So, I see all of these references about you made by my good friends Oldscratch, and Democritus, and I wonder, who are you? I’m seriously curious. I dont seem to have seen you in any of the threads I’ve looked at (well, ones I really get into, which is not many, i admit, with school and all), but i figure if Demo and Oldie likes ya, then you must be cool like that. So, tell me about yourself, if you please :).
(This post was brought to you by Procrastination and Boredom)
:eek: I have my own thread! See what happens when you go to bed early? You miss all the cool stuff.
Hello Doobieous, nice to meet you! I’ve been here since the beginning of October, I think. I found this board through a friend and think I read every archive and mailbag item while at work. I currently have a very incredibly boring job. But more about that in a bit. I don’t post all that much, but I hang out in #straightdope chat on IRC sometimes, so that’s how I know Demo and Silver Fire (your “wife”… hee hee) and that crew. I was one of the lucky few that got to see Demo wearing his Maleficent hat, and I must say, what a fine hat it was! And, while surfing through the SD People Pages, I almost fell out of my chair when I saw oldscratch’s picture–in that picture, he looked incredibly like a good friend of mine. (Though in subsequent pictures I’ve seen, he looks nothing like him.) So I bought him a virtual beer in the “What Doper would you like to buy a drink for” thread a while back, and we’ve been cool ever since.
And, in another funny “small world” coincidence, the friend that introduced me to this board lives in SF where oldie and Demo are. He had a picture of the guy that oldie’s sig comes from, so I sent him the URL, and we began chatting via email. Which has gotten much more difficult due to his injury, and the fact that he fell in with those godless Irish. 
But, I have a weakness for tall skinny socialists that fall a lot, so I’ve been patient with him.
More about me. Let’s see. I’m 24, and live in Rhode Island, though there is a growing “Let’s convince Rasa to move to SF” movement in the making. I live with my SO in a huge cheap apartment in Woonsocket, RI. We have 2 cats that are worse than kids, a gorgeous little lilac-point Siamese named Naome, with blue blue eyes (that’s a total bitch, but impossible to resist), and a standoffish black cat named Guenwhyfar. Though, after meeting oldscratch, I call her “kumbah”, which he told me is Parsi for “little black pot.” It fits her.
I’m an archaeologist. Well, sort of. I got my degree in archaeology, but it’s very, very hard to find archaeology jobs that pay, so I’m a technical writer during the week, and do archaeology on the weekends. But I like to say “I’m an archaeologist” because from the time I was 9 years old, it’s what I’ve wanted to be. Right now though, the company I work for sent me out to another company (a huge investment firm) to do some quality assurance work on their newest project, a web based advisor/shareholder service. QA work is insanely boring. I don’t get to fix anything, I just find what’s broke, and then am at the mercy of the developers to fix it. I’ve done nothing for the past 2 weeks, because the project launches Saturday and they’ve been trying to fix all the last minute stuff before then. I had my nose pierced, but didn’t think that would go over well with an investment firm, so I took it out 2 months ago and can’t get the damn thing back in. Grr.
Stuff I like. Let’s see. I love archaeology, and stay involved with that as much as I can. That involves spending a lot of time with very old men, because the entire archaeological society is made up of old men. So I’m “that young whippersnapper” to them. I don’t really have a favorite band, but I like bands like Jane’s Addiction, Joy Division, the Pixies, oldschool Krsna-core music, the Residents, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan… I’m pretty eclectic. In college I was really into trying to save the world, and was head of the campus’s GLBT group, and the student PIRG (PIRG’s a Nader incarnation–Public Interest Researh Group, they do consumer advocacy/environmental/politial stuff, and are big on college campuses) chapter. I got involved in student government, but as a rabble-rouser, not an elected member. (I later learned I do not like PIRG.) I’m a registered Green, but tend a bit more towards being a Red than Green. Voted for Nader as a write in in 96, and will be voting for him again on Tuesday. I drink a lot of coffee and smoke a lot of Camel Lights; don’t drink much alcohol because I’m 5’9 and weigh like 110 so I get falling down drunk pretty quick. But I wouldn’t turn down a good gin and tonic if it was chasing me…
I love New England prehistory, and have a thing for Eastern religions and the Sanskrit language, hence my screenname, Rasa. It’s the Sanskrit word for “sap of life.” I tried to learn Sanskrit, but it’s tough. I can recognize the letters and make the sounds, but I don’t know what the words mean! As far as what I read, I used to read a lot of Heinlein and sci fi, but since college have realized there’s so much non-fiction to read that I haven’t had time to go back to fiction. I’m currently reading “The Marx-Engels Reader”.
