"It's just beyond our comprehension to think about how many lives have been lost," Bush said after emerging from a holiday vacation at his Texas ranch to make his first comments on the disaster. <link>

Hardly. The toll is now close to the size of Waco, Texas or Beaumount City - if those comparisons aid in our fearless leader's ability to comprehend that which he chose to hide from...reminds me of the expression on his face at that school...

Anyway - lives lost is one thing - lives in limbo is quite another, let us hear him speak of those.

In other headlines...

• The US rules the world - in production of junk email...

• Judy Garland's daughter falls out of bed, drunk.

• And Yushchenko wins by over two million votes in the runoff election - yet has to call for a blockade of Ukraine govt offices thanks to someone being a sore loser. Again.

• Oh and Ben Stiller can't believe Barbra played his mom in that movie that's topping the box office against stiff competition...As opposed to his grandmother?

(based on stories seen on Google News...)

55,175
(similar to the population of Carson City, NV)

Tsunami's Enemy

Sending out thoughts of survival, hope, healing, restoration and continued/increased international aid in the most useful and relevant forms, even after the hubub of the breaking news stories have died down - as they will and always do long before the impact of such a tragedy has diminished in kind at the more local levels.

This message is sent on behalf of the 23,700 dead so far, and counting: Sri Lanka (11,000), Indonesia (5,000-20,000), Thailand (866), India (7,000), Malaysia (52), Burma (34), Maldives (52), Bangladesh (2), Seychelles (3) and Somalia (100) as reported at the time of this posting (also this story). It is a message sent out to those who struggle to stay out of these statistics while facing the dangers of cholera, other such water-bourne diseases, and many other tragic aftermaths.

Ghost town

So it's here - christmas day...and like a good non-celebrant, I went out! And not to visit friends and family with baskets of holiday cheer ... but to drive really fast down back roads and main roads and laugh at how dead the towns around here have become. Nothing was open - not even the gas stations. Oh wait. Except... Blockbuster - my 2nd real destination. And Domino's and the movie theatres no doubt...but that's about it! You'd think it was the end of the world or a Stephen King novel...

My first stop was to the greenhouse and to deliver chocolates to the man guarding the school. Guarding against what though? Homicidal Santas and Killer Reindeer? Well, whatever it is - figured the dude on duty wouldn't mind a sugar fix...

Fat Santa

So where did the department store Santa tradition begin I wonder? I mean who got the hair brained idea into their head, "let's have our fattest minimum wage worker sit his ass down in a chair in a santa suit all day long and have little boys and little girls....(and from what i heard around the proverbial water cooler this last week at work, not so little boys and little girls) hop up onto his lap...and take pictures, charge money etc etc." Whoever it was must have started one of them competition-driven diffusion of demented marketing tactics because they're everywhere....

No other time of the year do people with wild abandon let their precious little ones go sit on a strange man's lap...Am I implying something is not quite as it ought to be in the land of the North Pole....ahem. Of course not. I would not do such a thing. Sully the good name of the great elf named Klaus. Nah. Not I.

Mama, what's a snowbank?

For those of you not quite understanding who the occassionally mentioned KS is..she is someone I work with and in fact, I'm her supervisor...which makes for an interesting political setup. But I will explain that as time goes on...

But on Wednesday and Thursday I had the honor (?) of watching her interact with her daughter because there was no babysitter right before the holiday break.

The girl wants a movie - I don't know what the choice was though I'd guess Monsters Inc but there was no real way to tell as the sound was not turned up. "Mama, I can't hear it" I heard over and over. "I'm not turning it up...the speakers are right by my ears and if it gets too loud, I'll get grumpy. You don't want me to be grumpy do you?" was the reply more or less each and every time with a good deal of exasperation to go with it. Hmmm. Ok. So why'd u turn it on for her in the first place? Finally the girl gave up on being able to watch it and decided to paint instead.

"I don't know how the babysitter puts up with this all day..." turns to me, "I'm just not cut out for this running after kids thing..." or some such. Then she spent the next few hours calling her chiropractor's office every half hour - only to get the voice mail. A topic for another discussion: what exactly do people become addicted to with chiropractors etc? Is it the physical contact? All I know is at 8am they weren't answering because they weren't open yet. At 10am, they "ought to be open by now..." At 2:30, "They gotta be in, I need to go today..." At 3, "Where are they?" with a kind of mournful moan. One day of watching your own child and you cling desperately to the hope that your chiropractor will be in...

