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Monday, June 30, 2003 On the Wall Just as people accumulate things to fill up any empty space in their house, they also cover any empty space on their walls and doors. I have to admit that I rarely hang anything on the walls or doors--out of a sense of minimalism or misguided anal retentiveness, I'm not really sure which. Some people put an entire sticker collection on their doors or maybe a shrine to Mel Gibson. I find that looking at someone's decorated doors or walls show a lot about one's personality. Posters of cars and girls? Or maybe wallpaper made out of political news clippings? Strange quotes? Reproductions of fine art, cultural and otherwise? Or is it personal--photographs of family and friends? What does it say about me when the only thing on my wall is a meticulously picked calendar of Da Vinci paintings? A very similar thing is the decoration of one's web home. Perhaps it is easy to discern someone's likes or aspects of one's personality by what images and designs are present (or not present). Is it slickly designed? Does it have cat pictures? Impersonal images? Or did the author leave it as the default template, thinking words are sufficient? Like a visitor peeking into your room, are appearances showing what you are? Or like certain people who must put on a mask every morning, does the outside show what other people would like to see? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:22 AM : Sunday, June 29, 2003 Midnight Thoughts It could have been the stillness that tried to level on a different type of awareness. Eyes closed, I felt damp heat prickling along my bare arms and legs. There had been something that I had been thinking about. Or had it been my own personal dreamworld giving me my thoughts and not me at all? At that moment, I wasn't sure where I was, what I was. I tried opening my eyes, but the air weighed down. Should I put in the effort? Do I want to put in the effort? Somehow I managed to prop up my eyelids. A room. A little light spilled through a window illuminating the ceiling in rectangles of gray. In the middle of the gray was a black hole. A very black hole. There's supposed to be a light, I wondered idly. But I kept staring at that black hole in the ceiling. It was so still and yet I had the feeling that it was sucking in the air and the light and the dust and maybe even me. I'm really confused now. Blogger has now gone back to what it looked like before I made the last post. Maybe it has to do with the browser I was using before. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:57 AM : Unconscious Mutterings
Yikes, Blogger looks different again. Exactly what are those guys doing over there? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:17 AM : Saturday, June 28, 2003 Reluctant Domestication Today I went on a cleaning binge when all my roommates left the house. I hate dirt and I cringe whenever I see it. And perhaps it is me and not my roommates who is the biggest cleaning nazi under the roof. The dirtiest thing I cleaned was not the bathroom or the kitchen, but the stairs. They're wood and uncarpeted so it's easy to see everything that has accumulated on the surface. But what struck me as puzzling was why the stairs were so dirty. If there is one rule that everyone follows, it is that there are to be no outdoor shoes going up to the second floor. So if everyone is wearing slippers going upstairs, why is there so much unseemly dirt and dust? Oh, and never underestimate how much girls shed hair. Is the Brain Really Necessary? (via Metafilter) I suppose I'm not really astonished. There have already been experiments debunking the "grandmother cell" theory, i.e. particular cells assigned to particular tasks and particular memories. So far, it looks as if memory and consciousness/awareness is based upon networks. And if something were damaged (let's say, sight) there have been evidence that the brain is able to rewire itself (visual parts of the brain are devoted to other senses in the blind). So if there is less cortex in an individual available to perform cognitive tasks, who's to say that what's left of the brain has been reorganized to accomplish difficult skills like mathematics? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:36 AM : Friday, June 27, 2003 Wi-Fi It sounds like a yappy dog attempting to catch flying frisbees. Or maybe somebody's archnemesis. Or maybe the result of someone with a lisp. I guess I didn't really care too much about it as long as I have my LAN connection and my multitude of cables. I'm a creature of habit in some ways. I privately grumbled when I was forced to switch from telnet to the virtually idiot-proof blitzmail for my campus e-mail needs. I dreaded actually getting some sort of ftp software to make uploading and downloading easier. And speaking of ftp, it was maddening when Geocities (home of internet newbies) decided to make ftp only available to paying customers so I was forced to use my own domain which I had originally gotten for other purposes. And now there's wireless. It's infuriating when almost all the buildings on campus are nodal points thus negating the need for anything physical. Thus, there are no ports in sight when you need them. If you haven't guessed by now, I've been testing out the wireless card I got a few days ago. Sure, it can be used in many places, but one is at the whim of broadcasting range, sudden disconnections, and concrete walls. I still like my steady LAN connection, thank you very much. Linkage: Bar Code Art. Some of it is similar to the type of art where many little pictures make up a bigger picture. Others use distorted bar codes. But all are very cool. A Cat User's Manual. "Documented Problems: The Ctrl key on most CAT units is defective. This may lead to serious performance problems." The Human Face. Some of it certainly makes a convincing case of "beauty" being all in the mind. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:06 AM : Thursday, June 26, 2003 Barrier I have no problem with other people (as in pretty much anyone) discovering this site. Yet when I was randomly surfing around, I found a blog of someone I see fairly daily. I'm not really a friend of this person so I was extremely hesitant on clicking the link to see the webpage. The feeling I got was the exact same feeling I have when checking up on websites of people that I first met in person, in real life. It is not the same feeling I get when I meet someone after I've communicated with them online. In a way, seeing the flesh and blood mask that people wear is a barrier. Sure, the words on the internet may be all fake, but still it came from their heads--something that I am not privy to when I talk to them face to face. It's like sneaking into somebody's room and stealing their diary or suddenly developing the ability to hear others' innermost thoughts. Getting over such uneasiness is a hard thing, even when I know that anyone putting things on the web know anyone can access it. Hair Every so often I go to have my hair butchered. It's not about getting rid of split ends. I don't get split ends. Getting a hair cut is almost like being reborn. I don't really feel like a different person, but I appear slightly different--as if I've switched bodies with a double in a parallel universe. When I was younger, I only got my hair cut to even up the ends and to trim my bangs. By the time I was fourteen, my hair reached my waist. I think it was compensation from my preschool years when the teachers mistook me for a boy. But after a while, it was for a more practical reason when I grew out my bangs and had my hair chopped to shoulder length. Now my hair isn't even that long. It's only a few millimeters past the bottom of my ears. Some people tell me that my hair grows really fast. I just think they get haircuts more often than I do. