Elizabeth's Blog

… and Hello Habari. I’m switching over to a new blog, so all 3 of you who actually read my blog - you’ll have to visit my new blog and resubscribe to my feed. Don’t worry, you can still read the bloggity goodness archives at http://www.naramore.net/archives/.

See you on the other side!

Wow, 2 dork-filled moments in one day. That might be a record for me. Anybody following me on Twitter might have seen that it was my husband’s work party last evening… I actually had heels on, so I fully expected a wipe-out at some point in the evening.

Good news is that I made it through without falling down. But I had an interesting experience nonetheless. After the party, a large group of us decided to go to a nearby bar called The Avenue. One step inside told you this wasn’t a typical Covington, Kentucky bar (yes, we were across the river in Covington not downtown Cincy per se). It was pretty hip, I say, with it’s little conversation couches and Betty Page servers. I felt a bit inadequate in my little Christmas sweater and pearl earrings, but what the hell.. I’d had a few, so what did I care.

When it was time for me to visit the little girl’s room, I wandered toward the back and found an unmarked hallway that I instinctively followed. There, I found 2 doors, presumably the restrooms. In true pseudo-esoteric fashion, one door was marked with a triangle above it, the other with a circle… but otherwise the doors were completely blank.

I’m standing there, with my legs crossed thinking “What. Thefuck.”

So then I kind of chuckle and look around -surely this is some kind of candid camera moment; some kind of joke. Alas, Alan Funt did not jump out and save the day, so I was left to ponder this riddle on my own. I stood there for a while, contemplating the subtle symbolism of the triangle versus the circle, and questioning my own sexuality. If I was a girl, would I be a circle or a triangle? To me, the choice was not as obvious as it could have been. I mean, triangles are kind of pointy and harsh, and circles are all warm and fuzzy-like. But the triangle could also be seen as a skirt, like on a stick-person. And I guess, the circle could be construed as a piece of the male genitalia.

I puzzled and puzzed, (not unlike the Grinch) and eagerly awaited someone to exit so my mystery could be solved. No one was coming out or going in, and by this point my bladder was screaming for my attention. Forget it, I thought. I’m a triangle. As I started in that direction, I noticed a guy coming up behind me. Sweet! A guinea pig! I can let him make an ass out of himself first.

So of course, because I can’t just keep my mouth shut and smoothly pretend that I was just waiting for someone, I laughed and said “what the hell am I supposed to do?”

The dude apparently took pity on me because he laughed back and said “the triangle’s the pen1s, and the circle’s a vagina.”

“Aha!” I said, and I realized at that moment I was a complete dork. That thought really hadn’t occurred to me previously… all I could think of was “I’m soo blogging this.”

So is this where the world stands? We’re not in LA or New York, but podunk Cincinnati. And not even technically Cincinnati, but Covington, Kentucky. And because Cincinnati is usually 15 years behind everyone else, does this mean that everywhere, people are using triangles and circles instead of “men” and “women"? I know I have comments disabled but someone PLEASE enlighten me to wtf is going on.

I’ve not posted anything from my “Proof I’m a Dork” department in a while, so in the spirit of spreading good cheer, I just thought I’d share my latest.

I fall down a lot. I’m not really sure why, but I think it’s because my “graceful gene” is malformed. Regardless, the outcome is usually painful, but humorous, and normally I don’t break anything so all’s well that ends well. Today is no exception - as the kids and I left our favorite hangout, Chipotle, I was carrying our leftover bowls of rice, beans and cheese, and all of our heavy coats (since it’s now roughly 57° outside). As we walked toward our car, somehow my shoe got caught on the sidewalk and I fell face forward down towards the cement. Naturally I sacrificed the coats and leftover rice by flinging them into the air so I could brace myself, but what I found interesting is that I didn’t put my hands down immediately like I usually do. My knees went down, but instead of falling on my hands, I instinctively twisted my body and did a little flip thing, resulting in me lying on my back with my feet up in the air. At this point I’m looking up into the sky, the Chipotle rice is lightly falling down on me like a soft winter snow, and my kids are looking down at me like I’m some kind of alien freak. No harm done, just some lovely road rash on the back of my hand.. and my knee is a little skinned up since I already had a hole in my jeans from my previous encounter with the pavement (that’s another story for another time).

So the moral of my story is that I think I’ve finally “arrived.” I’ve now learned the proper way to fall down to minimize injury… truly definitive proof that I really am a dork.

My love/hate relationship with Google continues, I fear. While I hate to see them taking over the world, and I hate that they have access to so much of my personal information, I can’t seem to break free from the hold of convenience they have over me. As I’ve posted before, I reluctantly use quite a few of their services. The fact of the matter is, you just can’t argue with results. Everything they do just seems to work better than the alternatives out there. And they continue to make my life easier.

I read about their new API - Google Charts API - and I had to give it a test drive. Just like so many of their other API offerings, this one is easy to use, well documented, and offers professional results with almost unlimited possibilities. This API allows you to easily embed charts in your web page through a simple http request (a png image is returned). They allow for quite a bit of customization and provide for numerous different charts (line chart, scatter plot, bar chart, Venn diagram, and pie charts). Definitely lives up to the Googlicious experience.

For example, here’s how I spent my day:

Google, I hate myself for lovin’ you.