Signs of Ducklings

Not much news from the land of trilobites today - just polishing off the last of the work I should theoretically have finished six weeks ago, and staring down the barrel of midterms week. But I thought you should know that there's soft-core duck porn in the photoblog; hopefully we'll get some cute fuzzballs from this.

yami · 17:53 · 30 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Announcements

I bid on fleas and spoons

Has INTEGRITY! Refuses to live on the MOON! Retains his SANITY! eBay Feedback Comments Left by andy46477!

I think this would be funny even if I hadn't spent last night power-napping in the library bathroom lounge. Sometimes, though, it's hard to tell. Note to future professors: when planning homework that involves specialized software you co-wrote yourself, make sure there's some documentation for your students to look at. Lab exercises will never, ever go exactly as planned.

yami · 14:39 · 29 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Links, Diary

I want my 2 ½ hours back

The Pasadena office of the California Department of Motor Vehicles is well approximated by the locker room of your local stanky-ass Y, re-situated inside a busy train station. It's got the Andy Warhol turquoise speckled linoleum, the loud cantankerous children, the mildly unpleasant people on the next bench, the blurry voice calling out numbers, and the cries of helpless rage and confusion that can only come from unexpected loss of transportation. I will not catalog its multidudinous inefficiencies (there are more irksome things to think about tonight) - they all seem to stem from shoddy architecture anyway, so there's not much to be done.

After my Iowa license and passport had been approved by the triage desk, I was largely spared the burdens of conversation; my papers spoke for me as we went from line to queue. This was lucky, really, since my one exchange with the test-distribution lady was a little off-putting:

"Nnngrush?"
"What?"
"Wa tlanggage dyoo wan?"
"Oh. Right. English. Thanks."

I can't imagine what a non-English-speaker would do with that dialog. Plucky lil' Anglophone that I am, though, I got my test, demonstrated my ability to correctly guess how many child restraints and insurance policies every five-year-old needs to have at least 100 feet before railroad crossings on the freeway, and escaped to Window 2 for my reward. A fantastic paper temporary license to use until my real one comes in the mail, and meanwhile I must buy beer with my passport, which does not fit in my wallet and is not accepted as valid identification by the local grocery store for some bizarre reason! WHOOO!!

Boy, was that ever an exciting afternoon and a good use of $12. Hooray for the state of California and all its squinty minions.

yami · 21:37 · 28 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Diary

Tenure’s No Damn Good!

So I'm up in the computer lab on a Saturday afternoon, trying to finish my one remaining class from last term - not succeeding terribly well, of course, since I'm blogging instead of working, but the lab will get done eventually. Right now, I have to express my discomfort with the large number of professors in the building with me, working quietly and doubtless productively inside their offices. The same ones who are easy to track down during the week, because they're usually in their offices, working quietly and doubtless productively.

These people have lives. They have families. They have tenure.

Makes me glad I'm not staying on in academia.

yami · 12:51 · 26 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Crap

ducky ducks

Aww - it's a DuckCam!

A pair of ducks has been lurking about the Caltech artificial pond environment. There've been cute duck-turtle scenes, but no sign of ducklings yet, alas.

yami · 15:02 · 23 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Links

Shiny! Curvaceous!

Passenger-Carrying Spaceship Makes Desert Debut - blah blah private manned space flight blah blah. The important things are the pictures. This thing is curved and bubbly, with lots of silly round windows - it's the first futuristic device I've seen that actually looks like it's from the future! Which means we're still on track for Mylar jumpsuits for my mid-life crisis.

yami · 20:24 · 20 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Links

Creeping Paranoia

The closer I get to graduation, the more paranoid I become. I just sent emails to all the professors whose classes I got incompletes in last term, asking them to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN MY GRADES IN ON TIME OR ELSE I WLL EXPLODE IN YOUR OFFICE. I can feel each wingbeat as the Diploma-Snatching Fairy hovers by my neck waiting for Monday, when the incompletes magically turn back into pumpkins and failures. It doesn't help at all that my physics professor is very very pregnant, and the TA in charge of grading the finals is the kind of guy who doesn't respond to email much.

Last year I came so close to not graduating on time, and indeed to not graduating at all, at least not from here, that it seems impossible for things to go off without a hitch. Pardon me while I chew my fingernails, and retreat to the mountains for the weekend with a class full of freshman geology students.

yami · 13:47 · 18 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Diary

My TV Watches Me

I made a cartoon. Now I'm going to bed.

yami · 0:33 · 18 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Whimsy

Green Mung Beans

So they give us money to throw student-faculty mixers. And we spend this money on wine and cheese for all. So I've had just enough alcohol to answer the random someones. Also, there was a spam in my mailbox from the world's largest exporter of green mung beans from China, whose name was Nanjing Mega-Profit Trading Co.

Yay, communism!

http://www.cnn.com/2020/US/South/03/12/monkey.escape.ap/index.html

It was not clear how the monkeys escaped from a fenced area outside the research facility Tuesday, said James Hartman, a spokesman for the St. Tammany Parish sheriff.

Go monkeys!

i like penises

Of course you do, attbi.com! Just look at your IP address!

i LOVE hobbits

i like hobbits

We know what you really meant. Get back to the forest with the monkeys, where you belong.

i need aliens

amantadin

where can you find it

Over there. Geez. There's nothing clever to say.

yami · 18:41 · 16 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Fan Mail

Crow Man Attacks L.A.

There is a man in the park across the street who sounds exactly like a crow or perhaps a scrub jay. I would swear that he was a crow, but crows don't have such varied intonation; this guy is cawing up and down the scale like a drunk operatic soprano. So it must be a man. (NB: I am too lazy to look outside my window to confirm this.)

I think he's got a kid along - they've been having some kind of unintelligible conversation. This is scary; are they going to lead all the crows in communist revolution? Or even worse, objectivist revolution?

Our only hope lies in pigeons, the staunchest status quo moderates of the bird kingdom.

yami · 17:53 · 15 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Diary