Category — for the heck of it

I'm awesome at grammar, but it's a talent, not a skill:  I do it in my guts, and I have to go back and think it through in order to tell you why something is right or not.  

(I can usually do that, because I soaked up all the grammar I learned very easily, since it was just attaching rules to things I already knew — though my early education was pretty horrid, so I wasn't exposed to a lot that people who went to better schools were.  …And no, this doesn't mean that every bit of English I write has perfect grammar; sometimes I get "entitled" about knowing how it should be, and change things because I feel like it; plus I like to experiment — especially with punctuation and word-formation — and sometimes I just go fast (ahem, quickly) or am lazy, like most people.  That said, though, this post and my general disposition totally does give anybody the right to nitpick at me for any grammatical errors they may find in anything I've written, and yup, I'm okay with that.)

(Also, excessive parentheses are a stylistic mistake, not a grammatical one.  ::sticks out tongue::)

So here's my conundrum:

• the phrase "a day's worth of stuff" contains a possessive form of the singular noun "day", which therefore has an apostrophe.  The apostrophe goes in front of the "s" rather than behind it because "stuff" is a collective noun, I think, referring to the heap or chunk rather than the many items that compose it, and therefore gets treated as singular.
• the phrase "a day's worth of things" contains a possessive form of the singular noun "day", which has an apostrophe before the "s" even though the object-noun "things" is definitely plural — which is normal, so okay.  But this establishes that when "day" is plural in this phrase, there's an apostrophe-s regardless of whether the object-noun is singular or plural
• both the phrase "many days worth of stuff" and the phrase "many days worth of things" seem (intellectually) like they ought to have apostrophes following the "s" in "days"…but "many days' worth of things" just looks wrong to me (a good sign that it is wrong!).  Furthermore, Googling produces about a 80/20 preference for not using the apostrophe, including in well-respected publications!  SO WHAT IS THE DEAL?

Ah, life mysteries.  If only they were all so tiny as the waveform of an apostrophe….

SO yesterday was a lot of semi-sensible-sounding sleep-and-diet, writing-and-practice stuff…but don't let that fool you; I still highly value the *other* kind of planning too, the kind that just lets it all explode out and let's see what sticks.  Therefore, lest anyone think I’m not also doing good old-fashioned completely batshit planning in addition to the (for me) sane and well-considered planning of yesterday, I present…

JANUARY 2’s CONFESSIONS

The nice thing about a slow period — you've got to have them, and if I'm not careful I hate them, but — it IS nice that they give you lots of time to make crazy plans.  To make ALL the planz, and then gear yourself up to hit the tarmac at 200 knots and see what you can do.  When things are busy, you just grab the ropes as they swing by; it's when they're slow (like over a holiday) that you get to set things up and try to put some future ropes (mental or physical or financial) in the right places so you can make all those amazing leaps you're really hoping for.

Like… 

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I love that look you get when I've really crossed a line.  I love how your eyes go wide and how your breath catches for a moment.  Sometimes you muster, and give me a wry smile or shake your head; but sometimes I manage to stop you completely, make you mutter into your beer-glass and blush.  

I confess, I kind of live for those moments.  They're why I sometimes drop the c-word in casual conversation, and why I almost never let a potential filthy joke go by without at least a meaningful pause.  I take every opportunity to meet and hold your eyes while I say something outrageous, because I freaking love to see that reaction.  And I do it whether or not I think you like it, too.  There have been times that I was sure you would just walk away and never speak to me again if I "went there", but all that does is make me watch you extra carefully when I do — because if this will be the final rise I get from you, I want to make sure I enjoy it.

Is this a rather mercenary use of one's fellow man?  Perhaps.  And it's not that I don't value you, personally; but there are a lot of people in this world, making a lot of demands and being, by and large, a whole lot of boring.  If there's no burning practical necessity otherwise, I'll risk the continuance of our relationship in order to remember you as spectacular, as living, as full of flash and spark.  (And if you look at the people I *do* have long relationships with, you'll see that uniformly, they don't mind being constantly poked this way — and they probably do it to me, too.)  I believe in the value of "short and beautiful" over 'long and dull" any day.

