So far, this is all Friday has going for it

So the universe apparently doesn’t want me to have clean clothes.  The washing machine at the farm broke down on me last Saturday, as you may recall.  Yesterday I went to do some laundry in the machines in the house I’m living in in town.  And, lo and behold, the washing machine here wouldn’t run at all.

So, I had some soup, and decided to call it a day early again, in hopes I could wake up this morning returned to my pre-cold vim and vigor.  Or at least be regularly worn out and not sick and worn out.

But the room mate who likes to have guests stay in the extra basement room decided again to have company last night without giving me any notice.  I won’t go into the details, but it interrupted my night and when I did finally fall back to sleep, I slept fitfully dreaming of people barging in on me in all sorts of ways and situations until my alarm went off.

So I am quite glad it’s Friday for Friday’s sake, as I have the weekend off and I can try to rest some more and catch up on the ever present mountain of homework.

But, if we are trying very hard to find silver linings, I can also be glad that today I finished the two boxes of nasty breakfast cereal I bought on sale and have been choking down every morning for the last couple weeks.

See, I don’t always have to complain.  I can find things to be happy about even with a headache, disrespectful roommates, and being broke.

Happy Friday to you, in what ever ways it turns out to be special.

Update from the academic front

Yesterday I preempted Thursday Quote Du Jour with my Curran quote, so today have no material.  This cold is also dampening my blogging enthusiasm.  Sorry.

However, I do have some good news.  Physics test scores did come in yesterday.  The class average was 66%.  Apparently, physics teacher didn’t find that unusually low.  However, I was surprised.  That meas half of the class did worse than me.  I got a 78%.  Imagine that!

Unfortunately, this next section looks pretty miserable.  The calculations for magnetic fields and forces drag all my least favorite topics from last semester back into play.  Torque, centripetal force, vector components.  *Shudder*

Well, only 9 and a half more weeks until the semester is over.

Here’s a bonus joke.  I just found a funny website full of physics jokes I’d never seen before.

Q: What did the male magnet say to the female magnet?

A: From your backside, I thought you were repulsive. However, after seeing you from the front, I find you rather attractive.

source: http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/schooljokes/physicsjokes.html

Still under quarantine

“My dear doctor, I’m surprised to hear you say that I am coughing very badly, because I have been practicing all night.”

-John Philpot Curran, 1750-1817

 

I am feeling rather disconcerted.  I woke up feeling a little better yesterday, now this morning I feel absolutely stoned.  And, that’s without any drugs, as I didn’t feel bad enough to need any last night.  I can barely focus, which is weird, and adds to the stoned feeling.

My friend, Pete, who I had dinner with last Friday apparently has the Influenza and pneumonia.

I’m not convinced I have Influenza.  I don’t have a fever, I don’t have any nausea/vomitting (thankfully!) and most of my problem seems to be in the sinuses, which I generally think of as a simple cold.  So, I don’t think my case is as serious Pete’s, but I am still disappointed I’m not feeling significantly better today, considering I came home early yesterday and went to bed by 5:30pm.  I am hoping tea and a hot shower will help, otherwise, it’s going to be a rough day.  I can’t afford to take off work.  And, of course, school doesn’t stop just because one is ill, although I have been skipping my afternoon classes the last few days.

*Sigh*

Well, we are supposed to get our grades back today from our first physics test of the semester.  At least I have something to look forward to in getting up today.  I’d roll my eyes in a sarcastic manner, but my head aches in a funny way.

Better health to you all.

 

 

 

Tuesday Titters: Up in the sky, is that a bird, is that a plane?

What do you get when you cross a fly, a car and a dog?

A flying carpet!

Well, now I know why I had that screaming headache Saturday

Saturday I did finally make it out to the farm, only  to have the washing machine (which is maybe a year old) break on me.  It would not drain.  So, I did my best to fish out my clothes, hand wring them, threw them in a garbage bag, and bailed out the washing machine.  I then schlepped the very heavy bag of sodden half washed clothes to the truck and drove back to town.

I had some errands to run, so I stopped on my way back to my room.  First I went for a haircut, I go to one of those no-appointment discount places, but there is a particular hair dresser that works there that I always wait to see, as she does a pretty good job.  But she wasn’t in on Saturday.  It was a bit of a long shot, but the salon was in the same shopping center so I thought I’d try my luck.  Should have known better.

The I went to the crafts store.  I wanted a decorative shoe box.  I thought I had a coupon.  So I looked at the various options, some were marked $9.99, and some $3.99.  So I opted for a plain black one.  I waited in line for about 10 minutes (there was only one check out lane open), finally got to the register, discovered my coupon wasn’t good until March, then apparently the plain black boxes were also $9.99.  Well, I wasn’t about to pay ten plus dollars for what basically is a black cardboard shoe box, so I left.

