Monday
Jul192010

Planets not in retrograde; planets in dumper

Overnight my sore throat managed to turn into the worst case of strep throat in history (well, my history).  I can't remember being in such bad shape that simply attempting to drink a glass of water makes me choke.

I went out around noon to the doctor, who ended up prescribing both antibiotics and prednisolone as my throat was so swollen. The combination of steroids and Aleve make it possible for me to sleep for an hour or two, but only if I'm sitting up. Otherwise I start doing this weird choking and gagging thing again. This is no fun.

Then I finally opened my email to find out that I didn't get the Bank of America job.  Sigh.

Friday
Jul162010

The latest from The New Scientist, or why I'm hosed

From the July 2 issue of a UK magazine.

You'll need to click on the link to see the faces being discussed. And if you're wondering, I wear size 10N shoes. 

Why men are attracted to women with small feet

Which face is more attractive? If you chose the face on the left, you share the tastes of most heterosexual men. It is a composite face, or "morph", made from the faces of eight women with unusually small feet. The face on the right is a morph of eight women with unusually large feet.

It's quite a difference, isn't it? Women with smaller feet have prettier faces, at least according to the men who took part in this study. So do women with longer thigh bones and narrower hips, as well as women who are taller overall. And the contest isn't even a close one. "These are the most strikingly different morphs I've ever seen," says Jeremy Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist at the University at Albany, New York.

 

Thursday
Jul152010

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the kitchen...

Last weekend I came down with an odd gastric virus that made me slightly unhappy over the weekend, then seemed to disappear, yet came back with a vengeance Tuesday night. Now it's packed up and totally gone.

However, I went out Monday and bought a bunch of bananas. They didn't get eaten and are now all nice and freckly, so I decided to make some banana bread. I'm the only person I know who likes freckly bananas, and I wasn't about to sit there and eat six at one sitting.

If truth be told, I used to cook a lot, especially during my first marriage. My first husband thought I was a wonderful cook, and would even ask me to stock the freezer with steak and kidney pies before I left for an occasional trip back to Texas from wherever we were overseas. And when I first looked at Chez Melina before buying it, one reason I wanted the house is because it had one of these stoves.

Like most people I know, I prefer cooking with gas as I always burn up my pans on electric stoves. And the stove had a nostagic appeal, as I grew up in a home with an identical model. (Its finished products never had a lot of appeal; this was because my mother was, and is, a terrible cook.)

But I digress. Back to the banana bread.

After returning to Chez Melina with all the ingredients, I realized that the preparation time was not going to be the 15 minutes as shown on the recipe card. This is because:

  • I had to evict the resident cat and clean the kitchen counters first.
  • I decided the floor needed cleaning, too.
  • I spent 20 minutes locating the appropriate pans and bowls.
  • I spent another 10 minutes washing all pans and bowls because they were dusty.

However, the banana bread is now in the oven and Radar the cat is happily licking the bowl. Watch for updates on the finished product. I have high hopes.

Thursday
Jul152010

Timewaster, part 2

Of course I couldn't just have one of my writing samples analyzed. So I went back and copied/pasted a more recent blog entry from 2010. It scored David Foster Wallace.

Uh-oh.

Thursday
Jul152010

Finally ... a timewaster worth sharing

Maurice, one of my few and faithful readers, blogged about a cool site called "I Write Like".  Just copy and paste some of your own immortal prose into a text box, hit Analyze, and see who you sound like.

I went back into my 2006 archives and dug up some paragraphs from the original version of Twilight Express for analysis. This is the opinion I received. I am guessing that's it's mainly because Joyce always wrote in third person, like I did.

(Of course, if it had told me I write like a writer I don't like, I'd be pissed off and not posting this here. But Joyce is one of my all-time favorites.)

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!