Normal enough to know that I'm weird.

Sun, 11 May 2008 04:28:16 GMT

Queen Latifah Rocks!

More great commercial parodies here

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:15:27 GMT

Job In Heaven Quiz

Your job in heaven would be :

Finding people who are in need of a miracle

Find out what your job in heaven would be at Quizopolis.com

The City by the Bay

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:21:25 GMT

Bob and I are travelling to San Francisco this weekend, Friday through Monday.

Does anyone who lives there want to do something? Show us that spot that only the locals know about?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:10:41 GMT

The ultimate gamer knitting project

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:13:36 GMT

Your LJ Slut Stats!
Out of your 109 friends, percentages you have:
met		44.95%
hugged		29.35%
dated		1.83%
kissed		1.83%
seen shirtless		6.42%
seen naked		1.83%
had net sex		1.83%
made out with		1.83%
had oral sex		1.83%
fucked		1.83%
Get your LJ Slut Stats!

Orton's Iris

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:10:48 GMT

Orton's Iris
Originally uploaded by Zyada.

From my garden.

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:08:14 GMT

Jeans with a built-in keyboard

Bob: "Ooooo baby, yeah. Get those middle keys"
Me: "space, Space, SPACE"

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:09:00 GMT

There is a mandatory large meeting this afternoon with the executive veep over IS, with mostly the software developers. It is being called a planning meeting. Very suspicious.

The admin assistant ended the reminder with:
Thank you and have a "wonderful" day!

Quote abuse? Or does she know something we don't?

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:08:57 GMT

From the civics test that has been going around:

You answered 54 out of 60 correctly — 90.00 %
Average score for this quiz during April: 66.9%
Average score since September 18, 2007: 66.9%

*smug*

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:50:18 GMT

Kevin and Kell - Minirth, you will probably get this one:

Giant moth, w snake head wingtips

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:17:43 GMT

Giant moth, w snake head wingtips
Originally uploaded by Zyada.

This is a really, really big moth

Here is Bob taking a picture.

BTW, all that moth does during the day is hang out on a tree trunk. Then they spend all night getting it on.

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:40:14 GMT

It warms my geeky heart:

see more crazy cat pics

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:30:18 GMT

I heard back from the neurologist and I am not having seizures. Back to square 1.

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:07:59 GMT

It's been a long time since I've done any sort of real life update. This is mostly because (for the most part) nothing really changes in my life - Bob and I are still nauseatingly in love, the cats are still cute, my team lead can still piss me off, but she's learned some tricks (or manners) from her new boss, so that's better than it has been.

That leaves health topics which I rarely mention because they so often fall under the "ewww" or "yawn" categories. However, a couple of things of note have happened recently that I thought I'd write about.

I got my eyes checked for the first time since I was in elementary school. For the first time in my life, I am wearing glasses. I only need them for distance vision (the end result of spending twenty some-odd years in front of a computer). Bob took a photo of me but it was out-of-focus (is this irony?). I'll have to try another time.

ETA: Thanks to tiny_nomad, after my first pair from the optometrist, I got two pair (one regular, one pair of shades) from Zenni Optical for $20 apiece.

I've been having bad dizzy spells, starting about mid-December. At their worst, the world starts moving around me like someone has tied me to the hub of a ferris wheel. Off-center. They only last for a few minutes (thank goodness); when it happens, all I can do is close my eyes and lay down (if possible) until it stops. Sometimes it just feels like the world wants to start moving but doesn't quite get going, rather than a full-blown attack of vertigo. For the medically knowledgable, it is not caused by standing or sitting up suddenly; in fact, there doesn't seem to be anything happening to trigger it. The first spell, and at least a couple of others, I was sitting at my computer reading or putzing around. Another time I was shopping with Bob.