I’m currently in a “what to do” dilemma. I have 2 archaeology firms that want to hire me to do archaeology. I have a good job, and make decent money. If I do archaeology, I’ll lose my health benefits, and be dirt poor (pun intended). It’s not full-time work, because it’s contract archaeology, and I don’t think I can survive on what they can pay me. So I’ve been a bit disillusioned lately–my big chance to do what I’ve wanted to do since I was 9, and I don’t know if I can take it.
So that’s me in a nutshell, pretty much! I just woke up, and made a really bad pot of coffee, and this is a really long post, so I’m going to conclude now. I have the next 4 days off, so you might see me around more.
Again, nice to meet you, and if you’re a friend of oldscratch and Demo, and married to Silver Fire, you’re cool in my book!
Well, yeah, you’d have to be super cool to get me to marry you. 
Rasa, could you explain your sig to me please?
‘Vimrushyaita dashesheNa yathechhasi tathaaKuru’ --BG 18:23
Thanks!
-The ultra fabulous Silver Fire. :rolleyes: 
Heh, my sig… actually I keep meaning to fix it. Thanks for reminding me! It says in Sanskrit “Fully think on what I have said, then do as you see fit”. I thought it was from the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 18 verse 23, but I was wrong… verse 23 is “niyatam sanga-rahitam raga-dvesatah krtam aphala-prepsuna karma yat tat sattvikamm ucyate” (without all the punctuation marks and stuff that Sanskrit uses). That translates roughly to “That action, which is devoid of fruitive desires, free from attraction and repulsion, without attachment, which is performed as duty is called the nature of goodness.”
So I have no idea where I got the Sanskrit quote in my sig from, but I like it, thanks for askin!
Yeah Doob, I’ll vouch for Rasa. She is indeed “cool like that”. And the best part is she makes my own romantic life seem sane and managable.
Oh and Rasa, It’s actually Hindi for little black pot, not Parsi. I believe, if my dad told me correctly, that it’s used as a stand-in in marriages when the groom is unavailable. But, I’ll forgive you this time.
k
Oh my word, oldscratch… is my life that messed up?
My bad with the Parsi/Hindi thing. I get them all confused. I just today realized my sig was attributed to the wrong verse of the BG. Got it fixed though. Woo hoo!
Yet another post brought to you by the letter K.
Heh heh. Clean.
sk8: no it does not mean “clean slate” in Sanskrit 
Thanks Rasa for the reply :). Now that I know more about you, i can stop wondering who this Rasa person is, lol.
As to your name, I always thought it meant something like the aesthetic qualities of something? Is it that also?
Oh and i guess if you want to know more about me, I can post my short bio here. Not much but well, there is something.
Ok, now that I’ve flaunted my credentials (thanks oldscratch and Demo) I’m in the cool kids club?
Sure, I’d love to know more about you too!
Rasa means a lot of stuff, it’s a very multi-purpose word…
OOPS! My humblest apologies–I meant thanks oldscratch and Silver Fire! God, I get Silver and Demo mixed up all the time. Oy. (Hee hee…)
Yeah, I think everbody noticed that and were just too nice to say anything.
Well hi-diddely-ho there Euty! Thanks for gracing a thread about me! (Us Rhode Islanders gotta stick together, eh?)
Geez, someone coulda corrected my bad Hindi/Parsi/Bhagavad Gita quoting skills…
:eek: Okay, yeah, I can see how that might happen. :rolleyes:
Um, it was late… I was tired… it was dark and I couldn’t tell the difference? Yeah, that’s the ticket!
I see how it is. Doob, I take back all the nice things I said about Rasa. Now only the terrible things about her I told you about apply.
Aww, Demo… I’d think it was a compliment to be confused with Silver!
Waitaminit, what “bad things”? HMM?
I guess I’ll go sit in a corner and cry.
I’d think so, too! Thanks a lot, Demo. You can forget about sailing. And sitting on your porch in the evening, drinking Southern Comfort and… whatever else. NorCal/SoCal? Have fun, because I won’t be there! (Cali dopers, blame Demo.) I hate you, Democritus!*
*No, it’s not true. Any of it. {{{{Demo}}}} ROFL! Sorry. Okay, I’m leaving now.
Egads, lookit what I’ve started! Didn’t mean to be a splitter! Must be the Nader supporter in me.
Still waiting to hear from Doob…
: bawling :
“I do protest, I never injured thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise,
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:
And so, good SilverFire,–which name I tender
As dearly as my own,–be satisfied.”
Oh Silver…:sniff:…don’t hate me! I was just trying to defend the both of us. See, I thought we were both special and unique to Rasa (yeah, that’s it), and yet she just uses(uh huh) us interchangeably. See what she’s trying to do??? She’s eviiiiil! She’s…she’s…trying to destroy your marriage to Doob and our friendship and trick all of us into giving her our social security checks!
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
:eek: