web-goddess

Friday Five:
I haven’t done one of these in a while! This one’s nice and easy though.

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
It’s very straight. (My hair’s a quarter Asian, after all!) I’ve always worn it pretty long because I like to put it in braids and ponytails.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
It’s a long and sordid tale. My hair was long, blond, and staight down to my bum until I hit the 4th grade. That’s when I caved to fashion by chopping it off and getting a spiral perm. The perm looked horrible for a week, relaxed into exactly what I wanted for two weeks, and was gone within a month. My hair just doesn’t like to curl. Then there were a few bad years of middle school involving more poodle perms and bad chopped off mullets. Yeah, I did the poofy bangs too. My hair also changed into more of lightish-brownish-reddish blond during this time (courtesy of our town’s rusty water). By the time I got to high school I stopped fighting it and just let it grow out again. In college I experimented with dyeing my hair and spent most of those years as a blonde. I also finally grew out my bangs. After graduating I decided to go red on a whim. In London I went very red (almost purple). I liked it, but it was a lot of maintenance and it always faded so quickly. Arriving in Australia I decided I needed a fresh start, so I had several years of colour stripped from my hair and my natural brown returned. I also had bangs put it again. That got boring pretty quickly, which is why I’ve now got a mixture of red and blond streaks. I think this is the best compromise. Told you it was a long story. 🙂

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
For work I generally just wear it down, parted in the middle or on the side. I usually take an elastic so I can braid it or pull it up in the afternoon. At home I usually have it up in a messy ponytail.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
I wouldn’t change the style or anything. I’d just make it so that it would magically always look like I’d just blow dried it. It looks so good when I get back from the salon but I can never achieve it on my own (mostly because I’m too cheap to buy good product and too lazy to spend half an hour drying it).

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
I mentioned the mullet, right? Actually I think the most traumatic event was when I first cut it off and permed it in the 4th grade. I expected to see preppy spirals and instead I had a tight Afro helmet. I tried to pass it off like it was what I wanted, but I wanted to cry. I got home that night and my Dad just looked at me and said, “You ruined your hair.” I felt awful. Luckily a few shampoos loosened it up to what I wanted, so I was eventually able to venture forth in public. I never forgot that though.

A rather boring article about the release of the next Harry Potter movie features a good picture of Harry and the Knight Bus. I can’t figure out who the other guy is, though. It’s not Stan or Ernie… I wonder if it’s the director?

Trogdor the Sweater-Wearing Burninator
Rodd wore his new green jumper to work for the first time today and apparently it’s having a weird effect. People keep talking to him. He sent me the following extremely nerdy (and extremely funny) e-mail about it:

———-
Extract from the Dungeon Masters Guide, Vol. 3 : Extraordinary Creatures and
Treasures for Advanced Gamers

Treasure #55 – The Jumper of Egregious Approachability…
Material: Wool

Rarity: Extreme — only one known to exist

Appearance: Dark green woollen jumper with small, grey geometric design

Powers: Makes the wearer seem extremely approachable to strangers. If in a crowd, the wearer will be singled out by strangers asking for directions etc. In other social situations, strangers will fell compelled to strike up conversation with the wearer, and ask them questions that they would never think to ask under normal circumstances.

Examples:

• Trogdor, a 10th level Burninator, is standing in a crowd waiting to cross the street. Spi Si Fong, an itinerant oriental monk on a bicycle stops to ask directions to the local post office. He will invariably ask Trogdor, rather than any of the other people in the crowd.
• Trodgor continues up the street, holding a recently purchased cup of
  take-away coffee. While negotiating a tight space in the crowd, he encounters Delip Dua (twin brother of Jagdeep) trying to negotiate the crowd in the other direction. After excusing himself while squeezing past Trogdor, Delip will suddenly turn and, in a loud and enthusiastic voice, ask a random question like “HEY! Where did you get the COFFEE?”

———

I’m still laughing…

Trivia Update: In case you couldn’t tell from the previous post, I’m a little tipsy. Why? We got second place in the trivia tonight! (The team that won was so far in front they had to have cheated.) Even more amazingly, we won four of the mini-jackpots for the night. Snooky won a Wild Turkey prize pack (hat, keychain, coaster, and glass of beer), Kenya won a jug of beer, and I won a Wild Turkey pack and a bottle of wine. In other words, we drank free all night. Personal highlights were naming the song “Sunny Came Home” and the actor who played Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies. (The latter was the subject of an immense bet between a roommate and me in college. Somehow I had picked up the misguided belief that the same actor played Apollo and Lando Calrissian. Can you name both different actors?) Also – what are the four most spoken languages in North America? What are the three biggest islands in the Mediterranean that start with the letter “C”?