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:02 PM : I guess I'm one of the last people having my blogger account being transfered to the new system. That was probably why I couldn't access my account last evening when I wrote the last part of this post about airport mayhem. The Thursday Threesome: Rings, things and fine array Onesome: Rings- Hmmm.. How are you about jewelry? Do you wear any? ...none? What is your day to day complement. ...and what one particular piece do you save for special occasions? I like looking at jewelry. For about a minute. Then I get bored. The only type of jewelry I get interested in is the ones inside glass museum cases and that's only because of the history behind them. My only concession to body adornment (and voluntary mutilation) are two silver rings in my left ear. Getting my ears pierced weren't really about trying to be pretty or following the crowd. I think it was more about individualism and a rebellion against a high school administration bent on banning piercings. Other than that, I don't wear other jewelry, even on special occasions. Twosome: Things- Ah, and how about those 'things' about the place? You know, the ones that you cannot throw out, but don't seem to really have a place of their own... Where do they end up? ...in The Drawer? ...or do you have a better place for those bits of randomness that just seem to show up now and again? Randomness ends up in a drawer or in the closet. I'm actually rather haphazard when it comes to organizing things, but I put things in such a way to look like I'm rather organized. Threesome: and fine array- Okay, so Summer's here (except in the Land Down Under)... What is your "fine array" to clothe yourself in for the next few months? Do you still maintain? ...or do you 'go native' with vengence? Hmmmm??? My wardrobe isn't complicated. Just a t-shirt and a pair of jeans or shorts. ...and the quote? From Sarah this fine evening: "We will have rings, things and fine array", Taming of the Shrew, Act 2. Neat. Taming of the Shrew is one of my favorite Shakespearean plays despite the ending. Madhouse Perhaps I should have taken note when I looked up from the trashy occult thriller I was reading and observed that half of the people standing in line were "preboarders". I spent the entire flight in a headachy daze as preschoolers and toddlers yelled and screamed, and if they were being coherent, they said fatalistic comments very loudly. I ended up sitting in front of a restless little girl who kept pounding the back of the chair as if it were a punching bag. A flying tin can is certainly an excellent way of magnifying obnoxious behavior. When I finally entered the terminal, it was a madhouse. People were packed into unmaneuverable clumps. It was made worse with the hordes of others (the people picking the passengers up) at the baggage claim. I could hardly get a glimpse of the conveyor belt since there were tall, large men standing in front of me. (Of course, I could have said "excuse me" or even tried elbowing my way through, but I didn't want to risk the chance of getting pummeled to the ground.) It was pure, concentrated chaos. Remind me next time never to get to an airport in the late afternoon. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:02 AM : Wednesday, June 25, 2003 I should smack myself for watching TV again. I can feel a brain cell dying every second I watch. Then again, I got to see what all the fuss was about from television personalities that were mentioned by more media savvy bloggers. Frankly, I don't see why people are so fascinated with them except for the fact that they're all so damn annoying. There is no Tuesday Too 1. Define 'ectophensis'. The first thing I thought about was ectoplasm and those really old photographs with ghostly appendages protruding out of the orifices of supposed mediums. Then again, it might have to do with some literary or grammatical construction instead of something paranormal. After all, it certainly sounds like it. As Chad mentioned, "ecto" means outside. It's a Greek root, and applying that reasoning to the other part of the word, "phen", it would mean show (which originally pertained to illuminating gas, a.k.a. benzene--thus the modern chemical term phenol). Perhaps it does mean "outside display", who knows? 2. But what does it mean? Maybe swamp gas. 3. Have you ever thought about getting an amateur radio license? No. But I had been a rather bad deejay at a not quite legal campus radio station before and have realized that running a radio station or maintaining anything of the sort takes up more time than I am willing to devote. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:07 AM : Sunday, June 22, 2003 Brief Observations Car Question. Why did people leave their headlights on during the day while driving yesterday? Harry Potter Mania. The woman right in front of us in the checkout line said that the books are the greatest in her generation. I say it may be the most popular but not the greatest. The Matrix Reloaded. Unlike the first movie, there was nothing remotely insightful. But I liked the SFX. Blogging. All bloggers know that in the real world, nobody knows what blogging is. And if people go on the web as frequently as I've been the past couple of days (and most people log on less), most people will never figure out what a blog is. Television. It's evil. Sure, there are some interesting shows on, but by in large, reality shows have taken over all the programming. And I'm pretty sure they're teaching bad values. Recently, I've been fuming over a Total cereal commercial where they show a woman of thinner than average size telling the viewers not to look on the scale she is standing on. Apparently this commercial wants people to look anorexic. The news, unfortunately, is like reading warblogs all the time. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:13 AM : Thursday, June 19, 2003 I've only read one Harry Potter book so I'm not so sure I'm qualified to answer these questions. However, this doesn't mean that I don't read anything. The Thursday Threesome: Harry Potter Mania! Onesome: Potter- Which Harry Potter character is your favourite? Why do you like him or her? I don't have a favorite character. Twosome: Publication- Is there one publication that you just have to read? A paper you read daily, a magazine you read weekly or monthly? Newsletters? And do you buy it for the articles, or just to look at the pictures? ;) Whatever it is, tell us about it! The only periodicals I read at any regularity these days are scientific journals. I don't think you want to know anything about them. Threesome: Party!- The festivities begin tomorrow night in bookstores across the US and England, (and elsewhere too, probably!) with fun and games for the kid in all of us. Do you plan to be there standing in the queue when the clock strikes midnight to pick up your copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? My sister is a big Harry Potter fan. She'll probably drag me off to a nearby bookstore to get the book at midnight. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:50 PM : Wednesday, June 18, 2003 There is no Tuesday Too 1. A lot of hubbub has been going on the last two days over remarks Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) made regarding the desire to break personal computers to protect copyrights. We're all copyright holders here -- indeed, it would be exceedingly difficult to not go through life in America without issuing at least one de facto copyright -- and since we're all uniformly qualified to discuss this issue, I'd like to know how important is your right of copyright is to you. I appreciate the copyright laws that prevent people from stealing my work to present it as their own. However, it seems as if the possessors of copyrights (especially of profitable products) have gone too far in trying to make their creations permanently proprietary. 2. Several posts ago, I commented that I had driven on the beach at Ocean Shores. Where is the oddest/most surreal place you've driven or parked a car? In that particular case, it was one of those things that struck me as, "Of all the things I would expect to find on a beach, a big white van isn't one of them". It could be along those lines for you, or on some other odd/surreal definition of your own. Empty, suburban, shopping center parking lots. They have a mystic all their own. I'll tell you about it sometime. 