Best WotD EVER!

Shenanigan

i LOVE this word! My problem with this word is that because I like using it so much, it tends to lose meaning. I just want everything I do to be classified as shenanigans, or at the very least monkeyshines (and once in a while as hooliganism). I have even adopted the phrase from the marauder's map, "Mischief Managed", as a generic way to say 'I'm done with whatever it is i've been doing', which is typically finishing a miniprep or transfection or cloning step at work -- stuff that probably gets classified as mischief only when the definitions are loose to the point of falling off, or at least instigating wardrobe malfunctions.

BUT ... because it is the word of the day and i love it and strict definitions are for nincompoops, here are some of my shenanigans from the last couple days:

I installed drywall in the room/closet under the stairs. Now we (probably mainly Audrey, since she'll likely do it all during the week to get it overwith) can mud and tape and sand and paint, and we'll be ready for Harry Potter to move in! It is actually to be used for storage of legos, D&D materials, and various other bits and bobs.

I cleaned up the garage after cutting drywall all over it

I replaced/hid the tupperware containers I was using as makeshift sawhorses for cutting drywall after noting i had made a couple incisions into their lids.

I signed up for an account on obsidian portal, which is a wiki site designed for keeping track of game-world settings. I don't know if i'm ambitious enough to transfer everything from my current wiki there, or if i'll just use it to log interesting new ideas I come up with. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Mary got two more fancy staplers for the lab, and i abducted the green one for my desk.

I completed my blog post while waiting for my maxiprep gravity columns to drip! Mischief managed!

Bank Rant

I got a call from Audrey, who was already frustrated from having to make two trips to the bank, wells fargo, trying to deposit the insurance check into our account so we can pay the roofers when they show up. Did I blog about the new roof? anyway, we're getting a new roof, mainly with insurance money, which is great... but the bank today. Audrey first went in with the check, and they said no no no you need the detailed report the insurance adjuster e-mailed you before you can deposit this check, made out to you, into your bank account. Audrey probably sighs with mild frustration at this point, gets the kids packed up, and goes home to retrieve the paperwork, and returns to the bank with everything they told her to bring. They get slightly further into the process this time, before revealing that actually she isn't allowed to deposit the check because she is not the primary name on our mortgage. What does this have to do with anything, when this is supposed to be between the insurance company and our bank account? i don't know, but our mortage is through wells fargo, and her name is prominently on the account, just not in the primary position. Still, that isn't good enough. Thomas A Rinkoski has to handle the transaction personally. So she calls me, and I take my lunch break, she drops the papers off (she was headed downtown to take the kids to the library anyway), and I go to the downtown branch armed with the check, all the paperwork, and photographic ID proof that I am, in fact, myself. I left a centrifuge spinning with my maxiprep DNA, figuring it would finish the last 20 min of its spin, slow down for 5 minutes, and I'd be back to get it out. So I am in the bank, and present my paperwork to banker 1, who is immediately joined by a presumably more experienced banker 2, who will show banker 1 how to process an insurance claim check. They call the insurance company to find the web address of the online claim check application, which makes it so easy, because you don't have to call them on the phone anymore! Then they fumble around on the online application, and call back because they can't figure out the tab system of progressing through the claim. They input a few numbers seemingly at random from the stack of paperwork I've given them, and we seem to be at a point where we can proceed to depositing the check. They take the check and my ID and go to photocopy it, then return with a pained expression, because the check is made out to Tommy AND Audrey -- not Tommy OR Audrey -- which apparently means that it needs both our signatures. Audrey never got this far, so she has not signed the check, assuming that when they told her that I had to do it, that included endorsing the check. Luckily, a phone call reveals she is still downtown at the library. So i run over there, get her signature, and run back to the bank. Then we can proceed to depositing the check. The only stumbling block remaining is that we need a manager to sign off on the whole thing. The managers are both in a meeting. When they let me know this, I use my 4 years of training as an actor to downplay my expression of frustration to a reasonable level, and they go knock on the door to interrupt the meeting and get the signature. So now everything is ready, and these bankers have everything they need! All that needs to happen now is to simply deposit the signed-off, doubly-endorsed, insurance-approved fucking check. The banker's eyes go to the longish line in front of the tellers. I make the realization that the personal bankers with their nice little offices and individual computer stations, cannot deposit a check into my account. A teller has to do that. The banker offers to wait in line for me, and mail me the receipt. I know its a bad move to accept this, based on the incredible level of efficacy they have displayed over the course of the day, but I do, because I have been at the bank (or running to the library) for more than an hour now, and if there is any chance of salvaging my prepped DNA back at the lab, I need to get there fast. They almost manage not to return my paperwork, and I finally make a getaway.

So today, I deposited a check into my checking account, and it took two branches, four entrances into the bank, 4 bankers, a bank manager, and at some point a teller, over the course of about 2.5 hours.

However, on the bright side, and I feel I must remind myself of this - we're getting our roof paid for by insurance, and that's pretty cool.

WotD

Vellicate:

1. To touch (a body part) lightly so as to excite the surface nerves and cause uneasiness, laughter, or spasmodic movements.

2. To irritate as if by a nip, pinch, or tear.

3. To move with spasmodic convulsions.

So, today's word seems to have everything to do with sensory nerves in the skin being stimulated. The first definition brings to mind running a feather along skin, the next seems far less pleasant, and the third is doing its own thing.

