your math joke for today:

via icanhascheezburger, fibonacci pigeons. i'm pretty sure this is the san leandro bart station. they've got a lot of pigeons there, but sometimes there are dead ones stuck inside the anti-pigeon netting and i don't like that at all.

hooray! cyclocross season is here!

"i like your kit"

yesterday was our team cross clinic, and today i definitely feel it. getting skinsuits on friday!

micmacs is a fantastic movie and you should probably see it soon

captain awesome and i went to the movies the other night and thoroughly enjoyed micmacs. its french title is Micmacs à tire-larigot, which according to the internet means "non-stop shenanigans," and that seems like a pretty concise summary of the movie.

it was directed by jean-pierre jeunet, who also directed amelie, and it is similarly whimsical and many lovely colors of brown. (jeunet also directed a very long engagement, which is like amelie, right down to the audrey tautou but very sad; i would not necessarily recommend it to a friend unless that friend was in the mood for a movie that is depressing and beautiful.)

micmacs. check it out.

"and bars of gold, platinum or titanium."

oh, freecycle.

"We are in need of a various items: Used Rice Cooker, PlayStation3 or Roku streamly digital DVD player,tv tuner, wireless router,used laptop who are in good conditions. If anyone has any of those and not in need we will appreciate it. Thanks."

i wish i had written down who said this.

i'm getting rid of lots of paper clutter these days (woo!) and when going through a box just now i found a somewhat cryptic note. i have a dim recollection of someone saying this, but since the date at the top of the note is 8/06 i am not particularly surprised or disappointed that i don't actually remember the exact wording or who said it. something like:

so this supercollider that's going to end the world, this is my kind of disaster! not even bottled water can save you!

this seems like as good a time as any to remind you of the hugely useful site "Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?"

the antidote to those awesome/horrifying big dog/little dog videos

(50X) Autonomously folding a pile of 5 previously-unseen towels


while i know that robotics technology generally boils down to military-related applications, it's kind of cute to see this robot folding laundry.

also, the highest rated comment insults naysayers by quoting murray head's "one night in bangkok," which wikipedia calls "a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek denunciation of the city's moral corruption and comparative glorification of the intellectual purity of chess: e.g., 'the queens we use would not excite you.'" "one night in bangkok" is also notable for being the last show tune to make into the top five most popular american songs. and it is from a musical about a chess match between an american and a soviet chess player. the 80's were really a different time. seriously.


one night in bangkok

the unbearable sadness of freecycle

it is not always hilarious.

"several cat items, including unopened box of arm/hammer kitty litter, a long-term watering system (not auto), and some other items. belonged to my cat but moved out with the ex a while ago. Please take all."

emphasis on the heartbreaking part added by me.

somebody had better pick up this cat stuff soon!

let her in!

a dream comes to fruition. in blog form. check it out.

freecycle is also good for free entertainment

for a long time, this was the funniest freecycle post i've seen. then someone sent the following, which cracked me up for a few weeks:

"Unopened 2.2 pound bag of wasabi: It says "Super Hot" on the package"

this was surely about a boy, but it was a year and a half ago and consequently i have no clue who audra was talking about or what it means*

"it may be overbaked, but it's not overbaked enough."

-audra

*i am, however, confident that it was good advice at the time.

sometimes audra quotes are even funnier when i write them down and then put the sticky note somewhere and then forget about it.

me: "there are some boobies. wanna see it?"

audra: "OMG boobies. i'm offended by boobies. i have two of my own."

[i have no idea what i was talking about.]

we have solved the beer waste problem that occasionally accompanies beer handups. you're welcome.

"hand up, hand down"

"it's connecticut for lieberman, not vice versa."

careful readers of c.w.a.j.a.?. will remember that joe lieberman is among my least favorite politicians in the history of ever. and, as you might also recall, i'm pretty impatient with the lack of affordable health care in this country. lieberman is one of the jackasses who's really holding things up. today, however, i watched a video that explains things pretty well:


joe lieberman sucks.

professors say the darndest things

one thing i will miss about this semester: having a class with the professor who explained, "david harvey? david harvey is like YODA."

support math and science education in a title i middle school with: But Where's the Spleen?

have you ever wished that you could help a new math and science teacher at a middle school in a very challenging area make these subjects more accessible to her students? good news! here's a chance! a good friend of mine has a donors choose project that you can support! check it out:

But Where's the Spleen?

update: the project has been fully funded! yay! she's a great teacher, and i know this will help make her students even more successful.

update update: you can still check out donors choose if you're in the mood to support projects like this!

bad bread

the other night captain awesome and i were walking down the street when we saw some felonious bread*. fortunately, someone had already taken steps to physically corral this anti-social set of slices, so i think we were safe from where we stood.

