Midterm in T- 5 hours...eeeeep.

taking a break from studying to give you what should be entertaining professor quotes (but we've already discussed that...)

instead, you get entertaining comics from XKCD. Go clicky.

First, something that made me laugh and then cringe, because it's physics...yep.

and also made me think about physics, since it's been a ridiculously long time since I played any MarioKart. (ok, since I failed-at-playing MarioKart, let's be honest).
just replace the "MarioKart" wedge with "MasteringPhysics."

this one is for my mum.Because it is oh so true:you know it's true. if you don't, beware becoming entrapped in...The Wikipedia Loop...

and because I do occasionally mourn the loss of the Best Couch Fort Furniture Ever...(my parent's basement furniture. papasan chairs and two couches with removable cushions, and after a few years, a secret door because the wooden slats were 'removable.' good stable cushions, too, not floppy (well, the papasan cushions were floppy, but that's beside the point.)
and who wouldn't want an apartment full of the little plastic balls? ...that's assuming they were new, and hadn't been living in a fast food playpen for years.)

and lastly:enjoy.

I'm going to go bury my face in the care package mom sent me (O'boy and yarn. and quarters. and tea. and Chef. and scrabble earrings and a wee little enamellert skilpadde.) and then...go back to studying.

Life imitating TV. or...no...

So...I have a physics exam in 36 hours. roughly.

Usually this means entertaining physics prof quotes, but...I have none.

Unless you count laughing inanely at questions asked by students, and that's not really entertaining. especially when the question is not, then, y'know, answered.

Anyway. Elliot came over to pick up his FastPass and stayed to watch a stargate episode. We started out with a computer-entity-enter-the-matrixy episode, but The Boy's computer was not being friendly with the Xbox so we switched (to the glee of Elliot and myself) to the "Window of Opportunity" episode, where a chunk of the universe gets stuck in a "bubble" of a 6-hr time loop a la groundhog day, and only two of the characters are aware of it.

so military "I need that in captain-dummy talk' (to mix shows a bit) has to learn how to translate an alien language loosely based on Latin, which makes me giggle.

and there's this image (thank you, internet, you might be a scary scary place, but when you really need something (and you're willing to dig, which can be...scary...) you can find it).
every time this shot is shown on the screen, I giggle. or snicker. it depends on the level of brain function available to me. after a day of studying for physics...it's a giggle.
(although the soul patch/goateelet (kidlet?) has. got. to. go.)

some video clips (yay youtube!):



and here's a good analog of my mental reactions to physics anything right now...



and because there was no short clip of the latin,



and...not from any episode, but...c'mon. you were so thinking it.



and with this, I am forcibly removing myself from the internet.

quick, before I have to take the car in...again...

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
Science/Math Nerd
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Certifiable.

eyep. why now? because I'm trying to sprout a mango.

mmm, mango.

I miss real mangos. I was at Whole Foods staring at the mangos (this was the fateful Day Of The Door, which I didn't actually blog about, because it was just too horrible), trying to figure out which of the rock-hard greeny red globs were ripe, when I heaved a heavy sigh. The woman standing next to me said "So I take it that means I can't ask you how to tell when they're ripe?" I said no, and that these mangos looked nothing like the mangos I got used to on the RCS.

And by the time the mango was ripe, I'd eaten all the coconut rice pudding, and now the mango's overripe, which means my options are 1) stirfry that baby up with some chili, onions, and peanut sauce to go along with the pork tenderloin currently in the oven or 2) take it, a can of whipped cream, and my naked self to the tub (or ocean) and eat it (so sayeth the internet...).

I'm going for option one, because I'm not a fan of canned whipped cream (and whipped cream + mango doesn't sound that appealing) and because my tub is too little and I think that whole suggestion was based on the assumption that the eater was between the ages of 2 and 6, or at least possessed of the dexterity of a 2-6 year old.

anyone know whether mango/mangos/mangoes is like tomato/tomatos/tomatoes? because mangoes looks wrong, but isn't underlined by the Red Spellcheck Line Of Death.
although it could just be me looking at 'mangoes' and mentally translating into 'mangøs' and then trying to figure out what that means.

why my hair is not to be trusted...

recap:

I shower. I wash my hair. I wrap my head in towel for as long as it takes for it to decide to fall
off, which is usually about the time that I pick up my fourth article of clothing or try to find my glasses.

I go back to the computer and finish looking up the MSDS for the various chemicals I'm going to be using in lab today. (one of them is pyrophoric, and we all remember Brad's sage advice* regarding those...)

I wander into bathroom to brush hair before constructing food. glance in mirror. buh? usually my hair has gone mildly sproingy because of the lovely humidity of the recent shower, and when I brush it it de-sproingifies.

not this time. this time, one big chunk of hair has stubbornly decided it wants to channel shirley temple's evil darkhaired twin.

see?(excuse the clouds, and the apparent gaping hole where my thyroid should be. I'm playing with iPhoto. or photo booth. or whatever it is.)

very stubbornly. I've brushed it multiple times. still ringlet. it looks decidedly odd with the rest of the still-damp-so-now-actually-very-straight hair.

as with the other Marit-versus-The Hair escapades, though, I've given up. it wins.

*"it's pyrophoric**, which means that if you drop it, it's a bomb. some of you are going to be synthetic chemists, and eventually during your career you will drop things. y'sorta play hackysack with it for awhile and if you think you're going to drop it, you run.

**pyrophoric = extremely flammable when exposed to air. whee!

can't type, PD* taking over fingers...

*Percussionist's Disease- the inability to control the urge to create/mimic/construct/whatever drumlines/beats/solos/whatever when confronted with certain types of music. or levels of boredom. or...whatever.

