In Which: Four More Days, Injury-Prone, Temperature Prevarication, Nerd News.

Monday is almost over - the last Monday at my summer co-op job. After this week, I'm back at university. It's been a really long summer, and it's been a really short summer. I feel like it really wasn't summer at all, except for the bloody heat.
I have sat in an office chair, and I have run around fixing printers. I have imaged computers, and I have wiped computers. I have counted printer pages, and I have swept the floor. I have gotten frustrated with users and computers because Everything is Broken Forever, and I have had the Tech Aura^TM make things magically work (yes, that's a thing. Sort of. It's like the Force. If you have the Tech Aura, all you have to do is look at a computer and it just works).
But this time Friday, I'll be out of here. Feels weird, man.

I did my 5k run on Saturday, with my bestie.
Normally, 5k takes me about 45 minutes. Saturday's run took me 43ish, and that was after walking the last km.
The only reason I walked the last km was that my knees were killing me. Stabbing pain and stuff. My muscles would have been perfectly happy to do the whole damn run, and in (comparatively) very good time, but my joints, my stupid joints. I got across the finish line and then was so mad at my stupid freaking knees that I cried. The First Aid tent people gave me a tensor bandage for the worst knee, and some ice for both. I kept it wrapped all yesterday, and it's still giving me achyness today, so I've got it wrapped again.
Other than that, it was a fun run, in the dark with glowsticks and colourful clothing. So much NEON, my eyes hurt...
And there were two little girls, about 10 and 8, who ran it, and they were troopers. They passed me right at the end. I was vicariously proud of them.

Still trying to figure out the best combination of blankets/window/pajamas to go with the hammock - ideal temperature is hard when you overheat on top and freeze on the bottom. Other than that, I'm still liking it. Because hammock.

In Lizzi's Nerd News, some people on reddit have come up with an idea within the last day: to make a sort of "Usenet 2.0"/"P2Preddit". This was spawned from a thread on a post (on a wart on a frog on a bump on a log... whoops, sorry, got carried away there) on /r/linux about the 22nd anniversary of Linus Torvalds' Usenet post that "started it all".
Another reddit member said this about it:

"An updated usenet wouldn't be a bad thing definitely.
With what else is going on in the world, leaving mass information centralized in the hands of a few government-intertwined corporations probably isn't best for future generations - encryption is a requirement."

Sounds about ideal for my recent tinfoilhattedness. I've signed on to help if I can. Because hey, why not? Plus, if it leaves the ground, it's good to have projects under one's belt when looking for a job. Not that that's my primary motivation - I'm really just interested in the whole thing. So far the noises people are making are in the direction of PGP plus some kind of Web-of-Trust system. So yeah.

That's about it. Toodles.

In which I use Physics, and possess Insanity.

I am slightly insane.

I like being insane, so it's okay, but let me tell you all about my insanity.

I mentioned at the beginning of the month that I was thinking about making a hammock for sleepage. Well, I did it.
It went through a couple iterations, but I did end up sleeping in it last night.

I had to create a stand, because I didn't want to put holes in my walls (yay renting!), and I wanted a simple stand that didn't take too much work and could be dismantled without too much effort. I decided that the stand variously known as the TurtleDog or Tripod stand was the most practical. The second iteration regressed to the vanilla Turtlelady stand, because the Olddog variation collapsed on top of me (ow...).

Let me explain that last paragraph...
A contributor on hammockforums.net, known as Turtlelady, came up with a dual-tripod+suspended-crossbar stand made of bamboo.
The physics of this is that a tripod is very sturdy, and if one were to suspend something from the centre joint of a tripod, between the legs, this is a very stable place to hang. If you had one tripod and a bat-hammock (all corners hang from a single point, and yes, this is a thing), you'd be good to go.
However, an ordinary hammock (especially a loaded one) pulls inwards towards itself from either end, so even if you were to hang both ends of the hammock from two tripods, they would collapse because it's not a direct downward pull.
Hence the suspended crossbar.
Hang each end of the crossbar from the centre joints of the two tripods, and each end of the hammock from the ends of the crossbar. The crossbar takes the horizontal inward force from the loaded hammock, and the tripods take the vertical force. At that point it becomes very sturdy indeed.
Turtlelady's stand was based on the three poles in each tripod being lashed together with rope, and another rope farther down the legs to keep them from splaying out and collapsing downwards.
Another contributor known as Olddog made a variation on the Turtlelady stand, where the inside two legs of each tripod are screwed onto one half of a gate hinge, and the outside leg is on the other half of the hinge. Hence why it got called the TurtleDog stand - a little bit from each contributor. The Olddog version is little more industrial-looking, and (I thought) a little more sturdy.

It seems I didn't get strong enough hinges, is the short version; I set it up for the first time last night, and everything went well for several hours, until the legs twisted around and bent the hinges and the whole lot came down, at about 9.15pm last night. I'm just glad nothing broke.

Of course I had already adjusted my bedroom to make room for this thing, including standing my mattress/boxspring up against the wall, and I, being the stubborn, do-it-all-by-my-own-fucking-self, pigheaded chick that I am, was determined that I would not put my bed back down for love nor money. No, the hammock and stand would do what I wanted, even if I was up til 11.00 to do it.

