So. I'm finally getting with the times and blowing this popstand otherwise known as Blogger. It's sort of like being called up from the farm team to play with the pros. Come on over and join me on my new Wordpress blog:

http://drbethsnow.wordpress.com/

After a bit of a hiatus, Touch You Last has brought you the next installment of "Inside the Blogger's Studio," wherein TYLer Dave interviews the peeps on his blogroll. He kicked off the series with an interview of 'lil ole me and now his latest interview is with Jorge¹ from Barking Space. I provide you with this link because, well, because I think it's a funny interview. And because I'm insanely jealous that I didn't get to do an audio interview². I know I live on the other side of the country, but we could have done a double-ender³.

¹Pronounced like "George," not like "Hor-hey," just FYI.
²And from the sounds of it, only Jorge is going to get the audio treatment.
²For the record, a "double-ended" is *not* what you think it is. Get your mind out of the gutter!

Meet Marla

As you know, I experience great difficulty in coming up with good names for things. But when I got this smoking hot new iPod for my birthday^1,2, I came up with a name rather quickly. In honour of my third annual 29th birthday, I watched Fight Club, one of my most favourite movies ever, and it became clear that my iPod could have only one name. Allow me to introduce you to Marla:

Since I now have about sixty trillion terabytes of space on my fancy new iPod, I added a whole bunch o'podcasts:

But I still have fifty-nine trillion, nine hundred and ninety-nine billion, nine hundred and nintey-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine terabytes (give or take), so if you have a favourite podcast that you think I should check out, let me know.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go print up a label with my name and phone number on it to stick onto Marla, in case she goes missing, so that whoever finds her can return her to me. And I will be printing said label on my fancy schmancy printer. Which I need to review here in blogland soon. I don't want to spoil this upcoming printer review, but suffice it to say, I'm disappointed that the printer doesn't attach to my vibrator.

¹Along with one of those adapter thingys³ that you plug into your iPod and then you can play your iPod over the car radio, which is wicked awesome for when I'm driving to hockey games.
²Thanks again, Giver of Birthday Gifts.
³Not one of these iPod adaptor thingys.

New Year's Resolution, Take 2

Happy New Year's all y'all. My New Year's was rung in in low key fashion, having caught some sort of nasty virus from, no doubt, germy Ontarians on my flight home to Vancouver. I'm sitting in bed, about to go off to dreamland, but *had* to blog today because I've decided to make the same resolution this year as I made last year:

"...to post something on my blog every single day of the year. Because god knows I need to be on the internet more than I already am."

Last year I made it for 88 days before I missed one. Do you think I can top that this year?

Not to Be Trusted to Click a Link

Apparently not everyone cares to hear about my thigh highs. Today I received this lovely message over email:

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE GOD DAMN NOT TO BE TRUSTED WITH KNIVES EMAILS I KEEP GETTING??????????
HO THE FUCK ARE YOU????
STOP SENDING ME YOUR FUCKING USELESS STUPID FUCKING EMAILS....I DONT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR HOLY MOTHER FUCKING NYLONS
YOU CAN SHOVE EM STRAIGHT UP UR ASS YOU STUPID FUCK
TAKE ME OFF YOUR FUCKING EMAIL LIST

Below this message was my latest blog posting, followed by this:

You are subscribed to email updates from Not To Be Trusted With Knives To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner
Inbox too full? Subscribe to the feed version of Not To Be Trusted With Knives in a feed reader.
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: Not To Be Trusted With Knives, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610

Perhaps if this individual took the time to READ instead of yelling and swearing at me, they would notice the lines saying "You are subscribed to email updates" and "To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now." I can see how it would be difficult to notice the link saying "unsubscribe now," seeing as it is underlined and in bright blue. Hell, there's even instructions on how to unsubscribe via snail mail, if you prefer.

Not having much faith in this person's ability to understand this very complicated procedure, rather than reply I've clicked the link to unsubscribe them. But they are now going to seriously miss out on some killer nylon stories.

