Hangout

[who me?]

How do you figure that?

[dgp11776]

I can't figure it out, either.

"Como como como Perry Como?" is a complete, albeit stupid sentence in Spanish.  It states "How do I eat like Perry Como?"

[enemy anemone]

wiki explains it

[who me?]

I looked it up and I still don't get it.

I feel so dumb

[Josh]

I'm tickled that the wiki article explains the sentence both via transformational-generative phrase-marker tree diagram and Reed-Kellog.

[Vlad!]

I'll take a look at that etrade account. I'm a little concerned about whether etrade is FDIC insured--if not, and if for whatever reason their investment goes south, you lose your money. I will also be interested to see if they offer checking or anything, as my current Suntrust account is giving me about 3%, IIRC, but if I need to I can write a check on that account, which is nice if I need a lot of money in an emergency (since I don't have credit cards).

[dgp11776]

It's FDIC insured up to $100,000. 

[Josh Powell]

If you do decide to open an eTrade account... I found a promo that they're doing. Instead of 5% you get 5.05% and you get a bonus $25 just for opening an account. Still no fees and the minimum amount to open an account is just $1.

www.etrade.com/25cash

[enemy anemone]

huh. wish I had waited till I saw your post.

I need to move away to somewhere more affordable. maybe not somewhere that gets 40" of snow per year and averages 133 days with temps below freezing though. but some place where the cheapest studio apartments aren't $800. does that seem high to you? after looking at listings it seems awfully low to me. it seems this-place-must-be-junky low. and then I smack myself and think what is the matter with me? I can't afford it anyway.

[dgp11776]

Move to North Carolina.  My monthly mortgage payment for a 1,750 square foot home on 0.4 acres is about $800!

[Vlad!]

dgp, I didn't know you lived in NC (maybe I did at one time, though ). I'm going to be moving to the Raleigh/Durham area after I graduate.

[dgp11776]

Ah, that's cool!  I hope you like it over there.  I live closer to Charlotte, or about 2.5 hours from Raleigh.  Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill is/are growing like mad.  You'll be close to all the good concerts, too, if you're interested.  Cat's Cradle in Carrboro always gets the good stuff.

[Vlad!]

Yeah, it seems like a great place, and definitely true about the growth. It seems to be trying to become an East-Coast Silicon Valley. I actually interviewed in the real Silicon Valley as well, but although I loved California, the cost of living there is so much more than in the Research Triangle area that I'm just as glad to be taking a job closer by.

[enemy anemone]

did you just say "closer by"? is this something other people say or are you picking up some of my weird phrases?  (maybe it's just me that thinks it's weird.)

I lived in NC for 10 months but I am loth to move back to that area. (it's more out of negative personal associations than anything, I'm thinking.)
based on the times I've looked at my favorite artists' tour dates I would say that for NC, Asheville gets the more of the good concerts. because I've idly thought that if I had to move back to NC (the powers that be are forcing me to, haha) I'd pick Asheville.

I was looking at a few sites that recommend places for you based on certain preferences and got recommendations for cities that get 40+ inches of snow a year and average 133 days with temps below freezing. maybe I've been here too long but my initial reaction was "how is that even possible?!" I guess the 40" don't have to be dumped out of the sky all at once and the temps aren't restricted to staying below freezing for all those days...but yikes.

[Vlad!]

I wouldn't be surprised if Blacksburg gets over 40 inches of snow some years. Amortized over the entire winter, it's really not that insane.

Also, I have definitely said "closer by" all my life, and I stick with it, dangling participle and all.

