Sometimes we take Loki outside and let him explore the yard. He can actually run/sprint now that he’s lost some weight, but he doesn’t run outside because the feeling of the grass on his paws seems to weird him out.
This is the Loki Strut.
What is it about the inherent social-spatial lesson that I (and what seems like most people) understand that some people just don’t get?
You probably know what I’m talking about: when you enter a space that you must share with other members of the public, such as a doctor’s office, you don’t sit down close to a stranger if there is a spot available at a “safe” distance, or one that is equidistant from other strangers. In a small room or on public transportation, it’s more acceptable to be in close proximity because there isn’t much space to begin with. But in a large room, it’s customary to allow for plenty of personal space and not crowd someone for no reason.
Right?
This afternoon, I was sitting alone in a 4-seat sitting area on the perimeter of a large atrium (4th floor Losee Center) on UVU’s campus. It’s typically quiet and somewhat out of the way except for some doors to offices nestled around the perimeter. It’s a comfortable and well-lit waiting/reading area with about 50 lounge chairs scattered about. There were a handful of other people sharing the lounge area, all appropriately scattered in their own personal spaces and keeping to themselves.
I saw a girl walk briskly out of an office in my line of sight, then turn left and step up onto the platform of my little sitting area. She proceeded to sit down directly across from me—not in the seat closest to the office door, but in what I considered to be Directly In My Zone given the ample number of unoccupied seats otherwise available. Without saying a word to me or looking directly at me, she started reading the textbook in her hand.
And chomping her gum. Open-mouthed and all.
Dude. Really?
She might as well have sat directly on my lap and farted.
I initially gave her the benefit of the doubt—maybe she was just waiting for a minute until being called back into the office. But the chomping. Oh. My. God. And after a minute, it was clear that she was getting comfortable and would not be going anywhere.
My laptop was open, my feet were resting on the coffee table between us, and I was trying to do homework. I considered reaching into my bag for headphones so I wouldn’t have to listen to the chomping, but no. Why should I have to expend effort to accommodate my needs when she was the one violating the social norms of personal space and being rude by chomping gum in a quiet area?
Instead, I returned the gesture of hostility by playing a CNN video at a reasonable volume through my laptop speakers. It was an interview with a couple whose home had recently been broken into by a facebook friend and had been caught on film—there were some parts I just didn’t quite catch so I had to rewind a bit and adjust the volume. Nobody else was within earshot, I’m sure. I watched the girl shift in my peripheral vision, slightly distracted from her reading by my shared audio.
After a couple minutes, she stood up. She walked toward the center of the atrium and took a spot that was, in my opinion, an acceptable distance from others.
Pleased with my passive aggressive territory defense, I shut off the video and went back to homework.
Anybody else remember a cartoon called Maya the Bee that aired on (the brand new) Nick Jr. in the late 80s? I remember thinking that I was too old to watch it when it was on, but since my little sister wanted to, I guess I had to… As a result, hearing/reading the name “Maya” has always caused the theme song of that cartoon to pop into my head.
Myyyyyyyy-uh-ai-a, Maya the Bee.
And that song is also connected to the basement of my (one summer only, I think?) babysitter’s house and my fascination with the popping letter dice of Boggle. And David the Gnome, the cartoon that followed or preceded Maya the Bee.
Snapping back to present day: This semester I have been learning basic animation and 3D modeling using a pretty intense software program called Maya. The cartoon theme song has been a constantly droning, yet chipper, mental audio track as I curse and snarl and otherwise express my frustration for this complex software. Combine that with what I feel has been less than sufficient training from a young and monotone-y soft spoken instructor and perhaps I’m painting a picture for you to interpret as lackluster excitement for my class and Maya in general.
I have enjoyed most of the graphic and web design courses I’ve taken at UVU, but this one’s been tough. It’s a required course for the Digital Media major that I was initially excited about but have come to dread. I appreciate the art form of 3D modeling and animation, don’t get me wrong. I know how important it is as a consumer of that type of thing. It’s just… a lot of time-consuming work. And because Maya is something in which I’m not pursuing a career (or even a hobby), finding the motivation to invest a lot of time in it just isn’t easy. At least I was able to download a free 6-month trial as a student (via the parent company’s site, students.autodesk.com) so I’m not dependent on a computer lab.
