Cryogenesis-created ice cream is perfect. It's exactly soft enough to scoop out with ease, with a slightly crisp surface, and it never melts. I went very slowly, so I could gauge the appropriate solidity instead of creating some freezerburn monstrosity. Not even I want to eat freezerburn.
I'm getting good at freezing specific objects. That seems to be my strong point. I can generate baseball sized lumps of hail (and I could go larger, except they wouldn't fit into the tiny cooler under my bed, and would be harder to dispose of properly), and I can cool something in my hand very easily, but I still can't figure out how to make snowdrifts properly. All I'm getting is a floor slick with ice, and my bruises still hurt, so I'm wary of walking on it. I should either buy ice skates or rent myself out to an ice skating rink. On that note, I need to find myself some secret headquarters where I can practice this crap properly, because I really don't want my bedroom turning into a fetid swamp. I'm neat enough that the floor is free of debris and my laundry hampers can be moved away from my practice area, but the room is far from spacious, and I have bookshelves that need more protection than a plastic sheet. Also, I think I need better dehumidifiers or more outlets, because my room is a little ... humid. Humid is a better word than choking wet miasma. I'm running my space heater pretty much constantly to keep my family from noticing the haunted house chill in my room, but my sister still whines that my air conditioning vents work better than hers.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Ice Cream Aftermath
Why didn't you update last night, summer_snow? Did something go horribly wrong? Did you accidentally out yourself as a superhuman via some tragic ice-cream-based accident? Nope. I had an awesome time. A little bit of chaos in the kitchen, a game of kick-the-can with my sister, a few minutes mopping up the leaky saltwater (I love love love tile floors) and some tasty ice cream all round. I'm thinking I'm going to store the coffee can, salt box and ice cream jars in my room. That way if there's an accident I've got a built-in excuse, though I haven't found a way to make the ice cream mix keep. And no, you smart alecks out there, freezing it won't keep it good indefinitely. It's got milk and eggs in it. I want to try making ice cream via cryogenesis. If nothing else, it's going to be faster than the other way. I am an ice cream monster, since it doesn't make my tongue go numb, and I can taste every bite of it. After we ate all the ice cream (I had half my dad's portion, since he has delicate little fillings that don't like temperature changes), the whole family sat down for a movie together, and I snarfed 75% of the popcorn, and it was midnight before I got back to my computer. Oh well. It was one of those adorable time travel movies, Kate & Leopold. The movie was a bit iffy on the pseudoscience of time travel, but whatever. My sister squealed over Leopold and his fancy pants, but I was actually a bit more interested in Stuart the inventor. It's not that I have a thing one way or another for metatechs or time travelers, it's just that I liked the character better. You gotta be a total optimist to jump off a bridge like that.
I had some issues with the portrayal of the time traveling couple's relationship. One, I totally wouldn't live in any period of history except my own, what with the advent of feminism and hygeine and all that. Can't live without 'em. Two, if I couldn't persuade my time-displaced sweetie to live in my period without catastrophic universe-altering paradoxes, I'd go for a time share or just living out of a time machine. Anna Chronos and her husband do that, and they've been together for several billion years.
I had some issues with the portrayal of the time traveling couple's relationship. One, I totally wouldn't live in any period of history except my own, what with the advent of feminism and hygeine and all that. Can't live without 'em. Two, if I couldn't persuade my time-displaced sweetie to live in my period without catastrophic universe-altering paradoxes, I'd go for a time share or just living out of a time machine. Anna Chronos and her husband do that, and they've been together for several billion years.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Winter Wonderland: Tools of the Trade
Since I live in Florida, I don't have access to a lot of anti-ice devices. Screwdrivers and hairdryers really aren't cutting it for me, as yesterday's events demonstrated. My ankle hurts from where I scraped it. It's not infected or anything, but it throbs whenever I walk. I can't exactly tell my parents that I've stabbed myself with a screwdriver, so I don't even get sympathy points from them. Of course, I'm totally lazy, so the not-walking thing is well within my normal range of activity.
I've been researching ice management online. The options so far are salt, antifreeze, and windshield scrapers. I'm not going to go for something disgustingly expensive like those automatic thermal coils in Vector's suit. Unfortunately, odds are I can't physically buy anything but the salt. I don't believe there is a single auto shop in South Florida that sells ice scrapers, and I don't really own a car or have any interest in cars at all, so that might seem a tiny bit suspicious. In Florida, cars don't freeze. They spontaneously combust. And they spontaneously get melted by Firecracker during his collateral-heavy throwdowns with the local goons. One of the reasons I don't own a car is because the insurance down here is truly obscene.
Antifreeze doesn't sound particularly useful. The whole point of it is to prevent things from freezing, which is kind of counterintuitive seeing as I'm a cryogenetic and all. Plus, I don't particularly want to expose myself to too much of it. Salt seems like a better choice. It does melt ice a little bit, it's not going to kill me, it's easy to find, and nobody will ask questions if I buy a box or two of it. Plus I can totally make my own ice cream with it. I'm going to rescue that empty coffee can from the recycling bin and make ice cream tomorrow. I learned how to make it in chemistry class. I think it was supposed to be educational, since we did a token lab report afterwards, but mostly it was a bunch of kids kicking coffee cans full of ice around and eating ice cream.
I've been researching ice management online. The options so far are salt, antifreeze, and windshield scrapers. I'm not going to go for something disgustingly expensive like those automatic thermal coils in Vector's suit. Unfortunately, odds are I can't physically buy anything but the salt. I don't believe there is a single auto shop in South Florida that sells ice scrapers, and I don't really own a car or have any interest in cars at all, so that might seem a tiny bit suspicious. In Florida, cars don't freeze. They spontaneously combust. And they spontaneously get melted by Firecracker during his collateral-heavy throwdowns with the local goons. One of the reasons I don't own a car is because the insurance down here is truly obscene.
Antifreeze doesn't sound particularly useful. The whole point of it is to prevent things from freezing, which is kind of counterintuitive seeing as I'm a cryogenetic and all. Plus, I don't particularly want to expose myself to too much of it. Salt seems like a better choice. It does melt ice a little bit, it's not going to kill me, it's easy to find, and nobody will ask questions if I buy a box or two of it. Plus I can totally make my own ice cream with it. I'm going to rescue that empty coffee can from the recycling bin and make ice cream tomorrow. I learned how to make it in chemistry class. I think it was supposed to be educational, since we did a token lab report afterwards, but mostly it was a bunch of kids kicking coffee cans full of ice around and eating ice cream.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Glass Slippers Give You Concussions
So, shoes made of ice rank pretty damn low on my list of brilliant ideas. I blame Cinderella. I've been back like a day, and I've already been dragooned into babysitting for one of the kids down the street. She's going through her ultra-femme Disney princess phase, except she's a total nerd about it. We spent some time arguing over what those "glass" slippers are actually made of. I voted Plexiglas, but the kid thinks they're made of that smart self-repairing polymer stuff that the Hamsternauts make their bubbles out of, because otherwise the shoes would be all sweaty and scuffed by the end of the evening, and hurt her feet besides. I cannot dispute that the shoes remained very sparkly, but they did shatter easily, despite having withstood an evening of dancing, going up and down stairs, and fleeing from royalty. Maybe they're programmed to self-destruct in the presence of evil stepmothers or something.
After the kid's parents got home (and paid me sweet, sweet cash) I went home and thought about glass slippers. And then I took a shower. And thought about glass slippers some more. They've got to be more practical than clunky Crocs, right? They'll be just my size, and I can repair them and change the shape of the treads, right? Nope. What I wound up doing was encasing my feet in impenetrable hooves of solid ice. It turns out, feet need to actually move when you walk. It took a while to chip off my ice clogs (should I invest in an ice pick? or is that a bad idea?) and I've got a painful scratch down my ankle from where the screwdriver slipped. And since I was standing in the shower with my slippery melting ice boots, I slipped and fell. I cracked my head against the wall on my way down, and I shot out an instinctive fluff of snow to cushion the fall. Except the snow wasn't quite snow, more like a sheet of ice, and it varnished every surface from the shower curtain to the wall, including the shower drain, faucet head, and emergency drain hole. There was another emergency cleanup procedure, involving my toothbrush cup, the sink, the hairdryer, the screwdriver, an ungodly amount of hot water, lots of towels, some parental deception and a scrub brush.
Once I had disposed of the evidence, put two band-aids on my ankle and dressed in dry clothes, I spent half an hour curled up on my bed waiting for the painkillers to kick in for my bruised skull, butt, elbow and ego. I suck. I suck so much. What the hell kind of superhuman almost kills herself with her own damned powers?
