I have made some progress on the Giant Video Conversion Project (GVCP) front.

Having tried several apps that edit either movie clip content or various movie/data files (including Gordian Knot, Auto Gordian Knot, Moviemaker, and a few others) I have settled on AutoGK as being most useful for my purposes.

The apps that edit the content of movie clips (Moviemaker, Quicktime Pro) are certainly fun, but don't really suit my ultimate purpose of GETTING A &*%$ 2-HOUR MOVIE FILE ONTO A SINGLE DISK, dangit. (Can you tell the means has far outstripped the end at this time?)

I think Gordian Knot might be best, but there are some things I still can't figure out about it. However, AutoGK is so far doing just what I need it to do (compress my MPG-2 files). Maybe if I were more technically sophisticated, I would scorn it, but it seems pretty cool for now. And it's free! (If this whole deal works, I am so going to donate to Len0x, the creator of GK.)

At this point, I could now theoretically capture all my videos onto files that would each fit on a single CD, but they could only be played on my computer (they're avi files). This might even be acceptable as a final outcome. (It is still progress, as before I would have needed 2 disks for most movies regardless of the format.)

Now all I need to do is see if I can do a conversion for burning that allows the resulting CDs to be played (as VCDs) in a standalone DVD player. For this part of the project, the instructions suggest using Nero. While it's $80-$100 new, it is also available used on Amazon and eBay for a lot less. (I paid $13 including shipping.)

So basically, I am waiting to get this app in the post. Then, if I can indeed create VCDs that will play in the DVD player, I'm totally golden. If I can't, then I'm still pleased, as I can at least have a collection of all my movies, albeit watchable via computer only.

If this all works, I will post a summary of the how-to.

If you are the one person on the face of the planet who doesn't know that Revenge of the Sith contains the genesis of Darth Vader, then this post contains a spoiler. Unfortunately, you already read it, so now you might as well continue.

TheLimey pointed out that in the scene where the new Sith gets his Darth name, his evil mentor [dementor?] really doesn't take the opportunity to be menacing at all. As he says "You shall be Darth...Vader" his pause is ripe for Monty Python-esque farce. "You shall be known as Darth...Bunnyrabbit. --No! I mean, Vader." "You shall be known as Darth...Nicely. --No! I mean, Vader."

What bothers me is that while two of the Darths (Vader and Sidious) have perfectly good evil names apparently created by removing the "in-" prefix from words with negative connotations, this whole "Darth Maul" thing came completely out of the blue. It should have followed the pattern, if I can call two instances a pattern, which I can't.

This leads inevitably to which other Darth names they could have chosen instead of "Maul" (I won't even go into the dopey Maul character itself).

For example, using the negative-word protocol, we could have had "Darth Terrogator", "Darth Vective", "Darth Jection", "Darth Quisition", "Darth Culcation", or "Darth Cendiary". Or alternatively by just using any ol' word beginning with "in-", we could have had all sorts of great names.

This is where it gets fun:

For starters, there would be "Darth Timacy", "Darth Termission", "Darth Testines", "Darth Troverted", "Darth Tolerable", "Darth Terpretation", and "Darth Vigorate". Then we could go on to "Darth Boardmotor", "Darth Dependent", "Darth Controvertible", "Darth Hibitions", "Darth Diana", "Darth Dy 500", and so on.

The possibilities are endless!

(I will let TheLimey post the ones he came up with, so as not to steal them.)

Over the weekend I kept thinking of things to blog, but now that I'm here in the lab I can't really remember them.

Except the incident in which I set up PCTV to record some shows one evening through my VCR (which I normally use as a tuner for my TV), and then forgot and left the VCR tuned to the wrong channel. So, I captured about three hours of stuff I had absolutely no interest in seeing.

Also that I just now, in my late thirties, read the Tripods series. I liked it a great deal. At first, I just read a few pages a night before dropping into a dead sleep, but over the past week I somehow found time to become engrossed in the books and devoured them. For my next catching-up-on-teen-classics trick, I will be reading Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence. (Why is it a sequence and not a series, anyway?) From the few pages I've read so far, it's very like the Narnia chronicles. Which is fine with me; I'm not looking for great literature, but entertainment.

This morning I accidentally printed out a short list of student grades on the front of one of the precious Invitation Envelopes that I left loaded in the printer last night.

D'oh! (Okay, who wants that one?)

Oh yes, and we saw three films in three days over the weekend. I was pleased with Star Wars, perhaps by comparison to the recent ones. Moreover I was very, very happy about Hitchhiker's Guide. I think I would go see it again. (Not to leave you in suspense, we also saw Kicking and Screaming with the young football coachees en masse. It was cute.)

This is the week when all the baby squirrels born about 6 weeks ago are doing their first explorations of the scary below-tree area. It has been very fun for me when on campus to watch their first clumsy, coltlike endeavors that inevitably end in scampering back to the tree full force. For example, in trying to not get caught by The Scary Blowing Leaf or The Scary Car Noise.

I got to see the mama of a singleton sitting in the grass at the base of their tree, grooming the the little one as s/he clambered all over her and clung for all the world like a little monkey to her front. S/he ran for the safety of the tree when confronted with The Scary Flying Peanut, though Mama ran over and grabbed it.

There was also a treeful of four siblings of varied courage whom I began teaching about getting peanuts from strangers (all the wrong messages, I know). They didn't seem to connect the human throwing things with the food that began appearing about the foot of the tree, but in time, they will.

Let's Just Agree to Call Her Candy

I can find just as much material referring to "Candace Bergen" as to "Candice Bergen" in a general online search, but the ABC official cast bio listing for Boston Legal refers to her as "Candice",* as does that [fount? font?**] of all media, allmediaguide (movies domain), (for whom I used to edit copy, BTW).

Therefore I am going to go with my catfight searcher and use "Candice".


*You may notice that I have lately just given up the fight and begun using that British-variety inside-the-other-punctuation-marks type of quotation mark, whatever it's called.

**I want to say "font", but I feel the uncomfortable semantic clash of its old-fashioned meaning and the meaning that refers to Garibaldi 12 or Helvetica 8 Bold.

Although mine don't ever seem to be as good as Library Liddy's, I still get some amusing search terms from time to time. Today's are: "albino panther"; "woman are evil" (those who think women are evil don't seem to know that there is more than one woman); "Candice Bergen catfight"; the omnipresent "UTI treatment"; "nonwords" (yay!); and whoever the heck keeps looking up "old-tyme porn".

Speaking of nonwords, I heard an almost nonword. Well, it's a word, but a flagrantly misused one. "Contents".

As in, "taking my words completely out of contents".

In the continuing saga of my attempts to reduce my VHS tapes to digital format, I have made enough progress to know that there is a LOT more to this than meets the eye. It sounds simple enough: play a tape, capture it in digital form, and then freeze that for later consumption.

However.

It appears that The Industry in general try to keep things from being that simple [paranoid interpretation] in order to reduce copyright infringement. Also, despite looking like the really simple little objects we treat them as, CDs and DVDs are actually incredibly complicated wads of numbers and calculations and so forth [technical interpretation].

I have managed to capture various items such as an episode of Monarch of the Glen, my Yoga for Du mmies tape, and Nanny 911, etc., and burn them to CVD for later (somewhat blurry) viewing. I've been able to play these in both VCD and SVCD format on TheLimey's DVD player. (This bodes well for the future, when this will be the thing I play my movies on.) I have also been able to play them on my computer.

I have had a crash course in the basic characteristics of MPEGs (-1, -2, and even -4) as well as some issues regarding the differences between VCDs, SVCDs, CDs, DVDs, and even weird things like XCVDs. Not to mention a beginning understanding about some coding issues regarding MPEGs, and some of the grey-market applications with which a person might modify their characteristics.

The reason all this information is even necessary is that I don't have a DVD burner, so I must burn the MPEGs as a CVD. Now, it turns out that a 1-hour program fits snugly on a standard 650-700 MB disk if you're using cruddy MPEG-1 format. This means that a standard 2-hour movie requires two CDs.

I also tried capturing a standard 2-hour show in the much nicer MPEG-2. This format would have taken 4 CDs to record!

This would all not be that big a deal (except for the whole "changing the disk in the middle of the program"--remember laser disks of the '80s? Heh) -- except that I think I probably have about 300 VHS tapes to transfer. Even at 50c a pop this would mean $300 in disks alone. For that price, I might as well buy a dang DVD burner.

However!

It looks as though there are some ways for an intrepid person to get into the MPEG files and fiddle about with them before burning them, in order to burn a 2-hour file onto a single disk. Possibly even MPEG-2s.

I think I have found some ways to do this, but all of them involve manipulating the guts of files whose surfaces I have barely even seen before. I am not sure if this is easier or harder than one of you programming types attempting self-taught psychoanalysis. At least my MPEGs are unlikely to harm anyone but me if I miscalculate. (That's what I'm telling myself.)

