Why Do All My 30-Year-Old Electronics Keep Breaking On Me?

Lappy took a spill. Screen broke.

OK, it's not the end of the world. In fact, the lappy is still entirely functional save a smattering of dead pixels that are hideous to look at but don't actually render the screen unusable. And a replacement screen is hardly going to break the bank; these things apparently come pretty cheap. Although it's a Macbook, it's not one of the horrible "unibody" machines that are virtually impossible to repair so swapping the screen will only take about an hour, a few odd screwdrivers, and a heaping helping of profanity because those tiny screws are annoying.

Maybe I'll find another laptop for free in a bin. I've been having surprising luck with that.

Stupid Café Fucked My Order

The stupid café down the street fucked up my order. I asked them for a flat white and they gave me a latte.

The place is amazingly cheap so I'm normally inclined to overlook mistakes, but giving me a latte instead of a flat white is not a mistake I can overlook because I am lactose intolerant and a latte has, at a guess, about six times as much milk as a flat white.

At least this place understood the meaning of "decaf." Given my brain's hostility to the idea of sleeping regularly every night, consuming any amount of caffeine would be a Very Bad Idea®.

Why Jasper Is Simultaneously Great And Terrible

I haven't slept and I will likely not be able to sleep. I asked my internal clock what time it was, and my internal clock said: "NaN" because it is just that brokened.

So instead of sleeping, I will post as to why Jasper is simultaneously great and terrible.

Reasons why Jasper is great:

1. It is quite charming.
2. It is very mountainous and scenic.
3. It has bears who are cute and cuddly.
4. Adjusted for population size, the food is amazing.
5. It is conveniently accessible by train.
6. It has a cable car.

Reasons why Jasper is terrible:

1. It is in Alberta. Alberta is not charming.
2. It is fucking cold in winter. Winter lasts from October to April.
3. Glomming bears is bad for your health and intactitude.
4. Everything is very expensive.
5. The trains are also very expensive.
6. I think it has a cable car. I didn't actually check. I was only there for two days, four years ago, and I couldn't sleep then either.

I Finally Got My Sploosh Machine Fixed

Because believe me, having your sploosh machine b0rked is a major inconvenience.

On Odd Coincidence

The other day, I found myself suddenly pressed to explain the concept of public key cryptography in a google-free environment.

So I awkwardly tried to stammer through an explanation of the basic principle of creating mathematically linked public and private keys using an irreversible operation; namely, that it's computationally easy to multiply large numbers but computationally difficult to factor them. In the process, I came up with a large number off the top of my head - 74,257 - and used it to demonstrate the difficulty of finding a number's prime factors.

The minute I made it back to the internet, I double-checked a suspicion that had been bugging me for hours, only to have it confirmed— 74,257 is, in fact, prime.

So in the process of trying to explain the complexities of prime numbers, I inadvertently came up with a five-digit prime number on the first try unaided. Thanks to the miracle of confirmation bias, I will now believe that I have a supernatural knack for coming up with prime numbers on the spot and proceed to make a colossal fool of myself.

PS: I'm still not talking about Brexit. Maybe if I ignore it for long enough it will retroactively have never happened.

Apparently I Am A Primate

So I was in bed last night but sleep was not a thing which was forthcoming. (If it were that easy, I wouldn't include "sleep status" in the vital stats.) Being as a state of blissful dreamy unconsciousness was waylaid (having apparently fallen asleep en route to my bedroom and ended up in hospital after driving into a tree) I found myself doing... whatever. I'm not even sure. It's not easy to pass the time when you're barely coherent and should be asleep.

But pass the time I did, and in the process I somehow managed to do some weird scrunchy contortion thing. And while midtortion* I ended up looking at myself from an unusual perspective. Gaining this new perspective on my body made one revelation unmistakably clear: Yep, I'm a primate alright.

Why I'd even go so far as to say I'm probably an ape of some sort.

Now technically I already knew this was the case. I mean, everyone already knows where humans fit into the whole evolutionary tree thing. But even though we all know it, it's still weird to see it so suddenly when you weren't expecting to. Probably the whole bipedalism thing— your body is literally beneath you most of the time and doesn't bear much thinking about. Then something sort of forces you to take a look and you go: "Why am I, a human brain, stuck in an ape body? Oh wait, that's my body. Also technically it's all me and I should probably stop dismissing it as just a life support system for the real me upstairs."

Now it's right proper morning and the sun is singing and the birds are blooming and I still haven't slept a wink. I'll try again after lunch. My boss is surprisingly lenient about paying me to sleep on the job.

*Absidefinitely** a real word, mateys.

**Not actually a real word. I just made it up because it sounded cool.

Random Things

Last night, I dreamed I was a werewolf. According to the dream, werewolfness was an autosomal recessive inherited condition, because my dreams like to be specific about those sorts of things. Symptoms typically manifest in mid-teens to mid-20s and include pronounced excitement or anxiety at the prospect of the next full moon followed by turning into a wolf for the duration of any night in which a full moon is in the sky. Exact nature of the symptoms vary, with some werewolves retaining full mental faculties while transforming physically while others act like wolves for the duration of their transformation.

In the dream, I secluded myself in a construction site for my first transformation, and discovered that I transformed physically while remaining mentally human. Except the next morning, I discovered that I'd killed four people who were trespassing in the construction site. After reverting to human the following morning, I was captured and imprisoned by an organisation that hunts werewolves but sued for my freedom on the grounds that being a werewolf isn't actually a criminal offence.

I was actually surprised to discover my subconscious wrote what sounds like a passable story. I don't think I'm actually going to write it though.

My Cocaine Rewards

This being the internet, I am absolutely baffled that "My Cocaine Rewards" is not a real thing. If it's not defictionalised at some point in the next whenever I bother to look again, I am so going to have to do it myself. Seriously.

Vital stats:

Impulse: Totally
Date: Today
Current Mood: Impulsive (that one was obvious)
Sleep Status: Pending
Word of the Day: Terrarium
Plants: 6
Animals: 2
Manchester United: 0
Ashes: Burned
Lovers: Spurned
Stocks: Up
Stipes: Down
Obscure References: 8
Blatant Lies: 1