Radiant Rachel Reflecting on Ruby, Rails, Righteous Rants and Random Rubbish
Ramblings
National Procrastination Week
March 3, 2010
in Ramblings
Well, no freaking wonder I can’t get anything done this week! It seems I have been unintentionally celebrating “National Procrastination Week!”
I really kinda hate it when people make up these weird “awareness” weeks like “National Wear Your Pants on Your Head Day” or “Foot Growth Awareness Week.” I mean, yeah, I see your growth and I am VERY aware of it, THANK YOU.
I think the only “National [blah blah] Day” I was ever excited for was “National No Pants Day” and that was because I hate winter and along with pants I hate wearing shoes and by May it’s usually warm enough to put on sandals too. And no, before you ask, I was no one to run around in my skivvies, it would just give me an excuse to wear shorts.
I digress. If you feel the need to be aware of or celebrate your procrastination, then by all means, please celebrate your holiday. I on the other hand will continue to be less procrastinative (“uh, I don’t think that’s a word, Rachel!”) and continue to use the Pomodoro Technique, but that discussion is for another blog post at a later time.
Corollary: After reviewing some comments on this post, I failed to mention my affinity for “International Talk Like a Pirate Day.” How could I have forgotten this? It’s on my fricken birthday. I have then come to the conclusion that I am fine with “National Whatever” days but if I have to be “aware” for any extended time, I go batty. I can only take my insanity in small, bite-sized pieces.
The Best Parallel Parking Job in the World
I just have to tell someone this, because I am just so damn proud of myself. I am also kicking myself that I didn’t have the foresight to take a picture of it with my phone camera last night. D’oh! Hindsight is 20/20…
I did the most marvelous, outstanding, PERFECT even parallel parking job last night when I went to go pick up take out because I was too tired to make my own food. I had just done a U-turn at the light and approached the local Italian eatery in my town. I scoped out that there was exactly one street parking spot left in front of the building and decided to go for it.
I lined up my car parallel to the one next to me, turn my wheel hard to the right and back up until I was at 30 degree to the curb, straightened the wheel and slid smoothly into the parking spot. I only needed to move forward a foot or so to bring me into the most perfect spot ever to be seen by human eyes. I was exactly flush with the curb and equidistant in length between the two cars in front and behind me. The women who were parked behind me shortly exited the restaurant just as I was stepping out of my car and admiring my work. I can only guess that they decided to come out and say to themselves, “holy shit, she just parked a perfect parallel park!” I know, I know, ladies. No autographs, please!
Now, this might seem like a small feat to some but let me assure you, I am usually a horrendous parallel parker.
When I was just learning to drive at 16, my family took a trip to the Cape in Massachusetts. I was driving my father’s boat, a 1999 Lexus, and we had to parallel park on the left side of the street in order to get out and see a landmark we had been looking for. I was at the wheel and my father was my co-pilot directing me for landing.
Somewhere along the line, wires crossed, aliens attacked, didn’t know my left from right, etc but I ended up with the butt of the car on the curb and the nose of the car pointed out into traffic – a perfect PERPENDICULAR park in a parallel parking space. Other automobiles were honking and my mother covered her face and slowly sinked into the back seat. Suffice it to say, that day will live down in infamy and family and friends still remind me of it to this day.
This story is just a testament that yes, dreams do come true.
A Free 1GB iPod Shuffle
Contemplating the finer points of life
Nothing is better than something that is free. Well, I guess a free punch in the face isn’t that great, but it does give you an awesome free story to tell people.
“Yeah, I was just standing there and I got a free punch in the face!”
“A free punch in the face? Whoa! Usually you gotta DO something to get one of those.”
“Yeah, I know, riiight?!?!”
I got a mailing a few months ago about this “wonderful” service full of free coupons and la dee daa, you get a free iPod shuffle if you sign up, right now, like RIGHT NOW. I’m sure it’s a scam. They charge $24.99 for this service for great deals at salons and crap. But, you know what? You only live once and I wanted that damn free iPod shuffle.
