where did I go wrong?

When did I become the kind of crazed hockey fan who would be willing to get up at 8 in the morning on a Sunday just to watch the gold medal game between Sweden and Finland?

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me??

Maybe if there'd been more NHL hockey on network TV so far this season (or if we had cable - tho' there's not much hockey on cable now, either), I wouldn't feel the need to do this just to see some hockey, any hockey.

I'm rooting for Finland (Finland Finland) today, even though usually I'd be rooting for Sweden, because Finland has never been in an Olympic gold medal game before, and so far this Olympics, they haven't lost a game. They're the quintessential underdogs, and I am a sucker for underdogs. Plus, there is no one from my fantasy hockey team on the Swedish team, but Kimmo Timonen (one of my defensemen, who usually plays for the Nashville Predators) is playing for the Finns - in fact, he scored the first goal of today's game. Yay, Kimmo!

I would've been all about Team Canada (especially since about half my Maraschino Protest was on that team), but they got knocked out before the final round. As an article on NHL.com asked, what went wrong? Y'know what, tho'? The fact that Team Canada lost means that my guys get more of a chance to rest up before the NHL season resumes tomorrow, and they don't have any further chance to get hurt in non-NHL play. They will totally have the gold locked up in the next Olympics, particularly since the 2010 games will be in Vancouver. Heck, by that time, maybe the US will have a team together worth mentioning.

Ooh, play's back on. I can't believe Sweden scored like, 10 seconds into the third period! C'mon, Finland Finland Finland, keep it together!

happy birthday to my DH!

I'm taking a brief break from studying for chemistry to wish my sweet, sweet wonderful husband a happy birthday. He is old, but I don't care. He is faboo, and I would be totally lost without him.

Like right now, he is heating up leftovers for our dinner (yes, we are eating dinner at midnight. Don't ask). Without him, I would have maybe popped a large bowl of popcorn and had that for dinner instead. Or, more likely, I'd have just gone to bed hungry.

Too bad I don't have a birthday present for him yet, nor did I do anything nice for him today. I am a bad spouse. But but but... this is just a bad week to have a birthday. I am home fairly rarely during the week, and this week even less so because of that damn test. I was at school from 9:15 this morning until 5 p.m., and then went back to school from 6:45 to 8:30 for a chemistry review session. I'm going to try to do a bit more studying, I guess while I eat dinner, and then crash as early as possible, because tomorrow is going to be a long, long day.

Point is, I've gotta think of something cool to do for him this weekend - suggestions welcome! I was thinking of maybe our usual birthday tradition of a nice dinner out somewhere... I had a gift in mind for him, too, at one point, but my mind is so fried right now, I can't remember what it was (so suggestions are welcome there, too). And now, dinner is ready, so I've gotta get back to the books.

I am not dead (in case you were wondering)

I did, however, have to work this past weekend (so no time for posting then), and I do have an organic chemistry test this Thursday (so I have actually been... uhm, y'know... studying. A little bit. Shhh - don't tell anyone. It'd totally ruin my rep, ok?).

*sigh* I cannot wait for this Thursday, at 7 p.m., when this test will be over and I can go get smashed. Because after this test, I'll probably need to.

skewer the physics professor!

Here is what we did in physics lecture today:



First, we sandwiched Professor S between two beds of nails.



Next, we placed more weight (in the form of cinderblocks) on top of him.



We aimed a camera at his face and projected it on the big screen in the lecture hall, so we could all watch his expression. The two students there, kneeling beside him and wearing safety goggles, are holding up a board over his neck to protect his face from flying bits of cinderblock...



...caused by the demonstration tech taking a sledgehammer to the cinderblocks.

This, naturally, was a demonstration of the idea behind net force (the sum of all the forces acting on an object), a key component in the mathematical expression of Newton's Second Law of Motion (mass times acceleration = net Force).

Here is a view of my professor's back, post-demo:



See all the little nail-holes in his sweater? The things one sacrifices in the name of Science!

