Nothing funny about feldspar

I’ve had an unproductive, boring day. I woke up tired, took a nap and woke up tired, been tired all day. Everyone in the house has been tired all day. Maybe it’s the heat? I have gotten nothing done, and been disinclined to do anything about it.

I was happy when it became a decent time to go to bed, because I need to get some reasonable sleep. As we were getting settled into bed, Plagioclase started talking about all the stuff “we have to get done,” (as though We! Need! To! Do! It! Tomorrow! As! Soon! As! It’s! Light!) some of which I’ve been putting off for emotional reasons.

Instantly, I couldn’t sleep. I started tossing & turning, thinking about those things that sneak up on me when I get in this state. Scenes of visiting Mom in the hospital. Crappy things I said to my dad. Confrontations real and imagined with my sister. Wondering if I have every scrap of paper I’m supposed to for the court to be satisfied I’ve done my job. Starting the whole process over again with Plagioclase’s mother. Being unable to walk for fun. The aging of Albite. Not having a steady paycheck. The garage roof caving in. Things I said I’d do that I haven’t (a list longer than Jack’s beanstalk is high). Things I want to do that I never will (Jack’s beanstalk squared).

So I came downstairs and blogged. It’s nearly midnight. What else am I gonna do?

(sometime later) As I read over this post, the litany seems to be dissolving into meaninglessness, like repeating the same word over and over. Maybe it’s self-hypnosis, or maybe it’s the small glass of rosé I just drank, or maybe it’s just a normal time to be sleepy, but I think I’m going to try again. Wish me luck!

I don’t go out to see movies too often, but last week we went out to see Day Watch. I didn’t see the first one (Night Watch), but it didn’t really matter. I liked the story, loved the subtitles, enjoyed the action… really was quite a lot of fun.

If you go to the film website, be sure to click on “TRAILER И CLIPS” and watch (at least) Clip 2.

Despite my earlier derision, I use Twitter.¹ But while I see its potential for aligning my meatspace with my netspace², I am frequently annoyed by its implementation.

Not only is it often down (at least they got rid of the lolcat-with-screwdriver), and Twitteriffic doesn’t seem to be able to make connections reliably (I believe this is also a Twitter problem), I don’t receive all the tweets I’m supposed to.

I have filed a support request, but all I got is “we noticed.”

Here’s a test for you to try at home, assuming you have a Twitter account and a few friends you’re following in public³:

Go to your home page (http://www.twitter.com/home) — this is the one where you can type in your status, and see the stuff your friends have said.

Now, go to your public page (http://www.twitter.com/yourUsername/with_friends).

Do they show the same tweets? Mine don’t. Is it real, or is it just my paranoia?

1. Not as orthoclase, so any ‘clases you see there ain’t me. [updated: orthoclase staked her claim]↩
2. Need better jargon for that, I think — what I mean is that I think it could be great for bringing the “social” back into the social web↩
3. on a completely different topic, what is it with the people want to get thousands of ‘friends’?↩

I fixed a frozen pizza for Plagioclase’s mother yesterday, and as I was preparing it, I realized that I had to do a photo essay.

Here’s what the box looks like (I’ve only cropped and resized to make them fit):

Looks luscious, don’t it? For frozen pizza, at least. However, look closely:

It says “Serving Suggestion.” Ok, I understand that not everybody is going to have a stainless steel spatula to serve the pizza with, or have fresh tomatoes on the side. I’m fine with that.

Here’s what came out of the box, after I took off the plastic wrap and cardboard base:

Looking kinda skimpy, isn’t it? Just in case there were pepperonis stuck together, I spread them out and rearranged them:

Nope, six pieces. A total of one and a half slices of pepperoni. But the package shows at least 3/4 slice of pepperoni per piece, and given the angle of the cut, about 6 slices per pizza, or about 4 and 1/2 slices of pepperoni. If I’d've known that I had to add pepperoni to make it look like it did on the box, I wouldn’t have bought the pizza in the first place.

Just for completeness, here’s the product as it came out of the oven:

Gee, the oil isn’t in the picture, either.

When she ate it, Plagioclase’s mother asked if there was supposed to be tomato sauce.

“Yes, it’s listed second on the box, after the cheese and before the pepperoni.”

“Oh.”

Oh, indeed. I’m not naïve. I know that the picture on the package does not resemble the actual product, but I would have liked to see a notice that one would have to augment the toppings that were already supposed to be there.

I won’t be getting Freschetta™ again.

This is the worst allergy season I’ve had in many, many, many years. If I go outside, I immediately get a headache, start sneezing and snuffling, and my ears close up. Inside, I’m better, but even cut flowers make my head hurt. (Plagioclase’s mother loves to have cut flowers on the dining table. All the time. My not-too-bad headache is a small price to pay for making her happy.)

When I take any of the various medicines available to me (and believe me, I’ve tried most of ‘em — pink ones, red ones, white ones, peach ones), I have some relief, but usually at the expense of my mental capacity. I zombify. It does not matter that sudafed is supposed to not make you sleepy, it does to me. And benadryl? Jitters.

So, I get to choose between having a headache and being generally miserable and not getting anything accomplished (I have two three websites to work on, and loads of paper-pushing to do), or being a zombie and wanting only to eat brainz.

Hmm… is it time for lunch, yet? Hey, can somebody tell me how do I post stuff, again?