What Anderson Thinks in Toronto

Is There Such Thing as Coincidence?

2006-03-24T08:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a little revelation that we had last weekend over green beer.

Come summertime, 3 of us in my close circle of friends from the Tdot will be living far from home.

I will be living in Edmonton.
LMD will be living in London.
Cleavers already lives in Toronto.

All 3 of us will be living a great distance from our families.

My family is *effectively from Toronto.
LMD's family is *effectively from Edmonton.
Cleaver's family is *effectively from London.

(*Effectively in this instance refers to the fact that the closest international airport is in said city).

Each of us will therefore be able to visit one person when we go home, and the other when they go home. How weird is that... especially considering the great distance across the world that we will be moving?

How the View of the World Changes

2006-03-22T11:20:00.000-08:00

I know that many of you who are reading this are going to know what I'm talking about: as soon as you learn that you are going to be teaching a certain class, the way that you view the world changes. How can you incorporate things that you know or see into your curriculum? How are you going to set up your course? If you were a student, what material would you want to know and how would be the best way to learn it?

This has now happened to me. Now, I've always had in the back in my mind the knowledge that I will eventually be teaching S & P. So that's taken care of: lots of examples and personal anecdotes for that one. But it turns out that one of the courses that I will be responsible for is Research Methods. Seeing as I haven't taken a research methods course since 1994/95, I only have a fuzzy recall about the actual content that one learns at this point of education. So for the past several weeks, I've been wondering: what am I going to teach?

Yesterday, after a conversation with Kevin, I have an idea. Well, Kevin gave me the idea, when he was hollering praises of Latex.

"Latex is awesome," he said. "I wish someone had forced me to learn it as an undergrad".

Thus my first course requirement was born: all students must submit documents as latex pdfs. This may seem like an unreasonable request, however, taking into consideration that:
a) Latex is freeware and available for all platforms
b) The learning curve of Latex can be steepened by supplying pre-formed templates, and
c) Many other sciences (eg. Physics, Computer Sciences) require all documents to be written in Latex,
I think this is a brilliant. It also eliminates all of the problems that people have with different formats of paper (how to adhere to APA formatting, for example), because it is built into the latex template.

Latex is also a great program because it teaches logic. A WORD PROCESSING program that teaches LOGIC.

Brilliant.

Hard to Believe in This Day and Age...

2005-09-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

... when scientists are working towards storing all published books on a device the size of a pinhead and determining the function of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that consitute humanity, that only now has the first photograph of a Giant Squid in its natural habitat been caught:

First picture ever. Of an animal that is almost 10 metres long and that we've known about since ancient Grecian times. Pretty fucking cool.

I'm Drooling

2005-09-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

So now I'm going to wait to get a new phone so I can get THIS
and at the same time, I may purchase one of THESE

Why can't I make more money?

What At Absolutely Numb Moron

2005-09-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Did anyone else see what that stupid fuck with his beady little eyes said this morning during his press conference?

"What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," Bush said. "We still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure we can respond properly if there is a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack or another major storm."

He ACTUALLY took this as an opportunity to push his own ridiculous agenda for WMDs. And he mentioned this BEFORE the possibility of another natural disaster. For Christ's sake, even his own father said that everything in New Orleans was FUBAR due to Federal incompetence.

Hey George, here's what went wrong: YOU. YOU went wrong. YOU are the one who took out funding from science and funnelled it into that debaucle overseas. YOU are the one that is responsible for ensuring that the lower-class citizens cannot afford any form of transportation or access to information in a convenient manner. YOU are the one who is not accepting help from any other countries, including Cuba (who has offered to send 1100 physicians but has yet received a phone call back). For fuck's sake: they're Communist. Accept it. Drop this retarded embargo and let them help.

The only good thing that will come out of the New Orleans disaster is that there isn't a chance in hell that the Republicans will win the next election. Only 3 more years.

Ahhh... Small Towns

2005-08-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Mark (who indeed served me many nights at the Creamery) doesn't read my hometown paper, the St. Marys Journal Argus (See the upcoming events for Wednesday, August 31st). Kevin thinks they may be trying to be ironic. I know better.

