Pointless question of the day:

Do you suppose that roses wear insects on their lapels just like we wear roses on ours?

If so, what do the insects wear on their lapels?



Yes, my mood is as weird as that. I think I'll just leave you with the picture rather than finding a topic today. I blathered enough in the last couple of days anyway.

So yeah...

Haven't been around a computer much (or at all, the why of which we're not getting into at the moment), feeling a little droopy (which almost makes today's not-new photo have a point. Sorry, blog), spent too much time just now trying to catch up on some of the internet silliness I've missed, and a fish is staring at me.

Um, the fish is across the doorway from the computer here at my dad's place. Fish-staring is a bit of a creepy hazard.

Are you getting the feeling that this isn't really going to be a post? It isn't. I would like to know, though, why it is that I spend so much time watching tattoo shows on the television when I'm sick. I get why I spend so much time watching wedding shows (to laugh at and be puzzled by the people who are willing to go into so much debt for such silly things that no one will ever remember, if you wondered), but tattoos? I mean, I have nothing against tattoos and have thought for a long time about getting one or two myself, but why was it my personal theme on TV for the past few days? That's just weird.

Ah well.

I promise I'll try for a real post or two sometime in the next couple of days. Now, though, I should head upstairs and actually show my father that I don't just come here to use his electronics.

Oh, and for anyone who was curious, Max the cat is still around. Still eating, still interested, just getting slower and slower. Tenacious animal, that one.

Happy Christmas if I happen to not post tomorrow.

I probably will, though.

Have to make up for this past week somehow, right?

Ok, here's a question:

How's a person who has two personal blogs and also manages the work blog supposed to keep all three current when she doesn't even have a computer at home?

Read that as: I got busy with a post for the work blog, so this one's getting shorted today. And as for the third? Oh, I just haven't been doodling much worth posting this week. I've been in pattern mood, and while that may make my hand and my brain happy, it's basically wtf as a blog post, really.

Today's pointless photo, then? Currant flowers from last spring. Currant flowers are bizarre, fascinating-looking things. You should look them up. You know, if you're lacking reading material because I can't be bothered to put together two proper posts in one day.

Catch you later. Later might not be for a day or two depending on what I can fit in between programs, but there will be a later at some point.

Bye now.

Pointless question of the day:

If I paint one canvas red, another blue, and a third yellow, can I call it art?

It could be Primarily Effective, maybe. Or Primarily Subjective.

Or, considering this blog, Primarily Pointless...



Yeah, in case you'd forgotten (or in case you follow the other blog and have wondered why it's sooo active lately), the upcoming staff art show here has, as usual, got me completely blocked. Knowing that my stuff might be on display is hard enough. Knowing that anything I get accomplished in the next month is VERY LIKELY to be on display? Totally keeps me from doing anything.

I've had things on display here before (here being the art gallery at work, of course). More than once. I haven't got used to it.

Or comfortable with it, obviously.

This year's show starts at the end of this month, so I still have time. I even have a couple of ideas. What I don't have, though, is the will to really start anything. I'm a doodler, ferpityssake. I don't ever take my things seriously. Putting them on display, though, necessarily indicates that you're serious enough about things to want people to see them.

That freaks me out.

Every single time this comes up, it freaks me out.




Yeah, I'm such an artist. That's why I found myself painting canvasses at nine o'clock last night. One red, one blue, and one yellow.

I wasn't kidding about that question.

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I'd say I was sorry for unexpectedly disappearing this past week, but really I'm not. I've been blogging for a long time. Even though I deleted years' worth of posts when I switched the other blog to artsy things, it doesn't change the fact that I've been blogging for a long time. I sometimes -- well, often -- feel like I've been talking about the same three topics for most of my internet life, even if the posts are long gone. I occasionally feel like you need a break from it, and I know that I do. It used to be that I'd force myself to blog anyway at times like that, but I've reached the point of screw it, to be honest (and anyone who knows me in person is welcome to uncensor screw it in the appropriate way). If I feel like disappearing, then I disappear.

Um, so there. That was a bit more emphatic than I was intending, but you get the point. It's not a pumpkin-worthy point, but it's there nonetheless. And that means?

Just time for me to get back to work, really. Type at you later.

Maybe in red. Or blue. Or yellow...

Pointless question that I never in my life thought I'd be asking of the day:

What am I supposed to watch on television now that the Olympics are over?

