Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Poll Results
I thought I would report on the poll results, which are most interesting, as the poll posts verge on sliding off the main page.
I asked people who might otherwise not vote for a Democrat to pick the Democrat they would most prefer to have as President if they could, and had to choose one.
Harry Truman is winning hands down, no contest, with 37 votes out of 64. John Kennedy is next, with 16, followed by Franklin Roosevelt, with 8. Less popular choices were Bill Clinton, with 2, Lyndon Johnson, who had none for a while but finally landed 1, and hapless Jimmy Carter, with no votes at all. Truman is my choice, so I am pleased to see so many agree.
Here is the President preference poll.
The other poll was less popular, garnering a mere 31 votes in all, of which 18 went overwhelmingly to happy warrior Hubert Humphrey. Al Gore trailed far behind in second, with 5 votes, followed by, surprisingly, George McGovern nipping at his heels with 4 votes. Are you sure all of you who voted were Republican or Libertarian leaners? You dumped the Duke with 2 votes, and someone, perhaps from Minnesota, cast a vote for Walter Mondale. Finally, in the end, John Kerry did manage a single vote. It looked like he’d be skunked, but somebody either took pity, or actually thought he would be a better Prez than the other guys.
Here is the loser preference poll.
Bush Rocks, Now Wash Your Socks
Or maybe Bush Wins, Kerry Spins?
She’s right, it is harder than it looks. But it’s so much fun! Go join in.
Huh.
I just assumed this:
Nine Deaths in Iraq Won’t Deter Coalition, Officials Say
On the one hand, it’s good for the bad guys to keep hearing this. On the other hand, it still boggles my mind that this isn’t just assumed, especially by some of our own people. It’s both a testament to the precision of modern warfare and an indictment of our understanding of history that anyone, here or abroad, might think that nine deaths would be enough to sway us.
Now Just Hold It
After my middle of the night post about apnea and sleep, I managed to fall back to sleep surprisingly soundly, and unlike other recent days, slept rather late. I feel more refreshed than usual, after my complaining.
Anyway, do you have these kinds of dreams?
Just before I woke up, I dreamed I was on a ship in the ocean, nowhere near land. Some of us went out on a smaller boat to do something. Then a former boss, Jim, and a former colleague, Charlie, left me stranded on a raft-like floating device my body didn’t even completely fit on. Before they left me behind, they dumped a bunch of old computers overboard, then rode off without me, to my surprise. Made it clear if I could get to land, fine, but just as well if I didn’t, which is what they expected. The crazy thing is the smaller boat they were on looked more like a van, rectangular, low to the water, with doors that opened on the side.
I have the craziest water dreams when my bladder is full!
In an apocalyptic mood?
Then Zee has just the link for you: The Claremont Institute’s Misslethreat.com.
Oh, and if the worst happens, Michael Williams knows how to repopulate the planet...
The quiz to end all quizzes
I just love this:
Take the What type of blahblah are you? quiz at sugarmama.org!
Via Pixy Misa, famed rescuer of lost blogs.
“This calls for immediate discussion.”
Remember the scene where Judith runs in and tells them that Brian’s being crucified?
Uh, yeah.
Anyway, I don’t generally bother linking up a new Bill Whittle essay, since everyone else in the blogosphere does, but he’s picking on intellectuals in this one, so I couldn’t resist. “...strikes them loquacious.” Heh.
Via George Turner, who has some accompanying thoughts worth reading.
It oughta be a beautiful May
According to weather.com, it’s fixin’ to rain for 9 of the next 10 days. I’m just relieved that the highs are supposed to be all the way up in the 40s, so I’ll only be half-frozen. And, well, you know what they say about April showers, though I think this is a little ridiculous…
Sigh.
I Can’t Wait
To be normal! At least, what I imagine as normal.
As regular readers know, I recently went for a sleep lab test to see if I had sleep apnea or what. This was inspired by my absurd snoring, which can be accompanied by apparent difficulty breathing. This went unobserved until Deb came along.
