Friday / Instagram / IU / photo / running — Comments Off on There’s a pun here
06
Mar 20

There’s a pun here

There was a miniature conference in the building today. I wish more people had attended. The students who were presenting their research had some interesting topics and they’d worked quite hard on their papers. Maybe it is a function of doing this on Fridays, or the subject matter, or the weather or the publicity, but this is what they saw.

The 3D printer version of a giant sloth skeleton is a good and attentive listener, though.

The sloth will be with us for two more weeks, and then he’s going elsewhere. He’s actually already moving, he’s just doing so very, very, very slowly.

That’s the easy joke. And you’re right to take the easy sloth joke. How many sloth jokes are there? Let’s count …

I went out for a run to count sloth jokes, and over the course of four miles I came up with two. There are two sloth jokes. “Google, how many sloth jokes do you know?”

…

Turns out there are somewhere between nine and 16 sloth jokes, depending on how critical funny has to be to your conception of a joke. I would tell you all nine to 16 sloth jokes but that would be very time consuming.

That’s the other sloth joke I had without Google’s help.

Anyway, I hope you, like Poseidon, are ready to leap into the weekend.

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Poseidon gonna Poseidon.

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television / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on They’re talking bass-kit-ball
05
Mar 20

They’re talking bass-kit-ball

It was another night for television. Television has been written, television was produced and the audience shall have television. They’re going to enjoy it, too, if they like sports.

And they always ask the question: when is it too early to start talking about the basketball tournament? The answer it is never too early. Especially since everything will be different after next week, and we’ll have to figure it all out again.

There should be a consequence, a good-natured one mind you, for bad prognostication. It isn’t a tar-and-feather circumstance, of course, but maybe it’s a wear-a-feathery-mascot-and-hold-a-sign situation. A you have to do the next TV stunt sort of resolution. Something we can all laugh at, like predictions.

Which, hey, that’s just good practice, I guess. Plus, someone is going to get to say they were right about one of these predictions. That’s what’s fun about playing Nostradamus. If time proves you right you can have the crew roll that prediction as a replay: I was brilliant! See! If your predictions don’t work out, you just gloss over the whole notion of it ever happening.

Some things from Twitter:

I thought about that for a while. That might not have been what she wanted to happen, but it’s my mother so of course she knew it would happen. In a way, then, that was exactly what she wanted to happen. In which case, happy to help!

This gives me an idea:

How much could a full-ceilinged aquarium weigh, anyway? Surely the house’s structural supports could manage that sort of challenge.

It’s not like jellyfish weigh much, after all.

collarbone / running / Wednesday — Comments Off on Working through an owie
04
Mar 20

Working through an owie

Sometimes I can pop my upper back from a seated position by raising my hands above my head and rotating my torso with a particular style of torque. Did that on Monday, and as I did, my back popped, as did my shoulder, in a most unfortunate way.

That set off a sequence of painful sensations — sore shoulder, muscle spasms beneath and beside the scapula, pain across the collarbone and into the neck. Right in this area, which was on fire for a day and change:

More scapular stabilization dysfunction, then, and how did I walk around feeling like this for the second half of 2012 and almost all of 2013? (I’ve had one or two other re-occurrences and each time I’ve said the same thing. How did I suffer through this for that long? It only took three hospitals, three different surgeons and two different sets of physical therapy to make a collarbone tolerable.)

Anyway, at the office today I concentrated on some of those therapy exercises and I found an empty wall and did the tennis ball tricks. And then, walking down a ramp (it’s a quirky building) my neck popped and started feeling better.

I could feel it immediately, everything was starting to loosen up. My neck started popping at the slightest provocation. All of the muscles in my back, having flared for two days, felt better, but exhausted. I could move freely! But it also felt as if the slightest provocation could start the whole thing over again.

So naturally a three-and-a-half mile run was in order. Best I’ve felt in two days, somehow.

The moral to the story, I guess, is this: Never raise your hand.

I wasn’t even volunteering for anything at the time. And if volunteering requires any big arm movements right now, I probably would think twice about it.

Back to being the idea guy, then. I’m pretty good at that.

IU / television / Tuesday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Some quick videos
03
Mar 20

Some quick videos

Tonight’s news, because I really don’t understand where the day went:

The students shot another show this evening, and it’ll be out tomorrow. It was one of the many things that went by in a blur for me today.

The award-winning morning show returned last week. I neglected to mention it here, and shame on me:

That’s a new intro, by the way. That show always has a fun opening, really, but how can you not like a horns ensemble for a morning show?

They produced another episode yesterday:

It’s so nice when programs begin to see that momentum growing. Suddenly, they can take on any project.

Me? I’m going to take on the infinity effect.

Monday / photo — Comments Off on Checking in on the felines
02
Mar 20

Checking in on the felines

Had a nice weekend. Had a plan for all of the things I was going to do. I think I did two of them. So that was … progress, I guess. I did a lot of cat cuddling, instead, for the most part. Let’s check in on the animals.

Phoebe enjoyed a Saturday in the sun.

I’d gone outside to conduct some very important solar power experiments. When she sees someone outside who she knows should be inside, she does a great many tricks to get your attention and entice you to come back in. I liken it to human-trained dolphins. “Come look at this trick!” There’s a lot of flopping and flipping upside down. Some of it more graceful than others.

I also got the rare Phoebe cuddle:

I am the second choice here, and that’s fine. When she’s desperate, and if I can get a blanket quick enough, she’ll sit with me. About a month ago I stopped counting how many times it had taken place — because I would need to use a third hand to keep track. But when she’s really cozy she climbs up on you like this. I have had four of these now.

She disappeared as soon as I took that photo, so thank goodness for safety shots, I suppose.

Poseidon is doing just fine, too. He had a sleepy weekend:

Who could blame him? Sleepy weekends are pretty awesome.

And how was your weekend? I hope you accomplished precisely what you needed to, exactly what you wanted to, and not the first bit more.

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