Fun with Math!

Hey kids! It's time for "Fun with Math"!

Last night I workied on this little propositional logic problem. Let's take a look:

Where:
P = Dan is home
Q = Maddy ate a sock
R = Kate made delicious, delicious Thai chicken curry
S = Maddy got sick all over the freakin' rug
T = Kate has to clean it up

1. ~P
2. Q v R
3. ~P ^ (QvR) -> S
4. ~P^S -> T
Therefore:
5. ?

All right everyone, break out your truth tables! What? You solved it already! You ARE smart!
That's right, the answer is T.

Here's the problem worked out: If Dan is not home, and Kate makes curry or Maddy ate a sock, Maddy will get sick. If Dan is not home and Maddy gets sick, then Kate has to clean it up.

See what fun math is? WAY more fun that cleaning up after a sick dog, I can tell you!

Well, that's all the time we have today for "Fun with Math". Tune in next time, when we caluclate the decibel levels of the hornking sounds the dog makes when she gets sick! See you!

DVR Roundup

Many people ask me, "Is it worth it to get a Digital Video Recorder?". My answer: Hell yes!

Just feast your eyes on the bounty that is my DVR list:

The Simpsons: For when I want to laugh, but don't want to risk getting grossed out.





Family Guy: For when I want to laugh so hard I risk wetting myself, and am not afraid to get occasionally grossed out.





Wonder Showzen: For times when I am willing to risk getting totally grossed out to the point where I have to get up off the couch and shake my hands around and go "Ew! Ew!" like a sissy.





Poirot: For when I want to watch a Belgian fop mince around making witty bon mots in french. Oh, and he solves mysteries.






Project Runway: Just in case I didn't fill my "fop mincing around" quota. Also, I don't get to witness enough bratty designers arguing in my current job.





Star Trek TNG: Because who doesn't love to see problems solved using some sort of quantum particle stream emitted from the deflector dish? Also, I am a geek.


Bobobo-bobo-bobo: Because this is a Japanese cartoon about a guy who does karate moves using his nose hairs. And because that is the least weird fact about the show.



Doctor Who: Also, I am a geek.






So you see, how can you afford not to get a DVR? Go get one right now! Do it!

This message sponsored by Time Warner Cable of Albany, NY.

Not really though. Get back to work.

Wow. Just wow.

I'm not even going to attempt to embellish this story.

The other day, I saw a lady walking her dog. She had a little baggie in her hand for the dog's waste. When the dog squatted down to do the #2, as they say, instead of waiting till he was done and picking it up, she proceeded to, well, ...

Okay, I was wrong. I'm definitely gonna need some caps for this. Here goes (deep breath)...



She proceeded to HOLD THE BAG UNDER THE DOG'S ASS AS IT TOOK A DUMP.



I didn't think there was any way to make cleaning up after your dog more humiliating, but there you go. Maybe this is de rigueur in other places, but not here, folks.

Obscure ways to make me happy

WARNING: EXPLICIT MUSIC GEEK CONTENT FOLLOWS.

So about 10 years ago, I heard a piece of renaissance choral music on the radio. I thought it was pretty.

Then I heard it again a few months later. Wow, I really like this piece, I thought. I wonder what it is?

You know where this is going. Over the years, I kept hearing the thing but never managed to figure out what it is. (stupid not-back-announcing DJ's!) Of course, it became a low-lying obsession to find it. This blossomed into a full-on obsession around last Christmas.

As you may or may not know, there are approximately 1,000,000,000 pieces of renaissance choral music. Between them, there are maybe a dozen titles. It's the equivalent of the Japanese phone book. The only thing I had to go on was it was a sad-sounding piece with a really high note in the middle. Not much, really. The most I could figure was that it was sad when Jesus died, so maybe it was a "miserere" from a mass. You can tell I'm a great Christian, I know. Also, that only narrows the field down to like 5 million pieces.

So, I listened to hundreds of 30-second samples of people singing in Latin. Sometimes they sang in Old German or Old French. This was the most boring thing I've ever done in my life.

I began to lose heart around the middle of January. A few weeks ago, I resigned myself to never hearing the damn thing again and stopped trying to find it.

Ready for the music-geek punchline? Of course you are, my extraordinarily patient friend. It turns out I downloaded the piece in January and never listened to it. I just heard it today. It's the Gregori Allegri "Miserere", for those of you who haven't nodded off from the tedium of this story by now. Oh, and happy birthday, Matt.

But no Foreigner

I've noticed an interesting phenomenon lately. I have a very, very high tolerance for bad radio.

Say I'm listening to an okay song on the radio. It ends, and a bad one comes on. I will often listen to the entire bad song and be well into the third commercial afterwards before I realize I am listening to the most utter crap ever to be broadcast, or a mattress commercial. Either one.

And after hearing the regular stations cycle through the "scan" at least three times in my car, "I Love a Rainy Night" by Eddie Rabbitt starts to sound pretty good. The only exception to this is Foreigner, which triggers some kind of allergic reaction/muderous rage in me immediately.

Whereas my husband will change the station within 0.02 picoseconds of hearing a bad song. Or even a mediocre song. Or a pretty good song. In fact, he flips through radio stations with blinding speed. Sometimes, my brain has barely registered the fact that a musical sound just came from the radio before he flips the channel.

I blame satellite radio, which he has in his car. With Sirius, it's easy to think that there's always a better song playing somewhere, because there usually is. So he sails right past songs that I would normally listen to, much in the way a gourmand scoffs at the fast food hamburger that a starving person would gladly eat.