Or how about the joke that was exchanged between them about who knows what - was starting to think this was a sign of some bonding going on finally...but as soon as the girl started to laugh, "Will you zip it? No one wants to hear that mouth..." Apparently not.

But it's little things that make you wonder - like when she promptly returned my colored pencil _sharpened_ once she'd convinced "Mama" to let her sharpen her own set out in the hallway. Or the cute way she spoke: "Mama, can I go outside? I need to borrow the wind for my kite..." Or her response to her mother's attitude: "I can't stand this complaining of yours...I ought to bury you in a snowbank and leave you there." a silent pause "Mama, what's a snowbank?"

Vioxx etc

What happened to leaving it up to the consumer, i.e. the patient, to decide how much risk they are willing to accept? Where is the voice of the consumer in this latest scare which now encompasses Vioxx, Celebrex and the age-old OTC pain relief, naproxen (Aleve)? This is a classic example of the threesome of the paternalistic side of medine + the business side of the pharmaceutical industry + the litigious nature of American society...And left out in the cold is the patient suffering from arthritis who without the medications is facing a life of _known_ debilitating pain versus the risk of heart problems in the future. Maybe the consumer should have the choice...Caution is one thing - shutting people off from alreday established pain relief protocols, without much by way of alternatives...is quite another. What next - will we ban chemotherapy?

But then again - considering how November turned out - maybe Americans are more sado-masochistic than we give 'em credit for...and I'm not just talking about medical marijuana...

a mouse in da house

so i was warned we have field mice roaming about especially in my office ... but was not quite prepared for seeing a fuzzy brown head with tiny ears floating in the Peter's fertilizer in the greenhouse! now i'm being superstitious and leaving the funky bucket outside until i can clean it out with bleach. gotta make you wonder if the plants noticed.

and it's so darn cold that the short walk to the woods with the bucket was not so much fun on the toes. you know it's bad out when your nostrils freeze and stick together inside...

glazing

until last week my only conception of glazing was the kind that requires sugar and water...and cacti and orchids were understood to be both hard to take care of and opposite ends of the watering spectrum.

but today it is a good thing i know what terminology to use to describe our leak situation otherwise i'd have had to resort to: "those fluted plastic panels in the greenhouse, you know that look kinda like accordions and kinda like corrugated cardboard and that oughta be letting the light in but can't as much with all the snow piled up on them?, well they've got water pouring in and forming icicles all along the wall there behind the plants with the prickly parts that aren't supposed to be watered and the plants with the gorgeous purple flowers and such that are supposed to be watered every day...."

Joy to the World of Reality Shows

There is a new one: "Wickedly Perfect" – the search for the new Martha Stewart. Why? I’m not even sure where to begin with this one. First off, Martha’s not dead. And second, we ain’t heard the last o’ her yet. Oh no. No woman who has the cahones to throw a cast iron pot, or whatever it was, at her former biz partner is going quietly into Camp Cupcake never to be heard from again. No – my friends – the Kmart line and the magazine and the whole darned franchise may be suffering while she’s locked up but she’s still scheming, she is. And whether that’s a good thing or not - we’ll have to see. But I know the Martha phenom is far from gone because though I’ve never traveled the NYC scene, I didn’t have to in order to hear the phrase “that’s so Martha” in reference to someone’s soiree going off without a hitch and ‘oh, isn’t it just so’ – ness. Dahling. Anyway – Martha Stewart will write a book, or two. Martha: Living Behind Bars and Decorating Small Spaces. Maybe a 3^rd: Crabapple Cuisine. And in the meantime, a new reality? Well hell – they’re dirt cheap and that is a good thing, at least as far as the networks are concerned.

And people wonder why I gave up watching tv years ago…

Lend Me Your Ear...

All is well...worried no longer.

