Five questions meme, y'all know the drill.  Comment with "FIGHT THE HEBETUDE!" if you want me to ask you some questions.  :D

Here are the ones newroticgirl asked me:

1) What did you love the most about where you grew up?

How it felt like I could ride my bike absolutely anywhere.  Looking back, there were lots of places that I couldn't get to by bike -- the library, the mall, Anderson's bookstore -- but I just remember how great it was to feel like I could hop on my bike and just head out, deciding where I wanted to go once I was already a few blocks away.  I'd go to friends' houses, or the pool, or White Hen Pantry (think 7-11), or a playground, or the school, or the awesomely named Dragon Lake Forest Preserve.  The last inspired quite a bit of bad poetry on my part, and wasn't nearly as beautiful as the places I go to be outdoors here in the northwest -- but it was a great place for feeling like you were truly getting away from it all.

2) Who was your first TV/movie/music crush?

Donny Osmond.  In fact, here I am in my oh-so-sparkly-glittery Donny Osmond t-shirt!  I also had a huge think for Jimmy Carter, and for KISS. 

3) What inspires you?

Awesome trees.  Babies.  Mountains.  Stars.  Bluegrass music.  My friends.  Thunder.  The awesome squiggly feeling I get in my the pit of my stomach when I've leapt off a scary cliff for something I really want in my life. 

4) What is the most unusual/interesting/weird job you've ever had?

Squatting over the bomber bay of an airplane, and dropping biscuits with a rabies vaccine in them down to coyotes and foxes across Texas. I've had a lot of jobs that have *seemed* weird or interesting to me, but this one seems odd to just about everyone. 

5) (Stealing this from the questions I got!) Tell me something that your internet friends probably don't know about you but you've always wanted to share.

Probably that I am virtually never offended by curious questions, but I do get irritated sometimes when people make assumptions about me, or my life, or my beliefs. 

Also, that I am currently sitting under my skylight during a thunderstorm, and it is freaky, loud, and awesome.  :D

Somehow, googling "kickass usb drives" doesn't actually get me what I was looking for.  But I am a persistent girl, and I found the MOTHERLODE!




Poll #1455523
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

Which utterly awesome thumb drive should I get?

So, I am officially Planning Ahead and working on my costume for kaerfel s book launch party.  The book (The Rise of Renegade X, which is AWESOME) is about superheroes and supervillains, and so of course there is a deep need to dress up like superheroes and supervillains, and I am totally the kind of nerd that would be a superhero instead of a supervillain. 

And in fact, not only am I that kind of nerd, I am even super-nerdier than that, and I have a giant ribbon to prove it!  :p  I am going as Dabbler Girl, and my super power is that I Can Do Anything Once, and my costume will have BADGES for all those things that I have done once.  So if I use my walking-through-walls powers to save a kitten from drowning in a toilet, I will have a badge for that.  If I use my super-xray-vision powers to tattle on election officials in Florida for vote tampering, I will have a badge for that.   

The question is, of course, what badges should I have, and what should they look like?  For reference, the badges will be circles about 1" in diameter, with a ring around them, somewhat like the Girl Scout junior badges as exemplified by this puberty badge.

For a backyard photo shoot:

And so is Carl Zimmer, for letting me know that I have a Halle Berry neuron in my brain, and you probably do, too!  And also, a Matthew Broderick neuron.  And a jaylake  neuron, and a csinman  neuron, and a frabjouslinz  neuron.  I wonder who they're sitting next to in my brain?  Are they in alphabetical order?  Or when I met them order?  Or how hot they are order? 

I have been trying to talk hair stylists into chopping off most of my hair for a couple of years now, and they always talk me out of it.  Not this time, and I am so insanely glad.  My short hair makes me happy -- I don't know if I'll ever grow it longer than this again. 

:D

requested pic:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/dietcoke/3739487117/

For a study I am currently planning, I need to compile lists of popular media (TV shows, DVDs, video and computer games) across four categories.  I had one of my interns give it a try, but she is not really a gamer type, and like most people, probably watches a pretty narrow band of TV/movies. 

