antimony

Perhaps the lobbyist wanted to ask you out but didn't feel comfortable asking you out on a "real date"

Today, I've got a full 8 hour day of studying, and tommorrow I have to go into work, since the year-end reserve analysis is due on the 15th - though thankfully I do get an extra day of vacation in return.

Don't sweat it... speaking as a person who majored in math and works in the math field now: You don't need a calculator on an algebra test.

You'll always have to do all of the actual algebra yourself (even the fanciest graphing calculators can't do the intermediate steps for you) and the calculator could only be useful for plugging in the numbers and doing the basic arithmetic at the end. And because of this, your instructor will write the test to make the arithmetic straightforward enough to do quickly by hand. And even in those cases, every professor I had who didn't allow calculators still gave generous partial credit if you did the algebra right but flaked on the arithmetic.

I've always thought that "fundamentalism" was basically a separate mindset from the religions or ideaologies people get fundamentalist about. And that basically all people who think like that end up about the same, regardless of what religion they hide behind.

I wax my armpits. I've let them grow before, but I found that there was an inverse relationship between the amount of armpit hair I have and the effectiveness of my antiperspirant. And I hate the feeling of moist armpits.

I would not be freaked out by a guy who shaved his pits, and honestly, I would love to see all guys at least trim to their pit hair occationally.

I've never bothered with the "insert link" thing, I just code the links in myself. It takes the same amount of time and always works.

A girl I knew from a knitting club who was left handed said she had started out by finding a book with detailed pictures, then scanning them in, and mirror imaging the pictures from right to left.

are you left handed?

Ok... imagine you have a length of yarn aranged into a zig-zag of alternating mountains and valleys. The cast on edge anchors each valley, or the bottom of each zig.

Now, imagine you lay a length of yarn behind the zig zag. Reach under the first mountain, and pluck a loop through. Then reach under the second, and pluck a loop through. Once you've reached the end of the row, the second piece of yarn is just a second zig-zag interlocking with the first. Then you would flip the whole thing over and go back the other way.

When you are knitting, the loops on the needle are the mountains, and they have their backs turned to you. That's why you enter the stitch from the left side (that's if you knit western style, if you knit eastern or combination, it will vary - however 99% of books teach western style, so I'm assuming that's what you're learning). If you look carefully at the base of the stitch, you can see how you are opening it up to "face front". Then you use the tip of the right needle to pull the working yarn through to make a new loop on the right hand needle. To be sure you are pulling the yarn through the correct way, look at the new loop on the right needle, does it angle the same direction laying on top of the needle as the stitches on your left needle? then you have made the stitch correctly.

I hope this explanation didn't make it worse!

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ETA: Purling is just what would happen if you laid the yarn in *front* of the zig zag, and made the loops by reaching from behind the mountain and pulling through a loop from front to back.

Oh my god. I am so with you!

My biggest pet peeve though is cutsy intentional misspellings. On a mailing list I read, someone posted something like, "It's mah birfday!"

Ooof.

First of all, it looks inane. (And this girl has bragged on the same list about being in Mensa) and 2nd of all, it's not even "writing like she talks" because I'm pretty sure I've met her in person, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't say "mah birfday" out loud!

Oh, and to all the people that use "u" for "you": You are not Prince! It's only two letters more, you won't die of exhaustion from typing two extra letters!

That is the stupid-est decree I have ever heard. Your job is hard enough as it is without taking away some of your your relaxation. Morons.

Dude, you *must* post the recipe for blueberry yum-yum!

I know it's a hard situation to deal with, and you and Mr. Snarky have hugest hugs from me.

Yup, I'll be doing it! I missed the last round because I'm just not ever in the swap forums. Your post was what tipped me off that the next round was starting!

Woooo! Pomegranates!

I love those purple flowers! I like things that bloom when it's crazy-hot. It makes me happy that *something* at least is loving the heat, even if I am not!

Basically, high fructose corn syrup is just sugar syrup.

The problem with it is that fructose is *very* quickly absorbed by the body. Regular sugar, the white granular stuff, is sucrose, which is a disaccharide, it's got two sugars in it, it's actually a molecule of glucose and a molecule of fructose bonded together. When things made with sugar are digested, that bond has to be broken first, then the two constituent sugars are absorbed.

That's still a pretty quick process, but the fructose and glucose in corn syrup are already separate and are absorbed *immediately*, and so cause an even more dramatic spike in insulin production than plain sugar does. (When you read about "glycemic index" in reference to carbs, that's basically talking about how intense of an insulin response that particular carb produces.)