I think I will probably use the instructions I found for altering MPEGs with Gordian Knot (after killing off that clean-removing DAE spyware/adware, of course). While Gordian Knot is meant for those with DVD burners, it looks like one can use it just for editing MPEG files.

I like the PCTV USB2 for capturing MPEGS, but for burning them---eah. It seems to create files that make my computer hang up permanently instead of playing, although they play fine in the standalone. Also, the files burned thusly all lose exactly 30 seconds, for some reason, AND the PCTV burner renames them unimaginatively as "Track 1, Track 2", and so forth.

I have found that if I capture them with the PCTV and then burn them to disk with plain ol' Sonic media burner (bundled with computer), the disk works as it should in the computer, and the tracks remain their original length, as well as retaining the names I gave them when capturing, such as "DrWho_Dalek_1".

However, I have not yet had a chance to try these Sonic-burned disks in the standalone. Hopefully it will accept them as it did the previous ones.

I've been selling off some of my possessions on eBay as a way to whittle them down before the big move in August. What I've learned is that if you're not careful (or ridiculous) about how much shipping you charge, you may end up paying someone to take your stuff. For example, I did sell that Borg-head collector's mug, but after shipping to California, I basically made $2 from the sale.

I also sold a big poster for $15. Unfortunately the mail store said that shipping for it would be $52. !!! Good grief. I have told the buyer that I will have to refund his purchase price if I can't find a vastly cheaper way to send it.

This drastically affects my plans to sell off all those Beanie-Baby gifts that should have been gathering value all these years, but in actuality have been gathering only dust and are worth about $2 each (from what I've seen in others' listings).

I am also having that terrible feeling of having so many things to catch up with that when I anxiously awake before my alarm or even dawn, I already feel behind. Unfortunately, most of it is not stuff I can take home, but rather stuff that has to be done in situ. Dangit.

The other night there was a stranger rape (as opposed to the far more frequent rapes by those who people know) in the building where my department is. In fact, the floor just below mine. And it wasn't even dark out at the time--maybe 8pm, if that.

There was a student working in the biology lab and her lab partner left briefly to get something to eat, and that's all it took. It sounds like the attacker may have been scoping out the situation for a while; who knows. I can't tell you how many nights I've spent alone in that building working on my data and pacing the halls while taking phone breaks. Everybody's a little weirded out, but nobody's talking about it. This is somewhat strange for a psychology department.

Today I accompanied my clinical supervisor to a debriefing for some people who work in the building. But really, it could have been any of us--he could have chosen any floor. I think we should have a debriefing amongst ourselves, too.

I'm feeling pretty resentful that I now don't feel I could comfortably work alone in my own department, should I choose to. Or walk home across campus in the evening, let alone at night.

Even if they catch this particular assailant, it'll be all the campus women who are paying with our freedom, once again.

The wedding singing went well, although I was a nervous wreck up until the moment of the actual singing. (In truth, I was pretty cranky for two or three days beforehand.) However, no one seemed to care or even know about my made-up part of the responsorial, including the priest.

It's just too bad that they didn't feel like singing along to the chorus that was already in the songbook. I think one guy in the entire congregation sang along. (Instead of making up the verses only, I could have made up the entire thing and it would have turned out about the same.)

At the reception, several people individually felt compelled to tell me they felt guilty about not joining in on the chorus, but felt they should leave me to do the singing. In other words they were chicken!

A goodly number of people also mentioned getting goosebumps during the Ave Maria. As a good clinician, I should have inquired about other symptoms such as nausea, shaking, hot flushes, heart palpitations, chest pain, a sense of suffocation or choking, and other symptoms of anxiety. However, I forgot to do so in my relief at having finally finished.

The bride has since reported that scores of people have been asking her if I "do weddings". But you know, I tried all that before grad school, and it didn't go anywhere. At least I don't have to sing at my own wedding, as Argotnaut did at hers. Sheesh! Talk about piling on the pressure.

Today I trained in the use of some instruments for assessing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It was tiring, as any new job is. Even if this isn't strictly a job, but rather volunteering in order to help a colleague with his dissertation. And also to rack up some assessment hours for the next time I try to apply for internship.

The omniscient receptionist/secretary/executive assistant/whatever had a little goldfish in a little bowl. She informed me that his name was "Gil" (or perhaps "Gill") but that his nametag was away due to fishbowl cleaning.

"Ah--I can tell what nationality he is, then," I replied.

"What's that?" she asked, cocking her head.

"Finnish!"

That will now be placed on the new name tag.

Tomorrow is the day I sing at a friend's wedding. In addition to the aforementioned Ellens Gesang, the priest is also having me do an alleluia (which consists of singing "alleluia" a few times) and a responsorial (which consists of me singing something that the "audience" replies to, also in song).

Not being nor having been raised Catholic, these are not exactly familiar things burned into my memory. After the wedding rehearsal, I took home the church songbook in order to practice the chosen responsorial. Since I read music at about the same level that someone who only knows the alphabet reads normal words, I had to be pretty creative and persistent to figure out which notes were there on the page.

It wasn't until last night that I realized those were only the notes for the chorus that the congregation sings back to me: the verse that I sing by myself was simply printed out in words--there's no music! (I wondered why the 12 notes of the chorus wouldn't accommodate the 16 or 17 syllables of the verse.)

Naturally, I decided I'd just have to make up a verse. I'm very glad that I have that little recording wizard application, because it allowed me to sing and record a line, then pause it, then sing the next line and pause it again while I picked out the notes.

I ended up with an MP3 of the whole song (albeit a bit clumsily sung) as I've written it, so I can burn it to CD and hopefully into my memory as well by listening to it over and over.

Today I will be working at a nearby hospital with a colleague who is collecting research data so I won't have much chance to sit around listening to it before tomorrow, though. Yikes!

I have been running out of my favorite non-steroid inhaler (Serevent*) during the past couple weeks, meaning I've been reduced to digging out some shoulda-been-thrown-out-last-year canisters.

If I weren't singing in that wedding this weekend, I probably would have temporarily gone back to the steroid inhaler. But it messes with my voice in the way that running over a saxophone with a car does. Sound still comes out, but the range and quality are severely affected, and it takes more effort to even get sound to come out. It feels uncomfortable. (And I'm sure as heck not going to use steroids long-term, considering the associated bone density problems and low birth-weight concerns.)

So I grudgingly (it costs about $100) came to the conclusion that I will have to get a refill on the Serevent, because my lungs aren't better enough yet to entirely do without.

I called the University Health Center and left a message asking if I could get any samples of Serevent, or if I needed to actually get the scrip filled. I asked about the samples because I had gotten samples of some other meds earlier this year (steroid inhaler, Singulair), although I knew that I had used up my quota for those particular things. Therefore I wondered if I still could get samples of Serevent, or if it was a blanket moratorium on all meds.

So the nurse returned my call an hour or so later.

"It says here," she began normally enough, "that you want samples of Serevent."

"I also see on your chart," (here she began scolding me outright,) "that in February of this year we told you that you could no longer get samples--"

(--here I tried to interject that I knew I had no more samples of those other meds and simply wondered if that also applied to meds of which I had not yet gotten samples, but she overrode me--)

"--and also that We discontinued you on the the Serevent."

"We" did?? Huh.

From what I remember, and I remember a lot, what actually happened was that the student-docs and their supervisor tried to convince me that it was in my best interest to basically use steroids forever, and I disagreed, although I was certainly willing to use them in a crisis. This does not mean that "We" mutually came to a health-care plan that excluded Serevent.

And this nurse wasn't even present for those visits. How presumptuous of her to take absolute ownership of my health care (or should I say "symptom care") in such a way. I'm thirty-seven years old, for Pete's sake, not a teenage freshman.

And how dare she treat me like I was trying to pull some kind of scam for simply asking if I was allowed to get Serevent samples! Dang.

I bet she goes home and bosses people around and they resent her for it.

At least, I hope they do.

At least the pharmacy still had my prescription when I called them.



*Apparently I've gotten over the whole thing where Serevent has been shown to cause asthma deaths.

I just realized that my time is running out fast for fixing something dumb I did with my domain name last year.

I've had that doctorlizardo.com (where all my stuff is hosted) through Yahoo Geocities for a while. Last year about this time I got a notice that my license on the domain name was running out and I'd better renew it posthaste.

Now, normally I do look at forms and things extremely closely and thus avoid being scammed. And I wasn't exactly scammed... But I did end up unbeknownst to me switching my domain name registration to some dang Australian registry service, instead of simply renewing it where I was, which is clearly what they intended to make me think I was doing.

So as of tomorrow my time on that Australian registry is up if I don't cough up some USD into their Aussie coffers. Now I have to figure out how to get it back to Yahoo--or whatever--in a day.

It's one of those things that I know enough about to screw it up, but then only really learn about it in depth when I'm trying to fix whatever I did.

