Author: splicer

Some­one, who will for now remain anony­mous, has sug­gest­ed to me the fol­low­ing course of action: each day I am to say “hel­lo” to one attrac­tive woman who I don’t know. I am to pay atten­tion to what hap­pens as a result.

So put this next to my 50 Book Chal­lenge, I guess. It’s a 365 Hel­lo Challenge.

Fun­ny. 24 hours in a day, that’s 84,600 sec­onds. It takes at most a sec­ond and a half to say … Read the rest

Yes, yes, I know that this isn’t hero­ism, it’s just plain base­line cit­i­zen­ry, but in sub­scrib­ing to the idea that self-esteem comes from esteemable acts (yes, I know that “esteemable” isn’t a real word, but I did­n’t make up the slo­gan) I’m try­ing to take note of the things I do right. So, not to toot my own horn, but just to report what I do right and encour­age myself to continue.

Yes­ter­day I saw a cred­it card on the … Read the rest

Brought cos­tume and tights with me to the office for the first time in what seems to be an age. Look­ing for­ward to a quick patrol along the water­front this evening. Fun­ny how wear­ing my Optic Nerves instead of the Ray-Bans gives me that lit­tle extra edge. It’s all in my mind, I know. I mean, what do I think the poly­car­bon­ate is going to pro­tect me from?

Get­ting on the MUNI a woman dropped her umbrel­la ahead of me. Four … Read the rest

I real­ly love that I can google a half-remem­bered lyric I heard only once back when I was in high school and have that song play­ing in under a minute.

“She comes home from church, and takes off her pants. That’s what I like about…”

Come on, I know some of you know this one!… Read the rest

While my father has­n’t met a chess com­put­er that could beat him in at least four decades, I’ve strug­gled to ever win a game against a com­put­er or program.

Today on the flight home from Ver­mont, I fired up Hand­mark Pock­et Chess Deluxe for a game. I was grog­gy from sleep but beat PCD with sur­pris­ing ease.

I’m look­ing back over the game to try and deter­mine what I did this game that I nor­mal­ly don’t. Maybe some of these things … Read the rest

I attend­ed my grand­fa­ther’s memo­r­i­al ser­vice today, and said a few words in front of the gath­er­ing about grief and loss being pre­cious. I felt tongue-tied but I stood up and said my piece. When I fum­bled for words, I stopped and breathed and remind­ed myself that it just does­n’t mat­ter how slow­ly I talk or how much silence I let pass between sentences.

We came back to the fam­i­ly home for din­ner, which includ­ed humor­ous but very awk­ward jabs … Read the rest

I slept only about an hour because I’m get­ting ready to go to Ver­mont for my grand­fa­ther’s funer­al, which is tomor­row after­noon. It’s fun­ny what gets me moti­vat­ed to do things some­times. My house­mate will be feed­ing Ozzy for me while I’m gone, so I’ve spent the last hour or so clean­ing my room and my bath­room. trou­ble is, since I spent the bet­ter part of Decem­ber deep in depres­sion and the bet­ter part of Jan­u­ary with the fog slow­ly … Read the rest

http://www.tricalifornia.com/alcatraz/2005/randomwinners2.cfm#S

The ran­dom draw­ing has come and gone and my name is not on the list. Now I’ll def­i­nite­ly be look­ing for vol­un­teers to do things like hand out water at the Escape from Alca­traz triathlon. If I can coerce enough peo­ple to vol­un­teer (sort of defies the mean­ing of the word, but roll with it, OK?), I can still get a slot as a mem­ber of the host club.

So, if you’re in the Bay Area, … Read the rest

A week ago the pow­er went out here at Chez Splicer. Believe me, I was not hap­py to be dragged out of bed by the sound of the UPS. Well, I got to my beloved RS/6000 Mod­el 250 and shut it down prop­er­ly before the UPS died, but for some unknown rea­son it would­n’t come back on in the morning.

IBM built those things like Mack trucks. So actu­al­ly I spent the last week just try­ing to get the … Read the rest