G+ Migration Blog

Didn't even notice this. Look at that little face.

I'm Shocked! My SIL called me when my brother's surgery started and discussed Inchoate Plans. But they are plans! - I am supposed to call them when I get in and they will either pick me up at the airport or tell me to call a cab. For this group, that is a plan. - Also, I will go with my SIL to take my nephew to day care on Thursday so I know where it is and they can explain all the presumed fancy push buttons in the whatever it is (Beamer/Mercedes). We will then return me to the domicile and she will head off to work. - Other plans: They had to cancel my nephew's bday party, so maybe they will have that this weekend. Or not, depending on how my brother feels. Or there is a big Christmas fair somewhere in San Francisco and maybe we will go to that. Or maybe Friday night my SIL will have girls' night with some friends and include me. And if my brother is feeling well enough, I can wander off and have Monday to myself. I'm impressed. This is a lot of planning coming fr...

Oh, dear, lol. Much kerfuffle about whether it's satire or just disrespectful. I'm not sure why it can't be both, wink. (This link has a strategically placed picture of the artist in front of the naked PM so it should be SFW.) http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/24/harper-nude-painting-portrait-sale_n_8640220.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/24/harper-nude-painting-portrait-sale_n_8640220.html

I'm going to SF to help because my brother is having surgery and they have a one year-old. My SIL and I kept trying to connect to talk ahead of time about what was what, but that was at best a 1/10 success. Ergo, I am going with very little info, and my parents talk about their apt/condo like there's very little in it insofar as food or toiletries and other stuff. I mean, they obviously have stuff for the baby, but I haven't a clue as to schedules, food/cooking, when I need to be at the condo and when I don't. Guess I'll find out when I get there. I am taking a guess as to what sort of clothing I should have, since there was a suggestion that excursions might occur, depending on how people are feeling. If you know me, you know having no plan and little info makes me uncomfortable. Is anxious making. I'm also still infinitely asymptotically approaching recovery from the stupid URI. Yay.

Dad gets bonus points for somehow figuring out that the way back back of the storeroom needed to be investigated and finding mice. I have no idea what visual clue tipped him off, because there weren't droppings. Upon inspection, however, there was a bag of rice that had been nibbled and a bag of dried egg noodles likewise. Put out traps, and behold, small rodents. So far, we've only caught two and no other food stuffs seem to have been pillaged. Traps remain out, and strategies for relocating foodstuffs are under consideration. Oddly, the two mice may have been different species. One, which I didn't see personally, was probably a house mouse, as it was described as gray. However, the one I did see was hopefully just a field mouse/white footed mouse, not a deer mouse, as the latter is more likely to carry nasty things. They look awfully similar, with their brown coats and white bellies. It'd be odd to see either, really, since we live in a suburb, and not one of those le...

I know a lot of (all of?) you have quit the Dr. Who train long since due to the abysmal trend in awfulness. I though this season was finally starting to get better. Uneven, but a critically tiny bit better. I mean, I really liked the Hero of Rock Doctor. Why didn't they do something with that? Then I saw tonight's episode (Heaven Sent). I cannot even. An hour (well, with commercials) of utterly pointless, and likely expensive budget, stupidity. It is so poorly done that the music was stupid. No, really. That was the worst match up of scoring and can I call it a story line? ever. If it's gotten to the point where I'm criticizing the music, it's pretty bad. Your derivative Beethoven would have been great if this was a sweeping drama with the scope of War and Peace . Spoilers: it's not. Is this a spoiler? Don't care. In the category of theatrical devices to be used only with purpose and care, we have The Monologue. It is incredibly pointless and boring to liste...

ION, I am confused as to how I could have ended up one of the most open minded members of my immediate family. And yet. It makes me feel, well, more weird and isolated and naive and generally less hopeful for the world.

Went and saw Mockingjay 2 with sister, niece, and mom (not gonna talk about it). It's ... ok. They tried, I think, to stick too much to the book in places, and really should have handled many things better. I suppose someone might get spoiled so I will not get specific. Also, I have now seen some of the well hidden promotional stuff for this movie, and I really would rather have seen some of the costume iterations that were in the promotional stuff and did not make it to the film, but whatevs. Anyway, most of the reviews seem to complain that they attempted to include the epilogue as the final final final ending of the movie. It is kind of lame as a scene, although I think it could have worked as a slightly rewritten voice-over over one of the other endings. Meanwhile, it drags a lot at the beginning. Ok, halfway through. Ok 2/3. They really could have handled the Peeta-Gale-Katniss triangle better, too. The major thing, though, was their choices with pacing and story. They needed ...

Happy Thanksgiving. It was unbelievably warm and beautiful, here. Like, balmy. And everyone was normal. Descriptions posted tomorrow. Love y'all.