It started out as a cold day, but has warmed up to only somewhat chilly. At least the sun is shining, and it's not snowing and/or sleeting as it has been the past few days.

Furthermore, I got the replacement charger for my phone, which is here in the computer lab with me sucking up juice even as we speak (so to speak).

Not to mention, it's been a multi-squirrel morning here on campus. Some very pregnant-looking ones out there, including one mom-to-be who was too hungry to be satisfied with just one peanut and juggled several small ones at once before hopping off. I also got a glimpse of just one chipmunk before it saw me and dived down its tiny hole next to the walkway.

Nevertheless, I tossed one tiny peanut down the hole. [shaking fist] "You won't get away from my feeding you!"

Can't get "Fly Me to the Moon" out of my head. Especially the string-plucking parts. (I feel like I should be wearing a lemony chiffon dress that floats around me when I hear that kind of music.)

It's a good thing my neighbor has wi-fi, so at least I have internet. I feel so cut off without my phone. I don't have a landline, I don't have an office phone, I just have my cell phone. So being without it is beginning to make me feel kind of panicky. I know--people did without them for millennia. (But don't you think you'd like to have a cell phone if you were somewhere hiding from a cave bear?)

Anyway, I feel lonely, even though I'm not in much less contact with humans than usual.

* * * * * * * * * *

So, now I can make copies of my VHS tapes and then sell off the originals on eBay. (What would be unethical, for those of you who are wondering, is if I made copies and sold the copies on eBay.)

Considering that people sell $1 spells on eBay, fer chrissakes, as well as telephone "aura adjustments", perhaps I could make CD recordings of a relaxation session and sell those (containing long and short versions).

Not DVD movie clips, but only because I would have no idea what to wear for something like that.

And no video camera.

Or maybe I could do wedding drafting.

Now for the fun stuff.

My having a ridiculous number of VHS tapes (fig. 1) ...



Fig. 1: Many of my VHS tapes are on this shelf. But not all of them.


...combined with my upcoming move into a rather small space considering the number of residents (fig. 2) ...


Fig. 2: TheLimey trying to create enough space for all my books.


...means that I have been considering how to transfer the content of my VHS tapes to DVD. After looking into it at length, I have decided to go with the Pinnacle PCTV USB2.

I decided on it because I need a fast and easy way to make the transfer. I love that it's USB. True, firewire is better for audio/video stuff, and USB is a step down from that. But USB is a step down from "professional filmmaker" to "normal person creating stuff at home for their own use", so it's a step I'm glad to make.

Plus, not too many PC manufacturers are coming out with standard firewire-enabled products (as mine isn't). It's also a lot less costly than those standalone analog-to-DVD units. (I got mine new on eBay for $70USD including shipping!)

So. I got it for the whole transferring business. However, it turns out it has a lot of other neat-o capabilities. For example, it's a TV tuner on its own. This means you can take it travelling (I'm assuming you'd already be bringing your laptop) and never miss an episode of Dr. Who (as long as you are in Canada, where they still have decent programming on network TV.)

Not only that, you can view --I don't know, four? five? --channels at once in different windows on your PC screen. Or, as they advertise, "watch the game in a minimized window while you work!" (I have already allowed that TheLimey may take it to work to show off these capabilities once I get it set up.) Of course, you can then record what you're watching and capture still shots, too.

I accidentally left my phone on all night after yapping on it yesterday at length. So I thought I better charge it up during the day today, but...now that I've unpacked my weekend bag, it seems that what I have always feared has finally happened. I finally left my charger at TheLimey's. And we won't see each other for another five days or so.

I bit the bullet and ordered a replacement overnighted to the psych department (in case I'm not home to sign for it, as usual).

Of course, after I put the order through the site gave me a message that they are experiencing trouble processing credit card orders, so if I haven't gotten an email in 24 hours I should assume it went through.

Well, thanks for letting me know beforehand! That gives me plenty of time to fret and wish I'd used another company while not knowing if I'll get it tomorrow or the next day or not.

Weiners.

While packing for the weekend this evening, I have been watching a "new" used VHS tape: "WEBMASTER" ("No one...is safe...in cyberworld"--emphases mine).

It has everything you could possibly want from a Danish cyberpunk samurai flick dubbed into English. (It's more stylish than iPods and Mitsubishi Eclipses and Starbucks combined.)

So far, my favorite part is the LED-green contacts worn by one of the bit characters. But I also have to admire the way that the hero is constantly hanging upside-down in anti-gravity boots, even while logged in to his online security job via a headset complete with glowing eyepiece-display.

I really have no idea what's going on with the plot, however.

Best narrator statement so far: "I once had a racecar that drove 'round in circles until it died".

My Techno Junkie and Bridezilla aspects have come together to form a frightening creation. I stayed up until after 2am playing with the following image sequence, as you will see in a moment.

I used the Cosmi 3D Home and Garden Designer (which I picked up at the local supermarket for $5 three years ago and does not come with instructions!) to model the reception site, and then used Metacreations (now Corel) Painter 6--which is absolutely using an atom bomb to crack a walnut, even though it is now 4 versions old--to paint in some of the details.

This sounds like absolute playing, but I have some quite specific things I want. And since I will be busy enough preparing myself and actually being in the wedding ceremony, I won't be able to set up and decorate the reception site as I normally do for parties I throw. And this is quite a bit bigger and more important than any other party I've thrown so far!

Therefore I plan to get someone(s) I know to help me out by being my Reception Foreman and decorators and so on. When I reluctantly hand over the reins, I want them to have a clear idea of my design and plan, i.e.: reception blueprints.

Okay, so here's the actual site:



Here's my wireframe model. I made the floor first, then added two walls. I punctured the walls with four wide doors each to create the look of the pillars. Then I added the roof (it's not exactly like the real roof, but it was the closest one they had.)




Here it is fleshed out, and with a table added (actually a "coffee table" template, stretched out and colored white.)



Close-up of the "cake area":



Now, let's see what it would look like if the background were another planet: Hmmm...perhaps not. Okay, then, what about this background? I'll call it "Lothlorien":

Okay, okay. Just normal trees! (Repeated 12 X in circumference.) But the ground color function keeps subtracting blue from whatever color I apply. I'll have to fix that manually in Painter.




Okay, here's the drapery effect (I actually had the park people--bless them--go out and measure the shelter so I know how much to order):



And let's add a ruffle to the cake table. Now, granted, this is not the best Art in the world: I just wanted to get a sense of it in 3D.



Yes, there is a closer shot with the actual cake design, but if you want to see it you will have to email me. TheLimey insists on being surprised about what the design is. (I'm pretty excited about it--and my aunt is a well-known nature artist [as nature artists go] who, along with my mother, used to "do" wedding cakes.)

I could post the image and have a link, but I think it would be too tempting to peek, don't you?

Still trying to figure out how to record (or even just hear) spoken word via my Dell. I want to converse with Argotnaut in Germany, and record some relaxation sessions for clients, and...some vowel research thing Argot is doing.

I downloaded the trial version of Audio Record Wizard, which looks like a nifty application, and it appears to be working, yet...nothing happens. I can hear the computer's sounds through the headphones, but never anything through the mic.

My ignorance is such that I am not even sure if I have a sound card. Is that standard? (Guess I could look that up in my specs, huh?)

Also, my computer's clock keeps resetting itself to an hour earlier for some reason.


* * * * * * * *

Only seconds later .... !!!!


Now, I can RULE THE WORLD!!

As soon as I buy the licensed version, of course. (Only $24.95).


(Now I am free to create my "Human Imitations of Whale Songs for Lovers" CD.)


* * * * * * * *

Neat--it does wav files, too.
Anyone know which is better for recording stuff to CDs?

Spent much of the weekend being Bridezilla, embroiled in wedding-related activities, such as viewing the actual reception (i.e. "picnic") site, creating a guest list spreadsheet in Excel, involving various family members in planning, setting up a gift registry, etc. Not to mention surviving the Great April Blizzard of ought-five as well as having an online "conference" with Argotnaut (in Germany) and Frinkenstein (now back in Oregon).

I probably could have made TheLimey do the guest spreadsheet part, as that would have likely been a snap for someone in his field. However, a number of factors influenced my being the one (AKA "sucker") to do it. Primarily, I was ready to get down to it and make the guest list, while he was running around doing other very important things. (I won't say what exactly, but let's just say there was smoke and swearing involved.) To be fair, the other part was that I really didn't know exactly what I wanted until I sat down and began doing it.

It took a lot longer than I expected, but I was very proud of myself at having come up with a design that subtotaled the guests into categories according to who invited them, whether they would be one of the few "family and very close friends" squeezed into the miniscule chapel or only the reception, and so forth. With color coding.

When I first made my own guest list (the very first week we were engaged, of course) I immediately hid it away because I was embarrassed at having come up with over 50 people, while TheLimey had been saying he wanted an incredibly small wedding with approximately 3.5 people in attendance.