I have limited active memory capacity so I immediately forgot about it when I sent the form off in the mail for it. So imagine my surprise when I opened this mysterious envelope 6 weeks later and a beautiful new iPod shuffle tumbled out onto the kitchen counter. SQUEAL! It’s JUST LIKE MY BIRTHDAY.
I got to work this morning and I held this magical package containing the iPod shuffle for a few moments, basking in its wonderful glow. When I awoke from my stupor some minutes later I opened its plastic shell case and the angels from the heavens sang their glorious praises upon the heavenly device.
I immediately launched my MacBook Pro and carefully tried to steady my hands as I plugged the delicate clip into its polished stand and the usb connecter into the laptop. iTunes SPRANG to life and alerted me of celebrated new device connected. I hurriedly entered some minor details and watched in awe as my new iPod shuffle filled with 161 songs of bliss.
After 5 minutes of anticipation, I detached the iPod Shuffle from its mechanical throne, plugged in ear buds and took a deep breath. The pure sound emanating from the ear buds just might kill me if I am not careful. Fully prepared, I clicked the “play” button and waited. Nothing. Nope. Nothing.
Wondering if my ears were not pure enough to comprehend the mighty promised music from the Shuffle, I almost began to cry and then I noticed the small “OFF” switch. Delighted, I flipped the switch and attempted the button again. At once, the mighty music played! Joy filled the office and my co-workers bowed down to the trophy I had brought upon them.
I am quite sure that my life will only be better thanks to the free 1GB iPod Shuffle I was gifted. No longer will I live life wondering “what might have been.”
Necessary Evil
So some back story…
I’m trying to write a site game going on another domain http://landofrhul.com and also I write silly fantasy stories on the side about this fantasy world I’ve created. To keep my mind somewhat organized in what I’ve created as dogma, I keep a wiki of concepts, characters… etc. The only wiki I’ve ever been somewhat pleased in was MediaWiki. If you’ve ever tried to dance with this beast, I am sure you will agree with me that it is a very ugly girlfriend and you wish you never looked under that hood.
Anyway, I haven’t really found anything I liked better so a while ago (I’m talking years) I installed it on my DreamHost server and tried to use their one click install robot to maintain it for me to try to keep what little sanity I have left.
Short story, that robot suck balls because after a few updates the actual site was unreachable because the database and code got un-synced and the shit just hit the fan and I was graduating last year and I just didn’t feel like dealing with that mess.
Actual photo of scene
Today I finally spent a little time while eating lunch and was able to recover some of the data from the RhulWiki. Thankfully, I found an old version of MediaWiki, installed it, and loaded it with the old database and it seems everything is intact or semi intact. (Good news for me.) I have a bunch of information up about individual species and that’s kind of the primary source of information for a bunch of stories and stuff.
Whew. I hate MediaWiki but it’s kind of a necessary evil for what I want to do, I really needed a decent wiki to draft information on stuff I was writing. Now I gotta move the old pages to the new database I set up with the most recent software. I don’t know if I’ll ever update the software again after this mess.
The Bad Side of Cute
An ugly cupcake enacts his revenge.
I thought I’d write a short post on a very awesome web comic. I first heard about Kawaii Not from a present for my last birthday.
Do you like cute? Are you sure you like cute? Do you like sick humor? Do you like cute things with sick, twisted humor? Then you’ll love Kawaii Not!
One of my favorites...
Kawaii Not started off as a webcomic done by Meghan Murphy who does some neat-o looking vector graphic-y artwork. It involves everyday objects anthropomorphized into cute objects doing sometimes innocent, sometimes grotesque, things.
In 2008 she compiled together 100 of the strips and included them in her book, Kawaii Not: Cute Gone Bad.
So check out her site and let me know which perverted cute object story is your favorite. 
