Apropos of Nothing….

Rat King

Just so you know what huge geeks we are, last night watching a Season 1 Babylon 5 episode, the following comment was made:

“Hey! It’s Weyoun!”

Links to various sites that have photographs of abandoned places.

I don’t care whether anyone else finds this interesting or not, I just wanted to save this link so I can come back and look at these sites later.

(via A Sweet Familiar Dissonance)

1. Type in your birthday (minus the year) in the search bar at Wikipedia 2. List three interesting facts, two births, and one death that happened on your birthday.

July 1 is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 183 days remaining.

Facts:
251 – The battle of Abrittus is won by Goths against Romans. Roman Emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus are killed.
1858 – The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.
1963 – ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail.

Births:
1725 – Comte de Rochambeau, French soldier (d. 1807)
1869 – William Strunk Jr. American grammarian (d. 1946)

Deaths:
1894 – Allan Pinkerton, American private detective (b. 1819)

Also? Canada Day

(via Erin)

Michael and I have been amused by a couple that has been coming to the rec center for the past couple weeks. And I use the term couple, however, for reasons that will soon become apparent, I don’t believe that they are actually a couple.

They arrive at about seven carrying their gym bags, walk to the machines, and stand there and talk. Well, let me clarify. The woman rants and complains, and the guy stands there and listens. Once they stopped at the bottom of the stairs and stood there for at least twenty minutes. One day last week they were standing there when we left the track, then we went to do the weight machines, and then we showered and dressed, and when we got out to the car, we looked up and they were still standing there talking.

Mind you, the machines they are standing near are right beside the track. If they took two steps, they could walk on the track while they were talking, and actually get some exercise. Which is why we find the whole thing amusing. They go to the gym, and then don’t actually exercise.

I bet they leave every day feeling all proud of themselves thinking, “I spent two whole hours at the track today!”

Now, why do I think that they aren’t actually a couple? (Everyone who’s married can chime in here.) Because he’s actually standing there listening to her gripe.

Heck, sometimes, spam really amuses me.

It’s going to be wild and crazy this weekend!

No, not the Virginia Tech game–the Buckwheat Festival!

baldric
noun Historical a belt for a sword or other piece of equipment, worn over one shoulder and reaching down to the opposite hip.
—Origin Middle English baudry, from Old French baudre, of unknown ultimate origin.

Ten points to the person who guesses what first came to mind when I read this.

Me tanks t’ Mad Bess Read oo’ writ a chanty aboot Black Ethel Bonney!

Arr! Mighty fine lass she is, Mad Bess Read!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

For obvious reasons I’ve been thinking about disasters this week, and survival following disasters.

It was the post about jump bags at Making Light that really got me thinking though. Because if there is a major disaster, where I live is where people are going to be fleeing to. We’re 180 miles (or less) from Baltimore and DC, so this is where my relatives there should end up. Sure Morgantown has a river, however as anyone whose spent any time here knows, everything is uphill, so even a major flood would affect only a small part of town.

The biggest “natural disaster” threat to this area is mine subsidence, and that’s hardly natural. No hurricanes. Tornadoes are rare. I supposed that a terrorist attack could happen, but I find it highly unlikely. Hitting West (by God) Virginia, known primarily poverty and unemployment, doesn’t seem like much of a political statement.

But that’s not what has upset me and shaken me to the very core.

The biggest threat I’m likely to face is riots. We’ve had an influx of REALLY stupid students in recent years. Ones who think that destruction of private property is fun and amusing. I live just a few blocks from the stadium on the edge of student areas (my neighbors are grandmothers in one direction, and students in the other) I’m not in Sunnyside but close enough. I’d like to think that people are smarter and better than my worst fears imagine them to be, but I’m not that naïve.

The more I’ve contemplated this, the more I wonder if my thoughts of purchasing a gun should become more than a consideration. For years I’ve wanted to get a gun and to find a place where I can take up target shooting. Why? I like guns. They’re loud and there’s something deeply satisfying about firing them that feeds my destructive impulses.

So what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that I’m a professed pacifist. Have been for years. (We’ll pretend that the fact that I’m a huge weakling had nothing to do with it.) And if I’m completely honest with myself, part of the reason I’m a pacifist is because I can have a really vicious temper. If someone angers me, part of my mind takes great delight in imagining really awful things to do to them, while another part of my mind screeches in horror and sings tunelessly in an attempt to drown out the vindictive part.

The easiest way to control that viciousness is to tell myself that I am never justified in taking action. If someone wants to start a fight, I walk away. The impulse to punch annoying twits in the face is taken out back and drowned in a bucket.

And for the most part I’m really good burying these impulses and–excluding a few minor lapses–can pretty easily avoid such thoughts.

Until now.

Now I have to consider what steps I would take to protect me and mine. Would I take the cats and my husband and run to safety? Or would I stay and try to protect my home and my neighbors?

And what happens to me if I do that?

How do I continue to suppress these impulses once I’ve let the genie out of the bottle?

I’ve always been fascinated by crime. The first grown-up books I really remember reading here ‘The Complete Sherlock Holmes’ and Agatha Christie’s ‘A Carribean Mystery’ (followed quickly by any Miss Marple mystery I could get my hands on).

In college I started out in Sociology in the Crime and Justice track, but eventually realized that my increasing pacifism wasn’t going to work well with a career in law enforcement, and so I ended up with only a minor in Sociology and a degree in Biology (almost all plant classes amusingly enough).

Yet I kept the love of mysteries, despite the fact that I’d make a terrible detective: I don’t know how many steps there are between the first and second floors, despite the fact that I go up and down the stairs every day. And even if I counted the stairs I’m certainly I’d immediately forget the number. I’m no good at paying attention to detail either–at least the kind of detail that would make me a useful witness. Though if the criminal was badly dressed wearing a t-shirt with a grammatically incorrect phrase I’d be more useful.

I did take something away from all my reading and classes however. When my lunch partners are busy and I walk by myself at lunch, I find myself considering security.

As I walk past open, empty offices I notice how easy it would be to step in and then step back out with papers and personal items left unguarded. I look into empty labs, and think how easy it would be to walk away with equipment and chemicals. I also like to consider escape routes if I were being chased by a crazed criminal of some sort. Unfortunately, my best plan requires me to be a good bit stronger than I currently am, so I guess I’d better refrain from being chased by a crazed criminal any time soon.

But mostly I just walk and look and notice that many people make a point not to pay attention to those around them, and consider how easy is to walk somewhere and look like you belong.

Sometimes I wish I carried a camera with me all the time.

I love to people watch–there are so many different things to see, from badly dressed college students, to elderly couples, to parents arguing with their kids. Sometimes it’s amusing, sometimes it’s depressing, but most of the time it’s just fascinating. You’ll catch a small glimpse into someone’s life that may or may not be representative of who they are.

Sometimes just glancing in the rearview mirror shows me a curious vignette.
(more…)

The Word of the Day for July 21 is:

emissary \EM-uh-sair-ee\ noun
*1 : one designated as the agent of another : representative
2 : a secret agent

Jeesh! They forgot the most important definition!
(more…)