eruthros

1. I have this problem with reading things that make me angry on the internet - if they show up in firefox's url bar when I start to type something else in, I'll go "oh, I should check that" or "oh, I should see if there are new comments" and then I'll read them even though I know they'll make me hate the world. Like, I'd start typing some other url with an s, and then I'd end up at salon.com, even though I knew there would be nothing good there except maybe Glen Greenwald and that I'd read some lifestyles article and it would make me cranky, and then I'd read the comments even though I shouldn't and that would make me despair for humanity. And cranky.

But the thing is, I only do that when I see the name of the site in the dropdown; if I don't see it, it's much easier to resolve not to go there. So I use a handy firefox keyboard command to take things out of the suggestions - I highlight the suggested url that I want to avoid and shift-delete on it, and it is gone. It will reappear if I go there a lot anyway, but since mostly these are places that I don't want to go to, places I just end up out of habit or fear or something, it works for me.

Anyway it is a great tool and I <3 it.

2. Readability! If you use(d) readability, you probably know that they disabled their old bookmarklet in favor of their new browser applet in February. I hate the new applet - it doesn't play well with noscript, it tracks pageviews, it disables printing and saving to pdf, it doesn't work on locally saved html pages or on many secured sites, and it's basically no longer really about quickly getting me a version of a site that I can read - it's about content-management for other people. HATE.

However! There are places to get the old readability bookmarklet hosted elsewhere - Readabilitude (which on my system doesn't require me to temporarily allow scripts every time I want to use it) - and there are also alternatives that have other style features - e.g. Readable (which I haven't used because it does require temporarily allowing js every time).

I was just doing without it for a while, so I was glad when I found those a couple months ago.

3. Unrelated to computers! Many people I chat with have been reading or rereading Harry Potter fic in a burst of nostalgia. But it can be hard to find that exact story, you know, the one where Harry owned a owl-order bookstore, or that one where Snape rescued him from the Dursleys, or that other one where Blaise was a fashion designer, so in case y'all don't know about it I will link here to painless_j's themed lists, wherein ze links to all the fic ze can find for various tropes and plot devices. It's handy both for the purposes of finding that one story you lost and for the purposes of reading all the HP fic featuring glory holes or someone being sorted into a different house or someone taking up a career in mediwizardry.

4. And for anyone who's dealing with too-hot weather, sparkymonster made a post a while back with tips for dealing with hot weather; there are also a bunch of comments full of tips. It's pretty fucking hot here, so I appreciate those.

1. I received my very first good brace in the mail yesterday -- unlike the ones I get from my doctor, this one actually fits and is lined with smooth fabric. It is like nine times more comfortable than the brace I was wearing this time yesterday. Also, it looks much more hacker!brace and much less like why-is-this-a-hideous-medical-blue? And then I slept in it and only woke up once.

2. I watched an episode of Spartacus and, listen, I just can't do it guys. I don't care how much Lucy Lawless makes out with chicks in it, I can't do it. If there are particularly kinky bits that I really ought to clip, I'd appreciate an "episode four, about halfway through" or something, because otherwise it's not happening.

Also, the blood is so amazingly fake that I kept thinking it was pomegranate juice. Or maybe cranberry. "Spartacus: Pomegranate Juice and Sand" doesn't have nearly the ring to it, though.

3. We had a minor SNOWPOCALYPSE here, and reacted as one should to all snowpocalypses: we went outside half an hour before the sun set and made a snowperson. And then, because we are a thingswithwings and a eruthros, we started to make another snowperson, and in fact a whole snowscene, and then it got dark so we had to come inside before we finished. But I'm sure that they will be completed tomorrow!

4. When I play in the snow, I consider hot chocolate to be my just reward. So! There was hot chocolate! And it was tasty.

All in all, a very satisfactory day!

This ranks about 139, in terms of Things I Shall Never Do Again.

Guys: my flight is at 8:50. I know the American bus system, and I know that there's a storm coming in, and that it's going to hit upstate New York before it hits Manhattan, which would stop the buses.