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Not much to say tonight, because I've been a little off today. You know what a stupid thing to do when you're a known insomniac is? Stay up late to watch a meteor shower. It tends to screw up your sleeping even further. Ah well. It was a gorgeous night, they were gorgeous meteors, and if you haven't been out to stare at the sky for a while (or, you know, ever) there should still be plenty tonight so you haven't really missed it completely.

What else? Oh, I guess I could say that life with the cat has been kind of funny today. First I freaked him out by leaving to get groceries yesterday afternoon. Then I freaked him out by going outside at stupid o'clock last night and staying out for a while. Now? We're best buddies. I guess he decided that he wants me around after all.

That'll be it for tonight, I think. I'll try to get some proper sleep and be a little more wordy tomorrow.

Bonus post

Question, since I decided to check my stats after I posted today's blather: why do you suppose it is that someone manged to get to this blog by using the search term squirrel testicles?

I wonder if I've been doing this too long...

Weird

This day, I mean. I've been fairly busy, but I can't really tell you what I've been busy about. I mean, I suppose if I sat down and listed things moment by moment it would all add up to I've been busy, but as it is it just seems weird.

As is my voice, at the moment. You know, for anyone who was wondering about that situation. Better -- definitely much less rodential -- but at the point where it's a bit scratchy and definitely not trustworthy. I did yell between offices just now, though (we have intercoms but don't tend to use them, I guess), so things are looking up.

Now then, topic. Shall we talk hoodie? I've haven't talked hoodie for a while because I haven't worn it for ages, but we can talk hoodie today.

As you might have guessed, I'm currently wearing a hoodie. It's a work hoodie since it has the work logo. We wear uniform shirts here at the nature centre, and one of our approved shirts is (well, obviously at this point) a logo-ed green (maybe the green part wasn't obvious) hoodie.

I have a love-hate relationship with the hoodie. I hate the hoodie, and I love... um. It's... warm? Yeah, ok, that'll do. I mostly just hate the hoodie, however, and I think I wore it today partly out of a sense of guilt because I've noticed that everyone else has been wearing hoodies with the cooler weather and some of those hoodies are looking a bit faded with use. Mine? I have one that I haven't even worn yet, to be honest.

That's how much I love the hoodies.

I guess I'm just not a hoodie person.

Ok, let's qualify that. I wouldn't mind the hoodie if it was a zippered hoodie. As it is, it's a big bulky sweatshirt-y thing with a far-too-bulky hood hanging off of the back that makes my hair look even stringier than it generally does. Zippered hoodies tend to be lighter, in my experience, and they don't have that whole wedded-to feeling. Wedded-to, Dee? What I mean is that once I put this thing on for the day it's staying on unless I'm absolutely and completely overheated. With thin hair like mine, if I try to pull the silly hoodie off I become a total science experiment.

Oh, and as I was looking for the above clip, I found this one.  Bonus static!

Aaanyway.  Kind of got distracted by work stuff for a moment. And then non-work stuff for another moment. I've totally lost my train of non-thought.

That part? Doesn't fit today's post title. It's most certainly not weird for me to get distracted.

I may as well end with a pointless question, then. When exactly did hoodies become hoodies? When I was growing up they were kangaroo jackets (you know, because of the pouch pocket). I know in Saskatchewan they are (or were, at least) bunny hugs. Hoodie? Descriptive, yes, but very boring. I also wonder when thongs became flip flops, but nowadays I'd imagine that a person would feel weird wearing thongs on their feet...

Yeah, weird again. Time to stop typing. Happy birthday, Wheat.





And where does Wheat fit on the scale of weird?...

Follow, follow

A warning about today's post: I'm trying out something in Blogger in Draft for fun today. It may lead to even more nonsense than usual if I'm not paying enough attention, though. Not that my two fans would likely notice amongst the nonsense that's usually here, but I thought I'd mention it all the same.

Another warning, this time about today's pointless photo: this is my favourite type of daylily that's found in my father's yard ( I say this every year, for those new to the program), and as a result you'll probably be seeing a fair amount of them in the next few days.

Oh heavens. For anyone out there using Blogger, go to the Blogger in Draft posting page and try Scribe ( the last button -- the pencil). The whole autocomplete thing is an odd, odd feeling while blogging. Wouldn't be strange on a phone, but here? And I'm getting a kick out of the suggested phrases with the multiple option. I have a weird sense of humour that way, though. But it's even suggesting things with Canadian spelling...

Anyway. That's not why we're all here today. Or at least not why I am. Oh, and after last night's weirdfest brought on by delay of posting, I hope everyone appreciates that I'm posting now. That is, posting before I get distracted by things other than autocompletion.

Um, what? You say that I'm already well on my way?  Well, let me prove you wrong by actually making it to the topic at hand.