But I really do need another ear - my right one is killing me! Allergies and Eustachian tube dysfunction - at least that's the best guess of the Deathstar's best and brightest. Speaking of such fame - it's it funny how someone's technical skill can impress the masses for no reason other than perhaps limited scope of understanding outside that field....and yet the person behind the mystique is ... well... dull, frankly. Don't get me started. Don't even get me started... LOL

Anyway - went in to water the plants again today. LM was shocked to see me there - why didn't u get students to do it for you, with all of his pre-cigar smokin' gruffness. Ok, so the gruffness is more appropriately labeled post-cigar...but you know what I mean. Then when I tried to explain that it didn't bother me and that I wanted to be there - he kinda seemed incredulous and then insisted that I record my time and get my time and a half as was promised by HR for the holiday break. Yeah - ok. LOL I just want to get to know my new charges and heck it's only 10 mins away! But hey...if they insist...I got no problem getting OT. Still haven't perfected a mind-control money-making method. Hand them a buck and have them think it's a 100. LOL

Odd moods abound today it seems. Something in the air. Spores.

a good friend...

so why do we feel the need to add an adjective before friend. my good friend...my best friend...my gay friend...my homicidal lesbian friend ...girlfriend...boyfriend...toss in a hesitation after girl and before friend to emphasize girl-friend like go shopping kinda gf not _that_ kind of gf.

or add something after: my friend from college...my friend downstairs...my friend over in Canada...my Canadian friend....my Aussie friend...etc etc.

doesn't anyone have just plain ole... friends? or must they always fit into a proper category of friendship in order to guide your responses to them and that of others around you.

well the human being to which i was referring in my last post is a friend. and frankly adjectives are inadequate to relay to those of you reading this the kind of connection that exists. would take too long to explain and describe and I'd fail anyway - so hence....a good friend. leave it at that. if one is to be wholly inadequate in description...might as well go all out, no?

beware the blog

a good friend posted in a drunken fury of unknown origin...at least not the specific origin...and yet that was last night around 6. so now i'm thinking - where was i? and feeling like i wish i coulda read these posts at the time and ... called. tho maybe they wouldn't have answered? or gone online to IM. its f'd up that it's easier to get ppl by im sometimes than by phone. and of course ppl tell u s* on IM they'd never tell u in person. at least not without some sort of internalized liquid compound with -OH groups.

anyway - i worry about a lot of people. thanks to the blog phenom, i now have concrete backup for my former mostly unfounded fears...at least as regards this one creature...and i'm not sure if it is a good thing or not...so if i'm a worry wart - will salicyclic acid applied topically cure me?

I am rain...

Think 25 ft garden hose, poorly lit greenhouse, and the sound of rain on a dry windy chilly night...a plant lover's wet dream? *groan* is right. Anyway - it was fun though. Of course you'd think I would have watered from the 2nd floor balcony _after_ watering downstairs. Off to brave the holiday traffic insanity! Wish me luck...

VNV

Listening to VNV Nation and wishing I was dancing...

LOL

KS has left the building! Wheeee. Now I can get this place organized sans tales of woe.

And the post office didn't deliver our petri dishes because the mailing label did not specify the science building. Ummm, it was from Thomas Scientific. Yeah, you're right - could be for the Political Science folks....what was I thinking? LOL

Really wish I was dancing...."I'll guide the blind...." LOL well even the blind aren't on campus today - this place is dead! holiday time is a drag. people are either grumpy about it or giddy. so maybe it's good the place is dead... :)

"hope this world survives...it's tearing me apart..." -VNV Nation/Empires (and yes, CW - it's your disc. I'll get it back to you... promise. *grin*)

Reconstructing Pandora's Box (I)

"Another story is that Pandora was sent in good faith, by Jupiter, to bless man; that she was furnished with a box containing her marriage presents, into which every god had put some blessing, She opened the box incautiously, and the blessings all escaped, hope only excepted. This story seems more probable than the former; for how could hope, so precious a jewel as it is, have been kept in a jar full of all manner of evils, as in the former statement?" -Bulfinch's Mythology

Of course, the 'former statement' being referenced there is that of the more typical story of Pandora having opened up a box of evils, releasing them out to the world, with hope remaining...

So this bit o' mythology then begs the question: what is hope? and can it be evil? or more precisely, is there any reason to assume that it _can't_ be evil?

Hoy

Oi vey, in my head even...

