Sock Monster!

My favorite part of knitting socks is right after I turn the heel. After there's about an inch or so of the foot part done, the sock in progress handily doubles as a hand puppet. The double pointed needles create little horns or tusks. I frequently make my sock monster attack my cats and talk to my friends.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as proof that I should not have access to technology, I present to you Sock Monster: The Movie

We Got Equal Rights on Ladies Night

Have I mentioned that I'm totally addicted to my new iPod? I am totally addicted to my new iPod.

My iPod co-addiction is Feminist Sweepstakes, by Le Tigre. It's their second most recent album, and I got it like, a year and a half ago and never really got into it. It's much more electronic and less punky than their first album. Since it's on the iPod, I got the delete Dyke March, probably the weakest song on the album, and also the one I've heard the most because I put it on a mix cd one time. The album suffers somewhat from sampling abuse, but I am willing to over look it because it's a feminist dance party. This album is just perfect for how I'm feeling right now: kinda angry, kinda like bopping around like an idiot.

The only problem is that sometimes I have issues keeping the feminist dance party inside. Note to self: Try not to wiggle to the music only you can hear, especially while walking to the bus stop. You saw the look that guy gave you yesterday.

That'll Do, Brain

So, I took the GRE today.

I got 760 verbal and 760 math. I have to wait to find out about the writing, since it is graded by human, not machine.

Oh, What A Good Girl Am I

Today I started my MIT application, did some canvassing for MoveOn, and studied for the GRE.

I'm not sure I've ever been this boring virtuous in my entire life. I fully expect to ascend to heaven any minute now.

I'm Doomed

Dear My Test-Taking MoJo,

Dude, remember how good we used to be at taking standardized tests? Remember the SATs? We totally rocked that shit. And the PSATs? National Merit 4 life, baby. Now, I know it's been a while. I know I've been doing this whole wacky "job" thing that doesn't involve a lot of multiple choice. I don't even know where my number 2 pencil is. But baby, I need you. And you know where you're not? The GRE fucking pratice test, that's where.

Why are we doing well on the vocab? No one does well on the vocab. All my really smart, huge vocab friends were all, "You will fail the vocab. It's normal. Do not be alarmed." But we're all "La la la, vocab," and then we get to the logic and you just completely shut down. Thanks a lot, test-taking mojo. Hi, computer programmer. You should be rocking the logic. But instead you just get to the point where Sally can't sit across from John and Bill has to sit next to Fred and instead of drawing a diagram, you just freak out.

Well, thanks a lot, brain. I'm doing this for you, you know. You're the one who has to be constantly stimulated with more information. You're the one who gets bored unless challenged. You want to go to MIT, you have to get us in first, okay? Either start rocking the junior high school math skillz, or stop being dissatisfied once you've assimulated all the available stimula.

God.

No Luv,
Cyn

I Entertain

Being the semi-domestic fake-adult that I am, I had a dinner party this weekend.

The menu: Lots of cheese and crackers and baguette pieces for appetizers. For dinner I made spanakopita (spinch pie in phylo dough), fried tofu (marinated in soy sauce and balsamic vinegar) and pasta with a raw sauce of tomatos, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella. Dessert was a chocolate pecan pie I made, and a key lime pie my roommate made.

We also somehow managed to drink over a bottle of wine each. Granted, we stretched it from 6 pm until 3 am, but I was shocked when I woke up with only a slight hangover. (Rumor has it others were not so lucky.)

I dug out my unused computer speakers, hooked them up to my iPod, made a "dinner party" playlist, and had nine hours of uninterrupted semi-appropriate music. Actually, I had two days of uninterrupted music, but I stopped after nine hours. God bless the iPod, I say.

As one would suspect from the over-indulgence in wine, the party was a sucess. The conversation sparkled, people seemed to like the food, and my friends were just as remarkably entertaining as always. And the thin, crunchy layer of phylo dough covering my kitchen turned out to be surprisingly easy to clean up.

Grad School Update: I have opened applications of UPenn and UC San Diego. I plan to open one with MIT, and am still considering University of Maryland, USC, and University of Texas at Austin.

Dissatisfied Customer

For everyone who was curious about how my Apple complaint turned out, this is the response I got to my complaint letter:

"Dear Cynthia,

The Apple Store Team"

I am not appeased. In fact, I can pretty much sum my feelings up as: "Dear Apple: Kiss my ass. Sincerely, Cynthia."