Autocomplete knew that I was going to say topic at hand, by the way.

I have a question for those of you who use internet following in its various forms. I'm including following like we have here on the blogs through Friend Connect, and following people on things like Twitter, friending on things like Facebook ( not that I'd know much about that, still being a stubborn Facebook holdout)... and what the heck. Let's include RSS feeds, even though they're not really in the same category since the people whose feeds you've subscribed to don't generally know that you've done it. For those of you who follow, why do you do it and what do you do with it afterwards?

Here's what I mean. I have two different forms of following in my life at the moment. At work we follow a fair number of people on Twitter. Too many, I sometimes think, but that's what you get when you have several people using the same account.  Some of the feeds we follow for information or news, some we follow because it's local personalities that we like, and some, frankly, we follow because it looks good. It could be professional organisations, or people we followed just because they're following us. That sort of thing. Honestly? I have some of those feeds muted on the reader I personally use. Does standard Twitter have that feature, anyone? It comes in handy. It means that if you don't feel like reading someone's tweets for a while you can just not see them as opposed to completely unfollowing them.

For myself on my own time, though, I follow in a different way. I follow only the people I want to follow. I follow a few people on Twitter, yes (I do have an account, but I don't tweet myself. I just use it for following), and I follow an awful lot of blogs.

Here's the second part of the question, then. I'll reiterate it for those who might have forgotten. Once you follow, what do you do with it afterwards? Do you follow just so that people can add to their list of followers, or do you actually read the feeds you follow?

Personally, I do. If you see deeol (or deeolworld, depending on which service we're talking about) on your list of followers, that means that I'm really checking up on what you're doing. It means that I was genuinely interested when I hit that follow button.

Of course, it also means that if I become uninterested I'm not shy about hitting the unfollow.

By the way, don't you think that the grammar grannies amongst our ancestors would shudder at the word unfollow?

----------

Some time later...

Well, an unexpected computer restart has officially put me off my rhythm, such as it was. Inasmuch as I had a point coming in the blather, I suppose it had something to do with wondering whether the followers I have on my two blogs are actually followers or people who just happened by one day and figured they'd give me another name on the list as a way of saying Good Job! Either way's ok, really. It just makes me curious.

Oh, and for anyone out there that I'm following: I've been noticing that one of the unfortunate things with me and following is that if I'm following you I have even less of a tendency to comment than I normally would because I figure that you already know that I'm following you. Yes, I know that it's completely weird. And yes, now that I've noticed I think I'll try to do a bit more to change that. But if by chance you are following me and I'm following you, well.... hi. Maybe we should have coffee sometime. Or tea for me, since I don't do coffee...





I think I should probably end this post now, don't you? Yeah, I figured. Later, all.

Pointless random question of the day:

Would you sooner go without mustard or ketchup?

Personally, as much as I'd probably miss ketchup I'd be more at a loss without mustard. Especially if I'm allowed to count in dry mustard as well as prepared mustard. I use dry mustard almost any time I'm making something eggy, you see.

Well, savoury-eggy anyway.

And really, there's so much more to the world of mustard than there is to ketchup. You've got your straight-up prepared mustard, your honey mustard, your coarse mustard, your deli-style mustard... so much mustardy goodness out there to explore.

Oh, and I suppose there's dijon mustard as well, although I can't say I've ever gone out of my way for it. I don't dislike it -- don't get me wrong -- but I just can't escape the feeling that ever since those old Grey Poupon commercials it kind of comes across as the king of mustard hype.




Um, yeah. For anyone out there wondering if maybe I've been thinking about this a little too much, well... no. I'm really tired, it's been an awfully long week for a short week, and what you've just witnessed is my brain heading down the are you really going to attempt to blog NOW??? path of incredulity.

I should stop typing now.

Or at least make tomorrow's post a bit more complete, condimentally speaking.







Oh, and today's photo has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING. As usual. Cherry blossoms are just pretty, that's all.

But they probably wouldn't look quite as good in mustard.

Pointless question of the day:

Will spring ever happen in Alberta, do you think?

I'm not certain.

There's a lot of snow out there, you know. I might have mentioned.

In Edmonton one of the television stations is having a contest to see who can guess what date the snow pile from street removal will actually melt. From the looks of that thing, and considering how long it'll take just the small pile in our apartment parking lot to melt, I'd have to guess sometime in November. By which time, of course, there will have been more snow added to it...

Perpetual mountain.

Sigh.