So I thought, okay, 8:50 pm. No stress. I shall wake up early, do the last minute tea dishes, grab my bags, and catch the 7:20 bus! It is supposed to get to New York at 12:00! And that way I have lots of leeway built in in case of stupid American bus system, or the Lincoln Tunnel, or whatever. Or maybe to switch flights at the airport.

And indeed, this I did. I suspect that 90% of the people awake and out and about at 7:20 am made the same choice, incidentally: in my mile-plus walk to the bus station (in 17 degree weather! with wind! and with ice! and dark!), I saw... three pedestrians, five police cars (or maybe the same police car five times), twelve cars, two Ithaca Bakery delivery trucks (this is why they never have the good bread at the Collegetown store before 7:00, even though they technically open at 6:30), and the staff at Green Star and Gimme! Coffee, neither of which was open.

At the bus station, however, I saw ... one hundred college students. Most with bags the size of, give or take, a Holstein. Now, I was one of the first twenty there, but that means nothing at Greyhound stations, which like to avoid the issue of forming lines or cordoning off space in favor of great rushing mobs.

And then the bus showed up. It already had forty-some people on it. It was late arriving, and the forty-some people all had to get out and buy tickets before they'd let new people on -- this is, seriously, the worst thought out system ever; they pick up on campus, but they don't sell tickets there, so. They could require people to buy tickets in advance at the student services place on College Avenue, but they do not. And then they let ten of the milling people on, but only ones with no luggage, because they'd filled every rack. (They'd known the bus was full since the driver radioed down, but that was the first point at which they radioed for another bus.) The 8:00 to Syracuse departed before the 7:20 bus did.

And I was like, hey, no problem, they radioed for another bus, they've promised us it'll be an express, I have, like, a bazillion hours built in, whatevs. And the second bus wouldn't be full, which would be nice. (Some of the hundred people were going to Syracuse.)

So we waited for the other bus... and waited... and waited... and it was fifteen minutes away. And it was fifteen minutes away. And it was fifteen minutes away.

When it finally arrived, we discovered that in fact it would not be an express bus because a) one of the women who'd been bumped was going to the Ridgewood Park and Ride, NJ and b) the bus driver was on the ninth hour of his shift, and could legally drive us only as far as Binghamton.

So we get to Binghamton, and the bus driver heads off to find out what's up (telling us all about his wife's dialysis as he went), shutting the door on us. And we sit. And we sit. He comes out of the terminal, talks to people, heads off in another direction, goes back in the terminal. We get antsy, and anyway we want to use the restroom. (One of the women eventually just goes "fuck it," figures out which level opens the door, and heads in. She is then roundly scolded by the counter staff: why aren't you waiting on the bus? Her: Because it's been fifteen minutes and I have to go to the bathroom? Them: Why must you make trouble? Fifteen minutes isn't that long! Her: Yeah, except I was supposed to get here two hours ago.)

The bus driver finally returns. Well, sort of. He walks past the bus, doing the shrug-and-two-palms-out of "I dunno, but it's not my problem."

"Wait, what?" we all say. Several more people get off the bus, off to investigate. One of them returns and reports back to everyone, because the counter staff clearly aren't going to do it: "They're looking for a driver. They don't have a driver. And they say we should stay on the bus and wait for them to tell us more."

The bus turns cold: they've had hours to find a driver. Most people on it are on flights at 4 or 5 pm. And we've waited for twenty minutes already without even a report.

Finally a woman from the counter shows up. Rejoicing! Perhaps an official briefing! Perhaps a driver! Oh, no, she's just here to find out where we're all going. "We're working on it," she says. I nap for a while, occasionally surfacing to complain with the linguist I met in the original terminal. (Adversity brings people together! We all watched each other's bags as people ran for Green Star or 7-11 or whatever. A nice physics grad student bought me a scone in exchange for watching her bags. The linguist was a Cornell grad, now a UCSC student, with Jim McCloskey. We shared stories of being cornered by Geoff Pullum at parties.) Said linguist has a flight at 4:30, and we're all getting steadily more ... and more ... and more ... pissed off.

