I was lucky enough to chat with Ricky a bit this morning over aim. He sounded content, and it made me feel good to hear it. Well, good meaning better than the pit I've been in this week.

So how's this for me being selfish: what are you happy about? Has anything gone particularly well lately? I think if I can get some inertia from other people's optimism and/or success I might be able to focus better on the things that are going well for me right now.

Because I don't have anything else to do (hah!) I've been skimming old blog entries. I just stumbled upon this thread (for minor context: I had mentioned cheering for Ohio State in some football game). Several million points to all involved!

Via IM just now:

Penguin: i like goals
Penguin: they're made of choclate
Penguin: no wait, that's gelt
Me: lol
Me: oh [penguin], i need to im you more
Penguin: because i am a font of wisdom
Penguin: also, because i'm made of crazy

Lookie! I have internets!

But I'm about 10% awake at the moment so I'm just going to mention real fast: the Ig Nobel awards will be rebroadcast tomorrow on NPR's Science Friday, according to the internet, at 2pm eastern. Not to be missed! This year's theme was RISK.

More were requested, and I've been remiss in blogging in general (seriously, it's nuts here. Don't expect anything until the New Year's questionnaire.) But this was funny and quick, so here you go.

Sal's been getting up half an hour early lately and going running. For a while I just slept in, but then started to feel like it was a good idea except that I hate running. So I started getting up at the same time and doing the first 15-20 minutes of this random yoga dvd I have (it's "for flexibility and stress release" which are two things I can get behind). The first exercise is cat pose:



You can see where I'm going with this, I'm sure.

When I get up I don't change clothes or anything so I'm doing all this in flannel pajama pants and a large t-shirt. Usually the cats gather to watch the freaky human pretty quickly during this first pose, which I thought at first was kind of cute. After that comes "active cat pose" which I can't find a picture of, but which is similar but with a leg lift and then sort of a push up where you lower your chest toward the floor with your leg still up.

I think Strange decided either a) cats are not active so therefore I'm doin it rong, or b) my chest wasn't getting anywhere near the floor given my wimpy human arms and therefore I'm doin it rong. So what does he do? He crawls up my shirt. Since it's so baggy, when I'm on my hands and knees the bottom of it hangs down quite a bit, allowing easy access for the little bastard, who then weighted down my whole torso for the remainder of the exercise.

Charm just seemed sort of confused about the whole thing.

Also, they for some reason get really concerned about downward-facing dog position.

This would have been really useful for that guy at Comic Con trying to explain Cthulhu mythos to the mom and 6-year-old kid.



H/T to Liz at The Park Bench for the morning cartoonage!

I think he's trying to tell me something. He just sent me the following five instant messages:
http://www.time-management-central.net/image-files/time-management-clock.jpg
http://www.freefoto.com/images/2000/02/2000_02_51---Number-Two_web.jpg
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/gifs/go-game.jpg
http://www.freefoto.com/images/2000/02/2000_02_54---Number-Two_web.jpg
http://www.mysticmedusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Suspended-Bed.jpg

I should also mention he's sitting about three feet away from me.

Sal was messing around typing random things into the google search box and seeing what it suggests as common endings. Like if you type "where do" you get things like "where do babies come from" and if you type "why does it" about half the suggestions are in relation to urination and pain associated therewith.

But the best one so far: "what " yields the boring "what is twitter" and "what is my ip" but it also suggests: "what are these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for the fruit salad."

Which sounds like a Penguinism, but is actually a book, as we found on Amazon. To continue the surrealism, for that particular book all of the "customers who viewed this item also bought" list were Berenstein Bears.

I think it's bedtime.

Me: You know what I want? A strawberry donut.
Sal: Aw, if it was anything within 60 miles, I'd have gotten it for you.
Me: That's fair. But when I'm pregnant you will go buy a donut and a strawberry pie and assemble one for me and say "thank you, dear, for hosting the parasite that will one day be our child."
Sal:It's not a parasite, it's a symbiote.
Me: It's a parasite. Why else would my body violently expel it? It steals nutrients from my precious bodily fluids!
Sal:Look, it's a give-and-take relationship. You give it nutrients now, and later it gives you another member for a D&D game. It's a symbiote.
Me: ::laughing:: okay good point
Sal: ...You're blogging that, aren't you? Damn it, sometimes I'm not sure I want to end up on Sal's Shenanigans

I'm having another one of those weeks/months/whatever where trying to do anything feels like slogging through pudding (both physically and mentally). I was at home most of today working on my lab meeting talk for tomorrow and waiting for the maintenance guy to come by (we got fancy new toilet and shower heads), trying my hardest to concentrate. I did get a little done, but more often than not the second I started working in earnest, something like this would happen this is from the computer's eye view-- I heart Photo Booth).