3. Have you seen anyone, or have you yourselves used smokeless (& ashless) cigarettes yet? More importantly, do you think that smokers with smokeless cigs should be allowed back in public places they've been banned from? No, I haven't seen the smokeless cigarette yet. This sounds like a great idea for people who are forced to breathe in second-hand smoke, but I'm left wondering about the smoker. Without the smoke, is the smoker left inhaling more carcinogens? (Yeah, yeah, I know we technically shouldn't worry too much about the smoker who consciously made the decision to pick up a hazardous habit, but it seems rather cold to me to ignore people who've made a mistake.) I don't know about letting smokeless cigs back into public places--on one hand it seems okay since they're not harming anyone else except themselves, but on the other hand, if there is a continued ban, maybe the ostricization would make some of the smokers realize that smoking is not a good thing. Airplane Observations As the metal bird takes off, shuddering, roaring, my head aches. I put down the book that I had been trying to read. I shouldn't be surprised at the throbbing nausea, but I had hoped that this time, it would have been different. That perhaps my body had this time equilibrated itself to flying. The flight itself wasn't especially pleasant. It wasn't the view from the window seat or the leg room. It wasn't the flight attendants. The pilots managed to ignore patches of turbulence. I sat next to a woman in black who had ordered a Bloody Mary and had sprinkled a packet of spices that made her drink smell strongly pungent. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the odor and to concentrate on keeping my stomach down. When I woke up, the woman was drinking a beer and she was playing crazy eights with the blue-green polo shirted man on her other side. The man in front of me said he dropped his red camera bag behind his chair and as a favor, I contorted myself into various shapes attempting to peer underneath the seats. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, the man found his camera bag in his lap. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:56 PM : Tuesday, June 17, 2003 So I was wondering: how did people cut their toenails before the invention of clippers and scissors? Did they use knives? Or did they just let the toenails grow until they broke off? On another note, blogging in the next two weeks will probably be light. I'm supposed to be on vacation. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:12 AM : Monday, June 16, 2003 I was very excited when I found a copy of Watson's Genes, Girls, and Gamow at the local bookstore. I'll let you know how it goes when I finish Gaiman and Hesse. Take Your TrackBacks and Dangle. This is a decidedly anti-trackback essay. I never really understood what trackbacks were good for except to ping someone else's server to tell them that you linked their post. One thing I didn't know was that the servers had to be running the same program to ping each other--sort of like back in the old days when you had to use the same software to instant message your friends. Anyways, Technorati suits my current purposes just fine. Linus Pauling Research Notebooks. This is totally cool if you know at least an iota of chemistry. If you don't know any chemistry, it's cool too. I'm thinking of using the scans as desktop wallpaper. Addendum: Nevermind. I found Simpletracks which allows anyone with whatever software to ping whoever has trackbacks installed on their blog. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:56 PM : Sunday, June 15, 2003 Moving Once again, I have moved. Packing, hauling, unpacking. I did all of this myself just as I did all my previous years. No friends helping. No coercion of bystanders. I didn't even ask my roommates. Or rather ex-roommates. They would have never been of any help at all anyway. They stood around wringing their hands as big strong guys (boyfriends, male hangers-on) carried their suitcases and boxes for them. I like to think of myself as self-sufficient and independent. Some people fear being alone. I fear being dependent. I have new roommates obviously, but now I'm afraid I've somehow walked into the midst of cleaning fanatics. One of the new roommates sent a semi-threatening e-mail about leaving everything in fastidious condition. Don't get me wrong, I'm somewhat of a neat freak myself, but it's also a bit off-putting to have someone assume things about your personal habits before they've met you. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:08 PM : Happy Father's Day! To cool dads everywhere. And to mine who believes that I can do anything as long as I put my mind to it. Depressing News: Egyptian woman drowns self after having a baby girl. Yet another result of traditional and uninformed societies makes me feel angry and helpless. It's especially maddening that I actually have very traditional relatives who are disappointed at the mere fact that I am female. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:48 AM : Saturday, June 14, 2003 Random Adventure The clock tower was open today for climbing, but I couldn't just march up the stairs. I had to wait behind a long line of alumni who had also brought their kids to see the sights. A young boy in near the front of the line clutched his mother's hand and voiced his concerns about falling over the handrail or slipping through the spaces between the stairs. The man in front of me was an alumni of '78 who had gone to Berkeley for graduate work in engineering. He spent the time waiting musing about the clock mechanism and questioning the skinny undergrad of '05 directing the tours when the mechanical was replaced with the electrical. The undergrad shrugged, not knowing the answer. Climbing up and down the almost vertical stairs took a bit of panache to accomplish. Getting outside on the narrow balcony above the clock face was also a bit unnerving. At the top of the stairs was a small windowed room and a tiny square door led to the balcony. And the balcony was so narrow that if you pushed your way past someone already on the balcony, one of you would definitely be pushed over the railing. But it was worth the splutter of nerves to get up there and to have a panoramic view of the campus and miles beyond. Can you see the stadium with its lights? Can you see the medical center? Oh please, don't make me look straight down! The voices of the alumni and their families warbled with awe and not too little trepidation. Later, a friend and I took off to see the Quechee Balloon Festival in Vermont. Neither of us had ever gone to one before so we weren't sure what to expect. Ballooning was the main draw, but most of the festival consisted of a multitude of local vendors selling everything from pottery and jewelry to kites and even essence of emu to cure unsightly skin blemishes. The food was all grease and sauce and sugar. And lots and lots of salt. The frying created a pungent smell in the air, not unlike bushes of dying lilac flowers. I watched an all white African dance troupe. I listened to a local band playing Van Morrison tunes. The audience for the band mostly consisted of old biddies in colorful windbreakers. The old biddies sat riveted to the head singer, a not unattractive fifty-something-year-old man with a deep voice. And whenever the singer gyrated his hips suggestively, the women shifted in their seats, excited. Children ran amok, hitting each other with blow-up toys and whining for shiny rings and necklaces. I heard a young boy voicing a preference for a pretty necklace and his mother told him, "No, we'll find you something more for a boy." An announcer babbled constantly about buying a ten dollar raffle ticket to get a balloon ride. A tethered balloon ride, I later found out, not the rides where you drift off