flightless hag

A chronicle of the adventures of birdwoman: a lonely, talentless freak who wanders the internet in search of entertainment.

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Location: Philly

I'm a 40-something married white female, survivor of weight watchers, avid reader of pulp. Dogs (not cats), extreme right (handed, not politics), ENTJ, alto, wanna-be knitter.

November 22, 2005

Backhanded Apologies

So, I was listening to local talk radio this morning (I do that sometimes) and Michael S. was talking about something that happened on his program. He makes a policy of not talking about other radio hosts on his show, but apparently some caller called in haranguing Rush about something or other.

Michael S. replayed the call - and when he hosted the call, he asked the caller not to talk about another host, said he didn't believe what the other caller was saying... but apparently that's not enough for the Windbag. Rush apparently trashed Michael S. on his own show for hosting this caller.

M.S.'s close was this - he was sorry the subject came up, and he would go back to his policy of not talking about other radio hosts. And let all the callers who agree or disagree with him, Michael S. call to Michael's show, and let all the callers who AGREE with Rush call Rush.

I'm sure that was no slip of the tongue. So he still got an insult in, while being politically correct...


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November 19, 2005

Do You Sudoku?

If you know what I'm talking about, I'm totally addicted.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up.

Your discovery will serve as contradictory evidence to the post title below.

So, Do you?

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I am No Uber Geek!

But you'd never know it from how I spend my time.

One day this week, I took the train downtown to the convention center (note to self, get that list of philly things going again...) to attend a SQL Server 2005 launch. (hey, it counts as training credits, and it was a day away from Spaceleys.)

The last time I went to the convention center (used to be the train station in the 40's - it's a gorgeous site) was for the science fiction convention. I figure the combo of these two things makes me one of the world's biggest geeks.

But even my dweebdom was put to the test by this thing.

Dude, Microsoft made these movies to promote this event that were one step of "snort"(pushes glasses up) insanity.

The theme was "ready to ROCK!"
ROCK the DBA's
ROCK the Developers
ROCK the CODE
ROCK the LAUNCH!!
(hit my head with a ROCK this is just DISTURBING)

along with all the chief developers playing air guitar and drums...


I'm still wising I had the lighter to hold up above the stunned crowd. At least I didn't lower myself to standing in line for flare.

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November 15, 2005

Is He YOUR Doctor??

When I was at university - grad school, actually, I taught chemistry lab and such. One of the deals at this university was that we were not allowed to watch as students took tests - the student body had an honour code which students themselves enforced. Additionally, students were allowed to suggest that there were mistakes in graded papers, which they could then submit for regrade.

What they didn't know was that we photocopied their papers before handing back.

One student submitted for regrade and went from an 80% to a 95%. Turns out his photocopy had several different answers than the one he resubmitted.

Well, we turned it in to the honour committee. You know, there's nothing more vicious than a pack of students with the scent of blood in the air. Tiger sharks ain't got nothing on them!

They pulled him out of his bed in middle of the night, and stated that he has been accused of breaking the honour code. The student denied any violation.

BAD move.

They enforce their code in this manner: if a student admits his violation, he fails the class and must bow out of school for a semester. This is a school where everyone graduates in 4 years, generally, so this is a humiliation.

If, however, he denies guilt and the proof is conclusive to the committee, the student fails that class and loses all credit for that semester AND the next (that's a full year's tuition). None the less, that's what happened to this dude.

Flash to the summer right before the next year starts. The professor thattaught the class got a letter from the student. He was pre-med and needed this chemistry class to go to med school. He wanted to beg forgiveness for cheating, but the professor should understand: the student has herpes, and has strange memory lapses. He honestly does not remember cheating...

I don't know if he passed the course the next year, or if his memory lapses made him fail. I had dropped out of grad school by then (yes, I know, I'm such a loser). But I often wonder if he's the doctor at the ER...

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November 14, 2005

I Never Tire of The Story

So, even though the preview made it look like a romancy trite, I am such a sucker for Pride and Prejudice that I decided to go see it on Saturday afternoon.

First off, the theater was PACKED. At 1:30 in the afternoon on a gorgeous day.

The movie was GREAT. The story didn’t suffer from being smooshed into 2 hours, the romance was very believable, the characters were great. Sure, some of my favorite things were pulled, but I don’t believe you’d have to know the story to totally enjoy this chic-flic extraordinaire.

In fact, I’ll be buying THIS one on DVD when it comes out. That’s something I almost never do.


