Are the clever ideas I’ve had lately, and the inclination to do anything about them.
Somewhere…
Category Archives: Random Stuff
Not All Right
One of my favourite bloggers, Laurie, recently wrote about being first, rather than being right.
Her post reminded me that I get so caught up in trying to say the right thing, or trying to say something the right way, that I often miss saying anything at all.
(Yes, this is totally one of those mea culpa re: delinquent blogging kindof entries.)
So! I am going to try something new! When I have an idea for a post, I’m just going to write it. And publish it. And try not to hate it for being poorly written or overly trite or unintentionally grammatically imperfect. Let’s see how that goes, yes?
Because I miss conversing with all y’all. How are you doing anyhow? Have I told you lately that your hair looks great? Because it totally does.
Faith, Hope and Charity
Apparently this guy REALLY doesn’t want to get some of our work emails. And yet can’t find the unsubscribe button:
Subject: SPAM EMAILS
REMOVE ME FROM YOUR FUCKING SPAM EMAILS! STOP SENDING ME THIS SHIT!
[redacted], LUTCF
[redacted] and Associates
www.[redacted].com
317-[XXX-XXXX]
317-[XXX-XXXX] fax
Faith, Hope and Charity.
Yah, read that last line of his signature again.
I’d love to actually publish this idiot’s name and business info, but I don’t think that would be particularly charitable.
Brown Note
Few things delight me as much as when an employee makes an effort to give a little extra when I’m dealing with a company. Something small and unexpected. Even if it’s company policy, these little extras are so rare. Which makes it even nicer when they happen.
We ordered some baby furniture online, and the company we ordered from uses UPS as their delivery service. It took a couple shipments for everything to arrive, and the delivery guy (it’s been the same guy the past few weeks) left a little something extra with today’s delivery:
It’s just a UPS calendar. It’s actually kindof ugly. And we have calendars. But he wrote a little note – for BABY, Welcome to the world!
How sweet is that?
The dude noticed what we were getting (flat-packed in plain boxes for the most part) and reached out to do a little something nice.
How can you not love that?
I didn’t choose UPS for shipping – the decision was made for me in this case. But I’ll definitely look at them as an option next time I send a package.
(aside: which UPS marketing genius decided to abandon “what can brown do for you” to the bland “we <3 logistics”? If it’s working, leave it alone!)
Common Thread
My sister-in-law had an unfortunate accident over new year’s. Thankfully, she’s going to be fine, but it was a bit scary for a few days there.
As I was reflecting on the frailty of life and health (as we do when things like this happen to our loved ones) it occurred to me that I have no fewer than three people in my life who have broken their necks (while I was far, far away having nothing to do with the accidents, just to be clear).
According to their injuries, all of them should be dead or paralyzed, but they managed to land on the single-digit side of the statistics, and aren’t either.
This leads me to believe I am quite possibly incredibly bad luck, or incredibly good luck to have as a friend or family member.
Regardless – be careful out there!
Best Spam Ever
From: Miss Freya [mailto:[random.address]@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 10:53 PM
To: Jennifer Watkiss
Subject: Dear Internet User
DEAR RECEIVER,
You have just received a Taliban virus. Since we are not so technologicaly advanced in Afghanistan, this is a MANUAL virus. Please delete all the files on your hard disk yourself and send this mail to everyone you know.
Thank you very much for helping us.
Thanks & Regard’s
Miss Freya
—————————
I really did just receive this. Plain text, no links, attachments. So ridiculously silly it made my morning.
Out of Paper
Highly excellent cat video.
What can I say, it’s been a long day. It was either this, or a whiney re-hash of my shitty flight home earlier.
You’re welcome.
NaBloPoMovember
A couple things seem to take over the brief attention span of the internets every November.
First is NaNoWriMo and its ADD cousin, NaBloPoMo. I happened to blog yesterday, so perhaps I shall just keep with it, yes? We’ll see if it lasts until the end of the month.
Second is Movember. For the past few years, Neil’s participated as a proud member of team Mophos, raising funds for men’s health issues.
Not only do I stoically suffer through the lack of delicious beard that he wears for the rest of the year, I also deal with him ending up looking like this at the end of it all:
(Last year’s Mo-spiration was Freddie Mercury. Suggestions for this year? The official theme this year is “luxury”, and the man does own a fedora.)