In other news, this week sucks. Lousy luck abounds for me. Add that to aforementioned pudding slog and the fact that my one major accomplishment of the week was to schedule what will hopefully be my penultimate thesis committee meeting (defense being the last) for December 18, reminding me how little I've actually gotten done and causing me to wonder exactly how much crack my advisor is on if he thinks I can easily graduate next spring, and you get one thoroughly demoralized Robin.

And I still don't get an actual day off (sure, I've got fun things, but I don't have time to just sit at home and recharge my introverted little brain, catch up on to do lists and the like) until... November, actually. Turns out Sal's parents are coming into town this weekend which means it's oh-crap-clean-the-house time (after I finish the lab meeting talk and paint the cornhole set for Saturday's tailgate). I'm exhausted just thinking about it. I need a lab minion stat.

I hadn't realized this year-- today actually-- is the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Sal saw a commercial for tv coverage earlier this week when he was at the gym that said "20 years ago, this happened" and then went to cable snow. Honestly, that commercial would have freaked me out, because that's the main thing I remember from that day in 1989. I was home alone-- my mom and sister were at soccer practice, while I had broken my arm a month or so prior (at soccer practice, no less) and didn't feel like just watching other girls play. I was watching tv, I don't even remember what, when suddenly the cable went out. A split second later the ground began to shake violently. I don't remember much more than just being incredibly scared-- I don't remember if I was frozen to the spot or if I ran or hid or what. After the shaking stopped, I went into my parents' room to call dad at work and noticed that a stuffed monkey that usually hung from the ceiling had fallen down. When I picked up the phone, it was making a tone I hadn't heard before, probably to indicate I should not be crowding up the lines. I think I got through to dad, though I don't remember positively. After that, I picked up the stuffed monkey and got my teddy bear from my room (I think a security blanket as well) and went to sit in the front yard to wait for dad to come home.

I wasn't in any real danger. Livermore was far enough from the epicenter, and its infrastructure prepared enough. I do remember driving into the city to go to the zoo that December and seeing the houses that had collapsed sideways, and some building facades that had fallen off. It scared me to think such things were possible and random. I wouldn't say I was terribly traumatized, but I do still feel panic rise in my chest for a moment whenever the cable goes out.

Definitely going to be checking and organizing our emergency pack this week. At least it's a constructive way to use fear, right? H/T to Carol for the reminder

1. You should watch Phineas and Ferb given the chance. It's the awesome.

2. If you already watch it, you should watch the recent new episode "Quantum Boogaloo"

3. The second of three parts is below, featuring the episode's musical number, featuring (at ~2:20) Dr. Doofenshmirtz (DEInc is Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. and makes us really wonder if there's a not a techer on staff-- also there's a character named Buford which makes us more suspicious). It's 20 years in the future and he's the emperor of everything. Good times.

Okay, I really should just be glad that my hair is so good at being dyed red. It's the color I want and like so that works out great for me.

Here's the problem though: I like the idea of dyeing my hair for costume reasons, but whenever I try it NEVER works. The pink/purple experiment of 2007 failed miserably, almost completely invalidating my Halloween costume. This year, I came up with the costume idea and realized that it had the advantage of requiring a hair color not my own, but within the natural spectrum: blonde. I tried it today when I got back from department retreat and... well, since my roots had grown out a fair bit there's *part* of my hair that is in fact blonde. But it doesn't seem to have affected the red part even a little! GAH!

