...

seppuku is looking better and better every minute.

hulk smash!

...would you like to hear the saga of the emeryville post office and the mysterious invisible package? well, technically 'parcel.'

of course you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because if I don't, my options are a) scream b) make the title of this entry not hyperbole, or c) some combination of the above.

here we go.

I check the mail on the 13th of october. there's a litte orange slip saying that the USPS, in all its glory, tried to deliver a parcel to The Boy but we weren't here so please call to arrange a redelivery.

I called. I arranged a redelivery. I sat, trapped at home, awaiting the bell or the phone telling me to let the post office man in.
the package never came.
no little orange notice was left.

I called again. I arranged a re-redelivery. I sat, trapped at home, awaiting the bell or the phone telling me to let the post office man in.
the package never came.
no little orange notice was left.

I call again. I play tag with the automated 'tell me what you want' speak-menu thing. I play tag a lot. I go through the redelivery menu. it tells me the package has been returned to sender. I don't believe it.

I call again. I play tag trying to speak to a real person. I play a lot of tag. I finally get to a point where I speak to a real person- because I am given the number for the emeryville post office. (I tried to get it earlier, but all 411 gives you is the national 1800 number. The post office tells me (at this point I'm trying really hard to not be obviously pissed off at the guy on the phone with me.) that they have the package and it'll be sent tomorrow.

I hope so. I really hope so.

if not...hulk smash!

um...

this weather is starting to make me twitchy. it's fall! Fall, you know, Autumn, when the leaves turn red and orange and fall down and make great piles to squish and crunch and throw at people and the weather turns cold and the air is crisp and nippy and you feel all snuggly.

Not in San Francisco.

firstly: most everything is still green. some of the maples have turned colors. most of the leaves that have fallen aren't pretty colors, they're just dead. the passiflora vine down the street from me is green, green, green and blooming strong. it's october 23. it's weird.

secondly: the temperature is more ADHD than minnesota in fall. hot-cold-hot but windy-colder no wind-hothothot-cold with vengeful wind-warm and beautiful-freezing-hot. Today it's hot, but luckily the breeze has started.

thirdly: it's october, and my basil and mint are going "WHEEEEEE!!!!" I'm going to have to make pesto soon, or else replant the basil before the mint goes terminator on the pot. in october.

it's just wrong.

have been inspired to start on the fingerless shooting mitts...but I can't find the yarn. hooray apartment living? it's...somewhere.
someone give me a kick in the pants on the following:
T4.
mitts.
going riding more than spastic random almost-weekly times.
unpacking. (what is this crazy stasis I've succumbed to? someone hit the undo button.)

remind me again why I'm doing this to myself?

because I just love physics, yes I do, just love how a 1 part problem and a 10 part problem are both worth 5 points. love it. love the fact that we have 20 problems with between 1 and 15 parts each due per homework assignment. love the fact that it's an algebra based class, but he uses calculus notation in class so I have no idea how to make the symbolic reasoning parts of the problems work because I was clearly high on kiln fumes and investment powder dust when the call went out to line up for your algebra skills.

and yes, I did procrastinate. we get a week and a day to do these problems so that if you don't understand something you can ask about it in class. (which basically means that if you're like me and you don't understand anything, you get it in class and then have 24 hours to do the homework)

but here's my reason for procrastinating. other than the fact that...it's me we're talking about.

merely opening the website makes me tense and irritable and frustrated. the levels of those go up exponentially related to the time I spend working on them, and they stay up for hours after. If I spent an hour a week working on it (ok, let's be reasonable. it'll take me 2.), then i'll be frustrated, tense, and annoyed (and the likelihood that I will become unhinged dramatically increased) for several hours after the two hours working on it. do I want to spend 5 hours of each day of each week like that? no. especially not since I'm sure that the more frustrated, tense, annoyed, and unhinged I get the more frustrating, annoying, confusing, and tiresome I get to those around me.

So I condense it into one day. usually it's not this bad. usually it's survivable. this time, I came very close to giving up on the 4 problems I had left. but hey, 14 % is better than 0 %. right?

ugh.

On the other hand...

I'm glad to have friends who, when I say to them "The physics must die." say in response "Must die must die the physics must die / for the sake of the nation, this physics must die, must die, this physics must die."

bonus tibi quod nomen carmen* possum es.

bonus points to you who can name that tune.

