Somewhere along the line I think I got lost
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
alsion's LiveJournal:
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| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | | 2:39 pm |
| | Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | | 5:15 pm |
New Look Time Magazine I really miss Get This. But fortunately the New Look Time Magazine sketch is up on YouTube. | | Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | | 4:10 pm |
Damn stupid university websites. How can I find out if so and so is working in your lab when you won't give me a staff list for the lab? Sheesh, they make it damn hard to stalk people (or find out who's actually responsible for the piece of equipment I want to borrow.) | | 2:23 pm |
three links that have left me shaking my head going "huh"? From a comment in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kateorman's journal, by murasaki_1966: The US Department of Health and Human Services moves to define hormonal contraception as abortion. This of course would allow federally funded clinics to deny access to hormonal contraception (i.e. the pill) to women. You know, I always thought the US was for separation of church and state. This is ridiculous. Naturally I assume the next logical step in separating church and state is banning all divorce and annulling all bar first marriages. Which would at least give us some entertainment in the celebrity pages, even as it added exponentially to the number of adultery cases that would have to be heard. From dhd1's journal: A "Christian" "News" website automatically replaces the word 'gay' with the word 'homosexual'. Which means that athlete Tyson Gay, sorry Homosexual, is going to the Olympics. If it wasn't so pathetic it'd be funny. Sort of. From Tara Ariano's photo stream taken at the Creation "Museum". Riiight. So, no evolution, just lots of adaptation in <4000 years. And you think evolution's a strange theory. At least this way, what with there apparently only being 5 species of anything before the flood - oh and man, which doesn't seem to be represented and also doesn't seem to have "adapted" at all post-Flood (which kind of indicates that as a species, we suck at this whole adaptation thing - surely we'd at least have to have given rise to monkeys? gorillas? orang-utangs?) - everything fits on the Ark. Kind of. I'd still like to see the stegosaurus fitting on there, and to know how they fed it for 40 days and nights... then again, if they can get King Kong back to New York on a tiny little barge, I'm sure they can manage a stegosaurus or two. Oh and while I'm at it: how misnamed is World Youth Day? Seriously - it's not World, it's Catholic World, it's not Youth - have you seen the ages of some of these people attending? - and it's been going on for what feels like a month, but is actually only a week in full swing (it's just been a month since they started rabbiting on in earnest about it.) | | Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | | 5:12 pm |
| | Friday, June 27th, 2008 | | 10:29 am |
What I did on my weekend, part I My weekend started early, Thursday night to be exact. ( Read more ) | | Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 | | 5:53 pm |
Happy birthday essjayeff! Hope you had a good day! | | Thursday, June 19th, 2008 | | 4:21 pm |
| | Friday, May 23rd, 2008 | | 10:29 am |
the mornings are getting colder
I should really remember that when the morning temperature is lower than 5oC and I have to have blood taken that I need to mention that my veins are hard to find on a good day, let alone on one where they have decided to burrow as far as possible into my body and hide.
Anyway, 5 new holes later, they got a vein.
The less than warm morning temperatures are making it harder to get out of bed - I think we're going to have to work out how to program the underfloor heating to come on before we get up. Because at the moment, between the dark and the cold... we're not getting up very quickly, and certainly I'm pushing to get to work on time. | | 10:27 am |
Yippie-kay-yay... Friday night Dean grabbed me as I walked in the front door and said "you've got to watch this!!" He'd bought the Die Hard 4 DVD. But that wasn't what he wanted me to watch. No. It was this.As soon as it started up I went "hang on a minute, I know them. I mean, not know know, but one of them is Sars-from- Tomato-Nation's brother. No idea which one though." (And looking back, yes, she did mention the song. Quite a bit actually.) Ah the internet, how small it makes the world. Well, bits of it. The thing is, right, that song is a complete earworm. Nearly a week on and I'm still finding lyrics creeping their way into my mind at odd moments and making me giggle. So in the interests of spreading the worm, please - go listen! Really, it's fun! I have to admit the band name ( Guyz Nite) made me think immediately of the Princes of Darkness strip show, so I'm kind of glad to see that one of their taglines was "come for the crabcake, stay for the beefcake". Heh. Can't be scarier than Northern Suburbs Robbie Williams. | | Friday, May 2nd, 2008 | | 4:35 pm |
cyber stalking
You know, up till now I really hadn't realised it was possible to cyberstalk people via Entrez. Still, there you go.
Course that only works if they're publishing! | | Saturday, April 26th, 2008 | | 11:40 am |
music
So after my comment about how I am very bad at trivia questions involving bands from the mid-late 90s because I was pretty much exclusively listening to tripleJ during that period I read the mX on the way home and tested this on their Backchat charts. The charts have the top ten singles from this week, this week in 1998 and this week in 1988. My definition of "know" incidentally is that reading the name of the song triggers it with minimal thought into my brain.