So annoyed right now. I know it's a piddly trivial thing but I was really excited about this costume and I don't want to give up on it but I also have no idea what to try next. Do not want :p

Had a good time at the Stanford vs UCLA game today, even if we did start tailgating at 10 and that's freaking early (I haven't gotten to sleep in since probably the 19th, and tomorrow's my only chance for at least another week). But the beer was good-- Shiner in honor of Em and her brother (who was in towm for the weekend and the reason for said tailgate) and a couple of Leinenkugel's Oktoberfest in honor of Allison (who brought both the grill and said beer)-- and the game was quite enjoyable. Even if I did have to listen to UCLA's freaking fight song nineteen thousand times. I got to see a real-life flea-flicker play, that ESPN doesn't have on its highlight reel since it didn't end in a touchdown, but was still a really good play. (And appropriate, as we discovered last night that Charm has fleas, ugh.) Also, since we won, we're currently at the top of the conference, which is really odd after the last 5 seasons.

So now I'm watching the Cal vs USC game, wch had the good taste to start an hour after our game was over. I was having trouble picking a side since, and twittered as much, leading to the exchange below (and the reason I'm posting at all right now!)

Me: Gonna pop up some popcorn and watch the USC/Cal game. I don't know who to cheer for, since I want both of them to lose.
Jenny (Stanford alum): I, for one, am rooting for the Hayward Fault

But it's been pretty sad for Cal. I mean, no score at the half? Ouch. Seeing the deflated fans on TV makes me feel a little bad. I won't on November 21 of course, but for now, having been on the getting-trounced side plenty of times, they have my sympathy.

No really, that's her official full name. We let Dad pick it, way back at the end of 1993 when we brought the tiny little tabby kitten who was the only female in the litter and was so cute beating the hell out of her brothers. She was so small! In hindsight we're not sure she was quite old enough to leave her litter but boy howdy were we excited to have her.

She lived a long (VERY long) and full life, got to live in two states, and has just about the best parents a cat could ask for (except for the occasional game of Sockhead perpetrated by Dad). She even managed to cohabitate with Shelby's exuberant pit-mutt for a while! She'll be missed.

Oh, and these aren't bad pictures of her, she actually did always look that annoyed. It's one of the things I liked best about her. She sure had character.

I tuned in post-HIMYM just in time to see whatshisname the Chairman from Iron Chef America, who was my prior-to-seeing-anything pick. Glad to see him paired with Lacey too, that should be fun. His number was a tad painful (really, "Kung Fu Fighting"?) but he shows promise. Like early-season Helio Castroneves.

Then some guy I don't know. Then Donny Osmond. Judges' scores notwithstanding I think he has a bit of a massive advantage with the voting pool. We got about two seconds into his number before we had to just switch to a previous performance of his that's much more entertaining to me. Good times.



Is it time for Big Bang Theory yet? I feel bad because I do like dancing, I just don't feel so much like watching DWTS this season. Not sure how I feel about another season of SYTYCD so soon after the last one (I sort of feel like it cheats Jeanine a little but mostly because Nigel was really starting to piss me off by the end of last season and I may need a longer break from him) but they're still in auditions, which I hate to watch so by the time they get to the actual dancing I might feel better. But it's entertaining enough to kill time before Castle (need. Fillion fix. now.)

Because we knew from the moment we met them that the cats would be difficult to keep from weaseling out doors, we constructed what we lovingly refer to as a catlock (like an airlock, but for cats). Two makeshift doors swing out and close off our front entryway and latch together.

Lately, Strange has been running into the entryway ahead of us whenever it looks like we're going somewhere. He'll sit or lie down in front of the door and look at us as if to say "where we going, guys?" It's cute and all, but we pretty much just remove him and then secure the catlock door.

This morning, we were heading to the front door to leave for work and I noticed Charm was lounging in the entryway next to the mirror. He got up as we approached and tried to slink toward the door sneakily. As we were watching the whole time, we grabbed him and set him back in the dining room, Sal latched the catlock door and I opened the front.

That's when Sal yelped, and fortunately my response was the correct one: to close the door quickly. Strange, the little bastard, used his brother as a decoy to try to get out the front door with us. While we were busy removing Charm, he hid under the card table that's folded up against the wall. It's like those scary spitting dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I don't like where this is headed.

I mean, it's all fun and games until they start refining uranium. Which one of them will do while the other rolls around on his back asking for demanding belly rubs as a diversion. So if you don't hear from us for a while, get ready to welcome your new tabby overlords.

Looking out the sliding glass door with the cats just now, I noticed a largish spider has made a web from our porch railing to the roof above. She's a biggun, body probably the size of a nickel. Kind of cool to look at from the safety of my apartment (I'm a big arachnophobe-- my parents tried to break me of it in Texas by making me remove the dead carcass of this very big spider that died in our play room, but that just scarred me for life).