This is why:


because Rodrigo y Gabriela rock.

so remember how I said I didn't understand how anyone could go hard-core groupie? (ok, no, you don't, because I've never blogged about it, but hey, whatever)
and then remember how I said that I'd make an exception, and with just an ounce less self-preservation I would hop on a plane and prostrate myself before Wadaiko Yamato until they taught me everything? (ounce less self-preservation, or one more concert...thank you Luther PAC! woo 4th row seats and the chance to play with the drums afterward and learn how to say "ready? one, two, three- F*CK!" in japanese!)

we're not sure which swear word came after three, but it was clear that it was not a nice word, because it was said as the giant daiko decided it wanted to roll that way, not this way, and that way lay a 7 foot drop and a maybe 4'5'' japanese woman.


but I digress.


I will make another exception for Rodrigo y Gabriela, and that's just off a CD. also inspired me to actually unpack and begin connecting the stereo equipment that has been languishing in boxes, because I was listening to the CD in the car and on my laptop and then went...I have big speakers in boxes...must...listen...and it's probably a good thing that I didn't have any speaker cable, because otherwise I might have been evicted. apartment, marit, apartment...no cranking up the music.

now go buy this. right now. seriously. it will angl0saxx0r your face clean off.

I realize that 'angl0saxx0r' isn't really the most appropriate term to use here, but I love that superlative (ok, it's not really a superlative, shush) and I love this duo, and love should be together, way?

and this just makes me want to go mad wicked crazy and shake some sense into homeland security.

Teeth! Red Eyes! An Unmistakeable Aura Of Evil!

that's right. finally finished to my satisfaction, with much nicer pictures than my webcam will take. mmmm, digital SLR...(thanks mom and dad!)

So there it is. Red and green plaid on an orange base, complete with two wee little rivets (grommets, I guess).

the instructions on the box of the vaguely disturbing looking rivet press pliers things said to use them on two thin layers of fabric.

somehow, I don't think that worsted weight wool knit on size 8 needles with at least one carrying strand at every point + internal fabric lining count as two thin layers of fabric, but I have since learned that if it's squishable and you're determined enough...it'll work.

the view of the hat in this picture is better, but composition-wise, I like the one at the end of this entry better.

And then, of course, there's...the other side of Padma's Hat. Posing nicely on the corner and poised to leap out on unsuspecting Bootsies. ...I could use a Bootsie, my apartment's kind of scary. The lack of Bootsie is probably why the hat's too hungry to leap out and attack me.














I think it looks sort of confused in the right picture.
The eyes are a little too orange in the left picture- I blame the amazingly stupendous lighting available to me in that awkward little corner. They're actually a mildly shimmery red- perfect for plotting world domination.

So. There's the hat. I hope y'all like it.

And here's the picture that I like better, if only for the composition, since the colors/shaping is better on the above picture and the shadows conceal some of the details on the hat...

...but I like how it seems as if the Hat and the toaster are cuddling.

aw.

...don't let that fool you...

Padma's Hat

...is almost done. Just needs better photographs and two rivets.


Padma's Hat the way Collin sees it:

(you have to ponder the inexplicable mysteries of grave robbery and toast while wearing The Hat. it's a natural law.)


Padma's hat the way Fatima, Fox, Nef...ok..the rest of the Not-Padma world sees it:

leaping in for the kill.

nemi! some of my random favorites.

all the comics below are created by lise, from this website.

This was me, yesterday night, at Dan's birthday party: (I was Nemi, not Cyan.)
"I think I'm going to throw up. I'm so full!"
"be happy you're not a squid!"
"wha-"
"a squid's brain is formed like a doughnut-" "and its digestive system goes through that doughnut- so if the squid overeats..." "it can get brain damage!"
"I definitely have to throw up."

and yesterday morning, waking up early before dropping the boy off in berkeley and finishing my physics lab of doom-"And you dare to call me now!"
"After painting all of my armadillos blue, and- what?- no, I know that you didn't"
"do it, but I dreamed..."
"note to self: if the telephone wakes you: don't answer it."

only it was an alarm on my cell phone. still.


This one is for Kates, who is stuck in the land of credits and requirements and transfers and philosophy:Going maaaaaad!
mad, mad mad!!
What came first?!
Of mental illness and the ability to think abstractly?

This one is because living so close to berkeley sometimes makes me twitchy...
AARGH! they're messing around with clones and gene-manipulating animals all the time now!
Banned from the pub for life?! HAH! meed DOG OF DOOM!
Hello? horrible?
Hm? yeah. horrible.


...because this is how my brain works, sometimes...I wonder what kind of small talk people had before there was music? that's what for the most part people talk about when they want to get to know each other?
maybe...

I like this beat!
Hah! I like this more.

nah...I wasn't thinking that far back in time...I mean: before there were bands, movies, and sports...the things that tell so much about who you are! what did they talk about? what broke the ice during the first half hour of a date?
hm...

did you see the shooting star last night? it was so beautiful...
*HAH! you're not the one for me! I don't like sky-crap. I like avalanches.*

everything between the ** is in a different dialect. think cockney, or geordie, or deep-appalachia.

And lastly, because I miss Finnmark...
What are you doing today?
Drink beer-
...and then I have to vacuum.
is there any point, now that it's dark?
no.
just beer, then.
I like the winter.
...I dont think that one needs translating. :)

muaha.

so. The Hat is almost done.

what is The Hat?

my most recent knitting project, in response to the creator of Friendly Hostility holding a contest for fanstuffs. I'm not into writing fanfic and too persnickity about my artwork to do fanart, but...I can knit. and Padma's Hat was begging to be unleashed upon the world.

and I was looking for an excuse to try knitting plaid.

here is a picture of the hat as envisioned by its creator, K. Fuhr, now go read and worship:and here is the first stage of The Hat:it needs blocking and, of course, 'teeth! red eyes! an unmistakeable aura of evil!'

and I might rip out the crown shaping and redo, because it still looks too watchcap and not enough squished-ancient-might-have-once-been-fedora-like.

still. I'm getting somewhere.

and I conquered the beast that was the flat surface of my dresser and the pile of books in the living room today. ...doing so required reclaiming one of the bookshelves designated for The Boy but...he wasn't using it, anyway. he's still got...one. let's ignore the fact that I have three, shall we? and that if he doesn't start using the one he's got left he's gonna lose it too? sssh.

