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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Chris McKitterick's LiveJournal:
| Sunday, December 27th, 2009 | |
| 10:34 pm | Into the breach once more.... Last week, I went to see the dentist - something that causes me unnecessary grief - and got a long-overdue checkup. The dental hygienist was very thoughtful and kind, and the dentist acted appropriately horrified when I told her about why I was nervous. "That's awful," she said. "Dentistry has come a long way since then," she promised. And it seems she was right. Nonetheless, tomorrow morning I need to go back for a "very small" filling, and it's tying my stomach up in knots. I'm sure everything will turn out okay. The worst part will be the damned needle and the pressure from the lidocaine under the skin. They're not sadists. They're in this business because they like taking care of people's teeth. Still. Oh, and I chomped the living hell out of my tongue tonight. Which will be awesome tomorrow morning. *sigh* Chris UPDATE: As expected, the hygienist and dentist were kind and professional. They were also quicker than I had expected, and it was nice to watch Mythbusters during the procedure. Unfortunately, they finished before the Rocket Car™ launched, so I don't know if it worked! I've discovered that nitrous doesn't seem to do anything, though the dentist told me that it relaxes people - because I felt normal, I must have been pretty anxious going in! The cleaning last week was actually much more painful: Those x-ray tabs hurt the mouth! When the lidocaine wears off, I fully expect to be sore, but for now, all's well. See, dental visits can be good. |
| Friday, December 25th, 2009 | |
| 6:52 pm | Merry Snowpocalypse 2009! Hope you and yours are safe today. Photos later! (About a foot of snow here in Lawrence, Kansas - and no snow plows in sight.) Chris |
| Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 | |
| 2:30 pm | The Quest for Other Earths Interested in Earth-like worlds beyond the Solar System? Then listen to Nate Williams (AboutSF Coordinator at KU), Gregory Rudnick (KU Professor of Physics and Astronomy), and Daniel McIntosh (UMKC Professor of Physics) discuss "The Quest for Other Earths" on KCUR's Walt Bodine Show at 10:00am on Wednesday, December 23. Listen live in the Kansas City area on 89.3 FM or go to KCUR.org and click Listen to hear the show on your computer. Chris |
| 11:49 am | Cthuugle: It Lives! The search engine that man was not meant to know. The cyclopean tomb where you can search for nameless tomes. Yes it's true. Cthuugle is once again open for business! I plugged the Shoggoth back into the internet, and installed Linux on it, and now we can search again!  Click the image to search tomes that humankind was not meant to read. Yes, I'm sharing information that is best left alone. Madness will be your reward. Go on, explore, but don't say that I didn't warn you. |
| Sunday, December 20th, 2009 | |
| 2:16 am | In other news... ...yesterday I made an appointment to see the dentist. Unfortunately, I was able to get in on Monday. I was expecting to work up to this for a couple of weeks, but no, they got me in right away. For those of you who don't know my history with dentists... well, it began in my high-school years with an amateur serial killer. The short story of one telling experience: He removed a wisdom tooth without functional pain-killers, despite the tooth breaking; he kneeled on my chest as he hammered away at my jaw with some kind of medieval torture device; when I used to much laughing gas, he turned it off; said procedure lasted about an hour. This history was furthered upon a visit to a dentist a few years later, who replaced a filling without pain-killers, saying, "Oh, it's not very deep" before realizing he had to work in there for a while. And so forth. I can count my positive dental experiences on two fingers of one hand, and negative ones on a couple of hands. I mean, have you had dental hygienists give you pain-pills (because novocaine doesn't do much for me) and then leave you alone in the little room as panic mounts and heart races, even though you hadn't really been worrying before that? And just as you're about ready to walk out, she returns and says, "Oh, I forgot to mention that a side-effect of those pills is heightened anxiety." Nice. Or dentists who screw up a filling so that it hurts all the time? And, when you go to get it fixed, he uses one of those horrific screamy-grindy tools to relieve the tension... without giving you pain-killers (again) because "You won't feel anything - I'm just grinding the filling," when in fact doing so causes a great deal of heat... and of course requires more work than he had expected, but doesn't give you anthing at that point because "I'm almost done." And so forth. My favorite experience with the dentist took place in Seattle. I went in for a regular checkup - by "regular," I mean that my friends pushed me to go because it had been five years or so since my last experience in dental torture. Anyhow, and the dentist decided that the top wisdom tooth that stood opposite the bottom one (removed; see above) should come out. He sensed my resistance (or my cold sweat), so invited me to chat in his office, where I admired photos of him with Bruce Lee. He told me stories about what it was like to study under Lee, we talked martial arts, and after a while said, "Ready for that tooth to come out?" I couldn't well leave at that point, and after a shot or two of pain-killer that actually worked and some very careful work, he removed the tooth in one piece (unlike the one that my high-school dentist shrapneled). "Huh," he said, admiring the curved roots, "I see why your teeth are so difficult to remove. Mind if I keep this to train students? If they can do a root canal on this puppy, they can do a root canal on anyone." Anyhow. So I get to see the dentist on Monday. It's been a few years, but I don't expect anything untoward to happen... then again, I never do. Wish me luck. Chris |
| 12:43 am | Astro-Porn of the Day: Sunspots Return! ...and this is just too cute:  Click the image to see some beautiful shots of the Sun's new storms. Chris |
| Thursday, December 10th, 2009 | |
| 11:17 pm | Astro-Porn of the Day: Alien Wormhole Update. Sadly, it turns out that the wormhole photos and videos I shared a couple of days ago were just the Russians after all. *sigh* The reason they were so slow to 'fess up was that the missile that failed so spectacularly was their newest, high-tech, sub-launched, intercontinental nuclear missile. Maybe next time. But we'll always have the Norwegian Wormhole Spiral: Click the image to see the story. So it was just terrestrial, after all. Or so they say.... Chris |
| 1:39 pm | Have yourself a redneck little Christmas....  Click the image to see the post. (Actually, I would argue that this is a WIN, not a fail, but then I'm a weirdo.) |
| 1:09 pm | Books make great presents! As we approach the Official Present-Buying Season™, please consider supporting Hadley Rille Books. Disclaimer: Hadley Rille will publish my novel, Transcendence, in the spring, and has published some of my stories (with more out soon). Great books make great Xmas presents! Here's what's out now from Hadley Rille. Here's what's coming soon. Heck, since I'm pimpin' my publisher, let us pimp some anthologies that contain my stories:  Visual Journeys: A Tribute to Space Art  Ruins: Extraterrestrial Global Warming Aftermaths (forthcoming) Sentinels In Honor of Arthur C. Clarke (forthcoming)Support your favorite publisher by giving books! Chris |
| Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 | |
| 12:47 pm | Astro-Porn of the Day: The Aleins Have Arrived! Check out this still-unexplained phenomenon over Norway:  Click the image to see the UK news story. This amazing light-show started as the spiraling green beam, then grew to fill the sky with the giant spiral. Whoah! First assumption was a Russian rocket test, but the Russians deny that they launched at that time. What's it look like to you? Another photo:  Click the image to see another story. There are plenty of sources, so it's verified, not a Photoshop job. Heck, there's even a video of the spiral forming. Welcome, Alien Overlords! Thanks for the heads-up, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} normalcyispasse! |
| Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 | |
| 11:32 pm | blog as MFA thesis I'm on the thesis committee for a former student of mine, Jen, who is writing a blog for her MFA thesis. I think it's a wonderful idea, especially because the University bureaucracy is having fits trying to understand how to deal with this format. But I also love this because the internet is really where the personal essay thrives today, and to ignore the web as a delivery mechanism is to look backwards. And as metaphor for the transience of things - a major theme on the farm - a blog is the perfect form for her project. Jen's blog is called Up From the Ground, which she explains "is where I explore life as a wannabe Kansas farmer (vegetables, livestock, and home canning included). Competing with this much romanticized return-to-the-land agrarian life is my interest in technology and especially its affect on communication. The two are far from mutually exclusive." There's some lovely writing about the hardships and joys of farm life in Kansas... and discovering how to succeed (or survive) without a background in farming. So go check it out and support her efforts! Chris |
| 9:09 pm | It's a winter wonderland out there! Gorgeous: Snow clinging heavy on the branches, making everything quiet and bright even after teaching night class (my last Tuesday class of 2009). Walking home from the University, I was a bit hesitant, what with an inch or more of snow on the sidewalks. But, alas! My new boots are awesome for blasting through the snow! Yes, I've entered a new phase in my life. Since 2000 or so, I've worn only Double-H brand strap-and-buckle-and-zip boots, these puppies:  Well, one can no longer buy these in men's sizes. The pair I've been wearing is now a few years old, and considering that I wear them every day of the year, while working on cars, cutting down trees, crawling across asphalt shingles, and so forth, that's a pretty good record. But the straps are falling off, the zippers are failing, and they're generally beat to hell. I've continued wearing them only because I haven't found anything I like better. I mean, geez, you can't even get the traditional Dr. Martens tall, black boots any more - what I wore for several years before the Double-H items. They looked like these, only taller:  Well, a local store (Vanderbilt's for you locals) was having a boot sale after Thanksgiving, and though they carry both the Doc and Double-H, they had nothing I liked from those brands. But, hark! They did have another pair that I found sufficiently good-looking and comfy to boot (ba-da-boom). And I think they look like the boots that people wore on the Battlestar Galactica:  They're side-zip, like the Double-Hs, which means I can lace them to where I want, double-knot, and they're ready to pull on and off (especially handy in airports). But they cost half as much, weigh a couple hundred pounds less, are much more flexy, and - here's what prompted me to write this - offer complete traction in the snow and ice. Hooray new boots! Which means I can enjoy the snow again. Life is good. If only the parking brake worked on the Saab - thereby enabling irresponsible cornering - life would be perfect. Chris |
| Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 | |
| 12:28 pm | Cutest kitten video EVER. WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that the following video will make you *ded* from teh cute: Sure, everyone's posting this. But, OMG, you can't watch it too often. EDIT: Yup, after 1431 viewings since last night, still the cutest video EVER. Chris |
