0111 Things I love

Okay, so here's my current events.

0001. I LOVE FIREFLY.

0010. I LOVE RED DWARF.

0011. I LOVE OSMANTHUS OOLONG.

0100. I LOVE GOOGLE. Get this - Dale says, "Huh. Says to register
but doesn't give a phone number." Two seconds later: "Dale, it's xxx-
xxxx." Google at my fingertips. I loves its.

0101. I LOVE THE INTERNETS. For which # 0100 would not have been
possible in the way it is.

0110. I LOVE GOOD BUSINESSES. I recently got orthotics for what I
felt was a developing case of Plantar Fasciitis. All the signs were
there, but only in winter for the most part, so I'd ignored it for a
good two years or so. The guy was great, gave me some helpful advice,
etc, but I didn't listen as well as I should and then even after
taking it really easy the pain had only increased while wearing the
orthos. I began to wonder if perhaps my foot was worse than I'd
thought and maybe I should have seen a doc before getting orthos. So
I called a podiatrist. The lady was really nice and I explained the
issues briefly to which she immediately asks, "How long have you tried
breaking them in?" I'm like, "A week." (This is about what I thought
the guy told me.) She laughs and informs me that I should definitely
give it more time, at least a month, and that I should only wear them
an hour one day, two hours the next, etc (what the guy told me, and
I've been averaging one or two hours a day since the first few days of
way-too-long-and-I-admit-it). She also told me that if there's pain,
I'm pushing too hard and should cut back until I can push more. So I
ended up not making the appointment, and she seemed fine with that.
It is VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY RARE for a doctor's office to give such
advice over the phone let alone doing so without a) me being a patient
and b) not getting immediate business out of the deal. Of course, I
am now in awe and assuming my foot turns out good I will promote the
office to the ends of the earth, so in the end, they still win.

0111. I LOVE DALE. I know this goes without saying, but I have to
mention this because it's true and it's important to reiterate
awesomeness. What are some of the things he's done or said lately to
deserve this praise? Lots of things. Mostly little things. The
smile on his face, the light in his eyes; they always capture my heart
and hold it a willing prisoner. A couple days ago he reminded me to
do something that was financially beneficial to me. He helped me help
my [our] friend move. He's patient with me. He doesn't argue, only
expresses his opinions or thoughts and lets me do the same, coming to
conclusions with me rather than forcing things down my throat. He's
willing to help me with projects, the few I have that welcome more
extensive involvement. He's fun to go out and do stuff with. TV Time
is made even better by his presence, even when we don't talk much.
Meals take less time and are more fun because of him. English Muffin
Pizza. Taco Bell. Stair Pong. Yep. I love the guy. What can I say?

Osmanthus Oolong

This is THE awesomest tea EVER.

My recipe:

2 TBS Osmanthus Oolong
Heat 18oz water to just barely starting to bubble (you know that
growly sound the pot suddenly makes when the bubbles are about to form?)
Pour over tea and brew for 2.5 minutes
Strain

O...M...G...

~w

Poem: Bubbles

BUBBLES
2010021731 - c2010 WLC

Tiny bubbles cling together
Floating in a pool of amber
Surrounded by a wall of green
Popping tiny breaths unseen

I sit here up against my mum
Playing Scrabble as you curl
Blissful in my solitude
But not without my gratitude

For when you're gone
Our love goes on
Inside a happy dancing heart
We are never quite apart

I watch TV on the internet
Never trying to forget
The happy looks that you provide
Without you, we'd not survive

The door swings wide
You walk inside
I drink the bubbles in my cup
I'll see you when I wake up

spinach

I just ate boiled spinach and some mashed potatoes...

...AND LIKED IT!!!!!!!!!

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M ALL GROWNED UP!!!!!!!
WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

damned if you do...

...or potentially so.

Earlier today I was at work. This lady calls up and says, "Mr. Brown
is here from XYZ company and needs to get on our wireless network.
It's asking for credentials. What are they?"