[enemy anemone]

I always want to say "closer by" but to me it sounds odd, like saying passerbys or bypassers or passbyers or standbyers. even though it's not the same sort of word/phrase/thing. I've started saying it anyway.
I just thought of something though--if operators are standing by, wouldn't that make them standbyers? they're not bystanders. XD

I came across weatherbase and looked up the Midwestern town I grew up in to see the snowfall and temperature stats. average snowfall is 18.6" and days below freezing is 134.3. hm. so I guess I shouldn't have been so mindboggled. oh, and average number of days below 0 F is 4.8. I find that hard to believe. (doesn't seem like enough.) but maybe when it's below 0 it seems to last more days than it actually is. 
just across the River in my home state, places seem to get more snow but fewer days below freezing. and for the locations that had the data, there were many more average days below 0. (I'm sorry--at this hour, I find this to be utterly fascinating.)
for Los Angeles, the bar for the "days below..." is at 45 degrees. and the average number of days below 45? 28. there are two things about that that I don't believe. one, how wimpy that sounds, and two, well, I am sure that this past "winter" we did not have a whole February's worth of days that got below 45. I'm thinking more like half that.

[RedcoatJones]

I love weather stuff like that.

For my hometown, Atlanta, we get on average:

• 2 in. of snow per year (and trust me, it's all on the north side of town)
• 48 days below freezing (only 1 below 10)
• 39 days above 90
• 50 in. of rain per year (spread out over 115 days, with 47 of those days being thunderstorms)
• Avg. morning humidity of 82% and evening of 52% (of course, August, one of the hottest months, has an average of 88%/56%)
  

[Vlad!]

I was playing Pictionary with some friends last night. One friend got "Mars", at which point he drew four circles, the third one with the familiar continental outlines on it, and then circled the second circle. Naturally, I guessed Venus, but before we could sort out the confusion, the other team got it.

This isn't the first time I've encountered an ostensibly intelligent, rational adult who cannot seem to remember the order of the planets. So consider this a public service announcement: Mars is the fourth planet from the sun (Venus is the second). In order, the planets go
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
After which there are a few dwarf planets, which include Pluto (an erstwhile planet).

This is one of those things that only a select few people will need to actually know, but it's important to be aware of lest you look like an idiot while playing Pictionary with a bunch of drunken college students (always the most amusing way to play).

[enemy anemone]

my brain and pictionary don't get along. it tends to think of a lot of things that I can't draw. at least, not in a way that conveys what I want. "Veronica...", "god of war", "little green men from..."  Mad Gab is funnerer.

[Vlad!]

That's unfortunate for you, because I absolutely love playing Pictionary. I am also undefeated. The key is to find the simplest thing that conveys the information you want. It's really interesting to play with good friends because you have a lot more shared consciousness you can draw on, and you start to develop conventions that make difficult things easy (unless, of course, your good friends are all retards who don't know which planet Mars is...).

[enemy anemone]

I just realized I was thinking of the game Taboo, not Mad Gab. (I was thinking of gabbling a string of words madly.) I was pretty good at that game with the group of friends I played it with. (haven't played with other people.) unfortunately we quickly developed a one-word shorthand and thus couldn't play so funly anymore. XD

[Vlad!]

Taboo is a fairly fun game. I have only played it with my family, and we never developed any sort of shorthand. I'm fairly good at that game as well, but I prefer Pictionary, probably because for me it's more challenging (I can draw OK, but it takes time...anything I draw quickly ends up looking like an amoeba).

I keep meaning to scan in some of the pictures we draw and put them up somewhere for posterity, but I always forget. Maybe one of these days...

[NinjaRob17]

I was playing Pictionary with some friends last night. One friend got "Mars", at which point he drew four circles, the third one with the familiar continental outlines on it, and then circled the second circle. Naturally, I guessed Venus, but before we could sort out the confusion, the other team got it.

One thing I actually can remember is the order of the planets. I have trouble remembering other things, but reciting the order of the planets is like reciting the alphabet for me. Which is strange, because I'm not that great at science.

