The guy upstairs, despite being very normal and friendly in person, is an email jerk. I bet he doesn't even realize. But every email he sends is bossy and curt. A couple months ago he sent around this email saying "whoever has been using the trash cans please put them out on trash night." Whoever has been using the trash cans? Do someone people not produce trash? Do YOU not produce trash, dude? Really? Kudos, buddy. Whay to be green but seriously. CHILL. Last month he was really irritable because some tradesperson still had his phone number and not mine (I am currently serving out my sentence as building president) and kept sending increasingly short and snippy messages about it; like, whatever, dude, I have given them my number and honestly is it that big a deal if they call occasionally? Just tell them sorry wrong number, right? And now today he is emailing me telling me I need to thank the snowblower guy. Ok, on the face of it that's reasonable but then wait hold on a second--if you feel grateful to the fellow just say thank you. Don't email someone else to do it for you. You're going to leave it up to me? And anyway it just seems bossy. Tellin' me what to do. I am not a fan.
He's a nice guy in person though, like I said, so I find this baffling.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Facebook continues to jump shark
I've mentioned before that facebook is not as cutting edge as I once thought
but seriously
my grandmother just friended me
but seriously
my grandmother just friended me
Sunday, December 14, 2008
The real reason the churches resent Darwin
On Sunday mornings before noon, the Harvard museums are all free. Free I tell you! So that is where you find us, along with half the toddler population of Cambridge, at the Natural History/Peabody complex.
Harvard's Museum of Natural History galleries (and the upper floors of the Ethnography museum) have been largely untouched by modern museum practices. They do not have carefully curated, minimalist exhibits with guided learning. They have huge glass cases stuffed to the gills with dusty, musty, sawdust-leaking taxidermy surrounded by mothballs. And it is fabulous. It is like a big, indoor, dimly-lit zoo where the animals all hold still to be observed instead of hiding behind trees. The hippopotamus is cracked at the seams but it doesn't keep a certain someone from sprinting toward it yelling EPPAPAMUS!
There are some corners which have been slightly updated, though, including the Hall of Vertebrate Paleontology (DINOSAURS! RAR!), and they have a jolly crew of volunteer interpreters--elderly people and teenagers--who follow you around eager to share their knowledge. It's the same folks every week and by now they recognize us. They know that I will stand about five feet back from the Pet A Live Giant Millipede table while Mr. Fearless will elbow aside four 8-year-olds in order to get a front-row seat. They read nature stories at 11 and they have dinosaur teeth you can touch.
I don't think that much of the educational bit is sinking in with the boy at this point; he's just as interested in sitting on the benches in the hall of birds to watch big kids go by as he is in looking at the specimens. He has his favorites though--the aforementioned hippo; the moose; the yak; and of course the monkeys. He seems to like pretending to be scared a little; he kept insisting that a monk seal (whose glass eyes actually give him a goofy aspect) was going to bite off his arm. Whatever dude, that seal has been dead since 1911.
If you're looking for a place to go on Sunday mornings that isn't a religious place, can't get much better than this free, fun, and mildly creepy joint.
Harvard's Museum of Natural History galleries (and the upper floors of the Ethnography museum) have been largely untouched by modern museum practices. They do not have carefully curated, minimalist exhibits with guided learning. They have huge glass cases stuffed to the gills with dusty, musty, sawdust-leaking taxidermy surrounded by mothballs. And it is fabulous. It is like a big, indoor, dimly-lit zoo where the animals all hold still to be observed instead of hiding behind trees. The hippopotamus is cracked at the seams but it doesn't keep a certain someone from sprinting toward it yelling EPPAPAMUS!
There are some corners which have been slightly updated, though, including the Hall of Vertebrate Paleontology (DINOSAURS! RAR!), and they have a jolly crew of volunteer interpreters--elderly people and teenagers--who follow you around eager to share their knowledge. It's the same folks every week and by now they recognize us. They know that I will stand about five feet back from the Pet A Live Giant Millipede table while Mr. Fearless will elbow aside four 8-year-olds in order to get a front-row seat. They read nature stories at 11 and they have dinosaur teeth you can touch.
I don't think that much of the educational bit is sinking in with the boy at this point; he's just as interested in sitting on the benches in the hall of birds to watch big kids go by as he is in looking at the specimens. He has his favorites though--the aforementioned hippo; the moose; the yak; and of course the monkeys. He seems to like pretending to be scared a little; he kept insisting that a monk seal (whose glass eyes actually give him a goofy aspect) was going to bite off his arm. Whatever dude, that seal has been dead since 1911.
If you're looking for a place to go on Sunday mornings that isn't a religious place, can't get much better than this free, fun, and mildly creepy joint.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
junk solution
If you have junk to be rid in a great hurry of may I recommend the Free listings on craigslist. Last night I posted this and within ten minutes someone had claimed it. Faster than leaving it on the street on trash night! Less fussy than Freecycle! I also received twenty other inquiries, one "WTF?" and one "Don't lose heart, Jesus loves you."
To sum up, craigslist is hungry for junk.
To sum up, craigslist is hungry for junk.
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