Anyhow, if you’re so inclined, toss a few dollars either his way, or to Team Mophos overall.
Hasta Mañana!
Fire Prevention Week
Did you know it’s Fire Prevention Week?
Me neither. I do recall an early-school-year project from my elementary days when we all made “escape plans” for our homes and learned to “stop, drop and roll” our way out of suddenly bursting into flames.
But I hadn’t thought about fire prevention for many years, until I saw this post on Lifehacker about how to properly use a fire extinguisher.
In fact, I haven’t thought about fire prevention or fire extinguishers since I nearly set my parents’ house on fire in 1995.
Whoops!
It was a summer day (must’ve been a weekday, since my parents were both out at work) and I’d decided to wax my legs.
I had one of those wax kits where you melt the wax in a little copper pot on the stove. So on it went. Except when I tried to pick it up, the potholder slipped and I dumped about a cup of hot wax directly on the element. Which turned into a 3 foot column of flame.
And instead of thinking “I should put a lid on this flame to smother it” I went straight for the extinguisher.
Verdict: I am excellent at using a fire extinguisher.
I also learned the important skill of how to remove fire-retardant dust and dried wax from almost anything. Could be a useful party trick, depending on the type of parties you frequent.
Anyhow, it’s probably as good a time as any to check your smoke alarm batteries, make sure your extinguishers are still charged and ready, and stop-drop-roll just for fun. Also a good time to call your friendly neighbourhood esthetician and make an appointment to have your legs waxed. It’s much safer that way.
We’re not moving
Those playing along at home are likely going “Huh? I had no idea you WERE moving.” I know. And now we’re not. Not exactly news, but it’s been a big albatross around my neck for a little while. Now that there’s an ending to the story, I feel compelled to write it down – both to capture the (non)experience for when I go back and check what I was doing in July 2010, and to close that particular chapter in my brain.
We very nearly moved to England. We’d have been leaving in a month. Neil had an offer from his existing company to go over and work on a project that was based over there. But for various reasons to do with the job and the project it went rapidly from being a very good idea to a really not so good one. So we’re not going.
I am simultaneously delighted and disappointed that we’re staying.
To be fair, I was also delighted and disappointed at the idea of moving. So many things I felt would be left undone here. Moving an ocean away from family. Leaving my job here. The excitement of a new adventure.
Now I just get to flip all those. Moving forward on projects here. More time with family. Staying on at my job. No big adventure.
It feels a bit like a zero sum game – but I can’t quite process that zero sum doesn’t equal zero emotion.
It’s amazing how much non-action can be an emotional roller coaster.
Of course we thought it wise to keep our moving news mostly to ourselves while all the details sorted themselves out. Neil still needed to get through some challenging times with his team at work. I didn’t want to rock the boat unnecessarily at work, or give up my job on the off (and now actual)-chance we didn’t go after all.
But at the same time, we were running around like crazy people in semi-secret, trying to sort out the details of international relocation.
Passport and visa research. Calls with our accountant about tax implications. Vet appointments to jump through the hoops to relocate our dog with us. Sorting out details of renting our condo. Working through the financial implications of an undetermined amount of time living off one salary rather than two. Putting off and pushing aside projects we had planned for here that were no longer practical in the face of relocation.
It’s been stressful. And while I thought pushing the reset button would alleviate some of that, it’s really just changed it.
Tying up loose ends and changing direction on some of our financial plans to reflect staying rather than going. Re-starting the fires under the projects we had snuffed. Figuring out what the rest of our year looks like, now that it’s in Vancouver rather than Oxford.
It’s ultimately good. Not only in a “good, we’ve sorted out this important life-event” way, but in a “this has forced us to re-evaluate what we’re doing here and what’s important” way, but in the meantime feels very strange.
I have no good ending for this.
1000 Words
Apropos of absolutely nothing, a Freddie Mercury Merman Christmas Tree Ornament.
Enjoy!
Errrr….. hi?
I never know how to pick this thing back up.
When I’ve meant to write a post for a while, promised at the next thing to come, then completely drop the ball on delivering, I have no idea what to write next.
Do I continue on as if I didn’t just drop off the face of the blog for most of a month? Clearly I have voted “no” on that one, at least this time.
Do I jump back in with the thing I said I’d write about, or change tacks completely? Obviously I’m still undecided on that one.
Inquisitive kitten wants to know: How would you resume posting on your neglected blog?
