The last paper of the semester, the one that went away when the laptop was stolen, the one that I subsequently lost due to a "save" glitch at the ODU library and again due to a power failure at home...is completed, AND printed out....on a robust data storage medium...paper.

The paper is in the hands of the professor and I have a backup copy.

Electrons are no longer involved in sustaining the existence of this project in any way above the chemical and atomic level and if those break down the assignment is no longer a concern.

The paper from hell is done.

I don't pretend to understand women but right now I can relate fully to the sentiments this young lady is expressing.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 131 words, total size 1 kb.

I've been down with a rather spectacular stomach bug that resulted in running, then walking, the hobbling to the bathroom every 20 minutes for 9 hours. By the end I had emptied the contents of my stomach and seemed to be regurgitating the contents of regions rather below that. I ended up in the hospital and received 2 and a half bags of IV fluid. I gathered that there is something of an outbreak going on in S.E. Virginia. This contradicts my earlier theory that it had to do with the fact I was watching Sekerei. A big heaping thanks to my friend Allan Rowe, in whose bathroom I spent New Years 2010/11 and who ran me to the hospital.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 125 words, total size 1 kb.

Christmas afternoon, with snow reported to be on the way, I asked my folks if they needed me to pick them up anything.

They said no.

Somewhere out west Pete is no doubt laughing a loud, mocking Slavic laugh at the pandemonium this 6-8 inches of whiteness has caused us silly non-Russians.

However, this area simply has not had to deal with this on a regular basis since the 80's. This really is the most snow we've seen in nearly 20 years and by far the earliest meaningful accumulation on the south-side in that time. The last few winters only snowstorm of note occurred in February of this year and was somewhat less severe. Until this weekend, it had been the worst snowstorm we'd for a long time. (Though an ice storm in 1999 did cause some major problems)

Although I was supposed to be off today, a pleading text from my supervisor convinced me to head in this morning. UPS is on the peninsula in Newport News.  That area, on the northern side of the roads, gets snow much more frequently, but even there this storm had overwhelmed the road crews. It took me over an hour to make what is normally a 30 minute commute.  Only about 10 percent of our workforce made it in and worked our butts off trying to get the brown trucks loaded. However, we ended up well past driver start time with virtually everything in our delivery area closed and the roads quite treacherous. Thus UPS shut down without unloading all trailers for only the second time in the 19 years I've worked there. (The only other time was for a hurricane). A few trucks are running very abbreviated routes but that is all.

Tomorrow will be one busy day as we catch up. We'll be starting 2 hours early, which for me means getting up at 2AM...Its almost like.... Christmas....again.

^{I guess the only thing to do is read Yotsuba&!}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 458 words, total size 4 kb.

^{Elf by Simosi}

I got the best Christmas present evah.
14 1/2 hours of sleep!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

After the flu and associated hospitalization,  missing two to three weeks worth of classes and Christmas hours at UPS, I had exams last week. I was a bit concerned due to the large amount of class I missed just prior to exams, which resulted in this answer I gave to one of the 15 short answer questions on the Asian History Exam.

The May Fourth Movement was a political movement that began on May Fourth in a certain Asian country. Regrettably, as I have been absent for three weeks I cannot be more specific than this technically correct definition. This is the third sentence as required by the instructions.

As an added bonus, as per a request from Ubu, here is another picture of Saber...dancing...in a bunny suit.

 
^{At Brickmuppet Blog we do aim to please}.

Now back to unlimited cardboard box works...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:11 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 169 words, total size 2 kb.

Due to this virus, I'm missing my last Chinese Politics class...the big exam review-everything-on-the-exam-will-be-covered-here class.

Ghaa!!

OTOH I do have a letter from the hospital so I should be able to get something in an office visit.  As to the bug itself, I slept for 13 hours. I don't hurt as much. My fever is down around 100 and I am much less weak.

 I hope to be able to return to work/school tomorrow.

Picture is unrelated:

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 83 words, total size 1 kb.

Been laid up in bed pretty much since Friday after work with a worse than average head cold. Today the coughing started. About 7 hours ago I noted that my temperature was 103. About 6 hours ago I noted that the coughing was excruciatingly painful and there was just a touch of blood involved. Given that I was getting weaker, not better and given that I had to be to work at 2AM and, given that my job is at UPS, and the fact that especially around December 5th one really needs a medical justification for not showing up, I got a much needed shower and went out, only to realize that the only place still open was the hospital.

