Whatever

Whatever comes out, in other words. I'm largely idealess today.

I do have a question, though. Why is it that a person is expected to go to a party just because she's the one who suggested the party in the first place? Seems odd, somehow.

Ok, just had a break there to do some actual work stuff. And really, I should get back to work since I am, in fact, at work. Makes sense, I guess.

And this non-post certainly became a whatever, just like the title says. Self-fulfilling prophesy, maybe?

Maybe.

Pointless photo of the day:

I don't have much today. Kind of blathered myself out on the other blog, which I don't usually do. Check there if you feel the need to be blatherified.

I do have one thing, though, and it's kind of puzzling.

It was a dream, or at least part of a dream. I was drinking Jägermeister with my mother. This is weird for sooo many reasons. Let's give a couple.

First, I've never had Jägermeister in my life. Seriously.

Second, my mother was definitely not the Jägermeister type. A rum and cola in the evening, maybe, or the infamous box of wine taken along on camping trips. Not Jägermeister.

Third, drinking? With my mother? What in Whomever's name is going on with that, do you think? There were only a handful of times that I even had a single drink with my mother (one of which was unintentionally hilarious, because she'd ordered us both Long Island Iced Tea in a restaurant. She didn't know it was a cocktail. I was underage. Hey, everybody! Mom's bootlegging for me....), so I have no idea why we'd be drinking together in a dream.

And Jägermeister, yet.

Sheesh.

Gotta love my effed-up sleeping patterns sometimes, I guess. They make me so, so much more interesting.




In their own special way.

Things on sunflowers

That's right. Things on sunflowers.

I like sunflowers.

I like things.

It's all good.

Ok, seriously? I do like sunflowers. It's funny because normally I'm not much of a fan of yellow, but there's something about sunflowers and the time of year that they're in bloom that makes me happy. It doesn't hurt, of course, that there are some really neat patterns to be found in sunflower buds and sunflower heads.

Every OLF needs a good pattern now and then, you know.

Anyway, my father knows that I like sunflowers, and because of that he's kind enough to allow a fair amount of volunteer sunflowers to come up in the garden every year.

Volunteer, yes.

You see, one of the nice things about sunflowers is that if you grow them one year and then don't pull them down when they've died off (say, because you know how much the chickadees like scavenging seeds from the heads on the standing stalks), you know for sure that you'll get to have sunflowers the next year.

Probably more than you want, the way the birds scatter the seeds, but they'll be there. And hey -- the seedlings are big enough to spot and easy enough to pull if they come up in a place that you really don't want them to.

But why wouldn't you want them to? They're sunflowers. They're great.

So here we are then. It's sunflower season, so you'll likely be seeing plenty of them in the pointless photography. I'm allowed. My house, my rules. Today's offering is of a couple of things that I found on the sunflowers yesterday.

Up top, an annoyingly shy bee on one of the slightly rusty sunflowers that we've been getting for years. I think they probably started off as a reddish variety, but since they've been interbreeding with the sunflowers that grow from the seed spilled from the bird feeder they've been getting yellow tips. I think it's kind of neat, personally.

In the middle, my hand aiming a flower head at the camera. If you look closely you'll notice a little white spider in the centre (a spider on this blog? Never!). It's a crab spider of some sort. Probably a Goldenrod spider (you've seen them here before), but since I don't see the usual stripes on the abdomen I don't want to say for sure. The bottom photo is a closer look at the spider. It wasn't too happy about my visiting its hunting grounds so it was moving around a lot, but you get the idea.

Well, that's it for things on sunflowers for today. Tune in tomorrow when we'll be featuring... I dunno. Maybe things on plants that aren't sunflowers. I have a few photos here and there that would fit the bill.





Yeah, yeah. I know that everyone's terribly surprised to hear that.

Ouch, dammit

Today's pointless photo is of aphids. Why? I dunno. It's been a bad year for them, though. Or, rather, a good year for them but not so much for those of us who could do without them in the garden.