Still, I’m getting to the point where I’ve done some neat things even if I want to give that 3D grid view a little what-fer to the face. I definitely prefer 3D modeling to the 2D animation we were doing in Maya at the beginning of the semester. (You say the software is powerful, I say the software is too effing complicated.) Anyway, here’s a pre-fab model that I posed (excluding the facial features) in a way to convey strength. And/or constipation.
This one’s a work in progress. I started from a single cube and have transformed it into a larger and disfigured cube that will hopefully be a cartoony toucan bird with wings extended by Wednesday night. I have a tutorial to follow, but it’s not great. I might end up turning this lump of pixels into Lou Ferrigno ca. Hulk Angry Time instead. Actually, that would be quite bitchin’.
Food played a deliciously important part of my weekend. Here’s the photo evidence.
A hamburger stacked tall with delicious vegetables and condiments and cheeeeeese,
Boutique cupcakes with probably the best frosting I have EVER tasted,
and Bacon Salted Caramel Brownies homemade by my friend Jodie. Surprisingly good, and I even thought they could handle more bacon flavor! They’re the perfect breakfast-dessert treat because both bacon and chocolate go well with coffee.
After all that, I made to sure to break a sweat while riding my bike around the neighborhood this evening. (And then I made cookies.)
It’s hard to believe that almost two years have passed since Ben and I went to Comic Con in San Diego. I loved it and wanted to start going every year… but last year I couldn’t go because of my class schedule and Ben’s work schedule. And this year isn’t happening either, which is extra sad because I’m going to miss out on seeing my friends from Cincinnati who are going for the first time. 
But don’t throw me a pity party just yet. This time next week I’ll be at WonderCon in San Francisco! WonderCon is basically Comic Con Jr. in a different city at a different time of year and with not as many headlining geek celebrities. Now I just need to get through the next couple days of deadlines and maybe catch up on my sleep a little. I’m very excited, see also: sleep deprived. Going to fix that now, hopefully!
It’s been a really long week. And a long few weeks of very little sleep.
I’m the type of person who functions best on around eight hours of sleep. Sleeping less than seven hours a night on a regular basis is something that I have not historically been able to do—usually I have to “catch up” with a night or two of 8-10 hours of sleep every couple days or my body forces me to pass out on the couch or floor or wherever I land. Having a regular sleep schedule can prove difficult because, though I am capable of getting up early to go to work or school or other functions, I am a night owl. My motivation and creativity just kick into gear as midnight approaches—even if I’ve been sleepy in the early evening and especially if I know I have to get up in the morning.
The last few weeks, though, I have surprised myself. I’ve been very busy in seemingly every possible area of my life and have been functioning (with the help of coffee and my natural adrenaline) on about 20 fewer hours of sleep a week. Going to bed very late and getting up at regular hour because I have to in order to keep up with everything.
Of course it’s not sustainable, but still. It’s just not something I expected that I would ever be able to do. Blogging every day has contributed to fewer sleeping hours, but I don’t mind. It’s been worth it to me.
On the agenda for this weekend is sleeping in to give this new cycle a break and knocking out more items on my to-do list. It’s not going to slow down for at least another month. The good news is that I’m better prepared to handle it than I was even a few months ago.
Where were you on March 28, 1999? I was in my apartment, eagerly awaiting and then watching the premiere episode of Futurama. I had a feeling I would like it… but I didn’t realize how much.
Ben and I have the whole series and the straight-to-DVD movies in an honored spot in our home video collection (filed under “F”) and, well, let’s just say that we would already need to buy new copies if they were VHS tapes instead of DVDs.
After Fox cancelled Futurama (mutter mutter Fox smells of elderberries), there was uproarious fan-demand for the show to be revived—especially after Family Guy came back. There was a hint that it was possible from David X. Cohen & Matt Groening at the Futurama panel I was fortunate enough to attend at Comic Con 2008, and then totally awesome news from last year’s Comic Con that it was coming back (SQUEE) and would be aired on Comedy Central.
Then there was a little hullabaloo about the original voice cast not returning, which of course would completely ruin the revival. Not to worry; the salary negotiations were resolved and the first new episode is airing in June 2010.
