Alex emerged post-shower, to be greeted with skeptical sniffing by Yellface, whose cozy curl was coincidentally barring the way to Alex's accustomed seat.

"She is a gentlecat, but not a scholar," I mused.

Further collective discussion about what kind of personality she would be, as an academic.

Belovedest was asked for input.

They paused, turned their head slowly, with great dignity.

"There is no way," they said, "That the Cat ... Would receive tenure before I do."

Today I had one of those conversations that you will likely have had to been there for, for several iterations of "there", including contemporary US healthcare yelling, the giddy heyday of LiveJournal and its attendant Main Character Dramas, and late 1990s mailing list fandom.

It is extremely too long to explain or sum up, but that's what a blog is for, right?
My bullet points here get extremely sketchy. Steph is looking forward to reading the whole thing, and I'm sure the housemates will appreciate knowing why the pair of us were doing a video chat and falling over laughing.

(Minor edits for making things work)

( To spare your reading page. Nested cut tags within. )

There was a tweet out there, featuring a photo of one of those big programmable road signs clearly set up for a concert:

IMAGINE
DRAGONS
PARKING

and commentary:

I'm following this instruction, but simply can't work out how they'd fit their wings and tail in the space. pic.twitter.com/6IhaI8pYxb

— Jon Holmes (@jonholmes1) November 5, 2015

This came up when on the phone, and extensive silliness ensued.

silveradept pointed out that dragons can bend, and would have their wings folded up and probably their necks raised and tails curled.

I asked how that affected take-off.

silveradept said that they'd always thought of dragons as VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing).

And I was like: No, you've got to have enough SIDE room, so like:
Imagine you have a wide dragon in a compact space...
... and two other dragons crammed in, in the spaces next to it...

(at this point we have both dissolved in giggles)

At which point I speculate that in order to achieve VTOL, the dragon is beating its wings like a hummingbird...

silveradept provides helicopter-like sound effects.

Me: Now imagine the noise from a SQUADRON of these...

silveradept [hummingdragon intensifies]
silveradept *decent rendition of the appropriate bits of "Ride of the Valkyries"*

Me: *crying laughing*


...

...


Yup.

I have a follow-up appointment and pelvic exam with my surgeon on Friday. Purple and I were brainstorming items that the surgeon would not be expecting to find when inspecting the surgical site.

Kinder egg (without chocolate)
Kinder egg (chocolate and all)
Toy fire truck
whistle
kazoo
Slide whistle
Entire Google car (full size) (we were at the Five Guys on Rengstorff, so there were lots of them driving past; I saw three simultaneously at one point)
Tiny model uterus (he already took one out)
A crab. (Zodiac Cancer.)

I was feeling a little cranky last night, so I went on an Amusing Underwear Theatre crawl through International Jock's sale section. Link destinations are ostensibly PG-13, but still features intentionally revealing underwear.

( Cut for length. )

Weekend!

Saturday, I drove down to Sunnyvale and toured an apartment complex. I liked it. We'll see if/when my raise comes through. (Purple says that on this one, I'm a dude.)

Vash gave me a bit of trouble on the way back, so I should see about getting him checked out.

So on Saturday, everybody got a note through the door that "investor inspections" were imminent. So much of the rest of my long weekend was either housework, or fervently ignoring housework. I am not Actively Displeased with the current state of the apartment, however I am not Pleased either. The packing has been making this easier, and I suppose the cleaning has helped the packing.

Tuesday:
Got a message from the Commandant that she was out sick, and I should take point on this morning's meeting. Okay! So I did some last laundry-roundup and vacuuming, and went off to work in good time to walk up to the secret milkshake bunker, saying hi to Purple on my way as he was coming in. He was in search of Beldorion. I thought I vaguely knew where he sat, but I was at the wrong end of the wrong floor of the wrong building. (Purple was able to find him okay, though.) The heavy equipment I'd seen at the end of the parking lot turned out to be unloading a whole bunch of trees; they looked like small redwoods in large wooden planters.

The Dean is ringleading the playing of a cricket tournament on the big screen. It turns out that none of the cable networks that we get seem to be running it, but there's an online thing. Some of the guys waxed enthusiastic. Yay for them.

The meeting went well! We have a better idea of what we're looking for this year, and some of last year's cracktastic experiments won't be repeated. I mentioned some of the constraints, like gluten-free, and that cut out Hawaiian as a theme, as all their soy sauce has lurking wheat. Partway through the meeting, the lady from catering spluttered and pointed out the window. For all the world like a tall ship under full sail, the top half of a redwood cruised by smoothly. For a brief fantastic moment I thought: Wow, it must be windy out today. Then, as the forklift emerged from behind the wall, the absurdity of the thought struck me. Another two redwoods followed it, to our collective giggles. We called our attention back to the task at hand, and got into logistics and table rental. We shall inquire to see whether there are cafe tables which can be pulled from storage before we see about rentals. From around the corner coming the other direction scuttled one of those same redwoods, beating a hasty retreat from who knows what ent-eater.