into the nether reaches of the clouds. When the time came for balloon lift off, I wandered into the field to finally take pictures in earnest. Overturned baskets, colorful cloth, trucks--strewn all over the grass. I felt the heat as balloonists fired up their gas burners. The sound of powerful fans rattled in my ears as I stepped closer to take pictures of a balloon's interior. And as they took off, I craned my neck to watch the balloons follow each other in a column of color. And once all the balloons were up over the trees, it began to rain. Umbrellas opened up, people scattered to the edges of the field and the covered stalls. The balloons began descending haphazardly. Some landed on the field. Others landed in a children's playground. Yet others landed in the midst of spectators. I eventually found my friend taking pictures of the descending balloons with her last roll of film. We bought cotton candy which began to melt in the rain. And while we were driving back and stopped at a red light eating our treat, a car turned and a woman leaned out of her window to take a picture of us. Perhaps it might end up on the web somewhere, two girls (a driver and a passenger) sitting in a car in the rain, chatting and eating cotton candy. Note: I took about five rolls of film. Photos (the good ones) of today's sensory overload will probably be up at the end of this month or the beginning of next month. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:59 PM : Do the Hamster Dance Recently I've taken to listening to radio on the net. I have a preference, of course. I don't check out channels which I can easily find on the radio itself: NPR, classical, rock, R&B, heavy metal, country (much more easier to avoid on the net than dial surfing), various talk stations. Before, I either listened to music that I already owned or the actual radio with occasional splurges of net radio, especially if I missed particular programs. What I have been checking into are channels that play dance music. And not just any old dance music, but pounding old-timer annoying synthesizer dance music. Trance, electronica, industrial, high energy, house, "hard core", club, techno, ambient. I can't really tell the difference between any of it, but I'm learning. There's something really appealing about dance music. It's not really innovative. The structure of the songs are very simple and the style isn't refined at all. I suppose people could argue that I shouldn't be listening to it, that every five minutes of exposure would dock my musical IQ by one point. But I would say you only get dumber if you let it. Perhaps it appeals to so many people because despite all the high tech manipulation to get the sound, the result is downright primitive. A Related Link The Shortwave Numbers Mystery. Since I've read this story, I've been scouring the shortwave frequencies to check for those strange stations. So far, I haven't found any, but that probably means I haven't tried hard enough. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:28 AM : Friday, June 13, 2003 Tracking Facades Well, no one is perfect, but people can certainly act as if their lives were the polished ideal. I saw a family. A mother, a father, a young man perhaps nineteen or twenty, and two small boys perhaps between six and nine. The family met an acquaintance of theirs, an older woman who was a friend of the parents. Each action, each conversational phrase (to me) appeared choreographed and preordained. The adults exchanged pleasantries, the young man shook the woman's hand--perhaps a tentative initiation of the younger into the rituals of the elders. The younger boys kicked up dust and grass, impatient, bored, full of suppressed energy. There was the older couple. The man dressed casually yet restrained, salt and pepper hair on his head and chin, and he wore the expression of an expert, self-confident, pretending to know what he was talking about. The woman, equally well-dressed except her wardrobe was full of bright colors. She carried a totebag and her hair was cut professionally into a pageboy style. She nodded amiably to her chatting spouse, but who knows what sort of thoughts lurked behind her sunglasses? The vacationing executive was not hard to spot among the chic students. He had a certain gait that only came from a repetitive action like carrying a bag on only one shoulder. In fact, he was carrying a bag, a black laptop bag. He wore a striped white and blue shirt, beige shorts that were perhaps a hand above his knobby and pale knees, and white socks pulled high. In one hand, he carried a white and red umbrella. The other hand held a cellphone which was glued to his ear. As he strolled down the sidewalk, he chatted furiously with the person on the other end of the connection, his face getting red without the help of the sun. On the bus, I met a traveler. He was a balding graduate student on vacation. He was visiting someone in Hanover and while he was here, he decided to do some shopping. He was loaded with bags of outdoor equipment, preparation for hiking in the Appalachians. He stuck out from the busload of locals who all had a sort of trashy but innocent look about them--maybe it was his wireframe glasses, preppy yet non-descript clothes, and lack of eccentric attitude. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:30 PM : Here's some interesting resources for anyone who is a mythology/folklore freak like me: Dave's Mythical Creatures. A general bestiary with entries on dragons, sea creatures, and other things that go bump in the night. Demonology. This contains basic information for beginners. The list is a nice place to start. The Mythic Chinese Unicorn Zhi. This site is really comprehensive. All you ever wanted to know about the Chinese unicorn (not the same creature as in western mythology) and then some. Abraxas Tarot. As well as articles, there are reviews on various tarot decks. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:15 AM : Thursday, June 12, 2003 Afternoon Library Meanderings For lunch, I wandered through the bowels of the humanities library in search of a three-pronged outlet. There are plenty of outlets at the library but ninety percent of them are only two-pronged. I guess I'll have to get an adapter (if such things exist) some time in the next week. I have rarely gone to the humanities library for most of the year due to the fact that the biomedical library was much closer to lab, the desks far more isolated from other desks (the humanities library doesn't have desks, per se, just tables), and that there were too many students using the library at any given time when classes were in session. Now, since most of the undergraduates are gone and the only people visiting campus are hordes of doddering alumni, the libraries are pretty much deserted. Walking rather aimlessly in deserted buildings (especially when you don't have any pressing engagements) is like emersing oneself into an alien landscape. I can pretend for a moment, that I am an archaeologist wandering through strange underground passageways and examining each thing, wondering what it was used for. In the end, I found myself in the English Department--a rather dark dead-end corridor with closed doors--and I had to trace my footsteps back. I haven't taken English classes in many years and the plaque that declared "English Department" looked too ominous by far. I found an abandoned conference room with the desired outlets. As I type this, I'm hoping that the room isn't reserved for anything, that no one will happen by--so I could retain my illusions of being alone, and of course, not get caught with the remains of my lunch. The room is dark, but the olive curtains are pulled back and the windows are open. There's a slight breeze and a lonely fly drifts lazily to and fro, keeping close to the window. Someone is playing a tune on the tower bells. It's a tune I can't quite place my finger on. A childish tune with many descending triads. There's a painting of an early 20th century professor staring down at me. It's unnerving to have an inanimate blue gaze boring down on me in disapproval. Readme. (via Shellen.com) This makes writers sound egotistical, but it is rather practical. It's common sense, really, but some people don't have any common sense. Those people need things spelled out. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:13 AM : The Thursday Threesome: Quoth the Raven, Nevermore Onesome: Quoth- Do you use quotations much? ..at all? What is your favorite quote? ...and why, pray tell? I like to collect quotations very sporadically, but right now, I don't have a favorite one. Good quotes always encapsulate an idea in a concise and clever manner. However, I rarely use quotes in essays. It's a lazy method of using up space and it's not original. Twosome: the Raven- The symbol of the raven has a lot of mythology and superstition attached. How are you in this area? Do you avoid ladders with black cats perched on them on Friday the thirteenth? ...or do you just toss a pinch of salt over your shoulder and move along about your business? Hmmm? I know quite a lot about mythology and superstitions and I'm always getting books about these subjects whenever I can scrape together some money. I don't believe in any of it, but as a writer, I find them rich material for possible story ideas. Threesome: Nevermore- ...and the softball of the week: What is it that you've tried that is on the "Nevermore" list? ...and do people even dare to bring it up around you? Not that I can think of. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:42 AM : Some people get annoyed because others expect them to "read their minds." I get paranoid because I'm afraid someone does know how to read my mind. It's the invasion of privacy thing with an invisible twist. How would I know that someone is reading my mind? I won't be able to feel it. At least I assume not. Not like telepathy where you hear someone's voice in your head. 11 Quick Tips for Bloggers. (via Ain't Too Proud to Blog) These tips aren't just applicable to the bloggers who read this site--so just ignore all the conservative-centric stuff sprinkled in it. I think I also disregarded all these tips at one time or another too. (Aside: With such a blatantly partisan address, I was definitely curious as to whether or not there was a left wing news site. There is. Too bad there isn't a No Wing News or Wingless News site.) Simple Guide to the A-List Bloggers. I'm just surprised that no one did this sooner. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:22 AM : Wednesday, June 11, 2003 More on Sex Ed and Children Kiffin remarked that blaming society for all the trials and tribulations of explaining the facts of life to the younger generation is too simple of a solution. Yes, I don't even know half of what parents go through when they realize that their kids are growing up--I've only been on the other side. I have no idea what sort of emotional impact parents and educators feel when trying to deal with this. I've patched up my views from logic and observation. Kids nowadays have no firm grounding on what is expected of them because they are given conflicting messages most often by the media. I believe parents should take the initiative and point out to their children what is and what is not fabricated, but many times, the parents are too busy. Eden wanted to know what I thought about stores that hide covers of magazines with sex-oriented headlines due to customer complaints. Well, I suppose a privately owned store is allowed to do whatever they wish to promote the products they're selling. Some of the customers may be thinking of the children while others may just be plain offended. At this point, putting covers on magazines is like Jean Grey in the X-men sequel stemming the flood to save her loved ones. Sure, it might shield a few people, but it's rather pointless in the long run. Television, movies, billboards, clothing styles, advertisement in general--it's really hard to avoid sex-oriented stuff unless you've been living on the moon. I have absolutely no ideas in mind for solutions. Sometimes I just wish that there were no taboos invented at all. It shouldn't be about what is moral (that is relative) but what is natural*. Unlike what some people believe, these are two entirely different things. *I keep on quantifying things, but I really have to explain myself here. In this context, natural means that if mankind has the capacity of doing something, mankind will do it. This includes a lot of ugly and deviant things that most people would be uncomfortable with even thinking about. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:42 PM : Sex Ed and Children It's funny how society views sex as something evil and dirty and many parents find it incredibly awkward to discuss "the birds and the bees" with their children. I suppose one could explain it away with prevalent religious puritanism but I am not sure if that is the only reason. I've come across opinions that say other cultures are more open in this regard, especially when high-talking sociologists compare western and eastern cultures. Well, maybe. But I am more toward the side that people just try not to talk about it at all, hoping that the kids would just find out for themselves and everything will be okay. That was exactly the approach that my parents took. They never deliberately had a talk with me and gave me the facts. But then again, they really did have it easy--I was already into science books at a young age so all my parents had to do was to recommend that I read particular books that gave the lecture for them. This was good, I didn't get a fuzzy picture from listening to a lot of hemming and hawing. On the other hand, my view of the subject was a lot more clinical than people who gathered the mechanics from watching television. As for school sex ed classes, I found them incredibly boring. There were always permission slips to sign. That was ridiculous since most students already knew something about sex anyway (probably more than the teacher I would bet) and if a parent didn't want their kid to attend the class, that was just plain selfish and stupid. It's like refusing to tell a child that there's no Santa Claus or denying that the earth is round. Besides, the classes were more about preaching than disseminating facts. We might as well go to church for that same lecture. But really, this is more about what's perceived to be right or wrong, what's socially acceptable rather than facts and even health. Maybe explaining sex wouldn't be such a scary thing if kids were already grounded on what is considered acceptable behavior*. *What I mean by acceptable behavior is by following the "norms" of society. What is normal? Well, I'll leave that to another discussion. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:01 AM : Tuesday, June 10, 2003 There may not be a Tuesday Too. 1. Why do you do these memes? Why do you think people in general do them? My first meme was probably a link to a quiz. I liked them a lot back in the day. Now I only do a quiz if it really, really amuses me. I think I also started blogging because of a meme--the whole write a novel in a month thing--and I got curious about the people who were doing it. I first came across the Tuesday Too because of another (now defunct) meme called Blogger Insider. It seemed like a nice way to "extend the conversation" so to speak. Besides, it was because of jf's blogroll that I came across Taco Shop Psychic. As for other people, they probably do memes for the same reasons that I do them. I don't care if they do memes or not although I tend not to visit their sites anymore if they don't have any original content. 2. Do you read the responses of other people when they meme? Only if their memes are the same ones I'm doing. At the moment, I only read responses to the Tuesday Too meme(s), Unconscious Mutterings (Sunday), and the Thursday Threesome. Other people's answers to the Thursday Threesome annoy me though. I'm not sure if it's the same way in other memes, but most of the people who do this one take it less of a writing exercise and more like a personality quiz. You know, the "What kind of tea do you like?" kind of questions. I keep reading in hopes that someone decides to snap out of their coma to answer the questions creatively. 