They really do make a card for everything nowadays.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Oh Yeah
I forgot to post this on my actual birthday, but we went out to a fancy restaurant and I wanted to share this prettiness with you:
Believe it or not, that is very fancy, deconstructed s'mores: molten chocolate cake, caramelized meringue, and graham cracker ice cream. It didn't actually taste anything like a s'more, but it was still delicious.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Data Data Data!
Guess where my work sent me today?
Edward Tufte's one-day course about presenting data and information! Not only was it awesome for all of the obvious reasons, it was double awesome because I got a set of all of his books for attending, and a neat little carrying case for them:
AND I got his autograph in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information:
Somehow I am not surprised that his signature is so... concise.
It was a little disconcerting to be back in an academic lecture setting, since I have gotten used to being a regular working adult. It was also disconcerting to be in a room that was probably 80% men, since I don't work in CS. Oh well. I learned a lot, and tomorrow I will go back to work and yell at everyone about their graphs until they regret having sent me!
Edward Tufte's one-day course about presenting data and information! Not only was it awesome for all of the obvious reasons, it was double awesome because I got a set of all of his books for attending, and a neat little carrying case for them:
AND I got his autograph in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information:
Somehow I am not surprised that his signature is so... concise.
It was a little disconcerting to be back in an academic lecture setting, since I have gotten used to being a regular working adult. It was also disconcerting to be in a room that was probably 80% men, since I don't work in CS. Oh well. I learned a lot, and tomorrow I will go back to work and yell at everyone about their graphs until they regret having sent me!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Perfect square!
Look what I got in the mail:
In case you can't read the small script:
It's from my aunt and uncle, or - as it says on the certificate - "Lady High Mistress of Muckety-Muck" and "Grand Poo-Bah." And people wonder where I get my sense of humor from.
There was a bunch of other silly stuff in there too:
I think I'm going to wear the "Birthday Girl" ribbon to work tomorrow, and see if anyone comments. I think I'm entitled, after having spent a quarter century among the Muggles of Planet Earth.
At first I was like, "I can't believe they would send me another guilt mailing, especially since I didn't even give them anything last time!" But then I opened it up, and found:
In case you can't read the small script:
It's from my aunt and uncle, or - as it says on the certificate - "Lady High Mistress of Muckety-Muck" and "Grand Poo-Bah." And people wonder where I get my sense of humor from.
There was a bunch of other silly stuff in there too:
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| They crossed out "erasers" on that package, and wrote "mistake catchers" instead. |
Saturday, September 10, 2011
In which I complain about getting free stuff
I unexpectedly got a big, thick envelope in the mail yesterday from St. Joseph's Indian School. I knew its contents were going to be odd based on this:
I've gotten guilt-mailings from charities before, but this is ridiculous. In case you can't make out what everything is, there are two notepads:
A personalized calendar, a sticker sheet, and a sheet of address stickers:
A preemptive "Certificate of Appreciation" for my help:
A personalized letter from an Authentic Indian Child, and personalized gift certificates for me to provide said child with food and clothing:
And last, but certainly not least, a real live dreamcatcher:
I can't think of anything that would make me less inclined to donate to a charity than them sending me all this crap in the mail. In addition to making me feel resentful for trying to guilt me into giving them money because of the reciprocal nature of gift-giving, it also casts serious doubt on what they would actually do with my money once they got it - send more dreamcatchers to more random people in the mail? How is that helping any Lakota children?
Some quick googling revealed that not only have they been doing this trick for awhile, but that St. Joseph's Indian School is actually pretty negatively reviewed by the BBB's Charity Reports Index - for, among other issues, only spending 51% of their money on their actual program. I guess the other 49% goes to dreamcatchers and postage.
But despite its promise of 3 - no 4! - free gifts, I was still surprised by the sheer volume of crap contained in the envelope:
I've gotten guilt-mailings from charities before, but this is ridiculous. In case you can't make out what everything is, there are two notepads:
A personalized calendar, a sticker sheet, and a sheet of address stickers:
 |  |
A preemptive "Certificate of Appreciation" for my help:
A personalized letter from an Authentic Indian Child, and personalized gift certificates for me to provide said child with food and clothing:
 |  |
And last, but certainly not least, a real live dreamcatcher:
I can't think of anything that would make me less inclined to donate to a charity than them sending me all this crap in the mail. In addition to making me feel resentful for trying to guilt me into giving them money because of the reciprocal nature of gift-giving, it also casts serious doubt on what they would actually do with my money once they got it - send more dreamcatchers to more random people in the mail? How is that helping any Lakota children?
Some quick googling revealed that not only have they been doing this trick for awhile, but that St. Joseph's Indian School is actually pretty negatively reviewed by the BBB's Charity Reports Index - for, among other issues, only spending 51% of their money on their actual program. I guess the other 49% goes to dreamcatchers and postage.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
More Harry Potter!
Look where I went this weeekend!
That's right, even though the last movie has come out, I still found a (sort of) new method of experiencing Harry Potter! Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so this photo is all I have to show you.
The exhibit had a bunch of the props and costumes from all eight movies, it was crazy how detailed they were. The annotated potions textbook from HP6 in particular was a work of art - they actually made up an entire book of potions, and then wrote all kinds of crazy stuff all over it. Other props were less meticulously crafted - the small print on Prof. Umbridge's educational decrees from HP5 (you know, these things) was just "blah blah blah blah blah."
The craziest thing was how tiny the main actors' costumes were from the first several movies - I mean, I knew they were only 10 and 11 when they started, but seeing those little kid clothes really hit home how young they were. It boggles my mind. Also, I always thought Snape's robes were black, but apparently they were really dark blue.
Next item on my agenda of perpetual HP excitement: the Harry Potter set tour in London?
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| Me and my friend DJ at "Harry Potter: The Exhibition" in NYC |
The exhibit had a bunch of the props and costumes from all eight movies, it was crazy how detailed they were. The annotated potions textbook from HP6 in particular was a work of art - they actually made up an entire book of potions, and then wrote all kinds of crazy stuff all over it. Other props were less meticulously crafted - the small print on Prof. Umbridge's educational decrees from HP5 (you know, these things) was just "blah blah blah blah blah."
The craziest thing was how tiny the main actors' costumes were from the first several movies - I mean, I knew they were only 10 and 11 when they started, but seeing those little kid clothes really hit home how young they were. It boggles my mind. Also, I always thought Snape's robes were black, but apparently they were really dark blue.
Next item on my agenda of perpetual HP excitement: the Harry Potter set tour in London?
Thursday, September 1, 2011
(lambda (cross-stich) (awesome cross-stich))
Behold, my latest nerdy cross stitch:
Figuring out the pattern for this one gave me quite a headache. I kept thinking, "Okay, I'll base this lambda's height off of the shield next to it, but I need that shield to be big enough for a lambda inside of it, but I need that lambda to be the same height as the shield next to it..." and recursing into frustration. But thanks to lots of arithmetic, I finally did it!
See, it is really cross-stiched:
And it is really recursive (to a point):
Bonus nerd feature: The outer shield is 128 stitches wide, the next one is 64 stitches, the next one is 32, etc... I am a nerdy cross-stitching genius!
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| Yes, that's right, they make black cross-stitching cloth! |
See, it is really cross-stiched:
And it is really recursive (to a point):
Bonus nerd feature: The outer shield is 128 stitches wide, the next one is 64 stitches, the next one is 32, etc... I am a nerdy cross-stitching genius!
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