An Ode to Mike the Chicken

2005-08-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

Apparently, this is an allegory for Michelle and her Ultimate abilities (her words... not mine):

His name was Mike. He lived for 18 months. And, every year in Mike's hometown, they have a festival that is dedicated to him. Somehow, someday, I'm making a pilgrimage to Fruita, Colorado to play in the Mike the Headless chicken Golf tournament. I want the t-shirt.

The New Best Reality Show

2005-08-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

Tommy Lee goes to College. I mean really. Tommy Lee. In college. A musician in an academic setting. Absolute brilliance. I also have a new respect for Tommy Lee, and found myself feeling really bad for him when he was having such a hard time at band practice. I highly recommend it.

But of course, this begs the question: if you could have ONE famous person in your class, who would that person be? And what class would that be?

I would want John Mayer in an upper level Sensory Processes class. He's a pretty smart guy. Also, funny. And if I got flustered I wouldn't have to worry about going on with the lecture but could instead have the class split into groups for discussion. About what, I don't know. Probably something brain related.

I could also go for Troy Aikman in an Introductory Psych class.

Words the I Use to Much In My Academic Writing:

2005-08-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Demonstrate (upon edits, I discovered 6 times in one paragraph!)
"Underlying Neural Mechanisms" (or "Neural Underpinnings of")
Moreover
Evidence
Functional Organization
Suggest(s)

I'm so fucking sick of writing. And what do I do about it? Write about it.

Athlete is Playing at the Opera House!

2005-08-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

Tickets went on sale this morning, and in a moment of weakness I purchased 4 without checking if anyone wanted to come with. I'm pretty sure they are going to sell out pretty quickly. Cost: $21.50. Date: Monday, September 19th. Anyone interested?

My Motto: First come, first serve. That's what's written on my bedroom door anyway.

I'm earmarking one for Michelle. I'm pretty sure that you'll be game buddy.

Check them out on iTunes if you haven't heard them. Also, David Gray is playing on October 2nd at the ACC. I'm not worried about rushing for tickets for that, as I can't believe that it will actually sell out. But if anyone's interested in tickets, lemme know.

My Favorite Photo

2005-08-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

I'm going to organize all my pictures and upgrade my account on Flickr so that I don't have to send out 15000 permutations of CDs with pictures that are relevant for the recipients. I'm nowhere close to done yet, but I will blog the link as soon as it's ready. In the meantime, as I'm sorting out my photos, I realized I had to post this one because it's my favorite personification of WhaFuck:

And you wonder why she falls out windows.

I Laughed When Michelle Said She Cried...

2005-08-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

...but I have to admit my eyes didn't not well up at the end of Harry Potter. I just finished it. I couldn't put it down over the last 150 pages. I can't believe it. I didn't see it coming. And then, when Darth Vader admitted to being Luke's father...man, I was done for.

I can't believe there's only one book left. How's it going to end?

Oh and my experiment below obviously didn't work so now I just look like a perv.

Enticing Blog Spam

2005-08-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

Introduction:
As you can see from the comments section in the post below, I have now discovered the glory of Blog Spam. I've been sitting here and trying to figure out WHY that particular post garnered so much spam interest. My theory: the use of the words "Gay Porn Star" may have attracted some interest from the spam webcrawlers. To experimentally test this theory, I am now going to try and attract even MORE interest.

Methods:
Underage Asian Prostitutes
Donkey Fucking
Penile Anal Rimming

Results:
(see comments section)

Discussion:
Stay Tuned. This post may also attract other internet traffic that I don't really want.

Ladies and Gentlemen: My Brother

2005-08-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

Most of you know Ryan. For those of you who don't: he's currently doing his PhD in Cambridge right now in Computer Vision (after waking up and realizing that the drudgery and menial task-management of real world employment at Bell Mobility is pants). In the words of (a decidedly sarcastic) Drunk Nikie, "Christmas at your place must be REAL fun, with all the vision-speak going on".

