I <'3 U

This is awesome enough that I found it worthy to be shared (because I'm a big fat nerd!):

9x - 7i > 3 (3x-7u)

Solve for i

An [Irreverent] Analysis of Super Powers

A friend asked me the other day that if I could have a super power, would I rather have the ability to fly or to be invisible. I’ve had this asked several times before, and I’m pretty sure I’ve changed my answer each time I’ve been asked. To be able to fly means you don’t have to worry about modes of transportation the same way everyone else does, yet to be invisible means you can avoid that ex that keeps stalking you down the “International” aisle at the grocery store. However, if your flying is limited and you can’t go faster than a speeding bullet like Superman, flying wouldn’t be nearly as useful. Might as well just pay Delta to take you to Singapore if it’s going to take you a couple days to make it there… at least they’ll feed you peanuts on the 16 hour flight. And being invisible is really only useful for sneaky or malicious reasons, like stealing or listening in to conversations you’re not meant to hear, not a very respectable superpower.

How about some of the other known super powers? You have superhuman strength¹; however, that seemed to come along with some nasty color side effects. X-ray vision²…but who really wants to see that? Shape shifting³ actually seems pretty useful, like playing Spy in Team Fortress 2, until you’re standing next to the person you’ve shape shifted into and they realize you’re a fraud and shoot you.

You have the tele’s: telekinesis⁴, telepathy⁵, teleportation⁶…technopathy⁷? I’m pretty sure I’m as technically pathetic as I need to be, adding to that would not make me any more super. To be able to control things with your mind would be unbelievably useful when you’re sitting around watching episodes of Big Bang Theory and don’t want to have to move to go get a big bowl of Samoas ice cream and haven’t yet figured out how to train your cat to get it for you without getting fur in it… just make the ice cream scoop itself. Edward proved that reading minds just turns you into a stalker, especially when there’s some horrible actress out there whose mind you can’t read, causing you to fall into ridiculous infatuation. Teleportation does pretty much kick flying’s butt in regards to travel, although the ride there doesn’t seem like it’d be nearly as relaxing as riding the sky.

Body part substitution⁸ leaves you with three hands and a tail. Superhuman breath⁹ is not something you want to wake up to in the morning. Power augmentation¹⁰ is for sidekicks (but we still love you Ando!). Intuitive aptitude¹¹ means you can understand something without having to learn it, which is what made Sylar so hardcore and the only thing that made Heroes worth watching past the first season…however, it also made for a villian since the need to gain knowledge takes the person over completely.

In addition, since I wasn’t born with a super power, in order to obtain one at this point in my life would mean that I would need to be in a nuclear accident or go eat some of the herbicides I’m brewing… and really, that’s just deforming. Do I really want to go through all the reconstructive surgery and/or know that guys are only interested in me because of my super power, not because of my looks, for the rest of my life? I just don’t think I’m willing to commit to that. And I’m far too lazy to seek out a mad scientist…so I’m going to stick to my own personal super powers that I already possess. Procrastination and short term memory loss. When was I going to end this post?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

If you want to read up on some ridiculous list of many of the superpowers that have been used in fiction, Wikipedia is always a reliable, highly credible source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superhuman_features_and_abilities_in_fiction

And unfortunately, I’m sure www.superpowerlist.com *would* be a great resource, except it was hacked into and destroyed by Russians. That’s what you get for being a sidekick…

1.Hulk
2. Peepers aka Peter Quinn
3. Mystique
4. Jean Grey
5. Piccolo from DBZ, Edward Cullen (brooding vamp extraordinaire)
6. Nightcrawler
7. Micah (Heroes)
8. Terror
9. Superman
10. Ando (Heroes)
11. Sylar! (Heroes)

Chasing Daylight... and about a million other things.

Everyone has been blogging a plethora of posts this week, which has been wonderful in keeping me amused when I need a break, especially since there was a two month drought on blog posts from others... however, K.F. indicated that this meant *I* was supposed to post as well. I pride myself in being a non-conformist... except I'm too lazy to fight the power usually, so I give in to the currently Boston-bound roomie.