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November 13, 2005

Voluntary Actions

So, the family of birdwoman has been going to church on a regular basis for the last couple of months. For about 7 years, we have attended the same church, but we've bounced between services and not really talked to anyone, so everyone thought we were visitors every week.

Then, we spawned.

We're in agreement that Sunday school and church are very important for sprogs, so we've given up our Sunday mornings to the cause. In fact, I've even gone and joined the choir - since I'm gonna be there, I may as well torture people with the nasty, cloying sound of my voice.

So, I'm talking to one of the vestry dudes one day, and he was talking about how old and nasty the nametags were. I said something to the tune of - well, they're done in calligraphy by hand, but you could probably do it pretty easily on computer, these days.

Guess who just volunteered to do nametags?!

So, I brought home the nametag stuff today (and the dudes gave me 100 nametags for 150 people. Nice.) They didn't give me an electronic copy of the names, but instead, a paper copy. So, I'm typing along when I come across the worst name in history.

Dude's name is Dick Major.

And at school, he was certainly a Major, Dick.

At least I amused myself!

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November 12, 2005

What I Did On My Veteran's Day Vacation

First off, if there are any soldiers, sailors, airmen, etc reading this THANK you for your service. This country is great because people like you make it possible. Thank you.



I took the Heir to New Ork City yesterday for his birthday present. Throughout the day, we saw quite a number of vets going up to the parade or comingback from it. Sean was duly impressed. We did not, however, go to the parade. It was too daggone cold.

We went, instead, to the
Museum of Natural History to look at the dinosaur bones. What a really different museum that is. Most of it is taxodermy, for those who aren't in the know. 4 stories of dead, stuffed animals posed in their "natural" habitat. It's cool, but the PC policed have trained me to think of it as "wrong" in some fundamental part of me. The kids at the museum, though (and they were legion) loved it.

disappointed: "It's not real."
"It used to be real. Then it got dead. And stuffed."
awe-struck pause "Coooool!"



Lunch was
Jekyll and Hyde's - it's a theme restaurant, where I suppose the theme is all the halloween type stuff. There are actors keeping a running entertainment spiel - all with "British" accents. I think this could only work in New York, where there are enough eager broadway-wannabe's that they can keep a decent staff. The wait was long, but it was worth it to see Sean's face through the whole meal.

We rounded out the afternoon with a trip to
Toys R Us. The store is right on Times Square, and is HUGE for those who haven't been. There's a life-size T-Rex on one floor, animatronic... Sean was actually scared until I made him touch the foot to prove it wasn't really real. Then he didn't want to leave. Unfortunately, the trains in Philly were not running after 8, so I had to make sure we got home plenty early... besides, he was exhausted enough from all the excitement.

I ended up carrying him (he's a pretty big kid, too) for about 2 miles. I thought I was in good shape, as I run 20-25 miles a week and do crunches and basic weights. I am in a serious ache this morning, though.


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November 09, 2005

Math Troubles?

I've wanted to post this for weeks...

So the President is at breakfast, munchin on the Cocoa Puffs, while his advisors bring him up to date in the night's events.

"Sir," says the first, "There were three Brazilian soldiers killed in Iraq."

Chimpy puts down his spoon and slowly lowers his head into his hands. The second advisor asks, worriedly, "Sir?"

Mr. Bush looks up at him and asks, "How much is a brazilian?"

(da dun dun... thanks folks, try the salmon, I'll be here all week, drive safe!!)
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Christmas Parties...

Here at Spaceley's, we have a traditional "Holiday Party" in December. (side note, why can't we just call it a Christmas party and be done? Those PC police need smacking, I tell you.)

In the beginning, it was a big fun afternoon with all involved in crazy present swaps. Then idioits started getting offended by the joke presents. So that stopped, and we just had luncheons.

Then, we got lots of management.

Now, we have a soiree at some glitzy club on some Thursday in December. Spouses cost extra to come. Contractors cost extra.


I don't go to the party. There are lots of reasons - don't like the invite list, it's far away from home, etc, etc but it really comes down to I'm an AntiSocial Bastard and Like It That Way.

Last year I got "counseled" 3 times... "Why aren't you attending the party?" As new management, how many times will I get bugged about this? Bets? Think Mr. Spacely himself gives a rat's posterior?

We'll find out. 3 weeks...

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November 08, 2005

I Am So Back

Not going into the whole rebuild of this computer. The heartache is mostly in the past.

I'm BACK!

And Johnny will be, too.

See you all in the funny papers!

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