OK, so THIS is the least useful email I've ever received

So, I get into work this morning and the hallway is abuzz with the fact that our computers aren't working. No email. No Internet access. No access to the one drive where everyone in our Centre saves all of our files. Nothing.

Two and a half hours later, when they finally got around to fixing the problem, I find this email in my inbox:

From: IT Services
Subject:
IMPORTANT NOTIFICATION - NON-SCHEDULED INTERRUPTION TO

OUTLOOK EMAIL AND FILE/APPLICATION SERVERS

Who is affected? All XXXXX clients across all XXXXX agencies.

What has happened? A power disruption occurred sometime this morning in one of the server rooms at XXXXX.

What is affected? Access to Outlook email servers may be intermittent.

However, the following applications are currently unavailable: X, Y and Z.

Other applications may be affected. XXXXX IT is currently in the process of identifying which applications are affected and will provide a further update as soon as more information is available.

You just emailed me to tell me that my email isn't working? Seriously??

So, without access to the Internet, email or any of my computer files, I did the only thing I could. File all the paper that's been piling up all over my office since the last time the computers weren't working.

This computer outage lasted so long, however, that not only did I file everything, I also wiped down all the coffee spills on my desk (of which there were many) and took apart my keyboard to get the crumbs out. Seriously, it was disgusting the amount of crumbs and dust and unidentifiable gunk that was in my keyboard.

While I had my computer apart, I took this photo for y'all:

Trying Another One On For Size

In response to this morning's posting, Dave did waaaaaay too much work sifting through my old blog postings not to use one of his suggestions for a new blog title. And seeing as how I just sliced the hell out of my thumb making dinner tonight, I laughed my ass off at the thought of naming my blog "Not To Be Trusted With Knives.¹" And seeing as the point of this blog, as far as I can tell, is to amuse myself, let's go with that and see how it works out.

¹For reference, this is the blog posting to which this title refers.

The One That Got Away

As you can tell from the top the screen, my blog kinda needs a new name. I've never been good at naming things. As a kid, I had a stuffed bunny rabbit named Bunny, a stuffed frog named Froggy, a stuffed puppy dog named Puppy, and, believe it or not, a stuffed penguin named Pengy¹. Probably the low point in my naming things career came when my sister and I got this set of stuffed teddy bears with movable limbs; she had the big one, I had the little one. Their names? Mr. Movable Bear and Baby Mr. Movable Bear. My one great shining moment in naming something occurred in 2004 when I came up with a brilliant title for this article, but the instructor of the course for which I wrote that paper was not a Kubrick fan and thus my moment of naming-ability glory came crashing down.

My blog has been nameless for quite some time. I briefly tried out Total Perspective Vortex early this year, but it didn't stick. As you can probably tell, the only way this blog with have a name other than Bloggy is if I steal something from film or literature. But I'm OK with that, if only I could find something that I liked.

And then along came Infinite Jest. I've been reading IJ for about a thousand years now, ever since *somebody*² recommended it to me. Don't get me wrong, it's a *fantastic* book, just very, very long and quite dense, so it's been taking me a while to read³. As I was reading, a great name for my blog occurred to me when I read the following description:

"The monologues seem both free-associative and intricately structured, not unlike nightmares. There's no telling what'll be up on a given night. If there's one even remotely consistent theme it's maybe [hockey]⁴."

That's a description of Madame Psychosis's radio show, but don't you think it fits my blog perfectly? Don't you think I should change my blog name to "Madame Psychosis"?

Unfortunately, I appear to have missed the boat. By 4 years.

So, instead, I've decided to use the name Madame Psychosis for one of my other nameless things - my laptop. I brought Madame Psychosis to work today, because my work computer, which is currently nameless⁵, is a freaking piece of crap.


¹I still have all of these stuffed animals, except Pengy. I don't know what happened to Pengy. Poor Pengy.
²You know who you are.
³I guess if there is ever a good time to be reading a really, really long book that takes you forever to get through, it's when the library workers go on strike for three months and counting...
⁴the real phrase here may or may not have been "film and film cartridges" rather than "hockey"
⁵although I can think of a few choice names for it sometimes

500

Happy 500th blog posting to me
Happy 500th blog posting to me
Happy 500th blog posting dear Bethy
Happy 500th blog posting to me!
And many more!