I lied.

I said nothing could wipe the sillyfool grin from my face.

why must I taunt fate that way?
does this look like a sillyfool grin to you? No. that is the bleary stare (squint?) of "oh god why must physics suck more than the indeterminable blackness of space? and why must all physicists use silly similar names for very different or not so different things? what the hell is an equipotential line and how does it differ from the electric fields or the electric lines of force or the electric field lines or the *bamf*"

...that *bamf* was my brain imploding out of self-preservation.

I had grandiose* plans of making actual food- a sort of asian-inspired beefy citrusy thing- but no longer.

now I shall damage my hearing with saint-sæns, knit, and stare at the oven until it disgorges my pizza.

*mmm. grandiosa. man I wish I could get grandiosa here...and in 3 hours, it would be lørdagspizza.

*swoon*

ok.

I forgive Tim Burton. (I cursed him earlier for directing my dreams as written by L Ron Hubbard a while ago, and that, you know, just really isn't what I wanted to do, but it's difficult to curse a dead man.)

I could forgive him for, pretty much, um, anything and everything short of...um...gimme a minute, I'll think of something.

But I am in love. (yes, of course with The Boy. this is a different kind of love.)
I just bought the Sweeney Todd soundtrack.

mmmmm.

Johnny Depp. Helene Bonham Carter. other quite nice actor/singers.

and Alan Rickman.

mmmmm.

not even the lingering spectre of my unfinished physics lab can wipe the sillyfool grin off my face.

'cos it's Sweeney Todd. and Alan Rickman.

mmmmm.

Jeg vil ha snø!

I want snow! all y'all who are complaining about the snow or stuck in cooold coold weather without snow (sorri, lars..)

send it to me!

...and I saw this picture on this blog by Malin (which you gotta check out, because she knits gorgeously and like a fiend and has the cutest kids imaginable- living jan brett paintings!)

and laughed out loud, because this...

is Norway in a Nutshell.

it's like when I came back early from påskeferie (easter break) and went for a run (because it was gorgeous and sunny and after winter in alta, that's big news) and passed Maren and Inger Johanne and someone who I've forgotten sunbathing in their swimsuits and liggeunderlag (of course...it's påske, and alta, so it was maybe 50 degrees fahrenheit, but, then again, it's påske, and alta...) and met a well-swaddled Bjarne hobbling determinedly around on his tiiiny skis glaring at the ground going...there's snow. I have skis. I...will...ski... even though he was barely 2. if he was even 2. I don't remember.


also:

last night I and the boy were playing some world of warcraft (he was off playing with things that would eat my face, and I was running around in the newbie playground trying not to get eaten by giant bears and weird pseudo-satyr-things)

anyway...

So a quest takes me to a town, and in this town I get another quest- to go talk to Captain Vimes.

Vimes! Whee! the Pratchett is taking over the world!

see?Me and the Vimes. he's actually not as short as he looks, because I (as a dranaei) am (according to the boy) "freakishly tall demon goat-girl." (you can't see the hooves in this picture.) He's just jealous that I'm taller than him in-game.

quite possibly the best coupling episode ever.

...the giggle loop...

and now, for something....

...completely different.

I reaaaally want to see this movie.





because it's nils gaup and it looks amazing and intense and about something that I, for all my years as a villager in sameland (and, more soberingly, a leder of sameland) totally missed. wow. yikes.

for ally'all non-norwegian speakers- it's about the events of November 8th, 1852, when a group of saami revolted against the leader (and moonshine distributer) and the priest of a nearby town (kautokeino). several people were killed, others beaten severely, and the backlash was swift and severe. like all things involving religion/ indigenous cultures/land expansion/politics, it's messy. like whoa.

Take clashing religions, burgeoning religious conversion, and extremist religions, add the problems inherent when a homesteading culture moves into a nomadic/herding culture's region, with a bonus dash of open/closed/open/closed political boundaries (which the reindeer don't care about, of course, knowing that the good stuff is just...over...there...and when 'there' happens to be Russian-held Finland, 'there' is reaaally far away). mix the above concoction with widespread -and spreading- problems with alcohol addiction and over taxation/fines and a lovely blend of both us-them and 'smart us' vs 'ignorant native' and...well.

boom.

granted, I can't imagine trying to set this up for the kids...but...there are so many parallels to things from US history and in current events that I also can't imagine not trying to teach this- without getting sued by their parents would be a plus- and we've done other messy things. (zerbezian day? yeee. shudder.) and theoretically most kids that we'd do this with a serious level of detail would have already gotten most of this in their US history.
of course, I'm probably wrong based on what some of my ed-major friends have told me, but hey. we can but hope. and if they're not getting in their US classes...then they really need to get it from somewhere.


...


the fact that Mikkel "litt samisk, heeeelt fantastisk" Gaup is a lead actor and, at least in the trailer, has a steamy scene is, of course, a small bonus.

and it's finnmark! heia finnmark!

things that have made me giggle recently:

:warning:

you might be very disturbed at what makes me giggle. I'm just sayin'.

firefly fans: yosaffbridge or yosaffbrig or yosafbrig? or yosaffbridg?

on to the giggle-inducers!





these two comics are from this website, which I blame for my accomplishing very little yesterday. the one to the right made me giggle enough that The Boy very worriedly asked if I was all right, since apparently my sniggering sounds like weeping through headphones. the one on the left was discovered much later, and did not induce the same amount of giggling.

it was still pretty funny, though.






Giggle Exhibit 2:
...because it's sinfest. and it reminds me of all those lovely hours spent in the MBL-WHOI library. mmm...mblwhoi.