3. What memes do you try to always do, and conversely which do you avoid, and why? I always do the memes that I start. Somehow, I don't think it's fair to suddenly quit someone's project simply because they're making up silly questions. The Tuesday Too, however, didn't have any silly questions--it was (is) one of the more intelligent memes out there. I took up the Thursday Threesome when the Tuesday Too became sporadic. I don't remember where I picked it up (maybe at Shawn Allison?), but at the time, it seemed interesting. I first saw Unconscious Mutterings on Chad's blog. I liked it not because it was filler, but because it pulled words out of my brain before I had a chance to think and sparked ideas for writing projects. But I'm probably the only person doing that meme to use it that way. I typically avoid doing memes that lead you around like a dog on a leash and invite one word answers. I also avoid doing memes using a list structure. But that doesn't mean I avoid reading them. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:33 AM : Students shirk cursive as keyboard rules in third grade. "Cursive was so character-defining when I was in school," says Amy Greene, whose 9-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son prefer keyboards to cursive in their Palo Alto classrooms. "The way you wrote something was considered part of your inner being, your core, your worth. ... Now it's considered an anachronism." You may think it's character-defining and I may think so too, but that doesn't mean everyone else does. Evidence: older people with bad handwriting. I abandoned writing reports and homework by hand a long time ago. It's a sign of professionalism, that you've "got your act together", when you hand in a printed report. Otherwise it's unorganized and slovenly. I still write in cursive on a daily basis in writing notebooks. Perhaps instinctively I know it's a dying art--since so many are switching to printing with chunky letters if they have to write by hand at all--so that I practice it every day in fear that I might forget. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:26 AM : Monday, June 09, 2003 Herd Mentality I don't know what's with me today. I should be totally excited. Instead, I'm feeling smothered. Exactly what is smothering me, I'm not sure. Maybe I'm too chicken to find out. UPS left a note saying that they were delivering a package for me tomorrow. Wow! A package for me?! No one ever sends me anything. Wait a minute. It's probably that notebook I ordered a week ago. Now all I need to do is to scrape up some money to get a wireless card and an external DVD burner (in that order) and I'll be set for the next decade. I really should be psyched. Notebooks, good ones at any rate, are too damned expensive, but they are also convenient. I could do my work in the bowels of the library, in the bell tower, on the lawn, in bed--pretty much anywhere. The computer I ordered is a kazillion times faster than my old clunker and I have no doubt it will attempt to make my paper writing journals obsolete. But getting a notebook is like "keeping up with the Jones." I hate that I've decided to embrace convenience (no more fighting over communal terminals) and forsake individuality (I'll look like one of those bland, laptop-toting, yuppie-wannabe students). Now all I need is a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a chic wardrobe from the GAP, and a plastic cup of coffee complete with one of those weird sippy lids. I could say the coffee would be from Starbucks, but that would be impossible. There's some town ordinance against all money-grubbing corporations except for the GAP. Maybe that's what's bothering me. As I try to keep up with everything, I feel more and more faceless and brainless. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:57 PM : It's raining. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone could confirm the weather by looking it up on the weather channel. You would also think that I would be excited that once again the sun is obscured by a cover of thick clouds. The lack of light in the morning to make up for the excess of light about eight or nine in the evening. All I can say is: ugh. I don't know what it is about this time of the year that makes it feel depressing. The end of another school year? People graduating and leaving? Perhaps that's it, because I'm not leaving. I'm left in this rarefied environment where my only glimpses of the outside world are pictures and other people's words. I need to do something. Well, to be honest, I've got plenty of things to do, I just need something different. I'm like a car battery that needs to be jump-started. I need to get out of town for at least a couple of hours or go on a hike without other things intruding or even buying an outrageously priced fruit drink from the local juice bar. Just getting soaked in the rain would be fine too. Personal Writing Progress With all my classes out of the way for the summer, I have only lab to really concentrate on. This also means that my evenings are mostly free to pound out the words instead of memorizing the next signaling pathway. I'm hoping to finish the draft of a short story that I've been struggling off and on (mostly off) for the past couple of months by July. I know I should be continuing on with the serials that I already have up on the web. I'm not sure where I'm heading with those--I might end up leaving them for another year. Meanwhile, I'm starting another serial (probably a bad idea, but the characters and the plot won't get out of my head at the moment) which I am not putting online until I have a significant chunk of it written. There's no fantasy or sci-fi in this one but there are a lot of characters who are bloggers. Fictional bloggers, not bloggers who write fiction. I guess I should put up a disclaimer that the characters are made up people and not anyone real. The blogging part isn't central to the story although it makes up a great deal of the plot. At the moment, I'm not sure what sort of genre I will make it--it could be horror, romance, thriller, mystery, or even a western (highly unlikely though). Or I could be psuedo-literary and talk about existentialism for a couple of pages. Anyways, I'll worry about that if I manage to get to the point of posting it. I'm just happy right now that I've gotten part of the first scene done. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:58 AM : Sunday, June 08, 2003 Articles on Writing and Some Other Things Tacit Knowledge -- Writing a Book. The Two Blowhards tackle on the idea that everyone wants to write a book. I would agree that writing isn't necessarily fun or even profitable and are the probable reasons that there are less people making a living as authors than one would think. But I hope the essay doesn't put off people who do truly want to write! I'm probably one of the "obsessed lunatics [who] feel they just gotta"--that is, I'll continue writing if there is no chance that I would get published. (But that doesn't mean I'm not serious. I'm actually more of a short story writer. I've joined writing groups and have submitted works to potential markets several times.) I'm tickled that he thinks writing a novel in a month and then posting it on the web is a viable solution. Plenty of people have done that already (myself included) and there is already a whole organization dedicated to writing a novel in a month. DyRE's Guide to Minimising Exposure to Intellectually Deficient and/or Damaging Acts of Blog. Despite giving me a headache from all the long words and run-on sentences (with far too many extraneous metaphors) the writer does have some salient points. Weblogs with unoriginal titles and layout may be an indicator of boring content. But I disagree on one point. If a reader is truly looking for good