Just got a call from my sister. "Hey Frankie, what do you need to make stir fry? Because Jasmine wants to have that for supper next time you babysit." Awesome. Maybe I am having some positive effect. She also wants to eat my Thai peanut noodle dish, and some ready-made Indian food that I'd previously fed her. Sounds like she's on a big exotic food ( Read more... )

Regarding http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?ref=wikileaks

I’d long suspected that we were in two proxy wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) rather than a conflict with a terrorist organization and Baathists. The way I see it ( Read more... )

Well my niece kind of forced the issue. I guess she had been assigned the task of pulling weeds from the driveway and breaking up the fallen tree branches, but decided she wanted to impress her mother and pulled weeds from the patio also. I've never seen her actually work like a reasonable human being before. She was actually working with ( Read more... )

I'm back to nannying my 13 year old niece twice a week for about 3 hours a night. I was wondering if you had suggestions for good ideas on how to make the most of the time for the both of us. She's currently a fairly normal 13 year old in that all she wants to do is eat and watch TV, although I can lure her into hesitantly doing other stuff if I  ( Read more... )

Had nice chat with S4. Been curious about his thinking for some time, but is very quiet. Talked about Twitter. Uses in place of LJ, Facebook, Edsroom. Has limitations, but gives some ability to read zeitgeist ( Read more... )

I will be lonely and bored this weekend, and it'll be an extra long one. Even my roommates are going camping. I do not like convergence though.

Oops. Got hair cut too short. Image consultant will likely not approve. Difficult. Used corner barbershop again. Very cheap. Very convenient. Also like idea of neighborhood barbershop. Used straight razor even. Way cool. But likes cutting hair too much. Suppose will give third chance. Ask for longer length. Don't expect improvement though. Don't ( Read more... )

Oil changed. Intended to verify oil level, but rain fell. Not wanting to get wet. Exchanged pajamas for correct size. Still plaid because niece's strong opinions amuse me and trying to develop  tolerance for patterns. Also very traditional. Smarted off at oil station. Free wifi. Very pleasant. Cold and damp here. Only bad clothes left to wear. ( Read more... )

I had a dream that Alis invited me to come over to her place, although it wasn't really clear what kind of visit she envisioned. She apparently lived in dinkytown. Apparently for me to get there, it was convenient for me to first go through the old apartment that Caly and I used to live in. To my surprise, my key still worked, so I went in. Again ( Read more... )

I tried reading Alastair Reynolds'Revelation Space. It was very quickly terrible, but I held out hope because the wikipedia summary said it would talk about all kinds of cool stuff like transhumanism and the Fermi paradox and a hostile ancient race of galaxy bogarting robots. But I eventually had to just stop. His writing has so many problems.

1) ( Read more... )