So, I've recently picked up some new friends on my F-list, and I figured I'll need some entertainment this holiday period, so I'm bringing out the five questions meme. Ask me any five questions you want. They can be with the intent to learn the basics, follow up on loose ends, or anything else. Comments are screened to ensure candidness.

I found this note slipped in my purse when I got home:





The faces, I was told, were drawings of me and Jimmy.

Also, filed under "funny things that Mia says":

Kayla: "Yeah, so Mia and Shelby (my 9 year old cousin) were drinking sparkling grape juice, calling it 'wine', and going 'chug, chug, chug' to one another."

Me: "I wonder where she learned THAT from?"

Mia, matter-of-factly: "Watchin' movies."

Astonishingly, my exam at Target Optical was probably the most pleasant experience I've ever had at an eye doctor's office (and if you know me, that's saying a LOT). I didn't come close to fainting, not once.

Yes, I regularly faint at the eye doctor's. Mock away.

Friday - "New Moon" with my sister. My friend Rum helped me kill the pain.

Saturday - ikarys's birthday, Club Fail. Protip - check out what kind of club you are going to beforehand, so you avoid the 17+ clubs. We were literally the only people there over 21, the dance floor made me feel like I could be arrested at any time, and I was not nearly as intoxicated as I needed to be. We recognized our fail, left around midnight and then went to another bar, a grown-up one this time, where I walked into a knock-down, drag-out cougar fight in the ladies' room. Complete with screaming, crying, hair-pulling, swearing, and all the rest. They had locked themselves into the handicapped stall. They ended up having to send some guys in there to break it up. Good times. I looked nice, though, so there was that.

Sunday - woke up to find that one of my contact lenses had somehow gotten stuck on the outside of the holder, dried up, and cracked. We spent most of the afternoon looking for someplace that was open that could replace my lens, to no avail. So I have an emergency eye appointment this morning. I have glasses, but the prescription is really out of date and I only use them for around the house. Luckily the eye doctor that I'm going to is only about 2 miles down the road. I really shouldn't be driving at all, but I gotta do what I gotta do. Was up till midnight writing a paper on the worst book ever written. I started falling asleep, so I have to finish it this morning.

For your Monday morning amusement, I provide you with this link to a product that I think we could all use. Be sure to read the customer reviews and also the customer images.

more here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/41020 (the black people/white people furniture and the one for the unlicensed salon are equally as hysterical)

Coffee with my brother was AWESOME. My brother is great. I had a yummy black forest cherry mocha and a veggie capri sandwich that was phenomenal.

In other news, the heat in my apartment is still not working. It's about 58-60 in here. Someone should be arriving shortly. Thinking of going to get firelogs for the fireplace, can't justify the expense. Unless it's going to take longer than a few hours to get this shit fixed once and for all. Then it might be a neccessity.

Or maybe I should work out, but that would be awfully awkward when maintenance arrives. Besides, I have had a pot and a half of coffee so far today, my heart might explode.

...just sayin'.

http://clackindustriescom.easycgi.com/store/page2.html (link is SFW, not safe for small boats or puny humans)

Thanks to capnstinkypants for the link. It's like it was made for me...

here, have some music:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=254a60ef9189163dd6baebe61b361f7c3053298dfd16f8956d217c73094ddc3b

1) lyrics self-explanatory
2) see #1
3) see #1
4) title self-explanatory
5) I always listen to "Agaetis Byrjun" when it snows. Always. There's something snowy about it.
6) Chicago is cold
7) I pray to die in space/to cover me in snow/cover me in snow
8) makes me think of late fall/early winter
9) oh take me with you...
10) there's nothing like a screaming match in the middle of winter
11) gives me chills.

...even though I'm still Team Eric all the way.

Happy birthday autumnsfire!

Boulder County sheriff's officials have credited historian Silvia Pettem with encouraging them to renew efforts to identify Jane Doe. Pettem became interested in the woman and her story after visiting the cemetery in the 1990s and writing the book "Someone's Daughter, In Search of Justice for Jane Doe."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/ap_on_re_us/us_discovering_jane_doe

This sort of news story always makes me smile. For all the yet-unknowns like Dorothy that are still out there: Some of us haven't forgotten. Even if it takes us over half a century.