If you were head of programming at a cable station, what five television shows would be on your channel? This is the discussion we’re having over at Max’s site. I answered: 1. “Get a Life”; 2. “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose”; 3. Vintage 80’s “Days of Our Lives”; 4. “Double Dare”; 5. “You Can’t Do That on Television”. The Snook’s answers: 1. “The Goodies”; 2. “Dr. Who”; 3. “Battle of the Planets”; 4. “You Can’t Do That on Television”; 5. “The Greatest American Hero”.

Two comments: First, hello? We both picked “You Can’t Do That on Television”! He hadn’t heard my answers when he said that. He confessed to having a crush on Moose too. And second, his Mom informed me that when he was little he fashioned himself a “Greatest American Hero” costume from a pair of pajamas. How freakin’ cute is that?

Surprise victory.
There’s a posh boutique down the street from my house and every day as I walk by I covet the grey wool skirt in the window. It’s fitted from the waist to the knee but then has these kicky big pleats that make it look like something from the 1940’s. I figured they wouldn’t have any size to fit me though so I never went in… until today. “Screw it!” I thought. So I went in and asked the guy (who turned out to be the designer himself) what sizes he had. He said he had a 14. I haven’t been a 14 since high school. He held it up though… and it kinda looked like it might fit. So I tried it on. And it did fit! I stood there in the changing room like an idiot pulling on the zipper because I just couldn’t believe that I’d really zipped it all the way up. It didn’t look that great on me, to tell the truth, but that’s beside the point. Wearing a 14 was one of my original weightloss goals! I’ve probably been this size for ages but never thought to check. Amazing.

(And no, I didn’t buy the skirt. On top of its unflatteringness, it was $120! I thanked the man and made a hasty retreat.)

I keep forgetting to update my reading list. Anyway, I just finished Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game. It’s one that I always meant to read, but I’ve had such bad luck with the “geek canon” lately that I was almost scared to try. (Examples: though I loved Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and the Dune series really let me down.) I shouldn’t have worried. Ender’s Game was fantastic. It’s really almost a kid’s book, and once I picked it up I found it difficult to put down. In the future humanity is threatened by a sentient alien species called “buggers” so we specially breed and train military commanders to lead the war against them. That makes it sound boring and nerdy. Really it’s about an 8-year-old boy called Ender who just might be the hero we need. The story follows him through his training, which mostly involves playing games (both physical and video). It’s really, really good. I had a couple remaining comments and questions for those of you who’ve read it…Okay, the ending blindsided me. It all works, but it just happened so fast. It’s like, I was getting worried that Ender was still in “training” with only 20 pages to go, and then suddenly the war was over, the colony thing happened, he and Valentine got older, Peter ruled the world, and then Ender discovered that he could help the buggers live again. I know there are sequels, but it just felt a little rushed.

Okay, so we’re to assume that the buggers sorta “read his mind” via the ansible during those couple weeks when he was going crazy from the battles? Why only him? Was it because of his super-empathetic ability? The rotting-giant-hollow freaked me out. So they didn’t put it in the game; they just dredged it up from his subconscious to get his attention. Remember the bit where he saw Peter’s face though, and someone commented that it was a picture the computer couldn’t have seen? Where did that come from? That’s the loose end that bothers me the most. Any ideas?

I like it when people don’t realize their domain names can be read in different ways than they intend. Today’s examples: powergenitalia.com and artisansexchange.com. Hee!

Update: It appears that the first one isn’t working right now. It’s actually the site for PowerGen Italia, an Italian company that makes batteries. It was mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald today so it must have gotten too much attention. 🙂

Great discussion at not martha (6/17 entry) about the preferred order for receiving change from a cashier. Personally, I hate it when they give me change on top of the bills. The grocery store in Newtown is even worse because they usually throw the receipt in there too. So I stand there juggling change and trying to get receipt into bag, change into compartment, and bills into slot before the next customer barrels up and knocks me over. As a former checkout chick I guess I understand part of the impulse: if you put the bills down first, you don’t have to touch the person’s hand. (You’d be surprised how many ferals there are in my Indiana town – and in Newtown too.) The end result is I’m using my debit card more and more, which means I never have change for train tickets or the pop machine. It’s a no-win situation. Which way do you prefer?

I scored 34% (“Total Geek”) on this Geek Test. The Snook managed a 37% (“Major Geek”). This should come as a surprise to no one.