Anyway, I wish I had something more upbeat to be blathering about. The fact is that I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, so the brain's just not in it at the moment. Sad, though, considering that my appearances here might be pretty spotty in the next few days. Busy day tomorrow, may or may not be around a computer on the weekend... Ah well, we'll see how things go.

In the meantime I should find something for you to play with just to keep you occupied, right? Ok, let's see what we can manage.





Ok, how about this? Via BB-Blog (a fun place to visit anyway), here's a test for your Colour Accuity. I got an 8, which I think is pretty darned good considering that I did the test pretty quickly and I have no idea how well my monitor is calibrated.

If anyone else does the test, I'd be curious to know how I stack up.




Back to work now. See you when I see you.

Pointless random question of the day:

What is the point of coloured tissues?

Not decorative tissue boxes, no -- they're fine, if still a little pointless -- but coloured tissues themselves.

Does anyone really care what colour their snot rags are? Is it really worth the extra processing involved to have pretty tissues?

Yet another thing in the long list of things I don't get...

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Sorry, folks. Busy day today, and this'll have to be short if I'm going to get a chance to have any lunch.

And I'm definitely going to have lunch.

Catch you later.

Pointless random question of the day:

What is MacLaren's Imperial cheese?

I mean, I know that it's a processed cheese product, I know that it's tasty (there's some in my fridge right now, in fact), I know that it's a bit of a nostalgia food for me (which is, actually, why it's in my fridge at the moment. I was getting groceries, noticed the Imperial, remembered my mother buying it, and realised I'd kind of like some of that stuff), but I really have no idea what exactly Imperial is made of.

Cheese, obviously. I know that it has cheese in it because it says so on the the label, but other than that it's kind of a mystery.

And please don't tell me that it's "cold pack" or "product". That's no help at all.





And... I'm afraid that the cheese puzzlement will have to do it for today. There are work things that have to be done. You know, here at work.

Pointless random question of the day:

Am I the only one in the world who doesn't think that Emma Thompson is all that and a bag of chips? I mean, don't get me wrong -- it's not that I'm a loathing anti-fan and I'm sure that she's a very nice person, but she just doesn't do it for me and I don't, quite honestly, get the gushiness that many people on the internet seem to have for her.

Of course, it doesn't help in my books that she won an oscar for that fairly terrible adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, or that she was nearly twenty years too old to play the role she did in the film. Just goes to show that Academy voters and real Jane Austen fans aren't the same thing at all, I suppose.

And yes, I do realise that most normal people would say that nothing is the same thing as a real Jane Austen fan, and that it's probably a good thing.

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Ok, in lieu of an actual topic since I had a pretty awful night, let's play naturalist and talk about the pointless photo for a change. The featured creature is a Police Car Moth. No, seriously. That's what it's called. Proof? All right, here. If it's on the internet, it must be true.

Um, seriously? That's from the Royal Alberta Museum's website, and it's generally pretty reliable. I have my sources, you know.

Police Car Moths are slightly unusual in that they're diurnal (active during the day). They get their weird name from their resemblance to the markings on an old-fashioned police car, right down to the orange lights on top. The moth in my photo doesn't show the orange spots very well, but they're there all the same.

It's a reasonably easy moth to take pictures of because it isn't that strong a flyer and tends to stay put for quite a while once it's found a plant to nectar on. It can often be found on Goldenrod, although this particular moth was bucking the trend and feeding on Yarrow instead.

Too bad, that. The contrast of the yellow Goldenrod flowers probably would have made for a better shot. Ah well. You take what you get, especially when you're not willing to put a whole lot of effort into it.



[/biologist nerd who hasn't had enough sleep]

Oh dear

I've been actually working at work, and as a result I've forgotten what I was going to blather about.

Thought it would come back to me, but it hasn't.

Hmm.

That must make it time for a brand new feature on the blog that I just made up now:

POINTLESS RANDOM QUESTION OF THE DAY!!!!!

Um, yeah. I don't know either. Let's just do this thing, ok?

Question:

Why is the potty dance?

No, not why does the potty dance. It's not a riddle. Why is the potty dance, as in why does it exist? We've all done it as children (for all I know, some of us still do it as adults), but what's it actually supposed to do? Seems to me that if you really really really have to pee all that jiggling around is just going to make things worse...






Yeah. This new blog feature may or may not be long for this world.

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On another note, the new gum I bought yesterday and am trying for the first time today is currently disintegrating in my mouth. Wonderful. It's advertised as having a very long lasting flavour, but if the gum itself doesn't last how the h-e-double-hockey-sticks can a person say anything about the flavour?

Geez, people.