Ooooone... Moooommment in time...
Jul. 13th, 2006 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberJust made a cup of spice tea for the first time in a long time... I was pumping Zoned Girl for biographical info in the kitchen, and needed something to do physically. It's too hot for spice tea, so I added an ice cube to it. The ice cube dissolved, and formed a layer of room temperature water on top of the thick tea, such that when I drank it, there was a definite layer effect in the temperature and texture. It reminded me instantly of the cream-on-hot-cider-with-alcohol drink they serve at AmberCon Northwest. ::sigh:: Mmm.
Should I be getting you money about now,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
simonepdx?
Right, anyway, the update of fascinating-things-in-the-life-of, for about the past month, which I've been meaning to put up for about the past month...
About a month back, I had dinner at the Stinking Rose withprince_corwin, who turns out to be remarkably gallant in person. In a feat of irascible driving on my part, on the way back we ended up at Grace Cathedral. Eight years I've lived here, and it took me this long to walk the Pat--er, labyrinth. We observed the carved golden cathedral doors in the gloaming and attempted to identify the scenes shown there; I was pleased to be able to remember the names of several Old Testament women, though it was of no use. An amusing bit of conversation, reconstructed as best as I can remember:
zdashamber: So the scene with the plowing, and the guy about to cut the other guy's head off in the midground... Maybe that's Cain and Abel, sort of time-shifted, "important scenes from the life"...
prince_corwin: But there's that city on the hill in the background...
zdashamber: Maybe that's the Garden of Eden?
prince_corwin: But they'd been thrown out by then.
zdashamber: Maybe they were just hanging around outside because they had no place to go.
prince_corwin: With their noses pressed up against the glass...
Two days after that I took the first test in the process of applying to be a police officer, the test of English and writing. I was expecting "English, motherfucker! Do You Speak It?!" but it's a good thing I checked it out on the web the night before, because it turned out to be "It is a fortunate candidate who understands that the exigencies of this profession include the imperative to present reports that are finely formed both gramatically and orthographically."
Seriously! No wonder one of the proto-cop websites I saw said something along the lines of "Sure, a college degree is nice, but don't feel that you have to be a Criminal Justice major. You can be an English major, say. We'd really kind of like to get some more English majors, if you, maybe, know any English majors..." English majors: screw "Want fries with that" right in the ear! Your new catchphrase is, "License and registration, please."
The first part, grammar and spelling multiple choice, had some tricky things; like you had to be able to spell "miscellaneous." You had to know what was synonymous with words like "incorrigble". I was looking at that with my brain going, "'...Do not incorrige.' ...Dammit, I can use it in a sentence, but what gradation of meaning does the dictionary actually give it?" (The correct answer, unless I am wrong [and I am never wrong] was "impossible to be reformed.")
The second part was like a crossword; every 7th word of a piece of writing was dropped out with only dashes left, and you had to fill them in. The writing was very formulaiac and repetitive, but it's still not a trivial exercise.
So, hey, the cop who pulls you over: not necessarily Officer Quimby!
The guy I turned my sheet into said the results would be mailed out in 2 weeks, but I've gotten nothing yet. Yesterday in the grocery store I overheard a cop talking to a friend of his who was applying about the next stage, the interview... Maybe my snailmail is bouncing without notice, too. Grr. Maybe they're so stunned by the way I missed nothing (what can I say, my English skills r0xx0r your b0x3n and I test well) that they think I'm cheating and rather than fuss with it they just canned the application. Bah.
Anyway, there were 40 people taking the test, and 3 of them including me were women. One asian woman about my size in a suit and heels, one white woman in purple dreads about 5'9" and burly. The racial breakdown of the group in general was remarkably even... I'd guess about 35% black, 30% white, 25% pacific islander/hispanic, 10% asian. The asian woman was the best-dressed. Some of the guys showed up in dingy shirts and shorts, but most were somewhere in-between. Everyone looked to be under 30, most looked early 20s.
One encouraging thing was that as we stood in line winding up to the second floor to get checked in, there was a point where there were about 10 of us on a landing at once, and half of them were my height, and the other half were just in the 5'9" range. Of the whole group, it appeared that about 30% were in the 5'6" range with me, 40% in the mid range, and 30% in the 6' tall range. Really nice to not have everyone towering over me.
There was one lefty that I know of, because I switched places with him. It was going to be pretty crappy for him and the people jammed in next to him, because he was in the middle of one of the long cramped tables. He asked the test administrator if he could be reseated, and I volunteered, because I'd luckily been shunted to the very left end of a table. Got to go to the very right end of a table that was still sorta open, too, so I wasn't stuck with his place.
Um... I also got to play Polaris, and see D who was back in town for a week, and I ran a couple sessions of my first campaign, and y'know, it's really hot and I'm going to get more ice.
Oh, and don't see M:I3. I'm probably too late to save you, but, shee-it. A moron better off dead in a stupidly emotionally manipulative piece of plot hole. ("Trust me" is not a synonym for "Yeah, before we get married, you should know that I'm a secret agent, I'll have to vanish on no notice for days or weeks, and I'm liable to get killed within a year." Trust is bullshit. Trust is about taking. Respect is the answer. Respect is something you give.)
