I know, I know, more on the LHC

Since it got buried in a rather serious comment thread, I wanted to repost cazrolime's open letter to the CERN folks, and 'sign' it, too. Because I completely agree:

CERN
End of the World Laboratories
Geneva

To whom it may concern,

It has come to my attention that you are planning to turn on a very large and ominous-sounding machine designed to replicate the conditions immediately following the Big Bang. On behalf of several concerned parties who believe that this may cause unpleasant side-effects including destruction, widespread death and nose-bleeds in those under forty, I would like to request written confirmation that this machine will not in fact destroy the universe.

Should this unwanted scenario come to pass, you will be receiving a follow-up letter and perhaps even a petition.

Yours sincerely,

cazrolime

Aaaaaaand, we even have sub-atomic plushies!

A whiney post

So last night we noticed again that my car was making a weird, scary noise. You know, that 'Freddy Kruger running his glove along a pipe' sound. A stark metal-on-metal sound is never a good thing in a car. So into the shop it goes, and it's the back brakes. I've destroyed my rotors (to be honest, the first time I noticed the noise was a month or so ago, but you really couldn't hear it unless you turned down the radio and opened the window). New pads, rotors, and a fluid flush will run me a cheery $440. On the up side, they said my front brakes were in quite good shape and had lots of life left. And it'll be done by the time I leave work.

Now, you probably think I'm going to complain about the money. And I can't say I'm tickled about shelling that out, but it's unrealistic to expect to never spend money on a car. I'm resigned to that. But what suddenly hit me is that I am stuck at work. I was thinking about all the things I might want to do for lunch - go to JoAnn to get that yarn, grab some food, go to the bookstore - and suddenly realized that I can't.

Normally, there are a few places I can walk to. I have even walked to JoAnn, but it's one heck of a trek. However! It's raining. And I tweaked my knee last night and it's bothering me. Two reasons not to walk anywhere. And one reason to not even sit out in the courtyard and crochet.

That leaves the library, which is okay, but not what I wanted to do today. Their environmental controls (did I mention it's not the nice, cool rain of the Pacific Northwest we had a few days ago - that was heaven! - but closer to the muggy, tropical rainforest shower?) are even worse than ours. Plus, I owe them a movie I haven't watched yet, and I hate to show my face there with late fees hanging over my head. Even though I know they appreciated the money.

And, for some reason, I was really craving cheese. I really wanted to go get the one food I didn't have here. Probably just because I couldn't. So I found some questionably old chicken pasta (slightly cheesy) dish in my fridge and reheated that enough to (hopefully) kill anything bad. It satisfied the craving (mostly) but if I spend the next few days violently ill I will have known I chose... poorly.

And now I have another 45 minutes to kill doing... nothing. Or, you know, more work. Oh joy.

....reason #3 I don't ever want to carpool.

Because I want everyone else to be as depressed as I am

Beautiful, but very, very, very sad.