Sure enough, they want to put me on one of those positive pressure breathing machines that is the treatment of choice. I still object to receiving no results of the test but a call from someone checking whether my insurance would pay for medical hardware. My nephew got a report when he did the test; how many times an hour he stopped breathing and so forth.
Someone has offered to give me one of the machines, which I will pick up Thursday evening near, it turns out, the nearest Krispy Kreme. I’ve never tried them, Deb misses them, and my brother highly recommends them, so we’ll go even if Fresh Hot doesn’t apply.
Meanwhile, now that I know what is going on, it’s glaringly obvious. I’ve walked around with chronic fatigue since I was sixteen. It’s frustrating, because if I functioned as well regularly as I do when I am “with it,” I would be an entirely different person. Most of the time, I feel like I am in a daze. Since nobody could or would identify the problem or even believe it existed, I came to accept this as normal. Just as I accepted it as normal that I sometimes wake up several times a night, just that I know of.
Now I know why I go to the office and spend some days barely awake and, as a result, barely able to do anything. And why I often have to nap, sometimes for hours, in the middle of the day. And why number of hours of sleep doesn’t always correspond with how refreshed I am. And why I wake up panting or feeling like I am drowning sometimes. And why I have trouble concentrating, remembering things, or thinking straight all too often.
I can’t wait to get the machine, get a mask to match, get it callibrated, and see how it changes the way I feel and function. My first reaction was horror at having to hook to something to help me breathe properly in my sleep, but increasingly I feel like I ought have had it many years ago. Especially at times like this, when I am awake at 4:00 AM or so, wide enough to feel like I shouldn’t bother to try to sleep any more for now, yet feel dazed enough to sleep for the next day. I wandered over to the computer to kill a little time before I feel like running the nightly sleeping race again. As I will, for the good it apparently will do me.
People tell me that treatment for apnea has completely transformed their lives. I am so ready! Can you imagine, going to sleep and getting rested? Wow!
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Rubber ducky, you’re the one…
I had actually contemplated not tormenting y’all with another stupid quiz today, but I saw this over at Ghost of a flea and couldn’t resist:
Heh. I think they’ve got the wrong duck.
Ya know…
I don’t like to see anyone suffer, but I’m glad I’m not the only one having weird smoking dreams. Mine have been calmer and more satisfying, but still damned weird. In one I drove all the way across Texas for some sort of event. Then I realized that there was nobody around that I knew, so I went to the c-store and selected several different brands, took them out to my truck, and took my time choosing which I’d smoke. And it was soooo good when I smoked it. If real-life cigarettes were that satisfying, I’d never have been able to quit. It was like a religious experience and an orgasm, all wrapped up in one.
Or maybe they’re not weird so much as annoying. Or something. I could really stand not to think about cigarettes any more than I have to, though. All I know is that I wasn’t lucky enough to have any aversion to the damned things at all, so quitting was a hell of a struggle even though I had the bestest reason in the world. But I did it. And I will hold that over my child’s head, as all good mothers do.
*evil snicker*
Spam Spam Spam
I’m in my client’s server room, waiting for the spam engine to download for Sybari Spam Manager. It was time for them to update Sybari Antigen, which is a wonderful product, and when the sales guy pointed out the option of getting this Spam control product too, they readily agreed.
Antigen scans incoming e-mail for viruses, and can be used to exclude attachments by file extension. So, for instance, even if there’s no virus definition for a new virus, if it comes in an attached .EXE, .PIF, or .SCR file, it has no chance.
I’ve heard good things about Spam Manager 2.0 as well, but I’m still working on configuring and making it run. I see in the directions it says you can use external real-time black hole lists (RBL), but it doesn’t suggest any, merely pointing out they exist, some free and some not. That makes me curious to know what’s out there, especially for free.
Okay, done waiting…
Random Tunage
For something different again, I set iTunes to shuffle mode, double-clicked a song of choice to start the music playing, and made a note of the next ten songs that came up randomly. The zero song was my explicit starter choice, for eleven total:
0 Tales of Brave Ulysses, Cream
1 Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd
2 Your Number or Your Name, The Knack
3 I Feel Fine, The Beatles
4 More Than a Feeling, Boston
5 Mississippi Queen, Mountain
6 You Baby, The Turtles
7 Behind Blue Eyes, The Who
8 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
9 Hazy Shade of Winter, The Bangles
10 Walking Down Your Street, The Bangles
Baby Names
I am thinking we should torment people with some kind of “guess the names” contest. What do you think?
