fine whine

I have no excuses for my (regularly scheduled) posting lapse. I'm no less interested, or interesting, I merely haven't posted anything. My apologies to my few remaining readers.

That said, one of the trivial mysteries of my life may well have been solved: I think I've figured out why I dislike looking in mirrors in the dark*. I avert my gaze from mirrors in low lighting because I can't make out faces, particularly my own. Every fifth or sixth grader knows that the human eye uses cone and rod cells for vision in bright and dim lighting, respectively. The rods are what let people see in near-darkness, but they're concentrated more on the outside of the retina and function best in peripheral vision. To look directly at something, then, with the rods is to see less than glancing at it sidelong.

Enough mumbo jumbo (if you want more, feel free to read up on rods and the eye at the Wikipedia). In the dark, if I look directly at my reflection in the mirror, I am unable to make out the details of my face. This seems to be unnerving, as I find myself deliberately looking in mirrors in the dark.

At least, that's my hypothesis, and I'm sticking to it.

* Well, other than the old childhood childish 'Bloody Mary' superstition, which I'd like to think I've long since outgrown but haven't tested to be certain.

I'm filing this under coincidences because it is, more or less, one of them.

This morning as I picked out my wristwatch* I glanced at it to see if it was running. Its minute and second hands pointed between 8 and 9, so I figured that it being somewhere between 8:33 and 8:45 am (given the fact that my watches are all between 0 and 7 minutes fast) was fine, and hurried off to work.

It was only later, about twenty minutes later, in fact, that I noticed the time on my watch hadn't changed. In fact it had stopped sometime yesterday (8:42 am or pm), and I had somehow managed to look at it during the window today when the time was more or less correct. I hadn't looked at the date.

Fully knowing, then, that it isn't running, I've checked it at least three times today. Still wrong. It'll be right tonight, though.

* Not being much of an accessories fellow, the only fashion/jewelry indulgence I have is my collection of watches. I could wear a different one each day to work, and even coordinate them to the outfits, to some degree. Today, being 'casual Friday', I grabbed one with a leather cuff to give my t-shirt and baggy jeans that extra street touch. Or skater, or punk, or whatever.

Some twenty-one or twenty-two nights ago* I began a low-impact workout regimen: I walked (or jogged, trudged or strolled) on the treadmill every night, burning twenty-five more calories each night than I had done the night before.

My total, as of the ones I burn tonight, is 6,900 calories.

On one hand, that seems like a big number (especially since I didn't do it on one hand, but two feet) but on the other, that's just over three and a half times the recommended total daily intake of calories.

But either way, it's more than none.

Back when we first had the 'mill there were a number of nights I'd do a good thousand or thousand and a half during a movie, but those were not consecutive nights, and many, many more nights when I could say "I've been on the treadmill" it was because I hopped on for a second or two. After a month, I even stopped doing that.

Last month I tried a similar experiment with less sustainable numbers: I doubled the calories every day, starting with three. I only made it through a week, but the intervals were unreasonable anyway.

I realize I can't keep adding 25 a day for the long term, but I haven't yet hit that point where I didn't think I could do just that little bit more the next night. 25 out of 575 isn't all that much, after all, and thus 25 out of 600, and 700, and so on...

* Counting the days back to February 20th is tougher when I count many of the hours past midnight (i.e. the next day) as still that day. Maybe I should just say "Three Mondays ago..." and be done with it.

What does it say about me about that I've been wearing a watch all day, and only now, at lunchtime, have I noticed that I forgot to set it* this morning. What does that say about me?

Other than that I need to get one of those automatic watch winding machines?

But would one of those really help? Half of my watches (of the ones not broken) are set seven minutes ahead or more and the others are within seven seconds of real time.

Too bad I can't remember which ones are which.

* It's one of my automatics. The Waltham, if it matters to you. What mattered to me, other than the fact that it was self-winding, was that it had an orange second hand. That, and it was a really cheap Waltham.

Despite what I may say, my job isn't entirely mindless. I was thinking today about writing about work, and I had what I thought was a good topic, even.

I had been walking to the bathroom, averting my gaze to dodge greeting to a coworker with whom I am acquainted but not friendly, and attempting to look deep in thought, when I started thinking about people and names.

For some reason the idea struck me that it would probably be adequate to crash any meeting or other corporate gathering by bluffing an acquaintance with a guy whose name starts with "J", but a nickname one, like "Jack" or "Jay". Powerful men (and perhaps women, even, these days) always have a "Jack" or a "Jay" among them atop their bureaucratic heirarchy.

And then, as I heard one of the urinals flush itself, I realized that the ability to hoodwink oneself into a meeting isn't one that most people would want to acquire. At least, not the kind of people I know.

It was early in the morning. What can I say?

And in my ongoing quest to have every printer I can reach available to me, I have succeeded in adding our networked copier to my options*. I'm probably the only person connected to it, and that's fine with me. It burns through staples like nobody's business, though I'll try to staple stuff sparingly.

Well, somewhat sparingly. Serves 'em right for networking the thing, and moreover for posting its address so prominently. Otherwise I might need to, oh, I don't know, make it print out its configuration.

What should surprise me, but doesn't, is the fact that I'm probably the only person who ever tried this. Like I said above, I'm probably the only one connected right now.

* The fact that it is a networked printer/copier is no surprise to me. It has always been labeled with a network address, and in previous jobs I'd set up similar machines, but I hadn't messed with this one long enough before to have already added it. Now I have, and it's yet another printing option for me... one sitting next to a bank of three other printers.

I burned twenty-five calories on the treadmill tonight.

It took me less than a minute to do. I suspect later workouts* will need to be a bit longer, at least if I intend to get some results out of doing this.

* That 'later' is really the key. I have big plans for this treadmill, and these measly twenty-five calories. Big plans, which I shall not reveal until the time is right and the numbers more impressive.