Stay-at-Home Geek

More secret status updates

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:48:00 +0000

SAHG...

...had forgotten what it was like to talk to somebody on the phone when they're stoned and you're not.
...is usually sympathetic to the jobless, especially right now, but can't stand it when people refuse to learn anything new, and then complain about not being able to get jobs that require up-to-date knowledge in their field.
...wonders if she can get rid of somebody by relentlessly offering unsolicited job-seeking advice.
...now wonders if she can get rid of the friend who keeps sending stupid forwarded right-wing crap by responding with forwarded left-wing crap.
...has way too many friends she doesn't actually like, and too few that she does.

Once a geek, always a geek

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:11:00 +0000

This morning I ran into someone I knew in junior high. In my son's nursery school, no less; his son is in the same class of 12. What are the odds? Well, I could figure that out, I suppose, if I knew the size of each class in my junior high in each of the last two years of the 70s... and I suppose I'd also have to know how many duplicates there were, so I could count unique individuals. But that seems like an awful lot of trouble.

Anyway, these things are always embarrassing for me because of my memory. I remember pretty much everything. I remember what I was wearing on October 3, 1981. I remember specific turns of phrase in specific Nancy Drew books I haven't read since I was nine. I remember people I went to kindergarten with, and a dream I had in first grade that featured a beautiful rosebud-studded headband I had gotten for Easter and a boy I had a crush on. He liked to play with my Barbie dolls, but that's not why I think he's probably gay: it was that dream. In the dream I rode a bicycle (which I couldn't do at the time, but desperately wanted to) and rescued him from some people who were tying him to a palo verde tree for some nefarious purpose, and at that point I knew that he was never going to reciprocate my crush. But I digress, as usual. The point was that I remember a lot of things that other people don't, and I think it creeps them out a little if I mention it. And so I did not tell this guy that we went to junior high together and that one of my best friends in fourth through sixth grades was his stepsister, or possibly ex-stepsister--his father's current wife, who is in the social pages of the newspaper at least once a week (and I know this because my mother tells me so), might not be the guy's mother. It was weird enough that I recognized him at all. Probably I should have just pretended I didn't know who he was, so I didn't look like the kind of weirdo who goes to the reunion and tells a lot of people who can't remember her name what they were wearing on October 14, 1981, because trust me, I could probably piece it together if I really tried.

Real Status Updates

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:55:00 +0000

A lot of the time while I'm driving along I amuse myself by thinking up status updates that I would never post in a million years. For example:

SAHG is wondering if [xxxxx] knows that he's Twittering to all his Facebook friends, not just the one he direct-messaged.

SAHG feels like she's playing the role of Cordelia in the Dysfunctional Family Theater's production of Lear. (The sister who plays Regan--or maybe Goneril--is on FB too)

SAHG secretly thinks that some of her Facebook friends are idiots, and wishes they'd quit sending her hugs, snowballs, ornaments, delicious coffee, and other things that she's just going to ignore anyway.

Fortunately, Kvetch is back, so if I really wanted to, I could get out some of my irritation by using it. I was going to write my own little web app to do exactly the same thing (sans Twitter, since I'm not really a huge Twitter fan), but Kvetch saved me the trouble.

Talk about your humbug

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:40:00 +0000

To: Barnes & Noble
Bed, Bath & Beyond
Best Buy
Borders
Circuit City
Dick's Sporting Goods
GAP
KB Toys
Kmart
Toys "R" Us
American Eagle
Banana Republic
Bloomingdale's
Lane Bryant
Old Navy

From: The Stay-at-Home Geek

Dear Retailer,

I recently read that your store has been placed on Focus on the Family's “Christmas-negligent” or “Christmas-offensive” retailers list because of your use (or non-use) of the word “Christmas” in your advertising. I just wanted to let you know that your decision on whether or not to use “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Holidays,” or for that matter, “Good Solstice,” will not in any way affect whether or not I shop at your store this holiday season. I, personally, celebrate Christmas, but unlike Focus on the Family, I realize that there are people in the United States who do not, for whatever personal reason they might have, and I do not expect the stores I shop at to cater to one small political group's desire to make those people feel marginalized and perhaps excluded. As a matter of fact, I feel that my Christmas shopping experience will be much improved by not having to shop with people who would purposely deny others their right to not have a holiday they don't celebrate shoved down their throat as they go about their everyday business in December.

So please continue to use whatever cheerful phrase you want to in your advertising, and good sales to you. Oh, and: happy holidays.

Sincerely,

The Stay-at-Home Geek

Meh.