Last weekend took Kelsey Face, Joe Jitsu, Mona, and I to Chicago for the Dow Run for Water 6K run. Really, the run was just an excuse to spend a weekend in Chicago with friends, as I often tend to put trips off if I don't have a solid reason to commit myself. I got the chance to spend some good times with my Irish counterpart, ate some yummy Thai food, saw the sights, and even got to go country dancing for the first time in forever! Which pretty much made me very much miss living closer to a city like I did in college. Chicago wasn't nearly as big bad as my mind imagined it would be... this might have been partly due to the fact that my only past experiences have been dealing with traffic during rush hours and lots of toll booths, which I didn't have to deal with at all this trip. AND we were able to run the entire 6k run this time, blister-free! We didn't have incredible run times, but we did run the whole thing, which I didn't think was going to happen since Irish had spent two weeks telling us there's no way she'd make it... lies! Now that I can finally do it, I don't want to lose it, regardless of my hate for generic running. I mean, there's no point to running, no goal besides ending up at the same spot you started. Why did you even bother leaving that spot?? How in the world do marathon runners not pass out from sheer boredom of doing nothing but running for hours?? That must be the ADD kicking in for me...


This last statement just distracted me and led me to call my brother and have a conversation about our horrible horrible attention spans. This post is a very good example... I started this earlier today during lunch, but didn't get past the first sentence because other things, like mapping running routes on google maps, were more important. Once I got home, I grabbed whatever was in the fridge for dinner and came back to continue the post. Instead, I got distracted by an episode of Arrested Development that included male stripper cops and the lesson that you should never teach people lessons. I then decided to do some cleaning, with the goal in mind that I'd focus on the kitchen tonight. I washed the dishes, got bored, and started for the bathroom. Cleaned the sink, got bored, cleared off the coffee table. Back to the kitchen, instantly bored, decided music was needed for the task at hand. I then got distracted organizing my music since it was all reset on the new computer. This then led to me wanting to spend some time practicing the guitar chords I've been learning... and since Face is out for the weekend, I figured I'd take a shot at pulling it all together myself and learning a song. That went disasterously for a while... I could do it slow, but not to the beat it was actually supposed to be at. Frustrated, and it already being 8pm, I decided it was time to chase some daylight and go for a run for the first time since the 6k on Sunday. You see, my legs have not stopped aching with a dull pain for weeks now, and I figured it was probably from the strain of forcing them to continue even when they didn't want to, so I thought I'd give them a few days now that the run is behind me. Noooo, the pain never went away! We had a conversation/fight the entire time. It went something along the lines of the following:


CO: "Left... Left... Left..."


Leg 1: "Sarah, why do you hate us so?"


Leg 2: "Yeah Sarah, why do you hate us?"


CO: "Shut up and keep running or we'll never make it home for pie! I promised you strawberry rhubarb, what more do you want from me??"


Leg 2: "Charlieeee...woops, I mean, Sarahhhhhhhh"


CO: "God only needed 1 day of rest, you guys got almost 4x that and you STILL think you can complain??!"


Leg 1: "Shun the abuser!"


Leg 2: "Shunnnnnnnn"


CO: "We're at a freaking baseball game! Get me a mountain dew!! Wait, that's not right..."


Leg 1: "You suck at guitar!"


CO: "I thought we agreed we were NOT going to speak about this again!! And what does that have to do with running anyway? Stop getting in my head! That's it, you're totally not getting your toenails painted tonight."


Legs: "Nooooo!"


Upon arrival at home, I kept my promise and downed some rhubarb yumminess, came back and wrote two more sentences for my post, and then got distracted with my frustration about the guitar and went after it again. AND GOT IT. Maybe not perfect, but enough so that I felt a little more at ease about my less than adequate skills. And I'm pretty sure all of my neighbors hate me. Good thing I keep my door locked at all times.