Yes, yes it is.

Anyhoo, he made the mistake of pointing me to his friend Becky's blog this morning (looking forward to meeting you Becky!). What with it being Friday and all, I was able to leisurely set out through said blog to read some of the goings-on at Wolfson college. Which led me to photos. Which I know some of you will appreciate (Lynne Honey, I'm looking at you).

Now, when I think of Cambridge, I think of the epitome of academics, class, and wealth. I think of enchanting evenings on the River Cam, Afternoon Tea with aristocracy, and Formal Balls. At least Ryan has experienced some of that:

That would be Ryan right smack dab in the middle (5th from the left AND right). I've never seen him in a tux (albeit a tux purchased from eBay), so that was nice. Then I came across THIS:

I had to actually read Becky's blog to figure out which one he was. Yep, that's him 2nd from the right. Dressed as Dog, Bounty Hunter/Gay Porn Star. Shudder.

I have now seen it all: Ryan in a see-through shirt with handcuffs laced around him.

Ryan, are you trying to tell us something?

When the Lights Go Down in the City

2005-08-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know why the 8th top tune being downloaded from the US iTunes store right now is "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey? Has it recently appeared in a movie or TV show recently? Don't get me wrong: I love Journey. Journey's Greatest Hits is arguably the best compilation CD of all time. Still, it seems a little odd that the kids today have picked that "retro" song to latch onto.

Weird. But good weird.

If I only invested as much time into science as I did into music, I may actually have a real job right now.

Musical Indulgence

2005-08-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

Audioscrobbler has updated their website. It's pretty cool. Much more intuitive than their older format. I highly recommend signing up for it (and if you do, then sign me up as a friend :) (I can't believe I just emoticonned that)), as it opens up a world of music for you that is geared specifically towards your own musical tastes. Thanks to Jen for getting me hooked on yet ANOTHER website.

Think you are eclectic in your musical tastes? Turns out there's always someone more eclectic than you.

Gastronomic Indugence

2005-08-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

While I follow a relatively healthy diet, I do have one weakness that gets me everytime. That would be Tim Horton's Maple Pecan Danish. It's fucking good as hell. If you haven't yet done so, please do yourself a favour and buy one. Enjoy it. Love it. Experience the pleasure that is the Maple Pecan Danish. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Unless you don't live in Canada. Then you're screwed.

I'm going to get one right now.

iSnob or Indie Yuppie?

2005-08-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

Since I'm back from vacation, I figure it's time to start thinking again. Michelle, I think you're right: I've got to amalgamate my blogs. My organizational skills aren't good enough to keep two seperate streams of thought going. Actually, they aren't even good enough to keep my head out o' me ass.

It turns out I may have a new neighbour. The day that Vik moved 3 short buildings away, Jen came and looked at the apartment right next to mine, and has submitted an application. Submerse in water for 48 hours: instant neighbourhood! If Jen moves in, she came up with a brilliant scheme: we could share wireless. Thy shall be done.

When I told Kevin about this plan, his first response was "Don't get the Apple Hub, get a LinkSys Router instead". "Why?" I asked. "Its half the price" was his response.

But there's no way in hell I'm going to get a LinkSys router. It's not white. Nor does it have the apple logo on it. Yes, I am one of "those" people. I have an Apple logo on my Jetta. I carry my iPod with pride, and am thinking of getting an ishuffle as a back-up. I support Mac because I think its cool to do, not because I know anything about PC systems and can directly compare product quality.

There's a new name for people like me. We're called Indie-Yuppies.

I hate to think of myself as someone who is easily pigeonholed. Everyone wants to think that they are unique and can contribute something novel to our culture. Turns out, however, that I am just like millions of other 20-to-30-something year olds trying to be "Alternative".

My brother had a great line once: while talking about body piercings, he said "I hate body piercings. They're the conformist way of being non-conformist".

I'm so conforming to non-conformity.

