Wednesday, November 29, 2006

A Little Bit of "Muppets Tonight"

Seymour: I'm Seymour.
Pepe: I'm Pepe.
Seymour and Pepe: We're two of a kind.
Pepe: I'm a little bit forward,
Seymour: and I've got a big behind.
Pepe: Hey, Seymour, what do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino?
Seymour: Gee, Pepe, I don't know.
Pepe: Ela-if I-know. [Even the laugh track didn't think that was funny]

Self-Flatulation

Mike and I were talking about schools and jobs, as we so often do because we're in direct competition with each other for jobs. He said that the job announcement of a school with a religious affiliation came out. He said that they're not as religious as another college that requires statements of faith with your application. For example, he said, "They don't require self-flatulation," as he gestured like he was whipping himself. I repeated, "Flatulation?" He got a little embarrassed as I cracked up. He said, "Lock yourself in a closet..." Of course, he meant "flagellation" but that's going to crack me up for a long time.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Happy Birthday, Jon!

It's Jon Stewart's birthday! I knew I was forgetting a birthday!

To the ____ (noun) of my _______ (plural noun), I wish you a ______ (adverb) _______ (adjective) and maybe a little __________(noun).

My Newest Favorite Frog

Zoos are trying to save the tiny endangered frog.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Fix-it Frank Does It Again

Frank was able to fix my laptop again. He googled for something that I didn't and restarted the computer while holding down option (I tried two other restart methods) and then we could
eject the cd. The site he found said something about if your computer goes to sleep while burning or ripping a cd... That's not what happened for me, so I'm not sure who or what to blame now.

At least I didn't have to go to the geniuses to try to get them to figure it out.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

UD Game

On November 18, I attended the last University of Delaware game of the season; the game was probably the last while I'm a student. (Keep your fingers crossed!) The Blue Hens played the Villanova wildcats. It was hard to cheer against Villanova--whose colors and mascot match Dallastown's (my highschool). The Blue Hens lost, 28-27, after jumping out to an early 20-0 lead.

I took lots of pictures at the game. Frank and I sat at about the 10 yard line on the away side of the stadium. The Villanova mascot and cheerleaders were below us:


When I tried to take another photo of the wildcat hoisted on the cheerleaders' shoulders, some jerk stood up in front of me and blocked my shot:


I noticed that everyone around me was standing a cheering--because Delaware had just scored in the end zone. I sat there, laughing at what my obsession with mascots had lead me to, while everyone else cheered for their team.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Another Problem with the Laptop

I was playing one of my dad's cds in my laptop, when all of a sudden, the disk drive stopped spinning (it was loud) and iTunes wouldn't respond. So, I `force quit` iTunes and then ended up needing to restart because iTunes wouldn't quit completely. When I restarted, the cd wasn't showing up on my Desktop. It didn't show up in iTunes either. I couldn't eject the cd. I tried restarting and holding down the trackpad, which should eject the disk, and I tried running firmware and saying 'eject disk'; those didn't work either. I looked at my System Profiler, and it says that I have no Disk Burning device. That's baaaad. I'm doing some more searches, but I'm afraid that the next 9 months will be a series of mishaps that will render my laptop completely unusable. Remind me to back up all of my data...

Pre-Thanksgiving Hoopla

My dad had his thyroid removed Tuesday morning. I came home Tuesday night to try to help Mom out, but no one was home when I got home around 8 p.m. Mom called around 9 to tell me what had happened. Dad was getting ready to leave when Mom came. But, while Mom was there, she said that it looked like his throat was getting more swollen, and then she saw blood coming through his bandage. The nurse called another surgeon into the room. They opened up Dad's incision in the room while Mom was there. (Well, she wasn't in the room for long.) Dad told that it definitely hurt when they did it. And, then they took Dad to the operating room again.

The surgeon thinks that the clip (or something) that was on Dad's incision came off, which is why he started to bleed. They put in a drain to fix him--he had this box-like thing under his shirt.

Dad had to stay overnight in the hospital. He didn't come home until about 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Dad seemed in good spirits, though, when he called me in the morning and when he came home. Mom complained that Dad couldn't take a shower until Friday. She reminded him that he still had to wear deodorant. Dad explained, "I have a prescription for a hat," to hide his greasy hair.

After all that hoopla, we took it easy on Thursday. We had a pretty small meal (roast beef, mashed potatoes, and peas) and hung out at home. I graded most of the day--better to get as much done now because it will be busy as the end of the semester winds up and the job interviews start.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

MadLib ______ (adjective) Birthday Wishes!

To Jenn, whose _______ (noun) made me seem _______ (adjective) in contrast.

To Shannon, my ________ (noun) in __________ (noun), who had so many ___________ (plural noun)

Monday, November 20, 2006

Laptop Update

My iBook turned 3 last month, so of course it's having problems now. To catch you up, the laptop wasn't showing red anymore. When I hooked the laptop up to an external monitor, the display was fine, so it was definitely a hardware problem.

Frank and I went to the Apple store. After hooking up the laptop to an external monitor, the Genius said that he'd have to send the laptop out, which would cost $280. Frank questioned the genius about the possible causes of the problem. I don't remember the genius's answer. Frank asked why it wasn't just a pin. The genius said that that's not how the laptop's screen works: if a pin is loose, then the screen would get no signal.

So, we came home and thought real hard about my options. I was bummed--I need my laptop to last about another 9 months. On Sunday, Frank looked up directions for operating on the laptop. After finding the right tools (he didn't even realize that he had the right tools), he opened up the case where the screen is. He pulled up the foil tape and tightened the connections. He rebooted the machine and Sydney's pretty picture (in full techni-color) filled my screen again. Whew. That was lucky. That was the limit to how far Frank was willing to go to fix the problem, and--thank goodness--that was enough.

