Sometime Thursday night, after I got home but before I went to bed, the outlets in my dining room mysteriously stopped working, along with two of the outlets in my kitchen. I checked the breaker box, saw that nothing was tripped, and thought, well, there's the end of my expertise, so I went to bed.
In the morning I turned on my radio, and it just stared at me. Of course, I realized. My wireless router lives in the dining room. So no internet, hence no internet radio. Boo! Which also meant...yes, my phone was out, too, because the only phone jack that's actually hooked up is also in the dining room. Still, you don't want to be late for work because you have no internet. Especially not when work has the internet. So I went to work and totally forgot about it until I got home.
All this weekend I have had no home phone (slightly inconvenient), no electricity in the dining room (marginally inconvenient), and no internet or wireless network (hugely, preposterously inconvenient for something that most ordinary mortals, myself included, did not have anywhere until after I was in college).
Tonight I was on the phone (my cell) with my folks, when my father mentioned that I should check all the outlets that had safety breakers on them. This hadn't occurred to me, since the only one I'd ever noticed was the one my hairdryer is plugged into, upstairs, far away from the dining room, and also clearly operational. Then I went down to the kitchen and realized that in fact there were two of them there, too. Including one that was obviously tripped. I pushed the button and immediately heard a bunch of beeping and chirping behind me as all the electronics got back to work.
Huzzah! Oh, sweet, sweet internet. Let's never part again!
P.S. I think this may need I need a new hot air popcorn popper. Didn't they used to last more than five years before they started sabotaging your home electrical system?
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Friday, July 09, 2010
Down the rabbit hole
A random thought from "Men who stare at goats." The book explores the totally weird crap that the military got into as they were exploring new age and psychic warfare. As I've said, it is scary what sorts of stuff they did try out, not because it's horrifying in and of itself, but because a group of people in positions of power pursued such silly things. Examples include the title, which involved a "goat lab" on an army base in which martial arts psychics and special forces troops literally stared at goats, trying to kill them with their minds, and remote viewing, in which a team of psychics sat in a room, trying to view what was happening at specified strategic targets and write it down as bits of military intelligence. The thing is, these are not conspiracy theories or wild speculations, they are documented facts. Sources are cited, in both cases multiple sources, and the sources are often the people who were doing the staring and viewing.
At the end of the book, though, the author talks about how he got a call from someone who was a source in the book but who said he'd share a bit more information on the condition of anonymity for this final tidbit. The information that was provided, the author was careful to point out, was not verified, and so not trustworthy, and was totally weird. He was told that essentially special forces operatives were being trained to be remote viewers and then being sent into the field, so that they could use their psychic powers in real time to track targets (e.g., to hunt someone down and kill them). Again, weird. That wasn't what caught my attention though.
What caught my attention was how the author was saying that "this sounds totally crazy, and I can't substantiate it, and I wouldn't normally believe it BUT all the stuff I can substantiate is so weird that, well, who knows??" What caught me about this is that I often end up feeling this way at work and out of work. I am generally a fairly level headed and cynical person. When someone tells me about a ghost, a conspiracy, or an honest politician, my usual response is "yeah, sure, show me some data and I'll listen." When someone comes at me with an oddball statement about, well, anything I'm skeptical unless I can either see the sense in it or the proof for it. This approach has served me very well, and in fact part of my job is based on this type of critical thought.
But another part of my job also confronts me with people who have been in situations that are, by their definition, outside the scope of normal experience. They are supposed to be, and are, a little unbelievable. This puts me in weird situations because sometimes I hear REALLY crazy stuff and the critical part of me is crying "oh come ON" but there is still this little niggling doubt. So many of the other unbelievably twisted things I've heard and learned are documented fact, how do I know that this particular one is in fact a bunch of bunk? It's like when you start seeing that really crazy things do happen, you lose a bit of your ability to doubt things outright. And the result, as the title of this post suggests, is that you're down the rabbit hole in a weird and sometimes scary world. It's incredibly frustrating at times.
I don't really have any other deep thoughts to share on this point. I just thought it was interesting to see someone else experiencing this same mental struggle, in an entirely different context. Once you start down that weird path, you can never totally go back. But before you go all 90's TV on me let me just say that no, the truth is not out there :o)
At the end of the book, though, the author talks about how he got a call from someone who was a source in the book but who said he'd share a bit more information on the condition of anonymity for this final tidbit. The information that was provided, the author was careful to point out, was not verified, and so not trustworthy, and was totally weird. He was told that essentially special forces operatives were being trained to be remote viewers and then being sent into the field, so that they could use their psychic powers in real time to track targets (e.g., to hunt someone down and kill them). Again, weird. That wasn't what caught my attention though.
What caught my attention was how the author was saying that "this sounds totally crazy, and I can't substantiate it, and I wouldn't normally believe it BUT all the stuff I can substantiate is so weird that, well, who knows??" What caught me about this is that I often end up feeling this way at work and out of work. I am generally a fairly level headed and cynical person. When someone tells me about a ghost, a conspiracy, or an honest politician, my usual response is "yeah, sure, show me some data and I'll listen." When someone comes at me with an oddball statement about, well, anything I'm skeptical unless I can either see the sense in it or the proof for it. This approach has served me very well, and in fact part of my job is based on this type of critical thought.
But another part of my job also confronts me with people who have been in situations that are, by their definition, outside the scope of normal experience. They are supposed to be, and are, a little unbelievable. This puts me in weird situations because sometimes I hear REALLY crazy stuff and the critical part of me is crying "oh come ON" but there is still this little niggling doubt. So many of the other unbelievably twisted things I've heard and learned are documented fact, how do I know that this particular one is in fact a bunch of bunk? It's like when you start seeing that really crazy things do happen, you lose a bit of your ability to doubt things outright. And the result, as the title of this post suggests, is that you're down the rabbit hole in a weird and sometimes scary world. It's incredibly frustrating at times.
I don't really have any other deep thoughts to share on this point. I just thought it was interesting to see someone else experiencing this same mental struggle, in an entirely different context. Once you start down that weird path, you can never totally go back. But before you go all 90's TV on me let me just say that no, the truth is not out there :o)
Thursday, July 08, 2010
This also just in...
The National totally rocks. Thanks to my bro and a friend at work who recommended them. Lyrics are just kind of cool, music is good, quite enjoyable. My only question is this: why do all the new bands I'm listening to sound like they were at least partially inspired by The Cure?
French candy tastes weird....
That's really all there is to it. If you happen to go to France, and want to please a friend with a gift of French candy, be aware that a) they use a LOT of butter and b) they don't feel all that compelled to use sugar. The end result is a confection that causes oily skin and pimples in all those standing within 10 feet of the opened candy and tastes, well, not like candy. The coffee flavored caramel was quite nice, but the regular and chocolate varieties tasted just a bit like well oiled shoe leather. Who knew?
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