The bright side of a Moon
It’s “Lots O’ Short Posts Day” at Lunar Obverse!
After giving it careful consideration, I’ve decided that Diet Vanilla Coke trumps Diet Coke with Lime.
Not that Diet Coke with Lime is bad, or otherwise undrinkable. Indeed, it’s the only other form of Coke that is at all palatable. It’s just that Diet Vanilla Coke is better.
It’s bad enough that, somehow, I ended up on Ticketmaster’s spam list, and can’t get unsubscribed.
But I gotta get emails reminding me not to miss Neil Diamond, too?
Ugh.
*ahem*
A little somethin’-somethin’ for the two or three people who read my blog and like music.
Just sayin’.
Me, I’m not so much into the live music. Unless it’s a show I’ve seen and want to remember forever (Radiohead, I’m talkin’ to you.)
Update 27 February 2022: Sadly, Bootleg Browser’s link has rotted.
Ran this morning. Yes. It’s true. I actually was able to drag my ass out of bed this morning early enough to go for a run. It was awesome. A complete victory.
Well, a nearly complete victory. I was going to do speed work this morning. The plan was to warm up a bit, then see how fast I could do back-to-back miles. I was hoping for close to 8:00 minute miles, but realized that was ambitious.
How did I do?
Let’s look at the half-mile splits, shall we?
0.5 = 4:07.52
1.0 = 4:44.06
1.5 = 5:55.41
2.0 = 4:20.19
Um… one of those times is not like the others. WTF? Almost a 6:00 mile? I did stop to walk a little bit, but I do not remember it being that slow. But there it is. Dammit.
At any rate, my total for the 2.0 miles is 19:07.18, or a mile pace of 9:33.59. I know I can do better.
Tomorrow morning I’m running to work, at least 5.5 miles. I’m aiming for a 10:00 pace but, again, that’s probably optimistic. But it’s my goal.
I’ve had cats in the past, and most of them have responded better to training than Smacky does. I’ve trained cats to come when I call (every time I called, but never for anyone else in the household, much to their chagrin), to fetch, to sit on my shoulders when I’m walking…
OK, Smacky does do that last one. He’ll jump up on my shoulders when I ask him to and he’s not busy attackin something else. It’s just that, most of the time, he’s attacking something else.
He likes to jump up on the kitchen counter and dragging my dishrag all over the house. I’ll come out of the bedroom in the morning, stumbling around in the dark, half-awake, and step on the damp dishrag. First couple of times it happened I thought I was stepping in some biological waste, but now I just moan “Smacky…” drawing out the final vowell sound in frustration.
At which point, Smacky, who was rolling around on his side and back, stretched out and mewling and hoping for attention since I’ve been mean-spirited-ly ignoring him all night by sleeping, would then take my moaning to be the signal to pounce. On me.
If I was Smacky, I think I would understand a human shouting and yelling and dancing around trying to a) avoid stepping on me, b) keeping my feet out of the way of my sharp claws and teeth, and c) scrambling around looking for the water bottle to mean “Hey, the human doesn’t want me to do this anymore. I should stop.” But, apparently from Smacky’s perspective, a, b, and c add up to: playtime.
I’ve recently begun bribing him with vile-smelling (to me) chicken and liver flavored treats if he would stop biting and scratching me. Unfortunately, I think he has interpreted this to mean, “If I bite and scratch him he will give me treats” so it’s effective in an ineffective way, just reinforcing the behavior I don’t want him to have. Argh.
Smacky is a stubborn learner. Or, actually, he’s an awesome learner but not at learning the things I want him to. Technically I’m smarter than he is so I should be able to train him. But in all actuality, he’s training me.
When giving a gift to someone, you can give them something that you’d like them to have, or you can give them something that they’ve always wanted but would never buy for themselves.
Which gift is more thoughtful?
Short “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” review: I hope it’s not damning it with faint praise to say that it could have been worse.
Slightly longer review: Too many of the punchlines to jokes have been cut from the movie. For example, they have the setup of Zaphod stealing Trillian away from Arthur with the line, “Hi. Is this guy boring you? Why don’t you come with me? I’m from another planet. Want to see my spaceship?”
…but then, later, when they have Trillian and Arthur talking about it, they don’t show Trillian saying, “…but you have to admit, he did have a spaceship.” Argh.
Similar things happened a bit too often, so the movie felt somewhat unsatisfying to me. But overall, I did laugh out loud many times, and it’s delightful to see a big-budget version of Douglas Adams’ vision and most of his story on the big screen.
The lyrics to track 11 on The Offspring’s “Conspiracy of One”:
So here we go
Having the same old fight again
There she goes
Same old game that never ends If I could say
The right words
I know I could make you stay
If I could say
The right words
Things would work out all rightAnd if you go
I won’t believe
That it’s foreverAnd you can go
But I’ll never leave
Cause it’s not overReplay last night
Talking it out don’t make it right
I know she’s tried, but my whole world
Is her and all we’ve got nowAnd if you go
I won’t believe
That it’s foreverI won’t let go
Even if she say that it’s over
I know it’ll be
Different this time
If you’d just stayAnd when we wrote this story
How did it end?
It was you and me for all our lives
Come on, don’t say it
We’ll try again
And if I’d just hold you
We could lastBut she stands softly
Tears down her face
Hitting me, oh god
This is the end
I’d wait here for you
But there’s nothing more now I can do
How did you know
How did you know
How did you know
Finally
…take on a whole new meaning when you find that the title is “Denial, Revisited”.
I went for a short run tonight, to clear my head. Partly from the stress of nightmares last night, and partly from the stress of a horrible horrible run yesterday afternoon. My route today was in my neighborhood, 2.5 miles total, and thanks to the wonders of mapping software, I know where each half-mile point is.
My plan was to take it easy every other half-mile, but aim for as close to a 4:00 mark on at least two of the segments. Since it’s an out-and-back route (the middle half-mile is actually a quarter-mile one way, then turn around and come back), each half is a mirror of the other. The first half is almost all downhill and therefore the second half is almost all uphill in equal measure.
During the run, though, I realized that if I throw out the middle leg, I can average the times for the first and last mile and have a pretty good idea what my flat, no-hills time would be for a mile.
And I’m pretty pleased with the result. Here are the individual times:
So my first mile was 8:47.75, and my last mile was 9:23.94, making my average 9:05.85! If you average over the whole thing (including the half-mile of slow-poke) then my average is still a respectable 9:30.25!
Yay, me!