Although I was indeed dragging it's really gauche to be going to the ER for a damned cold. 

To my astonishment, I was out in under 90 minutes. I must say that Harborview Medical Center is a really professional outfit and now 3 out of the 3 times I've been there in the last  year it's been about as pleasant non-horrific as is possible when one feels like a buffalo chip being used as a Voodoo doll.

 There was no Pneumonia on the X-Ray and I was diagnosed with an acute viral infection.


Other than that, my only concern was my second chest X-ray in about a month, but that was unavoidable.

My only prescription was a codeine based cough syrup which tastes like ass, yet is effective...and is juust niice.

Things don't hurt as much anymore and there's this  thread on /d/ that looks really fascinating now...but I'd best not blog about that at all 'cause if I did no one would ever talk to me again...

Oh wait.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 299 words, total size 2 kb.

Things are busy this fall in Brickmuppetburg.
...so here is a picture of Saber in autumn.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:44 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 23 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm currently carrying A's and B's in all my classes. As I type this, I've got on my plate: 2 term papers, a couple of hundred pages of readings, two tests and a makeup quiz next week, exams in 21 days and my work schedule has suddenly become quite hectic (which is actually a bit of a relief). I'm working my butt off and have been for years....

....which is why I pretty much collapsed and sucked my toes for a while upon reading this.

I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I've worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.

"did u get the sorce I send

please where you are now?

Desprit to pass spring projict"

^{The staff of the College of Bullshit counseling a student}

Still, as infuriating as some of these things have been, I've stuck with it and am now about one year from graduation.

I have never cheated.

Which makes this thing all he more demoralizing, much more so than any of the above FUBAR events have been.

What
is
the
fucking
point?

There seems to be remarkably little recognition amongst my fellow students of the gravity of the situation. One girl felt that paper writing services were bad 'because it was hard to find any for free and in order to compete one would have to pay for them'.

Yes the worst thing about cheating is that in some cases it requires one to pay for something one gets on the internet.

My head hurts.

This semester, my exams, at least are largely immune to this as most of them are essay heavy.
However, the papers I have to do are not cakewalks.
...and all the while I can be pretty sure that several of my fellow students are contracting theirs out while I travel about looking for references while working at UPS in November/December.

Given the widespread nature of the problem, I have to wonder what my degree, that I've already spent >$40,000 on, will be worth when I finally have it.

As I said it's just demoralizing.

Damn.

Update:
Not academic but quite related...Colleen Doran has been "Griggsed".

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:17 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 663 words, total size 6 kb.

In the past I've had to rely on used cars, discarded computers and furniture out of dumpsters.
However, this week, when I managed to acquire a case of monia  it wasn't used it was pneu!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:50 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.

Two term papers and scads of homework are keeping me from the pile of Anime in the "TO WATCH" que.
The heating pipe broke in the car, and did so in a completely inaccessible place so I had to call a tow truck. Do to the fact that I was actually way early ( I planed to use the gym at school) I didn't miss but 10 minutes of class.

That night however, I blew all my monies on the slot machines...Well, OK that last thing actually happened in game...

Third season...I'm gonna get that job at the pizza joint, when I'm not defeating obscure cultural references with various flavors of Ninja-Fu.

Click on the above image...you know you want to. First hit is free..(actually all hits are free). 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:47 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 130 words, total size 1 kb.

I don't blog about work much.
Anything that gets specific about the operation  is likely proprietary and the ins and out of moving packages are almost as interesting as watching  grass grow.

A few observations are germane to the current economy however.
I'm a part timer at a major shipping company.
I'm working just over three hours a day now. This is less than in July.
We still have laid off special service drivers.
 Talking  to those scurrilous infidels from Fed-Ex ( as I am sometimes want to do ) I have heard similar stories.

It is October.

Christmas may be....austere.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 110 words, total size 1 kb.

It rained solid here in Southeastern Virginia for three days. The temperature has ranged from the low 60's to the 90s. The bloated wet corpse of TS Nicole arrived Thursday with yet more rain  but added gale force winds and a tornado. The trees, which were by then sitting in soup, began to fall and take powerlines with them.

We were lucky.  We retained power except for a few very brief flickers , though internet has been twitchy.

Yesterday was a glorious respite from the rain and I drove out to Rushmere to check on my brother. This soybean field gives some idea of how much water is still about.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 166 words, total size 2 kb.

If anyone has any horror stories to tell on any of the following subjects:

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.

They do not belong in my toothpaste.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:59 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 8 words, total size 1 kb.

