Journal entry from 2005

"08/16/2005

6:15 pm

   Anyway,  why should she be tearing herself up over this?  It wasn’t any of her business, not really, anyway.  Besides, it seemed that without any actual action, everything turned into a f*cking melodrama.  

“So,” she tells herself, “stop biting your lip and making tracks in the dust and just f*cking drop it, for gods’ sakes!”  She paused in her pacing, physically shook out her sleeves and headed back to her tent.  She knew and could picture her patient Selene sitting there, doing some menial little task, waiting for her after that embarrassing outburst she’d just had.  Without even bothering to scratch out a warning, she flipped up the door-flap and let it fall softly behind her.  By memory and not even allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness within, she turned around and latched the flap closed.  Her eyes quickly came back to normal with the fire glowing in the side-pit.

“Hey,” she said to the figure hunched over pit, poking coals absently with a stick.  Selene turned calmly around, one hand easily resting on a knee, her hair high-lighted by the soft fire light.

“Hey,” she said back in a deep guttural Southern accent, flashing a pretty little smile.  At once, Roje felt her shoulders relax.  She knew in her heart that Selene would be there, calm and collected every time, no matter what.  But even so, when her temper got the better of her like this, she felt sure that Selene would get wise and just leave her sorry ass behind.

“Sit down and let us talk about this thing, hm?” Why did that southern accent always sound so damned sexy?  Selene’s face, half-turned from the fire looked radiant.  Soft shadows in the curves of her cheek bones, lips and jaw.  Part of the fire light shone right through one of her eyes, like the light was emitted from within, long, dark lashes lazily half-lidding them.  

Roje grunted, the anger which had consumed her gone now.  But she couldn’t just jump into the reconciliation.  Northerners just didn’t let up on their anger and pride and all that shit so easily.

Selene twisted a bit, planting her ass on the ground and patted the space next to her on the hearth rug.  Roje moved to sit next to her.

“So, tell me what is really eating you, mapaj,” Selene purred, swallowing her r’s and l’s the whole way.  A shrug from Roje and then an angry, petty little, 

“It’s all just so frustrating!”  She knew she sounded like a brat youngster or something like that, but she felt petulant at the moment.  Had they all been in on this?  Maybe to teach her a lesson.  Sometimes it really felt like everyone spoke to each other about Roje, just not to her."

Idle Thoughts

So, here I am contemplating life while eating a sandwich and watching G.I. Joe, the movie on Netflix streaming (because it is a rainy day, dontchano, and why not?).  And I thinks to myself, "Self! This whole concept is flawed in this here movie. By gummy, if someone did unleash nanobots that ate metal on the battlefield, there would be a whole lot of issues going on, besides tanks that disintegrate and buildings falling down due to jellifying of steel supports."

Issues with nanobots as portrayed:

waste material!
How is there no waste material?  Now, I am no expert on nanobot technology (obviously, an expert on nanobots probably wouldn't have a blog called Glaring of Cats), but I am pretty sure (between bites of the perfect combo of cheddar, mayo, lettuce and tomato) that once someone devours something else, there is always some sort of waste material.  This must apply to nanobots too.  Unless Cobra Command is claiming that nanobots not only devour metal, but then poop it out to make more nanobots or something? They never said so, though...sooo I am thinking no.  In which case, where does all that waste go?  Cause in our cool graphic portrayals in this movie, the stuff just sort of vanishes into a cloud of nanobots.

Nanobots look like microscopic cockroaches!
Why?  Why would scientists take the time to create tiny little insect-looking nanobots? Wouldn't that take forever to make enough to load into a bazooka and shoot at a tank?  I can imagine nanobots with flagella or something; but little wings, antennae, eyes, pincers?  That's just absurd (not to mention this whole blog post is absurd, but whatever).

Nanobots can do anything!
Within the first 20 minutes of this movie, I have seen nanobots destroy armies, cities, mind-control muscle dudes, extrude snake venom from mind-controlled muscle dudes's arm.  I look forward to seeing what else microscopic cockroaches are capable of.

"Nanobot" is not a word to be corrected!
weird.  I fully expected to see the red underline time and time again in this post, but I guess nanobot is an accepted word in the online dictionary.  This is, for some reason, highly amusing.

Knowing is Half the Battle! Go Joe! (munch munch munch...it might be time for a cuppa tea)

In Like a Lamb

Hello!

It's already March! Holy crap!  Out here on the west coast, March is coming in pretty tame, does that bode a stormy exit?  It's been sunny and mild temperatures.  I know the east coast is just about had their limit of snow and ice and all that, but here it is the same boring day, one after another.

Except for last Saturday! That was exciting.  Somebody started a rumor about snowfall in California last week and everyone got so excited, it was the only thing people would talk about wherever you went.  "Didja hear? Snow's a comin'!" was the refrain up and down the coast.  Everyone got all jittery about temperatures falling to around 32 degrees and our neighbor was on a non-stop chopping spree with his firewood.  People started discussing stew recipes and wearing their big puffy jackets and moaning about how it was "freezing" at 50 degrees in the day time.  Woowhee! People got all antsy in their pantsy about this drop in temp and the snow.

Then, wouldn't you know it, Saturday a new sun dawned and people all blinked and slowly made their way outside, expecting to see a winter wonderland and have everything closed down due to snowfall.  What they met instead was...another boring weather day in California, or, as the tourists like to call it, "wow! it's beautiful out here!"  Yup.  No snowfall.  No freezing pipes.  Perhaps up in the mountains they had snow (we did see a bit of a dusting of white cap on a distant mountain), but none in normal elevations.  We visited around and the closest anyone got to snowfall was a man we caught discussing how white his lawn was that morning.

"White! Did you get snow?!" at least four people jumped on him to answer.  He looked suddenly as if he'd bit into a lemon wedge on half his face and swallowed his excited words with a, "no, no snow.  Frost!" but it was lame and everyone knew it.  Frost.  Who cares about frost?  Oh well.

I remember last year, the area got all excited because the temperature was dipping down to 32 degrees one night.  Public advisories were sent out warning citizens on the danger of frozen pipes and protecting pets and children from the cold.  They even gave specific instructions on how to wrap newspaper around your pipes to protect them from the cold.

I swear, if some freezing temperatures or snow ever did actually fall in this area, people would just panic or something.  The crazy people carrying the signs bashing gays downtown would declare it the end of the world. The hippies would all freeze to death outside loving on mother nature.  Everyone's pipes, pets and children would burst from the dip into the low 30's.  It would be a miracle if anyone survived...well, except the homeless.  They have about 20 layers going on already, so they'd probably be all set.