On the way back, I wound up telling Madam Standards about the time Shawn tried to make mac-and-cheese.

Purple sent out the lunch ping. Just then, one of the engineers who had through main force of will not screamed about the helldesk software on the You Must Be At Least This High In The Org Chart For This Ride field trip, had a question about how one shipped things. I had answers! I wound up creating a shipping ticket for him, and he jumped through the hoops to get his own login, as he sees himself shipping in the future. This did render me a bit on the late side to lunch, but that was all right.

Mr. Zune: "Is someone else about to be introduced to the Sticky Box?"

I left the shipping ticket on top of the Sticky Box for the engineer to find if he came back before I did.

My choice of food includes prep/waiting time as well as content, so it was the wok for me, even though that would result in picking out hot and cold peppers. There was a seat next to Purple, which I happily claimed. I grumbled about the housecleaning and apartment search some. I had a fantastic headache by that time. Purple told tales of one apartment he'd moved out of, where the place was going to be demolished after he left. The guys had told him he could "have fun", but he'd been too exhausted from moving to do anything entertaining like write on the wall in something that looked like human blood. Somehow this resulted in escalating jokes, with a live goat tethered (with food and water) in the middle of a salt pentagram ("Oh, I would have thought the sacrifice would have been accepted by now!"). Purple joked about using glitter in spells, and I started giggling. That made my head pound. "Oh god, I shouldn't be laughing," I said. Purple patted me on the back and allowed how he possibly shouldn't have been joking about that either. "No no, it's that I have a headache," I wheezed. Then I told him about a certain infamous writer of spellbooks who suggested glitter as a substitute for candles. Not to represent fire, but as a focus object. "So that's why you have a disco ball!" he declared. I mentioned that I might have possibly unnerved people in the past with the giant Christmas light pentagram on my ceiling in college. Heh.

The engineer had picked up the shipping ticket by the time I got back, and mentioned that my cube is certainly unique.

Lunch and lack of sleep and stress and dehydration seem to have been the headache, because post-lunch, caffeine, hydration, and giggles put me pretty much right.

Mid-afternoon, I looked out the window at just the right moment and saw two heads, one golden and one dark-with-a-bald-patch, walking past. It was clearly lb and Purple, going in the general direction of the milkshake bunker, walking fast. I had a quiet Moment -- a pang of left-out, and a swell of happiness that they were getting friend-time that they clearly needed to have. The happiness won, but not without a little bittersweet thread. But I don't have to be part of everything. In fact, I probably have more than my fair share of Purple's time. I can't begrudge another of his good friends some alone-time, in context of that.

Lennon Glasses Guy showed up for the speakers just as I was heading into my research meeting. I directed him where to find it: loon head, fridge, right next to the fridge. In the research meeting, Researcher Carmageddon picked my brain about things we'd like to know that I collected as a matter of course when they came up. They will come up with a list and cross-check. It is the time of year that Researcher Sweatervest has become chilly again, so he was wearing one of his namesake sweatervests. This one looked nicer, and new. Polka-Dot is out sick, and Haystack seems to be out of state due to a death in the family, but had called in.

In conference-driven development news, the Dreamwidth development activity makes me happy, and sometime when my hair is not trying to catch figurative fire I need to sit down and go through code tours looking for docs bugs.

Things in the helldesk software keep getting fixed from time to time. Apparently broken attachments had been un-broken. I cruised into the quiet room to assess the state of the stain, which was non-crusty, probably a drink spill. Then I went into my own building's relaxation room, took a picture of the sad little room with its foosball table, and emailed in a ticket suggesting that if an unloved but unbroken couch could be found in storage, this would make the room a little less sad -- both answering an actual need and testing the attachment situation, which seems indeed to have been remedied. (Trust, but verify.)

In clearing through my inbox, I paused and actually read one of the [off-topic] posts that I'd skimmed earlier in the day, and then paused again.

#cupcake
ajl: from [off-topic], regarding a cricket tournament: "We could always streak it from the laptop."
ajl: does some gentleman on [off-topic] feel like making a private reply including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaking ? I feel this is a disambiguation vs. "streaming" which should not come from a lady.
Upon which statement, several corners inquired whether "lady" really applied in this instance.

Purple had a programming situation which eventually turned out to be an unexpected NULL instead of the nice little object the program was expecting. Mommas, don't let your variables grow up to be un-initialized.

I wanted to get one last email finished before going home. It was quick, but Purple still arrived while I was wrapping up, and put out the Beacon and curled up on the nearby couch with his iPad for a few moments. "I should have waited for a reply instead of just coming over, huh," he smiled.