content, he or she shouldn't be afraid of sampling a few posts despite a blog's appearance. It wouldn't hurt, and besides, it's worth all the effort once you've found a gem. Ten Tips for Building a Bionic Weblog. I think I broke all the rules at one point or another. Most bloggers are teenage girls. (via Belicove.com) So teenage girls writing about angst and such is a bad thing? Okay, so maybe they contribute 99% of the dreck out in the web, but that doesn't mean that they are taking over the world. I would defend the girls' ability to express themselves, one, because I was a teenage girl not so long ago (although I channeled my energy into writing bad fantasy fiction instead of blogging) and two, because there is the principle of free speech. Serious bloggers definitely exist, but that doesn't mean the entire phenomenon should be serious. Exactitudes. (via Metafilter) Stereotypes by fashion. But then wouldn't stereotypes be inevitable? There are only certain types of clothing produced in the world and a finite number of combinations. Anyways, I was partly disappointed they didn't have my stereotype: jeans and untucked plain t-shirt (or jeans and sweatshirt, although I do sort of look like this when I say I'm a polar bear during the winter). But there are some that made me chuckle. For instance chickies make up 90% of the female student population. All the foreign Asian male grad students seem to dress like this while the other grads wear this (but I don't agree with the site's label--maybe only in Rotterdam). [originally posted on 11:10 AM] [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:14 PM : Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:42 AM : Saturday, June 07, 2003 Breaking the Pattern There are a lot of things that make writing good instead of bad or even mediocre. One of these things is sentence structure, particularly style and variability. From critiquing various types of writing--fiction, non-fiction, science papers--many writers have the problem of using words, phrases, or constructions that they are fond of, too often. Ordinary speech is littered with repetitive phrases, but most of the time they're ignored and filtered out like radio static. Writing, however, is more concrete and it becomes painfully obvious when specific words or modifiers like "upshot" or "in short" appear on every other line. I admit it, I'm also guilty at times for not varying sentence pattern, especially when I'm writing something that I'm not editing carefully. It's annoying when I notice the problem in an archived post, but like my older, badly spelled posts, I don't change anything. Perfectionism has its place in edited magazines. A personal weblog would be more lax. I may complain from time to time about people not using standard English in their own posts, but it is their site to do with as they wish. I use mine partly for writing practice and I like to look back to see how much I have progressed. "Breaking the pattern" is something that I (as well as other writers) constantly struggle with, and unfortunately it's one of those things that is difficult to outgrow, if ever. We can try to minimize it, though, by paying more attention while writing and ruthless editing but it would be impossible to eliminate it. There are times when patterns are beneficial such as emphasizing a point or writing experimental prose. Patterns are useful to organize complex ideas and reports where clarity is prized. But I believe it is the smaller patterns, the smaller words that tap into the brain like obnoxious woodpeckers, that are in most dire need of culling, and are perhaps the easiest to do so. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:49 AM : Friday, June 06, 2003 Links: Girls Teach Teen Cyber Gab to FBI Agents. (via Tiger Cafe) Very amusing. I can just imagine the agents trying way too hard to be hip. The Blair Hornstine Project. Well, it looks like it's gotten worse. Not only has this 17-year-old sued her school system for the privilege of being the sole valedictorian at her high school, but she has been caught plagiarizing. Jonathan Franzen's author photo. Er, what about digital enhancement? They do that to supermodels on the covers of Cosmo all the time. Fairy tales may not be sending children the best life messages. Hey! I like fairy tales but even when I was four, I never believed any of them. Adults don't give kids enough credit for being able to tell reality from fantasy. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:08 PM : Thursday, June 05, 2003 About the Voice (In response to Chad's post on audioblogging.) I don't pay much attention to voices unless they sound really annoying, especially when people imitate howler monkeys (my neighbors), Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday, little girls (when the speaker isn't a little girl), falsetto, etc. The list could go on infinitum. I do pay enough attention, though, to tell Person A apart from Person B but not enough attention to tell off bat who is calling on the phone or leaving a message on the answering machine (probably due to the recording quality). What I find interesting is my preconceived notion of voices, particularly when reading something. Due to the style of writing in a blog and who it's being written by, I get stuck with ideas for the voice based on similar people that I know. So I'm almost always surprised when someone posts a voice sample. Except the so-called popular bloggers. They sound exactly how I envisioned them to sound like. Yuppies. Which isn't a bad thing. At least they don't sound like howler monkeys. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:30 AM : The Thursday Threesome: Rice Krispies Treats Onesome: Rice- Okay, what's the preference at your place at dinner time, rice or potatoes? ...or something else? Hmmm? This is a no-brainer. Rice and vegetables. I'm not a vegetarian, but the huge slabs of meat my roommates have stuffed into the freezer sort of gross me out. As for potatoes, I occasionally eat those too although pasta and noodles are far more frequent. Twosome: Krispies- ...and how about breakfast? If you're a cereal person, what is your favorite? ...or is there something else you'd prefer to start your day with? I must have something hot to drink. Usually coffee. Threesome: Treats- Has anyone not seen "Finding Nemo"? What treat did you have to buy (or slip in) for it to be a "Theatre Experience"? I can probably think of at least fifty people who haven't seen Finding Nemo. The Matrix Reloaded however is another story. I haven't seen that movie yet due to logistical reasons, but I will probably see it in the next week or so. And of course, I'm still one of those people who haven't seen Titanic. Couple a romantic drama with an inevitable ending and it's a sure fire way to keep me away. For me, the "theater experience" is not about buying popcorn and coke and coming with all your friends. I like going to the movies alone (no companions to entertain), preferably in a half-empty theater. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:44 AM : Wednesday, June 04, 2003 There is no Tuesday Too. Yes, I'll rather answer these than another nosy, So how many exams do you have? 1. Request from a friend. Even if you don't do anything else for this edition of the faux-Tuesday Too, please answer this: do you ever have dreams where you read something and actually know what it is that you're reading? Yes. For instance: the whiteboard and an immunology textbook while I was dreaming about an entire immunology lecture, front pages of newspapers and magazines, novels, random street signs. If there is something to read in my dreams, I'll probably read it. I'm sure a lot of other people can read in their dreams. This refutes the idea put forth by some uptight psychoanalyst (who I don't remember the name right now) that one cannot read while dreaming because only the right brain (intuitive) is active during dreaming and not the left brain (analytical). 