These lists are for media that would commonly be used/watched by 10-14 year-olds -- so, both stuff intended for that age group, plus stuff aimed at older teens or adults but which a good chunk of 10-14 year-olds would still use/watch.  I'm not trying to be comprehensive here -- we don't need every title for each category, just enough so that if a kid is watching a new show or playing a new game, he can look at this list and easily get a good sense of which category it belongs in.
( Details under cut... )

This article about the evolution of the current "swine flu" strain of influenza (by Carl Zimmer) is cool for a bunch of reasons.  First, it just gives some neat insights into how science *works* when dealing with relatively urgent issues like this.  Second, the graphic at the bottom (put together by the scientists he is talking about, not by Zimmer), does an awesome job of explaining everything that is freaky about this flu strain all in one picture.  Back when I had thought I wanted to do bench science, I was torn between tumor immunnology and viral phylogenetics, so it's always cool to see where those fields are going.  :D

I was conservative here, in that I only included states I was in for long enough to do touristy type things -- I did not include states that I just drove through with random food/gas/lodging stops. I would really like to hit more of the west. I need more road trips in my life. :D


visited 21 states (42%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or website vertaling duits?

http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=8319

:D

This awesome map shows where the police have tracked the bear so far -- one spotting was about a block away from my house.  Looking at the map, I get the impression that the bear has a definite plan in mind, possibly eating Kirkland. 

I shot my dad this link, and here's the response I got back:  "Don't worry; your porridge is too hot and your bed is too lumpy.  -- Pa" 

I can't believe we missed it, but last week was the NATIONAL BED BUG SUMMIT!

"So very wrong you could not explain it, even with charts." -- johncwright 

Really, no need for context here, since this is a quote that works for so many occasions in my life.

-- Miki, who is at work making charts.  :p 

All in all, today has been spectacularly craptastic. 

It was saved from being 100% so, however, by an odd bit of random wootoff luck, which means that 3 more monkey surprises are headed my way.  And also, a bunch of flashing lights, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with those.  :D

It was utterly awesome.  :D



More pics at the flickr set here

csinman  has proof of the chum-flavored candy I won at the Paranormal Bender Tour earlier this week.  I still have extry, if you want some.  :D

My favorite Drew Barrymore movie ever, the one I have worn out two copies of VHS tapes from tv in the 80s for, is COMING OUT ON DVD!!!  Next month!!!  

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QMCJ50

Thank you, Netflix, for letting me know this is coming.  Not that I'll be waiting to get it via Netflix, I've pre-ordered it from Amazon, but I wouldn't have realized it was even coming without the Netflix alert.  :D

So, it looks like my friend katmerican (who some of y'all may remember from previous April visits) is going to come stay with me for easter and come hit Norwescon again. (If you are the sort who needs visual aids, she is the one in this photo who is not in flock-of-seagulls mode.)  And, as such things often work out, she will be here for her birthday again. 

For her 18th birthday, I just made her this very sad looking cake, and I think I might have dragged her out bowling or for pancakes or something.  There will probably be cake again, because, well, everyone except mcjulie  likes cake.  :p  But, I figure it would be awesome to have some other birthday surprizes planned in as well, so I thought I would post here to see if anyone has any ideas, either for during Norwescon or for afterwards in Seattle.  The actual birthday is post-Norwescon, I believe, but birthday surprizes can really hit on any date in the peri-birthday range, because surprizes are like that.  :p 

Of course, she's probably actually reading this thread, so I have comments screened, so post away with your surprize ideas don't post your ideas here, email them to me instead (mikigal via gmail).  I'm posting this here on LJ in part to make sure that I'm hitting everyone who might have ideas, and also just to taunt Kat with the idea that birthday surprizes are in fact being planned, because I'm very slightly evil like that. If you have taunts of your own, feel free to post them, and I'll unscreen them.  :D
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