This is Why I have a Hard Time with Sub-titles

2005-07-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

An example of bad translation

Musical Epiphanies

2005-07-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been somewhere, heard an album, and thought... this is brilliant? And, 5s later, thought "Damn, I think I have this?" Happens to me all the time. Tonight, said album would be Ryan Adams -- Gold.

Fantastic album. Listened to it all the way home on my iPod.

Blogs are Buzzing All Throughout Canada...

2005-07-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

The Star headline involves a quotation from "Karla Homolka" herself:

'I don't want to be hunted down... I don't want people to think that I am dangerous and I'm going to do something to their children.'

Well here's a retrospective suggestion: You shouldn't have RAPED and BRUTALLY MURDERED people then. People tend to frown on that, maybe be a little mistrustful. Especially when one of them was your own sister.

Oh, she also claims 'I never took pleasure from it'.

???

Who in the blue fuck does this chick think she is? Do we really care if she took pleasure? That little tidbit is shrouded by the fact that she was in a place, at one point in her life, where she found herself encasing body parts in cement and throwing them in Lake Ontario. Well, at least she's paying her penance by chosing to only speak French now (Again, ???).

I give her 6 months free range.

Oh, and it turns out that there is no "PhD Brain Drain" either. I could have told them that: who has met an academic who WANTS to move to the US?

The Construct of Joke-Space

2005-06-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that for most people, the popularity of little "in-jokes" tends to follow an inverted u-shaped function. Someone says something funny, the comment gets picked up by more people, the comment gets used by these people for a couple of weeks (or months), and then gets put back in the vault. Jokes tend to be "over-done".

Not so with my friends. We push through to the point where its so not funny anymore that its funny.

Example: This would be the transcript of the beginning of every bi-weekly phone conversation that I have had with Hessels since October, 2003:

One of us: Hello?
Other: Dipshit.
One: Dipshit.
Other: What's up?
One: Not much. You?
Other: Not much
[5-7s of silence]
Other: Okey Dokey! Well, good talking to you.
One: Righty Roo! Talk to you next week.

Every single fucking time. And we laugh hysterically every time. And really, is it that funny? I read it, think of someone else reading it, and I think "that's gayer than the time I saw 2 guys kissing on a bench." But I still laugh my ass off. Why?

Because we find a ridiculous amount of humour in redundancy.

'Nother Example: The very first week that we met in grad school (September, '97), we made plans to do something over the weekend. I believe it was a Saturday. One of us walked into another's office and said "Hey, what are you doing Saturday?" The other said, "I've got plans to do [X], but how about Saturday?" This, of course, resulted in a running joke when it comes to making plans. You can keep it going forever: "Well, Saturday is OK, but Saturday works much better for me." or "Saturday is out, but...Hey! Why not Saturday?" This joke is particularly funny because it is doubly redundant: 1) we can literally keep it going for several minutes with new permutations of plan-making sentences, and 2) we have been using the same goddamned joke for 8 YEARS. I repeat: 8 YEARS. That has GOTS to be some sort of record. Even Seinfeld "Told Us for the Last Time".

There was a joke that ran the risk of running its course. In 2002, Gilette came out with a horrible series of deodorant commercials where men would ski down slopes, sniff their armpits at the bottom of the hill, and turn to the camera with a cheesy grin and say "Nice!" or "Sweet!" Worst. Commercial. Ever. But again, funny as hell. So, instead of saying "Great!" or "Good Job!", we resorted to smelling our armpits and saying "Nice!" or "Sweet!". We would use that joke with whoever we could, and it would usually be received with eye-rolling or groaning. People actually started to hate us.

Unfortunately, geography limited us from using that joke for over a year.

However, during a Euchre game at the Hessels' family home over the Christmas vacation, Hessels took a trick in a rousing come-from-behind fashion. It was as if distance had never been an issue: my reaction, [*armpit sniff*] "Nice!" Hessels: [*armpit sniff*] "Cool!" Never forgot that joke again.