Happily, I had picked up a package of 100m or so of poly cord from Canadian Tire just in case (in case of what? I wasn't sure, but now I know!), so I dismantled the tripods and hinges and used the cord to lash the hell out of those poles. I also took the screws from the hinges and screwed down another piece of poly cord to keep the legs from splaying out too far.
I even tried to put my small knowledge of physics to use, and set up the two tripods to twist in opposite directions (because when you use lashing, the legs have to twist past each other in order to open up) so that both tripods won't overtwist in one direction and collapse, which is partially what happened with the hinges - I looked at them after they came down, and they'd both twisted the same way. It works in my head, I'm not sure if it's real physics or just Lizzi-brain-physics, but I'll go with it. Any real physicists want to chime in on this? For science!?

Anyways, after that, I got it set up with no more issues, all was well, and I slept in the damn thing, and I was even in bed a little early.

The only thing I didn't like was that it was a little colder than usual, so I didn't sleep as well as I could have, but I have an idea to fix that too. I'll see how it goes tonight.

So that's it. Toodles all.

Too many shows.

My friend got me hooked on Supernatural.

This would normally not be a bad thing, except that I'm also trying to watch Torchwood.

However, I just finished episode 12 of season 1. Yes, I know, I have a lot to catch up on. The point being, I predicted the plot of this one well before half of the show was over.

(Warning: I'm going to start ranting about plot, and if you've never seen Supernatural and you plan to, you might want to stop now and go somewhere else until you get past ep. 12. Unless you don't care about silly spoilers. In which case, be my guest. Because I'm going to pretty much tell the story here. Although I guess this show is now a good seven years old, so while I'm late to the party, I guess that means that a spoiler warning is technically pointless.)

So. Summary of plot.
Dean gets all electrocutey, gets heart damage as a result. Sam is desperate to save him, and drags him off to this blind faith healer (who himself had been miraculously healed of cancer, after which he can apparently heal others) in Nebraska. Dean gets healed, but some other kid dies of a heart attack for no reason - at exactly the same moment. They figure this out, and figure out who's to blame, stop the culprit, blah blah blah, happy-ish ending.
I say "ish" because the nice cute blonde chick with brain cancer and six months to live never gets healed. Sadface for Dean, who has a crush. Well -- he kind of has a crush on every cute blonde they find in terrible danger, just saying.

Now here's where I start ranting.

Halfway through, they start suspecting that the healer guy isn't all he's cracked up to be. They think he's got a tame Reaper that he uses to mess with life & death. Well, that requires a binding spell. So they go snooping in his house and find...
A spell book. With a binding spell in it. Yay. But...

Dudes. Think a minute.

The blind guy is reading a book, now?

And yet they still think it's him.
Use your brains; it's his wife, numbnuts! The one who went totally desperate when she saw her husband dying? Seriously. As obvious as a pie in the face. But I digress.

So then Dean stops one of the meetings. The healer guy's wife says, and I quote, "The Lord will deal with him as He sees fit..."

Like, really? Sam, Dean - you guys don't see what she's saying? That phrase there means that you're the next victim, Dean, and that she's the one playing God with a Reaper on a leash.

Winchester must be another word for blonde, I swear, because these guys seem to be a special kind of clueless in this episode. They made it past at least 11 other monsters (including a Norse Vanr) and they can't freaking figure this out. Although I suppose they could be PMSing. Yeah, that's gotta be why they're so far off their game.

Anyways. Entertaining episode, and not as freaky as Bugs, or as heart-stopping as The Hook Man, or as disturbing as the scene from Home with the plumber in the kitchen (seriously, by the way, was I the only one who could see that coming a mile away? Poltergeist + plumber + "backed up" garburator == very bad things) ... but predictable-as-hell plot.

Rant over :)

Oh yes, and I almost forgot. The dodgeball tournament I was supposed to be in this weekend? We had to drop out. Not enough players. Just as well, I don't think we were quite prepared.
And my pinky finger that I jammed on a ball during dodgeball practice two weeks ago? Pretty sure I must have fractured it, because it shouldn't still be this painful/swollen, although the swelling did go down some, but it's not down fully. Maybe I should go to a clinic... *shrug*

Toodles, love you all!

In which I'm clumsy.

I learned a new word today: pantagruelian. It means enormous, and adequately describes the way my pinky finger looks today, as a result of last night.
Last night I went to dodgeball practice (Don't laugh at me. I joined up for a tournament at the end of the month that's for charity. After that it's done. And by the way we could use more players, particularly female ones.... ...Anyways). We were practicing by standing one person against a wall and a) practicing aim by throwing at the person, and b) practicing dodging by being the one against the wall. It was my turn against the wall, and someone said, "Hey! Try to catch this one!" So I tried. And smushed my pinky finger really badly.
It's all swollen now, and purple. Sadface. I don't think it's broken, cos I could move it yesterday - it's too fat and swollen to move much now - but it still flipping hurts.

I had the best/worst moment at work today. I went to sit on a chair to do some stuff. Didn't realise it wasn't under my butt. Sat down, astonished myself thoroughly, and landed on the floor. I laughed at myself properly after that. Ended up with a wee bruise on my backside, and a slightly larger bruise on my pride, but nothing serious.

Other than that, been a pretty slow couple of days. I may colour my hair when I get home - it's starting to bug me a bit more now. Yay roots.

So yeah. Toodles...