What's in a name?

So, here in the blogosphere (as the kids are calling it these days. Or maybe it's just the wannabe hipster media people that call it that) it seems like the thing to do is to refer to everyone by an alias. Sensible enough...keeps the cyberstalkers at bay and the cyber-ax-murderers at arms length. Also, if you're airing not only your own but other peoples business, pseudonyms keep it all nice and anonymous-like. But then you need clever nicknames for all the characters in your little bloggy dramas.

Fortunately, many of my friends and acquaintances come ready made with such monikers. This stems largely from the fact that a) a lot of them used to work at our college radio station and therefore have self-selected DJ names and b) we are a goofy bunch and like to make up random nicknames for no apparent reason. In fact, for every person for whom I had to make up a new interweb name, there was one that already had at least 3 or 4 aliases I could have selected.

Anyway here a little list of my potential cast of characters:

Chrome
Disco Dan
DJ Evol Eno
Hurricane Cyn
The Lady
Lady Byron, her husband The Wanderer, and daughter BiSH (which would be the CHiPs version of her given name.)
Lucy and her husband, Ricky
The LabRat
Rakes
Queen Mab


If you spot yourself and would like alternate identification, let me know.

Get ready to rock

So, I was listening to Fresh Air on the way home tonight and they seem to be doing some sort of Rock Week with archive interviews. Anyway, the episode I heard was Rob Halford from Judas Priest and James Hetfield from Metallica. I have always found Halford's role as "out gay metal dude" fascinating, and Hetfield is my favorite member of Metallica (if there is such a thing). Although Metallica is sort of dead to me after the whole Napster thing ...Lars Ulrich is such a tool. Anyway, I encourage you to check out the rockers on Fresh Air if only for the introduction, which is absolutely hilarious.

These damn kids...

Ok, here's the part where I sound like a crotchety old lady. I love fall. In fact, I think tomorrow I may pontificate and enumerate the many reasons why fall in Tally is tops. But, there is one aspect of fall that totally blows...the students. All the damn students. They are everywhere. Classes start on Monday at the 3, count 'em THREE institutions of higher ed here in our fair city. Two universities and a community college totaling a population of almost 65,000 students. Which doesn't seem that bad, until you take into account that you are adding that many folks into a city population of only 270,000 or so (of which only 175,000-ish live in the city, the rest dwell in unincorporated Leon County) The point is...that's a lot of new bodies crammed into my personal space. Again, they are everywhere. Standing in line in restaurants, buying giant things of toilet paper and plastic milk crates and poster frames with their parents at Target and Wal Mart, shopping at Publix for beer and ramen and mac and cheese, and just driving, driving, driving (causing noticeably increased and annoying traffic) all over the place. Sigh. Like I said...crotchety.

I look good in yellow

So in conjunction with the Simpson's Movie Burger King is doing this "Simpsonize Me" promotion. You upload your picture and it turns you into a Simpson's character. Here's how I look in Springfield:


And here's how I look all pissed off at the Kwik-e-Mart:


Try it. It's Fun.

Painlessly Reading the Classics

So I discovered this really cool thing the other day...reading books via email. Daily Lit will send an easily consumable chunk of a book to your email at an interval of your choosing. Check out some info from thier website:

Why read books by email? Because if you are like us, you spend hours each day reading email but don't find the time to read books. DailyLit brings books right into your inbox in convenient small messages that take less than 5 minutes to read. This works incredibly well not just on your computer but also on a Treo, Blackberry, Sidekick or whatever the PDA of your choice.

How long does it take to read a book? That depends on three factors. First, on how many installments are in the book (shown when you browse for books). Second, on how frequently you choose to receive emails. Third, on how often you read more than one installment (by using the "send me the next installment immediately" feature). So here is a typical example. I am currently reading Dracula, which has 187 installments and I am receiving installments on weekdays, i.e. 5 days/week. So at most it will take me 187/5 = 37 weeks. But when I am on the train or waiting, I often read more than one installment, so I usually wind up reading about 10 installments/week. This means I will finish Dracula in about 19 weeks or 5 months. If that seems long to you, try something shorter!

It's really quite a cool concept. You don't even have to register or anything. Most of their available selections are of the classic Lit variety, many of which fall into the category of "I have a degree in English Lit and am alleged to be a well read person and I can't believe I haven't ever read Moby Dick or whatever so don't tell anyone and blow my cover." Now I can tackle a great work in tasty bite-sized morsels consumed right at my desk (while on a break, of course). I started out easy with authors I already like: F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Anyway, thought I would spread the word to the 2 people who read this blog. Enjoy.

decline and fall of civilized society (chapter 2)

So we had a hellacious storm yesterday and the power was knocked out here and there. When this happens, I am sometimes forced to once again face my old nemesis, the 4-way stop. Actually, that's not right. The 4-way stop is not my nemesis. I love the 4-way stop. It's so civilized, everyone takes turns, it's lovely. I think it should be all 4-way stops and roundabouts all the time. No, my actual nemesis is all those damn people who don't know what do when a traffic light is out. Morons.

When a traffic light is not functioning, it is supposed to be treated as if it were a 4-way stop. Everyone approaches the intersection, stops, and then proceeds according to turn. Usually, this seems to go ok when the intersection looks like this:


But not so much when the intersection looks like this:


I encountered this little scenario recently. The light was out at an intersection just like this one, where lanes 1- 13 comprise a major thoroughfare through town, while lanes 14-17 are side roads that lead to popular shopping centers and off-the-main-road-shortcuts. Obviously, there is quite a bit of traffic in both directions. Actually, it's really a bigger intersection that the picture shows. I just got bored with drawing it. I think there are actually 5 lanes on the bottom right, so that would be 11, 12, 13, 13a, and 13b.

But, I digress. My point is...it's still a 4-way stop people. Just because normally more than one car gets to go through the intersection in the 1-13 direction doesn't mean that is still the case when the light is out. You still treat it like a 4-way stop. Approach the intersection. Stop. Let the cars from the other direction go. Then you go. Not rocket science people...

7 unrelated things

1. It is hot as blazes outside. An actual temp of like 100 plus the "heat index" is like 110 or something just ridiculous. My old pal Chrome used to say "cold weather is stupid" I think the corollary is that hot weather is unnecessary.
   
2. Barry Bonds SUCKS!
3. I think they finally got new hand soap in the bathroom at work. The old soap smelled all disinfectant-y and that smell stayed on my hands and annoyed the crap out of me to the point that I had to put lotion on my hands immediately after returning to my desk from the bathroom just so that my hands would smell like lotion instead of the irritating soap. But, I just washed my hands in the bathroom, and I notice no lingering bad soap smell. Hooray.
   
4. I wish I could shake it like those kids on So, You Think You Can Dance. I watch this show unashamedly cause those youngsters are good. And, unlike American Idol, it's all different styles of dancing...whereas Idol only feature that horrendous Mariah Carrey style singing that makes me want to rip my ears from my head.
5. I bought this book on making origami boxes, and it is addictive. Anybody need a pretty little box?
6. Pilates is hard, ya'll.
7. Is it fall yet? August blows.
   

Yay Tommy

It seems to be the season for sports related posts. Tom Glavine was always my favorite Brave...he was just so dreamy. I still have a soft spot for him, even thought he's a Met now and I no longer really follow the baseball. I was happy to hear he got his 300th win (and apparently he may be the last to do so)

Sometimes, I'm not very nice

Is it wrong that I really want someone to go all Tonya Harding upside Barry Bonds' knee so that he can't break Hank Aaron's home run record? Because I really, really do.

Also, Michael Vick should be set upon by a pack of wild dogs.