Bruno is now at the bottom!!

Jerksblog!

Date-Based Archive Taint makes Tax Law funny

http://jerksquad.com/view.php?idtag=1984&responses=3

Although N. will gag at his use of the word "pron".

Posted by erin at 04:41 PM | Comments (3)

Date-Based Archive Almost Invisible Coat

N. pointed out this link. Harry Potter fans everywhere take note.

Posted by erin at 09:49 AM | Comments (3)

Date-Based Archive Top Ten Things Making Me Happy Today

1. Finally being able to write something
2. Losing 20 pounds
3. My brother sending me Ranma theme songs
4. The war finally starting (for me, the uncertainty was worse)
5. The return of "The Funny" to Jerksquad (at least for a little while)
6. Getting made admin of my own machine
7. The new Pizzicato Five album I just got
8. Atom and His Package concert on Friday
9. Finally having finished KOR, and Eugene's kind loan of Boogiepop Phantom
10. Wirschen getting rescued from jail and getting his boots back

Posted by erin at 05:06 PM | Comments (23)

Date-Based Archive Fine!

I will watch Lilo & Stitch tonight and write a review and comparison tomorrow.

I will also hold off on forming opinions about God and all microorganisms until I can see them myself.

Posted by erin at 04:19 PM | Comments (2)

Date-Based Archive Spelling

It has been brought to my attention that my spelling can be very, very bad.

This is a problem if I hope to get that Q.C. job at C.P.M. (cryptic to casual readers of my life, I'm sure).

But what can I do to improve my spelling? Read the dictionary? Have friends quiz me? Read more difficult books? Pay attention when using the spell checker?

Posted by erin at 05:56 PM | Comments (7)

Date-Based Archive The 10% Goal

One of goals of weight watchers is to lose 10% of your body weight in 12 weeks. It is now the 11th week, and I have lost 20 pounds!

That is quite excellent for me. Right now I’m wearing a shirt that hasn’t fit me for almost a year. The pants I bought while at my fattest may require a belt soon. And my $5 pants are baggy, as opposed to when I bought them – I couldn’t button them up to the top.

I am very happy to be back down to my pre-ISO weight, but also somewhat jaded that I gained 20 pounds just because of a stinking office job.

If you’re bored with this already, you should probably stop reading now, because I’m going to go on about it some more…

Way back in 6th grade, during the first Gulf War, in 1991, I reached my full adult height of 5’6”. According to height/weight charts, a person of that height ought to weigh a minimum of 125 and a max of 155 – but as a depressed 6th grader I immediately weighed 165. Other kids my age didn’t hit 110 until freshman year of high school, but by high school I was at 175. My college weight was about 185.

6th grade is when I picked up ridiculously bad eating habits - snacking all the time, snacking compulsively, eating when I was depressed, etc., etc.

As I got older, how I felt about my weight changed. As a sixth grader I felt extremely fat, but when I weighed the most, in the adult world, I felt much better about the way I looked. Granted, I was still pretty unhappy with my weight, especially with doctors telling me I was fat.

I’m usually in pretty good shape. In high school when I ran cross country, I figured that was the thinnest I would ever be, because never again would I want to put enough effort in to run 10 miles in a day. Over the past year I’ve been weight training at a gym, but I still wasn’t losing weight, even if I did gain a lot of nice muscle tone.

I never really lost weight before (except a couple of times, like when I started running, or during one 8th grade diet) and since I was usually in pretty good shape, I just assumed that there was nothing more I could do. I was just going to be stuck not fitting into normal clothes and feeling fat for the rest of my life. But then my mom lost weight... and I thought, maybe this isn't just genetic after all...

Yeah, well, it turns out I wasn’t eating right. Kerry told me this last time he visited and I didn’t believe him, but he was right. I didn’t know how to eat healthy, or even how much I was eating. I was only vaguely aware that I was eating compulsively and didn’t know how to stop.

But thanks to weight watchers, I’ve reformed my eating habits. Sure, it’s a lot of hard work, but I already work really hard at exercising – and counting points is way easier than running 10 miles, or even running 3 miles a day. I still work out, but I don’t have to go nuts if I don’t want to.

