Anything to get the previous post below the fold...

So, this is just me, embarrassed by my previous post and trying to get it off the top of the page :> As I've mentioned before, I don't delete stuff I've written, even if I feel really stupid about it afterwards. I'm like Eric Burns in that way.

I'm about to go for lunch, which will be nice. I like lunch. Lunch is good.

My last week here is going so, so slowly. Today feels like it really ought to be Friday. Alas.

I have a few documents I need to write up for my boss. He may find them surprising. I'll give them to him on my last day, so I need to hurry up and do it. I'll tell you guys what they are after I've given them to him.

I didn't have any dreams last night, but I did keep hitting snooze. I didn't ride my bike to work.

Funny thing--my alarm clock and Sean's alarm clock somehow, magically, got switched to the proper time on Sunday. I have no idea how it happened. I have no recollection of changing the time on either of them. I remember changing the clock in the office, and the clock on the microwave, and noting that somehow the clock in the oven already had the right time on it. But Sean was still in bed then, so I didn't go into the bedroom to change those clocks. How did they get changed?! I asked Sean if he did it, and he said no...

Hmm, is that enough text? I want to go have lunch :>

After I'm gone...

...who'll clean Bob's blood, doo-doo, and skin off the toilet seat every day?

Health and life update

So on Saturday, I rode for about an hour and a half, and walked my bike for an additional twenty minutes or so. (More details on that ride to come.) Yesterday, I went riding at the Greeneway with Brooke for about an hour. And this morning, I decided to bike to work.

Right now my legs are sobbing, "What have I done to deserve this?!"

But I feel great.

My diet finally seems to be back on track. I'm not overeating (at all!) due to burning so many calories. I finally went grocery shopping yesterday, too, which will help. (Sean was kind enough to help with the laundry so I could go to the store.) I may be close to getting over that big hurdle...getting past the weight that really makes me feel big. I will be so happy when that day arrives :>

This is my last week at 2go-Box/Proactive Genetics. Next week, I'm heading to Kentucky for a nice vacation with family :) I have the option of flying for cheap, and I may do it given current gas prices, but I feel the itch to drive. Driving makes a trip seem more real, like I'm truly on an adventure. I'd also like to bring my bike, which I wouldn't even want to try if I were flying. We'll see what I decide.

So the word "meme" has been co-opted to mean "questionnaire"

Either that, or when people say "Here's a new meme", they are really saying "Here's a new [questionnaire] meme", because these "memes" tend to be a specific, new type of questionnaire.

At the risk of sounding like the incredibly nitpicky Englishphile Miss Em linked to recently--a person who apparently despises language change--I would like to point out that the word "meme" can be used for many things besides questionnaires.

Three's Company meme

Apparently, I am required to fill this sucker out. So here I go.

3's Company

3 Names You go By:
Heather
HeaHea (more recently)
COS (old! but I'll still answer to it)

3 Screennames you've had:
cosleia (now you understand the third name I go by)
Alindrea (a character in my unfinished novel)
Illusion (this means absolutely nothing)

3 Things you like about yourself:
Gee, only three? Damn. ;P
My desire to learn and explore.
My looks.
My intelligence.

3 Things you don't like about yourself:
I can be too stubborn.
I let my pride get in the way.
I still haven't learned how to fully let go and just be.

3 Parts of your Heritage:
Welsh
German
Irish

3 Things that scare you:
Heights, when I am still somehow attached to the ground. (In other words, flying in planes doesn't bother me at all, but I get terrified of rollercoasters and being on top of buildings...)
Creepy-crawly things
The fact that the people I love are all going to die someday (this seems pretty heavy to mention in a cute little quiz, but it is one of my greatest fears :/)

3 of your everyday essentials:
Sean
The Internet
Food ;P

3 Things you are wearing right now:
Glasses
Jeans
Ankle socks

3 of your favorite bands (at the moment):
You know, my answers to this question would probably vary daily...
Battlecry (yes, I'm a fangirl of my brothers' band)
Toshiro Masuda (composer of the Naruto music)
Darude

3 of your favorite songs (at the moment):
SOUL'D OUT's "To All Tha Dreamers"
djpretzel's "Pachelbel's Ganon" (btw, the OC Remix site is hilarious today!)
Battlecry's "Outcast Unclean" (it's a tribute to the Covenant series, and it seems like the more I read, the better I understand the song...and now when I listen to the song, I feel like I'm reading the books...)

