Walking through Target yesterday, I discovered the Intimates section has Avengers pajama bottoms for women! And decided right then and there on the spot that I could indulge myself to the tune of $14.99.

So now I can say that my butt has a little Thor on it.

catching up....

Maria, we have the Nest thermostat here at home, and it's quite useful. I assume it would be even better in an environment with more extreme temperatures, so I could warm the house in anticipation of our arrival. (Or cool, if we had A/C. Which would have been nice this summer. I just *had* to be pregnant through one of the warmest summers in SF.) The Nest smoke alarm had some issues, but it looks like those are resolved, so I'll bet that M will install one here at home soon, too.

Why doesn't BK just use squid ink in the black hamburger buns in the US, too? I know I've seen squid ink pasta...

IE, "the scientific discovery that small amounts of dangerous chemicals have life-saving abilities is a no-no because you shouldn't ingest icky naughty things that could be harmful, m'kay?"

Ahahaha. Our Newborn Care class teacher flatly refused to go into any discussion at all about vaccines, even though some people clearly wanted to have a Very Earnest Discussion about the "dangers". I was happy, because I think a shouting match between very pregnant ladies would not have gone well.

Walking through Target yesterday, I discovered the Intimates section has Avengers pajama bottoms for women!

...what?! Well, clearly I need to go to Target this weekend, because I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED.

Ok, I know my degree of aggravation is possibly over the top, but jesus f, people. STOP SENDING ME IMs THAT JUST SAY HI.

Tell me what you need. That's what it's for. By making me stop what I'm doing to respond before you tell me what you need, you turn IM into a more onerous way to communicate than email, not the reverse.

[Also then I get to say a useless hi back, or else say "what do you need" and sound rude.]

Why don't you just leave me a GD voicemail while you're at it and really rocket to the top of my list?

We've had that IM discussion in my office, with the counter being "If you're not going to reply if I say Hi, why should I spent a couple of minutes writing up what I need if you're not there?" There needs to be something like a Ping function so we can be sure the person on the other side of the IM is actually nearby.

You can see if I'm there though. If you haven't been active on your machine it says "inactive for 5 minutes" or whatev.

ETA even "hey do you have a sec" wouldn't bother me nearly as much.

STOP SENDING ME IMs THAT JUST SAY HI.

I also get aggravated by this. Especially since I get IMed by random people all the time who never introduce themselves first, so I have to waste additional time looking up people to figure out who they are after they've just pinged me with, "Hi."

I know I'm probably being Rude McRudeypants, but my time is not infinite.

I was obsessed with the blue people of Kentucky, at one point in high school, after I read an article about it.

Me, too. It's a recessive gene that causes people to have an excessive amount of a form of hemoglobin that has a bluish tinge and doesn't carry oxygen as well as normal hemoglobin. Its best-known cases were discovered in Appalachia, the land of recessive genes. Doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with a blue baby, and a relative said something like, "There's nothing wrong with him. He's a Fugate. His grandmother was the bluest Fugate I ever seen." Methylene blue converts the "bad" hemoglobin to normal.

You can see if I'm there though. If you haven't been active on your machine it says "inactive for 5 minutes" or whatev.

What brave new world that has such wonders in't!

Our system doesn't do that. Statuses are changed manually, and most people don't bother.

But now that were more spread out in this building, the cases of people shooting nerf arrows to get others' attention are down.

As in "I can't prescribe this drug to you because parts of it are harmful in the wrong amount"? IE, "the scientific discovery that small amounts of dangerous chemicals have life-saving abilities is a no-no because you shouldn't ingest icky naughty things that could be harmful, m'kay?"

That's my worry, but I'm hoping he knows better and was just being very inarticulate. Which, okay, still a problem for a writing class but at least I don't have to worry about his comprehension of science.