So, there's a meme going around. I got the letter 'p'. Deal.
However, any old 10 things about the letter 'p' is too easy, so I'm tightening the noose. None of my 'p's' can be parted from their 'q's'.
Hmm...
Parquet- Not just a semi-palatable spread, it's also a type of floor covering. Does this count as two? Not in my book, baby.
Pipsqueak- Pretty much anyone standing next to me.
Pink Quartz- Also known as rose quartz, it's a fairly common stone of low value.
Pennsylvania's Quarter- it's got a rock (Keystone), a broad (the statue Commonwealth), and a barn wall (outline of the state). There's a joke in there somewhere, but I seem to have missed it. (OK, seriously, am I good, or what?)
Pumpkin Quiche- try the recipe, it sounds delicious.
Professional Quoits- Total Expected Prize Awards for this Season's 2007 Tour may approach
$15,000!
Quiz Proctor- The title you aspire to when you join this group of academcians in semi-formal private internal competition.
Quixotic Protagonist- see Fox Mulder, Charlie Brown, or Bruce Banner
Perfidious Quandry- to quote the Green Goblin: "Let die the one you love, or suffer the little children?"
Paragon Quacker- see Daffy Duck. Nobunny ducks it better.
I'm expecting that pumpkin quiche by FedEx soon, dammit.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Move over Katrina...
... there's gonna be some new sherriffs in town.
This link will take you to to a page holding near-realtime water temperature data in the Gulf of Mexico and along its coast. Water temperature is one of the stronger indicators for potentially devastating storms and hurricanes. Why? Oh, fine, I aced Earth Science in high school, so I'll explain. (Explanation and science behind it are subject to lapses in memory, high school was a long time ago.)
Water is one of earth's most powerful batteries for the storage of heat energy. Weather, that catch-all term for atmospheric phenomenon in general, is largely the by-product of the transfer of heat from one location to another. Actually, 'largely' is kind of misleading. It's actually almost totally the by-product of such transfers. The other contrubutor is actual changes in air pressure (but, I dryly note, those changes in air pressure are caused by changes in temperature).
Now, water, as I mentioned, acts as a battey for heat. I'm not going to get into the physics of it (And believe me, the particle physics properties of water cause many a physicist's head to get scratched, and vigorously! It's simply an excruciatingly technical and very dull subject, trust me.), for which you ought to be grateful. What I am going to say is that water, for a substance so common and (relatively) stable in all three states (solid, liquid, and gas), has an amazingly high specific heat. Specific heat is basically a measure of how much energy a particular substance needs to absorb before it will change states from solid to liquid to gas. That high specific heat is what makes water such a good battery for storing heat.
So, that means, something? Well, yes. What it means is, the warmer a large body of water gets, the more water molecules get turned into vapor. Water vapor is the most energetic state (Well, there's plasma, but water tends to break down into hydrogen and oxygen under conditions where it would plasm, and then recombines and plasms a lot, and that's pretty messy, so let's forget it and just stick with what we have, ok? Seriously, if the Gulf of Mexico plasms, hurricanes will be the least of your worries, turst me.) of water, meaning that water vapor holds a whole damn lot of heat, and lots of it getting pumped into the atmoshpere means that the atmosphere is getting charged with a lot, a LOT, of energy.
And that energy has to go somewhere. Remember, weather is all about moving heat from one chunk of air to another chunk of air with less heat. The more energy a particular chunk of air absorbs in the for of water vapor, the stronger that heat transfer is going to be.
As air cools, the vapor condenses, and you get rain. But the air also tends to sink as it cools, and create a down draft. The air under that downdraft gets pushed aside, and becomes wind, and as air rushes away from an area, the air pressure drops, and more water condenses, and more air cools, and it gets to the point where some neighboring air mass with more heat starts transferrring its heat to that location.
So, [weather] = [heat transfers in the atmosphere] and that means [lots of warm water] = [lots of trouble]. So, bookmark that site, and check in from time to time. Expect a hurricane when the water temp is over 88dF. Expect a whopper when it's over 92dF.
