The Life Experience ~ Summer '12

[bloodyrosemccoy]

What I Learned Since The Summer Solstice

• Neil Armstrong was, in fact, mortal.
• Whorf was half-right on his hypothesis that language affects perception. It seems that once you have a word for a color, you can recognize it faster because the left hemisphere of your brain takes over the perception duties.
• Leafminers are gross little bugs whose larvae like to live in bubbles on spinach, chard, and beet leaves. Bastards.
• Nail polish is good if you want to make your arts'n'crafts project look shiny and enameled. And if you can stand the smell.
• Malaria is believed to be responsible for the death of HALF OF ALL HUMANS since the Stone Age. NOT ME, THOUGH, SUCKA!
• The name "Starbuck," which I have always liked for the sound, is an English surname most likely deriving from a Norse phrase for "from the great river."
• Sometimes the supposed Great Unwashed Masses can be persuaded with actual facts and math!
• Those swinging orange things on Yoshi's sprite in Super Mario World, which I always thought were stirrups or decorations for his saddle, are his ARMS. I can't unsee them now.
• Those SOS buttons for old or at-risk people living alone are only useful if they actually HAVE them when they fall and can't get up.
• Tress MacNeille did the voice of Chip in Chip an' Dale: Rescue Rangers. I always thought he was done by Russi Taylor.
• Radish seeds come in nifty little pods!
• According to a statement released by the Mormon Church, Mormons are TOTALLY allowed to drink caffeinated products like Coke and Mountain Dew. The real ban is against "hot drinks" like tea and coffee, but not hot cocoa, which is totally cool for some reason. Thanks for clearing that up, church!
• Tiny laptops are extraordinarily useful to be able to carry around.
• Ron Perlman continues to forge new frontiers in awesome.
• The best way to fix Doctors! is to pretty much rewrite it.
• Jeans shopping is still my enemy.
• Statistics show that group projects lower productivity pretty much across the board, even with those extroverts who seem to like them so much.
• Jumpsuits are not that difficult to sew, though practice is called for to get particularly good.
• When hooking up a new plastic toilet pump, it is perfectly okay to use one of the previous metal nuts to secure it, as long as you make sure there is no leakage.
• Apparently I've been growing feverfew in my garden and had no idea.
• Honor Harrington is THE SHIT.
• I still have a chestburster. Bring me more purple stuff!

Comments

[westrider.livejournal.com]

The words "leakage" and "toilet" occurring in the same sentence causes an involuntary shudder ;)

I seem to remember some study about gender balance within the group having an unexpected effect on the results of group projects, but I can't actually remember what the effect was. Brain like a steel sponge, y'know.

How far are you in Honor Harrington?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The words "leakage" and "toilet" occurring in the same sentence causes an involuntary shudder ;)

Man, TELL me about it. Fortunately it was the clean water end of things I was working with. But few things are as terrifying as a broke-ass toilet.

I'm not very far with HH--just got through the second one. But man, it's extremely fun. I'm going to be plowing through them fairly quickly. I actually read A Beautiful Friendship as my first Honorverse book, and it's pretty awesome, too. I can't quite escape comparing it to Fuzzy Nation since I read them at the same time, but I really enjoyed it for its own merits, too.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Cool. You've still got some seriously awesome stuff coming up. The first 7 or 8 or so are awesome. Then it kind of runs off the rails for a few, and finally completely jumps the shark around book 11 or 12 or so.

It's unfortunate, because before his Escalation of Epic gets out of control*, it's a great series.

*His writing kind of gets out of control later on, too. Going back though them again, I could probably find the book where he became a successful enough writer that he was able to start blowing off his editor's suggestions without repercussion.