----------

On to today's whinge.

I am far too young (shut up. I am too) to have this many aches and pains. At the moment the wrist that I buggered up years ago is complaining, which it does every now and then. I should probably go find my tensor since compression seems to help, but apparently I've decided to complain about it instead.

And for anyone who actually checks out the other blog now and then, part of me wants to moan about the wrist and then say see? This is what happens when I attempt to paint. Have to admit, though, that I was kind of sore before the painting part.

I have loose categories for my various injured joints and scars, and the wrist falls under the category of General Stupidity (as does the bad knee. Type the word knee into the search box at the top of the page if you don't already know that story. I'm not in the mood to type it again). As to the wrist, for future reference and since I always like people to learn from my mistakes: if you're ticked off at having to clean up someone else's mess just before a big event, don't let it escalate into a full-on terrible twos tantrum. If you do, you're liable to hurt at least one part of your body as you angrily fold tables. And then to make it worse, you'll be reminded of that moment of general stupidity fifteen-some years ago every time the ache comes back. Trust me, the instant gratification of an angry fit was sooo not worth the consequences.

Ah yes. SOMEONE has a temper. Since I know I have one I make a point of trying to control it so that it doesn't come out that often, but when it does somebody's liable to get hurt.

Usually me.

Anyway.

Are there other injuries under the General Stupidity banner, you ask? Well, I suppose we could add the scar on my wrist (gained by catching my arm on an exposed screw while performing in a skit held in the women's washroom at work. Yeah, I think you had to be there...), the minor concussion I gave myself by running into a tree during a pond study (did I already say I think you had to be there?), and the divot up in my hairline from a number of years back that I caused myself by slamming my head into the corner of the bathroom vanity's open door when I went to flip my hair over to backcomb it a bit.

That last one bled. A lot. And gave me a General Stupidity scar that has since added a couple of unexpected wrinkles to my forehead because the muscle underneath contracts differently now. Yay me.





Sorry, I had to take a moment to visit with the cat. He wants ooout, you know, and it seems that my father doesn't care.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Proclaiming my General Stupidity to the internet world at large.

There are more injuries in that category, of course, but I think I might just leave them for another time. There's a Not My Fault category that we might discuss at some point as well, and a What? I'm A Lefty group that's always good for a few choice expletives. The point (point? Ack! Pumpkin!) is that, considering that I was never a member of the Dangerous Sports Club or even mildly athletic, I've managed to get myself fairly banged up over the years. It never seems like much at the time (ok, once it did. Tearing the hell out of my ankle and being bandaged up for six weeks seemed like much at the time because it was), but as you get older (I'M NOT OLD. And shut up, world) it turns out to be a lot more than a person bargained for.

That, frankly, sucks.





Now excuse me while I creak my way up the stairs and go find some lunch.

Pointless photo because I can't think of another post title...

I really have no idea what this post is going to be about.

Probably nothing.

I could tell you that the staff here is borderline insane, but that wouldn't be news to too many people. Besides, I'm not sure I want to elaborate on the reasons for the statement.

I could also mention that snakes aren't terribly smart, but I know that there are a few of my two fans who hate it when I talk about snakes. And anyway, I guess I'm not in the mood to elaborate on that either.

I could, I suppose, tell you that the office atmosphere is currently a mix of paint fumes and dog fart. In fact, I think I just did...

Hey. We could talk about being on the receiving end of drunk texting! Oh wait, no. I mean, I was on the receiving end of drunk texting, but since my phone was off at the time it was nothing more than something that made me laugh this morning. That's not really much to make a blog post out of. Even for me.

We could admit that there isn't really going to be a post today and just go back and look at the pointless photo.






Yeah, that sounds good.

Painting

Today's pointless photo is not, in fact, a painting. It's not even a photo of a painting, come to that. Just thought I'd mention. My entry for this week's Illustration Friday prompt is a painting (erm, or partially a painting. Of sorts. Oh, just check the other blog if you're desperate to see what happens when a sleep-deprived person plays with paint), but that really has nothing to do with today's pointless photo...

