Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I have to move cubicles!
I'm getting bumped because we hired a new statistician.  He's getting my super awesome huge private cubicle, and I'm getting moved to the area behind the kitchen that's kind of like one huge cubicle to share with two other people.
This is definitely the end of my facebooking at work.
Hopefully, it will make me a lot more productive.... :(

Monday, October 29, 2007


Reuters.com -- Family Values Party Dumps Candidate
October 29, 2007

"'But that's not my penis,' Quah told the Sydney Morning Herald..."

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

we didn't start the fire

The top headline from the NYTimes on my google home page is
"California Fires Force 300,000 from Homes".

The top headline from CNN is
"Fire affects TV Shows, Celebrities".

CNN obvious knows how to get the public to care about important issues.
Reuters.com
Looking for attractive people? Don't go to...

Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:55am ET

"The city of more than 1.5 million people was also found to be among the least stylish, least active, least friendly and least worldly, according to the "America's Favorite Cities" survey by Travel & Leisure magazine and CNN Headline News."
a lot of good stuff happened today. i had my first starbucks out in the new greenspace in front of the Hamilton building, and i discovered i can't tell the difference between a skim latte and a whole latte. while i was out on the greenspace i was reading this awesome article which really sets the course for the rest of my research for the UAW/healthcare/election article that i'm writing. i was getting really discouraged about writing this article and now i'm excited.

meanwhile, my Health Policy professor sent out an email postponing the take home exam one week, from this wednesday to next wednesday. this is excellent because with all i have to do, i was going to squeeze that in to tuesday night. i haven't even looked at it yet so i don't know if that's actually feasible -- now i have a whole week. then my Data Mining professor sent out an email that we didn't have to do any of the reading for this thursday's class. so in two emails, my weekend got moved up to tuesday night! as soon as we finish this group marketing project and present it tomorrow afternoon in class, i can breathe a little sigh of relief and start cleaning the house before people come over this weekend.

[edited]

also, my experiment with faux hemming my new pants by using medical tape worked, and my pants looked good all day. well the hems did... when i bought them i had to choose between a size and the petite version of that size which fits a little smaller. it really depended on whether they were going to shrink in the wash or stretch out the first time i wore them. i went for the larger size, because if the petites got any smaller they would just be uncomfortable. of course, my luck, the larger size did all stretch out when i wore them and now i have an extra couple of inches everywhere... they just look baggy. i need a belt. i guess it's better than too-tight pants, but i went shopping particularly so i'd have clothes that fit right. maybe i can purposefully shrink them in the wash. i washed a shirt that i fixed the hem on with medical tape, and the tape lasted through the wash, but i decided not to try the dryer... sounded melty. maybe i'll actually hem the pants with thread and everything... but then if they do shrink like i want them too, they might be too short. sigh.

i also got a wedding magazine in the mail today and that brightened my commute to school (thanks selene!).

now if it weren't going on 2am with the project only half finished, i could call this an A+ day.

Monday, October 22, 2007

funny: " Earlier this month, the court awarded full custody of the couple's sons to Federline, Spears' former backup dancer."

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away

I've now earned one day's paid vacation!
(I've never had paid vacation before :-D)

Frog Legs

Just because you'll probably never see this sentence again:
"Although radio tracking of the arthritic toads shows they keep moving..."
Creaky Bones

Discovery News -- Invasive Toads Getting Arthritis
Oct 16, 2007


Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Bride sues over flower color

CNN.com -- NEW YORK (AP) -- The wedding was lovely, except for the flowers: They were the wrong color.

So says the bride, Elana Glatt, who was so upset that she sued the florist and alleged breach of contract.

She says Posy Floral Design in Manhattan substituted pastel pink and green hydrangeas for the dark rust and green ones she had specified for 22 centerpieces.

Not only that, she alleges that the hydrangeas were wilted and brown, and arranged in dusty vases without enough water.

"The use of predominantly pastel centerpieces had a significant impact on the look of the room and was entirely inconsistent with the vision the plaintiffs had bargained for," Glatt, a lawyer, said in the lawsuit, filed on behalf of herself, her husband, David, and her mother-in-law, Tobi Glatt, who paid for the flowers.

The flowers cost $27,435.14. The lawsuit asks for more than $400,000 in restitution and damages.