So now I suppose I'm back here once again, telling my computer about my Chicago trip. Yeah, it was sweet; 'nuff said.


So if you see me sprawled out on the side of the road, it's because my legs finally won. Don't worry... I'll get them back for it.

Ultimate Power Song of Choice: "The River" by Good Charlotte w/ M. Shadows and Synyster Gates

Ebbs and Flows

As spring kicks in and the weather gets better, I'm finding that my weekly planned activities all seem to be winding down quickly. I've come to realize this is very seasonal... I seem to go through the same thing every spring and fall. Every time, I wonder what in the world I will do with everything coming to an end, but I have yet to have a time where I actually felt like I needed to find new activities to fill my time as it naturally gets filled once again.

Currently, volleyball, wallyball, and my womens bible study will all come to an end in the next two weeks, opening up 3 of my 5 weeknights. However, based on past experience, those will likely soon be replaced with a different bible study, tennis, softball, and beach volleyball. Plus Christina and I have been discussing joining a noob golf league to learn how to play yet another sport. Mario is skipping town, and thus the Cowboy Bebop nights that have filled my empty time lately have come to an end; however, Kelsey Face just ordered all three seasons of Arrested Development, so a new show addiction will take the place of the beboping.

Oh yes, and we will finally complete our 6k run in Chicago two weekends from now, which we have been attempting to train for for months now. Joe asked me if I felt like I'd accomplished what I wanted to with the training for the run. My answer: no, because I still hate running. I even tried to spice things up by running with Christina's dog this weekend, which turned out even worse as she tried dragging me the whole way, and my right leg is now sore and killing me from the effort of constantly pulling her to slow down. Overall, I'd much rather be doing interactive sports or doing a circuit or at the very least be on a treadmill where I can read a book or watch a movie and be distracted from the mundane task. So I'll replace it with some other sort of workout... at least until next year when I've had enough time to once again forget my dislike and force Kelsey to once again sign up for another run ha.

The moral of this story is that life ebbs and flows, things may go, but new things will always take their place. Oh, and never leave things in the fridge.

See you space cowboy....

Lost Communication

There was a day last week where I sat at my desk at work, chugging away at whatever it is I do at work, when I thought of something so hilarious it simply had to be shared with a friend... and I realized I had no one to share my hilariousness with.

We have Microsoft Communicator at work, a form of work-approved IM between other coworkers. This has also served well as my outlet and break from work to keep me sane in the face of the daily grind insanities. However, it seems the people that I most often communicate with have seemed to dwindled....the Scoobies have dwindled down to Sam and I over the past year, J to the M left for Africa, and M and I had been outlets for each other since the day I started work, and last week Mario was officially gone. Luckily I recovered a roommate in the process and have Kels back to once again chat it up with, but unluckily for me last week, she was pretending to be Canadian to visit friends from Guinea. Which brought me to the realization that I find work days to be unbarable to get through without someone to talk to, namely someone I can relate to outside of my immediate coworkers.

This may be learned considering I've almost always had this in my long two and a half year career, so I really don't know any different... I'm pretty sure older generations that did not grow up chatting online don't feel this critical need. But then again, I don't roam the halls looking for unsuspecting people I can corner to show family photos to and share mundane stories about my curling adventures over the weekend, much like many of them do. Curling was excellent, FYI -BTW (that means by the way in our new age chat speak!).

So this could mean one of three things:
1) I need to make more friends that work at my company so we can chat
2) I need to stop wasting time chatting (which might make my head implode when I have no other outlet during the day)
3) Time to move! (But only if it's to NZ...)

I'd also like to take this moment while I have you captively pinned in a corner to share some family photos... this would be Loki dominating Waffles in a chokehold while laying on his head. That's my boy!

Feed and Water Twice Daily

Being sick sucks.

Sure, when you're a little kid, it's great; you get to skip school and lounge around all day while your mom brings you soup and ice cream, and if you can convince your brother that he's sick too, you have a Mario Kart buddy for the day.