One of the walls of the office is now partially covered with paintings, though. Finger paintings. Finger paintings that some of the staff members did for me because I said I wanted to decorate my wall with finger paintings.

Um, yeah. We're all extremely professional interpreters here, you know.

And I also have my current first aid certificate on the finger painting wall. Just in case anyone was wondering what goes with finger paintings.

----------

Anyway. Painting. Painting is a bit of a big theme in my work day at the moment, because my eyes are burning.

Paint fumes, you see. One of the public spaces here at the Centre is in the midst of a renovation, and the renovation has progressed as far as paint fumes.

There's paint on the walls as well, naturally. That's where the paint fumes originate, unless I miss my guess.

I'm of two minds about this. The room definitely needs to be redone, and it's good to see things actually happening after a lot of years of talking about it. On the other hand, paint fumes. I feel like my head is full of paint fumes, and I'm currently back in the office where the paint fumes really aren't all that bad. The minute you walk out to the front, though... PAINT FUMES.

It's enough to make a person loopy, really.

Not like I need any help in that department, but apparently I'm getting some anyway.







Ah well.

I should get back to work, I suppose (which will involve going outside away from the paint fumes, at least for the next hour or so). Enjoy the non-painting photo; ignore the paint-fume-fuelled silliness.

Pointless photo of the day:

It's a Thin-legged Wolf Spider carrying her egg sac. She was sitting next to me on a bench the other day when I stopped to have a look at the other photos that were on the camera.

That's going to be it for me today, by the way. I'm too busy learning about giraffes right now to bother with blathering.

Erm... yes, a couple of people know what that's about. Everyone else is going to have to click on the Shelfari shelf on the sidebar, I guess...

Pointless photo of the day:

Old photo and not a great one, but it's there in honour of the fact that I bought my father a squirrel feeder (the type of thing where a squirrel has to go in through a hole to get to the peanuts) for his birthday last November, and the squirrel figured out how to use the feeder TODAY.

No one ever said that red squirrels were particularly bright...

----------

I have to be honest. I do have a couple of things that I could be blathering about (the same couple of things that I could have been blathering about yesterday, in fact), but I'm not in the mood. No excuses, no. Sometimes it's just not feeling like a blatherific day, that's all.

And I'm feeling like I want to go with that feeling, so I hope you're getting the feeling that you're going to have to make do with just the photo again today.





Don't worry. My couple of things on the back burner will keep, and you'll find out soon enough that they are as pointless as usual anyway.

Pointless photo of the day:

See, here's the thing. I had actual ideas -- ideas plural, yes -- for the blather today. I did. But instead I nearly beat my personal best on a never-mind-which-one game (yay me... my personal best on that particular game is pretty good) and now it's lunch time. Aaaaand I still need to fold the clothes that are in the dryer.

Maybe I'll be back later to empty my brain. We'll see what the day's mood brings.

There seems to be a lot of oxalis on this blog lately

Yeah. Don't quite know the why on that.

To be honest, when I go out in my father's yard with my camera I don't go out with the idea that I'm going to take... oh, say fifty pictures of lilies that day. It's more the idea of looking for neat shapes and patterns.

And yes, the insect/spider photos count as neat shapes and patterns too.

If I had to explain to someone what I was trying to do with my photography, my first reaction would be what do you mean "my photography"? The pointless stuff that I put on the blog?

If the someone then actually managed to get me to admit that the photography was not entirely pointless because if I wanted pointless photography I wouldn't even bother to look at where the camera was aiming when I took a picture, I'd probably still have trouble answering the question of what I'm trying to do with my photography.

Am I trying to do anything?

I mean, there's a couple of ways to look at this, right? The more typical me way would be to say that I'm playing with a toy. I'm taking an autofocus camera and trying to make it do things that it's not designed to do (like, say, focus on a spider that it doesn't think it can see). It's simply making images, that's all. Like when I was a kid.

