happy corporate cog

got love?

2005-05-18T02:02:46Z

This is a long shot, but did anyone record tonight's season finale of Gilmore Girls? The dearly beloved Tivo decided that it HATES everyone at our house and changed channels to record House (which I'd normally be excited about, had I not missed my most anticipated five minutes of television all month!), leaving me and even the 'sloth sad and pouty. Very pouty. And sad. Help?

p.s. Sappho the cat will beat up anyone who dares to mock the Gilmore Girl love in our household. Don't mess with the kitty.

PSA

2005-05-14T20:36:12Z

As of a few minutes ago, the Pixies' June 15 show in Boston still has tickets available...

for those of you who were "real" English majors

2005-05-01T02:28:50Z

Awesome.

baby animals! puppies! llamas! meerkats!

2005-04-16T01:19:53Z

Oh my God. You can't handle the cuteness. Really.

This needs to come with warning labels - "will make even the oldest and grumpiest of former goths ooh and aww like an ovulating woman at a baby shower." I'm keeping this on the Tivo FOREVER!

the sprungness of spring

2005-03-31T01:26:05Z

There is no longer snow in the driveway. I can pull all the way to the back, leaving room for a car to park behind me, for the first time since the beginning of the year. It's been almost two weeks since I've had to wear a jacket on my runs, and I anticipate moving to shorts by the weekend (if I ran during the day, I'd be there already, but it's still fairly cool at night). When the sun shines I can almost feel something like warmth on my skin, without the intervention of fleece or wool.

Can you feel the excitement? CAN YOU??

lusciousbrrd @ 2004-12-12T22:15:00

2004-12-13T03:18:04Z

At our hot beverage party on Saturday, I wore pink pants. The only person who commented on said pants was the person who persuaded me to buy them a few days earlier.

I have two theories on why no-one mentioned the pants:

1) They looked awful. (I'd still expect the pinkness to be startling enough to warrant some mention, but that leads to my next theory...)

2) No-one was surprised to see me wearing pink pants.

The second theory bothers me more than the first, as I would not normally consider myself the type of person who others would view as someone who would wear pink pants. Orange pants, maybe. Possibly even red. But pink? Really?

Then again, perhaps the pants were overwhelmed by the buttered rum and Burdick's hot chocolate. Or the couch. How could mere pants, whatever the color, compete with the glory of such a couch?

commuter phone needs

2004-05-18T16:28:44Z

My Sprint contract has finally expired and I'd like to get a new cell phone/carrier combo. Since I'm going to be commuting from Boston to Marlborough four times a week, I want a provider that's slightly less flaky than Sprint. Any recommendations?

mastered

2004-05-06T16:46:26Z

Last night was my last class. Fairwell, sweet SAS. I'll miss you so.

Today is my last day of work at the usability lab.

I just purchased my cap/gown (black!)/hood ensemble for my graduation on the 15th.

I've received one job offer and should hear back from a couple places I did second interviews with by tomorrow.

I'm slightly embarrassed at the number of songs on my iPod that I can't identify.

And look! I've written an entire post without degenerating into ALL-CAPS TO DESCRIBE HOW UNBEARABLY GIDDY I'LL BE AT THE END OF THE DAY TODAY. Oops.

lusciousbrrd @ 2004-03-27T18:11:00

2004-03-27T23:26:27Z

I'm now Officially Looking For a Job. (In related news, assuming I can overcome the looming threat of grad school "senioritis," I will be a Master of Science by May. Exciting, eh?) If you know of any cool [human factors | usability] engineer or user [interface | interaction] designer positions in the Boston area, please let me know.

Fun fact: I've categorized the four jobs I've applied for so far as either "Wearing My Hip Web Designer Glasses on the Interview is of Critical Importance" (the three [x] designer jobs) and "Wearing My Glasses is Probably Not Going to Matter One Bit" (the one [x] engineer jobs). The jobs where my glasses would give me an extra edge are, of course, the ones I'm most excited about as well as the ones I'll have to kick more ass to get. I'm hoping that the glasses + new suit + stylish new haircut will provide the necessary super powers. Now I just need to get that new suit and new haircut...

lusciousbrrd @ 2004-03-04T09:34:00

2004-03-04T14:36:26Z

Something funky has been happening with the voicemail from my cellphone, so if you think I've been ignoring you, try sending me an email instead. If you still don't hear from me, assume that I am, in fact, ignoring you.

quick orkut thoughts

2004-02-11T02:55:41Z

Three things have been bothering me about Orkut, and (amazingly) they're thoughts that I haven't seen posted elsewhere in the particular social networking backlash surrounding this tool:

While it's nice to know just how popular someone is by seeing how many "fans" they have, I'd much rather see who someone is a fan of. The distinction between "fan" and the trusty/cool/sexy ratings just isn't very clear to me - how many ways do we need to show that someone rawks? I want to know who they think rawk, as this will be more useful in my quest to add bullet points to my life experiences and ruthlessly use my friends' friends in my quest to take over the world.

