Category: geekiness

weaving out of control

overwhelmed and under pressure
buckling under, in over my head
fruitflies overtake an underripe banana

overeducated and underdressed
chronic overachiever feeling snowed under
underestimated tasks, schedule overloaded
commitments overlapping and under the gun
time to shave underarms when hell freezes over

overwrought and under attack
hot under the collar I overreact
overeasy eggs have undercooked yolks

overextended and underfunded
tree branches overhang, basement floor under water
the undergrowth is overgrown
overdue bills crackle under foot
in under the roof, squirrels overrun the attic

overprivileged and underproductive
an overstuffed sofa cushion under my butt
get over yourself and get underway
the monkey’s overboard and the undertow pulls

overtired and under the weather
overconfidence getting undermined
soft underbelly feels overexposed
overanxious thoughts swept under the carpet
laundry overflowing and no clean underwear

overwritten and underwhelming
an overzealous undertaking
overblown metaphors from under my hat
overcooked pasta with underseasoned sauce

nutty as a fruitcake, happy as a clam

I’ve been keeping something under my hat. I’ve been going on lately about how I have a lot on my plate, crabbing that I have may have bitten off more than I can chew. Sometimes I run around like a chicken with its head cut off. And then I’ve also been feeling pretty under the weather, with my head in a fog half the time. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. And as things stand, come hell or high water, I’m about to open up a whole new can of worms.

I can certainly be one to beat around the bush, and you may well wish I’d just let the cat out of the bag and talk turkey. I mean, here I am, dragging things out at a snail’s pace, as slow as molasses in January. I could just sit around and chew the fat till the cows come home. But I suppose I should just come clean, take the bull by the horns, and spill the beans. So here’s the dirt, in a nutshell: I’ve got a bun in the oven.

Happy Pi Day!

pi.jpgIt’s Pi Day, people! Woohoo! It’s 3-14. And I didn’t even see it coming. (And here I just mentioned a book called Life of Pi yesterday. Of course, that was a pi-free Pi reference.)

Here are some tasty pi goodies for you to help you celebrate your day:

  • Be sure to check out the official Pi Day website. (Thanks to Tina of Omphaloskepsis (one of the grandest blog names out there) for pointing me there.)
  • I highly recommend the musical pi stuff, like pi rap videos, and the pi(ano) song, where someone has converted the digits of pi to a melody.
  • You can also see a hundred thousand digits of pi. Here’s a preview:

    3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716
    9399375105820974944592307816406286208998628
    0348253421170679821480865132823066470938446
    0955058223172535940812848111745028410270193
    8521105559644622948954930381964428810975665
    9334461284756482337867831652712019091456485
    6692346034861045432664821339360726024914127
    3724587006606315588174881520920962829254091
    7153643678925903600113305305488204665213841

  • Not enough digits for ya? How’s about a million?
  • Kate Bush has a song called “π”. Or “Pi,” if you must stick to ASCII. In it, part of the refrain is seeing 150 digits of pi. Shockingly, it seems that she has, according to Confusablility, gravely erred in her digits:

    I got hold of the lyrics and checked them against an online version of Pi. All was well for the first 53 decimal places but then Kate sang “threeeeee oneeeee” when she should have sang “zeeeeeeerooo” instead. She recovered for the next 24 digits but then it went to hell in a handbasket when she missed out the next 22 digits completely before finishing with a precise rendition of her final 37 digits.

  • Inga of Arbitrary Ruminations is celebrating the day with a list of Pie quotes, which may be safer.
  • Or you might want to watch a movie. Like Pi (1998). A movie sadly lacking in pie.
  • I think that later today, I will have to bake a pi. I mean, a pie. Seriously. I’ve keep meaning to bake a pie, but haven’t found the time. But now the pi forces are conspiring to make pi a piority. I mean, priority.
  • Finally, let me leave you with this classic pi joke:

    A young man goes off to college from his rural home. When he comes back for a visit, his less educated father wants him to show off his fancy learning. “Say something smart, son,” he commands.
    The young man thinks back to his classes, and figures a formula from math should sound impressive enough. He offers up the formula to calculate the area of a circle. “Pi r squared,” he says.
    His father looks embarrassed, and shocked. Shaking his head gravely, he says, “What are they teaching you, son? Pie are round, son. Cornbread are square.”

π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π

rats!