I went to yoga today for the first time in two weeks (because sick) and managed not to cough through the entire class. Yay?

Josh Groban - the new Perry Como Coma. Hey, it sells, so whatever, but god, try a different key or not doing the exact same modulation on the last verse in every arrangement or try a different tempo or or - yeah, this is not my thing. Hello, whoever's in charge of background music, you can change to a different album. Got any AC/DC?

I SLEPT. Now if the drip cough hack would go away during the day, that would be great. Seriously. Recovery from a URI should not be asymptotic.

I watched a lot of TV being sick. One of the things I saw was a movie called "The Soloist". I don't know if the movie itself is brilliant, but I was really impressed with the acting performances. It's based on a true story of an African American man who developed schizophrenia while at Juilliard (I think I have that right). He ended up homeless on the streets of LA where a journalist found him and started writing about him, eventually writing the book the movie is based on. The first thing that's a noticeable problem about the movie is the white saves black story trope. Except that a) nobody gets saved, not that somebody apparently didn't try to do that, and b) that's the two people - the reporter who falls under officially white and the musician who falls under officially black. Anyway, the acting is sufficiently intense that I felt probably too emotionally drawn in by the story of what happened to the musician, whose name is Nathaniel Ayers. Nevertheless...

This isn't way back anything. It's Brigitte Boisjoli, "Je veux de la lumière" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thIww312I_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thIww312I_k

Go Away Horrible People Who Won't Shut Up. (sigh - this is what happens when I leave the house to find someplace else to work)

Ok, this is fun, but I think it might only work in Chrome? http://www.wired.com/2015/11/google-star-wars-easter-egg/

Trader Joe's just messed up. Enough that I am annoyed and sharing. It's partly what they did, but it's mostly the customer service fail. See, sometimes the customer service thing to do is just apologize. Telling me you have bad news, or that you have supplier problems is not the way to do this. Just go with the I'm very sorry, but we weren't able to fill your order. And then maybe go with the is there anything else we could do to be of help to you? I mean, if it fits into the flow of the conversation at that point, feel free to go with I'm so sorry, we had unexpected supplier problems and we've been unable to find a solution. I apologize again that this is messing up your holiday. Most importantly, though,  _listen_ to the response you get from the customer. The not listening is what really, really, really irritates me. Lastly, don't offer a service you obviously can't provide. So I left and spent money elsewhere, even for the things they did have, b...

Only woke up once last night with the coughing - yay! Ion, apparently we got snow last night that decided to stick around. Hello, winter.

In the category of random little things that thinking of later made my whole day better: Went to JoAnn's to get some bias tape to fix a hem. The person at the register took my phone to scan coupons and gleefully asked if that was a Soot Sprite on my phone. We proceeded to annoy the hell out of anyone in line behind me geeking out about Miyazaki for a few minutes. She's getting a Soot Sprite tattoo, btw, with some of the colored sprinkles they got fed in  _Spirited Away_. In case you were wondering. #nerdsforever

Nooooo! Thank goodness he's keeping the site up, though. http://joepastry.com/2015/thank-you-and-farewell/#comment-149250 http://joepastry.com/2015/thank-you-and-farewell/#comment-149250

Oh, good. Let's abuse medical trainees more. We fought so hard for people to even try to see that their idea of the culture and hazing attitude was not the only way to do things, and even harmful. Now, you get a bunch of people who've never wanted to change who convinced those who should have said wait a minute to authorize a "study", which I don't know how you can assess without people knowing about it, in which case how can you ok skipping an IRB. You have to go through an IRB to administer questionnaires to people, for Eru's sake. And I still call nonsense on the idea that you can't figure out a way of handing off care without increasing errors. You just don't want to. In the interest of disclosure: during my internship someone died and someone was critically injured due to a car accident post call. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/11/19/groups-want-30-hour-shifts-for-novice-doctors-halted/ http://my.chicagotribune.com/#sec...

5 hours, wow!

Horrible things came out of my head this morning. Maybe I am in the final stages of getting better!

I slept for 4 whole hours without waking up coughing and choking! #itsthesmallthings

Forgot to report For Science: Trader Joe's Turkey and Stuffing potato chips taste pretty much as advertised. You get a definite hit of sage, and not so much a flavor of meat as of gravy. Not complaining, would eat again. http://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/2639

There is one thing in particular that KitchenAids do exceedingly well - whip volume into things with that balloon whisk. Like, too well. Sure, I wanted to double the volume. I did not want to triple it. See, this can cause problems down the line when there's too much. That, and things exceeding the allowed space. So now I have to figure out how to store a volume of something that I did not expect to have to store in that volume. I do not think there are any containers that size, nor, due to the pathetic smallness and weird proportions of side by side fridge/freeze things, do I think there is space. I would just, you know, eat half of it right now, but in the Dirk Gently school of physics, that would probably result in my not having enough.  Another reason I need to get my life in order. I want a proper fridge.

