Random thoughts

[Tom]

Reminds me of my grandmother. The second I walked in the door to my family Christmas party, complaining about a cold I'd had for two weeks, she greeted me with, "I have the cure-all of cure-alls. I'll tell you about it later!"

Er...Merry Christmas to you too, Grandma.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Best Dialogue Ever: POI "If-Then-Else"

For those who don't watch Person of Interest, it's a show about a Big-Brother-esque machine that its inventor uses to rescue innocents. In the most recent episode (1/6/2015), the main characters were in a tight spot, so the machine ran simulations to try to keep the good guys alive. Time was running out, so the machine "simplified" the simulation. The dialogue during the simplified part:

Spoiler: script and one-minute scene

Reece: "Cooly delivered sadistic warning."

Fusco: "Self-deprecating inquiry into time necessary to infiltrate system?"

Root: "Funny, yet insightful retort."

Finch: "Mildly agitated declaration of mission completion.

"Gentle exhortation to further action."​

Root: "Overly affectionate greeting."

Shaw: "Greeting."

Root: "Transparent rationale for conversation."

Shaw: "Annoyed attempt to deflect subtext."

Root: "Overt come-on."

Shaw: "Mildly embarrassed defensiveness bordering on hostility."

Root: "Playfully witty sign-off."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

A Beautiful Lie

Ten years ago today, a woman replied to an email that started with the phrase, "I'm not trying to date someone on the other side of the world..."

It was a beautiful "lie" which she and I celebrated tonight over bowls of ice cream (with our three daughters).

 

[Tom]

Ten years ago today, a woman replied to an email that started with the phrase, "I'm not trying to date someone on the other side of the world..."

It was a beautiful "lie" which she and I celebrated tonight over bowls of ice cream (with our three daughters).

This is the most beautiful thing I've seen all day.

Actually, it nicely compliments another beautiful thing I saw today. Arriving home from fencing class (tired, achy, worried about keeping my coaching position, worried about an upcoming tournament, worried about the future of the club) I stepped out of the car and was struck by the staggering beauty of the stars. All my problems vanished for a few amazing minutes while I looked up at them.

It's a freezing, crystal-clear night here, so the stars were bright and hard like diamonds. I could make out Orion in the southeast, and I think I even saw a meteor streak across the northern horizon.

It's at times like these that I'm totally in awe of life's beauty.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Yeah, I was just taking out the trash. A beautiful, clear night.

In contrast, when I was out a few nights before we left Hong Kong, the sky over Causeway Bay had exactly four stars. I believe they were Sirius, Jupiter, Mars, and Airplane.


Tonight, I told another beautiful lie.

AMELIA (age 7) - "Daddy, do you type the tooth fairy's letter on your computer? Because she uses the same font that's on your computer."

ME - "You can get that font on any computer. Maybe she types it on my computer by dancing on the keys. Or maybe she has her own little computer, and she prints it using a wireless connection."

(Bluetooth. Tooth fairy. Damn… I just thought of that one now. Can't go back.)


Now I have to look up the letter in which Gentle Snowwand revealed her age. And her address. It's a bakery in England. My web of lies is too damn complicated! She's my first kid—I didn't know! And the other two are so close in age they inherit the same convoluted load of crap, so I have to keep piling it higher!

Warning to younger members who are not yet parents: Keep the tooth fairy simple! "Oh, sweetie, I'm sure she'd have written to you if her little fairy arms could lift a pen." Yeah. That's what I should've said.

 

[Ruby]

Hi Legendary Sidekick - how romantic! Was the lovely photo taken at your wedding?

Re the tooth fairy, maybe you can tell your daughter that the tooth fairy is your muse (like Mariya?) and helps you write your books!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Yeah. That was in the morning. We wore Chinese wedding outfits. (The rental company threw in the male outfit for free simply because I said I'd actually wear it if they wouldn't charge me!) In the church, we wore the tux and white. Then she wore two evening gowns at the banquet.

The wedding was 18 hours long. But we made up for the lost time by having a 42-hour day to start our honeymoon. (I'm not kidding… Hawaii is 18 hours east of Hong Kong.)

 

[Tom]

Did you know that when you listen to a song with a strong beat, your heart synchronizes itself to beat in time with the song?