Dear Everyone: Sorry I Am Crazy

Have I mentioned that Proposition Cynthia Goes To Graduate School is making me insane? (I like to think of it as Prop. Cyn Grad. School. Dear Admissions Officers: Vote Yes on Prop Cyn Grad School!)

Major life changes have the tendency to make me a little cranky. This is good news for exactly no one. The last time I faced something like this was the summer after I graduated from college, before I moved to Philly. In a recent phone conversation, my own mother recently described me as being "a huge bitch" during that time period.

So, yeah, I'm stressed out and I can't sleep and I'm flipping out over everything and anything, and the fact that I'm crazy isn't making the application process any easier, thank you, brain.

I'm doing a little better tonight, because I bored my brain into submission by doing practice GRE tests. You know what I don't know shit about? The geometry involved with triangles inscribed in circles. I make it a practive to avoid triangles inscribed in circles in my life, I feel the GRE should respect that.

So, anyway, I'd like to preemptively apologize for any crazy bitch actions between now and sometime in May. I'm going to try really hard not to start screaming at random people for no reason, but I can't promise anything.

I Got Yer Flash Memory Right Here

The perfect geekgirl Valentine's day present: His n' Hers USB flash memory. Almost as good as heart-shaped jello shots.

I have to say, I have pretty much zero use for a flash memory stick, and yet the fact that it comes in coolio shapes like sushi and ducks and lego makes me want some. I just can't resist the geeky cuteness.

iPody Goodness

So I bought an iPod. This should come as a surprise to exactly no one. If you draw a Venn diagram of indie geekery and computer geekery, where the circles overlap you find the iPod and me. My iPod is a 4th Gen 40GB with the click wheel and the shiny, shiny goodness. Right now it's got 861 songs on it, and it hasn't even hit one gig yet.

Have I mentioned the click wheel is genius? It's not completely intuitive; it took me forever to figure out how to raise the volume, and I finally had to look it up online, but know that I know how it works it's totally fucking genius. Apple, you may make shitty products, but damn do you know design and HCI.

Obtaining the shiny new iPod was way more of a pain in the ass than any consumer interaction should be, let alone one in which I spend more money than my rent. I bought the iPod, no problem, brought it home, tried to sync it up . . . and discovered that it didn't work. Spent like, four hours on the Apple support website. It still didn't work. Called Apple tech support. Spent two hours with them. It's concluded the iPod is defective.

Now, if this wasn't Apple, this would be the part where I just went back to the store and exchanged it for one that worked. But because this was Apple, they have some policy where you have to work directly with them, and I had to wait until they Fedexed me a free shipping label, and then they Fedexed me back a brand new iPod. Which means I had to wait over a week to get an iPod that worked. Hey, Apple, aren't you supposed to be all "Up with People, The Customer Is Always Right, The Computer Is Your Friend"?

I've emailed them complaints about this using every complaint form I could find on their website, so we'll see if they attempt to win my favor with free shit and copious apologies. In the meantime, I will continue to feel smugly superior about my PC luvin' ways. (Apologies to Amy and my other Mac usin' friends. But that shit just ain't right.)

Mmmm, Sleep

Fall is making me want to hibernate.

Now that it's cold I've been leaving the house ten to fifteen minutes early in the morning, because I need that much time to convince myself to get out of bed, even though bed is warm and outside bed is cold. (Let's not even talk about how long it takes me to get out of my lovely hot shower.)

The heat at work is making me sleepy, too. I get all warm and cozy and before long I find myself wondering if anyone would really notice if I curled up under my desk and went to sleep. I have to crack my window and let in fresh cold air to wake myself up again.

There's just something about being all warm and cozy when it's cold outside. It makes me feel all comfy and safe and sleepy.

I would write more about this, but, well, I'm tired.

Top Ten

My trying to figure out where to apply for graduate school has kind of reached panic levels. The problem I'm having is finding a couple of "safety" schools. Finding top schools: no problem. But unfortunately there are very few computer science graduate school websites that say, "Hey, little girl, we will accept you even though you didn't do an honors project because you had a double major and a creative writing senior project and when you mentioned you were considering a cs honors project to your creative writing advisor he actually laughed at you." I have definitely looked at the websites of at least twenty-five schools that claim to have one of the top ten computer science graduate programs. Hey, guys, some of y'all are fibbing a little bit.