And the really good thing is, both Michelle and Kevin will now sniff their armpits and say "Sweet!". Much to their chagrin. Well, Michelle ain't sniffin' her armpits yet, but she'll be there very, very soon.

Conclusion: Our interest in personal jokes tends to follow an exponential function. And that saves valuable time in coming up with new material.

You Never Know What You'll Find When Surfing the Web

2005-06-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

... but I never expected to find THIS. Courtesy of his blog-holiness, Jason Mulgrew.

Great Photo by Hessels

2005-06-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

This is Berton. Sandra's cat. Namesake: Pierre Berton. Sandra's idol, and arguably one of the best Canadians ever. Oh, and Guinness.

More examples of Hessels' photographic talents can be seen HERE

The Current Edition of the Journal of Neuroscience "Came" Out

2005-06-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

And get a load of the title of one of the brief communications:

The Sensory Cortical Representation of the Human Penis: Revisiting Somatotopy in the Male Homunculus

Hugh just came running into the office to show it to us. His comment..."I want to read the methods".

This may rival other classics, such as

Rectal blowout by personal watercraft water jet: case report and review of literature.

or my personal favorite:

Rectal Salami

Succinct and to the point. The way science should be.

Here's a Word you Never Want to Hear Out of Your Father's Mouth

2005-06-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

Sugardaddy.

And One Protracted Thought...

2005-06-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation last week that has just stuck in my mind. This conversation had to do with sexism and whether or not it still exists (this was after seeing the movie Crash, which will bring out any opinions in discrimination). Sexism is a funny issue: for some reason, some people feel as if females are discriminated against, even though they are the MAJORITY of the population. Are females truly perceived to play an inferior role in society? Could I be further ahead in my career if I were male?

Now, I would never presume to know how it would feel to be a racial minority. I am positive that being Black in the Southern States, for example, would have it's downsides. I've met enough snooty crackers to know that there are a lot of white-folk who have a serously inflated sense of self-worth. And I've been in Florida and Georgia enough to know that there is a hell of a lot of discrimination going on down there, no question. And that would suck. Kudos to people who can break that cycle.

I am a corn-fed white girl from St, Marys. I grew up in a town that contained no racial diversity whatsoever. Well, there was the Chinese family that owned the Chinese restaurant in town. And a couple of adopted kids that weren't WASPs. But I would say that a population statistic of 7 non-whites:4993 whites would not exactly constitute a "cultural mecca". Point of diatribe here: I did not grow up in a region where discrimination was an issue. So really, I never even thought about it until I moved from my little bubble and onto bigger things.

You can imagine my surprise when I walk into a world that is telling me that, as a female, I have been discriminated against. Apparently, my wages are lower, I don't garner as much respect from my coworkers, and I have to be more careful about what I wear because I AM A WOMAN. If I were male, I would be so much more successful in life...

But I've never been in a position that has made me feel inferior because I'm female. And I HATE the fact that there are women out there who exhibit enough presumption to tell me that I have (to be fair: the conversation that I had was with Chris (male) who was telling me about a conversation he had with two females a couple of weeks before about women's rights). But it still pisses me off to know that some chicks are out there "Speaking on behalf of all womenkind". It is especially frustrating as I have a) worked at a Cement plant (where my job involved hard labour and heavy machinery operation), and b) work in psychophysics, which is still a predominantly male profession. I think that if anyone is/was going to be discriminated against, it would be me. The fact that I have not posits three potential explanations:

1. I am so unattractive that others do not consider me to be a female, hence I have not been sexually discriminated against. Possible, but I can think of at least one little toad who has cried sexual discrimination that is undoubtedly less attractive than I.

2. I have been discriminated against, but am so naive that I did not recognize it. I admit that I can be very naive. But so naive that I couldn't recognize the fact that I was degraded simply because I was a woman? I find that unlikely.

3. Sexual discrimination is a crutch term that is often used by people who have an extreme external locus of control. In my 30 years, I have learned that a lot of people are idiots. A lot. And, by and large, most of them don't know it, and instead blame their inadequencies on the world around them. This is especially true in the silver-spoon population. Instead of claiming responsibility for their own failures, they blame anything and anyone around them instead.