Yes, that's right. Showers of Happiness for my 500th blog posting.

This photo is in no way taken out of context.

Choose His Adventure

Jeremy, who you may recall I met at the Northern Voice blogging conference because I felt the need to ask him why the heck he was wearing a dragon costume, is about to embark on a trip to Europe followed by Australia & New Zealand - a trip where *you* get to tell him where to go and what to do while he's there. Seriously. His blog, Choose My Adventure, provides a forum where readers get to make suggestions on where he goes and then vote on those suggestions. Right now, there is a poll where you can vote on whether he should go to Spain for a giant tomato fight.

So if you've ever had the desire to control someone else's life, you should check out his blog.

Addicted to Blogging

I think this badge speaks for itself:

87%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Go here if you want to find out how addicted to blogging you are.

Props to Daily Blog Tips, where I first saw this. Is it a bad sign that I'm more addicted to blogging than the guy who writes Daily Blog Tips?

I'm A Piece of (the Long) Tail

That means I'm a little bit famous. Why, what did you think I was talking about?

The first time I read about the "long tail of celebrity" was on Darren, the non-evil marketer's blog (here). You can read about the "long tail" (of not just celebrity, but in a more general sense, over here). Wow, I love being able to speak in URL... you never actually have to explain anything!

OK, so this convoluted, URL-heavy intro was just meant to tell you that my little bit of blog-induced celebrity - my spot on the long-tail, as it were - means that I had the honour of being the first ever interviewee for "Inside the Blogger's Studio" over at Touch You Last. You should go read. Read it now. Here, I'll make it easy for you:

CLICK HERE!!!!

Half Year's Resolution

So, I've decided that since we are now at the halfway point of the year, and since I've had complaints about my poor posting frequency of late (you readers sure are demanding!), I'm going to give my post-every-day resolution another go. Starting yesterday, July 1 - this posting makes 2 days and counting. 'cuz it's easier to count from July 1. The last streak lasted 88 days. Do you think I can top that? Only time will tell....

Points Updates

Well, it took 11 days, but someone *finally* contacted me via my new cellie and uttered the magic works: Thirteenth Step Rocks! And so, Jody wins 100 points! Yay Jody!

Now, everyone seems to think that these blog points that I like to throw around all willy nilly should have some actual purpose. I will take that under advisement. In the meantime, here is an accounting of the point standings so far:

Jody

• 100 points (for declaring the rule of 13th Step)

Jorge

• 25 points (for figuring out the first What the F is That photo)
• 25o points (for being the first (make that *only*) person to photoshop their own name onto my PhD letter and for having the most creative (and did I mention *only*?) subject.
• total: 275 points
  

Dave:

• 65 points (for recognizing the African Lion Safari song)
• 35 points (that I arbritarily gave him for a funny line that he included in that comment)
• 50,000 points (for the suggestion that I call my blog “David Emerson is a Whore” )
• 20 points (for identifying the Mr. Plow episode)
• total: 50,120 points

So, even though I have no idea what these points will be worth, you *know* you are jealous of Dave's point total. Admit it!

Is it wrong for me to love an inanimate object? I'm standing at a bus stop, secure in the knowledge that my bus will be here soon because now I, like everyone else, can call Translink's automated system and find out when the next bus is coming. I stand here, pecking away at my little keyboard, the smell of pot from the joint the girl next to me is smoking burning strong, and I try to avoid being in the direct line of fire as she hacks up what I can only assume is both of her lungs.

Now I'm sitting on the bus, still pecking away at the tiny keyboard, because you really can't type that fast on keys that are mere millimetres wide (or at least that's what it feels like... I'm sure that my phone will soon announce "the fingers you are using to type with are too fat. If you would like to order a dialing wand, please smash the keyboard with your palm.")

