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| On balance [message #1749] |
Mon, 20 October 2008 19:21  |
 b_twin_1
Messages: 2596
Registered: September 2008
Location: Victoria, Australia |
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On balance
I've got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel ~ Blackadder
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| Re: On balance [message #1753 is a reply to message #1749 ] |
Mon, 20 October 2008 19:28  |
b_twin_1
Messages: 2596
Registered: September 2008
Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Of course what would make it even worse would be if the horses actually liked him. Because they say that animals are a good judge of character. (Most of the time.)
::sigh::
I've got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel ~ Blackadder
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| Re: On balance [message #1755 is a reply to message #1749 ] |
Mon, 20 October 2008 19:38 |
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First, Robin, if you manage to read this--just pick up with the forum where it's at now. Don't kill yourself trying to read everything. At least that's what I think. ;-}
Did anyone ever post these?
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| Re: On balance [message #1759 is a reply to message #1758 ] |
Mon, 20 October 2008 20:03 |
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Susan from Athens
Messages: 817
Registered: October 2008
Location: Athens, Greece |
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| Black Bear wrote on Tue, 21 October 2008 02:44 |
Sigh. My nerddom knows no bounds.
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There, there, you're already a member of the club. Who here will not admit to a smidgin, or even an avalanche of nerddom? But there is always the dreaded tick list:
1. Do you use a pocket protector and carry around a pocket calculator? (this is an outdated image, but still holds true in many instances)
2. Do you wear sandals with socks in public? (Yes, we know the Romans did - they've found a little pocketknife in County Durham whose handle is: a foot wearing a sock in a sandal - but just because the Romans did, doesn't mean you can get away with it, unless the socks are amazing)
3. Can you name all of Isaac Asimov's books?
4. Are your glasses thicker than 5mm?
5. Are you a graduate student in physics? (some cases cannot escape nerddom)
If you tick yes to two or more you are in trouble :)If not, there are definite boundaries to your nerddom.
“I have always imagined heaven to be a kind of library.” –Jorge Luis Borges
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| Re: On balance [message #1761 is a reply to message #1751 ] |
Mon, 20 October 2008 21:19 |
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Melissa Mead
Messages: 991
Registered: October 2008
Location: Albany, NY, USA |
Senior Member |
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| Black Bear wrote on Mon, 20 October 2008 19:27 |
‡‡‡ Does Cthulhu keep horses?
Not for very long, certainly!
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There's a T-shirt out there with Clthulu (and other monsters) horseracing. (World Fantasy 2007.)
[Updated on: Mon, 20 October 2008 21:20]
Member of Carpe Libris: http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/
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| Re: On balance [message #1767 is a reply to message #1749 ] |
Mon, 20 October 2008 22:45 |
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i agree, change to fire fox. as soon as we got our computer set up we doanload fire fox and never looked back.
Bonnie Holmes the faster ahead I go, the more behind I get
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| Re: On balance [message #1770 is a reply to message #1758 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 00:09 |
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| Black Bear wrote on Mon, 20 October 2008 17:44 |
| ssshunt wrote on Mon, 20 October 2008 19:38 |
First,
Did anyone ever post these?
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Ooh, I had those slippers. I gave them away, they were kind of uncomfortable... (not in an unearthly squeamish way, more in a "I keep tripping on things and my feet are too hot" way.)
I've got a rather sizable collection of stuffed Cthulhian goodness... not to mention the t-shirt collection. Sigh. My nerddom knows no bounds.
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I don't suppose you know anyone names Dhes?
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| Re: On balance [message #1777 is a reply to message #1749 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 04:43 |
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L.R.K.
Messages: 1081
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sweden |
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***I’m just about managing to read the blog-entry threads, between random crashes, but even copying and pasting raises the crash level to avalanche†. At the moment I’m assuming that I’ll have the mother and father of all catch-ups when I’m finally fit to boogie again, but it had better happen soon.
Yes, we are quite active here.
My sympathies - again - re bonding with dentist. And when he uses his money for such laudable purposes as keeping horses! Well...I mean, I don't particularly want a lot of money - but it would be nice to have horses - and somewhere to keep them - and a donkey. I want a donkey and a little carriage that I could drive - even I should be able to drive a little donkey-carriage without becoming public enemy nr 1!
Anyway, do keep your visiting on the forum to a minimum for now - there is nothing so trying to the temper as a malfunctioning computer! And in the spirit of Pollyanna - you - and we! - will be so much more glad when everything is working and you can be on the forum as much as you like (or as you have time for, obviously - there being only so many hours in a day...) Meanwhile you can console yourself with what a resounding success your forum is - and how many forum-shy people have ventured on it!
Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.
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| Re: On balance [message #1782 is a reply to message #1759 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 09:16 |
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| Susan from Athens wrote on Mon, 20 October 2008 20:03 |
4. Are your glasses thicker than 5mm?
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Aeeee, well, thank apostrophes for fancy new lens condenser thingies.
Smooshes!
