I think we're going to have a talk with Casper about it tonight. We've been talking up the idea of babies and sisters/brothers generally for a while.

Last night she said, to mr. flea, "This is MY mommy, not your mommy, daddy," and mr. flea said, "Do you know who my mommy is? Grandma T!" and Casper said, "Noooooooo." We then discussed mommy's mommy and siblings, and she was similarly disbelieving. So we have some way to go on the understanding family relationships front.

In terms of 7-footness, I would like to aim for shorter than mr. flea (6'6"). It's hard to be exceptionally tall. I think the odds are decent - my brother is only 5'11'' and my father 6'2" and mr. flea's father is only 6'1". Not that we have any say in the matter.

Yay, flea.

So, review was laughable. They changed the scale this year, so all the scores are lower than last year. Which is fine, but all my scores were below the "competent" level, including "Adheres to department dress code", which I have never once violated. So apparently, I'm not only a crappy tech, but I'm a crappy dresser, too. As a whole, it seemed arbitrary and meaningless and they just gave us the numbers they wanted to give us to justify whatever raise they were willing to give. Ugh.

ION, apparently this entire reorganization was devised by the new CIO, without any input from the existing managers, directors or employees. Whee.

They changed the scale this year, so all the scores are lower than last year. Which is fine, but all my scores were below the "competent" level, including "Adheres to department dress code", which I have never once violated. So apparently, I'm not only a crappy tech, but I'm a crappy dresser, too. As a whole, it seemed arbitrary and meaningless and they just gave us the numbers they wanted to give us to justify whatever raise they were willing to give. Ugh.

That sucks. So they're just trying to blame sucky raises on their employees. Nice.

Also, did you ever see that float yesterday?

That totally sucks, Kalshane.

flea, I have a friend who is significantly shorter than both her parents, but I'm pretty sure she was smoking and drinking and anorexic in middle school, which I'm going to bet stunted her growth. You probably don't want to encourage that, but what do I know.

Jamaicans say that coffee and swinging your leg over someone's head will stunt their growth. If you make your son a citizen of my fair country, there might be some benefits.

Oh, and I think there's something about concrete too.

Question for the hivemind...

What's the wording of the quote about some gay porn being less gay than Angel? Was this originally a Tim statement? Google's giving no love. Well it is trying to give me lots of love but of a gay porn type, where I'm just looking for the wording and source.

IIRC, it's Tim, and it's "Some gay porn? Less gay."

No, I know it's Tim, because he said it to my face. It's the words themselves that might be victim of time and cranial impact.

It's the words themselves that might be victim of time and cranial impact.

"Hey you! The blonde! Quit bonking your head!"

He said it to your face, ita? Okay. I went looking at your profile, because I thought you'd had it as a tag at one point, but couldn't find it. Now that I know it was spoken, I'm less concerned about the exact wording. Thank you.

(FWIW, my memory of the words as written were: Some gay porn? Less gay than Angel.)

CONTRACEPTION FROM ALABAMA TO WYOMING....How does your state rank in providing easy access to contraception and family planning services? Not good enough, says the Guttmacher Institute:

Guttmacher's president and CEO, Sharon Camp, warned that obstacles to contraception at the state level could derail efforts, dating from the Clinton administration, to cut the rate of unintended pregnancies by 40 percent by 2010.

...."We need to be making contraception easy for women, but in many states we're actually making it harder," said Camp. "When effective contraceptive use rises, abortion rates go down."

[link]

Huh. Illinois is 42nd.

The top five include California and New York (no surprise) and Alabama, South Carolina, and Alaska (surprise!). Overall, the rankings clearly don't follow the red/blue divide you'd expect. Peculiar.