*obligatory legal disclaimer: it is possible that the bread had been wrongfully accused. still, it was dark and i was glad that we didn't have to find out the hard way that the bread was, indeed, dangerous.

for the very brave, here is a closeup. does it send a shiver down your spine?
thank you, captain awesome, brave photographer.

can we all just agree that the monkey wrench gang is an exceptional piece of literature?

i loved this book so much. and here's a bit of it for you:

"A true autochthonic patriot, Smith swears allegiance only to the land he knows, not to that swarming bulge of real estate, industry and swarming populations of displaced British Islanders and Europeans and misplaced Africans known collectively as the United States; his loyalties phase out toward the borders of the Colorado Plateau."

-edward abbey, the monkey wrench gang p. 358

common problem, etc.

"i'm intimidated by your giant meatleg!"

-audra

b.f.h. knows me pretty well

a couple of months ago we were talking on the telephone. b.f.h. and i were both pretty tired and because of that she was saying exceptionally (but unintentionally) funny things. she told me that she was going to have to get off the phone, and i answered,

"why are you shutting off the faucet of this brilliance?"

she answered,

"cuz i'm afraid it will show up on a blog somewhere."

snakes are horrifying, but this story is nice.

once upon a time at a zoo in tokyo there was a snake named aochan that stopped eating its frozen mice. the people who were in charge of feeding it decided to give it a live hamster to eat instead. to everyone's surprise, the snake and the hamster became best friends. the hamster is named gohan, which means snack. zookeepers say that the two appear to enjoy one another's company. i still don't like snakes. via the bbc.

dimensions of compatibility

awhile ago i was commenting to captain awesome that i eat way better meals when i'm not eating alone. (which is true...i'm totally content to have a glass of milk and several chunks of cheese and half a bag of potato chips and some chocolate for dinner, but i'd never serve that to someone, ever.)

me: "if you weren't here, i'd probably have a chikpatty and tater tots for dinner."
captain awesome: "awww, sarah! you should have two chikpatties and tater tots! one is not enough!"

since it's still before thanksgiving, christmas songs are not appropriate. except for this one. this one is awesome.

bhangra jingle bells

incredibly sad.

karla lemon was a fantastic human being. san francisco chronicle obituary.

stolen bike!

my friend suzanne's bicycle was stolen out of her garage in el cerrito, california. keep your eyes peeled!

it's a blue nishiki 10 speed, with black bar tape, front and back reflectors, and a silver bottle cage.

a bill with a public option! and, i have more thoughts on health insurance reform.

harry reid has announced that he will introduce to the senate floor a version of the health insurance reform bill that includes a public option.

i think this is a great idea. if you agree, call/email/fax/write your senators and let them know you support it too.

i think the creation of a strong and affordable public option is really the only way to have meaningful health insurance reform. private insurance companies are not in the business to deliver high quality care; they want to make as much money as possible in order to meet their obligations to stockholders and to enrich top executives. that's their right, i think.

but at the same time, health insurance is not something most people can safely or comfortably do without. i understand that it seems unappealing to some folks to think about their tax dollars paying for someone else's care, but i believe that this sort of investment in one another is part of living in a civilized society. and sometimes it doesn't seem fair.

like we think of the things that we don't personally use, or haven't used for a long time. for example, i rarely drive but my taxes go toward massive maintenance projects for highway systems. i haven't taken advantage of a public school district in a decade, but my rent is increased to pay property taxes that go to OUSD. but when i do drive, i'm sure grateful for safe highways. and i definitely benefited from two public school districts at one time. am i paying for things in proportion to my use for them? definitely not. but there are also the fringe benefits associated with living in a place where the people around you have access to safe roads and the opportunity for a good education. i think we as a society are strengthened by social goods like education and infrastructure, and access to proper care.

there's also the matter of corporate profits. we may feel like we're saving money in taxes if there is no additional burden to pay for health care, but if we are paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month to private companies that may or may not allow us treatment that keeps us alive when we need it, is that better? what if we consider the part of that money goes to bonuses and advertising and massive executive salaries? (the CEO of united healthcare west makes $57,000 an hour. an HOUR.)

consider firefighting (another social good we all pay for that only some of us use.) right now, if a person's house catches on fire, they call 911 and the firefighters come, rescue the person's family, make sure the fire's out, and go. and those shiny trucks and skilled first responders aren't free—our tax dollars pay for them. and firefighting services are a public good. what if there were a bunch of different fire companies and you had to sign up with one, usually through work because it would be too expensive otherwise, and send them your premium each month...and then when it was time to call 911 you found that they weren't actually coming because they decided not to cover your fire?

i think a fine for not carrying insurance is totally insane, since many people who are uninsured would like to be but can't afford it. and i think private insurance companies should be allowed to continue to exist, but i do think that a government-run program for which everyone is eligible (like medicare, but for those under 65 too!) is the only viable solution.

and it's way past time. strong public option now.