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| Re: On balance [message #1786 is a reply to message #1749 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 10:11 |
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Lucy Coats
Messages: 223
Registered: October 2008
Location: Northamptonshire, UK |
Senior Member |
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You too will have noticed that mail order plants tend to arrive on days or in weeks when you can’t possibly deal with them due to brain surgery, pirates, etc. Rain. Dentists
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Brain surgery and pirates, eh? What a perfectly excellent concatenation (love that word--use whenever possible) of events. But as you say, Robin, bound to happen on plant arrival day. Mine, good looking bulbs all this year, elected to appear just as the plumber was giving me the good news that the water jacket on the boiler had burst (£8000 later....is another story), and my sweetiepops husband picked that morning also to have a badly slipped disc on the sciatic nerve possibly requiring surgery. Next day (planting day) was dentist day too. And it rained And the dentist told me I had to have a 2 part root canal... Is this beginning to sound a little too parallel? Almost wish for the pirates.... 
[Updated on: Tue, 21 October 2008 12:11] by Moderator
Lucy xx
"'Thou shalt not' might reach the head, but it takes 'Once upon a time' to reach the heart."
http://www.scribblecitycentral.blogspot.com
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| Re: On balance [message #1789 is a reply to message #1759 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 10:50 |
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| Susan from Athens wrote on Mon, 20 October 2008 20:03 |
1. Do you use a pocket protector and carry around a pocket calculator? (this is an outdated image, but still holds true in many instances)
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Piffle. I have the entire internet in my pocket. (Or at least in the lumbar pack that I try to pass off as a "purse".) With my four colored engineering pen, my leatherman, my collapsible chopsticks and titanium spoon, headlamp, iodine tablets... oh, I'd better stop.
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2. Do you wear sandals with socks in public? (Yes, we know the Romans did - they've found a little pocketknife in County Durham whose handle is: a foot wearing a sock in a sandal - but just because the Romans did, doesn't mean you can get away with it, unless the socks are amazing)
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And I'm from Seattle. If you're from Seattle, it's allowed. Seriously. Look it up. In Seattle Birkenstocks with socks even count as business casual as long as the Birks are in good shape and the socks match and don't have holes.
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3. Can you name all of Isaac Asimov's books?
4. Are your glasses thicker than 5mm?
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No, and no. Well, unless... no. Because I said so. (Okay, I did buy these glasses because they look so hot with my lab coat.)
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5. Are you a graduate student in physics? (some cases cannot escape nerddom)
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In Physics? Just Physics?! I'm insulted. I get nerdier things than physics grad students free in my breakfast cereal. (Okay, that my roommate and I take turns mixing up batches of our oat bran, rice bran, flax seed, nuts and cinnamon cereal. Which we eat while we put in our morning hour working through the most rigorous calculus book ever - for fun - before getting in a half hour of sparring... actually, I think that proves my point.) I have physics grad students sending me desperate emails asking for help on their linux installs. (<=Truth! Yes, I returned to open source as soon as I bailed on Microsoft. Live free or die.)
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If you tick yes to two or more you are in trouble :)If not, there are definite boundaries to your nerddom.
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You are neglecting whole fontiers of nerddom. A minor illustration... *Realizes I probably shouldn't admit to any of the following....*
So, um, back something more than a decade ago, when I was still at Microsoft, ("Strike One!") every Friday night a bunch of us would reserve a conference room to play D&D ("Strike two!"). So the majority of the group were game developers, though I was high volume backend server chick. One day, someone brought in a copy of the nerdity test. (A previous version compared to that posted on the official web page, but same general idea.) So in that exclusive company, again, composed primarily of male programmers in the game division who had nothing better to do on a Friday night than play D&D at work, we all took the test and... well, I had the highest score by about ten points. ("You're OUT!")
It wasn't really fair, though - I'm the daughter of a CS professor, and have been on the net since '78. (I was very young then, and 300bd was faster than I could read or type.) Heck, a lot of these folks didn't even know what modem stood for. Or that it stood for anything. And my father started buying me college math text books when I was seven or eight because... well, I liked them. (I try to rebel, and got a liberal arts degree in my undergrad, but eventually I was sucked back in.)
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| Re: On balance [message #1790 is a reply to message #1783 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 11:58 |
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| Black Bear wrote on Tue, 21 October 2008 07:32 |
| ssshunt wrote on Tue, 21 October 2008 00:09 |
I don't suppose you know anyone names Dhes?
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I know a fella named Des, but that's as close as I got. He lives in Nottingham. Why, who's Dhes?
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Dhes is someone I know on another forum who is a HUGE Lovecraft fan. Just wondering. ;-}
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| Re: On balance [message #1801 is a reply to message #1789 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 16:50 |
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Susan from Athens
Messages: 817
Registered: October 2008
Location: Athens, Greece |
Senior Member |
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| tylik wrote on Tue, 21 October 2008 17:50 |
And I'm from Seattle. If you're from Seattle, it's allowed. Seriously. Look it up. In Seattle Birkenstocks with socks even count as business casual as long as the Birks are in good shape and the socks match and don't have holes.
