My new favorite make a bad day a good thing: Moolattes at Dairy Queen. Doesn't that just roll off your tongue? Full of ice cream goodness with just the right amount of icy crunchiness and, of course, coffee.

Why I will no longer leave the house with a pony tail and no makeup (except for jogging)

I rolled out of bed this morning, late, and did the typical "I'm going to be cleaning the house and gardening today" hair pulled back in a ponytail, quick face wash. Before buckling down to work, I had to run out to return some library books and do a few errands. While I was backing out of the driveway, I noticed that my bangs were standing straight up in the air. Since my contact with the public was going to be limited, I mushed them down the best I could and continued on my way. At Walgreen's, I was studying the frozen pizza selection when I noticed a young man standing a little further down the refrigerator cases, staring at me out of the corner of his eye. I assumed he was staring at my bangs, so I mushed them down again, grabbed a pizza and smiled. He sidled over to me and asked, "So what high school do you go to?" I almost dropped the pizza. I mean, come on! It's been 20 years since I was in high school, 20 years exactly. He saw my face and said, "Oh, you're in college, aren't you?" I didn't know whether to be flattered, to be offended or to recommend he consult an eye specialist.

I spent the afternoon in the shelter computer lab playing Big Brother, again. I'd removed the filtering by word part of the internet filtering software because people were complaining about how slow the browsing was. I figured everyone using the lab knew by now that most prohibited (porn, adult, and gambling) sites were blocked (and the list of blocked sites on the software's block list was always growing) so no one would spend much time searching for ways to get around it. I was wrong. I haven't decided whether to enable word filtering again, so, in the meantime, I sent a large number of updates to the blocked list. I also have another, longer list of sites to check because they are in other languages or their content is unclear from their URL. I have to admit that although most of the sites were simply and unsubtly named, some of the URL's were very original and pushed the limits I've seen on character length. All of this is the price I'm paying for working for a nonprofit with no money budgeted for a computer lab. I shouldn't complain too much, though, because 99% of the browsing was completely innocent and I hadn't checked the logs since mid-May.

My favorite line from Song for Alan De Niro by Tony at Geneva Convention

"Frothy & out of print in the way most best girls are"

For the past couple of days, Alan has been slowly sucking people into playing The Kingdom of Loathing which he was introduced to at the dessert function at Wiscon by Susan.

Back in May the World Wildlife Fund reported on a mother bear and her cubs that were stranded on an artic island when the ice receded before she emerged from her den. The really chilling part of the article was the speculation that this was a sign of global warming. Woo hoo, politicians, Kyoto Protocol?! WWF reported this month that the stranded mother and cubs are doing fine.

Too good not to share. Terry Jones on torture via Bill Shunn's newsgroup sff.people.wpshunn. (I would have just linked it but don't know how to do that for newsgroups.)

How can I put this in words? This is one of the stories Alan told me tonight about his day. He came home early to put his foot up and recover from driving rush hour traffic with a sprained right ankle. Tora is our oldest cat. Although he's mellowed over the years, he has no manners and tends to bite. I think this is because he was socialized by a large, neutured male dog - nothing I did ever had any effect on him - and equates biting with showing affection. Anyways, Alan was sitting on the couch with the coffee table just six inches away from the couch. He'd finished his Jimmy John's sandwich and the wrapper was on the coffee table. Tora somehow bridged the gap between the couch and the coffee table, just lying down with his medium sized 9 pound body. Tora was just a couple inches from the sandwich wrapper and was stretching out trying to do his usual snatch and run. Alan, somewhat awestruck at his position, said he looked like a turtle. Then Alan poked him to get him away from the sandwich wrapper and the cat freaked out. He stood on the couch next to Alan for a long time just looking at him and Alan thought he was going to bite his arm off. Alan said it was like the cat was thinking, "You f*ked my perfect position up and now I'm going to kill you."

This weekend was interesting. We were supposed to be up at my parent's cabin celebrating Father's Day but we ended up spending most of the time stuck at home. Friday night, we discovered half the floor of the basement was wet from a leak in the hot water heater. It could have been a lot worse. The basement isn't finished and most of the stuff we have stored on the wet side was up on tables and chairs. So, little damage but lots of dusty, wet, cobwebby mess and, of course, the expense of replacing the water heater. Saturday afternoon, Alan sprained his ankle playing basketball. He spent a good part of today sitting in urgent care and now is hobbling around as little as possible. I rented a couple of movies and we pretty much stayed put this evening. Anybody have any advice on hot water heaters?

Via Haddayr

How to make a Kristin

Ingredients: 1 part mercy 1 part crazyiness 5 parts empathy

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Serve with a slice of lovability and a pinch of salt. Yum!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

Given a choice, I'd rather have a little more craziness and a little less empathy.

Change is good. I'm not sure about the clashing pictures but, although it was an accident, the contrast between the text background and the blue is kind of nice. Not very Zen, though.

Things that make me happy (tonight)

Driving home tonight from work, I stopped at the light at Franklin and Stevens. In the lane next to me were two bikers. They were real bikers, with tatoo covered bodies and wide handle-barred bikes, not just your evening/weekend yuppie biker types. One of them was helmetless and the other was wearing one of those old fashioned helmets that look a bowl, so I could see their faces. While we waited, a little girl crossed the street with her mom, she was probably about five or six years old, and she stopped for a moment in front of the guys and gave them a wave and the biggest, sweetest smile I'd seen in ages. Their immediate reaction was grins, just as big as hers, and two waves back.

David Sedaris on Fresh Air

The season finale of The Shield. I know that this last one is a little disturbing to list as something that makes me happy, but I've become a fan of the show. Vic is my favorite anti-hero, half the time I'm rooting for him and the other half I'm rooting against him.

Animal and human intelligence and memory have been side interests of mine for a while now. Today's LA Times profiles a German border collie with a remarkable vocabulary.

Just in case you missed it, our local weekly paper, City Pages, had a great interview/roundtable discussion with an assortment of Minnesota-based, female, science fiction/fantasy writers, including Wiscon guest of honor, Eleanor Arnason.