Which brings me to…
My Futurama To-Do List
I think a few of those items (2, 8, 10) are more likely to happen than the others.
I’m just in the nick of time to blog about a woman I admire in technology or science for Ada Lovelace Day. Last year was the first Ada Lovelace Day, so now it’s just a matter of spreading the word and making it a Big Thing for years to come. Granted, it’s not quite as exciting as Talk Like a Pirate Day, but its purpose is as important as Blog Action Day. It’s meant to open up a dialogue and bring awareness to something meaningful.
Which I guess means I will refrain from posting a LOLcat.
The day is named after Ada Lovelace, a 19th century geek girl who oozed mathy intelligence. If she’d lived longer than 36, I’m certain that her name would be more prominent and we would already have jetpacks and such in 2010 because the future would have experienced a speedier onset. She was a friend of Charles Babbage, who designed (but did not build) an Analytical Engine—what is considered the first computer. Ada created extensive notes while translating a memoir related to the machine that effectively made her the first-ever computer programmer. So I agree with the people behind Ada Lovelace Day: she’s worth honoring in this way!
Right. So I’ve chosen Marie Sklodowska Curie as the woman I will honor in honor of ALD. I probably should pick someone who is still alive and deserves credit, but Marie Curie was the first to come to mind… mostly because I was thinking along the lines of a historical female heroine and I happened to do a report on her in second grade. I think she also contributed to my interest in being a scientist (without the dying from radiation exposure part).
(I was in the “gifted and talented” program at a public elementary school, which meant that I attended 1st-5th grade with roughly the same group of kids, and we did all sorts of projects and presentations that would contribute to our overall geekiness in later years. I think we could pick any important historical figure for the one project I’m thinking of. I researched and wrote a paper which I then read aloud to my class—from behind a backlit bedsheet that created a live shadow performance. My crowning achievement for the project was a construction paper rack of test tubes that I cut out and taped to the bedsheet so it would look like I was speaking from an actual chemistry lab. Uh, was I ever not a nerd?)
Another reason I’m choosing Marie Curie, aside from her well-known research into radioactivity—a word she and her husband coined, according to Wikipedia—is her contribution to what might now be considered an open source project or mindset.
In an unusual decision, Marie Skłodowska–Curie intentionally refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process, so that the scientific community could do research unhindered.
And also, this kickass little fact makes her even cooler.
Due to their levels of radioactivity, her papers from the 1890s are considered too dangerous to handle. Even her cookbook is highly radioactive.
That’s right, boys. Too dangerous to handle.
Despite the tragic reality that her studies in radioactivity led to an early death, I am thoroughly delighted by the juxstaposition of a domestic symbol next to Dangerous Science. That’s very “geek girl” to me.
Marie contributed in a big way to science and technology and is very deserving of a blog post mostly dedicated to her.. She achieved more than most can even dream of achieving in a half-life… har har!
Virgin Galactic announced the completion of the first “captive carry” of their future commercial spaceship, the VSS Enterprise. Hello, Star Trek, with bonus keywords like “mothership” and “spaceship.” They even posted a nice under-3 minute video of the event:
However. Today’s “NewsPulse” on CNN.com showed that the story of Joe Biden’s smooth “This is a big fucking deal” on-mic remark to our president was waaaaay more popular than the little news blip about, oh, I don’t know, THE FIRST TEST FLIGHT OF THE FIRST COMMERCIAL SPACECRAFT, which was a story on the Tech section if you were paying attention.
Biden’s F-bomb was apparently such a big fucking deal that it was even listed twice in the Top 5 most popular stories. WTF. Why don’t people understand that commercial space travel has the potential to change our lives so much more than a VP who accidentally* swears on-mic?
*Conspiracy theorists may feel free to say that Biden intentionally swore to draw attention away from something else. Whatever. SPACE TRAVEL FOR ME SOMEDAY.
In no particular order, these are truths that I wish had been falseths this last week.
On the bright side, we had delicious full-percentage beer with tasty BBQ dinner on Sunday night at a fairly busy bar/restaurant with my mom and loud alternative music I consistently loved. A refreshing change from my usual experiences in Utah.
And Cleveland radio stations, damn how I miss you.