Giggle Exhibit 3:finally, a Nemi comic I don't have to translate! ...there's actually a lot of them, but still. and if you want more entertaining skrik-related stuff...there's always the Klart Du Kan! parodi. it is in Norwegian, and it is hi-larious. finding this in valhall while searching for appropriate-to-show-to-american-kids commercials made the whole thing worthwhile. well...actually it was the kjempenorsk commercial, but you know. (it's a help line, and the guy calls for help with his drill, which only pushes the screw in, not out. the voiceover at the end says "Steal a Munch? Sure You Can!" :P)

Giggle Exhibit 4:...physics starts too soon. siigh.





and this one, while not making me giggle per se, made me go...yes! win! take that, English First-ies!

and I hope that his friend was a bystander, or the cherokee speaker, otherwise...ouch.







and this one just made me smile, because I know these two people. Maybe not the same ones as the artist/writer, but...I definitely know them.


all the above (in Giggle Exhibit 4) are from this website, which I got through a convoluted manner from my fellow god* Andrew.
*(god in this instance refers to we who control your soundboard. we are the voice in the darkness. we can make you sound awesome...or like screechy death. do not mock us. and do not make us mic every single actor with crappy mics that feed back when approached by another mic within 3 feet when all the actors are going to be dancing closely. especially when half of them don't need the damn things.)

...there might have been some scarring due to West Side Story...sorry.

Giggle Exhibit 5:

yes, more of the badly-spelled (oh, what am I kidding? it's a different freakin' dialect.) images from the lolkatz website.
my first impression for the mythbusters kitty was...man, what did they do to that cat? followed closely by...yep. wow. it is the heineman kitty.















And I want to know how many google searches for 'sisyphus' were caused by this image, because I am old and crotchety and certain that that website is not the right demographic.

so there you have it. things that have made me giggle (or whatever) recently.

woohoo!

so there's a bright side to feeling vaguely like crap, with spikes of true crap-

...well, ok, there isn't, but check it out- there's this poll that asks you to pick what your favorite future would be (some of your choices are 'interstellar frontier' (like Firefly) or 'crazy space new york' (Fifth Element) or 'galactic federation' (yep. star trek))

and guess what's currently in second place? that's right, baby. 7,068 voters are rocking the Interstellar Frontier because firefly is the awesomeness of awesome.

go vote!

I would be a horrible buddhist.

...the ants. must. die.

Not content with The Boy's car, they're making another foray into the apartment.

seriously? in a sealed, watertight tupperware...in a cabinet...on the second floor of an apartment building...and they can sense the russian tea mix? what?!

excuse me while I go cry in my corner...

aaaaahhhhhhh.....

that's a sigh of relief, by the way, not a groan of agony.

thank you Whole Foods Market, thank you. and once again Blessed be O Gretchen for sharing the light of Diva-ness with me.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. (scheduled looks incredibly weird to me right now. must be a brain hiccup.)

because I am a slacker daughter I am devoting this post to one of my christmas presents from me mum, who requested these pictures...um...well...let's just say that they've been sitting on my camera since I got home from christmas vacationlet, ok? sshh...

ladies and gennelmun, I give you...

Best. Bag. Ever.

exhibit A:

Tramcars! one tram two tram red tram blue tram!

Exhibit B:

The Evolution of Skiing tshirt, as a lining. takes you from Longboardathal (ca. 1890) to Bigarius extremus before devolving into Grungus maximus (who is, of course, holding a snowboard. hehe.) the other side of the bag is an ooold school trail map tshirt...How old?

• no tunnel to mineral basin
• (cos there's no mineral basin),
  
• no peruvian express high speed quad (just good ol' chilly slow 2-seater peruvian),
  
• no baby thunder chair,
  
• and the gadzoom quad is still gad 1, the coldest chair on earth. you think I'm kidding.
  

...which shows you how long my family's been skiing there.

anyway. all these add up to...


Best. Bag. Ever.

plus, it's vamsegarn. I get to be snowbirdy-wooly-norsky geeky all at the same time!

...and if you really want your brain to hurt...

so I was bumming around YouTube tonight, as a service to a friend, trying to translate a Ravi-DJ Løv song.

don't go there. therein lies...ouchyness. it's a very cute song, cute as only a very naughty tongue in cheek nordmann can be.

Don't click the linkies if you don't want to listen to a song with the word 'f*ck' in it. and don't read farther if you don't want to read the word uncensored.

um, yeah. anyway. sorry. I'm feeling skittish about "teh internetz" after the grammatical showdown of yesterday. I must just accept that the facebook group Udo invited me to is indeed correct- I am over 40, yet in my 20's. except then I think the rest of this post is invalid. whatever. shrug.

so. I thought that Ravi was enough brain hurty for the evening, but YouTube...oh, YouTube... always has more fun in store, which led me to this song:
Fuck Deg by Sichelle (which is sung in norwegian by a norwegian, and yeah, that means what you think it does.)

it's a pretty decent song, I thought. I can see it fitting a mood quite well, and it's blending with the post-allergy-drug-cocktail-hormonal ride I'm currently on quite well indeed. and, of course, there's the obligatory norwegian old-man parody also available.

then! aha! controversy!

it's a cover (read: steal) of Fuck Dig by Anna David (who is danish, and the original singer.)

she's clearly channeling early 90's Mariah Carey- hair and scale climbing. I like the music video for this one better, but the singing itself...well, it's too MC for me. and it's danish, so the tilbage and other fun contortions and glottal pseudo-stops make my brain hurt too much to really enjoy the song. it's not that I don't like Danes or Danish...I'm just lazy. (and there's something wrong with "tilbage" sounding like "tilbaeaeh") ...sorry, Maja, Naja, and all my other danskies.

but wait! there's more!

she sings it in german, too! Fick Dich. (eyep, still what you think it means.)

...and thaaaat right there's some brain hurty for you. the brain goes...whu...but...uh..mu...*fzzt*

and this music video is...strange. I can't tell what she's channeling. angry euro-tracksuit R&B? running along a dark road with redneck-like trucks veering around? no idea.

and I wish I remembered what 'angepisst' meant, because it makes me giggle whenever she sings it.

and still more!