Soon, I will be home and I'll upload this to my blog (which will then be automatically imported into Facebook, for those of you who read my blog postings there instead of reading my blog...). And the world will be blessed with yet another pithy blog posting from me, all thanks to my shiny new Treo. That, and the fact that I finished the book I was reading on the bus ride to dinner¹, and so was bored enough to write this.

---

OK, so apparently I was bored enough to write that yesterday, but not motivated enough to actually upload it! It's now the next day and I'm at Kalev's in the middle of watching Night Watch, a Russian horror movie that we saw over a year ago in the theatre that just so happens to have the BEST. SUBTITLES. EVER. But we paused the movie 'cuz Kalev keeps getting phone calls! You may be interested to know, however, that we are watching Night Watch for a very special reason... As it happens, Day Watch, the first of two sequels, is coming out in theatres this weekend. And as it also happens, there were two contests² that Vancouverites could enter to win passes to see a sneak preview of said sequel. Contests that Kalev and I may have asked our friends ever so nicely to enter in the hopes of increasing our chances of getting our mitts on those tix. And, as it so happens, not only did Kalev and I both win double passes, but so did no fewer than FOUR of our friends!³ And just to add the cherry on top, I also just so happened to be one of the first three winners of the Georgia Strait's contest to pick up my passes, so I also got a copy of the book "Day Watch." A book, of course was what I really could have used yesterday when I started writing this posting!

Oh yes, for the record, I'm on yet another bus (and have been since about the middle of the last paragraph). And I have no fewer than 4 books in my bag today: the library book that I brought with me to read on the bus on the way to work this morning, the copy of Day Watch and two books that I picked up as Christmas presents, if you can believe that!<sup>4

1</sup>Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, in case you were wondering
²One from Videomatica and one from the Georgia Strait. I suppose it is possible there were more, but these were the two of which I was aware.
³I think that this is sufficient evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster was using his Noodly Appendage to ensure that I saw this movie.
⁴I don't think I've ever started my Christmas shopping before Dec 19.

Much Overdo Blogroll Update

So, I updated my blogroll for the first time in a million years. Ever since I started using Google Reader, I don't use my blogroll. However, I decided that I really should be giving the peeps I read some link love, so added in a bunch o' blogs to my friendly neighbourhood sidebar.

One blog in particular that I'm very excited about reading* is my cousin, Lori's, and her husband, Eugene's, new trip blog. They are adopting a baby from China and have decided to start a blog to chronicle their trip to go there to pick her up. I think it will interesting to read about how things go!

*This is not to say that I'm not excited about reading all of your blogs! Because I am!

And so the streak ends...

I didn't blog yesterday. I meant to, but we were out and about and having fun and getting up to no good and it didn't occur to me until 11 pm that I hadn't blogged. And we were at a UBC Pride Beer Garden, with no computers nearby. Oh well, it was a good run while it lasted. 88 days straight of blogging, at least once a day! Now it's time to start a new streak!

Wow. I nearly missed my blogging today. I'm actually blogging at a party, just to make sure I don't break my New Year's Resolution. Yes, yes, I really am that cool.

As for my job, I think it's best to avoid specifics here in blogland (translate: if someone Googles my work, I don't want them to find this blog). Suffice it to say that this job is wicked cool, combines my interests in research, education and nerdy tech stuff. And completely justifies my desire to buy new shoes.

OK, now back to my regularly scheduled party.

P.S. I <3 poutine.

What the F is Up with You, Blogger?

Why does the stupid word verification thingy in Blogger no longer work in Firefox? It used to work just fine, but now the image no longer shows up and the workaround for people with disabilities doesn't do anything at all. If I want to comment, I have to go to the post I want to comment on in IE! Boo!

And while I'm bitching, Jorge, why do your Footnotz not work in Firefox? You only get to see part of the footnote, followed by "..." and there is no where to click to get the full footnote. I am hereby boycotting Footnotz until you make them work in Firefox. So there!

With Apologies to Darren

Yup, Darren and Anil were in the social pages too:

My bad for cutting it from my previous posting.