Don't get me wrong... I am sure that there are still cases of sexual discrimination that exist. And thank god that I have not had to deal with that. But when I sit there and have to listen to a 20-something year old say that they recieved a "C" on a political-science paper simply because they were female... I mean c'mon. That's just insulting and disrespectful to the millions of peope who face REAL discrimination every day. Grab some sense of responsibility.

And let the hate mail begin!

Embarrassing Injury

2005-04-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

Just a brief post...

When I was 15, I twisted my ankle while running to the bus, after slipping on a patch of ice. This was 2 days before the regional volleyball championships, and I was in a brace and with crutches for the tournament. I thought that was the most embarrassing injury ever (coaches asking while I was sidelined, and expecting to hear that my injury was volleyball related) ... until tornight...

Went to a pub on Yonge and Lawrence for a birthday get together...turns out, we had to share the pub with a group of "Singles meeting in Toronto" people. No offense, but damn....glad I saw that train wreck from a peripheral view 'cause I would NEVER go to one of those get togethers. Mean age = 53(+/-7yr). And not exactly the most socially-capable people.

And as we were sitting on the sideline and mocking the songs requested (picture THAT playlist)....

Kenny Loggins comes on. Footloose soundtrack. Someone stood up and was wondering what Kenvin Bacon's steps were to the song. I stood up to illustrate, and unfotunately re-discovered my MCL injury. I will walk with a limp for the nexxt 2 weeks.

Why?

Because I was trying to imitate Kevin Bacon in Footloose.

And I probaboly can't play volleyball for 2 weeks. Saddest injury ever.

Why I Am A Schizophrenic Blogger

2005-03-28T01:00:00.000-08:00

It's like everything else in my life: I get really excited about something, invest time and/or money into it, and then promptly forget about it for months on end. Blogging? Sounds brilliant! I know...why don't I sign up, post 4 entries in a row, and then randomly think about it again in a month's time! Not that it sounds like any other project that I've initiated...

...like the time that Sandra and I decided that a vegetable garden in our backyard at NASA was the BESTEST idea ever. We spent an entire day removing sod, adding topsoil, digging, fertilizing, planting and watering. Sweaty and extremely proud of ourselves, we showered, settled onto the porch for the evening to enjoy some pints and look over our newly cultivated backyard. A couple of months later, Sandra looked in the backyard and said to me "What the hell is that?". We went outside to investigate, and found a lone radish in the region that we had slavishly ploughed months before. Turns out...we had planted a garden. And we had completely forgotten. Who knew that gardens needed to be tended? 2 years later, I removed some sod from another part of the yard to cover over the saddest-ass garden that ever graced the Steel City (perhaps even the Great White North).

...or the time that I decided that one of the bedrooms at NASA needed to go from dark Maroon paint to Sunshine yellow paint. Being cheap, I did not buy any sort of primer. With paint brush in hand, I undertook the incredible task of brightening bedroom #2. 2 days and 4 coats later, I wrapped the brush in cellophane, left coat #5 for the next morning, settled onto the couch for the evening to enjoy some pints and revel in the glory of my new moddled yellow bedroom. A couple of months later, I walked into bedroom #2 and remembered that I had started to paint it. In the daylight, however, it was very obvious that I needed at least 3 more coats to make it presentable. How did I solve the problem? Sold the house. Never picked up a Sunshine yellow paintbrush again.

...or the time that everyone came over to carve pumpkins for halloween at NASA and decided to save all of the seeds to roast. And there were a hell of a lot of seeds, considering that there were 8 Jack O' Lanterns on our front stairs at the end of the night. Knowing that the seeds needed to be completely dried before they could be roasted, we heaped the seeds onto a cookie tray and placed them into the oven. Washed up, settled onto the couch for some pints to appreciate the pumpkins. A couple of months later, as we were preparing the turkey for Christmas dinner, we opened the oven to prepare it for said turkey. I looked in the oven and said to Sandra "What the hell is that?". A large green mound stared out at me. It was extra sad because we then and there realized how little we actually used the oven to bake anything. In retrospect, I probably could have scraped off the mould to resod the garden.