After the kid's parents got home (and paid me sweet, sweet cash) I went home and thought about glass slippers. And then I took a shower. And thought about glass slippers some more. They've got to be more practical than clunky Crocs, right? They'll be just my size, and I can repair them and change the shape of the treads, right? Nope. What I wound up doing was encasing my feet in impenetrable hooves of solid ice. It turns out, feet need to actually move when you walk. It took a while to chip off my ice clogs (should I invest in an ice pick? or is that a bad idea?) and I've got a painful scratch down my ankle from where the screwdriver slipped. And since I was standing in the shower with my slippery melting ice boots, I slipped and fell. I cracked my head against the wall on my way down, and I shot out an instinctive fluff of snow to cushion the fall. Except the snow wasn't quite snow, more like a sheet of ice, and it varnished every surface from the shower curtain to the wall, including the shower drain, faucet head, and emergency drain hole. There was another emergency cleanup procedure, involving my toothbrush cup, the sink, the hairdryer, the screwdriver, an ungodly amount of hot water, lots of towels, some parental deception and a scrub brush.
Once I had disposed of the evidence, put two band-aids on my ankle and dressed in dry clothes, I spent half an hour curled up on my bed waiting for the painkillers to kick in for my bruised skull, butt, elbow and ego. I suck. I suck so much. What the hell kind of superhuman almost kills herself with her own damned powers?
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Family Matters
I have glitter in my TEETH. There is glitter on my toothbrush, and in my hair, and on my floor, and on my doorknob. It's like a nanovirus that is multiplying and trying to take over the world. It should be illegal to own this much glitter. She uses it in every possible part of her makeup, and leaves a sparkly trail around the house. I'm fairly sure that my sister has ingested so much glitter that she just naturally excretes it now. I never lend her books, because they always come back with the pages crusted with glitter. Actually, that's not true. I don't lend her books because we have vastly different tastes in literature. She likes sparkly vampires. 'Nuff said.
Now to the big question. Have I told my family that I'm superhuman?
Uh, no. No I haven't. Since my cryogenesis is not hereditary, they don't know about it. And I don't think I'm going to tell them. They don't really need to know, do they? Some things are private. Some things you don't tell your parents. I don't tell them about my sex life. I don't tell them about the times I'm up way too late color-coding my closet. I don't tell them about the trashy magazines I buy sometimes. I didn't tell them about that one time I drank beer at a party and threw up. So I don't see a reason to tell them about an unusual new talent and a private hobby. I haven't told them about this blog either. I just want to keep this to myself. I don't have an awful lot of secrets, and I want this to be all mine. I don't want my dad offering me suggestions and instituting training sessions, I don't want my mom asking me to make ice cubes when we run out, and I don't want my sister telling everyone in the world that I have powers. I don't want them to control this. To limit and regiment and monitor what I do. This is mine.
Okay, that came off a little harsh. I would probably tell them if I started being a vigilante or something. If it put them in danger, or stood a chance of getting me seriously hurt. They have a right to know why and how I'm affecting the family. I'd better come up with a few principles or a mission statement before I go pro, since my parents would put me through the wringer making sure I'm doing it for the right reasons before they would support me in something that risky. But as long as there are no consequences, this will be my secret.
Now to the big question. Have I told my family that I'm superhuman?
Uh, no. No I haven't. Since my cryogenesis is not hereditary, they don't know about it. And I don't think I'm going to tell them. They don't really need to know, do they? Some things are private. Some things you don't tell your parents. I don't tell them about my sex life. I don't tell them about the times I'm up way too late color-coding my closet. I don't tell them about the trashy magazines I buy sometimes. I didn't tell them about that one time I drank beer at a party and threw up. So I don't see a reason to tell them about an unusual new talent and a private hobby. I haven't told them about this blog either. I just want to keep this to myself. I don't have an awful lot of secrets, and I want this to be all mine. I don't want my dad offering me suggestions and instituting training sessions, I don't want my mom asking me to make ice cubes when we run out, and I don't want my sister telling everyone in the world that I have powers. I don't want them to control this. To limit and regiment and monitor what I do. This is mine.
Okay, that came off a little harsh. I would probably tell them if I started being a vigilante or something. If it put them in danger, or stood a chance of getting me seriously hurt. They have a right to know why and how I'm affecting the family. I'd better come up with a few principles or a mission statement before I go pro, since my parents would put me through the wringer making sure I'm doing it for the right reasons before they would support me in something that risky. But as long as there are no consequences, this will be my secret.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
School's Out
Home. My room smells good, I can actually fit into my shower stall without keeping my elbows clamped to my sides, and I have tasty food to eat. On the downside: glitter. Oh, does my sister like glitter. I've been here a few hours and I already have a sparkly exoskeleton that won't come off with hot water, cold water, ice, duct tape or exfoliating scrub. My forearm is raw. And glittery. There's just like one tiny little glint left on my skin, but I can see it and it's not coming off. Honestly, fleas would annoy me less.
Since I am a neurotic freak, unpacking was totally easy. I had packed in each box a list of its own contents. And I had a master list in my pocket, just in case. And also I emailed a copy of the list to myself. Am I overthinking this? I do have a lot of stuff. And I actually own my own bubble wrap, mostly because I have a gorgeous stained glass type lamp that doesn't travel well, and I optimized my packing space by wedging all my socks and underwear between my books. I consider packing to be a science. And sometimes an art. It feels like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
Now that I'm away from school, I'm more willing to think this was just my imagination, but it might be worth mentioning anyway. When I picked up my phone this morning, all the hairs on my arms stood up. No green light, and the laptop was perfectly normal. I dunno. It might just be the air conditioning, or residual electricity from my socks and the thunderstorms, or maybe it's psychological. But maybe it got green-fired while I was asleep? For the record, it was closer to the window than my laptop, but it wasn't plugged into the charger. I don't know what that means. I'm not Batman. I'm not a detective or an investigator or a logician and I really wish weird shit would stop happening to me. Says the girl with the superpowers. At least I understand the superpowers, and I want them, and I know where they came from. I just want someone to fess up and let me know what they're trying to accomplish here.
Since I am a neurotic freak, unpacking was totally easy. I had packed in each box a list of its own contents. And I had a master list in my pocket, just in case. And also I emailed a copy of the list to myself. Am I overthinking this? I do have a lot of stuff. And I actually own my own bubble wrap, mostly because I have a gorgeous stained glass type lamp that doesn't travel well, and I optimized my packing space by wedging all my socks and underwear between my books. I consider packing to be a science. And sometimes an art. It feels like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
Now that I'm away from school, I'm more willing to think this was just my imagination, but it might be worth mentioning anyway. When I picked up my phone this morning, all the hairs on my arms stood up. No green light, and the laptop was perfectly normal. I dunno. It might just be the air conditioning, or residual electricity from my socks and the thunderstorms, or maybe it's psychological. But maybe it got green-fired while I was asleep? For the record, it was closer to the window than my laptop, but it wasn't plugged into the charger. I don't know what that means. I'm not Batman. I'm not a detective or an investigator or a logician and I really wish weird shit would stop happening to me. Says the girl with the superpowers. At least I understand the superpowers, and I want them, and I know where they came from. I just want someone to fess up and let me know what they're trying to accomplish here.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Brain Unwinding
Free! My academic deadlines no longer loom over me like the proverbial axe. Go, me! I've spent most of the evening in a blissful B-movie stupor. Okay, B-movie is probably generous. It's a godawful old sci fi movie with cheesy special effects. I like to watch bad movies. Somebody has to. You'd think they'd get a metatech to work the puppets or something, since they've had sophisticated automatons since practically the Victorian age, but I guess they were worried about a metatech going all mad scientist and engineering the monster puppets to eat the director or something. So the special effects look like they were made with drinking straws and clay. They couldn't even afford shoestrings. Besides, I doubt a metatech would want to collaborate on yet another 'hubristic scientist unleashes forces beyond human comprehension' movie. I know I'd have moral objections to providing the special effects for Killer Frost: The Musical. That's not an actual play, but considering how many dramatizations of Cobalt's origin story we've got in book, movie and play format, it's probably not far off. Good grief, are there no supers writing good parts for supers out there?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
CryoGENIUS
Why haven't you posted, summer_snow? Are your finals going well? Have you suffered a pork pox relapse? Did you get hit by a truck? Did the government kidnap you? Have you concluded that the only honorable way out of this semester is via seppuku?
Not quite. As embarassing as this is, I kinda sorta wound up freezing my keyboard. Yeah, I'm that stupid. I hang my head in shame. I was typing with my icicle fingers, and then they kinda melted a little bit, and dripped under the keyboard and then refroze because I panicked and tried to solidify them in time to get them out before they short-circuited the machine that contains my final essays. And I couldn't even use a hairdryer. I had to take apart the laptop, and then take out the keyboard, and wait for that to thaw so it wouldn't damage the rest of the computer. After the ice thawed, I blasted it out with compressed air, then reassembled the computer (I have a screw left over and I don't know where it came from). Naturally, this did not help my essay deadlines. At all.