Next I went to the computer store.  I need a micro USB to VGA adaptor for my new tablet/netbook.  I wandered about the store as they had rearranged everything and the computer accessories weren’t where they used to be, naturally.  Finally a clerk found me and led me to their new location.  No micro USB to VGA adaptors were to be had.

By this point, it was almost 3pm.  My headache was down to a dull roar, thanks to a liberal use of naproxen and muscle relaxers, but I was feeling quite worn out.  So I called off the rest of the excursion and drove back to my place in town, only to break the wheel on my laundry tote trying to haul the big bag of wet clothes inside.  It is rather impressive how much a load of wet clothes weigh, even after you’ve hand wrung them.

Once inside, of course the other renters were already using the laundry machines so I had to wait to finish my stuff until Sunday.  I decided the day was such a loss I’d just reheat some pizza and watch Jane Austen movies until I fell asleep.  So I went to set up my DVD player, which I haven’t used since I bought it on uber-sale after Christmas.

Hahahahahahahhahahahahahaha.

Oh, Janie Jones, don’t you ever learn?

Well, the diagram for plugging the damn thing into my ‘smart’ TV that came with the VCR didn’t match the configuration on the actual backside of the TV.  So I had to randomly try plugging the stuff in until I finally gave up and dug out the TV manual.  Then I realized I had tried the correct combination more than once, but it still wasn’t working.

Eventually, about a half hour later I finally figured out that there’s a special setting called COMP that I have to switch the TV to when I want to use the VCR, and that I need to go into the menu options then in the COMP setting I have to type in VCR so the damn ‘smart’ TV knows to search for a VCR through the COMP ports.

So, after this I decided it was Rum Punch time, muscle relaxers and naproxen be damned.

You know, Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility and a Rum Punch do tend to make up for a lot of things.

I would have posted this yesterday, having woken up feeling much better, but I got busy with various household chores like rewashing my laundry.  In general the day started out quite well, with the exception of being quite lonely.  Leif, who knew of Saturday’s travails, happened to call while I was feeling quite blue and that cheered me up enough to get a fair amount of things accomplished, until mid-dayish when I realized I had come down with a head cold.

Proving once again, if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

Now some people would say there are lots of things I should be grateful for.  I didn’t die.  I didn’t even wreck the truck or have a house fire, or break my right arm.  And even though he’s far away, I had that lovely phone call from Leif just at that precise moment when I needed a figurative shoulder to lean on.  But seriously, how cruel is fate that after such a miserable Saturday I should come down with a cold on Sunday?

 

 

I really really really wish the person who came up with Windows 8 would be stuck for a year in a hole with no internet

So I just spent an hour, a whole hour and then some, of my morning trying to do a very simple thing.

I want to be able to play free cell, solitaire and other standard Windows games on my new netbook/tablet with out needing to be connected to the internet.

Oh, you can have lots of free access to these games, but I have as of yet figured out how to actually play them with out being able to connect to the internet.  Apparently there are ways.  The interwebs geeks give lots of tips.  I can’t get any of them to work.

I was planning on going out the Farm today.  Leif shut down the internet to save money while he’s on his winter snowbird tour south, which means there’s not a whole hell of a lot to do out there while I’m doing laundry besides read.  But I’m not much in a mood for reading, I woke up with a screaming headache, so I thought I’ll try one more time to load games to my netbook.

Now my headache is worse for the frustration, and I still have no games to show for it.

Damn Windows 8.

 

 

A difference worth noting…

So, when you are using a hotplate that also functions as a magnetic stirrer, and you *think* the instructor says set the heat to high, but you notice that your dial reads degrees, and you are wondering what is considered ‘high,’ it is worth noting that your neighbor, who the instructor has already helped set her hotplate temperature, has the heat setting knob on the right, instead of on the left like yours. So when you glance over to see what temperature hers is on, you are actually looking at the speed of the magnetic stir. Of course you think it is a bit strange that your heat only goes to 550, when your neighbor’s is set to 700, but maybe that’s not degrees but just numbered settings. After all you’ve had stoves that are numbered with settings 1-10, and not showing degrees. And, the instructor has moved on to talk about something else so you just turn the knob all the way up and turn your attention to what ever else is going on.

Now, it’s not until after the 1 liter flask goes all Mt Vesuvius that you realize that it wasn’t the temperature knob you were looking at at all. While it was pretty cool to see 500 mL of solution spew a good 10 feet into the air, it’s not so cool to be the one responsible.

How.  Very.  Embarrassing.

I suppose it could happen to anyone. And yet, it never happened before in all the years that lab has been taught.  Thankfully no one got hurt.

So, learning experience.  A ‘high’ heat setting is not the same as 700 rpm.

Also good to note:  our lab has 3 different types of hotplates with magnetic stirs. Two of them are even made by the exact same company and look almost identical, but their knobs are reversed.

You all see the important difference now?

You know I do.