Bad Reputation

Staycation

This staycation is all about cleaning the flat. One room per day. Even the action figures got a bath. Well, just the ones in the study so far. But that's

1. Ozzy Osbourne (plus assorted dead doves and bats)
2. Jim Morrison
3. Jane Austen
4. Charles Dickens
5. Oscar Wilde
6. Morpheus aka Dream aka Sandman

All this cleaning excites the cats.

"Such unusual activity from our hooman! What can it mean! We must run around like maniacs!"

Now I'm done for the day and I need a nap.

Also, Happy Pi Day. Seriously, this is like Nerdvana Day -- Pi Day, Einstein's birthday, some sort of Linux anniversary...

This is a test

This is a test of the remote posting system. Do not adjust your monitor.

Coolest. Thing. Evah. (well, one anyway.)

Guess what this is.

It's a living work of art, is what it is.

It was created using eight strains of glowing bacteria. Each was engineered to produce a differently coloured fluorescent protein. They were swabbed over a nutrient plate and left to grow overnight.

Seriously, isn't that freakin' amazing?

Check out the full story at http://icanhaz.com/bacpic

A headline you just HAVE to click

"A Swiss Village Has Peace, Quiet and a Product Endorsed by Marilyn Manson"

Inexplicable

Why do I love "Rescue Me" so much, when all of the characters in it are basically fucking idiots and if I knew any of them in real life I would have to cockpunch them?

I'm thinking about starting a college fund for her

I'm often entertained by how certain behaviors of my felines are just like human kid behaviours, but this morning Nobby was in overdrive.

• She woke me up, crying loudly, at 3:00 so she could sleep with me

• She kept stealing all the toys from her big brother -- anything he was playing with, she wanted

• She played in my makeup while I was getting ready for work

• She annoyed her big sister until a full fight broke out, complete with hitting and yelling.

At least her lack of opposable thumbs limits the havoc she can wreak. I hope.

Full of grace & coordination

Took the garbage out last night. Slipped on the ice and fell. Now my back is in agony.

FUCK!

That's twice I've fallen this week -- once from the leap from death and once from a combo of clumsiness and gravity.

GODAMMIT!

And up to that point, it had been a relatively good day.

What's a good word for a random collection of things that have crossed my mind today that I could have Tweeted but instead decided to make a blog post?

Voting for the Best Science Blog in the Webbies was like making Sophie's choice. How can I pick from Pharyngula, Bad Astronomy and Neurologica? They are all so full of teh awesome!

Dear iTunes Genius: this playlist you created based on MC Lars' "Ahab" is totally the shit! It's the first Genius playlist I've actually saved.

So I was up until 2:30 last night catching up on posts from Matt Logelin's blog, which is basically his online diary and is one of the more compelling things I've read -- just the outpouring of raw emotion alone is enough, but he writes pretty well and has a great sense of humor, not that he's necessarily feeling it much. Plus his photography skillz are mad and he has a fortune-telling robot. Also, I'll be working the phrase "I'm robot pissed" into my vocabulary so if you talk to me frequently you should go there so you know what I'm talking about.

Crap. I had more nonsense to spew forth onto the interwebs, but the McCain cat* came looking for cuddles (of a sort) and now I've forgotten most of it. I guess you all are spared.

*I call her the McCain cat because she's old, cranky and not all that bright sometimes.

Promotion

Because I voted for The Bloggess in the Webbies, I have been promoted from "minion" to "henchman" and she made us these cool buttons:

 

If you don't read The Bloggess, you really need to start. Start here. That contains some of her best posts of the year, including the ones about the angry transvestite army and the dead hobo fingers. Do yourself a favor and go now.

Nothing like near death to wake you up in the morning

So this morning so jackass tried to run me over in his SUV. (I'm using "he" as a generic pronoun. Could easily have been a she.)

There's a corner right by my apartment that joins two fairly busy roads -- the one that runs in front of my building in particular sees some serious traffic. And everyone tears down that road at at LEAST 10 miles over the speed limit. And at this corner, they traffic light is clearly labeled "NO TURN ON RED".

So there I am, waiting to cross. I get my little white walking signal and start off. Now, because I know that people tear ass down this road, I always check before I step off the curb; there's no one coming immediately. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the crosswalk when ASSFUCK comes tearing around the corner in said SUV. I don't even think he slowed down for the fucking turn, nor did he apparently look at the road in front where I was clearly walking. He swerved right and I jumped left. He kept going, not really even slowing and I fell on my ass.

Some very kind woman who was obeying the traffic laws hopped out of her car, full of concern and asked me if I was OK. I was, except for being all shook up and nauseated from adrenaline.

So, I'm fine, although I think my ass will have a gigantic bruise. I lived to tell the tale but it was probably one of the closest calls I've ever had.

Times like that are when I really wish that a) psychic powers were real and b) I had them. Because nothing would have made me happier than to make that SUV's engine die and then make the driver hemorrhage out of every orifice in his head. Not necessarily enough to kill him, just enough to cause a lot of pain and panic. (Notice how I make sure the SUV is out of commission so it can't hit anyone else when the driver explodes in blood? I'm civic-minded that way.)