Should I be getting you money about now,
simonepdx?Right, anyway, the update of fascinating-things-in-the-life-of, for about the past month, which I've been meaning to put up for about the past month...
About a month back, I had dinner at the Stinking Rose with
prince_corwin, who turns out to be remarkably gallant in person. In a feat of irascible driving on my part, on the way back we ended up at Grace Cathedral. Eight years I've lived here, and it took me this long to walk the Pat--er, labyrinth. We observed the carved golden cathedral doors in the gloaming and attempted to identify the scenes shown there; I was pleased to be able to remember the names of several Old Testament women, though it was of no use. An amusing bit of conversation, reconstructed as best as I can remember:zdashamber: So the scene with the plowing, and the guy about to cut the other guy's head off in the midground... Maybe that's Cain and Abel, sort of time-shifted, "important scenes from the life"...prince_corwin: But there's that city on the hill in the background...zdashamber: Maybe that's the Garden of Eden?prince_corwin: But they'd been thrown out by then.zdashamber: Maybe they were just hanging around outside because they had no place to go.prince_corwin: With their noses pressed up against the glass...Two days after that I took the first test in the process of applying to be a police officer, the test of English and writing. I was expecting "English, motherfucker! Do You Speak It?!" but it's a good thing I checked it out on the web the night before, because it turned out to be "It is a fortunate candidate who understands that the exigencies of this profession include the imperative to present reports that are finely formed both gramatically and orthographically."
Seriously! No wonder one of the proto-cop websites I saw said something along the lines of "Sure, a college degree is nice, but don't feel that you have to be a Criminal Justice major. You can be an English major, say. We'd really kind of like to get some more English majors, if you, maybe, know any English majors..." English majors: screw "Want fries with that" right in the ear! Your new catchphrase is, "License and registration, please."
The first part, grammar and spelling multiple choice, had some tricky things; like you had to be able to spell "miscellaneous." You had to know what was synonymous with words like "incorrigble". I was looking at that with my brain going, "'...Do not incorrige.' ...Dammit, I can use it in a sentence, but what gradation of meaning does the dictionary actually give it?" (The correct answer, unless I am wrong [and I am never wrong] was "impossible to be reformed.")
The second part was like a crossword; every 7th word of a piece of writing was dropped out with only dashes left, and you had to fill them in. The writing was very formulaiac and repetitive, but it's still not a trivial exercise.
So, hey, the cop who pulls you over: not necessarily Officer Quimby!
The guy I turned my sheet into said the results would be mailed out in 2 weeks, but I've gotten nothing yet. Yesterday in the grocery store I overheard a cop talking to a friend of his who was applying about the next stage, the interview... Maybe my snailmail is bouncing without notice, too. Grr. Maybe they're so stunned by the way I missed nothing (what can I say, my English skills r0xx0r your b0x3n and I test well) that they think I'm cheating and rather than fuss with it they just canned the application. Bah.
Anyway, there were 40 people taking the test, and 3 of them including me were women. One asian woman about my size in a suit and heels, one white woman in purple dreads about 5'9" and burly. The racial breakdown of the group in general was remarkably even... I'd guess about 35% black, 30% white, 25% pacific islander/hispanic, 10% asian. The asian woman was the best-dressed. Some of the guys showed up in dingy shirts and shorts, but most were somewhere in-between. Everyone looked to be under 30, most looked early 20s.
One encouraging thing was that as we stood in line winding up to the second floor to get checked in, there was a point where there were about 10 of us on a landing at once, and half of them were my height, and the other half were just in the 5'9" range. Of the whole group, it appeared that about 30% were in the 5'6" range with me, 40% in the mid range, and 30% in the 6' tall range. Really nice to not have everyone towering over me.
There was one lefty that I know of, because I switched places with him. It was going to be pretty crappy for him and the people jammed in next to him, because he was in the middle of one of the long cramped tables. He asked the test administrator if he could be reseated, and I volunteered, because I'd luckily been shunted to the very left end of a table. Got to go to the very right end of a table that was still sorta open, too, so I wasn't stuck with his place.
Um... I also got to play Polaris, and see D who was back in town for a week, and I ran a couple sessions of my first campaign, and y'know, it's really hot and I'm going to get more ice.
Oh, and don't see M:I3. I'm probably too late to save you, but, shee-it. A moron better off dead in a stupidly emotionally manipulative piece of plot hole. ("Trust me" is not a synonym for "Yeah, before we get married, you should know that I'm a secret agent, I'll have to vanish on no notice for days or weeks, and I'm liable to get killed within a year." Trust is bullshit. Trust is about taking. Respect is the answer. Respect is something you give.)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 06:31 am (UTC)There's an idea for a Cheap Ass/Beer and Pretzels game, involving several famous action heroes going around the world, of course, they are all monolingual.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 07:08 am (UTC)Heh, looking that up, I found this: "Water? Never touch the stuff. Fish make love in it. It's disgusting." ---W.C. Fields
At last, I know what Marcus Brody was smoking! I love you, internet!