Six Billion Gallons

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That’s approximately how much water has fallen over the Seattle area in the past few days, according to the Seattle PI. Flooding all over the place, bridges and roads washed out, I-5 is closed between Seattle and Portland forcing a detour through Yakima…crazy stuff.

Flickr: Liembo: Nice one!

Outside of leaks taking out a few ceiling tiles at my store in the mall, neither Prairie nor I have personally seen any of the more dramatic effects of the storm. Apparently we got off fairly lucky — the PI mentions a few people in our area of town that didn’t fare so well.

“It felt like we were on the Titanic,” said Randy Carter, who awoke at 4 a.m. Monday to lights from utility trucks and the realization that his apartment in the Jackson Greens complex in North Seattle was flooded to evacuation levels with 3 feet of water.

[…]

In Seattle, where rescue crews were forced to carry people from hard-hit homes in the Northgate area and then shelter them on Metro buses, Mayor Greg Nickels said flatly that the city’s infrastructure had been unable to cope with the deluge.

“The systems that this city was built around — the draining systems, the transportation systems — simply were not built to handle this kind of rainfall,” he said.

By late afternoon Monday, nearly 6 billion gallons of rain — the rough equivalent of six Green Lakes — had fallen.

Four apartment buildings, housing some 50 people and their pets near Midvale Avenue North and North 107th Street were evacuated and another four were similarly affected, Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said.

“The flooding is up to 10 feet deep in some areas,” she said.

In one building, the parking garage was almost completely under water, cars were nearly floating with rain up to their windshields and firefighters were carrying residents out.

The PI has a photo gallery of some of the effects around town.

(photo by Liembo)

Wishlistr

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My wishlistFlying full-bore into the Season of Greed, I’m playing around with Wishlistr, a clean and simple site for tracking all those little (and, me being me, not-so-little) “I want” bits that pop up.

My wishlist is rather small at the moment, with an odd mix of trivialities and big-ticket items that will never actually randomly fall into my lap…but, as always, that’s the point of a wishlist, right?

Badass Bible Verses

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Cracked has a list of the top nine ‘badass’ bible verses. Just for fun, I’ll list the verse citations here. Any guesses at what stories they’re referring to (before looking at the linked article or clicking through to the linked NIV versions, of course)?

  1. Exodus 2: 11-12
  2. II Kings 2: 23-24
  3. Ezekiel 23: 19-20
  4. Judges 3: 16-23
  5. Numbers 16: 23, 31-33
  6. Deuteronomy 25: 11-12
  7. I Kings 18: 24, 38-40
  8. Judges 15: 15-16
  9. I Samuel 18: 25-27

Zoom

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  1. 1957: Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps, by Kees Boeke.

  2. 1968: Cosmic Zoom, a Canadian animated short film inspired by Boeke’s book.

  3. 1977: Powers of Ten, a short film by Charles and Ray Eames, inspired by the prior two pieces. This is the most commonly known version of this presentation.

  4. 2004: The Simpsons parody version (10.3 Mb .mov file), as the couch gag for The Ziff Who Came to Dinner

All links via Kottke.

Schedule? What Schedule?

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Two more days without posting. It’s official — trying to enforce a daily posting routine just didn’t work for me this year. Perhaps it will later on, when things aren’t quite as busy as they are now. Still, I gave it a good shot, and I still want to keep up a more regular post rate than once every week or two.

It may not actually happen, of course…but I’ll give it a shot. :)

Meme: The ’80’s Movie Scientist Test

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Your Score: Jordan Cochran

140 Heart, 138 Genius, 157 Cool, 144 Excitability

Jordan Cochran — (Michelle Meyrink)
Real Genius (1985)

You’re Jordan Cochran, the adorable fast-talking GIRL scientist of all things. While she may not be up there with the other super-geniuses of the ’80s, her awesome mechanical aptitude and geek-girl cuteness have made her the sweetheart of nerds for over 20 years.

“I never sleep, I don’t know why. I had a roommate and I drove her nuts, I mean really nuts, they had to take her away in an ambulance and everything. But she’s okay now, but she had to transfer to an easier school, but I don’t know if that had anything to do with being my fault. But listen, if you ever need to talk or you need help studying just let me know, ’cause I’m just a couple doors down from you guys and I never sleep, okay?”

Other scientific possibilities: Gary Wallace, Wyatt Donnelly, Peter Venkman, Jordan Cochran, Egon Spengler, Doc Brown, Newton Crosby, Paul Stephens, Ben Crandall, Wayne Szalinkski, Winston Zeddemore, Ben Jabituya, Lazlo Hollyfeld, Ray Stantz, Buckaroo Banzai, Chris Knight

Link: The Which 80s Movie Scientist Test

Amusing side note: Jordan is one of the first movie character crushes I ever had when I was growing up. :)

Historical side note: Jordan was based on a real Caltech student:

And, yes, Jordan of Real Genius was based, at least in part, on me. My class’s president and social organizers decided to ask me in on an interview being done by the movies producers and so there I was in one of the fanciest restaurants in Pasadena wrapped in a slightly oversized sweater that I’d knit myself one night when I was cold, talking blithly about life at Caltech without, from what folks say, a single breath. One of the most amusing things in my life was, fifteen years later, seeing that movie with a roomful of my friends from Temple Square and, the minute Jordan introduces herself in a long string of breathless sidetrains having the entire room turn to just look at me afterwards. That was most amusing. As Cera says, she has my voice.

