Slightly Off KIlter

Normal is overrated

  • Memes

    Blog Ideas. Circle of Words. Spark. Weigh-in Wednesday. The Friday 5. Saturday Slant. Participation Positives. Have you ever wondered where people get ideas for what to write about? Have you noticed how some people's weblogs (including mine) reference a set of periodic questions and then answer them? One answer is "memes". Continue reading

  • Easy Bake Science

    When I was a little girl, I wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. (My Mom's response was that if I wanted to bake a cake I should just ask and we would bake a real cake in the real oven.) If I were a little girl today, I might ask for the Discovery DNA Explorer Kit. …With… Continue reading

  • Salary Negotiations

    Hmmmmm… they may have something here. When economics Professor Linda Babcock examined the starting salaries of people who graduated with master’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, she found that men earned nearly $4,000 per year more than women with comparable majors. A lot of that difference was because of discrimination, certainly, but not in the… Continue reading

  • InsPURRation

    I've started a new Yahoo group / mailing list called InsPURRation: CatPURRSons Life Support. The rationale is simple. We are the ones who have high blood pressure, ulcers, and heart attacks, not cats. — Roger Caras We all have bad days. The car won't start, your son has a fender-bender, the water pipes break, work… Continue reading

  • December

    The Friday Five is off this week. Thus, I have created my own set of questions. It's December 5. Yesterday, the checker in the grocery store said "20 more shopping Days till Christmas". Today there are 26 days till the end of 2003. When you hear "20 more Shopping Days till Christmas" — How does… Continue reading

  • Are you qualified to be a “professional”?

    Now, perhaps these would make good interview questions 😉 The following short quiz will tell you whether you are qualified to be a "professional." According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory… Continue reading

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  • Terra-cotta warriors show their true colors

    The terra-cotta warriors buried near the tomb of the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, present a fierce challenge—to modern-day chemists. Since the site's discovery near Xi'an, China, in 1974, archaeologists have unearthed more than 1,500 of the life-size figures. But once the warriors see the light of day after more than 2,200 years of burial,… Continue reading

  • Cat Show

    We went to a TICA Show (Fog City Cat Club) in Pleasanton CA today. There must have been three aisles of Bengals! Lots of Bengal kittens too! There were some splendid Maine Coon representatives including a cousin of Squirrel's (Holdermaine's Prowler) who is a Very Handsome boycat! He's a red-shaded silver (w/o white) so looks… Continue reading

  • Shop till you drop

    When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Or, so goes the quote. The Day After Thanksgiving is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. The Friday 5 for this week focuses on shopping. Do you like to shop? Why or why not? What was the last thing you purchased? Do you prefer… Continue reading

  • Turkey Day reprise

    Happy Thanksgiving! In the words of Arlo Guthrie, we "had another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat". We had 6 people again, this time two different friends (brothers that Rich has known since he was about 8 years old). We had run out of dark meat, so we cooked 3 new turkey thighs; we still… Continue reading