May 2004 Archives

I finally finished the cards I promised Carey several months (yikes) ago.... In my favor, I'm terrifically pleased with the results. (And she is very patient.)

Boing Boing is out there finding the coolest stuff, as usual. At this site, you can enter a band name and hit search, and it does a sort of Amazon on you and suggests similar bands. It must be at least partly based on family trees (e.g., do Queens of the Stone Age and you get all the usual suspects) but that doesn't make it any less nifty. Insound should build this in somehow....

With thirteen in a row across stations 3, 4, 5 and 6!!! And two rabbits! I'm giving credit to my new recoil pad--wonderfully mushy. I have practically zero bruise. I should do before-and-after pix of my shoulder....

I make a DAMN good margarita, if I say so myself. The best recipe, ever, is here:

I promise.

Here is a link to a series of "20 minute stories." They are from a writing contest whose rule was that you had to write your story, start to finish, in 20 minutes. As the introduction points out, that initially seems scarily unrealistic, but ultimately provides a kind of freedom. I like the idea, at any rate, and I also like some of the results they've posted. Happy reading :-)

Today is the day to remember in the middle of August when it's sweltering.... It's May 3 in Houston TX and we had the heat on last night. This morning it's bright and clear and slightly nippy. A beautiful day for February, in other words. A really lucky day for May! Enjoy it while it lasts....

I was thinking about Dave, who's been in England on a project for a few weeks, and how he's picked up a lot of Brit speech patterns and phrases (we were discussing this at beer o'clock on Friday). My dad is the same way, but he's very quick at it, and I don't think he does it on purpose. It just happens. So anyhow, I was thinking about this and decided you could describe people's reactions to new environments with a typical psych-type axes thingie (have no idea what you really call it, obviously).

One axis would reflect how much you're willing to embrace the new situation. I'd call this "sympathy" and it would range from sympathetic through neutral to hostile. The other axis represents how much you're able to pick up new habits and blend it, which is "adaptability" and ranges from adaptive through static to recessive. So you end up with nine possible labels depending on where you plot yourself on the chart:

So, I figure Dave and my Dad are at least way up on the Adaptive, and knowing them, probably Sympathetic as well. I'm more Sympathetic-Static to Sympathetic-Recessive. Moonbats are Hostile-Recessive towards those of a higher perceived social class, and they fancy themselves Sympathetic-Adaptive towards those of a lower perceived social status than they are, but then they go home to their cushy condos and well-paying jobs and Recess right back to where they were (ha ha, obviously a generalization, end of political commentary). But I think a Hostile-Adapative person is probably the unhappiest--doesn't like it but can't help it.

Looks like I'm all set for a second career in sociology!

Update: More on Moonbats here.