Stamos Arakas, the florist, said that he and his wife, Paula, tried to match the color of the hydrangeas with a picture Glatt had given them, but explained to her that the colors might not look the same.

"My father used to tell me, 'Don't deal with the lawyers," Arakas said. "Maybe he was right, God bless his soul."
Stephen Colbert just announced that he's running for President in the state of South Carolina.

oops... really didn't mean to leave my full name and contact information posted there for 8 hours.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

I meant to write that yesterday was 250 days until the wedding!

We're off to double class again tonight -- be back after 10p. Sigh.

Monday, October 15, 2007

I called Stephen Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. I had staged a coup d'moi.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

My Favorite Candidate



Candidate With an Eye on Edging Up to No. 3
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is campaigning for president with a strongly antiwar message, has not overtaken any of his top three Democratic rivals, but is edging closer.


Can anyone who is not a white protestant guy from the south win swing voters? No, probably not.
Generation Q
Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good.
CNN.com: Noose Found at Columbia University
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A rally Wednesday afternoon at Columbia University was held to protest the discovery of a noose on the office door of an African-American professor

CNN.com: Sniper says he feels shame, guilt for murders
Can you believe it's been five years??


In more sad news, I got blue pen on my new white sweater.  Not really the same scale as the above, but still stinky.

:-)

Woohoo!  Finished my proposals!!!

anyone who wants to talk about hetergeneous vancomycin-intermediate staph aureus, let me know!

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Notes from my "light" year...

My life is too crazy right now -- hence the lack of posts. I've started taking Tuesdays off to get school work done and today I spent all day preparing to lead discussion of an "article pack" with Glen, and of course class went too long and we don't get to go until next week. This class is constantly like this... we spend all weekend preparing 4 projects and the professor decides that's too many to go over so he makes one due the following week -- after we already prepared it to hand in!

My silver lining all day was that at least Tuesdays are our early day and I would get to come home and have some time to do the laundry and work on this project for work that was technically due today (even though I DON'T WORK TUESDAYS). But I had forgotten that this week our Thursday night class got moved to Tuesday night, so we had class from 3:30 to 9:10pm! BOTH classes handed out take-home tests.

To make up for my lack of blogging, I'm sharing some things I've been reading online.

I actually think crows are pretty cool... here's the latest evidence:
Discover Channel
Crows Bend Twigs Into Tools
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
Oct. 5, 2007 — Mounting tiny video cameras to the tail feathers of crows, researchers discovered that the birds use a variety of tools to seek food, and even make their own tools, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems.

Squirrels are, of course awesome. I'm a little torn about the content of this article:

Published: October 7, 2007
The red one is cute. The gray one is taking over. England is going nuts.

Regarding the following, we suck.
Published: October 6, 2007
If Iraqi Mandeans are allowed to enter the United States in significant numbers, it may just be enough to save them and their ancient culture from destruction.

Published: October 5, 2007
If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, today’s conservatives don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.

Published: October 7, 2007
Medicare recipients have been victimized by private insurers that run the drug benefit program, according to a review of federal audits.

I just found out that it's not actually illegal to drink alcohol in New York if you're under 21, just to buy it. You can even drink out at a restaurant as long as your parents pour it from the bottle into the glass. If you're not in public, it doesn't matter. http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/stateprofiles/StateProfie.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age


Did you know that Dennis Kucinich is a vegan and recently married a red-haired girl from England who is 31 years younger than he? She's his third wife. I think he has a worse chance of getting elected President than Guiliani with his marital history.
http://vegnews.com/wedding_2006_ED.html

I'll end with on a funny note and then head to bed... or go work on my proposal for work. UGH!!!...

There's a digital billboard on our drive home from Widener on 95 -- basically a big TV screen. It automatically cycles through ads. I find it to be really distracting while driving. The last two night it's been especially distracting...

We looked up and there was a huge photo of a mean looking guy, with his name and WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER. As we stared, the billboard changed to: Philadelphia, Have a Pleasant Evening! Pretty funny.

The next night as we drove by, there was an even meaner looking guy with WANTED FOR MURDER. This promptly changed to: Philadelphia - The City of Brotherly Love. We almost crashed from laughing.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Monday, October 1, 2007

sticky fingers

i just spilled coffee-mate on my keyboard.