Archive for misc
Free stuff + link!
First off, For anyone who wants to better understand how bra sizes really work, I recommend reading this rather amusing article.
Also, as I am moving sooner then later, I have various objects who would love to have new homes. First off: the aloe plant. I have a rather overgrown aloe plant that I really don’t want to have to take with me, and it would be a great companion for someone who wants to repot it. It would also be a great companion for a person/family who burns themselves on a regular basis. Would anyone be interested in adopting it?
Second, I have random pieces of furniture to get rid of, including a desk or two and many bookshelves, as well as small pieces of end table type furniture. All are varying degrees of used…but they’re free! If you can come pick them up, they’re yours!
Interviews and moving and such
So I’ve now managed to secure two interviews, one on the 6th and one on the 7th, both with recruiter-types, and both for Colorado Springs positions. Admittedly, my target area was more for Denver, but I’m just looking forward to being employed at a place that gives me dollars which is in Colorado. I really do want someplace as bike-friendly and non strip mall/big box store as possible, we shall see how things go. At least there seem to be positions springing up for my sorts of skills, which is a good thing.
Zinc status: no cramps so far. We’ll see if this lasts.
Adventures with zinc and fighting menstrual evils
So I start my period in four days. And thus, I start taking zinc today. According to various things I’ve been reading online, I can all but avoid the evil painful cramps I generally have by taking 30-90 mg of zing starting a few days before my period begins. The unfortunate side effect of this is the nausea. I just took a pill not too long ago, and my stomach is already churning and I kinda want to throw up. Ah, zinc. However, if this works, having 15 minutes of nausea a few times a day for 3-4 days is significantly better then having 48 hours of incapacitating pain!
Zinc and cramps
So yesterday was supposed to involve going biking around Williamsburg and going to a Greek festival. But then, the ole groin kicked in. I am generally of the idea that I’ll just drug myself when I get cramps and do whatever I was planning on doing, as I hate to just give 1/15 of my life over to pain, but after 6 painkillers was having not nearly as much effect as I’d like, I decided to call it off and lie around achy and dopey all day/evening instead. It was maddening, it felt like Wolverine is attempting to remove my ovaries. Today was better, at least.
I looked around online, and found research that indicates that taking zinc 1-4 days preceding the onset of menstruation will greatly reduce sever cramps. Has anyone else tried this? Zinc has a really bad habit of making me feel nauseous, but it might be worth it to feel nausea for a half an hour for 4 days to avoid severe pain.
Interview Adventures
So Drew and I are back from Florida, it was a wild and wacky ride that I’ll write more about at a time that is not now. What I will briefly write about, however, is the fact that I just had a phone interview for a webmaster position on a US military base in Japan. I really don’t know how I did, I always start off shaky with any sort of interview and suspect that I babble and repeat myself and use less eloquent language then I’d like. I did appreciate, however, that much of the interview was more of the ‘quizzing me on various things I should know in order to perform the tasks the position requires’ rather then ‘what are your 3 greatest strengths and weaknesses’ sorts of questions. We’ll see how it goes. Drew and I are still interested in Denver and such otherwise, but this Japan position seemed a once in a lifetime sort of opportunity, so I had to try for it.
V-day, Experiments, etc.
So Drew and I had a lovely Valentine’s Day. I made really weird cheesesteaks and we watched Patton. Oh, and we both got sick, that was the most romantic part of all! Just a minor head cold it seems, enough to be annoying but not enough to get in the way of too many things. I also managed to finish another Miles book. Need to see if the library has the next one too. I’ve got one I actually own that I haven’t read yet, and I discovered too late that it’s actually the middle story in a compilation, so I’ll inevitably have to check out the compilation and just switch books for the middle story. Ah well.
