Seismic Twitch

This afternoon I decided to check out my comments because I’d seen a couple of spam there earlier. I went in and there were tons of the buggers!

Most of them were from people who insisted that I should go and buy their quality thesis papers. Really. I got through 4 years of undergrad with the whole “thou shalt not plagiarize” drummed into me and now that I’m a grad student they expect me to jeopardize my academic career on their “product” (and I use the term very loosely here).

The spam is getting very clever too. They make it seem like a legitimate comment that’s just general enough to adapt to the entry or with compliments about how they thought my entry was thought provoking. Too bad one of them picked one of the LOL cat postings. That sort of gave them away. Once I saw that and then recognized the patterns in the rest of them I deleted them.

The last was interesting. It wasn’t spam to promote a product or a service (loans were the rest of them) but a political spam. It was to a blog about Cuba’s politics. I went to Babble Fish and translated it. In essence it was a bit of a tirade about the author and the authors parents not having known any other president than Castro. Sadly it was in Spanish, not a language I am at all able with.

Along with that I went to look at my stats. Amazingly I still have people coming to my blog after the long, and much needed break. I got to wondering about who leaves spam and wondered who among those were the culprits. I know some places aren’t spammers because I know the ISP and they’re people I read. But the others…there are people who block their IP address and those are the ones I suspect. I bet they’re the ones trying to get me to compromise my academic honour, my credit rating and other silly things they are trying to get business doing.

Tomorrow is a workout day. I’m not looking forward to it. I never do. It involves leaving the house (first off). Then it involves me sweating. I hate sweating. And to cap it off I end up having really tired muscles for the day. Why can’t exercise be less onerous? Even the people I see doing it who are fit and stuff don’t look like they’re having any fun. This had better pay off in more than a good heart beat. I wanna be buff.

I wonder what kind of spam this entry is going to attract.

I guess blogging a part of that word, “everything”. So I guess I’m back at being a bit more of a presence in the internet world. I haven’t read blogs in a few days so I’ll have catching up to do.

I skipped yesterday’s workout. Bran was going out to some sort of spiritual atheist thing (I have no real idea what it was but atheism was in there somewhere) and then he went shopping at Costco. I didn’t want to be involved in that or wait for him to be done so I stayed home and folded laundry (only a few days late this time, instead of the usual folding the laundry that didn’t get folded two weeks prior because we’re doing laundry now – if that makes any sense) and played Pokemon all day. Oh, I did sleep. Yes, imagine that, me, sleeping.

I work evenings this week so if I’m going to write here it’ll probably be on the days I go to the gym while I wait to stop sweating (that’s an adventure unto itself) so I can shower. I don’t shower there, though I could. I don’t have shower shoes and there’s no way I’m showering in a public shower without them. I’ve had plantar warts and don’t want a return engagement. I am also, I discovered, body conscious. More to the point that my body is far more ample than most there. I don’t mind it when I’m clothed and working out. I do mind the whole naked-in-the-locker-room thing. So I’ll take my chances with my neighbours wanting to run hot water while I’m in the midst of rinsing my hair.

On a totally mundane note, I now have refills for my work pen. Yes, work supplies pens to use but they’re all medium tip pens. I hate medium tips. They’re sloppy and always glop. I like my Zebra fine-tip. It means I pay for my own writing supplies, but it also leaves me less grumpy (and surprisingly, yes, using work pens does leave me grumpy).

Well, it’s getting on in the day. I should go and shower so that I have a bit of time to have my hair dry before I go back to bed and create impressive long-hair bed-head.

Ta-Ra

…obedient to the needs of my husband.

He wanted me to post an entry to let him know what’s going on in my life. He lives with me but is apparently very unobservant of, not just what I’m doing, but what he’s doing as well. You benefit (if you want to call it that) from his inattention.

