becky haycox

Tag: postaday2011

  • contagion corn dehydration madness. plus: snow pants.

    I will not and cannot officially draw a parallel between anyone I know and the hungover Ann Perkins from Parks and Recreation:

    hungover ann perkins

    She woke up in snow pants! This episode features some silly drunkenness and then some aftermath hangover hilarity. I happened to watch this particular episode very recently, which was appropriate for no reason (that I can say). I do not endorse overalcoholizing.

    In other news, I took a picture of this corn last night.

    oh god gross

    It goes down in history as the worst corn I’ve ever tasted and one of the top ten worst things I’ve ever eaten. I almost wish I could feed it to you to prove that I am not exaggerating (then I’d give you some kind of memory-erasing drug so that you don’t have to remember the evil that I remember). The brave two who tried it likened it to a “corpse,” to “when you have a dream when your teeth fall out, except here the teeth are the corn,” and … ooo, blug, maybe I need to stop there. You get the picture.

    In other other news, I saw Contagion with my honeyman over the weekend. It was okay, although I’m always puzzled by Soderburgh’s lack of emotion towards his characters. Also, I wanted more ramped up, post-apocalyptic, oh, remember the world the way it was? bittersweetness. And honestly? I wanted more bodies. But it did make me thing about, well, contagion. I don’t know if I’ve lessened the number of times I touch my face daily, but I did something I would not have previously. I did not touch these peppers.

    i did NOT touch these, though i wanted to.

    They’re made of something nice and shiny, they’re not real, and they are intriguing-looking. They’re in a friendly clear urn right at Becky level. I darted my hand towards them and actually pulled back, thinking “ew! contagion!”

    So there’s that. Draw your own tidy conclusion to this mess of a post while I nap.

  • the most dangerous game

    Thanks to the lack of wi-fi during the New York leg of my vacation, I have used way more data on my iPhone’s plan than usual. Currently, I am at a little over 94% with four days to go in my billing cycle.

    usage

    I will incur annoying fees every 200MB I go over, so this is a concern.

    I posted this fact to my FB status, so my friend Josh bet me $50 that I will go over. So far, his opening volleys in the warfare have been ineffective; he just texted a picture of himself to me, but I am on wi-fi for a majority of the day, so I am safe. He also just warned me, saying he hopes that I wardive.

    Pfft, I’m not afraid of you, Joshie. Also, I plan to turn off my damn phone when I’m in 3G-only territory, because actually I’m a little afraid.

    In other, somewhat related (pointless/silly/online-related) news, I am only 10 miles away from getting to the “Green” level on NikeRunning.com. This means exactly nothing, but it’s a good excuse to show my inadvertently half-nude Nike avatar again.

    My Nike Running avatar gone wild

  • let’s table this discussion! ha hahahaha

    20111103-082314.jpg

    Behind the brochures, across from the steam tables. Again.

    I seem to attend a lot of Conferences (and am a member of countless Coalitions, Committees, and Clans). More often than not, I set up and staff the (dreaded) Resource Table. I kind of have it down — tape down the banner, tablecloth on top, fan out brochures, display board up, check check check — but my quality of experience varies dramatically, based upon the STLs (Sadism Tendency Levels) of the organizers.

    Conference DOs! (partial list)

    • Provide free wi-fi. Just do it. It’s cheap to implement and contributes greatly to everyone’s goodwill, particularly those of us who are approaching our data usage limits. Ahem.
    • Feed and water your resource table humans. Since we often don’t attend the Grand Ballroom’s Breakfast/Keynote Combo, we stumble around outside the venue doors, tugging at the sleeves of anyone with a name tag, begging for a cup of barely-passable coffee.
    • Send out a separate schedule to your presenters/resource tablers. It’s all well and good to tell us when the conference starts, but tell us when we should be there. Oh, say for example: 7:30am is when the conference starts, but ain’t no one gonna come by your table until after the Grand Ballroom’s Breakfast/Keynote Combo. Let us come in later. Later, dammit!

    Conference DON’Ts! (ever so partial list)

    • Don’t use the Papyrus font for anything, especially permanent signage, oh my god. I’m looking at you, major hotel chain that starts with an M and ends in a T.
    • Don’t misspell our phone number in the program, and double check how our organization is written out in text, which for your information does not include an exclamation point at the end. Branding, people, branding.
    • Don’t blow a freaking whistle to indicate that people should find their seats in the Grand Ballroom. Like, a full-on police whistle. It’s 7:30am. Soothing tones, please, for the love of all.
    • Don’t give us one chair apiece per 6 foot table. If we are going to staff a table for 6.5 hours, changes are there will be two of us. Don’t be stingy.
    • Confidential to Becky: don’t crack up when the luncheon speaker drones for 15 minutes, then says “long story short” before droning on another 15 minutes.

    Best moment at this particular conference, as dessert is being served:

    Unknown (to us) table mate, at full loud volume during the luncheon speaker: What is this!?!?!