About four years ago, she and other workers started noticing a smell that was so bad on some days that it forced them to leave their office.

"In the summertime, it was gross," Cash said. "You could always smell it. It smelled like something rotten."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091103/ap_on_re_us/us_rapist_s_home_bodies

I can tell you from firsthand experience that human decomposition smells like nothing else in this world. It's a sweetish sort of rot that you can almost taste. The smell gets in your hair, clothes, and your skin. I am continually astonished when I read news stories like this that people don't know no, you know what, I hope you never have to recognize it for what it is. Once you smell it, I assure you you'll never forget it.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all (Article is long, but worth the read.)

I think this is an incredible article, and sad too. When I worked with Joanna Devlin last summer at UT, it became incredibly apparent to me that arson investigation and forensics training were so desperately neccessary at local levels. I only worked with her for one day - eight hours - and she told us point-blank that specialized training was more than most arson investigators around the country currently have under their belts. And, I assure you, even with that training I do not feel in any way qualified or comfortable enough to investigate an arson or fire deaths. In most areas, this kind of job only requires a high school diploma, and training is done informally, on the job, and paired with more experienced investigators passing down their wisdom; however, rarely are any these investigators required to have any kind of formal schooling whatsoever. At max, they have to take a forty-hour training course - much like the one I took at UT in taphonomy. Forty hours. Nothing more. I have a forty-hour training certificate and I still feel like I don't know shit, that it was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of knowledge that I will need to one day do a very important job that desperately depends on my accuracy as well as reliable, up-to-date scientific information.

This lack of knowledge and training is frightening and mind-boggling, and it doesn't apply exclusively to arson investigators. Often times homicide investigators, crime scene techs, and other individuals in the field don't have enough training or knowledge of specialized situations, unintentionally overlooking or destroying evidence that isn't "in their field" - entomology, anthropology, forensic botany...etc.

Just something to think about.

Totally at work in my Slytherin house robes and tie. So sexy! Maybe I'll take pics later.

Already gotten several compliments on the outfit. I forgot my wand, though. D'oh!

Some places I'd like to get my hands on, or at least visit: http://atlasobscura.com/categories/memento-mori/ossuaries (yeah I know: no touching)

Also a list of the 6 creepiest places on Earth: http://www.cracked.com/article/181_the-6-creepiest-places-earth/ (which, OK, I don't think #4 is creepy, just weird)

Anything you would add to the list? Personally, I've always had a strange fascination with Centralia, PA.

Feel free to entertain me, I'm bored at work this morning.

Okay, so, a bit of background here. For many years, painmonkey and I have had a sort of terrified obsession over #1 on this list after we saw a segment about him on a television show that we can no longer remember the name of. We used to randomly threaten each other with "Robert" despite the doll being like 1500 miles away from our home. When my mom went to Key West many years ago on a trip, we begged her to not see it, and if she did, to not take a picture of it because apparently that pisses him off. And apparently the doll has his own website. Tell me that thing isn't the evilest, scariest looking doll you've ever seen.

This is probably #2 on my personal Scariest Thing Ever list. I just scared the crap out of myself with a GIS for "Robert The Doll."

eeeeeeee.

Some hilarious News Caption Fail.

Also, an interesting article on Photoshop and missing kids. Keep in mind that the 97% recovery rate that NCMEC claims is due to the fact that most child abductions are parental/familial abductions, and they already know who the kidnappers are. Rule of thumb in a non-familial abduction is that if the child isn't found in 24 hours their survival rate drops to around 50%. After 48 hours, it's near zero. This isn't always the case (see also: Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard) but it is generally the expected outcome.

Ok so this meme is going around:

Post a picture of the actor you would like to portray you in LJ: The Movie and share why do you think this is a good match. Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of discussion this generates.


However, I suck at putting pictures in LJ recognizing actors' faces, let alone relating them to myself, so instead, I've changed it to this:

Post a picture of the actor you think should portray me in LJ: The Movie and share why do you think this is a good match.

For the record, my boss thinks I look like Amber Tamblyn. I'm not certain.



Discuss/share/deny.

Thanks to kaytilake I am listening to the second best cover evar over and over.

http://songza.fm/~p550qf