Ok, I should explain what I mean by that. When I was a kid in the pre-digital era (yes, boys and girls, back in the stone age), I loved taking pictures. Of anything. Didn't matter what. That stopped when I got old enough to have to pay for my own film processing, though. Cheapness won out over random images. Now that digital cameras have eliminated the whole processing thing, maybe I've just gone back to being a kid playing with a toy.

On the other hand, you can't (or maybe you can, actually. I can't, though) deny that the photos you see on the blog aren't random. They may be pointless, but there's been a bit of thought put into them. Some things end up cropped in certain ways that might seem odd, true, but even the cropping isn't random. I'm putting things out there in the specific form that I want you to see them in.

So what do I want you to see? Well, that takes us back to what are you trying to do with your photography? and I'm really not entirely sure about that. What you see here has, I guess, pleased me in some way. Sometimes it's made me look at mundane things in a bit of a different way, sometimes I've found (or think I've found) an intriguing pattern, and sometimes I just think it's pretty. Anyone searching for actual meaning might be tilting at windmills for all I know.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I do have a hidden agenda. So hidden that it's a secret even to me.

Maybe there's a point to the pointless photography after all.








And now, ladies and gentlemen, the blog will, before your very eyes, turn into a pumpkin....

Drab

And a non-drab lily trying to hide in the purple oxalis.

It really is a drab sort of day today. Yesterday it was a drizzly sort of day; today the drizzling is supposed to end (or may have already -- I guess I'll find out this afternoon) but it's still just plain drab looking.

As far as the apartment goes, I don't mind. 21C is a lot easier to sleep in than 30C. As far as everything else... well, I haven't exactly been in a cheery mood all week, so I guess we may as well have drab. It fits.

I wouldn't mind it so much if it would actually rain rather than drab. I kind of like rain. You can tell that I live in a place where it doesn't rain every day, because when it does rain it usually makes me happy (depending on what I'm supposed to be doing outdoors that day, naturally). I'm sure that if I lived in a rainy place I'd change my mind about that in a hurry -- for one thing, I'd absolutely miss Alberta-blue skies -- but the way it is now a bit of rain can do my mood some good.

One of my best memories of rain (besides the whole tent trailer thing, which, if you're desperate to read about, you can probably find with the search box at the top of the page) is from one of our visits to Hawaii. I'd never really experienced warm rain before, and it was mildly astounding to me that the daily afternoon rain would hardly interrupt any of the touristy happenings around the shops or streets of Honolulu. It's a nice rain, in Hawaii. Refreshing. As long as it's not a tropical storm type of rain, of course. But that part probably went without saying, right?

Anyway. It occurred to me that with this talk of rain I probably should have chosen a pointless photo that had more to do with at least general dampness. Truth is, I didn't know for sure what I was going to blather about today, so I just chose the photo at random. Pointlessly, as it were. Ah well, here's a wetter shot to make up for it.

Or whatever.

I think I'm done typing now, ok?

I think I need to go live in a cave

Sometimes I just need to not be around people.

That's all there is to it, really.

Sometimes I need to not leave the house. Curl up under a blanket and just be all by my lonesome. Or non-lonesome, I guess, since I rather like my own company.

That's my only excuse for the past couple of days. Didn't want to be around people, so I didn't bother to be around people.

Yep.

I've got nothing, can you tell?





Yep.

First pointless post of the month!

Yes, it's true. I double checked.

Astoundingly enough, I've made it this far into a month without using the word pointless in a blog post title.

It's all over now, though. I've got nothing, so this post will indeed be pointless.

I did a little bit of painting this morning instead of thinking of a blog post, you see, and now I'd rather go find something to eat than blather. So I've got nothing, the post's got nothing...

Well, it does have a spider. That's the least I could do for you. A Jumping spider this time, on the side of my father's house. Jumping spiders are cool, you know.

I'm off for lunch now.