The personal network visualization isn't nearly as interesting as I'd like. I want to see how many of my friends are friends with each other. I want to know which person invited which other person, who the social hubs are. I'd like to layer it with community membership. Blame tonight's daydreaming during my Visualizing Information class for this particular mind drift.

I like that I can create specific friend groups. Why can't I lock/unlock areas of my profile so not everyone listed as a "friend" sees all my information? Since friends include everyone from business associates to sig others, setting privacy based on friend groups as well as friends/friends-of-friends/everyone seems like a very useful option.

lusciousbrrd @ 2004-02-05T17:29:00

2004-02-05T22:29:26Z

Just one hundred pages stand between me and the first Note/Errata of Infinite Jest. To celebrate this event, which has taken much too long thanks to somewhat legitimate concerns such as school work and plans for this weekend's Californication, I present you with the finalists in the David Foster Wallace parody competition. Enjoy.

shiny happy pages

2004-02-04T03:09:33Z

LJ Book is either incredibly cool (ooh, shiny LaTeX) or absolutely awful (imagine all this, formatted as a pretty PDF). I'm surprised that LJ is the first blogging tool I've heard of to offer this feature (unless I've been slacking on my rampant reading of the blogging world's RSS feeds), although officially LJ really just offers XML exports, which you then have to make look "professional quality" through your own mad stylin' skillz.

It's too bad that comments aren't exported and formatted as footnotes, or as sidebar commentary.

never say never - reality TV pick of the week

2004-02-01T20:14:31Z

VH1's latest show, Bands Reunited gives me the biggest and warmest fuzzies of any show yet this year, and if you've got a few New Wave one-hit wonders (Flock of Seagulls? Romeo Void? Frankie Goes to Hollywood? Berlin, although they were less of a one-hit wonder than most of the other bands featured?) buried in your playlists, it might do the same for you too. In each episode, the relentlessly optimistic host tracks down all the original band members - whether they're driving a tractor in the middle of the country or hidden away in a quaint British pub - and proposes a reunion and a one-night only special performance. Drama ("Why'd you kick me out of the band?"), group hugs, and musical tension ("I haven't played the drums in twenty years!") ensues. Sometimes even I get a little teary eyed. Mmm, recycled culture.

an excuse for salty foods and beer

2004-01-31T23:59:10Z

Football?

boston PSA

2004-01-24T16:24:18Z

If you're in Boston, I recommend heading to the Boston Public Library at some point in January to see the exhibit about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. The exhibit features pictures and newspaper articles describing the incident, including a rather dramatic description of someone drowning in the flood that may leave a kinda sticky taste in your mouth. This CNN article pulls out an interesting tidbit about the incident that I hadn't heard - the tank had been leaking ever since it was built, but the company that owned it just painted the tank the same color as molasses so the leak would be less obvious. You'd think that the dangers of a steel vat leaking 2.3 million gallons of molasses (or anything, really) would be fairly obvious...

light. tunnel. pretty.

2004-01-23T22:03:55Z

Internship over. Me tired. Three-day weekends make me smiley.

And, as I gather my wits and begin preparing job procurement stratagems, let us hope that this semester's (my final semester, for those keeping track) information visualization and statistics (SAS! SPSS! give me your acronyms!) courses will keep my career from resembling this.

remove this question from your vocabulary (if questions exist in mental vocabularies, that is)

2004-01-16T17:25:06Z

Stop asking, "Is it cold enough for you?" What the hell does that mean? Um, yes? No? Is this really a question that requires us to whip out our breasts and compare cup sizes?

A simple, "Damn, it sure is cold out there" is all that's really necessary to instigate a civil conversation. There _is_ such a thing as a stupid question.

in da club

2004-01-15T20:46:58Z

Since I'm always one to take my lemons and use them for tequila shots, I decided to take advantage of the arctic chill and do join the more miles than degrees club. Sure, my run was shorter than I would have liked had I been able to feel my nose (the only part of my face visible between my hat and the scarf I used as a makeshift balaclava, but 3 miles at 0 degrees sure is invigorating. Mmm. Invigorating.

I'm just glad I didn't wait until tonight when, according to current forecasts, I'd have to run nine miles BACKWARDS.

what's cooler than cool? ice. cold.

2004-01-09T23:52:45Z

Just last week, I was feeling pretty darn pleased with myself. I'd consistently completed my outdoor runs no matter the temperature (with the exception of snowy or icy days, because I would have spent more time on the ground than on my feet, but I more than made up for it on the cold and rainy days). Twenty degrees with a 0 wind chill? I was there. My cardiovascular system basked in the briskness. This New England winter was _mine_.