This whole thing was much, much more exciting than our usual lecture demos. Everyone was focused on the front of the room while this was going on - whereas, usually, there's a steady hum of low conversations going on as Prof. S sort of meekly tries to conduct a lecture. He's Polish, and while he seems like a very sweet man, he has the worst command of a lecture hall I've ever seen. He is far too urbane, civilized and European to tell those damn kids to SHUT THE FUCK UP, and as a consequence, he just sort of loses focus and drifts off into half-muttered half-explanations of whatever it is he's trying to teach us. It's a mess. For a gigantic lecture of over 200 mostly-freshmen, you've gotta be a real showman if you want to hold their attention for an hour and twenty minutes. He tries valiantly, bless his heart, but he just isn't. He ought to just post his lecture powerpoints online, and let whoever doesn't want to come to lecture not come to lecture. If they fail the class, too bad for them! It'd mean a lot more elbow room for those of us who do come to lecture, and a less-distracting learning environment, to boot.

Instead, we have to sit all crowded in there, and use these super-degrading clicker-things to answer multiple-choice questions he sprinkles throughout his lectures in lieu of taking attendance. A question goes up, and he plays a little computer file of the Jeopardy! theme song (but not the whole thing - only the first half, which he plays two or three times), accompanied by an animation of a little ape scratching his head, while we're mulling over our answers. We have to click in our choice, then he puts the results up on the screen (I almost always choose the wrong answer), then he explains what the answer should have been and why. It's a ridiculous process, and I really hate it (plus, the stupid music is driving me nuts). I used to really like physics. It was the only science class I enjoyed in high school, so much so that I actually took a physics class my first time through college. I was looking forward to taking it here, but so far, this has just been excruciating. I find myself watching the clock in this class, and I am not a clock-watcher - I'm the kind of person who pays attention in class and takes good notes so I won't have to do the reading at home (and now you know why I did so crappy in chemistry last semester). I realize this is an intro-level class in a large undergraduate university setting, but it doesn't have to be as bad as it is. That's all I'm saying.

Speaking of bad, the powerpoint slide accompanying the demonstration called it the "Bad of Nails Demo" (hee), so all day long I've been wandering around singing, "sleight of hand and twist of fate, on a bad of nails she makes me wait..." My apologies to U2.

Also, happy International Quirkyalone Day to all of you! While I am quirkymarried and not quirkyalone, I do think that other holiday people celebrate today is a pile of horse manure, so I'm all for any alternative to it (particularly one that is not so candy-coated).

hello, lake effect!

When I came home, it was overcast, but no precipitation was coming down.

About 5 minutes later, I looked out the window and this is what I saw:




Dang. Where I'm from, this much snow would be a sure sign of the impending apocalypse. Here, it's like, "Oh, finally. We'd been wondering where all the snow was this year."

I actually don't mind snow all that much. I mean, if it's going to be cold and wretched out, it might as well snow, right? At least snow is pretty coming down, even if it is a gigantic pain to dig out your car and shovel off your sidewalk afterward.

hey, Mr. Bean!

fire hydrants
Originally uploaded by atomic*elizabeth.

Check out what I found!

Oh, and I signed up for Flickr, so maybe I'll post pictures more often, now. Maybe.

happy birthday, Mr. Adams!

Today is a great day, because some indeterminate number (which I will not specify) of years ago, Mr. Adams was born.

Mr. Adams (or as he may be better known to readers of this blog's comments, ctapuppets) is, quite possibly, the coolest human being alive. He is the closest thing I've got to a dad right now, and he has made my life better in many ways just by being in it.

Here is a grainy, grainy picture of us from my wedding reception (I have better pictures of him around here somewhere, but this is the best I could do on short notice):


You can see other pictures of him (and his equally-awesome wife, and their puppets) and find out more about some of the resaons he is so rockin' at his website.

Happy birthday, Mr. Adams! I love ya bunches! :)

p.s. - Did you know you had the same birthday as the Naro? I just found that out today. That? Totally rules.

I told y'all...

Remember my post about the impending Evo Morales sweater KAL?

The New York Times did a story on his sweaters last Thursday (Feb. 2nd). (Registration required to read the story - visit bugmenot.com for info on bypassing the whole registration thing.)

I'm telling you - a KAL can't be far behind.

just what i needed

I absolutely love how the weather decided to turn cold and super-windy just when I got sick. Because bitterly cold and blustery days are just my favorite things ever.

*This post has been brought to you by the resentful sarcasm of an ailing girl.*

a sad day

I learned yesterday that Betty Friedan died. That would be sad enough, but when I came home and mentioned it to my DH, Johnny - he had no idea who she was.