I’ve learned about commas since. Also about breathing. And, finally, yes, I’ve also learned to finally sleep once in a while, though that took staying up 72 hours for a project while I was doing my MSEE at the University of Washington and having my body literally fall asleep on me before it shut down completely to really bring that lesson home.

Hm. I should put in here, also, that I’m the only Caltech woman that I knew was actually interviewed for source material; but I tried for a whole perspective about the female experience at the school. Not just me. It was an ME friend of mine that did the scuba gear testing in the pool, and while all the physically possible things that Jordan did were done by some Caltech woman, it wasn’t necessarily me. I’m also very sure that Dave Marvit and the other Caltech consultants for the movie all contributed some of what they knew about the females of the school to Jordan’s character as well. So I’m pretty sure she’s a composit of the others who were there at that time. Personally, I was just glad that they got her right.

EstroBlaster!

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Apparently, I’m a 50-something gun-toting impotent Republican.

At least, that’s sure what it seems like judging by the junk mail I get. For some reason, I’ve ended up on some hilariously odd mailing lists. I get occasional mailings from the AARP welcoming me to my retirement years, the NRA asking if I want to join or contribute money to one thing or another, and so on. Today brought the best mailing yet, though.

Prairie picked up the mail and started flipping through the envelopes. Handing one to me with a puzzled look on her face, she asked, “What mailing list are you on?” The envelope she handed me had a somewhat softcore porn-ish shot of a man and woman in bed, with the text “THE FIRST TRUE REVOLUTION IN MALE SEXUAL POWER IS HERE…NOW!” emblazoned across it.

“I’m really not sure,” I said and popped it open. Pulling the folded newsletter style paper out of the envelope, my eyebrows shot up, and I started to laugh at the headline that greeted me: “THE PROBLEM IS NOT TESTOSTERONE – The Problem Is That You Are Being Deluged with Female Hormones. You Are Being Feminized and You Don’t Even Know It.”

Feminized? Oh, no — what’s happening? Am I losing my manhood? Is my manliness being sucked away, turning me into some swishy girly-man? This can’t be true!

EstroBlaster Detail

Reading on, I chose bits and pieces to read to Prairie aloud, until both of us had stitches in our sides and tears in our eyes. The advertised product, EstroBlaster, is yet another in a long line of herbal supplements aimed at men who have (or are being convinced that they have) a little less fuel in their rocket than they did in earlier times. I haven’t seen too many of these ads, so I don’t really have a basis for comparison, but this one’s marketed using an absolutely hilarious mix of misogyny, homophobia, and scare tactics.

A few choice quotes…

…more and more research is coming out. There is a terrible secret that you should know about.

The Secret Problem of Estrogen Dominance

You are being deluged with female hormones. That, on top of naturally falling male hormone levels, can cause a condition called estrogen dominance.

You are being turned into a woman, and you don’t even know it.

What’s happening is that large amounts of female hormones are slipping through the water treatment plants of most major cities. Even in the country the water is filled with them.

Estrogen is passing right through women and into the water supply — where it can’t be removed.

In fact, there is enough estrogen in the water right now to change male fish into females.

Recent statistics even show that more young men are getting plastic surgery to remove their “male boobs” than there are young women getting breast augmentation.

EstroBlaster Detail

Not only that, but the rate of young boys turning into girls is frightening. One group that monitors this problem said:

No one compiles official statistics on transgender youths, but everyone agrees that their numbers are rising quickly.

…it took months to narrow down a powerful formula at a good price. We named it Estro-Blaster — after what it’s designed to do…blast the estrogen out of your system.

**Get Back the Sexual Drive and Ability You Had as a Teenager… Wanting Sex Every Day – The Ability to Get Hard Every Time – And Even Spontaneous Erections! (The Kind You Used to Have to Hid in School When You Got Up to Change Classes…You’d Have to Carry Your Books Down in Front of Your Pants)

After years of falling sexual ability, I was amazed one day, when out and about, that I was getting a “spontaneous” erection.

I didn’t even have to touch my penis. It just began swelling to an erect state.

You can imagine my surprise — and pleasure. This hadn’t happened to me since I was in my twenties. Many years ago.

I felt like a man again — a real man.

EstroBlaster Detail

As if all this wasn’t funny enough, there were two sources listed in the flyer. At first I was surprised that there were any sources listed — this didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would be worrying about sourcing its information. Then I noticed that one of the sources was a forum post on Free Republic, one of the most notorious far-right rabid conservative spaces on the ‘net today, and far from being anything that I’d even remotely consider a ‘trusted source.’ The second was a small excerpt from an article titled “Treatment of Young MTF Transsexuals” on a site called “Second Type Woman,” which (at least on first glance) doesn’t exactly strike me as the kind of source most people should be basing their pharmaceutical decisions on.

All in all, it made for a very entertaining evening.

And, apparently, I’m a fifty-something gun-toting impotent Republican.

Good to know!

Turkey Day

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Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Prairie’s dad Lon and her sister Hope came over this morning for breakfast (sausage and eggs and cinnamon rolls), then Lon and I did some “boy puttering” (fixing the passenger side view mirror on the car, which a vandal knocked all askew a couple winters back) while Prairie and Hope did some “girl puttering” (making lemon tartlets).

Presently, all are relaxing with warm drinks as Prairie prepares a snack plate before Hope heads off to a Thanksgiving dinner celebration for her job. Lon, Prairie and I are planning a relaxing afternoon and evening here at the apartment, watching something silly and having Thanksgiving dinner.

We hope your day is going as well as ours!