*carmenis? ...really shouldn't try freehand latin translations after 7 hours of physics.

well....here's a little story for you.

See Marit.
See Marit's laptop.*
See Marit's laptop run. Run, laptop, run.
What a good laptop.

(fast forward to summer, 2006)

See Valhall.**
See Marit's laptop in Valhall.
See Marit open her laptop in Valhall. Open, laptop, open.
What a cracked screen!

(fast forward to summer, 2007, after losing the laptop for 2 months for repair)

See Valhall.******
See Marit's laptop in Valhall.
See Marit's laptop play dead. Play dead, laptop, play dead!
What a clever******* laptop.

(fast forward to fall 2007)

See The Boy.
See The Boy with Marit's laptop.
See The Boy performing surgery on the laptop. Code, laptop, code!********
What an efficient autopsy.

*this is The Beast, in all its beefy schwarzenagger-ness.***
**See also the evil**** gremlins in Valhall.
***ugh, just remembered/realized that I'm now a constituent of the guvernator. siiigh.
****possibly not evil, just misunderstood. although they never came forward, which is more irritating, possibly, than the act itself.*****
*****I know. too much terry pratchett.
******possibly mimes brønn. I don't actually remember which it was.
*******clever in that it'll work again...after a full lobotomy. yeesh.
********not code as in make a program that might do something, but code as in bring the nurses running while the doctor's name blares over the PA system.

So there you have it. The Beast is dead. autopsied. cannibalized for parts. pictures later.

this is what happens when your motherboard stops....doing whatever a motherboard is supposed to do. Probably died because of the screen's dying, and it just took a while to die. Considering that I didn't use my laptop much from when I got it back to when it refused to function (moving and not wanting to lug it to boston and being on a boat kinda cuts in on your computer time), that's not that much of a stretch.

O you who sat on my laptop and shattered the screen, you owe me a guinness. no- lots of Guinnesses.

And now it's far past my bedtime and I didn't even get to address my irritation at the institution that is Apple and iTunes.

2 boxes down...

sooo...

yesterday I watched an NCIS episode where this serial killer was finally caught (because he was stuffed in a furnace exhaust thingie) only he wasn't the serial killer, his lovely schoolteacher wife was.

her name was Karen Burris, and when they popped her name up on the screen I about died laughing, because it immediately brought to mind none other than my dear professor Simon Burris.

in honor of that (and him) I give thee...
Burris quotes from greek and latin. mostly from latin, because I can't find my greek notebooks.

• "Didja have a good weekend? I didn't, and I'm going to take it out on you."
• "I'm ruthlessly efficient that way."
• "cheating is cheating; it's foul, it's disgusting, it's dirty."
• "I guess I'll ask for volunteers before I go to the Cards O' Death."
• "both of these sentences are wrong: however, there's hope, because there's always someone wrong-er."
• "'he always gives my sons and daughters roses'...he sounds confused."
• "I'd like to have two groups working on each sentence; that way, you'll be in competition and someone will get hurt."
• "Ladies and Gentlemen, it's all about shame. Public humiliation.:
• "well, I don't know about YOUR colon. Someone claim this colon."
• *coughing fit followed by heroic pose* "We go on! ...I don't know why you're laughing."
• "Preach it, brother!"
• "I've got a cold...if I should sneeze and mucous should drench your papers...just open your umbrella."
• "I forgot to take my drugs this morning."
• "Y'can't tell me it's like that! I mean- where does it say 'the classics professor gives roses to the pretty girl?'"
• "Culture good! Grammar better. Much, much better!"
• "have you ever tried to make love to a tree?"
• "Actually, I'm in a Led Zeppelin mood. I've got a strong urge to grow long hair and rip off my shirt and jump up on the table. but I won't do that. I signed a contract when I took this job that I wouldn't do that anymore."

man, I loved those classes.

sigh. now I get...the joy of physics.

I have an iguana on my laptop.

concert last night was a. ma. zing.
luckily, the unidentified person sitting somewhere behind and to the right of me decided to open their crinkly candy excruciatingly slowly during the chopin piano concerto before intermission, because if they'd pulled that during the saint-saens I would be blogging from a jail cell. although no true jury of my peers would have convicted me.
clearly they didn't read the guide that the san francisco symphony so kindly provides you as you purchase your tickets- it includes what to wear and when to clap.