When I expressed my astonishment, he said, "Well, I don't listen to NPR all the time like you." Uhm, dude? The fuck? I knew who Betty Friedan was long before I was old enough to listen to NPR of my own volition. The fact that I'm an NPR geek has nothing to do with my knowledge and admiration of Betty Friedan. I can understand not knowing who, say, Bella Abzug or Miranda July are (not condone, mind you, but understand). But not knowing who Betty Friedan was... that's a lot more like not knowing who Susan B. Anthony or Gloria Steinem are than not knowing who, say, Pauline Kael was. (And to be clear, I cite Pauline Kael here not because her achievements were any less rockin' than Anthony's or Steinem's, but because she worked in a very specialized field and therefore it's less likely she would be known to the general public.)

What smarts even more than my husband seemingly having a surprisingly poor background in the history of the feminist movement is that he totally didn't seem to care. He was just like, "Well there are a lot of people where you don't know who they are, either." Ok, dude, sure - but the guy who, I dunno, mastered every Pink Floyd album or something? Has not had anywhere near the influence in shaping our current society that Betty Friedan did. Moreover, when you start going off about some obscure guy like that whom you love but I don't know from Jack? Usually, I'm interested to know about him - because he's important to you. At the very least, I'll feign interest until you shut up (which often takes a while). Especially if, y'know, that person just died and you seem pretty bummed about it.

[/rant]

Anyway, on top of that, this morning I learned Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis died. Awww... Grandpa Munster. Dude was a character. He ran for governor of New York State on the Green Party ticket, for pete's sake! He was like, 1000 years old! (Actually, if you check out all his obits linked on Google, some say he was 95 and others say he was 82 - odd. I wonder which is correct.) Crazy old people rule.

And, as if that weren't enough of a bummer, when I went to check out what Slate had to say about Betty Friedan (Slate editor Emily Bazelon was her cousin, I learned), I found out that one of my favorite artists, Nam June Paik, had died last week - and I was just now finding out about it. Damn. The man invented the field of video art. His pieces made you think, like any work of art should do, but they also showed a playful sense of humor sorely lacking in a lot of contemporary art (a feature which, apparently, not all his fellow artists appreciated). I also like how his videos were not just things to be watched in and of themselves, but how he placed them in their environment for maximum effect. My favorite piece of his, which I've never seen in person, is a statue of a Buddha, serenely watching a television set. What is he watching on this TV? Walk around and take a look - you'll see he's watching an image of himself, captured by a camera on top of the facing TV set. Funny, right? Yet also profound. I've only seen two Paik works in person - the "Hamlet" sculpture at the Chrysler Museum back home (a gigantic figure fashioned from televisions playing an endless loop of clips from different performances of Shakespeare's play); and one at the SF MOMA which featured a line of progressively smaller video monitors on a platform, each displaying a live feed from a camera placed at the end of the line and focused on a plain, white egg (also sitting at the end of the platform). Ok, hard to describe, but it was neat. And, I mean, think about it - did the museum staff have to go in there every day and put out a fresh egg? Did they have to fridge the egg each night at closing time? What if a patron accidentally (or intentionally) broke the egg? What then, huh? I just totally dig Nam June Paik's work, and it makes me sad that he is not alive on this planet with us anymore.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to go be sick and sad for the rest of the evening. But I will leave you with more further reading:
Betty Friedan in the Christian Science monitor
Betty in the NY Times (visit bugmenot.com for login info)
Betty in the National Women's Hall of Fame
Betty's Wikipedia entry

Al Lewis's Wikipedia entry
Grandpa's IMDB entry

Nam June Paik's Wikipedia entry
Paik's official website
If You Miss Paik Nam-june from the Korea Times

dear Professor K...

Your dedication to your profession, evidenced by you coming in to lecture despite being sick with a major sinus infection this week, is admirable.

One must wonder, however, if it ever crossed your mind that, in your noble efforts toward our edification, you might infect all your students along with teaching us the finer points of interpreting NMR spectra - particularly those of us who, because of poor vision and even poorer hearing, sit nearest to you in the front row.