Now, the difference between 20 degrees and 3 degrees (and -20 wind chill), the temperature it was this morning, is 17 degrees (go English major!). It's the same difference between, say, 32 and 49 degrees. Which is to say, a big enough difference that I didn't even attempt a run this morning. And it's a darn good thing. The wind on the way to the T felt like tiny fingernails clawing at the exposed skin of my face as ice water was poured into the resulting wounds. Each breath seemed to scape my lungs raw. And no-one else looked quite as miserable as I felt. As I walked from work to the gym, I fought the urge to curl up and fall asleep on a street corner, as the lessons learned from the trapped-in-an-avalanche disaster books I devoured as a child during the scorching California summers returned to me - if you fall asleep while out in the elements, you'll die.

This wretched cold means just gives me one more reason to get in gear and buy plane tickets to L.A. for the weekend of Feb. 7. I can't think too hard about it though, as the mere thought of wiggling my toes in warm sand is enough to give me pneumonia.

lusciousbrrd @ 2004-01-05T16:28:00

2004-01-05T21:30:12Z

My two main running goals for 2004 are to, a) complete a 10K with a reasonable (though still undecided amount) decrease in minutes/mile from last year's 5K, and b) complete a half-marathon. While I haven't found many half-marathons listed for the fall yet, I did find a 10K that I absolutely have to complete for the sheer pretentiousness factor – the James Joyce Ramble in Dedham. Who says running can't be fun?

the infinity of "the middle," and beyond

2003-12-28T23:28:41Z

The thing about the midwest (aka "the middle") is the flatness, so much that it seems effortless to spend a few extra hours traveling in any direction. Why else would it seem like a brilliant idea to skip the flight from Indianapolis back to Boston in favor of a two-day boat/train/bus/automobile extravaganza with the 'sloth and his 'rents* through Indiana and Ohio with a sleepover in Pittsburgh after dining with my fam and Denny's-ing (clogging my arteries with alishine and talldean and Jean-bird) and a push through to New Jersey and the ferry and bus to NYC's Port Authority and eventually, an extraordinarily whiny welcome home Friday evening from the much-missed Sappho.

Also, the iTrip + 20gb iPod make driving in the car - anyone's car, even for hours and hours on end through the land of Rural King and beyond - truly an aural adventure.

The many hours of sitting gave me a chance to plow into Infinite Jest, something I was almost reluctant to read after realizing that I've never received so much (impassioned) advice about what to expect from a book. It came to a head as I prepared to purchase the book, right before the trip (to Indiana, not the iTrip), when an earnestly hip employee of the Harvard Square Bookstore began gushing about how this was his favorite book ever, that he read it once a year, that it all comes together after about 100 pages so you have to get at least that far, that here, let me see that, there's this one page that, here, page 223, if you have this handy ahead of time, you'll be much less confused with the whole idea of subsidized time... I had a moment of panic a few hours ago, when I decided that footnote 110 must actually be one of the three novels within the novel that I had been warned about, because my goodness, footnotes within footnotes seem just a little ridiculous, although in an amusing "more power to DFW's mad self" kind of way. It's sad, in a way (not DFW, or the bookstore employee, although maybe just a little), that having not read this book seemed to create more interesting conversations around me than any text I have actually read. Oh well. Sandman will now have to bear the brunt of my "you haven't read that?" conversational weight.

Since my thought patterns (and hence, writing patterns, although I notice it more in professional settings since my casual writings such as this short piece are usually pretty flaky anyway) usually reflect what I'm reading at the time, work tomorrow should be quite interesting. To say the least.

* The apostrophe speaks to me today. No other explanation needed.

speaking

2003-12-17T20:13:07Z

I'm at work, which is where there is no-one else. I've restructured that sentence several times and that is the one which amused me most. Were it last week, I could occupy myself doing homework BUT the semester is now over (yay!) and there is no more homework for me to do. Instead I'm working and watching rain dribble against the windows and editing a document that strains my eyes and prompts me to build overly complex sentences of my very own. And I'm alone.

What I really want to discuss is the vending machine downstairs. In a rather uppity way, it has started demanding exact change but refuses (the balls!) to recognize dimes. I thought it was impressive that I had any non-penny change at all. Were I to redesign the machine right now, I'd add a big red button that says Yes, I acknowledge and accept that you have no change. Please keep the extra 15 cents and give me my bag of nuts!

But back to work, or at least the software I have to use to do my work. This clever comic captures my thoughts on the UI of Lotus Notes in a much more polite way than I could ever express.

Maybe when I have more time, I'll do an in-depth comparison of the mind game in Ender’s Game and the primer in The Diamond Age as educational tools for the molding of young minds, and explore the relationship between technology and instructional design principles as exemplified in sci-fi type novels. Educational infrastructure and technological/human resource requirements for implementing such a system, feasibility, practicality, blah. Words of wisdom woven here, someday.

Today seems like a good day to buy meat over the internet.

early birthday presents!

2003-11-23T18:17:45Z

TIVO!

Panther

This is much more fun than writing papers.

times a'changin' in this great puritan state...

2003-11-20T15:49:03Z

Can I just say how much it sucked to carry a bottle of wine all around a store (e.g., at Trader Joe's) only to be told at checkout by the smug flowered shirt guy that you can't buy it because it's Sunday? Never again, kids! Never again!