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:24:00 +0000

I cannot prove for a fact that I got banned from the Geeks group on Propeller for posting a link to Sarah Palin Facts, a nonpartisan humor site that offers fake facts about Sarah Palin, along the same lines as the Chuck Norris Little Known Facts (e.g., "Death once had a near-Chuck-Norris experience"). Even if it was a totally political story, there is NOTHING on the group page that says you can't post political stories to the group. It's possible that there's something in an FAQ somewhere, but I certainly didn't find anything in a cursory looking-over.

It's also possible that there was a technical glitch or something that caused me to be booted without warning, comment, or explanation from the Geeks group, and that I wasn't banned. I suppose I could check with the group owners, but if it wasn't a mistake and I really was deleted from a group that I've submitted several other completely non-political items to—items that have been propped by several other members, including at least one of the group's owners—after one infraction that I didn't know about... well, that would just make me really mad. I'd rather not know.

So instead of trying to get to the bottom of it, I deleted my Propeller account, because frankly, I just wasn't getting that much out of it, and it was taking too much time to wade through the crap to get to the good stuff (and there is some good stuff). There's WAAAAAAYYYYY too much spam disguised as stories, and even in the posted stories there are far too many idiots commenting. Also, as far as I can tell, on Propeller you can't follow someone's posted stories and comments, which would be a really useful feature for the 95% of us who aren't stalking another member (and probably even MORE useful for those who are!). There's no page or even a sidebar that lists the stories that have been posted to my groups; I have to go into each group individually every time I want to see if anything has been posted to it.

I think Propeller is a pretty good idea, and it doesn't completely turn me off like some sites with similar models (say, Slashdot or Digg), but overall, it's just not there yet. Maybe I'll try it again in a year or so.

Blah, blah, blog

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:21:00 +0000

I've been on the Internet since, oh, 1989 or 1990. My first email account had a BITNET address, that's how long ago it was. I've loved making friends online all these years, and finding information, and just generally enjoying (and building) new things.

But I'm really tired of it right now. I'm tired of posting to lists and having three people contradict me, oh so politely, but firmly. I'm tired of emailing people who don't reply, and friending people I actually know who write and ask how they know me, and finding the same tired text over and over because of the packagers who buy 10 different versions of the same story from one writer and then sell them to 30 different web sites. I'm tired of the trolls on blogs and Propeller and local newspapers' web sites.

I don't know what to do about this just yet; the Internet has been part of my life so deeply and for so long that I don't really know what I'd do without it. But something has to change.

Please, you're embarrassing the rest of us white people

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:01:00 +0000

"The Cuban immigrant to Miami is a dead ringer for Barack Obama, from the broad smile to the close-cropped hair," according to this article about an "Obama impersonator" at Yahoo! News.

Uh, no, he isn't. Unless you think all tall, slim black men who wear suits look alike, which you obviously do.

It's not the sexual predators, it's the friggin' rats

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:41:00 +0000

Okay, I'll admit it: I hate the playground. For the last couple of years—basically, since my almost-three-year-old learned to walk—I have felt obligated, as a stay-at-home mom, to take him to the playground on a regular basis. It's not like he's addicted to the playground; his attitude is kind of take-it-or-leave-it. He never asks to go to the playground, but he doesn't refuse to go either. But I just flat-out hate it.

There's no reason I shouldn't hate it; some, if not most, of my exceptionally humiliating moments in elementary school took place on the playground. The time I hit a bully with my lunch box and I got in trouble? That was on the playground. The time my best friend decided to ignore me at recess because she had a crush on the guy who hated me because I beat him in the spelling bee? Playground. My many ignominious two-square defeats? Playground, of course. It's really no wonder I hate the playground, although I had actually forgotten most of those things until I started thinking the other day about why I hate the playground. And they don't explain why I hate the playground I go to now, which isn't the one where those things happened.

It's true that there are sometimes some creepy-looking characters hanging around the two playgrounds with the best equipment, but then, those are both in very large city parks, where creepy-looking characters tend to hang out anyway. But the other morning I was out for my morning run in the park, and I saw something that really gave me the creeps: a rat. I have nothing against rats, as long as they're pretty little clean rats that live in cages and maybe come out to sit on their owners' shoulders at Renaissance faires and that kind of thing. I just don't think big ol' garbage-eating city rats are appropriate playground companions. But in this case, they're giving me an excellent excuse not to go the playground, so go rats.

Gen X getting pinched?

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:53:00 +0000

Via Boston Gal: Where Americans will (and won't) cut back:
Even in tough times, consumers demonstrate a reluctance to give up everyday indulgences - CNNmoney.com

According to the article, Gen X is feeling the pinch particularly acutely because we're more likely to have kids at home, to have bought houses recently, and to be in the middle class—but the article doesn't mention what, specifically, consumers are cutting back on (despite the promise of the headline).