But when you have no such people to bring you ice cream or play games with, and instead have big presentations to leaders the next day that you're not yet prepared for that you're trying to write up in bed with a fever in the 15 minutes you're able to keep yourself awake every few hours before the Nyquil kicks in once again...not so fun.

It also makes it hard to write blog posts evidently, as this is as far as I've gotten in a couple of hours ha.

I had high hopes that working in a chemical plant full of formulations that kill off plants and insects and anything else it touches would kill off the little teenie germs currently plaguing my body. Or at the very least, the neighboring plant next door that produces pharmaceuticals would have at least given some pleasant healthy side effects. But *apparently* Allegra is only for allergies and doesn't help fevers. Lame.

I'm going to have to fight this a different way. I'm thinking of choking down some chocolate chip banana muffins the roomie made in what I can only imagine was full anticipation of me being sick and lonely. But if you give a sick princess a chocolate chip banana muffin, she will want a glass of milk. If you give her a glass of milk, she'll want some medicine to take as well. If you give her medicine to take, she'll get drowsy and ask for a blankie. Once she's curled up with her blankie, she'll need a bedtime story. The bedtime story will send her off to sweet dreams of kitties and yoshis. And if you send her off to dreams... you're going to have to finish her presentation for her.

Good luck roomie ;)

Sydney

Last day in Australia! We flew in to Sydney yesterday and walked down to Chinatown for dinner in hopes of finding some yummy Thai food. It was pouring and we were drenched after about a block, so 4 blocks in, we quickly gave up and instead chose a Korean BBQ. We were the only white people in the entire place and the waiters had to explain to us what each dish was and how we did it, but it was a cool experience, very similar to fondue places. They had the grill on each table, and you throw the meat on with vegetables, make a lettuce wrap and put some sauces on it for flavor. I don't have much idea of what I ate besides the basic meats and a bunch of seaweed (very good), but it was fun.

Today we went to the Aquarium and Wildlife experience, which included all of the dozens of deadly creatures Australia is home to, as well as the kangaroos, koalas, wallabees, and other animals that I've been waiting to see. We then went to Paddy's Markets, a large area with lots of different shops and kiosks set up, very similar to the marketplaces of Thailand. We're now enjoying afternoon tea at the hotel while my dad checks email, and then we're off to look at some Australian Black opals and search for Tim Tams.

I have to say, Australia/NZ really are not that different from the US; surprisingly so in fact. They listen to all of our music, watch our movies and tv shows, and after reading their newspapers for the past two weeks, they seem to have the exact same issues as we do regarding education, politics, and healthcare. Since it's my last post down under though, I'd like to note some of the differences between Australia and the US:

-Obviously, the accents. Which are in truth very similar to British accents, and were sometimes hard to distinguish between on the ship. Apparently the Aussies still consider Britain their homeland, and they trade people back and forth frequently. They still have their unique words down here though. And cheers is used in place of thank you, goodbye, hello, you're welcome, I hate you, etc...

-Electrical outlets. Pain in the butt... they luckily had U.S. outlets on the ship; however, no such luck in any Aussie hotel rooms. This is especially upsetting when you realize your camera has run out of battery and you have no way whatsoever to recharge it. Darn.

-They drive on the wrong side of the road. Which you would think would mean they pass on the left side while walking, but that seems to be misunderstood also, so they instead just walk right at you until you dive out of the way to keep from becoming Aussie pie. Also, they're obsessed with their meat pies. I had one, and it was just a shepherd's pie with no vegetables at all...mmm so healthy. And although their toilets may not flush in the opposite direction of ours in the northern hemisphere, they did walk counterclockwise on the running track on the ship. Still haven't figured out why that was different...

Tomorrow, while the U.S. watches the Superbowl (still don't even know who is in it this year), I will be boarding the plane back to the homeland. And hopefully quickly switching my body's timeclock back to Eastern time... 9am here is 5pm there, completely backwards. Oh joy!

Goodbye Australia....

Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oy Oy Oy!