I just experienced this, listening to Avicii's "Wake Me Up". I swear that song is addicting. I could listen to it 24/7 and still get that wild ache of longing in my chest when I hear the opening chords.

 

[DaFlaminUnicorn]

Did you know that when you listen to a song with a strong beat, your heart synchronizes itself to beat in time with the song?

I just experienced this, listening to Avicii's "Wake Me Up". I swear that song is addicting. I could listen to it 24/7 and still get that wild ache of longing in my chest when I hear the opening chords.

I know what you mean. I love that song and it's a good pick me up for when I've had a bad day. For some reason it speaks to me. I also like Fall Out Boy's songs "Centuries" and "Immortals."

 

[Tom]

I had the day off on Friday, so I went to the skating rink. They were playing "Wake Me Up" and I just felt like I could fly. There's nothing like racing across the ice on hockey skates.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

How about racing across the ice while a crack is chasing you?

That happened to a friend of mine when I was ~17. I stomped on the ice from 50 feet away, joking that I was going to send a crack after him. Only… it really worked! It looked like something you'd expect in a cartoon, not real life. The crack went straight at him, and my friend's eyes grew wide. We said "run!" but no one had to tell him. As he ran, the crack "turned" (~a sharp turn, like a ~75˚ angle) in the spot he was once standing and followed him. Of course it was his running that caused the cracking ice to split in that direction, but it was as if the crack was a living thing out to get him. He almost made it to the edge of the small pond. One leg was on dry land when the other went under.

 

[Tom]

How about racing across the ice while a crack is chasing you?

That happened to a friend of mine when I was ~17. I stomped on the ice from 50 feet away, joking that I was going to send a crack after him. Only… it really worked! It looked like something you'd expect in a cartoon, not real life. The crack went straight at him, and my friend's eyes grew wide. We said "run!" but no one had to tell him. As he ran, the crack "turned" (~a sharp turn, like a ~75˚ angle) in the spot he was once standing and followed him. Of course it was his running that caused the cracking ice to split in that direction, but it was as if the crack was a living thing out to get him. He almost made it to the edge of the small pond. One leg was on dry land when the other went under.

Scary! That happened to me when I was about ten. My friends and I used to play hockey on a frozen pond, and one year we went out when the ice wasn't set yet. I ended up falling in, and got a really bad fever from the shock of the freezing water.

That was back when I actually could play hockey with my friends. These days, they're all six-foot-and-higher giants, and I'm pretty small. I'd get smashed if we tried to play a game now!

 

[Ireth]

"Cookies" is a misleading name. They should be called "bakies" instead.

 

[Tom]

"Cookies" is a misleading name. They should be called "bakies" instead.

Well, the word "cookie" is derived from the Dutch "koekie", which means "little cake". So technically it makes sense.

In completely unrelated news: I wonder what Limyaael's doing now that she's vanished from the internet.

 

[LordFalco]

My female characters benefit from this observation by a master in the field: "In all my years of practice, I have never precisely deduced what it is that a woman wants."---Sigmund Freud.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Considering what he thought women envy, it's no wonder Freud couldn't figure out what they want.

 

[Tom]

Considering what he thought women envy, it's no wonder Freud couldn't figure out what they want.

Freud was altogether too occupied with the physical body; he seemed to think that every thought a human being has stems from one bodily urge or another. He treated psychology like it was the study of the body, assuming that every thought has its roots in something the body needs. Why must we tie our thoughts so tightly to our physical selves? Can't the mind be free to wander, to wonder, to dream past the body?

Er, I kind of strayed into existentialism there. And a little griping about why I don't like Freud.

 

[SeverinR]

Considering what he thought women envy, it's no wonder Freud couldn't figure out what they want.

Never understood why he thought they had peanut envy. Some women even have peanut allergies.

On an unrelated note, people say my hearing has been bad for a while. frankly, I wouldn't hear of it.

 

[Tom]

Do you ever look over your old posts and wince when you realize you accidentally misspelled words and abused grammar?

I know I do.

 

[SeverinR]

I do that on MS alot and once the time to fix has past, there is no fixing them.
Most other sites you can fix them at any time.

I frequently look at facebook posts and realize I made a mistake, but there I can fix them...most of the time.

But the MS site allows you to make the excuse, "oh, yea I saw that long ago, but I can't fix it." even if you never knew it.