So anyone want to recommend schools with good computational linguistics programs? I feel I should mention that I am actually planning on applying to mostly really good schools, but it's always nice to have a back-up plan that's not "cry a lot and resign myself to never getting a PhD."

Excerpts From A Conversation On Cockblocking

Me: Obviously, she should have found her own ride home.
Em: Exactly. You would do it for me, I would do it for you, you would do it for Phil . . .
Me: Have I ever done it for Phil! Man, if I had a nickle for every time I'd done it for Phil, I'd have a lot of nickles.
Em: You could buy something nice with all your nickles.
Me: I could buy a pretty box to put my shiny nickles in.
Em: But then you wouldn't have any more nickles to put in the box.
Me: It'd be like the Gift of the Magi. Only to myself.
Em: The Gift of the Dumb-ass Magi to Herself.

Me: Parents just need to teach their children not to cockblock.
Em: Yeah. They need to have the sex talk, and then the cockblocking talk.
Me: "Sometimes, when two of your friends want to give each other a special kind of hug, you need to skedaddle."

Me: Remember that time we were in New Orleans, and we were hanging out with some dumb guys, and they were all, "You don't cockblock, I like that," and Julie was all, "Yeah, and we don't cuntblock either"?
Em: No.

Me: Don't block the box!
Em: That should be the Washington DC Motto.

Blue Mohair Shawl

I made this shawl (and also a sweater) out of a cone of mohair I got from WEBs. This is the Garter Lace Triangle Shawl from Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls.

Here's a close-up of the Stitch detail. I used size 10 needles.

I would have liked to have made it a little bigger; when I have it on it just covers my shoulders. Unfortunately, I ran out of yarn. I think if I were going to do it again, I'd use size 11 needles, but I like how it turned out over all. Right now it lives in my cubicle at work. It looks pretty, and when I get cold I can put it on.

Crisp + Bright 4 Eva

I am loving the fact that it's suddenly sweater weather. Hooray for crisp bright mornings and falling leaves! Huzzah for the death of humidity! I wore my new blue hoodie three times last week, and wore Skully today. Soon I plan to wear To Dye For (and to put some pictures of it up here). And of course, I still need to finish Under the Hoodie.

However, Fall, I've got one request for you. Could you slow things down a little bit? Last night I had to get an extra blanket out of the closet, and walking back from Naomi's at 10:45 pm I could see my breath. And let's not even talk about how cold it was waiting for the bus at 1 am last night. Fall, our relationship is still really new. I just don't want to move too fast. I want to savor all the moments, you know?

Things I Am Digging Lately

• That you can get your Netflix recommendations as an RSS feed. I actually got kind of absurdly geekily excited about this. But then, you all know how I feel about RSS.
• Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. I rented this from Netflix, because recently I'm all about the weird documentaries. (Example of my obsession: Last night I had a dream about trying to rent this documentary about the mole people in the subways in New York. I really want to see this documentary, but it's only available on VHS, and I only have DVD. If anyone reading this has the mole people documentary hook-up, help me out, yo.) Anyway, I watched it the other night while knitting with Naomi. It's about four men who are experts in various fields: a naked mole rat expert, a lion tamer, a topiary gardener, and a robotics expert. It's kind of about obsession, or eccentricity, but it also makes all these connections between the men's respective fields, and about humans' exertion of control over things, and it was just very complex and interesting. And almost immediately after I mailed it back to Netflix I wanted to watch it again, because I felt like I hadn't been paying enough attention the first time and I missed things. And then I felt kind of like I might want to watch it a lot. And then I was in Tower Records and they had too many things I wanted, so I thought I would look for Fast, Cheap and Out of Control because I thought they probably wouldn't have it, but they did have it and so I bought it.
• Other Awesome Documentaries: Devil's Playground (About the Amish! Hot Bonnet Action!), Spellbound, and The Weather Underground.
• The new Tom Waits album. My friend Adam is going to see Tom Waits play in Seattle, and I am so jealous. I am super in love with the fact that there's flipbook Tom Waits action in the liner notes. Tom, if you're reading this, I will give you a ride to the top of the hill any time.
• Freaks and Geeks. I missed this TV show when it was actually on, because, you know, me and the TV, not so much. But I've been renting it from Netflix, and man, so good! So funny and yet cringingly accurate about high school.
• Best American Essays 2004. I haven't actually read this yet, but I have high hopes for it. I read the knitting essay while waiting for Jill in Borders, and then I noticed that the next essay was this awesome taxidermy article from the New Yorker, and so I had to buy it. I am obsessed with strange and quirky nonfiction lately.
• Together. Together is a Swedish movie that's set in a commune in the 70s, and it's just so good. It's about all of these people who are all a little messed up in the way real people are, and they're all trying to do the right thing and completely fucking it up, and there's idealism and cheap socialist jokes and hideously awkward children. Watching this movie makes me feel like there might be some hope for all of us. Which is not a feeling I have a hell of a lot.

