Umbral Echoes Blog

Worksafe, even.

1500 Filipino Inmates Do Michael Jackson’s Thriller (I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried):
http://www.ectomo.com/?p=361

The Slow Jerk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkgMbU-we1o

And from the makers of the Slow Jerk, “We Gon’ Make Love (Until You Wake Up)”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFdBOKeWz5A

Okay, after various delays, the party for Cary has been rescheduled to this Saturday.  All are invited to attend; it is tentatively planned to start in the late afternoon, around 4pm.  I’m getting some feedback from friends as to whether that works for them or not, and if there are changes, I’ll edit this post.

Schlongicorn.  Think about it.

Google recently revamped the interface for their Google Docs tool. For those not in the know, it’s sort of like a lite online version of MS Word and Excel. It also has ultra-keen collaboration features that let you work on things with other people, or just let other people view your stuff. It tracks changes, so if someone screws something up, you can always go undo it, etc. Anyway, the new interface is quite slick — makes it much easier to organize stuff. I’ve been playing with it for the past 10 minutes or so. No, it doesn’t take much to amuse me. Just something involving computers. Or boobs.

Kirstie and I are heading to Louisville a bit ahead of schedule, due to her grandmother’s worse-than-expected health. We’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully arriving in Nashville at a time appropriate to visit Jared and Niquie. I have a 350+ page document that I’m reviewing, which I’m already most of the way through, and hope to finish on the trip up.

And just when I’ve mostly recovered from my dad’s visit and the plague taking me out of commission at work, now I get to go on another hiatus. Then when I’m done catching up with that, it’ll be time for GenCon. Then when I’m done catching up with that, it’ll be time for DragonCon. Whee!

Harry Potter branded E.  What will they think of next?

Do you know any people who are in the goth crowd? Of course you do; everyone does. Have they told you how totally cool they are, because they’ve had real absinthe? Like, not the fake American stuff, but the real stuff from [insert European country here]. What’s the difference? Well the real stuff makes you hallucinate, because it’s got wormwood in it. It’s illegal in America, because it’s that damn cool.

Well, my friends… such poseurs might have had hallucinations when drinking “real” absinthe, but they were probably caused by the same lack of oxygen to the brain that killed enough of their brain cells to make them buy into the absinthe hype in the first place. Real absinthe does not make you hallucinate.

Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating. Real absinthe does not make you hallucinate.

But, but… it’s got wormwood! Fuck wormwood. The chemical in wormwood that supposedly makes you hallucinate is called thujone, and it’s a GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid) inhibitor. There is no evidence that thujone causes hallucinations, even in high doses. It does block the things that inhibit neural activity though, which means that combined with alcohol, it causes you to have a rather alert drunkenness. And the one thing that that real absinthe will do is get you bloody drunk — it’s typically around 110 to 140 proof.

I could go into the history of absinthe, and why it was banned in many countries, and why it had a sudden revival as being the “cool” drink (no goth movement, but an insidious corporate scheme, I assure you). But you can look all that up on your own. Here are a few links of interest:

How Stuff Works’ entry on absinthe
Wikipedia entry on absinthe

Read, be educated, and call some tool on their “real absinthe” story, my people!

Some of these really should be shared.

Bees: Nature’s Tiniest Ass-Kickers
Okay, so there’s these Japanese hornets, right? And they’re all about murdering some honky bees and eating their honey and feeding their larvae to their own kids. They basically fly around in their little samurai armor and use their hornet-katanas to bite the European bees in half. The European bees are all, “AUGH! I’m all bit in half! If only Braveheart was a bee and could end this tyranny!” No such luck for the European bees.

But then, there’s this rival cult of Japanese honey bees who have evolved to the point where they’re sick of those goddamn samurai hornets, and turn the tables by using HONEYBEE BIO-LASERS TO COOK THE HORNET SCOUTS IN THEIR OWN GUTS BEFORE THEIR SECRET BEE FORTRESS IS COMPROMISED.

