Why Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh screensaver is a work of purest evil

Screensavers, on legacy CRTs, had one function: to keep the image shown on the screen different, so that ion burn would not occur.

Ion burn is where the screen displays the same image for a long time, and gradually, the patterns of light on the screen come to stay there, even when that specific picture is not being displayed.

A "screensaver" that has any part of it that displays an unchanging image is no screensaver at all.

Guess what Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh "screensaver" does? If allowed to, it will burn the Disney logo into the middle of the bottom of your ancient monitor, right where you didn't want it!

Pointed this fact of science out to Votania a few weeks ago, when I noticed that a Bear with Very Little Brain had overtaken Enki's screen for the better part of the day, and was continuing to do so. She hadn't known. The screensaver on there now is the one that Nephew calls "Spaceballs the screensaver!" (starfield simulation).

Ahhh, there's nothing like being raised by a geek.

Happy Loony Morning

Dressed down today: jeans and one of the beat-up-ass black button-down shirts from Wally's rather than the high-end variety. Feeling happy. My body has been letting me know in the middle of the night that it is becoming a finely-honed machine (comparably) and wants me to do things with it, like go lift weights or go out rollerblading. I compromised with a plié and some stretches, and went back to bed.

Breakfast with Darkside was fun. The clawmark he gave me the other morning by accident (we were playing Mercy, and he didn't intend to grab that hard) is still there. He noticed. He hasn't finished all the character sheets for the Samhein game yet. He'll get around to it, probably in Stats today.

Ron dropped by the table and said hello. He's a great teacher. He shares his comments about school life with us, including some of the wacky things that students do. Apparently we are special in that we're cool, and he would probably hang with us outside of school if we weren't all so busy. Ron's known for actually making friends with students. Usually there's a delegation to the Dean's office complaining about how much work he makes people do; there hasn't been this tri, which surprised the hell out of us as well as him. One student who had him about five tri ago is graduating this tri; he called Ron up to contest a grade from five tri ago. Helllooooo? Brains? Ron still had the grades, though, and looked them up, and said that the kid was still SOL as far as changing the grade went.

I love mornings.

It seems to be that when I brush my hair and convert it out of tangled, it automatically becomes frizzy. I look like Hermione, only with darker hair. It's a manufacturer's defect; perhaps I should take it up with them. Not sure which one the frizzy genes come from, though. Suspect it might also be caused by going to sleep on wet hair.

Fire, Water

Nephew has a fish tank; he wants a fish like Fire Blossom. I suggested that he get a blue one. "Water Blossom!" he said, cheerily.

Fire Blossom is a traditional name for bettas in my family. When Narcissa got her fighting fish once upon a time, I got to name one of them. Since I'd been reading the finest in literature at the time, I picked a delightful literary reference. Nobody got it, of course, not until I pointed it out to them. I'd wager that only a geek of the literature in question would catch it on their own.

The aquarium is huge and lovely. I'm not so sure about the gargoyles, but they do seem to fit in with the general decor around here. Nephew was allowed to pick some of my marbles to add to the mess, and they do look jewellike and lovely down at the bottom of the tank. There are rather too many of them in there for Votania's aesthetic sense, but that will be fixed at the first tank-cleaning when they get all muddled around.

Mmm, shopping.

votania and I went shopping today, hitting the Spectrum mall as soon as I got home from the vampires' and got myself refueled. We wandered around in there for some time. I got myself a new copy of the Illuminatus! trilogy, since my copy was fucked up and is missing a chunk of pages, as well as some happy other books. Then we hit Wal-Mart.

Mmm, consumer goods. I now have a new shower head, which I shall install, and have much fun with. Mmm, shower head. It's the excellently cheap variety, the sort that no one will admit that the main selling point is not the five different spray features, but the nice long flexible cord-thing it's on the end of, so that every portion of the body may be duly scrubbed with the shower head. Mmmm, shower head.

Waaaaaugh!

Curse those liberal apartment-complex users of plumber's putty! Curse them!

Well.

My bathroom is wet. Bless the makers of Duct Tape in that the stuff worked for ninety full seconds in jury-rigging the apparatus.

Note to self: be glad that the ceiling of the bathroom contained no parts that were damageable by water.

I have duly showered. Note to self: the small metal part that's circular, flat, and pierced is the thing that makes the shower do its thing. Replace it one of these days. It's in one of the Miscellaneous Metal Parts drawers. I am clean and wearing a tohsk, the traditional ritual robe of my clan.

Ahhh, water. Dammit. Note to self: before purchasing parts for a plumbing endeavor, see that the original parts will in fact come loose...

Holy shit?

The Viking's back in town. He went out of country to visit the woman he's planning to marry. She wanted to see what he'd look like with short hair. He now has a flattop. The Viking is a big guy, blond, with formerly hair past his shoulders. This is... unorthodox.

It'll grow back.

I shocked the hell out of him in return, telling him that I wished to marry a Christian.

Randoms:

Votania read the Magic 8 Ball and came back with some answers to some questions. Today I tried laying the foundations for working with Darkside on some of his perceptions of me; he's hoping to guess me very well; I would very much like for him to start using his empathy: he will when he's ready. Meanwhile, he can sharpen his perceptions. Darkside does dance, if combatting, though he'll deny it; though he's called Sunshine at work for his sarcastic wit and gloomy outlook, he truly is sunshine to me ("Come on baby light my fire" was mentioned). Darkside calls me Joanie. He will follow me if I wander off slowly in a direction other than where he's wandering, if I do it slowly and subtly enough. He doesn't voice objections to the very occasional placing of hand on waist (how the fuck did I get away with that?), but will poke or elbow me if hugged.

I'm happy that Darkside's showing the indications that he wants to know the inside of my mind particularly closely.

Bad geek jokes abound.

In the baseball model of sex, all my base are belong to Darkside. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and home run. ( ... )

...Even though I haven't ever done anything with him...