Random dumb thoughts

This page is to put those little weirdnesses of life that don't really fit anywhere else, or aren't worth a page of their own

Saturday, May 17, 2003

It's quiz du jour time......

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

.: posted by Lily Saturday, May 17, 2003

Friday, May 16, 2003

As Stennie pointed out in one of her blogs, you find out the most interesting things when you get out of your car and walk around. Tonight, as I was walking home from work, I stopped at the cash machine. This rather young-ish guy (21? 22? -- my gut simply said "young marine") was with his friend and he said: "Can I ask you a question?". "Sure, why not?" "What kind of gold would you get on a wedding band 24 karat or 14 karat"? Now, being a girl, I have thought a lot about the theory and makeup of wedding bands, engagement rings etc, but I never really spent much time thinking about the karat level of the gold, especially as the primary factor in selecting a ring. However, my first response was "not 24 karat gold", and the poor kid looked crushed. "Why not? Isn't it the best?" I explained to him that 24 karat gold is really soft, and the ring would get scratched and bent out of shape very quickly. "Oh", he said. So then I said -- "Well, what's the engagement ring? Whatever you get should match that." He proudly informed me that the engagement ring was 3 1/2 karats. "Wow", I said, "that's.....large". His friend said "yeah, that's f***ng huge". Somehow I had a feeling that going into a conversation about color, cut, and clarity would be lost on him, so I passed on that. I told him that really what he should do is let his fiancee pick out the wedding ring -- the engagement ring can be a surprise, but let her pick out the wedding bands. Somehow I just have an inkling that her value system in picking out jewelry will be pretty close to his, and they'll both come away happy.

I wish this young man and his fiancee to be all the best, and I hope it works out, truly. I'm not real sure about the maturity level of all involved, though.

For the record, in case you're in the market for me, it either should be a two-karat, single stone either round or oval stone (no marquise and ABSOLUTELY no heart-shaped diamonds) set in yellow gold, or a three-stone ring. (I have big fingers -- single stones under 1 1/2 karats just get lost on my hand, and there really isn't any point) The wedding band should match, but be fairly plain. Either that, or Cartier makes a really nifty tri-color gold band that I have always really liked, although I didn't really like the matching engagement ring. I'll think about it more in depth in the event that I ever get anywhere near that decision point.

But in general, guys, if it's not a really old family heirloom, ask her best friend. She knows. Trust me, she knows. And if she's not sure, she'll find out. Women like to be surprised about the when and the where, but they sure as heck don't want to be stuck with an ugly ring. The only episode of Sex in the City that I ever saw had to do with dilemma of being proposed to by a great guy with a horrible ring. As morally bankrupt as those women are, there was a small grain of truth to that episode.

And now for the Friday Five. Pretty straight up today:

1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.? I'm not super fussy -- I just like it to taste "clean", and if it comes that way out of the tap, that's fine. At home, I drink water from the Brita pitcher. At work, I bring in large 1.5 liter bottles of water and go through those during the day. However, if I run out or forget, water from the water fountain is fine by me.

2. What are your favorite flavor of chips? I'm not much of a chip eater, for various reasons. However, lately, I have been enjoying the lightly salted version of "Soy Crisps". In general, though, if I was told I could never eat a chip again, I'd be okay with that.

3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most? Hmm -- I cook a fair amount, and I only cook what I really like. I guess a really good stew would be up there. I suppose it would have to be just about anything in the Big Red Pot -- my Creuset enameled cast iron dutch oven. I know it's odd to love a piece of cookware, but I do.

4. How do you have your eggs? Disguised. They need to be dry, and seasoned -- preferably with cheese and spices. The idea of anything with a runny yolk or really soft scrambled eggs is not remotely appealing. You can cook my eggs to death -- rubber is fine by me.

5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out? Among my friends, I'm the cook, so the last real communal home-cooked meal was done by me at Easter -- a nice roast lamb, asparagus and something else that I've forgotten. Before that, I suppose it would be at my parents' house -- not sure what it was, but I'm sure it was very nice, as usual.

.: posted by Lily Friday, May 16, 2003

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

It's baaaaaaack. Must be time for another landmark birthday.

This morning as I was brushing my hair, I noticed something that looked like a highlight. However, I have never colored my hair, so I wasn't sure what it was. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the beginning of a grey hair. "Here we go again," I thought.

You see, this hair pops up every five years or so, just to remind me that one of these days it will come to stay. I first noticed a grey hair on my 21st birthday. It was black on the end, and then suddenly turned white. I mentioned it to my mother, and she asked me where it was. I told her it was on the right side, partway back. She said "I had that hair - one grey hair in that location. No others for years". (I wonder what genetic advantage is conveyed by passing down that particular trait?) Eventually, that grey hair fell out. Later, on my 25th birthday, there it was again. Same location. This one was black on the end, and then white. In several months that hair went black again, so it was like a skunk -- black, white, black. Eventually, it disappeared -- either fell out or was cut out in a haircut. Same deal right around my 30th birthday -- skunk hair was back. My hairdresser wanted to cut it out, but I wouldn't let him. Eventually went away.

So now we're approaching 35, and here it is, regular like clockwork. Let's see how long this one lasts.

.: posted by Lily Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Sunday, May 11, 2003

The crap I go through just to get my own weatherpixie. The one crappy thing about a new computer is that you've got to go out and reacquire all the silly programs all over again. Besides finding an FTP program, it turns out that all of the text editors that come on OSX are so sophisticated that instead of opening my HTML pages as text, it opens them as HTML. I finally gave up and just opened Classic and then SimpleText, the best program word processing program ever. Not a whole lot of bells and whistles, but it does just about everything you want a straight text editor to do. If you're really bored, you can set it to read your document back to you in any one of about 20 voices. Apple went and prettified it into something called "TextEdit", and it won't let you save documents as html. Who says progress is all it's cracked up to be? They're trying to drive me into being stupid and relying on webpage creation programs. I won't have it -- if I can't code a simple webpage or balance my checkbook by hand, just shoot me now before my brain completely atrophies.

If you want to see my weatherpixie, click here. I don't know where the poodle came from, though. The pixie I picked out was pet-less. Oh well, I'm kind to animals and will take in the stray, I suppose. The layout of the homepage now needs some work, but I'll worry about that later.

.: posted by Lily Sunday, May 11, 2003

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