Let's go fly a kite

Objectively - Saving Mr. Banks is terribly one-sided, the Disney version of a Disney story, with all the ladles-full of sugar that entails. 

Then again, I didn't like Travers' Poppins anyway. I remember reading the series as a kid, and thinking the author must have had a horrible childhood to have come up with that stuffy nanny.

So would I recommend watching Saving Mr. Banks? Meh, I like it when the classic songs come on, but all the movie's good moments are showcased in the trailer. You may as well watch the original. 

Come to that - watch Sound of Music, instead. That's where my real loyalties lie.

RIP, old friend.

I treated myself to my first grown-up laptop yesterday. To put that in context, all my laptops so far have been slightly bigger than the average tablet. They've come in fancy colours, or had cute stickers on them - and yes, I realize that makes them sound like they belong on Hello Kitty. 

My latest laptop, which turned 3 years old on Friday, is a shiney red thing that weighs less than my average library book. It was the DJ at our wedding, the theatre on our in-home dates, and the place where the very first draft of my very first full length novel sat. Of course, it went into a coma and I no longer have any record of any of that stuff. You'd think I'd be resentful, but it's hard to get annoyed with something that pretty. We've had some great times together. The laptop had surgery and chugged along bravely for a while, but the speakers don't work, and it only stays on when it's plugged onto the charger, and it just seems kinder on both of us to let go. 

(Respectful pause). 

This new laptop, which arrived just in time for Christmas, is a no-nonsense black beast that weighs as much as all my previous laptops combined (not that that's saying much). It's slightly initimidating, in that I'd to Google how to make it work. Way to make me feel old, laptop. Not to sound all bring-back-the-90's, but I'm not a fan of Windows 8. It manages to seamlessly integrate all that's annoying about Google Now & Macbooks without retaining any of the (considerable, it has to be admitted) goodness. This is going to take some getting used to, but I'm optimistic. 

Ten years from now, when I write out a eulogy for B.B.*, I'm sure we'll look back on this day & laugh.

*Just because it's an adult laptop doesn't mean it'll go unnamed.

Icicles & other miracles

Freezing rain makes trees look like something out of a Disney movie (until they topple over from the weight of the icicles, anyway). The weather has the additional advantage of wiping out electricity in many parts of Toronto, including my office. 

So here I am, warm at home, with a glorious white picture-postcard view, merrily doing my work, knowing that no one can email me last minute anything because everyone's internet connectivity is down.

Best. Monday. Ever.

Humbug

Everyone I know is in a stable relationship... which is great, except that no one has any giggly new-crush stories any more. Boo.

Vertigo

Here's how I've felt this week.

...It was easier to put that drawing together than it will be to get out of bed. Now I know what an alcoholic feels like, and it makes me more determined than ever not to drink.

12 Days of Christmas

For the longest time, I thought it was a partridge in a petri.

I figured the blood lust with which that last line was roared was entirely in character. After all, these same people had gleefully gloated about eating a turkey whole in the recent past, why would a partridge expect a different fate?

I image-searched a partridge in a pear tree this morning, and I really think the petri may have been more comfortable. The fact that the image above exists on the internet is proof enough that I'm not the only person who thinks so.

Ooh, snap.

My profile picture on Whatsapp is a nice, demure (ish) couple shot.

My husband claims his is too.

ARGH!

Are you sick of reading rants about work crap yet?

Yeah, me too.

Pet Peeves

In no particular order...

- People who are too polite to be efficient

- 'Recipes' which are pretty much just grocery lists, with the ridiculously intutive instruction 'now put it all together' detailed in five flowing paragraphs.

- Rhetorical questions posted online to satisfy one's need for public favor ('Should I write a book?' I'd like to see someone answer, 'Nah.')

- People popping up out of the blue after years of being incommunicado to sheepishly ask for outright demand a 'favor.'

- 'Grammar Nazis' who make grammatical errors. On a related note, editors who let 'your' get printed in place of 'you're.' I've read too many good books lately, which are punctuated (haha, pun) with silly errors.

Quotable Quotes

Bugzilla has a bunch of quips to while away the time while you wait for the universe to restore itself. Here are some of my favorites from pages 1-3 (I had an annoying bug that took a while to fix. Also, these are addictive).

Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.

Hindsight is an exact science.

To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.

Smile........ Tomorrow will be worse

The world is so fast that there are days when the person who says it can't be done is interrupted by the person who is doing it

It's all very well in practice, but it will never work in theory.

"Time's fun when you're having flies." - Kermit the Frog

" I drank what?" -Socrates

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice they are not.

"I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

It's sad that a family can be torn apart by such a simple thing as a pack of wild dogs.

A lack of planning on your part, does not constitute an emergency on my part

The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear tight shoes.

God is real, until declared integer.

If you must reinvent a wheel, use a round one.

The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them!

2nd place is like being the tallest midget ... nobody cares.

... Bit hard to tell if I'm an optimist or a pessimist, eh? I'll take either perspective, as long as it's wrapped up in a funny line.

I got a pay raise today, along with the news that I was clearly supremely good at the analytical stuff and numbers, but should feel free to be more creative.

Did I get someone else's review? Who IS this person? Certainly not anyone I want to be.

Perspective

Many of Galileo's contemporaries went to their graves believing the sun revolved around the earth.