This morning's been long. Got off to a sluggish start but got here at 7:40 or so ...so i had time to wake up. And finally gave up on giving KS room to be herself (since her mom's real sick) and told her she really needed to take her personal calls elsewhere...this after having to listen to about a half hour insight into her disconnect with her husband, desire to get out out of dodge and other and sundry domestic issues. Thankfully she took the not so subtle hint and left. Then returned later with "RW and I used to just share all kinds of stories" etc etc. Yeah yeah. But I'm not RW. So, tough noogies chica. RW was apparently one of the girls also. LOL I can't wait until at least J-term starts and some other folks are around, let alone the spring term when the students are here. Then KS won't bug me so much thanks to dilutional effects. :) Gotta love nerdy humour.

Anywho. Lunch time! I'm starving too...blood sugar levels plummetting....malfunction...malfunction...

(Overhaul of intelligence eh? Funny that he should think intelligence is in need.) <- referring to W and the ~ reform bill.

Playing Catch-up (or is that Plain Ketsup?)

Tuesday featured lunch with V and lots of insider info on the school and most importantly some backstory on the lady who worked before me and KS, the technician I've been ranting about who I'm supposed to supervise...so that was a good lunch. It was darn cold too but it felt nice. Invigorating or something.

Wednesday I get info from KS passed on to her from the former lab manager...why she waited that long to give it to me?? Dunno. Anyway - things that need doing. Spent Tues and Wed ordering stuff for 1 prof in particular for his j-term class. And trying to find someone to do lab coat cleaning. $10/coat?! Outrageous. Oh and the morning was devoured in a fac/staff meeting..."retreat"...where they haggled over candidates for 2 fac positions. Interesting and quick way to get to know people's personalities. Spent over an hour in the greenhouse cataloguing plants after. Was nice - just me, the plants and some music.

Thursday - wait that was yesterday. I kinda ranted about that already. But all in all twas good. Spent a half-hour in the greenhouse trying out a borax insecticide called Ced-O-Flora.

What Crazy Looks Like Today

Lots to tell of course - as it has been a few days but let me talk fast for the moment since I'm on a few missions... :)

Basically got here Monday - and jumped right in. So far it's a daily discovery of disturbing denials of disastrous decay...ok maybe it's not that bad but the greenhouse is horrible. There are aphids running rampant and mealybugs and spider mites and scales. And overwatering to an extreme in some cases (though that's partly due to poor choice of soil medium). And none of the plants are labeled...

Nevertheless, I have never had such a complete feeling of belonging as I have here. Everyone here is kinda loopy in their own way but, most of the time, it's a positive thing and they are warm, kind, well-meaning nutcases. LOL Seriously though, everyone is pretty laid back and easy going. Only problem is - that means different things to different people.

You've got your crew of folks who are pretty cool and progressive and doing great things, i.e. working hard without the stress of that ivy-league attitude...

Then you've got your crew of folks - a phenom mostly seen amongst the staff so far (but mind you it is holiday break and I haven't met many folks yet!) - who have the typical 9-5 mentality of the working world but take advantage of the laid back atmosphere in order to minimize how much they have to work. Instead - Avon catalogs, solitaire games, water cooler chattiness and body image issues abound. Now you can guess the predominating gender of this crew also...

*sigh*

Maybe I am just being a scrooge and not recognizing that ye ole Saint Nick'll be dropping by next week and people just aren't quite with it this week. Maybe. Or maybe I've just completely lost my tolerance for people expecting that I can relate to their obsessions over the latest +/- 5 pounds, kickboxing, soccer practice for little girls (that weren't planned mind you), or the brand new Endeavor SUV that no one else ought to own "because that's why I bought it - it's new and cheap and I wanted to be the only one to have one for the holiday". Yeah ok. I'm right there with ya sister. Or the soap operas - and I don't mean ABC's latest oooh-ahh craze, I mean old school soap operas that I did used to watch... when I was 13! LOL

First Day

it was amazing...more tomorrow!

Seabeams

So if I hurry I can post something before the witching hour and voila - a two post day! And the narcissistic pleasures never end...

Tomorrow a new job - finally somewhere where I can really feel like I belong! I will report in tomorrow on how it goes...but I have no doubts that it will be heaven...with the exception of a morning spent with Human Resources, of course...

Alas I am too brain-fried to write more - but soon a rant about online identities...and how some people can go too far with the whole concept of remaking oneself. So - tawk amongst urselves...

