Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

No help at all

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I got this error message from MS Word today:

Word corrupted table error

Of course, the document has multiple tables embedded in it, and Word isn’t kind enough to tell me which table has become corrupted. I guess I’m just supposed to guess?

Jupiter

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(Background: this exchange came about in 1994, when a comet was breaking up as it passed by Jupiter and falling into the planet.)

Saturday, July 30, 1994 6:36:03 PM
From: Rtist
Subject: Jupiter gone?
To: Science

So, does anyone know how Jupiter is doing? Is it still under attack? Are there any new holes in it? How’s it goin’ up there?

Monday, August 1, 1994 4:32:49 AM
From: Woodstock
Subject: Re: Jupiter gone?
To: Science

It’s gone. The force of all the chunks hitting it disrupted the rotation and magnetic fields enough that all the gases surrounding it have been sloughing away into space…some merging with the rings that used to surround Jupiter, some of the heavier material being caught in the gravitational fields of the moons, but most just drifting off through the solar system. Scientists predict that when the Earth starts moving through the fields, those of us lucky enough to live up here in Alaska should see some absolutely phenominal displays of the Northern Lights, as the foreign gases start to interact with those that normally produce the displays.

Meanwhile, there’s been some excitement about a certain picture the Hubble took…something about a large black slab at the center of where Jupiter used to be, the edges appear to have a ratio to each other of 1x3x9…(grin)

In case you’re wondering, yes, this is a load of crap. But it was fun to write. So there. Bleah. Let someone else tell you what’s really going on, I’m shooting for a job at the Weekly World News…

(big grin)

Woodstock

Habits

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So D’s asking about odd or wierd habits today. I know I’ve got more than my fair share…

  • I’ve got something of an unusual vocabulary — choice phrases that I really do say, both online and in the real world, include “rock on,” “ooers,” “woohoo,” and others that I’m blanking on at the moment because I’m actively trying to come up with them.
  • I’m a fidgeter. Always have been, always will be. Must have something to do with my hands, whether it’s playing with something, tapping my fingers to music, talking with my hands while describing something, or anything else.
  • I will, on occasion, completely randomly start hopping or skipping, or generally bouncing around. This usually happens when other people aren’t around to witness it, but I’ve been caught on more than one occasion.
  • Four years after cutting my long hair off, I still tend to try to run my hand through my hair when thinking or stressed.
  • Certain events must be described as “fuckin’ awesome.”
  • I quote movies constantly — but rarely entirely accurately. Close enough to make my point, but I’m often corrected by my friends after spouting off.
  • It’s just been pointed out to me that I tend to start humming whatever random song is floating through my head at any given point.
  • After my years of DJ’ing, I’m incredibly catty when I’m at a club and the DJ isn’t up to my personal standards. And they rarely are.
  • I’m as likely to watch a Disney film as I am a horror flick or bizarre surrealistic art film.
  • If there’s a way to make a lowbrow, crude, gutter-level joke about something, I’ll probably go there.
  • I’m not a big fan of cheese, and my preferred form is the Kraft Singles (fondly referred to as “plastic cheese” by my mom).

I think that’s enough for now. I’m sure there’s more…

Speakeasy needs a laxative!

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I noticed an ad on Speakeasy’s website today advertising a limited time offer for a good price on a faster connection than the one I currently have. Always interested in a good deal, I gave them a call to see if I could upgrade my ‘net connection.

As it turns out, I can — so sometime next week, my pipe to the ‘net will be upgraded to a 1.5/768 connection — the same speed into my apartment, but approximately six times as fast leaving the apartment. This should mean slightly better response time for this website, and it might allow me to play with things like streaming audio, something I’ve wanted to explore but haven’t had the bandwidth for.

The best part about all this, though, was the service representative I spoke with. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch his name, but he was great. At one point, since I don’t have any great concept of how easy or difficult it might be on Speakeasy’s end to upgrade my service, I wondered if it might be as simple as “throwing a switch deep within the bowels of Speakeasy.” Apparently he’d not heard a customer choose that particular phrase in the midst of a service call, because things got a little sidetracked for a bit after that.

End result? Here’s my service request, as seen from my account status page on Speakeasy’s site:

we are awaiting the new upgrade switch to be thrown deep within the bowels of speakeasy. once this bowel movement is finished please credit the customer a month of service. they have agreed to recontract if we do this favor for them. it’s like a new order, only it’s an old order with a funny hat on.

Yup — my Internet upgrade is just awaiting a bowel movement. Anyone have any Ex-Lax?

Fundamentalism

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Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.

— anrwlias (found on the ‘net)

Like

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I think, like, I want to, like, ban the word, like, “like,” from the English, like, language.

Foolishness

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Who is more foolish — the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?

— Maurice Freehill

The Purity Test

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Dyanna and I got talking online tonight, and over the course of the conversation, the topic of the infamous Purity Tests came up.

I don’t really know where the Purity Tests got started, but I first found them not long after I first got online, sometime in 1991. The test itself (which now exists in various versions, though my personal favorites are the ‘original’ versions that I found all those years ago) is a series of yes or no questions designed to determine how morally, ethically, and sexually pure you are. As you go through the test, you mark off each thing you’ve done. At the end of the test, you count up your answers, and figure out your percentage — the more you’ve done, the lower your final score, and the less “pure” you are.

It’s all in good fun, of course, and they make a great party game. The only solid rule is that at the end of the test, anyone who took it must admit their final score. It’s entirely up to each person if they want to admit the answers to any particular question — and in many cases, they won’t — but the final score must be admitted!

The person with the lowest (least pure) score then gets hit on by everyone for the rest of the night, while the person with the highest (most pure) score gets giggled at by everyone for the rest of the night. ;)

So…now that all that’s out of the way…anyone care for a test? All of the following links are to downloadable text files. My scores either are posted, or will be after I re-take the tests — leave yours in the comments!

  • The Purity Test: 100 Questions (Quick and dirty, get it out of the way, see what you think. My score: 6%)
  • The Purity Test: 500 Questions (My favorite of the set — long enough to be thorough without getting overly ridiculous or tedious. My score: ??)
  • The Purity Test: 1000 Questions (Starting to get a little overly long, but still bearable. My score: ??)
  • The Purity Test: 2000 Questions (Farily ridiculously long — they’re stretching to find this many questions, and it shows. Included mostly for completeness/curiosity’s sake. My score: ??)

Have fun!