Lyrics from Various CDs I Bought Yesterday

they're gonna find intelligent life up there on the moon
and the canterbury tales will shoot up to the top of the best seller list
and stay there for 27 weeks

and the chicago cubs will beat every team in the league
and the tampa bay bucs will make it the way to january
and i will love you again
i will love you, like i used to
i will love you again
i will love you, like i used to
-The Mountain Goats, Cubs in Five, Nine Black Poppies

My city's still breathing (but barely it's true)
through buildings gone missing like teeth.
The sidewalks are watching me think about you,
all sparkled with broken glass.
I'm back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know.
They never take me anywhere but here.
-The Weakerthans, Left and Leaving, Left and Leaving

Bones sinking like stones
All that we've fought for
All these places we've grown
All of us are done for
-Coldplay, Don't Panic, The Garden State Soundtrack

Come closer look deep
You’ve fallen fast
Just like a plane on a
Stormy sea
She made up someone to be
She made up somewhere to
Be from
This is one business in the
World where that’s no
Problem at all
Every thing that is left
They will only plow under
Soon every one you know
Will be gone

But now she’s dead
She’s so dead
Forever dead and
Lovely now
-Tom Waits, Dead and Lovely, Real Gone

Mmmmm. So depressing. Cannot get enough.

Please Don't Feed the Animals

I went to the zoo with a bunch of my coworkers last Saturday. I hadn't been to the zoo since I was like, twelve, and it was really cool. I had forgotten how many totally weird animals there are out there. The Philly zoo has Naked Mole Rats, who are totally weird and awesome. (Check It: Naked Mole Rat Webcam. God bless the internet.)

We also saw Elephant Shrews, who are seriously cute. Jill convinced me to give up the goat farm dream in favor of a new dream of raising Elephant Shrews. (They're endangered, you know.)

It would have been perfect except for the man feeding cheetos to the bear.

As we were merrily wandering the zoo, looking at the animals, we chanced upon a large man in a rather unfortunate orange shirt who was cavalierly tossing cheetos into the sloth bear enclosure. He was doing this in front of both his children and a woman who was presumably his baby-mama, and next to a sign that very clearly said "Please do not feed the bear."

Jill approached him and very politely said, "Sir, please don't feed cheetos to the bear." He asked if she worked there, and at first she said yes, and he backed down. But then she elaborated that she used to work there, and he began to vehemently defend his right to feed cheetos to the bear. He said something along the lines of, "Well, I'm a member, and I don't need you telling me what I can and can't do," while going back to feeding the bear cheetos. As though feeding a bear cheetos is in any way a defendable act, or being able to feed the animals is a right that comes with zoo membership. As though cheetos are good for anyone, let alone zoo animals. (I later told Jill, "Well, clearly cheetos are meant for wildlife. After all, there's a cheetah on the package.)

At least the woman who was pelting the zebras with peanuts stopped when confronted about it.

Year

Dear Neal,

Well, it's been a year. It was really convenient of you, to die on Columbus Day, so I could remember it. I'm terrible at dates. I don't remember your birthday, and so it came and went, sometime in the summer (June? July?) and I was none the wiser.

The night you died, before I knew you had died, I suddenly thought, "I should call Neal. I should find out how he's doing." I've thought of you every day since then. It's almost a routine: lie in bed, stare at the ceiling, think about death.

