscellaneous electronics, and it cost just a couple bucks. So if you’d like to be environmentally conscious as you get rid of your old electronics, there’s now a place to do it.