Month: April 2010

Wednesdaying it up

Today was a pretty average day. We had one of our regular “brown bag lunches” at work, where they invite a speaker and give us free food for attending, but I decided to skip this one. It was about “Meals Off the Clock: Tips for Cooking During the Work Week,” and going for a walk on my lunch break seemed like the better option. I don’t do a lot of cooking, to be honest. When I was single, living on my own, it often wasn’t much fun making a big production out of a meal for one person, and now that I live with my parents, dinner is usually more of a collaborative effort. I have been looking into moving out recently, in that hesitant oh-my-god-is-that-really-how-much-these-apartments-cost kind of way. So I could maybe use some tips for stretching a dollar and still eating well. But the weather was nice enough that a walk seemed like more fun. The lunches in general are a pretty mixed bag; some have been pretty great, some not so much, and you never know what you’re going to get until you’re trapped there for the hour or more.

Other than that, it was just a lot more of the same. All the trains out of Manhattan were delayed this evening, apparently because one hit a pedestrian in Kew Gardens. I haven’t been able to find out any more information since, but that’s what we were told over the PA system: police activity following an unauthorized person being hit by a train. Almost certainly a suicide attempt, and almost certainly a successful one, or at least that seems to be the consensus here, which is just a shame if it’s true. My own train was forty minutes late because of the delays, and I had to go pick up my mother in Hicksville. (She doesn’t work in Manhattan but had to go in today, and she got the wrong train coming home.)

And that was my Wednesday. I’m only working four days this week, so tomorrow is pretty much my Friday. I’m looking forward to that!

Wednesday various

  • Studios are increasingly stripping rental DVDs of special features. I ran into this over the weekend with The Informant. I’d be very interested in an audio commentary or any other behind-the-scenes material — it’s an unusual movie, based on a very unusual case — but I won’t buy it for that.

  • Incidentally, speaking of The Informant, I was amused by this user comment at IMDB: “…the main character in this film was just bad with the way his thoughts were and thinking the way he did.”

  • Meanwhile, I am not at all surprised that Ridley Scott’s new Robin Hood movie isn’t remotely historically accurate, despite his repeated claims to the contrary. Still, it’s interesting to go in search of the “real-life” Robin Hood. [via]

  • I’m not a big fan of cilantro, but I don’t hate it. Apparently, though, there may be a good reason why many people (like my father) do. [via]

  • And finally, the headline reads Black Hole Strikes Deepest Musical Note Ever Heard. [via]

Tuesdayier is too a word

Today was a lot like yesterday, only Tuesdayier. We had a planning meeting at work for three conferences I won’t be attending — New Orleans, Boston, Vancouver, all places I sort of wish I could go — and I worked on a couple of projects sitting on my desk. Not what you’d call especially exciting, but I’m taking off this Friday, so at least my week is already half over.

Tuesday various

  • If you’ve ever wanted to search the entire 137-year archive of Popular Science, well, now you can. [via]
  • I like these re-imagined Stephen King book covers. [via]
  • And this: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1988. [via]
  • Zombie apocalypse survival flowchart [via]
  • And finally, Todd VanDerWerff on why it doesn’t really matter if all the mysteries on Lost don’t add up. Contains spoilers up to last week’s episode:

    I certainly don’t want to tell any of you who are watching this final season and demanding more answers that you’re wrong to watch the show that way. Everyone watches TV for their own reasons. All I can do is tell you why I watch it, and I watch it because I want to see worlds I believe in, no matter how ridiculous, characters I care about, no matter how they end up mired in metaphysical conflicts from beyond our reality. I want to see a man realize that the only thing worth fighting for is the love of a woman he’s never met. I want to see another man who keeps chasing death because he thinks it’s the only way to find purpose. I want to see a doctor slowly realizing that there’s more to the strange events swirling around him in two worlds, a sad musician pull scientific genius out of thin air. The people on “Lost” aren’t real, obviously, but I want to believe they could be, that they’re living in a universe just around the corner. I want to see that smooth cut from Desmond grasping Penny’s hand to his eyes opening back on the Island, the look of joy on his face when it happens, a realization that some things matter more than others. Does it matter to me if the puzzle has its holes? No. Because what’s there is something I desperately want to see.

Just another Monday

The most exciting thing I did today was finally mail in my federal and New York state taxes. There’s no good excuse for why it’s taken me this long, since I actually did my taxes weeks ago. There was some reason, which I can’t now remember, why I didn’t just e-file, but the paperwork has just been sitting around all this time, waiting to find its way into a pair of envelopes. Thursday is tax day, the final deadline, so I was kind of running out of time with which to continue my senseless procrastination.

Beyond that, though, it was just a pretty humdrum Monday.