First off…
Happy Birthday HockeyMonkey!!!
Maybe the Canes will give you a nice present tomorrow.
Muppet, my mutts will be happy to clean your litterboxes.
Soapy, they have booze covered in chocolate in Switzerland.
Dinner was mini-birdies, aka cornish game hens. They were some fugitive leftovers from the Renaissance Faire and needed to be et before we move, so we eated them.
My eyes have settled down so I no longer look like an anime character. They still have a bit of a residual sting. The good news is that the hole in my retina has been not only staying stable, but there’s some pigment in it. Means nothing to me, but to an ophthalmologist, that’s apparently good news. Since we’re moving away and this is the last time I’ll ever see him, I asked for a copy of his notes on it so I can hand them to my eventual new eye doctor when they spaz out over a hole in my retina. I can also use it as a test to see how much attention they pay. “Say, Doc, how about that hole in my retina?” If they say “looks fine. How many years has it been there?” then I got a good one.
Tomorrow’s commute is going to be pure unadulterated hell. At 5:30 tonight, a piece of the Bay Bridge came crashing down, so now the bridge will be closed for at least 24 hours. This won’t change how I get into the city, but it will add a few tens of thousands of people to the train.
Dang **gotti! ** That’s a big-assed bridge! How big a piece came crashing down?
It’s official. I’m an idiot. I think I should just go to bed.
If going to bed healed idiocy, I wouldn’t be such an idiot. I don’t think it works…
I’m not sure whether it’s today or yesterday, due to the time differences, but
Happy Birthday, Hockey Monkey!
The non-academic half of my class is completely confused by our annotated bibligraphy assignment. It’s supposed to be related to our intended disertation, but we haven’t received any information about how to choose a disertation subject or who has to approve it. Since the bibliography has to be exclusively limited to scholarly articles published in the last 5 years, that means that the kind of issues the non-academic ones would like to research aren’t acceptable. If my intended disertation is acceptable, bibliographic sources would include four laws, a ton of old books and old articles (I’d be examining the definition of a specific technical term through the history of “translation studies” as a discipline); if I had more space than I do, I’d be includind non-scholarly (oh noes) articles. But of course some of the teachers are of the kind who think that anything outside the tower does not exist. BLAH!
Seriously, these people care more about Stachovosky’s analysis of the composition of the UN’s security council in terms of evolution of the average GPA of Zambian university students in the Czech Republic than about whether there has been more than one Zambian studying in a Czech university, why have there or have there not, and whether it is beneficial for the Czech Republic to have Zambian students and for Zambia to have people studying in the Czech Republic.
Morning. Up, caffeinated off to work. Hockey tonight.
G’morning - up and caffeinating. Not very verbal just yet though. 
Happy Birthday Hockey Monkey!!! 
Happy Birthday, HockeyMonkey!
I slept nearly 8 hours. It’s a miracle!
Gotta get ready for work…
GT
Blurf.
How the hell did I get to Cubeville today? I swear I don’t remember the hour-long commute.
OTTIGN.
I left my coffee at home! Wahhh!!! I can’t drink this swill they have here, but I hafta or else I’m gonna fall asleep at my desk.
I’m starting my official duties as ADR today. I hope I didn’t bite off more than I can chew! (ADR = Advanced Drawing Review, or as I like to call myself - Awesome Drawing Reviewer.)
Oh, and Swampus, there ain’t no such a thang as steak-fried chicken - 'cuz if’n I’m making a ribeye or T-bone it’s going on the grill! No pan fried steak here ('ceptin chicken-fried.) So there! 
[COLOR=“Magenta”]
Happy Birthday Hockey Monkey![/COLOR]
That would be steak-broiled chicken. Nom nom nom…
Alrighty … two this week!
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[/sub]HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOCKEYMONKEY![/center]
Up 'n caffeinating, but still dog tired. I was unceremoniously awakened at 2:00am by an inexplicable coughing fit. I am still getting over my cold, but it’s probably about 80% gone now, with coughs being only two or three times a day now, and relatively mild at that, mostly from phlegm buildup rather than irritation, so there was no Earthly reason for this fit. It wasn’t that I inadvertently sucked something into my lungs while I slept either. It felt more like a spiteful rhinovirus was poking one of my alveoli with a microscopic pointy stick. It only lasted 10 minutes or so and then I was able to slowly get back to sleep, but it was irritating – more for its strange origins. It returned more mildly in the morning – the feeling, that is, but not to the point where I couldn’t stifle any desire to cough. Now it’s gone.