I'd love to ask you this question in person at lecture tomorrow morning, but right now, I'm not sure I'll be well enough to attend. Thanks, thanks a lot.

we are hunters, stalking elusive prey

By we, I mean Bean & me; by elusive prey, I mean bargains. We went shopping today. Oh boy, did we ever.

In our defense: the Village Yarn Shop(pe) is closing, so everything in the store is on *clearance* - even the furniture. And that is in the same shopping center as A.C. Moore, and we had coupons we had to use. And when we got there, we realized the Toys R Us in the same plaza is closing, which means... more things on *clearance*!

Soooo... without further ado, I present to you my haul:
From the Village Yarn Shop(pe), I snagged a Mission Falls pattern book I'd been eyeing, a spinning rack on which they were displaying buttons (which I will use to organize my necklaces), a styrofoam head on which they were displaying a hat made from Rowan Plaid, 10 absolutely stunning (and somewhat pricey, even on clearance) buttons, a ball of OnLine Purseta (the same stuff I used to make the pouch for my camera), and three hanks of Reynolds Ole-Ole in black. I know, I know - I'm supposed to be on a yarn diet. But. *Clearance*. The OnLine stuff, I bought because it was their last ball, it was 70% off, and I don't have enough leftovers from making my camera pouch to make anything - but with another ball, maybe I can work something out. The Ole x2, I am planning to use for a Headline News cabled newsboy cap from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, to hold my new dreads. Actually, I don't think I bought enough of that stuff, so I may be returning to the VYS soon to pick up some more - and maybe that Dalegarn pattern book I liked, and some of that Debbie Bliss cotton angora, and... uhm, other things. :)

Bean got buttons. A whole lotta buttons.

From A.C. Moore, I was able to resist buying more yarn (have you seen the Lion Brand Fettuccini? I was expecting it to be tacky, but it's really not, and I'm now obsessed with the Ocean colorway) because I found this adorable set of mini pliers! When I saw it, I knew I had to have it, because I had just been thinking earlier in the day how I wished I could carry pliers around with me all the time, but not have them be so heavy in my bag. The set comes with tiny round nose, chain nose (my favorite!), and flat nose pliers, plus tiny wire cutters, crimpers, and two kinds of tweezers, all in a little purple carrying case! Rock!! Can you tell I'm in love with this thing?? Whoever designed it must've had me in mind. Oh... and I did buy one more ball of the Fantasy Yarns Cashmere Luxury Chunky in purple, because I was worried I wouldn't have enough to make the striped arm warmers I want to make, and also - it's still? Yup, on *clearance*.

Bean got some good stuff at the A.C., too, but I will let her tell you about that on her blog.

After all that, I insisted we go to the Toys R Us so I could look for this one thing I had resisted buying a few months earlier - it's a foot-long model Mini Cooper, which folds open to reveal a race track for two teeny tiny Mini Coopers! How cute, right? And it was only $10 to start - on *clearance*, it would be a steal. At first, I couldn't find one, tho' - the store was a madhouse, and all the stock had been shifted around. When I finally found the aisle where they should have been, there were only boxes and boxes of a different model car. I was so sad that they were sold out - but I did find a couple Hot Wheels-sized Mini Coopers. Then, after having walked past one end cap a couple aisles away at least 5 times, I happened to glance up and spot it on the way top shelf - one lone fold-out race track Mini Cooper! Woohoo!! It was almost as if, by walking around the store so many times hoping to find one, I had willed this one into existence. Hee. I also snagged an under-seat bag for my bike and some gum and candy (because it was all on *clearance*).

Bean got some goodies for Ted & Andrea's wee-one-on-the-way, some wrapping paper, and also some candy. She might've found more, but if there's something I've forgotten to mention, I'm sure she'll cover it on her site.

And then I went to anime club, where I discovered that, this semester, we'll be watching RahXephon and Mahou Sensei Negima and... something else, I missed the first part of the meeting. By the way, townies are welcome at our anime club meetings - no need to be an SU/ESF student! We meet every Tuesday at 7pm in Kittredge Auditorium in the basement of HBC on the SU campus (find all the campus maps you could want right here - the building is labeled H.B. Crouse on the first main campus map). It's free! It's fun! It's like crack, only without the nasty side-effects!

And then I came home, and instead of doing all the physics homework I should have been working on, I wrote this post. Hooray for procrastination! And hooray for things on *clearance*!