However, now that he has compiled his own guest list (under considerable duress), I feel vindicated because he came up with--shall we say--a lot more than I did, and will actually have to whittle his list down to some extent.

The other time-sucking thing was the gift registry. However, this was compulsively fun, as we decided to use felicite.com, which allows one to register for anything, anywhere (it's really a web-based gift-buying service rather than a registry proper). So you can have anything from items on a given store's website, to items at your local corner mom-and-pop store, to donations to a specific charity or organization, to donations towards your honeymoon trip. Guests simply log on and view what you want, and either buy it or just put money towards it.

Guests without internet access get to call a 1-800 number and speak with an Inefficient Carbon Unit who will process their gift over the phone. And then the items are delivered right to your house! It also has an RSVP database, whereby guests can either log on by themselves and RSVP, or else they can send you the traditional postcard and you can add the guests manually to the RSVP list yourself.

Therefore I spent quite a lot of time transferring kitchen items from our Amazon registry, adding new items (such as towels from department stores, movie theater tickets, and chocolate bars), looking up worthy charities, and arguing with TheLimey about whether to put light blue bedsheets or only the white ones.

I tell you, it was great fun, despite the fact that we originally were going to try to get people to not bring any gifts at all. After we heard from about a dozen people that we might as well get a registry since people would bring us gifts regardless--and really bad ones, too--we gave in and registered. After all, how many plastic resin Light-Up Holiday Village Scenes can we be expected to tolerate and indeed display year after year?

I knew that buying things on eBay was addictive. (Particularly when it recently occurred to me that it was a potential source for Norwegian language books.) There is something thrilling about finding some weird, obscure item that you can't do without and beating some other bidder to the punch in the last 10 minutes. And then it shows up at your doorstep.

I had also heard that selling things on eBay is addictive, and now I find that it is true--even more exciting than buying things! I posted a boxed set of books (signed, limited edition, still in plastic) by a particular author from about 14 years ago. I recently saw a similar set sans plastic go for $113, so I thought I could do well with my set.

Man, is it ever exciting! You can see how many people have your item on "watched" status, and I saw it go from 0 to 13 in the first two days. Now the auction end is still two days away and it's already up to $130!

I felt bad at first, when it was clear that the bidders were trying to figure out how much my reserve was. I felt like I was cruelly holding out a piece of delicious cheese that was too high to jump up and grab. But once someone got past the reserve price ($120), it was all thrill, baby. Now they're only competing with one another, not with my invisible reserve.

And someone is already watching the green cape I just posted this morning.

Now, down to the basement to take photos of those old oscilloscopes I salvaged from the Psych department cleanout!

I will be singing in a friend’s (or frolleague’s) wedding in a few weeks, and she wants me to sing what is popularly known as Ave Maria, since those are the first two words. However, the actual song title is Ellens Dritter Gesang (Ellen’s Third Song), as it was written by Schubert for a particular piece in which, apparently, Ellen sings two other songs before that one.

I learned it with the original German lyrics by Sir Walter Scott rather than the popular Italian version, for some reason. If you look for Ave Maria online, you might get the Schubert one, or you might get one of several other completely disparate songs that really are called Ave Maria. So to get the proper musical score, it’s usually safest to look for it under the proper title.

This piece as written was probably a bit too high for me when I was at my singing peak anyway, let alone now that I have let my voice rust for four years as well as done damage to it with four years of stress-related asthma and coughing and so forth. I know from previous wedding experience that it is often transposed to a different (lower!) key, so I thought I’d look online to see if I could find for the harpist an arrangement in a key that is simpatico to my no-longer-soprano voice.

One of the things that came up was this site, Schubertline, which really has a quite a cool service for singers. Sheet music that reads itself! Especially good for those who read music only poorly, such as myself. It has not only Schubert but also several other popular composers. But try as I might, I couldn’t find Ellens Dritter Gesang—only songs I and II. Which is odd, seeing how popular it is. So I wrote this in the comments:

> Comments: What is a Schubert site without Ellens Dritter Gesang?

This was the apparently frustrated reply:

>True, except that we're not actually a Schubert site, we just borrowed the
>name. We try to give broad coverage to all the great lieder composers, so
>although we're constantly adding songs by Schubert (about 230 so far) we
>also have to remember Schumann, Brahms, Wolf etc. and it all TAKES TIME!

>But your suggestion in noted!!
>Thanks for writing,
>Best wishes,

>Alice

Well, that made sense. Perhaps the site was fairly young, and there were some kind of licensing fees attached to that song, given its popularity. Or something. At least she wished me the best, despite how incredibly overworked the staff in general must be, judging by her email. So I replied:

>Fair enough.

>Of course, the plebian masses (such as myself) will be seeking
>to buy that particular song above all others.

>*********************************************

>Elisabeth [Lizardo], M.S.
>[University] Psychology Department

Then a few days later, I received this considerably humbler reply:

>Hello again:

>With reference to your enquiry about Ellens Dritter Gesang, our Music Editor tells me that >this song is better known as Schubert's Ave Maria.
>This is the most popular of all Schubert's songs and has been included in our catalog since >we started. Is this perhaps what you were looking for? We have it with the original German >text (by Walter Scott, he says) or in the much-requested but not authentic version with Latin >words.

>Sorry I didn't know what you were talking about! I just deal with the emails... We sell
>about 100 copies of this each month!

>Best wishes,

>Alice [Emailchick]
>Schubertline: the online score service for singers
>mail@schubertline.co.uk
>A product of Enichi Music Services NR34 9AU (UK)

So….ha!

I don’t know what this proves, but it proves something.

I've begun collecting boxes for the big move this summer. I can get rid of a lot more than I originally thought, as many of my household possessions are redundant and not of sentimental value.

A good example would be the 100-lb coffee table I found at the curbside, carried home in the Ford Fiasco that I had at the time, and lugged up three flights of stairs by myself.

I need to begin selecting what things will go to auction on eBay (which I've never done before), which to Freecycle, to storage, and which things will simply be moved. What a hassle!

As far as what I will be cramming into TheLimey's smallish place, the only real bone of contention has been my collection of used VHS tapes. Many of them may have to go in storage for a while until we get Our Own Place, as for some mysterious reason he does not want to devote four square yards of wall space to displaying them.

So now of course I want to look at transferring the tapes to DVD. I'll figure out how to do that later. I'm broke and can't buy new toys right now, and I also have no idea which device(s) to get. The reviews on Amazon are still rather confusing to me, and I haven't had hours to sort through them.

Luckily, he's very happy to be getting my set of cast-iron cookware. He should be really happy to be getting my famous vacuum food sealer, now that I think of it. Whereas I'll be happy to have use of his office shredder and wi-fi.

I also need to begin weaning the birds and squirrels off of eating at my window, but I'm not sure when to start. Maybe in the height of the summer when seeds and things are plentiful? Poor birds and squirrels!

I have turned on Star Trek Enterprise (or, I have turned Star Trek Enterprise on? -- that sounds even worse) and I see that the writers continue to mine themes of the original Star Trek series. I approve of this in general, although I admit I haven't watched the show that often.

However, on tonight's episode I see this nostalgia has extended all the way to showcasing green-skinned hoochie dancers (though now they have obvious implants, and that utterly characterless diction I associate with either porn or Chaser advertisements).

And judging from the foreshadowing, I'm guessing that being a sexy female also means being evil. We'll see within 40 minutes. -- Oh, wait -- already, the doctor had some kind of fainting spell while talking about the women. Yep, they're going to be evil, for sure.

Another word for The List:

cumberbun: "The dress has a mint green cumberbun."

This is the last week of classes; next week I give my students their final exam. So naturally it is only now that students are finally asking me things like "Why is there a zero for the grade on on my term paper?" The term papers were turned in weeks ago, of course. I not only post their grades weekly but also hand out hard copies of the spreadsheet in class every week so people can keep track of their grades and make sure that they get credit for the things they turn in.

Last night after class I got home and updated a pile of class material, answered students' emails, downloaded a few allegedly "gone lost" assignments that are just now trickling in, and so on. I have a gmail account specifically for their assignments so that I can archive them all for those "But I sent it and you replied to it!" arguments.

Today I have a lot of work to do at home, including more student material. So this morning at 7:25 I opened gmail to check for a few more entries, and [cue ominous music] that's when it started.

Instead of opening and loading quickly, as usual, gmail produced a new error that I hadn't seen before: the third party software error. (Yippee!) It also gave a number of suggested fixes, some of which seemed to apply to me (reconfigure McAfee privacy service to allow cookies from gmail.) So, did this mean that McAfee reconfigured or updated itself during the night all of a sudden? Perhaps.

Anyway, I spent the next half hour repeatedly following the simple instructions that McAfee gave for reconfiguring the cookie acceptance dealie. However, it stubbornly refused me entry into its "options" and would only allow me to change my password, over and over. And over. I even went into the program files and reinstalled it a few times to make sure I really am an administrator , while resetting it to accept ALL cookies (still not allowing me into "options", where I could allow an individual site's cookies). I even changed my browser settings to accept cookies from gmail. I turned off McAfee entirely!