English gets to play too!
and that's even more brain hurty, but in a different direction, because like so many english versions, it's a transliteration instead of translation, and after hearing it in norwegian and danish and knowing those words, and then hearing the english, it's just...ouch.

and it's the same video as the german one, which is slightly sad. however, apparently it's harder to channel mariah carey in german and english, because there's much less scale-climbing.

so. there you have it. brain hurty galore, and now if you've clicked on any of the linkies you, like, me, have verrry confused lyrics stuck in your head.

my work here is finished.

oookaaay...

...five days straight is definitely my limit for steroids. no mas. nuh-uh.

imagine translating They Might Be Giants into a foreign language.

Kaisers Orchestra: Dekk Bord
(my translation...)

it was a long winter but soon enough it became summer
and all the people partied
there were hard nights and a lot of blood and tears
and the captain worked like a horse
he was a strange little creature who was hungry from experience
but the rations were mostly water and wheat
he stood at the wheel the whole day, with the helm toward Skagen
and the fastest way to Cape Horn
set the table*

when it was quiet on the sea, I should have some free time
everyone sat down and played cards
the captain dealt, the rest played
and the money shifted owners pretty fast
Carlos was doubting while many others smiled
they said they'd take Carlos for everything he had
and later when the judgement fell Carlos had lost everything
it was because he gathered only change

row row home to Translyvania
forget your personalities and other trivialities
set the table*, send a telegram to Victoria
for soon I'm going to arrive

A pair of men I'd lost, Carlos was the last
it happened when we put in at Marseilles
he lost a drinking contest with the belgian chimpanzee
and now he sails no more
in hong kong it was chaos, I went on the dock outside laos
I never thought I'd come away alive
but a laos-born came out and thought our ship was god
and let us out to the open sea
set the table*


Now, I'm sure that Dekk Bord doesn't actually mean set the table, but it's Kaisers Orchestra, and they're.....reaaally hard to translate. like whoa.

but when you listen to the song, you can't really catch most of the lyrics. but Dekk Bord is repeated multiple times, as in "viiiictooria, dekk bord, viiiictoria dekk bord dekk bord"...

...so really, all your brain hears is "set the table, viiictoria, set the table set the table..."

...yeah. I'm just...gonna...go...over here now.

things fizzing across my brain...

1) ...apparantly, I'm not (ok, my mother and I aren't) the only knitters in the world who still grok the dead languages. the number of posts in/with latin on the Harlot's recent death-by-leaf entry show this.

one day, we will take over the world. you can join us. we shall be your morpheus- absolvi tuam animam...muahaha...

2) someday, hundreds of years in the future when our current english is to english what middle english/old english is to our english now (feeling like a bad GRE yet?), i.e. understandable only to english professors and people who happened to take the right language (although we've deviated enough from germanic roots that spanish speakers will likely have the best chance of that, which I'm sure would/will drive all the English First people nuts and I looove that!)

ahem. anyway. so. in the future, monty python's Spamalot will surely be performed not as satire but as grandly as we currently perform Tosca or any other can't-understand-it-enjoy (or not) the-music opera.

and, of course, will have all the english professors giggling uncontrollably.

3) if someone corrects your grammar, anonymously, as in a simple

Example A:
{it's = it is, its=possessive},

you can feel free to ignore them if you feel slighted or insulted. but really, you shouldn't. just go "oh." and try to remember next time. or don't. it's your perogative. they're not slamming you. they're not lording their immense grammatical knowledge over you. they're not saying you're stupid. they're just like me. they notice. they can't help themselves, either because of genetics (hi mom) or good teachers (hi Mrs O'Neal, Mrs Nicholson, Mr Dvorak, Mrs Topp, Miss Josephs, Big Dunn) ...they see the error, they MUST fix.

now, on the other hand, if they direct the comment at you and say something like this...

Example B:
{marmotknit, god, you know, you embody everything that is wrong in this world because you just can't care enough to know a stupid third grade contraction, you should be ashamed. its= possessive, it's = it is! get an education!}

then by all means, react in anger. unless they're a personal friend poking fun at you, in which case you still need to react, otherwise other denizens of the blogosphere will rush to your defense and a flame war will have begun.

but if the comment was like example A not example B, then...lighten up. don't immediately rush to post something directed at the corrector saying that unless they're being paid to professionally edit, they shouldn't, because it's bad form. it's really not. I promise. Bad form is B. A is just...a post. if you feel you MUST post a defense...then simply post it. don't direct it to that person.

and you can't say that you shouldn't correct in a blog in a different form of english (either an ESL blog, or whatever), because who wants to be putting something incorrect in print? reason number one why I don't post often in norwegian. that's what drove me crazy when I handed my articles to people at my folkehøgskole to correct because they'd giggle as they read it and then hand it back- uncorrected!- because they thought it was cute and didn't want to offend me.

cute? bad grammar cute? for a published thing? NO!

(and really....if you are in your professional life a published writer....then...you're used to it. you shrug and move on. and seriously, given the post...I'd be too distracted to proofread. I might go back and fix it after things had, you know, calmed down/I was sober again/had fixed the sock, but...then again, I might not. cause I'm lazy.)
4)....and if you spell grammatical incorrectly in your 'don't correct others' post...you just make me UNBEARABLY want to correct it. you have no idea.

my fingers itch, and it ain't just the hives, baby.

AleXander got me started on the icanhascheezeburger website. here's one of my favourites:
and then there's...
because...penguins. really. cannot resist the penguins.

and lastly...the 'me' on world of warcraft.
I have a kitty. and a bear.

what not to do on your Monterey vacation...

