by Audrey -

Oh no! Pandora!

Alas, when I tried to listen to my internet radio today at work, it failed me.

I thought for a second that Pandora had been shut down for EVERYONE, and was about to be very sad, but I happily modify my status to sort of sad. The RIAA didn’t get Pandora, it just got Pandora (which mostly has us licensed music) to stop playing internationally.

I really like the sincerity of this note.  They’re sad, care about you getting your music, and hope that someday music licensing won’t be a horrible mess.

AND I just discovered…no Heroes either! I was counting on catching up on Heroes online while away.

(I sense the Japanese dramas circling, waiting to pounce on a moment of bored weakness.  Gimme my media!)

by Audrey -

An old friend

I’m out! 

The Devonshire chapter of my life is now officially closed, and along with it, a ridiculous amount of garbage, my mech. eng problem sets, my well intentioned (but unused) culinary purchases, and some good times.

I think I don’t want to clean anything for the next 5 years, at least.  

Or pack.  But unfortunately there’s a lot of pack/unpacking in my immediate future,  especially given my current plans.

While a lot of my academic stuff just got trashed (ahem, recycled), I couldn’t quite part with this fellow right away.  So much so, that I wanted to bring him down to LA and take a picture, before saying goodbye.  

Used to be, we’d spin hula hoops together, back in the days of ME 101.   (Literally – this was attached to a device that picked up a hula hoop and spun it.  It was for a prototyping class.)  Alas, he’s seen better.  The hot-glue and rubber band joints seem to be going a bit arthritic, and his vision just isn’t what it used to be. 

I’m putting the gee-raf out to pasture on the sunny slopes of Landfill.  He’s just that age now.

Good times, though, good times.

by Audrey -

working from home – special guest

I’m working from Home-home this week, in warm southern California.  It’s been a toasty 80-85 degrees since I’ve been here. 

Today, I had a little visitor to my bedroom-office.   Good thing I noticed him scrabbling across the carpet, or he would have been stuck and starving!  Pretty docile once I picked him up.  Then again, if you held me up at 20x my body height, I wouldn’t really want to move either.

 

I’m not sure where he came from, but it reminded me of a similar visitor, when I was little, and we lived in a Whittier.  Mom was freaking out, and screaming “SNAKE!”   I think I was playing outside, and I came back in because she seemed kind of stressed.   When I got back inside, there was this thin tail whipping around underneath the piano.  Quite exciting.

We’d move the piano by inches (heavy thing, the piano) and I would be poking at it with a ruler to get it OUT from under the piano, but the little guy was pretty smart. Wouldn’t budge. Except to sneak under the piano by the precise amount whenever we moved it.

At some point we figure out it was just a lizard, at which point…Expert Lizard Catcher (moi) jumped in with fingers, and escorted the offending visitor outside. 

Poor mom.  She seems to encounter a number of these lizard/snakes.   At least she hasn’t encountered any actual snakes IN the house (yet).

…that I’m aware of. :)Â