I bet Cryo never did crap like this.
Not quite. As embarassing as this is, I kinda sorta wound up freezing my keyboard. Yeah, I'm that stupid. I hang my head in shame. I was typing with my icicle fingers, and then they kinda melted a little bit, and dripped under the keyboard and then refroze because I panicked and tried to solidify them in time to get them out before they short-circuited the machine that contains my final essays. And I couldn't even use a hairdryer. I had to take apart the laptop, and then take out the keyboard, and wait for that to thaw so it wouldn't damage the rest of the computer. After the ice thawed, I blasted it out with compressed air, then reassembled the computer (I have a screw left over and I don't know where it came from). Naturally, this did not help my essay deadlines. At all.
I bet Cryo never did crap like this.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Stormy Weather
I don't want to talk about schoolwork right now, except to assure you that I'm totally on top of it and not stressed out in the slightest. Not at all. What I do want to talk about is the weather. In Florida we have two seasons: wet and dry. We have (finally!) started the wet season. I love the afternoon thunderstorms. And the midnight thunderstorms most of all. Honestly, I just love thunder, especially when I'm snug indoors with my face pressed to the glass, hearing the surrounding murmer of rain and feeling the windows rattle with every boom. Florida is a pyrogenic environment, and the lightning strike capital of the world. It's also the capital of cars bursting into flame, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to lightning and the heat, and how much is due to Firecracker. Either way, I'm looking forward to the storms.
The air before a thunderstorm is heavy with expectation. The skies are a moody black, instead of their usual relentless blue during the day, or gaudy orange at sunset. Florida doesn't do brooding weather very well most of the time, but we have some truly awesome thunderstorms. The wind picks up, blowing away the stifling heat. If you're looking close enough, sometimes you can see the rain racing towards you. Florida rain is serious business. It falls in fat drops that slam the rooftops and bounce up off the ground, rendering umbrellas useless. Within minutes, the runoff has created puddles so deep that it's almost worth the ringworm to jump in them barefoot. I can stand outside spraying snow as hard as I can in all directions, and it still won't measure up to Florida rain. I did that this afternoon during the storm, and I couldn't see the difference between when I was creating water and when I was just being rained on. I really need to start putting my phone in a ziplock bag or something before I do crap like that, because I'm not sure if I broke it. It was turned off, and I'm letting it dry before I try it again. It's an old phone anyway (and it did glow green the one time, so it's kinda expendable). I don't trust (and my parents don't trust me with) new technology. After a couple years locked in a battle of wills with my laptop, I'm terrified that any complex technology will attain sentience and deem me (and by extension humanity) unworthy of leadership and then it will take over the world and it will all be my fault for not stopping it. So no iPhone for me.
The best part of any storm is the thunder. It's so much more thrilling and dignified than fireworks, and leaves no smoke to obscure further flashes. I saw Stormcloud once, before she left for Shining Citadel, but her javelins had a sharper sound, more like a whip crack than deliciously deep rolling thunder. I guess it was because she was only a few blocks away. Either way, she didn't make that much of an impression, sorry to say. It only took her the one strike to end the fight. I'm fairly sure I saw her face off against a Titan as well, but even through the binoculars there was just a huge fluffy cloud occasionally lit up by flashes of orange light and little threads of lightning. It was way out at sea, at night, and too far north for us to get anything worse than really choppy waves the day after.
The air before a thunderstorm is heavy with expectation. The skies are a moody black, instead of their usual relentless blue during the day, or gaudy orange at sunset. Florida doesn't do brooding weather very well most of the time, but we have some truly awesome thunderstorms. The wind picks up, blowing away the stifling heat. If you're looking close enough, sometimes you can see the rain racing towards you. Florida rain is serious business. It falls in fat drops that slam the rooftops and bounce up off the ground, rendering umbrellas useless. Within minutes, the runoff has created puddles so deep that it's almost worth the ringworm to jump in them barefoot. I can stand outside spraying snow as hard as I can in all directions, and it still won't measure up to Florida rain. I did that this afternoon during the storm, and I couldn't see the difference between when I was creating water and when I was just being rained on. I really need to start putting my phone in a ziplock bag or something before I do crap like that, because I'm not sure if I broke it. It was turned off, and I'm letting it dry before I try it again. It's an old phone anyway (and it did glow green the one time, so it's kinda expendable). I don't trust (and my parents don't trust me with) new technology. After a couple years locked in a battle of wills with my laptop, I'm terrified that any complex technology will attain sentience and deem me (and by extension humanity) unworthy of leadership and then it will take over the world and it will all be my fault for not stopping it. So no iPhone for me.
The best part of any storm is the thunder. It's so much more thrilling and dignified than fireworks, and leaves no smoke to obscure further flashes. I saw Stormcloud once, before she left for Shining Citadel, but her javelins had a sharper sound, more like a whip crack than deliciously deep rolling thunder. I guess it was because she was only a few blocks away. Either way, she didn't make that much of an impression, sorry to say. It only took her the one strike to end the fight. I'm fairly sure I saw her face off against a Titan as well, but even through the binoculars there was just a huge fluffy cloud occasionally lit up by flashes of orange light and little threads of lightning. It was way out at sea, at night, and too far north for us to get anything worse than really choppy waves the day after.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Carpet Crisis
I tried shampooing the carpet today. Not that I think I can salvage it and spare my housing deposit, but I don't think it's healthy to keep breathing mildew. I guess it smells a bit nicer now, and the splotches have changed color. There's really nothing that can make that particular shade of carpet look worse, really. This might even be an improvement. I am so tired of damp socks and squishy wall-to-wall carpeting. At home I have ugly tile floors that I don't care about, and I can use a mop or towel on them, problem solved. Gasp! Did I just reveal a scrap of information about my private life that people can use to track me down? How many college girls in Florida have tile floors? Quick, to the Brotherhood of Evil Real Estate Agents!
Sometimes you just have to mock these things, or you wind up driving yourself crazy. There's only so much second-guessing I'm going to do. I have tile floors. Alert the press. Whatever.
Gotta get some sleep now, or I won't wake up on schedule tomorrow. I've set my own deadlines for my finals, and I am a harsh mistress. I'm waking up early to get the maximum amount of library time (yes the library's open on Sunday, but not for long), because I seriously want to get this done early and then slack off and lounge around the common room in my pajamas and play video games while Dani frantically flips through her chem notes and chants the names of molecules or whatever.
Yeah, I'm a jerk.
Sometimes you just have to mock these things, or you wind up driving yourself crazy. There's only so much second-guessing I'm going to do. I have tile floors. Alert the press. Whatever.
Gotta get some sleep now, or I won't wake up on schedule tomorrow. I've set my own deadlines for my finals, and I am a harsh mistress. I'm waking up early to get the maximum amount of library time (yes the library's open on Sunday, but not for long), because I seriously want to get this done early and then slack off and lounge around the common room in my pajamas and play video games while Dani frantically flips through her chem notes and chants the names of molecules or whatever.
Yeah, I'm a jerk.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Procrastination Time
I should be writing essays and studying right now, shouldn't I? My first exam is on Monday, and I've got a ten-page paper due Tuesday by 5:00. Instead, I have gone into a cleaning frenzy. It's the most useful form of procrastination I know. When I'm vacuuming, taking out the trash and sorting my closet, I feel the warm glow of accomplishment, of doing something grown-up, responsible, and laudable. Regardless of how much other stuff I should be doing instead. I've packed a lot of my stuff into the boxes under my bed, folded my clothes neatly, organized the papers floating around my desk into their respective binders, and lined up all my textbooks neatly in descending size. So yeah, my room is immaculate. Except there's kind of a stain on the carpet under my bed, and it's not coming out with vacuuming and I think maybe it's mildew. It smells musty. Damn you, short blowdryer cord!
Actually my whole room kinda smells like rancid old books or something, despite the cinnamon broom in my closet (which, by the way, is a really good way to scent up a room when you're not allowed to burn candles despite being a human fire extinguisher). So I'm thinking I can kiss my housing deposit goodbye. I'm also thinking that since my housing deposit will be used to replace the carpet and stuff, there's no harm in practicing a little bit more...
crap iuts hard tio typewith icicle Fingers
Actually my whole room kinda smells like rancid old books or something, despite the cinnamon broom in my closet (which, by the way, is a really good way to scent up a room when you're not allowed to burn candles despite being a human fire extinguisher). So I'm thinking I can kiss my housing deposit goodbye. I'm also thinking that since my housing deposit will be used to replace the carpet and stuff, there's no harm in practicing a little bit more...
crap iuts hard tio typewith icicle Fingers
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sometimes The World Sucks
This Thanksgiving, I will give thanks that I am no longer in a class with Amie. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving is a ways off, and I've still got to endure one more class with her before exam week starts. Wow, can she derail class discussions. How can you turn an overview of the themes in Kafka's Metamorphosis into a discussion of druids? How? I was there, and I still don't understand the process. And then I had to ditch my lunch plans to talk to the professor about essay topics, which I didn't get to do in class because Miss Motor Mouth was doing her "I'm really thinking hard and might have an epiphany any minute" face, and the professor bought in to it and actually spent thirty minutes trying to untangle her thought processes.