(photo courtesy of eleda 1)
What a Rube
We are home, mostly recovered from the jetlag, and almost done sorting through the pictures. I shall have vacation tales for you soon!
In the meantime, it looks like an amazing music video was released right around the time we got back. OK GO produced a 2nd video for their single This Too Shall Pass, featuring an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine that runs for the duration of the song and was built to sync up to the music with its blerks and borks and crashes and movements.
It’s amazing.
There is a very special place in my heart for Rube Goldberg machines.
When I was in elementary school I was part of a team in a district-wide Rube Goldberg competition. The machine had to start a certain way (activated with one finger I believe), contain at least X steps (I forget how many now – somewhere around 13), and finish by launching a beanbag into the center of a circular target on the floor.
I don’t remember much about the specifics of our machine, except that it finished by launching the beanbag off an old metal-frame foot-pump for blowing up bike tires and soccer balls and the like.
We were a pre-pubescent team of perfectionists, and rigorously tested our machine in my driveway, running it multiple times to confirm the distance it would launch the sample beanbag we were given, and used that distance to measure exactly how far from the edge of the circle we needed to set up the final step of the machine to hit the center target.
Competition day.
We are nervous but confident. We have our beanbag launching precision down to the centimeter.
We confirm the distance and set up our machine. Nervously, one of us hits the “go” button.
Tick. Tock. Smash. Ping. Crash. Swivel. Ping. Pop…. LAUNCH!
Our soft fabric beanbag sails through the air in a graceful arc! We hold our breath as it goes… up, up, up, down, down, down…. BINGO!
The beanbag landed EXACTLY in the center of the target.
The target on the smooth (completely un-like my driveway) polished concrete floor of the de-iced community rink we were in. And slid. Nearly to the other side of the circle.
The highly unqualified (in my oh-so-expert opinion) panel of judges awarded the prize to the much less prepared rinky-dink team from another school whose beanbag haphazardly slid nearest to the target. We got the launching aspect of the competition nailed. Too bad they hadn’t informed us of the curling part. We lost.
And thus I experienced my first lesson in how not to test, and that sometimes those in charge of RFPs don’t know to supply all the required parameters to build something that works, and that sometimes you fail and go away in tears, and if you’re lucky you get to adjust your work and try again another day, but sometimes it means you just lose.
But enough about me. Back to OK GO!
Their machine goes off without a hitch, including the payoff at the end. Please watch, and think of an 8-year-old me and my machine when you do!
Holding Out
Was having a conversation with a friend the other day about street food (specifically kebab/donair/shwarma), which eventually lead to discussing how to pronounce “gyro” – is it hero or jai-row?
Of course it’s hero, but most North Americans start out calling it a jai-row until corrected.
By that time of course the word gyro is stuck in my head, and I’m doing this thing where I roll a word around in my mouth until it sounds ridiculous (gyro…. gyroooooo…. gyyyyyyrooooowwwwww…. gyRO!). And the inevitable happens. I start singing the song Holding Out for a Hero in my head.
Except, it’s “Holding Out for a Gyro” – and now it’s Weird Al (because OF COURSE it is), and while I’m not actually composing alternate lyrics to the song, I am directing the music video on my head:
Drunken Weird Al is careening about a busy New York City street on a drunken Saturday night, upsetting food carts of all sorts, looking for the perfect thing to soak up alcohol – nothing else will do, he’s Holding out For a Gyro.
Does anyone else do this?
And by “this” I mean direct music videos in your head, although I’d also be interested if you have drunken Gyro-hunting stories…
Jen Eats Something Strange – Episode 1
I got some email today from YouTube, stating that a couple old videos of mine (Eating Live Octopus in Korea) are popular enough qualify for their affiliate program (they put ads on my video, I collect a few pennies a year).
Comments on the videos (mostly “ewww!”) come through every now and again, but I hadn’t thought much about them. Until the emails. So I checked them out. Apparently eating strange things is intensely popular on YouTube, since my videos are at a little over 33,000 views each! Certainly not because of anything I did (other than eating the octopus & posting video).
Clearly we should’ve taken video of eating a smoked sheep’s head and snails right out of their shells in Morocco.
And I’ll be sure to take a camera that shoots video to Thailand in February, in case there are any delicacies that make the average North American go “Hmmm” (or “ewww!”) that we stumble across.
In the meantime, some video from the watercooler archives: