My brain needs an upgrade ....

You know those ads where Siri is like your helpful little slave, captive brain-in-a-box with no feelings or feeding to worry about, just a helpful imaginary friend, a handy auxiliary brain to behave as your own surely would were it connected to the entire Internet?

Those are kind of creepy, aren't they?

Anyhow, the point of this post.

Asking direct questions is a great way to get answers, but if you're asking a medium meant to imitate your brain, then the answers can get dicey pretty fast.

After yet another bout of fussing and fuming at search engines, Pandora (I keep "breaking up" with it and then feeling bad and giving it another chance ...), and the Internet in general, I realized that my own personal brain doesn't really do that much better 90% of the time. It's just learned to run through all the wrong answers more quickly, so I wind up with the right answer sooner.

Most days.

Some days it is just about exactly as quick on the uptake as Pandora or Google.

Now, I've complained about word-association in the past, but downtime and idle conversations are one thing (two things, pah, you know what I mean). What about when I'm actually requesting helpful information from my patented brain algorithm? 

An ideal situation would be,

Me: What is the name of that color?
Brain: What color?
Me: The nice one that sounds like super-blue but is actually beyond-the-sea.
Brain: Based on your search query, "ultramarine" is the closest match.
Me: That's it! Thank you, brain!
Brain: You're welcome.

A more realistic situation would be,

Me: What is the name of that color?
Brain: Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry ...
Me: PAY ATTENTION. What color is it?
Brain: What color?
Me: The nice one that sounds like super-blue but is actually beyond-the-sea.
Brain: ♫ Somewhere ... beyond the sea ... ♫
Me: ...
Brain: Was that the song you were looking for? It appears that 80% of the above lyrics match your search query. Do you want to buy Finding Nemo on DVD with your Amazon gift card? Your VHS copy is looking a little worn.
Me: I WANTED A COLOR. Super-blue, but not.
Brain: UBERWEISS. It's new, it's German, it's super-tough. Don't you wonder how that laundromat scene would look set to the Freeze-Ray song from Dr. Horrible? You have Tuesday off, you could probably make--
Me: NO, GAWD, I'LL JUST LOOK IT UP. Um ... okay, it would be under ...
Brain: U.
Me: U?
Brain: For "ultramarine."
Me: Ah, right -- HEY. D:
Brain: :D
Me: THIS ISN'T FUNNY.
Brain: Did you mean: ♫I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cryyy with the saints--♫
Me: STOPPIT I DON'T WANT THAT IN MY HEAD WHILE I'M AT WORK.
Brain: No, the song you didn't want in your head at work is by Cee-Lo Green. The title is F--
Me: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.
Brain: ...:(
Me: Sorry brain, but ... you know how you get sometimes.
Brain: Yes, I am also sor-- wait, have we been letting Pandora run unattended this whole time?
Me: IT'S PLAYING THE IRISH FOLK MUSIC AGAIN.

Brain: AND THE PREVIOUS TRACK WAS FROM GLEE.

Me: WHY DOES IT EVEN HAVE THAT SONG?
Brain: WHO CARES?? THUMBS-DOWN, THUMBS-DOWN!!!
Me: I KNOW I KNOW, MY MOUSE WON'T MOVE THAT FAST.
Brain: I'M SO SORRY.
Me: I got it, I got it! It's okay, Brain. It's over now. It'll be okay.
Brain: :) Not to dig up the past, but why did you need to know what ultramarine was called?
Me: Um ... I don't remember. Isn't that your job?
Brain: I don't know, let me look that up--
Me: NO. Don't. Please. I'll ... I'll just use it in a blog post, I haven't blogged in a while.
Brain: Very well. Did you ever know he was singing "Kyrie, eleison" in that song?

Me: I didn't know it even had words, I just thought he was making 80's noises.

Brain: So did I. Thumbs-up?

Me: Let's not get carried away. But ... I guess you and Pandora aren't so bad after all.
Brain: :D

This is a baby bunny my brain thought you might find relevant.

Blaidd drwg?

Either the universe is ending, or someone downtown is having a bit too much fun with chalk.

On the way back from the British food store's St. Paddy's bash, I noticed something on an alley wall. At first it just looked like faded scribbling, but at the right angle....

In case you didn't get that, let's tweak the light a little:

What say you, handwriting experts -- same culprit from the sidewalk a couple weeks back?  

Looks like somebody needs a Doctor.

Been a while ...

So little has happened while I've been away!

Well, not in the world around us, but here in lizard-lass-land.

I finally sort of finished the digital painting I've been alternately working on and avoiding for months now:

I just wanted to draw a little monitor lizard standing on his hind legs and maybe painted a little or wearing some decorations. Then I realized I needed a background, and shading, and ... well, basically I ran away screaming. I keep telling myself that this is the most I'll bother doing, that it's as good as it needs to be and nobody really cares either way, but then I keep seeing something *wrong* with it. I'm currently ignoring the fact that the left leg of the dot-painted human on the boomerang has somehow gotten smudged out of existence.

Also discovered that frog legs, despite what everyone says about everything, do not taste at all like chicken. If you deep-fry them and leave them in the fridge for a day, they do start to dry out and get a texture sort of like chicken breast ... but I don't think that's what they were getting at. Basically, it's like a firm white freshwater fish -- trout was the one that came to mind for me. It's not strongly flavored (definitely not bird-flavored), and if there's any flavor it's fish. The meat breaks apart/flakes a bit like fish too. Really, the main problem is that when you cook up a whole set of frog's legs without breaking them apart, they look like a frog's butt.

The gecko still lives, the library still stands, and the days grow warmer. We'll see if I can keep up a little better with you fine folks (yes, I pretend my readership is existent AND plural) in the future.

Livin' on the edge of the law...

Here's to hoping they can't one day arrest me for those pictures of my Thomas the Tank Engine night light I posted earlier, or for quoting Gilmore Girls.

Rambling thoughts for a winter's night

When I walk home after sunset, I think I know what it's like to be a horse

or some such day-creature whose eyes alone do not reign over sight

in quite the way we fancy ours do

and who shies at shadows.

The telltale colors cloaking each form are quieter here

they require much sharper scrutiny 

than in the waking world.

I stop on the sidewalk for no reason

refuse to go on when the way is clear

because there is a strange shine on the stone

and I cannot tell if it is wet, slick, set, soft

for a moment I fear it will suck me in, pull me down

if I do not tread with care

but of course it is solid, only made of shinier stuff

than the square on which I stand.

I pause to admire the way the shadows cross

the darkest absorbing all that passes

but light darkening lighter, when they meet

neither blending with the other

all crisply informing with plain pictures

whether something lurks to the sides.

For several seconds I stop and stare

puzzling over the leaves that are not leaves

too much black and white and order

in the chaos crunching underfoot

I step carefully around the spot, unwilling to touch

unsure why, until the shapes resolve

a fallen sparrow in the fallen leaves

I try to make my silence a little more silent

out of respect for the dead.

I walk on, wanting to be home now

out of the wind, on familiar ground

not always glancing over my shoulder

when a low-flying leaf scampers by my side.

Street lights, headlights, Christmas lights 

all  are loathsome here

striking me briefly blind when I look away.

I watch a man and a white dog by the curb

suspicious, for they never move

they still don't move, so still I watch

I draw near and with one blink they are gone

or rather transformed,

boxes on boxes and three white trash bags

still unmoving and unmoved by my mistake.

Something small slithers after me

block after block, unrelenting

I turn to frighten the thing

which is the sneaking strap of the pack I carry

swung carelessly by my side

skittering along the sidewalk in my wake

I walk on.

This block smells of smoke

evil stuff, but I breathe deep to taste the ingredients

melting plastic, burning bark, smoldering leaves?

enough to make me hesitate in the haze

look and listen around just for a moment

hoping this fire is supposed to be

before making my hasty escape.

I rest a moment, blow out my breath

just to see the smoke

the kind that doesn't burn to breathe.

This block smells of apples

I do not know why this would be

have no clue which chemicals contribute 

but it is nice.

I do not linger here though

indeed, I have never walked more swiftly tonight

because I know this street

I know these trees

I know the way
I am close to home, and I have walked long enough

I forget the load I carry

and break into a trot.

Childhood Trauma

This. 

This is the face that will haunt your dreams.

Look at it

LOOK AT IT.

My mother maintains that the Thomas the Train nightlight is "cute." She thought it was "funny" when I ran screaming from the thing as a child, or when she would secretly switch it from place to place in the dark AS IF IT WERE MOVING ABOUT OF ITS OWN VOLITION.

I have tried explaining to her theories such as that of the Uncanny Valley, or pathogen avoidance, or just the flat-out fact that anthropomorphic steam engines with translucent gray "skin" and giant leering pedo-grins on their disembodied faces are EFFING CREEPY BY ALL STANDARDS, but she will have none of that.

So am I in the minority here? Is it just my imagination that this thing was bloody terrifying and still is almost two decades later? 

For the record, plugging him into the wall does not help -- his sickly face emits an unhealthy, uneven orange glow with an effect akin to that obtained by holding a large flashlight under your face. And then he's just sitting there, grinning, slowly emerging from the walls while you sleep.

Speaking of which ... 

sweet dreams.

Puzzling

Sooo ... what career option lends well to overanalysis and narrow focus? I find it's virtually impossible for me to see or hear something new without turning it around in my head and comparing it to a host of similar, different, and unrelated things until I have fit it in the proper cubby in my vast collection of similarity, differentness, and unrelatedness (they're words, they're words, shut up spell check).

Everyone does this, but I believe it's to excess with me. First time I listened to Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory: "Oh, that's interesting. The chorus has a nice feel to it. Now it's going to be stuck in my head. Hmmm-hmm- ... wait, "edge of nowhere," that's not in the song, it's edge of glory. Why am I ... oh, wait, wait, I see now, with the loud voice and the rallying and the up-down-up -- this sounds just like Song for the Lonely!"

It doesn't that much I suppose, but from then on they were interchangeable as far as being stuck in my head went.

Not long before that I was collecting Christmas music and stumbled on Sheryl Crow's rendition of All Through the Night (the lullaby, not the other one). Found myself stuck on the chorus again, couldn't figure why, was driving me batty until it clicked. "The chorus to this sounds just like We Owned the Night! It even has the same last two words, and they're both the chorus so if I compared they'd probably both show up around the 45 second mark!" (Yes, with new songs I tend to skip straight to the end of first verse/beginning of chorus to see if I like them, and I've learned over the years that that's about 45 seconds in.) In my mind this was Very Important And Significant. For what it's worth, I think the choruses start at 47 seconds and 50 seconds, respectively.

I also rattle off quotes (books, movies, TV shows, song lyrics, sayings, random things said by friends or coworkers) at a moment's notice. If I get them wrong or forget part of them (which is rather often), I'll spend up to twenty minutes searching until I find the correct version. When someone said I had to go back (to work) soon, I dug through my shelves for my copy of "The House at Pooh Corner" just to figure out what Owl had to say about "Backson" (as in, "BISY BACKSON" and "the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson").

Sometimes things go terribly awry and quotes stack upon quotes in an endless progression. "You need to press the button" becomes "You need to press the button ... button, who's got the button," which (if you've just watched a lot of Buffy recently) further transforms after a moment's recollection to "You need to press the button ... button, who's got the button ... my money's on, THE WITCH." And then people stare at you just a little bit. But that's okay, because you're psyched that you got the quote right the first time.

It can be helpful at times ... speaking of Buffy, I'll always remember how to spell Juliet Landau's name since waking up this morning and thinking, "Is it Juliet or Juliette, I'm pretty sure it's just "et," not "ette," Landau, Spandau ... HEY, it's like Spandau Ballet but backwards!"

As Lorelai Gilmore would say, "My brain is a wild jungle full of scary gibberish." I would recite the rest of the (oddly appropriate) quote here, but you've humored me long enough already and I still haven't given you any pictures. Here, thanks for waiting:

(I totally made a puzzle out of this ... /plugging website)