The Soapbox
Soapbox...I swear, the site will get updated SOMEDAY!
See what I'm up to
I'm still doing Chore Wars, and they've added a "badge" that allows you to see what adventure I've tackled most recently. (You can click it, check the date, and make sure I'm still alive. But I will be.)
Happy 2009
I am so glad to say good-bye to 2008.
I lost my mentors, taxes went hay-wire,and a lot of other things went to hell. Still, a lot of things came out on top.
Here's hoping things go in completely different vein.
The Key to Time
Posted December 29, 2008
Happy Hannukah! I finally have the Key to Time series of Tom Baker Doctor Who, thanks to Mom. Watching it RIGHT NOW. Hooray! She also gave me some really cool frog gifts, and was really grateful for her Hannukah and birthday gifts. Happy holidays!
Power failure
Posted December 12, 2008
Lost power for the longest time ever since moving to this tow--that is, I noticed the power went out. I woke up in the early morning hours to colder air and no lights, so I piled on the blankets and trusted in the alarm clock battery (oops).
Luckily, my local power company is reliable and had power restored before I got home from work. I've got a fire going, anyway, drying out the wood as I go along, watching Survival Friday on the Discovery Channel. Had I no power, I'd be in front of the fire reading by candlelight. Hooray, Girl Scouts!
Up and moving
Posted December 11, 2008
After sleeping in late for days, I'm up and alert before dawn. Why? Who knows? I had been doing well since I was given the position of official bureaucrat for my team at work, but then I slacked off again this week and started straining the powers of the Snooze button.
This morning I woke up at 6 am and decided it was a good time to get up. Is it because there's a new guy on Chemistry.com who's interested in me? Is it because the person senior to me on the technical publications team has formally requested a transfer to another country? Maybe it's because I've finally had it with my messy living room! (Nah.) Whatever the reason, I'm just grateful to be motivated.
Massachusetts - the best state in the best country on the best planet
Posted November 6, 2008
Ill break it down, point-by-point, to the extent that I'm in the mood.
- Gay marriage, still legal in Massachusetts; Those poor people who got married in California have to appeal. It's been legal here for a while and nothing major has happened. You'd think God would arrange for some smiting by then, except that he's probably more tolerant than people think...
- Save the greyhounds! Give them better homes than tiny cages with a lousy and inappropriate lifestyle.
- AND we decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, so that police can get on with their duties taking care of people doing real damage to society.
Oh, and Barack Obama's going to be president!
Full moon
Posted October 14, 2008
What the heck? Just tonight I saw:
- Several accidents
- Three police cars who'd pulled over one guy
- Yet another loser state police officer using his lights to get back to base sooner rather than waiting in traffic like the rest of us humans
- Two police cars, a fire engine, and an ambulance in a strip mall parking lot dealing with I don't know what--a collapsed person, I guess
Thankfully, no one honked at me in particular. I think I might have gotten an arm wave, but I was waiting on someone else, so it wasn't really my fault.
Still, the whole convergence of events on one drive home does make you think about the idea of the full moon. (And a friend who used to work in a psych ward swears by this old saw.)
Sitting by the fire
Posted September 26, 2008
This past couple of weeks, I managed to schedule routine maintenance with the chimney and HVAC people. Now I'm sitting by a fire with the heat off (it's cold these days in the northeast of the United States), and I'm pretty proud of myself. I hate calling friends, let alone strangers, so it's a big achievement for me. The phone is a scary thing!
(And let me say that I am a lucky person to have these problems.)
Also, I was originally getting up from my couch because Palin is a LOSER. She is not qualified to be vice president of the United States just because she made her childhood buddies her cabinet members in Alaska. Not that anyone has ever been qualified to be Secretary of the Interior, but, seriously, stating on record that the reason was that your best friend had an attachment to cows? Who does that?
I am THIS close to voting for Cthulu...because, in the end, why vote for the LESSER of evils?
New project: get out of debt
Posted September 8, 2008
I'm going to do something I've never done before: buy a self-help book and try to follow the instructions. This one is for getting out of debt, and the price I paid for the materials (by my calculations) covers the cost of their manufacture and just a little more. So I don't feel like I'm putting tons of money in the guy's pocket, and therefore I'm not scammed.
Here's the website, in case you're interested: www.daveramsey.com. ("Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.") I'll let you know how this goes.