...or the 3 guitars that I have sitting in my living room because 4 years ago I was going to become the greatest female guitar player to ever live. Don't get me wrong...I have learned out to play. Mostly while enjoying pints. But not well enough to justify owning 3 guitars...2 of which require significant bridge work to be remotely good. And certainly not well enough to play in public, let alone as the greatest female guitar player that ever lived.

...or the time that I went to my parents' place for Christmas, and my Mom bought supplies to make a basket. Apparently, she thought it would be a fun mother-daughter activity to weave a container of sorts. I spent 3 days carefully dyeing the wicker strips colours that I would like, and then attempting to assemble said basket. This little experiment screeched to an abrupt halt in the middle of the 4th day, after having woven about 4 strips around the basket skeleton, with me throwing my project onto the floor while yelling "Fuck It!" at the top of my lungs. Damn it, that was the most frustrating thing I ever tried to do. 2 months later, I received the finished basket in the mail. I guess Mom decided that I should at least get a basket out of the whole harrowing experience, and finished it herself. God bless her.

...or the breadmaker that I was going to use every morning to make fresh bread

...or the full set of paints that I bought because I was going to start painting again

...or the really cool experiment that I programmed 4 months ago to measure face-selective tuning, but haven't actually run on anyone

The list could probably go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

Chicks With Bad Hair

2005-03-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

Seriously...if you have bad hair, then don't be a bitch. The hair is just fodder for mockery.

Played volleyball last night...we were doing fine until the last match. For the last match, we met the team that can easily be classified as our "Nemesis team". They are arrogant bastards. And we get so riled up when we play them that we inevitably lose. They are not better than we are. They are just bad karma.

To put this in context: I play 4-on-4 beach. I play with people that I have fun playing with. We are a solid 50:50 team, where some of the teams we play kick our ass, others we kick theirs. Our nemesis team has the same record as we do, so we end up playing them EVERY SINGLE WEEK. And they are the only team that we argue with on a regular basis. The men on their team think that they are better than they are (*cough* penis envy), and are willing to win at any cost.

The problem is the girl on their team. She has the same attitude that they have...but she has really bad hair. I mean really bad. Its short and spikey. Its the "I'm trying to be cool with my hairdo" look of the mid-90s. The piece-de-resistance is the FROSTED TIPS. I mean really. Do I have to use the line "Hey, N'Sync called..."

I'm not saying my hair is the best thing. I've spent my life trying to tame the nasty-ass bird's nest that sits on top of my head. But noone would look at me and think "Man...I can't believe that she would have a hairdresser cut her hair that way". Its just the way that it is. I'm pretty sure that spikey-frosted-tip-hair is a not natural phenomenon.

All I could think when I slapped her hand to say "Good Game: was "Good Game...Get a haircut". Oh, and "You aren't that good at the whole volleyball thing".

MEEE--OWW!

I'm Finally A GrownUp!

2005-02-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

Until I checked my mail today, I was always under the impression that becoming "Grown-Up" was contingent on getting my first permanent honest-to-god job. Man, was I way off. Today I was blind-sided by the feeling of being grown-up when I opened my mailbox, and found *gasp* my very own honest-to-god VISA card. Gone are the carefree days of irresponsibility. Today, I became a woman.

Don't get me wrong. I have credit. Lots of it. Mainly because I have spent the last 10 years on various University campuses. If you've been on campus at any point over the past 20 years, you know what I'm talking about. You walk by a table, feel strangely compelled to own the compilation Jazz CD or black baseball cap that says CANADA across the front, and decide "Sure, I could use another Mastercard". However, you are an honest person, so it doesn't even occur to you that your first name can become "Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo" residing at "123 Fake Street". Next thing you know, you have 36 Mastercards sitting in your wallet, and a closet full of crap that you could have bought at the Sally Anne for about 7 cents. Yes, getting a Mastercard is about as difficult as confusing Paris Hilton with hyperbole for a University student.