Nothing.

That was when the roofers arrived. You may recall that I live on the top floor...

Now I have to steal something from Tim, and promote this research paper generator.

Seeing that one of the MIT gentlemen involved had a dating profile posted, I sent them the following email:

------------------------------------------

Dear Max and Jeremy,

Several of my colleagues have been shocked to discover that they have co-authored papers with me, apparently while sleepwalking or [in] some other state of consciousness. For this enjoyment, I have donated $5 to your travel fund.

While a number of the titles are vague enough to pass for psychology topics, I wistfully wish you had another [generator] that had psychology content.

Free, unrequested advice: as far as those dating endeavors are concerned, I strongly recommend seeking out grad students in your local psychology department (I'm assuming heterosexuality here, I realize). For one thing, psychology is becoming female-dominated.

Furthermore, for some reason it seems to be a natural match--a large proportion of the women in my program (including me!) are dating / marrying / married to someone who is involved in applied or theoretical engineering / programming type fields.

Anyway, good luck (whatever that actually means)!

*********************************************

Elisabeth [Lizardo], M.S.
[University] Psychology Department
http://www.doctorlizardo.blogspot.com/


I received the following kindly email in reply:


------------------------------------------

Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks a lot for the pledge and the good advice. Our colleague Dan in
particular could use both a psychologist and a date, so this advice
should come in handy. If you have any friends at the MIT psychology
department, be sure to put in a good word.

Jeremy

------------------------------------------

...it appears that MIT is too genius-laden to have a standard Psychology department, but they do have a Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. And of course there's always Harvard practically next door.

More unlikely search terms that have pointed to my blog recently (many for little or no reason):

“homemade breathing treatment” (good luck, my asthmatic compadre, in your survivalist preparations for the apocalypse)

“Parisian picnic” (thanks to a comment from Library Squirrel)

“What does a sample doctor fax look like” (discomfitingly vague, with intimations of forgery)

“Florida Boddington chapel wedding” (this brought up the entry in which I consumed a can of Boddington’s in Florida. The searcher must have been quite disappointed)


And of course, my blog still seems to be a perennial favorite among those suffering UTIs everywhere, though there are fewer of those than there were right after the holidays. We’ll see if that happens again this winter!

What I would really expect to see in my "referrerers" [sic] list would be something like "Robot Limey rat martini herbal potluck Mars Republican mistress vintage", or similar.

Curiously, that has never occurred.

Even though we’re doing it as simply and basically as possible (and we just started), this wedding-planning business is already beginning to erode my faith in humanity.

I was pretty excited that over the weekend we were able to nail down our far-and-away first choice for the ceremony, which is an extremely small historic chapel that has been relocated into a local park along with a few other historic buildings. But they won’t allow receptions there among the precious antique artifacts for some reason, so we have to find another spot for that.

Since we are hoping to do an olde-tyme “family-and-friends-provided buffet” (i.e. potluck), we need to find a place—any place!—that is basically a nice room (or dare I say “some kinda chamber”) where people may gather. (And have a bathroom. And alcohol.)

However, it seems that when it comes to just about any item or service, if you just add “wedding” to the beginning of it, it turns into a giant free-for-all extortion-fest with glaze-eyed merchants. (And just FYI, I have been looking into locations pretty fervently online over the past few days.)

What this means is that there is no such thing as a plain ol’ room anywhere, but only “Banquet Halls” and “Reception Sites”. And there is no banquet hall that comes without its own attendant caterer (or “lamprey”), who will be happy to provide fancified cheese and crackers with parsley for $2000, but you sure as heck aren’t allowed to have your own food. (No offense to hard-working caterers everywhere. I am a very DIY person; I want to do this myself; and I really dislike a monopoly.)

Oh, I know—I understand that there are insurance and liability issues. But it really seems to be something other than that. After all, I have found several locations where you can bring your own food, though most are not very pretty. Liability can’t only apply to the attractive sites, after all! Therefore, it must be something else.

It seems to be based on this whole formulaic pre-packaged wedding standard that corrals people into believing they have to do everything in a very particular fussy frilly formal way, and therefore they must pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to have someone else professionally develop this plasticized, pre-created package. (“Your Personalized Wedding Plan!”)

What you get to choose for the personalized plan is which color of plastic swan (“Bright White or Elegant Ivory!”) will be spewing the champagne out of its beak in the fountain centerpiece, or exactly how many layers of ruffles the eight bridesmaid/quinceañera gowns will have, and in which unflattering shade of puce. (Whereas we’re not even having attendants, for that matter.) And the average price for all this is now $19,000. Absolutely ridiculous! That’s the down payment on a house, if you ask me.

I get pretty ornery, stubborn, and contrary when I feel like I’m being force-fed something I don’t want, especially something so arbitrary. I just do not want to do something homogeneous and plastic and hyper-consumerized! ("Wedding 90210").

I think it boils down to the pattern of whenever someone has a creative idea (say, a medieval wedding--although granted, that's not my thing), we don't allow them to simply do it--instead, we rip it away, digest it, package it, and then sell it back to them for a huge wad of money. ("Castle Wedding Package!" --and I'm not even kidding about that.)

I really can’t compete with the travelblogging of Argot and Frink. However, my life continues in its own little way.

The other night I attended the recognition ceremony (or whatever they were calling it) of the Arts and Letters department, accompanied by my frolleague Andrew. It was being held in the "Intermedia Gallery" (what?) of the student union, which was a clue right off.

There was food in the form of crudités, artichoke dip, and cheese, so we did get to have a free dinner. On tiny napkins. While some may have raised their eyebrows at my having a chock-full napkin in each hand, no one knew who I was anyway, so it wouldn’t matter, would it?

There were a number of pieces of Art on display, which confused Andrew. Not the pieces themselves, mind you, but the fact of their being on display at this event. “It’s The Intermedia Gallery, Andrew,” I explained sotto voce, “that means there could be several kinds of creativity occurring all at once.” (At least, that’s how I remember explaining it.) I hoped no performance art would suddenly occur, at least not very near us.

As it turned out, there were a few people who read some things aloud (poems, fiction) for nearly an hour, and then the announcer Officially Recognized the finalists of the graduate student short story contest. This consisted entirely of reading the list of our four names. I was disappointed, as this didn’t incur any actual recognition at all! (Probably better in the long run considering my behavior at the buffet.)

Oh, if they had even said, “Raise your hand if you are present,” I would have been satisfied. I also would have been a lot happier if being a finalist had involved getting anything at all besides…well, nothing.

At least the great mystery of how the winner was chosen came to light. A selection committee of sorts read all the entries (approximately 35, as it turns out) and chose four finalists, which were sent to an apparently well-known author, who then chose his own favorite as the winner*.

Really, the only part that was gratifying at all was hearing that the selection committee were “impressed with the quality of the writing from outside the department,” coupled with the fact that of the four finalists, I was the only one who was a Psych major instead of a Creative Writing major.

What, they believe that no one can write who hasn't specifically gone to graduate school for writing?! The arrogance.

Thus, I strike a blow for Outsider Art of the literary kind.


*(Looking at the books he has written, I guess it's not too surprising that he did not select my story about eating disorders, ghosts, sexual harassment in the workplace, magic, revenge, cannibalism, and the supportive relationships of women in a family, all set in a structure of domesticity including gardening, family pets, and cookery.)

Mark your calendars, folks, a rare event has occurred: I have caught a cold!

That's right. I'm one of those freaks who "never" get colds. (Though I do instantly catch any flu or throat infection that goes around.) I honestly can't remember the last time I had a cold. Maybe sometime in the early '90s? Late '80s?

I read recently that the average person gets three colds a year. I couldn't believe it. What is wrong with people that this happens so often?? One of my frolleagues --who is seriously into every possible alternative medicine thing -- believes this is because I am one of the few Americans who get enough sleep on a regular basis. I interpret this to mean that my laziness serves a useful health purpose.

However, this particular rhinovirus got through. I didn't even try to stop the transmission, which involved the kissing of a certain invidual with obvious cold symptoms. I figured that if I was going to catch it, I was going to catch it anyway.

So far, I don't see what the big deal is. I don't even feel sick, just congested. And it's still several weeks until the friend's wedding for which I will be singing Ellen's Gesang in front of Lord knows how many people, so it should be gone by then.

Today is the day that Argotnaut and Frinkenstein leave for Heidelberg, Germany. I can't rightly be envious of the traveling part, since I've done a lot of it myself. I think I'm envious of the novelty part. It's always exciting, but most exciting the first time.

I think she'll really enjoy attending school there, once she gets settled in. Even though we already lived across the country and weren't likely to see each other before the wedding anyway, it does seem like now she'll be more gone. (I'm sure once she's got a good internet hookup I'll feel less cut off.)