Which leads to the following scenario on a regular basis: I put on a station in the car. He is itching to flip the channel, but he doesn't say anything because he is afraid I actually like the song. Sometimes, I can actually see the thought bubble over his head: "What happened to my wife? When did she start liking this crap? She used to be so cool - why is she listening to this? Maybe she hit her head and has brain damage! I am now filled with anxiety!"

Whereas I am thinking "Hey, I haven't heard this Hall and Oates song in years!" because I am desperate to hear anything that is not Nickelback or a preacher.

Sometimes I start singing along, usually just before he can't take it anymore, which of course prolongs his agony, knowing that there is an Elvis Costello song playing RIGHT NOW that he can't listen to.

And of course the downside to not listening to commercial radio is that you don't get to wallow in just how bad Top 40 can be. Example: somehow, Dan completely avoided hearing "My Humps", by the Black Eyed Peas. Of course, I rectified this a few weeks ago by making him listen to the entire song all the way through, which filled me with sadistic glee.

Well, come on. Everyone needs to know about the lady lumps. They are located in the back AND the front.

You know what they say!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bad things happen in threes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, sarcasm aside, this week I found out that a family member needs serious surgery. It could be worse, and there's no immediate danger from what I hear, but still, major stress/worry all around.

Then, yesterday I found out that BOTH my dogs have lyme disease. Freaking great. Again, nothing immediately dangerous, but come on. A month's worth of antibiotics all around.

You ready for the kicker, big ol' world of internets? On the way out of the vet's office, I sprained my freaking foot. Jesus. So I'm on crutches like a gimp.

Yes, that's right, I'm lame.

Well, lamer than usual.


Be nice folks, my foot hurts.

P.S. Also, in the best tradition of Alanis Morrisette-style irony, my wonderful new boots arrived today.

Well, FINALLY!

So, as many of you know, I have bad taste in shoes. Not that I don't appreciate a nice shoe when I see it, but I don't tend to buy a lot of shoes, and the shoes I do buy look like I picked them out of the dumpster of a wolverine-training facility run by indigent lesbians.

My excuses for this are:
1. I am cheap, so my shoes must be multi-functional
2. I am lazy and hate shopping
3. At any time, I might need to go to a construction site for my job. Granted, this only happens about three times a year, but it is inevitably when I am wearing dressy/open-toe shoes. And I tell you, it ain't easy to look professional and in control of a site inspection when you're mincing around in the mud.

But, pretty soon I will be taking trips to some actual cities, where my pathetic, gnawed excuses for footwear just won't cut it.

So, I bit the bullet and bought THREE WHOLE PAIRS of shoes. And I satisfied all three of the above conditions by getting shoes on sale, online. I even bought some funky boots with HEELS. I have to say, I love starting out my day now, putting on my brand new shoes. When Dan isn't around, I sing the "new shoe song", which goes like this: "I got my shoes... I got my shoes", sung to the tune of the "S-M-R-T" song by Homer Simpson.

It's the little things, folks.

Comeuppance

Okay, so I may have been a teeny, tiny bit too quick to mock the Bark-U-Lator, because it is THE COOLEST THING EVER CREATED. We played with it a bit more last night, when my husband had the brilliant idea to attach it to Maddy, the dog that actually barks.

And it was totally great! These were the barks we got:

At the dog next door: "I don't like you, either"
At Dan, when he went to give her a treat: "I don't know if you are a friend or enemy"
At Roger: "@$&*#%^*&@$"
At me: "You are the most perfect creature I have ever encountered and your hair smells wonderful and that's quite a nice shirt you are wearing please give me a treat right now."

Well, maybe not the last one. But still, it was pretty cool.

(Just for reference, Maddy is the one on the left, Roger is on the right)

Presents! Yay!

I received a "Bow-lingual" from my mom for my 30th birthday this weekend. It is a wireless microphone that you hook up to your dog's collar, which then transmits the sound of the bark to a handheld receiver. When the dog barks, you get a little readout telling you what the dog is trying to tell you.



I'll just let the absurdity of that sink in for a second.


So of course, we tried it out immediately. I insist on calling it the "Bark-U-Lator", while Dan prefers "The Bark-O-Tron 4000". It works, I guess, although if you need it to figure your dog out, you probably shouldn't own a dog. I mean, they're friggin' DOGS. They either need food, walks, or some place to poop. Not that complicated, folks.

Chapter 4: Wherein our Heroine Flirts with Oblivion, and Prevails upon the Rides of Others

So I was pulling out of my office parking lot a couple days ago, when I noticed an odd sensation: the brake pedal went down very slowly, slowly, slowly, until it finally hit the floor. Somehow, I managed NOT to shit my pants or hit anyone else, and pulled into a nearby parking lot.

That's right: my brakes were out. At first I wondered, "Who could possibly DO this to me?" Figuring someone had crept under my car and cut the hoses or something, because I am obviously a center of intrigue. But then I rememebered I have a crappy 1994 Cutlass Ciera, so it was probably old age.

Next morning, there was a huge puddle of brake fluid under my tires. D'oh. As the AAA guy was cranking the car on to the tow truck, he said the following fateful words, which e'en now do rattle through my brainpan:

"You know you got a gas leak?"

Sure enough, gas was GUSHING out of a hole in the top of the gas tank.

So this is what I figure: maybe someone DID cut my brake lines. God only knows what would've happened if I hadn't gotten that tow.

OOOH - maybe it was an angel!!!!!!!!!!!! A friend of my mom's cousin saw this thing on angels on Lifetime and says they are totally real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!