It probably won't be a bee.

Find me?

Yeah, it's all daylilies all the time in the world of pointless photography. Or at least it has been the past three days or so.

Anyway.

Today, boys and girls, we're going to talk about social networking. It'll be a brief talk, because I don't do it.

That's right. I'm not on Facebook or Twitter or Myspace or anything like that. I have two blogs that I write under a (pretty transparent, true) pseudonym, and other than an occasional appearance on a gaming site (same pseudonym, so if you think that you've seen me you probably have) and even rarer appearances on a couple of bulletin boards (same name again, yes. I'm nothing if not predictable) they are the extent of my internet presence.

I kind of like it that way, even if sometimes I feel like I'm the weird hippy chick standing over in the field who can't see why everyone else has left the commune and gone back to the city.

Um. That was a strange analogy.

I will admit, though, that not owning my own computer may be colouring my perspective a bit about the whole social networking thing. Maybe if I had the all-hours access to the net that some of you have I'd want to make myself more known to the world at large, too.

And as to why I don't own a computer... well, let me just say that I'm not a Luddite or anything like that. In fact, I did own a laptop back in the 90s. Just never bothered getting another one, that's all. I don't own a computer now just because I don't. I figure that I have enough access to the internet at work and at my father's place, so I don't really need it at home too. It's a cost-saver as well, you know. No monthly bills, no regular equipment replacement. Seems reasonably logical to me.

Now, that's not to say that I haven't been involved in a small social network in the past. Back before IM I did my share of chat room silliness (and silliness it definitely was), and there was a time when I was a regular on Messenger. I have a Skype account that I never use (although it sounds like that's probably going to change in the near future, and I think that it'll probably involve starting a new account anyway) and I briefly -- extremely briefly -- had a Facebook account just to see what all the fuss was about.

Obviously, I wasn't bowled over. Equally obviously from the list in the above paragraph, any social networking that I've ever done has been on a very limited, very personal basis. Kind of like my life, really.

You see, I just don't get the idea of letting everyone in the world know what I'm up to. I don't get why people do it, and I don't get why other people care. I do understand the whole idea of connecting with old friends or family or whatever that you might not have connected with otherwise, but to my mind if I wanted to connect with people like that I'd find a way to do it that wasn't so much like broadcasting to the entire planet.

Get the feeling that I'm a bit of a private person? Well, you're wrong. I'm a lot of a private person.

Now, maybe I'm just being a five-year-old about all of this. It's possible. Maybe if I stopped pouting and started posting things to an imaginary wall or tweeting about what I was planning to have for dinner on a regular basis I'd feel differently. I can't imagine I would, but then I was the one who was never going to blog or text either.

And we all know how that went.

Well, a select few of you do anyway...

And for anyone wondering why someone with this attitude even has a blog, the truth is that the whole thing started on a whim back in 2003 (that'd be with the old blog, I mean). Why it's still going is, frankly, beyond me. But you have to admit that blogging in this way is different from social networking anyway. This is me largely talking to myself. Other people read it and are welcome to comment, sure, but it's not like I put this out there expecting that it's going to be read. If I wanted that I'd be doing actual advertising, which I'm definitely not.

So, conclusion? Am I really missing anything by staying in the vacuum, do you think? I suppose you could friend me and try to convince me otherwise, right?

Oh wait. No, you can't.

I guess you'll just have to write me a note or something, then.






Send it Pony Express.

Greatest Hits

I actually have a topic today! But first... I know that this link will likely disappear in the near future, but just for now I'd like to say Yay! Idiots who post themselves being idiots on You Tube get arrested for idiocy! To be honest, I'm happy enough at the public response that I don't mind if these particular idiots don't get any more punishment than the humiliation that they're already getting.

Ok, I do mind, but being known as internet idiots by the entire country counts for a lot.