    Waitperson: Creme Brulee, ma’am.

    Unknown (to us) table mate: WHO?!?!?!?

     

     

  • project curmudgeon

    Boring Curmudgeon Topic A: Weather

    weather

    That’s quite a palette of weather, no? Not quite as dramatic as the transition on the east coast last week from picture-perfect warm fall weather to the first recorded October snow in umpteen years, but c’mon, we’re in crappy, mild, we-complain-too-much Southern California.

    Besides, today’s weather report fails to show the horrifying, blustery, stupid, hot, foul winds that are screaming through my neck of the county. And my neck. These are awful winds. I have grit in my mouth, and my babyfine hair is sticking out at all angles in a highly unattractive fashion. A colleague of mine did offer up an amusing image of her neighborhood’s jack-o-lanterns rolling and bouncing around in the street, dinging cars and scaring pets.

    Boring Curmudgeon Topic B: Street Work or the Lack Thereof

    The main street of the city in which I live is being repaved and traffic is being funneled down to half a lane. That area is always mucking about with street repair, which makes me cranky to begin with, but what I don’t get is that the street doesn’t look all that bad. Especially compared to the hideously pothole-ridden parking area behind my office, or the giant chasms that open up periodically on the main artery between my residence and my office. A few years ago, going to a job interview, I stepped in a sidewalk pothole and went down, hard, thrashing my knees. I ended up taking the job, a job I hated. The memory makes me mad because (since the pothole was on their property) I should’ve sued them instead.

    Boring Curmudgeon Topic C: Time and Sleep

    Things are busy, both socially (yay) and workwise (boo). I have to get up tomorrow at 6:00am, which is very unappealing to me. Of course, many people do get up at that hour with no adverse effects (eg, spontaneously exploding or breaking out in The Pox), but I am unused to it.

    “Poor you,” I hear you saying. “You have to get up early once, such a hardship with your busy social schedule of drinking and eating.”

    You’re right, so I’ll end here. I know when to stop before I overcurmudgeon.

  • EEK!tober — this holiday is so commercial

    Final, timber-shivering post for the year. Happy Halloween!

    Traveler’s Novelty Catalog 1978

    Oh, you must peruse the novelties, courtesy of Secret Fun Blog! [link]

    All You Wanted to Know About Stretch Armstrong and his Friends

    Via the wondrous Plaid Stallions blog. [link]

    Carvel – Dumpy the Pumpkin and Witchy the Witch

    [link]

    Magic Manor Halloween Commercial from the 1970’s

    [link — thanks, Stacy!]

    Woolworth Woolco Halloween Commercial 1978

    [link]

    Paas Halloween Make-Up Kit commercial 1980s

    [link]

  • EEK!tober — let’s have some drinkies

    Color Changing Cocktail

    “This drink smokes elegantly, changes from a calm blue to fuschia as it cools from room temperature to drinkably cold, and tastes like a dirty martini.”

    [recipe]

    Shrunken Heads in Cider

    [recipe]

    Bleeding Heart Martini

    • 2 ounces dry vermouth
    • 8 ounces premium gin
    • Ice cubes
    • 4 pickled baby beets, each placed on a cocktail skewer

    Brain Hemmorage

    [recipe and other ones, too here]

    Midori Green Ghoul

    [recipe]

  • EEK!tober — a fish story

    It’s the Fourth Friday Challenge for October. My friend Paul and I, both posting daily in 2011, decided to give each other a job once a month to keep things spicy. In his words, “we want to push ourselves to do something more interesting than we might otherwise.”

    I requested that his challenge be spooky, in keeping with the EEK!tober theme, and here it is:

    What is the most embarrassing thing you are afraid of? You know, something that you have no business being bother by but that for some reason gives you the willies.

    – – – – –

    I’ve touched on it here, and many friends have seen it up close — I have been clammily fearful of fish (and still am, sorta). Big fish, with big mouths; those sluggish ones you see in Chinese restaurant aquariums. And flounder. Oh my god, what is wrong with flounder?? They are so wrong in the most monstrous way.

    The fear has gotten less as I’ve gotten older; I can swim in the ocean or other bodies of water without getting all panic-dog-paddly when I think about Unseen Creatures brushing by my legs. I still avoid eye contact with the big ones in the aquariums, and quickly away from anything flounder. I am uncomfortable stepping into murky water, no knowing where my toes are going.

    This embarrasses me, this residual fear. I’m painfully aware of the irrational nature of this phobia (unlike my fear of razors, which has a basis in reality). I was in my thirties when I ran screaming down a street in San Francisco’s Chinatown, totally convinced a large live fish (which had flopped unexpectedly out of a tank) was chasing me.