This link will take you to to a page holding near-realtime water temperature data in the Gulf of Mexico and along its coast. Water temperature is one of the stronger indicators for potentially devastating storms and hurricanes. Why? Oh, fine, I aced Earth Science in high school, so I'll explain. (Explanation and science behind it are subject to lapses in memory, high school was a long time ago.)
Water is one of earth's most powerful batteries for the storage of heat energy. Weather, that catch-all term for atmospheric phenomenon in general, is largely the by-product of the transfer of heat from one location to another. Actually, 'largely' is kind of misleading. It's actually almost totally the by-product of such transfers. The other contrubutor is actual changes in air pressure (but, I dryly note, those changes in air pressure are caused by changes in temperature).
Now, water, as I mentioned, acts as a battey for heat. I'm not going to get into the physics of it (And believe me, the particle physics properties of water cause many a physicist's head to get scratched, and vigorously! It's simply an excruciatingly technical and very dull subject, trust me.), for which you ought to be grateful. What I am going to say is that water, for a substance so common and (relatively) stable in all three states (solid, liquid, and gas), has an amazingly high specific heat. Specific heat is basically a measure of how much energy a particular substance needs to absorb before it will change states from solid to liquid to gas. That high specific heat is what makes water such a good battery for storing heat.
So, that means, something? Well, yes. What it means is, the warmer a large body of water gets, the more water molecules get turned into vapor. Water vapor is the most energetic state (Well, there's plasma, but water tends to break down into hydrogen and oxygen under conditions where it would plasm, and then recombines and plasms a lot, and that's pretty messy, so let's forget it and just stick with what we have, ok? Seriously, if the Gulf of Mexico plasms, hurricanes will be the least of your worries, turst me.) of water, meaning that water vapor holds a whole damn lot of heat, and lots of it getting pumped into the atmoshpere means that the atmosphere is getting charged with a lot, a LOT, of energy.
And that energy has to go somewhere. Remember, weather is all about moving heat from one chunk of air to another chunk of air with less heat. The more energy a particular chunk of air absorbs in the for of water vapor, the stronger that heat transfer is going to be.
As air cools, the vapor condenses, and you get rain. But the air also tends to sink as it cools, and create a down draft. The air under that downdraft gets pushed aside, and becomes wind, and as air rushes away from an area, the air pressure drops, and more water condenses, and more air cools, and it gets to the point where some neighboring air mass with more heat starts transferrring its heat to that location.
So, [weather] = [heat transfers in the atmosphere] and that means [lots of warm water] = [lots of trouble]. So, bookmark that site, and check in from time to time. Expect a hurricane when the water temp is over 88dF. Expect a whopper when it's over 92dF.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Take the test...
You scored as The Amazing Spider-Man. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker was transformed from a nerdy high school student into New York's greatest hero. Peter enjoys the thrill of being a super hero, but he struggles with the burdens of leading a double life. He hopes someday to win the heart of his true love Mary Jane, the woman he's loved since before he even liked girls. Right now, he just wants to make it through college and pay his bills.Maximus | 75% | ||
The Amazing Spider-Man | 75% | ||
Batman, the Dark Knight | 67% | ||
Captain Jack Sparrow | 63% | ||
Neo, the "One" | 58% | ||
Indiana Jones | 58% | ||
The Terminator | 46% | ||
El Zorro | 46% | ||
Lara Croft | 42% | ||
William Wallace | 33% | ||
James Bond, Agent 007 | 25% |
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com
Woo-hoooooo!! Spider-Mayaaaaan. Only The most noble, The most coolest, and generally the bestest of the bestest of superheroes of all time ever!! In yo faces!!
Goodbye, my friend.
It is with a sense of loss that I wish you a fond farewell. Your husband has taken a new job in a distant state, and, as he is a wise and sane man, is taking you with him. There are 'people' who will mistake my feelings as some sort of crush. They are... misinformed by their prejudices.
I don't have a crush on you. And when I say that my feelings for you run deeper than that, I don't mean in a sense that these 'people' are familiar with. They are simple beasts, unable to comprehend the idea of a man having feelings of a positive, yet non-amorous nature, for a woman like you. If I say that I like you, they assume it is in the fashion that most men 'like' women.
