A very ferrety slide show
I don’t know if my photo of Ferret Bueller and the balloon has made it onto the slide show yet, but it should (eventually).
Plague Threatens Prairie Dogs, Endangered Ferrets in South Dakota.
Here’s a more detailed story at MSNBC.
D.
PS: It’s hot here. HOT. I don’t know how 95% of the rest of the country* manages with worse temperatures; I figure it’s a testimonial to the toughness of humankind.
*Figure pulled out of my, um, pocket. Yeah. That’s it.
Limited services
. . . until my life settles down.
Quickie: over at Daily Kos, Granny Doc rants on the idiocy of political correctness. It’s a great read. Snip:
I was once chastised, right here, for referring to myself as an Old Woman! Â Aside from the simple fact that I am, indeed, an old woman – having outlived 99% of all of the women born on this planet through out human history – the correction came from a very young woman who imagined the term to be insulting. Â Fear of aging, a common source of reality denial in our culture, made any reference to my own age an intrusion of reality that was denounced.
Reminds me of how I once received hate mail for a caption on a photo of me and Karen that I used on my medical website. This was a great photo (one of my favorites) of the two of us together when I was in med school. The caption read, “The proprietors, before they turned old and gray.” The hate mailer accused me of buying into our youth-worshiping society blah blah blah. Jeez.
D.
Put your hands up and step away from the terminal
Introducing Photoshop Disasters . . .
hat tip to Dreaded Purple Master.
Y’know, it’s really not that tough to do a good Photoshop. All it takes is a decent concept and a modicum of technique. The nightmares posted on Photoshop Disaster all seem to be advertising/publishing tasks gone horribly wrong. One question, really: where was the editor — drunk, suicidally depressed, blind?
***
I’m thinking of hosting a new contest, one which would promote my medical website. What sort of contest would achieve the best results, though? Maybe Dan can tell me the most effective way to boost some of my pages on Google. I already have a lock on ear wax (look at the number two spot!) but I’d like to snag a similar high rating for something like sinusitis, dizziness, or snoring.
Any suggestions?
D.
Jake’s question
If you could talk to one person who has died, whom would you choose and why?
I chose Gilda Radner and Philip K. Dick — Gilda because I miss her, PKD because I suspect that conversation would have to be memorable.
D.
For you Watchmen fans . . .
Director Zack Snyder has been hosting a YouTube contest: create a commercial for one of Veidt Enterprises products (their Ozymandias action figure set, perhaps, or Veidt hairspray) and it could be featured on the televisions playing in the background of the movie. Five entrants have won a High-Definition Canon Vixia HG10 camcorder, and several more have won the $1000 prize. Check ’em out here.
This one for Nostalgia perfume is our favorite.
D.
Tonight
Dinner party at the boss’s place. Have I mentioned lately how very, very nice it is to feel wanted?
Okay, I need to add for all of my Crescent City readers: YES, y’all made me feel wanted. That’s NOT what I meant. I was thinking about those job interviews up in Washington, where I got anything but the vibe that I was wanted and needed.
The boss has an awesome place with what is very nearly the kitchen of my dreams. Huge granite island and beautiful granite counter tops, two ovens, Wolf range, lots of cabinet space. I could do a lot in a kitchen like that.
Nice people, too. I dislike parties (being the kind of person who hangs everything out in a blog, but at parties, I tend to feel like I’m outside the stream) but this wasn’t so bad. Karen’s the same way, and she did well, too. Even Jake liked it, owing in large part to the fact that my boss showed him the computer and let him use it all night long.
The wife of my partner (from the Santa Rosa office) asked Jake what he would be if he could be anything at all. “God,” Jake said. “No,” she said, “you can’t choose that.” But Jake was undaunted. “A demigod,” he said.
Finally she realized what Karen and I have known since Jake first spoke — you have to use language with great precision around this kid. “What career would you choose — and it can’t be anything godlike.”
“I don’t know.”
“What if you had to decide right now, right this instant?”
Jake said, “It’s too important a decision to decide in a minute.”
This blew her away, I guess because she saw it as a sign of great maturity. I, however, know otherwise. I figure he was tired of this conversation and saw this reply as the most expeditious way of bringing it to a close.
(Jake claims he was just speaking the truth. YEAH, RIGHT, KIDDO. I’m YOUR DAD. I KNOW BETTER.)
D.
Head shot
My new employer needs a head shot for the company web site. Last night, while goofing around with my new cell phone, I generated this:
Damn thing reminds me of something. No. Wait. Is it . . .
Morning conversation
Jake is shadowing a 10th Grader today. Right about now, he’s walking from his Period 1 to his Period 2 class.
He wore his little kid shorts and Cal tee shirt. While he was eating his breakfast (ten pepperoni-and-cheese Bagel Bites) . . .
Me: You may get swarmed by a bunch of teenage girls saying, “OOOOOOH! How CUUUUTE!” My advice?
Jake: What?
Me: Enjoy it.
Jake: That is so demeaning.
***
When I stepped out the front door, I cried, “Damn! It smells like I have my head up a horse’s ass!”
He wouldn’t stop laughing and he wouldn’t leave the house until he did stop laughing. He wanted to hold his breath and race out to the car. You know how hard it is to stop laughing when you consciously try to do so?
We still made it to school on time.
But the car interior smelled like a horse’s colon, too.
D.
PS: In the future, we’ll all stay regular with prunes. Ray Bradbury said so. (Hat tip to Lyvvie.)
A non-kvetching post
I don’t handle moves well, as my emotionally bruised family will attest. Same thing happened when I left University of Texas in ’98. I think it’s the loss which drags me down the most; and, ultimately, it’s the kind of people I come from — people who focus on the empty part of that half-filled cup. So it takes a conscious effort on my part to turn my attention to what’s good about this change.
Kenney Mencher has a series of half-empty/half-full. Check it out.
Here are some of the good things about moving to Santa Rosa . . .