    So, it took me decades, but I did figure out a couple reasons why. One is a sad reason; there was a death of someone in my family due to drowning which likely propels the fear-of-unknown-water component. The  reason for the fear-of-fish component fits well into the Eek!tober theme:

    I was about 9. My parents and I were visiting friends who had a cabin on the lake in Telluride, Colorado. The friends had a couple of kids where were a little older than me, and pretty high-intensity. My siblings were so much older they had already left home and my best friend recently moved away, so I was well on my way towards solitary only-child syndrome. I was not used to the raucous teasing and hazing of the kids I was dealing with that summer.

    Noel, three years older, took me down to the lake in the afternoon. This was a very popular spot for fishing; the lake was alive with trout that would leap and cavort (?) in the early evenings.

    We went wading, about knee deep, along the edge of the lake. It was very silty water; we could not see our feet. The surface on which we were walking was surprisingly soft.

    After a while, Noel casually mentioned that this was the area in which the fishermen would clean their fish. I had no idea what that meant, so I asked.

    “Oh, that means they cut the fishes’ heads off and pull out their guts,” she said. “See?”

    At that, she started kicking and shuffling her feet, churning the bottom of the lake to the surface.

    We had been walking on hundreds upon hundreds of fish heads and guts. Rotting, stinking offal.

    Awful.

    – – – – –

    Read Paul’s response to my challenge here [to come].

  • eek!tober — scary but oddly cute and/or compelling animals

    It’s Halloween week, time to shiver your timbers.

    Cave spider!

    [link]

    Reef sharks!

    [link]

    Evil turkey attack!

    [link]

  • winging my way

    Getting up at Painful O’Clock sucks, no two ways about it. Especially getting up for the privilege of a $40 cab ride, being selected for an extra-special TSA body inspection, and being jammed in a truly inhumane lack of personal space. Seriously, man ahead of me, he’s in my lap and not in any good way.

    I apologize that I’m wandering into Seinfeld-esque observational humor airspace (without the humor). Shoot me down!

    Besides, I got put in my perspective place by the cab driver at 5:45am. He asked my travel plans and I gave him the gist (from SoCal, two weddings, two cities). He said, with a charming accent, “Ah! You are having fun! A beautiful woman, having fun, seeing friends! You are so lucky!”

    Word, dude. And I will tell anybody reading this: be effusive to a stranger sometime; call her beautiful even with wet head and 5:45 am syndrome, remind her she is lucky, and you will make her fucking day.

    20111018-161322.jpg

    PS I just arrived and I am soooo excited!!

  • keys keys to your heart heart

    WacKeys

    My dear friend and ex-lovar D offered access to his New York City apartment while I’m there. D doesn’t live in the country, so this sweet pad in a very prime Manhattan location sits empty most of the time. Perhaps I’ll just move there and not tell him.

    The only things that I promised to do is to get the toilet fixed (my dear sweet handy sister will be staying with me! I’ve already hinted heavily she has a little homework ahead of her), and to make a copy of the keys to his front building and apartment door.

    I guess the front building door key is a key that is in a Special Shape, a Shape that causes Great Discomfort in all locksmiths. It seems like a normal key, and is not stamped with any “do not duplicate” warnings, but it is NOT a normal key; it was a nearly impossible task to get that little asshole replicated. I went to ALL THE LOCKSMITHS IN TOWN (literally, literally!) and here were my results:

    Lowe’s:
    “Ooooh, no no no, we don’t have the blank for this. Try Plaza Keys or that kiosk off Borchard or Tri-County (suggested on a Saturday afternoon, when none of these places were open. For it would be madness for a key copy place to be open on 2pm on a Saturday, right?)

    Tri-County (after coming back when it was open):
    “That’ll be 40 dollars to copy this key.”
    “$40? Why??”
    “Because it’ll be 40 dollars.”

    That kiosk place off Borchard (which, tragically, is not called “The Key-osk”):
    “Oh, nuh uh, no. Try Plaza Keys. You need a real place.” (huh?)

    Plaza Keys:
    “Oh, that type of key can’t be copied. Well, it could be copied for $100.” (what kind of effed up corrupted world is this? bribe a dude to go zzzt brrrrt zzzzrt on a piece of metal for like a minute?)

    Ventura Locksmiths:
    “Hi! Need a key copied? Sure!” (5 minutes, 17 bucks and +27 blood pressure points later, I got a shiny new replicant. I still think $17 is a little high, but who’s complaining? Not me, no sir!)

    Wow, a blog post about keys. Fortunately, this all made me remember “Keys to Your Heart”, a bouncy little number by the 101ers, Joe Strummer‘s first band. This was included on almost every mix taped mixed by yours truly back in, you know, the day. And, thanks to the magically swirly sparkle of the internet, here it is for your listening pleasure.

    [link]

    I found the keys keys
    Yeah the keys to your heart heart
    Yes I got them on a chain chain
    When the doors come apart part
    We’ll never be the same same!

    OMGYG this is it — I’m off to wedding and vacation land! I’m still a little anxious about various things, but I have a feeling that a couple hours of doing the Electric Slide on both coasts will take the edge off. I’m going on a plane plane!