ender's brother

So I went to look at the blog prog mentioned in his latest post (yesterday), and who do I find is another writer with the same publishing house?
Peter Wiggin.

Does Orson Scott Card know?
(And I'm surprised he's not using an alias... :-)

Word

Yesterday at work, I got an upgrade of Word (Not that I asked for one or anything. And not that they offer any training, even of the "Here's a document showing the major differences" sort.).

Today I'm trying to figure out which new, updated cute icon means "insert text box," and I go looking through all the options available under customizing my toolbar.

And in there, there's an option I've never heard of before: InsertSpike.

Hmmm. Is this something to do with cooking? (thinking of pheromone's avocado dip)
Something to do with building railroads?
Volleyball?
"Buffy"?
Body-piercing?

I haven't yet figured out what it does in Word, though... (OK, not that I actually tried the command, either.)
.

misc

A cow orker said something about a "big honking book," and all I could think about was a manual for geese, which really would have to be relatively small for geese to be able to use them... ("Honking for Dummies"?)

Artichokes are not designed to be breakfast food: though they taste lovely, they take too long to eat and are not filling enough (guess how I figured this out?).

Talking earlier with a (different) cow orker about LASIK eye surgery. My mom has intermittently suggested I get this done. I'm still not sure. Part of it is not knowing what the long term prospects are (OK, and the idea of someone messing with my eyes is scary).
Some of my reluctance is bizarre psychological stuff: I keep finding myself unsure I want to give up the blurry world that is mine when I don't have correction. Seems stupid, but I wonder if I could fall asleep if the world were still un-fuzzy. It's a declaration in the morning when I put on my glasses that I'm ready to face the day. I find it interesting to be able to see the world with (literally) 2 different perspectives: I see things differently, and it reminds me how many different ways there are to see the same things.
(I've always thought a great exhibit at a science museum would give people the chance to see the world not only near- and far-sighted (different levels) and astigmatized (I am so sure that's not the right word.), but also with different kinds of color blindness, and how different animals see (think of fly eyes...))

Note to self: at a certain point, the curry powder does not change the food's color any more. This does not mean that adding more will not make it spicier...

Bird sighting: there are cardinals outside my window (not the kind with the red beanies, the kind that are red all over (no, not the newspaper! (can you tell I've gotten silly this afternoon?)(this squadron of embedded parens tries to emerge from the bedding, and fails completely. Perhaps tomorrow ...)))


)

bowling with drunken actuaries

Something I can safely say I've never done until now. Yes, candlepin bowling (you know, the little balls, like a cross between real bowling and bocci (sp?)) with giddy actuarial types. Actually, I had a lot of fun. The place looks like the 70s haven't ended yet, and we were all silly enough that gutter balls were entertaining... 10 frames, and I managed 60 points (2 frames I had no points at all). Not a great score, but that didn't matter. Glad my friends got through their tests.