Have a good [goof] Flugt!!

Many of my frolleagues have said something like "Congratulations! We should get together and have a drink!" or something to that effect when I've told them the "W"-word news. Therefore I decided to give them all a convenient opportunity to buy us drinks, so we had a sort of engagement party at a nearby spot. I was amazed that some people brought us cards, and one couple even brought us a bottle of champagne!

The bartendress clearly has a crush on TheLimey ("I remember you guys -- that accent!") and at the end of the night gave us a drink in one of the giant martini glasses. It was really too much, as most of us had already gotten to or surpassed our limits, and also it had some kind of licorice-flavored liqueur that does not agree with Some People. But it was nice of her, and TheLimey took the brunt of most of it simply to be polite (of course).



It was one of the few spring evenings we've had so far ("skirt weather"). Now it's pretty much back to winter.

I recently entered a graduate student short-story contest. First prize, $1500. (I could really use that!) Today I got an email thanking me for entering, which immediately let me know I didn't win.

However, it did list me as being one of the four finalists, of which the winner had already been notified. And that the finalists would also be "recognized" at some kind of ceremony Thursday night. (My cynical guess is that the four "finalists" were in fact the only four people who entered at all.)

I wonder what "recognize" means?

"Hey, look [points], there's Liz."

I really became annoyed when I went to the student clinic for my asthma a few times recently. I remember now how much I hate being a patient. It's very galling to have someone act like they know more about me than I do.

I will of course concede that physicians know more about disease in general, and even my disease in general than I do. But dammit, I have been living with this for over 30 years, and I have made it my business to keep up with the research, as well as noting my own peculiar symptomatology.

For example, I know about the three (interrelated) aspects of asthma, which include: 1. inflammation; 2. bronchoconstriction; and 3. congestion. I know which stimuli or circumstances make which aspects worse for me. I know which meds address which aspect. I even know exactly how stress plays into this biochemically at several levels, having given the "Stress and Health" lecture myself!

So it pisses me off when They act like I'm some Luddite hippie dumbass herbalist who just doesn't want to get better the "right" way, i.e. using a primarily steroid approach to reducing inflammation. Forever.

When I know perfectly well that when I exercise regularly and get enough sleep, all my inflammatory responses are reduced (as is the case for most people). Sure, I'll accept or even specifically ask for steroids for short-term, for emergencies or whatever. But my goal is to get back to where I was before, not to stay on the freakin' steroids forever. (Don't they know that being on steroids for asthma is a significant predictor of bearing low birth-weight babies?)

I was explaining how exercise has always helped my asthma, to the doctor and his doctor-supervisee, and I swear all they heard was blah blah blah symptoms blah blah symptoms blah blah. Both of them immediately began telling me to use an inhaler before exercise to reduce exercise-induced asthma. Which any kindergartener with asthma already knows, thank you very much, and which also completely missed the entire point of what I was saying.

So, yeah, anyway. I've been exercising primarily to get some symptom reduction of my asthma. And I'm always amazed with how little actual exercise I can get away with doing, if I just do it regularly. It does take about two weeks for it to "take", but there's improvement the entire time. (Not to mention side effects such as energy increase, mood elevation, etc.) I even found myself waking up at 6:30 this week, before my alarm, and with that feeling that you get when you luxuriously sleep in until 9 or so!

So, yes, what I mean to say with this ranting is that regular sleep and exercise work wonders. And why do I always forget this every time I get busy?

I spoke with my aunt on the phone earlier this evening. She told me an anecdote about buying a nice pork roast at the store and then accidentally signing the charge slip "Pork Roast" because she was thinking about cooking it (which has become her new online identity now that she has a hookup --"Hello, Pork Roast").

Now, I have been known to write or say a completely different word like that from time to time, so I offered her the example that whenever I am thinking or saying the word "wallet", I always think of the word "walnut". And sometimes say it.

At this point, she burst out laughing, and said, "Well, that's because that's what we used to say when you were little!" Yes, that's right. A silly word game played by my mom and her sister as they cared for the toddler-Lizzie lived on subconsciously as an obsessive (or maybe compulsive) thought. And I never knew. Apparently, she also carried on this tradition with her own daughter, my cousin.

Even as a psychologist, I was staggered by the strength of this association. Who knows what other thoughts I have that I believe are my own but might be merely echoes of someone else's?

So be careful when you tell kids things like "when you turn around, North and South change places." Or whatever kind of BS people think is funny to trick kids about. Imagine the potential for evil. Wallet/walnut is pretty harmless, but I still have noticed it for decades!

************

Wow, the rarely-on neighbors' network is on (as opposed to the usually-on one) and it is 24.0 mbps! Though very low signal, of course. I wonder if they're across the parking lot?

Today I attended another campus lecture voluntarily. (Although I do have stuff I should probably be doing, it's just not the same as when I never had the chance to do even one voluntary thing a week, let alone two!)

This lecture was Dr. Ralph Blomster* discussing folk medications, specifically herbals. It was basically an overview of commonly used herbs, their uses, and effectiveness according to research. (I got there a bit late, so I missed hearing about boneset, mullein, and tansy.) I knew most of them already, as that is one of my personal interests. However, one research result that I hadn't heard was that wild yams don't do anything. Nevertheless, the surprising part was hearing a biochemist say that all the other things did have clinical effects.

Now, if only I could find an herb that promotes motivation for tedious paperwork...

*Appropriately, this means "flowers" in Norwegian.

Just got out of a talk given by astronaut Tony England. (In fact, I'm still in the science building, using the table whence I usually lecture, for its accessible sneakret wi-fi.) TheLimey was frothing at the mouth to join me but had to fly to Florida at the last minute for work purposes (I took extensive notes).

I would say the gist of the talk was that we should forgo the moon base and just get to the Mars exploration bit. He discussed the approach used by the Apollo missions, which included each step building on knowledge gained in the previous step. (This is unlike the shuttle missions, which don't change.) And that we should catch up and by gosh start using robotic transport like the Russians, because now we're way the heck behind. (If it weren't for Soyuz, there wouldn't be any way to get to the ISS.)

Being big on earth system science, he also strongly recommended that people read Diamond's Collapse and figure out where we as a planetary society fit into that mold. And he also said that he finally gave in and watched Apollo 13 when one of his kids rented it, and that it was "eerily" accurate.

(I forgot about that book, which I wanted to read when it came out, and now I also want to see the flick, which I never saw.)

He furthermore explained that the cool part of space flight is not the floaty part, but the staggering view of Earth, and that if he did it again he'd spend less time with the science bits (i.e. his job!) and more time looking out the window instead. Also, the medics thought there was something wrong with him when they got on board to examine them after the flight, but in actuality he was sad because it was over.

I have now made most of the important file transfers to my new laptop, though I have not yet been able to clean up Clu and send him back to Argotnaut. Guess I have to do it soon, since she’s heading off to Germany!

I am still trying to name the new computer. He is extremely sleek and fast, and never hangs up on operations. After reading Scientific American* together in bed the other night (as one does), I favored “Qubit” (for “quantum bit”) or “Kelvin”, (I am also considering “Bayes” after the stats guy). Meanwhile, TheLimey preferred “Yttrium” or even “Niobium”. I asserted that those are clearly girl-element names. (If I’m going to be gendering my computer, I may as well do it right.) I further suggested that those whose own computers remain unnamed ought to correct this oversight before trying to horn in on mine.

I had no idea how many unsecured wireless networks are out there until I got this machine. Wow! They’re everywhere now. In fact, I have no idea whose network this is upon which I’m posting this; I just kept getting messages at home that I was connected to some “very low signal” network or other, and I even got a few automatic virus-protection updates out of the blue, until I just gave in and began playing with my darn email on it.

I have struggled with this network-hitchhiking (netchhiking?) issue in terms of ethics. Is it like walking into someone’s left-open apartment and using their computer to get online? TheLimey disagrees with this interpretation, likening it instead to turning on my TV and finding that I am receiving free cable channels out of nowhere. (He’s probably just trying to make me feel less guilty.) Well, it’s only intermittently that I receive it anyway, and it’s not like I’ll be dow_nl_oading mp_egs or gray-market nekkid pitchers, or cracking into anything.



*Funny editorial this month.

Having gotten past the pre-wedding-planning jitters, we have now set a date in August of this year. This is based on the requirements of various family members’ schedules (including our own), and also the availability of a particular 1930s historic chapel in the park. Which—unlike some other venues I could mention—does not require us to become confirmed Lutherans within the next few months. (Also, we like that it’s in a park.)