| 1:03 am | Astro-Porn of the Day: Most amazing meteor fireball EVER. WOW! Just an hour or so ago, on my way home after class and picking up the last of the big donation to the Center, I saw a bright fireball transform over a period of a second or two into a streaming green streak across the sky. AMAZING! It went from bright white to vivid green, as if a lurid painter had broken open a lightbulb and painted phosphorescent pigment across the sky, which glowed for a few seconds afterward. It looked sort of like this, only more dramatic:  What a treat after a massively long day! Somewhere east of Lawrence, Kansas, a pile of space-debris lay smoking in the dry soil. Chris |
| Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | |
| 3:39 pm | ...and thanks for all the kind words  ...about little Hammie-Boy. Last night (rather, early this morning) when I got home from the office, out of habit I walked over to the gaming bookshelf where his little house used to perch. He loved to come out at night and roll around in this Ball of Speed Magnification™. I was so tired that I thought I heard him scuttling around in his nest. Instead of his cage, though, stands a candle burning in remembrance of him. That was both warm and sad-making. Thank you for your well-wishes last week. The sympathy is much appreciated. It's nice to know that y'all don't think I'm a weirdo for falling for a short-lived guy like Hefner. Weird for lots of other reasons, sure, but hamsters are people too. Especially little guys like him, so kind and full of personality. Chris |
| 3:16 pm | SF study guide  This was a fun but exhausting project: I just finished the "Science Fiction" entry for the Research Guide to American Literature: Post War Literature, 1945-1970, co-authored with James Gunn. Fun because I got to do lots of research on this fascinating period in SF's history, going through a bunch of wonderful resource texts here in the Center's SF Research Library. Exhausting because the deadline was much too short, especially considering all the other stuff going on at work lately. Now I want to write more material like this.... But it's done, edited by Jim, revised by me (mostly to cut 1000 words, ugh), and off to the editor, John Cusatis. Woohoo! Should be a really neat resource for teaching that period of American lit. Chris |
| Friday, November 20th, 2009 | |
| 3:11 am | RIP Hammie-Boy Living with hamsters as pets guarantees frequent tragedy. As recently as Sunday, little Hefner was healthy and full of beans. On Tuesday night, he showed signs of serious illness, with a belly full of scabs and infection. I brought him to the vet on Wednesday, where the kind Dr. Gibbs gave him a shot of cortisone to slow the growth of (suspected) cancer and a shot of antibiotics to kill the secondary infection from his chewing on the growths. She said that if he responded well to those, she could compound him treatment to give him another week or two. Then he had a healthy and relatively energetic night and day today. Wouldn't you rather go when you felt well than suffer for a week or two? So we fed him his favorite foods - blueberries and nuts - and cuddled the little boy, then brought him over to the vet.  The nurses at the front desk didn't even check us in, saw the teary eyes and brought us straight to an exam room. After some time alone with the sleepy Hammie-Boy, Dr. Gibbs took him to the euthanization room, and a few minutes later he returned asleep but not breathing in his ball. She said that he was full of tumors when she felt him after the procedure, so we had made the best decision. I dug a hole in the rodent cemetery in the back yard and buried him in his favorite toy, his ball, with a pint of blueberries. Hefner was the gentlest, most easy-going, but most curious hamster I've ever known. He would run in his ball for hours. He let little kids squeeze him and wouldn't bite. He would sleep in your lap. He loved peoples' shoes. He took food so carefully from your hand that he'd sometimes drop it. He invented the litter box for himself so he wouldn't have to sleep in a mess. He was the best hamster ever. We get so attached to our little friends. I'm not sure I want to keep doing this every few years. Perhaps a bit of a break before another little Rodent-American. Chris |
| Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | |
| 12:10 pm | Astro-Porn of the Day: HUGE fireball during last night's Leonids Holy sky-on-fire, Batman! Here's a little video taken by the University of Utah's observatory on Frisco Peak, presumably an automated camera. Watch how this fireball changes night into day: Apparently, it was visible all over the western USA, with people reporting sightings across Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. I'm so envious! Skies in Kansas were cloudy last night... but it's clear today. Although this happened during the Leonids, this fireball was not a Leonid meteor. Scientists suspect a small asteroid that exploded when it hit Earth's atmosphere, releasing the equivalent of a kiloton of TNT. That's some serious interplanetary warfare, folks. Imagine if it had exploded a little lower in the atmosphere, especially over a city? We are tiny creatures who dwell on the surface of a small planet that's hurtling through the cosmos along with billions of other objects. Once in a while, we collide. Often we get to watch a pretty meteor shower, sometimes we have the thrill of a fireball, and once in a while - frequently in terms of the life of the Earth - we experience ecosystem-destroying asteroid impacts. This one sits right between those last two. Here's the aftermath, still visible in the morning sky:  Click the image to see the story. EDIT: Lots more videos on this Utah news site. Astro-porn indeed! Chris |
| Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 | |
| 11:36 pm | |
| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | |
| 7:54 pm | Contortionism circa 1944 This music video from 1944 shows perhaps the most amazing contortion performance I've ever seen. Meet the Ross Sisters in "Solid Potato Salad": Thanks to roya_spirit for the tip!Chris |