Anyway, I wanted to take today to say thank you, if I've made you think WTF? and you've stuck it out, even a little.  I'm not actually, functionally, half as crazy as my love for blushes and stammering may make it seem — I just love to shock a little, to keep things uncertain and exciting, and I'm not very sympathetic to "but that's uncomfortable" as a reason not to.  Most things are uncomfortable.  The look on your face while you try to figure it out — am I hitting on you?  Did I just seriously challenge you to a fistfight?  Why am I buying you dinner? — is so, so worth it.  

Sorry!  ;)

…for all you fellow "grammar nazis"   ;)

I thought this made for a nice quick "Oh!  Huh" kind of moment — not that the points below can't be argued (haha what fun are things that can't be argued, right?) but it is fun to think about in that light.  (Here's the full pdf, which I found on Google in a moment of undirected curiosity.)  And if you're really fascinated, the Google and Wikipedia searches on related topics are fun too.  Happy Saturday!

**WARNING** the following is a) a bit flippant and b) may only apply if you're long-term adapted to polyphasic sleep; if you're still adjusting, don't screw with things!

On Friday night, I slept…in definitely one of the top 3 most beautiful locations I've ever been in!  A friend (who is just the right amount of crazy) and I snuck our way into a clearing at the very edge of the ocean next to a lighthouse and set up camp…it was warm but not hot, with a lovely breeze (and no bugs), the sound of the surf, and, because it was a clearing in the woods, every time we were still for more than five minutes, it filled up with bunnies.  It was a bit late when I got to bed (1:30), but I was up by 5 and then took a nap at 6, so got my 4.5 hours, roughly.

Then, swimming in the ocean through intense waves for about 3.5 hours the next morning.  I'm trying to learn freediving (diving and staying at the bottom with only a snorkel, no scuba stuff).  It's a rough learning curve!  ;) 

On Saturday, I nodded off in a moving vehicle for the first time since I was a small child.  I needed two naps just to keep from falling asleep mid-sentence during the day.  I was in bed by 10:30, and forgot to re-set my 4am alarm, so I woke up at 6:30.  (I also ate about 2,000 calories yesterday and was still pretty hungry.  Diving takes a LOT out of you.  Surprisingly quite a lot more than weightlifting.) 

But considering the circumstances, I call NONE of that a fail.  ;)

(More seriously, 4.5 has worked well for me all week…the only dicey spot is making sure I get my nap at work, but the nice part is that if I can't get it until 2-3 o'clock in the afternoon, that seems work fine still.)

Don't miss the awesomely informative graphic at http://xkcd.com/radiation/. Fun takeaways include:

• Living within 50 miles of a coal-power plant for a year doses you with almost three times as much radiation as living within 50 miles of a nuclear-power plant for a year;
• A single mammogram gives 24 times the average total dose someone living within 10 miles of Three Mile Island received;
• Cell phones emit no ionizing radiation (I knew this, but it's great to see it included); and
• The worst known one-day dose from the Fukushima region in Japan is about 3.6% of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increase of cancer risk.

So…Panic minus facts equals stupid, but facts plus colors equals pure awesome. I get it now! ;)

*roflz!*

…Actually the whole site cracked me up.  But I am, after all, a massive nerd.  (Yes, star wars nerd too.  I am, in fact, married to the first man (or woman) to ever beat me at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.  …He beat me by a lot, too, which is scary.)

Speaking of nerds, does it seem somehow fundamentally unfair that there are nerds today, who are too young to have been nerds before it was at all cool, back when you got beaten up for it?  Sometimes I get Shutup, Whippersnapper-y over that.  It's like not having Paid Your Dues, lol.

Saturday morning.  I slept quite a lot extra, to make up for lost naps during the week (there were quite a few) and the ridiculous whupping I took yesterday in Sanda.  (God was it fun, but ow the Later.)  Got up about 7, worked for a little over an hour (yes, ew Saturday am work, but it's nice to just be able to get things done uninterrupted by meetings and crap for a while), and Hath Surfd.  Today I must needs combine Writing, Stretching (see above about asswhooping), Cleaning (well, loading bookshelves and unearthing/emptying further boxes…it never ends!!) and playing video games.  (Talk about nerd…I bought Final Fantasy VII for the PS3, and am completely loving playing it again.  It's AWESOME, after all.)  And I will get my naps, so my sleep can be back online and humming for Monday.