Footnote: I'm using "genius" as Apple uses the term, but I'm leaning towards using "genius" as I did in reference to Manager Ray Miller--the misunderstood Orioles manager/genius.

Breaking News

My $.75 cheese grater shaped like a fish might be crap.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

More on Mount Holyoke

I saw my name on a flyer:



This is the puppy I saw outside of the computer science building:

Sydney's Adventures

Sydney has been on many adventures in the apartment.


She allowed Frank to keep her warm:



She investigated the bath tub:



Frank helped me clean up my apartment before my parents visited in October, and he accidentally created a kitty loft:

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

How I Screwed Up

I'm back from Mt. Holyoke for an invited talk. It was quite an adventure. It all started around 6:30 a.m. on Monday morning. I thought I left in plenty of time to reach the airport. I had done a similar trip to the airport in early October to go to San Diego. My flight was earlier than in October, so I left earlier. But, it was raining, and traffic was bad, so my trip took 30 minutes longer than usual.

I parked in the long-term parking and took the airport-parking bus to the terminal. I had to doublecheck which terminal I had to go to. I got to the terminal at 9, and my flight was at 9:40. OK, no problem.

I got up to the self-service check-in and realized that I did not have my purse! I thought I had left it in the car, but I remembered that I left it on the bus.

I talked to the clerk and she told me to call the busses, but that she would be able ot get me on the 11:15 (the next) flight. I tried calling the busses, and thatdidn't work, so I had to flag the next one down. When the next bus finally came, I told the driver my sob story. He called in but couldn't get an answer from my bus driver. He thought I should ride with him the whole route--back to the main desk--and the other driver would leave my purse there for us to pick up. I thought I should wait for my bus to come back around, but I didn't really have much of a choice.

So, by the time I went the whole route on the bus, it was 10:15. My plane had been delayed by 10 minutes, but that wasn't enough. I talked to the new guy at the counter (I couldn't find the lady I talked to). He said that the 11:15 plane was overbooked and I couldn't get on that one. Crap, crap, crap. I pleaded and eventually he put me on standby.

I rushed to the gate, and the 11:15 plane was delayed, so it wasn't going to leave until 12:40. The next flight was at 1:30 (also oversold), which would mean that I would not get in in time for the talk.

Eventually, people boarded, and the counter lady started putting the stand-bys on board. She wasn't going to let me on the flight. I was the last person on the standby list. (I think that wasn't fair; I'm pretty sure the first woman I talked to screwed me on that. I could have checked in without my id. They don't check id until security.) I begged and talked the other standby woman waiting into letting me go.

After that, my trip was pretty uneventful. The talk went well. There are some things that I need to work on, but overall, I think the talk was good. After the talk, I went to dinner with the two professors. I learned a couple more tricks before I go on the job interview circuit.

When I stopped to buy a pretzel today, I realized that the money in my wallet is gone. They probably got $50, which is usually my spending
cash for the month. I had more in my wallet than usual because I had gone shopping over the weekend and paid cash--using my birthday money. So, I'm really upset that they got my birthday money. I know, I know, it could have been worse, but I'm still bummed.

And, finally, something is wrong with my Mac. It seems like it's not displaying red. I tried restarting it. I also tried searching on the web for solutions. I'm running out of ideas.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Jack & Jill Alumni

One of my favorite shows during my early graduate school career was Jack & Jill. Remember: that clever WB show where "Jack" was the girl and "Jill" was the guy?

A bunch of the Jack & Jill alumni are in shows or movies. I knew great things would happen for them.

  • Amanda Peet (Jack): Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
  • Sarah (sic) Paulson (Elisa): Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
  • Jaime Pressley (Audrey): My Name is Earl
  • Justin Kirk (Barto): Weeds
  • Ivan Sergei (Jill): last season - Charmed; I'm sure big deals are on their way
  • Simon Rex (Mikey): um, so, not so much anything this year... He was in Scary Movie 4. I don't know what happened with him in What I Like About You.



Even Josh Hopkins (Matt, the messer up of Jack & Jill) is on Brothers & Sisters, but he always plays the messer up of relationships (Cold Case, Pepper Dennis, so we'll see how long he's on B & S.

So Fast!

Look at me! I'm so fast!

Friday, November 03, 2006

No Filter

The other night in the lab, I said, "There's a cricket on the floor!" It was late, and I was tired, and I didn't have time to check before I blurted it out. It was just some mulch, but I thought I had seen it move. Emily was worried and asked me how I was doing. I was fine but embarrassed.

It made me think of other times that I didn't make use of the filter between my brain and my mouth.

There was the time in the lab--shortly after I started working with Frank--and I declared, "There's something in my pants!" It turned out that somehow I had a size sticker inside my pants leg. I was pretty embarrassed that time, and I ended up drooling on the floor. Awesome.

Then, there was the time at my desk in my biology class during my sophomore year when I asked, "Am I on fire?" My leg was feeling very hot, and, since I was in a science lab, I thought it may be a possibility. My deskmate Quin gave me a very hard time about it. He seemed to think that being on fire should not have been my first guess. I have more Quin stories, but I think I'll save them for later.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Sydney's Christmas Gift

Kitty Kristmas

The Healthy Snack

Lori said that she was giving out a healthy treat for Halloween--Play D'oh. I said, "Kids are not supposed to eat that." She claims that she knows they're not supposed to eat it. And then she repeated that it was a healthy treat.