Sometimes I am frustrated, because there's nothing I can do to bring you back. Even if I could, even if I was someone from a myth, Orpheus, Persephone, even if I could find you and fight my way to you and bring you back to life, baby, I have no idea what I would say to you once I had you back. You spent so much time and energy trying to not to live anymore. The people I talked to who knew you said you were happy, you were better, it was really just an accident. But I have to think that when they say happy, they mean happy for you, because I never knew you to be happy.

I can never figure out what you would say about a given situation, and that makes me sad. Talking to you always gave me new perspective. You were so smart, and you knew so much, and you were funny. No one who didn't know you well expected you to be funny, but you were. And I've never met anyone as smart as you were. You were kind, too. You were really, truly, a good person, I think, and god knows that's rare.

Sometimes I think you're the ghost boy in my back pocket. I listen to the music you gave me, I go to the shows of bands that you liked, and I think you are with me, a little. I wouldn't be me if not for knowing you. I am better for having you in my life, and if I am sadder, it was still worth it. I hope that I made your life better. I hope I didn't make anything worse. I hope I made you happier than you would have been without me.

I miss you.
Cynthia

Blue Hoodie

I finished the knitting on this hoodie like, two months ago, and only finally got around to buying a zipper and sewing it in this month. I was totally unmotivated to finish back when it was still a million degrees, but it's starting to be fall, so I decided to sew a zipper in and start wearing it.

I made this using the pattern from Hip To Knit. I have not been terribly impressed by the Hip to Knit patterns. The garments themselves are pretty cute, but her patterns tend to be overly simplistic. I think she could make things a little more complicated, and it would be just as easy to knit, but finishing would be a lot easier and the finished garment would look nicer. I know it's a book aimed towards beginning knitters, but I think that just means it's more important to spell everything out, because beginning knitters won't be able to figure things out for themselves. For this hoodie, for example, you knit everything in its own seperate piece - one back, two sleeves, two fronts, two front pockets, and two hood halves - and then sewed them all together. I think that it would have turned out a lot better and been a lot easier to finish if she'd had you pick up stitches for things like the hood and the pockets instead. I've had similar issues with a lot of patterns from Hip to Knit.

But other than my gripes with the book, I think the hoodie turned out lovely. This is a sweater I can seem myself wearing a lot. I knit it to replace a sweatshirt hoodie that I wear all the time in the fall and spring, and I definitely think it can fulfill that role.

I knit it using Lana del Oro yarn and size 9 needles.

The Debates

People in the debates keep saying things like, "You can see how the war is going on TV every night."

Some of us don't have the moving picture box, okay? You're alienating tens of non-tv watchers listening to the debates streaming from the NPR website, Mr. Fancy Politician on the TeeVee.

Oh man, I think George Bush just said "internets." It's not plural, and you are not down with the kids, sir.

Whoa, George Bush just freaked out. Awesome. Yeah, I bet you yell the name Tony Blair aloud a lot, don't you, Mr. President.

Is it wrong if I love it when John Kerry gets all bitchy? He's all, "We balanced the budget," and I'm like, "FACE!"

"What is a compasionate conservative, anyway?" Snap!

Man, George Bush is shrill. And I know from shrill.

Is he really advocating trickle-down economics? Shut it, you grating monkey man.

"Good steward of the land"? How dumb does he think we are? Also, did anyone else read that totally depressing article in this weeks New Yorker about how we're just totally fuct in terms of fossil fuels? My favorite part of the article is the quote from the guy who's all, "If people cared about oil imports they would buy different cars. In response to 9/11, people started putting flags on their SUVs and buying Hummers." Also, the guy who says, "The two candidates, with due respect, are lying to people, or they don't know what they are talking about."

I realize that when John Kerry says, "I have a plan," as he does all the goddamned time, he does have an actual plan that's up on his website and I could read it if I was so inclined. However, I always kind of expect him to continue and be like, "It's written right here! On this cocktail napkin! In lipstick!" Although I guess that would be more fitting if it were George Bush who had a plan.

Bush doesn't think the Patriot Act infringes our rights at all. Well, that's nice. Maybe he can explain to Jill why she got her bank account shut down because of the Patriot Act.

Did George Bush just say that the constitution is anti-slavery? Because I believe that the 3/5ths Compromise says otherwise. Also, Oooo, you're against slavery. That's revolutionary.