Top Songs of the Parking Lot Next Door in the Middle of the Night


1. I Didn’t Do Nothin’ to You, Baby

2. CRUNNCCHHH (tinkle tinkle)

3. Oh My God, My Dad’s Gonna Kill Me

4. No, You Shut Up

5. What Did I Do? You Tell Me, What Did I Do?

6. Who Do You Think You’re Talkin’ To?

7. Dude, She’s Not Worth It

8. Blluuuuaaaaaeehhhhhh…..

9. Yeah, You Go Ahead and Call the Cops

10. I Told You Man, It’s Not Mine

Because I compulsively Google any object that someone says "I wish I could have ______", I have noted that the calendar I saw on my trip is available on about a bajillion websites. (There's also this somewhat more glamorous '40s pin-up one.)

Okay, a bit of retroblogging, since so much has happened lately and I haven’t updated for a while. One thing that’s happened is that Clu definitely has a limited lifespan at this point. Over the weekend it became clear that his display problem has to do with the frayed, exposed cable, which means he can’t be moved without risking complete detonation. So I will soon be actually purchasing a new laptop, something I’ve never done before. (Luckily I have professional assistance in this venture.)

As for the internships, only one additional person in my cohort eventually got one through the clearinghouse. Last week was therefore somewhat traumatic for me and my peers. In the post-hoc analysis, it became clear that this wasn’t an unreasonable outcome for applicants in our position. Even if our program had already been accredited, most people seek internships in their 5th, 6th, or even 7th year, whereas we were applying in our 4th year. This means that in addition to lack of accreditation, we probably had comparably fewer cumulative practicum hours, publications, types of experience, and so on.

Basically, this all wouldn’t have been so shocking if we hadn’t been hearing since the day we interviewed for this program “Oh, when it comes time for internship, don’t worry—we’ll get you all internships [insert various reasons, such as the greater number of classes, the higher number of practicum hours required (for time spent), certifications, staff networked with at internship sites, etc. etc.]” I don’t think they were lying, but I think the expectations were quite unrealistic. (It also meant that we completely worked our butts off for three years trying to vastly surpass other applicants when it may not have mattered so much.) Unfortunately this makes me now doubt every bit of soothing assurance that I hear from the department about pretty much anything.

However, I have now digested the idea that I will be staying here for at least another year, doing clinical work and teaching.

My Florida trip was, as I may have mentioned, perfect in that it was rainy and overcast but warm. (I’m not sure that my fellow conference-goers felt the same way about that.) The streets were curiously empty of people, which may have just been because it was a downtown on the weekend. Still, that was a bit eerie. Also, the area around the hotel was like a giant gated community. It felt very artificial and claustrophobic. I can’t believe that people pay the toppest dollar possible to get into those kind of areas.

I used the power of MapPoint to find the nearest Kinko’s so that my friend/colleague (frolleague?) Melanie could copy her presentation onto overheads. We got slightly lost on the way, so I had to stop and view the map again on the way (see photo of me inside my portable computer-viewing booth [i.e. jacket]).



Later I escaped the conference to patronize a local bistro kind of place, where I had the traditional classy Florida lunch of chicken satay with a can of Boddington’s.



I also took a picture of the restaurant’s cool Vespa calendar specifically for Mark, but the low light made it blurry. I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the pint I drank.

I really wanted to visit the Aquarium, but by the time the conference sessions were over at 5 on Saturday, it was closed. (What kind of a tourist attraction closes at 5 on Saturday in the height of tourist season?)

Tampa has a convenient and quaint little trolley, which I took to the Latin Quarter (Ybor City). I think that was my favorite area there; the streets were blocked off and full of pedestrians. The populace was less uniformly white there, which seemed less unnatural. I also liked the cobbled streets and older architecture, even though the whole area had obviously been made into a giant tourist trap. There was a cool vintage store, where I bought a tie for the evening’s dance back at the hotel.






(As you can see, the tie really completed the effect of my suit. Annie Lennox, eat your heart out.)

A guy on a street corner in Ybor City enthusiastically offered me a personality test, which I declined, saying that I was a psychologist. When several of my frolleagues arrived, we walked past the same guy, and a few people thought they would go along with it for a while, until we realized that he was a shill for the Scientology storefront around the corner (they apparently thrive in areas where there are plenty of tattoo parlors.) When we then declined, saying we were all psychologists, he jokingly (?) made an anti-vampire kind of cross with his fingers at us.

We also saw a most excellent mullet, of which I managed to get a hasty photo.

This morning I was peacefully washing dishes while listening to a CD on my headphones (to allow TheLimey to listen to his beloved NPR while he works). Suddenly I was yanked from my Morrissey reverie (“…you see the life that I’ve had / would make a good man / bad…”) by TheLimey exclaiming something about scratching noises at my 3rd-floor window, which turned out to be the case. Apparently one of the phone-wire acrobat squirrels had made the leap to the window. Unfortunately, he leaped to the wrong window—the living room one without critter snacks instead of the kitchen one with critter snacks laid on. You can see his astonishment at this mistake in the photo below.

Okay, okay—now to the big stuff you’ve been waiting for. In reviewing my blog, I see that it’s hard not to notice the increasing presence of TheLimey over the past year. So it may not be an incredible revelation to learn that we recently decided to—ah, merge our files, as it were. (Probably late this summer.) I’d post the obligatory photo of the ring, but that part of the process is still being worked on. Let’s just say the decision involved a clipboard, an engineer pen, and a graphic representation of a timeline, rather than the default knee-ring sequence. (This really shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows either of us.)

I’m reasonably certain he was convinced by my inventing the onion-marmite-cream cheese bagel, whereas I was convinced by the three dry-erase boards in his home office (featuring short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals).

While traveling the 20 minutes or so from my place to TheLimey's last Friday (as is our wont), we saw a new antiques store (Near the Lord Fox, as matter of fact) that was open although it's a pretty rural location and it was after dark. We went in and perused their books, and he bought me two "antique" science magazines, one from 1948 and one from 1953.

Now that I don't have them with me, I can't remember which they were--Popular Science might have been one. Was the other Science and Mechanics? Anyway, they have really cool covers mainly depicting the kind of future that Americans were imagining at the time. Rockets and flying cars aplenty! I wanted to scan them immediately, but after some agonizing had decided not to bring my beloved scanner with me for the weekend. I regretted it immediately, as those covers are pretty damn cool.

Now I have them scanned, but have not had time to touch them up and smallify the files and so on. They would make fantastic posters.

One of the mags has an article about how to make one's own Ice Box or "Freezer" in order to take advantage of summer's cornucopia in the winter, and the other has an article about a way to Motorize a Wheel Chair.

Now that I've had a chance to get my head around a completely different life plan than I've had in mind for the past 8 or 9 years, I feel okay about the whole academic trajectory thing. I (representing the others in my cohort) met with our department head, director of clinical training, and another interested faculty member to discuss the ramifications for us, the students. It'll be okay, just--different. There are additional life-changing things going on that I'll talk about later.

Clu has been behaving very strangely; I am afraid he may be on his last...what, processors? I spent an hour messing around this morning just trying to get his display back to normal, as it would become progressively snowier and snowier with each little operation or physical tap on the computer itself, and gave strange unreadable messages about Windows. After a while it just got better, although some things like checkmarks, the mouse pointer, and scroll bar arrows still intermittently turn into weird fuzzy little objects . (That still work, but look weird.) I spent a couple hours this afternoon backing up everything, although I did already back up my important docs recently.

There is definitely a tinge of Spring in the weather--rain washing away big mounds of dirty, grainy snow. The wind smells like wet dirt again. And of course there appear to be some new young squirrels in the Squirrel Tree. Yay!

Welp, still no internship. This has definitely been a Titanic week.

One more person finally got one the other night--it was the one remaining place that had asked me for my application materials.

This basically means that now my entire life is going to be in limbo for yet another year. If I were ten years younger, this wouldn't be such a terrible thing, but I am turning 38 this year, and I have really been wanting to have kids sometime this life--not the next one (and I don't believe in long-term daycare for infants.)

Clearly I am going to have to drastically rearrange my expectations for some very important things in my life. I was really ready to be done with school after--what, ten years? So knowing that I will be doing this for at least another year, if not two, is a bit disheartening.

While I don't really think I feel that bad, I have had three nightmares already this week (I almost never have nightmares.) They are pretty classic, standard nightmares--I'll probably have the one about teeth falling out pretty soon if this keeps up, although I'm a little old for that one.

1. People are stealing my stuff!
A classic anxiety nightmare. This dream involves having all my most important and precious possessions with me in some really squalid environment, and I can't protect it from theft because the doors won't lock or even close, I can't carry it all around at once, and I have to get somewhere. At some point, the garbage workers come and haul away most of my stuff to the dump when I am trying to get my door to lock--that is, what's left of it after people on the street have already picked through it.

2. Bugs, bugs, bugs!
A classic creepy nightmare. (My apartment has ants, so of course they found their way into my dream, too.) I dream that while I am trying to get ants off my food, I realize that they are coming from a hole in my right arm!! I realize that while I wasn't watching they must have found a way into my arm and made a nest there, and all I can do is hope that I can get most of them out. (This is the dream that has found its way into the urban legend about face powder.)

