Category: blahblah

Andy: “Magic 8-ball, am I a yuppie?
Magic 8-Ball: “All signs point towards yes.”
Andy: “Damn.”

I was somewhat surprised to learn that my instructor thinks I have poor writing skills. Shocked, actually. When he mentioned his surprise in class last week at the lacking in some of our writing, I assumed he was talking about someone else. Well, he was, but he was also talking about me. All through high school and college I had always thought of myself as a proficient writer.

Some clarity came from the instructor’s comments though, as I realized it wasn’t my writing overall that sucked, just my scientific writing. Well of course it sucks, nearly all the writing I did in high school and college was creative and I was trained never to use personal pronouns. Then, add nearly 4 years of uncritical, unedited, and mostly artless blogging… I’ve developed a style that’s not compatible with scientific writing.

So now, armed with Strunk & White, I’ll see what I can do to remedy the situation. Look for more conciseness. Look for less passive sentences. Look for me getting to the point sooner and citing things correctly. Staring tomorrow.

I don’t think you should be able to wear your ipod in the john while using a public bathroom. If I can’t ignore it, you shouldn’t be able to either.

The City Repair Project is sponsoring an Earth Day festival at the Sunnyside Environmental School this Saturday. Looks like a fun time (if you like hippies).

I was circling while Michelle and Emily ran another 5k and saw this licence plate. Several times. Only in Portland. Or 49% of the country, or 75% of the rest of the world….

The BBC is a great source for news. It’s also a great source for the kind of pop news that Britons like. Take for example Bush’s iPod reveals music tastes. Not only is the story completely not news worthy, its entirely fascinating. But what’s best is the excellent list of suggestions that readers have left at the end of the story.

On a completely unrelated note; after filling up the tank today and getting a $40 charge, I turned on the stereo to Audioslave’s Chris Cornell wailing “Burnin’ that gasoline.” Touché Chris, Touché.

Today’s mail included a fancy envelope addressed to the Current Single Resident. That must mean Barley. Although he’d just been to the dog park, and seems to have plenty of social interaction, he probably could use some romance in his life. So I filled out the form for him. One dog year equates to seven human years, right?

I’m not going to send it though. I don’t want to dilute the already challenging pool for my single friends.

I’m sad to report I wasn’t able to retain the Frisbee Accuracy title, but I did manage to place 3rd this time. It may not carry the same lofty title, but I still got a pair of movie tickets and a free sub sandwich.

It used to be that your dentist asked you which flavor of tooth polish you wanted when you went in for a cleaning. Flavor is somewhat misleading because it was really about which color of abrasive you wanted. They all tasted kind of like mint, kind of like blood. Or maybe that was just me becaues I had once again failed to floss to expectation.

Now my trips to the dentist are uneventful. No choice in flavor, but that’s fine. I hate making decisions at 8am in the morning.

It’s really hard to pull off wearing a mustache, but I tried it again last night. I even wore it out in public today, but it was mostly for fun. People were less engaging, to say the least. Heck, even I mistrust myself wearing one.

Jason thought I should slowly remove a little bit more day by day, and I tried that but messed up the whole thing when I tried to shave a vertical line down the goatee part. Still, it was fun while it lasted.