Callistonian.net

Have you ever had a moment in which you discover something, then think, “I must tell (someone specific) about this right now!”? I did at about 2:30 am yesterday. Did I let the time faze me? Absolutely not. I called my friend’s cell immediately.

Did she answer? Of course, she did. What’d she say? “OMG WTF!?!? It’s 2:30 am?” Nope… She said, “I’m on the bus. Call me back in 30 minutes.”¹ XD

When is it unacceptable to call you? I have a slight problem with 8 am phone calls. If I’m awake at that horrible time, I’m busy.

After an hour long phone call and some fiddling around, I went up to bed… because staying up all night for no reason isn’t particularly good for your health. While I was falling asleep, something shook. The house? The boat outside? My bed? Everything?—I don’t know exactly, but I reacted with, “Was that an earthquake?!? *blink* No way? I hear an airplane, maybe it was an airplane… Maybe that was thunder? It’s starting to storm again?” My intuition, my initial reaction, was correct (woo!) : it was an earthquake, my first one. We rarely (i.e. never) have earthquakes here.

Random: Ring tones annoy some, but today one made my day! I was in the mall—I went to get those shoes, but they weren’t there—A classy lady with the cutest baby had Wonder Girls’ Tell Me as her ring tone! Tell Me! Tell Me! T-t-t-Tell Me! Like 99.999999999… percent of the people in my city, you’ve probably never heard of it before. :( It’s not an English song… So when the lady’s cell sung, “T-t-t-t-tell me!”, I paused in shock. It was a miracle! XD If you believe in rounding, in my city the chance of encountering someone with that song as a ring tone is 0%.

If there’s anything you’d like me to blog about, comment with the suggestion. Thanks! ♥

¹It wasn’t 2:30 am her time. She lives on the other side of the planet, 13 or thereabouts hours in the future.

How do you spend money? Aside from saving, hording, buying necessities &c., the money I spend tends to fall into two categories: things that are good for my brain and things that are pretty.

My most recent purchase: a Japanese abacus, a soroban. It’s being shipped from Japan now. It’s supposed to help me with my “calculator-dependency.” What’s 21+213+2434+-1232-45+867? I don’t know. I can figure it out, but problems like that make me want a calculator! After I get my magical brain-enhancer (a soroban), I’ll be able to multiply six digit numbers in my head in 3 seconds (like those in this soroban video). Perhaps I won’t become that badass (or close), but I’ll still become better with mental math than I am …

Now that I have you safely impressed by my intellectual ambitions and mad math skillz (more mad math skills here), I’m going to take a risk. I’m going to expose a darker side of my personality. This side of me indulges in Gossip Girl, wears large sunglasses, drinks overly-priced and fancifully titled concoctions from coffee chains, and adventures around in skirts—scared, yet? This silly side of me is also fed up with my intellectual pursuits and has decided that my next random-wth-purchase is going to be impractical, but who cares? What matters here is looks. It has decided that these shoes are pretty. I want them. If they’re at J.Crew when I get there, I’ll be walking out with a new pair of shoes!!1!1! ♥

Anyway, how do you spend your money?

How do you procrastinate? What do you do when bored? I, apparently, write down paradoxes.

Why is it so girly? Am I a girly girl? Perhaps—anyway, some tend to associate math with boys. I’m not a boy. I wanted to make that clear in case anyone decided to lift this image from my blog… ♥

Click on the picture for a larger version.

Traditionally, the Ides of March—RIP Caesar— has treated me poorly. If there’s ever a day when I’m late to work, it will be March 15th. If there’s ever a day when my car breaks down, it will be March 15th. If there’s ever a day when I drop my cell phone and it shatters into a bajillion pieces, it will be March 15th.

What’s gone wrong today?

I forgot my dear drunken panda umbrella somewhere. It’s irreplaceable!  I’m hoping that I left it behind at work. It’s cute, so I doubt that any of my coworkers or students will see past the deceptive pandas… If someone does, I’m sure that (s)he’ll be properly perplexed by the pandas’ cutesy inappropriateness.

Oh—and once on March 15th, I was rushed to the doctor and got 19 stitches. That was fun. :(

I hate March 15th; I want my umbrella back. But I’m not pessimistic or superstitious, so the rest of the day is going to be wonderful, seriously.  Today is my sister’s birthday. XD

Happy Birthday Cynthia! ♥

Pranksters— Prank calling is for __ ? The immature? The bored? The easily amused? Radio DJs? I hardly know. But, in my area, some radio DJs have moved on from terrorizing people on the telephone with gibberish and ridiculous antics.

Have they become more mature? No. Do they still terrorize people on the phone? Absolutely. Now, though, instead of speaking gibberish, they delight in making their prey feel stupid by asking random questions.

DJ: Hello?
Prey: Hello?
DJ: Yeah, I’m sorry—I was wondering if you could help me with something. I have a question.
Prey: Erm… okay.
DJ: Which continent is North America?
Prey: ??? T_T

In the situtation above, the integrity of the person being sacrificed for humor could have been easily saved—I mean, seriously … ! BUT perhaps while putting someone on the spot, asking her to respond to the trick question with “North America is a continent” is asking too much?

Either way, answers such as “Canada” and “4 or 5″ are unacceptable. :( At the time, I couldn’t believe that no one, out of about 10 people, dealt with the question acceptably.

Test— At any rate, I have a test for you.¹ It’s not to make you feel stupid. It’s to make you feel clever. If you handle it well, you’re cleverer than most. ♥

Let’s pretend that the images represent cards. If each card has a vowel on one side, then it has an odd number on the other side. The preceding if statement may or may not be true. So, in order to test this if statement, which card(s) should be turned over?

Here’s the solution. Did you get it wrong or right?

LENE— Have you ever had someone surprise you with something incredibly sweet? Lene sent me a completely unexpected package for my birthday. There were lots of nice things in it including: the cutest little unicorn and material to feed my addictions (a notebook! and stationery!). Thanks so much, Lene. ♥^∞

¹ This test is based on the Wason Selection Task