Random Thoughts Anew

[wareagle]

We use Outlook.  I should pass this on to our IT people.

For the record, when I tried a fake cat appointment, I got no pictures, nothing.  :(   

[apl68]

I'm sitting in a restaurant, waiting for an order to arrive.  All the people around me are strangers.  It's too crowded for social distancing, and nobody is wearing a mask.  This is making me nervous.

From the staff area we keep hearing a supervisor calling for a staff member.  Then we hear her chewing out the staffer.  Then we hear what sounds like a fight.  Yikes!

They start to bring the food out, with a big pot of rice first.  Then the rice is taken back, as if the staff had made a mistake.  I notice that my water glass has somehow disappeared too. 

Then I look out the window and notice that it's getting dark.  Then they turn the lights out inside so that we can hardly see.

Then I wake up.  The bizarre dining experience was all just a dream.  Thank goodness!

[downer]

I had a dream that I was in a crowded room and it felt so good.

In the same dream, I had resolved to move to Australia.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I just posted a vet appointment for the cat (interthreaduality) in my work Outlook calendar, and I'll be damned if it doesn't put a picture of a cat on there!  I tried "dog vet appointment" for a fake, and it puts a dog picture!  FINALLY, I've stumbled on something the school's IT products do right!  :-)

(Yes, I am embarrassed by how happy the cat picture made me.  It really doesn't take much these days.)

I just tried this and it works! I get little cat and dog icons, but no bird icons. It also works for 'vet.' 'Birthday' gives you a little cake icon. 'Concert' gives you a music note. 'Doctor' gives a little med kit. Ok, I need to stop procrastinating.

[AmLitHist]

I just posted a vet appointment for the cat (interthreaduality) in my work Outlook calendar, and I'll be damned if it doesn't put a picture of a cat on there!  I tried "dog vet appointment" for a fake, and it puts a dog picture!  FINALLY, I've stumbled on something the school's IT products do right!  :-)

(Yes, I am embarrassed by how happy the cat picture made me.  It really doesn't take much these days.)

I just tried this and it works! I get little cat and dog icons, but no bird icons. It also works for 'vet.' 'Birthday' gives you a little cake icon. 'Concert' gives you a music note. 'Doctor' gives a little med kit. Ok, I need to stop procrastinating.

You're welcome!  ; )

[mahagonny]

Perhaps I am getting a little too attached to my documents.

[apl68]

A neighborhood in New York is now being terrorized by a deranged squirrel.  Hope they run down the culprit quickly.  Crazy squirrels can be scary.  Anything that can crack hickory nuts with its teeth can be dangerous if it has a mind to be! 

I've never been harmed by a deranged squirrel, but I had one try to steal my lunch on three separate occasions some years ago.  One one of those it came over the back of the bench I was sitting on, ran down my arm, and stole my sandwich right out of my hand.  Another time it leaped from the ground directly onto my chest and began crawling down my arm, sniffing for peanut butter.  We should all be glad that squirrels are normally too timid to use their ninja-like abilities for aggression.

[mamselle]

And--I hate to ask, but...can they get rabies?

I know raccoons and skunks can.

The aggro might have come from something like that, if so.

Glad you were safe.

M.

[FishProf]

Squirrels and other rodents very rarely are found to have rabies, and none are known to have transmitted it.

[mamselle]

I only asked because we had a rabid skunk running around in weird circles in the parking lot across the street from an apartment I used to live in.

They called animal control but the animal control officer was out that day.

So a regular police officer discharged his weapon (I presume after calling in for clearance) and shot the skunk...once, in the head, from 10 feet away.

It was hard to tell if the cordite or the skunksmell was more pungent....but at least people stopped crossing over to the other side of the street and sidling away.

M.

[apl68]

I learned yesterday that Rotier's Restaurant in Nashville has closed:


https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/dining/2021/02/05/rotiers-close-nashville-after-nearly-75-years-cheeseburgers/5864885002/


They had been open in the same location, owned by the same family, for over 70 years.  During the late 1990s some friends and I used to go there often for a late supper after church on Wednesday evenings.  We usually had the place just about to ourselves at that time of evening.  It was just the kind of locally-owned greasy spoon hamburger place that you used to see everywhere.  Nothing special--which, in a sense, is what made it special.  I still have vivid memories of going there on a chilly night with those friends.  Haven't been there in over 20 years--on my visits back I've never felt much like going there by myself.

They're yet another casualty of the pandemic.  Also, they didn't have their lease renewed after somebody bought their building.  Nashville being Nashville, one of three things will happen to the property.  It will either be replaced by pricey apartments, or a bar (Like Nashville doesn't have 5000 of those already!), or an upscale chain restaurant.  None of those sounds like a good tradeoff to those of us who remember eating at Rotiers.

[mamselle]

I'm sorry for your loss....meant sincerely.

It's a kind of death when friendly, gentle places we recall with happy associations go away.

All the chrome and glass doesn't balance it out.

M.

[ab_grp]

Does anyone else read magazines from back to front (end to beginning? backward?)? I just realized I was doing it again.  Maybe the magazines I read just tend to put the interesting stuff at the end.

[mamselle]

I read the New Yorker from back-to-front sometimes, when the cartoon contest is particularly enticing...

M.

[downer]

I share my course notes with students by putting them on Google Docs and making them shareable.

One nice feature of that is that I can go to them and see icons for how many students are viewing the docs at any particular time. It is good to see that at least some students do look at them. Then of course there are they students who just paraphrase what I have written for their responses. Still, they made some effort.