[enemy anemone]

amoeeeeeeeeeeeeeba! (fun word to exclaim, don't you think?)
so I was thinking about how to draw an amoeba without looking at a picture of one first and I realized that my first attempt would look exactly like a fried egg.  (okay now I looked at pictures...I have drawn amoeba-ish blobs but they were supposed to be abstract blobs.)

at one of my jobs we have to memorize (like we're in second grade) a stupid list of safe work methods. they're all common sense things but I can't rattle them off like we're supposed to. we have to memorize the general headings and a couple lists under two of the headings. I thought I could draw pictures to help me remember the general list, and I had these simple ideas in my head, but I couldn't manage to translate them satisfactorily to paper. I think the effort did help me remember though.
job setup: stick figure setting up the bomb
lifting and lowering: stick figure exuberantly lifting a huge object over his head
pushing and pulling: a pushmepullyou (ended up drawing a stick figure pushing a huge object)
slips and falls: stick figure taking a nasty tumble (looked more like he was breakdancing)
powered equipment: stick figure standing obliviously at the end of a conveyor belt
prepare for the unexpected: stick figure behind a door that has a bucket perched at the top (was originally going to be a piano falling from the sky but I messed up and then didn't have room to attempt to draw a piano.)

[Vlad!]

Heh, that sucks. Is it a "do this or you're fired" type thing, or just a "management requests that blah blah blah" type thing? If it wouldn't put my job on the line, I probably wouldn't do it (and even if it would, maybe that would be the last straw).

[enemy anemone]

they won't fire you if you don't know, but the supervisors will ask every week, and higher-ups will come every now and then to conduct an audit, and if you can't rattle the lists off satisfactorily they will make the supervisors "work with you" for a month.
what I heard is that someone somewhere fell off a platform and got hit by a truck or something, so the powers that be are taking measures to prevent that from happening getting sued again by having everyone memorize lists. the lifting and lowering sub-list has 8 steps, such as: get close to the package [don't lift from across the room], position feet [don't levitate], use firm grip [don't use telekinesis, in case you didn't get that from the "get close" thing], move feet [dance], etc. my brain has a hard time memorizing such mind-numbing things. they could've at least come up with catchy songs that we could sing as we stand holding hands in a circle. I had even said so, but my supervisors are nice guys who acknowledge that the whole thing is crap, and for my sake and theirs I don't want them to have to "work with me". so I've been trying to figure out ways that I can remember the stupid lists without resorting to reciting them 10 times a day. that worked in elementary school (I still remember that stuff, too--"have has had do does did shall will should would may might must can could") but these days I have a hard time reciting my own phone number unless I write it down.

[Vlad!]

Argh, I hate that style of management. The bigwigs, sitting back in their Aeron chairs, formulate this strategy. They think, hey, let's make sure that everyone in our company knows how to do their job safely. Of course, the problem is that their job involves lifting objects and then putting them down in different locations, the job requirements for which are approximately "applicant has a pulse" (and if they could find some way to hire the undead then they would, since zombies don't unionize). So instead they formulate this list of "steps" (probably produced by a consultant paid two hundred American dollars per hour) that is really a steaming pile of goat feces and then initiate a "process" to ensure that all the drones assets know them by rote. Meanwhile, said assets are lifting and lowering boxes the exact same way they always have, except that now as they're doing so, they mutter things like "get close to the package; position feet; use firm grip" while doing so (in an attempt to remember it). And of course, because they're distracted by this, they forget to move their feet, fall off a platform, and get run over by a truck.

As this clearly shows, such management methodology can only end in tragedy.

[who me?]

This thread is so much fun. This is why we love you schill.

[enemy anemone]

hehe. glad to amuse.

Vlad!, that's pretty much it. except I don't think that the employees who do most of the package handling try to learn the steps, and their supervisors are too busy yelling for them to hurry up to nag at them about how they're supposed to be working. ridiculosity abounds.

I didn't get a chance to scan my little stick men drawings, which I felt like re-doing since I wrote about them here. reason for my distraction: my little sis got the pets thing for Sims and we created a family and pets. so much fun. playing is less fun than creating the characters though. and too addicting. my girl is Kristen and has a red mohawk and wears a pirate outfit and rectangular dark-framed (indie nerd) glasses. I love her. the cat is orange and white and has fox-like markings and a fluffy tail. the funny thing about the game is that the pets can have jobs! Kristen is happy to be unemployed and learn cooking and painting, and the roommate Angel got fired. so the dog and the cat are bringing home the bread. except that we used the money cheat so it doesn't really matter anyway. the animals are so fun and funny but they make me want to cuddle and train a real animal (and have it make money for me, ha!) and I end up playing the game way too long. *sigh*

[Vlad!]