Another dude shows up. He can't be our driver, because we've seen him wandering around the terminal for twenty minutes now.

Oh. He is our driver. And he doesn't apologize or anything for the delay, just "okay, New York." And off we go. We have to stop a couple of times (for him to use the restroom). And then we get to the Lincoln Tunnel. UCSC grad student dude is already sitting there all tense and ready to spring off at the drop of a hat.

And then there's a stall in the Tunnel. In our lane. Takes half an hour to clear. The bus is working on three hours late. We get to Port Authority, finally, and everyone scatters at the speed of light to their various transit choices to the airport.

So I finally got to the airport, and ... I can't switch to the earlier flight (too late), so I do have to wait for the 8:50. But I can't check in until 4:50. And all the amenities? Including wifi? And chairs? And electrical outlets? And food that isn't ice cream? Is on the other side of security.

I mean, the whole time it was happening I was like "eruthros! you've got seven hours built in! this is no big!" but I got sympathetic nerves from all the people with five pm flights. Blargh. *shakes self* It was exhausting: nobody telling you anything, ever, and having no faith in the system to remember your bus, and altogether ick. I'm exhausted and I haven't even done the flying yet! AND they're playing Christmas carols. *facepalm*

Rochester is equidistant, and equivalently priced, but the airport only runs little bitty planes, and it gets more snow, so I've opted out. But on the other hand, guys, the bus to Rochester? Doesn't have this mob scene.

***

Now through security! Fed a reasonably-priced freshly-made burrito! Sitting at my gate on JetBlue's wifi! Suddenly, the world is much better.

Well, except I'm still exhausted and my eyes are already dry and itchy, and I haven't even flown yet. But still! Better!

So last night I did some laundry, mattress cover and the awesome thick high thread-count flannel sheets my mom bought me as a Christmas present last year. And I made the bed...

... and this morning I couldn't get out of it. It was warm. It was cuddly. That sort of bright, cold light was shining through the window, muted by the trees still on the leaves, and it was clear that outside the weather was frosty and cold. I was warm in bed; I had perfect sheets and a down comforter; I wasn't going anyplace.

I didn't go back to sleep, but I did just snuggle up for half an hour and go "mmmm" while the back of my brain was going "READING! You have reading to do. Do you remember the reading? Hey! You!" I was like "mmmhmmm."

Perhaps I should be using sheets made of, like, hair shirts or something instead. Because clearly this is going nowhere good. But oh, how perfect is a morning with thirty minutes in bed, not even reading a novel, just watching the trees move outside and enjoying the warm flannel sheets?

***

PS: Sierra Trading Post is now doing ANOTHER 20% off all shoes before that coupon, so. Tevas and Joseph Siebel and Ecco, oh my.

So I was giving a bunch of Bay Area sports blogs a quick once-over this morning, and checking out various links. (Links, for example, where fans discuss Baron Davis' sartorial choices. I guess because it's sorta trying to keep within the NBA dress code while still expressing individuality.)

And I ended up at youtube, checking out a vid that's sorta Oakland-against-the-world, paralleling the criticisms of J-Rich and the Warriors and New Bay hip-hop. I basically just embed this video for fiatlouis. *g*

As one is wont to do, I clicked on some of the related links, most of which were crap. But one of them was set to Zion I's "The Bay." And one of the related links to that was ... holy shit, I said, is that really a music video for "The Bay?" Or is it somebody's mix? And no, no, that's Zion I's "The Bay." I didn't even know it had a music video, so I have to share it with everybody in the known world.

... and while I was typing this, I checked sfgate, and holy shit. That is an oil tanker that blew up and MELTED the upper deck of a freeway overpass. WTF.

Awesome, but random: Wikipedia has a page called WP: BALEET that redirects to the wikipedia deletion policy page. Ha!

ETA: Speaking of embedding, apparently we expect "LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL...AND EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS" here tomorrow. Per the National Weather Service. Embedded thunderstorms? Embedded in what?