My uterus says, "Go, Kerry!"

Oh man, I love the mistake question woman. I would like to marry her and have her babies.

Man, wouldn't it be great if someone said something new in one of these debates? Really, who doesn't know where Bush & Kerry stand on these issues? BOR-ING.

Hee. Haters. Bush is all, "Dude, don't hate the playa, hate the game, Osama."

Dear John Darnielle, My Love Is True

Dear John Darnielle,

I realize that you are very much older than me, and also you are married, and also you have never actually met me. But just in case you were wondering, my love for you is deep and unwavering. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, like that time last year when I had a party and I played Tallahassee at 4 am and was all drunk and belligerent and made people dance with me and to this day my friends mock me about it by putting on this horrible fake drunk voice and slurring, "This cd fucking rocks! I don't care what anybody says!" I realize that the point to that story may appear to be that I am sometimes a drunk asshole, but I am an occasional drunk asshole with a pure and untainted love. Also, if not for drunken declarations of love, I would never date anyone ever, but that is another issue.

John Darnielle, you comfort me when I am sad. You have written a song for every one of my break-ups. In fact, I'm actually making a mix cd with a Mountain Goats song for every relationship I've ever had. Some people would just slam their hand in a door or something, but I prefer to torture myself in more complex ways involving conceptual mix cds.

Hey, remember how you kept breaking guitar strings at the concert the other night? That was really cute. I break things all the time, too. Like, the other day, I was walking down the hall at work, and I just kind brushed up against the pile of empty water bottles from the water cooler, and the bottles were all "clunk crash boom!" and I was all, "EEEP!" and my coworkers were all, "Ha ha ha!" I guess that's not really a super relevant story, because I don't actually break anything in it, other than my pride.

Yeah, and you know how you tell funny stories, and sometimes you get all distracted in the middle, but it's really cute and amusing? I do that too! Sometimes, I do it in fake letters I write to you and post on my website.

Luv,
Cyn

PS. I am totally not just some loser indie stalker girl. I'm a loser indie stalker girl with pink hair and a website.

Mountain Goats Pictures

Here are a bunch of pictures from the show last night. They're all pretty awful, as pictures go, because I am terrible at taking photos. I didn't include the huge percentage of pictures that turned out ot be of the heads of the people in front of me. Anyway, here you go: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The show was really good. I liked John Vanderslice, who I had never heard before. John Darnielle told a number of amusing anecdotes. I was excited that I had heard almost all of the songs he played, even though that indicates a sort of disturbing amount of familiarity with the (enormous) Mountain Goats catalog. I'm really excited about the next album; all of the new stuff I've heard him play has just been amazingly good.

Desk

This is my new desk at work. Yes, that is a tiara resting on my computer. I wear it when I become cranky at work, and it makes me feel better. Also, you will note that I have totally fun fabric cubicle walls on which I can thumb tack amusing things. I like this.

I spent all day today fixing problems with the program I'm developing, most of which were configuration problems and not code problems. (Which, in non-computer speak, means that all of my code worked, but the different pieces of code didn't want to talk to each other.) Or problems that, after an hour of searching, turned out to be because it was connecting to the wrong database because a file was set wrong. I actually got a lot done, but oh man was it frustrating.

But then after work I went and got yummy vegetarian Chinese food with Jill and then went and saw the Mountain Goats with Naomi. The Mountain Goats were awesome! More on that tomorrow. (With pictures! That are kind of awful!)

The Crimper In Action

Here are the Crazy Eighties pictures: Star, Little Sam, me, being goth, goth close-up, Jesus, Neil and Dan, and Amy, Tim, and some very un-eighties technology.

Sarcasmo has some Eighties Pictures as well. (This one is my favorite.)

Fish are Cool

Happy Birthday to Phil, former pinkhairedroommate and future neuropathic doctor.

So, did y'all hear about SpaceShipOne? I think that's neat. In fact, that was pretty much my entire reaction. "Neat!" I thought to myself. Well, that and, "Why is Google's design different?" I realize that in the past, I have been against space, but I am really just against government funding of space. Private industry in space is a-okay with me. It's neat!

