Which one wanted the brain again? Scarecrow? Tinman?
Yesterday I resolved to make a conscious effort to update my blog every day, or at least as much as possible, since time gets away from me and I find it's been two or three weeks since I've last updated. I even had an idea for today's post all ready.

Then as I was falling asleep I realized that I forgot what that idea was and I've been unable to recall it all day long. Perhaps it was something about how I am having trouble remembering things and keeping track of time.
- posted by meg @ 3:10 PM

 
Runny Babbit messes with my head
I think I may be dyslexic because I read the name of this gene as DCCD2.
I'm just saying it's funny.

Honestly I think there's something wrong with how I process information but I don't know if it's dyslexia. Probably isn't too much of an issue at this point.
- posted by meg @ 11:53 AM

 
I can stop any time I want to
Really, I can. I stopped having caffeine more than twice a week for several weeks until this week or last week. My sense of time is a little messed up. Recently.

Honestly though I don't drink coffee for the caffeine, usuallly. My number one reason is taste, followed by being too cold in the lab (some people think the best approach to regulating temperature is to do 10* changes at a time) then an approximate tie between needing to wake up while reading and needing a caffeine supplement to my excedrin migraine. I wonder how many people have a daily coffee out of routine more than dependence. Of course routine could be synonymous with mental dependence but you get the idea.
- posted by meg @ 1:16 PM

 
An interesting question
A coworker out of the blue asked me an interesting question today.

Coworker: If you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself? ...
Meg: Yes.
Coworker: Because I would.
Meg: (pause) Am I a chili cheese dog?
Coworker: Of course.
Meg: So, would you call that autocannabalism?
Coworker: That's what I was thinking.

I think the bigger question is did science make us crazy or do crazy people flock to science?

Chicken/egg.

- posted by meg @ 2:27 PM

 
Welcoming baby boomers into the 21st Century
My parents have relied on my brother and me for technological advancements quite a bit. My dad got his first CD player (1997) and mp3 player from us (2004) and has taken the initiative to get a laptop and digital cable on his own. Although he did have hundreds of CDs before he had a CD player, so there's that to consider. My mom is much more dependent. Since moving to Florida she has opted out of having even basic cable TV, so there's a step down right there. She also received a CD player (2002) and a DVD player/entertainment system (2004) from us. I think my brother also got her a CD player for her car. To be fair I received technological gifts from my family, although that was more because I can't afford to buy them for myself than anything else.

So this year for my mom's birthday Andy and I again turned to technology. He found a place that sells used computers greatly discounted, which is great. It's to replace the 486 that she's had since around 1994. (It was the only family computer and she kept it through a divorce and two children going off to college.) It's taking a while, though, to find a good system that he can then put software on separately. Well, a friend is putting it on, which is where we are now. Essentially it's been about 6 weeks since her birthday and she's looking for her present. Which she knows is a computer. So that ticked me off a bit although I'm sure she was partly joking. Regardless, she's asking me about shipping. Since I'm in Michigan and Andy is in Connecticut really only one of us can be involved in this. This time it's Andy. She's also told him several times to ship it to her work instead of her home so no one will steal it from her yard. She does things like that a lot. Every night for the better part of 10 years she would say "I cooked dinner so you guys can clean up." Every. Night. As the smarter child, I caught on to this pattern around time 2000/2300. Andy took about 2500 times. We were confused by the nights that I would cook and Andy would basically clean up by himself with my mom putting the food away.

Anyway. So my mom's being a mom about it and we're a little annoyed but mostly we think it would be really funny to fuck with her a bit on this. We're getting her a computer, she can deal. We think it would be great to send a large empty box to her home with a note saying either "ha ha" or "just kidding" to be followed by the computer a day or two later at her work. Not enough to pay for shipping. But great.
- posted by meg @ 3:52 PM