But it occurs to me, that between this and the dead rat we found in the folded up deck chairs we had kept out there, it's a freaking Legend of Zelda dungeon out there on my porch, and I am just not going to mess with that stuff.

I wasn't feeling well Saturday afternoon/evening at PAX. I was coughing a fair bit, but unproductively and painfully. I figured I was tired and dehydrated, and probably just getting too old to be spending that many hours at conventions.

Sunday I was pretty dragged out, still coughing, and hoarse. I took a lot of advil.

Monday as we left in the car for California I felt like crap. I slept a bit and felt a little more human, but my cough continued painfully all day, and my voice went through several humorous changes of timbre and volume. I've improved overall since then, but the body pain comes and goes as does my voice and painful cough.

Then today I read this (third entry down.) It seems there have been confirmed cases of 2009 H1N1 in PAX attendees. Now, I'm not too freaked out, since I trust my immune system, and I really am overdue for a case of flu. I'm just not sure how to proceed. For now I plan to go into lab tomorrow morning with a large mug of tea, meet with my advisor first thing to talk about finishing up the paper for resubmission, then head up to the server room or, more optimally, home (where there is more tea and less people to infect) to work. I'm worried that's wimping out of my first day back, particularly since a) I don't know if I even have/had H1N1 or if I'm even contagious at this point, and b) I don't like making a big deal out of being sick.

But I'm already worried about to whom I may have passed *whatever it is* that I have. Sal's got his big ICRA deadline next tuesday, so he needs all his faculties. Knowing a little something about microbiology, I was super careful not to touch my nose or mouth before touching shared game controllers or board game pieces, and I was constantly smelling of alcohol hand sanitizer. I just hope I did enough. It didn't occur to me that I might have something more than simple geek flu (of course, I'm still dubious about exactly how serious H1N1 is in the scheme of flus-- my sister-in-law has it, for instance, and it sounds pretty much like the plain old, suffer-through-it flu).

Anyway, an excuse to angst I suppose. It was still the most kickass awesome holy-cow-fun vacation, and I'm glad we went and I wish I didn't have actual life to return to. But dammit, I'm back to barely being able to speak, and aching skin. BAH to germs, I say.

Another week has gone by without an update. I'm so busy, but I don't seem to be getting anywhere. I do have a couple things to blog about, just nothing of great consequence.

We finished Avatar: the Last Airbender, and it was very good-- I was relieved the ending didn't ruin the whole series (though I might have written that last scene a little differently). Also I got some new LJ icons.

I'm thinking of buying David Bazan's new album (he who was known as Pedro the Lion), since I read it falls sort of neatly into a lot of the thoughts I've been having. Then again, I don't know how depressing the album is-- I probably don't need more mopey music.

We're heading to PAX as of Thursday, which will be nice. We haven't quite decided when we're heading back, as we're driving with Joe, so no Ricky I still don't know when we're going to be in Portland, sorry about that.

Roombas are pretty nifty-- we borrowed Kim and Mike's (his name is Herbert II) since we finally managed to tidy the dining/living room and our vacuum cleaner is sort of useless. Strange was intrigued, though we couldn't get him to ride the Roomba. Charm hid under the couch, which would have been okay except that at one point I realized we couldn't see the Roomba, and it turned out it was trapped under the couch with the poor freaked out spaz-cat.

Work goes on. There are a lot of loose ends I need to deal with but I decided just to finish the two or three things I can before leaving for Seattle. I'll organize myself and get straight back to work next week.

We have not been able to locate a copy of Tetris DS, which I lost along with my DSi a while back. I sort of assumed Tetris was one of those things everyone would carry at all times, particularly given the type of cross-genre marketing the DS has seen. But I guess I was wrong, and it freaks me out. I've dug through four stores worth of crappy licensed games, and fifteen thousand "imagine" titles for girls. A couple of the stores didn't even have Super Mario Brothers or MarioKart, though at least the other two had those staples, if nothing else. What is the world coming to? And by that I mean, why doesn't the world play by the rules I think it ought to?

Yeah, that's about it. Like I said, nothing of consequence. Maybe there'll be a gamer-stuff update at some point, but I'm not holding my breath for it. I forgot how much I like pickles.