"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "We have a protractor."

From time to time, people comment on my frequent negativity. It gets a little frustrating when I seem to encounter so many things that hold me back for no good reason I can see, and sometimes I forget to focus on the good things instead. This especially slapped me across the face when at work, Paul mentioned it after I'd commented on the flatbed ( Read more... )

So, way back in high school while looking into the SAT crap (scored a 1300, no studying, when the test still scored out of 1600) I signed up for the A Word A Day mailing list. Over the years since I subscribed, this list has at times made me giggle, made me grin, and sometimes even drove me to hunt down literature I hadn't had the chance to read ( Read more... )

So, I came across this goodie via slashdot: Neal Stephenson Returns with "Anathem" and I literally squealed with delight and bounced.

This almost makes up for my double play of stupidity the last couple days, where I missed my car registration by two days and had to pay an extra $11, and then I flaked on going to the better priced gas station on ( Read more... )

I am so hating the jackasses that run the elections in California right now. They only sent out one information booklet per household for the primary, even though there are all sorts of other things to vote on other than who gets to represent each party in the upcoming presidential election. This is especially problematic for me, as I don't live ( Read more... )

One of my long term goals is to set up a computer database of all the books I own. I want to be able to scan my books, be able to notate things like "so and so borrowed this book" or "using this book for x project and is currently located at y project area". I want to eventually have a nice set of bookshelves to keep all my books on.

When I saw an ( Read more... )

I really should have paid more attention to the names of people who went to the church I did growing up. Picking out Serbian names for Veta's background would be easier if I knew people who had been given these names, instead of simply having to go by the look of the name in the latin alphabet and basing pronounciation upon what a baby namer ( Read more... )

So I've taken to wearing ear plugs when I sleep because my new neighbors gave the bedroom above my head to whichever family member finds it okay to blast crappy ghetto rap or TV almost all hours of the day.

Also, I didn't get a full night's sleep last night because of the crappy book that I'd gotten an advanced readers edition of from Wondercon ( ( Read more... )

So a couple years ago, it was recommended I read a book called Finding Serenity, which contained a group of essays focusing on Firefly. I did as I was told, though I was bad about it and did it sitting in a Barns & Noble without buying it. I did eventually go back and buy a copy because of one essay which offended me so much that I felt I really ( Read more... )

I was talking with my mom a bunch last night, and about 85% of the conversation was book related. She'd expressed disappointment in her reading selections of late, and I started grilling her about if she'd read any of Neal Stephenson's books. She hadn't, which is really weird because the first book of his I read was Snow Crash, which came via one ( Read more... )