She Likes It

And then back to the scary

Used Google Maps new satellite feature yet?

It's cool as long as you studiously ignore the inherent creepiness of it, right?

Not to be out done, Microsoft gets you closer with their new map service. Seriously, I can see WAY too much detail of my apartment using the "Bird's Eye View." Check it out: Local Live.

Tip to Heavy Metal Librarian.

CRo gets fired up

News of my neighborhood, which I normally love, but today, not so much.

I had lunch with my co-worker, Karen, today during which I said, "I think I may have strongly held beliefs about too many things." At the time I was referring to my opinions on the maximum thickness which tomatoes should be cut for sandwiches.  I think I may have been onto something there.

One of my fellow Seattle Metbloggers told me that she always reads "CRo" as "crow" instead of "sea-row." For some reason this pleases me.

In other news, um, crap. I had something and now it's gone. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Put the aluminum down

I have a friend who's doing quite well in the Tin Foil Hat business. I just found out why it may be so:

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

Read the whole article here:  http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/
Hat tip: ABAHC

Now is the time at Sprockets that we dance

Back in college, I had a friend that I called Dieter (he called me Olga) that would get together with me to "study" for German class. Since I lived with my parents then, most of the time we'd meet at his place for the studying and whatnot. I don't know how I passed not just one but TWO semesters of German because I can't speak one word, and I know I couldn't speak one word back then either. Good thing German was to be my third language, not that I speak French all that well either. But I ramble.

So, one day, I went over to Dieter's armed with my German homework and penchant for corrupting the innocent. As soon as he opened the door, though, I was stymied. He asked me if I smelled something funny. Sure enough there was a weird odor coming from somewhere in his tiny studio apartment. We spent the better part of an hour sniffing around trying to locate the odor originator. Trash? No. Sink? No. Fridge? No. No studying got done, but we managed to narrow down the location of the smell. It was the couch, but we couldn't figure out why. Upon further inspection, turned out he had a dead mouse folded up in the pull out couch. He called him Stampy and promptly called his mother down from Baltimore to get to work disinfecting his place.

...

This past Saturday in the early a.m., I got up to go to the bathroom. You know, it's always when I get up early to pee when these things happen to me. Huh. Due to my experience with the large spider hanging out on the toilet paper way back in February, I turned on the light. I squinted and looked around to make sure no fuzzy fricking spiders were hanging out in the bathroom and saw something brownish/black in the toilet. "Ew. BeardBoy, you're so gross." I thought and flushed.  To my great dismay, the brownish/black thing was not removed by the swishing swirling water. I stared disbelieving and let my eyes adjust to the light. Luckily, there was no overflowage, but not so luckily, I realized what the brownish/black thing really was:

Oh yes, Stampy's big brother, had come a-visiting and sadly (not really sadly) it would be his last call ever.

I thought about leaving SBB in the potty until later, like I do when I see the cat puked, but I had to go, so I did what I had to. That is, I went back into the bedroom, woke BeardBoy, told him there was a dead animal in our toilet and could he take care of it.

We were too tired to think to get pictures of him in the water, but I snapped some in his 7-Eleven bag coffin. They all suck though, so I only posted the one above.

Anyway, I don't know what the deal is. Why is the universe trying to make it impossible for me to comfortably use my own bathroom? First large spiders, now rats, I'm terrified of what the next escalation will be.

People are strange

In recent years, banks have begun to place ATM machines inside lockable lobbies which, when the bank is closed, can only be accessed by swiping one’s ATM card through the lock. For some reason, every single ATM card I’ve ever been given by any bank my entire life has been unable to open these lobbies. It’s usually not that big of a deal, because every time I’ve wanted to go into a lobby there’s either been someone with me with a working ATM card or someone in the lobby already who can let me in.  That is, until...

Aquanetta is the funniest name I ever heard

Spiders creep me the F out. And HOLY CRAP there are a lot of them in Washington, most living in our laundry room. But. Even I know this is a bad idea. Lady, get off the crack.

It's the end of the world as we know it

For crying out loud: Some dude in Texas filed a patent application for an AUTOMOBILE HELMET for kids. "The time has come for a helmet that protects children in autos," said Michael Fleming, amateur inventor and full-time attorney.

For shit's sake! When I was little, I rode in the car in a laundry basket on the floor of the front seat!

I think he is calling it the Melon Protector. For real.

What the ... !!!

Okay. I JUST spilled coffee on my shirt TWICE. First on my sweater, which I took off, then on my white shirt.  For Crying OUT LOUD!  I wish I had a camera here at the office so you can see its dead center placement on my chest.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact I had a little too much of this last night.

Which reminds me of a story:

Since I'm so fancy, I like to go on winery tours. One fateful summer, I took a trip up to Put-in-Bay (Lake Erie) with The Economist. We rented bikes and tooled around the island, which sounds romantic, but really wasn't since he was thinking of dumping my ass the whole time.  Anyway, we went on a tour of the island's "winery" which was SO awesome, cause we got to see the bottling plant (small, but still technically a plant I think) where I heard my favorite wine tour line of ALL TIME, that is, "And here's where we put on the caps."  Which is funny, because I will buy boxed wine which is so low-brow it's a beard, but if it has a cap, OH NO, can't do that.

Ha.

Is it wrong that I think this is hilarious?

I always knew I was bossy but this takes the cake!

In the words of Margaret Cho, "I fucking hate you!"

Do you ever wonder if people are jerks because of their jobs or if they got their jobs because they were jerks?  You know, the whole nature versus nurture debate? 

Or perhaps certain professions are just littered with the sexually frustrated.

I ask this because I’ve decided that the people who are quickly reaching the DMV a-hole level are the Corporate IT Help Desk professionals.