Degringolade

1. Snagged from colls - "You can help NASA classify telescope images of
galaxies, helping researchers identify very distant
galaxies and black holes and distinguish real signals
from noise. Each classification takes about a minute,
and tutorials guide you every step of the way."

Here's How

I don't know about anyone else? But I'm certainly tempted.

2. RIP James Van Der Beek aka Dawson from Dawson's Creek. He died of cancer at the age of 48. It was announced multiple times on the news this morning. He apparently had six kids - which, well, virile?
( Read more... )
3. Work and public transportation and this week (starting with Sunday)...have made me want to avoid people for the next four days (and since I'm taking Friday off and have Monday off as a paid Federal Bank Holiday - I can do that). To further this? I rescheduled my hair appointment for May. (Well that, and I can't handle going up and down four flights of steps on Monday, with this knee. I need more time. I'm hoping by May, I can do it without too much pain.)
( Read more... )

4. Question a Day Memage February:

12. Do you have any siblings?

Yes. One. A younger brother. Who has gifted me with a beautiful niece.
Siblings are a double-edged thing - both gift and curse, those who have them probably know whereof I speak?

5. People are using AI...to help with commenting on various sites - with ahem amusing results? ( Or it's bots, can't decide.)
( Where I'm complimented for my excellent story-telling abilities in...writing film reviews?? )

Sigh, people continue to bewilder me?

Mother told me all about what my niece is up to. Apparently she has a new boyfriend - a California Forest Ranger, who she met last year. (She's also living with a guy, but he's not her boyfriend, and he's apparently writing a book for his thesis - it's not clear if it is fiction or non-fiction. I'm guessing non-fiction?) And she's come up with an idea for an investigative journalism piece on the political corruption surround fire retardation use and how forest fires are put out or not as the case may be. Her advisor is excited about it - he wants her to pursue journalism and writing. (She's an excellent writer). Statistics is causing her difficulty though - apparently no one in our immediate family has the math gene? She finds calculus and statistics boring, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. (I can relate.)

Feeling rather bored and apathetic with my own life at the moment, not helped by the bad knee, which refuses to get better and makes it difficult to do much of anything but get to and from work, and the occasional errand (including physical therapy). It still hurts. Although my physical therapist, Vishanti, appears to think it is getting stronger and better, so there's that at least. Also, it's warming up - a little outside?
It reached a rather balmy 41 degrees F today, and a low of 29 F.

After some negotiation - I finally managed to convince the Super to turn off the sparkling brand new radiator that they installed in my kitchen. It's black. It takes up more space than I'd like? But I think I can fit a small cabinet in front of it. And since it's turned off - I cancelled my purchase of the window fan. Also it's not quite as warm in the apartment at the moment as it was last night, which made it difficult to sleep. Although the radiators are blasting now - so that could always change?

Every day on my commute, I run across old homeless folks. Today, it was an old white woman, who looked a bit like a gnome. ( Read more... )

Sometimes I think - if I can just help one person in this world. Then maybe the rest won't matter? See? George Bailey moment. [If you don't get it? Look it up. We have the internet - it's easy. Hint: it's a cultural reference from a 1940s Christmas Movie starring Jimmy Stewart. ;-)].

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Question a Day Meme

8. How often do you read fiction?

95% of the time. I also write it. And tell it in my head. And listen to it on audio-book, and read graphic novels or comics that are fictional.

I read non-fiction for work. Fiction for pleasure.

9. This year is the 40th anniversary of the release of the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – have you ever seen it? Bueller…. Bueller…. Bueller…..

Yes. I saw it in the movie theater when it first came out - admittedly with the wrong person (my mother - which ahem, not a movie to see with one's mother). And numerous times on television.

40 years? Damn. I feel old. It was, I think, a 1980s John Hughes film. John Hughes was the King of teen flicks in the 1980s, he, Francis Ford Coppola and a few others - kind of redefined teen cinema.

It grated though - because I identified a bit too much with Ferris' sister.
That said? Required back to back viewing is Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Election - where Broderick is the stumbling adult, to Reese Witherspoon's ambitious and annoying teen.

10. Have you ever owned a Tamagotchi?

I had to look it up - because I had no clue what it was. So clearly no.

Tamagotchi can be found here. Hint? It kind of reminds me of the electronic version of what they were trying to give out in the Buffy Episode Bad Eggs. If it had been electronic - Bad Eggs would have gone VERY differently.

11. Would you consider yourself superstitious?

Not really. I might flirt with it - but I am a born skeptic. I question everything. So no, not superstitious.