Here we go:
This week - I know two. Pictures of you, pictures of me, something something, shut the fuck up already. Yes, I know it because it's currently being played to death everywhere. Still, at least that means that that horribly overplayed and overwrought Fergie thing may have finally bitten the dust. The other is "Sweet about Me", by Gabriella Cilmi.
1998 - 2 definitely, with two possibles (not sure they triggered the right song, but I think I would know them if I heard them. Maybe). The definites are:
"My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion - c'mon here, tribesmen in the backblocks of the Amazon know this song. People who've never seen Titanic and never plan to know this song. It was an earworm pandemic, this song. People who have no idea what else Celine Dion ever did (well, singing-wise - we all know she married some old bloke and went off to sing in Vegas) want to chuck her off a ship mid-Atlantic to test the heart theory.
"5, 6, 7, 8" by Steps. Heh. Bouncy!
The possibles:
"Never Ever" by All Saints. Me: "Is that that song where I want to slap that girl?" Dean: "How would I know? There's a lot of those." So, yeah, maybe.
"You're Still The One" by Shania Twain. One that I'm sure I should know, but it's triggering a sports show theme, and something that was on channel 9 some time ago. Both of which were sung by guys, so definitely not the actual song.
1988 - 6 definites. "I should be so lucky", by Kyles, "Get outta my dreams, get into my car" by Billy Ocean, "Stutter Rap" by Morris Minor and The Majors - it worries me that not only do I know this, I can remember most of the lyrics actually -, "Time of My Life" by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes - I should remember that, I'd no idea who actually sang it. Haven't seen the movie either -, "Love in the first degree" by Bananarama and "Hazy Shade of Winter" by the Bangles. Well, that version was by the Bangles at least. And yes, I can remember it.
The other four (again, I feel like I should know these, but I've got nothing) are:
"Whenever You Need Somebody" by Rick Astley - I think the problem is that all those songs sound kind of similar. And there's quite a few around with 'hey, if you need me I'm willing to sleep with you' kind of lyrics.
"Hungry Eyes" by Eric Carmen. I have a half-echo of a song, but it's mixing up with "Bette Davis Eyes", which is not helping.
"She's Like The Wind" by Patrick Swayze - that movie did really well, didn't it? No idea how this song goes offhand though.
"Sign Your Name" by Terence Trent D'Arby. Absolutely no idea about this one. And for some reason (OK, sad, sad reasons) I'm getting images of a very bad TV show called Chains of Love. Why? The premise was one guy and four girls (or vice versa) were chained to each other, while the guy worked out which of the girls he liked more and it all ended in wuv, twue wuv. Or, you know, money. There was slightly more to it, but not a lot. The TTD'A bit is because I first saw it late at night when I was really tired and wasn't wearing glasses, and so when the "Enforcer" guy came out to unchain whichever contestant had been eliminated I thought he was a man in a gorilla suit. Actually, he was a large Maori guy with dreads (he might even have been the guy who played Vulcan on Gladiators actually), in a black uniform which had a trenchcoat as part of it. Hence TTD'A. When I put my glasses on neither of them look like gorillas, and seriously I've no idea where that came from. But I did think for weeks that this show had a gorilla-Enforcer, which was kind of odd, even for very bad reality television. Moral of the story: turn the TV off and go to bed if you're that tired. Or wear glasses. Or don't watch Chains of Love. Take your pick.
I realise that there are two problems with this survey - I've had 20 and 10 years more to hear and remember the 1988 and 1998 songs respectively, but even so I'm doing way better on the late 80s than the late 90s.
The ones I had no clue on, just for the record, are:
now:
"Low" by Flo Rider, "4 minutes" by Madonna/Justin, "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat, "With You" by Chris Brown, "Tattoo" by Jordin Sparks, "Work" by Kelly Rowland, "Dream Catch Me" by Newton Faulkner and "Don't Stop the Music" by Rihanna ([1]please God don't tell me that this is a rip off of the Village People song and [2] please God go away already, I just got that Umbrella thing out of my head). Actually I've only heard of three of the artists in that lot. Hm.
1998:
"Second Solution" by Living End (sorry guys, they all blur for me), "It's Like that" by Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins, "Lollipop" by Aqua, "You make me wanna" by Usher (was he around then? Really?), "All I have to Give" by the Backstreet Boys (the title's still making me giggle) and "Cherish" by Pappa Bear. Who?!?
Just goes to show, there'll undoubtedly be a question on him in the next month or so and I'll be sitting there going "well, I think I've heard it before, but I've no idea what it's called or who sings it..." As always. | | Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 | | 9:07 am |
Public transport geekery
I had far too much fun coming in to work this morning. I've been kind of experimenting with routes in to work - it used to be just tram-tram, but since I moved I've tried train-tram, train-train and going home I've tried bus-train, tram-train, bus-bus, train-train.