I have a toddler and a new house, and am definitely in the middle class, but the only place I'm really feeling pinched is at the grocery store. I've started going to Super Target because I can get everything there (so it saves a trip) and because the prices are much, much better than at least one local store that I kind of hate anyway.

Pedal power

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:56:00 +0000

Those crafty folks at Humboldt State University have set up a bike-powered washing machine. I've had two basements that would have been ideal for this: I could have set up a TV in front of the antique washer/exercise bike combo and gotten in a workout while watching TV and getting the laundry done. Personally, I think this is a WONDERFUL idea, but I'm pretty sure I'd last about a week.

Outside the box

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:23:00 +0000

More papercraft: paperboxworld has some of the cutest papercraft I've seen. Best of all, it's easy! And free! I made a tiny paper cat in about 10 minutes. Can't beat that!

(via PaperKraft)

NYT surprised that a romance writer has... a heart?

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:53:00 +0000

Nicholas Sparks, author of romances The Notebook and A Walk to Remember, sponsors his town's high-school track team: In North Carolina, an Author Underwrites a Successful Track Program - NYTimes.com

I've never been able to make it past about chapter two of any of Nicholas Sparks's books—and I've really wanted to; I love the premise of gentle romance set in the idealized small-town America of generations past, but just can't get into Sparks's style—but I think it's fantastic that he's doing this. I just don't understand why the Times considers him "an unlikely benefactor." Here's a guy who is not just giving money, but also time and energy, to build a school-based athletic program; why is that so unlikely? Are successful authors supposed to be miserly recluses who live alone in the woods, only coming out of their ramshackle hovels to pick up the weekly mail and growl at the locals? Or maybe a guy who writes romances can't possibly be interested in athletics. WTF, NYT?

Hindsight is 20/20, and all that.

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:39:00 +0000

It seems to me that if we had listened to Jimmy Carter 30 years ago we might not be in so much trouble now.

I'm just sayin'.

Exsteaminate!

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:26:00 +0000

Take a look at Alex Holden's model of an awesome steam-powered Dalek:

He explains his method and his madness here: My Motley Meanderings - Exsteaminate!

Just two things:

Dalek bubble bath? At Woolworth's? The English are soooo cool.
Model engineering is a career path? Where do I sign up?

(I know I found this somewhere, but now I don't remember where)

Techcrunch: Can Google Trends Predict The Election?

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:16:00 +0000

An interesting analysis from Techcrunch: Can Google Trends Predict The Election?

If so, then right now Obama's chances look really good. In the state primaries that were used as predictors, searches spiked right before the elections, so we'll see how it looks come October.

More printables

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:17:00 +0000

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! Activities and Printables

Printable coloring pages featuring Wubbzy, Widget, and Walden. These were a HUGE hit with Borg Boy, who is just starting to enjoy using crayons.

We just discovered Nick Jr.'s Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! this week, and have successfully weaned Borg Boy from Playhouse Disney by capturing it on ReplayTV in the middle of the night, then playing it in the morning while we're getting dressed.

Printables

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:20:00 +0000

Oh, joy! After my earlier experience visiting other people's favorite blogs, I needed to find something like Dabbled to restore my faith in the Internet. I love printables (some of my favorites are here), and Dot offers a wonderful robo-spaceman Birthday Party Invite & Thank You Note under a Creative Commons license. I'm a big fan of the 80s-style robo-lettering, too.

Weird.

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:56:00 +0000

Do you ever stop to read a blog you've never read before, but have seen linked by lots of people whose blogs you like, and it's so incredibly awful that you feel like you should wash your eyes out with soap? Maybe it's not badly written, but evil radiates off the screen because the blogger hates everyone and everything he or she comes in contact with in real life, including his or her own spouse and children. Maybe it IS badly written, but in Blog Voice, so you can tell how hip and trendy it is. Maybe it mentions "the Interwebs." More than once. Maybe it goes into great, laborious detail about the blogger's children's bathroom habits (or the blogger's OWN bathroom habits). But something about it just makes you want to leave and never come back.

Yeah. That's happened to me TWICE this week. I'm not linking to anyone, because lots of people like these blogs, so clearly it's just a personal problem on my part.

Happy Convoymas!

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:44:00 +0000

Krupskaya at The Edit Barn has a great idea for celebrating the sixth of June, immortalized in the 1975 novelty hit "Convoy": McCallsday, or Convoymas.

I was a couple years older than Krupskaya in 1975, but the song always reminds me of traveling that summer from Tulsa to Tucson and back... and then back to Flagstaff in the fall, and back to Tulsa. Much of this trip was along Route 66 (or I-40, where it paralleled the Mother Road). Along the way, we had breakfast every morning at a chain called Hobo Joe's, where they served hot chocolate with whipped cream, even in the middle of the summer. On the second trip, we detoured to White Sands, and on to Carlsbad Caverns, on the way back to Tulsa. Whenever I hear "Convoy" I think of those trips. So happy Convoymas to all, and to all a good drive.