I had a most amusing picture pop into my head (probably because I recently watched Lord of the Rings with The Boy) but I had this image of Gandalf conducting a symphony and turning around to face the audience when they start clapping between movements to shout "You...shall not...CLAP!" and bringing his baton down dramatically.

but that's just my brain.

lookit- iguana!

that's a marine iguana. they eat fuzzy green marine seaweedy-algae goop that grows on rocks in intertidal zones, and there's nothing weirder than seeing a whole mob of these battleworn mini-godzillas munching away on electric green goop in a tide pool. something about it makes your brain go .....mmnope.

and then you turn around and see....

....the beachmaster.

he's huge. huge as in "no sir, mr beachmaster, I'm not in any way shape or form trying to mess around with your harem. nope. not me."

also, huge as in "c'mon, mr beachmaster- just smoosh the kid. really. we won't mind. it'll be his fault- he's the one poking at the young seals and trying to get closer to them and running at them and being loud and annoying and we're in the galapagos- is it too much to ask for a visual demonstration of natural selection? mr beachmaster? please?"

but that's a story for another day. back to the physics lab.

ripped out my last 3 inches of scarf. any ideas on a slightly shiny feltable wool?

soooo....

happy Cephalopod Awareness Day!

beware the kraken!

         PINTEL
                         You're pullin' too fast.

                                     RAGETTI
                         You're pulling too slow. We don't want
                       the Kraken to catch us.

                                     PINTEL
                         I'm savin' me strength for when it comes.
                       And I don't think it's Krack-en, anyways.
                       I always heard it said Kray-kin.

                       
                                     RAGETTI
                         What, with a long A?

                                     PINTEL
                         Aye.

                                     RAGETTI
                         No-no-no-no-no-no-no. Krock-en's how
                       it's pronounced in the original Scandinavian,
                       and Krack-en's closer to that.

                                     PINTEL
                         Well we ain't original Scandinavians,
                       are we? Kray-ken!

                                     RAGETTI
                         It's a mythological creature, I can
                       calls it what I wants.

youtube disappointed me. I was hoping for a video clip of the above, but no. you'll just have to check it out yourself.

roughly a year ago...

I was in BC with my parents hoping desperately for an open mechanic so we could see just how badly we'd destroyed our undercarriage pulling out of the starbucks on our way home to tacoma, so that the next day I could fly out to Boston.

...strangely enough, I think today I'm feeling about the same.

Happy Thanksgiving, filiis canadiensis!

I'm not sure about that declension. oh well. live with it.

it's exam time...

and you know what that means...

you finally get to hear all the silly little comments that my organic chemistry prof has said and I have enjoyed enough to write down in my notebook.

woo!

first off, an observation: my chem prof clearly never stopped playing with tinkertoys. he also is in love with the word "wow" and chemistry in general.

"Spectroscopy is just awesome! ...it's good stuff."

"if you drink old wine, or bad wine, you get a headache because the alcohol has oxidized to acetaldehyde already. so...dring good wine, and you'll be fine."

"what is that thing...in the window region..." (that's to the tune of 'how much is that doggie in the window,' by the way)

"uh huh. wow, yeah, see? see the strain? yeah...wow." (playing with tinkertoy again- this happens every class, most recently with a bicycloheptane and with ethane stereoisomers)

"oh...shit." (after writing on the whiteboard with a permanent marker.) "uh..."
"you can take it off with vodka." "or nail polish remover." "or armorall windshield wipes." says the class.
"Ah, yes, but why those?" (blinks from classroom) "Ethanol! solver of the world's woes!" (big grin.) by this point he'd found the whiteboard cleaner and paper towels tucked under the podium.

I know. he's no burris.

glee!

so Aristarchus has been moved to his happy new tank.

I get to figure out a better way of siphoning sand, since I'm not used to it, but oh well. he seems to like it.

he digs peas, I've discovered. I think he has shark genes well hidden in his genetic makeup, because he tore the one I gave him apart in milliseconds.

a week from now I get to go to the san francisco symphony, which is performing the saint saens organ symphony. glee!