----------

All right. On to our actual, real, non-whingy topic. Some of my two fans have probably noticed that I have a hit counter on the blog. I like having a counter. It's not so much to monitor the comings and goings of my regulars (although it's always nice to know that you have regulars) as it is to laugh or scratch my head at some of the search terms that accidentally bring people to the blog.

Over the years I've learned that there are a lot of people out there who reeeally don't know how to use search engines properly. I guess I'm at a bit of an advantage since a big part of my job is knowing how to do effective searches to help visitors or callers find the answers to nature questions, but I do find it amusing to see how other people use search engines. Badly.

So. It's been a while, but I think it's time for another installment of weird search terms and the pages that came up from them, featuring my two blogs. Yeah, I'm going to include the other blog as well since I get a few more image search hits on that one. Here we go:

Most recent hit: Tilda Swinton in a garbage bag. I don't know why this person was searching for Tilda Swinton in a garbage bag, but I'm sure that s/he was thrilled to find out that the 2008 Oscar fashions bored me.

Confusing hit: Gimme Your Gimme. Is that a song or something? Either way, the searching person ended up with thousands of pages of people saying gimme.

Unsurprising hit: Amazingly, people occasionally come here by looking for pointless blather. Which begs the question, though: why exactly ARE people looking for pointless blather?

And now a few from the arty side of life. Sorry, let's make that "arty":

I get a surprising amount of hits for wild rose in play-doh. I haven't the faintest idea why.

Same goes for shells in play-doh and how to make a cat in play-doh. Is there some sort of Play-doh culture out there that I'm not aware of?

Lots of people seem to like clematis leaves. Dead ones, even.

Dandelion heads are staggeringly popular (and look! It's the first time that I got brave enough to post to Illustration Friday!).

So, oddly enough, are maple keys.

If anyone's wondering about the current popularity of the weirdly-named Bing search engine, one of the few hits I've noticed (I think I've had a whole two) was for stargazer lilies. Actually, I think I might get the most hits of all (from any search engine) for that particular sketch, and I'm not at all sure why. Sure, it's not too bad for a doodle, but the whole attraction of Stargazer lilies is their vibrant colour. Why would so many people look up a carbon pencil sketch of a colourful flower like that?





Anyway, there's a quick sampling of what I'm currently seeing when I look at my counter. And to any of you who got to this specific post via search engine... um, sorry?

So freaking frustrated

I'm tired.

In fact, I'm tired enough that, if it were possible for me to nap, I'd have already put my head down on my desk and just passed right out. Yes, even though I'm at work. If it were possible for me to nap, which apparently (and with very few exceptions) it isn't.

I've been told that I gave up napping at the age of 18 months (yes, seriously. And no, it's not likely a coincidence that I would have been 18 months old when I became not-an-only-child...), and I've never been able to get it back.

Man, I wish I could get it back.

It would go a long way to making up for times like last night when my brain decides to experiment with giving up on sleep altogether.

I mean, I know I did sleep. A bit. Not as much as I need to, but there must have been sleep at some point because otherwise I wouldn't have ended up in that weird combo House MD/Hell's Kitchen universe I was visiting for a brief period.

Hmm. Both Fox shows. I wonder if Fox is slowly trying to destroy my sanity? Oh, and incidentally, if you want to have a little fun with stupid censorship, try watching Gordon Ramsay shows on Food Network Canada. They play 'em as they get 'em, so any that originate in the States are nothing but a bleepfest, while any that were filmed in the UK come through in their full-on fucking glory. Er, so to speak. I find that strangely amusing.

And did anyone else notice that the above paragraph seems to be having a sale on commas? I'm too tired to bother editing, so feel free to mentally remove about half a dozen of them yourselves.

Anyway, since I'm obviously not meant to be diagnosing anyone at a cooking competition, that weirdness indicates that there was enough sleep for at least one dream. The rest of the time was me staring at the clock projection on the ceiling, wondering how I was going to manage being at work all day without being completely useless.