As my instincts painfully nudge me towards rationale over rhetoric, revenue over risk taking, and the bottomline over brilliance... the hope is that someday in the near future, I'll be objective enough to believe that the world does not, in fact, revolve around me.

And on and on

"1000 or 1,000 (one thousand) is the natural number following 999 and preceding 1001."

Source

(Cryptic blog posts are the sincerest form of flirt-ery.)

We went all the way

The husband's living it up in Vegas this week. I'm not quite as chilled out when he's not around (okay, understatement of the century), so within 24 hours of his leaving, I'd finished reading my book, worked overtime, cleaned the house, done the dishes, cooked and eaten 3 meals, run sundry other errands, and even caught up on my long pending email backlog. And it was still only 9pm. And I'd another 96 hours of unsupervised Duracell-bunny mode.

What to do, what to do. And that's how I found myself preparing for my doctor's checkup today like it was a super hot date. I pulled out all the stops. Which is a good thing because, after congratulating me on my blood work & angiogram, she said, oh so casually, "How bout a cervical, then?"

Now, I would never proactively suggest going down that road, but it seems downright stupid to refuse a test that can early detect cancer. Also, I've seen the movies with the fancy chairs, but real estate in downtown TO doesn't come cheap, and I was curious about how we'd manage the acrobatics of it all. 

She left me to 'change' (translate, strip, and pretend to preserve dignity with scraps of paper). I'd just laid back & artfully covered everything, when she let me know there was going to be foreplay, of the sitting up sort. So much for my modesty. 

After a brief visit to second base, while discussing the weather, she managed to position me at the very edge of the bed, which, it turns out, morphs into a chair with stirrups! I was all open mouthed wonder, as befits a pap-smear virgin.  

"Spread your knees and it'll be easier for both of us. Mm, very nice, that was easy, wasn't it? Just give me one minute. You're doing really well. There we go. I know that wasn't pleasant, but you were a trooper."

"Thanks. And hey, we don't have to do this again for another three years, right?" 

I'm definitely far from being a subtle date. But there's that cherry popped. And I definitely feel better about my health now. So go do it. If only because you'll have an amusing story to tell. 

> 2

My manager & I happened to leave office at the same time today.

"So, any plans for the evening?" she asked.

I knew for sure that I had plans because I'd that vague sense of excitement + anxiety about how the evening would play out. I racked my brain, and then had to laugh when I finally figured it out.

"Nothing at all," I said.

Odd how an evening at home with the husband still has my sub-sub-conscious feeling like it's an occasion. 

I suppose it really hasn't been very long since we've been married, much as it feels like it's been forever (and then some).

Facebook's Latest Shenanigans

If the day ever comes when we think searching through our Facebook friends' opinions on restaurants, music et al is going to give us results that are more relevant/valid than a YouTube/Amazon/Google recommendation/result, just shoot me.

#1 People joined groups/added interests ten thousand years ago and forgot about them, and/or just 'Like' whatever their friends say to like, so that aforementioned friends can win whatever ridiculous Facebook contest marketers are thrusting on them this week. The groups/pages people note they like on Facebook? They probably like them the same way they're friends with their friends list on Facebook. Which brings me to...

# 2 'Friends' is a really loose definition for the contacts on your Facebook list, so unless you're the gossip queen/statistician-in-making who wants to know everyone's preference on everything just because, why wouldn't you just ask *specific* people whose opinions you respected? I definitely don't trust the same people's opinions when it comes to a restaurant vs a book. And to be perfectly honest, I usually find people's opinions on Twitter/Yelp/Amazon/YouTube. I find people's look-at-my-life-and-be-jealous pictures & updates on Facebook. Which brings me to...

#3 I've seen what comes up on my Facebook feed. There's no possible way I'm finding answers there, unless the question was 'Ripped-off sentimental/funny quotes' or 'Who had the best party everrr' or 'Who loves their husband/wife the most'.

I don't even know why I'm so outraged by Facebook's announcement of their new Social Graph, but oh my God, it makes me want to shout. Twitter hashtags make sense, Google search makes sense, FB social graph is just... at best, pointless.

I'm sure marketers will be all over it a year from now, and Facebook will release stats on earned impressions generating a higher conversion rate than paid impressions, and so on, but meh.

Happy Friday

Funny side-effect of my job - I find myself working on tech things I'd never even heard of until, et voile, there I am waist-deep in them. CNAMES, A-records, Terradata, ODBC, whaaa?  

I'm like a non-native speaker with a dictionary, finding that each definition needs several more look-ups before it can be understood. Except without a dictionary. 

So it's more like someone reading a book in a completely different language with some English words peppered in, trying to make sense of the alien words based on the context in which they appear. I feel a little victory kick every time I figure out a new term, though the more logical part of me wonders why I couldn't just use that brain space for Spanish or German or something more fun than Nerd-ese. 

But, but, but, today a tech guy walking me through some obscure database setup process told me how impressed he was with my, and I quote, 'intuitive tech skill.' He wanted to know if I had coding experience. Right. I'm barely logical by human standards; if I tried telling a computer what I wanted, the poor thing would crash in despair. 

Still, despite the occasional victory kicks, I've been feeling like a frog trying to fly... so his comment totally made my day. Geekjoy maximum.