Stolen from rjb5:
“All this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country’s pride.”
Bertrand Russell on World War I, the “War to end all wars”
Pastor Al, the man who performed my wedding, died recently of an aggressive Lymphoma. It was really fast, apparently. redmed is driving south today for the funeral, which is tomorrow. Very sad.
I was torn as to whether or not I could go, with commitments to work and other things. I was dithering right up to the last minute (suitcase packed, but still not convinced that I could walk out the door), when lo-and-behold, plumbers arrived to fix my plumbing. That settled it. These bastards have been on and off for months (probably dealing with many more important things each particular day…but after a couple of months it grates.
On Saturday, I plan to be here.
One point for each:
Not much to report.
(1) France appears to still be on fire, and Germany appears to be catching.
(2) Last night, I was super hungry on the train, so I stopped at the grocery store by the station. The only thing that looked even vaguely appealing were the cheese and crackers packages, with 6 little salteen and cheese sandwiches. They sell them in 12 packs. On the way home, munching and crunching,I looked down and realized that I had eaten 6 entire packages (36 little sandwiches).
(3) redmed is home. There was apparently some irregularity with her paperwork, which may endanger the validity of her test. Kill.
(4) The post office tells me that there is no forwarding or other modifier to my mail delivery. I suppose that my bank just made it up then. Not a big fan of this “solution.”
(5) We might actually have a contractor at our house tomorrow. Might. Maybe.
(6) The Onion this week is hilarious. Go hither and read both the special report on Rosa Parks, and the big about the “Metal Council” meeting to discuss abuse of the “Metal Hand Sign.”
Do not crash your car into an electrical substation which is filled with billions of bees.
“The people managed to stumble out of the car but they were just overcome by bees,”
He did not add: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
This is how the news is supposed to read:
Cheerleaders had sex in bar, witnesses say
Carolina Panthers cheerleaders, Renee Thomas, left, and Angela Keathley, shown in these Hillsborough County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office booking photos, were arrested early Sunday, Nov. 6, 2005 after a bar dispute that broke out after patrons complained the women were allegedly having sex in a bathroom stall.
Today, right now, redmed is being grilled for about two hours by a small panel of senior folks in her specialty. They have her CV, as well as a case listing of all the patients she’s seen in the past two years. They can ask anything, and they’re supposed to give no feedback by which you could guess how you’re doing. You pass or you fail. “Certified for the independent practice of the medical arts in your specialty” or “not.” That’s it. Folks who have done a PhD might recognize this as being something like oral quals, except that it’s at the end of the training process and there’s no “thesis” to defend as such, it’s just you.
For my part, I’m wrestling with Intel compilers while sitting at a coffee shop off Harvard Square. Given the choice, I’ll take my day.
(1) Driving into my driveway, I startled a skunk who was eating the corn that I leave out for the squirrels. The startle-age was not sufficient for the beast to spray me. Instead, it glared sullen-like and waddled away.
(2) While I approached my house, a mid-sized mammal sulked off the porch and around the back. It may be living in the exposed crawl space. It was, how to say so as not to spook my spouse: A bit big to be any of the cats…and it seemed to have a long and hairless tail.
(3) Awesomely, a New Zealand Storm Petrel flew into the boat of one of the few people in the world who would immediately recognize that it has supposedly been extinct for over 100 years.
(4) France is still on fire. It’s been on fire for 12 days. Germany wasn’t even there this time, man!
(5) The US still has torture camps, and a president who refuses to take a stand against torture.
(6) Everyone needs to go read this wikipedia entry on Cargo Cults.
So, I got rejected by an online merchant today because the address I provided for my credit card didn’t match the one with the credit card company. I looked online, and lo and behold I appear to have a new address.
So I called the credit card company and asked (a) please change it back (b) why would this happen. According to them, they automatically believe what the USPS tells them. I had a change of address, so they changed me.
So I called the USPS and got dick-all of a runaround. The first lady I talked to couldn’t find any record of my existence. I don’t live at either the correct address or the wrong one. There has never been a forwarding address for me. I let her go and called back. Then I got a nice lady who seemed competent and offered to put in a report of a fraudulent change of address for me. We got to the very end, and she told me that her computer had locked up and I would have to call back and work with a different agent. Buh bye.
I’m calming myself with deep and steady breathing before giving them a third try.