http://www.threadless.com/product/2899/Doctor_Hoo/tab,guys/style,shirt
I realized after I uploaded the photo that I cut off the William Hartnell owl. And you can just barely see the Matt Smith owl at the other end. But you can see the full design here!
Also, if you’re in Jacksonville during Jazz Fest, we’ll be set up at the Welcome to Jacksonville Center. Come by and say hello!
That is, until I discovered Dr. Who. Now my contract work is replacing my valuable Dr. Who time. I’ve found myself adjusting my hourly rate depending on what Series of the show I’m catching up on when I take on a new project. For instance;
Series 1 – $20/hr
Series 2 – $30/hr
Series 3 – $50/hr
Series 4 – $55/hr
Series 5 – $50/hr
Any Steven Moffat Episode: $75/hr
Today, I achieved one of those scenarios.
I was hooking up my XBox360 and had set it up in a wooden shelf. I was working quickly and didn’t realize there was a rough spot on the front edge of the shelf. I made a quick motion with my hand and jammed a wooden splinter up under my fingernail, halfway to the quick.
I immediately screamed and recoiled. Holy craps, it hurt SO BADLY. My 4-year-old was sitting on the bed, watching me, saying “Mama, what’s wrong? What happened?” as I rolled on the floor. I jumped up and ran for the bathroom, flung the light on and took a quick look to see how much blood there was.
No blood. WTF? But there was a splinter sticking out of my fingernailOHMYGODTHEHORROR!
In a panic, without another thought, I grabbed it and yanked it out.
OUCH AGAIN.
However, I think I did the right thing. There was no way in HELL it was going to stay jammed up under there, develop an infection and then require my finger to be amputated. NO WAY.
It left a tiny light-colored trail of space under my nail. That was 4 hours ago and now the trail is gone, though my finger still hurts like a mofo. (Typing kind of sucks.) Also, I can’t stop imagining it over and over. ALSO I’m half afraid to even walk quickly for fear of initiating a landslide of subsequent nightmare scenarios, resulting in a trip to the emergency room.
Stupid brain.
I AM WINNING!
One of the perks of reviewing products for companies is that you often get the product for FREE. (Score!)
NOW THAT THAT’S OUT OF THE WAY, we can get to the good part!
Allow me to introduce you to Nightwave and Lark! They sound like an awesome superhero duo, madly in love and out to kick evil right in the kneecaps! ACTUALLY they’re two very cool sleep gadgets. Nightwave helps you fall asleep and Lark wakes you up. TOGETHER, THEY ARE AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE! Or something. I’m probably hyping it a bit.
Unassuming by day...
Pretty!!!
The Nightwave basically has a bright blue LED that pulses and soothingly lights your bedroom (or your friend’s living room if you’re a couch surfer – I don’t judge). The idea is to breathe in rhythm with the pulses and eventually fall asleep.
I have NO trouble falling asleep (as you’ll see later on in this post). So instead I used my son as a guinea pig, since he’s the 4-year-old embodiment of the phrase “I’m not tired”. He LOVED it. It now belongs to him. Each night, we turn on “the blue light” and it knocks him right out. WIN!
The only strange thing is that it has a “heartbeat mode” that instead of a nice even pulse, is a “thump-thump” as if it’s some sort of glowing blue alien heart contained in a plastic box. CREEPY.
The other awesome doodad I am now in love with is the Lark. This is the coolest alarm I’ve ever seen because it’s SILENT. Instead of a heart-stopping fire alarm or wind chimes or birds chirping or Howard Stern, it vibrates to wake you up.
“Wait, what?”
You heard me!
It comes with a black neoprene-ish wristband and a charging base. The unit in the wristband connects via bluetooth to an iPhone app (sorry Android users). You set your alarm and plug your iPhone into the base to charge overnight. When it’s time, the wristband unit starts vibrating like a bumblebee caught in a spiderweb to wake you up. PLUS, if you fail to either snooze or turn off the alarm within 2 minutes, the app turns into a regular audible alarm as if to say “OKAY, SLEEPING BEAUTY. ENOUGH ALREADY. GET UP.”
I’ve had a rough history with alarms. I hate buzzers, bells and any of the traditional alarm sounds. I don’t like being startled awake. This is a much gentler alternative that WORKS. AND it won’t wake anyone else in case you’re one of those people who like to hit the snooze button repeatedly for 45 minutes before staggering out of bed.
Snooze...snooze...snooze...snooze...
Another added bonus is that it tracks your sleep habits and shows you why you may not feel rested when you wake up, even if you think you slept all night long.
Here are my actual stats as of this posting.
My average time to fall asleep was shorter but I stayed up one night after setting the Lark to watch the new Duct Tape episode of Mythbusters and skewed my data. Data Nerd FAIL.
Both were great but I’m absolutely sold on the Lark as my new alarm. Not only is it nicer to wake up to, it satisfies the nerd in me and gives me information! You can get both Lark and Nightwave at Bestbuy.
http://thebloggess.com/2012/03/unicorn-success-club/
Almost exactly like this.
I have an Etsy shop wherein I sell pieces of jewelry and other products of my creative energies. I have a habit of cleaning my jewelry pieces before I mail them out so they look FABULOUS when the buyer opens the package. I like to imagine rays of light and beautiful choir voices as they open the bubble mailer, totally in awe. That kind of thing.