The answer, I think, is that I'm mostly being completely useless. That's ok, though. I'll go for a walk when I'm done blathering to try to make up for it. Yes, I get paid to walk. As long as I make sure to bother educate people that I meet on the trails, it's all good.

As opposed to this blog post, which is all crap.




Not bad, however, for typing with you eyelids closed...









Sigh.

I've got...

Ninety-thousand pounds in my pyjamas...

Erm, no. That's not it.

I've got...

Nothing. I've got nothing.

I even attempted to have something before I started typing (which doesn't always happen, as no doubt you've probably noticed), but I came up with a big fat nothing.

Some days I just don't feel like being communicative, I guess.

That's kind of a problem when I'm in a communication-based profession, but there you go.

And now, here I go.




Bye.

Um...

You know, it's hard to think of a title when you don't really know what you're going to be blathering about.

It won't be about today's pointless photo, which I think is of a bee fly of some sort. A quick visit to Bug Guide makes me think maybe Hemipenthes sp., but then what do I know about bee flies?

It won't be about the fact that I've just spent the last half hour playing "educational" video games... although come to think of it, it's a pretty weird thing that occasionally I get paid to do things like play educational video games.

It won't be about my current lack of lunch, because whinging about the part where I'm lacking lunch will only serve to remind me that I am, in fact, lacking lunch.

It won't be about my very weird sleep last night, because I'm sure my two fans know all too well by now that my sleep patterns are nothing if not messed up. However, it doesn't exactly put a person in a great mood to go to bed early, actually get to sleep (our current rainy weather has allowed the apartment to cool down below 30C, which... yay), and then wake up a while later convinced she's managed to sleep through the night only to find that it's all of 12:30 in the morning...

12:30. Sheesh.

Excuse me. I need to at least go buy some junk food from the bookstore.

Ok, does typing one-handed give me a valid reason to stop this post since it's obviously going nowhere anyway?

No?

What if I find you a bonus pointless video?

All right, gimme a sec...

Here.

Or if your prefer a little less cross-dressing, maybe this one will do.





I'm going to eat my pretend food now.

Oops

Kind of forgot that I hadn't posted yet today.

Kind of don't have much to say anyway.

However, since I'll likely be away from the computer for the next couple of days and I don't want you to go into blather withdrawal, I'll try to come up with something.

Um.

How about a couple of pointless photos from the workplace, then?

Photo #1 features a possessed demonic squirrel. And how do I know that it's a possessed demonic squirrel? Well, for pete's sake just look at those eyes.

Ok, really? I was standing in a very shaded spot and the camera's flash went off. That doesn't preclude the squirrel's being possessed and demonic, of course, but it does make it less likely.

Photo #2 is of a weathered piece of pressure-treated wood.

Oh yeah. There might be a spider in there as well.

She's a Thin-legged Wolf Spider, and she's carrying an egg sac. I took a couple of shots of her with the camera before she sneaked down between the planks of the boardwalk, but they didn't turn out very well. Even on this one I've done some photoeditor fudging so that you can see her.

Everybody wanted to see her, right?

I just knew you would.

You know, I really don't have anything much to say today. It's hot and muggy and we've been under a severe weather watch all day (it's never a good thing when they issue the watch in the morning. Sounds like we're in for trouble), and I'm going to use that as my excuse for feeling uncommunicative.

It's a better excuse then some of the ones I've used, you have to admit...

See you in a couple of days, all.

Too tired to come up with a title

Or a post, probably.

Sleeping in a hot apartment after you've spent a week sleeping in a cool basement? Not easy. Even though there weren't any Max interludes.

Do you suppose anyone would mind if I just curled up under the desk for a while?

Yeah, I know. I can't expect to be paid for having a nap, even if it would be more productive than I'm likely to be this afternoon.

Ah well.

Today's pointless photo, by the way, is of a bug. I don't know what kind of bug. Can't say I'm all that desperate to find out, either.

Ah well.

Oh, sorry. I said that already.




I suppose that means back to work -- or more accurately, "work" -- for me, then.







Ok.