Ahh

Much as I hate hot weather, there's something primordially satisfying about running in to your neighbor's back yard to steal some lemons, and then sitting down to a glass of fresh lemonade.

yami · 15:57 · 31 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Food

Link Fest Rama Lama Ding Dong

  • You've seen it before (most likely via Simon), but now you'll see it again: the advertising slogan generator. It takes a tough man to make a tender Green Gabbro.
  • My new personal motto is "Try Mild!"
  • Tom Tomorrow cites the Iowa City Press-Citizen as a prime venue for astroturf activism. Which is no surprise to those of us who actually grew up in Iowa City - the Press-Citizen walks a monkey-shit-strewn line between respectable local journalism and folksy small-town news, usually partaking of the worst of both worlds. My high school journalism teacher used to pull all his bad examples from it.
  • Someone sent along a picture of a kitty in a glass. I want a kitty.
yami · 14:51 · 26 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Links

La Loi de Qui?

I got two discussions of Snell's law yesterday; that's just the sort of thing geophysicists do. And I learned that Descartes was responsible for publicizing Snell's notes on the subject, so in France they call it la loi de Descartes.

I hate Descartes, with the kind of hatred I normally reserve for conservative talk radio. I'm not sure why; it may have something to do with the exceedingly silly arguments in Discourse on Method, or it may have been an unfortunate incident in high school French. Regardless, I think I just antagonized half a classful of French people by adamantly refusing to give their man credit for anything other than the Cartesian coordinate system... ooops.

yami · 10:24 · 22 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Science, Diary

Neologistical Challenge

There should be a word for the stubborn, slightly unbalanced feeling one gets when one is standing in one's left shoe, picking up dirty clothes and things from the floor to see if the matching right shoe is underneath. It should come from Greek roots, and it should be a silly word, which ought to be easy since the Greek word for shoe is "papoutsi".

I'd make up the word myself, but I'm otherwise occupied at the moment.

yami · 10:28 · 21 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Whimsy

Hmm

where is yami? Yami is not writing! Yami has disappeared!!!

PEEK-A-BOO! I had something brilliantly clever to say over the weekend, I swear, but the weekend gnomes came and took it. Meh.

pics

No, no, that's PEEK-a-boo, not PICS-a-boo. Try again.

eearth science: gabbro rock

One more try.

The best thing about Spiderman was how Kirsten Dunst's nipples stood up every time her character was put into 'danger'.

That's better.

you say you write about your breakfast...but you never do!!! isn't that false advertising?!?

I had pancakes for breakfast, with chocolate chips...and you?

Uh, right now I'm eating from a bag of raw elbow macaroni, and drinking a glass of water. Boy, is my life pathetic.

I want pancakes!

You just had pancakes. You don't even know what it's like to really want pancakes, like we wanted pancakes during the Depression. I want pancakes.

I feel random today. My socks are wet.

So dry them dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza, so dry them dear Liza, dear Liza, dry them!

yami · 7:48 · 21 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Fan Mail

Unbreakable

Speaking of North Korea (I wasn't, but seems like everybody else has been, so what the hell) a friend of mine told me something interesting over break. Supposedly, back in the days of proper war, the North Koreans would torture their prisoners until they'd stay put without restraints. Most of the time it worked, but out of every group, there were one or two who just kept running away every time they turned their backs. These people were all Midwestern agnostics.

God only maybe knows if this is even a little bit true... but if it is, it means I'm unbreakable. Haha! Take that, you forces of evil!

Also, my housemate introduced me to the joys of Chumbawamba the other day; it's good stuff, particularly the old Gulf War protest songs, and you should all sing along.

yami · 10:49 · 15 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Crap

Nouveau Royalty

I've decided just now that I am the Queen of Wednesdays. I don't have class on Wednesdays, and all of my homework will apparently come due on Thursdays this term, so clearly there's something special going on. Wednesday is the day for me to be imperious and cranky.

Now if only my new kingdom came with an estate, or some nice colonies to exploit...

yami · 19:59 · 13 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Whimsy

Orange Doodle Bomb

  1. A giant lava lamp would probably convince me to visit eastern Washington. I just hope these people realize that building a giant lava lamp is not going to attract the sort of genteel RV drivers who visit the nearby Grand Coulee Dam...
  2. If I'd known being a lesbian would get me out of gym when I was in 8th grade, I would've pretended to be one before you could say "heteronormative". But it's nice that there are people willing to sue over these sorts of things.
  3. I saw a guy make music from feedback on his Powerbook mic last night. I use the word "music" in a loose way here, as his performance had slightly less structure than your average 5th grade jam session, but it was certainly a performance and damned entertaining.
    This was in the context of a grand festival of avant garde electro-acoustical nonsense, an evening full of people who sat in the dark behind their computers and pressed buttons. Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I hate going to shows where I can't see the performers (unless, possibly, there's a dance floor, but even then I can only spend so much time oscillating between dancing and gasping for breath); I wish all the trendy computer-assisted musicians would hurry up and find a good way to amplify and display their movements.
  4. Did I mention that I've been back at classes for a week? I have. And there was no snow while I was home, which was absolutely heartbreaking, but that's life. At least my garden didn't die while I was gone.
  5. Good night, and sweet dreams to you all, especially if it happens to be morning when you read this. I'm going to bed.
yami · 22:42 · 12 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Links, Music

Stick Up Your Etiquette

My emails tend to be direct, informal, and courteous. Every so often, someone responds with a more formal structure, and puts my favorite informal words in quotes.

Dear Yami,
Blah blah blah. If this is indeed their "goof" then blah blah blah.
Sincerely,
Person

This drives me absolutely bonkers. I start off feeling boorish and uncultured, then I realize why, take a hearty dislike to the person on the other side of the terminal, think about other situations in which I have felt similarly awkward, and soon I'm pissed off about code-switching and class stratification. It's not that I mind turning into a screaming Marxist, but really, the people who maintain Caltech's email database should not be my prime ideological influences.

yami · 16:08 · 10 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: I Hate Everything

Adding to Life’s To-Do List

Biking from Alaska to Argentina is one of those journeys people take for the sole purpose of telling stories about it at cocktail parties afterwards. Or so it seems. And I'd like to increase my arsenal of anti-yuppie status-seeking travel stories, but there are just too many mountains on the Pacific coast. So I hereby resolve to bike from New Orleans to Yellowknife, just as soon as I've got a spare spring and the highway is paved that far.

yami · 10:08 · 6 Jan 2020 · #
Filed under: Crap