More srs writings later; I've got 'em half-finished, on the shelf of half-finished things, right next to my novel and Enlightenment.

P.S.  I want a T-Shirt that says "GOP STIGGLING".  Wearing it in public would be SO fun.  (Yes, not just nerd…MOM nerd.)

P.S.S.:

"At COMPANY _______ we value your privacy a great deal. Almost as much as we value the ability to take the data you give us and slice, dice, julienne, mash, puree and serve it to our business partners, which may include third-party advertising networks, data brokers, networks of affiliate sites, parent companies, subsidiaries, and other entities, none of which we’ll bother to list here because they can change from week to week and, besides, we know you’re not really paying attention.

We’ll also share all of this information with the government. We’re just suckers for guys with crew cuts carrying subpoenas.

Remember, when you visit our Web site, our Web site is also visiting you. And we’ve brought a dozen or more friends with us, depending on how many ad networks and third-party data services we use. We’re not going to tell which ones, though you could probably figure this out by carefully watching the different URLs that flash across the bottom of your browser as each page loads or when you mouse over various bits. It’s not like you’ve got better things to do.

Each of these sites may leave behind a little gift known as a cookie — a text file filled with inscrutable gibberish that allows various computers around the globe to identify you, including your preferences, browser settings, which parts of the site you visited, which ads you clicked on, and whether you actually purchased something.

Those same cookies may let our advertising and data broker partners track you across every other site you visit, then dump all of your information into a huge database attached to a unique ID number, which they may sell ad infinitum without ever notifying you or asking for permission.

Also: We collect your IP address, which might change every time you log on but probably doesn’t. At the very least, your IP address tells us the name of your ISP and the city where you live; with a legal court order, it can also give us your name and billing address (see guys with crew cuts and subpoenas, above).

Besides your IP, we record some specifics about your operating system and browser. Amazingly, this information (known as your user agent string) can be enough to narrow you down to one of a few hundred people on the Webbernets, all by its lonesome. Isn’t technology wonderful?

The data we collect is strictly anonymous, unless you’ve been kind enough to give us your name, email address, or other identifying information. And even if you have been that kind, we promise we won’t sell that information to anyone else, unless of course our impossibly obtuse privacy policy says otherwise and/or we change our minds tomorrow. 

We store this information an indefinite amount of time for reasons even we don’t fully understand. And when we do eventually get around to deleting it, you can bet it’s still kicking around on some network backup drives in somebody’s closet. So once we have it, there’s really no getting it back. Hell, we can’t even find our keys half the time — how do you expect us to keep track of this stuff?

Not to worry, though, because we use the very bestest security measures to protect your data against hackers and identity thieves, though no one has actually ever bothered to verify this. You’ll pretty much just have to take our word for it.

So just to recap: Your information is extremely valuable to us. Our business model would totally collapse without it. No IPO, no stock options; all those 80-hour weeks and bupkis to show for it. So we’ll do our very best to use it in as many potentially profitable ways as we can conjure, over and over, while attempting to convince you there’s nothing to worry about.

(Hey, Did somebody hold a gun to your head and force you to visit this site? No, they did not. Did you run into a pay wall on the home page demanding your Visa number? No, you did not. You think we just give all this stuff away because we’re nice guys?  Bet you also think every roomful of manure has a pony buried inside.)

This privacy policy may change at any time. In fact, it’s changed three times since we first started typing this. Good luck figuring out how, because we’re sure as hell not going to tell you. But then, you probably stopped reading after paragraph three."

 

These lawls* brought to you by this genius here.

Just to type something non-sleep related for once… ;)

pd

*hell yes that was a legal pun.

(click for full)

Hey, I was awake, and it was fun. ;)

(Wordle will take any copy/pasted text (and I know from experience it can do at least 125 pages), so if you come up with a cool one, drop a link here!)