Kristina's Blog, Not Yours

April

29 April 2004

I can never decide if I'm creative or insane. So far, I've written only the introduction and the conclusion for my sociocultural paper. The title is "Alea iacta est," what Caesar supposedly said when he crossed the Rubicon, sparking civil war in Rome in 49 B.C. The conclusion to the paper, which is supposed to be about reflexive periods in anthropology: "Truly the die has been cast. In this time of changing rules in the game of anthropology, we as burgeoning social scientists need to decide whether to play the number on the table or pick up the die and take our chances with a fresh roll, creators of a new anthropology."

Get the pun at the end? Roll / role? As I said, I'm either brilliant or insane. I'm voting for insane. It's now 18:07, and I just finished my paper, which is 15 pages. 15 pages in under 9 hours. That has got to be a record. Unfortunately, the paper is supposed to be 10. Time to cut!

Posted at 0921.

I hate having a Virginia cell phone number. The interchanges always go like this:
Me: Hello?
Caller: Hello?
Me: Hello?
Caller: Hello, who's this?
Me: Who's this?
Caller: Hello? Can you hear me? Who've I got?
Me: *ahem* You've called me, sir. Please identify yourself.
Caller: Uh, this is Bubba.
Me: Well, OK. Whom are you trying to reach?
Caller: Leroy.
Me: I'm sorry, I'm not Leroy. You must have the wrong number. Goodbye.

Do people just not understand telephone etiquette up there?

Posted at 1241.

26 April 2004

Stupid creature wouldn't get off the flatbed. Thus, it's a cat scan. Get it? Cat scan! Hawhawhawhawhawhawhaw!

Posted at 0020.

25 April 2004 - Bon Voyage, Piki!

In checking Patrick's flight status from Houston to San Jose this afternoon, I noticed a new feature on the Continental webpage: graphical representation of the airplane's progress. I can almost see Patrick waving to me from the little plane!

Posted at 1552.

Inspired by a Cosmic lunch with my officemates and a Cosmic dinner with Andy and Patrick... try to fit as many words with the pattern _o_o in a sentence. The best we came up with: A homo pomo mofo with mojo from SoHo (or maybe Togo?) was dancing gogo on a pogo stick while eating a hoho and wearing a logo of Koko (the talking gorilla). Of course, this sentence is nonsense because a pomo would never be seen in clothing glorifying primate research or any other aspect of physical anthropology. ;)

Posted at 1045.

In what I think is now Part III of my regular feature People in Supermarkets Say the Weirdest Things, I was at Target with Andy and Patrick last night satisfying a craving for Jelly Bellys. We were standing in the 8-items-or-fewer line with two or three women waiting in front of us. I can't even remember what we were talking about, but I'm guessing Patrick was mocking my 2-pound purchase and Andy was snickering encouragingly. The woman in front of us suddenly started laughing, and half-turned around. I half-smiled at her and went back to talking. Something else that was said made her laugh even more, so at that point I just started chastizing Patrick for making strangers in the store laugh at us. The woman, of course, started laughing even more, especially when I told Patrick that she was laughing because she took pity on me for having a husband who was acting like a 7-year-old. At any rate, we finally went to pay, and Patrick told the cashier that I planned to eat all the jellybeans that night. The cashier then proceeded to scold me and warn me not to eat them all at once. Southerners are so odd.

Posted at 1038.

24 April 2004

As part of our requirements as classics graduate students, we have to participate in the state's Junior Classical League convention, which is held at UNC every spring. There are footraces, swimming, arts and crafts, tests, and performance competitions. Since I wrote an etymology exam last year, this year I signed up to judge and got original English oratory composed by 9th and 10th graders on the topic Facta non verba.

The best speaker reminded me a little of a young Tom Cruise. I nearly cracked up though when, at the end of his speech, he mentioned something about "a few good men." Then there was the student who talked about Lenin and Trout-sky, and that image was nearly too much for me. The other two judges cracked up hysterically at the closing line, "Deeds make the world better," and I believe that the guy who mentioned (in graphic detail) the exploits of Vlad Dracul and the unfortunate fate of Cicero got 5th place.

So here's a pic of me and the other two judges. OK, I have to admit, this disturbs even me.

Posted at 1639.

22 April 2004

Fun with anagrams in the classics department. Can you figure them out? :) Hint: Most of us have normal first names.

Well, hi, bricklayers!
Rum parka.
Is a charmer.
Radical devils.
Iron grave skill kit.
Pervert on bond paper.
The mind's target.

Posted at 1646.