I've got Dexter on the brain, and all I'm thinking about is how to make an interesting segue out of 'vellicate'. There are certainly plenty of interactions with sensory nerves in the skin on that program, but most of them involve blades, and it doesn't seem like 'vellicate' quite covers that sort of interaction.

I finished season one last night, and was completely glued to it. I found only very minor disappointment as I rushed through the first season in the last week, and lots of interest. I'm generally interested in a novel sort of premise or show, and having a serial killer for your POV character/protagonist certainly counts as a deviation from the norm. The writing and acting and rate of plot discovery are engrossing enough that I have a lot of fun trying to put together what is going to happen next. The characters are nearly all three dimensional, with flaws and strengths, and I liked watching the relationships grow and change through the season. I might start season two as early as tonight, but for now, my verdict is that if you're not immediately put off by the gore, you should check this series out.

Book report - Colour of Magic

I just finished reading the first book of the discworld series/saga/collection. Over time, I've read a couple of the discworld books, and I thought maybe it would be fun to start at the beginning.

Pratchett certainly has a gift for satirical comedy, and he plays with the fantasy genre in a fun way, but I think that I'm much more attached lately to the deeper storytelling kind of novels, and finding authors that write characters that engage me and pull me through a colorful and deeply realized alternate world. The Song of Ice and Fire books by George RR Martin are great for this. I also like R Scott Bakker's series, the name of which i can't remember. I recently finished 'Red Wolf Conspiracy' the first book by Robert VS Redick in a series/trilogy? with a bunch of adventure and intrigue aboard a ship ...

and i am now apparently listing books i've liked instead of writing something about pratchett's novel.

What's fun to me is how he turns the wacky mythology of a fantasy setting into something that is very real to the characters, and is an integral part of the story. Trying to make up a counter example, a fantasy book might take place on a world with two suns and four moons that square dance in the sky every 24 hours, but then the books are really about the interpersonal interactions of the characters, or the intrigue of competitors vying for a throne, or a small band of heroes slaying something and taking its booty. The story doesn't have anything to do with the fantastic setting. Colour of Magic does almost the opposite - focusing closely on what living in a world with magic means, from the eighth color, octarine, to the the way that gods directly interfere with mortals, the book is almost about looking (satirically) at the details of a fantasy world that might get glossed over somewhere else. The book starts with a description of the flat world atop elephants atop a'tuin the space turtle, and it ends with some of the characters flying off the edge of the world.

WotD

Ruction: A disturbance, quarrel, or row

Also, the origin of ruction is uncertain, though it possibly derives from insurrection

Insurrection was also a Star Trek movie with the next generation cast.

Ruction bethinks me of rupture

So I say ruction, and it sounds like something is breaking.

I wonder if ruckus derives from ruction, because if I was going to pick a word that you could define as a disturbance, quarrel, or row, it would probably be a ruckus.

I think yesterday's WotD post was far more interesting than this one.

Word of the Day, and other stuff.

Saw an ad for dictionary.com's word of the day. With some hefty doubts about my ability to be so consistent, here starts the first word of the day post series, wherein I will examine, use, or at least type the word of the day.

Piquant: agreeably stimulating, interesting, or attractive

I think I have it. Just bear with me through this unrelated backstory:

We finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone two nights ago, and Audrey worked out the netflix so that the movie would arrive the next day, yesterday. This whole experience has been very fun. I get to read it aloud, play with accents, and enjoy delivering a really good story to the kids -- I especially like the reactions on the face parts of my kids.

Over the course of reading it, a low- to mid-grade Potter fever has sprung up in our house. The kids went through their clothes in preparation for school, and it turned into a Sorting, with Houses of clothes based on whether they were too big, too small, and in good condition or not.

Our system of rewarding the kids with 'pebbles', marbles in a jar which earn special rewards when the jar fills, was revamped to represent House Points to Cainfyndor, Rae-Raevenclaw, and EthanPuff. As distributors, Audrey and I are Professors Momgonagal and Dadbledore.

The whole thing makes me smile.

Okay, end of backstory - the piquant thing to me here is the texture of Audrey's back, which I was running my hands over last night while we were all watching Harry Potter and she was lying with her head on a pillow in my lap.

Also unrelated: Yesterday was phenomenal. Great, almost autumnal weather, barbequed chicken for dinner, with the oh-so-bad-for-me-salty-fatty crackling skin it gets when fresh off the grill after being brushed with olive oil/salt/pepper. And Harry Potter. And Audrey's piquant back. And 2 episodes of Dexter on netflix instant.

What soup are YOU in?

Sitting in front of me is the magic item compendium, a sporty red Hot Wheels car, and a glowing cruzer thumb drive.

oh thumb drive, please shine your warm and forgiving orange-ish light on the D&D adventures that I save on your voluminous 4 gigabytes.

to my right is a white mouse

to my future are many cats, who will probably never get a chance to chase a mouse.

um, and I'm wearing red today.

I was sent an article written about St. Genesius, patron saint of actors, who is a saint because while performing a play where his character converted to christianity, he was so convincing that he matched reality to performance, and was more or less immediately put to death for doing so.

The article mentioned without quite focusing entirely on the idea that acting things can change the actor, and can become realities in various ways.

Now, I have so far NOT stabbed the eyes out of horses or travelled to the underworld to retrieve my dead wife, but I do like the idea that pretending can become real. And not in any way related to my magical fantasy world enjoyment hobby - I consider this a nice seasoning atop reality, but not a soup I actually want to boil in. More in the way that maybe if I pretend to be better than I am in a given way for long enough, i get practice at such betterment, and may eventually actually be better.