The simplest and probably quickest route is the train/tram combination... but that's what I do every day. And for me there's always the side need of "what if the train system goes down? what if the tram network goes down?" to have back up plans. This, of course, is where the buses come in.
Mostly I experiment going home, usually because I don't have to get there as quickly. But today I was running early, so when I realised I could probably walk up one block from the train station and catch the bus to work... well, it was an opportunity not to be missed.
The first bus I caught was running very late, and so terminated at Flinders St. The second one, once we got past the congestion around Crown, absolutely fanged it down St Kilda Rd, passing trams as we went. I'm tempted to try this route again, although I might try it from the National Gallery stop rather than Queen St, where I started.
I have to admit it always surprises me when people don't know where the buses outside their work go. I tend to read the Melways to find out. And then, when I need a bit of a change, catch them to see where, exactly, they go. I've jumped on quite a few trams and buses to see what was at the other end of the route.
The transport plan released for Melbourne last week doesn't really cut it for me, except for the proposed Caufield-Footscray train link. Now that, I'm up for. And not just because it would probably get me to work even faster again (part of this experimentation is that it's currently taking me roughly the same time to travel nearly 20km by train as it is 4km by tram. There has to be a quicker route, seriously.) The East-West road tunnel has the smell of someone's long-cherished plan. Not that I can talk. If they gave me control of the budget for Victoria there'd be train lines sprouting within minutes. Well, OK, days. Or weeks. But the line to Monash University would be started as quickly as I could bloody make it.
I do wonder if another part of this jumping on and off forms of transport is just me really, really wanting to go travelling again. Probably. | | Thursday, April 10th, 2008 | | 10:06 am |
| | Monday, March 24th, 2008 | | 10:36 am |
Go barrington! A good review in today's paper, and a quote in the larger article! Yay! (Although I'll admit the conversation in our house went something like this: Me: Hey look! barrington's got a quote in the paper. " Dinosaurs are to 10-year-old boys as naked girls are to 15-year-old boys - they've never seen one, their room is full of posters of them, and they'd like to touch one, but they're a bit afraid." Dean: Didn't he have Dr Who posters on his walls...?) | | Friday, January 25th, 2008 | | 10:49 am |
Fred Phelp's mob is apparently planning on picketing Heath Ledger's funeral. Dear God, someone please section this arsehole! And his cult followers!
Got keys yesterday, now to start moving! | | Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 | | 10:22 am |
I swear this is supposed to be summer...
This weather is bizarre. The last couple of days we've had thunderstorms, rain, sun, more thunderstorms, torrential rain, a mini-tornado or two, and now just cold rain. Which makes a change from the extremely muggy warm stuff, I was beginning to wonder if the weather had mistaken Melbourne for Mackay. (Note to weather: do you see any sugar cane here? No, I didn't think so.)
Still, I'm really not going to complain about the rain, given the dams are at 39% and we need it!
The University where I used to work shut down for the Christmas period on Thursday. One of the guys I worked with dropped by to have a coffee and catch up. During the conversation his phone rang. His end of it went like this:
"Hi! Yep. Oh shit. Oh shit. Really? Oh... shit. All of it? How much? Oh shit. Now? Argh... OK."
Turns out that part of the roof of the lab had collapsed, there was 3 cm of water on the floor and the ceiling of the lab below had also collapsed from the weight of water coming through it. Oh and the lab head wanted him to drive back out through the flooded freeway to the University and check on all the freezers. Ah the joys of seniority!
The University was pretty badly hit as it turned out - part of the library roof also collapsed and the basement flooded (heh, and guess where theses are stored...) and there was flash flooding through several departments (and through the uni gym - well that'd clean out the muscle boys I suppose). It does bolster my theory that they should build a dam there, seeing as that's the point where all the storms come off the bay. It also kind of supports my "labs are on the first floor and above while undergrads are on the ground floor in case of flooding" theory - although that doesn't help if you've got a mini-tornado, obviously.
Yesterday I got an e-mail confirming the extent of the damage, and also that the lab will likely be out of commission for at least a month. Good thing the undergrads are off, cos everyone's moving into the teaching areas.
God only knows if we'll get snow again for Christmas this year, it could be 5oC and snowing in the mountains or 45oC and burning in the mountains. I'm hoping for something nicely in the middle, 25oC would be lovely, please. | | Friday, December 7th, 2007 | | 1:36 pm |
Hinch vs Laws So retired 'icon' John Laws decided to have a go at non-retired, non-icon Derryn Hinch. All I can say is: heh. Damn, why didn't someone have a mobile phone camera to put this on YouTube. Because that would have been funny. Even funnier when Hinch admitted that he was actually in the process of interviewing his lunch guest but had just turned the tape recorder off - and he forgot to turn it back on! Call yourself a radio host?! | | Thursday, December 6th, 2007 | | 4:43 pm |
| | Friday, November 30th, 2007 | | 2:04 pm |
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