3. Trapped underwater in car.
A classic panic nightmare. I am riding in a car with a friend, and while looking at some beautiful moonlit lakes next to the road, I suddenly realize that they are violently overflowing across the road at the bottom of a hill. It's too late to stop, and although we think we might be able to get through it, we are swept off the road by the torrent into the dark waters of the lake. Yikes!

Circumstances demand that I cannibalize an email to Argotnaut for a scrap of content:

I'm in the midst of the harrowing process of Internship
Clearinghouse. It's where all the leftover applicants who didn't
get an internship placement grovel via email to all the sites
that didn't get a match. I have been camped out at the visibly
smoky Internet cafe for 12 hours now, waiting with email fax and
phone at the ready, and I'll be back tomorrow morning.

Only one person from my program got matched. Nobody wants
students from a non-accredited site, but APA won't accredit us
until we have students in all levels of the program, including
internship.

I have applied to everything that isn't military or prison. Even
one in British Columbia. Even working with kids! In New Orleans!
For peanuts! (Almost literally.) I
am feeling kind of pessimistic, but maybe that's just the
aftermath of sending out 30 or so applications in 12 hours.

The site stats say there were 669 unmatched applicants, and 309
unmatched positions. So I guess all I can do now is wait. Bleh!

...The Florida conference was good, my presentation went extremely well, and I was accepted into the sisterhood of the crone or something. Tampa was rainy and temperate: in other words, perfect. Also took many pictures. Wanted to update about it, but Clearinghouse has taken over my life for a few days. Now I've been here for so long that it's time to go home and go to bed so I can come back here in the morning. Gah.

Heading off to Florida this weekend for a conference where I'll present my research on Gender Role Traits and Nutrition. This time, I get to use some data/results that I wasn't "allowed" to include in my thesis, so there will be more to present. Also, unlike the APA convention, I will be presenting a paper, not a poster.

Meanwhile, I have a ton of stuff to do but have been having trouble with spinning my wheels and overthinking things. There is a great speaker tonight at the Union (Tim Wise), but I may have to stay home and work on my diss revisions. I don't know; we'll see.

Now that my workload is merely busy and not inhuman, I paradoxically feel less compulsion to post. I guess I use it as an escape--a way to vent--and I just don't have much to vent about right now. (Similar to how so many of us wrote horrible poetry as teenagers, when we had all that angst to expel.)

Every few years I have a fit of looking for people I used to know. For example: people I knew while living in Norway. Since the advent of the "internets", it has become almost unfairly easy. The part that is unsettling for me is that the women have become harder and harder to find. A boy I sat next to in second grade? Easy. A woman I worked with ten years ago? Invisible.

That's one of those problems with the whole marriage and name-change thing, is that it makes women disappear. It may be bad for the present, but it's much worse the longer it goes, especially when we start getting into historic contexts. I have photos of women who are my ancestors, but I only know them as "Mrs. So-and-So". It makes it look as though my ancestry is composed of "men (and their wives)", thus chopping off half the roots of my family tree. It doesn't seem very fair.

I've already changed my own last name once in adulthood (not marriage but a different long story), and I decided to include the last names of both my parents, in a kind of Spanish fashion, I suppose (although I know of no Spanish heritage in my ancestry...at least in my male ancestors!) The Icelandic naming system seems quite useful, too, although it might only work in a tiny population on a remote island. Like...Iceland.

As always, following someone else's blog links leads to delicious time-wasting entertainment. I couldn't resist trying out the British Name Generator.

My very British name is Elizabeth Chamberlain.
Take The Very British Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

(What happens if you put in a name that's already flamingly British?!)

Besides the squirrel-feeding trip, the weekend included one breakfast of Heinz beans and toast (prepared by Chef Limey, imported beans bought specially by me at the British imports section of Meijer), another breakfast delivered by a local Mexican restaurant (though I went traditional American and got pancakes and eggs), an afternoon at the Ugly Mug internet cafe, intermittent viewing of Jeeves and Wooster*, some moderate Meatball viewing (" 'Super ... bowl?' Wot's one of those?") with some colleagues of mine who were luckily more interested in chatting and drinking than in the game, and once or twice waking up before sunrise without the alarm (now that's an accomplishment!).

On the technological front, I figured out how to get those passport photos taken at home to print out razor-sharp, and I also spent some time finally burning a couple CDs and using my dorky (but fun!) little Afterburner CD-labeler. (While fuming at Amazon for posting "lables" on their listings for certain CD label packages.)

I tried to get TheLimey to post this in his blog, but since it's already two days later I've grown impatient and will post it myself. I agreed to take the Geek Test, which is (fittingly) in Excel spreadsheet format. Apparently it's from a friend of his back home who is about to marry someone who is a huge geek and scored an extraordinary, unheard-of 65% on this test! So, anyway. I took it and achieved a 75%. I guess TheLimey now has something to either brag about or cry into his beer over.

We found ourselves arguing over whether it was valid to check "yes" to a question about having attempted to build a robot, since we have not yet actually opened the box with the robot in it. Finally we decided that in the interests of absolute scientific accuracy, we can't take that point until we open the box and begin the actual building. (I think we should probably be gifted/penalized with more points, simply for worrying about whether or not that counted!)

I will let TheLimey tell you his own score. Let's just say I was surprised--not about either score particularly, but about our scores relative to one another.



*Punctuated amusingly by Someone's alternating great booming laughter and interjections of "Idiot!"

Look at this! I forgot about this blogshares ... game ... thing. At least I hope it's a game, and people aren't imagining that my site is actually worth $7,262.11.

This is nice to know in the same way that it's nice to know how much your body is potentially worth in component form.

Placed my ranked list of internship sites into the mouth of the Great Internship Ranking Program today. I hope it spits out the Ohio site, since Erie PA is not only depressing, but twice as far away. The Great Spittage begins on February 25th, when we discover whether or not we were matched to a site. Then, inexplicably, it waits until the 27th to tell us what site that might be.

Of course that weekend is the same weekend I will be in Florida at the Uppity Women Psychologists' annual conference presenting a paper on my research.

I don't feel too worried about the internship matching thing--not because I don't care about the outcome, which will determine a lot of my plans for quite a while--but because it's completely out of my hands at this point. I did the years of work, I underwent the application process, I did my best at the interviews, and now I'm done with my part. (Unless I don't get matched, but then there's nothing more to do until next autumn.)

Went on campus yesterday to get TheLimey's new passport photos (though we may simply redo them at my place, since my camera and printer have been producing such great images).

The weather was very strange and beautiful--just at freezing, and foggy, which produced ice crystal formations over all the trees (see below).

Of course I always have peanuts in my purse, so I dragged him over to the quad where he discovered the joy of hand-feeding squirrels.

First tentative squirrel approach:

I somehow "forgot" to mention to him that rather than holding peanuts out on the palm of one's hand, as for a horse, one must stick the peanut out between finger and thumb. Squirrels have terrible vision, and if your fingers smell like peanuts, they will think the first thing they encounter sticking out is the peanut. This led to a minor nibble. However, TheLimey was very brave and persevered in the feeding attempts.

He may have been paying the squirrels back for the nibble with this bit of squirrel teasing.

(Whereas I will actively go out of my way in order to get the peanuts to the squirrels:)



A serious and scientific examination of the curious crystals:




(Answer: it's H2O!!)

I still wish I could find that --what was it, the excuse generator? The version sung by a robot: "Jean, this is Craig Michaels*..." sung to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance.

Sometimes it gets stuck in my head for no reason at all.

(Wasn't that speech [speeach] program from some previous computer incarnation of yours, Argot? I think it was five years ago.)



*Craig Michaels always reminded me of a former coworker known (to me) as Wretched. I cAn rEaD knows who I mean.

For the linguistically inclined: 'Strine younger than thought.

Even in the '80s Aussies were still saying "be-ah" (and saying it a lot, if I remember correctly. Which I do.)

Funny; just this morning I was thinking that Aussie/Kiwi and even South African accents and cultural referents seem a lot more Englishy than American ones do, and wondering when the various sociolinguistic splits occurred.

Also I recently remembered a Norwegian friend's years-ago conjecture that the notorious American "arrr" (r) came from Irish immigrants, after we watched some movie with Irish people in it. Made sense to me at the time, though I don't know much linguistic history. (Linguistory?)

I bought 2 small packets of little mushy fruit gel things (candy, really, but supposedly with vitamin C) from the clinic snack shelf, and then put them on the kitchenette table while I made some (eww) ramen. Didn't remember them until one of the 1st-years came into the computer lab smelling of fake-fruit, as she was eating them!!

It's my own fault, because people sometimes leave things like batches of brownies for everyone on that table. But I can't help being annoyed, since that was an individually packed item that is for sale in our cabinet, rather than a big basket of homemade muffins or whatever. Darnit!

Trying to spend less time online, as I think it is depressing me simply through online inertia.