Happy New Year, and welcome to the Year of the Rat! In celebration of this holiday, how could I not offer up to you a platter of rats? No, not to eat, silly. That would be gross. This is a generous helping of rat-themed¹ things for a festive ThThTh list.²

  • Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O’Brien. The Newbery Award winning children’s novel about a mother mouse and a colony of highly intelligent rats.
  • Templeton, the rat from E. B. White’s beloved book, Charlotte’s Web. Was voiced by Steve Buscemi in the 2006 movie based on the book.
  • I don’t give a rat’s ass. An idiom meaning “I don’t care,” akin to “I don’t give a flying fig.” One of those expressions that is always used with the negative. For example, one would not likely hear “I give a rat’s ass.” Or maybe one should. I could design a line of greeting cards, perhaps for Valentine’s Day: “I give a rat’s ass about you.”
  • ratty: An adjective to mean dirty, messy and/or worn out. Also a nickname for a cafeteria at my undergrad University. The Sharpe Refectory was long ago nicknamed the Sharpe Rat Factory, later shortened to The Ratty. The nickname was used so frequently that it was easy to forget that it wasn’t the cafeteria’s official name.
  • Ratatouille (2007) Pixar’s latest animated movie is about a young rat who loves to cook.

    • willard_movie.jpg

  • Willard (1971), and its sequel, Ben (1972). There was also a 2003 remake of Willard, starring the appropriately creepy Crispin Glover. These were movies about the friendship between a man (or boy) and some rats. (Oh, and the rats are vicious killers. Note that you can find these movies on imdb via the plot keywords “eaten alive by rats.”)
  • “You dirty rat!” a phrase popularly attributed to James Cagney, though apparently a misquote:

    It should be noted, however, that he never actually said, “You dirty rat!”, a popular phrase associated with him….The phrase actually originated in the 1932 film Taxi!, in which Cagney said, “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!” often misquoted as “Come out, you dirty rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!”

  • Rodents of Unusual Size (ROUS): Oversized rats (well, it’s not specified that they’re rats, but they look pretty rat-like in the movie) from the Princess Bride.

    • rats_of_hamelin.jpg

  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin. A legend, sometimes written as a fairy tale, about a man who freed a town of its rat infestation by playing his pipe to lure the rats to drown themselves in the river. When the town refused to pay the agreed upon fees, the Piper then lured away the town’s children.
  • The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett. A Discworld book for young adults about some rats (and a cat) who work a Pied Piper scam.
  • I Was a Rat, a children’s book by Philip Pullman (of The Golden Compass fame). About a boy who was once a rat. A bit of a fairy tale retelling from an unusual perspective.
  • “Adventures of the Rat Family,” a fairy tale by Jules Verne
  • Amy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A character who turned herself into a rat to escape being burned as a witch, but didn’t manage to turn herself back into a human afterwards. Was then kept in a cage as pet by Willow for several years. When she eventually returns to human state, says “I felt like I was in that cage for weeks.”
  • “I think I smell a rat,” a song by the White Stripes. For Amy (see above item) clips set to the song check out this YouTube video.)
  • A few more rat-related items include: mazes, the rat race, The Rat Pack, and pack rats. There was also the rat who ate the malt in “This is the house that Jack built”

    This is the rat,
    That ate the malt
    That lay in the house that Jack built.

rat_frenzy1.jpg

¹ YTSL mentions, though, that this can also be considered to be year of the mouse. All the more reason to get around to a mouse list some time soon.

² Last year, I gave a list of pigs for Year of the Pig.

fresh from the oven

To cheer you up on this holiday season evening, allow me to offer you a platter of freshly baked cookies. Actually, I don’t have any cookies, but I can offer you this Themed Things list of cookie-related goodness.

Some Cookies for You

  • That’s the way the cookie crumbles: an expression suggesting the resigned acceptance that an undesired event or outcome can’t be changed.
  • “Faraway Cookies:” Sandra Boynton’s touching love song about a yearning for cookies. (Off Philadelphia Chickens):

    Oh, Chocolate Chip Cookies
    so high on the shelf
    hiding inside of the jar
    I’m not tall enough
    to reach you myself.
    So near, and yet so very far

  • Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? A song usually sung with young kids. Usually without any actual cookies or theft thereof.
  • Cookie Monster: a blue Muppet from Sesame Street who likes to eat cookies. And other things. Also known for his battle cry of “cookies!!!!” (He also sings, which you can hear on YouTube.)

    • cookie_monster.jpg gingerbread_man.jpg

  • The Gingerbread Man¹:
    An folktale about a human-shaped cookie who comes to life and runs off, taunting those who chase him:

    Run, run, as fast as you can!
    You can’t catch me!
    I’m the Gingerbread Man!

