Something hasn’t sat right with me for a while now, and now that the meds have kicked in, I’m finally clearheaded enough to tease out the details of why. Julia Brock, you are excused from this discussion, as you have probably already sorted this out and made your peace with it.

I’m taking issue today with the phrase, “steep learning curve.” I guess it’s been on my mind a lot lately because of just how frigging often I and everyone around me at my new job has had occasion to use it. The problem is, I’ve taken a …

Taken the morning after Christmas, a picture of my beautiful family!

Whipped up today in an Introduction to Flash class, it’s my first Flash project. (It amazes me that this is only 4kb.)

1. Mark today in your calendars, for today I made The Switch. I’ve imported all my Safari bookmarks into Firefox. Goodbye, Apple, it was fun!

2. Be not dismayed if thornography seems to come and go: the emac that I serve it off of has been acting up lately. I’m working on it.

3. More snow. Crap.

4. I’ll be spending the next two days learning Flash! w00t, even.

This morning something…happened. It has never happened before, and I doubt still that it is even possible.

I had to FORCE my pants closed. For the first time since I turned sixteen or so, my waistline has suddenly expanded. By maybe as much as an inch. Gwen’s been teasing me for about a month about a pot, but I haven’t really believed it. The pants have proven it though: I’m chunking out, ballooning, swelling like a waterm—-

Maybe I’m pregnant. What else would explain the sudden appearance of this hefty bulk around my middle? A …

Buried is a photoset I created on flickr of some scenes around my neighborhood right after the big blizzard we had this past weekend.

Still tired from the journey!

Nothing chases away cabin fever or winter doldrums faster than a little bit of sugar. So why not indulge yourself and have enough sugar to put yourself in a coma for the rest of the winter? With the Chocolate Twinkie Smasher it’s easy (and fun!): all you need is 3 twinkies, 6 scoops of chocolate ice cream and 6 chocolate cookies (make ‘em big ones!)!.

Monster Snowstorm Hits Midwest, Northeast. We are buried. Snow started dusting around 3:00 pm, then began falling in earnest after sunset. Wind started picking up around the same time. House was rocking around 10pm, but now the winds have subsisded a bit, even if the snow hasn’t. Looks like it probably won’t til tomorrow afternoon either.

We’re ready though. We stocked up on food and snacks, we’ve got some movies, and we have a cat. We could use a roaring fire, but I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got.

Struggling to work against a -20F windchill this morning, I passed a middle-aged woman on the bike path, walking her two little toy dogs (don’t worry, they had coats). She and the little doggies were coming toward me, the dogs a ways ahead of her, straying toward the middle of the path and oncoming foot traffic. And the woman said the strangest thing, in her heavy Somerville accent, calling the dogs, trying to restrain them:

“Regahd the way. Regahd the way! Regahd the way foah the people.”

This use of the word “regard” seems very unnatural to …

Getting the Girl from 1UP.COM is a mild and not very opinionated exploration of the evolving role of women in video games, both as characters and as players. The point the article fails to come to, though it does come perilously close at a couple points, is that women gamers are no different from men gamers in all the ways that count, and one in particular. Gamers want an avatar that they can both identify with *and* who also embodies want they want to be. What developers are just now figuring …

Every thing I think I see
Becomes a Tootsie Roll to me!

Does anyone remember this jingle and the tv commercial it accompanied? The commercial was a cartoon wherein the disembodied singer/narrator explored a world in which everything vaguely cylindrical took on the form of a Tootsie Roll. It was like a candy land where the only candy was the Tootsie Roll. In a way, this campaign was an early foray into the fanatical brand-worship that emerged in the 80’s when companies like Nike and Coca-Cola realized they weren’t selling products, but brand identities, “mindshare” and “consumer experiences.” The Tootsie Roll consumer experience, as fantasized in its cartoon commercial, was one in which the whole world was transformed into the Tootsie Roll brand, a neverending, always unfolding revelation of only the one brand, the one experience of perpetual carbed-out bliss, Tootsie Roll.

So I was a little surprised to discover that Cambridge Brands Incorporated, just across the street from my new workplace, had no product placement anywhere on its grounds. Do you follow me? The manufacturer of Tootsie Rolls had no reference to Tootsie Rolls anywhere on its building, or even its reception area which you can see from the street. In fact the only clue that candy is manufactured here, the home of Junior Mints, Dots, and Charleston Chew, is the occasionaly aroma of warm chocolate, mingled with creamy peppermint. So absent is any reference to the products produced by this facility that for my first two weeks as its neighbor, I thought the factory defunct.

But then a few days ago I saw some workers emerge from the factory, wearing what I imagined people might wear in a clean room environment, where food was being prepared. So I did some research, and I found out why there are no references to Cambridge Brands brands at Cambridge Brands.