Let’s see. In the past months I have been going to the gym. I’ve been trying for 3X per week, but for the most part it’s been 2X a week. I’ve been working on the elliptical machine and bike as well as doing core exercises, stretching (I’m way unflexible) and lifting weights. For the most part it has been going well except for when I put my back out a bit and got stomach sick a couple of times. The weird thing is that I tend to feel really good after a workout. Not just accomplished because I’ve done the workout, but physically, I feel good. Yeah, weirdness. I’ve not been pushing myself way hard because I still have to be able to do the stairs at work and stuff, but my endurance in all areas has been improving. Yesterday I got through 15 minutes on the elliptical without having to stop and rest. First. Time. Ever. Scary? Yeah. It is.

I had a meeting with my supervisor. She kind of threw my intellectual blocks in the air and now I’m trying to place them into a coherent order to create something worthwhile.

Work is going well. I still very much enjoy the people I work with as well as my co-workers. I don’t like the day shifts much in terms of how tired I always feel when I’m having to be up at 7 am. I really hate days. Evenings have their drawback as I have to check chores, but that’s a minor inconvenience.

The past week has involved my DS. First I was playing Animal Crossing. I was happily playign that and then Boy got Pokemon Heart Gold and gave me his Pearl version. That’s what I’ve been doing the past 3 days. I’ve been catching them all…well, not all, but strengthening Pokemon to do their second gym battle. The people at work (co-workers and residents) are thinking that I’m in my second adolescence. Maybe they’re right.

We haven’t won the lottery yet.

I’ve got a bunch of new comics and blogs, but I don’t have the inclination to list it all. The past few days I’ve been pretty much off the computer totally as Pokemon has consumed my limited imagination.

I also worked more on the beading I’m doing for Bran. I’ve gotten the yellow band totally done, the green is nearly as long and has mostly been joined to the yellow band. The red will be continued when I finish the green and then I have to buy some blue beads to do that band. I’m going to sew it onto some canvas so that it will sit properly on his shoulders. It’s like a priest’s stole and will hang down to his shins.

We’ve gotten a couple of all-you-can-eat sushi places (one a bit more expensive than the other but you pay for better quality). I know that sushi aficionados say that you shouldn’t go to all-you-can-eat sushi places, but our selection in Saskatoon is rather limited and the quality is actually quite good. They are certainly popular. For the first time, for a reasonable cost, I can eat my fill of sushi. Once, for a couple of days, I actually didn’t crave it. Scary, yes? The family thought so.

Spring is trying to spring here. Most of the snow is gone, despite the attempts of nature to blanket us yet again. The weather has gotten warm enough that all I needed was a light sweater.

In the past three months I’ve stopped and thought that there were things that I wanted to blog about. You know how it is? You see something, or something happens and you say to yourself, “I should blog about that.” I’ve forgotten most of them.

Oh, one of those is that I’ve been shaving my legs regularly. I know that’s not big news. It is, however, one of the few aesthetic typically femme things I allow myself to fall down to. I do it because I wear shorts at the gym. I still haven’t shaved (or waxed) my pits. I’ve been thinking of it but I’m very conscious of my wobbly upper arms and won’t be wearing sleeveless shirts for some time yet.

I need new bras. I have one that I prefer to wear to the gym because the straps don’t fall down mid-weight lift. However, having only 1 bra that is suitable (two are lacy itchy things and one is a more “stylish” thing with straps that are always migrating to my biceps) makes my life interesting. At least I know my size and such so picking out some Wonder Bras or maybe a couple of cupped sports bras would make my life better.

Speaking of buying things…We have to get our taxes done. That’s going to be a welcome influx of money. 2009 is the last complete year that Boy will be a deduction for me. Next year it’s only until May. He’s grown up far too quickly. I’m going to be doing an homage to him on May 25 if I can get the scanner to work for me. I want to scan photos from his life (to now) to show you, the people who’ve read about him all these years. I’ve never posted photos of him from before when he was little. I look forward to you seeing how cute he was as an infant and child to the handsome man he’s become.

I want sushi.