November 19, 1999

This is me, trying to figure out what the hell my cats are doing that is making so much noise. Turns out they were wrestling in the bathtub. They get insane around 5 PM every day, I guess because Jim gets home around that time and they are getting riled up for him, or something. Generally, this involves chasing one another around the house and then Mia tries to mount Grendel (it's a dominance thing, since they are both spayed females) and I yell out "Girls! Mia, stop mounting your sister!" and they ignore me. And then Grendel hides behind some socks I left on the living room floor and waits for Mia to come by and pounces on her and then they have a slap fight just like Laverne and Shirley used to on their show. Then Grendel makes a noise just like Marge Simpson that we refer to as "Marge-ing". Correct usage is this: "Grendel was Marge-ing all over the place last night after you went to bed." Then usually one of them uses the litter box or gets some food.

Things I learned today, while calling every energy provider in the world, practically, for a school-related project:

• Contrary to popular stereotype, people in the New York City area are generally very nice and helpful.
  
  
• Except that one bitch who was really mean.
  
  
• People love to talk about their work to someone they think is interested. Don't get an engineer started on energy deregulation in New York State, unless you've got a few hours to kill.
  
  
• I need to stop staying up so late to watch thing like Revenge of the Nerds on HBO, particuarly when it means I only get 3 hours of sleep.
  
  
• Identifying yourself as a graduate student doing research will open a lot more doors than identifying yourself as representing a corporation doing research.

I feel like I should have learned more lessons, but I am annoyed by the <UL> tag right now, so I'm going to stop. Have a good weekend. I might update my movie reviews, since I'm watching so many movies these days. Join the notify list if you want to know if that happens this weekend, or just check back on Monday.

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I'm still wondering who died and made Jakob Nielsen boss. Don't get me wrong -- he contributes a lot to the HCI field, but increasingly, his UseIt columns come across as pompous.

I wish it was an international mandate that everyone get Flash because I keep seeing really cool things, like this site navigation.

This is good news for me, but I don't know if the frantic search for web designers has extended to Syracuse at this point, or ever.

I can only dream of ever making this list.

From the "Ain't Gonna Happen" Dept.: Will Smoth for President? I'm already sick of that "Willenium" song and I've only heard it twice.