...eat something unknown that you are unknowingly allergic to that results in your poofing up in hives in all areas of your body and making your face look like some horrible hollywood post-plastic surgery nightmare. and then especially don't take half doses of benedryl even though you're worried about the warnings on the labels of not OD'ing on benedryl since you haave to have the anti-itch creme or you'll rip your wrists and hands off...because then your throat starts to swell which sends you to the ER for three and a half hours where they can't get an IV in because your veins are normally just difficult but when you're cold they're impossible, so instead you get oral steroids and an intramuscular epinepherine shot- an Epi-Pen without the pen.

and. they. suck.

ouch and burnination. and then you're all jittery, and kind of unsteady when suddenly you get bundled out of your room (goodbye, insanely-drunk-homeless-guy behind the curtain!) to sit in the hallway because someone more dying than you is en route to the ER. and there you sit. and sit. and sit. and finally someone comes and detatches the cool little laser finger thing and gives you a form to sign which you can't quite do because you still can't really move your fingers and you get home and pass out.

the worst part of all this? for my indeterminate age spent sitting in the hospital bed...I couldn't knit, even though it was mere inches away in the bag at the feet of The Boy.

sad. day.

Today is much better, though. only isolated bits of itchiness are still evident, and it no longer hurts to swallow, and I'm only slightly feeling hit by a truck.

here's hoping it's tomatillos, like my dad. if it's shellfish, there's going to be tears. I liiike my shellfish. lesigh.

...I hate Oakland.

I do. I really do.

here's my day:

I wander into the kitchen for to find food.

the counter is moving. why is the counter moving? Oh. the ants are back. joy. and it's a food preparation surface, so I can't really spray the happy ant death upon it. and they're coming in behind the stove, so I can't really get at their point of entry. joy. oh well. windex! and I'll deal with it after dropping The Boy off at the BART station.

so The Boy and I attach the bike rack onto the car and drive to BART. I pull up to the wait/dropoff line and he stays in the car while I go get my bike, so we don't get a ticket.

I walk to the rack. no bike. I gaze at the racks. nope, definitely didn't lock it elswh-oh. my gaze travels downward. ah. a lock. my lock. my "secure for areas of moderate to high crime" with a 9 out of 12 security rating- one lock down from their New York uber lock.

yeah. that lock.

it's been cut, and is dangling forlornly at the bottom of the rack. I head back to the car, send The Boy off to his train, and go trolling for parking spots. after an agonizingly long time, I find one. I walk back to the rack. unlock my poor bike lock, go to the attendant, who smiles sadly at me and points to the BART cop standing next to her window.

we chat. I'm pretty much screwed, because I don't have a serial number and that's really the only thing that can help me. where's the serial number? I don't know. hopefully Mom's Uterine Tracking Device has better luck. the Decorah Police didn't have it, and the bike shop I bought it at...at least 6 years ago...is out of business. can I get the $2250 insurance from Kryptonite? not without that serial number.

was the bike locked with one simple U-lock? nope! I locked the rear wheel to the frame with a cable lock and the front wheel to the frame with a Masterlock Street Cuffs lock. and then locked the whole thing to the rack with the U-lock.

the sole saving grace to all this? I hadn't yet put my christmas presents on it (nice front/rear lights, and the rack for the pack over the back wheel. (heh. rackpackback), so at least I still have those.

I drive home. I cry. I whine. I put ice on my bruised knuckles. (don't punch streetlights.) I force Kateswiegehts to listen to whining. I whine at Ingebjørg.

I still have to do laundry. and kill the ants. and clean. and figure out what to do. and figure out how to replace the bike and pay rent at the same time.

and figure out how to avoid running away to Puerto Vallarta, hiding out until the RCS gets into port, and stowing away on her before jumping ship on a certain island where no one will eeever find me.

I am in such trouble...

...because of this.

as if I needed another webcomic. and especially one with 5 years of MTWThF archives.

but it's legos. and star wars/trek/generic geeky parodies. and legos. and 'Late Night with Boba Fett.' and legos.

did I mention legos?

went for my interview with The Picture People yesterday. went fairly well. we'll find out tomorrow how I did.

have also (re)discovered that my breasts are not italian. so I thought that, for once, there might be something standard about women's apparel...

...I know. way more than futile.

can I also mention how much I hate it when authors end their books, mostly resolved, and then tack on an apparent non sequitur? especially when it's a blatant lead-in for the next book? and that ok, fine, I did understand, but that's only because in true Pollei fashion I read book 3 before books 1 and 2?
(and really...a dark night on a heavily-forested florence hillside, being chased by boar hounds and men with guns, with no flashlight...you can distinguish eye color of the strange shadowy man you blunder into? ok yes dramatic lead in for the ending, but still. lesigh.)

am knitting with fervent fingers on a project that shall remain nameless because I'm going to submit it to Knitty, which means I can't talk about it or I'll have to kill you. at least until it gets published. or rejected. which is very likely, because it's quirky and strange and dependant on a deep passion for firefly. or at least a twisted sense of humor.

still. based on the number of Jayne Hats I've seen around...

there's hope.

oooo....aaaah....

so, excitement!

we're now on our third straight day of rain, which is exciting for the bay area- the land that weather forgot.

and just now, a rolling crack of thunder was heard across the plains. I know. you're not impressed. but here's the deal...coastal zones...don't thunder. it's rare.

I'm happy.

and I shall remain happy as long as we have a) power b) no flooding c) the neighbor's tree stays up.

The Boy and I celebrated New Year's in true nerd fashion: I constructed steaks, we drank champagne mixed with chambord, and we watched Planet Earth. whee!




we'll see if that worked. 'tis my character. I finally gave in to The Boy and gave him a christmas present of me playing World of Warcraft. he's been trying to get me to play for years. So. that's me.

jobs and wonder and glee

So the micro lab TA job is out- I gave them a call and the class is monday and wednesday nights (and I'd be expected to be there, which unless someone has a rapid-o-clone handy, will be slightly difficult seeing as how I'm supposed to be in class.)

but I applied for a job at Border's Books, and also at a photography studio hiring photogs. The photog job is sort of a 'what the hell' sort of thing, but we'll see.

checked out the MBARI website today...and nearly had a heart attack, because Francisco Chavez is going to have a biological oceanography project seeking an intern.

gleep!

bio oceanography with the God of Oceanography! gleep!

gleep!

sooo...