Anyway, so it's those floods of insulin into the blood stream that contribute to pre-diabetic insulin resistance. Plus, since high-fructose corn syrup is so cheap, and has preservative effects in food, manufacturers use a whole ton of it, and suddenly there's a whole lot of calories packed into some pretty small packages.

To top it off, things made with corn syrup often don't taste as good as things made with sugar. Since glucose and fructose taste slightly different, things sweetened with sucrose have a kind of well-rounded sweetness. Things sweetened with high fructose corn syrup alone often, to me, taste like getting beat over the head with un un-subtle brick of SWEET. Though that might be just because of how much they use... 11 tsp of sugar in a can of soda? I couldn't make myself sit down and eat 11 tsp of sugar!

anyway, I'm sure you knew most of this already, but I'm having a rambly kind of day...

On hot days, rural southern boys are required to wear tighty whities in the swimming hole. It's the law. ;-)

(i wish I were kidding. I mean, I am about the law part, but there seems to be some kind of long-standing tradition about rednecks and swimming in briefs. I really don't get it. You wouldn't see it at a swimming pool or anything, but out on a lake...)

Thanks for noticing the manicure, guys! I got my nails done this weekend, and I think they turned out great. The girl doing my nails did a great job with the white parts, but unfortunately, the top coat she used was all bubbly, so the finish on them isn't perfect. She did the whites the way I like, where she painted on a little extra of the white polish, then used acetone and a paintbrush to bake a really crisp edge.

I'll have to take a picture of my pedicure, though. I asked for flowers on my big toes, and got very pretty, very sparkly flowers. I get a smile just from looking at them.

dawndie, I would love to see pictures of your garden!

darkity, I didn't even think about the plants needing each other's support. Oh well, to late for that now, I guess. And yeah, it is kind of night-of-the-living-dead-ish, isn't it? You know that if that cutting ever sprouts, that plant will forever be the "zombie cactus", right?

valentina, I was in awe of the bounty myself. It is such an amazing feeling to know that I grew all of that. That I nurtured those plants, and fussed over them, and they did more than just survive, they've just showered me with fruit!

Isn't this exactly the kind of thing the TAL oil "STFU" is for?

In this case it wouldn't be exactly silencing gossip, but I think you could still use it to silence a malicious and atention-hungry person.

The part that drives me most insane is that I am on her side, damnit.

I hate when people who hold any polarized political opinions get all sniffy at moderates, like we're some kind of wishy-washy fence-sitters.

Eh, Rusty reminded me that just before she tore into me, I was ranting about how the federal government needs to move from using cost acounting to accrual accounting, so we can just maybe start to get a handle on when and where money *really* comes and goes. And everyone knows that people who know too much about accounting *must* be mindless corporate drones.

I don't french manicure my toes (I agree, it's ridiculous) But on my hands, sometimes in the summer I like to sport what I've heard called a "cuban manicure", red nails with white tips.

Cassis is black currant.

About 4 years ago, a friend admitted to me that she and her husband were trying for their first baby, my immediate resonse was, "But people our age don't have kids on purpose!"

Then I realized that we were about 23 years old, and plenty of people our age did, in fact, have kids on purpose.

That was a shocker, though none of my close high school or college friends, not even her, have actually procreated yet, and we are certainly inching up on turning 30.

i understand e-mailing the customer service address with their disapointment. That's what costomer service is about.

But showing up in a celebration thread in a fan forum to complain, that's just pissing on someone else's good time for no reason. It's sour grapes, pure and simple.

Hee hee. This is awesome! I'm Devious Honey Marek Flow. I dig it.

Awww...

I'm not getting the Coty imposters vibe about the new sttuff, I just don't get the same iconic feel from them. The new scents aren't as classic or as *solid* as the old ones to my nose.

The very first scent that Beth suggested for me (back when she still did suggestions by email!) was Anne Bonny, and it's still my very favorite going out scent. Most days I reach for Embalming Fluid, and I often smudge on a little Snake Oil before bed. All of the other bottles in my collection (and I have more than I could use in a lifetime, I think) sit unused for months or longer. There are a handful of LE's that I have also fallen in love with, but beyond that, I haven't found much else that really rings my bell.

I've gotten to the point now that I only order LE's and scents that might work for wearing while dancing (though nothing has beat snake oil yet for that purpose, either)