Women With Tails
Lynn wonders what the deal is with Jack L. Chalker’s female characters with tails. Is it sexy or sick?
Man With a Mission
Give the man a comment, eh? He has a goal for the day, and needs 327 comments. Here’s your chance to say anything that’s on your mind, if not whatever you are smoking.
Compelling As Wallpaper? I Hope Not
You are David Brooks! You’re exceedingly smart, but
your writing is as compelling as wallpaper. You
are a thoughtful though hard-line conservative,
but lack any of Safire’s verbal pyrotechnics.
In addition, you dress like you’re colorblind.
Fall down, juvenile.
Which New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Via Sasha Castel
Little Alien has a heartbeat
Only one, so I can’t make any more jokes about twins. Which run heavily on both sides.
We’ve been keeping this quiet until we had the first checkup, which has now happened, and past the most dangerous time, which is also over.
We’re at 13 weeks, due October 4th. And very happy to be able to talk about it openly now. Yay! It’s made things very interesting. For instance, driving all the way across the country with morning sickness...
The above, with the title as the subject, is what I e-mailed out to a couple groups of people to announce the baby after making the initial post about it today. I figured that would provide another perspective.
Funny thing was, when it came time to announce it, I couldn’t think exactly what to say. I’d planned on Deb posting first, but she asked me to. Luckily I tend to become inspired while showering. Thus the cryptic list of things affected that we couldn’t talk about openly before spilling the beans. Over the course of time, I’d imagined posting many times, including potential titles.
The one on this post was inspired just last night, when we got to hear the heartbeat, based on what has lately solidified as the baby’s nickname. Previously I had in mind “the swimmers are strong in this one” as a title for announcing it.
At any rate, it was a calculated risk, which I should have known had a result rapidly approaching certainty, given the absurd fertility of my male lineage. Since we both knew within about a week of “meeting” (first talking on the phone) that we wanted to marry, and that we thought highly intelligent people should breed heartily for the good of the world, it was far from unwelcome news.
If you watched Wonderfalls Friday, you know what the first name will probably be if it’s a girl. We both completely lost it when the priest’s daughter was introduced to him.
Anyway, I need to get back to working, so I have some hope of affording all this, but I wanted to follow up on the first couple posts with a tad more detail. Even if it is fun to torment the readers with crypticism.
Purgatory, indeed.
A little while ago, Chris Muir left us a comment that read, in part:
Which reminded me that Accidental Verbosity has yet to issue an offical call to arms for Chris’ syndication efforts. Everybody’s been talking about this for a while now, but just think of how a steady stream of e-mails and letters might impress the powers that be…the purgatory of no print release yet...
Day by Day really deserves to appear in print. Please help make it so. Click the graphic in the right sidebar for a list of folks to write to.
Oh, and since Chris never sends me cool graphics, I ripped that one off from Dean. 
There I go, making Him giggle again.
You know what they say about telling the Big Guy your plans, right?
Heh. Remember this?
I posted that right before my birthday last year. The relevant bit:
I guess I’m sort of anxious for it this time because I’ll be 29. (Chorus: Is that all? 2nd Chorus: Damn, she’s ancient!) Takes the pressure off a little, since it’s obvious that none of what I had in the back of my mind as far as things I should get done before I’m thirty have any chance in hell of getting done. So I can relax and enjoy the walk through the woods, since I’m already off the trail. I’m funny that way.
Besides, I love a good excuse to eat cake.
There were two things in particular that I had in the back of my mind as having no chance whatsoever of happening before I turn 30.
1. Get married
2. Have baby
The little one is due about a month before my birthday.
Doesn’t God have a marvelous sense of humor? (And can you tell how happy I am that He does?)