I just did something really stupid.

I studied some for physics, took a break, and decided to check my email.

This somehow translated into me looking at pictures on the Øytun Folkehøgskole 01-02 facebook group, pictures of the 5-year reunion (that I missed) and now I´m bawling, homesick for turmat, turkos, and finnmark, and wanting to run away.

with still more physics left to do.

not. cool.

this day sucks.

I dealt with my first ever superbitch today.

word of entreaty: if you're really pissed off at yourself for waiting too long to order your holiday presents, don't take it out on the minions.

also, if you say "I understand that it's not your fault," and then continue to harangue me for the next fifteen minutes, you're not helping your case.

my Myspace account has been hacked. disregard anything you get from me that seems even the slightest bit sketchy. you should have already gotten a message from me about the hacking if you're a friend of mine on that site.

one final down...

one to go. and a lab to write, but oh well.

I totally remember my cousin Erik saying something on the order of "yeah, well, at least you only have to take your o-chem final once, and then you're done."...the last time I took an Ochem final.

joy. double the fun!

I hate ochem finals for this reason: you think you're safe. you're motoring on through, hydroborating and oxymercurating and nomenclaturing and beta-substituting your way along, cheerful (or at least slightly in denial)... and cheer a little when you realize you're on the last problem! whee!...so now all that stands between me and freedom is figuring out the structure of this beast? no problem!...ok, so, here's my molecular formula...and my IR...and my NMR...
...wait...
...uh...hm. man. it's been a long time since my last NMR. is that?...yeah, that's totally not an alcohol, and it's not an alkyne, and there's no double bonds...
peak size...that's....uh...is that a quartet or a multiplet?....or...hm, relative heights...

*this continues for about 15 minutes.*

Arg! what is it?! I've gotten a gazillion possiblilities, all just slightly into the uncomfortably almost-wrong-almost right realm of possibilities...whine whine whine think think think...
...wait...
crap. that's totally a ketone fingerprint.

*FACEPALM*scribble scribble scribble flee.

Yep.

Ochem inna bun. onna stick. Done until end of January.

it's the 17th. hooboy. who threw me through the timewarp without warning me?!

mitts done! I'm not fully satisfied but they're done! now must send immediately or I'll start ripping and then they won't be done and that's bad because it's december 17th.

ack. ackkitty ack ack.

work at ugh in the morning tomorrow, so no pictures of knitting for you tonight. tomorrow maybe. if physics doesn't eat my face again.

a brief pause...

for a brain-stumper.

check out this sentence, from my physics assignment:

If p is in pascals and V is in cubic meters, then W is in joules.

now. doesn't this seem like a setup for a syllogism? you know, if A is B and B is C, then A is C?
aren't they stating, essentially, if A is B and C is D, then E is F?

...buh?
and what do pascals and cubic meters have to do with joules?! ok, pascals, maybe.
still.

arg!

and all this could have been avoided by a simple restatement...oh, say..."consider that p is in pascals, V is in cubic meters, and w is in joules."

arg!

when.....

when all is bleak and ucky and the demons are winning the war in your head...

some very random things can make it better.

Exhibit A:) thai cilantro spicy wings + pad thai + vietnamese coffee + The Boy

Exhibit B:) This quote from zenkitty:

It was there because that was how Beowulf would have really felt. He wouldn’t have been polite or politically correct about it, and he wouldn’t have cared if he offended someone. (If someone offended HIM, he’d take a battleaxe to them. If you’re so offended, where’s your battleaxe? Oh, you haven’t got a battleaxe? Well, then Beowulf WINS.) (The Beowulf in my head is not a man of subtle arguments.)

From a comment on this blog from the man behind Schlock Mercenary. it's close to the bottom of the page. skip down to it, it's totally worth it. It totally reminded me of the angl0sax0red thing, and made me smile.

Exhibit C:) My fortune cookie, which told me "it's one of those low-key days that you'd rather spend just chilling" and taught me how to say very comfortable in chinese. (hun xue fu)

and lastly,

Exhibit D:) Vermonty Python. All hail Ben and Jerry's.

I knew there was a reason...

...for not wanting to get out of bed today.

snif. Syvilla needs hugs today.

snif2. Terry Pratchett had damn well better stay 'I aten't dead' for a long while. a long while. ya hear?

oh dear

Kates and I are at it again...we play scrabble online a fair amount, and it seems that most of the games are pretty typical, at least for the two of us word-freaks.

and then...
every so often...
...something in the random generator that gives us our 'letters' goes a bit haywire, and we get...
...naughty scrabble.

through no fault of our own, of course. we just go for the high scores, honest. I blame kates for this first one, though. she started with "hole" and as I fiddled with my letters, my highest score became...sodomy....and now she's complaining that it won't let her play 'labias' (because it's not an s-plural).

so far our word list is:
Hole
Sodomy
Mine
Noose
Lust
Voted

ok. back to picture sorting.

cross fingers; the ants are still gone...

Cue dramatic, heart-pounding-in-terror music...

...go.

cue voiceover.....

....go.

They Come.....
....From The Darkest Reaches of The Walls...
....Blending Chameleonlike into Your Room...
...For One Purpose...
...Total Domination.....

cue dissonant antifanfare...

...go.

The ants...have been battled.

serious ick factor. we'll see how long this round of poison goes.

Lab....pssssshh...

yeah yeah yeah, so I totally should be finishing my lab right now, but I have an excuse.

the Attack of the Ants part whatever-we're-on-now.

this time, they're coming in through the tiniest crack in the wall where countertop meets wall. how? no freakin' clue, because that wall is shared with the bathroom wall. not an outdoor wall.

but they are definitely coming in there. and there's about a billion ants who are now getting very very clean, because our reaction when The Boy opened the dishwasher was "...uh...EAT CASCADE!...see how they like that." or something very similar.