Ciao ciao.

12 of 12

Oh how I love a good numerology day...how positively numinous!

Well, to all my friends on shore ( u know who you are: shore = Deathstar) - Buena Suerte and kick some booty tomorrow, or else...

To everyone else - none a yaz are awake now anyway so...fah-get 'bout it!

Bottom of the 2nd

Not much doing in the bottom of the 2^nd – week of December that is. It’s wet n cold and I’m thinking a move back out West is in my future – maybe Vancouver. O, Canada. Of course there would still be cold wet rain!

I do have a rant though – it is about a recently self-published book by Mark Jeffrey (of The Palace) called The Pocket and the Pendant. In my hunt for what’s new in the world of fantasy fiction these days, I stumbled upon this. Now I must add a caveat – I have only read the excerpt available online but that was sufficiently disturbing in and of itself.

Can’t anyone write anymore? Or should I say more precisely, does everyone think they can write now, in this post-Harry Potter world of ours? Fight terror – and learn how to create believable characters, I say. It’s your typical children’s fantasy only the author appears to believe that he has written a text with the ability to appeal to both young and old audiences. But the young and the old bits flow together about as well as the war bits and the peace bits in War and Peace! (i.e., they don’t.) You might just as well read the hard science bits then hand the book off to your nearest bored 10 year old for a tandem read or something.

But perhaps “it would do more justice” (from the first page of P&P, not long after ‘numinous’…and this is a kid’s book?) for me to defer to /.er Michael Fiegel’s rather thorough review of the book (after all, he did read the whole thing) and simply add “ditto”.

Having said all of this though, I should add that if I get bored enough I may read the thing in toto anyway - if only for the concepts that are thrown in amidst the weak characters and the need for an editor. Good ideas do not a good read necessarily make.

So for the moment, I am still trying to finish Galileo’s Daughter – not exactly fantasy or sci-fi or any of that….but still a good read so far and I’ve got a bit o' a sweet spot for the biographical...

And on a completely different note: I wish I knew more British slang…

Weighty Musings

Weighty not because of the subject matter but because of the penguins in my head. Got a bit of a headache that just won't go away and my pet name for the demons that cause headaches (migraines in particular) is The Penguins. To understand why, you'd have to have watched Japanese tv in the early 80s - unless of course the sake commercial I'm referring to is still in production...Anyway - it features a bunch of penguins that flap about like penguins are wont to do. Penguins: full of grace they are not...so take that image, a deep Japanese voice over and a cutaway to Mr. Somebody-san sitting cross-legged in front of a Buddha shrine with his little cup of joy getting happier and happier with every sip. By the end, he's got a look of pure pleasure and then he topples over onto his side. And the penguins keep on flapping in tune to the music...

Anyway - clearly my middle meningeal artery is not dilated for reasons of sake, or pleasure for that matter, but somehow the clumsy penguins are still a good analogy all the same.

So, enough of my self-centered ramblings and on to more self-centered ramblings!

I saw a BMW the other day with the license plate "POSITV". Now why, in the name of all that is wrong with the world these days, would that be a good plate to have? Obviously the middle-aged dude paid some chunk o change for the vanity plate - but why? He wants to make a point perhaps? Ok. But what is his point? That he's positive? Well I'm sorry - maybe I'm a hardened cynic formerly of the health field but that just makes me instantly think of HIV. And there's a bit o crummy irony for you - a word that should have nothing but... well... _positive_ connotations conjures up in my mind something that is anything but. Anyway that's all I'll say on that subject for the moment...

Ever notice that "youth of the nation" sounds like "euthanasia"? Kudos to the first person that figures out what pop culture item this idea came from.

I need a nap - or a new brain. Whichever comes first I guess... Ciao til later...

Mixing Metaphors

And what pray tell is a meta for and why would you want to mix it?

Welcome to ... whatever this is. I have been pretty adamantly against the idea of the blog for years now and yet here I am, succumbing to the call of the blog like so many bees in the smoke. My words, such as they are, will now slosh about in the alphabet soup of cyberspace. And for those of you none too fond of soup - well...tough nookies.

So anyway - that's it for today. Stay tuned for far more heartfelt attempts to plunge the depths of insanity and terrorize y'alls neighborhood...