After the usual verification stuff, I tell her the password he'll
need. She says, with a slight edge suggesting that she wants to make
darned sure she understands me right, "That's ALL he's going to need
to enter? Nothing else?" "Nope," I say, and I hear "Okay, thanks,"
and the click of her hanging up. I continued talking to the phone as
I also hung up: "unless, of course, he's got one of those clients
that defaults to 64 bits instead of 128 bits in which case he'll need
to look for that setting on whatever client he's got and change it to
the other one... but if that's the case I'll find out soon enough
because you'll call back."

Then I hear a very soft snicker on the other side of the cubicle and
begin to laugh to myself, because I realized I hadn't given her all
the information he /might/ need, not because I was trying to screw
anyone, but because I knew the chances of him /having/ that type of
client were likely slim. In the past, I'd give too MUCH information
just to be safe, and end up confusing the dickens out of someone
because 9 times out of 10 they didn't need the information in the
first place. 'Tis best, at times, to leave out typically-unimportant
information and provide it on a need-to-know basis even if it means
someone has to call back (which makes me appreciate having to call
people back, now - the person was being thoughtful about my level of
understanding by refusing to confuse me with a bunch of inapplicable
crap). Still, I had to voice this concern, so I made it known to
myself as a muttered sidenote aimed at her hang-up click.

I.T. support is an art form. In addition to reading minds, we have to
quickly disseminate only needed information for equipment we can only
make guesses at while an agreeable but intensely busy person on the
other end waits for your pleasantly helpful voice to spew forth easy-
to-understand, nontechnical information that's highly complex and
technical in nature.

~nv

synesthesia

I know someone who has this - where he hears music and sees colour.

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2010/01/synesthesia_and_the_mcgurk_eff.php

SPOILER BELOW... if you want to listen and watch for yourself, you can
read this after you're done...

The interesting thing about what occurred when I watched:

1. neat, neat?, peat, peat. neat, neat, peat, peat
2. neat, neat, peat, peat. neat, neat, peat, peat

Note "neat?" is where he says people hear "meat." I /did/ think I
heard meat, but it sounded too nasalised, and I was very very confused
by the fact the lips didn't match perfectly what I was hearing. It
was like it was out of synch or something. At first I figured I heard
him wrong, began comparing what I'd seen to his voice as I watched the
next word come forth, couldn't figure out why the sound was off so
badly that it didn't match the sound correctly, and ultimately
concluded that he'd said "neat." I based this on context, because he
never said he was going to say "meat" but /had/ mentioned the word
"neat" and repeated it later on.

After I got myself all confused, I found myself reading below as I
listened to and half-watched the second part, and realized he /had/
said "neat" and that he was superimposing his speech on top of an
original recording of "neat, peat, neat, peat."

So: In short, I /did/ do what he said most people do, but due to the
synchronization problem, I wasn't 100% certain I heard him correctly.
Then I pulled a CAPD compensation and found "neat" was the only
obvious word he could have used in that strange context, so I fixed
what I heard with what I thought I should have heard.

If he /had/ said "meat" with the same synchronization issue, I likely
would have gotten that wrong, especially after I'd heard the whole
thing.

~nv

Dream Last Night

Childhood classmate and friend, Jen, and I were adults in a schoolroom
and reminiscing. Suddenly I hugged her, very glad to see her again,
and she said something about always having been there and not going
anywhere. I said, "I miss the past, not some of the things in it." I
woke up, very much desiring to remember that line, and found that I'd
been crying, truly happy to have seen her so vividly again and sad
that it wasn't real. WTF? I kept repeating that line over and over
as I fell back to sleep, though, and... there it is. So succinct...

Full Circle Writing

Yep, me again, talking about the importance of proper writing skills.
Today it was inspired by this site, which speaks of handwriting: http://www.hopechestlegacy.com/index.php?page=writing-desks

It has just dawned on me how history often repeats itself, and how
things often come full-circle. Is this beginning to occur with
literacy in some places? Doing much genealogical research as of late,
I am quite familiar with the concept that last names were often
misspelled or misread during censuses, and how many folks were so
illiterate they scarcely could write their own names.

So is this how it is to be, then? A good majority of the populace
able to write well, but a tiny percentage in comparison able to write
properly? Shall we have scribes again?

I hope not.

~nv