So about 2 months ago, Carolyn acquired some reject wrinkle cream from someone or another, and passed a bottle onto me. Being the experimental type, I decided I would do an experiment. I would only apply it to the left side of my face, and would just use whatever normal lotion on my right side. The bottle was actually two little bottles, one for under-eye, one for upper-eye. The upper eye actually suggested you’d feel a tingling sensation of lifting. First off, I did not feel a tingling sensation. Second off, a tingling sensation likely has nothing to do with ‘lifting’. I had this facial wash for awhile that also had a ‘tingling sensation’, I felt like I was soaking my face in mouthwash, it was horrible. I do not approve of artificial stimulants being added to products to give the illusion of working, it’s no good at all. It’s what makes me hate using some types of mouthwash, and I’m glad that at least Act keeps that kind of thing to a minimum (though, the bubblegum flavor avoids it altogether, which I appreciate).
In any case, I didn’t use the upper eye stuff in the experiment, as the area above my eyes is like a cave and is simply not comfortable to apply lotion to. I used the bottom eye stuff on the bottom eye areas for a month. At the end of the month, I noticed no difference. Thus, snake oil it is!
I used to almost never use lotion, but at some point in the past several years, my skin started getting drier. Or working for OWP and washing my hands 2384792743 times a day caused it (on my hands, at least). Not sure. In any case, when I’ve applied lotion to my face, it’s been sort of an overall sweeping gesture of an application. With this eye lotion stuff, though, I’d need to lean in closer to the mirror to ensure the lotion got applied to all of the strategic eye areas. Because of this, I noticed more pseudo-wrinkles forming then I’d ever had the attention span to notice before. I’m glad to have finally chucked the stuff and returned to plain old moisturizing-type lotion.
In conclusion, wrinkle-removal cream should be called wrinkle awareness cream. I look forward to never using any ever again and to accepting my mortality gracefully.
Petit Fours are glorious things
We’re still swimming in chocolate here. Aside from one bad day where I couldn’t stop sucking down the sugar, it’s been alright. I need to get my bike fixed so I can actually ride it on warmer days. I need to do something to fix the fact that several of my bras no longer fit. D’oh!
Been reading a bit lately. Drew has a few of the ‘Great Brain’ book which are totally for 5th graders, but I’m rereading them to flash back to reading them the first time in 5th grade. Strangely, 5th grader books are much better when you’re actually the target age when you read them. I’m also reading a Lois Bujold book. They’re sci-fi, and a whole series (of the sort that’s it’s own segment, so you could read them out of order if you want) about this guy named Miles. Anyhow, I like them as they have interesting characterization and deal with day to day situations along with wacky interplanetary hijinks.
Took the Christmas decorations down. The lights are getting chucked. They all worked when I put them up, but as of yesterday, only 1/4 of them worked. D’oh!
We need to brave a shopping experience soon. We have so much meat and chocolate and not enough of anything else. I need vegetables before my arteries start flipping out!
I definitely need to spend more quality time with my bladders
ptocheia resolves to…
Eat more lobsters.
Start a synthpop fund.
Take
ib_jennay03 painting.Pay for my abandoned buildings on time.
Spend more time with my bladders.
I’ve decided to have two New Year’s resolutions. The first is to make dolmades. I’ve had this blasted jar of grape leaves sitting around for entirely too long, and I need to suck it up and make them. All I need to do first is figure out where the heck one gets mint leaves. My second resolution is to learn the Fur Elise in it’s entirety for piano. I played keyboard on a sporadicly regular basis from elementary to high school, and recently acquired the keyboard from my parents. I’ve got the sheet music and can play 1/3 of it (mostly) without problems. Anyhow, I always wanted to be able to play all of it smoothly.
I decided to ring in the new year by buying a camcorder. I have nefarious plans for it. After spending entirely too much time looking around on the internets at entirely too many cameras, I ended up buying this one used off of Craigslist from some kid who’d gotten a better model. I need to go get a miniDV tape for it, as well as a memory card. And maybe a longer USB cord. Cost me $60. It’s in decent working order, and now I shall be able to make glorious videos!
Video Camera Questions
A sudden fit of inspiration has me deeply considering getting a video camera. I currently own an Olympus Stylus 500, which is a regular camera that also happens to record video. It’s rather poor quality video (and only 320×240 resolution), and I want something better. Though, as a beginner at such things, I really don’t need anything too fancy (read:too expensive), just something decent enough to record something that will look good on the web. Any suggestions for a good camera? Or for that matter, is anyone looking to sell off an old camera?