How odd.
In other news, got my iTunes reinstalled and thankfully didn’t have to monkey around getting it to find everything again. Great Og I had such trouble with that before, but it found everything this time. Still got lots to reinstall though. But once everything is mroe or less back to normal and my wife’s system is set up to her liking, I can finally bring the Macbook back over to my desk, hook it up to the KVM, and start properly getting into iPhone development.
Alright, off to work.
HIPPO BIRDIE, HM!!!
rigs, how’s the boy doing?
I think steak-fried chicken would be minus the coating and just spiced up a bit like with some garlic and pepper and such.
mom, that’s a cool little snake.
Last nights din-din was burgers and fresh green beans. BO-ring! I am considering resigning as chef. I’ve been doing it for forty years and I’z tahrd. I really wish someone would invent people kibble.
Happy Hump Day to all.
Tupug
Many happies, HM!
I went to Fat Club last night and have lost a pound so that’s good news, apart from the fact that it was the pound I gained the week before! Still, at least I lost it and didn’t gain any more. My friend and I were in charge of weighing everyone this week as our class leader’s little helpers (her daughters) weren’t able to be there. It was a fun evening and it was good to help out, it will be good practice for when I am running my own groups.
Tonight would normally be beerverages night but I am sacrificing that because I’m going to a Hallowe’en party on Saturday for which I’ve promised to bake a cake. But I don’t have enough time this week to get it baked, iced and decorated so I decided to skip the pub tonight and get the cake made. That way I can get some of the decorations done on Friday and finish it off on Saturday. Part of it needs florists’ wire so I will have to get some of that on Saturday morning and finish assembling the masterpiece before we head off to the party.
Oh well, back to the grind!
Happy Birthday, HM!!
Boofae, you’ll have to provide us with pictorial evidence of this cake.
Well, I’m feeling better today, less idiotic, etc. Also, I’d just commented to my mom about the scent of fried potatoes from the basement when my grandma asked us if we’d like some. We’re waiting for our share, but I’m sure it will be YUM!
Then, in a couple of hours, after I work on my costume, I’ll be off to TVLand.
Happy Birthday HM!
Blurfy day- rainy and cold. Another school in our town shut down…
BIG.
We’re not talking about a bolt or rivet popping out, but a large bracket and several yards of roughly 2" diameter steel rod hit the bridge deck at about 5:30 last night. Amazingly, nobody was seriously injured. There’s one car that looks as if the bracket landed on it, a rental truck that got whacked by the cable and a couple others with minor side-swipe scuffs and flat tires.
This was the “patch” installed about two months ago when an inspection found a large crack in a critical piece of the bridge. A fix was rapidly devised and fabricated. Now the question is going to be whether the patch was engineered properly, or if it was fabricated properly, or if it was installed properly, etc. I predict many years will be spent arguing about who’s to blame. Here’s a pic of what’s left of the patch.
Wow, that is messed up gotti. I am ever so glad I don’t live down there. That pictures of the traffic back-ups were something else.
I have to go in for an ultrasound on my neck today, among other appointments. Doesn’t that sound like fun, not. It’s no big deal; just them checking to see if the nodules around my thyroid have grown in size, changed shape, etc. I’m sure it’s fine.
rigs, how is your son doing today?
Happy birthday, HM!
I supposed should get back to doing what I was doing.
Hugs and smooches.
Spoilered for anybody who hasn’t read World Without End and wanna…
There’s are a couple of examples where buildings have problems that have been caused or worsened by previous “fixes.” The problem in the cathedral is taken from one suffered by the Old Cathedral in Vitoria (them Vitorianos are rich, they have two cathedrals and yes, both are Catholic, although the old one isn’t currently in use due to being gutted for fixin’), which I thought was a totally cool detail. If any architecturally-inclined Dopers have a chance to visit the works there, I heartily recomend it. The playing cards museum in the same town is neat too.
Hey MuMPers, I got the Weird Earl’s pick for today. w00t!