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Dear Tylik, I'm not sure whether you're arguing you are a nerd or you aren't. Anyway, look at the general proviso: LIMITS to yuor nerddom and only some. I personally have long since accepted I am a nerd: I went to Caltech: i.e. I am a nerd - there is no escaping it. I just like to think that I am a very well adjusted former nerd with open horizons. I have interests beyond simple nerddom. But most of my friends (scratch that) all of my friends are nerds in some fashion or another (I believe in variety being the spice of life). Not in keeping your nerddom under wraps, just not in having take over your entire life. My nerdiness takes on all kinds of forms including mentally correcting all truly bad translations I see. Tonight I was appalled to see, in an exhibition on nanotechnology (which I was only peripherally at, being as it was held at the same venue as the classical music concert I was going to), somebody had mucked up the translation so badly they referred to R. Feynman as a "physician" instead of a "Physicist". I freaked.
Jodi and AJLR I saw you trying to duck. You didn't make it girls!
[Updated on: Tue, 21 October 2008 16:54]
“I have always imagined heaven to be a kind of library.” –Jorge Luis Borges
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| Re: On balance [message #1806 is a reply to message #1801 ] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 17:19 |
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| Susan from Athens wrote on Tue, 21 October 2008 16:50 |
Jodi and AJLR I saw you trying to duck. You didn't make it girls!
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Aw, it's tough naturally having crummy eyes. *fetches contacts* What about now?
Smooshes!
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| Re: On balance [message #1890 is a reply to message #1801 ] |
Wed, 22 October 2008 13:33 |
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Well I did start trying to argue - though largely in jest, or at least favoring an updated image - but clearly any such attempt was doomed to failure.
Perhaps I have let my nerdiness take over my life. I "retired" from Microsoft, and went into computational biochemistry, which somehow turned into doing a doctorate in neurobiology. I am an obsessed researcher - but then, I'm in an environment where that is appreciated. (And when I come up with some completely cock-eyed scheme to do something that's never been done before, people *like* it. It floors me. I suspect I'm never going to escape academia...) When I'm not doing official research, or unofficial research, or studying something for one of my hobbies - and the lines there can be blurry, most of my official research used to be a hobby at one time - I'm studying or teaching martial arts, or cooking, reading, writing, or sleeping. That's pretty much it. I do research and study and spar with my roommate. I gossip with my taiji students and yoga classmates. (Okay, I've been doing yoga too recently.) Oh, and I go to the farmers' market a lot. There's *food* there.
100% nerd? Balanced wholesome life? I don't even know what the terms mean anymore. I kind of thought that after 1994 and the September that never ended nerddom so much came into its own that it became kind of a meaningless term.
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| Re: On balance [message #1940 is a reply to message #1890 ] |
Wed, 22 October 2008 21:06 |
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Susan from Athens
Messages: 817
Registered: October 2008
Location: Athens, Greece |
Senior Member |
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| tylik wrote on Wed, 22 October 2008 20:33 |
which somehow turned into doing a doctorate in neurobiology.
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Congratulations! Enjoy the process and get out as soon as possible with a PhD and a good letter of recommendation.
| tylik wrote on Wed, 22 October 2008 20:33 |
I'm studying or teaching martial arts, or cooking, reading, writing, or sleeping. That's pretty much it. I do research and study and spar with my roommate. I gossip with my taiji students and yoga classmates. (Okay, I've been doing yoga too recently.) Oh, and I go to the farmers' market a lot. There's *food* there.
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That sounds pretty balanced for me. If you actually have time to talk to people and have a hobby outside of lab, it's a more rounded experience than my grad student life was. And Taichi is great. I did Yang style for ten years and am always intending to go back. The most grounding, centering thing I ever did
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that it became kind of a meaningless term.
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But can be used with affection? I mean you know non-nerds don't you? A few of them? Think what they are missing out on!
“I have always imagined heaven to be a kind of library.” –Jorge Luis Borges
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| Re: On balance [message #2001 is a reply to message #1975 ] |
Thu, 23 October 2008 11:13 |
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Disney's Cthulhu! Haha! I can't wait to see the Disney version...
"The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel."
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| Re: On balance [message #2020 is a reply to message #1749 ] |
Thu, 23 October 2008 16:34 |
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Yeah--but Moby Dick is easy! Can you do Pride and Prejudice?
I once found this card that had the drawing of a workman taking out his lunch from his lunch box, and the caption was, "Oh no, not whale on rye again!" And when you opened it up it said, "Call me, Ishmael."
"And by the way you look fantastic in your boots of Chinese plastic."
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| Re: On balance [message #2035 is a reply to message #2020 ] |
Thu, 23 October 2008 18:33 |
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Maureen E
Messages: 111
Registered: October 2008
Location: Indiana, USA |
Senior Member |
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| ssshunt wrote on Thu, 23 October 2008 16:34 |
Yeah--but Moby Dick is easy! Can you do Pride and Prejudice?
I once found this card that had the drawing of a workman taking out his lunch from his lunch box, and the caption was, "Oh no, not whale on rye again!" And when you opened it up it said, "Call me, Ishmael."
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Well, yes. But then I've actually read Pride and Prejudice, and that's one of the most quoted first lines ever. I haven't read Moby Dick.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
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Re: On balance