I ripped the knees out of another pair of jeans. Between them, my eight pairs of jeans have nine patches. One pair is basically patched from shin to mid-thigh. This is not good. I tried to sew a patch on to the latest rip, but quit after the second time I stabbed the needle into my flesh right above the thumbnail. Crap like that is why I don't lend out my sewing kit. It's seen more blood than a surgeon's scalpel.
Velocity got out of intensive care today. Her handlers released a brief clip of her propped up in bed, but they're still keeping the media circus away from her. God, it's heartbreaking. Her face doesn't even look like her face. The clean new costume she's wearing makes it even worse somehow.
There was something in the news about Vector again. He was posing with a firefighter and wearing a shit-eating grin. I didn't bother reading the headline.
I ripped the knees out of another pair of jeans. Between them, my eight pairs of jeans have nine patches. One pair is basically patched from shin to mid-thigh. This is not good. I tried to sew a patch on to the latest rip, but quit after the second time I stabbed the needle into my flesh right above the thumbnail. Crap like that is why I don't lend out my sewing kit. It's seen more blood than a surgeon's scalpel.
Velocity got out of intensive care today. Her handlers released a brief clip of her propped up in bed, but they're still keeping the media circus away from her. God, it's heartbreaking. Her face doesn't even look like her face. The clean new costume she's wearing makes it even worse somehow.
There was something in the news about Vector again. He was posing with a firefighter and wearing a shit-eating grin. I didn't bother reading the headline.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Winter Wonderland: Math
Freezing point of water:
0 °C, 32 °F, 273.15 K, 491.67 R.
Just because I'm trying to memorize this (and it's taped on my mirror too), here is the Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion:
Fahrenheit to Celsius: [°F] = [°C] x 9/5 + 32
Celsius to Fahrenheit: [°C] = ([°F] − 32) x 5/9
At negative 40 degrees, Celsius and Fahrenheit converge.
The various thermodynamic temperature scales used today are Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin and Rankine, named after Anders Celsius, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, William Thomson (1st Baron Kelvin) and William John Macquorn Rankine. What is the Rankine scale, you ask? It's basically Kelvin if it were based on Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. It starts measuring temperature with its zero point at absolute zero like Kelvin, and then uses degrees Fahrenheit from there up. Confusing. Yeah, I'm not a math major.
By the way, that Wikipedia article (what, you think I'm doing actual research on a Wednesday night?) is kinda out of date. It may be impossible to reach absolute zero through natural means, but metatechs have been doing since Dr. Miracle (or Miriam S. Closson, as she was called during her undergrad days) invented the Zero Point Chamber for her thesis in 1974, or was it 1975? Depends on your point of view on that whole time travel thing. Personally, I think it's kinda cheating to get an extra eight months to work on your thesis due to a chronal loop in your dorm room.
0 °C, 32 °F, 273.15 K, 491.67 R.
Just because I'm trying to memorize this (and it's taped on my mirror too), here is the Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion:
Fahrenheit to Celsius: [°F] = [°C] x 9/5 + 32
Celsius to Fahrenheit: [°C] = ([°F] − 32) x 5/9
At negative 40 degrees, Celsius and Fahrenheit converge.
The various thermodynamic temperature scales used today are Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin and Rankine, named after Anders Celsius, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, William Thomson (1st Baron Kelvin) and William John Macquorn Rankine. What is the Rankine scale, you ask? It's basically Kelvin if it were based on Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. It starts measuring temperature with its zero point at absolute zero like Kelvin, and then uses degrees Fahrenheit from there up. Confusing. Yeah, I'm not a math major.
By the way, that Wikipedia article (what, you think I'm doing actual research on a Wednesday night?) is kinda out of date. It may be impossible to reach absolute zero through natural means, but metatechs have been doing since Dr. Miracle (or Miriam S. Closson, as she was called during her undergrad days) invented the Zero Point Chamber for her thesis in 1974, or was it 1975? Depends on your point of view on that whole time travel thing. Personally, I think it's kinda cheating to get an extra eight months to work on your thesis due to a chronal loop in your dorm room.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Confession
I have thought long and hard over whether I want to share this aspect of my private life with the internet at large. Whether I'm going to expose this ugly truth about myself to the judging eyes of millions. But since I've already shared other, more dangerous secrets, I might as well take the plunge. I hope you won't think worse of me for it.
I wear Crocs.
Yes, I just admitted to owning the dorkiest shoes since the invention of foot coverings. The one-piece plastic foam clogs. The industry standard for lack of taste. The shoes that are used to represent the fall of society's intellectual and aesthetic standards in Idiocracy. Mine are lime green.
It's not that I don't own and appreciate shoes. I do. I have shoes ranging from strappy sandals to snow boots. Sometimes I coordinate entire outfits around my shoes. I have spent ludicrous amounts of money on soft leather boots with tiny little pockets on the sides. And one day I will own a pair of knee high boots just like Flare's. So why have I surrendered myself to the nadir of footwear?
Because they're waterproof. There is nothing I hate more than squelchy shoes, and I have discovered the hard way that my shoes take a long, long time to dry out after I've used my superpowers. Sandals get slippery, rubber boots get full, and leather boots get hours of loving conditioning and heartfelt apologies after a soaking. Crocs get squeaky. That's it. And since I have not committed the cardinal sartorial sin of wearing Crocs with socks, all I need to do after an afternoon of cryogenesis is just towel them off and put them back on.
As much as I don't want to be the superhero who runs around in Crocs, I can't see a better solution. Crocs supply pretty much everything I need in footwear while I'm using my powers. Decent traction, impervious to damage by soaking, repels water (and ice), easy to care for, drains water instead of collecting it like little foot-shaped buckets. I'm weighing the prospect of universal mockery against the prospect of sensible shoes. It wouldn't be the most gaudy costume to ever come out of Florida...
I wear Crocs.
Yes, I just admitted to owning the dorkiest shoes since the invention of foot coverings. The one-piece plastic foam clogs. The industry standard for lack of taste. The shoes that are used to represent the fall of society's intellectual and aesthetic standards in Idiocracy. Mine are lime green.
It's not that I don't own and appreciate shoes. I do. I have shoes ranging from strappy sandals to snow boots. Sometimes I coordinate entire outfits around my shoes. I have spent ludicrous amounts of money on soft leather boots with tiny little pockets on the sides. And one day I will own a pair of knee high boots just like Flare's. So why have I surrendered myself to the nadir of footwear?
Because they're waterproof. There is nothing I hate more than squelchy shoes, and I have discovered the hard way that my shoes take a long, long time to dry out after I've used my superpowers. Sandals get slippery, rubber boots get full, and leather boots get hours of loving conditioning and heartfelt apologies after a soaking. Crocs get squeaky. That's it. And since I have not committed the cardinal sartorial sin of wearing Crocs with socks, all I need to do after an afternoon of cryogenesis is just towel them off and put them back on.
As much as I don't want to be the superhero who runs around in Crocs, I can't see a better solution. Crocs supply pretty much everything I need in footwear while I'm using my powers. Decent traction, impervious to damage by soaking, repels water (and ice), easy to care for, drains water instead of collecting it like little foot-shaped buckets. I'm weighing the prospect of universal mockery against the prospect of sensible shoes. It wouldn't be the most gaudy costume to ever come out of Florida...
Monday, May 11, 2009
Blogging My Secrets Away
What are the odds that this blog will inadvertantly reveal my identity to the internet at large? Pretty slim, actually. I fudge dates, names and locations. You really think there's a place called Coral Pines? I'm not linking this site to any personal business, I'm not posting pictures of my cats or my room, and I'm definitely not sticking my real name up here.
I don't think anybody's really invested in figuring out my secrets. If the creepy green flash was some sort of a data download, then I don't have any more secrets, and if it wasn't then I think I'm still under the radar. Either way, this hasn't touched my public life yet. I make a point of not befriending budding investigative journalists, and not blithely confiding in my roommates. If Dani knows or suspects I'm a superhuman, she's polite enough to keep it to herself. I haven't really done anything worth watching yet, and I'm just a low-level cryogenetic who can barely make icicles on her fingers. If I had a valuable/dangerous talent, I would censor myself a bit more carefully, but the odds of anyone ever tracing this back to me are vanishingly small.
