MBTA WTF?

The 3:45 19 bus hasn't come. The 4:03 19 bus hasn't come. Hopefully
the 4:23 will show up and I'll only be 30 minutes late.

Idea

This probably breaks several laws, but I think it would be
passiveaggressively awesome to install a horn or similar device in my
car that I could press and have it make a car-screeching-to-a-halt
sound when I brake for jaywalkers, people who cut me off, etc.

Delores Handy word of the day

(during weather forecast) "in the Boston, we're talking about..."

More on the plaster front

Thanks to refining my google search terms based on some pointers, I've found many places that will recycle plaster debris in Boston, ENGLAND. Apparently this is common there, and they crush it up to make gravel or pavement, or grind it up and mix it into new plaster. The cheapest place I could find here that does this charges a minimum of $195 for removal of up to a dumpsterfull. I can't find anywhere that will let me just drop off one bag of plaster.

I've posted it on freecycle to see if anyone bites. I've managed to give away everything I've ever offered on there, including bags of leaves raked after yard collection was over, so who knows?

Anyone wanna get plastered?

I have two garbage bags full of chunks of plaster from a wall. I don't want to just throw it into a landfill. I've found places that will recycle it into pavement or whatnot, but they charge hundreds of dollars for a minimum of a dumpster worth. Anyone know of anywhere that would take a small amount?

Used gaylords

For sale here

Copy of the wording of the questions

Wrapup

Standing room only

GBIO senatorial accountability forum

I'm here. Will be posting live over at http://www.twitter.com/erikashira

Baaaaaaaaaaa

Fiddler on the Roof was amazing. Now we're trying to get out of the
theatre.

In honor of National Diabetes Month

November is National Diabetes Month.

Go see what Wilford has to say about that.

Because genetic stuff is just so fascinating

I'm playing around with AccessDNA.com, mostly because it's the least sketchy-seeming of all the genetics websites. I made a profile and put in family history and ethnicity information and whatnot, and it pulled up a report of genetic tests I could seek out to find out more about certain things that my family history and ethnic backgrounds indicate might run in my family. Of course, most of what it pulled up was stuff for which I would have to pay out of pocket to actually get tests run, since it doesn't seem like there's anything serious and/or highly familial that would lead my doctors to think I need any testing for medical purposes. Still, fascinating stuff. When I'm rich, I'm going to do a bunch of recreational genetic testing. I want to do the one that purports to tell what percentage of various ethnicities someone is. There's information on the site about that. Not much on color blindness or HLAB27 though, which do run in my family.

Would you like to buy an O? It will cost you just a nickel.

One time when my brother and I were adolescents, we were watching Sesame Street out of nostalgia. For some reason we had started singing "would you like to buy an O?" so the logical next step was to go see if Sesame Street was still the same.

We found it on TV and waited to see if it was the same. Yep, sure seemed like it: a bunch of kids hanging out on the porch in the hood not thinking it was weird that furry monsters were wandering around blabbing about various delusions, cool geometric patterns made out of household items, little segments that showed what happens at places outside of the inner city such as riverbanks and corn fields. A segment came on that we remembered from the '80s -- a couple of Muppet construction workers up on scaffolding, hammering and chanting in rhythm ("hammer hammer!" *tap* *tap* "hammer hammer!" *tap* *tap*). This was followed by some crazy video-game-looking graphic segment where hammers popped up randomly in the middle of pixelly graphics, all to the tune of some rapid beepy melody -- basically an updated version of my memories of such things popping up in front of swirly psychedelic graphics accompanied by what I now would describe as drug music.

Suddenly the hammers began flying onto the screen like crazy, spinning around. The beeping became faster, and everything screeched to a halt. A stop sign appeared and a stern voice said "stop." My brother and I, being probably 14 and 19, and it being the '90s, instinctively yelled, "Hammer time!" Boy were we surprised when the TV yelled it too, then a bunch of people appeared wearing M. C. Hammer pants! Suddenly we realized why our mom had been so eager for us to watch it even when my brother was way too old for it. We pulled out our old Sesame Street cassette tapes, and sure enough, they were full of '70s/'80s humor that we had just now realized had another level to it beyond just being animated and goofy. I've since found this website of classic clips, and found even more hilarious stuff that I of course totally missed when I was Sesame Street age.

Today on NPR, they played a great piece celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, complete with a lot of clips of particularly controversial moments on the show. Wow, even though my brother and I frequently offer to sell each other an O for a nickel, it didn't occur to me until earlier today that the letter salesperson dealer was selling anything but, um, letters. But, um, yeah, he's sneaking around in alleys, offering to sell people something and telling them to quiet down when they talk about the price too loudly. Yyyyeah.

What a stupid website, at least in Boston

I joined this Around Me website so I could write some reviews and get paid (through Mechanical Turk). I like that it uses facebook connect so I didn't have to create an account, but other than that, it's stupid. For each category, it seems to have only 10 businesses in the Boston area, and there seems to be no way to add more. I went with the three businesses on the whole thing that I had any experience with. It doesn't even seem to be the 10 biggest businesses in the category; it's pulling up a lot of nondescript businesses in Everett and Wakefield and stuff, but not much actually in Boston, and not many particularly interesting businesses.

Plus the whole thing is pretty useless, because we already have Yelp, which does the same thing, only it actually is functional.