Nearly two weeks ago I attempted to expand the Windows 7 partition on my iMac. This resulted in a total failure to expand the partition, loosing all data therein and having an inaccessible empty partition on my hard drive....which prevented me from making a new partition from scratch.

I finally ended up taking the machine to the shop, and while I was at it I upgraded to the TB drive. Upon unpacking it, I placed it on my desk to check it out and make sure it was working OK. However I need the desk for homework, so Saturday I moved it up to the shelf where it lives and made an important discovery.



 In the back of an iMac is a vent. Here you can see it very clearly not marked near the upper edge, above the Apple logo.

That vent is extremely sharp edged. So sharp that after the resulting cut bled profusely...into the vent. The machine began to make a really....odd...noise, which I took to be blood congealed on the fan.

Yikes!

The cut bled for 3 days and I ended up going to the emergency room, where I had it lashed up securely, was given a tetanus shot and was informed that I was not to do anything with my left thumb for a solid week. ( No work and associated monies for Ken). As an added bonus the tetanus shot knocked me on my heels.

Of course I also had to take the computer back to the shop and sheepishly explain this fiasco.
Here's the thing: The Mac guy mentioned that this had actually happened to some of his other customers and he'd sent a consumer alert to Apple.

Now Steve Jobs has the most crackerjack industrial design team in the whole frickking world. Therefore it beggars belief that this is actually a design flaw. Thus I can only conclude that this is deliberate and iMacs are actually designed to collect DNA samples as part of a bloody biometric phishing scheme or perhaps they simply feed upon the blood of the unwary.

Anyway, beware. Steve Jobs wants your blood.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that some of my fellow Mac users may take violent and murderous offense at my post. Rather than proselytizing in the comments section of this post I suggest that you instead go here and ask yourself, 'where is your Jobs now?'

UPDATE2: Although it is ready, I still don't have Holo back yet due to the fact that I was not able to get through yesterdays obnoxious southeastern Virginia traffic before the store closed.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:33 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 436 words, total size 3 kb.

Shocking revelatory revelations to be revealed within 24 hrs...if I still live.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:36 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

UPDATE: All day long we waited while they poked her and did tests. The biopsies were completed today and between that and the additional pictures they took it appears that the mass that showed up on her X-ray is in fact fluid and scar tissue from the previous surgery.There is still some concern due to the fact that the incision is still experiencing fluid build up and additional scarring 9 months after the surgery, however, the scaring does appear to be just scar tissue and not cancerous.

No cancer.

Yay!

This does suck as it is causing her intermittent pain....but damn that is a relief.

*********************************************end update

My car  auto-cannibalized itself last week, the internet has been twitchy, due to utility line work , I managed to screw up my iMac when I tried to increase the size of the Windows 7 partition and school started today...except that my teacher didn't show up.

All of which is utterly trivial now...

 Last Thursday my Mom, told us us that her vision was blurry. She then  complained of stabbing chest pains and developed great difficulty breathing.

She was rushed to the hospital and after a day of tests she was determined to have...a severe kidney infection...which did not at all jive with her symptoms, but her heart was OK.

Today, she went to a doc-in-the box for a follow-up on her infection, and it seems to be well on the way to oblivion. The duty doctor was still perplexed about the pains and asked the Hospital to send over the X-rays they took the other night. They had been focused on the heart and so had apparently missed the gall stones...and the huge mass in her left breast.

She had a close run thing a while back with cancer on her right side (which is still clear after her second surgery last year). This thing is big and has come on very fast. (Since January)

We contacted her surgeon and he's seeing us first thing tomorrow. We won't know anything until then but he had the X-rays forwarded to him and he said to make preparations to go under the knife very quickly. I'm guessing Friday is the soonest because of the Kidney infection. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:00 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 373 words, total size 2 kb.

Dad is now walking (and has even graduated from a walker to a cane) and can get around the house on his own. He won't be 100 percent for six weeks or so but the surgery looks to have been a complete success. 

Also, I'm able to go back to work.

Wo0t!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 55 words, total size 1 kb.

One of the coldest winters in decades followed by several days in the low 90s has apparently contributed to a high level of hornieness in the local pine trees. I have never seen the pine pollen as bad as it has been this past week. 

How bad has it been?

This bad....This is the neighbors truck...

My Moms car on Monday morning. (I'd washed it the previous afternoon)

The James River at the Huntington beach boat ramp.

^{Yes. That is a Mallard}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 83 words, total size 1 kb.