The parking lot saw terrible stories of dudes setting fire to their packages on video, plus other tales of fire and nether regions. (Hint: "I just got a new high-speed camera!" is not a good reason to light a fart. Sometimes, Purple's friends can pull dumbass stunts too.) We chatted through The Aristocrats, my lack of balance and the attendant jazzhands, and that time that I was the person doing the crazy religious ranting on the bus. I'm okay with informational embargo while a hole gets patched, but er. Ahem. Purple was understanding. My knees were not so understanding. His tire still has a nail in it. There was an owl, but only one this time. Perhaps it's in the owl-house, and not a cardboard box? Or perhaps it's in a redwood.

Purple got roped into doing a thing tomorrow and Thursday, so his lunch availability is low. My team probably gets custody of me, then, or maybe I shall join lb's table.

I chatted with Amber on the way home. Home included a relieving lack of paper stuffed in my doorframe.

Tomorrow will be another day. Thursday will be another inspection (announced Monday morning). Bluh.

Once he was a normal engineer. There was a time before the terrible and glorious burden fell upon him. Things are very different now. There are duties, ceremonial and otherwise.

The spirit fell upon him that day. He declared himself and his rank. The mantle of his duties descended.

"I am an engineer at Virtual Hammer. I am the keeper of the One True Shade of Purple!"

It was witnessed by the challenger, the wearer of a magenta shirt which did not conform to the Purple Standard.

If only the challenger had not called attention to it, it might have been otherwise. But the challenger had displayed the magenta shirt, ever so slightly too red to qualify, and said "Look, I'm a purple crash screen!"

The Keeper of the One True Shade was called to its defense.

Thus it ever is, and ever shall be.


silveradept asked me to talk about how I know someone is the keeper of the one true shade of purple. If you'd like me to talk about something in particular, feel free to ask!

Any explanation for the candy named "sour cherry balls" that starts with a mental search for the name of the profession that is to fruits as a veterinarian is to animals, does not need to be made in the workplace.

This near miss interaction involving my candy dish was with the Stage Manager. My brain went there, but fortunately wiser minds prevailed before it got out my mouth. "My brain is in the state right now where all of its contributions involving the name of the candy are unhelpful."

@ajaromano: Disadvantages of reading things on tablets: when the book sucks you can't angrily throw it across the room!

I agreed with that sentiment. I retweeted that sentiment. Then I started plotting ways in which to make that sentiment possibly obsoleet. Obsolete. Whichever.

The e-reader would have to be well hardened, with few enough moving parts that it could not be damaged by a good hefty throw. You'd need to make it to exceed even a very strong human's throwing capacity at a hard surface.

It would also have to be soft enough to not actually damage the wall, or floor, that it was thrown at. It shouldn't be thrown at people on purpose, but it would be good if it wouldn't be dangerous if someone should walk into its path by accident.

And what good is a good old-fashioned wall-thumping expression of your fury at a book without being shared? Obviously there is the time and the place to keep one's reaction discreet, but for those other times -- ! Clearly it would need an onboard accelerometer to measure the freefall, and then the sudden stop at the end.

There would be an app on the reader that would sync up to the user's preferred review site, and post the book's information and the vigor of the review, with optional commentary which could be added (user settings would either post immediately but could be edited, or queue for comment before posting).

This was a sad thump of a page non-turner. 3 N.
This infuriating shitsack should have never left the slushpile. 72 N.

The Wallbanger would be the best e-reader & app combo ever.

Basically, when you get "Black Jack Davy" stuck in your head for more than three days, you may wind up going to some somewhat more extreme lengths to get it out. My method involved Tam Lin. So then I was thinking about how the bit where Tam Lin is demanding a favor (if you know what I mean) from Janet, and how (depending on how it's played) it could either be kinda rapey, or it could be just a really bad pickup line. And then -- well. There are really no excuses.

norabombay was not actually awake when I was flailing at her, so she got more or less the following dumped in her IM:

okay so this Janet chick is out roaming the wilds of LJ, and she happens upon this gorgeous two-rose userpic that's in this comm that her bff runs. so she totally snags it.
and tam_lin, whose userpic it is, says "lol, no, why u go stealin' my userpic, now you gotta give me a little somethin' somethin'"
they have an argument that encompasses all of the userpic wank there is, was, and ever will be
but they wind up exchanging info and about 9 months later Janet posts this fic with a mysterious co-author
her bff's all "ok, spill, who's the co-author"
Janet: "lol no, you don't know him"
tam_lin comes back and says "ok, shit is about to go down & I'm'a get dragged thru fandom wank"
"but no matter what happens, it's really me I promise"
and then fandom_wank totally outs tam_lin as a nested series of sockpuppets
but when it's all over, janet is still standing by him (okay, her, because one of the items of sockpuppetry was gender, and femslash Tam Lin/Janet = DO WANT)
and they write horrible babyfic together forever.
THE END.

There is no defense for this travesty, except it was really really hilarious at 6:30am.