Deep thoughts for the day.

From my favorite AWAD:

It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.

-James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)


And from the illustrious Huffington Post:


And The Biggest Procrastinators Are...usually the most sophisticated, sensitive, creative and intelligent people.

Nailed you, did I? Well, I assume you're in the sophisticated, creative and intelligent category. (I'm guessing that there are only a very few thick dullards who cruise this site.) That probably means you have large numbers of things stuck in your mind, in your briefcase, and on your desk about which things are not moving forward quite as consistently as they could be.

Major reason: the precise next physical visible activity (next action) has probably not been decided on the to-do's. The bright people usually have some sort of reminders about their projects and things to do on lists, in piles, or lying around, so they won't forget to think about their commitments. Bully. But every time they catch the briefest glimpse of any of them, they instantly race forward in their mind, rapidly and intelligently creating images of all the possible pieces that have to fit together and all the things that might have to be involved in getting them to happen and all the possible negative consequences if any one of them slips (and all the things that they might be forgetting in all this!) Whew. Freaked themselves right out. I'd quit, too.

Busy busy... here's a quote.

"The marvelous thing about the theory of relativity is that the math is simple and each logical step is simple. You can follow each logical step, but eventually you find you have been led to conclusions that are totally preposterous, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole."

-Alan Lightman, Adjunct Professor of Humanities, Creative Writing, and Physics at MIT and author of Einstein's Dreams

Dreary

Dreary

1. Dismal; bleak.
2. Boring; dull: dreary tasks.
3. Dark and depressing: black, bleak, blue, cheerless, dark, desolate, dismal, gloomy, glum, joyless, somber, tenebrific.
4. Arousing no interest or curiosity: boring, drear, dry, dull, humdrum, irksome, monotonous, stuffy, tedious, tiresome, uninteresting, weariful, wearisome, weary.

Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Today is a little dark and dreary. Mostly it's just gray and misty outside, but of course it is Monday and what could be darker? This is the kind of day that makes me want to go home, brew a nice cup of coffee or tea, and curl up on the couch with slippers, blankets, movies and some knitting. Sitting at my computer at work with my space heater on at my feet is a poor substitute. Which is not to say that I don't love this weather - I adore it and am excited that winter is coming to the land of room temperature year round. I just wish I were anywhere but here.

It's all about the stupid.

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

-P.J. O'Rourke

Dirty Jobs Quotables

Mike Rowe: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you think I'm doing?"

Supervisor: "I don't think suck is on that scale."

Mike Rowe: "So you're saying suck isn't a number?"

Wise Words

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

-Socrates (469?-399 B.C.)

Inspiration

There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.

-Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (1865-1946)

42: the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

- Douglas Adams

Things that Blow My Skirt Up

My sweetie, sending me flowers on Valentine's Day. (He sent the whole plant so that I could keep enjoying the flowers all year long!)

The world is a skirt I want to lift up.
-Hanif Kureishi, author

Wise Words.

Takeoffs are optional. Landings are mandatory.

In brief. (Not Boxers)

He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink.

-John Ray, naturalist (1627-1705)

Office Humor

"Put the key of despair into the lock of apathy. Turn the knob of mediocrity slowly and open the gates of despondency - welcome to a day in the average office."

A close second:

"If your boss is getting you down, look at him through the prongs of a fork and imagine him in jail."

An Inconvenient Giggle

Gore on Leno, talking about An Inconvenient Truth:

If you play this in slow motion, global warming is not nearly as scary.

We're planning another version, sort of a Global Warming Gone Wild. We're thinking about calling it Global Warming Uncensored: "Hot Glacier on Glacier Action".


I kid you not. Who knew he was so funny?

TV really is educational!

Also known as "Biblical References I Don't Understand."

From House tonight:

"I'm going to need thirty pieces of silver."

A big resounding huh?

From Bartleby's New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy:

The money Judas Iscariot received for betraying Jesus to the authorities. He later threw the money into the Temple of Jerusalem, and the chief priests bought the “potter’s field” with it, to be used as a cemetery for foreigners.

‡ This money is referred to as “blood money”—money received for the life of another human being.

‡ “Thirty pieces of silver” is also used proverbially to refer to anything paid or given for a treacherous act.

Am I the only one who didn't recognize this one?

A word of caution to us multitaskers.

To do two things at once is to do neither.

-Publix, circa 42 BC

Clearly he couldn't make his stones Alt-Tab.

Happy Holidays!

As I'm preparing to go off and enjoy time with my fiance and my family, and eat myself silly with Thanksgiving favorites, I thought I'd leave you with a bit of humor.

To the right, Bush is "pardoning" the turkey.

And a quote:

"Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence."

-Erma Bombeck

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Awakenings

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book...or you take a trip...and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure.

That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children.

And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song and it awakens them and saves them from death.

Some will never awaken."

-Anais Nin

If you don't have anything nice to say,

Don't say anything at all.

I'll be back when I'm feeling nicer.

Remembering Rummy

Since Rumsfeld is on his way out, and given my love of ridiculous quotes, I figured it was high time to pay tribute to Rummy and his words of wisdom.

Memorable Quotes by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead."

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."

"Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said."

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

"Well, um, you know, something's neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said."

"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."

"I don't do quagmires."

"I don't do diplomacy."

"I don't do foreign policy."

"I don't do numbers."

"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."

More delectable morsels here.

This entry brought to you by the Los Angeles Liberals for Liberating Rummy (i.e. Me, a.k.a. one pissed off Democrat)

Geek Quote

"I shave with Occam's Razor"

T-shirt available here.

Occam's Razor definition here.