Regardless, if I ever make it to the big times, I'm deleting everything I ever wrote here. Celebrity comes with its disadvantages and dangers, and I don't want the media trawling through my posts to find something to throw in my face. Worst case scenario, I wind up important enough to score a tech-savvy nemesis who uses internet mumbo-jumbo to figure out who I am. If I can't get Myke to shut him up/shut him down, I guess I go public then. There are public supers in my town. I could do it. Suck it up, beat the living daylights out of whoever outed me, be a role model to all the little cryogenetics out there (and damn do they need one), do whatever hero business I can do without being bulletproof, and possibly shoot myself in the face after a week of constant public scrutiny, losing friends, worrying about my citizenship and possible military service, hearing classmates whispering about me behind my back, the government sniffing at my public records, media vultures shrieking about supers invading their precious little schools, and my family ... I don't want to think about my family. No, going public is not an option for a long, long time. I don't have as much to lose as some people, but I still want to be in control of my life. I don't want cryogenesis to be the first thing people think of when they hear my name. I don't want to live in a little gated community of supers, I don't want this to change my career, I don't want Killer Frost knocking on my door to cut down the competition. I almost understand why Mind Master tried to erase the memories of everyone in Stockport. Just to live a normal life for a little bit longer.
I don't think anybody's really invested in figuring out my secrets. If the creepy green flash was some sort of a data download, then I don't have any more secrets, and if it wasn't then I think I'm still under the radar. Either way, this hasn't touched my public life yet. I make a point of not befriending budding investigative journalists, and not blithely confiding in my roommates. If Dani knows or suspects I'm a superhuman, she's polite enough to keep it to herself. I haven't really done anything worth watching yet, and I'm just a low-level cryogenetic who can barely make icicles on her fingers. If I had a valuable/dangerous talent, I would censor myself a bit more carefully, but the odds of anyone ever tracing this back to me are vanishingly small.
Regardless, if I ever make it to the big times, I'm deleting everything I ever wrote here. Celebrity comes with its disadvantages and dangers, and I don't want the media trawling through my posts to find something to throw in my face. Worst case scenario, I wind up important enough to score a tech-savvy nemesis who uses internet mumbo-jumbo to figure out who I am. If I can't get Myke to shut him up/shut him down, I guess I go public then. There are public supers in my town. I could do it. Suck it up, beat the living daylights out of whoever outed me, be a role model to all the little cryogenetics out there (and damn do they need one), do whatever hero business I can do without being bulletproof, and possibly shoot myself in the face after a week of constant public scrutiny, losing friends, worrying about my citizenship and possible military service, hearing classmates whispering about me behind my back, the government sniffing at my public records, media vultures shrieking about supers invading their precious little schools, and my family ... I don't want to think about my family. No, going public is not an option for a long, long time. I don't have as much to lose as some people, but I still want to be in control of my life. I don't want cryogenesis to be the first thing people think of when they hear my name. I don't want to live in a little gated community of supers, I don't want this to change my career, I don't want Killer Frost knocking on my door to cut down the competition. I almost understand why Mind Master tried to erase the memories of everyone in Stockport. Just to live a normal life for a little bit longer.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Scrabble and the Supervillain Ethic
I'm enjoying my last gasp of freedom before I have to start studying for my finals. This will be the last week of classes, starting Monday, and I am so ready for summer. It's like high school senioritis all over again. A couple of my professors, lagging behind in their syllabi, will attempt to cram their classes, and the rest will go easy on us. I remember in high school after the AP exams were done, the AP classes just played Scrabble for the last couple of weeks. I am a Scrabble GOD. I can manage to make solid blocks of words that earn me points vertically and horizontally, and would also earn diagonal points if those were possible. I'm also apparently a lot better at keeping a straight face than I thought, since I managed to convince quite a few people that the contents of my all-vowel Scrabble rack were actually a legitimate word of Hawaiian origin. Several times. Mostly I played by the rules, but I'm more partial to making awesome words than winning by strategy. Kind of like how Mockingbird will try and take over Chicago with giant jack-in-the-boxes or whatever. Sure, it's not the most efficient way, but it's the most fun. It's a matter of style, which seems to be a villain thing mostly.
I don't always win Scrabble games, but sometimes it's worth losing just to savor the game. If I'm playing a word game, I don't really see the point in playing by arcane mathematical rules, and having a joyless, calculating bland game. Why get 50 points for 'ox' when you can put down 'corsets' or 'globule'? I preferred to team up with Jack so he could do the strategy part, and I could do the creative part. We were virtually unbeatable together. That's probably why we spent so much time on separate teams. Scrabble week was one time where I earned instant popularity in high school. It's like dodgeball in reverse: the geeks get chosen first out of the lineups.
I don't always win Scrabble games, but sometimes it's worth losing just to savor the game. If I'm playing a word game, I don't really see the point in playing by arcane mathematical rules, and having a joyless, calculating bland game. Why get 50 points for 'ox' when you can put down 'corsets' or 'globule'? I preferred to team up with Jack so he could do the strategy part, and I could do the creative part. We were virtually unbeatable together. That's probably why we spent so much time on separate teams. Scrabble week was one time where I earned instant popularity in high school. It's like dodgeball in reverse: the geeks get chosen first out of the lineups.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
1 Billion Monkeys, No Shakespeare
Even if the internet hasn't proven that old saying wrong, this random word generator has:
http://hamete.org/babel/index_en.html
Lots of random word-like sequences, but nothing approaching Hamlet, let alone coherency. It really makes me appreciate the complexities of language, grammar and syntax. Although our language would be much richer if we included words like "avfdhgoot," "hgmff" and "meavx." I intend to start introducing those into my everyday conversation. If mcjob made it into the dictionary, I'm sure I can start a new fad. I'm not sure how many times you need to click the Library of Babel button before it produces actual sentences. Exactly how improbable is the structure of Hamlet anyway? Shouldn't you get "Act one scene one Elsinore Castle Denmark" at least once out every trillion clicks? Maybe chimpanzees and computer programs share an innate hatred of the works of William Shakespeare? Someone should finally train a chimp to type out Hamlet, just to resolve this deeply pressing issue. Preferably an actual chimp, and not one of those Zeebots. Geez, who in the world looks at a poo-flinging primate and says, "That's a nice chimp, but you know what would be cooler? If we gave it ballistic weaponry and onboard tactical AIs. That would be a great use of government funding!"
Dr. Wilde, that's who.
I don't know what's going to happen to those cyborg chimps after the whole ice cream truck fiasco. Nobody wants an ape that's been trained to shoot people. I don't think they can remove enough of the weaponry to make the chimps safe in zoos. Where do you send crazy weaponized/radioactive/superpowered apes anyway? None of the news articles are saying where they're keeping the Zeebots, mostly because they don't want Dr. Wilde breaking them out. But are you allowed to keep them in a pound? A research facility? A zoo? A veterinary lab? Dr. Wilde is the only one I can think of who would actually want to live with those chimpanzees, and he's still on the most wanted list. Who can provide a safe, loving and law-abiding home to three deadly gun-toting cyborg chimpanzees?
http://hamete.org/babel/index_en.html
Lots of random word-like sequences, but nothing approaching Hamlet, let alone coherency. It really makes me appreciate the complexities of language, grammar and syntax. Although our language would be much richer if we included words like "avfdhgoot," "hgmff" and "meavx." I intend to start introducing those into my everyday conversation. If mcjob made it into the dictionary, I'm sure I can start a new fad. I'm not sure how many times you need to click the Library of Babel button before it produces actual sentences. Exactly how improbable is the structure of Hamlet anyway? Shouldn't you get "Act one scene one Elsinore Castle Denmark" at least once out every trillion clicks? Maybe chimpanzees and computer programs share an innate hatred of the works of William Shakespeare? Someone should finally train a chimp to type out Hamlet, just to resolve this deeply pressing issue. Preferably an actual chimp, and not one of those Zeebots. Geez, who in the world looks at a poo-flinging primate and says, "That's a nice chimp, but you know what would be cooler? If we gave it ballistic weaponry and onboard tactical AIs. That would be a great use of government funding!"
Dr. Wilde, that's who.
I don't know what's going to happen to those cyborg chimps after the whole ice cream truck fiasco. Nobody wants an ape that's been trained to shoot people. I don't think they can remove enough of the weaponry to make the chimps safe in zoos. Where do you send crazy weaponized/radioactive/superpowered apes anyway? None of the news articles are saying where they're keeping the Zeebots, mostly because they don't want Dr. Wilde breaking them out. But are you allowed to keep them in a pound? A research facility? A zoo? A veterinary lab? Dr. Wilde is the only one I can think of who would actually want to live with those chimpanzees, and he's still on the most wanted list. Who can provide a safe, loving and law-abiding home to three deadly gun-toting cyborg chimpanzees?