3 Things you want to try in the next 12 months:
Start a freelance business on the side to share my writing, design, office and computer skills with people without having to take on a boring job and do boring work between projects. (This may be accomplished by temp work...)
Bike to the grocery store.
Add a new kind of exercise to my schedule, like martial arts or bellydancing.

3 Things you want in a relationship:
Love
Commitment
Understanding

2 Truths and a lie:
I don't see the point of this question.
I once proudly used "I've spent over $1000 on Star Wars stuff" as an answer to a question like this.
My eyes aren't actually blue. They appear this color to human eyes because their psychic senses get mixed up with their visual sense. In reality, my eyes are purple.

3 physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you:
Lean body
Well-articulated, non-pointy fingers (I like them to essentially be the same circumference all the way down, not too thick and not too thin, with defined muscles and veins. Yes, I'm weird)
"Handsome" facial features...not too girly, but definitely distinguished.
Fortunately, Sean has all of these characteristics.

3 things you just can't do:
There are lots of things I've never tried, so I don't know if I can't do them or not. And there are lots of things I know I could do, if I only applied myself, so I won't list those either. That narrows things to:
I can't turn my emotions off. I've tried. I can't. I basically just have to wait them out.
I can't seem to enjoy 3D videogames that aren't racing games. Maybe I haven't tried hard enough, but essentially I get overwhelmed by the amount of options available. Give me a nice side-scroller any day.
I can't understand chemistry on an intuitive level, like I can understand other things. That annoys me.

3 of your favorite hobbies:
Blogging
Biking
Taking pictures

3 things you want to do badly right now:
Go to sleep
Go on a trip
Eat everything in the kitchen

3 Careers you're considering:
Small business owner (perhaps growing someday to Huge Multinational Corporation Owner)
Graphic designer (I have no training, but with my skills in page design and photography, I've been thinking recently that it might be a good field for me)
Writer

3 Places you want to go on vacation:
Hmm...Japan, maybe?
Australia
Europe, including but not limited to: England, Wales, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy

3 Baby names you like/picked out:
I think about baby names all the freaking time. For the purposes of this quiz, I will list the weirdass names that I don't actually plan on using in real life. Oh, and they're all girl names ;P
Evening (nickname: Eve)
Midnight (I have no idea what the nickname would be...imagine saying, "'Night, Night!")
Monica Rachel (yes, these names are normal, but I still can't use them...can you guess why?)

3 Things you want to do before you die:
See as much of the world as is humanly possible.
Live in Japan.
Have a child. (Too bad that's not really up to me.)

3 People who have to do this Meme:
Erm, I dunno. People can do it if they want, I guess. I'll just list some people who will never, under any circumstances, do this; therefore, if they somehow find their way back here via Technorati or whatever and actually do it, I will be all, "Wow."
Tycho
Eric Burns
E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial (Sure, E.T.'s web-savvy. I don't even have to link to him. He's built a machine that can find all references to his name! I think he calls that process "E.T. google home.")

Yet another reason to move to Japan and learn Japanese

As if I need another reason, but...

Look! You can buy sakura sweets online! (Via About.com.)

An experiment, and a discussion question

Okay, I'm going to have a little experiment here for my readers. First, I'd like you all to read this paragraph:

I saw someone today while I was out shopping. This person was tall, with brown hair, and was carrying a sack. I really liked the red shirt the person was wearing.

Okay, now that you've read the paragraph, the experiment is to think about the person the narrator saw. Try to imagine the person. Get a good picture of the person in your head.

Now, apply the following statements to the person you've imagined:

This person is overweight.
This person is black.
This person is female.