21 April 2004

I have discovered four different ways that I can now be connected to Kevin Bacon:

The long connection is that a woman in my German class is the (step?)mother of Joss Whedon, who wrote the Buffy TV series. That gives me a Bacon number of 5.
I also once met Jaleel White, who played Steve Urkel on some horrid 90s TGIF sitcom, when he was visiting friends at UVa. Through him, my Bacon number is 3. I don't actually know him, though, so it doesn't really count.
My friend's brother was in one movie in the late 80s because it was shot in Charlottesville. He has a Bacon number of 2, so I guess that's another 3 for me.
But the closer connection is still my ex-boyfriend's uncle, who was in a movie with Kevin Bacon, giving me a Bacon Number of 3.

OK, here's the shameless plug for Patrick's site. Not that it needs more traffic.

Posted at 0015.

20 April 2004

I've decided that I am going to be ambidextrous. Tendonitis in my left hand and wrist is starting to annoy me. It would be so much easier if I could just switch to my right hand to take notes and grade papers when my left is tired. I do lots of other stuff with my right hand already. But there doesn't seem to be an Ambidexterity for Dummies book out there, so I guess I'm on my own.

My plan:

Buy some elementary school style blue-and-pink giant-lined paper.
Buy a giant pencil with one of those triangular grips.
Practice printing my letters an hour a day.
Learn cursive when my printing is legible.

Lots of famous people were ambidextrous: Michelangelo, Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Jefferson. It's rumoured that James Garfield could write Greek with his left hand and Latin with his right hand simultaneously. Now that's impressive.

Posted at 0852.

19 April 2004

For those of you who are as boring as Patrick, my officemates, and I am, behold a blog entry entirely about dialects.

Patrick and I ate at the Macaroni Grill (we won't even get into his calling it the Marconi Grill ;) this weekend so, of course, we had the conversation about how to pronounce "crayon." I say cray-on 'cause, well, that's how it's spelled, and he pronounces it cran. Discussion about triple-letter diphthongs (does "queen" count?) and much crayon-on-the-tablecloth-induced mockery later... here's a dialect survey on this very word. I always thought this was just a Takas/Reynolds thing, but I stand corrected. 14% of respondents to this poll are just as wrong as my in-laws. ;)

Oh, but my obsession with pronunciation is still not over. A few weeks ago, I was telling Patrick about the new state quarters. He insisted he couldn't understand what I was saying--it seems I pronounce the word like corder. Yeah, well, me and 30% of the 10,000 people who responded to the dialect survey. Seems I'm in the minority, but not as minor as cran. :)

As for the last one... the word that got me mocked mercilessly in high school... I grew up pronouncing the word milk like melk. The in-ter-net tells me it's a Low German holdover, fairly popular in Pittsburgh, Utah, Maryland, Illinois, and even Vancouver. Plus, in some strange Germanic language, melk is apparently hairy.

Posted at 1545.

13 April 2004

There are bulletin boards on the first floor of Murphey Hall above the recycling. Occasionally, as I stroll by on the way back from getting coffee, one of the posters will catch my eye. Today, I noticed a flyer for, shall we say, a get-together. I'll try to reproduce it here:

Come		Party
	Some Graphic
At Bleta	Schmalfa	Row

What does it say about me that my immediate thought was, "Wow, theme parties at UNC are getting rather risque these days"?

Posted at 2013.

12 April 2004

First cooking lesson of the day: don't use the first recipe you find on Google. I ran out of Crisco and couldn't make a crust for the quiche; the first hit for "butter pie crust" told me to mix 1 cup of flour with 1/2 cup of butter. I thought that was a lot of butter, and... well, yes, it was. The result: butter and flour soup. Yummy.

Second cooking lesson of the day: Quiches work just fine without a crust.

Posted at 2033.

7 April 2004

It seems like my Twister injury is finally healing. Whilst playing at the CS department's recruitment party last weekend, Shobana bowled me over. I tried to look up the PDR entry for my affliction, but apparently there is no classy medical term for "removal of several layers of elbow epidermis by means of a crappy plastic mat." There should be -- it would be useful for Slip 'N Slideitis as well.

Posted at 1704.

I decided to get a haircut today because I was in a bad mood. The cut is great, but the stylist didn't blowdry it very well. I came out looking like Judd Nelson. Observe:

At least it's St. Elmo's Fire Judd and not Suddenly Susan Judd.

Posted at 1736.

1 April 2004 - Joyeux Poisson d'Avril!

I was walking to my car from the Chapel at Duke this evening when I became the victim of a random act of miming. As I was coming down a flight of stairs near the LSRC, a large gust of wind came through and a middle-aged woman walking towards me suddenly, without warning, looked at me and pretended that she was being blown away a la Mary Poppins. I half-smiled and continued on my way. Lesson of the day, kids: It should be a crime to mime.

Posted at 2011.

In honor of April Fool's Day, today's entry will consist entirely of outside links. Some of them are even rather amusing.

From my officemates:
Strindberg and Helium
Rat Chicken

From Bryan:
Robot Olympics
This Is Broken
Sex Isn't So Great

From me:
The ever-popular engrish.com.

Posted at 0912.

King of Etruria