Friday, May 8, 2009
Peter Parker's Secret Hobbies
How come every single superhero in the comics automatically knows how to make his or her own costume? Peter Parker, science nerd, is able to hand-sew a form-fitting and intricately patterned costume several times, from scratch, without any help. Clearly his Home Ec class rocked, if it can produce such professional results. And yet Peter has no other sewing-related hobbies. You never see him quilting, or designing his own shirts, or so much as patching his jeans. Shenanigans! I demand scenes of Peter Parker hunting for red web-patterned fabric on clearance racks.
Marvel seems to believe that people with sewing hobbies are at high risk for gaining superpowers. The Invisible Woman, Wasp, and Scarlet Witch all spent their time designing and sewing costumes for themselves and their teammates. Without even being asked! I totally need to start hanging out with people like that. As it is, I'm the one who gets suckered into sewing up the foot-long tears in my friends' ludicrously impractical gauzy skirts (seriously, I long for the day those things go out of fashion), but I doubt I'd be able to make an entire costume for myself, let alone one made out of something that could withstand constant soaking and low temperatures. The difficulties of working with the fabric aside, I have far too much dignity to wear a costume made entirely out of umbrellas.
Marvel seems to believe that people with sewing hobbies are at high risk for gaining superpowers. The Invisible Woman, Wasp, and Scarlet Witch all spent their time designing and sewing costumes for themselves and their teammates. Without even being asked! I totally need to start hanging out with people like that. As it is, I'm the one who gets suckered into sewing up the foot-long tears in my friends' ludicrously impractical gauzy skirts (seriously, I long for the day those things go out of fashion), but I doubt I'd be able to make an entire costume for myself, let alone one made out of something that could withstand constant soaking and low temperatures. The difficulties of working with the fabric aside, I have far too much dignity to wear a costume made entirely out of umbrellas.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Getting People Killed
Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Some dumbass in Miami, spooked by Coral Snake's absence, got hold of a ray gun and started doing the kind of vigilante crap that gets people killed. Putting aside the fact that ray guns are in no way covered under the concealed carry permit, that is some seriously stupid shit. Contrary to the laws of action movies and comic books, it is rarely a good idea to pull a weapon and stop any kind of armed robbery. Not only do you escalate the situation and possibly provoke the robber into shooting people, but you also run the risk of getting shot by the police when they arrive at the scene of a violent crime and see you waving a weapon. And even in the best case scenario, you still have one more weapon in the hands of a nervous, trigger-happy person than you did before you pulled the gun. Mr. Wild-West-wannabe didn't get any innocent bystanders killed, thankfully, but there was a confrontation. The perpetrator is dead and the vigilante is in critical condition. All for a few hundred bucks in some crappy fast food joint till. Great job, dude.
Now just imagine how the scene could have played out if the vigilante was a superhuman instead of just a moron with a fancy gun. You start off with a basic hostage situation, and then the guy holding the gun notices someone doing something- a shiver of force field, a twinkle of electricity, whatever. Do you think the armed robber is going to spend a minute rationally assessing your threat level, running you through the list of known superhumans? No. He's going to shoot you in the face. And then he's going to start shooting random people that he thinks are looking at him funny, because they might have superpowers too. Even if you happen to be bulletproof, it's dollars to donuts that most of the other people in the room aren't.
That's one of the big reasons I've been so slow to pursue the superhero angle. I can't stop bullets. I can think of a million cool things to do with my powers, none of which would be any use at all against a gun unless I had a five minute head start. And any display of powers at all is an open invitation to get shot in a violent situation. You can't tell by looking at me that I have superpowers, or what kind of superpowers I have, or how strong they are, or whether I'm willing to use them with lethal force. Some random mugger is not going to know who I am. For all he knows, I'm the next Killer Frost, and if he doesn't put a bullet in me he's going to die, fast. And that even holds true for the other end of the spectrum. Not only is assault with superpowers a felony, but it's often a death sentence at the hands of cops who've seen one too many harmless-looking supervillain take out a city block.
Now just imagine how the scene could have played out if the vigilante was a superhuman instead of just a moron with a fancy gun. You start off with a basic hostage situation, and then the guy holding the gun notices someone doing something- a shiver of force field, a twinkle of electricity, whatever. Do you think the armed robber is going to spend a minute rationally assessing your threat level, running you through the list of known superhumans? No. He's going to shoot you in the face. And then he's going to start shooting random people that he thinks are looking at him funny, because they might have superpowers too. Even if you happen to be bulletproof, it's dollars to donuts that most of the other people in the room aren't.
That's one of the big reasons I've been so slow to pursue the superhero angle. I can't stop bullets. I can think of a million cool things to do with my powers, none of which would be any use at all against a gun unless I had a five minute head start. And any display of powers at all is an open invitation to get shot in a violent situation. You can't tell by looking at me that I have superpowers, or what kind of superpowers I have, or how strong they are, or whether I'm willing to use them with lethal force. Some random mugger is not going to know who I am. For all he knows, I'm the next Killer Frost, and if he doesn't put a bullet in me he's going to die, fast. And that even holds true for the other end of the spectrum. Not only is assault with superpowers a felony, but it's often a death sentence at the hands of cops who've seen one too many harmless-looking supervillain take out a city block.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Winter Wonderland: Liquid Nitrogen
In honor of Wednesdays, I encourage you all to head over to YouTube and look up liquid nitrogen, and all the things one can smash dramatically after immersion in it. Bananas seem to be a popular target, but you gotta go with pumpkins for tradition. This clip shows a pretty good variety of things getting dipped in nitrogen: grapes, a rose, eggs, a ping pong ball and a balloon.
Most of the experiments I've seen with balloons tend to involve watching them shrink when they're dipped in nitrogen. This one had a balloon self-inflate after being filled with liquid nitrogen.
Now, I know you're all desperate to know: did I immediately go out and purchase large quantities of fruit to freeze and smash to brittle crystaline chunks with my awe-inspiring cryogenetic powers? That would be completely awesome, but the answer is no. One, no way can I get to those kinds of temperatures yet. Nitrogen freezes at -210 °C, or −346 °F, but is more commonly measured in degrees Kelvin. Yeah, no way am I there yet. Two, I'm still leery about leaving evidence around. Despite those murder mystery icicle-dagger-in-the-sauna stories, ice is really hard to melt in large quantities. It took me FOREVER to get rid of the ice fist I made around my hand, even alternating boiling hot water and a screwdriver to chip it off. It was fun to punch things with my indestructable fist for all of fifteen minutes, and then I realized that my hand was completely useless for doing anything else. Like, say, zipping my jacket. Opening doors. Typing. Scratching my nose. Picking things up. Walking around inconspicuously. I had been punching things in the privacy of a scrubby little patch of woods behind my dorm, but then I had to sneak back in with my fist wrapped in my jacket to defrost it in private, and also compete with Dani for the bathroom. I seriously need to set up some sort of secret headquarters where I don't have to worry about damaging the carpeting, or sneaking around, or having to scramble for a way to defrost myself and the immediate surroundings.
Now, I know you're all desperate to know: did I immediately go out and purchase large quantities of fruit to freeze and smash to brittle crystaline chunks with my awe-inspiring cryogenetic powers? That would be completely awesome, but the answer is no. One, no way can I get to those kinds of temperatures yet. Nitrogen freezes at -210 °C, or −346 °F, but is more commonly measured in degrees Kelvin. Yeah, no way am I there yet. Two, I'm still leery about leaving evidence around. Despite those murder mystery icicle-dagger-in-the-sauna stories, ice is really hard to melt in large quantities. It took me FOREVER to get rid of the ice fist I made around my hand, even alternating boiling hot water and a screwdriver to chip it off. It was fun to punch things with my indestructable fist for all of fifteen minutes, and then I realized that my hand was completely useless for doing anything else. Like, say, zipping my jacket. Opening doors. Typing. Scratching my nose. Picking things up. Walking around inconspicuously. I had been punching things in the privacy of a scrubby little patch of woods behind my dorm, but then I had to sneak back in with my fist wrapped in my jacket to defrost it in private, and also compete with Dani for the bathroom. I seriously need to set up some sort of secret headquarters where I don't have to worry about damaging the carpeting, or sneaking around, or having to scramble for a way to defrost myself and the immediate surroundings.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Grudging Praise
I might have to take back some of the stuff I said about Vector. Not all of it, but some. He's showing a surprising level of tact in his interviews with the press recently. Even though he's an ego-driven blowhard, I don't think this is the way he wanted to one-up Velocity. He's doing a lot better with the solar vampire thing than I expected, but he can't really play it up for the press like he usually does, because that would look like kicking the competition while she's down. It's easier for me to find Vector's admirable traits when he's not constantly trying to point them out to everyone. He might actually be a decent guy under all the macho posturing. For all his criticism of Velocity, he's got to respect her, since he did model himself on her, right down to the exact same flight capacities in his exoskeleton, and even the color scheme. He's got one hell of a chip on his shoulder about powers elitism, but I guess it is pretty hard for a metatech to hold his own among supers, and he has worked damned hard to get where he is.