I am actually much more excited about the fact that the Monterey Bay Aquarium has been sucessfully keeping a Great White Shark in captivity. I really, really love aquariums in general, and the Monterey Bay one is really super. Aquariums seem less sad that zoos for some reason, possibly because I feel like fish probably don't really realize they're in captivity. Because fish are dumb. But they're also really amazing looking. There are fish that look like complete aliens, like sunfish, and fish that look like prehistoric anachronisms, like sturgeon.

I grew up in a town that had a really cool local aquarium, the Cabrillo Beach Aquarium, and so every other field trip I took as a child was to the aquarium, and in the summer I took classes at the aquarium, and in high school I used to torture my friends who volunteered at the aquarium by trying to get them to do the grunion dance. My high school was actually part Marine Science Magnet, although I was not a part of that. One summer, I went to some sort of Ocean Summer camp on Catalina Island. Anyway, the upshot of this all was that once, when I was with Julie at the Biodome in Montreal, I told her that sturgeon were my second favorite fish, and I totally didn't think it was a weird thing to say. Like in my head, it was totally normal that one would have a first favorite fish (Garibaldi), and then a second favorite fish (Sturgeon). I was twenty years old, and it had never even occured to me that some people might not have a favorite fish at all.

All of this is why, if I ever actually get it together to do that West Coast road trip I keep claiming I'm going to do, I am totally stopping at the Monterey Aquarium and checking out the Great White Shark. Cause, seriously, y'all? That is some cool shit.

Totally Rad

The Dresden Dolls have a video for Coin-Operated Boy up on their website. If you are not excited about this, I don't want to be your friend.

We had an eighties-themed surprise party for my friend Neil today, which meant, yes, crimped hair. According to the box of the crimper that Sarcasmo bought, crimping is the hot new trend. I'm excited, because my hair looks oddly attractive crimped. (Although the pink makes it kind of hard to tell that it is crimped.) I went to the party dressed goth/punk eighties, and sadly was not able to get my hair as big as I would have liked.

Pictures will follow shortly.

Lens Cap

I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow today. My review is basically one word: Shiny. We are talking about a movie that featured both giant robots and dinosaurs, after all.

Most of the reviews I'd heard had said bad things about the characters and plot, but I felt that as a send-off of 1930s pulp it was both amusing and well-done. Of course, I did hate Gweneth Paltrow's character, and we had to stop our after-movie discussion of plot holes for fear of where it would lead. But the plot was definitely better than I would expect for a movie so focused on effects. Not deep or anything, but very enjoyable.

Plus, I heart Dex, because I am a geek.

I also watched Mean Girls, which was as good as everyone said. It was extra clever and realistic for a teen comedy. I read somewhere that Tina Fey based a lot of the movie on a non-fiction book that a sociologist wrote about cliques, and I could definitely see some of that. (Unless, um, I didn't read it and made it up. Which is possible.) I don't understand all the Lindsey Lohan buzz that came out of this movie. I mean, she's cute and all, but there are a lot of cute young actresses out there.

Noah

I am not sure I have described the flood in my office accurately enough. It has destroyed the carpets on an entire half of our floor. Yesterday they were still trying to save the carpets, and were spraying them with mildew killer and cleaning solvent. They were spraying the carpets in the small, windowless, over-heated office that I sometimes have to do work in, while I was working in it, and I left work yesterday fuming (if you will pardon the pun) over being forced to work in a box full of poison.

Today they have given up on the carpets. The carpets are being ripped up and replaced, a process we are told will take two weeks. Prior to the flood, there was one person (and me, who moved that day) working on what is now the dry side. There were 6 to 12 people working on what is now the wet side, depending on the day. Today the managers have returned, and so instead of all just squeezing into one office, as we have been for the last two days, we are discovering previously unused cubicles and rerouting phone lines and getting the network set up in new places.

The two other programmers spent a half hour sawing through years of dried paint on the window in the airless office we sometimes have to work in. They finally pried it open, and in wafted the unmistakeable scent of bacon, coming from the restaurant below us. On the wet side, the stench of chemicals is being replaced by the smells of comfort food fusion.

There is a sense of surreality to all of this, mixed with a suspicion that we are somehow cursed. We are on the second floor. The restaurant below us is untouched. None of the other floors in our building were hurt. And yet we are an office of refuges, toting around our computers and phones in search of dry land.