Brain Dead, Try Again Later

So, my brain has decided to pack up all my thinking processes and go bye-bye. That being the case, instead of giving you anything of my own to read, I'm going to recommend some writings by other people:

In the news: Can We Just Pretend We Already Invaded Syria? (Note: this is actually from back in June. So when you hear people say things like "nobody could have anticipated..." you're allowed to laugh at them.)

For your amusement: The Saga Of Fred and George (Two ceramic squirrels on a journey of discovery.)

Social Issues: This is what a Feminist looks like (I can't imagine that anyone I know hasn't seen it already, but it's awesome so I'm posting it again.)

Discussion elsewhere reminded me of this: Train up a child in the way that he should go... (Protip: children are people, too, and like it or not they will go their own ways.)

That's what I've got. I have at least three things I'm hoping to get back to this weekend, but the first week of school has officially kicked my butt. Again. Right on schedule. So, what are you reading right now? What else should I be reading?

The Ghost Witch

The witch was everything you might expect: withered and aged, dressed in ragged black with a cowl to obscure her face, relentless, implacable.

I'm not sure why she was after me. (I might have known at some point during the dream, but I can't remember now.) But she stalked me through a park, then followed me into a grocery story - misting her way through a couple of locked doors to do it, which was pretty creepy.

What finally defeated her? She randomly attacked a shelf full of spices. Since there was something there she didn't like, we started opening up cnanisters and throwing stuff at her. The one that finally did it was something-bane. Wolfsbane? Monksbane? Ghostwitchbane? I dunno. Somethingbane, anyway. Good against spooky ghost-witches. Get your jar today, and keep it handy.

Perhaps more interesting than the earlier part of the dream (which was, after all, fairly typical being-chased-by-something nightmare material) was the next bit. Whatever the stuff was, it caused her to collapse in a puff of smoke. When she stood up, she wasn't anywhere near as old, or as... floaty? ...as she had been. And she wasn't hostile, though she was still a little odd-looking.

This, apparently, is what happens when I start trying to get enough sleep.

Notes from the Mad Science Lab: Gravity Belt

Three weeks ago, I completed an anti-gravity belt.

Now, mind you, this was mainly an exercise in design as far as I was concerned. Professor Oddity's work on anti-gravitons was well-documented by the Mad Science Consortium. The man kept copious notes, and the Consortium employed a number of researchers to collect them after his house hit that 747. So this was hardly testing any ground-breaking theories, or even exploring any particularly new avenues of technological achievement.

That said, I was rather proud of the prototype. It's one thing to establish anti-gravity generators in something the size of a house; doing the same thing in something as small and as flexible as a belt required a rather more... elegant... design. Also, unlike Professor Oddity's design, the anti-gravity generators in the belt did more than provide localized lift: they used a Tesla Field to apply the effect throughout the area of an object, and a set of sensors to determine how much power should be applied.

The result was a belt that, when wrapped around an object of the proper composition, would effectively negate the effects of the Earth's gravity on that object. An astronaut could practice zero-gravity movement in the comfort of his or her own living room; accident victims could be lifted and moved almost effortlessly; construction workers would no longer need to fear falling... Even better, I equipped the belt with a power sensor; if the supply began to get low, it would gradually lower the total anti-gravitons produced, and so deliver the wearer gently to the ground.

It worked beautifully, right up until the past weekend... when my son decided that the cat would like to fly.

I first learned of this when he burst into the living room, screaming that Fluffy was gone. Apparently he had wrapped the belt gently around the cat, fastened it in place, carried the cat lovingly into the back yard, and thrown the poor beast like a football. I imagine he expected Fluffy to soar into the sky, and then gradually arc back down to the Earth. Instead, well... the cat continued going up, yowling all the way. The belt, you see, was calibrated for objects of roughly adult human mass and weight. I doubt it could scale down far enough to neutralize the mere weight of a cat, and even if it somehow managed, well, the boy had thrown the cat upwards. Even if the belt was neutralizing the cat's weight, and not providing additional lift, Fluffy wasn't coming back down until the batteries ran out.

At that level of output, that could easily be half an hour, or more. Without knowing the angle of the throw, there was no way to estimate how high the beast might reach.

Fortunately, I have robotic drones that I keep ready for such occasions. Once I understood the problem, I dispatched them immediately. Given the amount of area they had to cover, and the difficulty involved in picking out one lone feline at any sort of range, we were lucky that they found him at all. We were even luckier that they were able to retrieve him before he got high enough to freeze, suffocate, or both.

All's well that ends well, I suppose. Still, Fluffy didn't wait around to hear my son's tearful apology; and, in fact, I don't believe he's come out from under the couch for the last three days. My son is heartbroken, but that's to be expected. I can only hope that he's learned something from this: one should always check the calibration before applying anti-gravity fields to the family pets.

Narwhals

It's well past time that Narwhals had a theme song. (Maybe not entirely work-safe, but FUN.)

Obligatory In Front Of School Picture

So, here you go. See? He's smiling:

...Sort of.

And here, courtesy of the Beautiful Woman, is a photo of us walking towards the school:

First Day of Second Grade

We got Firstborn off to school this morning. This year our schedules worked out so that the Beautiful Woman was able to come along, so we bundled the whole family into the car, drove to the school, and walked Firstborn up to the front door. We took the obligatory round of pictures (I may be able to post some, later) and sent him on his way.

Firstborn managed not to scowl through the picture-taking. I consider this quite an achievement on his part. (Actually, I think he was pretty happy about going back to school. Having his parents follow him to the door to take pictures, maybe not so much.)

Then I dropped the Beautiful Wife and Secondborn back at the house, and went off to work.

This is a substantial improvement over the first day of First Grade, not to mention the first day of Kindergarten. (There was a week or two there where I wasn't entirely sure that I was going to survive the transition into having a child in school.) Apparently, once you have a system in place, it's a lot easier to fall back into it. Hopefully. 'Cause there's always the possibility that this morning went as well as it did just to lull me into a false sense of security.

We'll see.

Why I Want A Wife

Somebody linked to this earlier... yesterday, I think. It was written in 1971, but an awful lot of it still seems awfully relevant...

Why I Want A Wife

I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife a wife to keep track of the children's doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children's clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturing attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. It may mean a small cut in my wife's income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.

The author's name is Judy Syfers. Go read the whole thing (if you aren't familiar with it already).