They, like me, can see that you have beauty. But sadly, that seems to be all they see, so it is the only motivation they could ascribe to my feelings for you. They do not see the warmth within you, that spark of kindness, decency, and genuine Goodness, that inspires you to show kindness to those whom you have no reason to be kind to, such as yours truly. I can not benefit you in any way, and yet you offer friendship without strings.
I don't know what religion you practice (or whether you practice a religion), but you are truly a daughter of Christ. And it is in that bond of sisterhood and brotherhood that my feelings for you spring. You are your husband's wife, and I have no aspirations in that direction. But I will miss you sorely when you leave, because the warmth you've shone on me, and everyone around you, is a rare and precious gift.
Beauty. The word is an obscenity the way they use it. If they had eyes to see, your real beauty would stun them. And my world will get a litte darker now.
And to put it in words they might grasp: Man it sucks to lose a friend.
I don't have a crush on you. And when I say that my feelings for you run deeper than that, I don't mean in a sense that these 'people' are familiar with. They are simple beasts, unable to comprehend the idea of a man having feelings of a positive, yet non-amorous nature, for a woman like you. If I say that I like you, they assume it is in the fashion that most men 'like' women.
They, like me, can see that you have beauty. But sadly, that seems to be all they see, so it is the only motivation they could ascribe to my feelings for you. They do not see the warmth within you, that spark of kindness, decency, and genuine Goodness, that inspires you to show kindness to those whom you have no reason to be kind to, such as yours truly. I can not benefit you in any way, and yet you offer friendship without strings.
I don't know what religion you practice (or whether you practice a religion), but you are truly a daughter of Christ. And it is in that bond of sisterhood and brotherhood that my feelings for you spring. You are your husband's wife, and I have no aspirations in that direction. But I will miss you sorely when you leave, because the warmth you've shone on me, and everyone around you, is a rare and precious gift.
Beauty. The word is an obscenity the way they use it. If they had eyes to see, your real beauty would stun them. And my world will get a litte darker now.
And to put it in words they might grasp: Man it sucks to lose a friend.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Hooray!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/10/people.lindsaylohan.ap/index.html
That... *sniff* says it all. DVD and a mute button, and I'm golden.
That... *sniff* says it all. DVD and a mute button, and I'm golden.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
One Phone Call...
...and my whole day is shot to hell.
I work in a call center, taking, among a great many other calls, after-hours maintenance calls. I just got one from the morons that are in charge of campus security here at Not-Quite-Ivy University. They got an alarm on their doors panel that a loading dock door at the School of Communications was in alarm. At 10:30am this morning. And JUST NOW, about 2 hours and 40 minutes after the shop in charge of that building closed shop for the day, do they call to ask about it.
Double-you. Tee. Eff.
These lackluster dumbshits who aspire to incompetence are armed with frigging GUNS. I weep, I wail, I guh-nash my teeth in frustration. Two hours, forty-seven minutes into my shift, and my rage-o-meter needle is pegged past redline. God can only be merciful: were He anything else, I would hold the power of life and death over others, and there would be blood. Everywhere. But, I am, despite all indicators, and every sane expectation, a pacifist. And so, they stumble on, dragging me down to their level and beating me with experience.
I need a vacation.
I work in a call center, taking, among a great many other calls, after-hours maintenance calls. I just got one from the morons that are in charge of campus security here at Not-Quite-Ivy University. They got an alarm on their doors panel that a loading dock door at the School of Communications was in alarm. At 10:30am this morning. And JUST NOW, about 2 hours and 40 minutes after the shop in charge of that building closed shop for the day, do they call to ask about it.
Double-you. Tee. Eff.
These lackluster dumbshits who aspire to incompetence are armed with frigging GUNS. I weep, I wail, I guh-nash my teeth in frustration. Two hours, forty-seven minutes into my shift, and my rage-o-meter needle is pegged past redline. God can only be merciful: were He anything else, I would hold the power of life and death over others, and there would be blood. Everywhere. But, I am, despite all indicators, and every sane expectation, a pacifist. And so, they stumble on, dragging me down to their level and beating me with experience.
I need a vacation.
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