Coffee and cigarettes…

January 14, 2009

16 things about little ol’ me…

Filed under: warning: dangerous memes,we need... a purpose — techrat @ 3:33 pm

The following is something of a difficult memesheep adventure, as I am by nature an exceedingly private person.

  1. I have a limited form of synesthesia (inputs to one sense trigger sensations in others). For example: Purple smells like vanilla, which is a favorite scent of mine. I can feel the sound of stringed instruments up and down my spine like light fingernails. Sadly, the reverse of both of those is not true.
  2. I have never broken a bone. The worst injury I’ve ever sustained was a ‘broken’ ankle, which was more that the cartilage in the joint got shredded.
  3. I’m a complete lactose addict. A day without milk products is a private form of hell.
  4. I have set foot on all seven continents – though my visit to Africa was measured in hours and I never saw the outside of the airport. I accomplished this without benefit of a passport.
  5. My greatest fear is going either blind or deaf. Just the thought of being either of those will induce a panic attack.
  6. I talk to my maternal grandfather every day. He died almost ten years ago.
    6a. Sometimes, he answers.
  7. (No surprise to some…) I have Asperger Syndrome. I wasn’t formally diagnosed until I was 28. I didn’t share this information with anyone else until I was 33.
  8. Someone can insult me all day long and I won’t care, but compliments of any kind cause me to pray for lightning to strike me instantly dead.
  9. I use humor to hide that I am a dreadfully boring person.
  10. Despite the fact I love to cook and to eat, I forget to do so at least twice a week.
  11. When I was in second grade, I was listening to a book-on-tape through headphones and tried to talk to the kid next to me. Due to the headphones (the old ear-covering huge ones), I wound up being quite loud as I tried to hear myself speak. This caused the teacher to yell at me, in front of everyone for several minutes, for being too loud. I didn’t speak at all for almost a year afterward, and to this day I have to make a conscious effort to speak above a whisper.
    11a. As far as I know, the teacher never realized what she’d done.
  12. The most awful thing I can think of to wish on someone is that they live in perfect health, forever.
  13. The only justification I have ever used for anything I’ve done in my life is “because I can”.
  14. I lose respect instantly for anyone who blames others for their own shortcomings. Likewise, I only respect those who admit their faults and work to overcome them.
  15. I have a near-photographic memory. I consider this a curse, because it gets harder and harder to experience something new in life, when everything you do reminds you of something you’ve already done before. As if that weren’t enough, every memory is equally weighted – five minutes ago is just as current as fifteen years back. To give you an idea of just how fun that is: when someone asks me for my phone number, I have to consciously evaluate which one of the 12 I’ve had in my life is my current one.
    15a. However, my retrieval system is going faulty – my mental records clerk has developed ADD and Alzheimer’s, which means I can’t always remember something right when I want to do so, and often wind up remembering something wildly unconnected yet somehow relevant instead. I actually think this is why I haven’t yet gone insane… as far as I know, anyway.
  16. I made a list of the proverbial Three Wishes when I was six. In thirty years, I’ve never had cause to revise them.
    1. To have just enough money to not worry about the bills, but not enough that it would change who I am.
    2. For stupidity to be painful, and that the pain be proportionate to the stupidity in question – i.e. little dumb things would be like bumping your shin, and major stupidity be like being gutshot.
    3. A good set of ear plugs.

January 12, 2009

meme-tastic…

Filed under: warning: dangerous memes — techrat @ 12:25 pm

Your Word is “Think”


You see life as an amazing mix of possibilities, ideas, and fascinations.
And sometimes you feel like you don’t have enough time to take it all in.

You love learning. Whether you’re in school or not, you’re probably immersed in several subjects right now.
When you’re not learning, you’re busy reflecting. You think a lot about the people you know and the things you’ve experienced.

What’s Your Word?

There Are 0 Gaps in Your Knowledge


Where you have gaps in your knowledge:

No Gaps!

Where you don’t have gaps in your knowledge:

Philosophy
Religion
Economics
Literature
History
Science
Art

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

January 10, 2009

whee! domestic bliss…

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 1:51 pm

This weekend is composed of a lot of downtime, so I’m catching up on things to do at home that need doing.

The most interesting on today’s agenda has been the inventorying of the freezer’s contents. (Yes, my life is just that exciting.)

I have a lot of food stockpiled. Now to actually do something with it.

Off to the meal-planning!

January 8, 2009

the heads be rollin’… they hatin’…

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 9:51 am

Good times here at the Fun Factory. The pros from Dover have been in town for a few days now, and they’re starting the head-cutting today. So far, six. Rumblings of more to come.

Da Boss says he hasn’t heard of any plans to whack my position. Also says the moment he hears rumblings like that, he’ll let me know rather than let me get blindsided. So I at least have that going for me.

