Tag: wtf

Shake, rattle, and roll

Yesterday was more eventful than most Tuesdays. The highlight of my day was supposed to be installing more bookshelves in the living room and attaching them to the wall with power tools while Abby took a nap.

I brought her upstairs after lunch and lay down next to her with my laptop, settling in for some minor code cleanup while she fell asleep. Then the floor started to shake, and I went through my mental list.

“Is the washing machine unbalanced? Wait, the washing machine isn’t running. Is this Quantico burning off munitions? It’s still going on, that usually just rattles the windows. Is there a helicopter hovering directly over the house? Why would there be a helicopter over the house? Is D.C. going up in a cloud? That would have one impact, maybe two or three, not continuous concussions.”

And finally, “Is this an earthquake? I think it is.” So that was the first 15 seconds of the quake.

Abby slept through it. Marcus called up from downstairs, “Mom, is this an earthquake?”.

“Er, um, yes?”

Afterwards, while I checked #earthquake on Twitter (utterly useless, it was scrolling by too fast to read) and checked out forums for earthquake threads, Marcus hopped on his bike to look for Hollywood-style there’s-been-an-earthquake evidence. Manhole covers blown, sinkholes, cracks in the road, that sort of thing. (He was utterly disappointed in the way that 12-year-old boys are when there’s a [distinct lack of destruction](http://jmckinley.posterous.com/dc-earthquake-devastation).)

The Internet provided information. Cell networks along the East Coast were down 30 seconds after it stopped. Good to know what works and what doesn’t.

And Hurricane Irene is on the way. Going to be an interesting week.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

The cloth diapering world was recently hit with the scandal that the “organic bamboo velour” (and fleece, and terry, and jersey) that has been touted to hell and back as being eco-friendly, naturally anti-microbial and anti-fungal, and an all-around miracle fabric is, in fact, rayon. Oops.

Continue reading “It’s Not Easy Being Green” →

Fountain

I so did not need my toilet to do its best impression of a fountain this morning. Really, but no. The city had a work crew going up and down our street pumping out the lines. We heard the toilet burble, and then it turned into a fountain as air came up through the line. We stuffed a towel in it to keep the entire bathroom from being soaked. It wasn’t sewage, but I am still very, very unamused.

I think there will be a lot of unhappy people on our street when they get home from work tonight.

Worst Idea Ever

[401k](http://genxfinance.com/2008/01/16/the-401k-debit-card-probably-one-of-the-worst-ideas-ever/) [debit](http://thefinancialengineer.blogspot.com/2008/01/hurry-get-your-401k-debit-card.html) [cards](http://myinvestingblog.com/2008/01/21/the-401k-debit-card-youve-got-to-be-kidding-right-nope/). Because the average American consumer has already shown such great self-control in matters of personal finance that we need to give them fresh rope.

Revisionist History

Long story very much abbreviated…

I ended up killing time at Borders with Madeline while Matthew, Marcus, and Rebecca caught _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_ at the local movie theater. On my way out, I impulsively picked up Judy Blume’s _Superfudge_ series from the clearance racks.

Marcus ran off with _Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing_ as soon as we got home, so I sat down with _Superfudge_. Three-fourths of the way through it, I was nastily yanked from my stroll through memory lane when I read this, emphasis mine:

bq. Dear Santa,
Please bring me one or more of the following items. A clock radio, a remote-controlled model airplane, *a laptop computer, an MP3 player and six CD’s*.

To which I say, bah and humbug. I am very much unamused.