Did any of those statements surprise you?

One of the annoying things about language is that implied meanings can work against openmindedness.

Don't get me wrong--I think implicature is great, and loads of fun. But sometimes when we say things, there are underlying assumptions that are unfair, and often accepted unconsciously as normal.

For example, when I say "a man flirted with me," and give no further information, what do you imagine? I have realized that I automatically imagine a white person.

It happens that I have been flirted with by two black men in recent months. The first time was in December, and the second time was today.

The first guy in that story from December--the one who just rode by after exchanging normal pleasantries--was white, and the second guy--the one who hit on me--was black. I realized as I was framing the story that if I stated that, I would be inadvertently making some sort of statement. So I chose not to state their races at all.

This morning's story is much the same. What is the point of saying that the older gentleman--with a winning smile, twinkling eyes, and a salt-and-pepper patchy beard--happened to have dark skin?

Bringing it up now seems to imply something about me and black men, too, which is unfair.

But it bothers me that these men lose their identities if I don't identify them as being black. How many of my readers share my unconscious prejudice? How many will see "a man" and think "a white man" without realizing it?

There seems to be no ideal solution to this. It occurred to me that rather than omitting race information completely, I could simply add it for everyone. However, I can't just go along and say stuff like "my white friend, Brooke" and "my Puerto Rican friend, Mari", because that is just inherently racist-sounding. It's like I'm labeling everyone so that the readers will know which set of preconceptions to use when thinking about the people I write about. :P A better way might simply be to describe people physically--for example, the man this morning would become "an older gentleman, his smile a flash of white and gold in a dark, lined face". That's harder to do, and it still doesn't completely escape the race labeling, but it might be the best option.

What does everyone else think? Is race information part of a person's identity? Think back to the experiment at the beginning of this post. Do most people have a "base template" for "a person", which is then modified by extra information? Do you have one? My base template, I'm coming to realize, is a white male at a healthy weight, with a full head of hair. What's yours?

I realize that this is a touchy subject, so it might be embarrassing to share your preconceptions. Please don't feel obligated to respond at all. But I really am interested in hearing some other opinions on this.

...where the men treat the women like queens

This morning, as is normal for me lately, I stopped at R. Gabriel's to get a smoothie. My car conveniently decided to stall right as I turned into the parking lot, so I coasted into a parking space rather than going through the drive thru--there was a car there already, so I figured I'd rather wait inside anyway.

As I was getting ready to leave with my smoothie, I stopped to check the little shelf where people put flyers and business cards. When I turned to the door, an older gentleman was coming through it, so I waited for him to come in before leaving. However, he came right up to me.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning!" I replied. "How are you today?"

"Much better--" he said. I should have seen what was coming, in retrospect, but at the time all I could think was that he must be recovering from an illness. Then he continued, "--now that I've seen your beautiful smiling face."

I grinned with embarrassment and delight. "Thank you!" I managed to move around him towards the door. "I am married, though."

"I know you're spoken for," the man said in his smooth, pleasant voice, still smiling at me. I wasn't sure how to react to that, so I just smiled one last time and slipped through the door. The whole thing had me laughing to myself in the car as I continued on to work.

I'm still not sure what he meant by that "I know" statement--maybe he'd seen the ring. But I dunno, it's so flattering to have people talk to me like that. I think it must be a Southern thing, because it's not like I've all of a sudden become overwhelmingly beautiful. I hope I continue to enjoy the attention, rather than getting cynical about it. It brings the men pleasure to compliment me (apparently), and it brings me pleasure to be complimented, so what's the problem?

;>

I wash my hands of the entire affair.

Michael Schiavo won't tell Terri's parents where she's being buried, or where the cremation will take place, or anything.

Meanwhile, the Schindlers are selling the list of names of people who donated to their cause to a direct mailing firm.

They must be Harry Potter fans

My mom emailed me today to let me know that Chris Dotson, our family's original computer guy, and his wife Tabitha are expecting their first child any day now. Mom sent me to their homepage, which led me to this. Apparently Tabitha runs a horse farm! How cool is that?