  • Cookies for Santa: A tradition of leaving a glass of milk and a plate of cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.
  • A quiz to let you know what kind of cookie you are, stolen out of Raincoaster’s cookie jar. It would seem that I am a fortune cookie.
  • I like to imagine improbable fortune cookie fortunes, but in case I can’t think up any of my own, there are fortune cookie generators available. This one is also one I lifted from the Raincoaster cookie jar. (She’s going to have to find a safer place to hide her cookies.³) This is the fortune I got:
    My Fortune Cookie told me:
    You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard this message.
    Get a cookie from Miss Fortune
  • In Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club, one of the characters works in a fortune cookie factory and tries to nudge a suitor to propose by carefully planting fortunes in his cookies.
  • Girl Scout Cookies. Traditionally sold by Girl Scouts. (In fact, during my brief tenure as a Girl Scout at the tender age of 10, the only Girl Scout activity available to me was selling Girl Scout cookies.) I am also reminded of this scene from The Addams Family movie (1991):

    Girl Scout: Is this made from real lemons?
    Wednesday: Yes.
    Girl Scout: I only like all-natural foods and beverages, organically grown, with no preservatives. Are you sure they’re real lemons?
    Pugsley: Yes.
    Girl Scout: I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy a cup if you buy a box of my delicious Girl Scout cookies. Do we have a deal?
    Wednesday: Are they made from real Girl Scouts?

    • chocolate_chip_cookie.pngchocolate_chip_cookie.pngchocolate_chip_cookie.png

    ¹ If you want to see some very attractive gingerbread men, Mad just posted some photos that make me want to get baking. Or at least make me want to visit someone who does some baking.²

    ² As further proof that this is the season for cookies, BipolarLawyerCook has posted not once, but twice on cookie-related topics. Cookies!!!

    ³ Except maybe for these cookies made from jellyfish. I think they’re pretty much safe wherever.

    Now with more Polysyllabic Nonsense

    I think most of you have seen this item making its way around the bloggy world: the blog reading level score. I’ve seen it a bunch of places:

    You wanna know what I got?

    elementary_school.jpg

    (Note that my blog shares this honor with Sassy of eye heart internet, who can even blog at the elementary school level bilingually.)

    Actually, the first time I tried this, a few weeks ago maybe, I got junior high level. But apparently my writing skills are deteriorating.

    What I find funniest, though, is that I also tried my other blog: The Minsitry of Silly Blogs. This is a blog I threw together on a whim to go along with a NaBloPoMo group I started. See what it scored?

    genius.jpg The Ministry of Silly Blogs

    It would seem that when I am making efforts to sound Officious and Pretentious, as well as Silly and Pompous, my writing appears more erudite. Even if what I am writing is Utter Nonsense. (Which is not to say that I believe that all those whose blogs scored higher than elementary school write Officiously and Pompously. But perhaps you all write Utter Nonsense?)

    All in all, I find myself terribly curious about the means by which a reading level score is achieved. Is it sentence length? Average word length? Does anyone know?

    how do I plead?

    Erika of the fabulously-titled mmmm, brains has tagged me with a meme that intrigued me. (As usual, though, it’s taken me over a week to get to it.) The meme in question is on the topic of “guilty pleasures,” and was abbreviated from a longer assignment. The full thing, which I won’t indulge in, was as follows:

    • Name six guilty pleasures you wish you had the courage to indulge.
    • Name six pleasures you once considered guilty but have now either abandoned or made peace with.
    • Name six guilty pleasures no one would suspect you of having.

    Erika just did the last one I listed. So I thought I could do that one. The trick is, who is this “no one?” I think most of my guilty pleasures are pretty public. So I’ll modify the task a bit further and name 6 pleasures that I feel guilty (or embarrassed) about, and that have been known to surprise people.

    1. I have a weakness for certain types of junk food. I like to eat healthily, and to eat good quality fresh food. But I have rarely turned down Nacho cheese Doritos, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups or donuts.
    2. Action movies. This is not a surprise to anyone who reads this blog, seeing as I have a whole project related to these. But I am a peace-loving academic who studies language. Why do I enjoy watching a good fight scene?
    3. Tuna. I stopped eating red meat and poultry over 18 years ago, but I can’t quite manage to give up all seafood. Most seafood and fish I could take or leave. Mostly leave, actually. Canned tuna doesn’t excite me. But a seared tuna? Or tuna sushi? I realize that it’s wrong on many counts. Over-fishing and all. To some extent I have the same guilt liking for salmon, especially smoked salmon.
    4. I like some music that I feel somewhat embarrassed about. Specifically some 80s music with boppy synthesized beats: Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones, early Depeche Mode. What can I say? I was a teenager in the 80s.
    5. Checking my blog stats. It’s a sickness, really. It’s not so much the numbers as seeing what people look at and where they came from. Since most of my traffic is due to search engine hits by people who probably barely stop to look, I like it when I see signs that someone looked around, such as visits to my “about” page or some of my favorite posts. (Comments are, of course, the best. Those get emailed to me. Not too surprisingly, I always check my email eagerly, too.)
    6. I like memes. I know I should be scornful of them. But I think they are fun. And I find it fascinating to see what different people do with them.