Vector's most redeeming feature among his many, many flaws is that he's serious about helping people. No matter how much he cashes in on his moment of glory (Vector Cola? Seriously?), he's still willing to put in time on the unglamorous and hard work. It's not all kitten-rescuing photo ops, despite what his spin doctors would like you to think. He's taken on the Goorillas five times. Nobody else wants to do it even once.
It looks like Vector might be stuck in South Carolina for a while, since Warbird is still missing. Not even the government telepaths can find him. Come to think of it, has anyone seen him since The Paradox? Crap, I think he's a time traveler. That would explain the retro-futuristic plane, and his 60-year career. I really hope he didn't get caught up in The Paradox.
It's hard to believe in a benevolent, fair universe when things like The Paradox can happen. The Paradox didn't differentiate between the timeline-wreckers and the 9-to-5 precogs. It shut them down or made them disappear regardless of whether they made a difference in the course of history, or even wanted to. And it wasn't just outed precogs and professional time travelers that were getting killed. It was anyone who ever accidentally walked through a temporal vortex, or had one vision, even in a dream. They weren't even all supers, just people in the wrong place at the wrong time. I still don't know why Jack disappeared. I don't know what happened to him to make The Paradox take him away. It's terrifying, to think that the world is that arbitrary.
Vector's most redeeming feature among his many, many flaws is that he's serious about helping people. No matter how much he cashes in on his moment of glory (Vector Cola? Seriously?), he's still willing to put in time on the unglamorous and hard work. It's not all kitten-rescuing photo ops, despite what his spin doctors would like you to think. He's taken on the Goorillas five times. Nobody else wants to do it even once.
It looks like Vector might be stuck in South Carolina for a while, since Warbird is still missing. Not even the government telepaths can find him. Come to think of it, has anyone seen him since The Paradox? Crap, I think he's a time traveler. That would explain the retro-futuristic plane, and his 60-year career. I really hope he didn't get caught up in The Paradox.
It's hard to believe in a benevolent, fair universe when things like The Paradox can happen. The Paradox didn't differentiate between the timeline-wreckers and the 9-to-5 precogs. It shut them down or made them disappear regardless of whether they made a difference in the course of history, or even wanted to. And it wasn't just outed precogs and professional time travelers that were getting killed. It was anyone who ever accidentally walked through a temporal vortex, or had one vision, even in a dream. They weren't even all supers, just people in the wrong place at the wrong time. I still don't know why Jack disappeared. I don't know what happened to him to make The Paradox take him away. It's terrifying, to think that the world is that arbitrary.
Monday, May 4, 2009
This Is Not My Homework
My campus is weathering the storm pretty well. We're a tough crowd. The dining hall, showing a rare sense of humor, is serving chicken soup, which is actually pretty good for a change. Classes go on, even though they are sparsely populated. Amie is coughing so hard that I'm surprised her entire respiratory system hasn't come loose. I'm actually impressed, since she's the mouse-sneeze type who never seems to have bodily functions in public. Rest assured, she does. Despite her racking coughs, she is still taking notes in that perfectly round indecipherable handwriting. I can't tell her letters apart. Class discussion is kind of strained, since pretty much everyone has a sore throat.
I'm technically in good enough shape to do the mountains of catch-up work I need to do, but I'm coddling myself for a bit longer. I don't want a relapse. By which I mean I am a lazy, lazy procrastinator, and blogging is far more fun than reading postmodern drivel. I've been keeping up with the news feeds all day. Vector finally put his money where his mouth is, and is taking over Velocity's job until they can find a long-term replacement. That means he's got a hell of a commute when there's an emergency back at headquarters, but the guy can go supersonic, so I don't feel too bad for him. I guess the rest of the Lightning League can pick up the slack while Vector's picking off the solar vampires in South Carolina. I really hope they can get hold of Warbird fast, though. Baron Dynamo (I forget his real name) gets out on parole pretty soon, and I'd rather have Vector closer to the West Coast, since Shining Citadel has turned into a frigging quarantined ivory tower. I know they can't afford to risk the planet-movers and star-smashers getting a sniffle in case there's an imminent threat of world destruction, but seriously, way to turn your back on us mere mortals.
I'm technically in good enough shape to do the mountains of catch-up work I need to do, but I'm coddling myself for a bit longer. I don't want a relapse. By which I mean I am a lazy, lazy procrastinator, and blogging is far more fun than reading postmodern drivel. I've been keeping up with the news feeds all day. Vector finally put his money where his mouth is, and is taking over Velocity's job until they can find a long-term replacement. That means he's got a hell of a commute when there's an emergency back at headquarters, but the guy can go supersonic, so I don't feel too bad for him. I guess the rest of the Lightning League can pick up the slack while Vector's picking off the solar vampires in South Carolina. I really hope they can get hold of Warbird fast, though. Baron Dynamo (I forget his real name) gets out on parole pretty soon, and I'd rather have Vector closer to the West Coast, since Shining Citadel has turned into a frigging quarantined ivory tower. I know they can't afford to risk the planet-movers and star-smashers getting a sniffle in case there's an imminent threat of world destruction, but seriously, way to turn your back on us mere mortals.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
It's Not The Black Death, People
According to the major news sites, nothing improves a crisis more than a colored map. Florida is orange, whatever that means. Geez, you'd think this is the Ebola Virus the way people are reacting. Nobody's puking blood. This isn't the end of the world or the end of superheroes. Granted, poor Velocity's going to be in traction for about a year, but she'll probably be okay. It could have been a lot worse. Nobody in that building died either, thankfully. I'd send Velocity a get-well card, except she's probably already got a pile of them big enough to wallpaper the hospital three times over, and she probably won't be able to read them until they take her off the morphine anyway. So I'll just send good wishes in her direction, and hope there's a telepath out there who can pass them on. I hope she's going to be okay.
My campus is in full-on panic mode. Which isn't too different from your average Saturday night. I don't think anyone here's gone to the hospital from the flu yet, except for Lydia, and she's a hypochondriac anyway. She's fine. This isn't much worse than the time the dining hall served the beanbird-contaminated snow peas last year and took out half the campus. I have never been more grateful that I don't eat my veggies. People were throwing up things that chirped, for crying out loud.
The president of our school has issued an email, which basically boils down to "This is not a zombie outbreak! Don't shoot infected people on sight! Wash your hands! Take some vitamins!" Wow, really helpful. Every single person I've encountered today told me to stay hydrated and get some rest. Except for Dani, who just breaks into impromptu renditions of Monty Python's 'bring out your dead' skit every time she sees me. Which is every five minutes, since she's my roommate. I'm about to strangle her.
Nobody on my campus has been power-outed that I know of. Except maybe me. I don't know if Dani knows. The ice chips on the carpet were melted by the time she helped me flip the mattress, and I put the sheets through the dryer before she saw them, so maybe I got away with it. But my hair was still wet in the morning, and I'm not sure if there was a noticeable amount of ice left on me by the time I made it to the couch, or if she could even see it in the dark, even though she had to have been really close to put a blanket over me. She doesn't act like she knows. She hasn't made any ice puns or blackmailed me or anything. How can I ask her if she knows without revealing everything if she doesn't? Today I casually mentioned something about trying to break the fever with ice cubes. Yeah, that's plausible. God, I suck at this secret identity thing.
My campus is in full-on panic mode. Which isn't too different from your average Saturday night. I don't think anyone here's gone to the hospital from the flu yet, except for Lydia, and she's a hypochondriac anyway. She's fine. This isn't much worse than the time the dining hall served the beanbird-contaminated snow peas last year and took out half the campus. I have never been more grateful that I don't eat my veggies. People were throwing up things that chirped, for crying out loud.
The president of our school has issued an email, which basically boils down to "This is not a zombie outbreak! Don't shoot infected people on sight! Wash your hands! Take some vitamins!" Wow, really helpful. Every single person I've encountered today told me to stay hydrated and get some rest. Except for Dani, who just breaks into impromptu renditions of Monty Python's 'bring out your dead' skit every time she sees me. Which is every five minutes, since she's my roommate. I'm about to strangle her.
Nobody on my campus has been power-outed that I know of. Except maybe me. I don't know if Dani knows. The ice chips on the carpet were melted by the time she helped me flip the mattress, and I put the sheets through the dryer before she saw them, so maybe I got away with it. But my hair was still wet in the morning, and I'm not sure if there was a noticeable amount of ice left on me by the time I made it to the couch, or if she could even see it in the dark, even though she had to have been really close to put a blanket over me. She doesn't act like she knows. She hasn't made any ice puns or blackmailed me or anything. How can I ask her if she knows without revealing everything if she doesn't? Today I casually mentioned something about trying to break the fever with ice cubes. Yeah, that's plausible. God, I suck at this secret identity thing.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Answering Imaginary Mail
So, it's Saturday and I'm bored. Most of my friends are busy hacking up their lungs, and I'm tethered to the tissue box, so I can't really go anywhere without getting the plague-bearer evil eye. Therefore, in light of recent developments in the chatrooms and the dining-hall gossip, I will perform a civic service and dispel some of the batshit crazy rumors out there by broadcasting my boundless wisdom and invaluable experience as a superhuman with the flu.