Summer is...

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:13:00 +0000

Classic TV on basic cable.

Science fiction. Lots of science fiction.

Taking classes just for fun.

Daiquiri Ice sherbet.

Cicadas in the afternoon.

Little powder-puffy mimosa flowers.

Bell's. Dammit.

Drive-in movies with a cooler full of Shasta.

Garage sales.

Well, baseball. Duh.

I can haz change?

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:27:00 +0000

Oh boy.

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Now that I have so much access to Quantum Leap (all seasons, most episodes) via Netflix, I find that the episodes I find myself watching are the ones in which Sam leaps into a woman. Those really weren't my favorites in the first run; as long as he was leaping into the 50s or 60s, I was happy enough, and it used to bug me to watch him clomping around in high-heeled pumps with his chest hair poking out of the bodice of some dainty little piqué number. However, I think these days I'm seeking out those episodes because I can actually relate to Sam, uncomfortable in too-tight clothes and heels... trying to put his lipstick on right... figuring out how to act like one of the girls. I don't have trouble with the lipstick and heels, thanks to coming of age in the 80s and living in a dorm full of beauty pageant winners for several years (they were generous with the beauty tips). And I'm fine one-on-one with other women, usually. But put me in a room full of middle-class moms and their kids, and I feel like Sam: the clothes don't fit, I can't walk right, and I'm always saying things that betray my true identity—the identity that is so not a middle-class mom (MCM).

Before I had Borg Boy, most of my female friends were single or in committed, non-married relationships. Then one of my good friends, an engineer, got downsized out of her job, and within a year she was married, pregnant, and living in another state. Another, a programmer in Silicon Valley, sent me a birth announcement out of the blue, via email, to let me (and approximately 560 of her closest friends, apparently) know that she and some guy I'd never heard of were now the ecstatic parents of [insert generic Jane Austen heroine name here; everyone I knew who had a baby girl that year named her after a Jane Austen heroine]. I mention their career paths only to emphasize that these were ungirly, geeky women who somehow managed to make the leap that I have never been able to make—from geek grrl to MCM. None of my other geeky women friends have children, and they were almost all completely puzzled by my decision to have one. I think that's because none of them could even contemplate joining the ranks of the MCMs, whose seemingly inborn knowledge of things like How To Cut Grapes So That Toddlers Can't Choke On Them and How To Get Your Kid To Sit Still For Library Story Time is just a mystery to us.

Sam was always teaching someone in another era about women's rights, even in that RIDICULOUS episode where he leaped into Dr. Ruth and inadvertently advised a young woman named Anita that speaking up about sexual harassment was always the right thing to do. I know that my friends and I are extremely lucky to live in a time and a place in which we have a choice about these matters. To work in a traditionally male-dominated field, if that's where our interests lie. To get married or just live with somebody—or neither one. To have children, and to have just one or a whole passel of the little dears. But those of us who didn't necessarily grow up with the assumption that OF COURSE we'd have children someday also grew up with huge gaps in our knowledge of how children work... and how mothers do too.

Borg Boy gets Parenthacked!

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:54:00 +0000

Oh wow! Here's the Parent Hack I submitted: "Finger bowls" help toddlers clean their own hands at the table | Parent Hacks

If Asha could have seen him at the nursing home this morning, "civilized" would have been the last word to come to mind. :-) At least he still seems to like his finger bowl... although sometimes we do have to keep him from drinking it when he's done.

The TBR list: Wicked Game

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:53:00 +0000

My To Be Read (TBR) list is already huge, but I add to it on a daily basis. Here's today's addition: Wicked Game, by Jeri Smith-Ready.

Let me just note that I hardly ever read vampire novels. I never got into Anne Rice, and I quit reading Laurell K. Hamilton after about the second one. I skipped Stephen King's vampire novel(s?), even though the one I can think of right off came out during the time that I was still reading King's books as soon as they hit the shelves of my local library (where I worked, so I usually got dibs). But the premise for this book—and the "Big Idea" behind it—are irresistible. I probably would not be interested in this book if I hadn't read the author's Big Idea; John Scalzi is doing a service not just to writers, but also to readers, with his Big Ideas posts.

Running on MP(3)

noreply@blogger.com (The Vintage Reader) — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:47:00 +0000

Via The Weight of the World: Podrunner is a free service—a particularly awesome-looking one—that lets you download workout music mixed to good tempos for walking, running, or interval training. I have GOT to try this!! Honestly, what's the point in having a Walkman phone if I don't use it to play music while working out?