Gus is just way too cute

Don't tell the others, but Gus is my favorite co-worker ever.

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Walking, not pooping

"Let's go for an evening constitutional," I suggested.

The room erupted into giggles. I had a faint notion I was using the word incorrectly. Come to think of it, I had a vague notion that it meant going #2. But hadn't Teddy Roosevelt been a fan of the evening constitutional? Surely he wasn't talking of a presidential poop?

"You know," I clarified. "A walk?"

"That's not what constitutional means," I was told. "It means pooping."

Well, check this, suckers:

con·sti·tu·tion·al
NOUN: A walk taken regularly for one's health.

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I prefer Pants

Pictured below are two taskbar buttons (one old, one new) for the Ants Profiler, a tool we use at work for profiling our code. For no reason other than that it amused me to see "Pants Profiler" on my taskbar, I was sad when they changed the icon.

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The Aural Times

Josh has a new obsession. He's singing the news, so you don't have to. I highly recommend checking out The Aural Times. It's good stuff.

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Love at first sight

There was such a sense of elation when I first sat on my bicycle. It's mine, now -- it's official. I signed to authorize the Visa charge.

It's pretty and it feels so much better than all the other bikes I test rode, including two that had frames designed specifically for women. (Despite the fact that strangers tend to call me "sir," I am at least proportioned like a woman in the sense that I have long legs and a shorter torso than men of my height.)

I rode four other bikes before jumping on my Bianchi Volpe. I liked a couple of them, but kept coming back to some advice a co-worker gave me: "Don't buy a bike unless you love it." Good advice. While riding the other bikes, I couldn't say with any conviction that I loved any of them. All that changed when I hopped on the Volpe. I just knew. I rode maybe a total of eight blocks before turning around and telling the salesman, "This is my bike."

Plus, it has leopard print on the saddle. Not the whole thing, mind you. Just enough to say, "check out my sassy ride, yo."

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Superb, indeed

I thought we'd broken Brian. He lurched off his chair, clutching his sides and holding his glass of red wine at a precarious angle over the beige carpet. His face was turning purple as he ran into the kitchen, possibly to throw up in the sink. He was laughing that hard.

It would be great if it was something funny and clever I said that sent him into such convulsions, but I can take no credit. The Superb Lyrebird was to blame.

There were about five of us, and I had interrupted the conversation to make everyone watch part of The Life of Birds, a wonderful series by David Attenborough. I've been getting the DVDs from Netflix and came across the Superb Lyrebird while watching the second disk the night before.

"You've got to see this," I said. Nobody seemed all that keen to watch it, but I couldn't help myself, and forged ahead. The DVD was located and forwarded to the right place. At first, there was talking over the calls of the Superb Lyrebird. Things quieted down while the bird did a pretty good impression of R2D2 -- I'm pretty sure he was the hired voice actor for most of the Star Wars sound effects. Then he made a sound like a camera shutter. This instantly led to less talking and more giggling. Then he perfectly mimicked a camera with a motor drive. Then, a car alarm.

"Holy shit," someone said. There was more giggling.

But the Superb Lyrebird wasn't yet finished. He was in a patch of forest, singing his mating song, and he was just getting revved up. Somewhat literally, as the next part of his song almost killed Brian. He exactly immitated a chainsaw.

A chainsaw!

And that's when Brian broke.

You can listen to a Real Audio version of the bird's song, linked from the PBS page about the show, but it's not the same (at least on my crappy laptop speakers). I'd recommend getting disc 2 of the Life of Birds series so you can see it with the video. The rest of the series is rad, but this stands out as my absolute favorite so far. I just hope Brian didn't break any ribs.

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I'm in love

It was such a dreamy feeling. I threw my leg over the saddle, put my feet on the pedals, and off I went. Its name is Bianchi, and it's very much like the Volpe, although the one I test rode only had nine speeds. The Volpe might be in the running, but I don't think I'll end up buying the one I rode. More than nine speeds seems important in case I, you know, encounter a hill. But this is the first road bike I've ridden -- the first bike of any kind I've been on since I got my Specialized hybrid bike a few years ago. And it was beautiful.

Unfortunately for my trusty old Specialized, I hate it now. It was fine when I wasn't using it that regularly, but now I'm commuting to work, and that's about 13 miles round trip. My current bike is heavy and stupid and a little bit too small for me. I want the freedom of the lighter bicycle with narrower tires. I want the wind rushing through my helmet to be more noticeable than the burning in my quads. Woman should not cycle using quads alone.

The hunt is on.

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So much cute

Koza is a lion cub who was recently born at the San Diego Zoo. His twin died, so they got him an Italian mastiff puppy named Cairo to play with. Cute.

Speaking of cute, I found this on cuteoverload.com, a site dedicated to cuteness. I can't look away. It's like a train wreck of cute.

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I'll (probably) never be...

• ... a Solid Gold dancer.
• ... an autocrat.
• ... on the moon.
• ... able to understand superstring theory beyond a pedestrian level.
• ... invisible.
• ... a political refugee.
• ... famous (thank goodness).
• ... warm enough.
• ... able to leap tall buildings, regardless of the number of bounds I take.

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