Swimmer boy got married
Posted September 6, 2008
I'm going to die alone. My carcass will be eaten by wild dogs.
How do I feel? Listen to: This American Life - Break-up Episode
Thank you to my brother, who was the first person to talk me down.
Posted September 8, 2008
Thank you to my friend Laura, who was the second person to talk me down.
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?
Posted August 26, 2008
Sadly, we have not seen the woodchuck outside the office windows this year. We miss him. We're coming up on my first anniversary at Sybase, and I'm hoping that he'll return with the autumn.
Today we had a barbecue—chicken, steak, veggie burgers, baked beans—with all the trimmings—chips, salad, cole slaw, pasta salad, and ice cream from an honest-to-goodness ice cream truck. I love my job.
In honor of the Olympics...
I remind you of...the Animalympics!
I loved this when I was a kid. I didn't understand how it didn't get repeated every year when the Olympics occurred. Until now.
It's clear that this spoof pre-dates the era of personal stories. You know what I'm talking about: "Jeremy worked hard for his success at his sport, and his brother, Jason, has some kind of tragic disease that we're going to talk about and sucker you into their family drama. If only Jeremy can get the gold, he'll win the money he needs to get the surgery Jason requires to overcome his tragic disability. Yadda, yadda, yadda."
This whole "we're going to suck up to the Olympians' personal drama" thing is clearly recent, because it doesn't factor at all into the Animalympics spoof.
(I am using the names of my ex and his brother for this story because they are swimmers and it's the summer Olympics. Deal with it.)
It's a website, not a blog!
Posted August 16, 2008
A "blog" is a "web log," as in a log of your life (a diary) that you post on the Internet. Phrog Online is a website because I don't just post my thoughts up here. I have links, photo albums, and stuff like that. Also, there aren't archives of the Soapbox that stretch back for ten years. I keep what I want and delete things that I think have become irrelevant. Very few things are kept in the archives (i.e., next to nothing).
And that's the rant from the Soapbox today.
It all makes sense now!
Posted August 4, 2008
Suddenly, a couple weeks ago, things just clicked. Everything I've learned so far at my job makes perfect sense to me, and I can do it all without pain in the brain. Hooray!
Dr. Horrible
I'm so happy to be one of those up early enough on July the 19th to witness Act III of Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long blog! What? You've never heard of it? Well, simply click here to get clued in to the greatest Joss Whedon Internet thingy ever!
Ginormous puzzle...of doom!
I've done a 2000-piece puzzle. The darn thing is huge! (34" x 42.5")
June 15
Evening: The puzzle is complete!
June 14
5am: Bad news: I'm alone again. Good news: I've made major progress on my puzzle.
June 8
June 5
I finished one side of the border! (I included the DVR remote as a size reference.)
Thanksgiving
I hosted the largest Thanksgiving gathering that I have ever had to date: five family members, including myself. The way I set up the table to accommodate everyone, I ended up adding a card table to my gateleg table. I sat myself at the end of it so that I could, as the hostess, be at the head of the table, and as the youngest, sit at the traditional kid's table section.
There was no turkey left at my house afterwards, nor stuffing, and they also cleared me out of my homemade popovers. ("Have a popover, Froggie!") And the NPR Stamberg cranberry relish was a smash, too. I rocked Thanksgiving. Whoot!
(Lessons learned: bigger turkey, better stuffing prep, and more planning to accommodate people bringing side dishes.)
My First Day at Sybase
Posted Thursday, September 20, 2007
Well, I’ve had my first day at my new job and boy! it was quite the day. I’ve got an old chair with lots of levers, and it took a bit of fiddling to raise the seat. My manager’s unloaded some old stuff on me to clean his office up (giggle), so for the first time ever I’m playing with dual monitors. One is the very sophisticated monitor of my brandy-new laptop, and the other is a humungous old CRT.
Several of my new co-workers are football fans, which is great because I still get to talk about how much the Pats rule. I signed up for the free fitness center and ate at the cafeteria, both fun new perks. I have an ID badge with a terrible picture of me and a magnetic swipe strip for getting into the buildings, so I feel all corporate now.
Pleez Dont Mispel Mie Epitaff
Posted Sunday, August 19, 2007
My friend Dorothy is exploring her genealogical roots, which led her to the Palmer Center Cemetery in Massachusetts. We didn't find the tombstone she was looking for, but there was a grave with an unfortunate epitaph upon it.
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