Happy New Year.

EDIT: Apparently, someone enjoyed the news so much, they decided to make our day more exciting with a bomb threat. Good times…

January 7, 2009

oh, sweet sweet stolen cake…

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 4:52 pm

I go a-wandering through the office just about this time every day, because I always forget to pack a lunch, and I never get to go anywhere. Sometimes I come up empty, but not today. The front office here at the Fun Factory is about 90% female, and there’s also enough people in total that birthdays and other felicitous occasions happen fairly regularly. As a result, there is usually some form of food lying around begging to be eaten.

Happy Birthday, whomever you are. Because of you, I now have cake.

And in the process of getting it, I got to look all pro-active and stuff.

It’s all about appearance management, don’tchaknow.

January 5, 2009

it’s a new year alright…

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 10:26 am

…but it sure looks a lot like the old one.

Da boss is out sick, still. I’m on my own here at the Fun Factory.

Which means that the fun, relaxed, happy vibe I brought in with me from ZOMG Best Weekend Evar lasted about 45 seconds. (That’s not entirely true… I do still feel really damn good. It’s just on the back burner while I fight all the fires that I found waiting for me when I came in. Maintain….just maintain.)

In no particular order, the highlight reel begins….now.

(more…)

December 31, 2008

they grow up fast…

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 10:00 am

Last night was business as usual with Miss Kidd – our usual dinner-and-wandering-and-talking routine. But she’s starting to add twists of her own.

So we’re at Steak ‘n Shake, cuz chili goes well with sinus infections for reasons I can’t fully elaborate on, and as we’re wrapping up the meal, Miss Kidd reaches across the table and grabs the check from me.

“I got this.”

Just a very matter-of-fact statement.

Rather than argue with her, I just said I’d cover the tip, which she accepted as fair.

I hung back a bit and watched her as she walked up to the counter, paid the tab (while giving me a sidewise glance and a smile) and bantered with the cashier a bit. I have a hard time looking at her and not seeing the hyperkinetic bouncy-ball she was not so long ago. The fiercely determined little imp who made three words — “No, *I* do!” — sound like a death threat covered in inches-thick layers of cute.

But she’s not those things anymore. At 12, she’s already taller than my mother, my girlfriend and my BFF. (I really do need to stop watering her.) While she isn’t drop-dead model gorgeous, she is definitely a very pretty young lady, and will be even moreso after puberty finishes rebuilding her for adulthood. The intellect is still there, the fierce determination even moreso… time is doing nothing but adding more weapons to her feminine arsenal.

She’s not a little girl anymore… and I have to say I’m pretty fond of the woman she’s growing into.

And maybe just a bit fond of myself for having had a hand in making her into who she is, and who she’ll be.

December 29, 2008

yay! new addiction!

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 3:07 pm

Well, OK, it’s new to me. Most of you are about to go “geez, you’re kidding, right? that’s so 5 years ago”.

I have been Borged into the Guitar Hero cult.

So far… well, “suck” is a polite term. I have yet to achieve better than 90% completion on anything, even in Easy mode. (In Medium, I’ve hit a brick wall I call “Fat Lip” by Sum41.) It’s interesting, challenging and frustrating… but also, I’m at a bit of a handicap for playing, so the frustration isn’t all of the good/motivating kind. Between arthritis and just enough nerve damage to piss me off, my pinkies won’t fire on cue – they’re a good quarter-second behind the others, and even when they do, it’s often not quite strong enough to trigger the fret button.

Any recommendations for exercises I might do to improve on this?

win some, lose some

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 12:28 pm

So there’s been some reconsideration here at the Fun Factory, and it seems I won’t have to go to Missouri in January as previously thought.

Instead, it’s looking like mid-to-late February.

Known affectionately in the midwest as “oh, you thought winter was over? oh, do we have a surprise for you…”

So… yay, and argh, all at once.

December 22, 2008

the weekend, in brief

Filed under: brain candy — techrat @ 9:53 am

Quick hits from around the league…

  • Dad’s home from the hospital. Notable only in that he really shouldn’t be just yet.
  • Spent most of the weekend with AB, and it was gloriously domestic. Banana-nut pancakes with chocolate chips for the absolute win.
    • Bacon and nakedness – you’d think they don’t go together, but they do. Really.
  • As usual, something comes up that throws the best-laid plans out the window and skeet-shoots them on their way to the ground. As ever, we will adapt, improvise and overcome. We just won’t like it.
  • I’m on my own here at the fun factory this week. Bossman has leftover vacation days and needs to use them up.
  • Still to do… finish acquiring and/or finding presents for the fole wham damily, wrap, prep for the Xmas-day drive-a-lot marathon, try not to kill anyone here at the fun factory, and oh, yeah, eating and sleeping at some point might be nice.

Might.

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