Better still, I’m getting more used to the idea that I am not “stuck” weighing a certain amount for the rest of my life. I don’t look fat now, but at 155 I will probably look totally hot! If that sounds vain... so be it. 155 is the maximum an adult my size should weight without being fat. I don’t remember ever weighing that much. I think I must’ve rocketed past that when I was 12.

Will I look freaky when the diet is over? Will 155 be too thin? I don’t think so. My mom is shorter than me, but she’s down to about 145, and that’s still a “large” size. She still looks like my mom and all. At 155 I will probably wear size 11 jeans – still somewhat hard to find at the Gap, but I haven’t been able to fit into size 11 since the last time we attacked Iraq...

Posted by erin at 08:09 PM | Comments (2)

Date-Based Archive Things that are pissing me off today:

Mouse-over for links and links:

1. The loss of all my data and emails from the past two years, work-related and personal.
2. Rampant bigotry on jerksquad, followed by my over-reaction, followed by readers' over-reaction to me.
3. A year's worth of debate about war and heightened security.
4. The death of Yo-Yo Club.
5. Adan pussying out of his fight.
6. N.'s dismissal of my complaints about jerksquad, because anything involving a
community so obviously turns into a "river of shit" sooner or later.
7. Jason's near non-stop mockery of my diet (although his mockings have subsided recently).
8. The constant nagging worry about my dad having lost his job / my mom's worrying about the college restructuring and her getting new titles that are fishy at best.
9. That crazy list on Sam's blog.
10. The loss of comments on AK's blog.

By "pissing off" I guess I more or less mean, "saddened" and "these events wear down on my soul."

For your amusement, I have put together a list of Flaky/Reliable, Crazy/Normal rankings as determined by averages from the ratings in Sam's comments. I gave all zero ratings a negative one score, and then determined averages. I left out Hal-specific people who were only voted on once. Here you can see first the average, then the name, then the individual votes:

Crazy

8.3 Kerry 8, 11, 10, 7, 6, 8
8.3 Rick 11, 9, 11, 10, 8, 1
7.8 AK 9, 6, 12, 3, 9
7.6 Dave 10, 5, 8
7.57 Hal 4, 12, 9, 7, 9, 13, -1,
7.3 Marxgirl 11, 4, 7
7.2 Maggie 9, 11, 6, 5, 5
6.2 Erin 6, 10, 3, 8, 4
4.25 Kari 7, 4, 2, 4
4.2 Noah 8, 5, -1, 2, 7
4 Evonne 7, 1, 5, 4, 3
3.75 Adan 5, 1, 6, 3
3 Sam 3, -1, 2, -1
2.75 Tim 6, 2, 2, 1
0.75 Dan -1, -1, 2, 3

Normal

Flaky

10.25 Maggie 11, 12, 10, 8
6.5 Adan 5, 8
6.3 Evonne 1, 11, 7
6 A.K. 6, 9, 3
5.5 Sam 3, 10, 5, 4
5 Erin 10, 3, 6, 1
5 Tim 6, 7, 2, 5
4.6 Rick 9, 1, 4,
4.3 Kari 7, 4, 2
4.2 Kerry 8, 5, 3, 6, -1
2.3 Dan -1, 9, -1
1 Noah 2, 2, -1
0.25 Hal 4, -1, -1, -1

Reliable

Posted by erin at 12:20 PM | Comments (10)

Date-Based Archive St. Patrick's Day 1986

I have just been watching The Fairy Faith on Sundance channel. It was not about gays, but rather, it is a documentary about people in Ireland and Nova Scotia who’d seen fairies and little people and the like. It was pretty good.

It reminded me of my kindergarten St. Patrick’s Day experience, an anecdote Halifax already knows.

I had a really great kindergarten teacher named Mrs. Wiser. At several holidays she seemed to bring out some kind of magic – like on Halloween she dressed as a gypsy and brought in a real crystal ball. She pretended to look inside of it and see stuff and make a prediction. As a kindergartener, I thought it was somewhat unlikely she was doing real magic, but nevertheless very cool.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Mrs. Wiser lead the class out into the woods behind the school to look for Leprechauns. We searched the woods for a little while, and then someone found a tiny top hat! Then, after some more looking, we found a tiny green felt coat. Eventually we found some chocolate gold coins, or fool’s gold – I don’t remember which.

