Insignificant Bits

So, for those that thought the tag in yesterday’s post was a bit bizarre, there’s more. You see, two nights ago I was cooking up some fajitas on the grill, and noticed this small, periodic red light emanating from my yard. I was ready to blame this on some kind of as yet unobserved bioluminescent cicada phenomenon, but when I approached, I realized it was a cell phone, face down in the dirt. A nice one too: Siemens m55, color screen, blah blah blah. My backyard, incidentally, is fenced in and not on the way to anything particularly interesting, so finding it practically in the middle of my yard was strange and a little bit disconcerting. So I rescued it and made plans to call its phone book entries last evening to locate the owner, and satisfy my curiosity.

However, just as I arrived at home, a couple that I recognized from the neighborhood knocked on my door. The woman introduced herself as the daughter of my neighbor from across the street, and asked if I had seen the phone. With glee I returned it to them, told them it had probably been rained on but luckily still seemed to work. Then they asked if I had seen the other one. I can’t help thinking, “Uhh.. what the heck is going on here?” They explain that there is a second phone out there, and if I can show them where I found the first, then maybe they can locate it. So I turned them loose in the yard and a few minutes later they found it. My politeness restrained me from asking just how in the hell the phones came to rest there, or why they were unsatisfied losing only one. The only clue I have is that the owner asked if I had heard it hit the ground, so I must assume the phones were thrown or dropped from some distance, but by whom? And why? *boggles*

How many times has this happened to you: you get in the express lane at Giant without paying attention to whoever is in line in front of you, or to the fact that they have a full shopping cart? Oh, don’t worry, they don’t violate the letter of the law: instead they thoughtfully split the purchase into five or six lots of fifteen items or less. And pay, five or six times, with some haphazard combination of credit cards, coupons, loose change, WIC vouchers, third party checks, Paypal, gold ingots, money orders, Speedpass, services rendered, equitable trades, stock options, cowrie shells, livestock, and Sacagawea dollars. If that sounds familiar, stop getting in line behind me.

SounDriver will be playing this Sunday, May 30th, at Jimmy’s Rally in the Alley, at 4pm. I encourage all to attend, for it may be the one and only time we play the Tommy Tutone song, yeah you know the (five three oh) one.

If you were in my backyard at some point in the last week, I found your cellphone.

I’ve been slacking on the blog lately. So I’m gonna ramble on.

First off, my cousin had her baby on Monday, Marion Grace (named for my grandfather); a healthy 8 lbs 12 oz. Allow me to deep link her picture.

The USMS took away Windows 2000 this week and gave us WinXP on our official workstations (I predominantly use the unofficial one running Linux). As a result I had to take a class on XP Tuesday. Anyone else remember lab time in Mr. Smith’s Analysis class where, instead of using whatever stupid educational software they had (which I think was called MathLab — no it was not Mathematica or Matlab or any otherwise useful program), we played Hot Dog Stand? It was a lot like that, except this time instead of Hot Dog Stand we played “try to stay awake while the instructor goes over this for the third time for the guy who can’t figure out cut-and-paste.” One time I made over $200 in Hot Dog Stand. Hell yeah.

I’m excited about the cicada invasion. It still hasn’t reached plague proportions, but the population seems to be steadily growing judging from the noise they were making this morning (yes, it does sound like Mars Attacks-style weaponry). My backyard is riddled with holes left when the cicadas emerge from the ground to make their way into the world, so perhaps it is only a matter of time until they are all underfoot…again.

I had my first cereal milk bar today. As expected, they do not live up to the hype. Now I dread eating the other five.

Beware the oily man.

I’m going to start carrying a nine. (Pointer courtesy Scott; l:cypherpunks/cypherpunks).

Last weekend was pretty good, though altogether too short. Once again I am the bad neighbor who skipped a weekend on grass-cutting duty. That just means more cicada corpses to mulch my lawn when I finally get around to it.

Joe & Jessica’s cookout was a great relaxing way to spend Saturday afternoon and has me really looking forward to the next grill out… if nothing else I shall host one in a few weeks. Natalie’s birthday dinner the same night was less fun as I barely knew anyone there, so when the first opportunity presented itself I booked it.

Last night I had a nice dinner with Angeline in Baltimore’s Little Italy. We endured a somewhat surly waitress at Sabatino’s, then went to some other restaurant for dessert. There, the host informed us, with a conspicuous lack of tact, that seating us in this (otherwise practically empty) restaurant just for dessert is not worth their time, but just this once they’ll make an exception. Lucky us!

One thing I learned: if you realize just as you get on I-95 that you really have to pee, you can make excellent time back to Herndon.

For your entertainment, here’s a page of notes from my last meeting (this is pretty typical of study techniques perfected in high school and college). Clicky for the full size. PS Lest you think I am messed up somehow, I’m the one holding the hammer.

I broke a record today — my commute home took 3 hours! Although at least 30 minutes of that is my fault, as follows: Blue and Orange trains were absent for an hour at Rosslyn, so I went upstairs to try and catch the 5A bus (which I sometimes ride into work). But alas I didn’t find out where it stopped until I saw it pull away. So then I walked around Rosslyn for a half hour until the platform at the Metro cleared out a bit. During the walk I found seven new restaurants, but zero cicadas.

Thanks to lack of mowing my back yard now sports an expanding bamboo grove. These things grow fast! Two weeks ago I just noticed a few shoots poking up from the ground, and now they are a good couple of feet taller than I am. I would throw a picture of them here, except that I apparently became dumb and forgot how to operate my camera. Or, uh, it’s a software problem – yeah that’s it.

I am at home sick today. Came down with a cold Saturday night so I am going on about 3 hours of sleep since Friday night… *yawn*. Few things are more frustrating than being extremely tired but unable to sleep…yes, I’m going to pick up some Nyquil today. Even so I went to the zoo yesterday with the erudite and lovely Angeline; here are some pictures.

I bet you are dying to know how our set went last night. Well get ready cause I’m about to lay it all out there: I played an E-7b5 instead of an Emin6! Can you believe that? I mean, one would think I would’ve at least played a C#-7b5 which is enharmonic to Emin6, but nope. I can’t begin to describe how embarrassed I would be, if I actually cared. The rest of the set was decent.

The only things remotely Mexican about Jimmy’s Cinco de Mayo celebration were the 40s of Corona. I didn’t see any “famous margaritas” (note I have never seen anyone ever have a margarita at Jimmy’s), nor were there people enjoying the “authentic Mexican food,” unless nachos count. Supposedly a fight broke out among some tequila guzzling ruffians, but I didn’t notice it until it was over.

It is freaking cold again. I’ve been bumping into door jambs as I walk around the house. It makes a satisfying thwack. Tonight is the only night of this week I have to go to the gym, or to cook anything somewhat complicated, but I’m making “Skillet Sensations” and glaring at my dumbbells, not in a guilty sort of way but rather as a sort of dare. Sometimes laziness is its own reward.

Fairfax Connector has an interesting training policy: all new drivers get turned loose on my bus route without a map or compass, and have to find their way back through blind luck. In retrospect, I should’ve been more anxious when our driver stopped to ask directions, but I never expected that he would miss the toll road exit this afternoon, taking us on a 30 minute tour of the Greater Fairfax area. Oh well, it got me further along in Quicksilver anyway.