So, I went to my doctor about this and he said "I've never heard of anything like that before". Then I got a brain MRI (yes, there really is a brain in there!). I talked to a neurologist next - the MRI did not indicate anything nasty, but the radiologist found a spot that might make me more likely to have seizures. So these dizzy spells might be seizures. Thus, this last weekend, I did an "ambulatory eeg". They glued me into a portable EEG and I carried it around for three days, with wires trailing out of my hair. Bob called me his "borg girlfriend". They took it off yesterday, and I spent an hour washing my hair, and another couple of hours trying to get the tangles out. And I'm still pulling bits of gunk out of my hair.

The good (?) news is that I did have at least one definite spell during the test, and I had a button to push when that happened, so hopefully the doctor will be able to rule out the seizures or medicate them away. I'm kind of hoping for the latter, since I would really like these things to just go away.

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:55:51 GMT

This is from an old Nike ad. I made copies of it and have had it posted on my wall at work where ever I've worked.

All your life you are told the things you
cannot do.
All your life they will say you're not good
enough or strong enough or talented
enough,
they'll say you're the wrong height or the
wrong weight or the wrong type to play
this or be this or achieve this.
They will tell you
NO,
a thousand times no until all the no's
become meaningless.
All your life they will tell you no, quite
firmly and very quickly.
They will tell you no.
And you will tell them
YES

Your life is a series of what everyone says
about you,
and what you say about yourself
So say
YES

(grammar whores, feel free to nitpick)

Soaps

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:39:30 GMT

Soaps
Originally uploaded by Zyada.

Today's thing-a-day!

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:51:49 GMT

Some of this was very, very wrong, but the very last one was quite accurate:

zyada took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Longs for tenderness and for a sensitivity of feel..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:47:14 GMT

Apparently the witness protection plan works...

HowManyOfMe.com

There are
0
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Thing a day #2 - carousel horse from a coloring book

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:57:43 GMT

Thing a day #2 - carousel horse from a coloring book
Originally uploaded by Zyada.

I slept most of the day today, so this is all I had the energy to do. Coloring in a coloring book!

thing-a-day_1

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:17:14 GMT

thing-a-day_1
Originally uploaded by Zyada.

My first 'thing-a-day' - a papier-mache box decorated with the Fool from the tarot deck.

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:05:10 GMT

I asked for suggestions on thing-a-day for things to make and got this:

"Something whose purpose is symbolic, like a ritual tool."

Being Baptist, I wasn't brought up with much in the way of items with symbolic purpose. Any ideas?

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:21:32 GMT

Some of my friends might be interested in this: http://www.thing-a-day.com/

Make one thing every day in February.

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:08:10 GMT

Interesting article:

Feeling fat may be worse for you than being fat

Some quotes of interest:

To investigate, they examined data on 170,577 people participating in a study of behavioral risk factors. All had reported their actual weight, perceived ideal weight, and the number of days in the past 30 days when they felt that their physical or mental health was not good.

When the researchers used statistical techniques to control for the influence of age and body mass index, they found that the more dissatisfied a person was with his or her weight, the more "bad days" he or she had.

...

In a study now under review, Muennig said his group found that being overweight doesn't increase mortality in ethnic groups that are more accepting of heavy people.

...

we doctors often have a very visceral reaction when we see an obese person in our office. This visceral reaction sets off a red light that says, 'tell this person to lose weight.' That is not the right way to approach obesity."

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:41:34 GMT

I realize that this isn't a startling revelation, but I'm insane.

I'm thinking about doing a crafting blog. I'm not really interested in blogging about what I am working on, because it seems like my real projects take forever. However, I had an idea the other day about something I might do. I like to say that I've done nearly every craft that Michaels carries. I also feel like I can do nearly any project I've seen just by looking at it.

Let's qualify that - I'm not a talented sculptor, artist, knitter or crocheter. I am a putter-togetherer. I've just seen a lot of projects that had me wondering why anyone would need instructions on how to do that!

So my idea was to get input on what kind of quick projects to do, in a random material/random result fashion. Like improv theatre, only with crafts. Now I'm thinking of more things I could do - book reviews, projects on the web reviews, maybe the occasional op-ed piece?

Maybe I should finish putting the den together first.

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:42:26 GMT

I found the other article when trying to find this one:

How to calculate the volume of a cat.

This really needs more illustrations.