2. Got any music in your collection you're absolutely ashamed of owning? Nope. The only music I would be ashamed of is country/western and I take great pains to avoid it as it is. 3. A two-parter: you're having an allergy attack. What's the first thing you try to relieve your itchy, runny nose and sneezing? A tissue. Of course, I can avoid allergy attacks altogether if I stay out of the south during September. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:01 PM : Redundancy When are your exams? Have you chosen a thesis lab yet? Which lab do you want to work in? Have you talked to your advisor yet? When are you going home? Are you taking a holiday? When are you doing your presentation? Have you finished the proposal? Have you finished the proposal critique? How long are you going to be away? When are you moving in? Have you renewed your lease? What did housing tell you? How is your studying going? Did you eat dinner yet? Arg! Busybodies! One thing at a time, please! My policy is to evade all questions that have anything to do with deadlines. I don't want to be turned into a deadline-obsessed neurotic. As for whether or not I've eaten dinner yet, that's a ridiculous question and I'm not going to answer that because it won't change the world if I have or have not. Sort of like questions about the weather. Those bother me a lot more than they used to. Sometimes I wonder if all these inane questions aren't really a more subtle poking around in order to find out information from me and various other people so that the questioner can guage their placement within the "rat race." Except how can I tell them that this isn't like a rat race at all, that competition isn't the point? This is about solving a puzzle which may have many answers, not about scrambling to the top so that the first person wins and everyone else loses. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:37 PM : Tuesday, June 03, 2003 An Example of Science vs. Privacy I've never really thought much about human linkage analysis which is typically represented by a chart of squares (male), circles (female), and interconnecting lines indicating a family tree. From such a chart, a scientist can easily extrapolate genetic information like inheritance and penetrance of a particular genetic disease. It is just another tool for geneticists from the simplified punnet square to chi-squared analysis, fingerprinting with SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms), and karyotyping. This is all fine and dandy if you're collecting data from peas or mice. But collecting data from people? This is where the element of human deception enters the picture. What I mean by human deception are the cases where the patients lie to the doctors and researchers about the relationship of family members--most notably, if the father of a woman's children is not the woman's husband. True genetic relationships will become inevitably clear to the researcher who has to analyze everyone's genotype. So the quandary: do you publish the data, dirty family secrets and all? Do you tell the husband that he is not the father? I was surprised that there are currently provisions that allow researchers to "fudge" data to protect the privacy of the family. I don't know what to think about this. On one hand, I understand why the family would want to keep their privacy, but then again these people have consented to be studied. Fudging data is viewed as an extremely bad thing in the scientific community, and I feel there is something inherently wrong about people forcing scientists to lie because of their own indiscretions. Of course, that's the problem with studying humans. They have minds of their own. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:00 PM : Monday, June 02, 2003 College-Bound Students Often Skip Race Question. I completely agree with the students interviewed in the article. Race should have nothing to do with applications. I personally find the race/ethnicity section (as well as determining my sex and asking for a photo) on applications irrelevant and inconsequential compared to the heart of the application. I don't want to be judged on something as superficial as my appearance. I am me. Not just another Asian. (Oh, I'm not forgetting that my name itself would ring warning bells, but the Romanized version of my last name after being garbled in Vietnamese is ubiquitous enough that some non-Asians use it.) However, I do see why the university administrations are frustrated at being unable to gather statistics. I just don't understand why they have to put it on an application and not something separate that statisticians can gather but not the people who make matriculation decisions. Downhill. This is an interesting site where you can investigate your placement within the blog network. At most, this site is no more than three degrees in separation from most popular or well-known blogs. So far, I haven't found a blog further than five degrees of separation (or maybe the program doesn't go further). Some obscure blogs, obviously, are not in the database, but it's also interesting to note that the network at some places is only a one-way street. For instance, my site leads eventually to Camworld. However, there is no way you can get to my site if you start at Camworld. There are other sites which may eventually lead to me, but the reverse isn't true. And there are some sites where there are no connections either way. This leads me to hypothesize that blog connections are a lot like the hubs and satellites that others have talked about, but that there are separate clusters, even within English-written blogs. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:38 PM : Dream Bits
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:05 AM : Sunday, June 01, 2003 Laundry Indigestion Apparently, I'm the only person who actually waits in the laundry room until my laundry is done. Perhaps the people around here believe that it's terminally uncool to spend two hours in a musty basement breathing in detergent, listening to water rushing through pipes, and reading the six month old copies of Rolling Stone, Time, and Men's Health slouching on one of those nearby magazine racks. I would argue that they were not practical enough to bring their own reading material and a set of headphones. While I was passing the time that it took my clothes to dry by listening to George Fenton and reading about the cell cycle, a young woman in a bright yellow shirt breezed into the laundry room carrying a basket of clothes. She stuffed her clothes and a liberal helping of detergent into a washer, dropped in some quarters, and pressed a button. The sound of the washer being filled up with water started. The young woman rinsed her laundry basket in the nearby sink and placed it on the table to dry. Then she left. I went back to reading. A few pages later, George Fenton's lulling melodies were drowned out by a loud thunk. Ku-lunk! Ku-lunk! Ku-lunk! The washer with the young woman's clothes was shaking violently, teetering on its supports. It was vibrating as if it was being electrocuted or being shaken by a large, angry hand. Its insides screeched every time it tried to process the laundry. Was there too much laundry? Too much detergent? One piece of laundry much heavier than the others? Ku-lunk! Ku-lunk! Ku-lunk! I remembered stories where grad students had neglected to place balancers in microfuges and the machine bounced across lab benches when they turned the machine on. I recalled pictures of mutilated labs that I had seen in safety training seminars when technicians failed to maintain the washer-sized centrifuges and the rotors and bits of metal going at tens of thousands of rpm went flying in all directions, destroying everything in sight. Uneasiness gripped me and I had the urge to run upstairs and warn people of an impending washer explosion. Ku-lunk! Ku-lunk! Ku- Whew. Whoever designed the washer must have put in a safety mechanism to prevent bad laundry from destroying the machine. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:28 AM : Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:29 AM : |