As a kindergartener I vacillated back and forth as to whether or not we were being set up – sure, Mrs. Wiser could have planted the jacket in the woods for us to find, but it still seemed real and somehow magical. Either way it was terrific and fun!

I recommend The Fairy Faith (2000) for getting this kind of feeling as an adult.

Posted by erin at 09:51 PM | Comments (1)

Date-Based Archive Who would do such a thing?

So I got a laptop at work... correction, I had a laptop at work...

It wasn't very secure in it's little docking station so I kept it locked in a desk drawer with the key hidden under a calendar.

When I came in this morning, the key was in the lock and my laptop was gone. Of course, I immediately checked with Jason, because moving my computer or hiding it is a prank he might pull - but he was out on Friday and didn't come in until 10am. My computer was, indeed, stolen.

Hallmark should make a card, "Sorry for your loss of data." I lost all my work-related emails, my gigs of MP3s, and a ton of documents, all stored locally. My company was using a dubious back-up software, but they recently dropped the program - so there's a slim chance I might get some of my data back, but probably not all of it.

My old pre-laptop machine was just sitting by my desk. They didn't take that. I would have been able to get my stuff back from that, but the tech people wiped the drive clean on Friday - a total erase of OS and everything. What timing!

Tomorrow they might give me a new laptop, but today, I'm on someone else's machine. This is a harsh way to learn to take my desk keys home with me.

Posted by erin at 12:29 PM | Comments (1)

Date-Based Archive World's Largest Cheeto Found

"Beyond Dangerously Cheesy" - This is actually a story on CNN's website!

Good god! Fame and the internet is a crazy thing - like that guy who became an international celebrity from his hilariously bad website, ikissyou.org. It's strange to think that one day you're just some loser, and the next day, you could have a small cult following.

Here's a picture of the cheeto:

Posted by erin at 10:20 AM | Comments (1)

Date-Based Archive Ideas for Mecha Series

Thanks to these generators, I was able to come up with plots for two new anime series!

Title: Electric Omicron-Nuku-Nuku

Our hero finds a War Machine (that resembles a frog) known as Behemoth Smasher: Orion X, in the nick of time to defend his/her town and laboratory from cyborgs. The Behemoth Smasher's secret weapon is the Violence Targeted Mace Crusher. The unexpected return of the hero/heroine's uncle (who is secretly in cahoots with the enemy) complicates matters.

Title: UFO Wolfgirl Ragnarok Rider

Trained from birth in a hideout to defend her country, "Alluring Fighter" Fujiko pilots a secret Mecha called Prototype Neofortress: Master Wings (secret attack move: Annihilator Violent Attack) into battle alongside his/her amazing sister, "Radiant Protector" Umi-chan, who pilots a War Machine known as Chronobreaker: Panzer Hunter (which resembles a fox, and uses the secret attack Crashing Bashing Bolt Mashing Negation). The unexpected return of the heroines' intelligent brother complicates matters, particularly when it is revealed his the pilot of the enemy robot, Motor Seeker: Nova Bat. The Nova Bat has been harassing villagers with the ultimate weapon, the legendary Driving UFO: Planet Driver.

Posted by erin at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Step One: Procrastination

So I’ve been taking notes for “Jerksquad! The Movie” for a couple of weeks, and reading the Robert McKee book Story and taking more notes.

The next step is to actually write some kind of step outline, and turn it into a massive treatment. But the step before that is procrastination.

So far I have done the dishes, I have made jello, I have eaten dinner, and I have refilled the ice cube trays (not necessarily in that order). I also watched part of the movie The Others with my roommate (what a twist ending!). Then we watched the part of Insomniac where Dave Atell was larping in a vampire game (the roommate had this on tape).

I think they are some online comics I haven’t read yet…

Posted by erin at 10:28 PM | Comments (11)

Date-Based Archive After hundreds of dollars, I may be able to run again!

As you may or may not know, in high school I was in cross country and track. I ran every day (at least 1 mile per day) for 700 days in a row. I ran about 3,000 miles over the course of my high school career. In the words of Forrest Gump, "I ran a long way, for a long time."

During college I went running once in a great while, but after so much running in high school I was fairly burnt out.

Around last March or so I tried to start up running again, at least a couple of times a week, only to be plagued by serious knee problems. It wasn't so bad I couldn't walk - but it stopped me from running and forced me to seek out other forms of exercise. I didn't have any health insurance at the time, so I couldn't really do anything else about it.