My Turn
Are you damned?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey
Atheism
You can laugh at the silly superstitions of the religious, safe in the knowledge that we are only dust and lies. All that will be left of you after you die is a slow decay and some fading memories in the minds of your friends. Hope you’re enjoying your life at the moment- there’s nothing better to come.
She’s not [i]quite[/i] damned yet…
This is about right, and the quiz was so gloriously nonsensical that it made me giggle, to boot:
Are you damned?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey
Via Lilac Rose
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The irony is killing me.
But at least it’s not the cigarettes killing me, right? This just strikes me as wrong, somehow. Heh.
Let The Word Go Forth From This Day And Blog…
It’s pretty surreal when you are keeping quiet about something, yet you are public enough to blog about waaaay too much of your life. Imagine something that affects:
None of which you can talk about until you are sure it’s okay to do so. Well, the time has come…
“The time has come,” the bloggers said,
“To post of many things:
Of nausea, sleep---and swimmers strong---
Of cravings and mood swings---
And why the timing isn’t hot---
And joy it surely brings.”
I miss my cell phone.
I know, it’s a sickness, but I miss the damned thing. Like last night, when my husband was on the landline, and of course I suddenly had to make a call right that minute, you know? Or like last week, when I was at the store, and I couldn’t remember what he’d asked me to pick up…
Anyway, I have to say that once upon at time, people on their cell phones in stores and such bothered me quite a bit. Then I discovered the joys of doing the same, and I ceased to really notice. Then I got rid of my phone, and it came to me that I had, indeed, stepped away from the light, for I realized that having to hear one side of most of these conversations was actually less exquisitely painful than having to hear both sides, and became deeply grateful to the phone users for coming to the store alone, rather than bringing along the individual they just couldn’t wait to berate or talk nonsense with.
Did I say I miss my phone?
This scrambled train of thought inspired by topdawg. Go visit...she makes more sense than I do. Really.
What part of “shall not be violated” don’t they understand?
Jeff is absolutely right that this didn’t get enough attention. The decision in Louisiana to allow warrantless searches is hopelessly unconstitutional and plain wrong.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Generic post
...that references a generic post so as to produce a generic trackback.
Referential Posterity
In a past life, I was the colleague and then technical supervisor of a ton of people who supported Visual Basic for Microsoft.
Especially given my central role in keeping many of those people in touch with each other, this means I am still being used as a reference more than five years later. I wonder how long this goes on… Not that I mind! If they ask detailed questions, I may have trouble remembering exact answers, but I certainly know who from that group I would hire. Most of them, in fact, but some more than others.
Today one of the ones I see with regularity contacted me needing references. He’d never needed any until now, and lost track of most of the people who would be appropriate. I’d hire him without hesitation. The last work he had started out as a three week contract to do some database conversion, and ended up being more than a year of porting code to VB.NET, and fixing what had previously been ported unsuccessfully. After that, he’d been looking for a few months.
His observation is that things are getting better; tech work is more available and employers are showing real interest in hiring.
Then he went astray, remarking it should get even better once Bush is gone! Hellloooo… the collapse of tech work, and to some degree the wider economy, came from where? The economy is now improving why? To the degree an administration’s policies have anything to do with it, the answers would be, respectively, Clinton and Bush.
It was just an idle remark. I chuckled good-naturedly at the joke and said nothing. We have never discussed politics, and I couldn’t have told you where he stood until today. Perhaps a guess, based on what “lifestyle issues” might be a factor, but never anything so clear.
Since he wasn’t vociferous, it doesn’t bother me that he made such a comment. I have friends whom I relate to on matters not political, and it all works out fine. I get terribly uncomfortable if they not only bring up the political, but harp on it.
But I digress. Back to the topic of references, it would be interesting for me if I ever went back on the job market. References would have to be people who were clients, people who reported to me, or possibly a person or two I interacted with at Microsoft in Washington. I have no idea how to reach anyone I ever had as a supervisor or manager.
Make Mine Caramel
Caramel eggs rule. They are better, no contest, IMHO.
The originals do have an advantage, not being as good, and being more excessively sweet: I can restrain myself easily.