I'm not unloading it. nu-uh. ew.

but in further entomological fun....my grasshopper was finally posted on insectpod and you should totally go check it out.

ok, ok. I'll do the lab. jees.

and if you reaaaally want your head to hurt....

I just...I just...my brain...
so...
hurty...

Now, really, I've no idea why it is that I love that song. I mean the original, Sir Mix-a-lot version. probably something to do with careening around suburban streets in Alexis's jeep with Kendra and Katie on our way to track meets, and spending ridiculous amounts of time waiting for the 4x4 to finally be over so we could pile into the bus (it was rare that we could actually drive to a meet, but always memorable) and go home. or sitting, freezing, in early march minnesota weather at the Minnetonka High track waiting for the stupid cro-magnon lecherous man leading our half the track meet to finish finals and let us into the nice warm bus....where all the runners, the precious, delicate, fragile runners, had been waiting for the past hour. at least. oh, some of our good friends (mostly high jumpers and pole vaulters) stuck it out with us, but we knew where us poor throwers stood in line.



sorry. rant snuck up on me.

anyway. at least it's restarted my brain, although now I have images of the pirates cast from senior year singing baby got back stuck in my head.

I've reached a milestone.

no, it's not a real job, although I'm working on it.
no, it's not that I finally got up off my arse and have a steady workout schedule that is more than sporadic runs and hypothermic bike rides.

I have just created...well, am in the process of creating...my first ever on-my-own clean-out-the-refrigerator Marit Surprise.

it contains:
copious amounts of turkey, (which barely made a dent in the supply...)
chives
onion
sweet mayan onion, whatever that was
carrots
red curry powder
garlic and onion powder
sherry
rice wine vinegar
chicken stock
mae ploy sauce
soy sauce
green peppers

...and has been burbling away in the crockpot since 1400.

also, I'm glad The Boy wasn't in evidence when I was cooking, because I learned on the RCS that, for some things, mold or gooshy bits don't really matter. you just cut them off, pretend momentary amnesia, look at the non gooshy bits, and if you can't tell you just cut off gooshy bits, it's good to eat.

if that's just grossing you out, I have no apologies to you. remember the Dirt article?
of course you do. if you don't, well then clicky!

KNITTING:

• I've come down with Second Mitten Syndrome.

• Halfway...no...actually...1/3 of the way...through the hemming row of T4. oh. god. now I know why some knitbloggers refuse to knit hems. it's mind numbing, but god forbid you do anything else at the same time, cause you can't.

• the scarf is getting relegated to 'too much brain hurty' for now.
  

1,3,7-trimethylxanthine

oh, how we love thee.

(That's caffeine, in case your ferrous O-chem is oxidized.)

a snapshot from work today:

J: What's SM?
N: S&M?
J: No, like... 'John Smith, SM?'
D: Sir...Math...uh...
N: Super Man.
Me: Masters of Science.
N: No, that's MS.
Me: that's the american convention. SM is Scientiae Magister, or Master/Teacher of the Sciences.
J: ...how the hell do you know that?
Me: I minored in dead languages.

Thing I Have Learned Today:

• edamame is not food. (at least not when you prepare it thinking it's snow peas. even so...)

• people cannot follow simple, labelled, check-the-box order forms, but when it comes to needlessly confusingly complicated web interfaces, they're fine.

• if you call a small company to purchase gifts 18 business days before Christmas at 1045 am PST and get a machine, you need to a) take your happy pills before leaving your message or b) need stronger happy pills or c) maybe some industrial strength tranquilizers.*

*you know my favorite level of hate? the Mrs-White-From-Clue-Clip hate? picture that vocal tone, railing about the fact that it's business hours and they're talking to a machine. never mind the fact that there were 2 people available to answer the phone. ok, and that's not really something I learned, but it's something someone should learn. and I am very very glad that I didn't have to call them back.

• Like John Bellairs, Tamara Siler Jones's novels are now on the Not To Be Read Before Sleep list. in big font, all caps.
  

oh...dear.....god...

and at this unholy hour of the day....

it's raining....

I'm awake....

there's something wrong with waking up at 0630 so I can be at work by 0800 when it's 2.5 miles away...

and I just got this wonderful spam email from Filipe Reese, the subject of which was "acoustic acoustic fitful raven," which I think totally needs to be a song, the lyrics of which should be the body of the email:

true satanic toxicology tritium quackery electrocardiogram
cunning transmute weapon
stupendous ac satanic hast incalculable appropriable isomorph toxicology acoustic
acoustic appropriable comma whale fitful acoustic spyglass bypath
transmute isomorph satanic
incalculable bicker coast axe townsmen acoustic hast
comma cunning spyglass raven long isomorph true quota elkhart hast
food enthusiasm long engage appropriable townsmen vicarious litigate frieze vicarious
whale litigate hast ac indecent coast elkhart frieze

it's late, and I'm dead...

so this is a quick one.

check out the awesomeness that came in the mail today!


I am holding it in front of my face because you don't want to see the zombified me. and I'm distracting you with a thumbs up with the finished mitt! one down, one to go...here's hoping I've got enough yarn...

whee! *thud* zzzzzz...

ok, east bay, cut the crap...

this is my least favorite weather. I like cold. I do. but only if it snows. now it's like early november in MN, only eternal...

no leaves.

bright sunny days that tempt you out on your bike where you promptly freeze to death and stay cold all day once you're back grr.

no snow.

we haven't figured out how to turn on the heat yet.

think it's time?hmmmm...

yes, that's one of the steve zissou hats from WHOI.

and here...
is one of the mitts I'm making for a christmas present. think I'll finish? wish me luck!

ignore the paper. I hit thumb in the middle of lab and had to improvise.

the purple.red.blue blur is Phronima the Betta.

the brown smear at the top is Hermit the Trog (or La Grenouille). he's still hoping there's food somewhere up there.



and here...

my favoritistest sweatshirt ever. possibly. might tie with my concert band sweatshirt, but maybe not.

Øytun Folkehøgskole.

represent.