March 31, 2003
Nemesis

There’s a couple with what looks to be a five year-old boy walking ahead of me. The boy is several paces behind the adults, his entire body projecting a good, solid sulk. A Batman doll dangles helplessly from his hand. The boy emphasizes his sulk by reaching out his arm and letting Batman smack repeatedly against the nearby railing.

I bet the Joker’s looking pretty damn good to Batman right about now.

March 28, 2003
Happy Binary to Me

Today I am 100000. Gather round, youngins, and I’ll tell you all about my ol’ Commodore VIC 20.

March 27, 2003
The Power of Advertising

I saw a commercial which featured, among other scattered elements of "your life will be better if you buy this!", sunshine and pickup trucks and fireworks.

It made me remember something I hadn't thought about for a long time: a summer day when I stretched out in the back of pickup truck, in the sunshine. There were even fireworks after the sun went down.

Thanks for bringing back the memory, random advertiser. Sorry I don’t remember what you were trying to sell.

March 26, 2003
Nobody Broke My Weblog

There’s a bit in the Odyssey where Odysseus describes his escape from Polyphemus. Odysseus has given his name as Noman, so when Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, and the other Cyclops ask him how it happened, all Polyphemus can say is, "Noman did this to me!"

This past weekend I was suddenly unable to save new entries, and one of my previous posts was missing. Before I threw up my hands and re-installed Movable Type, I spent some time poking their handy dandy support forum, where I found a description of my very problem along with this post from a helpful soul:

The DB corruption was caused when MT tried to save a new entry and, halfway through rebuilding the DB, went over the disk quota. Now, my account wasn't over the disk quota - not even close. But MT doesn't save as me - as a CGI script, it saves as "nobody."

That's right: "nobody" was over quota. My ISP promptly doubled nobody's quota, I reinstalled MT, re-imported my files (which, thankfully, I'd mostly been able to export when things started going awry), and the problems disappeared.

My ISP - Drizzle - also increased the quota for user nobody, and then went above and beyond by restoring my directory from a backup tape. No re-install, no re-import. Hooray for Drizzle!

Also hooray for E, who spent a couple of hours noodling around in the CGI script, trying to turn nobody into somebody.

March 20, 2003
1999 - A Good Year for Clown Cars

Yesterday I saw so many people exiting an elevator I could have sworn it was a clown car.

March 19, 2003
Now "Education President" Makes Sense

“War is God’s way of teaching world geography to Americans.”

- Ambrose Bierce, via associate director of the National Council on Geographic Education Dr. Angelia Mance in today’s New York Times, via K.

March 18, 2003
Jane to Bush: Leave White House

Okay, I’ve been asking nicely since you stole the election in 2000, but really, enough is enough.

While the United States Congress has not lived up to its responsibility to initiate impeachment proceedings, a broad coalition of my friends have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to common sense.

You and your cronies must leave the White House in 48 hours.

It’s true that unlike some people I could mention, I can’t back up this ultimatum with the most powerful military force in the world. However, I do have this G.I. Jane doll, which, if you fail to comply, I pledge to wave angrily in your direction every time I see your war-mongering mug on TV, every time I hear your over-rehearsed voice oozing from the radio.

P.S. Enjoy the pretzels.

March 14, 2003
Up and More or Less Around

I’m moving around again, but my brain is still mush. So here, courtesy M and in honor of my mother's birthday, is some internetty goodness.

March 10, 2003
Check out the lymph nodes on that one

If my tonsils weren't running the show today, I would be wildly enthusiastic about hats.

If you visit the above hat link, I recommend that you read it in your very best Harlan Pepper voice, preferrably out loud, and if you are very lucky someone will eventually come up to you and say, "Harlan Peppah, you stop namin' hats!"

March 07, 2003
Resolved: Log Cabins Suck

LINCOLN: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000068C97
DOUGLAS: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007KWHN
LINCOLN: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000024D1R
DOUGLAS: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004S94H
LINCOLN: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005RH78
DOUGLAS: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000683N4
LINCOLN: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004WX1Y
DOUGLAS: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005ATH6
LINCOLN: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000005KCR

A Special Note for Speech Geeks: Even though I was an Extemp girl myself, I do know that LD starts with Affirmative Constructive and only has 7 speeches total. But you see I stole this from an e-mail exchange with E, and I didn't want to take too many liberties.
Love,
Jane
P.S. Mock Trial Rulz!!

March 06, 2003
A Death Omen for the Goober in the Elevator

There is a storm moving into Seattle. It is windy. Yes, my hair is wild.

SOME GOOBER IN THE ELEVATOR: You look like a banshee.
MY MOUTH: I feel like a banshee.
MY BRAIN: AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Do You Remember?

Do you remember when we were out walking in the woods, and we found that tower? We climbed all the way to the top and found a little room occupied by that old woman who chain smoked Benson and Hedges through a filter tip while she sat at a table cutting out coupons from the Des Moines Register. She handed us each a Grolsch, and they were room temperature, but we drank them anyway while she told us about how her father raised prize-winning Norwegian Elkhounds.

When we left we were almost at the bottom of the tower before we realized we’d completely forgotten to ask her if she wanted to be rescued. We thought about going back up, but it was getting late and we had to return to the video store.

That was a good movie.

March 04, 2003
Graphic Content / I’ll Take Unlikely Scenarios for Six Hundred, Alex

This weekend M told me about Minard’s representation of Napoleon’s Russian campaign.

While I was looking up Minard’s work, I found out that Florence Nightingale was a statistician. I’m annoyed that I’m only now learning this. She was the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society and an honorary member of the American Statistical Association, but if yesterday someone had said to me, "Quick, tell me everything you know about Florence Nightingale!" the best I could have done was, "She was a nurse in the Crimean War. They called her 'The Lady with the Lamp'."

And if that person then asked, "When was the Crimean War and who fought in it?" I would say, "Mid nineteenth century. England, France, Turkey, Russia." And if that person wanted to know how I knew that, I would say, "When I was an English major The Charge of the Light Brigade was still in the canon."

And then I would say, "Canon, get it? ‘Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them...’?" and if that terrible joke didn't scare them away and they asked me, "What do you know about Alfred, Lord Tennyson?" I would say, "He was Poet Laureate in Victorian England. Now get away from me, you question-asking freak!"

March 03, 2003
Back to Work

I spent four hours editing the novel this weekend. I’m planning to take a pass through for style, and then go back and deal with structure.

As of now, editing for style = cutting the unnecessary exposition that seemed like a good idea when I was trying to make the word count.