The Harry Potter theme doesn't end with the name of the farm. Check out the list of their animals on the house page.

And while you're at it, look at the pictures of their beautiful house! Wow! Love that library!

And finally...here's that baby :D

Congratulations to Chris and Tabitha!

OMG!

Astronomers Receive Outer Space S.O.S.: Radio Telescopes Detect Alien SOS from Extrasolar Planet

I pulled something like this once :D Though not nearly as large in scope. I removed the unspacy.com home page and replaced it with something very glaringly pink, and posted that I was changing unspacy.com into a fansite. (I can't remember what kind of fansite now. Something girly. I'll see if I can dig up the graphic I made when I get home.) There was this girl(?) in the community at the time who kept pestering me about whether or not it was a joke. I would always flatly say that no, there was no more AMRN, this was my decision, it really was going to be a fansite from now on.

She should have known I would lie until the next day! Boy, was she ever pissed at me. That was awesome ;D

(For those of you who remember, this is the girl who claimed to be 1) building a Gundam in her parents' garage; 2) possessed by a demon who was forcing her to work towards the complete annihilation of the human race via nanotechnology; 3) psychic.)

Anyway...I wish we really did receive a transmission from aliens. An SOS would be bad, though, as we would be completely unable to help.

(I like that he added legitimacy by posting it early and stating that it actually came from Australia, but if you think about it, it won't be 12:13 AM in Melbourne for another hour and ten minutes...;>)

Update 6:40 pm: It was a "Chibi Chibi Fansite". Here's a link to the post I made on the AMRN about it, and my subsequent redaction. (Note that the Administrator account used to belong to Sean, and it used to have a huge Chibi Chibi picture in it ;>) Here's the top banner I created:

And this is the image I tiled in the background:

Yes...sooooo evil.

Here are a few things I've been wanting to mention.

1. I found something for Kristanne to go see this fall.
2. Today's Japanese lesson on About.com is entitled "Expressions of Desire". Heheheheheheh...
3. I wanted to note how this is just like an episode of Friends, but Miss Em totally beat me to it! Grr...
4. Sid weighed in on Koizumi's flirting with Richard Gere. Unfortunately, the video he linked seems to have been removed...
5. Wes had some interesting thoughts last week about poverty and personal responsibility.
6. Slashdot brings news of a new bookmark service. I'm kind of having trouble understanding the point, since it seems to look and act just like del.icio.us. I mean, I assume the underlying code is different somehow, but why copy the UI? That seems lame. (Granted, the layout and colors and fonts are far more visually appealing...)
7. Tampons are an essential part of every aquatic robot.
8. Barcode babies in Britain!
9. Recent events in China beg the question: how real is the stuff you buy in online games? As the wife of someone who spent US dollars on spell materials, I can tell you that the transactions are very, very real. However, I hesitate at calling the items "property". I think the issue should be examined more as a quality of life thing. The point of gaining items in games is to improve the experience (better weapons => higher level => cooler quests). What was sold here is therefore not easily replaceable. You can't (necessarily) go out and buy another one. It takes time and trouble to gain items and levels. I'm not sure what good compensation would be.

And that's it for the stuff I've been keeping new in Bloglines and bookmarking for "later". Enjoy :>

"Awww snap!"

This is the best thing I have ever seen.

"Stop TK'ing, you fag!!!1!!"

Podcasting

(I have been trying to post this since around 8:30 this morning. Damn you, Blogger. Damn you to hell.)

Derik has posted a very nice explanation of what podcasting actually is, which is helpful to old women like me who aren't "hip" with the "times". I had only the vaguest notion of how podcasting actually worked; now, I know exactly how it works. I much prefer this state of being (that is, "being in the know").

I'm also intrigued by his discussion of how he manages his new podcasts. It's not unfair to say that Derik is an Apple fanboy ;>, but the features he lists make the iPod and iTunes sound very attractive.

Let them eat steak

The Japanese seriously want their gyudon. (Who could blame them?)