Nature is so awesome.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=n4wRIERp6Vs

Good news!  Today I can actually walk around and sit at the computer for a few hours at a time.  Went to the doctor this morning, and apparently I have not only the flu, but also gastritis (an inflammation of the stomach lining).  The second part of which meant that drinking all that orange juice for the vitamin C wasn’t so great of an idea — citrus is a no-no.

I’m feeling better though, and that’s the important part.  Trying to catch up a bit on work, since there is a hugetastic final database merge coming up soon (like, in a couple of days).  Gastritis can lead to ulcers though, so I’m trying very hard not to stress about that.

Lungs closing in…  light getting dimmer.  Kirstie playing WoW in the other room, and not able to hear my cries for help.  Outlook: bleak.

Seriously though, I think I’ve got bronchitis.  Most of the symptoms went away other than the cough, and I’m fairly sure I got it from my dad.  He is a heavy smoker, and got bronchitis once years ago, and I’m pretty sure he’s had it since then but just calls his cough “smoker’s cough.”  His doctor told him the only way to really get rid of it was to stop smoking for a few weeks, so the cilia in his lungs would grow back and actually bring up the infected gunk.  Needless to say, that wasn’t going to happen.  So after playing tour of Atlanta and chauffeur for dad for 5 days or so, I’m left with this.  I’ll probably go to the doctor on Monday (assuming I don’t feel back to 100% by then), and no doubt get prescribed some antibiotics.

I’ll have something interesting to post once I’m feeling better, I promise.  A rant, even.

…is being bored.  Sure, the splitting headache, stomach ache, hot and cold flashes, and general fatigue and aching all suck.  But what’s worse is that I have to sit in bed, doing nothing other than play around on the laptop from time to time, as the other symptoms will allow.

In other news, Cary is going to be in the ATL on Monday!  I plan to throw a welcoming party for him on Friday (not today (he’s not here today (how do you like those multiple parentheticals, hmm?)), but a week from today) here at the house.  So if any of you reading this can make it, then come on down!

While my dad was visiting this past week, I showed him around the city a bit — took him to the Aquarium, to a few of the malls, and we even visited the UPS corporate headquarters in Sandy Springs.   I apparently used to live just down the road from it; who knew?  That was an… interesting experience.  My dad wanted to just drive there and walk in, to have a look around.  My response was along the lines of, “…Can we do that?  I don’t think we can.  In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.”  “Danny said we could just go to the front gate and I could show my ID, and they’d let me in.”  “With no appointment or anything?  Well… okay.”  (I apologize to the grammar-conscious out there, for not separating all of those quotes into different paragraphs; I thought it best to save precious screen real estate.)

Predictably, that didn’t work out as well as dad hoped.  Surprisingly though, we did get in.  All the men there were in 3-piece suits, all the women in similarly dressy outfits.  I was wearing khaki pants and a business-casual polo, and my dad was wearing… a t-shirt and shorts.  We got many an odd look; in fact, I’d say that a lot of the people there were outright fearful, looking at us as if we were random hobos who wandered in, or perhaps terrorists.  This was reinforced when my dad took a picture of the building from the cafeteria area, and I swear not 30 seconds later, the head of security was walking up to us asking us who we were and what we were doing there.  After a brief explanation, he let us know that normally pictures aren’t allowed, but that since my dad was an employee he’d allow it.  He suggested we have a look at the 3rd and 5th floors, then left us on our merry way.  No doubt to go watch us on security cameras like a hawk.   The rest of the visit was uneventful, though there was a nice open-air garden area on the 5th floor.

I really should update this thing more often.  I’ll blame sickness this time.  But soon, I shall have an interesting post about absinthe for you.

Oh yes, also: Kirstie and I will be visiting home starting Thursday, July 19th through that weekend.  Hide your alcohol and your daughters, Louisville.