But Visa cards are a different story. Visa doesn't recruit the average University student. They don't have to. Visa instead caters to the upscale businessman working on Bay, the soccer-mom who drives her Suburban to pick up milk, the rich kid whose parents want them to have access to cash "just in case" (cosigned and paid for by Daddy dearest of course) . Visa is the card that my parents used as I was growing up. Visa is "The Credit of the Responsible".

So now I join the ranks of the responsible. I own a Visa card. And I have a decent amount of credit on it. I will be responsible, as Visa has so deemed, and will remove one of my several Mastercards from my wallet and replace it with the card I affectionatelly refer to as "Visey". And if I am ever in a situation where the vendor will accept Visa but not Mastercard, I will no longer have to worry about walking away in shame (although that has only happened once, and it was in Estonia). Yes, I will face the world tomorrow as one of the responsible.

But I will never forget how, when the rest of the world saw me as an irresponsible student for 10 years, Mastercard saw me as an investment. As such, Visey will stay in my wallet as an alternative only. For everything else, there's Mastercard.

Why SuperNanny Would Not Approve of the Way I Raised My Cat

2005-02-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

Eek on Powerbook
Originally uploaded by Lemmiwinks.

My newest favorite TV show is Supernanny. Partly because of the title. She's a "Super-nanny". My personal goal is to become a Super-something (Superpsychophysicist doesn't ring right), and so I use Supernanny as a role model. But, lets face it, I mostly like it because because I like to see rotten kids and Laissez-Faire parents get told that they suck in a British accent. Finally, somebody pointing out that discipline is required for normal social development.

I love watching Supernanny walk into houses and point out (seemingly obvious) things that the parents are doing wrong. And, being schooled in the tradition of behavioural science, I am shocked and amazed how little parents know about simple conditioning. You don't want your kid to whine about going to bed? Then don't reinforce the behaviour. This is not rocket science, people. I, being childless, of course feel that I will do a better job with my kids.

And then I look at my cat.

She's a really, really cute cat (Fig. 1). Everyone loves her. She's white, and really loves people. She has adorable blue eyes. And when she snuggles, she has the softest fur ever. I never thought I was a cat person (I'm still not), but Eek the transcends her feline counterparts.

And boy, is she a bitch.

Everything that Supernanny criticizes parents for, I am also guilty of. Example: most parents don't spend enough quality time with their children. When I get home, I spend an hour putting my stuff away, cooking dinner, and eating dinner in front of the T.V. All Eek wants is some quality time from me. She head butts me for about 15 minutes. And she's fat, so she's got some momentum behind those head butts. She demands food whenever she wants. If I have my head on HER pillow when I'm falling asleep, then she pokes my face. She really rules the roost, and I'm exhausted. I constantly second guess myself as to whether or not I am raising a happy, well-adjusted cat.

But what would Supernanny make me do to rectify this situation?

1. I would have to set up a detailed schedule in my kitchen. And I would have to schedule Eek in. If I walked into someone's kitchen and saw their cat scheduled into their day, I would slowly back out of their apartment and talk about them behind their back for years. Not going to happen.

2. If Eek was sassy with me (as she often is), I would have to send her to the naughty mat. For 9 minutes. If I told Eek to goto the naughty mat, she would give me a good-old-fashioned "fuck-you" flip of the tail and lick herself. If I physically tried to put her on the naughty mat, she would walk off. Why wouldn't she? She's a fucking cat.

3. To try and establish better sleeping habits, I would have to start ignoring her cries at bedtime. I learned in 1997 never to ignore Eek. She scratches. And bites. Did I mention she's a bitch?

4. I would have to implement a more rigorous feeding schedule. As such, Eek would have to eat when I tell her. Again, please refer to the comment above for reasons why this would never happen.

So, in Supernanny's eyes, I basically suck. My cat is an obnoxious brat. I am an uber-indulgent parent. But at least she looks good.