Well, * that * was a totally unproductive morning.

Dinner - Mafaldine with a yellow tomato sauce. The picture doesn't really show it, but that pasta is one meter long, folded in half in the package. Messy, but fun. The sauce I made out of farmer's market yellow tomatoes, yellow summer squash, leeks, and a tiny bit of garlic. I threw on some fresh basil, as well. AND I solved my cheese issue. I mean, it's not really Italian to put cheese on everything anyway, so I just got some fresh mozzarella and some chevre and mixed it into a serving of the hot, sauced pasta and it was like having a cream sauce. Nom.

This is how you know you're in the wilderness. I cannot find any place that carries couverture chocolate, nevermind white chocolate. Ugh. No, chocolate chips are Not the same thing.

I don't know why, but lately I've been really put off by the taste/smell of parmesan, even good parmesan. It is really evoking nasty old socks and other icky things. Even romano has lost its appeal. So I am in a dilemma as to what cheese I want to put on my pasta. Clearly, stinky cheese is out. Life is so hard .

Cool, but omg the vertigo. Originally shared by Make: This Trippy LED art exhibition will take you for a ride... to outerspace. http://ow.ly/URyCT http://ow.ly/URyCT

If I have a day in San Francisco, what am I doing with it? Oh, I will probably have access to a car?

We elect idiots. http://www.wsj.com/articles/before-house-vote-republican-lawmakers-assail-refugee-system-1447955993 http://www.wsj.com/articles/before-house-vote-republican-lawmakers-assail-refugee-system-1447955993

Wow. I just discovered it was so windy last night it blew the insulation out from around the window in my room. o.O

Saw this the other day, thought it was very sweet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR1zjZ2Cyaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR1zjZ2Cyaw

Ion, til "The Tooth Fairy" and "Tooth Fairy" are two very, very different movies.

Am bad person. Laughed out loud hearing my mom try to scold my dad into how to turn off "Sirius" on his ipad air. Which she didn't know, btw. (He didn't know how it got turned on and she was #helping.)

My recent ongoing bout of upper respiratory illness (we're in the whee! lightheaded, hey! I think we're getting some oxygen in through part of my nose! loopy phase) prompted wondering about why we don't have vaccines for any of the major circulating strains of rhino or adeno or other URI causing viruses. Guess what? There is an adenovirus vaccine. Sort of. Specifically, the military (surprise) has a vaccine against two specific strains of adenovirus that most frequently cause illness in recruits stuffed in boot camp barracks. Sort of. See, most viral vaccines we get are either killed/inactivated, or live/attenuated. The killed ones are, well, dead. Attenuated ones have been grown until they can't reproduce inside a human, but they can still trigger your immune system to remember them. There's a few viruses that we get a different type of vaccine for (flu, Hep B), and they are not full on live virus, but mostly it's the above. Sooooo ... The adenovirus vaccine i...

Huh. I know there's a high wind warning out, but I just watched a plane on approach flying kind of sideways. Like, a 737, or something. The nose was angled sufficiently off the vector it was clearly flying that this was noticeable. The pilots must be loving this.

Oh, look, I have a normal skin tone! So much better than that chalky grayish-white. I should have taken a picture, not that I was feeling like pictures. It's impressive how horrible your skin tone can look when unwell. Guess I must be starting to get better. Now, if the coughing and choking would back off this could be genuinely exciting.

I wasn't this privileged, but I can so relate, for many reasons. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140

Ion, I still feel like dirt, but I feel better?

Why is g+ suggesting I follow Preschool Math Lessons?

I don't think my adenoids shrank when I grew up. Would anyone like them?  Because you can have them.

I really like the dead pan actress in the Geico Europe "Final Countdown" commercial, so I looked her up. She's done some interesting stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Belcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Belcher

Great. We are in the sore throat, losing voice, random coughing fit phase. This virus bites, and the immune system response to it bites twice. Do Not Like. #plague

Drew Gillmore You guys are not in Paris and are ok, yes?

This will be fun. 1) My dad had the virus first, and he still has it and it is not awesome. Of course, I still have it, as well, because apparently there is no longer a quick 2 day cold thing. Hack, cough, hairball. 2) One of my dad's cousins died. This is a bigger deal than it probably seems as since he did not, now everyone else from his greatest generation and thereabouts crew is going, Plus, his younger brother died a year ago, and his younger sister died a while before that, and his older sister isn't really in touch or healthy. Also, the cousins were very close growing up, even living in the same house at times. These were his parents' siblings' kids. Anyway, he isn't well enough to go to Minneapolis, and I think he's ambivalent about some of this, but I'm sure it really sucks to feel like the last person left. 3) Relatedly, I think going through the illness and my dad ending up being an ordinary person instead of superman afterwards has had a long ter...

I don't know what kind of heinous virus this is, but it clearly isn't just a good, old-fashioned, 24-48 hour head cold. Bugger off. And immune system? Yeah, I'm talkin' to you. Calm the frak down Bridget.

I think we are having the proverbial blustery day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jBs16sNNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jBs16sNNs

Oh, baking peoples of the internets, what size sugar do you prefer for sugaring fruits or other such-like garnishes? Caster aka superfine? Sanding? Ordinary granulated?

I may not be as recovered as I thought I was. I am exhausted already today, like, I feel like I've been kicked. It doesn't help that I started feeling hungry yesterday but my insides continue to express their disapproval of this eating fetish. I went to yoga and it made me feel super nauseated. Ugh.

It's almost Wednesday.  I like the lyrics. P.S. I like the album version a little better but I couldn't find a youtube of it I liked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxCjGw0_wsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxCjGw0_wsQ

My digestive system has indicated that it is only tentatively on board with this eating food thing. Excellent. Unequivocally breathing better, though. Who knows? Maybe food will stop tasting like metal around the time that my body decides it's ok to ingest.

Seriously? "Undercard" debate? Did they have scantily bikini clad moderators? Ugh. Too few words in English, apparently.

This seems to be making the rounds. It isn't news, but, ok. I mean, the stories are a male bear who is a light to medium tan color, and presumptively British for several reasons. However, yes, the bear from whom he got his name was a Canadian female black bear. P.S. I have yet to see an article making a point out of the fact that the bear was black, but if they are going to try for clickbait headlines with FEMALE and some Canadian, they might as well mention that she was a black bear. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/winnie-the-pooh-girl-finding-winnie_5640c72ee4b0411d3071b273 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/winnie-the-pooh-girl-finding-winnie_5640c72ee4b0411d3071b273

#coolkids

Something in my eye http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/terminally-ill-man-star-wars-force-awakens-early/story?id=35097498 http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/terminally-ill-man-star-wars-force-awakens-early/story?id=35097498

Thank you, google +, for pointing out in Featured Collections, right at the top of my screen, with the charming included photo, that there is a collection called "spiders" I could follow. May I now have the capacity to turn this annoyance off? K thx, die bye.

More things to dislike about being ill: that thing where you shouldn't be so tired and your brain feels like jelly. Calling it malaise doesn't help. It's like that thing about making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Never gonna happen. Also, my voice kinda sounds like Roz. But it's the malaise and the jelly-brain that are definitely not cool.

Interesting. http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-spanish-toy-company-is-turning-gender-stereotypes-on-their-head--bJWOIDZygtx?utm_source=indy&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=i100 http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-spanish-toy-company-is-turning-gender-stereotypes-on-their-head--bJWOIDZygtx?utm_source=indy&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=i100

Things I dislike about colds, X in a series: sneezing. Random, unpredictable, uncontrollable sneezing. Like, I need a bandolier of instantly accessible tissues with a conveniently portable waist pack incinerator. Ugh.

Crawling under rock mode: engaged. #cytokinessuck

Ugh. Head cold. Best part - it's in that part of the sinuses that make it feel like you're choking. Yay.

My suitcase has died, which means I must purchase a new one. Which means I must go shopping. Ugh.

I hope Madrid likes Star Wars. Originally shared by Make: WATCH: Go behind-the-scenes to see the making of these iconic helmets from Star Wars http://makezine.com/2015/11/06/behind-scenes-making-massive-star-wars-helmets/

Reasons it would be awesome to be rich:  http://dukealumni.com/learn-travel/magical-madagascar-2016 P.S. Airfare is $4-5K in addition to trip cost. http://dukealumni.com/learn-travel/magical-madagascar-2016

Bizarre. We've had a whole week of temperatures in the 70s. Until today (rain) it's been sunny, as well. This obviously is not going to last.

Trader Joe's is both awesome and terrifying. 1) They have Valrhona advent calendars. Valrhona advent calendars OMG. 2) They have, swear on a stack ofJoe-Joe's, Turkey and Stuffing flavored potato chips. I am debating the scientific value of consuming researching this product.

A clue as to where I was. Note the cages and lack of tropical vegetation should eliminate the place with the largest population of lemurs from consideration. The downpouring rain that day notwithstanding. However, this is where they have the largest collection outside of that.

Man, I'm old. I am tired.

You know how sometimes part of you is going I'M AWAKE, and part of you is What Is WRONG With You?! That.