    It looks like this memage involves tagging 6 people. This is the part of meming that I find the trickiest. Some people tolerate memes. Others loudly protest them. Others welcome them. I once had a good experience tagging a couple of random people: one I found through the WordPress “pants” tag, and one who I found using the WordPress “next” button. I had no luck getting Kevin Smith to participate. (Kevin, if you read this, you’re tagged, dammit. Or for that matter, I suppose I could tag this other Kevin Smith.)

    So, I’m going to go all random again. I will tag the folks at these 6 blogs I found totally randomly through the NaBloPoMo randomizer. (Okay, it wasn’t totally, totally randomly. I did skip a few blogs where music played automatically, and a couple of very topic-specific blogs, like a birding blog and a chocolate blog.)

    If anyone else out there would like to indulge in this meme, please consider yourself tagged.

    make like a tree

    I’m quite fond of trees. You might even say that I identify with them. To celebrate their arborial grandness, and to follow up on the squirreliness of last week’s list, I bring you a Themed Thing list of Trees.

  • The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss. This beloved book features Truffula trees, and is a parable (?) about the impact of excessive deforestation, industrialization and consumerism. The Lorax is a little creature who voices the warnings. “I speak for the trees.”
  • The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein. A book about a boy, who takes serious advantage of a generous tree. The tree gives, and the boy/man takes and takes. And takes. Till all that’s left of the tree is a stump. And this is supposed to be a moving tale of generosity. An environmentalist friend of mine from college once said of it, “I think it’s misguided.”

    • the_lorax.jpgthe_giving_tree.jpg

  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a coming of age novel by Betty Smith.
  • The Tree of Man, a novel by Australian Author (and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature), Patrick White.
  • tree-hugger: A term used to refer to environmentalists, especially those who look to protect forests. Sometimes used pejoratively, but embraced by others.
  • Arbor Day A holiday for planting and caring for trees. And maybe for hugging them. In the US, it’s celebrated in April. (The next one is April 25th, 2008. Only 168 shopping days left.)
  • Christmas Tree A possibly Pagan-derived holiday tradition of decorating a tree with ornaments and lights and such. Usually a pine tree.

    • lost_pants_tree.jpg

  • syntactic trees (tree structures) Diagrams representing hierarchical structure are often described as trees. People studying syntax spend a fair amount of time drawing tree diagrams of sentences.
  • family tree The tree is used as a metaphor to describe relationships within a family, especially when drawing a diagram of relatedness.
  • Trees are prominent in mythologies and foklore from many cultures, including many variations on a mystic Tree of Life.

    • family_tree.jpg yggdrasil.jpg dryad11.jpg
    A German woodcut of a family tree, the Yggdrasil, and The Dryad by Evelyn De Morgan

  • Dryads, tree nymphs (or wood nymphs) from Greek mythology. They are among the magical creatures to be found in the Chronicals of Narnia. See also “The Dryad”, a story be Hans Christian Anderson
  • In Greek Mythology, Daphne is turned into a laurel tree while trying to escape the clutches of an amourous Apollo.
  • The Ents, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien. Big tree people.
  • “Shaking the Tree”, an album by Peter Gabriel. Also a song with Youssou N’dour. [YouTube]
  • “barking up the wrong tree” An idiom alluding to a dog chasing a cat up a tree, but mistaking the location of said cat. It means “acting based on some mistaken impression”
  • “can’t see the forest for the trees”An expression to describe when someone is too caught up in the details to understand the larger context.
  • Then there’s the playground chant:

    X & Y sitting in a tree
    K-I-S-S-I-N-G

    • make like a tree (and squirrel)

    We took Phoebe out trick-or-treating for the first time tonight. Phoebe was dressed as a squirrel, and I was dressed as a tree.¹

    phoebe_outside1.jpg

    I love getting dressed up, and devising costumes.

    My tree costume (which you can see a bit of over at John’s) was an old standby of mine, a creation I’m quite proud of. I wear all brown, wear a twig wreath on my head with a few leaves, and drape some fall leaf garlands around my shoulders. The costume was not only easy to put together, but since I happen to have various plain dark brown clothing items to disguise my body as the tree trunk, it was cheap. It only cost me about $10.00 to buy the leaves and wreath at a craft store.

    I was quite happy with how Phoebe’s costume turned out, too. The squirrel to climb on my tree. It was another assembled piece of work. (I don’t really sew.) I found a grey onesie, on sale for about $3.00, and stitched a white oval on the tummy from a robe that had long since been retired to the rag pile. The tail was put together from an old fuzzy snake dog toy, and I used a Toober toy to give it shape. The ears/hat I made from an old too-small pair of Phoebe’s tights. The biggest expense was to buy a new pair of gray tights, which cost about $7.00. What’s more, the way I put it together, it can all be salvaged again, and the clothes worn as normal clothes.

    ——————
    ¹ John was not in costume. Or perhaps he was just a big nut.