By last fall I had started working out again regularly and even started seeing a personal trainer. This was all part of a larger plan to reduce some health problems that began after graduation - namely to lower my through-the-roof cholesterol and lose some of the 20 pounds I gained while working at ISO.

It took a long time, even after I finally got health insurance, to find all new doctors, to convince them I needed new inserts for my shoes, etc., etc. Lifting weights helped strengthen my knees, but I still couldn't go running without messing them up. I also couldn't kickbox or use certain gym equipment. The new shoe inserts helped a little, but didn't clear up the problem. Finally I got a hold of an orthopedist - just as my health insurance co-pay more than doubled (up from $10 to $25).

The orthopedist recommended physical therapy, so just before the rates went up, I tried to determine if I'd be able to afford this or not. I asked HR if the physical therapy copay was going up. They said they didn't know, ask the insurance company. I did, and United Healthcare told me no. Whoever I spoke to was wrong - the physical therapy copay was also going up to $25, but I didn't find that out until the first day of therapy. Plus, for some reason the medication I would need to keep the inflammation in my knees down would cost me $50 for 30 pills.

So finally, after about 20 sessions of therapy ($200) and two month's worth of Vioxx ($100), not to mention three visits to the orthopedist to check-up on progress ($75) - I got to run for 12 whole minutes yesterday.

My knees feel pretty good today, but that has got to be the most expensive mile I've ever run.

Posted by erin at 01:18 PM | Comments (8)

Date-Based Archive Oruchuban Ebichu - Housecleaning Hamster

Apparently there's a Gainax series I've never heard of: "Oruchuban Ebichu" Oruchuban Ebichu is about a housecleaning hamster has a lot of sex and violence involved... oh wait, my dad might be reading this. You'll have to search google on your own, kids.

Posted by erin at 04:33 PM | Comments (1)

Date-Based Archive Things vs. Other Things

After a heated discussion last night, I feel the need to clarify my feelings on wars of various types. The following list is by no means a rational one, and should not be taken as such. Obviously, war isn't fair, it's horrible, and no one remotely involved with any war really cares how I "feel" about it. I'm not going to pretend to be able to intelligently rationalize any of the choices on this list, so don't ask.

Robot vs. Robot = OK, encouraged
Nanites vs. Robots of any size = OK, encouraged
Humans vs. Robots = Bad
Humans vs. Robots with Human Pilots = OK
Humans vs. Robots with Alien Pilots (example; Daleks) = OK
Sheep vs. Landmines = OK, lacking other alternatives
Sheep vs. Robots = Bad
Humans with Swords vs. Robots = interesting, but still bad
Humans with stone tools vs. Humans with Lasers = Bad
Humans with stone tools vs. Robots = extra bad
Humans with primitive tools & home jungle advantage vs. Humans in helicopters = fair enough
Well-armed humans vs. Really crappy robots = Probably OK
Well-trained humans with swords vs. Humans with guns = Somewhat iffy, but somewhat noble
Civilians sitting in homes vs. Remotely guided bombs controlled by human at home = Very bad
Meditating monks vs. Robots with lasers = very, very bad.
Low-tech humans vs. Non-lethal Robots = Pretty good.
Monkey vs. Robot = Always hilarious

Note that I'm not rating these based on entertainment value (except monkey vs. robot, clearly). It's more like, which of the above battles makes me ache with the most existential despair...

Posted by erin at 03:48 PM | Comments (5)

Date-Based Archive Spain; Still bitter

http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1182256

This story seems almost totally ridiculous - the Spanish still shout "Remember the Maine!" and according to this reporter, they're still anti-semetic from the Inquisition.

Posted by erin at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Superpowers on NPR

I highly recommend listening to this NPR broadcast, about why ordinary people probably shouldn't have superpowers.

OK... so no one's listened to this yet, (3/4/03, 10:30am) and I don't blame you. It's a long story and I only finished listening to it last night. However, it was totally worthwhile, especially the part about Zora, the real-life would-be Indiana Jones/Super hero girl.

I also terrifically enjoyed the man who could only think of one use for the ability to fly - going to Paris. "Going to Paris Man" he would call himself!