Q: OMG are people gonna know I have superpowers if I get sick?
A: Okay, that was a MASSIVE breach of medical protocol on the part of the staff at Merriman General. I don't care if she is a senator's daughter; she has a right to her privacy. So, assuming you're not going to a hospital staffed by chimpanzees, you shouldn't have to worry about your secrets leaking to the press. If your superpowers are physical, like superstrength, the nurses will probably be able to tell, but if they don't change the structure of your body much, you might be able to squeak by unnoticed. But if you go into a hospital with a binary cardiovascular system or wings or something, it's not unreasonable to expect that to show up on your private medical records from now on. And your insurance.
Q: My co-worker is sick. I've always suspected he was a superhuman! This is conclusive proof, right?
A: For the record, the cyborgs are getting hit the worst proportionally, because their immune systems generally suck. However, the baseline humans compose the vast majority of the people getting hospitalized. Supers are just getting the most press right now, since 1) people like Diamante and The Universal Remote generally don't get sick, and 2) an awful lot of us are experiencing fluctuations in our powers. Very visible fluctuations.
Q: Will I get superpowers if I get sick? Will I lose them?
A: Uh, no. You'll just get sick. The people who appear to spontaneously develop powers are just the ones getting outed. Just look at the list of powers, and you'll see that they have nothing in common. It makes no sense for one disease to be the source of scattered reports of electrogenesis, self-duplication, the ability to turn things invisible (is there a name for that?) and whatever kind of power can implode all the furniture in an apartment without breaking any windows. Not even Zero Serum can give people that range of powers. Similarly, the people 'losing' their powers are just getting sick. Kind of like how baseline humans 'lose' the ability to walk in a straight line when they're running a fever. Except most people aren't going 70mph 20 stories above the ground when they discover they're dizzy. Right now I think being sick is the least of Velocity's worries.
Q: My city is left undefended! Where can I buy a force field generator?
A: Don't be a stupid vigilante. If the superheroes are sick, so are the supervillains. So odds are, the city's going to be pretty quiet for a while, barring a robot invasion or something. Also, we have police officers.
Q: Is the Swine Flu the military's new bioengineered supervirus that got out of control? It's the military, right? Or the CIA. Or the Mexican supervillains. They're trying to kill us all! It's a conspiracy!!!111!
A: No, it probably isn't. May I refer you to El Coyote's press conference, in which he explains why you're an idiot? Why don't you go put your little tinfoil hat back on and go back to writing frothy little rants about how those evil aliens are trying to steal your allegedly superior genetic material to breed a clone army to colonize the Earth?
Q: Are you okay? You aren't going to infect me, are you?
A: I feel like Baron Dynamo after Vector got done smacking him around, but I doubt I'm a walking biohazard anymore.
Q: Do you still have superpowers?
A: Yes, but using them makes me feel nauseated right now. Then again, a lot of things are nauseating me at the moment, including the color of my walls. I'm not going to do party tricks just to prove that I still have powers, since I want to focus on getting better.
Q: OMG are people gonna know I have superpowers if I get sick?
A: Okay, that was a MASSIVE breach of medical protocol on the part of the staff at Merriman General. I don't care if she is a senator's daughter; she has a right to her privacy. So, assuming you're not going to a hospital staffed by chimpanzees, you shouldn't have to worry about your secrets leaking to the press. If your superpowers are physical, like superstrength, the nurses will probably be able to tell, but if they don't change the structure of your body much, you might be able to squeak by unnoticed. But if you go into a hospital with a binary cardiovascular system or wings or something, it's not unreasonable to expect that to show up on your private medical records from now on. And your insurance.
Q: My co-worker is sick. I've always suspected he was a superhuman! This is conclusive proof, right?
A: For the record, the cyborgs are getting hit the worst proportionally, because their immune systems generally suck. However, the baseline humans compose the vast majority of the people getting hospitalized. Supers are just getting the most press right now, since 1) people like Diamante and The Universal Remote generally don't get sick, and 2) an awful lot of us are experiencing fluctuations in our powers. Very visible fluctuations.
Q: Will I get superpowers if I get sick? Will I lose them?
A: Uh, no. You'll just get sick. The people who appear to spontaneously develop powers are just the ones getting outed. Just look at the list of powers, and you'll see that they have nothing in common. It makes no sense for one disease to be the source of scattered reports of electrogenesis, self-duplication, the ability to turn things invisible (is there a name for that?) and whatever kind of power can implode all the furniture in an apartment without breaking any windows. Not even Zero Serum can give people that range of powers. Similarly, the people 'losing' their powers are just getting sick. Kind of like how baseline humans 'lose' the ability to walk in a straight line when they're running a fever. Except most people aren't going 70mph 20 stories above the ground when they discover they're dizzy. Right now I think being sick is the least of Velocity's worries.
Q: My city is left undefended! Where can I buy a force field generator?
A: Don't be a stupid vigilante. If the superheroes are sick, so are the supervillains. So odds are, the city's going to be pretty quiet for a while, barring a robot invasion or something. Also, we have police officers.
Q: Is the Swine Flu the military's new bioengineered supervirus that got out of control? It's the military, right? Or the CIA. Or the Mexican supervillains. They're trying to kill us all! It's a conspiracy!!!111!
A: No, it probably isn't. May I refer you to El Coyote's press conference, in which he explains why you're an idiot? Why don't you go put your little tinfoil hat back on and go back to writing frothy little rants about how those evil aliens are trying to steal your allegedly superior genetic material to breed a clone army to colonize the Earth?
Q: Are you okay? You aren't going to infect me, are you?
A: I feel like Baron Dynamo after Vector got done smacking him around, but I doubt I'm a walking biohazard anymore.
Q: Do you still have superpowers?
A: Yes, but using them makes me feel nauseated right now. Then again, a lot of things are nauseating me at the moment, including the color of my walls. I'm not going to do party tricks just to prove that I still have powers, since I want to focus on getting better.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Still Alive
For the first time in forever, my skin is actually normal temperature. I don't really know where my frost aura is right now. Maybe it's recharging or something. I wasn't really up to wobbling my way to class, so I am going to be way behind on my reading. Not that going to class would do me much good, since I'm producing so much snot that it has blocked off my EARS. What the hell is that about? Evolution FAIL. How much mucus can the human body produce anyway? I need to call Ectoplasmid and ask for my powers back, because clearly I've somehow stolen hers. Blegh. Whatever I have seems to be working its way around campus. No hospitalization, but a hell of a lot of head colds and puking. The guy living above me throws up every hour on the hour. I have timed that damned flush. ALL NIGHT. If I weren't feeling so rotten, I would have crawled up the stairs and flushed his head down the toilet by now. Yes, I am mean, self-pitying, and callous to the suffering of others right now. I hate the entire damned world and I wish someone would build a doomsday device and put me out of my misery.
Okay, pity party over. Thanks for tuning in.
Now for something completely different, who's been watching the news? I have to admit, I've always had a bit of a crush on El Coyote, but now? I want to bake him a million chocolate chip cookies, tenderly wrap them in sparkly tissue paper, and mail them to Monterrey with a love note in every box. I've been replaying that clip on Youtube all day. What can I say, I'm a sucker for eloquent speeches. Besides being a perfect excuse to listen to his voice, it's a gorgeously structured and flawlessly logical argument (you think he's a lawyer? I'd love to see him in a suit), and it's about damn time someone smacked down all the anti-Mexican hysteria about everyone's favorite flu. 'Mexican flu' indeed. Seriously, some people will use any excuse to justify bigotry. FOX pundits have been stammering about his press release all day. Ten to one they interview Golden Eagle tomorrow in the name of 'a fair and balanced view.'
Okay, pity party over. Thanks for tuning in.
Now for something completely different, who's been watching the news? I have to admit, I've always had a bit of a crush on El Coyote, but now? I want to bake him a million chocolate chip cookies, tenderly wrap them in sparkly tissue paper, and mail them to Monterrey with a love note in every box. I've been replaying that clip on Youtube all day. What can I say, I'm a sucker for eloquent speeches. Besides being a perfect excuse to listen to his voice, it's a gorgeously structured and flawlessly logical argument (you think he's a lawyer? I'd love to see him in a suit), and it's about damn time someone smacked down all the anti-Mexican hysteria about everyone's favorite flu. 'Mexican flu' indeed. Seriously, some people will use any excuse to justify bigotry. FOX pundits have been stammering about his press release all day. Ten to one they interview Golden Eagle tomorrow in the name of 'a fair and balanced view.'
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