Fortunately, I realized early on that the sort of game like the Sims or Second Life or anything like that is just simply a dead end, substituting something artificial for something real. In terms of addictions it's relatively harmless, but I know very well how easy it is to get caught up in something like that, so I generally don't even try...

However, having a pet that makes money for me would in fact be one of the best things ever.

[enemy anemone]

as far as computer games go, I tend to prefer (in the sense of how easily I can be sucked in and stay sucked in) games like Sims. games that progressively get harder to beat, especially games where the character you're playing dies and you have to start all over, frustrate me too much while I'm playing. but with Sims I have fun while I'm playing, but once I manage to walk away I'm frustrated with myself for spending so much time doing so. oh well.

so here are some rather crappy scans of the rather crappy (but not as crappy as the first ones) stick people that I drew to help me remember stuff.



job setup, lifting and lowering, pushing and pulling, powered equipment, slips and falls, prepare for unexpected. (in case you can't tell, the last one features a stick figure holding an all-original piano stand umbrella, complete with piano stool.) (I would've posted them larger but they look even crappier that way.)

[Vlad!]

Haha, those are funny. I like the Robo Hand Of Doom grabbing the guy's head.

[enemy anemone]

=) previously I would always forget about the powered equipment thing, but now the robo hand of doom will remind me.

[Vlad!]

This quote appeared in an e-mail I got today from my future employer:

"As part of our priority goal to get the college new hires up to speed as fast as possible, [we] will be holding a 3 week training session in September. The first 2 weeks of the training will be in Sunnyvale..."

I fail to see how sending me across the freaking country--literally--and away from the people I'll actually be working with for two weeks will help me get up to speed faster.

Another example of corporate policies that must have made more sense in someone's head than they do in real life. However, unlike having to memorize steps to pick up boxes, this one involves a two-week trip to the Bay area. Oh darn.

[Aaron]

I have returned from a 6 day vacation and boy it was fantastic.

[bethany]

I like Pictionary, but seem to rarely find myself in company that does as well, so I haven't played it in years.

Taboo is my favorite. Also Scrabble and Balderdash and Scattergories. Hmm. Apparently I like word games.

[RedcoatJones]

I love board games, as well. My brothers (and a couple other friends) have an perpetual game of both Risk and Axis & Allies going on through a Games-by-email server.

[enemy anemone]

I haven't played Balderdash or Scattergories. I like Boggle and Scrabble but haven't had anyone to play with. after I beat my little sis at Boggle a couple times, she decided she does not like word games. haven't tried playing Risk or Axis & Allies. I suck at any sort of strategy game.

[Aaron]

I played Risk this weekend with my friend and his wife while on vacation at their house.  I hadn't played it in about 10 years and I lost miserably.

[Vlad!]

Balderdash and Scattergories are fairly fun. When my family plays we often get into disputes about the legality of certain words and technicalities over the rules, though. Scrabble is way too boring for me. We have a faster-paced version that Mark taught us called Take Two, which is a lot more fun. I've played Boggle before, but staring at all those letters isn't really interesting to me.

Taboo is good fun, though. I prefer Pictionary, but absent that, Taboo is a good one.

Risk and Axis & Allies are fun games. When I'm visiting my parents, sometimes I'm lucky enough to be home when the old crew (consisting of a few phorumer Phorumers, plus Josh and a couple outliers) is getting a Risk tournament together. I don't really have the patience/attention span to do well for an entire game, but I'm fairly decent. My family doesn't like Risk because a certain family member (not me) takes it far too seriously. We've never tried playing A&A, but when I was in Boy Scouts my troop played it a lot.