This particular day, I had a couple orders to send out but had forgotten to clean the silver before I left the house. So on the way to the UPS store, I ran into Wal-Mart to pick up a box of silver cleaning wipes.
Death. Trap.
If you’ve never had the misfortune of opening a new container of cleaning wipes, consider yourself lucky. It looks simple enough, right? Pull the first wipe through the hole and you’re good to go.
APPARENTLY.
I was in a bit of a hurry and was having trouble getting the first wipe through the little triangular teeth surrounding the hole in the top of the container. Thinking back now, I can’t recall why it was so difficult but I somehow decided my best course of action was to stick one index finger into the hole in order to widen the teeth and make it easier to get the wipe through.
The problem with this theory is that when I tried to pull my finger back out again, the triangular-shaped teeth began to retract and grabbed hold of my finger.
My finger would not come back out.
"Oh sorry. I didn't realize you were in there."
I stopped and stared, my brain quickly running through scenarios (allowing the plastic teeth to just slice through my finger, chewing it off myself, etc.), all of which ended with me losing the tip of my index finger at the top joint. I frantically searched my car for something I could use to bend the plastic away from my flesh. I had NOTHING USEFUL. My keys were too thick. Everything else in the car was either paper or plastic. I also kept bumping the lid into things as I searched the car, which kept hurting because the plastic teeth kept wanting to bite into my skin.
I started to get a little panicky. I couldn’t drive with a plastic lid clamped onto my hand! And I sure as hell wasn’t going back to the office with it. I’d never live it down and someone would definitely want to try cutting the plastic off my finger which was almost as scary as actually being caught in it. I actually had to stop, breathe and STOP pulling on it like a raccoon caught in a trap.
"Well, this is awkward."
I finally gave up and went into the UPS store for help. I ship things from this particular store all the time, so the ladies that work there know me. I walked in, pale-faced and wide-eyed, on the verge of tears and just held up my hand, the red plastic lid circling my index finger like some weird high-fashion torture device.
“I uhh…I’m stuck. Oh god, please help.”
And then I started crying.
Thankfully, someone had a metal nail file and we were able to pry the teeth away from my finger enough for me to slip it out. When I did, they cheered and let me sit for a few minutes to collect myself.
I threw the box of wipes away before I left.
"Hello...I've waited here for you...everlong..."
I’m sick and tired of stumbling across “geek” and “nerd” oriented videos on the web that are so transparently desperate for views that they resort to cheap tactics. Let me say right now that I think the “melodramatic sensual” voice and look are the absolute CHEAPEST way to entice people to watch anything. It’s a completely trite, annoying director faux pas.
Take the chick in the following video, for instance.
Not Power Girl in the preview. It might hurt a bit, but watch at least 30 seconds of the video.
This chick is obviously reading from a script and I’ll bet you a dollar if you asked her personal opinion on Poison Ivy, she’d tell you she LOVES Uma Thurman.
It’s like the conversation between the writers went like this;
Writer 1: “Hmmm…our content isn’t good enough on its own. Let’s have a chick host it who gives the impression that she might do porn on the side. Then people will actually watch!”
Writer 2: “Brilliant!”
::they clink glasses::
While we’re on the subject, who the hell wrote this crap anyway? The dialogue is totally cheesy, has no depth or insight and uses every well-known cliche’ about each character they “feature”. How about giving more than 1 to 2 lines of crap dialogue per Super Heroine? Maybe some … I dunno, facts?
We geeks and nerds LOVE background stories and knowledge. We DO NOT care that you think we should “treat Storm right because she’s used to being treated like a goddess”. Approximately half your target audience has already “treated Storm like a goddess” in their own minds dozens of times over and in more creative ways than you could possibly come up with.
Also, nice black bra strap paired with your red and white halter top, chick. I don’t think those huge fake boobs need much support. They look like they probably don’t move an inch.
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!
It also caused some concern for flight navigation, according to National Geographic’s website:
“Because long-distance flights across the polar regions cannot always use satellite-based communication, they rely on traditional radio communication,” Murtagh said.
“However, during a solar-radiation storm, there are frequently extended periods of radio blackout. Adhering to federal aviation regulations then becomes a problem, because flights are required to remain in communication at all times.”
The consensus, however, was that most satellites and technology wouldn’t be hugely affected.
I BEG TO DIFFER.
I came in to work on Tuesday morning and found 3 out of 4 hard drives failed on the old dinosaur server I had been planning to replace. This server was running a vital database that needed to be migrated to a new server ASAP so the users could actually do their work. (Today is Thursday and I JUST got them back in error free this morning.)
Not only that but our cable internet connection started flaking out.
Then my phone started doing weird random things like displaying a 12/1/00 date for all my email, rebooting itself, lagging, etc. I even deleted apps to try to free up available space to no avail.
Then, I kid you not, the letter “C” key on my keyboard just quit for no good reason, right in the middle of a Google search trying to set up the OS for the new virtual server to run the database from. About 10 minutes later, it popped back into use.
So far today, everything seems fine. It makes me wonder if my personal magnetism is high enough that I’m a conduit for magnetic energy and I can “zap” things. It would be cool if I could do it AT WILL instead of randomly.
